Any RPGs that focus on roleplaying instead of combat?

[Crusadius]

Exactly. This is the heart of the matter. You will have players that are so socially ineffectual that they continually say things like, "I want to kill you." to the king and who are abrasive, offensive, and insulting when they mean to be otherwise.

The thing is that the rules cannot deal with such Players. Neither can real life.

If a Player says "I want to kill you" to a king when they really mean "forsooth, for thou art a king most wise" then until we develop telepathic powers to be able to distinguish the true meaning of a Player's utterances the best a Game Master can do is ask "do you really mean to say that?" before continuing.

And this really is now getting beyond discussion of using dice rolls to determine social conflicts into managing problem Players (because a Player who is so socially ineffectual in the management of their character either is really being disruptive for the lulz or also has problems socializing with other people).

 

[Argyle King]

Social and mental skills are inherently different than physical skills. Sorry to break it to you.

I disagree.

I understand your point of view from your previous post, but I very much disagree. You seem to be of the opinion that a player cannot play the mentality of a character separately from the mentality of the player. That is something I very much disagree with because I've done it.

I do agree with some of your underlying points. It is difficult to separate player from character for many people. I likewise agree with player/character actions having an impact on dice rolls. However, I disagree that social and mental skills are inherently different than physical skills.

I likewise disagree that skill systems get in the way of roleplaying. I disagree because one of the rpgs I play the most (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/) has a skill system which is fairly in depth, but I do not feel it gets in the way of roleplaying at all. In fact, for me personally, I find the system as a whole (not just skills) helps roleplaying more so than some of the d20 games I also have sitting on my shelf.

 

[Balesir]

You will have players that are so socially ineffectual that they continually say things like, "I want to kill you." to the king and who are abrasive, offensive, and insulting when they mean to be otherwise. Such players will have difficulty running socially effective characters not because of their own lack of charisma, but because of their own anti-social choices they are making when they animate their character. Likewise, you could have a player whose character is on paper a tremendous combatant, but I can't stop such a player from making massively ineffectual and rash tactical decisions, or simply from being tactically passive. I've had players who repeatedly essentially skip combat rounds, taking no action or no action of consequence because they are too afraid of making a mistake. On paper the character is effective. In practice the character is not nearly as effective as it could be. If the player lacks tactical skill, and charges into ambushes, allows himself to become surrounded, is passive when he should be active and active when he should be passive, hides when he should attack and attacks when he should flee, what am I the DM to do - point out that his character is supposed to be a great tactician and play the character for him? Or make an intelligence check before each combat round and give advice on the results of that, which amounts to much the same thing? No amount of on paper intelligence and wisdom can turn a character into an intelligent and wise character if the player animating the character makes foolish decisions. It can make a character knowledgeable and perceptive despite the player's lack of knowledge and perceptiveness, but it can't keep the player from doing entirely stupid things. High combat skills can allow a character to succeed despite tactical understanding by the player, but it can't replace it.

I can see what you are driving at, here, but have one unresolved problem with it. It seems that, given all the dialogue and player specification of wording and so on, that the effects of the tactics chosen are made up on the spot by the DM. The problem with that is that the player has no way of knowing what those effects will be - they are really just trying what they think the GM will consider "cool" and hoping for the best. I don't really consider that application of player skill - it's the social equivalent of "spray and pray" tactics.

I would much prefer a set of rules that has specific tactics and effects for social interactions that involve some "tension". I draw a distinction between two types of "unknown":

Type 1) Attributes, conditions and keywords are "owned" by the NPCs but the players don't necessarily know what they are (although in principle they could discover them); these determine the outcome of the social encounter.

Type 2) There isn't really any "system" for the interchange determined up-front, so the GM makes up modifiers, reactions and implications on the fly. A natural implication of this is that players have no real way to know what the implications of their choices will be except by guesswork based on their knowledge of the GM's belief structures, biases and preferences.

Of these I don't mind type 1 at all - they are the very stuff of dramatic play, I think - but I much prefer to minimise type 2 as far as possible. Type 1 I think allows for "tactical" play and the application of player skill and reason; type 2 allows only for "GM reading" and "GM playing" IMV.

 

[Celebrim]

You seem to be of the opinion that a player cannot play the mentality of a character separately from the mentality of the player. That is something I very much disagree with because I've done it.

No, I am of the opinion that a player cannot perfectly play the mentality of a character separate from the mentality of the player, especially when it comes to matters of intelligence and insight. It's easier for example for an intelligent person to adequately play an intelligent person with a different belief and ethical outlook than their own, than it is for them to play someone who is always clueless. And it's easier for a DM to do this with respect to an NPC, than it is for a player to do with a PC, because the player invests his ego in the PC and is generally emotionally committed to the PC's health and success. When it becomes a matter of victory or survival, it's easy to convince yourself to fudge and pull a Forest Gump trope - where the 'stupid' character you play has an intelligent person's insight but is by convention of the story unaware of his own insights and understanding.

It is difficult to separate player from character for many people.

No, it's difficult for everyone all the time and impossible for everyone at least some of the time.

However, I disagree that social and mental skills are inherently different than physical skills.

You should provide some evidence or argument for this belief then.

I likewise disagree that skill systems get in the way of roleplaying.

Well, if you'll back up to the beginning of my interaction in this thread you'll see my actual belief is that mechanical resolution systems are independent of whether role playing takes place. Ultimately, whether role-playing takes place is a decision of the group, and not a decision of the rules. Nonetheless, I agree with some other posters in this thread that mechanical resolution systems for social conflict are often in practice used to eliminate the need for and utility of role-playing, and that highly detailed mechanical systems tend reduce social interaction to just another tactical war game and thereby produce a game that often has a character very much the opposite of the designers intentions.

 

[Celebrim]

It seems that, given all the dialogue and player specification of wording and so on, that the effects of the tactics chosen are made up on the spot by the DM.

If you've been around EnWorld at all, you should be familiar with the derision with which I hold purely improvisational DMing. If you are saying it is impossible for a DM that is engaged in improvisation to be perfectly fair, then I agree with you - though I would extend that to every feature of the game world from whether a trap exists on the door to how many monsters arrive as reinforcements. There is nothing special about a social challenge in this sense. We could equally complain that the DC to do anything depends on the DM's mood and whim if he doesn't hold himself to a design. Secret doors that come into being when an NPC needs an escape route similarly can't be planned for by the PC's. Magical defenses that only come into being when the PC's reveal a particular plan of action to the DM are a similar problem.

The problem with that is that the player has no way of knowing what those effects will be - they are really just trying what they think the GM will consider "cool" and hoping for the best. I don't really consider that application of player skill - it's the social equivalent of "spray and pray" tactics.

To the extent that this is true, it is true of any 'fog of war' type situation and not social interactions only. Yes, I know many gamers get frustrated when they can't make choices based on perfect and reliable information - they are the sort that in 1e felt it cheating by the DM to not identify the monster by its monster manual entry or to use a stat block other than the official one in the monster manual.

I would much prefer a set of rules that has specific tactics and effects for social interactions that involve some "tension".

I don't necessarily have a problem with that. But I will say that the PC's might not always know what tension is present and important any more than they would know enough to choose between the left fork and right fork in a dungeon.

Type 1) Attributes, conditions and keywords are "owned" by the NPCs but the players don't necessarily know what they are (although in principle they could discover them); these determine the outcome of the social encounter.

Type 2) There isn't really any "system" for the interchange determined up-front, so the GM makes up modifiers, reactions and implications on the fly. A natural implication of this is that players have no real way to know what the implications of their choices will be except by guesswork based on their knowledge of the GM's belief structures, biases and preferences.

Of these I don't mind type 1 at all - they are the very stuff of dramatic play, I think - but I much prefer to minimise type 2 as far as possible. Type 1 I think allows for "tactical" play and the application of player skill and reason; type 2 allows only for "GM reading" and "GM playing" IMV.

In general I agree with you. In practice however, a certain amount of 'type 2' occurs whenever the DM improvises - whether it's a map of the social interactions or a map of the dungeon - and since no DM can perfectly prepare up front for everything, a certain amount of improvisation always occurs. However, it's something the DM should attempt to minimize, and in general the DM should endeavor to be generous toward player proposals rather than playing a game of 'gotcha'.

 

[ThirdWizard]

You should provide some evidence or argument for this belief then.

As a point of clarity, are you saying that social skills are different than physical skills mechanically/in-gameplay or philosophically?

 

[Celebrim]

In general, let me address everyone that denies mental skills are of a different character than physical skills.

Suppose you wanted to run Tomb of Horrors for your group. And, upon floating this idea, you learned that one player had prior to your suggestion bought a copy of the module and memorized the text. However, the player says, "Don't worry. I'll just role-play my character and pretend that I don't actually know anything about the module."

Would you agree that the player could do this so perfectly that his play during the game was exactly the same as the play and experience the player would have had he not already known every detail of the module? That is to say, the successes and revelations the player (and therefore the character) has would be simply and exactly the same set of insights the player would have had they never encountered the text, and any failures would be exactly the same failures that the player would have had made in ignorance?

Because the only way you can argue that mental skills and physical skills are exactly the same, is if you can sustain the belief that metagame information never informs a player's choices. A character's intelligence is different than a character's strength because the character's intelligence - unlike his strength - is supposed to inform the choices that the character makes. But the character is in fact only an avatar of the player, and it is always the player that makes those choices. You can therefore dissociate completely a character's physical skills from the physical skills of the players, because these are pure action resolution, but you can never completely dissociate a character's mental skills from the mental skill of the player. A player's physical body does not extend into the game world, but the player's volition and insight does because ultimately the game world is a shared mental space.

 

[Balesir]

In practice however, a certain amount of 'type 2' occurs whenever the DM improvises - whether it's a map of the social interactions or a map of the dungeon - and since no DM can perfectly prepare up front for everything, a certain amount of improvisation always occurs. However, it's something the DM should attempt to minimize, and in general the DM should endeavor to be generous toward player proposals rather than playing a game of 'gotcha'.

OK, I think we are pretty much in agreement - thanks for the clarification. I accept this last comment entirely - I wrote "minimise type 2 as far as possible" instead of "eliminate type 2" precisely because I don't think it is possible to eliminate such uncertainty entirely. I do think moving away from "process sim" rules can help, here, though - vide such things as FATE points.

 

[Derren]

In general, let me address everyone that denies mental skills are of a different character than physical skills.

And what has this to do with social skills which were until now the focus of this discussion?

 

[Celebrim]

And what has this to do with social skills which were until now the focus of this discussion?

*sigh*

Because social skills are also another type of mental skill. Charisma and Social Skills represent fitness within and control over a social environment. As such, the actions of the character depend intimately on the choices of the player.

Consider the iconic case of being caught by the guards sneaking in the Baron's house, and deciding to bluff your way past the guards.

Scenario #1:
Player: "I'm going to bluff the guards. I have a +9 in the bluff skill.... 17 with modifiers that's a 26."
DM: "That's a really good bluff, the guards decide to let you go."

That's 'role-playing' in the sense that a cRPG is 'role-playing'. But it's missing well pretty much all the things that make role playing interesting. Even more importantly, we don't know what the guards believe now. We don't really understand from this where the story goes. We could have the DM decide what the guards believe, but that would be indirectly roleplaying the PC since the DM has decided what the PC said. We could have the DM and the PC negotiate over what the PC said, fortune at the beginning, but this still relies on the DM deciding what works and probably involves (as the next example will demonstrate) passing meta-game information to the player. True roleplaying, in the sense we'd want to make social skills match the decision to attack something with a sword, open the door on the left, or climb the north wall involves greater specificity over the player's actual choice.

Scenario #2:
Player: "I'm going to bluff the guards. I have a +9 in the bluff skill."
DM: "But what do you say."
Player: "I'm gong to imply that I'm the Baron's new mistress, and I was sneaking around to be discrete."
DM: Ok... roll the dice.
Player: 17... and with modifiers a 26.

With a choice, the mental judgment call from the player, however comes a problem. We can assume that the character projects absolute sincerity even the player lacks this skill, but the particular lie may or may not be suited to the situation - just as charging into a particular square in combat may or may not be suited to the situation.

Consider the information that the player might not have, which the DM at the time may have already written into the scenario:

a) The Baron is a renowned lecher, and young women come and go all the time. This is a highly believable bluff that probably shouldn't require much skill to make, and which is unlikely to cause much comment. Is the DM wrong to make the DC low?
b) The Baron is a 80 year old man renowned for devotion to his wife. So even if this unlikely bluff succeeds despite high assigned DC ("I'd sooner believe it is going to snow at the midsummer festival!"), the PC's bluff may create a scandal that causes the lie to unravel spectacularly. Is the DM wrong to make the DC high?
c) The Baron is known by the guards to only be attracted to men/young boys/goblins/merfolk/etc.
d) The current mistress of the Baron is well known to the guards, who are used to arranging all such trysts.
e) The Baron has just instructed the guards to murder his new mistress, whom they've never seen before, and a case of mistaken identity has just occurred.

Each of these cases requires the DM to make some judgment about the suitability of the lie and its consequences (whether it is believed or not). It's clear that different choices by the player influence the outcome of the social challenge. Now consider that the player may have learned IC one of the above facts (which ever is true), and at the time he's asked, "What do you say?", he recalls the fact and realizes its importance in the situation so that it informs the choice he makes. A less perceptive player, might not recall that information or its suitability or even attempted to research such facts before deciding to go house breaking - despite the fact that the character ostensibly is intelligent and we'd expect them to behave differently. What are we to do though, make the choices for the player, depriving them of agency?

In this way, we can show that social skills are not of the same category as say the ability of the character to jump. A physical skill like 'jump' says the character can jump, but not when to jump or over what obstacle. Nonetheless the chance of success isn't really dependent on a player choice. A social skill however says the character can bluff, but the chance of success is still dependent on a player choice and understanding.

Now, if the DM knows nothing about the Baron, and he decides things on the fly, then the DM is railroading in some fashion or another, even if he's ruling favorably - ei, DM now jots down that the Baron is a lecher to make the bluff work.