Issues with Social Skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate

[roguerouge]

One way to do this is to give out information based on the characters skills and attributes. When high-Int rogue asks about the trap, you tell him it is an overbalanced lever mechanism and that the springs look a little worn. When dumb sorcerer asks, you tell him it looks like a silly mechanical contraption. Both might get more info by further inquiries, but the rogue starts out way ahead. Adjusting perception to the character is also great fun once you start doing it.

It may work for your table, but I hate this system. I can't visualize three dimensional environments to save my life, even though I can visualize complex social and political interactions. I played a thief at a table that did this and it made my disabled trap skill worthless, as I had to tell the DM how I was going to disarm the trap before I could make the roll. So I basically told the party that there was a trap and walked out of range and let someone else figure it out. The DM was asking me to do something that I just CANNOT do. I was a good sport about it, but I definitely quit allocating resources to trap detection.

For the purposes of this thread, I wonder if the Player Skill advocates would require players who had social phobias, extreme shyness or stuttered to act out scenes before letting them roll their skill check. Because basically that says to the player: "I won't let you imagine yourself to be something you're not." And that goes against the BASIC appeal of the game for me.

 

[Ariosto]

For the purposes of this thread, I wonder if the Player Skill advocates would require players who had social phobias, extreme shyness or stuttered to act out scenes before letting them roll their skill check.

No more than I require a player to specify more than "I try to defeat the enemy" in a fight scene! But to the same extent? Why not?

Why are we at the table in the first place?

I am not a fan of these new D&D games with a "disabled trap skill". I much prefer the old game in which there are thief functions that give a character of that class an extra chance. When you choose a course of action that naturally has certain consequences, then I'm not going to call for a silly dice-roll. If you jump off a cliff, I don't check to see whether gravity has suddenly stopped working! That's the same when it's in your favor as when it's not.

Still and all, you are right that, to the extent we play a game that involves actual skill, actual lack of skill is going to have consequences. When playing a historical game, I am not guaranteed to make brilliant moves just because Napoleon or Rommel did. My figure in Super Metroid is a super soldier, but can still get killed on the basis of my joystick handling. That is the point of playing the game, as opposed to watching an automation play it.

If that bothers you, then such games may not be for you. I do not see how it follows that the rest of us must be deprived of them. How does it make any difference to your pastime how others elsewhere play?

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

For the purposes of this thread, I wonder if the Player Skill advocates would require players who had social phobias, extreme shyness or stuttered to act out scenes before letting them roll their skill check. Because basically that says to the player: "I won't let you imagine yourself to be something you're not." And that goes against the BASIC appeal of the game for me.

I love these kind of things personally, it gives more substance to characters and more fun to the role playing. I remember running a campaign in Ravenloft and one of my PC's failed a bunch of madness checks. Giving him some pretty nasty paranoias which he played out to perfection. It just depends on the DM and the players on how it all works out in the end. It can be great fun or a total disaster.

 

[roguerouge]

Players, not characters, dude.

 

[Celebrim]

No more than I require a player to specify more than "I try to defeat the enemy" in a fight scene! But to the same extent? Why not?

Why are we at the table in the first place?

I agree.

I require a player to choose the position of his character relative to a foe, and the path of movement he wishes to take, and the manuevers he wishes to attempt as implicit preconditions to the proposition, "I attack my foe."

What this means is that a player who is tactically challenged or spatially learning disabled, has some difficulty playing a character who is supposed to be a master tactician. Now, it may be that if the character has taken various advantages that give a bonus to the die that this at least partially mitigates the player's bad choices, and the character by dent of raw skill at combat might still be successful despite the player's bad choices, but the game is a meaningless simulation if the player is deprived of those choices. You might as well run it on a computer and watch the outcome for all the participation you are having.

Social skills are the same thing. Yes, it is true that someone with social phobias, extreme shyness or stuttering will have difficulty roleplaying someone who is socially gifted and sauve. It's also true that by virtue of the characters raw skill at diplomacy, bluffing, and what not, that the character may still succeed at this task if it is gamely attempted. In fact, the person with shyness, stuttering, poor body language and so forth has a far better chance of playing a socially adept character than the spatially challenged player has of playing a master tactician. This is because things like stuttering interfere only with the style of the message, not with its content. If the socially inept player delivers a speech with well thought out and wisely chosen content, the fact that he stuttered his way threw it should have no negative consequences on the in game outcome of the speech. The same is not true of making poor tactical decisions, which is a matter of substance and not only delivery.

The socially inept player is only required to make a brave attempt at playing his character. He doesn't actually have to be charismatic. He need only deliver well chosen content. Shyness isn't nearly as big of a barrier against playing a charismatic character as, to put it bluntly, being an anti-social jerk who can't even manage to pretend to be something other than continually insulting, angry, and offensive (to the NPC's). Once the socially inept player delivers a diplomatic message, his character through the power of the dice and a big bonus to your diplomacy skill transforms it into a stirring speech. The important thing is therefore the attempt to be diplomatic and consider the goals and feelings of the NPC.

As for why we are at the table, the answer obviously is to have fun. But I would suggest that there is a deeper level to RPing that goes beyond simply having fun. RPing is practice at life. The shy socially inept player who continually is forced to make brave attempts at communication may eventually find that not only does the task become easier in the game, but that that he himself has 'put points in diplomacy' and communication in real life becomes easier. Likewise, the spatially or math challenged player who spends time imagining spaces in his head so as to see the place where the most tactical advantage can be obtained may eventually find that his skills in map reading, geometry, and so forth have improved. I don't want to overstate the value of these things, because pretending to do something is no substitute in the long run for actually doing it, but speaking from personal experience I've seen players 'put skill points' in tasks that they had trouble with in real life and put those skills to real use in real situations latter. If I may say so, I believe that running tables as a game referee taught me small group leadership skills that served me well in other situations.

 

[lin_fusan]

For the purposes of this thread, I wonder if the Player Skill advocates would require players who had social phobias, extreme shyness or stuttered to act out scenes before letting them roll their skill check. Because basically that says to the player: "I won't let you imagine yourself to be something you're not." And that goes against the BASIC appeal of the game for me.

I think an attempt is a bare minimum.

There has been a couple of times where a player in my games would get flabbergasted or confused or just be at a lost at what to say, but at least they tried. They roll, and if they succeed, they'll get the slightly jokey-but-well-meaning NPC response, "Well, good sir, I well not know what you spoke, but never have I heard such honeyed tones come from our language. Please, sit, and tell me more about this mysterious creature called... a kumquat?"

But I think that's a little off topic. I hear what people are saying that there is a difference in player skill and character skill. I suppose that roleplaying games themselves require talking, interaction, and socializing, so we have different expectations of a character's social skills versus combat skills.

Here's another interesting angle. I find it difficult to play a "serious" character, a character with a dour, straight-to-the-point personality. And I figure that a DM would probably award roleplaying bonuses to a social skill roll if a player was funny, cracked jokes, and talked in a funny accent than if I had broken out in a version of Hamlet. So is that a roleplaying bonus or a stand up comedy bonus?

I am not a fan of these new D&D games with a "disabled trap skill". I much prefer the old game in which there are thief functions that give a character of that class an extra chance.

I thought OD&D had thief percentages skills, and they were the only ones that could disable a trap. (I can't remember if that's true. I don't have any of my 1ed books anymore. Why did I give them away?!)

 

[roguerouge]

No more than I require a player to specify more than "I try to defeat the enemy" in a fight scene! But to the same extent? Why not?

Why are we at the table in the first place?

[snip]

If that bothers you, then such games may not be for you. I do not see how it follows that the rest of us must be deprived of them. How does it make any difference to your pastime how others elsewhere play?

First, please avoid straw man arguments. I'm not claiming that you make a roll for the presence of gravity, so please don't imply that I do. (Although, note, that you do roll d6s to determine how badly the fall hurts and reflex saves to see if you avoid some of that random damage. Unless you let your PCs subtract damage based on how well they can describe a leap to safety or grabbing onto a branch?) Nor do I claim or imply that you should be deprived of anything, so the fact that you think that I am indicates that my argument threatens you. Why is that?

Second, you ask why are we at a table? So we can pretend to be things that we're not: wizards, master swordsmen, cunning thieves and charismatic conmen. But the success of my spell is not determined by my description of it, the success of my sword swing is not determined by my skill at boffer weapons and my ability to backstab is not based on whether I wore sneakers or clown shoes to the gaming table. But, for some reason, you want success at diplomacy, bullying and bluffing to be based on my personal ability to improvise dialogue rather than on my ability to make choices for my character and roll d20s.

Evidently, we're at the table to imagine and pretend... except when it comes to social skills.

I have ten years of experience at public speaking. I don't think it's just for me to have more than a +2 circumstance bonus due to my taking advantage of that fact at a gaming table and giving a good performance. I certainly shouldn't be able to ignore my character's abilities and his established history at the drop of the hat... and be praised for it.

 

[roguerouge]

As for why we are at the table, the answer obviously is to have fun. But I would suggest that there is a deeper level to RPing that goes beyond simply having fun. RPing is practice at life. The shy socially inept player who continually is forced to make brave attempts at communication may eventually find that not only does the task become easier in the game, but that that he himself has 'put points in diplomacy' and communication in real life becomes easier.

Yes, and that may be why they chose to create that particular fiction, but learning real life skills is a much more gradual process than that and it's one based on sustained and consistent positive reinforcement unlikely to occur if the player keeps failing at social interactions due to a lack of real world verbal skill. "Forcing" someone is not the best educational method and, when it is, it's almost never fun. Ask any child star with a stage mom.

 

[Celebrim]

Yes, and that may be why they chose to create that particular fiction, but learning real life skills is a much more gradual process than that and it's one based on sustained and consistent positive reinforcement...

I can't answer that statement without I think entering into the culture wars and treading on areas that will become angry and political.

Suffice to say that I think positive reinforcement is just a very small part of the learning experience, and that the most important positive reinforcement is the internal feeling of accomplishment having nothing to do with external reinforcement.

However, what I can say without turning this from a specific debate about what is required from a player proposition to a general debate on education and the raising of children, is that your response is an over the top extreme reaction from what I actually said. You have decided to get all stuck on the notion of 'force' as if I was advocating screaming at the player, or belittling the player, or maybe even violence. This is not at all the case.

It is not too much to demand of a player that they interact directly with the shared imaginary space. They have implicitly agreed to do so by playing an RPG. If I must force someone to state their propositions in the form of direct manipulation of the shared imaginary space, then so be it. As a stuttering shy 12 year old, I was forced by one of my first DM's (and perhaps the one that was most influential on me) to rephrase my propositions from the abstract third person to the concrete first person, and for maybe 30 seconds there was a bit of panic and embarassment, but I've never ever ever resented that DM for correcting me and prompting me to play correctly. My games became better and more enjoyable, not only the games I was participating in as a player, but those I was running as the game referee.

There has been much talk of 'subjective' vs 'objective' gaming experiences and generally I find such talk about a recreational pasttime to be stupid, but if there is one part of the experience of roleplaying games which I would defend as an objectively a better way to play than the alternative, it is this one. And the reason I think I can state that it is objectively better is that 100% of players I've met prefer the DM to describe the imaginary space in a concrete, descriptive, cinematic fashion as what they are experiencing. I've never met the player that believes the DM is playing better by giving flat rules centered descriptions and giving simple summaries of what NPC's say as opposed to actually role playing the NPC and describing his actions and the imaginary space. I'm not saying it isn't impossible to over do it to the point that it becomes a 'DM cut scene' (but even those can be fun occassionally) with no PC interaction, but as a general rule no PC actually likes his DM to act in the way that some are advocating player's should act. Players want their DM to be 'good storytelling DM's'. And if anything what people enjoys can be counted as a fact, then that is a fact.

Yes, if you the DM percieve that a player has particular social problems, then you should as gently and as compassionately and with the greatest understanding guide a player through the act of role playing demanding perhaps less than you would of a more experienced and less novice player, but ultimately if the player is having trouble role playing you still should force them to do so. As I said, what's important is the brave attempt - not that you are completely smooth goIt's not like I'm advocating threats or belittlement of a player with poor social skills. But everyone, including ultimately the player, is going to prefer it the long run.

And again, if the DM is stuttering, socially inept, and unable to communicate, no one is going to cut the DM as much slack as I'm advocating the referee cut a player. Or even if they did cut the DM slack, they'd still recognize the DM as being more skilled if he didn't.

 

[Janx]

For the purposes of this thread, I wonder if the Player Skill advocates would require players who had social phobias, extreme shyness or stuttered to act out scenes before letting them roll their skill check. Because basically that says to the player: "I won't let you imagine yourself to be something you're not." And that goes against the BASIC appeal of the game for me.

You make good points. If you shouldn't need to "have" the skill to play a PC with that skill, as it defeats the point.

One of the concepts that I've always felt was fuzzy, was whether "roleplaying" meant playing a role as in function in the party (like fighter) or if it meant playing a personality.

I think concepts like alignment were implying that you were supposed to pick how your PC acted in a personality way (albeit, simplistically). Some of us got a bit more complex and created complex and varying personalities for our PCs.

The game doesn't explicitly ask or reward this behavior, except in the form of alignment change penalties.

The game also doesn't give any guidance or regulation as to how to act out your Charisma. How are you supposed to act out CHA8, or CHA16? How do we know that you are NOT acting correctly? BTW, I using "acting" in the thespian sense, as in protrayal of a character.

What this gets down to, is from a mechanical sense, what you as a player actually say has no mechanical support in the rules, except in establishing the intent of your PC. Essentially, regardless of how eloquent you were, the GM should establish what you want from the NPC and go by the roll of the dice. Because there are no rules to abjudicate your acting ability.

As a GM and player, I don't like that interpretation. I like it when players portray their characters, and dislike it when they treat it as a pile of stats. Doing it this way, just means the "thespians" at the table are adding a bit of flavor to the table talk, but nothing else.

This ties it to what rougerogue is saying, because a non-acting/social player would be following the RAW by resolving it with just mechanics. It would let them play a social PC.

If you want to encourage "proper" protrayal of character, you'll need some rules to help encourage and regulate it.