Strategy or role-playing game?

[Jim Hague]

No, because the physical activity is abstracted at the game table. The physical world game world is divorced from that of the real world. I do not feel this should be the case w/ social skills at my game table because a lack of social skills directly affects my enjoyment.

Social activity is also abstracted - as evidenced by the Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate and Innuendo skills. Sorry, but you're using a false analogy to shore up your case, and as is the case with all false anaologies, it fails logically. Who you have at your table is, of course, your choice; the Game Police won't come and beat you for discriminating in either sense of the word. But if you have a standard, be honest about it.

 

[Psion]

I think the whole "roll or role play" for social interaction thing is entirely a matter of personal preference.

Here's mine.

To me, I think that "the player is not the character" is a fair argument. I also think that players should be rewarded for their ingenuity and role-playing.

So what to do? Well, the obvious answer is to wake up to the fact that it's not a freakin' dichotomy!

Have you ever heard the turn of a phrase that goes "He could sell ice to an Eskimo"? Obviously, that statement refers to someone who is very good at convincing others. Such a character would have a high diplomacy (or bluff or possibly profession: merchant, depending on how you handle it.) But it's pretty aparrent to me that selling ice to an Eskimo is not a particularly clever sales venture to begin with, so it would have a high DC.

Now this principle applies to interaction skills in general AFAIAC. It's up to the player to describe what they are doing, and the dice decide how well they do it.

I don't think this is unreasonable at all. Gamers being a oft times socially awkward bunch, I am sure you can relate to me here. How many times have you had an out with a friend or girlfriend and thought up the PERFECT thing to say to mend things over, then when the conversation actually came, things went south, didn't come out as you intended, etc.?

Well, that's just a representation of the dice in motion AFAIAC. The GM can evaluate whether a player's approach is inherently appealing to a target, and set the DC appropriately. Then the dice determine the delivery. A bad roll might mean that you came off as arrogant, inadvertantly committed some faux pas, etc. A good roll might mean that you caught them in a good mood, reminded them of something, impressed them by sticking with your guns.

I have seen some very good guidelines in some d20 books (I don't know if all these have migrated back to the PHB right off the top of my head.) For example, I seem to remember in CoC d20 that they had bluff guidelines like "target wants to beleive" and remember a diplomacy guideline like "PCs request puts character at risk." That sort of thing.

 

[Psion]

The only problem with that is that you've got to find some other kind of reward for the players.

If you get XP for doing things that are not combat related, you go up a level, and get better at... doing things that are combat related.

This is true enough, but speaks of a more simulationist philosophy than I think 3e takes. 3e is implicitly player-empowering and leaves it to the player to put their points/levels where they may.

Actually, very few games these days DON'T do it this way (or some similar way).

 

[Jim Hague]

Well then you think wrongly. NERO, fantasy larping with boffer weapon swords. Magic is handled by flingin packets that either hit or don't. How much damage your sword does and how many hit points you have is mechanical. Hitting to do damage is physical as is parrying or running.

It is possible to do LARPs without physicality such as WW's rock paper scissors adjudications, but that is a choice that can be made in choosing adjudication rules.

Poor swordsmen did not complain in NERO (when I was there) that they could not physically play their expert swordsmen characters as well as they conceived of them. They might do +7 on their damage with each blow instead of a weaker character's +1, but they still had to physically fight where their actual skills and physicality mattered. If you didn't want to actually fight with swords you were better off picking a different concept like a spellcaster or a noncombatant townsperson.

See, I'm speaking of actual LARP, as opposed to battlegames. I've participated for quite some time in NERO, Amtgard and similar hobbies, and there's very, very little roleplay that takes place during a battlegame, save for costuming, the occasional duel or shouted orders. You make a pretty poor spellcaster if you can't fling those li'l balls of foam and cloth, too, unless you stick with the purely spoken spells, which cripples you up a bit in combat.

You're comparing apples and oranges - tabletop RPGs have abstract mechanics for these activities, whereas battlegames like NERO and their ilk rely more purely on the physicality of their participants, and far less on abstract skills for things like diplomacy and skullduggery. Believe me, playing an assassin in the games meant developing social skills in a hurry. It'd have been easier if there'd been an abstract skill system in place, but that's not how those games work. Likewise, LARPS like MET abstract everything, and rightly so - I don't know about you, but having some LARPer biting me on the neck isn;t an expericne I'm looking for at a game.

 

[Rasyr]

No offense, Rasyr, but the DMG provides for exactly this sort of play. In fact, experience is doled out specifically for overcoming and defeating obstances. The specific example cited in the DMG is getting past a guard - you can attack him, Bluff him, sneak past him. Where it breaks down, IME is with the assignation of CR for every single goal. But saying that the provision isn't there is disingenious at best.

I didn't say it wasn't there. What I said was that it was not the predominant method (quote below).

The experience system is heavily biased towards killing things and taking their stuff. That is another method of dictating how to play. Yes, I know that is not the only way of gaining xp, but it is the predominant method, and as such it reinforces the implicit style of play that 3.x promotes.

What I wrote about HARP was to show that the predominant method in HARP was not based on killing things.

 

[Rasyr]

The record has a scratch in it, because we just skipped a track... Is this thread about comparing your design decisions with D&D's or about whether the current edition is more a strategic game and less a roleplaying game? (Again, not linked conditions.)

Oopsie! I did kinda wander from the topic of the thread there. I was responding directly to a specific statement by another poster and forgot all about the focus of the thread. Sorry.

 

[Voadam]

You still haven't answered the question. You just said "that's the way it is".

Most players don't have a Charisma of 18 and 10 ranks in Diplomacy. Many characters do. Many players with limited personal social skills play characters with good social skills. According to you, those character's skills don't matter (or matter less), because it is the social interactions of the player that matter.

But, also according to you, the fat, out of shape guy with two left feet can play a ninja if he wants to. The fact that the player is hopeless at thinks like climbing, sneaking, running, and so on is irrelevant. The ninja character is good at those things, so the player's personal abilities don't matter.

Anyone can talk. Anyone can sing. Not anyone can talk well, or sing well. Anyone can sneak. Not anyone can sneak well. You have not explained why being unable to speak well should impact the actions taken by the character when being unable to sneak well does not.

Your question was "if the player's skill with social skills affects how their character does, why don't the player's physical skills affect their character? "

My answer is because they are qualitatively different. Social interaction and physical interaction are qualitatively different in a tabletop RPG.

Purely social and mental mechanics are unnecessary for a player to interact in a tabletop RPG. A player can just talk as his character, think about the issues going on, etc. Mechanics are optional to represent an interaction that can actually occur.

Physical actions of the character can not be done by the player. He can only say "I do X". Physicality must be abstracted, it cannot be actually performed.

Qualitative difference.

In a tabletop game any player's character can sneak well through game mechanics. In a NERO LARP only players who can actually sneak can sneak well.

 

[Jim Hague]

I didn't say it wasn't there. What I said was that it was not the predominant method (quote below).

What I wrote about HARP was to show that the predominant method in HARP was not based on killing things.

Yeah, but how does that apply to 3.0/3.5? I likes my HARP (that you sold me on, I note) just fine, but it's kind of an apples and oranges thing to the discussion at hand.

 

[Storm Raven]

Your question was "if the player's skill with social skills affects how their character does, why don't the player's physical skills affect their character? "

My answer is because they are qualitatively different. Social interaction and physical interaction are qualitatively different in a tabletop RPG.

Except that there is no evidence they are other than "because you said so". Sorry, but that's not actually a reason. YUou have to come up with something better than that.

Purely social and mental mechanics are unnecessary for a player to interact in a tabletop RPG. A player can just talk as his character, think about the issues going on, etc. Mechanics are optional to represent an interaction that can actually occur.

Physical actions of the character can not be done by the player. He can only say "I do X". Physicality must be abstracted, it cannot be actually performed.

Really? You play with a bunch of quadrapalegics? No one can jump, climb, sneak or do any of those other things? Wait, now I understand, you play with a bunch of people who are unable to do those things as well as their characters can.

Now why is it different when a player is unable to speak as well as their character can? I doubt you will be able to, because your "qualitative difference" doesn't exist.

 

[buzzard]

Your question was "if the player's skill with social skills affects how their character does, why don't the player's physical skills affect their character? "

My answer is because they are qualitatively different. Social interaction and physical interaction are qualitatively different in a tabletop RPG.

Purely social and mental mechanics are unnecessary for a player to interact in a tabletop RPG. A player can just talk as his character, think about the issues going on, etc. Mechanics are optional to represent an interaction that can actually occur.

Physical actions of the character can not be done by the player. He can only say "I do X". Physicality must be abstracted, it cannot be actually performed.

Qualitative difference.

In a tabletop game any player's character can sneak well through game mechanics. In a NERO LARP only players who can actually sneak can sneak well.

So the person who is a good roleplayer who builds an anti-social combat monster gets the best of both worlds in your game? He not only dominates the battlefield, but can triumph in the social interactions in spite of his lack of dedicated skill points?

While I know I enjoy playing at a table of good role players, I don't much see the point in penalizing someone when the character as statted should be good at something the player isn't.

buzzard