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Message: <blockquote data-quote="McBard" data-source="post: 1489230" data-attributes="member: 14934">As a DM I maintain that requiring social skill checks for the social encounters actually *increases* character development.  Yes, that's right.  How?In the first place, I don't demand of players with melee-focused warriors to have any knowledge of actual, quasi-medieval hand-to-hand combat in order to have their character attack.  We do have a player who has some skill in judo, but I don't give his Monk *character* any special bonuses for the *player's* martial arts knowledge.  When he wants to attack a foe he has to roll dice.Secondly, the above approach holds obviously even more so for magic-users.  Unless there's something very remarkable about one of my players that I don't know, none of them knows anything about hurling a twenty-foot spherical glob of fire from their fingertips.  So, this lack of knowledge should have nothing to do with how often their half-elf sorcercer character can cast Fireballs.Finally, as you might be able to tell from my post, in real life I probably have a Charisma that barely registers double-digits--and trust me, the rest of the players in the group would all happily admit to pushing a 12 at best.  Needless to say, none of us is Brad Pitt!  So when a player wants to design and run an 18 Charisma, sweet-talking Bard I REWARD his character concept by allowing--actually demanding--that he roll for his social interactions.  Sure, we have our share of in-character banter; however, YES, every social encounter is eventually resolved by a die roll.  I do not give check bonuses to social skill rolls based upon a player's roleplaying of a converstation any more than I give attack bonuses to melee attacks based upon a player's roleplaying of his fighting maneuvers.  But our games are still full of description, banter, excitement, and narrative (what I guess is called "roleplaying").Now, to answer in practical terms the original poster's questions (and all these answers assume the 3.5 PHB):1) Intimidate is already nicely quantified for both in-combat and out-of-combat applications (see p. 76)2) Bluff is not only quantified for in-combat applications, but its out-of-combat situation is fairly straight forward:  oppose it with Sense Motive (see pp 67-68)3) Gather Information is a little more vague, it's true.  Try this:  a DC 15 check supplies 1 piece of information; a DC 20 gives 2 pieces; a DC 25 gives 3 pieces.  Each attempt takes 1d4+1 hours (this IS in the PHB).  In my games I have a chart of 10 bits of general campaign hints and rumors, and refer to it for the above-type information searches.  My high-CHR, social skill players have thanked me for this system.4) Diplomacy is also fairly straight forward if DMs would actually apply its rules as already written to games they run.  Just use the very quantified chart on page 72. I eventually require (after in-character banter from the players who are so inclined) a Diplomacy/Intimidate check for EVERY exchange with EVERY NPC.  It's put my players on edge in social exchanges, and we've not surprisingly seen a decrease in those CHR-dumped, no-Diplomacy-ranked 4-member parties.</blockquote>

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