D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[CreamCloud0]

If there's signficant stakes in a social interaction then perhaps mechanics might have to get involved as a last resort. Other than that, however...

...the difference is that climbing the cliff always has to be abstracted (most DMs don't have a rock-climbing set-up in the gaming room) while social interactions, assuming all involved are roleplaying their characters in good faith, generally don't require such abstraction to nearly the same degree, if at all.

and here the double standard raises it's head, even if we did have a climbing wall readily available why would i be made to climb it in order for my character to perform the comparable action, i am not my character, my abilities are not theirs and theirs are not mine, and neither are you your character, i roll dice to determine how well they perform their actions so why do your words get to work by a different standard?

 

[Oofta]

and here the double standard raises it's head, even if we did have a climbing wall readily available why would i be made to climb it in order for my character to perform the comparable action, i am not my character, my abilities are not theirs and theirs are not mine, and neither are you your character, i roll dice to determine how well they perform their actions so why do your words get to work by a different standard?

Who said you need to be able to climb the wall or be eloquent? In my games you can read the points you're trying to make in a deadpan unconvincing voice while stumbling over your words. It's the content that matters.

 

[Minigiant]

.the difference is that climbing the cliff always has to be abstracted (most DMs don't have a rock-climbing set-up in the gaming room) while social interactions, assuming all involved are roleplaying their characters in good faith, generally don't require such abstraction to nearly the same degree, if at all.

Good faith roleplay can still have problems.

For example 5e more or less makes Int a dump stat. So it is easy to have a party of entirely or vast majority idiots.

But how many DMs police the group to tell them "None of you are smart enough to think of that" or "You all are dumb. Roll to see if you are smart enough to think that"?

This almost never happens. But the smart player running a dumb character is rarely punished for accidental metagaming at best and purposely power gaming at worse. And it all can be in good faith.

How often do DMs in good faith move the focus of a challenge not due to the character's activity but their attributes?

How often does accent, height, age, rank, attire, language proficiency, race, beauty, or attitude come into the success or failure of a freeform roleplay?

 

[CreamCloud0]

Who said you need to be able to climb the wall or be eloquent? In my games you can read the points you're trying to make in a deadpan unconvincing voice while stumbling over your words. It's the content that matters.

my point is you're forcing one kind of action to be tied to mechanics while the other gets to run free simply because it is easier to perform one at the table, shall i assign my stats as 18, 18, 18, 6, 6, 6, because i can just roleplay past anything that requires mental abilities or social interaction?

 

[hgjertsen]

my point is you're forcing one kind of action to be tied to mechanics while the other gets to run free simply because it is easier to perform one at the table, shall i assign my stats as 18, 18, 18, 6, 6, 6, because i can just roleplay past anything that requires mental abilities or social interaction?

Don't forget saving throws vs magic for those or making persuasion or deception checks, pretty sure Oofta has also stated that it's more of a thing where describing what you're saying is necessary and may affect a check but not bypass all the systems involving those scores.

 

[GrimCo]

Fair, but I can understand why there are people that want (more) social mechanics in D&D. It's perfectly fine to advocate for your own preference (as we all do), but it's always helpful to remember that other people have different, WRONG preferences!

(I kid! Unless they are disagreeing with me.)

It easier to remove than to add. If the system has solid social mechanics, but it can be ignored and just free form role played by group, that is good game design. It is lot easier than try to homebrew balanced mechanics for social interactions.

And then, there are people who just plain don't like that part of game that much. I played with friend who kind doesn't like to do social interactions in character. He wouldn't even try to usually, he would just say for example : I use my diplomacy skill to influence goblins to let us pass.

In my primary group we do mix of role play and roll play for social interactions. Some days we go into detailed debates player vs npc. Other days, it's just "i roll my skill/attribute vs npc skill/attribute" and lets get over that quickly.

 

[Oofta]

my point is you're forcing one kind of action to be tied to mechanics while the other gets to run free simply because it is easier to perform one at the table, shall i assign my stats as 18, 18, 18, 6, 6, 6, because i can just roleplay past anything that requires mental abilities or social interaction?

I rely on stats often enough that it will matter if you tank any specific stat it will come back to bite you now and then.

It's a bit of a conundrum though. Should the half-orc barbarian player always shut up during social encounters? Honestly, I don't have a good answer other than to let the players know that their abilities scores matter but that depending on the situation I will adjust target DC and/or grant advantage or disadvantage.

On the other hand if that half-orc hands the bouncer a bag of gold and grunts "Burg go in", in a lot of cases it's going to work. Or maybe I'll let the half-orc add strength instead of charisma, etc..

 

[Bedrockgames]

Good faith roleplay can still have problems.

For example 5e more or less makes Int a dump stat. So it is easy to have a party of entirely or vast majority idiots.

But how many DMs police the group to tell them "None of you are smart enough to think of that" or "You all are dumb. Roll to see if you are smart enough to think that"?

This almost never happens. But the smart player running a dumb character is rarely punished for accidental metagaming at best and purposely power gaming at worse. And it all can be in good faith.

How often do DMs in good faith move the focus of a challenge not due to the character's activity but their attributes?

How often does accent, height, age, rank, attire, language proficiency, race, beauty, or attitude come into the success or failure of a freeform roleplay?

If this isn’t bothering the group then it isn’t a problem but if it is this problem has an extremely easy solution: police these things. In most of my experience I find the gm and the players as well police this stuff all the time.

 

[Minigiant]

Don't forget saving throws vs magic for those or making persuasion or deception checks, pretty sure Oofta has also stated that it's more of a thing where describing what you're saying is necessary and may affect a check but not bypass all the systems involving those scores.

18, 18, 16, 8, 10, 8

but saving throw power has been more a class choice in every non-4e edition.

But D&D has a tenacity to make Intelligence useless to anyone but wizards and then we have a bunch of idiotic adventurers who eat more crayons than a marine doing brilliant tactics.

The marines in my family prefer red ones.

 

[Hussar]

I'll give a perfect example of where a skill challenge would have been fantastic in our game. Last night, the ranger decided to infiltrate a house using the Disguise Self spell. The DM then had the player roll repeated checks, every single time he interacted with anything, until such time as he failed and his first failure was catastrophic.

Which is my experience in 5e D&D every time there is any sort of complicated task.

A skill challenge framework would have worked far, far better.