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

[Lanefan]

Then why don't players have lair actions? Why don't monsters have Vancian spell slots?

To the former: a very good and valid question. (for those extremely rare times a PC is in fact encountered in its home base )

To the latter: if a monster can cast spells then in my game anyway it either uses the same (sub-)systems the PCs do or there is an ironclad in-fiction explanation for why it does not.

This enforcement of perfect mirror consistency between GM-run entities and player-run entities is precisely what forces such awful design. Ditch that seriously flawed requirement, and whole new worlds of design become available to you.

Whole new worlds of design perhaps, leading to a bunch of whole new worlds where I for one am not the least bit interested in playing any characters.

If you don't have that mirror consistency then you're intentionally singling the PCs out as special snowflakes, not representative of their populations in the setting...and, technically, also irreplaceable when they die as you've already detemrined that nobody else in the setting has the abilities of a PC.

If the PCs are all aliens from another world then this works (other than the can't-be-replaced piece, which means you're really playing in hardcore mode!); other than that, it's IMO an awful way to run a setting.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't want to put words in your mouth or make wrong assumptions, so let me state this and you can tell me if I'm off base or not:

It seems that you believe that rules in the game should apply equally to NPCs or PCs, that the rules sort of represent how the world of the game works and are independent of who is acting. Is that a reasonable statement?

I'm not who you asked this of; but for my part, the bolded statement sums up my position quite well.

 

[I'm A Banana]

While I love the direction your thinking is going, it does raise a yellow flag for me. The “jerk mercenary” sounds a lot like an instigator player… I don’t think you want to reward that behavior consistently and repeatedly because it’s sooo easy for it to blow up a scene that another player is attempting to engage very differently.

It’s easy to escalate. It’s harder to deescalate.

I think “jerk mercenary” is already a potentially disruptive behavior that the GM needs to massage, develop specific group management skills to make it productive, and is sooo easy for a player to get impatient - and transfer that impatience to “just roleplaying my character” - and lose sight of the group’s fun. I think enshrining a reward for that behavior is a slippery slope.

Yellow flag is very sensible here!

I'd argue that the line between "jerk mercenary character" and "jerk player" is a more of a scale.

A social mechanic that values character performance should allow for flaws with an impact on the game. If the flaw is just handwaved away, it's not really respecting the player's choices, here. So we do need, generally speaking, to be OK with negative character traits having a negative impact, just as we're OK with having a low DEX score have a negative impact. Nuanced characters have flaws, and those flaws impact the stories those characters are in. There's gotta be space for making good trouble with them.

At same time, a good social mechanic would be able to encourage players to play flawed characters without flanderizing them, without constantly spotlight-stealing.

Which is why I pointed out group checks - that's a way to let one character suck without necessarily ruining the experience for everyone. Not everyone needs to be persuasive in order to persuade in general. A given PC can be weak in that area without ruining the experience.

Another aspect is that of parity. Though D&D doesn't highlight this much right now, you could imagine a world where a CHA dump stat was, like a DEX dump stat, just something you kind of build around. The low DEX character might take heavy armor and a shield and be fine. The low CHA character might take Intimidation and be fine.

 

[Lanefan]

Morale, really? That's a rule? It might be some obscure optional rule from DMG, I dunno.

Morale was a rule in 1e (and maybe 0e and 2e also?), but IME most DMs used it more as a guideline rather than a rail in order to determine whether a losing side surrendered, fled, fought to the death, or a mix of those.

I find it really useful when the foes are animals or dumb brutes acting mostly on instinct, to determine whether and-or when the "fight" instinct or "flight" instinct takes over.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure they do. The only difference is whether the PC chooses to nova or not; and if the NPC caster senses she's outgunned why on earth wouldn't she nova to the best of her abilities?

But this makes no sense from a game design persppective. It means that the players are always going up against far, far, far more resources than they could ever spare. Death is essentially assured. That's not interesting gameplay. It's just death. Lots of death, with little to no ability to do anything about it.

Like...I'm saying they WOULD naturally use all those resources if they have them, and that makes getting through even one day's worth of combats ludicrously too hard. There is no winning against that, even with fantastic preparation.

The goal for both sides in any given fight should be "win this one combat", shouldn't it?

But no player is foolish enough to think that the game somehow stops at that point.

For an NPC combatant, nine times out of ten, the game does in fact stop for them. In the majority of situations (even in pretty lethal games!) it doesn't for PCs. They have, at least, a few more combats for that day--and many more goals well beyond that. For a few big-deal NPCs, sure, there's ongoing plots and plans, but the vast majority will never intersect with the players' story ever again (often because, y'know, they'll be dead.)

 

[Lanefan]

So just an an example, in the system we have been using, you get bonuses for "targetting" the opponent's bonds, flaws or ideals, and get Advantage if you employ their Secret. Of course you have to know what those things are, which is more the free play, exploration and investigative stuff comes in. So, sucker punching someone with their Secret is kind of like a sneak attack.

Best action declaration of all time: "I sucker punch him in the secrets!"

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you don't have that mirror consistency then you're intentionally singling the PCs out as special snowflakes, not representative of their populations in the setting

PCs already are not so, by dint of being adventurers in the first place. Adventurers are weird. They aren't like normal people. They are almost always outliers in at least one way, and usually in many ways. It is silly to expect that folks who gladly, willingly dive into murder-holes on the expectation of fabulous lewts are somehow perfectly identical to the fictitious average person. (Truly "average" people don't exist, this has been scientifically proven quite easily. Everyone is an outlier in at least one way; some people are outliers in many ways at once.)

 

[Lanefan]

Cool. And the GM can just arbitrarily decide stuff.

We should do the same with combat.

Not at all, mon ami; not until and unless we're able to swing swords and cast spells at each other across the table and thus no longer need to abstract combat.

We don't, however, need to abstract in-character socializing, speaking, arguing, persuading, etc. as the players can - unlike combat - do that talking for real.

 

[Lanefan]

But this makes no sense from a game design persppective. It means that the players are always going up against far, far, far more resources than they could ever spare. Death is essentially assured. That's not interesting gameplay. It's just death. Lots of death, with little to no ability to do anything about it.

Only if the PCs are collectively as dumb as a bag o' hammers and don't long-rest whenever they possibly can; even if it means retreating from won ground. And sure, there'll be some death until the survivors learn not to overextend themselves. So be it.

And yes, I'm advocating for the 5-minute workday here as the most desirable player-side strategy because it's exactly what smart and-or wise characters would - probably by painful trial and error - eventually learn to do.

Like...I'm saying they WOULD naturally use all those resources if they have them, and that makes getting through even one day's worth of combats ludicrously too hard. There is no winning against that, even with fantastic preparation.

Ideally, "one day's worth of combats" is determined by what the PCs think they can handle, leading to the near-constant and very realistic tug-of-war between "do we press on" or "do we rest up".

For an NPC combatant, nine times out of ten, the game does in fact stop for them. In the majority of situations (even in pretty lethal games!) it doesn't for PCs. They have, at least, a few more combats for that day--and many more goals well beyond that.

Those goals can wait until we're back to full pop.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Only if the PCs are collectively as dumb as a bag o' hammers and don't long-rest whenever they possibly can; even if it means retreating from won ground. And sure, there'll be some death until the survivors learn not to overextend themselves. So be it.

And yes, I'm advocating for the 5-minute workday here as the most desirable player-side strategy because it's exactly what smart and-or wise characters would - probably by painful trial and error - eventually learn to do.

Ah. Then we have nothing further to discuss about it. The 5MWD is pretty clearly a degenerate solution in my book. It is an artifact of bad game design, producing behavior that is both unrealistic and less fun for most people involved.