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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8668870" data-attributes="member: 85555">This is actually one of the reasons I dislike strong mechanical means for resolving social interactions (just as a personal preference; more on this further down). People do what they want, what they have to, what other factors are driving them. Truly changing a persons mind is very rare, changing their heart even more rare. But even in discrete moments of social interaction where it isn't about changing the persons view but convincing them to do  or not do something (as an example the guard being talked into giving you the key), I think boiling that to a roll of some kind, feels very much like it falls short for me, because some people, under no circumstances unless they are coerced are going to give in (especially if they are working a job where they know they will be held responsible if the key is missed). For me, I much prefer to deal with this through RP and knowing the characters motivations. How this plays out will obviously vary from group to group: so if you want a consistent outcome whenever a player offers Y, that might not be a good fit. But what I am more interested in are characters with consistent motivations. A good example of how this might be used is in Goodfellas when they steal the security guards key and make a copy. And do so they found his weakness (women), had a woman distract him, and made the key copy without him knowing. That is all fairly manageable social interaction stuff in an RPG if the GM is playing with motivations fairly. This also allows the players to engage in the problem and puzzle solving aspect of RPGs that for me is a huge part of the enjoyment of play (i.e. how do we get that key? How do we find a way of distracting him? etc). One of the things that instantly kills the fun for me as a player is stuff like this being handled by a rollThat said, tastes vary, I find you have to run the game for the group of players you game with, not with a group of players who are replicas of your own tastes and preferences. So I am not going to spoil it for others if they want to use a system with social mechanics, and when I run games, I try either pick or make a system that balances my desire for social interactions being driven by what happens in play, with some players desires for a mechanical approach. One interesting observation I do have here is people themselves are often inconsistent or seemingly inconsistent in their preferences (what bothers someone today, might not bother them in a different moment that is pretty much the same but for some reason doesn't trouble them when it arises, and the opposite: what doesn't bother someone yesterday might suddenly bother them today; and it all may just be today they happened to scrutinize things a little more than they did before). Anyone who has had protracted (Edit: corrected this word) discussions or debates about movies probably has seen the same thing. So I think be adaptable to the players and to what is driving them at a given moment is also something that makes me a little flexible on this point in practice. For me, at the end of the day I want to have a good time gaming with my friends. I am much less concerned about what box that fits into by the end of the session, and much less concerned about whether the game did everything exactly the way I would have wanted it to.</blockquote>

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