D&D 5E Social skill checks to give "bumps"

[Blue]

My tables like to roleplay. We chat up a storm. And when it comes to persuading people, it could happen without any die rolls at all. On the other hand, do I give chatty players with CHR 10 characters a dieless victory, when the CHR 18 with three social skills can fail, just because the player isn't as good at chatting? The other side is just like smart tactics in combat, should I ignore good roleplay and rely on just the dice. (I think I'd have a revolt if I DMed it that way.) The unhappy medium was setting DCs (or giving bonuses) based on how persuasive the player was, but a great speech at a trail with collaborating evidence of the villain's diary in his own hand and sworn testimony of his mother that he's a no-good-rotten-kid could still bomb with a 1. So I've got one idea, but I'd like to brainstorm with you on if it's a good one or what other systems people use. I am not married to this at all, just throwing out one idea but open to others.

Taking a cue from some other RPGs, think of this. When starting a roleplaying scene, each character present (not just the party face) adopts a tone. (Persuasive, Deceptive, or Intimidating). If you stay in the background, I use your "passive" skills (10 + mods) without a roll, which is usually* enough not to start or end trouble.

I have a DC, or more likely one per type. If you start interacting you roll three checks against your type. (Also though about less checks, with more if you are trained.) Each that makes the DC gives you a "bump". You can use these anytime during the scene when you are interacting as per the type you chose.

Whenever you are talking and you want to enhance what you are saying because your character is good at delivering that type of tone, you can use a "bump" and as DM I'll give it extra weight above and beyond what you are saying.

On the other hand, if you fail by 5 or more (including the passive PC), that's an "anti-bump" where as DM I'll discount what you're saying. I'll go out of my way to point out why. "You say your representing the Duc, but look how that guy is dressed" (the barbarian who failed his intimidation roll by 7).

If you want to change your tone (go from persuasion to intimidation) you can turn in your bumps and get a roll for each. This is very inefficient, since you are turning in your success for a possible success, neutral, or failure. But if you want to change up when you can use them, such as you see that intimidation isn't working and you need to bribe someone, that's the breaks. You only get one chance to make a first impression.

You only get the results of those three rolls for the whole scene. If you use them up early, you're back to just your own persuasiveness.

I have though also of giving a second "bump" if you succeed by more than 5, for the really social-focused PCs. (The bard has expertise in persuasion? Oh boy.) But that starts to get even further from a D&D vibe with that many degrees of success. At least a "fail by 5" has a honorable history in things like setting off traps you are trying to disarm and the like.

It's just three rolls per player, shouldn't be very complex or time consuming in play.

Thoughts? Better ways to get the same goal?

 

[Quickleaf]

Thoughts? Better ways to get the same goal?

I might be able to help if you could be clear about what your goal is?

What I'm looking at right now seems to be some kind of a disincentive system for changing approaches in a negotiation/interaction scene? Not sure I understand why you'd want that.

 

[iserith]

I might be able to help if you could be clear about what your goal is?

Agreed. Some clarification would be good here. I've been thinking about this lately myself and have some ideas, depending on what you're trying to do exactly.

 

[77IM]

Here's how I've been handling social checks lately:

• I decide how the NPC reacts based on what the PCs say. 80% of the time, it's obvious. The outrageous lie? Won't be believed. Intimidating a captive after he just watched you kill all his friends? He'll do what you want. Etc.
• Then I call for an appropriate skill checks to capture the degree of success. The outrageous lie? If you do well on the check they'll think you're dumb or joking; if you do poorly, they'll think you're being malicious. Intimidating a captive? If you do well on the check he spills his guts; if you do poorly, he tells you the bare minimum that he thinks he can get away with.
• Check result only determines actual success/failure of the interaction in those 20% of cases where I'm actually not sure how the NPC would react. Humans are complex; sometimes it's easier to just set a DC and let the dice decide.

Checks are meant to resolve uncertainty. What I've come to realize is that a lot of times, success/failure is certain; it's only the degree of success/failure that is uncertain.

We do this already in other areas of the game. If you fall, the DM might let you make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to mitigate some of the falling damage, but it's certain that you're taking the falling damage. If you hide, it's certain that you are hidden, but you get a Dexterity (Stealth) check to see how well you are hidden (you might be hidden from some creatures but not others because of the differences in their passive Perceptions). When you forced march, it's certain that you press onward, but you make a Constitution check to see whether you exhaust yourself or not. And of course, the elephant in the room, is saving throws for half damage: It's certain that you get scorched by the fireball, but make a Dex save for half damage. (Unless you've got Evasion, in which case, the scorching itself becomes uncertain.)

It works especially well for social interaction because it keeps Charisma relevant, but avoids absurd and un-fun scenarios like some of the ones you describe (the impassioned speech, backed by evidence, that still flubs on a poor roll... we've all been there).

 

[Quickleaf]

Here's how I've been handling social checks lately:

• I decide how the NPC reacts based on what the PCs say. 80% of the time, it's obvious. The outrageous lie? Won't be believed. Intimidating a captive after he just watched you kill all his friends? He'll do what you want. Etc.
• Then I call for an appropriate skill checks to capture the degree of success. The outrageous lie? If you do well on the check they'll think you're dumb or joking; if you do poorly, they'll think you're being malicious. Intimidating a captive? If you do well on the check he spills his guts; if you do poorly, he tells you the bare minimum that he thinks he can get away with.
• Check result only determines actual success/failure of the interaction in those 20% of cases where I'm actually not sure how the NPC would react. Humans are complex; sometimes it's easier to just set a DC and let the dice decide.

Checks are meant to resolve uncertainty. What I've come to realize is that a lot of times, success/failure is certain; it's only the degree of success/failure that is uncertain.

Have you found this reduces the amount of Charisma checks made in your games compared to other ability score checks?

One of the criticisms leveraged, rightfully IMO, of 5th edition are the deficit of Charisma and Intelligence saving throws. The design principle being that, on a wash, each ability score should come up roughly an equal amount as the other, both with checks and saves. This is not to say that they should come up equally in the same encounter / scene, but that over the course of an adventure or three, they should come out close in a wash.

 

[77IM]

Have you found this reduces the amount of Charisma checks made in your games compared to other ability score checks?

Quite the contrary; it has increased the amount of Charisma checks, because I now feel free to request them even when the success/failure is certain.

One small example from last session: the weird loner halfling PC wanted to pay a farmer a few gold to spend the night in the barn. Of course the farmer is going to say yes; it's basically free money. I had the PC make a Charisma (Persuasion) check anyway, and he did well enough that the farmer gave him a small cot and blankets, and invited him in for dinner. Had the PC done even better, the farmer would have offered him to sleep in the house. Had the PC done especially badly, the farmer would have been suspicious and kept an eye on the PC (but still let him sleep in the barn). All of this took about 20 seconds to play through, and it was one of many similar quick Charisma checks made that session.

This is an Adventurer's League game at the store so it's not exactly deep-immersion role-playing, so I'm quite pleased that I've found a way make Charisma relevant so often. I do a similar thing with Intelligence and knowledge skills, although it hasn't been quite as successful.

 

[Quickleaf]

Quite the contrary; it has increased the amount of Charisma checks, because I now feel free to request them even when the success/failure is certain.

One small example from last session: the weird loner halfling PC wanted to pay a farmer a few gold to spend the night in the barn. Of course the farmer is going to say yes; it's basically free money. I had the PC make a Charisma (Persuasion) check anyway, and he did well enough that the farmer gave him a small cot and blankets, and invited him in for dinner. Had the PC done even better, the farmer would have offered him to sleep in the house. Had the PC done especially badly, the farmer would have been suspicious and kept an eye on the PC (but still let him sleep in the barn). All of this took about 20 seconds to play through, and it was one of many similar quick Charisma checks made that session.

This is an Adventurer's League game at the store so it's not exactly deep-immersion role-playing, so I'm quite pleased that I've found a way make Charisma relevant so often. I do a similar thing with Intelligence and knowledge skills, although it hasn't been quite as successful.

That's interesting. In that situation I wouldn't have even bothered with any kind of check whatsoever, because there doesn't seem to be anything at stake. If there's no meaningful consequence for failure, why roll? Is my philosophy.

What I'm curious about is, let's assume the extent of the farmer's cordialness to the halfling PC is relevant to the game...

What if the halfling rolled a 1 on the Charisma check you called for? You already know that the farmer is going to say yes...so how would you interpret that result of 1 given the parameters you set up?

 

[Tony Vargas]

My tables like to roleplay. We chat up a storm. And when it comes to persuading people, it could happen without any die rolls at all. On the other hand, do I give chatty players with CHR 10 characters a dieless victory, when the CHR 18 with three social skills can fail, just because the player isn't as good at chatting? The other side is just like smart tactics in combat, should I ignore good roleplay and rely on just the dice.

There's really a very basic question here, and, early on, D&D went to the polar extremes in answering it in combat vs social/interaction (NOT, I should point out 'RP,' since RP happens in combat, too - it's not just speaking in character!). The question is, how do you resolve the question of whether a character succeeds at a task? Do you a) reference the abilities of the character? or b) reference the abilities of the player? In early D&D, combat tasks (like hit'n the other guy) were resolved entirely with a dice roll based on the ability of the character - mainly his class & level, with an assist from STR and magic weapons, for instance. In stark contrast, an interaction task (like talking your way past a not particularly hungry dragon - one reaction dice have indicated was initially neutral to you, say) was resolved entirely based on the ability of the player to pitch convincingly to the DM. (Now, to be fair, pitching a convincing argument to the DM could probably have accomplished just about anything, I'm just talking as far as systems and total lack thereof go).

That started changing almost immediately. The Thief class came out and had special abilities in the interaction pillar (and arguably pick pockets is interaction, for instance), and DMs would sometimes use reaction checks modified by CHA to resolve social interactions instead of just to determine the NPCs initial attitude. Then we got non-weapon proficiencies, and, finally, in 3.0, skills - including Diplomacy, and the Diplomancer build. At that point, interaction had gone from being almost entirely based on the player (with the character wedged in by DM variant) to almost entirely based on the character (or build, I suppose, with the player needing to speak in character to get there and maybe earn a bonus/penalty, only if the DM insisted on it).

5e hasn't much pulled back from that as far as it's mechanics go. The player describes what he wants to do, the DM narrates success failure or sets a difficulty and calls for a check. (The player might be able to get away with a thing or few in how he declares said action, of course, if he knows the DM responds well (success, or at least lower DCs) to some pitches than other.)

The unhappy medium was setting DCs (or giving bonuses) based on how persuasive the player was, but a great speech at a trail with collaborating evidence of the villain's diary in his own hand and sworn testimony of his mother that he's a no-good-rotten-kid could still bomb with a 1.

Well, you can just narrate success.

So I've got one idea,
When starting a roleplaying scene, each character present (not just the party face) adopts a tone. (Persuasive, Deceptive, or Intimidating).
I have a DC, or more likely one per type. If you start interacting you roll three checks against your type. (Also though about less checks, with more if you are trained.) Each that makes the DC gives you a "bump". You can use these anytime during the scene when you are interacting as per the type you chose.

Whenever you are talking and you want to enhance what you are saying because your character is good at delivering that type of tone, you can use a "bump" and as DM I'll give it extra weight above and beyond what you are saying.

OK, sounds like a hybrid of the two resolution systems.

How would you feel about a combat resolution that worked like that? The players make three combat checks, and get to choose bigger boffers and shields the more successes they get, then go at it? ;P

Thoughts? Better ways to get the same goal?

So, for all that it's unfairly criticized for being a 'violent game' because it has so many rules devoted to combat, D&D combat does end up a pretty decent sub-system, at least a fair proportion of the time, while non-combat has generally been pretty sketchy. From 'your 18 CHA does nothing for you' to 'my Diplomancer Elf make the Berserk Orc Barbarian into his new best friend because he rolled a 75.' What's missing?

From the former, obviously, any modeling of the character - from the latter, any meaningful in-play agency of the player (that may seem crazy, since the player is powergaming up the wazoo, but it really doesn't matter what he does, he'll make anyone 'Friendly' because his numbers are just that big - when it doesn't matter what you do, no so much agency, no? Oversimplifying? Using the Forge term wrong? Maybe, but I hope the idea got across - neither is that fun).

In 5e, what you can do is leverage the basic role of the DM in resolution to make something more interesting. Let the players make decisions about /what/ the character will do, let the roll speak for how well the character will do it. It has to be more specific on the player side than "I diplomacize him harder!" But it shouldn't call for actual skill in diplomacy from them. What you said above about taking a 'tone' would be an example. The player shouldn't have to perform in character like he was auditioning for a Death of a Salesman, but he should leave you with a clear idea of what the character is trying to do, and why /that/ character should be able to do it - which should suggest to you whether he succeeds or fails (and what that looks like) or to call for a check, which stat, and whether proficiency should apply.

Vague, I know, but Empowered DMing is as more art than science.

 

[Pickles III]

The OP idea sounds interesting, fortune at the beginning sort of thing.

My "solution" is generally only to roll if there is a mismatch between what the player does & what their characters skills are. So a skilled character making a good case or funny/convincing/scary would not need to roll. Similarly the CHA8 untrained guy who insults everyone would not get a chance. If that characters player makes a good case then let them roll or if the player of the dashing charmer is shy they can roll.

If the task at hand is unusually difficult they will have to roll anyway absent truly exceptional RP or high skills - high level experts.
Obviously there is much judgement involved in this but I try to reward both RP & characters who are good at talking.

 

[robus]

If the speech is really effective such that you as the DM thinks it wins the case then by all means narrate the win: "The jury begins to nod with enthusiasm at your speech. You return to your seat confident of victory and sure enough the jury returns a guilty verdict."

If the speech was great but not a slam dunk such that the outcome is uncertain but you still want there to be a benefit, roll with advantage.

Does it need more than that?