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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7622345" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I don't know if I agree with this. I mean, I get your point about how a conversation between players is similar to a conversation between characters. But the entire game is a conversation. I don't think the presence of social mechanics means that actual roleplaying will be replaced by dice rolls. Certainly your examples of &quot;I try to intimidate the guard&quot; and &quot;I try to persuade the Baron&quot; can both be used in a game that has no social mechanics just as easily as one that has them. I think that's more a question of how a player approaches the game; some will jump right into character and speak as if they are the character, others will speak as the player summarizing what the character is trying to do. Neither is right or wrong, but also neither is dependent on the presence of social rules. In my experience, such mechanics actively promote focusing on the social aspect more, which winds up enhancing those scenes. People are more willing to get involved when there are engaging mechanics involved. I mean in meaningful interactions that will have an impact on the fiction....convincing the Baron to lend troops, to use your example. Let's say a game has some kind of meaningful mechanics to support an attempt to convince a NPC to do something, and that it can involve more than one roll and one character....it's not just &quot;have the bard try and convince him to help&quot; but instead it's having the party convince him in a number of ways. Hopefully, this would make the attempt to convince the Baron a more involved encounter rather than simply boiling it down to rolls. I mean, most people wouldn't say that about combat.....&quot;ah it can all be boiled down to some dice rolls&quot;, but it's very true.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 7622345, member: 6785785"] I don't know if I agree with this. I mean, I get your point about how a conversation between players is similar to a conversation between characters. But the entire game is a conversation. I don't think the presence of social mechanics means that actual roleplaying will be replaced by dice rolls. Certainly your examples of "I try to intimidate the guard" and "I try to persuade the Baron" can both be used in a game that has no social mechanics just as easily as one that has them. I think that's more a question of how a player approaches the game; some will jump right into character and speak as if they are the character, others will speak as the player summarizing what the character is trying to do. Neither is right or wrong, but also neither is dependent on the presence of social rules. In my experience, such mechanics actively promote focusing on the social aspect more, which winds up enhancing those scenes. People are more willing to get involved when there are engaging mechanics involved. I mean in meaningful interactions that will have an impact on the fiction....convincing the Baron to lend troops, to use your example. Let's say a game has some kind of meaningful mechanics to support an attempt to convince a NPC to do something, and that it can involve more than one roll and one character....it's not just "have the bard try and convince him to help" but instead it's having the party convince him in a number of ways. Hopefully, this would make the attempt to convince the Baron a more involved encounter rather than simply boiling it down to rolls. I mean, most people wouldn't say that about combat....."ah it can all be boiled down to some dice rolls", but it's very true. [/QUOTE]

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