D&D 4E Social interactions in 4E

[AWizardInDallas]

I understand the preferences voiced here. I still believe that rules for social combat will just bog down the game... i.e. will become the equivalent of social grappling. Do we really want to halt play while we turn to pages of a book to decide how to resolve a social interaction? I don't.

Such rules could also produce some odd results that aren't necessarilty beneficial to telling an interactive story which, after all, is the point of participating in a pencil role-playing game. Players are on the honor system in my game and if a fighter in the example above has a charisma of 8 and no diplomacy skill then it's up to the player to decide how to play his character in a believable way. I give experience points for good role-play.

Is it really all that important to put a social straight jacket on our characters? Have we really so lost the ability to make decisions that everything comes down to a roll of the dice? I'd still prefer not to pay for 20-30 pages of rules we'll never use.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

(snip)
Understand why social rules are needed. They are not needed to give the pc anything. They are there to insure the DM remains a judge and doesn't fiat stuff on a whim. Think about why AC exists. HEck a DM could just say arbitrarily what hits and what doesnt depending on how you describe your attack. Of course this gives too much power to the dm and eventually a player is going to yell favoritism.
(snip)

Ooh! Ooh! Can I sig this? This's pure gold!

 

[Mallus]

If rpgs dont have mechanics for roleplaying there realy isn't any role playing in the game.

By that logic, D&D didn't become a roleplaying game until 3rd edition, at which time it became a bad one.

 

[Glyfair]

By that logic, D&D didn't become a roleplaying game until 3rd edition, at which time it became a bad one.

There were rules for social interactions in previous versions of D&D. There was a Charisma stat and there were rules for using it in interactions. They weren't very involved, and in my experience, most completely ignored the rules, but it doesn't mean they weren't there.

 

[Mallus]

There were rules for social interactions in previous versions of D&D. There was a Charisma stat and there were rules for using it in interactions. They weren't very involved, and in my experience, most completely ignored the rules, but it doesn't mean they weren't there.

They were effectively non-existent. I mean, they were good for establishing how many henchmen a PC could have, or whether or not the orcish hunting party attacked on sight, but not for much else. There was no support for resolving something like an encounter at court between diplomats.

I remember this pretty clearly, having run a diplomacy-heavy 2nd ed. campaign for many years, powered almost entirely by the occasional CHR check and lots of fiat.

 

[Jhaelen]

By that logic, D&D didn't become a roleplaying game until 3rd edition, at which time it became a bad one.

I tend to agree with that assessment. D&D simply wasn't (and isn't) the game system of choice if you're mainly interest in the roleplaying aspect of a game.

 

[BryonD]

I tend to agree with that assessment. D&D simply wasn't (and isn't) the game system of choice if you're mainly interest in the roleplaying aspect of a game.

I am 100% on board with the idea that good social mechanics should be in the game.

But I think it goes much to far to say that it isn't an RPG without them.
Even if you have no rules whatsoever and everything is resolved by GM fiat, that is still a game.

A game that works out reasonably and consistently is a BETTER game, but no more a game.

I do agree that D&D has pretty much always been combat first and there are other games that are better if your main attraction is social stuff. But that is just the way it is. D&D has always been about killing things and taking their stuff, and you can roleplay.

 

[Mallus]

I tend to agree with that assessment. D&D simply wasn't (and isn't) the game system of choice if you're mainly interest in the roleplaying aspect of a game.

I'm not so sure about that. The groups I ran and played in did just fine with D&D, as did a lot of others.

I don't see why abstracting a social situation instead of actually performing in a social situation makes for a more authentic role-playing experience. Strikes me as counterintuitive.

 

[BryonD]

I'm not so sure about that. The groups I ran and played in did just fine with D&D, as did a lot of others.

I don't see why abstracting a social situation instead of actually performing in a social situation makes for a more authentic role-playing experience. Strikes me as counterintuitive.

I agree with you in regard to "doing just fine".
But you have stumbled into a typical misstatement when you suggest that using an objective system to determine the outcome is "instead" of performing or that it is in any way less authentic.

IMO using the mechanics is more authentic because it forces the evolving social interaction to be tied to the role and not the player. It is not roleplaying unless you are in the character's role rather than just beign yourself. And that includes the character being more or less capable than the player in a social dynamic.

I've seen people do great drama scenes. But I wouldn't say they were roleplaying for crap because they were completely ignoring the parameters of the character they were supposed to be portraying.

Edit - I said mechanics is "more" authentic. It is probably better to say that it is usually more authentic. A really good group can certainly pull of free form RP.

 

[buzz]

I'd recommend that anyone who has doubts about social mechanics try to play some games that feature them, e.g., Burning Wheel or Spirit of the Century. I've noticed that both skeptics I've encountered online and ones in my D&D group have a mistaken impression of how such mechanics impact the game.

The simple fact is that there is no roll/role divide, and utilizing a system to resolve conflicts in a social arena in no way prevents in-character dialogue, immersion, or narrative flavor. It simply supports resolution of social situations the same way that combat rules and skill rules support those situations. As a player, you are still calling the shots and making choices for your PC, as well as interacting with the game environment. The difference is simply that dice and your PC's ability are brought into play, when there is a conflict that needs to be resolved. Obviously, if there is no conflict, there's no need to use the mechanic, just like anything else.

The following is not how social mechanics work:

Player: "I want to convince the duke to lend us troops."
DM: "Okay, roll your Diplomacy."
Player: "I got a 34."
DM: "Good. The duke lends you troops."

The following is how they might work a la Burning Wheel:

Player: "I want to convince the duke to lend us troops."

DM: "Okay, how are you going to do that? The duke currently doesn't have a very high opinion of you and your compatriots. 'Mercenaries and grave-robbers,' he says. 'That you would have the audacity to ask for my aid!'"

Player: "'My lord,' I say. 'Do not mistake us for common adventurers. We are servants of the Radiant Order, and we are worthy of your trust.'"

DM: "So you're trying to bluff him, huh?"

Player: "Well, yeah. It's mostly true, seeing as we've got a cleric of theirs in the party. I want to play that up, so I'm using Bluff with a synergy bonus from my Diplomacy to attempt an Impress maneuver."

DM: "Okay, so you're going for a full-on social combat, then? Let's set some stakes first. The duke is staunch in his resolve. 'You try my patience, peasant,' he says. If he wins, you leave his fiefdom, period."

Player: "Figures. If I win, he lends us a squad of warriors."

DM: "Sounds good. Let's start the first exchange. You said you were leading with Impress, using the skills you mentioned. The duke is in a default Rebuff stance, defending with Sense Motive, with a bonus for his superior social rank."

(Play continues, with narration, mechanical choices, and die rolls from both sides for a number of exchanges. Eventually, both sides of the debate have worn each other down, i.e. "debate damage", to point where a resolution is agreed upon.)

DM: "Okay, you've managed to reach a compromise; the duke is willing to grant your request, in part. 'I will lend you the aid of a single warrior,' he says. 'A lieutenant in my personal guard. Surely, crusaders as accomplished and blessed as yourselves will need no more than the aid of one knight.'"

Player: "Crap! Not quite what I'd hoped, but it's something. 'My gracious lord,' I say. 'Your generosity is most humbling. I feel confident we will triumph now that we are given the aid of your champion.'"

DM: "Hehe. Okay, so, the next morning you go to the barracks to meet the lieutenant..."

And there you go. Now, one could argue that this could have been handled sans-rules, but the point is that the mechanics helped push the story in directions neither side may have envisioned at the outset. I.e., in this example, neither the DM nor the player had any idea how the debate was going to end.

Without the system, there'd really be nothing to prevent the DM from just shutting down the player's idea completely, or alternately, nothing to prevent a really gregarious, forceful player from bullying the DM into giving them whatever they wanted, even if their PC was a Cha 6 half-orc barbarian.

Not to mention, if it made perfect sense for the duke to help the party, there would have been no need for the social combat. The DM would have just said, "yes."

I dunno. I find the above a lot more enjoyable than the typical Mother-May-I of pure Player-DM negotiation. It also gives players a reason to care about non-combat abilities.