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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1537905" data-attributes="member: 151">Fixed those for you. <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    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />   Seriously, this is a taste issue, IMHO. I have had some players who consider social situations to be a distraction to the main game, and I have had players who consider combat something that interrupts the narrative flow. Overall, most of my players like BOTH aspects.    However, the system needs to allow verisimilitude to a point, while at the same time presenting a balanced system. A big problem I had with 1e is that, since the rules didn't cover so many topics, a player had the potential to, as takyris descirbes 'game the system'. In short, they could use metagame knowledge to bypass some of the games built-in restrictions. This sort of thing can be seen constantly in 'Knights of the Dinner Table'. Some folks enjoyed that aspect of 1e, which can alternately be viewed as a greater deal of freedom within the system. I take the opposite view, that it encouraged less-scrupulous players to try and outwit the system, so to speak.   Does a middle ground exist? Of course it does. It existed under 1e, and it is better codified in 3e, and it's the system I traditionally use. The biggest difference is that under 1e, it was just "I'll give you a +2 bonus on the NPC reaction table for mentioning his brother" to "I'll give you a circumstance modifier of +4 to your Bluff check for reminding him about the orphanage."    I personally would never accept a 'I bluff him' request, without a clarification (i.e. "I try to trick him into thinking I'm his long lost cousin"). Some players are more interested or less interested in actually playing the encounter out, but 3e/3.5e doesn't discourage such play more than previous editions. Under previous editions, it mostly DM fiat, usually solely based on Charisma for most occasions. There was certainly no consistency from one DM's game to the next...I saw both sides of the coin in my time, where good acting got me bonuses and where my stats were the sole arbiters of such reactions. And then, of course, was the truly old-school style, where nothing could change the interactions, as they were virtually scripted. Social encounters were merely a means to an end, a way to move you to the dungeon; look at the gnome encounter in L1? (Tsocjanth), for example. The gnomes are a binary event: treat them one way, they do X. Treat them another way, they do Y. Naturally, the DM had the option of playing the encounter any way he choose, but as written, the social encounter is not really very social at all.     I guess I'm not seeing how it's discouraging them. For the first time, we actually have a codified system to cover social interactions, and we even have an honest to goodness mechanic to match player acting with character action (namely the circumstance modifier). Couple this with DM XP bonuses for good playing, and you have a system.    The flip side of this coin, of course, is to ask why players who are more gregarious or boisterous should get XP bonuses than more reserved players? I see the answer that these are DM-player issues to be resolved within each group, not something the rules system should impose.   It strikes me that perhaps some folks feel that 3e/3.5e encourages a playstyle they don't enjoy, when perhaps the truth is that it doesn't encourage the playstyle they favor, and really doesn't directly advocate a specific playstyle at all, other than in the most general sense. Of course, an equal number of folks certainly don't like the style of play that 3e promotes, even in the general sense...and that's fine, too.</blockquote>

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