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Kaeso
2012-12-29, 09:44 AM
I know DnD is supposed to be a roleplaying game, but what's the use of roleplay if you actually get a penalty for roleplaying? :smallannoyed:

Let me elaborate by giving an example: let's say that there's a small party, consisting of a barbarian, a cleric, a rogue and a bard. Let's say that they've been ordered to retrieve an orb that contains great and unknown power from an orc encampment, but that the orcs are unaware of the power it contains and just keep it around because it's pretty. There are many ways to solve this, but i will give five:

1. The barbarian walks up to the encampment and uses his maxed out intimidate level to make clear that, if they don't get the orb right now, the kings entire army will be on top of their encampment in a matter of hours.

2. The bard drags a large bag filled with all kinds of yummy food to the encampment and convinces the chieftain that all this food is much more valuable to the orcs than that inedible stone, using his bluff and diplomacy checks for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

3. At night, the rogue sneaks inside of the encampment and steals the orb.

4. The cleric strikes a deal with the encampment (probably in tandem with the well spoken bard): if the orcs give them the orb, the cleric will offer his services to all in the camp (he could, for example, cure some sick/wounded orcs or help some of the orc women during labor and delivery).

5. The party charges in, guns ablazing, and slaughters everyone in their path. They then retrieve the orb and return, soaked in blood and whatnot.

My problen is as follows: The first four ways are, IMHO, great ways to resolve the conflict. In 2/4 cases there's a peaceful resolution because the party puts their resources together in order to trade with the orcs, leading to a peaceful resolution where all parties involved are happy. The third resolution doesn't exactly leave the orcs behind happy, but it involves the rogue doing what he does best (if he maxed out hide and move silently) and getting the party what they want without any bloodshed. Yet none of these routes offer players xp. It would be far more valuable, and thus from a meta-game perspective better, to just slaughter every man, woman and child in the encampment and take the orb by force. The party that tries to be creative actually loses out on xp, being punished for their creative thought.

As far as I know, none of the newer DnD versions solve this problem. What's up with this? Why is roleplay, the most important part of a roleplaying game, so undervalued in DnD?

LordBlades
2012-12-29, 09:50 AM
I'm not sure if it's actually written as such in the 3.5 DMG and can't check atm (out of town without the books) but in my group we've always awarded xp for 'overcoming a challenge' and not 'killing a monster' (unless the challenge was killing the monster)

In your example, if the challenge was 'retrieving the orb', each solution would have awarded the same amount of xp.

Unseenmal
2012-12-29, 09:53 AM
From my perspective, I would give better XP for the peaceful solutions. The first 4 require some level of roleplaying and #5 is straight up battle xp. #3 has the potential to get to fighting and by that account, battle xp.

A good DM should provide valuable xp in all scenarios. The xp should be at least equal among the 5 solutions and depending on how they PCs handle it, I might give bonus xp for NOT slaughtering the orcs and finding a peaceful solution.

Who's to say these orcs are alone. Maybe they are a smaller part of a larger force and if you destroy them, you have another enemy to deal with. If you find a peaceful solution, then maybe the next time you run into these orcs, they simply let you pass or trade with you more. Leading to more roleplaying and more bonus xp.

If the DM is not giving xp for good roleplaying then I'd say that's not a good DM. He's not bad...just not good either.

Morph Bark
2012-12-29, 09:54 AM
I'm not sure if it's actually written as such in the 3.5 DMG and can't check atm (out of town without the books) but in my group we've always awarded xp for 'overcoming a challenge' and not 'killing a monster' (unless the challenge was killing the monster)

In your example, if the challenge was 'retrieving the orb', each solution would have awarded the same amount of xp.

This is the way it is actually put in the DMG, yes. It's just that a lot of people seem to think that overcoming a challenge is only really done if the challenge is totally done with (dead or destroyed), and/or that the only challenges are monsters (or they don't know the CR rating of other challenges, since only those for monsters and some traps are clearly defined).

Matticussama
2012-12-29, 09:55 AM
Nothing in the DMG says that players have to kill the enemy to get experience; that all depends upon how the DM chooses to adjudicate the award.

From the D&D 3.5 DMG, pages 36 - 37 under the Experience Awards section: "You must decide when a challenge has been overcome. Usually, this is simple to do. Did the PCs defeat the enemy in battle? Then they met the challenge and earned experience points. Other times, it can be trickier. Suppose the PCs sneak past the sleeping minotaur to get into the magical vault—did they overcome the minotaur encounter? If their goal was to get into the vault and the minotaur was just a guardian, then the answer is probably yes. It’s up to you to make such judgments."

Since the hypothetical example you gave said the challenge was to retrieve the orb, then any of your 5 examples would be valid ways of completing it. Thus, any of those 5 examples should result in players getting a full XP award. You should have the players have plenty of social challenges and not just hand it over to them with a single Intimidate/Diplomacy/Hide& Move Silently roll, but so long as the mission is fulfilled and the situation is just as enjoyable then award them full XP for the mission.

In my experience, enforcing this fairly this tends to result in players acting out their characters more like actual human beings and not just murder hobos.

Johel
2012-12-29, 09:59 AM
Well... The GM can still give XP for the roleplay, arbitrarily of the bodycount.
Each encounter is worth a certain amount of XP.
To get over it as in "resolve the obstacle" gives you XP.

You can do it smart and feel good about yourself for thinking of such a great plan and actually pulling it off without too much glitches.
Good memories for the whole group of players.

Or you can do it hard and just slaughter everyone in a frontal assault then whine about needing an ennemy worth your "skills". (http://goblinscomic.com/07152005/)
And have the GM answer your wish (http://goblinscomic.com/08092005/).

Fouredged Sword
2012-12-29, 10:09 AM
All those solutions offer the same EXP. The DMG expressly states that EXP is granted for "overcoming" an encounter, not killing creatures. Sneak past the dragon and get what you need done done and you gain the same EXP as if you killed it. This makes diplomacy and such viable solutions to overcoming encounters far beyond your character level. Players who do such can very easily gain EXP faster than a party gunning for bloodshed.

Yora
2012-12-29, 10:14 AM
The only winning move is not to play.

Combat rules are a tool to help with roleplaying. If you play a tactical wargame, there is no point in roleplaying.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-12-29, 10:18 AM
Problem is there aren't many guidelines for challenges that don't involve killing things. It's left solely to the DM's judgement, with all the problems this usually entails.

XP systems tend to create weird incentives no matter which you you spin 'em, though. I prefer to just not give out XP rewards at all and just have the characters advance at appropriate moments, if at all.

Kaeso
2012-12-29, 10:19 AM
Some of you have mentioned the exp for overcoming a challenge. While a good DM (and if I'm not mistaken those are somewhat rare) will take these into account, that still means the peaceful resolutions are somewhat at a disadvantage, right? Even if the diplomatic resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb, the violent resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb and exp for killing some orcs on top of that.

Saph
2012-12-29, 10:23 AM
Everyone else has already pointed out the "you get XP from overcoming the challenge" thing, so here's another perspective:


It would be far more valuable, and thus from a meta-game perspective better, to just slaughter every man, woman and child in the encampment and take the orb by force. The party that tries to be creative actually loses out on xp, being punished for their creative thought.

What you're leaving out of the equation here is risk. Let's say that a frontal assault on the orc horde carries a 20% chance of a PC fatality and a 5% chance of a TPK. The "slaughter them all" option is looking a bit less attractive now, isn't it?

Of course, if the DM is a "the PCs are the heroes and should always win" type, who also gives more rewards for combat than for social interaction, then, well . . . you've already spotted the problem.

This is why, IMO, combat in a roleplaying game should always be at least a little bit dangerous. If you set up your campaign world in such a way that the most profitable and reliable way to resolve a problem is to kill everything that moves, then over time that's what you're going to train your players to do.

willpell
2012-12-29, 10:28 AM
You are supposed to get XP from roleplaying and using noncombat solutions...it's just that the extremely crunchy rules of D&D don't spell out any guidelines as to how much. If you kill X creatures of Y challenge rating while your own level is Z, you have an exact formula for the payoff; if you do anything other than kill those creatures, it's all guesswork. (Getting treasure is even harder if you aren't killing anything, unless the DM is very generous with letting you craft items to sell or something.)

The only situations in which you get "penalized for roleplaying" would have to do with things like the Paladin's code and similar mechanical interpretations of roleplay concepts, and there aren't that many. It's just that you need a more creative and improvisational GM to be able to succeed through noncombat efforts.

Eldan
2012-12-29, 11:07 AM
Some of you have mentioned the exp for overcoming a challenge. While a good DM (and if I'm not mistaken those are somewhat rare) will take these into account, that still means the peaceful resolutions are somewhat at a disadvantage, right? Even if the diplomatic resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb, the violent resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb and exp for killing some orcs on top of that.

No, actually. The DMG never mentions XP for killing things. You don't get any. The orcs are the obstacle you have to overcome. Killing them is one way to overcome them. Talking to them is another way.

In both cases, you have overcome an obstacle of the same encounter level, and therefore get the same XP.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-29, 11:42 AM
If you are truly not role playing, why bother playing? Role playing is more than grand theatrics and funny voices, it is also acting towards your characters goals and needs. Attacking the encampment is also role playing, as it presumes the secondary existence of an encampment to begin with, that there is a 'place' which your characters, people who do not exist, have goals about.
With literally no role playing, you are just rolling strange dice.
Role playing in the sense of 'not fighting' can definitely be worth it for many reasons, several of which have been listed here.
Besides, even from a tactical perspective,
"Hence, to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
Sen-Tzu said that, and I think he knows a little more about fighting than you do, pal.*
* Also a quote, no offence intended.

Ashtagon
2012-12-29, 11:57 AM
OP is mistaken. XP is for overcoming obstacles, not for (blah. pre-emptively killing the joke).

If you handle the encounter so that the uglies are no longer an obstacle, you get the XP. Killing isn't the only way to do this, or even the most efficient.

Aasimar
2012-12-29, 12:13 PM
Because that's the game. If it wasn't for the XP, we might as well be playing a board game. If you feel like rp is a bother, then what are you even doing?

Jeraa
2012-12-29, 12:15 PM
Some of you have mentioned the exp for overcoming a challenge. While a good DM (and if I'm not mistaken those are somewhat rare) will take these into account, that still means the peaceful resolutions are somewhat at a disadvantage, right? Even if the diplomatic resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb, the violent resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb and exp for killing some orcs on top of that.

If the challenge is to get the orb, then thats what you get the experience for. You don't get extra experience for killing the orcs, thats just one possible way to get the orb. Awarding experience for getting the orb and killing the orcs is essentially rewarding XP twice for overcoming the same thing.

So its like this:
Challenge: Get the Orb.
Possible Solutions:
1) Diplomacy
2) Intimidate
3) Theft
4) Kill orcs

It doesn't matter which solution they chose. Its getting the orb that matters, and what gives them XP. Exactly how they manage to do that is irrelevant.

(The peaceful solutions do give you less loot - you don't get to loot the orc bodies. But, you could possibly now have contacts/allies in the region, if you treated the orcs well enough. So you could still get some other reward besides XP if you go non-violent.)

Baidas Kebante
2012-12-29, 12:19 PM
Some of you have mentioned the exp for overcoming a challenge. While a good DM (and if I'm not mistaken those are somewhat rare) will take these into account, that still means the peaceful resolutions are somewhat at a disadvantage, right? Even if the diplomatic resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb, the violent resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb and exp for killing some orcs on top of that.

The objective is the orb, the obstacle is the group of orcs. You get experience for overcoming the obstacle regardless how you did it - killing them, knocking them unconscious, tricking them, or trading with them. So long as you sufficiently bypassed the obstacle, the experience points received for dealing with them is the same. You may also get experience for achieving the objective, if the DM considers it to be a separate issue.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-29, 12:22 PM
Even if there is a tactical reason to kill the orcs, it might be strategically a bad idea if, for example, killing them would enrage all the local tribes. This unites them and bringis the wrath of not a few isolated clans but the whole hoard down on your head in their lust for revenge, as you killed the more moderate orcs who don't mind a little coexistence if it means certain comforts.

Kaeso
2012-12-29, 12:23 PM
If the challenge is to get the orb, then thats what you get the experience for. You don't get extra experience for killing the orcs, thats just one possible way to get the orb. Awarding experience for getting the orb and killing the orcs is essentially rewarding XP twice for overcoming the same thing.

So its like this:
Challenge: Get the Orb.
Possible Solutions:
1) Diplomacy
2) Intimidate
3) Theft
4) Kill orcs

It doesn't matter which solution they chose. Its getting the orb that matters, and what gives them XP. Exactly how they manage to do that is irrelevant.

(The peaceful solutions do give you less loot - you don't get to loot the orc bodies. But, you could possibly now have contacts/allies in the region, if you treated the orcs well enough. So you could still get some other reward besides XP if you go non-violent.)


The objective is the orb, the obstacle are the orcs. You get experience for overcoming the obstacle regardless how you did it - killing them, knocking them unconscious, tricking them, or trading with them. So long as you sufficiently bypassed the obstacle, the experience points received for dealing with them is the same. You may also get experience for achieving the objective, if the DM considers it to be a separate issue.

I see, that does make sense. They'd get the same ammount of exp, but the violent approach would lead to a horde of angry relatives out for blood. I guess the "problem" isn't really a problem once it's put in the hands of a good DM who knows what he's doing then.

Thanks for all of your input, guys.

Slipperychicken
2012-12-29, 01:44 PM
For each way to approach the obstacle, you might want to modify the XP granted for victory. For example, if our Orcs had very poor perception checks and scanty detection mechanisms, stealing the Orb would be easier than slaughtering the camp, so you'd assign XP as though the encounter was one or two CR less. If they have insanely high spot/listen checks and keep the Orb in a tightly-guarded room, you might adjust the CR (and XP award) upward, since stealing is harder than fighting in this case.

The skill challenges guidelines might be useful for determining CR for encounters overcome with skill checks instead of combat. Additionally, roleplay encounters might have CR according to the skill checks and resource expenditure needed to pass them.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-29, 01:53 PM
Why? Defeating a challenge in a smart way should not be worth less, simply because it was easier. That's basically rewarding dumbness or, rather, punishing intelligence.:smallannoyed:

PersonMan
2012-12-29, 02:03 PM
Why? Defeating a challenge in a smart way should not be worth less, simply because it was easier. That's basically rewarding dumbness or, rather, punishing intelligence.:smallannoyed:

This. It's like saying "yeah, for attacking the flaming creature with ice magic, you get 15% less XP for making the encounter easier".

Alejandro
2012-12-29, 02:09 PM
What version of D&D you are using (or even what RPG you are playing) is entirely irrelevant. All that matters is how your GM runs the game. If the GM rewards roleplaying, then the players will roleplay. If they don't, the players won't.

In the 4E game I play in, we avoided a terrible battle with undead because we were respectful and penitent in a tomb. The GM decided that we had not provoked the sleeping spirits, and we 'won' the encounter without fighting.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-29, 02:12 PM
This. It's like saying "yeah, for attacking the flaming creature with ice magic, you get 15% less XP for making the encounter easier".
Or, conversly, getting bonus XP for attacking the Barbarians fort save.
Now, there is a line between metagaming and intelligence, but none of the examples cross that line. Not even close.

LordBlades
2012-12-29, 02:52 PM
If the challenge is to get the orb, then thats what you get the experience for. You don't get extra experience for killing the orcs, thats just one possible way to get the orb. Awarding experience for getting the orb and killing the orcs is essentially rewarding XP twice for overcoming the same thing.

So its like this:
Challenge: Get the Orb.
Possible Solutions:
1) Diplomacy
2) Intimidate
3) Theft
4) Kill orcs

It doesn't matter which solution they chose. Its getting the orb that matters, and what gives them XP. Exactly how they manage to do that is irrelevant.

(The peaceful solutions do give you less loot - you don't get to loot the orc bodies. But, you could possibly now have contacts/allies in the region, if you treated the orcs well enough. So you could still get some other reward besides XP if you go non-violent.)

Stuff like that is probably the reasons many groups would be encouraged to go for option 4. Pretty much every DM can handle dead bodies&loot, but not every DM can handle a party that makes friends(or enemies).


This. It's like saying "yeah, for attacking the flaming creature with ice magic, you get 15% less XP for making the encounter easier".

It also encourages the players to hold back in order to try and make each encounter look difficult.

Mike_G
2012-12-29, 04:26 PM
The one built in disadvantage of a group RPG is that the first options give one player a chance to solve the problem, while the rest of the party are observers.
Assaulting the camp lets everyone play.

It's hard to give everyone a chance to shine in pure RP, diplomacy situations. Everyone can fight as a team and get some glory.

Things will vary from party to party, but I usually throw in some combat just so there's a challenge where everybody can contribute.

If the beguiler uses illusions, mind control and maxed Diplomacy or Bluff after casting Glibness, he could get the orb without breaking a sweat. But the other players will probably not show up for too many weeks of that.

Slipperychicken
2012-12-29, 04:35 PM
Why? Defeating a challenge in a smart way should not be worth less, simply because it was easier. That's basically rewarding dumbness or, rather, punishing intelligence.:smallannoyed:

Suppose you can choose between two challenges. One is to Bluff past a Sense Motive modifier of +8, and the other is to kill an army of 100 Trolls and a Troll general. The former is definitively easier (lower CR) than the latter. If you choose the former challenge, you should get less XP than if you chose the latter.

Deciding how to approach a problem is essentially determining which challenge you'll take on. If you choose to bluff your way past an army of Trolls instead of attacking them, you are ignoring the things which earn them their CR (hit points, damage, regeneration), so you have chosen a lesser challenge than killing them with your sword.

I don't mean that conducting a battle intelligently should earn less XP, it should earn the normal amount. I mean that if you don't conduct the battle at all and reduce the encounter to a skill check, the XP received should be based on the skill checks' difficulty, not the combats' difficulty. That amount may be higher or lower, depending on the skill check and the combat.

dethkruzer
2012-12-29, 04:55 PM
Personally, If I was GMing the scenario given in the OP, i would probable have at least some baseline XP for retrieving and succesfully turning in the orb, regardless of how it is achieved, although I probable would hand out some bonus XP if someone came up with a particularly ingenious solution to the problem, or some particular aspect of it.

Gavinfoxx
2012-12-29, 05:10 PM
Uhm, you get XP for solving problems and overcoming challenges, not JUST for killing monsters? I'm pretty sure most D&D books have mentioned this? Hell, OD&D gave XP for gold, and I think 3e onward did the 'solving challenges' thing, with the mere presence of a monster making a challenge?

hymer
2012-12-29, 05:16 PM
@ Gavinfoxx: 2nd edition is as far back as I go, and there were plenty of ways to award XP besides killing things. And I do believe the 'defeat is good enough' was in effect even back then. I can look it up if anyone thinks it's important. (I don't.)

Fiery Diamond
2012-12-29, 05:23 PM
Suppose you can choose between two challenges. One is to Bluff past a Sense Motive modifier of +8, and the other is to kill an army of 100 Trolls and a Troll general. The former is definitively easier (lower CR) than the latter. If you choose the former challenge, you should get less XP than if you chose the latter.

Deciding how to approach a problem is essentially determining which challenge you'll take on. If you choose to bluff your way past an army of Trolls instead of attacking them, you are ignoring the things which earn them their CR (hit points, damage, regeneration), so you have chosen a lesser challenge than killing them with your sword.

I don't mean that conducting a battle intelligently should earn less XP, it should earn the normal amount. I mean that if you don't conduct the battle at all and reduce the encounter to a skill check, the XP received should be based on the skill checks' difficulty, not the combats' difficulty. That amount may be higher or lower, depending on the skill check and the combat.

While I understand the logic, I don't agree.

-What's the objective? What is the obstacle? These are the two most important questions to ask when it comes to handing out XP. From your stated perspective, using your example, there is a single objective shared by both routes, but the obstacle is different. Hence, XP should be adjusted based on the difficulty of the obstacle. Sound logic, and certainly one approach.

-However, you neglect that there is risk involved in either choice, and that the DM is the arbitrator. Think creatively. In the battle choice, the risk of bodily harm and loss of resources is fairly straightforward. In the bluff choice, though, you assume that if the bluff is successful, all the risks of combat have been completely bypassed. This is a premature assumption. Why is there a 100 strong troll army there in the first place? How will the trolls react when/if they discover they've been duped? What happens if the bluff check only partially succeeds, or if it fails while you're only halfway through the army? What drawbacks might there be to bluffing past the trolls? Is the objective completely accomplished by bluffing, or was there more to it than getting to the other side?

-Additionally, just as you shouldn't be awarded more XP for choosing poor tactics, you shouldn't be penalized for choosing more efficient ones.

-No challenge exists in a vacuum. There are always potential repercussions depending on how the challenge is overcome.

Sucrose
2012-12-29, 05:38 PM
Suppose you can choose between two challenges. One is to Bluff past a Sense Motive modifier of +8, and the other is to kill an army of 100 Trolls and a Troll general. The former is definitively easier (lower CR) than the latter. If you choose the former challenge, you should get less XP than if you chose the latter.

Deciding how to approach a problem is essentially determining which challenge you'll take on. If you choose to bluff your way past an army of Trolls instead of attacking them, you are ignoring the things which earn them their CR (hit points, damage, regeneration), so you have chosen a lesser challenge than killing them with your sword.

I don't mean that conducting a battle intelligently should earn less XP, it should earn the normal amount. I mean that if you don't conduct the battle at all and reduce the encounter to a skill check, the XP received should be based on the skill checks' difficulty, not the combats' difficulty. That amount may be higher or lower, depending on the skill check and the combat.

Both the Sense Motive abilities and the combat abilities are part of the same challenge. Not all weak points of monsters are element-based, so attacking them in the way that you have the best chance at is simply good tactics, not passing on the challenge altogether.

hymer
2012-12-29, 05:38 PM
@ Fiery Diamond: Isn't that basically saying that the troll horde in this case is CR 4 (say), then? Because that's the best way to deal with them, and giving out 100xCR5 (say) would be rewarding poor thinking. That way you're not penalizing 'good' thinking nor rewarding 'poor' thinking. And you're not letting a party of level 3s get 100xCR5 XP either.

willpell
2012-12-29, 07:40 PM
It also encourages the players to hold back in order to try and make each encounter look difficult.

I'm of the opinion that because drama consists of challenges, this is perfectly reasonable. It makes the battle look good, makes the heroes seem to be sweating; if it's only an act, at least it's a good act.

Friv
2012-12-29, 08:05 PM
This conversation is largely why I prefer games that give XP rewards based on performance per session, rather than performance per challenge.

But if you are going per-challenge, a diplomacy challenge with a group of trolls is liable to take a lot less time, out-of-character, than killing them all. So if you were really only worrying about XP efficiency, you'd have to take that into account. If I can go through three skill challenges in the hour that a fight takes, and they're only worth half as much XP as that fight, and they could all have been fights instead, I'm still ahead.

Wyntonian
2012-12-29, 08:32 PM
I'm of the opinion that because drama consists of challenges, this is perfectly reasonable. It makes the battle look good, makes the heroes seem to be sweating; if it's only an act, at least it's a good act.

I'd rather watch a football team stretch themselves against another good team than tie their arms behind their backs, get hammered and play the pee-wees. If they're that "heroic", they should know not to gimp themselves just for the challenge of it.

Jay R
2012-12-29, 09:05 PM
The question is asked on the assumption that the method the party uses has no effect on the probability of success. If that's the case, then the problem with the game is not merely a role-playing issue. That's a tiny piece of the real issue, which is that player decisions don't matter.

Some situations call for bluff and diplomacy. Some call for sneaking, and still others call for straight-up battle. If all work equally all the time, why bother making any tactical decisions?

At least occasionally, it should be impossible to achieve the objective without role-playing (or at least much easier to achieve it with role-playing).

LordBlades
2012-12-30, 12:47 AM
I'd rather watch a football team stretch themselves against another good team than tie their arms behind their backs, get hammered and play the pee-wees. If they're that "heroic", they should know not to gimp themselves just for the challenge of it.

And especially there shouldn't be any advantage from gimping yourself.

GolemsVoice
2012-12-30, 06:52 AM
Also, the question "why even bother" is also a question for your players. Provided that XP is at least about the same for every way of beating the challenge, wouldn't the players do what they actually WANT to do? So maybe the enjoy sneaking, or talking (or have nothing against the player(s) who enjoy these things taking the spotlight here), but maybe they also enjoy straight-up combat.
At least in our group, while we fight rather a lot, we have never done something for the sake of experience points, rather, we mostly did what seemed most likely to succeed, be it sneaking, diplomacy or beating folks.

Man on Fire
2012-12-30, 07:03 AM
Yet none of these routes offer players xp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M

It's your job as the gm to award the players XP for whatever they're doing. Just sticking to rewarding them for what the book says is terrible gming.

Listen - books to DnD are dumb. It's your job as the GM to see the dumbness and politely throw it out, and then do whatever you want with it.

Socratov
2012-12-30, 08:13 AM
As others have said it's not only combat that offers XP. it is a way to get XP that is heavily described in the rules of combat (a large portion of the rules of DnD, even thgough the DMG expresses overcoming obstacles). It's not even up to the players. it's up to the GM to stimulate players getting XP in different ways.

ok, fact #1: Players will do anything to get XP and resources (aka: gold).
Fact #2: the GM adjudicates the amount of gold and XP per encounter.
Fact #3: XP and gold is gotten through overcoming challenges and obstacles.
Fact #4: You can, as a DM, award bonus experience for brilliant roleplay

Now how would you get players to look for alternative methods of overcoming obstacles?

first you need to look at the party ensemble: is a thieflike character present? is a face character present? is the party more combat focused or allround? Keep this in mind when designing encouters. No sneak present? go for less security. the other party knows not about a legendary thief (aka thieflike pc) and thus sved some gold on the guarding of hte macguffin in question.

next is the missionbriefing. the party asking the PC's to fetch something/ tell someone/whathaveyou shoudl make clear that there is an objective (get the macgufin), that there is a difficulty (the guards of the macguffin), and perhaps a few victory conditions (like without killing the guards, or without causing a ruckus, or with a bit of bartering or banter). Now those victoryconditions are where you can tell your players what you'd like them to do, but to keep it interesting you need to hide the victory condition a bit.

Now by dropping hints like "You will fulfill the mission any way, but if it is at all possible I'd like you to case as little ruckus as possible. it wouldn't look stellar in my political career..." translation: you can murder them for all you like, but if you really want to please me you could maybe instead of cold killing them, steal it or talk them into handing it over; your choice.

Now when players go after the macguffin the hard way (no killing or not using the obvious solution) you could award them a bonus of XP and gold like: "I am very pleased with the outcome. they never suspected a thing and now to them it's just gone. You have certainly helped me a lot. here *throws sack of coins* is the reward we agreed upon, and here *hands a little extra* is a bonus for keeping it quiet".

Now the players will think that if they use alternative methods, or at least listen to little hints dropped by the employer, they can make even more money and XP in the same amount of playing. Shoudl this not work, you can always make the victorycondition a little more set in stone like "You need to get the macguffin without killing the guards, if you kill the guards you risk killing the prince and that would have catastrophic results. I need you to get the macguffin so I can humiliate him to get him out of the political circuit and he won't be much use to me when he's dead sinced the next problem will arise jsut as fast. So remember: no killing!"

Now you ahve an in story motivation for hte players to not kill for if they do they lose the reward. After a couple of times you can tone down the rewards a bit and if you have done it right you will see that the players have become conditioned into lateral thinking andmore roleplaying. Tadaa! You have made players into roleplayers, you can pat yourself on the back now :smallamused:.

Zelkon
2012-12-30, 08:20 AM
Do people still use XP? Wow.

jasonguppy
2012-12-30, 08:47 AM
We roleplay because its fun. Thats why we play dnd

Yuki Akuma
2012-12-30, 08:48 AM
Yes, people still use the rules in the books. Crazy, I know.

GolemsVoice
2012-12-30, 08:51 AM
ok, fact #1: Players will do anything to get XP and resources (aka: gold).

I would actually doubt that fact. Few adventurers will turn down gold that is offered, and few players will turn down XP they can get. However, if I played a good character, I wouldn't accept an assassination contract just for gold and XP, and I think many people think the same.

I mean, sure, many (D&D) parties likely expect that there will be an XP reward during or after missions, but that's just fair.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-30, 10:31 AM
I can see why there would be a strong incentive to do combat in first edition AD&D, at least. After all, you got XP for loot back then, so even if you were able to talk the monsters down, very much subject to DM willingness, or send the Thief up to get the gem or orb, you got a little shafted on both ends, while 3.X, you just lose a little loot.

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-30, 04:01 PM
I have always preferred to roleplay. This is why I don't like to watch let's plays of Skyrim (as an example) where the player joins every single guild. A dedicated mage would not be interested in joining the companions, period.

Anyway, the main reason to roleplay is because you enjoy roleplaying. However it demands much more of both the players and the DM / GM / Storyteller / whatever.

I also agree that if the players need incentive, make sure you give them XP in a way that works for you. The "no matter how you solve a problem you get the same amount of XP" is a very good thing. Another is to give bonus XP for staying in character (which also means that an INT 6 Barbarian should get extra XP for NOT being sneaky and for kicking in the door instead of picking the lock. Etc).

Draz74
2012-12-30, 04:24 PM
Everyone else has already pointed out the "you get XP from overcoming the challenge" thing, so here's another perspective:

What you're leaving out of the equation here is risk. Let's say that a frontal assault on the orc horde carries a 20% chance of a PC fatality and a 5% chance of a TPK. The "slaughter them all" option is looking a bit less attractive now, isn't it?

Well, there's another factor, even if you have a 99% chance of winning the fight with no PC fatalities. That is, your methods should have consequences in the continuing story.

For example, if you kill the orc encampment off when a peaceful resolution was perfectly feasible, you might get a reputation of being brigands and bandits (albeit racist ones who only target fanged people, which means that some people will consider this a positive reputation). A good DM can (will) use this to make your life more difficult in the future. For example, for your next quest, you need some crucially important information ... and the only easy source of that information is a powerful Orc shaman, who heard what you did to the tribe his cousin married into ...

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-30, 04:28 PM
Well, there's another factor, even if you have a 99% chance of winning the fight with no PC fatalities. That is, your methods should have consequences in the continuing story.

For example, if you kill the orc encampment off when a peaceful resolution was perfectly feasible, you might get a reputation of being brigands and bandits (albeit racist ones who only target fanged people, which means that some people will consider this a positive reputation). A good DM can (will) use this to make your life more difficult in the future. For example, for your next quest, you need some crucially important information ... and the only easy source of that information is a powerful Orc shaman, who heard what you did to the tribe his cousin married into ...

Not to mention if there is conditions in your quest. The questgiver might simply refuse to give you your reward if you don't fulfill the conditions (minimum causalities, in this case).

Saph
2012-12-30, 04:38 PM
Well, there's another factor, even if you have a 99% chance of winning the fight with no PC fatalities. That is, your methods should have consequences in the continuing story.

Fair point.

Of course, if you're a player rather than a DM, things are a bit trickier. I've played under several DMs who tended to set things up so that "kill everything" was the most effective choice.

Even then, though, we still roleplayed a lot, because all things being equal our group usually finds character roleplay more entertaining than killing stuff. We'd just end up mixing roleplay with mass murder.

icefractal
2012-12-30, 04:51 PM
This is pretty much why I switched from individual per-encounter XP to overall per-mission/quest XP. Because, thinking about it, it is in most cases the same.

Consider every enemy and obstacle in the course of a mission. Is it necessary to overcome it to achieve your goal? Then you get XP for it, whether you fought it, sneaked past it, fooled it, or whatever. Is it pointless? Then why would you get XP from it at all? So really, you could look at the relevant opposition in total, and that's the XP for the mission as a whole.

But what about little optional side-branches? Sure, those can exist, because there are other rewards than XP. Maybe you only need to steal the Lich's book, but if you go defeat the thing guarding his treasury, you get that loot as well, for example.

That said, when players do something that's felt by everyone to be cool and impressive, you should absolutely bend whatever rules and give XP for it.

Alejandro
2012-12-30, 06:40 PM
I think some gamers are used to XP only being awarded for defeating enemies in battle, because they grew up doing just that with everything from Final Fantasy to Chrono Trigger. Which, ironically, are games that owe much of their foundation to D&D. :)

Jay R
2012-12-30, 07:15 PM
People are trying to make an easy question difficult.

If there are no situations that require the use of shoe-making, they will never make shoes.

If there are no situations that require the use of cliff-diving, they will never dive off cliffs.

And for the same good reasons, if there are no situations that require role-playing, they will never play roles.

Frankly, I think the characters should be in several situations that require role-playing before the first reasonable opportunity to draw swords ever presents itself.

Guizonde
2012-12-30, 11:28 PM
my gaming group seems very different from yours. we try and take turns dm'ing, and because we know each other (and our love/hate relationship with challenge), we don't offer XP for combat, but for survival.

-get planeshifted to hell and back at 1HP? xp
-slaughter tharizdun's mom? xp
-bluff the merchant with an implausible story? xp
-run away from the dragon armada? xp

we tend to distribute xp at the end of our sessions, and since our sessions last 12+ hours... physical and mental endurance is as good as having a buffed character.

regarding alignment, they are guidelines. depending on the explanation, you could totally have a chaotic good character torture a guy for 6 hours straight without losing alignment, and get xp for it... ok, we are psycho dm's and players alike. i think the base rule is: "if you can make it fly, it does"

Roland St. Jude
2012-12-31, 12:59 AM
None of the options in the OP are necessarily roleplaying. They're just different approaches relying on different rule subsystems to resolve the problem. (Even #4, which doesn't mention a Diplomacy check, but that's what it is).

The roleplaying might occur in doing any of these. How do the characters plan their attack/assault/negotiation? How do they treat each other? What do they say? Some of my favorite roleplaying moments have happened mid-combat.

Choosing among options 1-5 is a matter of using different rules subsystems in the game to resolve the problem. Should they receive the same XP? I think so, and I think the rules provide for that, albeit less than clearly. Players are going to choose a method based on what they enjoy, they think the DM wants, they think will get rewarded, etc.

Why bother with roleplaying? Because it's enjoyable and makes the game more than just navigating the various game subsystems to reach an outcome. But there's no reason one can't roleplay around and through whatever subsystem is used. The players I've most respected and enjoyed playing with always do.

willpell
2012-12-31, 02:54 AM
(Even #4, which doesn't mention a Diplomacy check, but that's what it is).

Unless of course you just let the players talk their way through the situation without calling for Diplomacy rolls. If they have a good idea, why let the dice spoil it? Conversely, if they have a terrible idea, why let the dice cover for them?

LordBlades
2012-12-31, 03:00 AM
Unless of course you just let the players talk their way through the situation without calling for Diplomacy rolls. If they have a good idea, why let the dice spoil it? Conversely, if they have a terrible idea, why let the dice cover for them?

Maybe because you want the party face to be the guy who's actually playing the 18 cha max diplomacy bard and not the charismatic dude playing the 6 int 6 cha orc barbarian?

snikrept
2012-12-31, 03:27 AM
If one's character is a bloodthirsty psychopath, slaughtering as many people as possible is excellent roleplay. If the OOTS had players, Belkar's player would be doing a good job roleplaying by choosing option 5 constantly.

Raimun
2012-12-31, 03:52 AM
Or you could roleplay a Boisterous Bruiser (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BoisterousBruiser) or a Blood Knight. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BloodKnight)

Flik9999
2012-12-31, 04:47 AM
I myself dont give xp for combat. I give it for challenges. If someone starts a fight out a character they get no xp. I just make up the xp they earn based on how well they role played at the end of the session.

For example if they did thought up all the plans but went with option 5 cos the players thought it was better for xp they would get 0 xp for it. Cos in character they each developed a plan but didn't do any of them which is out of character.

willpell
2012-12-31, 05:01 AM
Maybe because you want the party face to be the guy who's actually playing the 18 cha max diplomacy bard and not the charismatic dude playing the 6 int 6 cha orc barbarian?

I'm aware that there's an argument in favor of letting the dice correct for such disparities. I do not favor it myself; I would instead task the charismatic dude to try and roleplay his orc more consistently, but allow him to give pointers to the bard's player about what he would do in her place (the bard is now female for the sake of clarity in this example). If I did resort to letting the bard's player dice her way out of the situation without actually roleplaying it, it would be a reluctant concession to the needs of the moment; I don't ever consider this a good basis for a game, though I might lack for a better one.

turkishproverb
2012-12-31, 05:54 AM
Unless of course you just let the players talk their way through the situation without calling for Diplomacy rolls. If they have a good idea, why let the dice spoil it? Conversely, if they have a terrible idea, why let the dice cover for them?

That's the same line of logic that leads to the "not making social checks because people should just rp it" logic, which is seductively tempting yet unfair according to the way these games work. One needs to remember that roleplaying in a tabletop RPG is typically about storytelling and achieving what one cannot as themself to some degree, so unless you're going to make the guy playing the fighter lift heavy objects in leu of die rolls it's completely unfair to make the guy playing the bard negotiate in real life instead of using those same polyhedrons.

The Random NPC
2012-12-31, 06:15 AM
I'm aware that there's an argument in favor of letting the dice correct for such disparities. I do not favor it myself; I would instead task the charismatic dude to try and roleplay his orc more consistently, but allow him to give pointers to the bard's player about what he would do in her place (the bard is now female for the sake of clarity in this example). If I did resort to letting the bard's player dice her way out of the situation without actually roleplaying it, it would be a reluctant concession to the needs of the moment; I don't ever consider this a good basis for a game, though I might lack for a better one.

I'd like to tell you a story, once upon a time, I was playing a bard and decided to try my hand at this "Roleplaying" thing. Since it was a shopping session, I decided to try haggling. I can't remember exactly what was said, but I ended up having to pay more for my items because I am not good at haggling. From that point on, I merely told my GM what my Diplomancy roll was for haggling, and was able to salvage my GP. Needless to say, I didn't try that in any future sessions.

LordBlades
2012-12-31, 06:54 AM
I'm aware that there's an argument in favor of letting the dice correct for such disparities. I do not favor it myself; I would instead task the charismatic dude to try and roleplay his orc more consistently, but allow him to give pointers to the bard's player about what he would do in her place (the bard is now female for the sake of clarity in this example). If I did resort to letting the bard's player dice her way out of the situation without actually roleplaying it, it would be a reluctant concession to the needs of the moment; I don't ever consider this a good basis for a game, though I might lack for a better one.

'Giving pointers' can be a rather touchy issue in many groups. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. I've seen it more than once degenerate in either passive-aggressive behavior, with the person in cause reluctant to take any advice (some people got quite upset when they saw somebody else was more adept at playing their character and insisted on doing it their way just to prove they can too) or simple passivity, where they fully take the pointers and the charismatic dude ends up playing two characters(this is quite likely to happen if the pointer-giver is quite charismatic in RL).

I've been guilty of that more than once: I'm good at wargames and making sound tactical choices in combat. Therefore, I used to give everybody else tactical suggestions. I've had more than one game ed up with half of the party turning to me and asking 'what should I do?' when their turn came. Sometimes they wouldn't even bother to understand how it worked, they'd simply take my advice, and then turn to the DM and go 'I'll do what he said'.

Amphetryon
2012-12-31, 08:50 AM
Strictly my opinion here, OP, but if you would only "bother" with roleplay when the DM gives out XP for it, perhaps that's an issue with your approach, rather than with the game. Most people I know who roleplay do so because they enjoy it.

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 09:07 AM
I'm aware that there's an argument in favor of letting the dice correct for such disparities. I do not favor it myself; I would instead task the charismatic dude to try and roleplay his orc more consistently, but allow him to give pointers to the bard's player about what he would do in her place (the bard is now female for the sake of clarity in this example). If I did resort to letting the bard's player dice her way out of the situation without actually roleplaying it, it would be a reluctant concession to the needs of the moment; I don't ever consider this a good basis for a game, though I might lack for a better one.

This does not make sense to me, unless you also force the player that wants to jump a chasm to acually jump IRL, or the player trying to hit an enemy with a flail try to hit a dummy with a flail IRL.

There is no difference between rolling for social rolls, and rolling to hit. None.

Saph
2012-12-31, 09:14 AM
This does not make sense to me, unless you also force the player that wants to jump a chasm to acually jump IRL, or the player trying to hit an enemy with a flail try to hit a dummy with a flail IRL.

The only reason we don't do that in our games is that we don't have the space or the resources. It would make combats and cavern-exploration WAY more fun. :smallbiggrin:

Morty
2012-12-31, 09:23 AM
This does not make sense to me, unless you also force the player that wants to jump a chasm to acually jump IRL, or the player trying to hit an enemy with a flail try to hit a dummy with a flail IRL.

There is no difference between rolling for social rolls, and rolling to hit. None.

I was about to say it myself. Why make social rolls different? Why don't we expect the guy who plays an engineer to come up with engineering solutions himself? Or the girl playing a marksman to hit a target from the required distance?

Saph
2012-12-31, 09:26 AM
Why don't we expect the girl playing a marksman to hit a target from the required distance?

Well, I can't speak for everyone, but in the case of our group it'd be firstly because guns are illegal where we live, secondly because they cost a lot more than dice, and thirdly because I have the feeling the bar staff in the pub we play in might object.

Morty
2012-12-31, 09:32 AM
Yes, well, the argument did get away from me... :smalltongue:

SiuiS
2012-12-31, 09:42 AM
. Yet none of these routes offer players xp. It would be far more valuable, and thus from a meta-game perspective better, to just slaughter every man, woman and child in the encampment and take the orb by force. The party that tries to be creative actually loses out on xp, being punished for their creative thought.

As far as I know, none of the newer DnD versions solve this problem. What's up with this? Why is roleplay, the most important part of a roleplaying game, so undervalued in DnD?

This isn't true. You get experience for overcoming challenges. It's been either implicit or explicit in every edition I've played (red Bo. Being the oldest) that if there is a Minotaur, you get equal XD for killing him, befriending him enough to get him to let you into his treasure vault, putting him to sleep, sneaking past him, or even making love to him while the sneaky guys go grab what you need.

An Orc army is probably CR 8-10, so defeating the entire army – either by killing them all, killing their leaders and routing them, scaring e leaders and routing them, or doing anything which removes them as a threat and challenge including solid friendship and alliance, you get XP for tha challenge rating. If getting the orb is a CR 6 encounter, you get that XP simply for getting the orb, which was the point. Killing orcs can be part of getting the orb, but doesn't need to be.


Conversely, killing a surrendered Orc is worth 0 xp because it was not a challenge. Finding the sleeping dragon that isn't an actual challenge and pouring gallons of poison into its nose kills it, but you don't suddenly gain dragon XP. XP isn't tied to the creatures, but to the challenge they represent. That's why each doubling only increases the CR by 2, after all.

CarpeGuitarrem
2012-12-31, 09:46 AM
This conversation is largely why I prefer games that give XP rewards based on performance per session, rather than performance per challenge.
Seconded. XP based on character achievements or skill use (with GM adjucation to prevent skillspam) is the way to go.

In D&D's standard metric, though, XP is in reality a pacing mechanism: how fast do your characters get to the next level. Which is why I know some DMs who level the characters every so often. I'm playing with a group that levels up at the conclusion of a major plot arc.

(Let's not derail the social mechanics thing too far, but I think that something else is being neglected: a skill isn't just a way to overcome a challenge; it's a decision point that sends the story in one direction or another. Failing a roll when we really don't expect to fail sends the story in a direction that we didn't anticipate, which generally makes for a more interesting story.)

Jay R
2012-12-31, 09:58 AM
This does not make sense to me, unless you also force the player that wants to jump a chasm to acually jump IRL, or the player trying to hit an enemy with a flail try to hit a dummy with a flail IRL.

There is no difference between rolling for social rolls, and rolling to hit. None.

The problem with this analogy is that it is not analogous.

The fighter doesn't just say, "OK, I want to make a combat roll." She decides which weapon to draw, where to move, which enemy to attack, which maneuver or feat to use, over and over, throughout the fight. She actually thinks her way through the fight, using rolls only after specific decisions ("I move to square X and attack enemy Y with weapon W using feat Z.")

A player who wants to "solve" a diplomatic situation by making a simple roll, without thinking her way through the social situation, is the equivalent of a player who wants to solve the melee situation with a single roll, without thinking her way through the tactical situation.

Count how many tactical decisions your character makes in an average melee - each time she moves, decides who to hit, looks for a flank, uses a feat, etc. To use your implicit suggestion of equating social rolls and combat rolls, then that's roughly how many social decisions she should make in a social situation.

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 10:05 AM
The problem with this analogy is that it is not analogous.

The fighter doesn't just say, "OK, I want to make a combat roll." She decides which weapon to draw, where to move, which enemy to attack, which maneuver or feat to use, over and over, throughout the fight. She actually thinks her way through the fight, using rolls only after specific decisions ("I move to square X and attack enemy Y with weapon W using feat Z.")

A player who wants to "solve" a diplomatic situation by making a simple roll, without thinking her way through the social situation, is the equivalent of a player who wants to solve the melee situation with a single roll, without thinking her way through the tactical situation.

Count how many tactical decisions your character makes in an average melee - each time she moves, decides who to hit, looks for a flank, uses a feat, etc. To use your implicit suggestion of equating social rolls and combat rolls, then that's roughly how many social decisions she should make in a social situation.

I think you are overestimating how most people play fighters.
Most fights conists of "I roll to hit the goblin to the left".

Just because you have to roll for every hit doesn't mean it gets any less abstract than the diplomacy roll. Diplomacy has no feats. So to speak about a fighter picking feats is not a valid comparison.

Guizonde
2012-12-31, 11:07 AM
i've seen a lot of slippery slope type arguments here, where they shouldn't be. maybe try and encourage rp-style actions, and based on how thought out the rp is, give bonus to the dice? i'm reminded of the tale of a LG paladin who didn't want to see a guy bound up and interrogated, who left the party, came back a few hours later stumbling-drunk and rp'd the paladin's threat to the guy:

"(along the lines of) i'm a powder keg, restrained solely by my promise to my god. wanna try me on?"

it was a 5minute irl tirade that ended by "i make my intimidation roll". the dm gave a hell of a bonus to the dice roll.

alternatively, if it's a sound idea, forego rolling. who needs to roll for throwing a torch in a well? (although casting light should require the appropriate roll)

maybe i've got more experience being a PC than a dm, but it only seems fair to roll if there's a moderate chance of failure or it's a truly OoC action/moment. heck, i know my dm has any divine caster fail his/her spells if we don't say something sounding like praise to the god irl when we cast. different gaming groups, i guess, but it does add depth to our characters, and make us think twice about doing the tactically sound choice. your character hates orks but attacking would wind up a TPK? insult them. no need to roll, you're rp'ing your ork-hatred. (the dm still rolled to see if i got smacked. i did, but worth it)

tl;dr: no need to be a roll-junkie, let the story decide.

willpell
2012-12-31, 11:12 AM
There is no difference between rolling for social rolls, and rolling to hit. None.

I firmly disagree. Combat isn't a Skill in D&D terms. It uses your Base Attack Bonus, your weapon, and your your Hit Points as well as those of your opponent; instead of a single roll to determine the outcome, you roll for every round of combat, every combat maneuver and attack of opporunity. Skills get just a single check, and they usually have few modifiers; you get plentiful ranks to boost your checks for a wide variety of skills, while your combat modifiers usually only go up by 1 every level, occasionally 2 or 3 on certain levels but seldom two of them in a row. D&D as a game is built around combat, and its social and mental aspects are little more than an afterthought. Therefore, treating them as interchangeable with the physical activities makes no sense.

(If anything, White Wolf has a sillier system for treating physical, mental and social categories as equal, and has even introduced "social combat" rolls for things like winning an argument or publically humiliating a rival...which I firmly oppose because they replace lines of in-character dialogue with flavorless die rolls and thereby abstract by far the most interesting part of such a scenario.)

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 11:19 AM
I firmly disagree. Combat isn't a Skill in D&D terms. It uses your Base Attack Bonus, your weapon, and your your Hit Points as well as those of your opponent; instead of a single roll to determine the outcome, you roll for every round of combat, every combat maneuver and attack of opporunity. Skills get just a single check, and they usually have few modifiers; you get plentiful ranks to boost your checks for a wide variety of skills, while your combat modifiers usually only go up by 1 every level, occasionally 2 or 3 on certain levels but seldom two of them in a row. D&D as a game is built around combat, and its social and mental aspects are little more than an afterthought. Therefore, treating them as interchangeable with the physical activities makes no sense.

But it still doesn't make sense that you expect a player to be able to put on a performance, or even come up with a logical argument, for one skill, but not for another. Replace "to hit" with "Climb" or "Swim" if you will, the argument to treat social roll special still doesn't make sense.

Saph
2012-12-31, 11:45 AM
But it still doesn't make sense that you expect a player to be able to put on a performance, or even come up with a logical argument, for one skill, but not for another. Replace "to hit" with "Climb" or "Swim" if you will, the argument to treat social roll special still doesn't make sense.

But in our games, we don't roleplay because it makes sense, we roleplay because it's fun. Having the group take part in a social encounter, talking with the NPCs and trying to convince them of whatever reasonable/unreasonable/hilariously stupid thing the group wants them to buy into, is fun. You only use dice rolls when there's a good reason for it – usually either because the subject matter isn't important enough to treat in detail, or because it is important but there isn't a better way to resolve it.

Mike_G
2012-12-31, 11:52 AM
But in our games, we don't roleplay because it makes sense, we roleplay because it's fun. Having the group take part in a social encounter, talking with the NPCs and trying to convince them of whatever reasonable/unreasonable/hilariously stupid thing the group wants them to buy into, is fun. You only use dice rolls when there's a good reason for it – usually either because the subject matter isn't important enough to treat in detail, or because it is important but there isn't a better way to resolve it.

Just wanted to agree with this.

SiuiS
2012-12-31, 12:42 PM
The problem with this analogy is that it is not analogous.

The fighter doesn't just say, "OK, I want to make a combat roll." She decides which weapon to draw, where to move, which enemy to attack, which maneuver or feat to use, over and over, throughout the fight. She actually thinks her way through the fight, using rolls only after specific decisions ("I move to square X and attack enemy Y with weapon W using feat Z.")

A player who wants to "solve" a diplomatic situation by making a simple roll, without thinking her way through the social situation, is the equivalent of a player who wants to solve the melee situation with a single roll, without thinking her way through the tactical situation.

Count how many tactical decisions your character makes in an average melee - each time she moves, decides who to hit, looks for a flank, uses a feat, etc. To use your implicit suggestion of equating social rolls and combat rolls, then that's roughly how many social decisions she should make in a social situation.

It is my experience that the player type who say "a guard? I intimidate him" will say "a fight? I hit him with my sword." And the player who says "Back down, cretin, for I am a very angry and very tired veteran of hundred years of war and you're standing between me and my ale!" Is the player who maneuvers, plans, attacks from advantage and gives in character advice to other fighters.

I have only once met a group of players who did not do this. They also did not role play at all – it was literally relating events as if they were relating a memory, stating intent and then rolling dice for everything.


(If anything, White Wolf has a sillier system for treating physical, mental and social categories as equal, and has even introduced "social combat" rolls for things like winning an argument or publically humiliating a rival...which I firmly oppose because they replace lines of in-character dialogue with flavorless die rolls and thereby abstract by far the most interesting part of such a scenario.)

The new world of darkness line actually prohibits this, saying that a storyteller should let a player simply roll dice only as a last resort. The system is designed completely for RP, with dice mechanics rising up covertly, being used and then getting out of the way. You could ignore all advice on how the system best works and instead use it as a numerical engine to simulate things, but you could also use D&D 3.5 as an economic simulator and do nothing but play kingdoms.

And social combat is designed mostly so people who can't talk can actually have fun. In general, any situation that boils down to "your character fails because you the player are bad" is a stupid situation. So here's a question; if you allow dice, does that stop the good characters from forsaking the dice and just RPing? Are you going to tell the impassioned speaker who pours their heart out "sorry, no. Roll a d20, and at minus two because your voice is squeaky and this NPC doesn't like squeaky voices." Or are you going to let the RP person RP, and let the not so good at RP person roll until they get better?

It's not a moratorium on interpersonal interaction. It's a set of training wheels. And from experience, having the more charismatic players coach the less charismatic ones leads to resentment at the other guy dictating how they should play their character and that the DM is supporting the micromanagement.

navar100
2012-12-31, 12:47 PM
The problem with this analogy is that it is not analogous.

The fighter doesn't just say, "OK, I want to make a combat roll." She decides which weapon to draw, where to move, which enemy to attack, which maneuver or feat to use, over and over, throughout the fight. She actually thinks her way through the fight, using rolls only after specific decisions ("I move to square X and attack enemy Y with weapon W using feat Z.")

A player who wants to "solve" a diplomatic situation by making a simple roll, without thinking her way through the social situation, is the equivalent of a player who wants to solve the melee situation with a single roll, without thinking her way through the tactical situation.

Count how many tactical decisions your character makes in an average melee - each time she moves, decides who to hit, looks for a flank, uses a feat, etc. To use your implicit suggestion of equating social rolls and combat rolls, then that's roughly how many social decisions she should make in a social situation.

The person making a social roll does need to at least explain the point he's trying to get across, just as the warrior players needs to say he moves 30ft in some direction and Power Attacks. The DM needs to know what the player wants to accomplish. However, the player himself does not need to come up with his own version of "I Have A Dream" and speak to make James Earl Jones take notes.

Deophaun
2012-12-31, 12:58 PM
But in our games, we don't roleplay because it makes sense, we roleplay because it's fun.
Good. So there's zero reason for your group to add bonuses and assign penalties for it. The activity is reward in itself, as it should be.

Roleplay is simply the creative conveyance of that task you wish to perform. The dice are still the arbiters of success or failure. You might get a circumstance bonus or penalty depending on what you aim to do with your roll, but you shouldn't get them based on how well you roleplayed it out.

Saph
2012-12-31, 01:44 PM
Good. So there's zero reason for your group to add bonuses and assign penalties for it. The activity is reward in itself, as it should be.

. . . Kind of. We don't grade players as if they're in drama class, but we do heavily slant social reactions based on how overall-convincing the player is (what they're saying, how they're saying it, and how appropriate an approach they're making). In most cases this means we don't use the dice at all. You don't make a Diplomacy check for buying something in a shop – you just succeed automatically. Likewise, you don't make a Bluff check when the player tries something like this (http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0043.html). (You do, however, laugh for about five minutes straight. :smallbiggrin:) The dice only come out when a decision could believably go either way.

VeggieWombat
2012-12-31, 01:55 PM
Some DM will just give you a free pass for test if the RP is good/fun/creative enough. A hole filled with meth-ed squirrels and raspberries is equivalent to a bunch of damage + fear effect for every ennemy in a 30feets radius.

Water_Bear
2012-12-31, 03:17 PM
. . . Kind of. We don't grade players as if they're in drama class, but we do heavily slant social reactions based on how overall-convincing the player is (what they're saying, how they're saying it, and how appropriate an approach they're making). In most cases this means we don't use the dice at all. You don't make a Diplomacy check for buying something in a shop – you just succeed automatically. Likewise, you don't make a Bluff check when the player tries something like this (http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0043.html). (You do, however, laugh for about five minutes straight. :smallbiggrin:) The dice only come out when a decision could believably go either way.

The problem with this style of play is that it makes the skills virtually useless, and thus penalizes people who invest in them.

In my last game of D&D, unfortunately abortive, my Monk had no ranks in Diplomacy or any other social skill except Sense Motive and only 14 Charisma. I played him as an arrogant young martial artist who nonetheless had an incredibly strong sense of honor, standard stuff for a level 1 LN guy. Despite both other members in the party having actually invested in social skills, RPing him as a hot-blooded guy who reminded people about their duties meant that I ended up solving most of our social encounters without dice ever touching the table. The other characters ended up sidelined because their players weren't as comfortable with conversational RP, and had wasted precious resources in the process.

If the game has social skills either use them or at least let people know not to bother.

Saph
2012-12-31, 03:36 PM
The problem with this style of play is that it makes the skills virtually useless, and thus penalizes people who invest in them.

Uh . . . no, not really.

We use skill rolls for social situations where the outcome is not obvious and where the outcome could believably go either way. This does not translate to "useless".

Mike_G
2012-12-31, 03:46 PM
The problem with this style of play is that it makes the skills virtually useless, and thus penalizes people who invest in them.


I have a totally different attitude. I do not care about who got "penalized" for spending points. Everybody who has ever put points inot "swim" is penalized, except for that one time that everybody who didn't is.

Roleplaying is fun. If somebody comes up with a brilliant plan and makes everyone at the table laugh or makes the DM's brain seize up from twisted logic on a Bluff attempt, that should be rewarded. It made the game better for everybody, since we all got a laugh out of it. We get nothing at all from hearing "I Bluff him. Beat at 37."

I'm not saying i won't allow a player to roll a Bluff check if he put points in it, but he's going to have to say what his character said, and the dice may come out.

I know this is "not fair" to socially challenged number crunchers who min maxed social skills. I know, I just don't care.

No one would sow up for a game where the player says "We save the princess. *roll* 47."

"You succeed, but the comedy relief sidekick dies. The rest of you get a knighthood and the party face gets her hand in marriage. Ok, it's 7:05, anybody want to try another adventure?"

If I wanted to play a straight "overcome the objective with dice rolls" game, I can play Squad Leader.

I the the OP's question should be why bother playing an RPG if you don't like the RP part?

Djinn_in_Tonic
2012-12-31, 04:01 PM
I consider RP-related skills (Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and so forth) to be RP enablers, not RP restrictions. Basically, if I have a silver-tongued player with great planning ability who wants to play a smooth-talking Bard with high intelligence, that's great. He can dictate everything his character says, have tons of fun, and really get into RP.

However, I've ALSO had players who have no real social skills whatsoever and/or aren't that quick thinking who want to play really smart, fast-thinking, smooth-talking characters. They can't RP that properly to save their lives, but they want to try to play out the fantasy. Skills help that player immensely.

For the latter player, I might do something that has them state an intention ("I want to appeal to the King's emotions"), and then make a roll, whereupon I'll tell them what approximately what they say and how it works. I might also to something like a Mass Effect conversation, where I offer them a few choices, and let them pick their choice and roll to see if it turns out well.

Basically, use the skills to a greater or lesser extent based on the player behind the character. Don't make a bad RP-er or good RP-er with bad social skills be forced to somehow play a character realistically if they're unable to do that. Just like how Knowledge checks, Sense Motive, Search, Spot, and other skills can make up for insufficient knowledge, awareness, or detective skills, use the social skills to shore up a player with insufficient social skills who still wants to be able to live out the fantasy of playing a social character.

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 04:46 PM
The person making a social roll does need to at least explain the point he's trying to get across, just as the warrior players needs to say he moves 30ft in some direction and Power Attacks. The DM needs to know what the player wants to accomplish. However, the player himself does not need to come up with his own version of "I Have A Dream" and speak to make James Earl Jones take notes.

Oh this I do agree with.

Water_Bear
2012-12-31, 04:51 PM
I know this is "not fair" to socially challenged number crunchers who min maxed social skills. I know, I just don't care.

Well, it's good that you can admit that. Most people would lie and say that they have some sympathy for their fellow players, but at least you're honest about your contempt.

I love RPing, and I'm good at it, and I'm also a bit of a "number cruncher" as well. I also have friends who are so bad at math I need to double-check their attack bonuses and ACs every session, friends who are so bad at char-op that I need to walk them through every level up, and yes friends who are terrible at RP and need skill rolls to help them through it. And you know what? I'd take every one of them over you because they can at least fake some compassion for the people around them.

Jay R
2012-12-31, 06:14 PM
The person making a social roll does need to at least explain the point he's trying to get across, just as the warrior players needs to say he moves 30ft in some direction and Power Attacks. The DM needs to know what the player wants to accomplish. However, the player himself does not need to come up with his own version of "I Have A Dream" and speak to make James Earl Jones take notes.

The person in a social situation should make as many decisions, and be as invested in the details of the situation, as the person in the warrior does in an average melee, if you want to use the melee analogy as an excuse for not role-playing.

What I don't get is why anybody would play a role-playing game in which all role-playing is replaced by die rolls.

It feels (to me) like playing chess by rolling dice to see who played best, rather than moving pieces.

I play role-playing games to pretend to be in that situation, to make the decisions such a person would make, and to act like I'm in that situation. Why skip the pretending-to-be-in-that-situation, the decision-making, and the acting-like-I'm-that-person parts?

Djinn_in_Tonic
2012-12-31, 06:42 PM
I know this is "not fair" to socially challenged number crunchers who min maxed social skills. I know, I just don't care.

There's a difference between that, and the player who isn't good at speaking who wants to play a character who is. It's no fun having your Cha 20, Diplomacy 15 rank Rogue outspoken by the Charisma 6 rank 0 Fighter just because that player is a better speaker out of character.

It's the DM's job to make this work. For example:

The Fighter player gives me a long, involved, amazing speech. Maybe, if it's climatically appropriate, I let it work. But otherwise? His player just told me what he WANTS to say...what the Fighter, who is less socially competent, actually ends up conveying might be different. A great speech will net him a large bonus, but he's still rolling less than the other character might be.

On the flip side, if my non-socially-able player who is running a smooth-talking Bard tells me he's rolling a check to "appeal to the King's emotional side," I won't give him an extra circumstance bonus, because he isn't really convincing me with his role-playing. I can, however, still tell a great story and make him feel good about his character. If he rolls well, I'll tell him about the great speech he gives, how his mention of the King's exiled son puts tears in the old man's eyes, and how the King ends up hanging on his every word, eager to hear more and more. I'd then ask the player what he wants to say next: maybe this will inspire him to get more into the role-play of the speech itself, but, if that's outside of his comfort zone, he can do the same thing: "I'll now ask him to set the prisoners free" or whatever it is.

Perhaps put in choices for the player to make, or extra checks to allow them to tell a better story, but don't deny them the ability to make social scenarios if they're not socially competent themselves. As mentioned above, you can still craft an exciting, memorable, and character-appropriate social encounter that leaves a non-socially apt player feeling good about his or her portrayal of a socially-competent character.


No one would sow up for a game where the player says "We save the princess. *roll* 47."

"You succeed, but the comedy relief sidekick dies. The rest of you get a knighthood and the party face gets her hand in marriage. Ok, it's 7:05, anybody want to try another adventure?"

...to quote the internet meme...THAT escalated quickly. Notice that in my example above, which DOES involve dice rolls, players still need to guide the DM in the direction they want. There's no "I roll Diplomacy." Instead it's "I roll Diplomacy to do X, in Y fashion." If X and Y won't help the situation, the roll won't accomplish much. There's no "Roll a die to solve the situation without thinking.


I the the OP's question should be why bother playing an RPG if you don't like the RP part?

Being good at the RP part does not equate to liking the RP part, and vice versa. A player may love RP, but not feel comfortable doing RP of social encounters, or not feel capable of portraying his or her character perfectly without dice to assist.

Hell, anyone who has played an Intelligence 20+ Wizard should know this feeling. I suspect that, if anyone on this forum is bright enough to accurately portray this, the number is limited to 1-2 at BEST. Int 20 is above super-human levels of intelligence. You HAVE to rely on dice rolls to assist your natural abilities, because you simply can't know as much about the world and everything in it as your character does.


I play role-playing games to pretend to be in that situation, to make the decisions such a person would make, and to act like I'm in that situation. Why skip the pretending-to-be-in-that-situation, the decision-making, and the acting-like-I'm-that-person parts?

Correct. But bear in mind that some people prefer, say, the Mass Effect style of RPG: You're still making choices and acting like a person, but in a more structured, less specific style. A good DM should tailor a campaign to his players, regardless of which style they prefer. Both can co-exist: I recently played in a game with myself (I enjoy effectively method-acting my characters), a few less RP-focused players, and one who really loved the game and was invested in the story, but couldn't RP well to save his life. The game flowed seamlessly, because the DM let the less RP competent players lean on the rules a bit more to get information, make social checks, and so forth: the game working perfectly because those of us who were better at RP understood which character would be competent at what, and thus allowed the DM to use those characters areas of expertise to craft a better story.

In short, bend the system to allow players to play what they WANT to play. Understand that the CHARACTER should be the driving force: the story is about the CHARACTERS, not whether player A is capable of really giving that rallying speech he so wants his character to give. Let the DM work his magic: if he/she's a good DM, the story will work excellently regardless of the player's ability to actually swing a sword, tell a joke, seduce a courtesan, or whatever.

LordBlades
2012-12-31, 06:42 PM
The person in a social situation should make as many decisions, and be as invested in the details of the situation, as the person in the warrior does in an average melee, if you want to use the melee analogy as an excuse for not role-playing.

What I don't get is why anybody would play a role-playing game in which all role-playing is replaced by die rolls.

It feels (to me) like playing chess by rolling dice to see who played best, rather than moving pieces.

I play role-playing games to pretend to be in that situation, to make the decisions such a person would make, and to act like I'm in that situation. Why skip the pretending-to-be-in-that-situation, the decision-making, and the acting-like-I'm-that-person parts?
Actually, the issues I (and some others I think are having) can be more accurately phrased as 'no matter how well the fighter is describing his attack he still needs to roll for attack and damage' .

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 06:44 PM
The person in a social situation should make as many decisions, and be as invested in the details of the situation, as the person in the warrior does in an average melee, if you want to use the melee analogy as an excuse for not role-playing.

No not really. Seriously. Not really. And even if you think that, compare it instead to any other stealth roll then. "I look for traps"...


What I don't get is why anybody would play a role-playing game in which all role-playing is replaced by die rolls.

Because people are not actors. I want to play make believe, but I am not an actor. I suck at thinking on my feet. But my lvl 12 bard does not.

Seriously, this just seems like an attack on people who are not drama students.


It feels (to me) like playing chess by rolling dice to see who played best, rather than moving pieces.

This is a completely false analogy.

A better analogy to this argument would be if you are not allowed to move the knight unless you know how to ride a horse in real life.


I play role-playing games to pretend to be in that situation, to make the decisions such a person would make, and to act like I'm in that situation.

I do to. On paper. But I cannot act, will not act. This is why I don't LARP.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2012-12-31, 06:54 PM
Because people are not actors. I want to play make believe, but I am not an actor. I suck at thinking on my feet. But my lvl 12 bard does not.

Exactly. I'm great at Improv and character acting, but my group is NOT. Does this mean that only I can play characters that require characterization and quick-thinking, or only I can play social characters, or that the game will be bad? Of course not!


This is a completely false analogy.

A better analogy to this argument would be if you are not allowed to move the knight unless you know how to ride a horse in real life.

Quoted for truth. A player who doesn't know how to do X thing should still be allowed to be effective as a character who knows how to do X thing and, perhaps more importantly, shouldn't have his character overshadowed by a player who knows how to do X thing playing a character who doesn't know how to do X thing.

If player A is a non-social person playing a charismatic Bard, he should, in-game, succeed at MANY more social situations than player B, the socialite, playing a gruff and surly Barbarian. It destroys the realism of the game if that isn't true.

Scowling Dragon
2012-12-31, 06:55 PM
You don't have to roleplay, but your just denying yourself fun. Like using the warp whistle in mario 3.

Djinn_in_Tonic
2012-12-31, 06:58 PM
You don't have to roleplay, but your just denying yourself fun. Like using the warp whistle in mario 3.

While I'd agree, there are people for whom being forced to portray a character in person and in real-time is stressful, difficult, and just not fun at all. These people can still enjoy an RPG, just not in a method-acting manner. Third-person character portrayal is a perfectly acceptable way to play, even if it is a bit more removed from actually acting out the role.

Friv
2012-12-31, 07:22 PM
You don't have to roleplay, but your just denying yourself fun. Like using the warp whistle in mario 3.

The warp whistle was awesome.

It let you skip over the parts of Mario 3 that you'd played before, and which were now a boring slog instead of a good time, and get straight to the worlds that were fun and interesting.

There's a parallel here, actually. The warp whistle is a lot like using social rolls to slip through social encounters faster, so that you can play out the social encounters that are more interesting to you.

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 07:30 PM
If player A is a non-social person playing a charismatic Bard, he should, in-game, succeed at MANY more social situations than player B, the socialite, playing a gruff and surly Barbarian. It destroys the realism of the game if that isn't true.


While I'd agree, there are people for whom being forced to portray a character in person and in real-time is stressful, difficult, and just not fun at all. These people can still enjoy an RPG, just not in a method-acting manner. Third-person character portrayal is a perfectly acceptable way to play, even if it is a bit more removed from actually acting out the role.

Exactly. In fact, many people prefer playing a character that is everything they are not. I am clumsy, shy and weak and male. I prefer to play characters that are charismatic, quick, strong and female (so I mainly play rogues or fighters).


You don't have to roleplay, but your just denying yourself fun.

It is only true if you do not hate putting yourself in those kind of situations.
Besides, I roleplay, but I don't roleplay EVERYTHING. Just like I don't show my pretend rope-climbing skills. I always stay in character, never do any kind of action that my character wouldn't.

Mike_G
2012-12-31, 07:34 PM
If you play a Fighter in combat, you have to (as a player) decide where you move, what weapon you use, how you use terrain, etc. If you, as a player, are more tactically minded, you can say "I charge this guy, because that gets me my bonus damage, plus it sets up a flank for the Rogue," and thus, you get in game bonuses for you as a player making a sound tactical decision.

Maybe you aren't a good tactician, but your character is a 15th levle fighter. he should know that stuff. Should you bypass the actual making of tactical decisions because "Hey, I'm just an accountant. Why should the SEAL playing the third level Rogue be a better tactician than me?"

If you are really bad at resource allocation and planning, your prepared spell list probably won't be as good as the guy who is a good planner. Should yiou just tell the DM "I'm a Wizard with a 20 Int and maxed Knowledge: The Planes. I prepare the best spells for this situation."

I think you need to play the character. Reducing every interaction to a roll because you spent points in the right skill is a cop out.

That's my perspective. I think the roleplaying aspect should be emphasized as much as possible. I understand that other people have different ideas, but I jut simply have no desire to play that way.

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 07:40 PM
If you play a Fighter in combat, you have to (as a player) decide where you move, what weapon you use, how you use terrain, etc. If you, as a player, are more tactically minded, you can say "I charge this guy, because that gets me my bonus damage, plus it sets up a flank for the Rogue," and thus, you get in game bonuses for you as a player making a sound tactical decision.
...
I think you need to play the character. Reducing every interaction to a roll because you spent points in the right skill is a cop out.

That's my perspective. I think the roleplaying aspect should be emphasized as much as possible. I understand that other people have different ideas, but I jut simply have no desire to play that way.

I know am old, but I don't remember having to do most of these things when fighting.* Of course we never used miniatures either, just the DM's description and sometimes some quickly drawn references (if there was a serious misunderstanding about layout and terrain). We were using our imagination, aka roleplaying.

And I do still think that if you are relying more on the player's actions than the character's skills, you should just free-form, or at least home-brew and remove all skills from the game.

*What weapon? What about the only weapon I have? (some characters might have a bow, as well. MAYBE). Terrain? "I try to get around and jump down on the ogre from the rock behind him"... fair enough. But that is no different from "I try to smooth-talk us through the roadblock".

Deophaun
2012-12-31, 08:13 PM
If you play a Fighter in combat, you have to (as a player) decide where you move, what weapon you use, how you use terrain, etc. If you, as a player, are more tactically minded, you can say "I charge this guy, because that gets me my bonus damage, plus it sets up a flank for the Rogue," and thus, you get in game bonuses for you as a player making a sound tactical decision.
Which is what happens when you make diplomacy checks. Are you going to appeal to the king directly, enlist the aid of his adviser, or seduce the princess? Do you appeal to the captain of the guard's sense of nobility, or do you attempt to bribe the poor sod put in charge of watching over you during the night? Social rolls in no way, shape, or form eliminate the need for player skill. Poorly designed encounters, however...

Beelzebub1111
2012-12-31, 08:26 PM
Some of you have mentioned the exp for overcoming a challenge. While a good DM (and if I'm not mistaken those are somewhat rare) will take these into account, that still means the peaceful resolutions are somewhat at a disadvantage, right? Even if the diplomatic resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb, the violent resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb and exp for killing some orcs on top of that.

The "Defeat" part has a wide meaning. If an enemy retreats (An actual retreat, not a tactical one to come back in the same day), you still get XP the same XP as if you killed them. The encounter level is the orcs. How you overcome that encounter, is irrelevant.

Avilan the Grey
2012-12-31, 08:40 PM
Which is what happens when you make diplomacy checks. Are you going to appeal to the king directly, enlist the aid of his adviser, or seduce the princess? Do you appeal to the captain of the guard's sense of nobility, or do you attempt to bribe the poor sod put in charge of watching over you during the night? Social rolls in no way, shape, or form eliminate the need for player skill. Poorly designed encounters, however...

Why do everybody but me make my points better than I do? :smallbiggrin:

Zeful
2012-12-31, 08:42 PM
Some of you have mentioned the exp for overcoming a challenge. While a good DM (and if I'm not mistaken those are somewhat rare) will take these into account, that still means the peaceful resolutions are somewhat at a disadvantage, right? Even if the diplomatic resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb, the violent resolution leads to exp for retrieving the orb and exp for killing some orcs on top of that.

Wrong. There is only one pool of XP, representing the reward for overcoming any individual challenge. In this scenario, the XP reward is the same if they kill the Orcs, or if the get the Orb through other means. The only time the XP reward would change is if the encounter is drastically imbalanced towards a certain approach:

Assume that there are a bunch of kobolds in a mine and they're guarding an artefact or other plot trinket. Individually, and as a group none of the kobolds are a threat, but if the kobolds catch the party they raise an alarm and escape with the plot trinket. Fighting the kobolds in this scenario won't provide any XP, while stealthing it up and stealing the artefact/plot trinket would.


Uh . . . no, not really.
Yes, really.


. . . Kind of. We don't grade players as if they're in drama class, but we do heavily slant social reactions based on how overall-convincing the player is (what they're saying, how they're saying it, and how appropriate an approach they're making).
Or did you forget you said this? What you say and how you say it are a huge part of spoken interaction that some people like myself ARE JUST NOT GOOD AT. If I were part of your group, there would be no reason for me to even bother TRYING to engage in social encounters because I suck at speaking. So I get essentially forced into the role of the CE douchebag who kills everything because that is literally my only option to be included in social encounters at all, I don't get to play smooth charismatic characters because you force me TO BE ONE in order to succeed at it at all.

This is arguably worse than arbitrarily deciding abilities just don't work based on group consensus. It's just designed to screw people over for no good reason because your reason for using the dice:


We use skill rolls for social situations where the outcome is not obvious and where the outcome could believably go either way. This does not translate to "useless".
Essentially means that everything we know about psychology, the dice would never be rolled, because people don't ever just randomly decide things. At this point you might as well replace the die roll with a coin flip, as that's about as much impact the decision to play a face character without being one yourself has at your table.

willpell
2012-12-31, 09:08 PM
But in our games, we don't roleplay because it makes sense, we roleplay because it's fun. Having the group take part in a social encounter, talking with the NPCs and trying to convince them of whatever reasonable/unreasonable/hilariously stupid thing the group wants them to buy into, is fun. You only use dice rolls when there's a good reason for it – usually either because the subject matter isn't important enough to treat in detail, or because it is important but there isn't a better way to resolve it.

This.


The new world of darkness line actually prohibits this, saying that a storyteller should let a player simply roll dice only as a last resort. The system is designed completely for RP, with dice mechanics rising up covertly, being used and then getting out of the way.

It was NWOD I was talking about. They introduced the social combat rules in WOD:Mirrors and revised them in VTM:The Danse Macabre. Perhaps this was that they tried the diceless approach and eventually gave up on it, or perhaps they were just expanding and clarifying what they always thought you should be doing. Either way, though, there are numerous people on the WW boards who argue in favor of the same beliefs that are being debated here.


but you could also use D&D 3.5 as an economic simulator and do nothing but play kingdoms.

Is it bad that I pretty much do want to do exactly that (on top of, not instead of, the character-level game)? Gotta say, the rules for it are fairly terrible as far as I can see, but I just view that as a problem to be fixed.


The person making a social roll does need to at least explain the point he's trying to get across, just as the warrior players needs to say he moves 30ft in some direction and Power Attacks. The DM needs to know what the player wants to accomplish. However, the player himself does not need to come up with his own version of "I Have A Dream" and speak to make James Earl Jones take notes.

Also this.


Roleplay is simply the creative conveyance of that task you wish to perform. The dice are still the arbiters of success or failure. You might get a circumstance bonus or penalty depending on what you aim to do with your roll, but you shouldn't get them based on how well you roleplayed it out.

Yeah, no. If that's the way you run the game then I don't want to play at your table. I'm no drama student and I don't method-act; sometimes I am in the mood to just say "I roll diplomacy" and let the numbers on my character sheet determine success or failure. But if I am feeling up to getting really into it, and I come up with a stirring speech that makes all the other players want to stand up and cheer, and you still let me suck and fail just because the dice do so, then you're punishing me for having risen to the occasion, and next time I just won't bother trying, or will bother trying with someone other than you who might actually appreciate it. If you don't recognize that the player is more important than the die roll, then yours is very definitely not the campaign for me, nor the campaign I'd ever recommend to any of my friends.


The problem with this style of play is that it makes the skills virtually useless, and thus penalizes people who invest in them.

If the game has social skills either use them or at least let people know not to bother.

"Investing" in social skills costs you a few skill ranks. It's not that big a deal. Granted the system is a bit skill-starved, but the character that have this worst are not likely to be the ones that it matters for. The Rogues and Bards have tons of skill points; they don't need to get equal amounts of bang for their buck. If the Sorcerer's player puts his single skill point each level into Tumble or something, and then he proceeds to roleplay every scenario with brilliant and convincing speeches, even after he's been Charisma-drained into oblivion...well okay maybe he's sort of getting a free skill on top of his Tier 2 spellcasting. Not the end of the world; if the Rogue or Factotum players complain, I'll try to show comparable generosity to them in some fashion.



Hell, anyone who has played an Intelligence 20+ Wizard should know this feeling. I suspect that, if anyone on this forum is bright enough to accurately portray this, the number is limited to 1-2 at BEST. Int 20 is above super-human levels of intelligence. You HAVE to rely on dice rolls to assist your natural abilities, because you simply can't know as much about the world and everything in it as your character does.

I don't think you need an INT of 20 IRL to roleplay that kind of a mind, because you're free to spend three hours figuring out something that the character apprehends within five seconds, and because the setting is a made-up fantasy world, you can know things about it which weren't actually true before you decided they were, assuming the DM will go along with it (Jim is good at this (http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0076.htmll)). Thusly, you're a genius who never has to bother checking his facts and instanly knows all the solutions; you just have to operate at a different timeframe, and nothing you say which is wrong was in-character.


I recently played in a game with myself

Really? Did you award yourself bonus XP for good roleplaying? :smallbiggrin:

Deophaun
2012-12-31, 09:21 PM
Yeah, no. If that's the way you run the game then I don't want to play at your table.
Do you promise?

willpell
2012-12-31, 09:23 PM
Wrong. There is only one pool of XP, representing the reward for overcoming any individual challenge.

While this might be a sensible way to play, I don't believe it's what the DMG tells you to do. Please provide a page reference if I'm mistaken on that.


Essentially means that everything we know about psychology, the dice would never be rolled, because people don't ever just randomly decide things. At this point you might as well replace the die roll with a coin flip, as that's about as much impact the decision to play a face character without being one yourself has at your table.

If your idea of how to play a face character is "I roll for Diplomacy, that's 56 total, Prince Valiant here becomes my slave and I order him to transfer the kingdom's treasury to my swiss bank account", then yeah I'm gonna say you shouldn't succeed. You don't have to be able to act out exactly what your character is going to do in order to earn that level of clout, but just having a highly optimized Diplomancer build is not going to cut the mustard if you're not even going to try. If you IRL tend to stumble over your words and use the same synonym three times in a row, I won't punish your character for that. If you suck at coming up with compliments and need me to just assume that you did, fine. But you have to do some roleplaying, or there aren't enough dice in the world. There's a difference between having your game stats correct for your real-life deficiencies, and just video-gaming your way through what's supposed to be a fun SOCIAL activity.



Roleplaying is fun. If somebody comes up with a brilliant plan and makes everyone at the table laugh or makes the DM's brain seize up from twisted logic on a Bluff attempt, that should be rewarded. It made the game better for everybody, since we all got a laugh out of it. We get nothing at all from hearing "I Bluff him. Beat at 37."

I'm not saying i won't allow a player to roll a Bluff check if he put points in it, but he's going to have to say what his character said, and the dice may come out.

I know this is "not fair" to socially challenged number crunchers who min maxed social skills. I know, I just don't care.

I the the OP's question should be why bother playing an RPG if you don't like the RP part?

I agree with all of this, and do not share WaterBear's disapproval of your attitude (esp. the part in bold). Fairness is an overrated concept. If someone has a problem with the deck being stacked against them, they can ask for it to be shuffled a few more times, but they cannot demand the right to re-stack it in their own favor, not even if they plan on doing so equally for everyone else. It is the DM's job to make sure everyone has a good time, and sometimes that means one person has to accept that their wishes are contrary to the health of the group...that includes a wish to be "fair".

Zeful
2012-12-31, 09:49 PM
While this might be a sensible way to play, I don't believe it's what the DMG tells you to do. Please provide a page reference if I'm mistaken on that.Page 37, top left. The book tells you that overcoming a challenge, any challenge, is related to the particular objective, and the obstacles between them and it. The only way the example I quoted is true is if the combat encounter is much much harder than other approaches. Combat is not inherently more rewarding than any other activity.


If your idea of how to play a face character is "I roll for Diplomacy, that's 56 total, Prince Valiant here becomes my slave and I order him to transfer the kingdom's treasury to my swiss bank account", then yeah I'm gonna say you shouldn't succeed.There are three separate logical fallacies in this statement alone that renders your entire argument invalid.


You don't have to be able to act out exactly what your character is going to do in order to earn that level of clout. If you IRL tend to stumble over your words and use the same synonym three times in a row, I won't punish your character for that. If you suck at coming up with compliments and need me to just assume that you did, fine.I do for Saph's game. Maybe not yours, but I needed to have been in a theater class in order to even be allowed to try in her game, because in the post I quoted-- and bolded, underlined, and italicized-- says as much.


But you have to do some roleplaying, or there aren't enough dice in the world. There's a difference between having your game stats correct for your real-life deficiencies, and just video-gaming your way through what's supposed to be a fun SOCIAL activity.It's also the difference to what the rules actually say on the subject. The diplomacy rules, as they are written only change NPC attitudes-- nothing more, nothing less. They literally require roleplay of some kind to function, either first or third person narrative roleplay ("I/Zeful try/tries to convince the king we're honest by pointing out or integrity concerning the mission we just finished."), or first person character roleplay ("You choose not to believe me-- believe us? Who was it that delivered your missive to your general post haste at great risk to themselves? How have we-- how have I not earned your trust"), they literally do not work otherwise. The DM also has the right to ask for clarification at any time before, during or after a roll, as well as deny the player the ability to roll at any time for any reason. This places all the onus to improve a player's roleplay on the DM, because if you think the player's aren't making enough of an effort, you get to say "no" and make them actually try. Letting a player get away with your fallacious example at the top of this post is nothing but the DM's fault, not the player's. This makes your stance, one of reducing any opposition of your position to nothing but a strawman-- which you did incidently-- circular logic designed to validate yourself and discredit your opposition without actually refuting the arguments or doing any actual work, the exact same thing you are deriding people for by making the argument.

NichG
2012-12-31, 10:34 PM
(With regards to economic/empires simulation)



Is it bad that I pretty much do want to do exactly that (on top of, not instead of, the character-level game)? Gotta say, the rules for it are fairly terrible as far as I can see, but I just view that as a problem to be fixed.


Its an interesting thing to try, but really it needs a sub-system or entirely separate system built on top to handle it. Even there its going to be pretty tricky unless you very carefully control the demographics too. Morale, loyalty, and so on become very important at those scales as well - skirmish fights between two parties generally have to be to the death because retreat is more difficult than standing your ground, but that becomes less true when there are large numbers involved, and when they're fighting for someone else instead of themselves.

willpell
2012-12-31, 10:54 PM
Page 37, top left. The book tells you that overcoming a challenge, any challenge, is related to the particular objective, and the obstacles between them and it. The only way the example I quoted is true is if the combat encounter is much much harder than other approaches. Combat is not inherently more rewarding than any other activity.

They give one paragraph of lip service to the idea, then spend three pages talking about how to calculate the XP award based on number and CR of creatures defeated. The money and the mouth, they do not cohabitate.


There are three separate logical fallacies in this statement alone that renders your entire argument invalid.

You will find more blind beholders than consistent logic in my arguments. If you want to call them "invalid" because they are passionate and take multiple perspectives, that is your business. But out of curiosity, what "fallacies" are these exactly?


I do for Saph's game. Maybe not yours, but I needed to have been in a theater class in order to even be allowed to try in her game, because in the post I quoted-- and bolded, underlined, and italicized-- says as much.

I think you exagerrate what she was saying. It might be an uphill struggle for you to play a bard in her game, and optimizing that bard might be twice the effort for half the result, but if you were actually one of her players she would probably be willing to meet you halfway if you were up-front about your issues and asked for her assistance. GMs who are not jerks generally want to make sure you're having a good time, and will bend over a fair distance backward to try and make that happen.


This makes your stance, one of reducing any opposition of your position to nothing but a strawman-- which you did incidently-- circular logic designed to validate yourself and discredit your opposition without actually refuting the arguments or doing any actual work, the exact same thing you are deriding people for by making the argument.

I made no effort at doing the bolded part whatsoever. Please do not read more malice into my posts than it contains; I am not here to cut anyone's argument down, I simply proclaim my own beliefs and discoveries in an attempt to share what I have learned with anyone who might benefit from my understanding.


(With regards to economic/empires simulation)

Its an interesting thing to try, but really it needs a sub-system or entirely separate system built on top to handle it. Even there its going to be pretty tricky unless you very carefully control the demographics too. Morale, loyalty, and so on become very important at those scales as well - skirmish fights between two parties generally have to be to the death because retreat is more difficult than standing your ground, but that becomes less true when there are large numbers involved, and when they're fighting for someone else instead of themselves.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. :smallcool:

Saph
2013-01-01, 12:34 AM
Or did you forget you said this? What you say and how you say it are a huge part of spoken interaction that some people like myself ARE JUST NOT GOOD AT. If I were part of your group, there would be no reason for me to even bother TRYING to engage in social encounters because I suck at speaking. So I get essentially forced into the role of the CE douchebag who kills everything because that is literally my only option to be included in social encounters at all, I don't get to play smooth charismatic characters because you force me TO BE ONE in order to succeed at it at all.

. . . Being asked to make an effort to roleplay = being forced to be a CE sociopath? I've seen more ridiculous arguments on this forum, but not by much.

Look, we don't expect you to be William Shakespeare. You don't have to be Mr. Smooth, you don't have to present your arguments brilliantly, and you don't have to have massive charisma. But we do expect you to make an effort. If you do your best and it's mediocre because you just aren't the public speaking type, then that's okay, we're not going to penalise you for it. Even just something along the lines of "I try to persuade him of X by convincing him that Y" is OK too.

What is not OK is this kind of attitude:


It's just designed to screw people over for no good reason

. . . because you're not only refusing to compromise with the rest of the group about how they prefer to play, you're treating conflicting preferences as a justification for personal animosity, which is a huge red flag.

Zeful
2013-01-01, 01:02 AM
They give one paragraph of lip service to the idea, then spend three pages talking about how to calculate the XP award based on number and CR of creatures defeated. The money and the mouth, they do not cohabitate.Defeat does not necessitate combat, which that paragraph points out. But the game is primarily about combat, and making sure that people understand how the XP system works in general is kind of important to the game's pacing.


You will find more blind beholders than consistent logic in my arguments. If you want to call them "invalid" because they are passionate and take multiple perspectives, that is your business. But out of curiosity, what "fallacies" are these exactly?Strawman, because my post was pointing out the failure/hypocrisy of Saph's statements, not making any further point on how the game should be played. Reduction to the Absurd, in attempting to refute my point, you provide an example that in it's extremity highlights your lack of perspective in understanding what point I was making, as well as a very skewed remembrance of the rules as they don't work in a manner supporting your example. And finally, the False Dilemma: in your choice of argument, you present only two options in the debate, when there are in fact many options. Your argument as presented defeats itself.


I think you exagerrate what she was saying. It might be an uphill struggle for you to play a bard in her game, and optimizing that bard might be twice the effort for half the result, but if you were actually one of her players she would probably be willing to meet you halfway if you were up-front about your issues and asked for her assistance. GMs who are not jerks generally want to make sure you're having a good time, and will bend over a fair distance backward to try and make that happen.Not really, I may exaggerate what she meant, but what she said conveys very specific meanings.


I made no effort at doing the bolded part whatsoever. Please do not read more malice into my posts than it contains; I am not here to cut anyone's argument down, I simply proclaim my own beliefs and discoveries in an attempt to share what I have learned with anyone who might benefit from my understanding.I do not read malice into any post, even Saph's. I read instead, a lack of perspective. You only have your experience to judge things, tending to look towards situations that happen in your own group similar to what's being discussed and present your experience as a way of reinforcing your point. But your experience has limits, just as Saph's does, just as mine does, and in some cases it can very easily blind you to just how different other groups are. Consider what arguments are being leveled against your perspective, most of the time they are questioning the purpose of your rules and pointing out they are extreme that are best considered fringe cases. There are few to no people interested in this argument that claims that the roll is the only thing that should matter as you and others have so erroneously tried to refute. A lot of people like playing various power fantasies, generally in areas they themselves are deficient. I like playing skilled con-men and public speakers because I myself suck at those things in real life, and any attempt to force me to rely on my skills for their success is both nonsensical in that I don't have to act out any other part of a character I have nothing in common with, but it's also doing more harm to the roleplay experience for everyone who wasn't part of the school drama club growing up. After all, if the DM is going to force you to dance for your bread (and anyone that requires all social encounters be entirely roleplayed with no or minimal influence from skills or the dice is doing just that) and then fail you for not having the years of experience required to meet their demand, then as the thread title asks "Why even bother with roleplay?"

NichG
2013-01-01, 01:20 AM
As I have learned in previous threads about this topic: different people are playing different games for different reasons, and as such there will never be agreement on this issue. Its basically someone playing chess arguing with someone playing baseball about the two as if they're the same thing.

Its even worse here - some people are playing to have their skill challenged (but only specific skills and not others), and those sets of skills differ; other people want to play out fantasies; other people want to experience drama; other people want to solve mysteries or experience stories; other people want to explore worlds and ideas. And really, its not even as simple as those categories - everyone is some combination of those and few people really know their own preferences accurately.

So to take it back to the thread, the reason to bother with roleplay differs based on the table and the player and the system being played. In many systems its rewarded and/or required. At many tables, it is a major point of the game on its own (and at some, the sole point of the game). And at other tables it would be both pointless and unwelcome. And all are types of gaming environments that exist and are enjoyed by their participants.

Zeful
2013-01-01, 01:24 AM
Look, we don't expect you to be William Shakespeare. You don't have to be Mr. Smooth, you don't have to present your arguments brilliantly, and you don't have to have massive charisma.And yet you use what I say, and how I say it, the biggest parts of spoken interaction, and use that to determine what someone who has a massive charisma and years of training in public speaking says and how he says it?

You're either lying to yourself, or you just lying in general, because if the above statement is true, then your own statement above it is false. You can't have it both ways.


But we do expect you to make an effort. If you do your best and it's mediocre because you just aren't the public speaking type, then that's okay, we're not going to penalise you for it. Even just something along the lines of "I try to persuade him of X by convincing him that Y" is OK too.And yet EVERYTHING you have said in this thread seems to actively contradict this kind of behavior. After all that would be abstraction that would be better left to the dice you don't roll. Also:


but we do heavily slant social reactions based on how overall-convincing the player is (what they're saying, how they're saying it, and how appropriate an approach they're making).
Contradictions with your current statement are bolded. So I have to choose to believe one of two sets of statements, as only one of them can be true.


What is not OK is this kind of attitude . . . because you're not only refusing to compromise with the rest of the group about how they prefer to play, you're treating conflicting preferences as a justification for personal animosity, which is a huge red flag.Personal animosity? No, I'm merely pointing out, as often and incessantly as possible how what you've said about how you adjucate social encounters pretty much makes it impossible to succeed at them without being part of an amature dramatics society. Also I am compromising, I'm just ignoring social encounters entirely, since you've decided to punish me for, at best, you being unable to properly control one system the game provides.

RPGuru1331
2013-01-01, 01:32 AM
(With regards to economic/empires simulation)



Its an interesting thing to try, but really it needs a sub-system or entirely separate system built on top to handle it. Even there its going to be pretty tricky unless you very carefully control the demographics too. Morale, loyalty, and so on become very important at those scales as well - skirmish fights between two parties generally have to be to the death because retreat is more difficult than standing your ground, but that becomes less true when there are large numbers involved, and when they're fighting for someone else instead of themselves.

Hence games like REIGN. I don't know why people insist on DnD for everything. It's profoundly unsuited to dealing with large numbers.


. . . Being asked to make an effort to roleplay = being forced to be a CE sociopath? I've seen more ridiculous arguments on this forum, but not by much.
Sigh. Even I have more empathy for the awkward than this, and I've seen that claim stretched far too much by jerk nerds. The idea is that as he's quite poor at speaking, it'll come across closer to a murderhobo than, you know, whatever player he wanted to set out playing, and it's humiliating for him. I don't disagree that he needs to bend, but there's no need to minimize legitimate problems.


I do not read malice into any post, even Saph's. I read instead, a lack of perspective.
Well, that's fantastic and all, but you were told to try, and that's it. Not repeat the band of brothers speech on the fly, just at least say what you were trying to do, and maybe, mayyyybe, a line from it. That's not even a teensy bit over any sort of line.


Personal animosity? No, I'm merely pointing out, as often and incessantly
You need to seriously consider if what you're doing is worth annoying people over, considering you have no plans to play with anyone. I'm not sure you have.

Roland St. Jude
2013-01-01, 01:34 AM
Sheriff: Locked for review.