All Characters Should be Good at Talking to NPCs

[MGibster]

"As a Wizard, your reputation as a master of the arcane precedes you into town. When you use a cantrip as part of a social interaction, common people will always react with fear or wonderment and grant your character's request, though doing so can easily raise superstition..."

I've given some thought to something similar. Let's take a character with a high level of firearms skill in the modern era. To maintain that high level of skill, he's got to put in some regular time at the gun range to keep in practice. He's probably going to know people from the range and they're going to know him.

 

[MGibster]

Would it be okay for a PC that completely lacks combat skills to be good at combat?

Yes. Provided they're "good enough" to keep the adventure moving.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Every player should be allowed to talk to the NPCs. Roleplaying is for everyone!

Only the player designated by the group to "move the needle" however, should actually be rolling the dice for a game effect.

 

[Umbran]

So... here's a thing.

There's "good at talking to NPCs" and there's "good at manipulating NPCs". These are not the same thing.

I've had a string recently of characters with Charisma as their dump stat. They can carry on a normal conversation just fine. But don't ask them to get an NPC to go someplace they don't want to go.

One technique that can work pretty well to allow more flexibility in NPC relations is to remember that Persuasion and Deception are not welded to Charisma. One can persuade with empathic ability (Wisdom) or just by having an incredibly well-formed argument (Intelligence). Charisma is a default, but not the end-all, be-all of interpersonal interaction.

I mean, you let characters attack with Dexterity builds, right? Why not talk with another mental stat?

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is in general, but the discussion is extremely D&D centric. The issues you're discussing exist in varying degrees (up to and including "not at all") in other games systems. The issue here, for D&D, is the GM, pure and simple. This is because the social interaction system in D&D is "ask your GM," or "GM decides what happens." So, if you find that characters are being punished for talking to NPCs in a D&D game because they do not have heavy investment into social skills, the issue is the GM. The solution set is as varied as the GMs are.

Other systems have robust social resolution systems. Forged in the Dark games are good at this, as is FATE, Cortex+, Burning Wheel, and Powered by the Apocalypse games. These are just the ones I'm reasonably familiar with, it's not exhaustive. These don't rely on "GM decides" approaches, but rather have mechanics that have teeth and bind everyone at the table.

This isn't to say that the 5e "GM says" approach is at all bad. I very much enjoy 5e, and this is part and parcel of it. I'm pointing this out because questions like the OP seem to ignore the overwhelming impact the GM has in how these kinds of systems (and there are a number that rely on GM decision making as a primary resolution mechanic) work.

Also, 5e has a rather reasonably useful description of how to engage with NPCs in the DMG -- using BIFTs and the NPC attitude. This is a useful system - if you aren't using it, I recommend giving it a try.

 

[Campbell]

My personal feeling is that niche protection in RPGs is highly overrated. Most characters should have strengths and weaknesses, but I find it better to have much more well rounded characters who are good at multiple things instead of one specific thing they demand the spotlight in.

 

[Staffan]

For an example of how a game that's moderately rules-heavy handles this, Trinity Continuum specifically allows you to use normally non-social skills with a social attribute in order to do social stuff associated with that skill. Impressing gym-bunnies could be Athletics + Presence, and convincing an investor to fund your inventions could be Science + Manipulation. There are also more dedicated social skills, which would be more broadly applicable to social situations, but everyone can be decent at talking about the stuff they know.

For an example of a game that veers more into rules-heavy territory, look at the latest version of the Swedish game Eon (well, you'd have to read Swedish I suppose). The game solves this with a rather open-ended system of Challenges and Contests (which use similar mechanics, except Challenges are against the environment/fixed difficulties and Contests are against other people). The basic idea is that you roll three times for the thing you're doing, ideally using three different skills (there's a very strong penalty if you re-use a skill), and see how well you did in aggregate. In most cases, one of the rolls in the Challenge is fixed, but the other two can be more flexible depending on the situation and how you describe your approach to it. So if you're trying to get information out of a merchant, you will probably be required to roll Persuade somewhere along the line, but you might also roll Trade to cover knowing what sort of stuff a merchant likes to talk about, and Drinking to get them drunk enough to talk without you yourself becoming drunk. The end effect is that even if your character isn't very good at Persuade, they can cover for that with other skills. This way of dealing with things does require a large skill list, which Eon has in spades.

 

[Don Durito]

Talking = stupid niche

Talking to mercenaries and soldiers
Taking to aristocrats and high society
Talking to street scum and criminals
Talking to farmers and country people

Better niches.

But the other things is, don't put all the talking stuff on top of one ability score, or underlying method of specialisation. There's no point splitting things up into seperate skills or specialisations if one person is still best placed to collect them all. This actually ends up strengthening the 'face' role by making it expensive. If you have one skill, eg "socialise", that is easy to invest in, then more players will pick it up.

 

[Li Shenron]

Very often I run into situations where characters who have not invested much into social skills are hesitant to participate in dialogues with NPCs.

This has never happened to me.

Are you overly relying on dice rolls to resolve social interactions? If you ask for skill checks too much, then obviously your players learn that they should not try to do anything that they have low scores at, and just let better characters do it. It's the old rollplaying vs roleplaying gamestyle decision.

I follow the principle that dice rolls are there for when the DM doesn't want to decide the outcome. I can see that the majority of DMs instead think that almost everything should be decided by the dice, maybe because they have a very simulationist approach i.e. the dice simulates the statistics of inherent randomess of any action.

Take the very iconic situation of having to enter a castle without permission. Typical options (not counting magic) include:

a) convincing the guards to let you in
b) sneaking into without being seen
c) hiding inside something that will be taken in
d) disguise as someone who has permission
e) climb the walls

If your approach is, whatever option the PCs choose, always have the roll the dice to see if they can make it, then obviously this disencourage PCs to even try something they have low scores at, even moreso if it carries a penalty. So if the party chooses a) i.e. the social option, and they know you're going to make them roll charisma checks, the players whose PC have low charisma might decide to just go grab a sandwich while the others take care of it.

A complete opposite approach (fully narrative) might be: the DM decides which is the winning option, and it's an automatic success when you guess it right, otherwise it's an automatic failure. Most probably this doesn't work well with nearly every D&D player, because D&D does have plenty of stats and mechanics, which are expected to be used eventually.

But why not trying to find a good mix of the two approaches? Choosing option a) can be handled so that, if the players come up with something brilliant to tell the guards, they don't need to roll at all -> automatic success. If they only come up with the usual staple ideas, then sure make them roll, or even decide an automatic failure. The game never says you must request ability checks. If you always leave a possibility open for winning without rolling, players are more likely to stay engaged in hope of having the right idea at the right time. And that can also be applied to options b) - e) as well!

 

[CubicsRube]

I generally avoid social rolls if the players make a good point unless they request to make the roll.

In Shadow of the Demon Lord they have INT and WIL stats (no CHA) and I choose based on if they are using emotions or rational arguments to try and decieve, persude or otherwise manipulate an NPC.

I would much prefer in D&D more nuanced skills such as "convince" (using logic and INT) , inspire (using WIS) and sway (using CHA) or similar things, so you can choose the kind of social character you want to be.

i could talk about this quite a lot, but in the real world there are many CEOs, leaders and motivational types that have their own styles, techniques and niches. It's extremely reductive to have one skill called "persuade".