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

[M_Natas]

These Pathfinder 2E Influence rules are a good example. I think they improve things by giving the GM a solid foundation on how to adjudicate what the PCs do, with DCs and concrete targets and outcomes. This reduces the mental load on the GM and makes it more fair for the players.

uff, as a DM I already feel overwhelmed reading the rules.
so first I would need to create a special stat block for an NPC, then there would be rounds (where I feel the example round time is extremely long - 45 minutes to discuss the rent with your landlord?) and then Characters can make one action per round ...

Also especially the discover action seems ... like Divination? How are you supposed to figure out by watching him, that Mr. Landlord was going to the Theater as a Kid and that performing a song could influence him? Like that doesn't feel very natural. That is not something somebody can figure out during a conversation about owed rent.

Like, I can see how an Influence Point System (as long as it is hidden from the players) can help a DM especially when you add the weaknesses and resistances and stuff, but turning the social encounter into rounds with two specific actions seems very limiting while at the same time especially as the discover action looks like a mind reading super power of some kind. Maybe I need to see it in actual play, but that whole system feels like total overkill and overcomplication to me for a simple discussion with your Landlord.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Look man, all I can say is what I saw. I saw a lot of dudes screeching about how utterly stupid it is for dragonborn to have mammary glands due to laying eggs (even though there are literal real world animals that have mammary glands and lay eggs, they're called monotremes), and never once saw a single woman complain about it, but saw and spoke to several who loved that they finally had a race that more resembled them (as dragonborn women tend to be curvaceous and/or well-muscled, without needing to be under five feet tall), and thus felt really excluded by all these dudes declaring what women should or shouldn't be.

I just think this sort of choice should...you know...be one primarily driven by what female fans prefer. Not driven by the mostly-male development team deciding one way or the other. Especially because (explicitly!) dragonborn are a divine creation, not an evolved species, so the alleged "realism" argument is and always has been bunk. Fiction is inherently creationist.

Perhaps I should not belabour the matter, as it is rather unconnected to the actual topic, but you certainly had an opportunity to bring up some actual examples of sexism instead of trying to paint a position disagreeing with your personal preferences in some ancient debate as such.

There is one thing here I agree about, that is listening the female fans. It is just that the discussion certainly didn't have the gendered divide you are describing here, so I guess there must be some confirmation bias going on here on your part. People had differing views not connected to their gender nor were people's motivations as you describe.

Yes, a lot of people said that it is silly to have obvious mammalian features on what appears to be reptile, and that it might be unnecessary sexualisation. Whether this is the sort of silliness we need to care about in our make believe is another matter.

I have noticed that in discussions you often tend to describe things in very stark terms, presenting your preferences as objectively or even morally better. But I think it is highly inappropriate to try to paint your preference for dragon tits as some sort of social justice issue, and even more so to try to paint people who disagreed as some sort of bigots, whilst in reality it were they who were concerned about respectful depictions.

 

[Shardstone]

uff, as a DM I already feel overwhelmed reading the rules.
so first I would need to create a special stat block for an NPC, then there would be rounds (where I feel the example round time is extremely long - 45 minutes to discuss the rent with your landlord?) and then Characters can make one action per round ...

Also especially the discover action seems ... like Divination? How are you supposed to figure out by watching him, that Mr. Landlord was going to the Theater as a Kid and that performing a song could influence him? Like that doesn't feel very natural. That is not something somebody can figure out during a conversation about owed rent.

Like, I can see how an Influence Point System (as long as it is hidden from the players) can help a DM especially when you add the weaknesses and resistances and stuff, but turning the social encounter into rounds with two specific actions seems very limiting while at the same time especially as the discover action looks like a mind reading super power of some kind. Maybe I need to see it in actual play, but that whole system feels like total overkill and overcomplication to me for a simple discussion with your Landlord.

Making a NPC stat block literally takes about a minute, it is very easy.

Discover is not divination. Its possible to read things about people, and this is a huge trope in a huge number of entertainment media. But your example also makes the rules sound a lot stupider then they really are. You know the dude you're talking about likes this song because your Discover role reveals that he hums it to himself, or you find a note written by them someone, or something they say hints on this and you connect the dots.

There is nothing limiting here. The two actions is just to kepe things moving, but the actions are liquid. It isn't like "I Attack," its describe an approach, pick a skill, see if you can do something the NPC might really like, and try to avoid things the NPC might really dislike.

You keep going back to the landlord example, and I have to repeat, your landlord example is really, really, really stupid. Note I'm not calling you stupid, just this example you've fabricated. No one is using this to talk to landlords. Its for hashing out more serious or intrigue-based social encounters. You don't use this for every NPC. If you use it for landlords, its because that landlord has big importance to the overall scenario the players are going through.

If coming up with these basic details for a big social encounter are too much for you as a DM, that's fine, but let's not pretend this is overcomplicated or overworked. This stuff is basic. It fits on one page of a book.

 

[M_Natas]

I agree. There seems to be a deliberately obtuse reading of this topic where folks simply assume you either completely freeform role play or the dice decide everything entirely with nothing in between.

I mean, what is 5e RAW?

The players play out or describe an approach of their character ("I want a lower price" or "My character tries to ask for a discount by being nice"), the DM decides if there is a chance of failure or success, if there is, he let's the player make a Charisma (Persuasion)-check against an appropriate DC based on the disposition of the NPC towards the Characters and the approach taken and then narrates the results based on the Dice Roll (if that was needed).

That is how the social pillar of 5e is supposed to work. A mixture of freeform play and mechanics. The DMG has an optional DM facing system that can help him adjudicate more granular.

And so far I haven't seen a proposed mechanic that would improve that.
I read the Pathefinder 2e mechanic right now and think, the DM facing side could help a DM and could be better substitute for the DM facing rules in the 5e DMG, but we'd mean a lot more work to create the social stat block ... but the player facing part with the 15 minute rounds, one action per round and especially the discover action seems... strange to me. Maybe the example given in the 2E rules (discussing rent with the landlord) is just bad but I don't really see a benefit to formalise the encounter in such a way for the players. It also feels unrealistic, that the whole party engages in a discussion with landlord about the rent.

 

[Voadam]

So I'm more in the camp of "not more rules" for the social pillar of the game.

But can somebody give me concrete examples of more rules for the social pillar?
How do those mechanics would look like and how do they change (and improve) the gameplay?

Because right now I can't think off any one mechanic that I think would improve the game, but maybe I just don't see it yet.

Situation

House Harkonnen has moved on House Atreides and the party is at the Landsraad council of Houses trying to get sanctions against House Harkonnen.

Take 5e.

Could be handled free form, the party interacts with NPCs and makes their proposals and the DM roleplays the NPCs and adjudicates results. Could be in-depth, could be light, could be first person roleplaying or second person approaches, could focus on one character or the party as a whole or multiple characters sequentially.

Could be handled using the standard 5e skill system with the DM deciding to call for a roll against a DC to determine success, persuasion to get what they want, the party describes their approach or roleplays stuff out and then a die roll is used engaging the mechanics for a skill check, character stats, possible advantage and disadvantage, bardic inspiration, etc. This engages some of the character aspects, build choices, possibly approaches taken for advantage and disadvantage, and includes an element of chance and uncertainty in the result and is based on roughly how difficult the DM assesses the challenge of the task.

Additional rules could be a 4e style skill challenge, multiple characters doing different things to accumulate progress towards the desired end result. Multiple characters involved and engaged sequentially, multiple approaches, not a binary yes no on a single die result but multiple checks with impacts so there can be successes and setbacks and complications, possibly over multiple rounds of party actions, different aspects of the situation can come in, approaches impact difficulty and there is an element of chance involved at multiple stages. Treating it like a set piece combat with table focus and everybody being involved. Mechanics, build, choices, and luck of the die all matter.

There are more in-depth rules sets for handling such situations as well to make it more like combat with multiple options and relevant considerations and ways to determine results.

 

[payn]

I mean, what is 5e RAW?

The players play out or describe an approach of their character ("I want a lower price" or "My character tries to ask for a discount by being nice"), the DM decides if there is a chance of failure or success, if there is, he let's the player make a Charisma (Persuasion)-check against an appropriate DC based on the disposition of the NPC towards the Characters and the approach taken and then narrates the results based on the Dice Roll (if that was needed).

That is how the social pillar of 5e is supposed to work. A mixture of freeform play and mechanics. The DMG has an optional DM facing system that can help him adjudicate more granular.

Nothing is changed with social mechanics. It simply takes a binary dice roll and makes an event out of it. Also, not every single interaction needs to be run through an influence system or be an encounter.

And so far I haven't seen a proposed mechanic that would improve that.
I read the Pathefinder 2e mechanic right now and think, the DM facing side could help a DM and could be better substitute for the DM facing rules in the 5e DMG, but we'd mean a lot more work to create the social stat block ... but the player facing part with the 15 minute rounds, one action per round and especially the discover action seems... strange to me. Maybe the example given in the 2E rules (discussing rent with the landlord) is just bad but I don't really see a benefit to formalise the encounter in such a way for the players. It also feels unrealistic, that the whole party engages in a discussion with landlord about the rent.

Why is it unrealistic? The entire troupe is renting the theater and would have interest in the rent discussion. This is exactly the thing folks are talking about where they dont want to sit back while the face does all the playing. That and they want social encounters that last longer than a single dice roll.

 

[M_Natas]

Making a NPC stat block literally takes about a minute, it is very easy.

The example is the landlord, who's socal statblock is longer than than the commoner statblock. And I would have to create that from scratch for every NPC that is at least as important as a Landlord ... that feels like a lot of work. Especially that the failure/win states are for a specific case.

Discover is not divination. Its possible to read things about people, and this is a huge trope in a huge number of entertainment media. But your example also makes the rules sound a lot stupider then they really are. You know the dude you're talking about likes this song because your Discover role reveals that he hums it to himself, or you find a note written by them someone, or something they say hints on this and you connect the dots.

But the rules are for the 45 minutes discussion. Like I get that you can discover weakness beforehand, but the discover action is for the actual social encounter itself, as far as I have understood it. So in round 1 of the social combat character A makes the influence action to negotiate rent, character B takes the discover action to discover ... that the NPC likes Music while he discusses the rent with character A?
That's how I read it, maybe I am misunderstanding the concept here ...

There is nothing limiting here. The two actions is just to kepe things moving, but the actions are liquid. It isn't like "I Attack," its describe an approach, pick a skill, see if you can do something the NPC might really like, and try to avoid things the NPC might really dislike.

You keep going back to the landlord example, and I have to repeat, your landlord example is really, really, really stupid. Note I'm not calling you stupid, just this example you've fabricated. No one is using this to talk to landlords. Its for hashing out more serious or intrigue-based social encounters. You don't use this for every NPC. If you use it for landlords, its because that landlord has big importance to the overall scenario the players are going through.

It is not my example, it is the example in the rules and I agree that it seems stupid. But the 2E decided to use that as a game example, so they say by that that this is the intended use for that system.

If coming up with these basic details for a big social encounter are too much for you as a DM, that's fine, but let's not pretend this is overcomplicated or overworked. This stuff is basic. It fits on one page of a book.

A whole page for a minor NPC?
I did that and more for major NPCs in my last campaign. In the current campaign I'm running even the biggest NPCs/BBEGs have maybe a line or two.

 

[Reynard]

I mean, what is 5e RAW?

The players play out or describe an approach of their character ("I want a lower price" or "My character tries to ask for a discount by being nice"), the DM decides if there is a chance of failure or success, if there is, he let's the player make a Charisma (Persuasion)-check against an appropriate DC based on the disposition of the NPC towards the Characters and the approach taken and then narrates the results based on the Dice Roll (if that was needed).

That is how the social pillar of 5e is supposed to work. A mixture of freeform play and mechanics. The DMG has an optional DM facing system that can help him adjudicate more granular.

And so far I haven't seen a proposed mechanic that would improve that.
I read the Pathefinder 2e mechanic right now and think, the DM facing side could help a DM and could be better substitute for the DM facing rules in the 5e DMG, but we'd mean a lot more work to create the social stat block ... but the player facing part with the 15 minute rounds, one action per round and especially the discover action seems... strange to me. Maybe the example given in the 2E rules (discussing rent with the landlord) is just bad but I don't really see a benefit to formalise the encounter in such a way for the players. It also feels unrealistic, that the whole party engages in a discussion with landlord about the rent.

The "15 minute round" complaint is strange to me. The system is saying that there are rounds -- because this is a system where folks take turns and they have a limited number of opportunities to decide what to do -- but the length of the rounds is entirely contextual. If it is an argument before a magistrate, that is different than if it is a negotiation with a ship captain, so the length of the rounds will be different.

note also that you are supposed to use this system for every single NPC interaction. it is for the stuff that matters. They use the landlord example because in that hypothetical adventure, whether the troupe has a place to live matters.

 

[Shardstone]

The example is the landlord, who's socal statblock is longer than than the commoner statblock. And I would have to create that from scratch for every NPC that is at least as important as a Landlord ... that feels like a lot of work. Especially that the failure/win states are for a specific case.

But the rules are for the 45 minutes discussion. Like I get that you can discover weakness beforehand, but the discover action is for the actual social encounter itself, as far as I have understood it. So in round 1 of the social combat character A makes the influence action to negotiate rent, character B takes the discover action to discover ... that the NPC likes Music while he discusses the rent with character A?
That's how I read it, maybe I am misunderstanding the concept here ...

It is not my example, it is the example in the rules and I agree that it seems stupid. But the 2E decided to use that as a game example, so they say by that that this is the intended use for that system.

A whole page for a minor NPC?
I did that and more for major NPCs in my last campaign. In the current campaign I'm running even the biggest NPCs/BBEGs have maybe a line or two.

They are not for 45 page convos, that is a suggestion. Ill respond to the rest in a bit, but this assumption has to be corrected.

 

[Shardstone]

.

Also I was saying the rules fit on one page, not a npc stat block. Like what?????