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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8669173" data-attributes="member: 85555">Which is fine, but for those of us who like the puzzle solving and RP aspect, the reason a single roll for it (whether it be something like a Bluff or Diplomacy--and I understand those particular mechanics are often much more nuanced if you actually read them and apply them as written) is it can bypass the planning the PCs do, the things they actually say, etc. Sometimes if you give the guard a 50 dollar bill, it should work 100% of the time. Where I would introduce a random element (and it might not be in the form of a social skill roll but it could be) is when that is unclear to me when I am running the NPC). And granted you can bestow a bonus if the players do particularly excellent things in their planning. But at that point, you are effectively stacking the deck anyways because you are persuaded by their plan yourself and if you were just dealing with the RP you'd probably green light the guard submitting to them. Again, I am easy going in play. I am not going to ruin anyone's time if they like rolling for this (and plenty of people do). But I've found these kinds of mechanics, since I became aware of them, muck with an aspect of play that is very enojyable to me. Now other people might enjoy this same aspect of play and find rolling enhances it. I am not saying my experience is the objective one experience. The time it was most clear to me the difference it made was when I shifted from running Ravenloft in 3rd edition (which has a lot of social and investigatory skills) to Ravenloft using 2E (which is the system I played Ravenloft with). I remember having the distinct feeling when I would play Ravenoft 3E that it just felt off. And I often chalked the difference up to nostalgia because I had played Ravenloft 2E in the 90s from high school into my early 20s. SO I figured it might just have been that it was a formative early game experience. But the moment I changed systems, it felt like the old days again. And the difference was in things like social mechanics (in 2E the closest you had in the PHB to that was the Etiquette Non-weapon proficiency but that was a knowledge roll that specifically mentions it doesn't replace roleplaying: in the Skills and powers books I think there were more options but I didn't use those as they came very late in the 2E run; some of the setting books offered up other NWPs, but NWPs themselves were optional and any additional ones offered in supplements entirely at the GMs discretion). There were other reasons too (3e combat feels very different for example, CR ratings are much more integral to 3rd edition). And I had played plenty of other systems that had and did not have social skills but seeing how that played out in the same setting with different editions (where one edition had social skills and the other didn't) laid it out pretty clearly for me. Again, sure some people wouldn't have this experience at all. But I always found those Bluff, Sense Motive, Diplomacy and even Gather information, racially changed how the game felt to me</blockquote>

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