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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 4728287" data-attributes="member: 22779">Yes and no.&nbsp; I understand what you're getting at here, but, this assumes that role play invokes no mechanics.&nbsp; This was certainly the way that earlier editions of D&amp;D did it.&nbsp; You didn't have skill checks to determine how well (or how badly) you presented your case to the Baron.&nbsp; You just talked it out and the DM judged things accordingly.&nbsp; If you had a good DM, everything was fine, and if you had a bad or even mediocre DM, things were... difficult.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But, really, I think game design has moved past this.&nbsp; We've had social mechanics in RPG's for a couple of decades now.&nbsp; Whether it's games like GURPS or Vampire, or newer games and indie games, we've been adding in mechanics to cover role play and by and large the consensus seems to be that this is a good thing.&nbsp; It's pretty rare to see a game anymore that doesn't have any social mechanics.So, balance does come into things when you're talking about RP.&nbsp; If character X takes a much greater penalty to social skills than character Y, then that balance is every bit as important as combat balance.&nbsp; I think the biggest mistake RPG's have historically made, and D&amp;D is no exception here, is the idea that you can balance characters by mixing combat and out of combat mechanics.&nbsp; That is you're good at combat, you are automatically bad outside of combat.They are two fundamentally different endevours and should not be used to balance each other.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 4728287, member: 22779"] Yes and no. I understand what you're getting at here, but, this assumes that role play invokes no mechanics. This was certainly the way that earlier editions of D&D did it. You didn't have skill checks to determine how well (or how badly) you presented your case to the Baron. You just talked it out and the DM judged things accordingly. If you had a good DM, everything was fine, and if you had a bad or even mediocre DM, things were... difficult. :) But, really, I think game design has moved past this. We've had social mechanics in RPG's for a couple of decades now. Whether it's games like GURPS or Vampire, or newer games and indie games, we've been adding in mechanics to cover role play and by and large the consensus seems to be that this is a good thing. It's pretty rare to see a game anymore that doesn't have any social mechanics. So, balance does come into things when you're talking about RP. If character X takes a much greater penalty to social skills than character Y, then that balance is every bit as important as combat balance. I think the biggest mistake RPG's have historically made, and D&D is no exception here, is the idea that you can balance characters by mixing combat and out of combat mechanics. That is you're good at combat, you are automatically bad outside of combat. They are two fundamentally different endevours and should not be used to balance each other. [/QUOTE]

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