D&D 5E Social Combat Rules for 5E

[Saeviomagy]

This is a good alternative but it fails to address the major issue: given all that, characters with social skills are the only ones likely to be effective. plus, it really isn't any less work than developing the court scene as i intended.

I think his idea was to diminish the effect of the social skill bonus by applying disadvantage, while emphasizing 'correct' non-social skills by applying advantage.

I think you can work that idea slightly differently: almost everyone has SOME topic that they can converse on fluently with other aficionados. To that end, you could allow substitutions for a social skill. If you're a master acrobat or performer, you could probably have a highly favorable interaction with the court jester talking shop. If you're focussed on strength and athletics, then Throgdar the barbarian lord is probably bored out of his mind with all this courtliness and wants some tales of physical prowess.

Of course at this point you might be saying "Well what's the point of a social skill then?", and there's a few answers:
1. As a wild card. Persuasion and deception can be used to substitute for the actual skills in question. It's possible to just get the court jester to like you, despite being a marshmallow. It's possible to bamboozle Throgdar with tales of valour that never happened (and that he can never verify) or puff oneself up with intimidate.
2. As support. Any of the social skills can be used to give the main skill-wielder advantage with an appropriate description (kind of a sub-function of being a wild card).
3. For more unique things: setting guests up against each other with intimidation and deception, and finding out those blank spots in the ball's roster (Lord Whosit is a newcomer and nobody has really felt him out yet) for insight.

I think the mistake is in thinking that people without social proficiencies and charisma stat bonuses are unable to function in normal conversation, which is patently untrue in a world where normal people have at most 4 proficiencies and the vast majority have 10 in their stat. They don't just wander around hating each other and never helping out, so why would NPCs default to that state when interacting with the PCs?

 

[77IM]

I think his idea was to diminish the effect of the social skill bonus by applying disadvantage, while emphasizing 'correct' non-social skills by applying advantage.

Yup, that's exactly what I meant.

This is a good alternative but it fails to address the major issue: given all that, characters with social skills are the only ones likely to be effective.

Let me share my favorite DM Secret Technique for social interaction: If the player makes a convincing argument, then even if the skill check fails, they still "succeed" at convincing the NPC. If the skill check actually succeeds, then they succeed extra better; the NPC does what they want, and is extra helpful about it. But don't tell the players that this is how it works!

For example, if you're trying to talk a guard into letting you go past, "Here's 50 gold" might be a very convincing argument. It doesn't matter if the person offering is a Charisma 20 high elf noble or a Charisma 8 dwarven dung-digger; 50 gold is 50 gold. BUT have the player make the Charisma (Persuasion) check anyway. On a failure, the guard grumbles about it, and isn't too shy about reporting the PCs later if there's an incident (leaving the bribery out of the story). On a success, the guard is grateful, gives the PCs some tips about where to find what they are looking for, and won't report them later unless really bad stuff is going down.

I do it this way because of exactly the problem you state; I don't want only the characters with high Cha to be effective. But I do want high Cha to be better, so the check is still relevant to give the extra bonus success. And yes, there are situations (where the PC's speech is not convincing) where everything comes down to a Cha check, but if your players put in any effort at all, those should be the exception, not the rule.

(FWIW, the DMG system for social interaction based on attitudes is essentially the same thing, but more formally stated.)

 

[Reynard]

Let me share my favorite DM Secret Technique for social interaction: If the player makes a convincing argument, then even if the skill check fails, they still "succeed" at convincing the NPC. If the skill check actually succeeds, then they succeed extra better; the NPC does what they want, and is extra helpful about it. But don't tell the players that this is how it works!

For example, if you're trying to talk a guard into letting you go past, "Here's 50 gold" might be a very convincing argument. It doesn't matter if the person offering is a Charisma 20 high elf noble or a Charisma 8 dwarven dung-digger; 50 gold is 50 gold. BUT have the player make the Charisma (Persuasion) check anyway. On a failure, the guard grumbles about it, and isn't too shy about reporting the PCs later if there's an incident (leaving the bribery out of the story). On a success, the guard is grateful, gives the PCs some tips about where to find what they are looking for, and won't report them later unless really bad stuff is going down.

I do it this way because of exactly the problem you state; I don't want only the characters with high Cha to be effective. But I do want high Cha to be better, so the check is still relevant to give the extra bonus success. And yes, there are situations (where the PC's speech is not convincing) where everything comes down to a Cha check, but if your players put in any effort at all, those should be the exception, not the rule.

(FWIW, the DMG system for social interaction based on attitudes is essentially the same thing, but more formally stated.)

Right, but I wasn't really focusing on interaction checks, per se. i think the system works fine for that sort of thing. I was specifically looking for a way to make an interaction setpiece as interesting, dynamic and engaging as combat for all the players and PCs.

 

[chaochou]

I have a "court intrigue" episode coming up in my regular 5E game and I kind of want to develop a quick and dirty "social combat" system for it. My thinking is that if I have such a system in place it will be less likely that only one or two players (and my group is 8 or 9 on any given night) will dominate the conversation.

Basic ideas I have in mind that I could use some help expanding and implementing:

Virtually all the territory you are looking to cover is in Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits system.

If you've not read it, you should. There's a free 8-page summary of the Duel of Wits on the BW website. I'm not sure I can post a link but if you Google 'burning wheel duel of wits' it's the top link.