Role playing and social skills

[maddman75]

It's like a rerun - if you haven't seen it before, it's new to you!

Anyway, here's how I do things. How I handle a social skill depends on the skill.

Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Bluff are passive skills. You don't ever say 'I try to diplomacy him.' It simply doesn't work like that. You just roleplay, and when needed I'll call for a check. For instance, if you're trying to talk your way past a guard and the BS gets a little thick, I'll ask for a Bluff check. The skill check doesn't represent what is said, but what isn't said. Body language, voice inflection, and so on that reflect from the character, not the player.

Sense Motive however is an active skill. You have to tell me you want to Sense Motive on you. If you never suspect him, then you're liable to believe any string of nonsense that comes out of his mouth. Again, this represents the unspoken.

 

[MonsterMash]

I'll use a mixture of passive and active social skills, i.e. if a player says Ok I'm going to fast talk this NPC/use the Jedi mind trick then it'll be active, but they'll still have to say what they're doing/saying and I may give a bonus depending on the quality of the roleplay, but otherwise it'll be down to the dice.

But I do try hard to empasise role playing over roll playing.

Does seem to be a very strong consensus on this one.