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

[CreamCloud0]

What would a mini-game that goes beyond skill checks look like?

An expanded skill check system that tries to avoid turning into a mini-game might give the PC a set of skills or sub-skills to "try to get the guard to..." - the PC might try to persuade, intimidate, bribe, distract... The guard would then have different target numbers for the different methods, e.g. a given guard might be hard to intimidate or persuade, but easy to bribe. And then the PC will need some sort of skill or ability to evaluate the guard's different target numbers.

In some game systems, for example, the Bribery skill includes not just "getting the target to accept a bribe" but also evaluating how susceptible the target would be to a bribe, how much an appropriate bribe would be, and what form the bribe should take. (Bob the NPC might huffily turn down a cash bribe in exchange for a favor, but treat him to a fine dinner and ahem Bob's your uncle.)

I might go with having a list of ‘standard social actions’ that basically everyone can perform but classes or backgrounds and the like provide other options or build ontop of what you can do with them, playing a rogue lets you appraise what would be an appropriate bribe by making an insight check as a precursor to actually taking the bribe action.

Your ‘social health’ is based on various factors relating to your mental stats, which also basically serve as your attack and defence stats, a low wis character might be more vulnerable to being deceived whereas a low cha character is weak to flattery

 

[DEFCON 1]

i was agreeing with basically everything you were going with here right up until that last swerve into 'and that's why a social combat minigame would be totally superflous', i see all that as the reasons why a social combat subsystem would be excellent to add, like, i felt like you were going to wrap that all up with 'look at all these problems it would help solve!'

A social combat mini-game would be designed to replace the roleplaying that we are all already doing. So why would we want that? Why get rid of something we already are doing in the game?

The reason we have the combat mini-game is because we do not have any combat or fight "narration" or "roleplaying" to speak of-- we don't describe to the DM how we are going to fight a monster, how we heft and swing a sword, describe what body parts on the creature we are aiming for, how we dodge out of the way of the monster's claws, narrate how we use our brain muscles to stop the mind control spell from working on us etc. etc, with the DM then narrating what happens based on what we told them we were doing. Instead, in order to be fair we play the "miniatures combat game" D&D designed in its place by having a mechanical starting number for both us and the enemy (our HP), then rolling dice back and forth to slowly but surely knock that number down to 0. And no descriptive improv we say has an impact on that mini-game, it's all based on the game mechanics of D&D combat. We can say whatever we want, but that doesn't affect the gameplay... only the game mechanics matter during combat. Dice rolls are king.

Which is why installing a similar "social combat game" IS superfluous in my opinion, because we already do have a narrative roleplaying element in place. We describe to the DM what we want to do or what we want to say, and the DM tells us what happens. So replacing it with dice and knocking out "social hit points" down to 0 to denote we've "won the argument" to me is unnecessary. Throwing in a Skill check here and there to help give a bit more "precision" on what the players said if the DM can't decide how well or how poorly the players did with their idea? That's fine. But those dice rolls only add color to the roleplaying being done, they don't replace it.

 

[Laurefindel]

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.

Yeah, that’s actually a big red flag for me because there is a fine line between playing a jerk character and being a jerk player. If your 6 Cha character is making you a jerk player, I’m expecting you to downplay your dump stat. I’ll take the ‘bad’ role-play over a jerk player any day.

Part of the issue is also that mental stats are very, very broad. Purely going by charisma, the jerk mercenary is not only rude toward nobles, he’s a bad leader, can’t scare a child let alone an enemy, can’t convincingly demonstrate compassion or affection, looks like crap but not enough to be scary, impressive or memorable in any ways, etc. Actually, the same role play could be applied to a 18 Cha character. The difference would be in the reaction of others but the role play itself would be the same. It would be a striking and memorable jerk, instead of a forgettable one.

Stats can suggest a few avenues for role play. Personality traits can suggest where stats could go. But the role play and the stats themselves shouldn’t be restrictively dependant IMO.

 

[CreamCloud0]

A social combat mini-game would be designed to replace the roleplaying that we are all already doing. So why would we want that? Why get rid of something we already are doing in the game?

The reason we have the combat mini-game is because we do not have any combat or fight "narration" or "roleplaying" to speak of-- we don't describe to the DM how we are going to fight a monster, how we heft and swing a sword, describe what body parts on the creature we are aiming for, how we dodge out of the way of the monster's claws, narrate how we use our brain muscles to stop the mind control spell from working on us etc. etc, with the DM then narrating what happens based on what we told them we were doing. Instead, in order to be fair we play the "miniatures combat game" D&D designed in its place by having a mechanical starting number for both us and the enemy (our HP), then rolling dice back and forth to slowly but surely knock that number down to 0. And no descriptive improv we say has an impact on that mini-game, it's all based on the game mechanics of D&D combat. We can say whatever we want, but that doesn't affect the gameplay... only the game mechanics matter during combat. Dice rolls are king.

Which is why installing a similar "social combat game" IS superfluous in my opinion, because we already do have a narrative roleplaying element in place. We describe to the DM what we want to do or what we want to say, and the DM tells us what happens. So replacing it with dice and knocking out "social hit points" down to 0 to denote we've "won" the argument" to me is unnecessary. Throwing in a Skill check here and there to help give a bit more "precision" on what the players said if the DM can't decide how well or how poorly the players did with their idea? That's fine. But those dice rolls only add color to the roleplaying being done, they don't replace it.

we would want that because our class features, our stats and skills, all those things that we use to 'play the combat minigame' are all intertwined and valued as part of the same power budget that the social parts are, so simply being able to sidestep interacting with the mechanical side of social interactions simply because you are able to roleplay at the table level isn't a good thing in my opinion, there's nothing stopping us from narrating our fight the whole way through how i slash at the ogre and wizard freezes it solid until the GM says 'yup they're dead now' just the same how we describe how we convince the town guard to let us pass or the shopkeep to give us a discount til the GM says 'yup they're convinced now'.

 

[Reynard]

A social combat mini-game would be designed to replace the roleplaying that we are all already doing. So why would we want that? Why get rid of something we already are doing in the game?

No, it would be designed to facilitate it.

The reason we have the combat mini-game is because we do not have any combat or fight "narration" or "roleplaying" to speak of--

People keep repeating this like it is relevant to the discussion of social combat. It isn't

 

[DEFCON 1]

we would want that because our class features, our stats and skills, all those things that we use to 'play the combat minigame' are all intertwined and valued as part of the same power budget that the social parts are, so simply being able to sidestep interacting with the mechanical side of social interactions simply because you are able to roleplay at the table level isn't a good thing in my opinion, there's nothing stopping us from narrating our fight the whole way through how i slash at the ogre and wizard freezes it solid just the same how we describe how we convince the town guard to let us pass or the shopkeep to give us a discount.

Well, we'd need the game to provide then a lot more class features, stats, and skills that are all geared towards social combat to get it to be even somewhat on-par with combat. Now, could that be done? Could some create a mini-game for it? Sure. Will it happen? Probably not. Because again, we already have social narrative in the game that we use all the time as part of the standard game, plus Skills for the DM to use if there's a question in their mind as to the NPC's reaction.

"The Bishop says he is going to imprison you for heresy. What does your character do?"
"My character draws his sword and says that they'll never take him alive and he'll take all of the guards with him."
"Okay. Roll a Charisma / Intimidation check."

 

[DEFCON 1]

No, it would be designed to facilitate it.

Okay... well, come up with a social combat mini-game that is meant to work alongside players just saying what it is they want to do and I'll take a look at it and see if it appears worthwhile. Maybe you can convince me.

Or if you don't want to... that's cool. You don't need to convince me of anything after all. But then again, I already have what I want in the game, so you'd have to convince somebody that whatever ideas you have in mind would "facilitate" players telling DMs what they want to do.

 

[Reynard]

Okay... well, come up with a social combat mini-game that is meant to work alongside players just saying what it is they want to do and I'll take a look at it and see if it appears worthwhile. Maybe you can convince me.

Or if you don't want to... that's cool. You don't need to convince me of anything after all. But then again, I already have what I want in the game, so you'd have to convince somebody that whatever ideas you have in mind would "facilitate" players telling DMs what they want to do.

Again, I am advocating for a social combat system that is intended to be used in social situations analogous to combat encounters: things like trials, dealing with courtly intrigue, and convincing powerful factions or individuals to do what you want. There are a number of ways to design the specifics, but in general it means giving players "tactical" choices and including victory conditions -- just like combat.

 

[Vaalingrade]

A social combat mini-game would be designed to replace the roleplaying that we are all already doing.

Well no.

It's to provide a fair framework that allows players of characters whose abilities and preferences differ from their character to contribute and thrive in the parts of the game where the character should be strong where the player may not be. Much like how the game doesn't discriminate against players who can't ro don't know how to swing a sword, cast a spell or climb a wall.

And just like those, parts where mechanical success of failure don't matter, you're still in freeform.

All this is doing is saying that in order to convince the king to let you progress the story, the onus isn't on the player to be a convincing orator and wordsmith.

 

[Voadam]

we would want that because our class features, our stats and skills, all those things that we use to 'play the combat minigame' are all intertwined and valued as part of the same power budget that the social parts are,

I can't tell if you are saying that they are all part of the power budget or whether they should be.

In 5e everyone is mechanically designed to be balanced and participate in combat effectively in different roles.

Skills are usually zero part of the D&D combat mechanical mini game though and high skill classes are not otherwise combat weaker than low skill classes in combat to compensate.

Socially the classes are not mechanically balanced to equally participate mechanically in social activities. Even just going with skills some are high skill with more skills and expertise, some are low skill, some are socially oriented in skill options, some are very not. Mechanically it is a very different set up from combat, it is not designed for everybody to participate or be balanced when they do.

Every player can participate in first person social interactions though.

so simply being able to sidestep interacting with the mechanical side of social interactions simply because you are able to roleplay at the table level isn't a good thing in my opinion, there's nothing stopping us from narrating our fight the whole way through how i slash at the ogre and wizard freezes it solid until the GM says 'yup they're dead now' just the same how we describe how we convince the town guard to let us pass or the shopkeep to give us a discount til the GM says 'yup they're convinced now'.

Most of the objection to mechanic-less roleplaying seems to be about first person acting and talking persuasively as being effectively persuasive, not second person describing how you are convincing as being effectively persuasive.

First person roleplaying a social encounter to determine if an NPC is swayed by an argument seems more analogous to actually swinging foam weapons in a LARP to determine hits in a combat instead of rock paper scissors to make it a randomized mechanic to handle conflict in a LARP.

Mechanics use is a choice to accomplish specific purposes.

If you want all typical characters to be able to participate effectively in social interactions in 5e the same way they are designed to participate effectively in combat then going with non-mechanics hits that more than the class skill set up of 5e.