On Behavioral Realism

[Celebrim]

Is there some sort of in-between here? I totally get what you're saying, but taken to its conclusion, wouldn't that mean no one could really play an 18 CHA bard (for example)?

Well, yes, I do feel it's very hard for people without a lot of charisma to play a character that has a lot of charisma. You can get part of the way by having a mechanic that allows successful interaction based on a die role, but you can't get all the way and actually also have a realized transcript of play.

So, yeah, you could probably have a game where someone says, "I use persuasion on the guard.", rolls a dice and then successfully gets the guard to do something. But then the question arises, what did that character say that so persuaded the guard? There is no actualized transcript of play here. There is no movie playing out in the participants head. There is really less of a transcript of play than, "I hit the guard with a big stick." At least that causes you to imagine something.

And as you attempt to create that transcript of play, you find that some people not only do a better job, their understanding of social dynamics and their natural charisma helps them in much the same manner that a player with a strong understanding of tactics is better able to succeed in combat. They understand what levers to pull. They understand what not to do. You tend to find socially awkward people saying socially awkward things in social situations as well, and there is only so much having 18 CHA on the sheet can protect them from that - in much the same way that an optimized combat twink can succeed despite their poor tactics but still can get in over their head. I have had any number of times where a supposedly charismatic character lied when the truth would have sufficed fine, tried to intimidate rather than persuade, told the truth when a lie plus all that points in social deception would have worked better, insulted characters rather than befriended them, and generally just acted a jerk. Yes, 18 CHA lets you get away with that more than 8 CHA does ("Coming from anyone else...") but there are limits or the transcript of play just gets silly, and often a game system will differentiate between persuasion, deception and intimidation and a player will for whatever reason just rely on the one not actually on their character sheet.

There are also something you just can't pull off with a die roll. As a GM you become really aware that no matter how much charisma you give an NPC, if you can't make an NPC likable or funny or whatever, then no amount of telling the players the NPC is funny or likeable matters.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, 18 CHA lets you get away with that more than 8 CHA does ("Coming from anyone else...") but there are limits or the transcript of play just gets silly, and often a game system will differentiate between persuasion, deception and intimidation and a player will for whatever reason just rely on the one not actually on their character sheet.

There are also something you just can't pull off with a die roll. As a GM you become really aware that no matter how much charisma you give an NPC, if you can't make an NPC likable or funny or whatever, then no amount of telling the players the NPC is funny or likeable matters.

When it comes to players with high charisma PCs, I tend to use a filter on what comes out of the player's mouth. For example, if the player with the 18 CHA PC says, "I like the garden flowers," the king might hear, "What a lovely garden you have. The flowers are beautifully tended and cared for." It only goes so far, though. If the player says, "Your flowers stink, kingy," the king is going to be insulted no matter what. He'd probably hear an insult that was delivered more smoothly, though.

By doing that, I let the players without an 18 charisma themselves, have a closer experience with playing a high charisma PC. NPCs will also just naturally gravitate and speak with those PCs, as well as often treat them more favorably without any rolls happening.

 

[Celebrim]

But combat can be modelled with a single die roll. The same way that social interaction is in DnD.

It can, but then it will tend to be less reified in its transcript. Unless combat is very rare, then combat modeled with a very simple system will tend to not produce descriptive play. No one tries to shove, trip, grapple, and so forth if there isn't some sort of system that supports that. In the long run, unless a descriptive choice is meaningful, then players will bore of investing description when it doesn't change the outcome. So you'll end up with, "I roll to attack and do 6 damage" as your process of play, which even D&D can devolve to if you aren't careful. (Even say 4e, once you've fired off your limited choices.)

But, as Eriv V pointed out in #194, having no system can be unfair to players who are less socially adept, or who struggle to get into character.

But as I point out, that's like saying that combat systems are unfair to players who are less tactically adept, or who struggle to visualize things spatially.

If a game system as written puts emphasis** on a given aspect of RPG it will lead to more emphasis on that aspect of RPG in the playing of that RPG.

I think I'd need examples. And I can give counter examples. For example, Champions has a very complicated combat system. However, Gary Fine in Shared Fantasy documented how the Champions group he observed actually avoided combat precisely because of the complicated combat system, and instead spent almost all of their time in interpersonal RP of the low melodrama sort. Combat was rare and not a large part of the process of play simply because going to combat meant such a large investment in time and energy.

** I am equating page count to emphasis. There are other ways of applying emphasis, the broader community has a lot of impact on gaming styles, but my thesis is referring to the emphasis from game systems as they are written in the rule books.

I have a somewhat different view of this. In my opinion, the rules don't dictate the process of play, or at least, not very much. What dictates the process of play more than anything else is how the participants think about playing the game, and in particular how the GM prepares to play that game. So how a game presents its process of play, or how the game encourages the players to think about the game matters a whole lot more than the page count of the rules.

Likewise, how the game encourages the GM to prepare for the game - which in D&D is done through having "modules" - dictates what the game is going to be like far more than the rules.

This is the reason that D&D is much more about kicking doors down, killing monsters and taking their stuff than it is about magic despite the massive page count devoted to magic. D&D does an incredibly good job of telling the participants what the game is, much better than most of its competitors.

But, and this is the key point, if you think about the game differently and prepare for it differently, you get an entirely different experience of play using the exact same rules.

And I have a lot of examples for how that works, but this late at night (and after this long of a post) I'll need to wait on them if anyone is interested.

 

[Celebrim]

When it comes to players with high charisma PCs, I tend to use a filter on what comes out of the player's mouth. For example, if the player with the 18 CHA PC says, "I like the garden flowers," the king might hear, "What a lovely garden you have. The flowers are beautifully tended and cared for." It only goes so far, though. If the player says, "Your flowers stink, kingy," the king is going to be insulted no matter what. He'd probably hear an insult that was delivered more smoothly, though.

That's the point. Yes, an 18 CHA PC can say, "Your garden is lousy." to a King with far less risk of making a mortal enemy of the King than an 8 CHA PC, but as you say there is a limit to that.

The trouble is that the 18 CHA Player has a much clearer understanding of what the consequences of saying things to the King is likely to be. The 8 CHA player with a side order of say Asperger's Syndrome* tends to find themselves lost in a world of side effect social consequences and no real plan for navigating through the maze. So when the player has an 18 CHA character and insults the King's garden, perhaps he's more likely to get the gardener beheaded than himself, but was getting the gardener in trouble really the plan in the first place? Does it further the mission, or is the player now lost in the humor of having gotten the gardener in trouble and decides to start pushing his luck by insulting everything - including say the King's simple minded daughter that everyone in the court knows not to mention? And is he not at the least more likely to have gotten himself beheaded than the guy who said, "Lovely roses, your majesty", especially if the guy had successfully figured out that the King was proud of his roses and liked to be flattered? And let's face it, one legitimate interpretation of 18 CHA is that when someone with 18 CHA insults you, it stings. It hurts. It's humiliating. So, is the guy persuading the king or is he taunting them and calling them out? The trouble with players without a lot of charisma is that they don't tend to think about it in those terms. As in life, whatever comes to mind tends to come out of the mouth without having understood the consequences.

There is only so much filter you can use before you are playing the character for the player and taking away player agency.

"Introversion" usually is an overcomeable problem. Playing an RPG is probably the best therapy for shyness I'm aware of. (Yes, the scare quotes are deliberate, I do know the difference.)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't see CHA and social mechanics primarily as a way of allowing shy players to play extrovert PCs (though sometimes that might be a happy side-effect).

I see it as playing the same role as any other mechanic - a device for working out what happens in the game.

When there are two players whose PCs are sitting in a tavern drinking and boasting and arguing about who will win the favour of the lovely Violette, how is this to be resolved? We're not going to actually go to a pub, drink and boast - that would be ending the session and taking up a different social activity. I'm not interested in adjudicating which rival has won over the other. But a contest on Fellowship, factoring in Brawn or Presence as appropriate (is this roll about the drinking, or about the boasting?) is fun, and gives us an outcome that flows from the fiction much as combat mechanics do when they come into play.

So, what I want to know is, how is that different from a skill check in 5e dnd?
Sure, the stats are different, but brawn and presence are pretty easy to translate, and fellowship sounds like a skill similar to 5e's Persuasion, but perhaps more about getting along with people and less about getting people to do things. (I miss "Diplomacy" as a name for the positive social interaction skill)

And an opposed check gives us an outcome that flows from the fiction just as much as your example, or combat. So, is it that Prince Valiant has everything named and described in a way that promotes a certain type of play, or is there something actually mechanical going on that isn't coming across?

 

[bloodtide]

I think people missed my point: The dual nature of D&D is what made it successful.

The D&D is a pure combat adventure game supported by thousands of pages of mechanical crunch. You can play the game ''by the book": Kill, Loot, Repeat.

Now you can, as players have done forever Add more to the game: specificaly Role Playing. The simple fact that the D&D game has...maybe..a couple pages on any ''non-combat adventure" rules is a good thing: It basically says that you can freeform role play as much, or little, as you want too. The role playing fluff does not effect the crunch mechanics....directly anyway.

Technically, when you stop to role play you are "not" playing D&D, sort of like when you tell a joke or story at a poker game you are "not" playing poker. But really, it's a technicality and you can just put it all under ''playing".

 

[Reynard]

I think people missed my point: The dual nature of D&D is what made it successful.

The D&D is a pure combat adventure game supported by thousands of pages of mechanical crunch. You can play the game ''by the book": Kill, Loot, Repeat.

Now you can, as players have done forever Add more to the game: specificaly Role Playing. The simple fact that the D&D game has...maybe..a couple pages on any ''non-combat adventure" rules is a good thing: It basically says that you can freeform role play as much, or little, as you want too. The role playing fluff does not effect the crunch mechanics....directly anyway.

Technically, when you stop to role play you are "not" playing D&D, sort of like when you tell a joke or story at a poker game you are "not" playing poker. But really, it's a technicality and you can just put it all under ''playing".

That's just not true. The same books full of mechanical crunch talk extensively about playing in character, telling stories and engaging in other non-combat based activities. you can't claim doing one thing written in the books is "playing D&D" but doing another thing also written in the books "not playing D&D." And frankly I don't understand the motivation to do so. D&D is all those things, in varying degrees based on the desires of the participants. THAT is what gave the game legs.

 

[bloodtide]

That's just not true. The same books full of mechanical crunch talk extensively about playing in character, telling stories and engaging in other non-combat based activities. you can't claim doing one thing written in the books is "playing D&D" but doing another thing also written in the books "not playing D&D." And frankly I don't understand the motivation to do so. D&D is all those things, in varying degrees based on the desires of the participants. THAT is what gave the game legs.

I think your missing my point.

What makes D&D great IS you can put aside the combat adventure crunch mechanical rules AND do other things like Role Play. As D&D have very little rules for non combat, you are free to do as little or as much role playing as you want.

Still, technically, you are only playing D&D IF your using the D&D rules to take some sort of action IN the game. The same way you are only playing any game really. Once you start the freeform role playing, you are not playing D&D.

And it is this dual nature...this divide that has kept D&D popular. You can stop playing the game, put away all the characters and dice, and just talk doing freeform role playing for hours on end. And you can even say your ''playing" D&D...by just sitting there and talking doing freeform role playing. Really, no one would even bother with this technical point.

 

[Maxperson]

I think your missing my point.

What makes D&D great IS you can put aside the combat adventure crunch mechanical rules AND do other things like Role Play. As D&D have very little rules for non combat, you are free to do as little or as much role playing as you want.

Still, technically, you are only playing D&D IF your using the D&D rules to take some sort of action IN the game. The same way you are only playing any game really. Once you start the freeform role playing, you are not playing D&D.

And it is this dual nature...this divide that has kept D&D popular. You can stop playing the game, put away all the characters and dice, and just talk doing freeform role playing for hours on end. And you can even say your ''playing" D&D...by just sitting there and talking doing freeform role playing. Really, no one would even bother with this technical point.

Probably, because yes, you are still playing D&D. D&D includes roleplaying without any dice. There are even rules for it in the 5e DMG.

 

[Reynard]

I think your missing my point.

What makes D&D great IS you can put aside the combat adventure crunch mechanical rules AND do other things like Role Play. As D&D have very little rules for non combat, you are free to do as little or as much role playing as you want.

Still, technically, you are only playing D&D IF your using the D&D rules to take some sort of action IN the game. The same way you are only playing any game really. Once you start the freeform role playing, you are not playing D&D.

And it is this dual nature...this divide that has kept D&D popular. You can stop playing the game, put away all the characters and dice, and just talk doing freeform role playing for hours on end. And you can even say your ''playing" D&D...by just sitting there and talking doing freeform role playing. Really, no one would even bother with this technical point.

And what I am saying is that by the rules presented in the book, sitting around and freeform roleplaying IS playing D&D. it says so right there. You aren't going outside the rules to do that. The rules in fact TELL you to do that. So yeah, maybe, I might be missing your point.