Removing Social Skills

[Erekose]

BelenUmeria’s thread on Social Skills: Role versus Roll Play has made me wonder. How different would the classes have to be for balance reasons if all social skills were removed?

This would leave quite a retro 1st Edition game where players and the DM have to roleplay all of the facets of character interaction.

Is it possible or are social skills too integrated into the 3E?

[Note. If possible I'd prefer this thread not to get sidetracked into the, "I feel we need social skills because otherwise my DM will steamroll over me."]

 

[Spatula]

Charisma would go back to being a useless stat, unless you're a sorcerer, bard, paladin, or (to a lesser extent) cleric. I suppose the bard would need a little something extra, and you'd have to make new rules for feinting in combat, but otherwise... *shrug*

 

[hong]

Let it not be said that the Real Man is averse to progress, however. Many of the innovations that have appeared in the last 25 years have been incorporated into rulesets that Real Men use today. For example, Dungeons and Dragons originally had no task resolution system for non-combat situations, so not surprisingly, people tended to gloss over them. Today, there are lots of ways of handling such situations, so Real Men now have the luxury of glossing over them for its own sake. Some people have claimed that the latest version of Dungeons and Dragons places more emphasis on nonviolent solutions to problems, but after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they were mistaken.

-- from a web page somewhere

 

[Frostmarrow]

I'm all for removing social skills. I think they do more harm than good. However, I think one could devise a system that would take into account the character's charisma when the player role-plays. Some sort of status system (perhaps similar to Initiative) that forces the DM to first recognize the character with the highest charisma when interacting with the party.

I.e. Munchkin Boy is not a social person. However his character is a high charisma paladin. The DM should take this into account when interacting with the party. He can do this by singleing Munchkin Boy out and interacting with him before inviting the rest of the party to the discussion.

Certainly a good games-designer could make a great system on these premesis. Oh an dfeinting in combat should be a combat ability rather than a social one, imho, ymmv.

 

[Erekose]

In the games that I play in, most players generally make characters that capture an aspect of their own personality (which they magnify into the whole personality of their character).

The character is, therefore, to some degree themselves within the game.

While I can appreciate that a lot of people play differently and can make that stretch to play radically different personas - that isn't the case in our games. That isn't to say that there isn't a lot of variety - real people have a multitude of facets from their personality to choose from.

Back to the topic of the thread. In social situations, the players tend to rely on their own social skills in the same way that solving puzzles uses their own intellect. Making a die roll is not nearly as satisfying as working out the problem.

I can appreciate that many people may take umbrage at this in that it may appear to make a nonsense of a character's statistics but in most cases those statistics have enough grounding in the rules (i.e. benefits gained for high scores or penalties from low scores). Charisma has always been the weakest statistic in this light but it's never been abused as a dump statistic in any of our games.

The fact that something can be abused doesn’t mean it will be abused.

I feel like I've started rambling now so I'll stop! (Our 6 month old baby kept us up last night!)

 

[Serpenteye]

I don't have any social skills in real life, so I really need them in game

 

[Dinkeldog]

The discussion is on how to remove them--in other words house rules. So...

 

[Drawmack]

I think that the impact on the over all game and especially class balance would be incredible for doing this.

How many class skills with the rogue be loosing?

Another point about social skills. Many people complain that the encourage number crunching over role-playing. I don't find that so. I think it gives the DM a machanic he can use with the rules lawyers. But not a straight jacket he must wear. If you're that concerned with them then have the dm roll all social skills and the lpayers much role-play for modifiers to the dms roll, both of which they are un aware of.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Leave 'em in.

You don't expect the person playing the fighter to know how to use a sword, nor the player of a wizard to know how to cast a spell, so why expect the player of a social character to be able to charm the socks off a nymph?

If you want role play to come into play give a bonus or a penalty for how well the player handles the encounter, with the default being -2 for things like 'I flirt with the tavern wench', and bonuses for well played scene, 'Friends, we gather here upon the field of battle to determine the course of history...'

Plus, let's be honest, sometimes the dungeon master playing the part of the comely female paladin needs a shave, and forgot to brush his teeth... Could you as a player be suave and deboinaire in the face of that?

The Auld Grump

 

[Erekose]

To be honest I'm always amazed at the comments people make about DMs and players that imply that there might be a less than cordial relationship between the two.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this doesn't happen but it seems odd that having a written game mechanic is somehow a solution for a problematic relationship.

I've only roleplayed with good friends and so this has never been an issue. Whomever is the DM is considerate of the players and vice versa.

I guess what I'm saying is that, at least for me, keeping the social skills because:

a) it solves/prevents problems with the DM and players
b) it makes up for talents that the characters have and the players don't

doesn't work purely and simply because our group doesn't have problem (a) and generally people in our group want to roleplay rather than roll play for (b).

The original point of this thread was to try and discover if it would be possible to remove the social skills and maintain game balance rather than justifying why social skills should or shouldn't be in the game.

I am not trying to advocate this for everyone or say that the social skills are a flawed part of 3E.