How much back story do you allow/expect at the start of the game?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Originally Posted by Lanefan View Post

Third: that system mastery is the measure of how "good" someone is as a player. Absolute garbage. One can be an excellent and engaged player, full of good ideas and creative solutions put forth by memorable and entertaining characters, and yet still not know what dice to roll when, or why; or how to roll up a character.

Lanefan



And I'll disagree with you.
I've got a brand new player (a friends daughter) in the ToA game I'm running. What she actually knows about the rules atm wouldn't fill a dice bag.
But she is 101% eager to play, fully engaged (more so than some of the more veteran players), full of ideas (not always good ones from a technical PoV, but....) & creative solutions. Her character is quite entertaining & will definitely be remembered (probably because of whatever absurd & self-inflicted way she finally gets killed).
She lacks almost any degree of system mastery. But she's a good player.

I'm not saying its impossible, but personally I find that knowing how to play the game you are playing helps a lot, and avoids one player having to take a lot longer each round as the table tries to fit their great ideas into the game mechanics.

 

[Sunseeker]

Or, you end up with the problem I'm trying to fix in my group -- asking to make checks instead of stating a course of action. I'm guilty as charged on this as well, for quite some time, but I found it increasingly frustrating to have my players think in terms of the checks rather than what they want their characters to do. It's a hard thing to unlearn, apparently.

So, to sum up, I disagree, in part.

I think this depends largely on what edition you "grew up" with. Most of my play came in 4E, which was very big on tell the DM what you are going to do to do instead of ask the DM what you want to do, and it remains my approach to this day. I tell what I'm going to do and the DM tells me what I need to roll to achieve that. Even if its as gamist a statement of "I want to use my Diplomacy skill to try and avoid a fight." I don't expect my players to have the skilled tongue of a diplomat, that's what skill checks and dice are for. If a player could just talk their way out of a fight with real words, we wouldn't need rules!

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think this depends largely on what edition you "grew up" with. Most of my play came in 4E, which was very big on tell the DM what you are going to do to do instead of ask the DM what you want to do, and it remains my approach to this day. I tell what I'm going to do and the DM tells me what I need to roll to achieve that. Even if its as gamist a statement of "I want to use my Diplomacy skill to try and avoid a fight." I don't expect my players to have the skilled tongue of a diplomat, that's what skill checks and dice are for. If a player could just talk their way out of a fight with real words, we wouldn't need rules!

You're missing the point. In your example, your player says "I want to use my Diplomacy skill to try and avoid a fight." That's exactly the issue I'm trying to erase from my players. I want them to instead say "I try to talk my way out of this fight," or, "I want the convince the other side that fighting us will go badly for them." Then I'll say, "They seem pretty intent on fighting, so let's go with a DC 15 Charisma check. You can add (Persuasion or Intimidate depending on approach)."

I want my players to focus more on what they're trying to accomplish and the general path on how, and not look at their character sheets and pick a skill to try out.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Do you guys give anything for a player wanting to role play social encounters? Or is the result of the Persuasion check the only thing that matters?

 

[Caliban]

Do you guys give anything for a player wanting to role play social encounters? Or is the result of the Persuasion check the only thing that matters?

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally if the PC's make a good enough case there may not be a need to role any dice.

But much more often I will have their roleplay and logic/bribes/etc they present affect the target DC, or give advantage/disadvantage.
(I try to have "logic/bribes/ect" change the DC, while roleplay gives adv/disadv" but I'm not as consistent about it as I should be. I'm usually just winging it.)

And if it's a plot important social interaction, failing their social checks doesn't mean they don't get what they want, it just means it will cost them more to get it, or have other consequences. (Recently had a social challenge of "bargain with the thieves guild to be guided to a secret entrance to the palace" - they failed the social check, but they still got the guide. They just now owe the thieves guild a major favor, instead of the guild agreeing to do it because the PC's mission would also help them.)

 

[Sunseeker]

You're missing the point. In your example, your player says "I want to use my Diplomacy skill to try and avoid a fight." That's exactly the issue I'm trying to erase from my players. I want them to instead say "I try to talk my way out of this fight," or, "I want the convince the other side that fighting us will go badly for them." Then I'll say, "They seem pretty intent on fighting, so let's go with a DC 15 Charisma check. You can add (Persuasion or Intimidate depending on approach)."

I want my players to focus more on what they're trying to accomplish and the general path on how, and not look at their character sheets and pick a skill to try out.

The problem I have with your variation is that it's not explicit on how the player wants to resolve the situation. Sure, they want to talk...but there are several skills which cover "talking". Without specifying, I've been at tables where saying "I want to try to talk things out." gives the DM room to say "Oh well, that one skill that nobody in the party has? Yeah that's the talking skill you need."

By specifying which skill they want to use, they're specifying how they want to resolve the situation, how they want to frame the talking. Are we big tough scary adventurers intimidating our foes? Are we suave smooth-talking criminals with a silver tongue? The player is deciding how they want to frame their attempt by naming the skill they want to use, instead of simply reacting to DM scene-framing by rolling whatever check the DM says is necessary.

And really, you're not going to reduce "skill-naming" by giving out DCs like that. It's just going to make the players reactionary. Oh there's a DC? I can roll for that.

When a player tells me they want to talk things out, my first response is "How?" then they'll usually indicate if they're going to use honey or vinegar and if they want to actually role-play what they're saying that's great and then I'll roll behind the scenes for how well their attempt was received.

There's no point in actually having skills, in doing the work to math out skills, in writing down all your skills if your DM is just going to tell you to turn your sheet upside down. You need to know what skills you have and you need to know when you want to use them.

 

[Sunseeker]

Do you guys give anything for a player wanting to role play social encounters? Or is the result of the Persuasion check the only thing that matters?

I don't adjust the challenge no. Role-playing through a social encounter is just as sound an approach as roll-playing. It's really up to the party the sort of depth they want to go into. Role-playing through an encounter will reward the party with a deeper, richer experience, while roll-playing will result in a shallower one. Some players aren't looking for an in-depth political discussion with the NPCs, some players are. I try to balance players wants when designing an encounter, and I also don't want to spend a long time on one player who likes to get chatty. (had those players, so annoying)

I think I talked about this before, but I try to give all my meaningful NPCs three "motivations". They can be vague such as money, women and power or specific like "that ancient coin", "the princess" or "lichdom". Playing to an NPCs motivations (or against them) reduces or increases the DCs respectively. If the players have taken the time to learn about this NPC, they should know at least one of that NPCs motivations.

But just pure role play? No. I don't reward that any more than anything else. I would prefer players enjoy the game than enjoy the game in a specific way.

 

[Mort]

Do you guys give anything for a player wanting to role play social encounters? Or is the result of the Persuasion check the only thing that matters?

A true role player can role play the results of the persuasion check.

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[Mort]

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally if the PC's make a good enough case there may not be a need to role any dice.

Do you take into account who's making the case?

For example, the CHA 8 character's player makes a great argument to get past the guards, does the fact that he's not that charismatic factor in?

What if the player does this consistently, essentially ignoring the fact that the character isn't all that pursuasive?



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[Sunseeker]

Do you take into account who's making the case?

For example, the CHA 8 character's player makes a great argument to get past the guards, does the fact that he's not that charismatic factor in?

What if the player does this consistently, essentially ignoring the fact that the character isn't all that pursuasive?



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This is exactly why I don't reduce challenge difficulty based on the words players use. I've played with some highly intelligent and well-spoken people who could literally charm your pants off without rolling a d20. IMO: your score is the lens through whatever you say IRL is translated. People with high mental stats sound good "in character" regardless of if they sound good in person. If you let a person's player skill override their character skill, you're essentially ignoring having character stats at all.