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

[DEFCON 1]

D&D, as the biggest fish in the pond, probably ought to be expected to target "middle of the road" for most aspects of play. So, what's "middle of the road" for performance?

I think it already has it. It's everything that comes after the DM says "What do you do?"

In D&D, every player has to invent something to say or do. There's no sequence of events and actions in the rulebook like you'd get playing Monopoly or Settlers of Catan that gives you your list of things you need to do in a specific order to take your turn-- and then once you completed those actions your turn was over. Instead, you have to "roleplay". You have to make something up. Sure, things like the Skill list can give you ideas of what you want to do... but even then the rules do not tell you the order in which Skills should be used, it's all based on the player's intuition of the story to figure out what Skill would make the most "in-game", "narrative" sense in reaction to what the DM described.

And I think this is where the discussion about "roleplaying" comes from. If we aren't giving players a defined sequence of events or mechanical actions to take on their turn like we would a board game or card game, and instead are asking them to invent an action that would apply to the situation "in the world's story"... it leads us in the same direction when it comes to the social aspect of the game. The DM essentially asking "What do you say?" instead of "What do you do?"

And a player can respond to that question however they want-- whether that's a 1st-person "in-voice" response as their character, a 3rd-person response of what the character is trying to get across, or even indeed I'm personally fine with the use of the Skill as part of that response if it helps get across their intention of how they want to accomplish it. "I roll Persuasion to get the guard..." has a different connotation than "I roll Intimidation to get the guard..." and that might be easier for a player to articulate their meaning and intention.

But in all cases, it still requires players to "improvise", rather than "follow the rules of the game" because the game doesn't include that and there's no "mini-game" for it-- no "verbal attack scores", no "resolve defense" no "emotional hit points" to reduce, etc. And while a person certainly could create a Social Combat system a la the game's weapon combat system... it always seem a bit superfluous, since everyone just keeps telling the DM what they are doing or saying anyway. So why not follow that lead and see where it goes? At least in my opinion.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think it already has it. It's everything that comes after the DM says "What do you do?"

In D&D, every player has to invent something to say or do. There's no sequence of events and actions in the rulebook like you'd get playing Monopoly or Settlers of Catan that gives you your list of things you need to do in a specific order to take your turn-- and then once you completed those actions your turn was over. Instead, you have to "roleplay". You have to make something up. Sure, things like the Skill list can give you ideas of what you want to do... but even then the rules do not tell you the order in which Skills should be used, it's all based on the player's intuition of the story to figure out what Skill would make the most "in-game", "narrative" sense in reaction to what the DM described.

And I think this is where the discussion about "roleplaying" comes from. If we aren't giving players a defined sequence of events or mechanical actions to take on their turn like we would a board game or card game, and instead are asking them to invent an action that would apply to the situation "in the world's story"... it leads us in the same direction when it comes to the social aspect of the game. The DM essentially asking "What do you say?" instead of "What do you do?"

And a player can respond to that question however they want-- whether that's a 1st-person "in-voice" response as their character, a 3rd-person response of what the character is trying to get across, or even indeed I'm personally fine with the use of the Skill as part of that response if it helps get across their intention of how they want to accomplish it. "I roll Persuasion to get the guard..." has a different connotation than "I roll Intimidation to get the guard..." and that might be easier for a player to articulate their meaning and intention.

But in all cases, it still requires players to "improvise", rather than "follow the rules of the game" because the game doesn't include that and there's no "mini-game" for it-- no "verbal attack scores", no "resolve defense" no "emotional hit points" to reduce, etc. And while a person certainly could create a Social Combat system a la the game's weapon combat system... it always seem a bit superfluous, since everyone just keeps telling the DM what they are doing or saying anyway. So why not follow that lead and see where it goes? At least in my opinion.

i was agreeing with basically everything you were going with here right up until that last swerve into 'and that's why a social combat minigame would be totally superflous', i see all that as the reasons why a social combat subsystem would be excellent to add, like, i felt like you were going to wrap that all up with 'look at all these problems it would help solve!'

 

[I'm A Banana]

But in all cases, it still requires players to "improvise", rather than "follow the rules of the game" because the game doesn't include that and there's no "mini-game" for it-- no "verbal attack scores", no "resolve defense" no "emotional hit points" to reduce, etc. And while a person certainly could create a Social Combat system a la the game's weapon combat system... it always seem a bit superfluous, since everyone just keeps telling the DM what they are doing or saying anyway. So why not follow that lead and see where it goes? At least in my opinion.

Yes! This really gets at the different "mode of play" involved here.

And I'm of the opinion that we can get better at mechanics that encourage that mode of play, without turning it into something else.

Skill checks are fine, but they can't be our only tool.

 

[Incenjucar]

That's an example of someone with poor roleplaying skills. A skilled roleplayer roleplays the low stats.

D&D doesn't reward intentionally failing at skill interactions. You'd need to introduce a mechanism that lets conforming to your dump stats lead to progress rather than lead to failure, and then the question becomes how is that actually a penalty anymore.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Yes! This really gets at the different "mode of play" involved here.

And I'm of the opinion that we can get better at mechanics that encourage that mode of play, without turning it into something else.

Skill checks are fine, but they can't be our only tool.

What would a mini-game that goes beyond skill checks look like?

An expanded skill check system that tries to avoid turning into a mini-game might give the PC a set of skills or sub-skills to "try to get the guard to..." - the PC might try to persuade, intimidate, bribe, distract... The guard would then have different target numbers for the different methods, e.g. a given guard might be hard to intimidate or persuade, but easy to bribe. And then the PC will need some sort of skill or ability to evaluate the guard's different target numbers.

In some game systems, for example, the Bribery skill includes not just "getting the target to accept a bribe" but also evaluating how susceptible the target would be to a bribe, how much an appropriate bribe would be, and what form the bribe should take. (Bob the NPC might huffily turn down a cash bribe in exchange for a favor, but treat him to a fine dinner and ahem Bob's your uncle.)

 

[Voadam]

D&D doesn't reward intentionally failing at skill interactions. You'd need to introduce a mechanism that lets conforming to your dump stats lead to progress rather than lead to failure, and then the question becomes how is that actually a penalty anymore.

It doesn't have to be leading to progress instead of failure to be a reward for failure.

Mechanically that can be set up as rewarding failure by giving a benefit in a different area. So you fail in that task but get a benefit elsewhere (xp, advantage or other benefit that can be used elsewhere later, etc.)

I believe Kids on Bikes gives a token for every failure that can be turned in later for a +1 on a future die roll. So failure is failure, but it is also kind of useful so there is less sting to failure and failing a lot can lead to one big success later.

You could sort of reverse the DMG success with complication later thing of turning failure into success to be fail for inspiration later.

 

[I'm A Banana]

D&D doesn't reward intentionally failing at skill interactions. You'd need to introduce a mechanism that lets conforming to your dump stats lead to progress rather than lead to failure, and then the question becomes how is that actually a penalty anymore.

Yeah, this needs some work in D&D.

IMO, the best example of this in D&D so far is inspiration for playing your flaw. Which is nice, but not super strong (there's a lot of ways to get advantage). There's also the group check, which means that I can blow up the social situation personally and not totally ruin the group's effort.

The more I think about it, though, the more I think that performance of your dump stat is actually kind of part of the fun of having a dump stat.

We play to find out what happens, and if I'm playing a jerk of a mercenary who sees everything through the lens of coin and has a CHA of 8, part of what I want is to perform that. To be a jerk. To offend the sensitive nobility, to spoil the peace talks, to spit on the shoes of the diplomats. My presence in a social situation should make it riskier, and that is the fun of playing this character.

It's similarly fun to play an INT of 8 as a bit of a doof, and a WIS of 8 as a bit of a scatterbrain.

So in D&D today, the best way to handle our jerk merc is maybe to...

(1) Give him inspiration for being a bit of a jerk, and
(2) Have a group check. Maybe give the jerk merc disadvantage (or even an auto-failure), but the rest of the party can make up for it.

There's definitely more we could do there...

 

[Voadam]

What would a mini-game that goes beyond skill checks look like?

Alternatively not involve skill checks at all but tie into other stuff.

Gaining inspiration for roleplaying your ideal or your flaw is an example. Players then game how to roleplay those aspects into what they are doing.

 

[Maxperson]

D&D doesn't reward intentionally failing at skill interactions. You'd need to introduce a mechanism that lets conforming to your dump stats lead to progress rather than lead to failure, and then the question becomes how is that actually a penalty anymore.

Roleplaying isn't about reward or failure. Roleplaying is its own reward. We're I to roleplay badly and act super intelligent and/or charismatic for my 6 int, 6 cha PC, I would feel like a failure.

That said, I do provide roleplay XP for my players. Not to make them roleplay skillfully, but because I want other avenues to leveling than just beat up something.

 

[Quickleaf]

Yeah, this needs some work in D&D.

IMO, the best example of this in D&D so far is inspiration for playing your flaw. Which is nice, but not super strong (there's a lot of ways to get advantage). There's also the group check, which means that I can blow up the social situation personally and not totally ruin the group's effort.

The more I think about it, though, the more I think that performance of your dump stat is actually kind of part of the fun of having a dump stat.

We play to find out what happens, and if I'm playing a jerk of a mercenary who sees everything through the lens of coin and has a CHA of 8, part of what I want is to perform that. To be a jerk. To offend the sensitive nobility, to spoil the peace talks, to spit on the shoes of the diplomats. My presence in a social situation should make it riskier, and that is the fun of playing this character.

It's similarly fun to play an INT of 8 as a bit of a doof, and a WIS of 8 as a bit of a scatterbrain.

So in D&D today, the best way to handle our jerk merc is maybe to...

(1) Give him inspiration for being a bit of a jerk, and
(2) Have a group check. Maybe give the jerk merc disadvantage (or even an auto-failure), but the rest of the party can make up for it.

There's definitely more we could do there...

While I love the direction your thinking is going, it does raise a yellow flag for me. The “jerk mercenary” sounds a lot like an instigator player… I don’t think you want to reward that behavior consistently and repeatedly because it’s sooo easy for it to blow up a scene that another player is attempting to engage very differently.

It’s easy to escalate. It’s harder to deescalate.

I think “jerk mercenary” is already a potentially disruptive behavior that the GM needs to massage, develop specific group management skills to make it productive, and is sooo easy for a player to get impatient - and transfer that impatience to “just roleplaying my character” - and lose sight of the group’s fun. I think enshrining a reward for that behavior is a slippery slope.