I gave a little, and now they want...

[Nightchilde-2]

This is how I handle the old "I don't know what to say, can I just roll?" schtick.

If someone tries to roleplay it out, rather than just rolling, they get a little something extra in their XP stockings (generally a story award for roleplaying; 50 x character level). If they just roll, no extra XP award for you!

 

[jasper]

...
And that brings up an interesting question: is role-playing getting old fashioned? Should we just all sit around and mumble these "secret incantations" to each other and roll dice when confronted with a problem?....

No you just have player who wants to be a ROLL player. Even in first edition I had people wanting to use npc classes from the dragon, or port something in from another game system. Or yell and pout since the rolled well on their reaction roll the npc should just roll over and give it it. Or the great quote "I am an adventurer dammit it. I demand to see the King!" then i was told my game sucked because their no way a king would use a minion to talk with adventurers. This from a group who tired to kill a mayor when he refused to increase the pay out for bring in the outlaws.

no role playing has not increase or decrease. You just got a bad player. Of course we could ask Hong to box up some of his great players to us.

 

[Grazzt]

Minor rant warning!

It seems that to me that D&D isn't about playing base classes anymore. You need a prestige class to play a character, and also about a half a’ dozen player guides and various resource books.

Not true. You can play D&D just fine with nothing more than the core books (PH, MM, DMG).

The 3. edition was supposed to make things simple, or so I have heard. Instead we seem to have more resource books that ever (thanks to the Open Game license) and players who want to customize their characters straight into munchkin land.

3e/3.5 does make things much simpler...everything is centered around a single die roll now (d20). I do agree that there are a lot of players that want to visit munchkinland....course they may have always been like that. The internet just lets us interact with them now.

Currently I'm having a minor argument over what a social character is supposed to look like. The player wants to pull some PrC from a book I have never heard of and use in my campaign. I don't like the idea and told him to stick to the Scarred Lands and core books. Well, the thing is that he feels there isn't anything there worth taking, and creating a social character requires something more than what the core books and various Scarred Lands supplements can offer.

Its your campaign, in the sense that you are DM...what you say goes. If a player wants to use something, and you say "Nope", then that player can pout and pitch a fit all he wants. Your world...your rules. The DM is the final arbiter regarding rules and such in his world.

I agree with what Buttercup said above: "Your player is wrong. Further, you are the DM. Tell him no. And then tell him that when he DMs a game, he can pick the sourcebooks allowed, and you will play happily by his rules."

I told him to stock up on social skills, and also supplied him with a lengthy list of PHB 3.5 feats, which are aimed at social interaction.

Sounds like a winner to me.

I don't want my game to lose its appeal because social encounters are handled with dice rolling and mouthing secret incantations like "I have 10 lvl's of PrC X, so I know all your secrets!".

It wont...so long as you dont let it. You control your world. You control the rules. All the power is in the DM's hands.

So, what do I say to this player? How do I convince him that the best way to go is with old-fashioned role-playing, accompanied with suitable skill selection? I feel rather frustrated at the moment, so I'll leave the more colorful comments to some other time...

What Buttercup said: "No is the magic word. If you need to say more, try "No. Your PrC doesn't fit with my game and the way I want to run it." Then stick to your guns."

And that brings up an interesting question: is role-playing getting old fashioned? Should we just all sit around and mumble these "secret incantations" to each other and roll dice when confronted with a problem?

End of rant.

We still roleplay. Our group (dating back to OD&D and 1e) has always been more into hack-n-slash than anything else, but we still find time to roleplay.

 

[Telperion]

Okay, thanks for the input. I'm e-mailing with the player for now, and we will see how it goes during the sunday game.

There's a general feel in the group that they really want storyhooks bound into detailed NPC's and interaction with powerful NPC's. Its just that Mr. Roll Player, as he was tittled earlier, is the only one who's willing to play a really socially active character. I really don't feel like punishing him for giving it a try, but...well, the results don't seem to be that good either...

The other players do participate, but they lean towards the rogue with lots of skill points when it comes time to actually present their arguments / thoughts / ideas / whatever to the local nobility. The nobility again are all aristocrats, and expect a certain level of diplomacy, and that's where things shift into a dice rolling contest, with the results showing how good / much information the group managed get this time.

Dialogue isn't my strong suit, but I enjoy it, so I try to encourage it in my games.

 

[silburnl]

My problem with roleplaying a character with high social skills is something like this:
Me: I try to be diplomatic in rejecting the prince's offer.
DM: What do you say excatly?
Me: I don't know, my character has 8 ranks of diplomacy, but me, the player, does not. Can I just roll?

The two traditional extremes for this issue are:

(i) Do it all by role-playing, in which case players who put resources into social attributes for their characters feel short-changed (since they achieve the same effects with zero ranks as with ten ranks and a feat) and players who don't have much inspiration when it comes to interpersonal interaction end up playing highly charismatic leader types as utter lumps.

(ii) Do it all by roll-playing, in which case interactions with NPCs will probably descend to an utterly flat "I roll a Bluff total of 23" "That easily beats his Sense Motive of 11. You're through to the throneroom." Which makes many folk wonder why we should call them role-playing games.

One alternative way of handling things is to roll off at the start and then role-play through the result. Players who create characters with the stats, feats and skills for sociability will get to play through more winning situations than those with the "Axe! Smash!" characters and you get the fun of figuring out how to convert the results of the rolls into a social interaction that does them justice (especially when it comes to the 'against the run of play' results) - it also avoids having a stellar piece of role-playing turn into "well that was menacing as all get out and you'd have convinced me, but then you rolled a 3 while those three hayseeds rolled a 19 so they're coming for you anyway".

The problem with this approach is that it changes the play sequence from declaration-roll-result to roll-result-declaration, which can be a bit wierd for some groups. Also some players (including DMs as players for this purpose) find it difficult to 'play to fail' for an encounter they are preordained by the dice to lose.

Leaving aside this however and returning to the original poster, while I take his point about not wanting to accept various wierd and wonderful feats and prestige classes from who-knows-how-many dodgy third party supplements I think his player has a valid point regarding the lack of options for interpersonal types. According to the core books a 'face' has five or six skills to choose from, some +2/+2 feats for those skills and the 'Leadership' feat once they get to 6th level.

Compared to what combat, magic and stealth specialists get its pretty thin and there's a case to be made for some more crunchy bits to support the niche. The upthread suggestion to look to D20 Modern for ideas is a good one I think, also Dynasties & Demagogues from Atlas' Penumbra line has a good selection of crunch for building intriguers/politicians. Ultimately you are the DM however and you get to decide how your world works in order to maximise fun for everyone.

Regards
Luke

 

[diaglo]

Not try. You can play D&D just fine with nothing more than the core books (PH, MM, DMG).

except of course you aren't playing real D&D.

We still roleplay. Our group (dating back to OD&D and 1e) has always been more into hack-n-slash than anything else, but we still find time to roleplay.

but you were playing real D&D.

 

[wedgeski]

The way I try to handle situations like this is by making interaction skill rolls a privilege rather than a right.

So, one of my PC's may well have squillions of ranks in Diplomacy, but he'd better roleplay the situation sufficiently to persuade me that a check is warranted. If he's trying to calm someone down, for example, he'd better at least get their attention and force them to listen to him before I'll let him roll. This follows for all players, expert diplomats or not.

There are a lot of skills and situations where this rule comes into play, and my group is pretty comfortable with it. It isn't perfect, but it works very well for us.

 

[Malk]

All i can say is that im glad that i have never played in a group that tended to say no to outside options, or had a dm who thought that i was a munchkin for wanting "cool powers"

That being said, yeah its your game and tell them that they can only play the base classes, they will either accept this and have a good time (more likely), or decided they dont want to play in said campaign and find something more to their liking (less likely)

 

[MarauderX]

The splat books and other sources with new feats, skills, PrCs, etc. are like drugs. Players find the one they like and go for it, becoming your new junkies. Now you the DM are the dealer in this market, giving and taking, nerfing and expanding, so you can give these players what they need to calm their shivers. The availability is up to you. The dosage is up to you. You have the power of DM/dealer, and the terf on this block is all yours. Are you gonna fold out of weakness to them or are you gonna make them suffer?

My suggestion is to take your players favorite drug/PrC that he wants to use and bring it back to your basement laboratory. Distill it, fiddle with it, bake it, and finally throw out a better product on the street that fits the bill for your terf. Does he like it? He doesn't have too; it's all that's out there. Did he have something better when he lived in LA? Perhaps, but this is your town, baby, and you are the king now. You get what I give ya, or nuthin' at all.

 

[Evil Eli]

All i can say is that im glad that i have never played in a group that tended to say no to outside options, or had a dm who thought that i was a munchkin for wanting "cool powers"

You got to learn to crawl before you can walk!