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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lonely Tylenol" data-source="post: 3740923" data-attributes="member: 18549">Go over and check out the threads on rolling ability scores versus point buy, to see why someone might think that the ability to chuck out an entire ability score without suffering any penalty for doing so might not be fair to the other players.  If one is concerned about having some kind of parity of character abilities, as those who support point buy over random rolling are, a situation in which a player can cheat by being actually charismatic while playing a character that lacks charisma threatens that parity.Also, if one considers that in a game there might be two players who are playing social characters, one who is naturally glib, and one who is not, the glib player perhaps doesn't need to worry about putting skill points into his social skills.  The player who lacks those skills in real life must spend the points if he wants to achieve any kind of social victories, and may even need to demand that the DM pay attention to his skill rolls when attempting social interactions, if the DM is the "talk it out" sort.These are both unfair situations.  You might have no problem with either of them in your game, but that's just your game, and from what you've been saying, it probably doesn't generalize well to other people's games.  You have personally constructed a system that works for you and your players, but it's probably idiosyncratic and relies a lot on your own ability to apply fiat based on your experience with running the system.  You're probably very good at it by now, but without you at the helm it probably wouldn't work as well.  What D&D needs is a system that doesn't necessarily require the DM to be a wise manipulator of social interactions.Having a robust system of social interaction that not only allows players to play characters that have different skillsets than the players do, but also allows for fair resolution of social interactions, is a good idea.  To be fair, such a system must apply penalties to players who choose to have a low Cha and Wis scores and no ranks in social skills, just as the physical combat system penalizes players who choose to have low Str or Dex scores, wield improvised weapons, and wear no armour.Another option is to throw out social skills altogether, which some people advocate.  However, I think that providing the ability for someone to play an experienced con artist, when the player is not himself one, is a worthy goal for a fantasy role-playing game.</blockquote>

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