D&D 5E Would you like to see a complex social interaction module early in 5E?

[pemerton]

4e had utility powers that were geared more towards the social interaction pillar than combat: For example, "once per encounter, when you roll a diplomacy check, roll twice and take the higher result" or "once per encounter, roll arcana when you would roll diplomacy."

I think this was a great idea, but in practice -- in my experience, at least -- no one ever takes these powers

I made up a cantrip - Charm Person (roll Arcana in place of Bluff) - and the wizard in my game took it. And used it.

The paladin is the other character with access to these sorts of buffs, but he is a CHA-paladin trained in Diplomacy with a Circlet of Authority, and so his Diplomacy and Intimidate are already about as good as he needs them to be.

It's kind of new territory for D&D, but I want it.

It's not especially new territory for 4e, which had the skill challenge as (among other things, and probably working best as) a complex social resolution mechanic.

I want it early, while the playtest is still going on

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I'd start with the Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard "Dual of Wits", drop the scripting, and drop the emphasis that the BW family of games puts on "fight for what you believe in" for something more D&D-centered. Probably the first cut would be some strange mix, mechanically, of "Dual of Wits", D&D combat, and early D&D psionic rules. Then after that got beat half to death in testing and refined, a better idea would emerge.

Skill challenges barely scrape the surface.

But skill challenges are something to start from. I'm not sure that designers who can't even write proper guidelines for skill challenge adjudication should be starting on something more ambitious!

Anyway, to make any sort of system - skill challenge or Duel of Wits - work, the GM has to have strong advice on how to introduce the complications to which the player must respond in making his/her next check. In a Duel of Wits this is introduced by the opponent's own check; in a skill challenge, by the GM's free narration (which is in some ways closer to the D&D tradition!).

The obvious strength of Duel of Wits compared to a skill challenge is its range of actions that increase tactical depth. But the flipside of this is that it can become the notorius "board game" or "dice rolling exercise", as moves are made without any associated fiction being established, and then at the end no one is quite sure what the compromise should involve. Whereas a strength of the skill challenge, if adjudicated in accordance with the rules, is that it can't proceed without the fiction being narrated, because the players can't declare their PC's actions (and their concomitant skill checks) until the GM explains to them what the fictional situation has evolved into.

If you drop scripting, you also need to think of some other device for making it impossible for a player to just ascertain and then apply the mechanically optimal strategy. At least to my intuition at the moment, getting the fiction front and centre seems like the best way to do this.

Tentative conclusion from these thoughts: draw on the direction D&Dnext is already heading in, of favouring strong GM framing of the circumstances of ability/skill checks (and the somewhat analogous "theatre of the mind" in combat), and try and work up a system which involves (i) at least a modest variety of social tactics (at a minimum the now-traditional "lie", "be pleasant" or "be scary"), but (ii) frames their difficulty in relation to a GM-narrated unfolding situation (which therefore sets up the room for player strategy - "We'll start like this and finish like this" - while making GM narration of the fiction pretty central), and (iii) has some sort of mechanism for bringing things to a close (whether hp-like or skill challenge-like).

One big query: can players be forced to have their PCs compromise? In traditional D&D, no. In a skill challenge, no - you can always just fail (there is no analogue to hit points on the players' side of a skill challegne). In a system with active opposition, that wears down the PCs' "social hp", then presumably yes! So while such a system opens up more tactical space (eg "defensive" social manoeuvres, which haven't really been a part of D&D up until now), it would be a pretty big departure from tradition.

for me, a good "fortune in the middle" system tends to frame the social interaction such that the roleplaying is heightened with every roll. Your bug is my feature.

No argument from me on this. I don't see how else a complex social system is going to work. The key thing is "teeth" - making the engagement with the fiction in the course of resolution matter.

social effectiveness, which in itself doesn't come up as often as having to be effective in combat or exploration.

If this is going to be true of D&Dnext, then what has happened to "balancing around the 3 pillars"?

 

[Dragoslav]

If this is going to be true of D&Dnext, then what has happened to "balancing around the 3 pillars"?

I hope it's not true. Sometime in the past they tossed around the idea of splitting combat- and interaction-related feats into different categories and giving players both instead of forcing them to choose one over the other, the prospect of which excited me quite a bit, but I don't think they've said anything more about going in that direction since then.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I think I would have to say no. Or at the least, I don't think I want formal mechanics in the majority of circumstances.

I prefer a more informal set of ideas and possible directions rather than something as formalized as 4e's skill challenges. I find when I'm DMing and inhabiting the NPCs, I produce a truer and richer experience when I'm not worried about following mechanics. This does require a bit of prep though to get it how I want it.

However, there are most likely simpler interactions between the PCs and a less important NPC where formalized mechanics may help where the range of results is more simplified. For example, when haggling over the selling price of an exotic or unusual item, there is most likely room for a good range of results. These need to take into account:

- Do the PCs know how much the item is worth?
- Does the merchant know how much the item is worth?
- What do the PCs think the merchant thinks the item is worth?
- What does the merchant think the PCs think the item is worth?
- How desperate is the merchant to either sell or buy the item?
- How convincing are the PCs in changing (or not changing) the merchants mind?

I'm sure you could bundle all this together into a reasonably complex social interaction of several phases. After the 5th haggling event though, people might prefer to go back to something simpler. I'm also sure that you can have a few possible results tied to a simpler haggling contest between the PCs knowledge and bluffing capacity against the merchants knowledge and insight or sense motive. A couple of rolls and result achieved. I'm thinking though that the particular conditions of the various merchants are always going to be a factor and so most of this stuff is going to be coloured by the adventure/NPC anyway.

I don't know. I'm just not convinced there is a great way for D&D to do complex social interactions that everyone can get on-board with.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[pemerton]

Burning Wheel has a tight little haggling substystem, but it is linked to an abstract weatlh mechanic.

Rolemaster is an example of haggling rules (and buying/selling rules more generally) gone horribly wrong.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I hope it's not true. Sometime in the past they tossed around the idea of splitting combat- and interaction-related feats into different categories and giving players both instead of forcing them to choose one over the other, the prospect of which excited me quite a bit, but I don't think they've said anything more about going in that direction since then.

That wasn't the impression I had. I thought that the idea was that there might be classes who weren't as strong as others in combat, but made up for it by being strong in exploration or interaction.

 

[Tony Vargas]

ore robust social interaction system at the start? How would you prefer to see it? Like complex skill rolls or skill challenges with just a lot of rolls against DCs?

Something along the lines of a skill challenge in structure would be good. IMHO, a roll in such a system should be prefaced with intent, resolved mechanically, then RP'd by the player and DM taking the degree of success/failure into account. That should suggest how the next player and the next roll might proceed.

One thing I have found good about skill challenges is keeping everyone involved as in combat. Everyone makes a roll before anyone makes a second roll. No hiding in the corner while your allies speak for you. That was always one of the lamest things about D&D: "The Face" you have a part of brave warrior and mighty wizards and clerics with the gods on speed-dial, but when you need to talk to someone you send out the Sorcerer?

Or something closer to Skill combat with Social HPs and different social attacks?

I tried something like that a long, long (really long) time ago, it was one of the dumbest things I ever came up with for D&D. Combat is cool and dynamic and detailed, but it's not how people talk or solve problems. Colorful metaphors we see in the news everyday notwithstanding.

Or a more resource trading system where characters spend resources to raise their chances at the roll?

That could have some potential. Negotiations (and what social interaction isn't at least a little bit negotiation) often have a little to do with very intangible resources ('goodwill' 'emotional capital' etc). While ticking those off might be a little abstract and mechanical, it could be part of a good system.

 

[Consonant Dude]

I don't want any module, of any sort to be complex for 5e.

 

[pemerton]

I thought that the idea was that there might be classes who weren't as strong as others in combat, but made up for it by being strong in exploration or interaction.

That's also what I had in mind when I referred to "balancing around the 3 pillars".

 

[Abstruse]

I selected "no" solely because of the use of the word "early" in the poll.

I seriously doubt that most groups use even the sort of social rules we've had in previous editions. Rules for complex social interactions have never really been a part of D&D, as most groups either roleplay it all the way through, or they just make a single check or opposed check to gloss over it and get back to monster fightin'.

However, there's a demand for these sort of rules. Many people like running social-based games and a rules module like this would be required to run something similar to Game of Thrones due to the amount of political infighting in the show. They can and should make detailed rules for social interaction to allow groups who want that sort of play to use it. It might also bring back a resurgence in some of the older campaign settings where politics were important, such as the city of Waterdeep or Birthright (at least from what I understand, only briefly skimmed those books).

It's the word "early" that I disagree with. There is a lot more that's more important to a new D&D system to me than social interaction. Tactical combat, detailed exploration rules, skills, various character classes/races/themes, iconic monsters, character creation, weapons, armor, magic items, spells...there's a lot that's more important to core of what the game is than social interactions and I honestly think it should be one of the last rules modules playtested. Hell, they probably wouldn't even need to both with them until after the core books are published, introducing those rules modules in a splatbook or campaign setting book that's focused on more social interaction oriented play.

 

[Ferghis]

Acting out a character who is "radically different" from myself is one of the parts of RPGs I enjoy the most. Replacing this with dice rolling takes a lot of the fun out of the game for me.

But nobody has ever proposed "replacing" that with dice. In every game I've played, if you do a great job role-playing a bit, the DM will grant you that. No DM in his or her right mind will ever say "well, that sounded awesome, but you rolled crappy, so you fail." And, more to the point, you (and everyone else who wants to) should keep doing that.

The dice-based mechanics are there simply to assist players (and even DMs) who are less talented actors, and do not have the gift of gab, and haven't kissed the blarney stone, or just have poor writers doing their lines. And, again, you can totally ignore the mechanic if you don't need it at your table, but I think it's indispensable to offer the mechanic for those who want to use it. Not doing so amounts to edging out those of us nerds who are less socially apt. And I fear we have a few of them.