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

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't really want player skill to be expected like this. I like roleplaying games as an equalizer. I want the shy, socially inept college kid to have the same success as the fifty year old dramatist at the same table.

Absolutely.

Like...for goodness' sake. Folks get so mad about players not "thinking beyond their character sheet." And then they do this. No wonder people who don't already have 20+ years of gaming experience are reluctant to show creativity. They get "slapped down so hard" they're being intentionally taught never to try ever again.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Don't agree. Why? Because...

...a key part of player skill is to be willing and able to intentionally roleplay as being unintelligent and-or boorish and-or slow etc. etc. as appropriate to the dumped stat.

A player who doesn't do this is IMO playing in bad faith.

I think this displays two issues with social encounters currently:
1) the fundamental nature of how people interpret to resolve social checks is FAR too swingy, everything hinges on a single dice roll with success at one end and failure at the other with no nuance, there needs to be more degrees of success built in so that even if you flub a good argument it was still a good argument and gets you a better result than flubbing a bad argument, and a nat 20 can’t convince the king to hand over the crown and keys to the kingdom.
2) people perceive social checks more in the school of ‘i do’ action declaration rather than the ‘i attempt’ school that the rest of the game primarily runs on.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If the dice can take the last half-hour of roleplay and chuck it out by giving a different result than the roleplay would suggest, that would seem to make roleplaying redundant.

Flip side: if the dice cannot force a result, what's the point in using them?

So yes, in the end it does come down to all or nothing.

The middle position is that the roleplay sets up the parameters to of the dice roll: that at can be made at all, its DC, and what the effect will be.

 

[Reynard]

And that agency is expressed almost entirely through - and as - your character.

Yes

Further, a large part of that agency comes from being able to actually say what your character is saying, in that practicality dictates we can't often do what our characters are doing.

No. "Inhabiting your character" and "immersion" are in no way related to agency.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Yes

No. "Inhabiting your character" and "immersion" are in no way related to agency.

i think far too often when it comes to A Social Encounter it's not that 'players will come to embody their character' but the inverse happens 'characters will come to embody their player', a Social Encounter happens where they really need something from this guy and the player might put on their character's accent or mannerisms and pick character apropriate approaches but they turn on their Problem Solving Brain and primarily think in terms of how do i Solve This

 

[Umbran]

I think when D&D players talk "systems," we can switch quickly to "things like combat and skill checks!" and miss the unique kind of play found in the social pillar.

IMO, a system that supports social play shouldn't be like combat.

Well, if for a moment we look to games other than D&D for inspiration of what we can do, then it really depends on what your combat is like.

The core mechanic of social play is player performance. I don't mean skill, I mean in like the acting sense. Talking in a funny voice. Using body language. Making in-character choices that have impact on the story being told at the table. Making your PC come alive. Participating in a shared bit of nerdy improv.

That may be the "core mechanic" of social play at your, and many other tables.

But can you accept the idea that the game would do well to be open and accessible to 3rd person kind of play, as well? That not everyone is going to actively use body language and funny voices? That folks who are not themselves charismatic, or have little performance skill, still ought to have the ability to successfully play charismatic characters in a fantasy?

If so, then the mechanic has to stand on its own, without the performance aspect.

 

[payn]

I think this displays two issues with social encounters currently:
1) the fundamental nature of how people interpret to resolve social checks is FAR too swingy, everything hinges on a single dice roll with success at one end and failure at the other with no nuance, there needs to be more degrees of success built in so that even if you flub a good argument it was still a good argument and gets you a better result than flubbing a bad argument, and a nat 20 can’t convince the king to hand over the crown and keys to the kingdom.
2) people perceive social checks more in the school of ‘i do’ action declaration rather than the ‘i attempt’ school that the rest of the game primarily runs on.

The first item is largely on the tradition of D&D of skill use. Folks are used to rolling once to climb a rope or pick a lock etc.. This usually leads to the assumption that a diplo or intimidate is just a one and done do or do not situation.

For the second item a lot of D&D tradition leads folks again, to think so singularly about social encounters. The way they have been written hasnt done much to alleviate that. For example, using social combat round nomenclature makes folks think (strangely) they have like 6 seconds to role play at a time, or that the role play needs to be so impactful that each round they try to use 60 min of talking to be as impactful as possible with the GM. There is a struggle to understand how social pillar works differently than the combat or the exploration pillar binary resolution.

The loose nature of social pillar role playing collides with the mechanically detailed combat pillar. Its a stream folks cant handle being crossed. Right in this very thread there is plenty dont want this at all and "becomes board game" complaints. I find it rather disheartening since D&D has (had?) a long history of alternate sub-systems like mass combat, domain management, epic rules, etc.. Folks traditionally picked them up and used them or ignored them. For some reason now folks grab for torches and pitchforks at the mere mention of an alternate system instead of just ignoring it.

 

[Umbran]

If the dice can take the last half-hour of roleplay and chuck it out by giving a different result than the roleplay would suggest, that would seem to make roleplaying redundant.

Flip side: if the dice cannot force a result, what's the point in using them?

So yes, in the end it does come down to all or nothing.

Maybe not.

You seem to describe role-playing for an entire half hour before checking in mechanically - I think maybe the issue lies there. That sounds like a... naïve game design for social mechanics. That'd be like running an entire combat narratively, but then rolling a single to-hit on the last round, and abiding by that alone.

If, instead, you work mechanical influences in small increments, several times over the encounter, and work those results into the narrative such that the player can respond to them, then it isn't all-or-nothing. This is why the Skill Challenge form gets brought up - the mechanical input is incremental, not all-or-nothing.

Or, at least not any more than it is in combat, where you can sometimes go through the fight for a half hour, and still have the result determined by one really good or bad roll at a crucial moment. There's always a chance you choke and splutter wine on the Viceroy's velvet slippers, right?

 

[Corinnguard]

The first item is largely on the tradition of D&D of skill use. Folks are used to rolling once to climb a rope or pick a lock etc.. This usually leads to the assumption that a diplo or intimidate is just a one and done do or do not situation.

When in truth, a lot more goes into using diplomacy or intimidation to change someone else's way of thinking and doing things. A person using diplomacy is also going to be using Insight to see if their words have had any effect at convincing the other person. Insight is also needed to determine if the other person is lying (via a Deception check). So it's not just a Diplomacy check, it's also an Insight check. A success in both skills could mean that they might have succeeded at convincing the other party. A success in one of them, but not in the other one could mean that there is still some more distance to go before the other party is convinced. And therefore, several Diplomacy/Insight checks will be needed.

As for Intimidation, it depends if the person is using verbal threats or making physical threats against the other person. There is also the 'Good Cop/Bad Cop' approach which might require making Diplomacy, Insight and Performance checks if two members of the party are trying to get a stubborn someone to talk.

Situations are not always one and done. The ones that aren't are probably going to be the more rewarding ones IMO. As they are going to be the ones where you really get to be in character.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I feel player performance should be a fun extra. I don't want my real life advantages to overshadow someone who lacks those advantages.

It's like if I was able to use my boxing training as a way to win PC duels.

There are avenues for drama kids and improv experts to compete, but I don't enjoy those skills replacing character builds in RPGs.

What happens if we flip the script a bit?

I feel character builds should be a fun extra. I don't want my real life character optimization skills to overshadow someone who lacks those advantages.

It's like if I was using my system knowledge as a way to become the most effective in combat.

There are avenues for character builds to compete, but I don't enjoy those skills replacing all other kinds of skills in RPG's.

See, the point I'm getting at is that mechanics expertise - creating an effective character build - isn't any different from skill in character performance. Some folks will be better at it, some folks will be worse at it. Systems should absolutely help those who are worse at it to contribute on par with folks who have a better skill at it. But valuing one of those skill sets to the exclusion of the other is not what I'd want to see in D&D overall.

Saying that build should trump character performance in the social pillar is a little like saying performance should trump build in the combat pillar - that saying "I rip off the goblin's head!" should then mean the goblin's head is ripped off without any additional mechanics. I'd argue that it's good that D&D asks you to do both. Both are part of the fun of the game!

Not your character, your alignment. Normal people don't fit into 3 to 9 boxen consistently lest they suffer a learning disability.

I definitely don't want to make this An Alignment Thread, but this specifically shows a misunderstanding of its use in the Social pillar of gameplay, and might help illustrate part of what I'm getting at.

Characters are nuanced individuals. But performing as any character at a table - especially for someone who isn't so into the performance aspect of play, or for someone new to the game - is a big lift. "What does my character do?" isn't a question everyone has a ready answer for. You look at your character sheet for options.

Having two words at the top of your sheet to guide that performance is a huge benefit. "My character acts how a good person who follows the rules would act" is a good way to guide the player in the moment to an answer to that question. We could replace alignment with the D&D character's enneagram or meyers-briggs type or astrology sign or whatever other nonsense personality test you want to put in. Normal people don't fit into those boxes, either. But all of these failures to capture human complexity do contain a set of personality traits that you can use to perform the character more effectively.

Class and race provide similar support for this question, and including all of these gives you some options to select from in play. How does my lawful good dwarf cleric react to the svirfneblin's offer of a temporary truce? Well, I can answer that question as a cleric (maybe peace would be a better option?), as a dwarf (trust no one who is not a dwarf!), as a good character (okay, if it means we can prevent the drow from summoning Lolth!), or as a lawful character (alliances are good, but we better make sure they agree to our terms...). Or just as Brunalta Rockseeker, whatever that character means to me.

I don't think the punitive angle Alignment had in the early days is good design, but even that flaw reveals how alignment is used in play - to guide the performance of the character. That's the kind of thing a good social mechanic does. That's what a social mechanic looks like. Not like rolling dice and adding modifiers.

That may be the "core mechanic" of social play at your, and many other tables.

But can you accept the idea that the game would do well to be open and accessible to 3rd person kind of play, as well? That not everyone is going to actively use body language and funny voices? That folks who are not themselves charismatic, or performance skill, have to have the ability to successfully play charismatic characters in a fantasy?

If so, then the mechanic has to stand on its own, without the performance aspect.

One of the really annoying things about online conversation is that people wind up substituting what they think your position is based on conversations they've had before without looking at what your actual position is, and it leads to conversations going around in circles talking more about strawmen than the actual point being made.

Yeah, of course D&D should be accessible to different kinds of players, and this should be obvious. It's a basic assumption that I've reiterated a few times in this thread already.

So listen to this:

Can you accept the idea that the game would do well to be open and accessible to someone who doesn't like to roll dice and add modifiers? That not everyone is going to like rolling a d20 and adding things to it to produce a number intended to beat a DC? That folks who are not themselves mathematical, or who lack that kind of numerical skill, have the ability to successfully play characters in fantasy?

If so, then mechanics can't be just about 1d20+modifiers.

Get a bigger view of "mechanic," here. A view that includes alignment as a mechanic, that includes how dwarves and elves relate as a mechanic, that includes a paladin's code of conduct as a mechanic, that includes "have advantage for making good trouble" as a mechanic.

Just because not everyone is good at math doesn't mean we don't expect them to do some basic math sometimes. Maybe combat and optimization isn't really their jam, but we do have 1d20+mods as a mechanic we use pretty prominently, and anyone who plays D&D will have to be at least a little OK with doing some math sometimes. We can have good design and good mechanics and good systems that help even these players participate well in the more math-heavy segments.

Similarly, I think it's OK to say that anyone playing D&D will have to be at least a little OK with performing a character sometimes. Maybe deep character nuance isn't really their jam, but we do have moments where making in-character choices are used pretty prominently as a matter of play, and anyone who plays D&D will have to be at least a little OK with pretending to be a character sometimes. We can have good design and good mechanics and good systems that help even these players participate well in the more performance-heavy segments.

My position is that this diversity of demands on the player is a good thing, part of the fun of D&D specifically. We should not be trying to remove math from our games entirely just to satisfy people who aren't into rolling dice and adding numbers, nor should we be trying to remove character performance from our games just to satisfy people who absolutely refuse to perform their characters. These aspects work together to work different parts of the brain and create a more dynamic and interesting play experience than would otherwise exist.

I'm saying that performing your character is as key to the fun of D&D as rolling 1d20 and adding modifiers.

Which isn't to say that these aren't replaceable, I guess. You can play a D&D game without rolling dice just like you can play a D&D game without performing your character.

But, y'know, what makes Critical Role a success isn't system mastery or character builds or compelling point systems with a lot of tactical options. What people see in D&D there is a performance. And we can absolutely get better, in game design, at helping unskilled people deliver better performances in the D&D game. But we're not going to get there by focusing more on skill checks.