Social skills vs. ... all other mechanics

[5ekyu]

Tara wants to play a wizard. She can't cast magic, but that's fine, it's just a game. Tom and Jerry are both playing front-line melee of different classes. Jerry used to be a Marine and he can really describe it, Tom ... not so much. But hey, we have mechanics for that and as long as Tom can manage decent tactics we're okay. It's funny, Tom is playing a ranger even though Jerry would be the one who could describe all of the woodscraft. Christine wants to play a half-elven paladin of Corellon; she's a laid back agnostic from a family of them that probably never was to a religious service except for weddings and funerals. Still no problem - it's a fantasy game.

And then we have Harry. He just finished watching Ladyhawke (again), and he wants to play a glib, silver-tongued character. But our Harry is anything but a smooth talker. He's earnest and loyal, but never been good with words.

So what do you do? No one else needs to demonstrate actual skills of their characters - that's what the mechanics are there for. But everyone at the table can convince in character and the closest Harry will get is "I interject a bunch of witty remarks so they like me."

Do you let the mechanics and dice carry him, just like Tara's Fly spell? Do you convince Harry that other people's character concepts can come true but not his, even though the rules allow it? Would you just expect Harry not to ask to play something that so far our of his personal wheelhouse?

This is a made-up example, but how do you, at your table, handle this if it comes up? And the flip side - that player who likes to talk and is good at it but for this character picked CHR as their dump stat and didn't take any social skills.

the player describes what his character is attempting - the resolution process determines how successful. No need for the player to be good with the task in real life.

That applies for the cha 8 smooth talking player and the cha 16 social challenged player equally.

Some Gms put a lot more weight on the player's ability to do the thing than the character, to describe it in a way that seems "better at getting it done" (which requires more player knowledge of the task itself almost by default) means easier time in resolution.

i am not that kind of Gm for the most part.

i also tend to avoid "player riddles" tho so perhaps i am an odd duck.

 

[Ragmon]

Do what ever is fun, for the player and the group.

I played a face for the past 6 months in Shadowrun, on an average days we played out the conversations.
On days when I just didnt feel like RP-ing, I just described what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to go about doing it.
And in both cases we rolled dice to determine the outcome.

 

[Oofta]

the player describes what his character is attempting - the resolution process determines how successful. No need for the player to be good with the task in real life.

That applies for the cha 8 smooth talking player and the cha 16 social challenged player equally.

Some Gms put a lot more weight on the player's ability to do the thing than the character, to describe it in a way that seems "better at getting it done" (which requires more player knowledge of the task itself almost by default) means easier time in resolution.

i am not that kind of Gm for the most part.

i also tend to avoid "player riddles" tho so perhaps i am an odd duck.

You're not the only one who avoids "player riddles". I find them annoying ... my PC may have a 20 intelligence and wisdom while I struggle to crack a 10 before caffeine. Even then it's a crap shoot. On the extremely rare cases I have puzzles I give appropriate skill checks to give hints (or with a high enough result the answer).

But to the point, I remember a DM who wanted me to describe exactly how my character was searching for traps. I looked at him and said basically "how the **** do I know? I'm not a rogue".

Same with social skills. Despite my sparkling eloquence as demonstrated on these forums, my PC has abilities and deficiencies that I do not. It's why I write a strength score on my sheet instead of seeing how much I can bench press.

 

[Reynard]

On the extremely rare cases I have puzzles I give appropriate skill checks to give hints (or with a high enough result the answer).

I like puzzles and riddles in my adventures, so I sometimes use Player Knowledge stuff -- whether it is game rules, or pop culture stuff, or just common real world knowledge -- as a sort of stand in for whatever arcane process is happening in play. it has the downside of breaking immersion, of course, but has the benefit of drawing the players in and getting them excited about solving the thing.

Usually, anyway. One time I was running a post apocalyptic Mutant Future scenario. The PCs were desperately trying to shut down the nuclear reactor before it exploded and as a stand in for wires and programming, I gave them a Sudoku puzzle (how well they rolled on their characters' intelligence checks determined how difficult the Sudoku was, ranging from really easy for a good roll to moderate for the worst roll possible). It did not go over well. I thought they were going to hang me.

Live and learn!

 

[Oofta]

I like puzzles and riddles in my adventures, so I sometimes use Player Knowledge stuff -- whether it is game rules, or pop culture stuff, or just common real world knowledge -- as a sort of stand in for whatever arcane process is happening in play. it has the downside of breaking immersion, of course, but has the benefit of drawing the players in and getting them excited about solving the thing.

Usually, anyway. One time I was running a post apocalyptic Mutant Future scenario. The PCs were desperately trying to shut down the nuclear reactor before it exploded and as a stand in for wires and programming, I gave them a Sudoku puzzle (how well they rolled on their characters' intelligence checks determined how difficult the Sudoku was, ranging from really easy for a good roll to moderate for the worst roll possible). It did not go over well. I thought they were going to hang me.

Live and learn!

My wife would have loved it. Personally, I would have been getting the rope or muttering "hangin's too good fer 'im"

 

[billd91]

I like puzzles and riddles in my adventures, so I sometimes use Player Knowledge stuff -- whether it is game rules, or pop culture stuff, or just common real world knowledge -- as a sort of stand in for whatever arcane process is happening in play. it has the downside of breaking immersion, of course, but has the benefit of drawing the players in and getting them excited about solving the thing.

Usually, anyway. One time I was running a post apocalyptic Mutant Future scenario. The PCs were desperately trying to shut down the nuclear reactor before it exploded and as a stand in for wires and programming, I gave them a Sudoku puzzle (how well they rolled on their characters' intelligence checks determined how difficult the Sudoku was, ranging from really easy for a good roll to moderate for the worst roll possible). It did not go over well. I thought they were going to hang me.

Live and learn!

Yeah, I wouldn't be giving out a Sudoku puzzle either. It's not very immersive. Sounds like the situation would have been better modeled with some kind of logic/circuitry diagram puzzle.

 

[iserith]

I don't really like puzzles myself, so all the "puzzles" in my games are really just dirty jokes. None of which I can repeat here.

 

[Celebrim]

As a player of RPG's that is usually the GM, this comes as no surprise to me:

1) It's difficult to play a character that is convincingly smarter than I am.
2) It's difficult to play a character that is convincingly wiser than I am.
3) It's impossible to play a character that more humorous, wittier, and funnier than I am.
4) It's nearly impossible to play a character that is more likeable than you are.

Desiring to have an NPC with those traits is not the same as being able to create one. You cannot just tell the players, "The NPC is very funny." Or rather you can, but you cannot make the experience of the players the same for telling them that the NPC is funny and actually presenting them with a funny NPC.

So it's not just social skills.

The actual division is this. The body of the player is not within the game universe. But the mind of the player is inescapably within the game universe. Therefore, it is easy to entirely separate the physical skills of the player from the player character. But it is entirely impossible to separate the mental skills of the player from the player character.

And while the player may desperately wish to be able to play someone entirely wittier, more charming, more knowing, and more capable than themselves, it is not in fact desirable to entirely separate the mind of the PC from that of the player. It is possible to have the fortune mechanics somewhat empower the players missing social and intelligence skills so to bring the PC halfway, but you can never entirely replace the judgment of the player and the volition of the player with the superior judgment and volition of the PC however superior you may describe or envision the PC in those terms. And again, that's entirely desirable, because on some level you want the player to be a participant in the game and not merely a passive observer of what the PC is doing.

 

[jgsugden]

My approach is to encourage players to emulate their best attempt at the social skills of their characters, and then we use the dice to determine the success or failure.

This works well. It primarily works well because it *usually* isn't what is said that causes a positive or negative reaction in others, but how it is said. I've watched multiple people attempt the same lines in bars with drastically different effectiveness. I've heard people tell the same joke with drastically different responses. The player may deliver a suave line ... but their PC with a low charisma might flub it. The player may timidly and awkwardly ask, "How you doing?", but their PC may get the response that Joey on friends received.

Of course, there are times that someone says something - with every intent of it being persuasive and friendly - that a DM can't imagine would be received warmly. It might be offensive in general, or it might be offensive to the person in question based upon some piece of personal history. In those instances, I have the character make an appropriate roll and then - if they succeed on the role - avoid saying I or quickly recover from their error.

As an added benefit, when players come out of their shells and try to emulate a charismatic character, they often get a bit more confident in the real world.

 

[Staccat0]

I know this is probably an unpopular way of handling it but I completely disregard the delivery and focus on content.

My subjective estimation of their argument or propsal helps me assign the DC of difficulty. Context assigns advantage or disadvantage. I let the die do the other part. To me, the dice in a social scene are like tea leaves. I look at the result and figure out why my NPC was or wasn’t impressed.

I’ve never had any trouble getting players to RP in conversation though. I have had more than one PC with personality traits we might regard as “bad” who had high charisma checks. My approach avoids any dissonance on that front. I treat it like collaborative word-building