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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6991440" data-attributes="member: 996">Well, there, um... 'mixed.'  Very early on it struck me that there were comparatively concrete and detailed rules for combat, but not for interaction (which, 'obviously,' though not to 14yo me, meant you just RP'd through it), so I naively adapted a combat-like structure including some sort of hp-like resource that was eroded in 'social combat' - the result was that every interaction devolved inevitably into actual combat.  I dropped the idea for decades.In the mean time, plenty of games had social skills and used them, noting how desultory and unengaging the results tended to be compared to combat, but unwilling to go back to the failed transliteration of combat to social.  D&D eventually adopted social skills in 3.0, giving us the Diplomancer.  Yeah, that worked out.So, when 4e gave us mathmatically non-functional Skill Challenges, bad as they were, they were a new idea, and I tried 'em out.  The early sample ones, even if you fixed the math, still tended to make social encounters desultory - not meaningfully different from 'everyone shut up while the party face rolls diplomacy' (just 'rolls diplomacy n times').  Eventually SCs got fixed up and I got some ideas about structuring them, leading to some decent social-pillar SCs.The two most sophisticated/memorable ones I recall running were a set-up challenge - you had a potential ally, but getting an audience was a problem - and a political election.  The former was a low-complexity, challenge a little over the newly-paragon party's level, as they began navigating the politics of a city.  The latter, in contrast, was a complex, under-level challenge for Epic level characters that was there to put a little pressure on their preparation for dealing with the real epic level challenge they would be facing later.  (Because their enemy made its move when they'd be distracted, obviously.)I structured each challenge, as I almost always did, around turns, so everyone would describe what they were doing and how, and I'd decide which skill applied (typically the one the player had in mind) and what the DC was (based mainly on the level of the challenge - SCs having levels just like monsters, and there being a convenient table of hard/medium/easy DCs by level), and we'd resolve it, only after everyone had done something would the same character go again.  In both cases, I also went a little farther in making where and with whom interactions were taking place a factor.  Neither of these were one interaction with one NPC, in both cases any number of interested parties might be brought into it (or involve themselves).  So there were relevant 'areas,' where a character would go to do certain things.  In the election, for instance, a PC wanting to flex his CHA and oratory with the populace would go to The Forum and speechify, while one looking for a legal loophole could research things in The Library, and one looking to cut backroom deals would schmooze his way around The Citadel.  Different skills were thus 'available' in different contexts.  You decided where to go (or to stay in the same area) at the end of your turn, so there's a teeny bit of strategy, there, too.The first challenge was pass/fail, but the election was actually a little complicated, you could rack up successes towards the victory of one candidate or another, most simply, but you could also use them to affect the political position in the case of a victory or loss.  Some of the players put emphasis on making sure the elections were perceived as legitimate and abided by, while others had a definite preference, and two were unconcerned (and used their turns, and thus successes, on only tangentially-related goals)......yeah, I suppose that's another thing. There are times when a given PC just is unsuited or unconcerned with a given challenge.  Still taking into account their actions (or inaction) is worth it to keep the player involved, and, because, if you're all part of a group that's involved in negotiations or making impressions, there's no such thing as 'not participating.'  Group checks are one way of doing that.  While your 'face' is doing the Hard diplomacy checks, y'all still have to avoid a fatal faux pas that might undercut his efforts, for instance.  Automatic failures proved too harsh, and, likewise, forcing a PC into a difficult check with a skill they were hopelessly bad at was unreasonable.  On the other extreme, letting them get away with a desultory 'help' action every turn was also pretty worthless.  Both the DM and Players have to make some effort to keep everyone meaningfully involved - or off doing something else unrelated, but just as important.No, that wasn't 5e, but it was the last time I went and ran really complex social challenges like that.  So far I've run 5e at low levels, and a quick check from the face or a quick group check is usually all I've needed before moving things along - low level PCs aren't exactly movers-and-shakers, afterall.In any case, while 5e lacks skill challenges, their easily ported over, all you have to do is use 5e DC-setting (which is prettymuch DM judgement anyway).</blockquote>

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