D&D General "I roll Persuasion."

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah, everyone is having fun (in theory) but the point is that the current system either has us resolve this by fiat (which the DM may decide does not fall on the side of the players) or by a single roll, which is incredibly swingy.

right and I would love a more indepth system.

in fact if the designers of 6e (who ever when ever) took the same 3 pillars 5e has, and figured they want 50% of the book/rules/playtest time to handle combat and 30% exploration and 20% social I would explode with joy.

(I actually think useing the key words we had in 4e for combat roles we could asign roles for exploration and social... and like the (well made) 4e classes not make them a straight jacket but a guide stone)

And I want to bring up that a lot of people are correct in that we have a lot of experience IRL with debates and social situations. And a lot of that comes to "But I made a good argument so they should agree with me!" And if the DM fiat rules they don't agree with your arguments, because they do not think the person being argued with would find them convincing, then they need to turn to the system. And a social combat system has the advantage of flattening the RNG and bringing in more people and more thoughtful approaches than a single die roll.

exactly... if I sit down and make star lord form the movies (loveable goofey idiot) and the DM doesn't think challenging a BBEG to a dance off would delay them by a round... It just wont work

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Sorry if that's where people are coming from, I missed it. I saw denigrating posts mocking some posters for apparently not having a consistent viewpoint, and didn't realize the goal of doing this was to design new houserules.

I don't think it is to make a new house rule, I think it is to put out into the zeitgeist of DnD peeps the idea and discus the pros and cons (I may be wrong I am not the op) BUT saying "there is no such rule" isn't really something that has any meaning in a talk about a theoretical new rule/idea...

 

[FrozenNorth]

For the occasional major social encounter, I have been using a modified PF2 system. Here are the key points of the system I use.

1. Gradients of success
A social combat is never pass/fail. I aim for 4 levels (critical fail, fail, success and critical success), but sometimes I settle for 3 levels. I make liberal use of failing forward, so even if the characters are hapless, the adventure doesn’t come to a dead stop.

2. The “duration” of the social encounter is fixed
“Duration” is in quotes because it doesn’t represent a temporal duration. After a certain amount of rounds, neither side is going to convince the other and the encounter ends. Depending on party size, this is often 3 or 4 “rounds”.

3. Points accrual system
In essence, during the 4 “rounds”, each party member describes what actions they are taking or arguments they are making to succeed. Actions can be automatic failures (I attempt to intimidate the archfey), automatic successes (I sweeten our offer by voluteering to tutor the prince) or a roll (I bring up our past heroic deeds). Successes accrue points towards gradients of success, failures are ignored.

One element that I will confess to being a hard-ass about is that passing your turn nets you no points and does not give more eloquent party members more actions. If you want your stone-faced barbarian to opt out of social encounters, fine, but neither the system nor the DM will reward you for it.

4. Flexibility
I am mindful to be flexible in multiple ways. First, always be open to ideas or rolls that you didn’t think of. The battle-weary party stumbled upon a dao in a castle and was invited to a feast. The artificer remembered that they had been at a ball weeks ago and still had the clothes. He excused himself, changed and returned dressed to the nines. Automatic success (plus inspiration!).

A second way to be flexible is to consider how different skills, but also backgrounds, powers and spells can influence the encounter. Sure, Insight, Deception and Persuasion have obvious applications, but invoking your Soldier background with a warrior might be even more successful. Use your Urchin background to empathize with an NPC who grew up on the streets.

Third, be flexible in designing the encounter to keep it fresh. Maybe certain skills don’t give points but open up the use of different skills, or give bonuses to future skills. Maybe certain skills stop working if you use them too much so you can’t spam Persuasion. Maybe halfway through, a third party appears that changes the nature of the encounter.

5. The end
At the end of the X rounds, tally up the points. Compare it to your gradients of success and let the party reap their reward.

Overall, I have found this approach to work for me.

 

[Reynard]

It's because there're mechanics involved... the use of a spell slot and an action to cast the spell, the targeting of a character, a saving throw... all clear and understandable rules that make it easier for the player to understand and accept the results. I fail my save, bad thing happens.

Not to say that social complexities are as easily mapped to such a system, but there is at least the invoking of rules in that regard. If this kind of thing were to be expanded to skills such as Persuasion or Bluff, then we'd need some kind of similar mechanics that would substitute.

Yes. That's the point of the thread.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Well, far be it from me to defend BIFTs overall, but I expect the reason they're ignored so often isn't that they create caricatures so much as because the actual rules involved are minimal. There's very little to them that connects them to the rest of the game, and as such, they're often treated as roleplaying suggestions, at most. In that regard, I really don't see them as being significantly different from Alignment.

If instead these things had actual impact on play in some way... if the rules were not partitioned off but instead integrated along with the other systems of play... it would all be more meaningful. How to do that (or something like it) within the overall rules structure of 5E is the question, really.

in theory if I had 1,000 extra hours (and don't be fooled I already spend too many on this) world building and I made a few dozen custom backgrounds with custom ties to the setting... it might work better.

My first surprise with Bond and Flaw was I couldn't have a family farm that needs protecting as my bond and an enemy as the flaw... (things that would tie into the game and the world)

 

[tetrasodium]

that does sound amazing...

Best part for us not running fate (since this is kind if a d&d discussion) is that fate is lightweight flexible & fast enough to run the whole bleeping system behind the gm screen while running d&d and come off looking like a twelve dimensional chess grandmaster who planned the finale last year and somehow mind controlled the group into doing exactly what you needed while making them think thru had total control over where they went in the sandbox the whole time without noticing you push them or getting frustrated when they did that completely unexpected thing midway through.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I see where they are coming from, a lot of the flaws and such are just... incredibly extreme. For example, Outlander #3 is "I remember every insult I've ever received and nurse a silent resentment toward anyone whose ever wronged me." Now, this is both very specific, it doesn't actually give me anything except remembering insults and resenting people, but also incredibly vague.

Is this character just constantly brooding over every insult they've received since childhood? Let's say that they encounter someone who they have resented... do they just sit there silently resenting them?

If this was instead something far more broad like "I'm vindictive and always get even." THEN I've got something to work with and it applies far more broadly into roleplay.

Or you get Noble Flaw #5 "In fact, the world does revolve around me." It is a silly way to phrase it, so if taken literally.. you think you random adventuring noble are more important than the Emperor? You can have an inflated ego without being a caricature, but this incentivizes making a caricature, because that's what it says.

I basically never used BIFT's as written and constantly just write my own things in those spaces. I've never found more than like... 10 of those entries useful in any manner. Especially considering how many of them are just "I'm a drunken hedonist" or "I'm a violent sociopath"

I don't mind them in general... I like that something like the Outlander 3 one you mention is open enough to be interpreted more than one way. I think that gives each person a way to play it instead of it always manifesting in the same way. Maybe one character is vindictive and always gets even, maybe another bottles it up and vents it in other ways.

I do agree with you that players should not be limited to the options that are offered by the Backgrounds by default. I love when players come up with their own BIFTs.

My issue isn't with the general lists or with going off list and making one's own... my issue is that the rules are so blah.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I disagree with this. We know from both real life personal experience as well as many scientific studies that people succumb to pressure and persuasion. That's just how people work.

I agree with the conclusion but not the argument. To put it differently, if there is no chance the NPC will change their mind, there is no need for social combat. This is like asking the DM for the DC to jump to the moon, or trying to defeat an adult dragon while unarmored and unarmed.

If we are using a social encounter system, it is because there is a chance the party will have a successful outcome. The question is how do we extend this to something beyond “I roll Persuasion”.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yes. That's the point of the thread.

Yeah, I know.... I wasn't challenging you. But you did say you wondered why players commonly accept magic as a reason they lose total control of their character. So, I was offering you a take on that.

Then, I connected that point back to the main idea of the thread.

 

[hawkeyefan]

in theory if I had 1,000 extra hours (and don't be fooled I already spend too many on this) world building and I made a few dozen custom backgrounds with custom ties to the setting... it might work better.

My first surprise with Bond and Flaw was I couldn't have a family farm that needs protecting as my bond and an enemy as the flaw... (things that would tie into the game and the world)

Wait, why not? Those sound like pretty cool ideas to me.