Social skills vs. ... all other mechanics

[iserith]

This is also assuming that people enjoy that aspect of the game, I know I do and I encourage it. However, as I said earlier it's one thing to encourage and gently guide someone in this kind of scenario, but if they don't enjoy it or are not comfortable I'm not going to force it.

I don't try to push my ideas of fun onto other people. In my games if someone says "I try to convince the bouncer to let us in" that is a declaration of intent, just like "I track the wolves." I may ask them for more detail on any skill check if it's not clear. For example, are they willing to bribe the bouncer? Do they mention something that might be useful the the bouncer or decide to intimidate if they're unsuccessful at first?

I'd rather do it as RP, but if someone prefers RP-lite it's their choice not mine.

"I don't like it..." and "I'm not good at it..." are two different things.

Let's please not construe what I said as forcing people to do things they don't like.

 

[Blue]

A goal and approach is all that is required for any action declaration. What you want to achieve and how you go about that, offered with reasonable specificity.

My statement was that if you're not even good at that, then get cracking on getting better! And if you're not good at active roleplaying, while it's not required to play the game, there's only one way to get better - just do it.

Okay, in both the examples gave, it was just the goal. Can you give me an approach useful for:

"I track the wolves prints we found."

"I pick the lock on the chest with my thieves' tools." (Is "with my thieves' tools" enough for an approach?)

"Do I know anything about these symbols?" (for a character with several knowledge skills, some trained.)

(I'm not picking on you, I'm just going back to the original premise of social skills oft having different expectations.)

For some of these, isn't picking an appropriate approach something inherent in the character knowledge of having a good and/or trained skill?

Would you allow "My character is trained in tracking and woodcraft, so I'm using all of my character's knowledge to follow the wolves."?

 

[iserith]

Okay, in both the examples gave, it was just the goal. Can you give me an approach useful for:

"I track the wolves prints we found."

"I pick the lock on the chest with my thieves' tools." (Is "with my thieves' tools" enough for an approach?)

"Do I know anything about these symbols?" (for a character with several knowledge skills, some trained.)

(I'm not picking on you, I'm just going back to the original premise of social skills oft having different expectations.)

For some of these, isn't picking an appropriate approach something inherent in the character knowledge of having a good and/or trained skill?

Would you allow "My character is trained in tracking and woodcraft, so I'm using all of my character's knowledge to follow the wolves."?

A statement of goal and approach that is reasonably specific will be whatever the DM finds, in context, to be sufficient to adjudicate the action without having to assume or establish what the character is actually doing. Outside of its actual context, it's hard to say whether any of these would be okay.

What I see a lot of is the player not performing this role adequately and the DM stepping in to say what the character is doing. That is not how the roles of DM and player are laid out.

 

[Oofta]

"I don't like it..." and "I'm not good at it..." are two different things.

Let's please not construe what I said as forcing people to do things they don't like.

When you said

My solution to not being good at something is to keep practicing that thing until I am good at it. So I don't accept "I'm not good at X" as an excuse from anybody, barring some kind of unavoidable disability.

It led me to believe that you say that there can't be social skill check without a player speaking in character. Maybe that wasn't what you meant. Even if it was, that just means take different approaches. Hardly the end of the world.

Back to the OP, I'm ok with people describing what they want to do without going into details of how they are doing it or acting it out if for social interactions if they don't want to.

If they provide what they intend to do along with any additional modifiers that might help or hurt their check, that's all I need.

IMHO forcing people to speak in character for social skills when nothing similar is required for any other skill check just discourages people from engaging or creating charismatic characters if they aren't into it. If it's because they don't think they'd be any good at it hopefully I can encourage more of it. If they just don't like to, they don't need to. Knowing the difference isn't always simple.

 

[iserith]

When you said

...

It led me to believe that you say that there can't be social skill check without a player speaking in character. Maybe that wasn't what you meant. Even if it was, that just means take different approaches. Hardly the end of the world.

I don't see how anyone can reach that conclusion based on anything I've written in this thread (seriously, just scroll up) or any of the other innumerable threads where I talk about the same thing over and over again using almost precisely the same words. You have a habit of doing this sort of thing, however, with me and other posters even very recently. Please let's not go down this road again.

 

[Oofta]

I don't see how anyone can reach that conclusion based on anything I've written in this thread (seriously, just scroll up) or any of the other innumerable threads where I talk about the same thing over and over again using almost precisely the same words. You have a habit of doing this sort of thing, however, with me and other posters even very recently. Please let's not go down this road again.

I gave you the specific quote that led to my understanding of your position. If I misunderstood, all you have to say is "you misunderstood". A clear statement of "If a person doesn't want to speak in character when attempting a social skill, I don't force them" or something along those lines would also help.

I know you think your position is crystal clear. Maybe it is and I just accidentally skipped a post or a page. But while I don't want to speak for anyone else, I don't seem to be the only one who is asking for clarification.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Okay, in both the examples gave, it was just the goal. Can you give me an approach useful for:

I've provided some examples of how I might do it, but being in an actual game and on the spot it would very likely be something different. Still maybe the examples will prove helpful. And as a player I've found the more I do it the better I get at it.

"I track the wolves prints we found." "I examine the wolf prints in an effort to determine how old they are and what direction they are going in" works, but that doesn't mention anything about finding hair, or blood if the animal is wounded, or catching a scent. "I examine the surroundings for all traces of the wolves to determine their number, direction, and distance from us" might be better, but I find either works works fine (or a million other descriptions honestly)

"I pick the lock on the chest with my thieves' tools." (Is "with my thieves' tools" enough for an approach?) "I attempt to pick the lock with my thieves tools" has both a goal and an approach to me "I explore the lock with my thieves tools to try and unlock it while avoiding traps" certainly works too

"Do I know anything about these symbols?" (for a character with several knowledge skills, some trained.) "I examine the symbols to try and decipher their meaning" or "I compare the symbols to my vast arcane knowledge in order to determine their meaning"

(I'm not picking on you, I'm just going back to the original premise of social skills oft having different expectations.)

For some of these, isn't picking an appropriate approach something inherent in the character knowledge of having a good and/or trained skill?

Would you allow "My character is trained in tracking and woodcraft, so I'm using all of my character's knowledge to follow the wolves."? That would work for me. But I like to grant Advantage if the player can come up with, how do I put it, something less generic sounding. Maybe tying it to a background, or better yet something previous that happened earlier in the campaign.

 

[5ekyu]

This is one of the things where your behavior as DM determines how your players play like.

If you reward good roleplaying and clever ideas, your players will try their best to come up with something.
Advantage is that it creates more interesting gameplay. Disadvantage is that players that aren't good at this might feel punished.

If you make everything into a dice roll as long as your players describe what they want to accomplish, then players will eventually stop thinking of ideas themselves and just say "I come up with a great idea".
Advantage is that even players who can't do what their PC is supposed to be good at are not disadvantaged. Disadvantage is that the roleplaying gets pretty boring, unless you as the DM, then come up with good ideas for your players (and that turns into you basically dictating what the PCs do which is another disadvantage on top).

That is a wonderful false dichotomy with extreme results put forth as what will come of it.

Well done.

My experience runs counter to that.

In my experience, the players who enjoy more roleplay in their RPG bring it to every game and every table - regardless of mechanics that reward it or not.

In my experience, those who do not enjoy more roleplay and who instead enjoy more the tactical side of the game and challenge being that to every table - **mostly** regardless of the mechanics around "reward roleplaying" unless the GM weaponized it into strong tactical benefits and then they do it for that gain in tactical matters sometimes.

In my experience, it is more myth than reality that any player is say exclusively either/or and most are well to the middle of the "my character rolls an idea" thingy.

I do not in play reward "clever ideas" or "good roleplay" because frankly ***my personal tastes*** as to what constitutes "clever" or "good" as GM should not **I believe** influence the outcomes of the character's actions in the game world.

If the actions being taken will within that world lead to ABC, then I think they should lead to ABC regardless of whether they are "clever" or just good solid tun of the mill sound choices executed well. I see no reason to give a reward for whatever one might call clever over shy something that just is the right choice.

Are my games filled with boring not "good roleplay" and "not clever enough choices? Beats me. My folks seem to enjoy it.

Go figure.

"No, let's not drive them into a choke point where we maximize our firepower again. Let's do "clever" instead?"

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I don't understand how you go from "players describ[ing] what they want to accomplish," to "I come up with a great idea." If I'm requiring a goal and approach to that goal, simply saying "I use a great approach" diesn't ever work. The substitution here is an assumption that the DM is a moron with no standards. It's unwarranted.

That was a bit simplified.

For example let's say someone made a fighter, but he put a lot of points into Intelligence and proficiency into Investigation, explaining me he is thinking of some McGyver like guy that also comes up with great ideas to get out of a predicament. The player, himself, has no clue about chemistry and physics.

Now the party is in a predicament and the player says: "I use my knowledge to come up with a clever plan to get out of this situation".

Now there are basically three possibilities:
- I tell the player to roll Investigation
- I tell the player he needs to describe roughly how he wants to get out of the situation (and if it seems trivial to do, he succeeds and if it's unsure if that would work I let him roll)
- I tell the player he needs to come up with the idea himself and tell me how he does it in detail (and if it will definitely work, it succeeds and if it might work, I let him roll)

 

[Ovinomancer]

That was a bit simplified.

For example let's say someone made a fighter, but he put a lot of points into Intelligence and proficiency into Investigation, explaining me he is thinking of some McGyver like guy that also comes up with great ideas to get out of a predicament. The player, himself, has no clue about chemistry and physics.

Now the party is in a predicament and the player says: "I use my knowledge to come up with a clever plan to get out of this situation".

Now there are basically three possibilities:
- I tell the player to roll Investigation
- I tell the player he needs to describe roughly how he wants to get out of the situation (and if it seems trivial to do, he succeeds and if it's unsure if that would work I let him roll)
- I tell the player he needs to come up with the idea himself and tell me how he does it in detail (and if it will definitely work, it succeeds and if it might work, I let him roll)

I'd ask what his character wants to do. "Come up with a great plan to get out of this" isn't an action declaration. "I want to chemistry a bomb and bliw a hole in that wall" is a good action declaration. Note the latter doesn't require any actual knowledge of chemistry and yet still has an adjudicatable goal and approach. As a DM, I coukd ask for an investigate to see if they can source appropriate resources. Sonce this doesn't address the final goal directly, failure wouldn't stop the attempt to build a bomb but instead complicate it. Perhaps a regent is unstable, so a failure on the INT(chemistry) to build the bomb means it goes off before the character can clear the area, or some other complication.

The trick here is obvious: don't infantilize your players.