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

[I'm A Banana]

This would make for some scripted role-playing. Social interaction is more freeform than that.

Yeah, mechanics are never 1-to-1 representations of reality. Actual combat doesn't work according to initiative, either. We don't need to set an arbitrarily higher reality bar for social mechanics than we do for any other mechanics. Which was part of the point I was making by describing alignment as a personality test - yeah, nobody in real life is entirely defined by Lawful Good. Nobody in real life is entirely defined by INTJ, 4w8, Pisces, Rooster, or blood type O, either. Replicating reality isn't the point. Encouraging people to perform their characters is the point.

Something like "go around the table and everyone describe what they want to do before the NPC responds, keep it to about a minute of character action" wouldn't go awry in most games, I think.

 

[Davinshe]

I like mechanical systems that work as an incentive for players to engage in roleplay as way of overcoming obstacles and conflict.

I don't like mechanical systems that only benefit those who invested in social skills where at best a character can do okay, but likely to botch and put their foot in their mouth.

TL;DR: I hate systems where the best way a character can positively contribute toward group success is to shut up and not interact with others.

This was my constant complaint with 4e's skill challenge. X successes before 3 failures in practice meant that anyone with a bad diplomacy check (or really, anyone other than party's designated face character) can actually cause the group to lose just by participating. That soured me pretty badly on social skill mechanics. I want to think they are possible but skill challenges were not the way to do them.

 

[Maxperson]

I will always advocate for systems over player skill.

I should never be able to make Int and Cha dump stats and then get to use my decades of D&D experience and social development to make up for them.

That's an example of someone with poor roleplaying skills. A skilled roleplayer roleplays the low stats.

 

[AnotherGuy]

That's an example of someone with poor roleplaying skills. A skilled roleplayer roleplays the low stats.

My general bias as a DM is to work with a player who is roleplaying their character (stats, motives, personality...etc)
I will still attempt to maintain the integrity of the game/story but if a player is making that effort it acts as a reminder for me to reward such roleplaying because you want to encourage it (I do at least). And this is particularly within D&D which has few incentives (the obvious being Inspiration or XP) for good roleplaying.

 

[GrimCo]

In 5e, dumping stats, means usually you have 8-10 on that stat ( PB or standard array seem to be norm for stat generation). That's somewhere between lower end and middle of average (8-12 being average). Most of us as players have stats in that range. Roleplaying someone with INT or CHA 8 is basically role playing average joe.

 

[Umbran]

But, y'know, what makes Critical Role a success isn't system mastery or character builds or compelling point systems with a lot of tactical options. What people see in D&D there is a performance. And we can absolutely get better, in game design, at helping unskilled people deliver better performances in the D&D game.

Sure, but as a goal, this presupposes a desire for our individual tables to be attractive to viewers online.

I know my players don't care one whit about whether their performances could be better for folks not participating at our table.

 

[Umbran]

Until you get those inevitable players (and, occasionally, DMs) who - knowing it's going to come down to a roll in the end anyway - do whatever they can to skip the roleplay and jump straight to the roll.

And if that's what they really want, why not?

If folks don't want to engage, they aren't going to have much fun with it, nor are they going to be much fun to watch doing it. And the fun is the goal, right? Right?

So, why not let them, and move on with play?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Sure, but as a goal, this presupposes a desire for our individual tables to be attractive to viewers online.

I know my players don't care one whit about whether their performances could be better for folks not participating at our table.

No, the goal is to be entertaining for the people at the table.

 

[Umbran]

No, the goal is to be entertaining for the people at the table.

Then step 1 is probably not to engineer a system to be like Critical Role. Step 1 would be to find out what would be more entertaining for people at the table, and if they want greater focus on performance aspects of the game.

D&D, as the biggest fish in the pond, probably ought to be expected to target "middle of the road" for most aspects of play. So, what's "middle of the road" for performance?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sure, but as a goal, this presupposes a desire for our individual tables to be attractive to viewers online.

I know my players don't care one whit about whether their performances could be better for folks not participating at our table.

Incorrect, and another strawman.

I didn't think it needed to be spelled out, but the goal is just to have more fun playing D&D.

And a game where character performance is part of the game adds fun in some of these ways:

• It challenges different skill-sets. If combat challenges our tactical decision-making and math skills, then performance challenges our imagination and our empathy and our social skills.
• It provides pacing. In challenging different skill-sets, it allows the tactical, analytical work to rest while maintaining forward momentum of the story.
• It enriches the world. By interacting with NPC's and making genuine in-character choices, you learn more about how the campaign elements react to each other.
• It enriches the character and party dynamics. In playing your character as part of a party, it allows dyanmics like "team face" or "team mom" or "the smart one" to rise up, validating player choice and developing comraderie.

And more, too!

As I noted before, this isn't prerequisite. You can have fun playing D&D without ever rolling dice, and you can have fun playing D&D without ever being in character, but both mechanics are pretty important to the kind of fun D&D offers, and doing away with character performance is a lot like doing away with dice rolls.