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

[Reynard]

I've found diplomacy/deception/persuasion/etc. to be sufficient in resolving it. If something should succeed automatically based on the roleplay, it does. If it should fail automatically based on the roleplay, it does. If the outcome is in doubt based on the roleplay, give it a roll against a DC when talking to NPCs, and the player decides for his PC.

And there's nothing wrong with handling it that way sometimes, even most of the time. I'm just saying, and have been saying, that there are situations where a more robust system would facilitate play.

It doesn't and never has. There's a boardgame called Diplomacy that has a huge social component with no robust rules for it. You and your opponents try to persuade one another to support, attack, betray, etc. the others in order to try and win the game. That social component doesn't obviate the game part, it enhances it. Just like in D&D.

Lord preserve me from players that want to start a Diplomacy game in the middle of my D&D game.

 

[Maxperson]

And there's nothing wrong with handling it that way sometimes, even most of the time. I'm just saying, and have been saying, that there are situations where a more robust system would facilitate play.

I disagree. In my experience rules do detract from roleplaying. My players who roleplayed out EVERYTHING in 1e, did a bit less in 2e when proficiencies arrived, and did even less when 3e came out and had even more skills to rely upon. That isn't to say that they didn't roleplay well, but rather the amount of roleplay dropped. The more mechanics you have, the more players rely upon those instead of the roleplaying and the roleplaying drops.

Lord preserve me from players that want to start a Diplomacy game in the middle of my D&D game.

LOL Not what I was getting at, but that was pretty funny.

 

[Incenjucar]

I disagree. In my experience rules do detract from roleplaying. My players who roleplayed out EVERYTHING in 1e, did a bit less in 2e when proficiencies arrived, and did even less when 3e came out and had even more skills to rely upon. That isn't to say that they didn't roleplay well, but rather the amount of roleplay dropped. The more mechanics you have, the more players rely upon those instead of the roleplaying and the roleplaying drops.

LOL Not what I was getting at, but that was pretty funny.

Did the way you engaged them change at all?

 

[Maxperson]

Did the way you engaged them change at all?

No. It's just that the more mechanics there are, the more players(in my experience) rely on mechanics over roleplaying.

 

[Incenjucar]

No. It's just that the more mechanics there are, the more players(in my experience) rely on mechanics over roleplaying.

Have you ever asked them why?

I was literally singing at the table in 4E and had lots of roleplaying in the game I ran so I'm wondering what makes the difference.

 

[Reynard]

I disagree. In my experience rules do detract from roleplaying.

I won't say they are unconnected, but whether rules facilitate or hinder roleplaying for specific people has a lot to do with the specifics of the rules ands the people. I know people for whom Forged in the Dark makes them dive deeper into character, and others who make it feel like a writer's room and pulls them right out of the game. My point is, I don't think we can say "rules detract from roleplaying" in a broadly true manner.

 

[Incenjucar]

I won't say they are unconnected, but whether rules facilitate or hinder roleplaying for specific people has a lot to do with the specifics of the rules ands the people. I know people for whom Forged in the Dark makes them dive deeper into character, and others who make it feel like a writer's room and pulls them right out of the game. My point is, I don't think we can say "rules detract from roleplaying" in a broadly true manner.

That's my assumption. Things like age, responsibilities, or how long things take can be a factor. Not to mention where and how long you play. Organized gaming tends to struggle with extended RP, especially.

 

[Lanefan]

I disagree, but I'm not a lawyer, so...

I've run trials in my games. As @Maxperson says, it's easy.

Maybe not 100% accurate to the modern legal system, of course; but as such a system wasn't in use in the eras we tend to replicate within game settings anyway, getting somewhere handwavingly close is more than fine with me.

 

[Lanefan]

Not in my experience. Social roleplay is just as susceptible to cops and robbers routines.

And that's reflective of real life as well: look how many things ultimately come down to one person's word vs another's.

 

[M_Natas]

I disagree. In my experience rules do detract from roleplaying. My players who roleplayed out EVERYTHING in 1e, did a bit less in 2e when proficiencies arrived, and did even less when 3e came out and had even more skills to rely upon. That isn't to say that they didn't roleplay well, but rather the amount of roleplay dropped. The more mechanics you have, the more players rely upon those instead of the roleplaying and the roleplaying drops.

I think, the problem could be the Setup of D&D. How is every game table set up? How does virtually any D&D player experience the game? By having his character sheet right in front of him.

And mainly page 1. No matter what else a player has lying around, he will have his character sheet in front of him in some form. They can see their attributes, skills, hit points, armour class, class features, name, race and so on. And it kind of makes sense to have that in front of you. Because then you can access it very quickly and find everything important very quickly.

But it also tempts (nudges!) you into certain behaviours. A player who is thinking about what to do is drawn to the nice list of skills. This tempts them to think of their next action in terms of a skill. You choose your skill and only then think about how the character might use this skill in the game world. This is not a conscious decision that you make, but one that is favoured by the fact that the character sheet is simply in front of you.

The player's thoughts on how to interact with the game are structured by looking at the character sheet. As a result, you automatically think in terms of game mechanics such as skill. You don't think "My character would now try to distract the guard with a compliment", but as a player you think "I could use my skill Persuasion on the guard, I have a +7 bonus".
You no longer embody the character and imagine that you are that character in the world, instead you see a game in front of you in which the aim is to press the optimal button.

And in my opinion, that's not ideal. Because it also restricts the player's creativity without them realising it. Actions that can't simply be assigned to one of the skills don't even occur to you anymore.

The basic principle of D&D is the following:

The DM presents the players with a situation in which the players' characters find themselves, the players say or act out how their characters react to the situation and the DM then uses common sense and the rules to decide the effects of the player characters' actions and then presents the resulting new situation back to the players.

The players say what their characters do, and only then does the DM decide whether a game mechanic such as the use of a skill comes into play at all. So here we have the basic principle that the story, the narrative, takes centre stage, that the focus is on what the characters do and that the rules are only there to support this narrative, while the structure at the gaming table with the character sheet right in front of you provides a nudge to apply the rules first. So the narrative is used here to support the rules.

And you can often see this happening when players say things like: "I want to ise insight", "I want to make a persuasion roll" and so on. They're speaking in game mechanics, not character actions