The need for social skills in D&D

[theemrys]

I believe in a happy medium... after all, I enjoy the roleplaying, but quite frankly, I don't know anyone who can adequately roleplay an 18+ Cha... just like most players would be hard up to truely roleplay 18+ Int... As a DM I find it hard to roleplay a powerful demon who has 23+ Int... I think mechanics have a place, but they're not the be-all-end-all. I use modifiers based on the roleplaying of the character... and that means how well they are roleplaying their scores. If they have a low Cha , they should play that.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Sometimes the game is exactly that.

Sometimes it's a DM evaluating the PC's actions and deciding the outcome. You may not like that vis a vis social interactions, and that's fine. But consider how many rules there aren't. No real rules or even guidelines to help a DM evaluate strategy. How does a DM decide if a group's plan to overthrow the King will work? Or rather, how difficult it will be given their chosen course of action?


So what's the role of player input in social resolution?

Why have any rules then? Seriously, why are rules for determining whether you hit ok, but not rules for determining if a guard believes your lie?

Its not even about RPing, its about action resolution. A good system needs to have some mechanic to resolve commonplace occurances. The issue here isnt an uncharismatic player trying to convince their DM, its a sheer lack of ANY rule for social resolution when you drop the dice.

 

[Henry]

I have difficulty believing the "shy player" argument. I've played with any number of people that were fairly shy IRL but none of them had any problem roleplaying in-game.

It doesn't even have to be shyness. In a one-shot a couple of years ago, I played a female PC with a rather good bluff skill, a real hellion who was also pretty good at conning others, but found myself in need to seduce a guard to draw his attention away from his post.

As fellow ENWorlder Rel can tell you, I stink at seduction. However, my character, in her original concept, would have been good at it, as one of her strengths. I made a roll (modified by a penalty for my LOUSY role-play attempt), and onward we went. Had it been all up to my roleplay skills, I would have been as useless as the proverbial fifth wheel.

 

[Mallus]

You, the player, are a being separate and distinct from the player-character.

People say this a lot, but that doesn't make it true. I think it be more accurate to say something like, 'Players vary in how closely they identify with their characters. Sometimes with the same character. In the same session'.

Isn't this the whole point of a role-playing game?

The point is to have fun.

Assuming a role?

That's not usually the crux if it from what I've seen. Conflict and reward is. Problem solving. YMMV.

If you accept that statement, then why should the player's social skills be the equivalent of his or her character's?

Because sometimes its more fun if they are. Because there isn't much point in maintaining strict character fidelity for its own sake. If that results in the deemphasizing of entertaining play.

At some level D&D has to be a game, where the play matters, and not an exercise in fantasy-themed improv.

Of course I realize it's very difficult, if not impossible, to separate the player from the character.

Hey, we agree!

Then role-playing the result of the die.

But some people enjoy acting out the oddity that lives in their heads, not the result of some die rolls.

As an aside, I've had way too much coffee today, hence all the posting.

 

[theemrys]

Ok, here's a great example of how it can work out. In a campaign I was running, one of the characters was an uncharismatic (6 Cha) elven rogue... (Figured as an elf, at least he was still more attractive than humans... he had a LOT of personality issues which is what made him so fun). The rest of the party was invading the enemies castle through the roof, but there wasn't enough room for all on the flying carpet. Since this rogue (Griere) didn't have a high opinion of the party, he decided to work at bluffing his way in. This was NOT a social character, but it was his call. He headed up the front entrance, disguised in a cloak recovered from an enemy before... and headed in. he was stopped by a number of Hobgoblin guards... They questioned him so we made the bluff check... he got a net 4... Figuring he was screwed, he said "I'm here to kill your mothers"... the hobgoblin's rolled a natural 1 on the sense motive... "Alright, come on in then". It was pretty funny, but the way the rolls went made for some very interesting scenarios. This has happened to me before in many different games, both in combat as well as social situations. I think the rolls work well to be a guide as to how to roleplay it out.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

That's funny. I dislike social rolls. I am old school. I don't think it is because I play favorites, but because I like the actual roleplaying where people get into character, talk as their character and interact with NPCs by talking with them in actual conversations.

That is a fun aspect of the game.

Interrupting it with dice rolls and modifying how NPCs act after I figure out how their level of modified dice roll success against a target number equates into a narrative change on a chart (his reaction is shifted one category more friendly, what was it to start with?) and then figure out how this should modify his interaction then try to implement that, is annoying for me. It can lead to incongruous results based on die results and modifiers that have nothing to do with the situation. I find it better to just keep the flow going and handle the interactions without the dice. I find it more fun and less jarring.

Of course, it leaves all aspects of social encounters entirely to your whim. Why not go with all aspects of play like that, and abandon dice entirely in combat, searching for traps, making saves, riding a horse, etc?

True, saying "I convince him," would be no resolution whereas "I convince him, I got a 32 against his resisted 14" can generate a concrete resolution. Except for how the DM has the NPC react now that he believes your lie temporarily according to the skill roll result or now that you have made him a little more friendly. But it gives you a number to argue with instead of how the interaction actually went, common sense, and the relevant circumstances.

Why is this bad for talking, and not for stabbing? Why do we roll to hit? Why dont we resolve initiative order just by letting the fastest speaker go first? Why have any rules at all? By your argument, we should just sit there and let the DM tell us everything that happens. After all "DM's whim" must be the best way to figure out how successful any attempted action is. And since all DM's are infallible (just ask a grognard!), why sully their divine intent with anything else?!

The rules as written still allow a ton of DM adjudication and can still allow a game to be just a matter of "Mother may I". A DM could say "He is convinced that you are right but says he unfortunately still can't let you pass." or even "The skill doesn't do that. Diplomacy only changes an attitude."

A successful diplomacy check can achieve the same result. Just because the president of the bank likes you doesnt mean he can let you inspect the vault. The only difference is, theres some mechanic so that even your typical power tripping DM acknowledges that the character made a good attempt.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I found most DM's who dont like social rolls are typically the old school DM's who love to play favorites.

Really? How big of a sample set did you use?

"Well, I know this one crappy DM...." isn't really a telling point. OTOH, if you are trying to claim that anyone who differs from your stated opinion is therefore a crappy DM....sorry, an "old school DM who loves to play favorites" then you need a bit more evidence to back up such a claim.

The game revolves around several interlinked skillsets: Combat, Magic Use, Exploration, Information Gathering, Deduction, and Social Interaction.

In the case of Combat, a plethora of options exist to challenge the players as well as the characters -- everything from weapon/armor choice, through attacks of opportunity, and onto combat options such as grappling and sundering. You can build a good Fighter and still suck in combat. This is an area in which the mechanics and the playing options mesh well to allow both the player and the character to be important. I would hazard to say that this is probably why players and DMs alike find combat to be so satisfying in D&D.

Magic Use likewise has an aspect of player challenge to it: Knowing what your spells do, and what spell is best based upon the circumstances. Metamagic and item creation feats, like combat-oriented feats, add another layer of player choice (and hence player challenge). Admittedly, in earlier editions, without spontaneous casting, players had to rely upon Information Gathering more to know what spells to choose. Moreover, the less codified spells meant that there was a greater element of creativity in terms of getting the spell to do something unexpected. Even so, the designers of 3.X made certain to include both challenges to player and character in the magic system. You can create a good Wizard build, and still suck in game play.

Exploration is likewise guided by player choice, and includes obstacles that can be overcome in various ways using either player input and/or character skills/feats/magic. The Rogue who uses the Search and Disable Device skill to find/remove traps must still have the player determine where to look. You can build a great Rogue and still suck at exploration.

Information Gathering challenges both the player (What questions to ask, what spells to use to gain further information) and the character (Gather Information skill, Knowledge skills, Profession skills, access to spells). It is also partially paying attention to descriptive elements. This is, prehaps, the hardest part of the game to suck at because the DM absolutely needs to feed you information. Again, this is both a challenge to the players and a challenge to the characters.

Information Gathering leads directly to Deduction, which is taking the information available to you and determining, on that basis, what might be true even though it has not been revealed. If that's the third Efreeti you've seen today, you might might deduce that this is important. In D&D, there is no standard game mechanic to challenge the characters with Deduction (although a kind DM might allow an Intelligence check in some cases). This is all about challenging the players.

Take away player input in Social Interaction, though, and it becomes unique in D&D as the only thing that challenges the character without challenging the player. As it is ultimately the challenges that the players overcome that are exciting (otherwise, you can just as easily read a book or watch a movie), this makes diplomacy et al as dull as dishwater. IMHO, at least.

So, perhaps, the majority of DMs who want to modify social rolls on the basis of role-playing are actually trying to make the game more fun for themselves and their players rather than just "power tripping".

The one thing about DMs who play favorites is this -- bad DMing is ultimately self-limiting. If you only like to DM for Bob and Fred, sooner or later that will be your gaming circle.

 

[Voadam]

DnD is not a LARP. This is a game played at a table with food and drinks and books. If one can suspend their disbelief to battle grotesque monsters and play good-natured grave robbers, why is it so hard to imagine players that try characters with (GASP!) different personalities than their own?

You don't need mechanics to play a different personality.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

You don't need mechanics to play a different personality.

Uh... yep, thanks. I agree.

But that's not really what I'm talking about either. We have mechanics that for adjudicating social encounters. But I don't think that a player who might not be particularly good at improvising on-the-fly social interaction should be barred from playing a social character.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I don't think you can write rules for that.

What about the ones I wrote, above?

You know, "Roll a check against your Tactical Spell Selection skill (DC = EL of encounter). If you succeed, you may swap one spell you think your character selected for the spell your character actually selected." Etc.