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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8318436" data-attributes="member: 6704184">Yeah I also add a little structure to social stuff, and make consequences clear as possible. I also often use the structure of the more dynamic downtime activities for skill challenges, including complications. Depends on the specific game, but there might be a penalty, or you may just not be able to do the thing if it’s outside the realm of possibility completely. This is a sentiment I see around here, and sometimes on Twitter, but rarely IRL. That may just be that I have curated my gaming network toward people who share my biases and preferences, but I don’t think I’ve exerted that much control outside of my immediate group.  For most of us, D&D has tighter rules for those things which benefit most from tight rules. I don’t want tight rules for social conflict unless I’m playing a game that really focuses on that as a primary play element, in which case I prefer an optional variant rule there.  Id prefer physical skill challenges be a little more crunchy than they are in 5e, but social challenges are mostly there, they just need maybe more skills, or some explicit “when you use this skill in a fight, XYZ” rules.  IOW, for a lot of gamers, the number of rules don’t tell them what the nature of the game is, they nature of the rules and what they can do with them does. D&D says, and I see new players clock this immediately all the time, “you can try anything, and the rules will get out of your way, but combat needs balance and resolution that isn’t a conversation, and so we have specified it in a fair amount of detail.” The goal seems to be not to make a combat game, but to make a game where the rules only come up when they are helpful. Obviously this isn’t great for folks who get freeze from too openended a system, and so there should be optional skill rules that go into more detail, but “more rules text is about combat” doesn’t make the game “kill things take their stuff”.</blockquote>

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