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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dave Turner" data-source="post: 2793068" data-attributes="member: 12329">Jim,I sincerely appreciate your mention of specific D&D mechanics in support of the game.  I think we can have some good discussion about them.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I worry that my comments here and through the rest of the thread will come off as needlessly semantic or maybe pedantic.  Please don't think I'm out to trap you or win the thread.I see the skills and feats you're mentioning as mechanics for resolving social conflict, not as mechanics for roleplaying (that's the part I hope you don't think is needless hair-splitting!).  Burning Wheel has social skills and rules for adjudicating social conflicts too; it's called the Duel of Wits.  How do you think the Charisma stat does support roleplaying?  I would suggest that the mere presence of Charisma isn't enough without more mechanics backing it up.  Otherwise, it's a "paper tiger".The Bluff or Diplomacy skills don't require me to define my character's personality.  Maybe I can highlight the difference by suggesting that social skills and feats tell me the "how" of a character, but not the why.  Don't hold me to that analogy.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  There are no mechanics in D&D (again, that I'm immediately aware of) that encourage players to adopt a personality for their character and reward players for acting according to that personality.  The DMG (on page 41) states that XP awards for roleplaying are purely ad hoc.  Burning Wheel has the Artha system, which explicitly tells players and GMs how to reward players for roleplaying.  It describes how much Artha should be awarded for particular actions, how Artha can be spent, and even talks about how GMs can tailor Artha rewards to particular styles of play.  There is an element of subjectivity in when Artha is awarded, but the discussion of these rules for reinforcing and supporting roleplaying are lightyears ahead of D&D.This, sadly, is where D&D’s legacy of rich tactical combat comes back to haunt it.  I think it’s fair to say that D&D provides no mechanical support for “social tactics” of any kind.  Where is the “social AC”, the “social hit points”, the “social trip attack”, etc.?  D&D’s social conflict resolution system consists of the following: pick a skill, find some modifiers, roll once and narrate.  Where’s the tactical decision-making?  It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of D&D’s tactical combat decision-making!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I know what you’re thinking.  You can just decide to break a particular social conflict into several smaller pieces.  You make it an extended skill check that the PCs have to achieve through multiple roles.  Nothing really tactical there, is there?  You can suck up to the DM for a variety of circumstance bonuses, but that’s not tactical.Burning Wheel, on the other hand, features a social conflict resolution system that closely mirrors the combat system.  Players have “social hit points” and attack each other with maneuvers like Incite, Point, Avoid The Topic, and Rebuttal.  Every turn in Burning Wheel is called an exchange.  In each turn/exchange, there are three volleys.  A player must script in advance each maneuver he will use throughout the three volleys.  Some Wits maneuvers counter other Wits maneuvers and some maneuvers provide an advantage against other maneuvers. For example, I script in advance that in volley 2 I will make a Point.  My opponent has scripted a Rebuttal for volley 2. Unfortunately for me, a Rebuttal counters a Point.  My opponent can use some of the dice in his pool to directly reduce mine.  If he can reduce my successes to zero and nullify my attack, while he uses the remainder of his dice in the pool to attack my undefended “social hit points”.  But why am I spelling it out when you can download the section of the game for free: <a href="http://www.burningwheel.org/pdf/dow_95_108.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.burningwheel.org/pdf/dow_95_108.pdf</a></blockquote>

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