Some players shouldn't play certain PC types

[el-remmen]

A quote from the Aquerra wiki:

Social Mechanics & Role-Playing: A note about social interaction skills. Players are expected to role-play out scenes that use skills such as Diplomacy, Intimidate, etc. Diplomacy checks and the like can maybe handle in one of two ways:

• If you are comfortable with your ability to think and talk on your feet and want to risk a circumstance roll based on your performance, the check can be made after the interaction. However, if you are not so confident in your ability to improvise and role-play social situations deftly, the check can be made before the interaction, and then the role-playing can be based on the results (instead of vice versa)
• Either way, as role-playing has always been the emphasis in Aquerra campaigns, players are discouraged from making characters that rely primarily on mechanical interaction skills as their primary form of conflict resolution if they are unwilling or not deft at role-playing those kinds of situations.

 

[gizmo33]

How? The game is still being played in the real world. With, presumably, real people.

By not rejecting or embarassing your friends or people you play the game with. Was that a trick question?

 

[Odhanan]

Wolfwood, I do agree. Some people are best suited to play this or that type of character.

Now, RPGs are in part about wishful thinking, fantasies. The guy who's been bullied all his life and wants to be a tough fighter. The guy who's working in a factory and wants to be a war leader. The guy who's struggling with keeping the finances of his family afloat wanting to play a wizard solving problems at the whim of a spell.

How do you deal with that?

Someone socially incompetent might want to play a rogue/bard precisely because s/he is socially incompetent/awkward in real life? Is that bad? It sure isn't, since that's part of the realm of fantasies an RPG can fulfill during a game session. The question becomes: how do you make a socially incompetent person feel like she's in control of the action of his/her bard and succeeds at social encounters? Same thing about frail, passive people in RL wanting to play fighters or barbarians.

Are there ways in which the DM can empower these people to make them feel like their decisions have an impact on the game and fulfills their fantasies?

 

[Mallus]

By not rejecting or embarassing your friends or people you play the game with. Was that a trick question?

Not at all.

If someone does/says something embarrassing during a gaming session, it's still the real world, last I checked, and therefore there's likely to be some mockery and embarrassment felt. All par for the course. Have a laugh, then move on.

Describing gaming as if it was a form of councelling rubs me the wrong way.

 

[werk]

This is why I dislike puzzles in the games I run/play...it is a test of the player, not the character.

In this case, maybe it's best that he not play this type of character, or it'll penalize the rest of the party that is depending on him not to miss all the things that he is already missing. As a DM, I'd probably call it out and let the rest of the party decide...do you want the handicap, or do you want to change up?

 

[Deset Gled]

As described, the problem is not that the player has no roleplaying skills, its that he has few roll-playing skills. Your fellow games should encourage him, but in a different way. They shouldn't be telling him what to say in social situations, they should be telling him when he should be rolling the dice. Brazeku hit in on the head. As a DM, you need to be telling him to roll the dice when he fumbles, not waiting for him to come up with something to say.

It's not a guaranteed fix, but it's worth a shot.

 

[Mallus]

This is why I dislike puzzles in the games I run/play...it is a test of the player, not the character.

Don't take this a criticism of your prefered play style, but at some level, the game has to be a test of the player, or it becomes nothing but a game of chance...

 

[billd91]

From the couple of examples I have seen so far, it comes to the other players just directly telling X out of character that, "You should ask them about this," or "Try telling them this." Watching X roleplay out a conversation is painfully awkward and uncomfortable. It's much more entertaining to watch pretty much any other player in the group talk to an NPC, even though our charaters do not have particularly good social skills.

Now the usual response to this is along the lines of, "You don't expect a player to be good at swinging a sword in real life in order to make an attack roll! The player should roll according to the skills of the PC, and the DM should have the NPC respond to the results of the roll." I really do agree with that, but it only works up to a point.

A player doesn't have know how to swing a sword in real life, but a player does need to have some idea of the best way to position his sword-swinging miniature on the battlemat in order to attack an enemy miniature. A player does need to have some understanding of when to have his PC pull out a sword and when to pull out a bow and when to cast magic missile instead.

Similiarly, a player with a PC with lots of social skills needs to have some idea of what they want to do with those skills. It's fine to make a Diplomacy roll to make an NPC like you, but the player then needs to decide what favors they wish to ask of their new-found friend. I don't care if a player is the worst liar in the world as long as they make their Bluff roll... but the player needs to be able to decide when it is appropriate to Bluff in the first place and what tall tale they are trying to sell. An Intimidate check can make an NPC do what you want, but a player needs to decide what it is they want the NPC to do.

I'm more or less with you on this one. You're using the character's stats and abilities to determine the success but are expecting the player to determine the approach and tactic. That's what I do as well.

In this case, it really is hard to deal with a player who has trouble even coming up with the tactical approach to use. My best suggestion is to make him lay out what he wants to accomplish, and think of a few contingencies, before he even approaches the encounter and just let the other players kibbitz at this point. At least this way, you'll won't have him retreat from the encounter as a failure, have the other players chime in, and then re-run the encounter. He'll have gotten his advice beforehand. It might save you a little aggravation.

In all this reminds me of advice I saw about dealing with kids with learning disabilites in the classroom. Often, they can't think of responses to questions quickly enough or can't focus enough once other kids are peppering the teacher with responses, so you ask them first and let them catch the low-hanging fruit. They've been given a chance to contribute in a positive way and can then sit back and focus on listening to the other kids without being distracted by having to think up another answer. In this case, since he seems to be a slow thinker or have trouble deliberating on what to do with social skills, let him load up early with a little help from his other players before sending him into the encounter where he has to think a with a little more agility.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Some people are better suited to certain types of characters. I don't think that is in doubt. Some people are better tacticions, some people can keep thousands of spells straight in their head and some people can talk circles around others at the drop of a hat.

But the trouble at hand in the time issue, correct? The fear that in the next games players will be stuck waiting for X to say something?

I don't know X so I don't know the "best" way around this.

Will he feel less pressure if he rolls the die before he speaks or will he say 'it doesn't matter' and not say anything?

Will he feel hurt if other others offer suggestions after five seconds of waiting instead of thirty? Still gives X a chance but not as long of one.

Since you know that you will be in a city and doing a lot of talking, can you prepare ahead of time in case he needs to talk? ("There is a guard at the door. What will we say if he stops us?") Obviously the group can't ALWAYS be prepared, but one wait a night is better than five or more.

The OP isn't having fun waiting around so there is an issue. Who is X best friends with in the group? Can they raise the issue outside of the game (and hopefully avoid a lot of stress) and find out how X feels about it?

Another type of question: is he trying to speak in first person? Would it be easier for him to speak in a general style third person?

I am currently playing a Bard. I try to speak in character when convercing with NPCs. Being a theatre person I prefer that style. But sometimes I can't think as fast as my Bard apparently can (he has some really high social stats).

Would the group let him say : I try to convince te guard to let me pass because of the favor I did for him last week.

or does he think he needs to say:

Now, Bob. Remember when I recovered your wedding ring from Innara's house last week so that Gwen wouldn't find out that you left it there? That caused me some problem and cost a few coins. Could you just... you know... convienently look over there for a few seconds?

If he's getting caught up on the details it might be easier if he knows he can just do a general description.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

If he's getting caught up on the details it might be easier if he knows he can just do a general description.

Seriously, I'd do this.

Of course, the OP's post sounds like the poor guy's having issues doing even that.

If he's having trouble with things to say, I'd suggest having some of the other players assist him with that. I know that I always think of better things to say when I'm not the one speaking.

Though, if he can be gently encouraged to switch character types, that'd probably be a good idea.

Brad