No, I'm presenting my observations as if they are obviously true, and then I'm sharing what those observations lead me to believe. That conclusion is indeed my opinion. The observations are less so.
I've looked at the game a variety of ways. I'll gladly listen to more takes on it. Offer one.
Limp and barely existent is my opinion. I rephrased it to the less harsh "minimal", but when you boil it down, it's the same thing. I don't think the social mechanics of D&D are all that engaging as a game. I think they're there as a bare minimum to support that pillar of the game in so far as it serves the design of D&D. The social mechanics allow players to maintain control over their characters, free from any kind of social risk that they decide is too great, and they allow the DM the ability to maintain a significant amount of control over the game world.
I have no problem with that. If I did, I wouldn't play 5e. It suits the game and the way it functions.
How does detailed and highly specific not equal robust, when it comes to rules? What are the robust social rules in 5e? BIFTS? Three or four Charisma based skills? The Ability Check mechanic?
I'm genuinely asking for your input here. You say in the above quote that you disagree with me, but you don't really go into why. You instead just say my argument is my opinion and so on. Yes....it is my opinion. I feel I've offered some support for it across several posts.
What is your support that the social mechanics of 5e are robust? That they are equal but different to the combat mechanics. How do you justify this assessment? Instead of telling me I'm wrong, tell me why you're right.
So I'm going to share an example from another game because it literally went down last night.
I'm running a game of "Spire: The City Must Fall". It's a game about drow rebels in a towering city ruled by the high elves. The PCs are drow members of a secret cult that wants to reclaim the city from the high elves. The system actually has a variety of rules that pertain to social encounters and interactions that is at least equal to the number of rules that pertain to fighting and combat. Yes, you can fight, but it's usually not the best idea and is kind of a last resort. The game is more about spycraft and subterfuge and manipulation. The cell has gotten into some minor scuffles here and there, and one serious full on battle.
Last night, the player of the cell's Knight, their most martially focused character, had some really interesting things happen to him due to a social encounter. He's currently wanted for a major crime when the cell attacked and eliminated the leadership of one of the districts major crim organizations. It was a huge fight in the city streets and it's led to some significant fallout. Notably, the Knight is now wanted for the attack, and his squire was killed in the battle. The PC cell is dealing with the fallout as the remaining crime factions scramble for position, trying to scoop up the holdings of the damaged faction.
Last night, one of the other PCs was seeking an audience with a gnoll crime lord, and was being led into their lair, which is an underground structure beneath a gladiatorial arena. The knight wanted to tail them without being noticed. At this point, he's accumulated a significant amount of Mind Stress (the game has multiple types of Stress, which indicate mounting risk for harm - Body, Mind, Silver, Reputation, Shadow). So he's fried and at his wit's end; this makes sense considering the whole district is looking for him. He winds up failing and taking some more stress. So the guards confronted him and I rolled for Fallout (this is a roll to see if abstract Stress becomes a specific drawback or wound or whatever is appropriate). You roll a d10, and if you roll less than the PC's total Stress, then they take Fallout.
The roll failed, so he took a Fallout. Most of his Stress was to Mind, so I looked at the list of available Mind Fallouts, and one was "Permanently Weird". This means that he does something that unsettles those around him. The GM can invoke when this comes up in play going forward. The player can suppress it, at the cost of taking some Mind stress. This is permanent until it is somehow treated or magically cured (not necessarily an easy thing to do). "Permanently Weird" seemed the most suitable Fallout and the idea occurred to me that he started seeing and hearing his dead Squire. So now he sometimes talks to his dead Squire as if he's there, and everyone around him is like who the hell is this guy talking to.
So we decided that as he was sneaking in, his Squire chimed in, and he responded, and that's what alerted the guards. They came and confronted him, and were about to escort him from the area. Luckily, the other PC has significant ability to convince other people to listen to him, and he came back and bailed the Knight out of trouble with some successful Compel rolls. They then met with the gnoll crime lord and we continued with the encounter.
So all of this was shaped by the actual mechanics of the game. Yes, there's still plenty of input by the GM and the player, but the mechanics are involved pretty heavily. They're significant in the sense that this would not have worked out this way if certain rolls had gone differently. They're also known to the player; the mechanics are entirely player facing. The game works with a dice pool of D10s keep the highest, with tiers of results (1 critical failure, 2-5 failure, 6-7 success with stress, 8-9 success, 10 critical success). The way Fallout works is clear; the higher your Stress, the more significant the Fallout. The PCs have resources they can bring to bear to help them with their chances on a roll, or with mitigating Stress, and so on. The rules are identical if they're swinging a sword at someone and risking Stress to Body, or whether they're trying to pay someone off and risking Stress to Silver, or trying to sneak into a criminal lair and risking Stress to Mind.
I would say that this is an example of mechanics that are equal.
The PC now has a permanent condition that can complicate all kinds of situations going forward, one that I as GM can invoke when appropriate, but which the player can override at the cost of some stress. The player went into the game with one concept of his PC, and came out with something different.
That's how rules can promote the social element of the game. Not by getting out of the way, but by prompting the GM and players in order to propel the fiction forward in new and unexpected ways.
I try to imagine how such a development could come about as the result of play in a 5e game.... and I can't think of a way. The PC basically had a mental break mid-mission and now speaks to his dead Squire that only he sees, and he has to deal with that. Sure, a player in 5e could say something like "I think all this has taken a mental toll on him, and he just snaps. Can I add the trait 'talks to his dead squire'?" and the DM could allow it, and then going forward the player could roleplay that to get Inspiration. But if he doesn't want Inspiration, he never has to bring it up again. And that seems like a pretty minimal way to handle it by comparison.
www.enworld.org
