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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 9287462" data-attributes="member: 2067">We roll dice to find out what happens. If there's no chance of failure or if the outcome is already clear, we don't need to roll dice.So, if the player gives me a persuasive argument and puts that in the mouth of a PC, and there's no real chance that the NPC doesn't believe them, I don't need to roll Persuasion. If it's a little iffy, or if the NPC is mistrusting, or if maybe the PC wouldn't be great at making that argument, then we might roll dice to find out what happens. Stats and skills help ensure that a character can be persuasive and charming regardless of player skill, but it's also always fun to reward the creativity and skill of a player. This does mean that some highly persuasive players may dominate social interaction a bit, but I'm kind of OK with that. If they can tie it into the world and the characters and the story in a compelling way, that really just adds to the game for everyone. In general, I'm not in favor of direct "social combat" mechanics - I think they don't capture the reality of how the social pillar gets played at the table or the psychology of what's rewarding about the social pillar. I think if you play a low-Cha character as a rude bumbler, that's still a successful and rewarding engagement with the social pillar, even if the party is worse off for that. Social encounters are usually more about performing your character's quirks and building the shared fiction and are a little less about success and failure. I am in favor of mechanics that do help the social pillar get played more and better. So things like skill checks for secrets and deceptions and persuasions are all good. Flaws, traits, bonds, and ideals are pretty nice, and I wish 5e did a little more with them (like the idea of not being able to make a Persuasion check UNLESS you ping on one of those...and making Insight checks to help guide your players to them). Some needs vs. wants would also be fun. But I don't need success/failure mechanics for the interaction in general or "social hp" that can be healed and lost. Just some guidance on how to navigate a conversation. Talking in a silly voice and pretending to be a magical elf is usually the entire goal of a social encounter. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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