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

[DEFCON 1]

Again, I am advocating for a social combat system that is intended to be used in social situations analogous to combat encounters: things like trials, dealing with courtly intrigue, and convincing powerful factions or individuals to do what you want. There are a number of ways to design the specifics, but in general it means giving players "tactical" choices and including victory conditions -- just like combat.

Right. All of which have to replace telling what you want your character to say with a series of social combat rolls. But you can't have both. Because if the object is to remove the possibility of the people "not comfortable with talking" from having to say anything and instead have the verbal jousting be about the dice rolls to determine whose "argument" was better... then you can't have any rules wherein the DM gives bonuses to what the players actually say. Because that's not fair, is it? So it's either one or the other... either players say what it is they want to say, or the entire social conversation becomes a dice-rolling game like combat currently is.

Now that being said... I'm not against the idea of someone designing said system. Social Combat systems have gotten made for all manner of games for years. So if someone does, and some people want to use it to remove vocal conversation as a determining factor in what characters in the game say... that's cool. I just don't think WotC is going to do it themselves though, as I believe they see things as I do. (General) You telling the DM what you want to do or what you want to say is the main thrust of the roleplaying game and why D&D isn't entirely a board game.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

People keep repeating this like it is relevant to the discussion of social combat. It isn't

Also, don't people narrate and roleplay in combat? I know we do!

 

[Campbell]

I think in part why I differ from a lot of those who do not want to involve mechanics in social situations is that the sorts of social encounters that see table time in a lot of games I play are not the more convivial convince someone through argumentation or straightforward negotiation. It's intimidation, gas lighting, seduction, pushing someone's buttons so they respond emotionally in a way that backfires against them, swaying the crowd against someone using emotional appeals, selective omissions. Stuff that isn't always the most fun to do to your best friends in the world.

I agree the best mechanic for straight forward negotiation is generally straight forward negotiation. Like I could leverage my physical presence on the GM to mimic my character's efforts to do the same, but that wouldn't be any nicer than punching them in the face to mimic my character doing that to an NPC.

That being said I'm generally much more of a fan of systems that layer over top of existing roleplaying and influence it over social combat type systems. Stuff more like the DMG social influence system no one uses or bonus dice in Sorcerer that provide bonuses to doing what your character has been convinced of and / or penalties when going against it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well no.

It's to provide a fair framework that allows players of characters whose abilities and preferences differ from their character to contribute and thrive in the parts of the game where the character should be strong where the player may not be. Much like how the game doesn't discriminate against players who can't ro don't know how to swing a sword, cast a spell or climb a wall.

And just like those, parts where mechanical success of failure don't matter, you're still in freeform.

All this is doing is saying that in order to convince the king to let you progress the story, the onus isn't on the player to be a convincing orator and wordsmith.

But how is this not replacing the actual verbalization players are making? As I mentioned above, one can't have it both ways. If you want to make things fair to people who don't want to talk... then you can't have any rules wherein actually talking or making cogent argument has an effect on the success or failure of social combat (via bonuses, modifiers or whatever). It has to be entirely about just rolling dice. That's the only fair way to make the quiet players be on equal ground to the talkative ones.

Which means that yes, one would need to replace the standard part of the roleplaying question-- "What does your character do/say?" "My character does/says X..." with a series of "verbal attacks" and " verbal defenses" and "resolve hit points" and so forth-- first one to knock their opponent to 0 has made them lose the argument.

And that's fine, if that's what someone out there wants to design. But I seriously doubt it will ever be designed by anyone at WotC because it goes against what I think they think the entire premise of roleplaying is-- telling the DM what you want to do, and the DM telling you what happens.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Something like "go around the table and everyone describe what they want to do before the NPC responds, keep it to about a minute of character action" wouldn't go awry in most games, I think.

Now imagine:

1. Each action is (typically) associated with a roll, unless the player has such a great idea it should simply work, no roll required
2. The party must build up to success or failure, rather than just sort of throwing stuff at the wall until the DM decides "okay that's enough, you have won(/lost)"
3. Each time someone acts, it changes the situation meaningfully
4. How many failures and successes the group gets shapes the nature of the final outcome, e.g. a near miss is an imperfect victory, a near win is a gentle defeat

And then you have precisely what a (good) skill challenge should be.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Also, don't be people narrate and roleplay in combat? I know we do!

Yes, but your narration has no effect on the mechanics. The dice rolls and only the dice rolls affect the numbers. How you describe those dice rolls "in story" does not change anything or give you bonuses or penalties to future dice rolls (not counting gaining Inspiration from the DM which you could then use at a later point, but that's not a Combat rule, that's the Inspiration mechanic and is not specifically a part of Combat.)

 

[CreamCloud0]

I can't tell if you are saying that they are all part of the power budget or whether they should be.

In 5e everyone is mechanically designed to be balanced and participate in combat effectively in different roles.

Skills are usually zero part of the D&D combat mechanical mini game though and high skill classes are not otherwise combat weaker than low skill classes in combat to compensate.

Socially the classes are not mechanically balanced to equally participate mechanically in social activities. Even just going with skills some are high skill with more skills and expertise, some are low skill, some are socially oriented in skill options, some are very not. Mechanically it is a very different set up from combat, it is not designed for everybody to participate or be balanced when they do.

Every player can participate in first person social interactions though.


Most of the objection to mechanic-less roleplaying seems to be about first person acting and talking persuasively as being effectively persuasive, not second person describing how you are convincing as being effectively persuasive.

First person roleplaying a social encounter to determine if an NPC is swayed by an argument seems more analogous to actually swinging foam weapons in a LARP to determine hits in a combat instead of rock paper scissors to make it a randomized mechanic to handle conflict in a LARP.

Mechanics use is a choice to accomplish specific purposes.

If you want all typical characters to be able to participate effectively in social interactions in 5e the same way they are designed to participate effectively in combat then going with non-mechanics hits that more than the class skill set up of 5e.

Im saying that things are all connected, you invest in cha and that’s ASI you’re not investing in dex or wis or con, which you have saves in, that proficiency in deception is now one you can’t put in stealth, a stealth check you might then fail that leads to combat..., I’m saying that for both yes, social skills are equally part of the power budget and yet not treated like it when they should be.

I’m saying that it is a failing of 5e to not recognise that fundamentally this is a multiplayer game, that classes can have different strengths and weaknesses, to of made everyone more or less equal in combat mechanics while not doing the same for the social ones,

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Yes, but your narration has no effect on the mechanics. The dice rolls and only the dice rolls affect the numbers. How you describe those dice rolls "in story" does not change anything or give you bonuses or penalties to future dice rolls (not counting gaining Inspiration from the DM which you could then use at a later point, but that's not a Combat rule, that's the Inspiration mechanic and is not specifically a part of Combat.)

You can play that why. However, if you allow narration to affect social rolls, why not allow it to affect combat rolls.

We have, in fact, played where our narration matters. The typical result of good combat narration is advantage on an attack or damage (roll damage twice and take higher). I think it can makes sense to play social and combat encounters the same or at least similar.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that is the standard way we play. However, the social/exploration/combat modes in our game look more similar than in most games I gather.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Now imagine:

1. Each action is (typically) associated with a roll, unless the player has such a great idea it should simply work, no roll required
2. The party must build up to success or failure, rather than just sort of throwing stuff at the wall until the DM decides "okay that's enough, you have won(/lost)"
3. Each time someone acts, it changes the situation meaningfully
4. How many failures and successes the group gets shapes the nature of the final outcome, e.g. a near miss is an imperfect victory, a near win is a gentle defeat

And then you have precisely what a (good) skill challenge should be.

That's how I always saw how Skill Challenges were meant to be played in 4E and I was fine with it as a system to use if a particular DM felt they wanted those rails of '# of success before 3 failures' to help them determine when a "scene" should end.

Me personally though? I never used them myself, because I just relied on my own intuition to know when "okay that's enough, you have won(/lost)". Because for me... if I was capable of doing the thing you mentioned in your first point (knowing when a player had such a great idea that it should simply work)... I was also capable of knowing when the party was convincing enough or successful enough in the totality of the scene regardless of the number of Skill checks I may or may not have asked for.

But it was a good rule system I thought to help get DMs to the point when they no longer felt they needed to use them anymore.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You can play that why. However, if you allow narration to affect social rolls, why not allow it to affect combat rolls.

We have, in fact, played where our narration matters. The typical result of good combat narration is advantage on an attack or damage (roll damage twice and take higher). I think it can makes sense to play social and combat encounters the same or at least similar.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that is the standard way we play. However, the social/exploration/combat modes in our game look more similar than in most games I gather.

As a set of house rules? That's great! I don't have a problem with that. But I just don't think it would ever be incorporated into the game by WotC that how you described the attack would impact your dice roll to execute the attack. Because that would mess up the mechanical balance if you could impact the combat based on how well you described everything and the DM had to rule on how well you described it.