D&D (2024) Influence Action

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not sure I understand the argument that these rules don't take the fiction into account and don't require strategy. The rules literally say you can't convince someone to do something against their alignment. To convince someone to do something, you have to suss out their alignment and then strategically present your argument in a way that doesn't contradict the tenets of that alignment.

Not only does this rule require investigation and strategy to employ to full effect, but it actually gives alignments a meaningful mechanical purpose in the game.

Also, Advantage and Disadvantage both exist, so the DM already has at least one well-defined tool for adjusting skill checks with flat DCs based on extenuating circumstances.

Well, you see, the DC is 15....

and that is the entire argument.

 

[Shardstone]

Arguing about the dc is so pedantic. The designers tell us rules are guidelines. This isnt some fallacy, some of yall just seem to want a rulebook that holds your hand and runs the game for you. The book is not the dm. You are the dm.

 

[Xeviat]

To those that want broader rules for the Influence action, what would you want to see? I imagine DCs based on how big of an ask you're making (DC 10 for something that will cost them nothing, DC 15 for something that will cost them little, and DC 20 for something that will cost them much). "Nothing, "little", and "much" are relative; a friendly person might consider taking personal risk by joining you on your adventure is only "much", while a greedy merchant might consider 1 gp to be "much".

Then you get advantage if they're friendly and disadvantage if they're unfriendly. Further adjustments to the DCs or check bonus could be spelled out on a little table (like attempting to Intimidate a cowardly person or a brave person could come with modifiers, the table could even have a random roll for random NPCs; is that guard a true believer or are they just there for the job?).

Now this makes me want to add a Virtue/Vice or Ideal/Flaw system for little personality benefits/penalties for players...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Arguing about the dc is so pedantic. The designers tell us rules are guidelines. This isnt some fallacy, some of yall just seem to want a rulebook that holds your hand and runs the game for you. The book is not the dm. You are the dm.

Nah. I want a book which provides an interesting mechanical structure that players (and, ideally, also DMs) have to genuinely wrestle with. One that cannot be reduced to a mere calculation, instead needing an actual value-judgment to determine the best path forward. This is a perfectly achievable design goal.

"DC 15" plus "DM says" is not that. It is perfectly fine (nearly always required, I'd say) that the DM exercise discernment and human reasoning, not just brute calculation, for an actually engaging mechanical structure. The best game mechanics cannot be translated to a mere computer crunching numbers (just look at how terrible computer players are at strategy games). This does not, in any way, mean that it is good or helpful to completely eliminate mechanics so that the only "mechanic" left, if you can even call it that, is "DM says."

 

[Shardstone]

Nah. I want a book which provides an interesting mechanical structure that players (and, ideally, also DMs) have to genuinely wrestle with. One that cannot be reduced to a mere calculation, instead needing an actual value-judgment to determine the best path forward. This is a perfectly achievable design goal.

"DC 15" plus "DM says" is not that. It is perfectly fine (nearly always required, I'd say) that the DM exercise discernment and human reasoning, not just brute calculation, for an actually engaging mechanical structure. The best game mechanics cannot be translated to a mere computer crunching numbers (just look at how terrible computer players are at strategy games). This does not, in any way, mean that it is good or helpful to completely eliminate mechanics so that the only "mechanic" left, if you can even call it that, is "DM says."

You want a book that has 600 pages in it and subsystems that are fun but niche. I respect it but this kind of naive idealism needs to be balanced with realistic game design. Not every system will be as heavy as combat, because it would slow down the game and essentially feel as if several different games are taking place across one campaign. Thats valid, but not the design goals of 5e.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Nah. I want a book which provides an interesting mechanical structure that players (and, ideally, also DMs) have to genuinely wrestle with. One that cannot be reduced to a mere calculation, instead needing an actual value-judgment to determine the best path forward. This is a perfectly achievable design goal.

I don't know what this means. Do you want a social combat system with "social hit points" and such? That would be a more mechanical structure, but still be a "mere calculation".

Do you want the Fate system? That could be interesting... but DnD isn't designed like Fate. And other than just porting an entire subsystem from Fate into this, I don't see how you achieve that.

"DC 15" plus "DM says" is not that. It is perfectly fine (nearly always required, I'd say) that the DM exercise discernment and human reasoning, not just brute calculation, for an actually engaging mechanical structure. The best game mechanics cannot be translated to a mere computer crunching numbers (just look at how terrible computer players are at strategy games). This does not, in any way, mean that it is good or helpful to completely eliminate mechanics so that the only "mechanic" left, if you can even call it that, is "DM says."

Sure, but here is the second side of the problem.

DnD players are pedants. The more "human reasoning" you allow for, the more "Well, actually, RAW says...." you get from players who are acting either toxically or in bad faith, see conversation on Stealth and Invisibility. Or the insistence in this thread that, because the rules don't say, NOTHING can change this DC 15 to anything else.

Designers don't just make rules. They make rules for the community they have. And this community long ago decided on a path that would tear apart rules that are not robust like computer code.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You want a book that has 600 pages in it and subsystems that are fun but niche.

Nope! You can design flexible rules which adapt to situations. They will, necessarily, be at least somewhat abstract as a result. All rules are abstract to some degree (the map is not the territory), so this in and of itself is nothing unusual.

Escaping the trap of one discrete rule for everything and everything having its discrete rule was the second biggest design lesson of 3rd edition's mistakes, after "don't use pure RP restrictions for major in-game power, because that WILL be abused."

I respect it but this kind of naive idealism needs to be balanced with realistic game design.

It is only naive if you insert the requirement that everything have its own discrete rule. I don't do that, and it is your interpolation to think I said it.

Not every system will be as heavy as combat,

I don't want it to be as HEAVY as combat. I just want it to actually have rules that are worth engaging with, rather than literally not having any content beyond "DM says." Because that isn't a game, unless you think mind games qualify (I don't believe you do, to be clear). I prefer not to think of other people as tools to be manipulated for my ends.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't know what this means. Do you want a social combat system with "social hit points" and such? That would be a more mechanical structure, but still be a "mere calculation".

For a different system, perhaps. Not for D&D. At one time I did want such a thing. I have decided it is too controversial and unlikely to be effective at the goals it would need to meet.

Skill Challenges are a decent start. They aren't quite enough, but they're the foundation of something really quite good if we continue iterating on the design.

Allow me to give a combat specific example of what I mean, since those rules already exist. Imagine you have two classes, Warrior and Dervish. Warriors and Dervishes generally do the same kinds of things (hitting stuff with weapons, surviving hits from enemies, etc.), and they make the same number of attacks per round. In Playtest Q, Warriors get +1d6 bonus damage on each hit, while Dervishes get +4 damage per attack, hit or miss. Prior to Playtest Q, their damage output was essentially equivalent. Clearly, in this context, the calculation indicates Dervish is just better than Warrior. There is no comparison; +4 guaranteed damage on every attack, hit or miss, is clearly superior to +3.5 average damage only when hitting. This is not interesting gameplay. It is a dull, rote mechanical calculation.

We can do similar things with other stuff, even real actual rules. Like 3.X's Full Attack action for "martial" characters. Quantitatively, there is no contest, you should always Full Attack if you're able as a Fighter or Barbarian etc. Nothing else even comes close. But this produces incredibly dull, static fights where people just stand there whaling on each other. The Spheres of Might rules supplement for Pathfinder 1e addresses these issues by creating Special Attack Actions (SAA), which cannot be used in a Full Attack, but which can—note the word "can"!—be good enough that you'd choose not to Full Attack. This was very intentional design; the Spheres of Might rules actually make combats both more dynamic (because people can move around, so they should!), and more tactically engaging, because now you can have two or more different SAAs, alongside the old reliable Full Attack.

Now, as noted, I don't want "social combat," so the specific details here are not relevant, only the overall thrust of having options that must be weighed against one another for what they are and how they work, not their brute numeric size. The nature of "DM says" inherently runs counter to this, because it is DMs approving or disapproving of player proposals, rather than the players trying to solve the metaphorical "puzzle" before them with understood, usable tools. At best, "DM says" is about convincing the DM to let you use your biggest bonus every time (a complaint people really do make even about 5e!)

A system like Skill Challenges, with "utility" actions players have access to that actually interface with those rules a little bit, would do wonders here. E.g. an action that lets you take a risk (increase DC maybe? Or roll with disadvantage?) to potentially get two successes instead of one with certain skills. An action that lets you give up your turn to allow an ally to reroll their failed check under certain circumstances. Of course, these would need limits and testing (you most assuredly know by now how much of a fan I am of testing and statistical analysis of new rules), but you can see how these don't have to be massively complex to still be engaging as a gameplay exercise in a way "DM says" is not and cannot be.

Do you want the Fate system? That could be interesting... but DnD isn't designed like Fate. And other than just porting an entire subsystem from Fate into this, I don't see how you achieve that.

I don't think so? I have very little experience with Fate so I can't really respond to that.

Sure, but here is the second side of the problem.

DnD players are pedants. The more "human reasoning" you allow for, the more "Well, actually, RAW says...." you get from players who are acting either toxically or in bad faith, see conversation on Stealth and Invisibility. Or the insistence in this thread that, because the rules don't say, NOTHING can change this DC 15 to anything else.

Designers don't just make rules. They make rules for the community they have. And this community long ago decided on a path that would tear apart rules that are not robust like computer code.

Only if you force every rule to be a discrete, individual rule for every single situation. Abstractions allow us to cover an infinite variety in finite space, and with some of the improvements the community developed (e.g. the "Obsidian" SC system), they truly sing already—assuming a creative DM, of course, but this thread has already told me that that assumption is mandatory anyway, so it is safe to make. Just a little bit more, and it would be golden.

And, note, I'm not saying this should replace literally all possible skill usage ever. Personally, I'm of the opinion that we need a combat equivalent of "just a couple skill checks" (I refer to this as "skirmish" rules) that can still have some sting, but which can be resolved in 5, maybe 10 minutes at absolute most. That way, when all you really need is one single skill check, you have it. But for things like "negotiate with the Queen" or "navigate this dense forest", you also have rules that turn that into an interactive and interesting gameplay experience. And, likewise, you have rules for complex and challenging combat scenarios, "set pieces" where the point is to enjoy the combat for its own sake, AND rules for "literally just fighting four goblins in a room" where the point is to make an obstacle, not a challenge that is engaging in and of itself.

These rules are not some pie in the sky pipe dream. They are not transforming D&D into a radically different game, nor stapling a different game on top of the existing one. They are, at least in my not-so-humble opinion, making the game actually deliver on its promise of being an engaging roleplaying game of exploration, socialization, and discovery, as opposed to a combat game that also involves begging the DM to approve your roleplay proposals.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Nah. I want a book which provides an interesting mechanical structure that players (and, ideally, also DMs) have to genuinely wrestle with. One that cannot be reduced to a mere calculation, instead needing an actual value-judgment to determine the best path forward. This is a perfectly achievable design goal.

"DC 15" plus "DM says" is not that. It is perfectly fine (nearly always required, I'd say) that the DM exercise discernment and human reasoning, not just brute calculation, for an actually engaging mechanical structure. The best game mechanics cannot be translated to a mere computer crunching numbers (just look at how terrible computer players are at strategy games). This does not, in any way, mean that it is good or helpful to completely eliminate mechanics so that the only "mechanic" left, if you can even call it that, is "DM says."

I honestly don't think D&D players as a whole are willing/capable of accepting social outcomes/stakes that this would require. It's going to be "nuh uh, my guy would never be tricked/intimidated/whatever". People couldn't even understand how Come and Get it was an abstraction of something done in basically every action movie. The v-tude crowd's brains would melt at "social combat".

D&D is the game of power fantasy/monster butt kicking. That's the one thing it does well, and that's why people play it. I feel the other stuff is just a diversion on the way to the fireworks factory (combat) for most people.

 

[Scribe]

D&D is the game of power fantasy/monster butt kicking. That's the one thing it does well, and that's why people play it. I feel the other stuff is just a diversion on the way to the fireworks factory (combat) for most people.