D&D General Social Pillar Mechanics: Where do you stand?

[mamba]

A friend and I were discussing this yesterday and we liked the idea of each NPC having a few tags/traits that if the player could incorporate them, they get a bonus on whatever final roll is called for (without a full on social combat system, i tend toward one singular roll at the end of the roleplay conversation to judge how it ultimately went). Things like Greedy or proud or Loves Their Mom or whatever. You could also offend one of those traits and earn a penalty.

sounds like what Matt Colville discussed for the MCDM RPG

 

[overgeeked]

Most importantly --- players understand.

If you dump STR, DEX, or CON, you can't role-play your way out of it. You aren't your PC. You can't go break down a door in my house because your PC failed to break a door down in a dungeon. (Well, I guess you could, but it won't help your PC any, and you'll have to pay for the door!)

So, you can't just "do things" for INT, WIS, or CHA via role-play simply because you, not your PC, would be able to. Consider solving a riddle or puzzle. A low INT martial PC isn't as likely to solve it, even if you as the player can. Now, you can certainly ROLL for your PC to solve it, because then the low INT will come into play. This is why for many such things I prefer group checks, because often the players (as a group) are also working together.

Ultimately, if a player insists that their PC convinced the guard, solved the riddle, should have found the secret door because the player said their PC looked "right there", I just tell them, "no." If you want your PC to be good at such things, because you are (so to say), then put your ability scores to favor them, take the right skills, etc. If a player can't accept that this is how I run my game, then most likely they will enjoy playing with a different group (or at least when someone else is DM).

You are playing a character, not yourself.

My preference is to simply not have mental or social stats in RPGs. Like most Japanese games don’t. The player is on the hook for describing things, making plans, role-playing, searching, etc. When mental stats are present, they exist for things lime mana and magic bonuses, not rolling to solve a puzzle.

 

[Reynard]

sounds like that Matt Colville discussed for the MCDM RPG

I haven't been watching, but I also agree with a lot of Coville's GMing philosophy so I am not surprised.

 

[Tonguez]

Another thing is I insist players play the PCs incorporating the ability scores they give them. If you dump INT, you can't play your PC as a genius simply because you are. Likewise, as a player you can talk your way into the roll for social interaction, but if you dump CHA, that -1 penalty will affect your roll---I don't care how "well you role-play it".

I get that problem playing low int characters,mso I also bump up wis and then all preface suggests with “I notice” or “Is it wise …?’. So my characters dontgenius ideas and solve complex puzzles, but they are perceptive, and can make suggestions based on the wise approach …. It’s not easy keeping genius in check, but it can be done :0

 

[Yaarel]

Wisdom is either sensory input or will power. Both are passive. Neither requires "roleplay". Even if the player actively tries to find something, the DM determines the results. The Wisdom check is passive. There is no special behavior for roleplay.


With regard to roleplay, Intelligence and Charisma matter.

As DM, I employ narrative adjudication. When I present a scene, players must describe what their character does (generally a mix of first person and third person). Dice usually dont happen. An effort either automatically succeeds, or automatically fails. Only in the case of "maybe" do dice ever happen.

So, it is impossible for a player to say, "I roll Intelligence-Investigation to solve the puzzle."

The player must actually describe how they interact with the puzzle.


Similarly, it is impossible for a player to say, "I roll Charisma-Persuasion for the guard to let us thru the door".

The player must come up with some kind of ploy that might have influence over the guard.

 

[mamba]

How do you frame the "court battle" of the PCs trying to convince the duke to give them the castle over the "heirs"? How do you adjudicate it?

The players will be aware of the situation, and since they encounter the noble family there, the Duke let's both parties make their case.

If the players bring up the right arguments, the DC gets lowered, otherwise it stays wherever it was set at. The right arguments are swearing loyalty to the Duke, pointing out that they will be better at protecting the region than the family that was run out of it, and anything else they can come up with to persuade the Duke and makes sense (help him with a problem he is having, offer him gold or something else he wants, ...)

The Duke says he will consider the arguments of both sides and leave, eventually he will tell the characters how he decided or maybe press them for some more concessions, depending on how successful they were / rolled.

 

[Shiroiken]

I don't want heavy mechanics, such as a "social combat" system, but I want some mechanical representation of the character's ability. Not every player is good at roleplay, and punishing them for something their character should be able to do is asinine. That would be like requiring melee characters to larp their fighting style.

 

[mamba]

I haven't been watching, but I also agree with a lot of Coville's GMing philosophy so I am not surprised.

he basically said it will be similar to a skill challenge, so repeated rolls that bring the NPC closer or farther away from agreeing, depending on how well the characters do, with the NPC having some keywords that are either positive or negative when brought up. If they manage to bring the number down far enough in the time they have (before patience runs out) they succeed. If they bring up a really negative keyword, they lose the negotiation right then and there.

Something along those lines at least, has been a while

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm sort of in the middle on this one. I can honestly see both sides of the argument. Without mechanical support for social situations, shy players won't be able to engage with social aspects of the game. But, with mechanical support for social situations, shy players won't be pushed to try being sociable at the gaming table where it's ostensibly a safe space and try things out.

There's a lot of overlap with social and mental stuff in RPGs. The player should limit their RP to the character's stats and if they don't they're effectively cheating because they're relying on their own wits and charisma as a player to carry the character through while using mental and social abilities as dump stats.

If the character is limited to their physical stats, why shouldn't they also be limited to their mental and social stats? But a lot of people get really bent out of shape if you suggest things like having a player roll an INT or WIS check to see if the character would think of something.

If the player can rely on their own mental and social skills, the character sheet should not include mental and social skills. If the sheet does include mental and social skills, the player shouldn't be allowed to rely on their own mental and social skills. It's a having your cake and eating it too situation.

Either the character is limited by their stats in all areas or they're not limited by their stats in any area. Pick one.

At the broad top-down level I agree with you. It would be preferable to think that our players would roleplay the stats they have selected for their characters, and that if they "dumped" a mental stat that they would play into that fact as they play their character (since quite frankly, I think roleplaying into bad stats can be a lot of fun). And I agree with it to the point that on the rare times I get to play, I purposefully choose classes that work on high INT or I raise my INT stat even if it isn't "beneficial" per se for that class to do so... all so that I can be okay with playing to the best of my ability while still maintaining a truth in the fiction. So for instance my paladin in the Pathfinder game I've been playing in actually has a lower CON than one would ordinarily think a warrior class would have, just so that I could put a few more points into INT because I wanted to RP him as a halfway-intelligent fellow.

But that being said... as a DM I don't really care if the players at the table really bother playing to their mental stats or they don't. One, because I'm not really bothered by "dump stats" that players take... and two, the difference between a stat that has been dumped and one that is completely normal or adequate is like just 3 modifier points. And when it's the die roll that will swing numbers between 1-20 points... those 3 points of the ability modifier don't have nearly the same effect in comparison to warrant me getting bent out of shape over it.

So if players take an 8 in INT because they need to save their points for DEX, CON, and WIS to play what they feel is an "effective" character... I'm not going to police them when all the players at the table start trying to formulate plans and they chime in. It's not worth it to me to get that far into the weeds over it.

 

[Schmoe]

A friend and I were discussing this yesterday and we liked the idea of each NPC having a few tags/traits that if the player could incorporate them, they get a bonus on whatever final roll is called for (without a full on social combat system, i tend toward one singular roll at the end of the roleplay conversation to judge how it ultimately went). Things like Greedy or proud or Loves Their Mom or whatever. You could also offend one of those traits and earn a penalty. We also discussed the idea of a Secret, that if you discover it and incorporate it, it gives you advantage. Like if the new king secretly killed his father, and the PCs could let him know they know without blowing up court, they could get advantage on the roll to persuade him to send troops to defend their home or whatever.

I literally just wrote up a scenario like this for my game last week. They had to convince an NPC of something, and if they did certain things related to the NPC's background it would give them certain benefits. For example, appealing to the NPC's good nature would grant a +2 to the roll, and trying to bring up the NPC's past would incur a penalty (because that NPC hates to talk about their past). I think in general this is a really good way to add some depth to the social interactions.