My Beef with Social Skills

[Steverooo]

I just plain don't like them and I'm going to explain why and then sit here and hope someone can point out where I'm wrong.

Mike Mearls, and many other designers and commentators aside, have complained frequently about what he describes as "Mother May I" abilities. The ranger's Favored Enemy ability makes the most obvious candidate. Numerically, it is quite the appreciable bonus, but the ability is only as useful (or useless) as the DM allows it to be by pitting you against encounters that include your favored enemies. Being Orc-Slayer numero uno is really useless if you never encounter orcs. The cleric's Turn Undead ability is similarly problematic (though much improved with some of the divine feats from supplemental material).

To me, the social skills describe the opposite affect. I think I'll call them "Baby Please!" abilities, which is cry of the hearts of DMs who've just watched their role-playing scene, encounter, or potentially their story go down the drain due to one stinking skill check.

Perhaps you're using them the wrong ways?

Gather Information: This is a viable enough skill, I suppose, a bit of a time saver, but on the whole, it's sort of useless. It's really more a "Mother May I" ability than a "Baby Please!," Why do we need a skill check to see what the PCs can learn about the local lord, the next dungeon, or the bizarre string of murders plaguing the town? One of three things is bound to be the case. One, the information garnered is necessary for the story to proceed (e.g. rumors say a strange cloaked figure has been seen wandering the graveyard at night). If this is the case, the DM was going to give you that information regardless of the roll's result or even the attempt. Two, there's nothing to learn, either because there really isn't anything or you caught the DM flat-footed. Again, not necessary. Finally, there is something to learn but gaining that information in such a cheap (and I mean resource cheap including play-time and mental effort) manner will deprive you, the other players, and the DM the fun of finding it the old fashioned way. This puts the DM in the tough spot of having to fudge, or removing some of the fun and challenge.

If the information is absolutely needed, give it to the PCs without a roll (in the boxed text, for example). If it is useless, don't make a roll for it. Just tell them "You learn that Mary Smith is having a child out of wedlock, but nothing useful."

GMs need to create tables where the clues they want the PCs to have are already given out, when most useful hints are DC:15+, and where low rules gives the useless stuff, and higher ones more important clues. For instance:

DC.......Clue
1........The King is pregnant!
2........Mary Smith is having a bastard!
3........Horace Watts was often seen along the road to Mary's place, late at night!
4........No additional info.
5........Horace Watts is a castrate.
6-9......Burly Bob was also often seen about Mary's place, at night.
10........Burly Bob is the Night Watchman, and gay.
11-14...No additional info.
15........All hints helpful to the adventure, plus all of the below.
16........Burly Bob has reported klonking more goblins than usual over the head, of late.
17....... Bob is annoyed!
18....... Bob thought he saw some goblins leading off a cow, last Thursday.
19....... Burly Bob isn't all that good at combat, despite his STR.
20....... The goblins are rustling cattle (and pigs, chickens, goats, etc.).
21-24... All of the below.
25....... Goblin High Holy-day is fast approaching.

Nothing deal-breaking, there, but a lot of info useless to this adventure, which you could delete, if you want. Rumours which all point to the current (or next) adventure are great, here... Maybe Mary Smith was raped by a goblin (or in league with them)!

Sense Motive/Bluff: I have the least problem with this pair of skills, since there is at least an opposition check to be made. I like the Feint action afforded by Bluff. It's clever and throws a bone to bards and charisma-oriented rogues who are otherwise a little weak in combat. My only real beef is the standard player reaction to Sense Motive checks. "The crafty old wizard tells you X." "We Sense Motive." *I roll or they roll, doesn't matter* "Hrm, we must have failed that roll. I don't believe him." Or they do believe him and never bother to make the roll. They're not going to let their characters' beliefs be dictated by a die roll in this manner any more than they would allow their alignment or spell selection to be so decided. They look at context clues and other available evidence and make a reasoned choice just like they do in the real world, which means that Bluff is wholly inviable for my NPCs to use while they remain completely vulnerable to its use by the PCs. Blech.

You don't control what the players (or their PCs) think, they do.

PC: "I sense Motive! Is he lieing?"

GM: "No, he doesn't seem to be... or he's VERY good at it!"

PC: "Wow! I rolled a 20!"

GM: "Yeah, so what do you want to do?"

Intimidate: I'm not sure why it's a Charisma skill only. Certainly, I can think of a few charismatic people (Judi Dench springs to mind) that aren't particularly physically imposing that could set my knees knocking if they glared at me properly, but the most uncharismatic dolt on the planet, augmented with enough muscle power, could just as easily intimidate me under the right circumstances. He's larger than me, stronger than me, and looks as if he's about to take advantage of that fact and pummel me. I'm now intimidated. More importantly, it suffers the same problem as Sense Motive without the decency to be an opposed check. Players simply aren't going to let their actions be dictated that way.

DM:"You enter the throne-room of the Ogre Chieften. He is covered in ritual scarring and looks at you as if his only concern is the order in which he should devour you and what sort of seasoning he should use." *makes Intimidate check* "He's really quite frightening." Players: "Bah, he's just an ogre. Let's make with the fireballs."

Again, I have to subject my NPCs to PC Intimidate checks, but the reverse is not true.

As already pointed out, they CAN still attack, but with -2 penalties to-hit, to all saves & skill checks... so the Intinidation has SOME effect.

Diplomacy: The mother-lode of stupid social skills. No opposed check, still doesn't work on the PCs because if I want the the PCs to like an NPC, I have to describe him in likeable terms (I don't just toss a die and say, "Okay, he rolled well. You all like this guy a lot."), and capable of being more powerful than charm person w/o the humanoid restriction, will save, or limited use per day. I've used this one myself (on one of those rare occasions that I got to play). In a Wheel of Time game I wound up with abysmal physical stats but a decent Int and a great Cha score. I played a scoundrel/gleeman (think rogue with bard as a prestige class), and by the end of the campaign, the poor guy playing our armsmen was about ready to tear his beard out that nearly every encounter that might have evolved into combat was thwarted by my ridiculous Diplomacy check.

No, Diplomacy DOESN'T work on PCs! THEY tell YOU what their PCs do, and how they feel! You can try to encourage them to feel the way you want, but if they don't want to kiss the Succubus, they aren't going to! That's as it should be!

Some things are just impossible to talk people into, though. Suicide, for instance. SOME people, yes, but Joe Average? NO! Set the DC = Infinity. Let the PCs roll, if they want, but...

Also, if the NPC is a Half-Orc, and hates Elves, then the Elf will always fail, regardless of rolls, even if the HO's attitude is adjusted to Friendly. He may like THIS Elf, but still refuse to help Elves because of his prejudice (Even Archie Bunker liked Sammie Davis, Jr.)!

In the end, rules exist to serve the game, most notably in places where player knowledge will not suffice. I know next to squat about sword-play or where to stick a dagger to inflict maximum punishment. Most people don't know that sort of thing, and it would be highly inconvinient, even if we did know, to simulate it in my living room. Hence, combat rules are sensible and serve the game well. Similarly, I can't do magic. I can't even summon an invisible servant to clean the house (more's the pity), let alone teleport from place to place or drop meteor swarms on people who irk me. Magic rules, then, make sense. The social skills don't fit that description.

I've heard the arguement that social skills are there to let players who are not the most socially graceful people on the planet emulate, systematically, someone who is. That doesn't hold any water with me. There isn't a Puzzle skill or Riddle skill to help players who find such things difficult. Groups of players just elect the player who's best at that sort of problem to handle them and either help or get out of the way. Part of the fun is figuring that stuff out on their own. Similarly, there's no Tactics skill that tells players what sort of action they should take from round to round. Again, the players just figure out who has the best tactical skills at the table and let that guy take over the role of squad leader. Again, that's part of the fun. Why is it, that when we get to social aspects, this isn't the case? Why not just have the players elect the best spokesmen among them to do that job?

Am I wrong in all of this?

Ah thank yew iz!

My PC has Zero Ranks in MOST of these skills (and none of them are Class skills for his major class). He is always trying to "Take 20" on Gather Info., anyway, and has five Ranks in Bluff (for all the Synergy Bonuses, not for lying), and another five in Sense Motive (he'd have more, and some Diplomacy, if he had more skill points, and less need for them).

Before you chuck the skills, try putting more work into them! Design your Info-Gathering tables. Give away the "necessary" info, and award more for roles of 15+.

Don't tell PCs "He's lieing." Tell them "He seems (un)trust-worthy."

Enforce the Shaken penalties, and let the PCs do what they want. If they attack the Ogre Chieftain, have at'em!

Have NPCs bluff them, and let them Sense Motive all they want. Just give them the "Either he's trust-worthy, or he's a good enough liar that your PC can't tell the difference!" Then let them decide which!

Rotsa Ruck!

 

[Thanatos]

I've had some similiar concerns before about some of these myself...here is how I dealt with them:

Gather Information

I only require gather information checks for really obscure knowledge/information or if a player thinks a mark knows something and tries to verbally trick an answer out of him. I'll also use it if the character is doing some kind of records or library search to find some forgotten/misplaced/hard to locate information.

Sense Motive/Bluff

When it comes to Sense Motive, I give my players a choice...they can either just go with their gut and play it out that way, knowing that as DM, they really shouldn't draw inflections from me...or they can roll, but if they roll, they must abide to play their character in the direction of what the result is. I make it a gamble, if they succeed, they get a really great insight, if they fail, they may have the whole situation wrong, but previously agreed to play it out based ont he roll. Potential assurance comes with a potential price. Which makes bluff for NPC's still somewhat useful...because inevitably, someone always takes the chance and rolls

Intimidate

I make this a Str/Cha skill: The player picks which attribute fuels this skill. Players are allowed to make an opposed Will save to avoid being intimidated, with situational modifiers. If they fail, they suffer -2 to all relevant rolls for the encounter. Just because a player is not intimidated, doesn't mean their character can't. be

In your example, if the characters have fought alot of ogres, they'd get a +2 or +4 to their opposing check...but if its their first encounters, it would be a standard roll...or with a -2 modifier if the ogre was currently gnawing on one of the villagers bones when they entered. Again, the players aren't the characters...I am rarely intimidated by a monster...my characters however...

Diplomacy

I treat this very similiar to how I do Bluff, with an opposed Sense Motive allowed. Hence, it can work for a PC if they agree to abide by the results of the roll. Also, I don't allow it to absolutely 180degree turn the outcome of an encounter. With role-play and a Diplomacy check, they may manage to stay their executions for a little while, convince someone to let them in a hard to access location, etc. I let it modify situations more favorably or less favorably, depending on their roll. Modifiers to it (+2 or -2) if they roleplay it out as well.

In your example, instead of letting you turn nearly every combat encounter into a friendly one, it would be been like "Okay, I really likes you guys...you can surrender to us instead of us having to kill yous. Then were gonna take you to our leader." (bad spelling on purpose).

So, Diplomacy worked, combat possibly averted, depending on the party's next actions An outcome thats changed favorably, doesn't mean a scott-free walk

Stuff with like puzzles (I suck at them, riddles too), I allow people to make Int checks and give them clues to use in solving it. Players aren't necessairly going to be able to solve some of these obscure things, so the Bards and 18 Int wizards get a chance to shine a bit with skill rolls to help their players along.

I don't think you are wrong in your observations...DM's handle these things differently. Some better then others. I am sure for many, these never even become issues in their games.

In th end, if they are your games, just allow them to be used to modify situations, give the players an edge in something or a slight disadvantage. It's all in how you apply their usage.

 

[Quickleaf]

One way that I use Diplomacy is for negotiation, though I get more specific about it. If you want to see a pretty good system for it, look at Giant in the Playground's website: http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jF...UkegKhONNF.html

Totally seconded!

I figure I should be allowed some pimpage here since I wrote a short PDF specifically addressing some of the issues mentioned in this thread:

Skill Focus: Talking

My goal was to create a small collection of special actions that one could take while roleplaying out a scene -- these actions wouldn't replace the in-character roleplaying, but would augment one's roleplaying. Ideally, making it as if the player were as silver-tongued as their character.

I'll vouch for Steve's rules. We've used them, and they make it a lot easier to play that debonair charming bard. Two thumbs up!

 

[Klaus]

Funny I tend to go the opposite way, if I've never put ranks into diplomacy then my character probably isn't very diplomatic (unless the character 5 in Bluff, Sense Motive for the bonus and decent charisma) hence I roleplay them like they aren't diplomatic. If the DM then gave me a negative modifier on my diplomacy role it's like getting penalised for acting in character. So I would be forced to punch him in the face (yes I'm a dwarf that used Charisma as his dump stat, in real life as well!).

Totally agree with Bagpuss here. A roleplayer can roleplay a failure as effectively as a success. So roll first, then roleplay the result, then award bonus XP for roleplaying. Don't hand out mechanical (i.e. bonuses to rolls) advantages for roleplaying reasons. That favors extroverted players and penalize the quiet ones.

 

[Voadam]

then award bonus XP for roleplaying. Don't hand out mechanical (i.e. bonuses to rolls) advantages for roleplaying reasons. That favors extroverted players and penalize the quiet ones.

XP bonuses for roleplaying are mechanical advantages for roleplaying reasons.

 

[Voadam]

Read what I wrote again about sense motive. I tell them only what they perceive. The Sense Motive skill is as important as Spot or Listen perception-wise. I tell the players what they see and what they hear. The more skilled they are, the better they are at this. Their ability to perceive the motives of others is just another facet of this.

You said "If I say "you think he is trustworthy" they will act accordinlgy, even though they're 100% sure they're been tricked."

Now, I understand a lot of people get incensed with this kind of stuff. I don't tell them what their player "feels"*. I tell them what they sense. Now it requires trust from my players. Trust I'm not railroading.

I don't see how "you think he is trustworthy" is not telling a PC how he feels about an NPC. The conclusion is being told to the PC who is supposed to act accordingly even though the player thinks otherwise. "He seems trustworthy" would be a perception that a PC could use as a piece of information to make a decision of their own.

 

[Voadam]

Totally agree with Bagpuss here. A roleplayer can roleplay a failure as effectively as a success. So roll first, then roleplay the result, then award bonus XP for roleplaying. Don't hand out mechanical (i.e. bonuses to rolls) advantages for roleplaying reasons. That favors extroverted players and penalize the quiet ones.

A good roleplayer can play to a determined end or guideline.

The question, however, is one of preferred play style.

As a player do you want to play to how the DM tells you your character feels or thinks? To how the dice rolls say your end result should be? Or to how you decide on your own you want to play your character?

Roleplaying to a die roll result according to game mechanic results is a valid style of play. So is putting the DM in the role of director for your character's thought processes and feelings.

My preference is to play characters as I determine feels right for the character (usually who I have created myself), not how a die roll, game mechanic, or DM suggests I should play my character.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think that the problem with a lot of the "social" skills is that they've become the end rather than the means. It's almost automatic for players to toss a d20 and announce their skill check result before their PC even says a word. I think the game design is partly to blame for this.

IMO, social skill checks should be made after a PC has made the attempt. If a player doesn't make any RP effort, then the check automatically fails. I see the check as representing all the stuff that a player doesn't know/understand whereas the initial conversation is where the player gets across the message/point they are trying to make.

Unfortunately, D&D really is becoming just a die rolling exercise. It's a shame. :\

 

[iwatt]

You said "If I say "you think he is trustworthy" they will act accordinlgy, even though they're 100% sure they're been tricked."
I don't see how "you think he is trustworthy" is not telling a PC how he feels about an NPC. The conclusion is being told to the PC who is supposed to act accordingly even though the player thinks otherwise. "He seems trustworthy" would be a perception that a PC could use as a piece of information to make a decision of their own.

Oh. The semantics game. Is it the fact that I used the words "you think" that bothers you? I'll try to reeemphasize. All I use these skills is to tell them how they perceive the world. Whatever else they do is in their hands.

The fact of the matter is that someone has to decide what perception of the NPCs the players get. Myself, I'd love to be a great thespian and be able to trasmit the reality of my gameworld to my players. Sadly I can't. Thankfully, my players understand this, and are more willing than not to let me use a poker face during these scenes and let the intrigue be aided by the die rolls.

Finally, my current campign has a party in which the average Charisma of the party is 15 (16 with magic items) and the lowest charisma is a 12. We use the social skills a lot, although most of our characters are built for combat. See, all my players like to participate in the social skills aspect of the game, since they don't want to spend 15 minutes looking at how Diplo Dave does his thing. So they participate (mechanically in the form of aid another checks).

I like to use social skills in pretty much the opposite way most people have been describing them. Rather than describe what my player is going to do, then getting a modifier on my skill check based on my action, I roll the check, and THEN describe what happens.

Especially with Diplomacy, I find this is a lot of fun.

Heh. I'd love to do this sometime. But my group has it ingrained in them: first talk then roll.

 

[erc1971]

For me personally, I hate them. I distinctly remember a situation a few months ago, where I was interacting with an NPC. My character was a Swashbuckler with a rather high CHA stat, and I did have ranks in Diplomacy for character flavor, so I was the party's face. I talked for a bit, then the DM looked at me and asked me to roll a diplomacy skill check. I looked at him baffled. I did not roll the check, I told the DM to tell me how the NPC reacted and to roleplay the encounter. For me, they break immersion in the game. I am in character, conversing with an NPC, then out of the blue I am told to roll the die? Bah, do away with the damned things. (The good news is, said DM has never asked me to roll a diplomacy check again, he knows I hate them, and plays the encounters out now, cool.)

On the other hand, I have roleplayed with some rather socially inept people, and when thier characters get into social situations, thier only response is to babble incoherantly as they cannot think of what to do - without social skills in the game, they might as well play a character who has had thier tongue cut out.

Sense Motive and Bluff - I agree with the OP on this one. I even remember one time when our DM told us we believed a specific NPC. All of us players were "like hell we believe his lying ass!" I even hate it when NPC's use Sense Motive. In many cases it is better than using spells to detect lies. Throg the barbarian with an 8 CHA - if a bard asks him a question, he will know everytime if Throg is lying. I can't even lie about what I had for dinner last night to some NPC's. Totally silly - remove the damned things from the game, or perhaps limit sense motive to recognizing the targets state of mind and general overall mood.

Intimidate - Now this really annoys me. I remember an evil game a while ago. The methods of torture we used were so vile, I think describing them would break the code of conduct. So Captive A sees Captive B suffer an undescribably horrible fate, then is told to talk or suffer the same. Then, closes up like a clam because I don't have ranks in intimidate?! We start peeling the flesh from his body - won't talk cause I don't have intimdate. Start killing/torturing thier family members in front of them - won't talk because I don't have intimidate. WTF?!?!?!!? Roleplaying only for this skill dangit!