Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4809145" data-attributes="member: 2067">In my mind, those details still exist, even if you're glossing over them, just as they do in combat. If a critical hit is "I hit him in the head," a critical success on a social encounter is "I know exactly what makes him squirm." The difference is that players don't have to collect and memorize bits of lore and have a dramatic personality to influence their success.I think that's kind of missing the thrust of it.In the social situations we've been talking about, things ARE that simple: either the PC gets what they want, or they don't. The rules come up when something has a chance of stopping the PC's from doing what they want. I don't think we need to replace every instance of character conversation with dice rolls, but I think where there is conflict (social or otherwise) the rules should be used to govern who succeeds.I believe this is a key to attracting a wider audience who isn't so much into combat: to make things that aren't combat part of the GAME, with RULES, that you can PLAY, rather than to make it something that's binary or governed by a DM's whim. Once I can make a character who is a foppish prince, who can engage in political machinations as dramatic and engaging as any combat (without relying on a good DM), and who could play a game of D&D without ever venturing into the dragon's cave, we're starting to hit a broader base. Not that the foppish prince WOULDN'T venture into the dragon's cave, jut that the player could also enjoy their thing. I agree with this. That's part of why, in my mind, we need mechanics that work alongside the butt-kicking rules, rather than ones that require you to be a detail-focused dramatist when your sword is sheathed. That's no better than requiring you to be an overly-specific anatomist when your sword is unsheathed (and both have a way of alienating the more casual players).</blockquote>

Verification