D&D 5E What is a Social challenge, anyways?

[dave2008]

No, I think the social pillar of play is too important to be left to rules.

I agree with that to some extent. However,

• Rules can provide some guide or suggestion on how to resolve some situations. The DM can always alter the deal as needed. But rules can help.
• Some players are just not good at the social pillar RP. Some people like more structure. There shouldn't, IMO, be one way to do things in the social pillar

 

[S'mon]

I agree with that to some extent. However,

• Rules can provide some guide or suggestion on how to resolve some situations. The DM can always alter the deal as needed. But rules can help.
• Some players are just not good at the social pillar RP. Some people like more structure. There shouldn't, IMO, be one way to do things in the social pillar

Yeah, I'm not really averse to having eg a DC 15 Persuasion roll, and the GM decides when to use it. Social interaction is an area that I think needs a lot of tailoring by group preference.

 

[dave2008]

Yeah, I'm not really averse to having eg a DC 15 Persuasion roll, and the GM decides when to use it. Social interaction is an area that I think needs a lot of tailoring by group preference.

Absolutely! I am currently writing my own fantasy epic/immortal heart breaker and in my PHB outline for the social pillar I have these notes to provide different levels of crunchy for those who want it. The point is to find what works for you.

Social Rules Options (Pick one or a combination):
A. Narrate / RP
B. Skill checks / Skill Challenges (4e):
C. Social "Combat," but light, potential resources

1. Blades in the Dark: Clocks
2. PF2: VP
3. Burning Wheel: Duel of Wits
4. Pathfinder for Savage Worlds pg 164
5. Other???

 

[Manbearcat]

I think you all might well check out @Manbearcat's PbP of 4e, which includes quite a few SCs, highly modern cutting edge 4e-style SCs executed by players playing with a very clear notion of how that works. It turns out it is pretty damned tight! I mean, @darkbard has noted that the success rate is very high, but my take on that is that the stakes in an SC should be no less momentous than those of a combat, so outright loss should be a low-probability outcome, assuming the players are playing well. Also, 4e allows for raising the level of an encounter in order to create a greater challenge (and also XP reward), so higher stakes challenges that you might actually lose will be higher level, and thus harder to win (or at least requiring the expenditure of more serious resources).

It can be found here: The Slave and Her Sovereign

There are a few Social Conflicts in there (via 4e Skill Challenge), but I won't elaborate since you've linked the thread. I'd be more than willing to elaborate on anything in there if it catches someone's interest (as it pertains to the subject of this thread).

If you're interested, I'd be happy to discuss this in another thread. @Manbearcat should also be part of that, as he is probably the master of skill challenges.

The starting point is the 4e DMG2 discussion, and how those ideas can be built on.

I'd be all for a thread on Social Skill Challenges in 4e if someone wants to start one!

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Broadly speaking, social challenges imo should have the following three features:

* Fictional participants with vital dramatic needs, opposing goals, and some manner of operationalized stakes & concessions.

* A back-and-forth between participants in meat-space that is mediated and structured by a consequential game layer which features interesting decision-points and mirrors the imagined space.

* Systematized, table-facing Win Condition where participants earn their victory, concede, or suck up their defeat (and the consequences/fallout that comes with it).


There are lots of ways to skin this proverbial cat. Apocalypse World (which the 5e designers clearly drew inspiration from in their 244 Social Interaction) handles this differently than Dogs in the Vineyard (despite both games being written by Vincent Baker). Despite all 4 of these systems being scene-based when it comes to social conflicts, Torchbearer handles differently than D&D 4e which handles differently from Cortex+ which handles differently from Tug-of-War Clock resolution in Blades in the Dark Social Scores.

We can talk about any of these and contrast how they engage with the bullet points above, how they subtly differ, and what those differences mean to the experience at the table.

 

[clearstream]

Yeah but if Strider had rolled a 1 on his Charisma check, it would have gone quite a bit differently, I'll wager.

No roll as it wasn't uncertain: Faramir wanted to hand over the kingdom, per his role as steward, and Aragorn's identity was not - to Faramir - in doubt.

 

[James Gasik]

Then don't reduce it to dice rolls. Like...I don't understand where you're getting the idea that making use of dice rolls is the same as reducing to dice rolls. By that logic, combat is the worst thing ever invented in D&D, because it reduces tactics, strategy, motion, critical thinking, etc. to nothing more than attack rolls.

Yet we all recognize that it doesn't do that. That there's so much more to combat than just the attack rolls you make, even though those are a key part of working through the process of combat. Positioning (be it actual grid position or something more nebulous), tactics (considering the disposition and morale of enemy forces), terrain, extenuating circumstances (a ritual you have to stop, a victim you have to save, a prize you have to catch, etc.) and more.

Do that for social SCs too. The exact nature of these things will differ, but the core idea remains the same. "Positioning" becomes a matter of the principles and goals of the people involved. Tactics would be basically unchanged, just swapping physical organization for some other kind (hierarchic, societal, economic, etc.) "Terrain" becomes a question of resources that can be leveraged, hangups that have to be discovered and worked around, learning the lay of the social landscape, etc. Extenuating circumstances remain essentially the same too.

And, of course, just like with battle where every turn can change the state of play, make that happen with SCs too. Make every player's contribution actually advance the fiction, not just plink up a number on the scoreboard.

"Reducing [social challenges] to dice rolls" is always a choice, a matter of how you implement the thing. Using SCs intelligently--actually taking seriously the good advice about them in the books, and then growing beyond that to best practices discovered by the community--means not "reducing" anything--unless you have made the erroneous conflation between "reducing to dice rolls" and "making use of dice rolls."

This is, in all actuality, the way I prefer to handle social mechanics in 5e myself; I only use rolls where I feel the resolution would be in doubt. But this thread isn't about what I'd do, it's about what I've seen (or heard) other people do, as well as wondering what people mean when they want the game to have more social mechanics, social abilities, and "more of an emphasis on roleplay" (which I consider the opposite of more/better social mechanics, as I said upthread, but often it's said in the same post, which is what I'm curious about).

 

[James Gasik]

No roll as it wasn't uncertain: Faramir wanted to hand over the kingdom, per his role as steward, and Aragorn's identity was not - to Faramir - in doubt.

I guess we need a seminar on how to get DM's to roll dice less often, because there's a lot of games I've been in when the DM totally would ask for a Charisma check!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Granted, that sort of thing shouldn't happen; the DM should tailor the skill challenges to their party to some degree; no sense asking for a History check if nobody is good at it (or at least, don't ask for a high DC!). But published adventures can't do that, so...

OK, so NOW we do get to some of what I would call fertile ground. I basically don't get much from pregenerated adventure content. I mean, now and then there are some exceptions. I think products like the 4e Gloomwrought & Beyond can be pretty useful, but it doesn't really present ADVENTURES, its a city gazetteer with loads and loads of situations and potential scenarios that PCs could get involved with. When you go from there to something like a module, now you have actual encounter design, and frankly now you're expected to engage in some form of trad play. So, many of those encounters could be pretty useful and work out fine. Typically the combat ones (usually a bit tame for my tastes, but some are fun) but NOT typically the more social ones, which are attempting to move things along certain specific 'paths'. When I am running a social encounter type of scenario, I don't envisage ANY specific outcomes. I will consider the fictional position, pure and simple. This character is X, he might potentially accept Y, he wants Z, etc. I think in fact this thread has pretty well-covered anything technical there I can say at this point!

So, the nut of my proposition here is that social scenarios need to provide constraints, very similar to combat ones. You can go here, you can't go over there, this guy has this ploy he can use against you, this other guy might help if you approach correctly, etc. But you can't easily dictate what all the moves are going to be ahead, and its VERY VERY HARD to write these things at the detail level of 'module play' ahead of time and in a generic fashion. I've seen people do PRETTY well, there's a 4e module called Courts of the Shadow Fey that was put out by Kobold that I was a collaborator on (Bauer is an awesome guy) that did really well. It, again, avoided really nailing things down to specific encounters. It presented the various factions, the 'rules of court', the various ploys that would be used, individuals and their motives, and an overall scenario. There wasn't any specific set way that things would work out, AT ALL. In fact the whole module was basically one giant social situation. It didn't use any specific existing rules, but a sort of mini-game was laid out where the PCs could become accepted by certain fey, or make them enemies, or whatever, and that would open new doors. The party also has a very specific agenda of their own, so there's an overall kind of a bargain that can potentially happen. It wasn't perfect, a party of dwarves would be completely hosed, for instance, but it worked.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To me, the least answer is that it has to be play that your group wants to engage with. That means going further than "I roll Persuasion..." Here I am not criticizing "I roll Persuasion..." approaches to D&D, but rather questioning whether they are going to be satisfying for a group whose stated purpose is to engage with social interaction?

Yeah, this is an excellent point that needs to be made. If the players are simply at the level of basically pawn stance "I declare my skill check without engaging the fiction at all" play, you are not playing at a level where there's any point in bothering with the nuances of social challenges or whatnot. Heck, you're hardly RPing at all! I mean, fine, chuck some dice, describe 'whatever' and get on with it! This is not 'bad', but it doesn't require some deep thought about how its going to play at the table!

 

[Manbearcat]

Here is an example of what I'm talking about directly above from Dogs in the Vineyards.

The PCs ( @hawkeyefan is in this game) arrive at Red Rock Canyon a day and change after a calamity; a biblical-level flood replete with massive land and mudslide. Half the number or more of the small community of the faithful are dead or casualties from the events of the days prior. Brother Isaiah (hawkeyefan gives a description of his PC here and some information about the game), hawkeyefan's PC, and Brother Fel (another PC played by Ovinomancer) are greeted by a social conflict that is nearing hostilities in a forest glen at the top of one of the canyon walls. Instead of immediately taking the switchback down to the canyon floor and triaging et al, they investigate and attempt to mediate the dispute.

One of Brother Fel's former gang members (Fel is a decade-reformed, now a member of the church and Dog-in-service to The King of Life...which is why he is here) is one of the miners who have a claim and a community called Dead End at the terminating point of the canyon. Slim (this NPC) and his buddy Fin are in a heated dispute with a small boy and his father (members of The Faith; Brothers Jacob and Braxton) over a hulking tree on the precipice (so when cut down can easily fall over the side and into the river below to be cut and used for various and sundry purposes).

Slim and Fin want the hulking tree for purposes of kindling and to build temporary structures to beat back exposure and hypothermic death.

The boy and his father demand the tree be used for coffins for their lost; sister/daughter and mother/wife.

Neither side will back down and emotions are running high with the parties involved wielding axes for tree-felling...or skull-splitting...

How does Brothers Isaiah and Fel feel about this? The members of Red Rock Canyone surely need kindling and newly-built structures to stave off an increased body count. But the faithful also need ceremony to put their dead to fitting rest.

Fel greets his former mate and its not friendly. He's immediately assertive that the tree is one of the stray few here that can be repurposed for coffins...and that is what they will use them for. Slim and Fin are obstinate. We have some stakes now. Who gets what they want and who is willing to risk what and do what to assure it?

We're "Just Talking"; the social conflict of Dogs in the Vineyard. We roll our Stats (Acuity and Heart), bring in a Relationship that is related to the stakes if we can, and we go back-and-forth, Raising (Attack) and Seeing (Defend). We say what we're saying and we put dice in and represent that. If we can't See with two dice, we take Fallout (which changes our character and possibly nets 1 xp for further advancement). Things get testy and suddenly Brother Isaiah enters the fray, Helping Brother Fel by backing his play with words (and putting forth a die to represent that backed play). This puts me in a pinch because I now can't See with 2 or less dice. Things are turning against Slim and Fin (in the game layer and mirrored in the fiction) and they aren't having it. The convictions and the strength of the PCs' words that back them have turned the table decisively against the miners.

So I, through my NPCs, have had enough. They (I) are not backing down so easily. So I Escalate. This lets me automatically See the PC's Raise without putting any dice from my pool forward (a significant advantage) but it increases the die size of Fallout (sum the highest 2 at the end of Conflict with 1-7 Short Term - next conflict, 8-11 Long Term - perm, 12-15 possibly mortal) as things turn physical. Slim puts the haft of his axe in the chest of his old mate (now Brother) Fel and gives a warning to back off. Fin does the same to Brother Isaiah.

The PCs (through their players) are staying in (not Giving) so we all now roll Body. I put forward my 2 dice for my Raise and mirror it in the fiction; a shove with the haft of the axe into the chest of Brother Fel to back that up.

Well, Brother Fel and Isaiah aren't having it. Brother Fel's player immediately re-Escalates from Physical to Fighting (which is a d8 Fallout and threatens to become mortal...the next Escalation is Guns/Mortal...d10 Fallout...low chance for xp, need a 1, and solid enough chance for a mortal injury/problem given enough Fallout dice...and, remember, we're right on a 60 ft precipice...). We now roll in Will. Both of them have a big time Trait for Fighting so they bring that in and get a big number.

Brother Fel's player puts in a huge pair of numbers that I can't See with 2 dice and, in the fiction, Brother Fel slugs Slim in the face cold. My dice pool is not gonna pull this out and the only way to See is going to cost me 3 dice (which means 3d8 Fallout...that punch could possibly be mortal). I can bring in my Axe and a Trait, but the odds are not on Slim and Fin's side. Everything has gone wrong. They could have handled the kid and his pa, but not this. This situation has turned decisively against them and they're facing down a pair of determined gun-toting paladins who have the initiative and the tide on their side. Slim and Fin will be dead men, dashed on the canyon floor below if they push this and they know it.

I Give in the game layer. In the fiction, mirroring that, Slim and Fin slink away to the Dead End mining claim at the far end of the canyon. But they let Brothers Fel and Isaiah know "this isn't over" as they do.

The players have earned this tree which will be used to make coffins and oversee Ceremony later (another conflict). They've also earned the favor of Brother Jacob and Braxton which should turn into Help (extra dice) for a later, relevant conflict. Finally, they've shown their mettle and their prospective lines in the sand (they were willing to die or kill for these material components for the coffins...despite the brutal circumstances on the ground, burial rites are priority).

I roll Slim's Fallout dice; only Just Talkin so its 3d4. That nets me Short Term Fallout. I take 1d4 Shaken Trait for Slim's next Conflict.