Let's talk about "plot", "story", and "play to find out."

[Micah Sweet]

It is not the same. It has zero stakes and zero social or psychological pressure.

It is very easy in a roleplayed situation to resist all attempts at persuasion, to agree to a wild course of action, to escalate your efforts until the other side capitulates, to refuse to budge one iota against determined opposition. It is very different to do these things in real life when you don't know the real consequences of those actions, including how other people will perceive you either in the moment or later.

It feels more like 'you're really doing it' because you're using the same essential tool (conversation) but that perception is an illusion because the inputs and outputs are all wrong.

So you'd rather have mechanics that artificially simulate the stressors of high stakes conversations than engage in actual conversation that necessarily lacks such stakes? That's fair, but either choice is a subjective one.

 

[soviet]

So you'd rather have mechanics that artificially simulate the stressors of high stakes conversations than engage in actual conversation that necessarily lacks such stakes? That's fair, but either choice is a subjective one.

What? You leaped several stages ahead there.

No. I like to play these things out at the table. I just reject the idea that playing it out simulates the real thing in some way. I normally pair the conversation with a dice roll for resolution (or more than one dice roll if it's a complex situation).

In the same way as I will resolve combat or the like - there's no saying 'I attack' on my watch. Describe what you do, maybe we'll do a back and forth, then we'll roll. I may give a bonus or a penalty depending on how much sense that action description makes, or how clever it is.

 

[Campbell]

So you'd rather have mechanics that artificially simulate the stressors of high stakes conversations than engage in actual conversation that necessarily lacks such stakes? That's fair, but either choice is a subjective one.

I embrace the power of "and" here. Of course, it's subjective which is why I find addressing which tools we opt to use solely through the lens of necessity silly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What? You leaped several stages ahead there.

No. I like to play these things out at the table. I just reject the idea that playing it out simulates the real thing in some way. I normally pair the conversation with a dice roll for resolution (or more than one dice roll if it's a complex situation).

In the same way as I will resolve combat or the like - there's no saying 'I attack' on my watch. Describe what you do, maybe we'll do a back and forth, then we'll roll. I may give a bonus or a penalty depending on how much sense that action description makes, or how clever it is.

What do you do if someone says, "I attack", and is uncomfortable with being more specific, or can't think of anything more interesting than, "I swing my weapon at it"?

 

[soviet]

What do you do if someone says, "I attack", and is uncomfortable with being more specific, or can't think of anything more interesting than, "I swing my weapon at it"?

I don't play with them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't play with them.

Good for you. Not all of us have the option to fine-tune our gaming group that way, usually because some or all of them are friends and/or family.

 

[soviet]

Good for you. Not all of us have the option to fine-tune our gaming group that way, usually because some or all of them are friends and/or family.

My play group are just my friends. They're all smart, creative people, but then most people in this hobby are. 'Uhh I attack' is learned behaviour.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My play group are just my friends. They're all smart, creative people, but then most people in this hobby are. 'Uhh I attack' is learned behaviour.

C'mon! How is that not an attack on an assumed bad GM you likely haven't even met? There are plenty of reasons that a person doesn't have the desire to provide flourid answers to your insistence for more attack description.

 

[soviet]

C'mon! How is that not an attack on an assumed bad GM you likely haven't even met? There are plenty of reasons that a person doesn't have the desire to provide flourid answers to your insistence for more attack description.

What? Do you not understand that I am the GM in this imagined situation?

If players don't have the desire to say anything beyond 'I attack' or 'I roll diplomacy' then I don't have the desire to play with them. Fortunately, no-one I've ever played with has been unable to add something more.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It is not the same. It has zero stakes and zero social or psychological pressure.

It is very easy in a roleplayed situation to resist all attempts at persuasion, to agree to a wild course of action, to escalate your efforts until the other side capitulates, to refuse to budge one iota against determined opposition. It is very different to do these things in real life when you don't know the real consequences of those actions, including how other people will perceive you either in the moment or later.

It feels more like 'you're really doing it' because you're using the same essential tool (conversation) but that perception is an illusion because the inputs and outputs are all wrong.

Frankly, to me this comes across as poor immersion. You should care about what your character cares about and you should feel the pressure. Should act the conversation and the other players and the GM should too, and that creates real pressure. And yeah, it is not the same than the real situation just like a LARP fight with padded weapons is not the same than a real fight with real weapons, but it still gets your adrenaline going for real.

And I am pretty sceptical about rules being add to the realness here. A rule telling me what my character should feel doesn't make me feel it if the fiction already doesn't. Like that is what I don't get about arguments like yours. If to you the situation portayed in the fiction does't feel real, how the hell will adding some rules help? Like if the words spoken by the NPC that the GM portrays doesn't convince you as you are immersed in the point of view of your chracter, how the rules saying that they rolled high on their check and now your chracter should believe their argument would make you feel any different?

And I am not opposed to using some very light and unintrusive rules for social situations, but that certainly is an are of RPG play which needs the rules the least.