Mike Mearls on Social Encounters

[Irda Ranger]

NPC: Your astute observations and deep insight into my character mean nothing to me! I refuse to give up!

Heh. Amusing.

But Social Encounter mechanics are not mind control. Just like you can't use Diplo to mind-control the crime lord in mearls' example, if you tell someone that "Soylent Green is people!", that's going to effect their actions regardless of how well you deliver the line. Basic facts are basic facts; and the Social Skills are really about trying to influence emotional states.

It's a fuzzy line, admittedly, but as a DM I think if the PCs presented rock solid evidence of some fact meaningful to the NPCs, this would cause them to take a reasonable course of action. Social Skills might only effect how they feel about the PC who brought these facts to their attention ("Thank you for telling me the truth about my father!" vs. "You bastard, you've ruined my family!"). And even that is subject to the NPC's personality and general demeanor.

 

[grimslade]

Let me monkey with your example a bit:

But on the other hand, I don't want to see the social encounter system push and shove around roleplaying.

Character 1: You should give yourself up, NPC. (diplomacy roll: 1.) A bit of dust blows into your eye causing it to twitch and look like a lewd wink

NPC: Never!

Character 1: But think of what you are putting your wife and child through by resisting! After all, you did this all for them, am I right? (Diplomacy Roll: 1.) That dust in your eye is driving you nuts. Your tone slips into patronizing.

NPC: Your astute observations and deep insight into my character mean nothing to me! I refuse to give up!

Character 1: But, the truth of the situation is, according to these documents we have uncovered, (which I show you now and are quite convincing and their veracity is obvious to even you) using that artifact you are threatening us with will actually have the opposite effect! You will actually do the reverse of what you wanted! Plus, it is clear the DM is trying to play you as simply desperate and not stupid, suicidal or insane! (Diplomacy Roll: 1.)
In addition to the eye twitch, you are now sweating and openly weeping. You exude nervousness, irritation and lack of conviction.

NPC: I must continue to resist because you're creeping me out!

Character 2: Put down the artifact or, I'll... um... scowl at you. (Intimidation Roll: 20.) The dust in your eye has given it a swollen and red look. It bulges out and looks like a formorian death gaze. You are truly frightening.

NPC: Oh, I cannot hope to stand against your intimidating scowl. I give up.

Not to mention that there would be tremendous circumstance bonuses involved for all of those rolls and most likely a low DC. Also, 1 is not an automatic failure in skill checks.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Just like you can't use Diplo to mind-control the crime lord in mearls' example, if you tell someone that "Soylent Green is people!", that's going to effect their actions regardless of how well you deliver the line. Basic facts are basic facts; and the Social Skills are really about trying to influence emotional states.

Discussions of the Gleemax TOU seem to imply that, even when basic facts are pointed out, people's emotional states will cause them to believe otherwise. After quoting the section of the TOU that say, quite clearly, that you grant Wizards the right to trademark, copyright, patent, etc., anything you post there, there are still responses that say that the TOU do not say what they say (apparently including the quoted part).

Poster 1: You should give serious thought to these TOU, Poster 2. (diplomacy roll: 1.)

Poster 2: Never!

Poster 1: But think of what liabilities you are risking by agreeing to them! After all, you can still post on EN World without the same risks, am I right? (Diplomacy Roll: 1.)

Poster 2: Your astute observations mean nothing to me! I refuse to examine the TOU!

Poster 1: But, the truth of the situation is, according to the TOU, which I will quote for you and link to you, that once you post something on Gleemax you have given WotC the right to trademark, patent, and/or copyright it, and to sell or sublicense those trademarks, patents, and/or copyrights. If WotC (or their sublicensees) uses material that you posted which was third party material (for example, running a Goodman Games module on the digital game table), you become liable for all WotC's legal costs, as well as any royalties or awards arising from WotC's usage of that material. Moreover, there is no way to challenge WotC according to these TOU if you believe they are being used unfairly! You cannot revoke them, and both the rights they grant WotC and the liability they give you are permanent! Plus, it is clear that you are not stupid, suicidal or insane! (Diplomacy Roll: 1.)

Poster 2: I must continue to resist because of your bad rolls! I will also insult you and ask that you stop pointing out this problem!​

Actually, on further examination, I think that this sort of mechanic would accurately simulate the vast majority of human social interactions.

RC

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Robin Laws' excellent Dying Earth RPG placed social conflict on an equal footing with combat, mechanically speaking, and emphasized it moresore in the game's theme.

Of course, as sweet as the game is, its mechanics differ from d20 enough to give one pause before attempting a conversion.

Persoanlly, while I see the need for some mechanical representation of a character's social skills, I've found that abstract systems are preferable.

 

[med stud]

To Raduin711: I could imagine why the Diplomacy rolls fails.


Character 1: You should give yourself up, NPC. (diplomacy roll: 1.)

NPC: Never! (This one is easy)

Character 1: But think of what you are putting your wife and child through by resisting! After all, you did this all for them, am I right? (Diplomacy Roll: 1.)

NPC: Your astute observations and deep insight into my character mean nothing to me! I refuse to give up! (The NPC might think the PCs want him to give up so that they could kill him when he is unarmed, for example)

Character 1: But, the truth of the situation is, according to these documents we have uncovered, (which I show you now and are quite convincing and their veracity is obvious to even you) using that artifact you are threatening us with will actually have the opposite effect! You will actually do the reverse of what you wanted! Plus, it is clear the DM is trying to play you as simply desperate and not stupid, suicidal or insane! (Diplomacy Roll: 1.)

NPC: I must continue to resist because of your bad rolls! (In his desperation he simply refuses to acknowledge the documents and the PC, due to his low rolls, comes across as so untrustworthy that the NPC becomes very certain in his view that he is being tricked)

Character 2: Put down the artifact or, I'll... um... scowl at you. (Intimidation Roll: 20.)

NPC: Oh, I cannot hope to stand against your intimidating scowl. I give up. (That example just sucked. A real intimidation that ended up with 20 on the dice could very likely scare the NPC enough to put down the artifact)

There are many circumstances where people won't listen to common sense and there are many times an argument isn't as ironclad as you would like to believe. There are also many, many times people just have a hard time of getting their points across.

 

[buzz]

This is the first 4e tidbit that has me a little disappointed. I was hoping that there'd be a little stakes-setting involved, not just pass/fail, DM decides the outcome either way. The way Mearls describes it, it sounds no different from the current rules.

Guess I'll wait and see.

 

[Wormwood]

This is the first 4e tidbit that has me a little disappointed. I was hoping that there'd be a little stakes-setting involved, not just pass/fail, DM decides the outcome either way. The way Mearls describes it, it sounds no different from the current rules.

Seconded.

 

[buzz]

Seconded.

FWIW, the Mearls quotes doesn't quite sound like the social encounter Dave Noonan described from a playtest a few months ago. That one was a lot more conflict-resolution-y.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Two Edged Sword?

One of the things that is hard to take into account in D&D is that while the PC's can use diplomacy against NPC's with ease, there is no way for an NPC to convince the players to do something they would not really want to do. While I do not want a 'non magical charm spell' effect, I do want to be able to have NPC's use this system to affect the players.

I can think of a few things I would like to be able to do that would be fairly difficult to do under 3rd edition rules.

- Have a pre fight monologue where the winner of the exchange gets a +2 morale bonus for the duration of the encounter.
- Have a local NPC hit the players with a sob story and force the PC to either help or pay some penalty (lose an action point).
- Have a villain trick the players henchmen into betraying him mid fight by convincing the henchmen that the player is the one truly responsible for something.

There are a few other things that come to mind but they really boil down to having a fair system for dealing with social encounters that can then have some reasonable mechancial impact on the game. On the player side of things, while the DM can decide what success means and what failure means, it is often easy for a determined player to force an unexpected social encounter where the result of success would be fairly obvious. Consider this situation:

The DM set us up with a jail break. He might expect us to try for a stealth approach, or a 'storm the gates and kill em all' approach. But if I decided to bust out the Disguise, Forgery, Diplomacy, and Bluff skills to simply walk up to the guard and demand that the prisoner is released into my custody, there is a good chance that the DM may not have expected this. With a social encounter system, it will be much easier for this approach to succeed simply because the DM will be able to 'wing it' in a fair way. When the DM has some idea of how to adjudicate a situation, he is much more likely to allow the attempt than if he thinks it will be too hard to do right, and just contrives a reason to have it fail.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Woas]

The DM tells you your character is paralyzed and should act accordingly. Should the player stamp his/her feet and say "No way! My character wouldn't be paralyzed! Thats just not what he does. I make faces and grunts to communicate with my team mates."?
Then why can't a DM say that a particular NPC has influenced your character... without promising to give 500 gold coins to rescue his lost daughter... and to please treat him as a friend or please take into account what the NPC is asking for.
I'm not saying a person has to play their character as though under a dominate person spell and mindlessly follow the orders of the NPCs. Far from it. But if an NPC is to somehow influence a PC there should be something that "sticks" and holds the PC to doing something an NPC asks for from a victorious opposed conflict resolution system just as combat does.

Er? That's not a third-grade mentality. That's the player feeling like control over their character has been taken away (which it has). Some people think it's fun to roleplay out what it's like to be under a Charm Person, but most people I know (including emotionally mature non-third graders) hate it. Your suggestion that NPCs can force the PCs to take or abstain from certain actions using Diplo skills is similar, and I think would go over similarly poorly.