I disagree with the idea that talking is the thing you need to simulate least.
You need to simulate speech less than the examples I listed (actual combat to the death, real live magic spell casting, working iron)!
Yup, and, believe it or not, we've learned a couple of things in the 40 years of game development since.
I'm not going to knock all the clever design work that's been done over last four decades. But newer designs offer new alternatives, not objectively better ones. RPG development isn't analogous to something like, say, computing.
OD&D/AD&D-style "players solve the puzzles/speak the words themselves" approach works as well today as it did in the 1970s. Obviously, the reliance on a good DM is a drawback. But any approach will have its drawbacks.
And, you tangentially hit on the need for social mechanics here.
For the record, I should reiterate I'm all for
having social mechanics. I just turn them off when not needed.
One, it's cumbersome to try to just "talk it out" every single time.
No it's not. Preferring to "talk things out" does not imply bogging the game down with a lot of inconsequential, boring conversions. You're conflating free-form social encounters with pacing problems. For some reason...
While talking it out can be great fun, it can also drag and be incredibly boring, particularly if it takes significant time and only engages one player.
So it's important for a DM to know their group, have a handle on pacing, and, most importantly, have non-boring friends capable of amusing speech.
Watching someone role play talking it out with the gate guard for half an hour when the session is only three hours long isn't my idea of fun.
It's not my idea of fun, either. Why do you keep confusing a preference for light-to-no social encounter mechanics with gross pacing issues...
....because I can't find the right phrase to convince the DM to let me pass is also not my idea of fun.
... and terrible encounter design?
We're talking about D&D players. This is a game with THOUSANDS of pages of rules. Presuming that a D&D player has a basic grasp of math isn't exactly a stretch.
Hus, you've never seen a D&D player who's been bad with the rules/mechanics? I've seen quite a few. They aren't exactly unicorn-rare.
In fact, I'd say its a safer assumption to think that a D&D gamer has some grasp on mechanical systems.
And this neatly sums up the bias that runs through every thread on social mechanics. "Gamers have more logical-mathematical intelligence than linguistic/interpersonal intelligence. We're more Aspie than suave!".
Despite playing a highly social game that literally cannot be played without some form of (constant) conversation. I could just as easily say --like I already have-- D&D is very social game, played in groups, in a state of constant communication, therefore, D&D players should be pretty good at talking.
It's not like social mechanics are all that complicated.
The resolution mechanics themselves aren't complicated. But in games like 3e/Pathfinder, the real challenge/game is in scouring the rules for ways to boost your social skills. This can be somewhat... involved.
It's a big failure in (eg) GNS theory, they completely fail to understand that challenging the player supports immersion (actually they don't seem to value immersion at all AFAICT).
Excellent point. Nothing gives me the sense of "being" a PC like speaking their words, or do a lesser extent, solving some kind of puzzle by hand.
But a player who roleplays a Cha 8 character with zero social skills or other abilities like a silver-tongued smooth-talker is - in my view - not really roleplaying the character, but operating on a metagame level.
In a game like AD&D, there's nothing preventing a CHA 8 PC from being a smooth talker. A CHA 8 of grants no reaction bonus or penalty (however the PC can't have many loyal henchmen). How the PC comes across depends entirely on what the player says in character. This is the very heart of soul of role-playing, as far as I'm concerned. Role-playing is what you do in character during live play.
