D&D General Social Pillar Mechanics: Where do you stand?

[Corinnguard]

I don't know what social combat is but I don't like the sound of it.

I am not sure either. When I saw the words, social combat, the first image to come to my mind was the sight of two people slapping each other across the face while engaging in a debate.

"Doesn't this sort of defeat the purpose behind a debate?"

"Honey, if we let them debate it out with just words, we would be here for a long time and be bored to tears."

 

[Reynard]

I am not sure either. When I saw the words, social combat, the first image to come to my mind was the sight of two people slapping each other across the face while engaging in a debate.

"Doesn't this sort of defeat the purpose behind a debate?"

"Honey, if we let them debate it out with just words, we would be here for a long time and be bored to tears."

Court (both legal and regal) is social combat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So where do you stand on the topic of social pillar mechanics? Do you think a courtroom debate or plea to the king should be governed by players and GMs roleplaying, or by game mechanics, or something in between. How do you feel about old school reaction rolls, and/or modern Persuasion checks? And if mechanics should play a bigger part in the social pillar, how should those mechanics be "distributed" among classes? That is, should there be a "face" class or should everyone be able to use those mechanics?

We roll dice to find out what happens. If there's no chance of failure or if the outcome is already clear, we don't need to roll dice.

So, if the player gives me a persuasive argument and puts that in the mouth of a PC, and there's no real chance that the NPC doesn't believe them, I don't need to roll Persuasion. If it's a little iffy, or if the NPC is mistrusting, or if maybe the PC wouldn't be great at making that argument, then we might roll dice to find out what happens.

Stats and skills help ensure that a character can be persuasive and charming regardless of player skill, but it's also always fun to reward the creativity and skill of a player. This does mean that some highly persuasive players may dominate social interaction a bit, but I'm kind of OK with that. If they can tie it into the world and the characters and the story in a compelling way, that really just adds to the game for everyone.

In general, I'm not in favor of direct "social combat" mechanics - I think they don't capture the reality of how the social pillar gets played at the table or the psychology of what's rewarding about the social pillar. I think if you play a low-Cha character as a rude bumbler, that's still a successful and rewarding engagement with the social pillar, even if the party is worse off for that. Social encounters are usually more about performing your character's quirks and building the shared fiction and are a little less about success and failure.

I am in favor of mechanics that do help the social pillar get played more and better. So things like skill checks for secrets and deceptions and persuasions are all good. Flaws, traits, bonds, and ideals are pretty nice, and I wish 5e did a little more with them (like the idea of not being able to make a Persuasion check UNLESS you ping on one of those...and making Insight checks to help guide your players to them). Some needs vs. wants would also be fun. But I don't need success/failure mechanics for the interaction in general or "social hp" that can be healed and lost. Just some guidance on how to navigate a conversation. Talking in a silly voice and pretending to be a magical elf is usually the entire goal of a social encounter.

 

[Vork_Hammerfist]

Do you have any examples of those tables you can share?

Sure!
These are both from RPGPundit's Lion & Dragon game which has a whole section on laws.

Public Drunkenness
6 or less	guilty, d6 days in the stocks
7+	not found guilty

Assault or open/violent defiance against a lord or his direct representatives
0 or less	guilty, death by hanging
1-3	guilty, mutilation, severing of one foot
4-7	guilty, 3d6 lashes
8+	not guilty

I can't help but simultaneously love and hate a lot of things in Lion & Dragon because I had been working on something very similar when I discovered it.

 

[Reynard]

(like the idea of not being able to make a Persuasion check UNLESS you ping on one of those...and making Insight checks to help guide your players to them)

That's a good idea. No Persuasion roll UNLESS you hit one of their tags.

 

[Vork_Hammerfist]

It means having a fairly involved system to track success and failure and level of impact during important social scenes, in the same way that combat scenes get granular. Characters have rhetorical attack bonuses and potential maneuvers and try and reduce the social hit point analog to 0 in order to win the argument. So, yeah, it is pretty much what it sounds like.

The reason i like it is that it brings the social pillar in line with the other granular aspects of the game. You don't role play any less -- you still say what your arguments are, the same way you describe your attacks and such in combat. But the resolution is built into the system, not the whims of the GM and how they rate your acting ability. As someone upthread said, you don't let combatants auto-win because the player is good at describing an attack. But you might grant some sort of advantage, and you would do so in social combat as well.

Ah. I can kinda see the appeal, but I don't think it's for me.

 

[Reynard]

Ah. I can kinda see the appeal, but I don't think it's for me.

I only think it is for specific sorts of campaigns. like, if you are playing Waterdeep Ace Attorney or a Dragonmarked House Succession campaign, you would want this level of engagement because it would essentially be the combat for the game.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

A friend and I were discussing this yesterday and we liked the idea of each NPC having a few tags/traits that if the player could incorporate them, they get a bonus on whatever final roll is called for (without a full on social combat system, i tend toward one singular roll at the end of the roleplay conversation to judge how it ultimately went). Things like Greedy or proud or Loves Their Mom or whatever. You could also offend one of those traits and earn a penalty. We also discussed the idea of a Secret, that if you discover it and incorporate it, it gives you advantage. Like if the new king secretly killed his father, and the PCs could let him know they know without blowing up court, they could get advantage on the roll to persuade him to send troops to defend their home or whatever.

This is quite like the Social Interaction rules presented in the DMG (p 244)

Notably:

If the adventurers say or do the right things during an interaction (perhaps by touching on a creature's ideal, bond, or flaw), they can make a hostile creature temporarily indifferent, or make an indifferent creature temporarily friendly. Likewise, a gaffe, insult, or harmful deed might make a friendly creature temporarily indifferent or turn an indifferent creature hostile.

and

When the adventurers get to the point of their request, demand, or suggestion-or if you decide the conversation has run its course-call for a Charisma check. Any character who has actively participated in the conversation can make the check. Depending on how the adventurers handled the conversation, the Persuasion, Deception, or Intimidation skill might apply to the check. The creature's current attitude determines the DC required to achieve a specific reaction, as shown in the Conversation Reaction table.

 

[Vork_Hammerfist]

I only think it is for specific sorts of campaigns. like, if you are playing Waterdeep Ace Attorney or a Dragonmarked House Succession campaign, you would want this level of engagement because it would essentially be the combat for the game.

Yeah, I can see it working in that kind of game.

 

[Laurefindel]

Yeah, I can see it working in that kind of game.

I think that for any game, part of the success of such rules would be to recognize when a situation constitute a "social combat" and when it is not. All social encounter shouldn't need that level of granularity. Even if a game has complex social encounter rules, I could see whole campaigns doing without them.