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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8144046">If you like having social mechanics for resolving romance, that is fine. I certainly understand why some people prefer that. But I promise you, we get plenty of drama, challenge and entertainment when we don't use them for things like Romance. Look, I totally understand the other side of this debate. I also understand I am in something of a minority on this opinion. In most of the groups I was in, the majority of other players didn't mind when games had social mechanics (and we played tons of games that had them, including rolemaster----Vampire also had them, as did many other games). But for me, they just interfere with how I like social interaction in the game to work (particularly around mysteries and similar types of adventures). I also find there is a tendency for them to start to function like buttons for many players (I've seen this in groups where people go from having a conversation with a guard at the gates to saying something like "I use command to have him let us in"). Plenty of people will role-play that after the fact, informed by the role. But I don't enjoy roleplaying to watch people perform what the dice just determined. I want the players words to have impact. With Romance this is even more the case.  And to be clear here, I am not talking about 'acting'. I actually don't like acting out in a thespian style of play. I just like my words to matter when I speak in character. I have players in my games who are great actors, but I am not one of them. I just like when my characters have conversations and they feel real. That said, I get people like social skills, and I get not every player at the table is going to be as into these kinds of exchanges. I also get that the ship has largely sailed on this matter (once D&D introduced social skills in 3E as part of the core game, I think that pretty much clinched it for the majority of players----because D&D kind of sets the mainstream experience). So I even include skills for Command, Deception, Empathy and Persuade. That is for more than I would like, but even at my own table, people like having them. What I was able to do was come up with an approach to them that didn't interfere with my style of running social encounters (which is to roll things like command, deception and persuade only when the GM is unclear on how an NPC might react; and to have Empathy rolls simply produce the cues the character sees----i.e. things like visual signs someone is anxious for instance). One thing I will say, is for those who have never played an RPG that lacks rules for social interaction and things like clue finding, try it a few times and see if the experience is any different. Personally I find it is more immersive for me without those things. It can be useful to discover if the lack of such rules adds or detracts from your experience of play. I would just note that the trick to running a game without them is to encourage interaction with the setting elements.</blockquote>

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