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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8144971" data-attributes="member: 42582">I would hope that any RPG designer only pays as much heed to any mechanic as s/he feels s/he has to!My point was that the designers clearly didn't think that "in-character talk at the table would suffice" (to quote your earlier post once again) - because they included a very important mechanic, linked to the CHA stat, which determines via that modified roll how the GM is to frame the encounter between PCs and NPCs/monsters. As [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] said, this is where a whole lot of classic D&D hijinks start from. You don't have to have a MU cast Charm Person or Sleep in order to avoid having to fight everything encountered.This is one half of exactly what I have zero interest in. What is the point of "hints from the GM" to tell the player how to solve the puzzle. Who's playing the game here, the player(s) or the GM solitaire?And this is the other half: because basically what is happening here is that I'm working through a pre-authored flowchart/decision-tree that is triggered by the players' action declarations.I don't really think of play in terms of "roleplaying effort".The players' main goal was to continue their exploration of the alien vessel Annic Nova without being interdicted. Here's the extract from the actual play write-up I posted in September:On re-reading that there were more checks than I recalled - distracting people from the second refuelling, blowing off the aide, and persuading Lady Askol that she hadn't really been kidnapped. For each there was a clear intent as well as task, and the amount of narration from the player would be pretty close to what I've described in this post: a bit of first person, a bit of third person. The key thing is establishing the fiction and how it relates to the intent, so that the action declaration can be meaningfully resolved.Re-reading this play example, it shows how things can go with a series of successful rolls: a plan to steal a ship from under the noses of Imperial Navy ships worked! Obviously there are other ways to run heists (I've never played BitD or Scum and Villainy, but I gather the latter adapts the former for space rogues) but this one played out pretty nicely.Not to say that things can't be interesting on failures too - von Jerrel's player has had strings of failures for his other characters in earlier sessions - but for me what it shows is the use of mechanics to determine whether intent is realised or not produces sequences of results that are not predicted or dictated by anyone.To me there seemed to be no reason to call for a check. The earlier outcome was still in force; and there were two further reasons.One was "internal" to the fictional situation: Lady Askol is INT 5, and so not all that sharp. There is no Bluff skill in Classic Traveller - the rules don't discuss it, but I think it's mostly for the GM to adjudicate based on NPC INT. Perhaps with a check on INT. The upshot is that deceiving via the spoken word is not apt to be a significant crunch-point in play - rather it's a step to something else.  If you think of it in terms of AW moves - if you do it, you do it - than there is no when you tell someone a lie move. (Forging documents is a different matter: there is a Forgery skill, and it feeds into the rather intricate subsystems for dealing with officials and bureaucracy.) The second was "external" to the immediate situation but pretty important at the table: the player (clearly) didn't want Lady Askol to decide that von Jerrel must be deported back to Ashar. And I didn't want that either! So there was no point in calling for a check that would result in such a possibility. (Whereas the earlier checks did involve interesting alternatives - Lady Askol being accompanied by her aide; or being upset at being kidnapped; or noticing the second refuelling which might have resulted in politics on Novus or space combat in its vicinity.)And an EDIT TO ADD:The point of social mechanics as I see it, and as I hope my actual play example illustrates, is not to "skip to the roll". It's to allow for the determination of outcomes other than via dictation.If the mechanics are any good, they will need the player to establish what the fiction and intent is that feeds into the resolution. That can be done via 1st person play or 3rd person narration of one's PC - what matters is that we know what (eg) von Jerrel is hoping to achieve - eg to have Lady Askol not hold it against him that she came on board a jumping vessel without her aide.The problem with 3E's Diplomacy system as I have heard it described (I have almost no experience with it) are:(1) It is weak on calling for intent, and is focused more on reframing the starting-point of the situation (eg from Hostile to Friendly) rather than on generating some response by the NPC to the PC's action (like Lady Askol's outrage being assuaged);(2) It's maths are broken.Solid maths is important in any system. AW has it baked in. Classic Traveller is not quite as tight as AW, but seems mostly to work.</blockquote>

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