Give me choices!

[Campbell]

Howandwhy,

Do you honestly believe that the 'silver tongued diplomacy' you engage in around a table with a bunch of other geeks improves your real world social skills or that wilderness survival role playing boot camp makes you any more able to survive alone out in the actual wilderness ?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

You know, roleplaying can be usefull in helping someone's social skils, really - beating also shyness, etc...

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

For PCs, social skills serves two purposes: a) If the player dump-stats CHA and eschews investing skill points, there is a tangable penalty when interacting with NPCs. b) If the player up-stats CHA and social skills, they are rewarded with additional info, better deals, favorable treatment, etc. It's a payoff benefit for investing in non-combat aptitudes.

A witty player might have a real sharp retort roll off his tongue at the table, but his 8 CHA character with 0 points in Persuasion is still getting a –1 to the die roll. If their quip is especially good, I'd easily give them a circumstance bonus.

The character suffers for thier deficiencies, but the player can still apply personal appeal to the character, in fact having a circumstance reward encourages them. But if they specifically chose for their character to be a social misfit by way of ability scores and skill selection, they should reap what they sow.

Howandwhy,

Do you honestly believe that the 'silver tongued diplomacy' you engage in around a table with a bunch of other geeks improves your real world social skills or that wilderness survival role playing boot camp makes you any more able to survive alone out in the actual wilderness ?

While there's no corelation between character abilities and player abilites, roleplaying does help improve one's grasp of language and communication. I definitely know that I've benefitted from roleplaying.

Additionally, the other cascade knowledge skills (mythology, history, math, science) are a nice boon as well.

 

[LostSoul]

And it's nice to let the rules and dice resolve conflicts instead of just the DM.

 

[Acid_crash]

Be careful not to confuse your personal experience with combat in D&D3.5 with everyone's experience. For example, I never in 7 years of heavy play ever observed a single combat that went the way you described. Characters loaded up on healing potions and healed themselves in combat when they needed it and let the cleric blast away along with the wizard.

Than you have a very unusual group and/or you are just really really lucky because this is the standard way I have seen combat go in just about every single D&D game session I've ever been involved in.

I've been around players who have played for twenty years plus say that a cleric who doesn't heal is being played wrong, no matter what. I've seen players kicked out another who didn't play a healer cleric. I've seen so much bashing towards people who want to play clerics who are non-healers that it makes me sick.

But, that's me. You, I congratulate you on having a good group of gamers who don't bash cleric players for not healing as often, and having a group who takes the initiative to gear up on their own things and not depend on the cleric.

 

[Rel]

Than you have a very unusual group and/or you are just really really lucky because this is the standard way I have seen combat go in just about every single D&D game session I've ever been involved in.

I don't think this is all that unusual. It may depend on the sort of group you play in. My group are a bunch of friends from WAY back (the "new guy" in our group we've known for 12 years). If somebody wants to have their Cleric do more than just heal then we might razz them about it a little but ultimately that's up to the player.

Our current game has no cleric and the only "healer" in the party is the Druid who is WAY more focused on slaughtering things in melee than he is on healing. He prepares maybe one Cure Light Wounds per day. The party has to rely upon other means of healing and that's fine.

D&D 3.X is very forgiving in this regard as far as I'm concerned. Obtaining a wand of Cure Light Wounds is relatively inexpensive and a wide range of classes can use one. Failing that, you can load up on potions or try to stay close enough to town to use an NPC healer.

In any event, I'm sorry that you've had such crummy experiences in this regard. Hope your luck changes.

 

[med stud]

IMO, roleplaying, i.e. acting in character, works better when one doesn't have rules to arbitrarily constrain thinking. It's tough enough for actors to get into their parts, do they need to all follow one methodology too?

Regular actors (theatres, movies) have scripts they follow. The improvisational theatre that I have watched have had some rules the actors had to follow. The RPG medium has rules that the players have to follow.

If I describe my PC swinging by the chandelier, hitting three orcs on the way and I roll a 1 on my Tumble- check? Then I have to change the scene on the spot. If I want to talk my way past a guard and I roll 1 on my Bluff- check? Then I have to adapt it into the roleplaying.

PC: Let me in, I'm one of the servants! (Rolls 1 for Bluff)
Guard: I don't think so.
PC: Well, you will regret this when the baron finds out! (<- improvised part)

The rules don't have to be in the way more than that.