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Amphetryon
2017-08-29, 12:04 PM
One of the most common complaints about D&D 3.X (and, to an extent, other d20 systems or D&D editions) is the way social interaction works in the game. From unsatisfying "Pass/Fail" results divorced from any roleplay in the encounter, to "Pat, the Player, isn't charismatic enough to play a socially adept Character," the objections are common and not without some merit regarding the amount of work that has to be done filling in the gaps.

So, what systems do it better? How do they approach social interaction to avoid these problems? I am vaguely familiar with the Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard approach, for example, but not convinced that these objections are not valid within BW/MG as well as d20.

FreddyNoNose
2017-08-29, 12:19 PM
Perhaps the problem is systematizing it.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-08-29, 12:29 PM
Perhaps the problem is systematizing it.

One of the most common complaints about D&D 3.X (and, to an extent, other d20 systems or D&D editions) is the way social interaction works in the game....to "Pat, the Player, isn't charismatic enough to play a socially adept Character,"
"Not systematizing it" is literally one of the problems being mentioned.

Exalted 3e had an interesting system. Characters all have Intimacies of various strength, representing how important various people or ideals are to them. If you want to persuade someone, you have to argue in accordance to an Intimacy, and the bigger the request, the more powerful an Intimacy you need to draw on. Your own intimacies make it easier to resist social stuff that opposes them, but harder to resist stuff that's in accordance with them. Other social actions involve uncovering Intimacies or temporarily creating, strengthening or weakening them.

Airk
2017-08-29, 01:11 PM
It depends on what you want.


Some people are okay with "If Bob can persuade the GM, then Throndarr the Destroyer can persuade the NPC (even though his charisma is 6)" and its flipside "Since Alice is shy, even though Sasha the Magnificent has a 17 charisma, she can't persuade anyone" Some people think that sucks.
Some people are okay with a minimalist system like D&Ds, but find the "hard" function of diplomacy to be f-ing terrible. (Let's face it: The term "diplomancer" should be dragged out into the street and shot.)
Some people want a more complicated system.


To address the OP: These problems described in the first bullet are absolutely absent from Mouse Guard/Burning Wheel - if you want to persuade someone, you can persuade them. What you can't do, which is the baffling thing that D&D diplomacy does (probably due to its roots in "reaction rolls") is make them LIKE you.

Dungeon World offers a nice, simplified action for this too - the Parley action requires you to have some sort of "leverage" over the target in order to persuade them of anything - that could be "Do it, or I break your face." or it could be "Do it, and we'll save your village from the goblins" or "Do it, and this pouch full of gold is yours." or even "Do it, and I give you my word I'll back your play at the next council meeting" (Note: This last one shouldn't really be a thing in Dungeon World, simply because it's not a game about council meetings and politics, but it's a legitimate use of leverage.) This helps avoid the dumb stuff in the 2nd bullet point, and kinda helps with the first one.

If I recall correctly, both Masks and Monster Hearts have sortof "currency" based social systems, where if you have Influence or a String on an NPC you can... encourage them to listen to you. (Sorry, I'm rusty on these two.) - though both of those games also have a heavy focus on "incoming" social interactions, so you've really got to be prepared for people making your PCs do things that they're not excited to be doing.

Circle of Hands had some interesting stuff going on in here too, but damned if I can remember how it works right now. =/ sorry about that.

CarpeGuitarrem
2017-08-29, 01:11 PM
Monsterhearts and Urban Shadows use a similar social mechanic that divorces social encounters away from mechanized eloquence and into leverage. When you get social leverage or capital over someone, you can leverage that to get what you want. It's a great mechanic because it focuses on influence as a concrete thing tied to your actions, not your talk.

jayem
2017-08-29, 05:55 PM
Practically it's going to be good for that type of game, with no absolute good system.
Fighting has definite advantages that make the (inevitable) silly consequences of the system not show.
Except in LARP, the players aren't already using their own fighting skills as part of the game, they are however using their social and tactical skills
The characters are already far better than the players will ever be (they can relate to failings)
The relationship between the fight and the story is a lot more binary
The aims/options of the players are a lot more consistent

With social/tactical systems, a talky (or null) system takes it out of the characters hands and into the players. With all the consequences of that (GM able to Nope things, players able to Nope things, GM's boyfriend getting all the good deals, ...)
While a non-talky dice based system loses the effect of the players actions and control, again with all the evils ("That was all very good about stiffen the sinews but you got a 1, they aren't motivated" or "you got a one you have to say let's get them", no matter what your character would have said).

Airk
2017-08-29, 10:11 PM
While a non-talky dice based system loses the effect of the players actions and control, again with all the evils ("That was all very good about stiffen the sinews but you got a 1, they aren't motivated" or "you got a one you have to say let's get them", no matter what your character would have said).

Both of these are false examples though. The die roll doesn't tell you what you said, it tells you how the NPCs react.

Amphetryon
2017-08-29, 10:22 PM
Monsterhearts and Urban Shadows use a similar social mechanic that divorces social encounters away from mechanized eloquence and into leverage. When you get social leverage or capital over someone, you can leverage that to get what you want. It's a great mechanic because it focuses on influence as a concrete thing tied to your actions, not your talk.

How is that leverage determined in game and employed by the Character, such that role-playing is encouraged without being intrinsically tied to Player social skills?

Honest question, not trying to be difficult.

SirBellias
2017-08-29, 11:06 PM
How is that leverage determined in game and employed by the Character, such that role-playing is encouraged without being intrinsically tied to Player social skills?

Honest question, not trying to be difficult.

Role playing is encouraged by having the game mechanics triggered by what the player says the characters do. For instance, with Turning Someone On (the primary way of gaining strings/leverage on someone), an example from a moderately social person of this is:

Rob (The Werewolf) and Lindsey (The Witch) being used as examples.

Player: Rob looks over at Dimitri and says "You know, no one is going to miss us here," as he touches his hand lightly.
DM: Cool. That sounds like you're trying to turn him on.
Player: Yup! *Rolls*

As it happens, there are no situational bonuses. It's just based on the character's stats (Literally how Hot they are) and the dice.

An example of a not as socially skilled player may look like this:

Player: As an attempt to turn Dimitri on, I... tell him he's cute?
DM: Subtle. I like it. Roll your Hot.
Player: Cool. *Rolls*

If they roll high enough, they get some social leverage (strings, usually represented by something in the fiction), or a favor, or something the other person thinks they want. If strings are being expended, it's recommended in the book that it is represented by someone letting drop some of their leverage in the fiction too. Some groups I've seen don't do that as much, while others do.

Example of using leverage:
Player (Rob): Rob turns on Lindsey and snarls, saying "Back off, witch. Go ruin someone else's life."
DM: Sounds like a roll to Shut Lindsey Down. Roll your Cold.
Player (Rob): *Rolls* Seven! Just made it!
Player (Lindsey): I spend my string on Rob, saying "Careful big boy, you don't want to lose your temper here." (String from The Werewolf lacking subtlety at the beginning of the game).
Player (Rob): You suck!
DM: As you start hurling insults, the teacher overhears and tells you to go to the principal's office to cool down.

I admit that this game has a lot to be gained from being social, and as such probably wouldn't be ideal for less socially adept players, but it still functions well enough with some antisocial people involved (first hand experience).

I didn't keep track of what the strings were for my second time I ran it, but my players generally remembered why they had them and went with it. And when they did it, we treated it as general social power they had over someone being eroded by the conflict of interest, which is generally how it works anyways.

IN SUMMARY: You have to say what your character does and the DM has to get the hint of what you are trying to do, but beyond that your character stats are what matters.

Another thing to keep in mind is that characters aren't fully in control of themselves in Monsterhearts. Another character's move can totally turn your character on, or shut them down, or hypnotize them, or whatever. It's a feature.

Attempt to help complete! All of this is for Monsterhearts, if not obvious.

JenBurdoo
2017-08-30, 12:20 AM
While I haven't played it, I've read the Song of Ice and Fire RPG. It uses an "intrigue" system to replicate the "scheming banter" so important to the series' feel. It's sort of reskinned combat; you take turns carrying out actions like persuading and convincing, rather than dodge, shoot, or attack. Once one side has a certain level of success over the other, they achieve their objective, which might be seduction or learning a secret rather than the opponent's death or capture. Reviewers seem to like it.

Martin Greywolf
2017-08-30, 02:32 AM
People get incredibly militant when discussing this.

People will say that it is impossible to make a good social system.

They will say that all social systems are anathema to RP.

They will say a system will let you convince guards they are ducks.

Etc etc.

So, let's have a deeper look at it.

1) What you say is what you say

Or, not having a system at all. This has a host of problems, and not all are noticed by folks. The obvious one is that putting 18 points in CHR to convince people becomes essentially useless, problem noted, let's move on. However, this should also apply in reverse, if Grognar the Barbarian has 3 CHR, he should not be able to convince people to do things all that easily.

Bigger issue is something else entirely. DM's decisions on what works and what doesn't become 100% arbitrary. If you ever do something that my or may not work, there are no guidelines to help the DM to decide what should happen. Even if he decides to have you roll, what will you roll, and how high will the target number be?

2) Binary skill check

This is one way to do it, but it is a terrible idea for a game heavy in intrigue. It makes the social interactions really quick, with your actions determining bonuses and penalties to rolls. However!

To make this work, you need 2 things - defenses and guidelines.

Guidelines basically tell you how high the target numbers will be and what bonuses roughly correspond to what actions/advantages. This system needs to keep in mind increase in PC power and spells that boost persuasion abilities, which DnD 3.5 system definitely does not.

Defenses are about your average king not being easily persuadable, basically, you need something like natural social armor that goes up with level/status in society. Skills can handle this sometimes, but you then need to remember to give them to your NPCs.

The disadvantage of this is that, well, it's not very deep system, not very mechanically interesting.

3) Complex social systems

These usually use same or similar system that combat uses, with rounds, attacks, defenses and social HP. They can work well if they are used well. We'll get to that.

4) RP incentives

Aspects, traits, call them what you will, basically things that reward you if your characters acts in certain pre-determined ways (aspect Cowardly - runs away a lot).

These are NOT a social system in any way. They work as a separate thing that influences what your characters do, they don't offer you a blanket system to handle social interactions. They sort of can't do that by definition, or they'd be really clunky.

That's not to say that they can't give you bonuses or additional options in social interactions.

How to use these well

And this is where the "social systems are always bad" people fail. Any system, no matter how good, will be horrible, horrible thing if you use it improperly. Your combat system for a cinematic swashbucklers will be useless if you insist on saying things like "I attacks for 7 HP" instead of "I swing from chandelier and nail him to the wall with my rapier, damage for 7 HP". One of these is decidedly more swashbuckly than the other.

There are two main rules to keep in mind:

1: Impossible things are impossible

There is nor roll when a player tries to convince the guard he is a squirrel when he clearly is not. Stupid requests like "Slit your own throat" will just not work, no rolls required, and players will either be notified by DM or smacked over the head, depending on how often they do this.

The equivalent of this in combat systems is saying something like "I hit him with my sword even if he is 50 meters away". That's... clearly not a thing that is possible, even if you aren't using hex grids and ranges.

A caveat to this is that what is and is not possible depends a lot on what type of game you're playing, much like swordsmen in Conan-like worlds can't jump 30 meters straight up, while swordsmen in wuxia call it a Tuesday.

2: Rolls are only used if the outcome is uncertain

If you manage to capture someone's daughter, held her hostage and then give him a wad of cash to open a single door, then there's not roll necessary. Think of this as social chunky salsa rule. Where the line lies depends a lot on the individual group and, again, type of game.

What systems worked for me

I've been pretty happy with FATE Core and its 3level universal system. You have single skill check, best of 3 skill check contest and a full on social (or any other) combat. Once I started to use it and got a handle on it, it worked really well. Only house rule I'll probably add is that if you can't think of anything to say for longer that 30 seconds, your opponent can go first, no matter what initiative says.

Satinavian
2017-08-30, 03:00 AM
While I haven't played it, I've read the Song of Ice and Fire RPG. It uses an "intrigue" system to replicate the "scheming banter" so important to the series' feel. It's sort of reskinned combat; you take turns carrying out actions like persuading and convincing, rather than dodge, shoot, or attack. Once one side has a certain level of success over the other, they achieve their objective, which might be seduction or learning a secret rather than the opponent's death or capture. Reviewers seem to like it.
It is pretty extensive and i like what it tries to do, but it does have a couple of problems.

- It can't really handle social interactions with more than 2 parties very well.
- Some actions don't really do what they are supposed to do
- there is still too much handwaving in describing the outcomes and stakes of social interactions, framing the conflict in the right way can be used to game the system
- It does not work that well for cooperative stuff like convincing someone of the truth.

But it is a really good starting point.

Floret
2017-08-30, 03:25 AM
While many things have already been said (Mostly "depends on what you want to achieve", as well as some of the problems the systems can have), I think I'd like to add on some points to additional factors in play with the different kinds of systems:

1. While for no systems, the problems of social skills (if existant in the system) being meaningless to invest into; non-socially competent players being shut out of any role that requires social skills and the whole thing being essentially a game of "convince the GM" have already been mentioned, for me at least, there is another big problem with this one:
Despite what is often claimed, the ingame situation and the situation at the table are nowhere near equivalent. Maybe they are closer than for combat, but no matter the level of immersion you manage to create, its still just not the same. I mean, how much exactly does it affect the character that they are speaking in front of a crowd (while the player does so to a single person); how much does the sword to the throat limit them, when it's not there for the player; or how much does the death of a friend that died half an hour ago ingame, but last session, a month ago out of game still upset you? (Continue at your leasure for weather, hunger, being tired, etc.)
Of course, you can say you do not care about this equivalency - but this is a point where I'd like rules to adjucate how exactly all those factors come into play. When playing TRPGs, the rules and stats are there to say what your character is capable of - and I find those to be just... a better judge of all these things than any attempt by myself to try and remember everything that might affect my character, and how strong that might influence them. I don't think I'm quite capable of doing that, and I'd much rather have the dice and stats, quantifiable adjucators of the in-world situation, help me out than just have to say "meh, close enough". (Of course, how high you set all those modifiers would still be somewhat subject to arbitration of either the gamedesigner when writing their lists, or the GM on the spot)

2. Having a social system that is rolled on, no matter the form it takes, carries with it another problem though, that has been alluded to already but not quite spelled out: At the moment the NPCs have social skills as well (And if they don't, all the problems of not having a system return, at least for the GMs side, which isn't that good a solution imho), the players need to loose agency over their characters. Because if the dice say "you loose the roll, and therefore your character is convinced", for any system to be able to work that has to stick. No weaseling out, no "but I'm not", if the system says "your character is convinced" the decision is no longer up to you, otherwise we might as well continue without a system if the one we have carries no actual meaning.
This can be mitigated by a more complex system - for example, always giving the players the option to "nope" something, but at a cost, maybe depending on how well the roll succeeded (iirc Apokalypse World did something like that?). How exactly to do that will depend on the general system.
Of course, one of the conceits of sitting down at a table and rolling dice is, ultimately, giving up some agency over your character. Any skillcheck takes the agency to determine just how good your character is, any hit any enemy lands on you takes agency and potentially ability away from you by directly changing things (hitpoints) about your character (Even more pronounced when you are knocked prone, for example). For some players, however, social stuff and the decisions it leads to are just a "no touch" zone for dice results. Your mileage may vary.

...Maybe my bias is showing a bit in the descriptions... :smallwink: (Just to clarify: Yes, I like there to be rules for this. Dice are fun.)

As for which systems do this well... I haven't yet gotten my hands on one that really does what I want it to do. FATE probably comes closest, with the options of uncovering and creating aspects in addition to straight up social/mental attacks and mental stress tracks. A somewhat nice variety, and (at least if there are still Fatepoints in play; and then there is the surrender mechanic (that might be somewhat strangely named for what it does)) for my tastes adequate ability to "opt out" if you really don't want that outcome for your character (while loosing the roll still having a cost).
I have heard good things about Apokalypse world the last time such a thread was around, but haven't gotten a chance to play (or even look through) it as of yet. Pretty much all other systems I know basically boild down to varying levels of a binary skill check; with TDE 5th having an optional system of a sliding scale of "how much does this person like/hate you", that can be manipulated (once per day, iirc), and gives bonuses for actual "Do this for me" skillchecks. Even that is more "binaries stacked atop one another" than something really more substancial, though.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-08-30, 06:44 AM
I think I've cracked it in the d20-based system I'm developing: the short version is this - declare your intent ("I'm trying to get the guard to let us in" - what you want to happen, so the GM can decide how the target feels about that, and adjust the DC accordingly), and your method ("I'm telling him we're here for a surprise inspection" - basically, what skill you're using), and then roll your check.
You can roleplay the result of the roll as you see fit, based on the result (acting it out, or just reporting that your character was smooth or awful - whatever you're more comfortable with).

The key thing is that you roll first, then do your RP based on the result - it stops you having any disjointed feelings about making a good speech and rolling badly, and stops shy players from being unable to play smooth social characters.

I should also mention that I'm not using the skill list from d20 Modern, D&D 3.x or PF - in case you're wondering. They seem to gloss over social skills with just a few ultra-specific skills. I have "deception" (lies, disguise and acting), "intimidate" (fear, torture and threats), and "social" (negotiation, etiquette, social awareness).

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-30, 08:18 AM
Both of these are false examples though. The die roll doesn't tell you what you said, it tells you how the NPCs react.

How is it a false example? Or, how does "The die roll doesn't tell you what you said, it tells you how the NPCs react" stand as a counter-statement to a complaint that what you say appears to have no affect at all on the NPCs reactions?



I think I've cracked it in the d20-based system I'm developing: the short version is this - declare your intent ("I'm trying to get the guard to let us in" - what you want to happen, so the GM can decide how the target feels about that, and adjust the DC accordingly), and your method ("I'm telling him we're here for a surprise inspection" - basically, what skill you're using), and then roll your check.
You can roleplay the result of the roll as you see fit, based on the result (acting it out, or just reporting that your character was smooth or awful - whatever you're more comfortable with).

The key thing is that you roll first, then do your RP based on the result - it stops you having any disjointed feelings about making a good speech and rolling badly, and stops shy players from being unable to play smooth social characters.


Which has the very real problem of the dice deciding what a PC says, rather than the player.

Airk
2017-08-30, 09:38 AM
How is it a false example? Or, how does "The die roll doesn't tell you what you said, it tells you how the NPCs react" stand as a counter-statement to a complaint that what you say appears to have no affect at all on the NPCs reactions?

Sorry, ONE of those is a blatantly false example, namely:

"you got a one you have to say let's get them"

FALSE-O-RAMA.



Which has the very real problem of the dice deciding what a PC says, rather than the player.

Yeah. Y'know what also works this way? You don't get to say "I kill the orc with my sword" either. You don't actually get to decide what your character DOES, just what your character ATTEMPTS. It doesn't matter how you describe your flashy sword maneuver, the dice still decide if you hit. It doesn't matter if you describe an epic speech, the dice still decide if you've motivated the army. Same thing.

Which is why in BOTH cases, it's usually better to state your intent, and then do your awesome describing after you know what's going to happen. If you say "I leap up onto the table, kick the wineglass into his face, toss my sword into my other hand, and whip it around to sweep his head from his shoulders!" and expect because you described an awesome thing that you get to kill your opponent, you shouldn't be surprised when the GM says "Well actually..." after you roll a 3. Same thing for making speeches. For all you know, they can't even HEAR you properly from the hill you're standing on.

Floret
2017-08-30, 09:42 AM
I think I've cracked it in the d20-based system I'm developing: the short version is this - declare your intent ("I'm trying to get the guard to let us in" - what you want to happen, so the GM can decide how the target feels about that, and adjust the DC accordingly), and your method ("I'm telling him we're here for a surprise inspection" - basically, what skill you're using), and then roll your check.
You can roleplay the result of the roll as you see fit, based on the result (acting it out, or just reporting that your character was smooth or awful - whatever you're more comfortable with).

The key thing is that you roll first, then do your RP based on the result - it stops you having any disjointed feelings about making a good speech and rolling badly, and stops shy players from being unable to play smooth social characters.

I don't think this is a good fix.

First of all, it requires you to know when to interrupt the game before the talking happens, so that you can roll to prevent the feeling of disjoint. That is a very difficult thing to manage, especially if you get into the zone - the same difficulty, in fact, as with things like social initiative or "when to initiate a social combat situation" (If the game has such a subsystem).
Secondly, I can see this increasing the unwillingness to roleplay - after all, the results are already in, the narrative is pre-determined and clear (from the diceroll) - so why bother playing it out much, instead of just summing up what happens and moving on? Of course, some people will just roleplay for roleplays sake, but even beyond that... taking care to make an argument that fits as close as possible to the dice result seems... difficult, at best. The same awkwardness of "does this really fit with the diceresults" is still there if actual arguments are used at the table, it just occurs after the fact. The guideline the diceroll gives seems lackluster at best. I'd much rather just spend the time on explaining how this argument didn't sit, despite being good on the surface, than specifically think up one that failed to work.
Thirdly, it just isn't that interesting, tbh. It's a rather basic binary-outcome model, rather unfit if you want more complexity in mechanised social interaction. I don't think this is anything new, is what I'm saying. For a binary model it can work, sure.


How is it a false example? Or, how does "The die roll doesn't tell you what you said, it tells you how the NPCs react" stand as a counter-statement to a complaint that what you say appears to have no affect at all on the NPCs reactions?

Well, if it has no effect, that is not an issue of the dice mechanic, but rather of the GM not adressing the argument.
The same argument can be adressed in the response, whether or not it successfully swayed someone's opinion. "I will cut your sinews" may, after all, be responded to by "Oh ****, please don't" or "Pah, you wouldn't dare"; representing different outcomes of the roll, with the same argument being part of the played-out situation.
Pretty much no argument is always and fully convincing. With a bit of creativity, most all things can be deflected; and any argument can lead to a choice of different responses.


Which has the very real problem of the dice deciding what a PC says, rather than the player.

Not really? I mean, they only decide how convincing an argument was made, not what it entailed. I see other problems with the method (see above), but I don't think your characterisation is quite accurate.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-08-30, 09:45 AM
...
Yeah. Y'know what also works this way? You don't get to say "I kill the orc with my sword" either. You don't actually get to decide what your character DOES, just what your character ATTEMPTS. It doesn't matter how you describe your flashy sword maneuver, the dice still decide if you hit. It doesn't matter if you describe an epic speech, the dice still decide if you've motivated the army. Same thing.

I was just going to say that.

Everything else in skill resolution works this way round. Social skills should be no exception. When we roll a fail result, we're still playing the game, we're still role-playing - you get to choose what you did that went wrong: how dumb you sounded, how you accidentally brought up the target's recent bereavement, or whatever.


I don't think this is a good fix.

First of all, it requires you to know when to interrupt the game before the talking happens, so that you can roll to prevent the feeling of disjoint. That is a very difficult thing to manage, especially if you get into the zone - the same difficulty, in fact, as with things like social initiative or "when to initiate a social combat situation" (If the game has such a subsystem).
Secondly, I can see this increasing the unwillingness to roleplay - after all, the results are already in, the narrative is pre-determined and clear (from the diceroll) - so why bother playing it out much, instead of just summing up what happens and moving on? Of course, some people will just roleplay for roleplays sake, but even beyond that... taking care to make an argument that fits as close as possible to the dice result seems... difficult, at best. The same awkwardness of "does this really fit with the diceresults" is still there if actual arguments are used at the table, it just occurs after the fact. The guideline the diceroll gives seems lackluster at best. I'd much rather just spend the time on explaining how this argument didn't sit, despite being good on the surface, than specifically think up one that failed to work.
Thirdly, it just isn't that interesting, tbh. It's a rather basic binary-outcome model, rather unfit if you want more complexity in mechanised social interaction. I don't think this is anything new, is what I'm saying.

Whenever you're character interaction is an attempt to change someone else's state of mind, you roll. Simple.

I don't see the problem of role-playing out a scene where you know the outcome - or think you know it. You'll notice I said you role-play your dice roll? Your 10 result might work better than you think, but it isn't very good. You should play out an unsophisticated attempt, and be amazed by the GM declaring that it succeeded. You roll a 24 and play a suave and impressive Machiavelli - but your target isn't impressed after all.

Role-playing the results of the dice makes you play with random chance, rather than steering your character to make the most optimal choices, regardless of whether that would really come up. I've seen plenty of gamers play an INT 10 CHA 6 lunk with all their own natural wit, verve and élan.
Talking the poor result and deciding why it didn't work is part of the RP experience. That's an exercise between the player and GM.

It's not a binary outcome, actually - but you wouldn't necessarily know that from my post, to be fair. The change of state of mind that you'll get would in fact be a progression of increasing and / or decreasing adjustments to other checks on the target, depending on your intent, and reflecting their changing mood.
I just haven't chosen to reveal the entirety of an innovation in game system mechanics that I plan to use to make money. :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-30, 11:03 AM
Yeah. Y'know what also works this way? You don't get to say "I kill the orc with my sword" either. You don't actually get to decide what your character DOES, just what your character ATTEMPTS. It doesn't matter how you describe your flashy sword maneuver, the dice still decide if you hit. It doesn't matter if you describe an epic speech, the dice still decide if you've motivated the army. Same thing.

Which is why in BOTH cases, it's usually better to state your intent, and then do your awesome describing after you know what's going to happen. If you say "I leap up onto the table, kick the wineglass into his face, toss my sword into my other hand, and whip it around to sweep his head from his shoulders!" and expect because you described an awesome thing that you get to kill your opponent, you shouldn't be surprised when the GM says "Well actually..." after you roll a 3. Same thing for making speeches. For all you know, they can't even HEAR you properly from the hill you're standing on.


No, not really.

"Roll the dice, then decide what your character said" is NOT the same as "roll the dice to see if your character hits what they intend to hit".

It's the same as "roll the dice, and if you fail, your character tried to stab the ground instead of trying to stab the enemy".


At least as I approach things, the dice don't tell you what your character tried to do -- they tell you if what your character tried to do was successful, or how successful it was, when there are factors outside your character's control. If your character tries to stab a helpless, bound, unconscious foe, you typically don't (or shouldn't) need to roll to hit unless your character is completely clueless about their weapon or something.

Bogwoppit
2017-08-30, 12:26 PM
"People like to have fun in different ways" shocker!

At least, I hope no one is suggesting there is only one right way.

Floret
2017-08-30, 12:28 PM
Whenever you're character interaction is an attempt to change someone else's state of mind, you roll. Simple.

I don't think its that simple, actually. At least in actual play, I have often come across situations where something that should have been a rather simple "exchanging facts" or "make sure we are on the same side/page" situation suddenly turned into a "convince other person". Sometimes mid-sentence. Interrupting a nicely played-out scene to make the roll then would sometimes be possible (If you don't only realise it has gotten to this point after the first few arguments have already been made), but it might just be awkward.


I don't see the problem of role-playing out a scene where you know the outcome - or think you know it. You'll notice I said you role-play your dice roll? Your 10 result might work better than you think, but it isn't very good. You should play out an unsophisticated attempt, and be amazed by the GM declaring that it succeeded. You roll a 24 and play a suave and impressive Machiavelli - but your target isn't impressed after all.

And... Really? What you say about role-playing out an unsuccessfull roll is basically the same as having no rule. The diceroll still has, no matter how it landed, the ability to convince someone; so rolling the dice was meaningless in the end other than giving the player some sort of orientation (I mean, sure, a nice thing?).
Or are you saying that the roll is made first, the argument played out second, and the answer of the GM if the roll was successfull only given after that? Because "Dice results are in" for me implied that the player already knew if they were successfull, not only if they rolled well or bad.


Role-playing the results of the dice makes you play with random chance, rather than steering your character to make the most optimal choices, regardless of whether that would really come up. I've seen plenty of gamers play an INT 10 CHA 6 lunk with all their own natural wit, verve and élan.
Talking the poor result and deciding why it didn't work is part of the RP experience. That's an exercise between the player and GM.

I am unsure what you are trying to say here. You are trying to combat... something, by your system, I think I get that much. But what are you trying to combat? Optimization? Players falling back on their natural ability to talk?


It's not a binary outcome, actually - but you wouldn't necessarily know that from my post, to be fair. The change of state of mind that you'll get would in fact be a progression of increasing and / or decreasing adjustments to other checks on the target, depending on your intent, and reflecting their changing mood.
I just haven't chosen to reveal the entirety of an innovation in game system mechanics that I plan to use to make money. :smalltongue:

I mean, good luck with that. Even with the additional information it sounds awfully close to a lot of systems I have played over the years though (probably closest to the optional Dark Eye 5 rules on the subject). It might not be the revelation you think it is, but then again it might be, I haven't seen it in full yet. It seems to definitely not be something for people who want social interactions to have the same mechanical depth as combat.


No, not really.

"Roll the dice, then decide what your character said" is NOT the same as "roll the dice to see if your character hits what they intend to hit".

It's the same as "roll the dice, and if you fail, your character tried to stab the ground instead of trying to stab the enemy".

At least as I approach things, the dice don't tell you what your character tried to do -- they tell you if what your character tried to do was successful, or how successful it was, when there are factors outside your character's control. If your character tries to stab a helpless, bound, unconscious foe, you typically don't (or shouldn't) need to roll to hit unless your character is completely clueless about their weapon or something.

How? The decision what the character attempted to do still came before the roll.
So... this would be more like
a) "I try and persuade"
b) "The dice say you are successfull/unsuccessfull"
c) "I now decide the argument my character used that turned out to be sucessfull/unsucessfull.
...Written out, it does sound weird to me (And it isn't my playstyle), but it isn't letting the dice decide what you tried, just at what you succeeded.

And... yes, of course, in that case you probably shouldn't roll. But how does this relate to social systems? Are you arguing that there are arguments a character/player could make that are so strong that the NPC will always be convinced by them, and trying to convince someone with them is akin to stabbing a helpless person?
If so, at least I personally disagree that such an argument exists, and I think some other people might as well. There certainly arguments that are harder to refute than others, but a skilled socialite (Or whatever word you want to use) will probably be able to argue pretty much everything.
(And even if there were, I'd argue that leaving the ability of the character to make such arguments (in the situation they are in) up to the player's ability to do so in the situation at the table is a really, really unsatisfying way to deal with things in systems where most every other thing a character might attempt is bound to their skills.)

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-30, 12:57 PM
How? The decision what the character attempted to do still came before the roll.
So... this would be more like
a) "I try and persuade"
b) "The dice say you are successful/unsuccessful"
c) "I now decide the argument my character used that turned out to be successful/unsuccessful.
...Written out, it does sound weird to me (And it isn't my playstyle), but it isn't letting the dice decide what you tried, just at what you succeeded.

And... yes, of course, in that case you probably shouldn't roll. But how does this relate to social systems? Are you arguing that there are arguments a character/player could make that are so strong that the NPC will always be convinced by them, and trying to convince someone with them is akin to stabbing a helpless person?

If so, at least I personally disagree that such an argument exists, and I think some other people might as well. There certainly arguments that are harder to refute than others, but a skilled socialite (Or whatever word you want to use) will probably be able to argue pretty much everything.
(And even if there were, I'd argue that leaving the ability of the character to make such arguments (in the situation they are in) up to the player's ability to do so in the situation at the table is a really, really unsatisfying way to deal with things in systems where most every other thing a character might attempt is bound to their skills.)


I'm arguing that "I attack with my weapon in an attempt to have X effect" and "I make the following speech in an attempt to have X influence" are the equivalent actions.

And I'm arguing that "your roll determines what comes out of the character's mouth" is equivalent to "your roll determines whether you try to stab your opponent... or try to stab the ground". :smallconfused:

Amphetryon
2017-08-30, 01:06 PM
I think I've cracked it in the d20-based system I'm developing: the short version is this - declare your intent ("I'm trying to get the guard to let us in" - what you want to happen, so the GM can decide how the target feels about that, and adjust the DC accordingly), and your method ("I'm telling him we're here for a surprise inspection" - basically, what skill you're using), and then roll your check.
You can roleplay the result of the roll as you see fit, based on the result (acting it out, or just reporting that your character was smooth or awful - whatever you're more comfortable with).

The key thing is that you roll first, then do your RP based on the result - it stops you having any disjointed feelings about making a good speech and rolling badly, and stops shy players from being unable to play smooth social characters.

I should also mention that I'm not using the skill list from d20 Modern, D&D 3.x or PF - in case you're wondering. They seem to gloss over social skills with just a few ultra-specific skills. I have "deception" (lies, disguise and acting), "intimidate" (fear, torture and threats), and "social" (negotiation, etiquette, social awareness).

The most common complaints about the "roll, then RP the roll" solution come from folks having a different understanding of degrees of success/failure. In social interaction, this means a Player RPs as more successful, or less successful, than the dice would indicate - sometimes by a wide margin. These issues can be exacerbated by the Player's real-life social skills, when the charismatic Player might accidentally be 'too smooth' for the indicated failure, while the awkward Player might not have the social 'intelligence' to know how to phrase (for example) a successful seduction of the princess's lady in waiting.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-08-30, 01:18 PM
I don't think its that simple, actually. At least in actual play, I have often come across situations where something that should have been a rather simple "exchanging facts" or "make sure we are on the same side/page" situation suddenly turned into a "convince other person". Sometimes mid-sentence. Interrupting a nicely played-out scene to make the roll then would sometimes be possible (If you don't only realise it has gotten to this point after the first few arguments have already been made), but it might just be awkward.

Whenever you realise you're trying to influence your conversation partner, you roll.
Maybe it'll take some practice for some people, but what is there about gaming that doesn't? It's not like we're born knowing how to play World of Darkness.


And... Really? What you say about role-playing out an unsuccessfull roll is basically the same as having no rule. The diceroll still has, no matter how it landed, the ability to convince someone; so rolling the dice was meaningless in the end other than giving the player some sort of orientation (I mean, sure, a nice thing?).
Or are you saying that the roll is made first, the argument played out second, and the answer of the GM if the roll was successfull only given after that? Because "Dice results are in" for me implied that the player already knew if they were successfull, not only if they rolled well or bad.

Your 1st assumption is utterly not what I'm doing.
No, the 2nd one is more like it. You have the roll, you don't know whether it's a success or failure yet, but you know how good or bad it is - because it's a high or low number. You can base your roleplaying off that information.


I am unsure what you are trying to say here. You are trying to combat... something, by your system, I think I get that much. But what are you trying to combat? Optimization? Players falling back on their natural ability to talk?

Like so many people before me, I'm stopping player mental abilities over-writing their character's mental abilities.

A shy person can have a really hard time playing a smooth-talking roguish type. A smart charismatic guy might be playing a dumb uncouth dwarf - at least on paper. If we don't have a game system to handle social interaction, then this smart charismatic guy can easily play his character without the hindrance of the ability scores on the sheet, and our shy person will never be able to play out the fantasy of being a smooth talker.

Social skill rules support equal play. It's not the whole of the answer, but it helps.


I mean, good luck with that. Even with the additional information it sounds awfully close to a lot of systems I have played over the years though (probably closest to the optional Dark Eye 5 rules on the subject). It might not be the revelation you think it is, but then again it might be, I haven't seen it in full yet. It seems to definitely not be something for people who want social interactions to have the same mechanical depth as combat.

I don't remember saying I had made something like that, or that it was a revelation. It works in my group.

Thing is, the simplest part of this is what I want to bring to this forum - the idea of rolling first, then role-playing your result. I'm surprised by how hostile some people are to this idea: for the group I play with, it's worked fine. There are other people on this thread who seem to find it perfectly acceptable.

I'm not trying to tell people how they must have fun, just suggesting.

EDIT: I got sword-saged by some simultaneous posts...


The most common complaints about the "roll, then RP the roll" solution come from folks having a different understanding of degrees of success/failure. In social interaction, this means a Player RPs as more successful, or less successful, than the dice would indicate - sometimes by a wide margin. These issues can be exacerbated by the Player's real-life social skills, when the charismatic Player might accidentally be 'too smooth' for the indicated failure, while the awkward Player might not have the social 'intelligence' to know how to phrase (for example) a successful seduction of the princess's lady in waiting.

I'm not proposing that the RP will have to be super hardcore amazing and brilliant, not even that it has to be in the form of direct speech. I'm not suggesting that anyone change the way they RP - lots of people RP by stating how their character behaves, rather than by trying to actually act it out, and lots of people do all the acting. It's up to you, and my rule isn't trying to change that.
You could still RP by saying something like "I want to get the guard to come with me by being seductive" - roll some high numbers, then say "I give her my best line and charming smile," or if you're confident and comfortable with your player group you can really go for the full on Screen Actors' Guild performance.

Cluedrew
2017-08-30, 02:08 PM
OK, I say we do not waste time discussing if good social interactions systems exist. I still remember the essay collection that was "Its what the dice said my character would do." and that didn't do it.

To Amphetryon: I would try the systems mentioned, maybe a few others that come up soon. You might agree with some of the social system haters in the end and dislike all of them, but I think they are worth a look. You might like one of them, all of them or none, but you will not know until you try them out.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-08-30, 02:18 PM
OK, I say we do not waste time discussing if good social interactions systems exist. I still remember the essay collection that was "Its what the dice said my character would do." and that didn't do it....

But, er - isn't that exactly what the OP asked us to do?


One of the most common complaints about D&D 3.X (and, to an extent, other d20 systems or D&D editions) is the way social interaction works in the game.
...
So, what systems do it better? How do they approach social interaction to avoid these problems?

jayem
2017-08-30, 03:08 PM
OK, I say we do not waste time discussing if good social interactions systems exist. I still remember the essay collection that was "Its what the dice said my character would do." and that didn't do it.

To Amphetryon: I would try the systems mentioned, maybe a few others that come up soon. You might agree with some of the social system haters in the end and dislike all of them, but I think they are worth a look. You might like one of them, all of them or none, but you will not know until you try them out.

I agree on that, but would contend that we work on the assumption that it "all social systems (including the various freeform ones) will have some cost". And that we're clear where the what type of game, roles and worlds you want them to play in, (and hence why that benefits from the strength and mitigates the weaknesses).
And if we happen to hit one that works perfectly.

So to start in a case where social interactions are part of a semi-scripted story tying physical challenges. Freeform works fine, the players have perfect control of their characters, the gm has perfect control of the worlds characters to set up the next expedition as they want it (while the opportunity exists to play off the others opportunities, if they accept, so although it could be railroaded, it need not be).

The game I'd like to play is the one where you role play a company board, a cabinet, a cabal or something totally different. In that case the GM's theoretical control (even if they were generous with it) would be not so good.

CarpeGuitarrem
2017-08-30, 04:11 PM
How is that leverage determined in game and employed by the Character, such that role-playing is encouraged without being intrinsically tied to Player social skills?

Honest question, not trying to be difficult.
The key part is making sure that the focus is on what, concretely, you're doing, as opposed to how much purple prose is being invoked in the description.

Even if you don't know how to say things eloquently, you can still break it down into "what am I offering them?" and "what do they want from me?" The best part is that social interactions are about exactly that to begin with, so focusing social mechanics on this aspect helps to make them feel real, and ties them back into the fiction.

It's basically just like any other skill roll, you just look for concrete results instead of abstracting it into the realm of diplomancy.

Amphetryon
2017-08-30, 04:31 PM
Is there a solution here? Is a system where, for examples from this thread, Altair the Vexed & Max_Killjoy could both sit down to play socially adept Characters, in a game of political intrigue and both could be happy using the mechanics of the game?

I'm asking because it's easy enough to use a system that works with your friends. It's harder, in my experience, finding a system that can work for social interaction in something like a weekly pickup game at your FLGS.

Tanarii
2017-08-30, 05:32 PM
The die roll doesn't tell you what you said, it tells you how the NPCs react.
This is important. I mean, like really important.

To some people ice rolls aren't supposed to be 'state of the world' checks, they are 'success/failure of your action due to how well you do it' checks. They determine how well you did the task, if it was good enough to succeed.

To people that think of checks are resolution of success/failure of the player's action, your statement doesn't even make sense. Any more than making an Int / Knowledge / Lore check to determine if your character ever knew a factoid makes no sense. You could check to see if your character recalls something you knew but have forgotten. But not to see if your character knew something you never knew. Similarly you can check to see if you make a persuasive argument, but not to see how an NPC reacts.

To others, 'state of the world' checks are absolutely not a problem for resolution. For many people, they're the norm. Checks to determine if something was ever learned, how NPCs react, if something can be found in town, what the weather does, random encounters. (Some people care if it's the Player or DM making these checks, of course.)

jayem
2017-08-30, 06:22 PM
This is important. I mean, like really important.

To others, 'state of the world' checks are absolutely not a problem for resolution. For many people, they're the norm. Checks to determine if something was ever learned, how NPCs react, if something can be found in town, what the weather does, random encounters. (Some people care if it's the Player or DM making these checks, of course.)

But the catch is that (to first level) all the effort the player put into the proposition is 'redundant'. The world effectively does an Oblivian and relevels itself to match them.
If our player composes the "stiffen the sinews" and then rolls a 5, the person is clearly hard to impress but the speech was so good that it convinced them to do half the job
If our player says "oh lets go" and rolls a 5, then the speech may have been rubbish but the person was so gullible and easy going that they were convinced to do half the job anyway.
The net effect is the same...

That's not to say that's not always a bad thing. With a bit of tolerance (after all you can't give absolute motivational values to the real world speech) it handwaves and looks fine. And significantly means the points in the character are what matter. If that works for the game, that's all to the good.

And then there's always the scope for hybrid systems (especially when the components are simple), so you can mix the advantages and disadvantages of both.

--
I should also concede that my example for the roll first was a bit harsh, they do have a bit of choice into how they mess the speech, which I did not show properly, (perhaps it should be 'I got a one, I suppose "Let's do it"')(and can again pass some of the responsibility to the other party), but the loss of character control is definitely beginning in a way that (I can understand) feels more intrusive than the equivalent in combat.

And even where I tend to hold the view, "I don't plan saying something stupid (in a sense I'm not in full control)", that cuts both ways. It makes me happy to say the dice reflect a real (but partial) aspect of me, but then the idea of 'acting my mistake' clashes with the accidental nature of it.

Bohandas
2017-08-30, 11:26 PM
One of the most common complaints about D&D 3.X (and, to an extent, other d20 systems or D&D editions) is the way social interaction works in the game. From unsatisfying "Pass/Fail" results divorced from any roleplay in the encounter, to "Pat, the Player, isn't charismatic enough to play a socially adept Character," the objections are common and not without some merit regarding the amount of work that has to be done filling in the gaps.

So, what systems do it better? How do they approach social interaction to avoid these problems? I am vaguely familiar with the Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard approach, for example, but not convinced that these objections are not valid within BW/MG as well as d20.

Don't know about tabletop rpgs but the crpg Last Word (http://store.steampowered.com/app/355530/Last_Word/) has a good system.

Also, not really an rpg, but the computer game Oh Sir! (https://www.gog.com/game/ohsir_the_insult_simulator) has a fun social interaction system.

Also both of the aforementioned games have social interaction as their primary and more-or-less exclusive focus

Cluedrew
2017-08-31, 03:02 AM
But, er - isn't that exactly what the OP asked us to do?Maybe sort of? Whether it is or not my underlying point is: There isn't a single answer. It depends on what you want out of a social system for one, what part of the character and conversation you are attempting to quantify, how much time and resources and time you want to put it. Then it also just depends on whose playing it. I've seen people raise a ruckus over issues I can't figure out why they are issues.

So I'm saying if you want to see if you will enjoy the systems, play them, the theory crafting probably will not do it.

Vknight
2017-08-31, 04:33 AM
I would like too introduce you too the system used in FATE and Game of Thrones both do it fairly well so check them both out for examples of a system if you want too well systematize.
Its better too use these systems as guides but those two are the best guides

Cozzer
2017-08-31, 05:07 AM
I'm arguing that "I attack with my weapon in an attempt to have X effect" and "I make the following speech in an attempt to have X influence" are the equivalent actions.

And I'm arguing that "your roll determines what comes out of the character's mouth" is equivalent to "your roll determines whether you try to stab your opponent... or try to stab the ground".

I... don't think that's a valid equivalence, though? I mean, the very fact you're rolling diplomacy means there's an opposition (whether a passive or an active one). Such a diplomacy roll would be better compared to "your roll determines whether your character manages to see the weak points in your opponent's armor/fighting style and aim for those, thereby causing damage, or just flails his weapon ineffectively". In a way, it's still a roll determining the character's actions, but the point is that a character can't choose what he doesn't even know to be a choice.

Maybe the result would be better represented by a successful Diplomacy (or whatever) roll causing the GM to tell the player "you talk for a while, taking care not to take any stance on any issue, and the audience seems particularly receptive whenever you mention the war with the elves... you should push on that issue, if you want them to stay on your side". And then the player can decide how exactly his character approaches the issue.

The "your roll determines whether you try to stab your opponent or try to stab the ground" example would be better compared to a GM asking for a diplomacy roll for a character buying milk at the market, or something.

Floret
2017-08-31, 05:56 AM
I'm arguing that "I attack with my weapon in an attempt to have X effect" and "I make the following speech in an attempt to have X influence" are the equivalent actions.

And I'm arguing that "your roll determines what comes out of the character's mouth" is equivalent to "your roll determines whether you try to stab your opponent... or try to stab the ground". :smallconfused:

I'm sorry, but I just don't see it? Or rather, I see both of your examples, but I don't see how rolling on "I make the following speech", with the diceroll determining how convincing your speech actually was/how receptive the audience is to what you said is equivalent to rolling what comes out of your mouth.

Are you simply trying to object to describing what you say after the roll determined how persuasive it was? Or is there some deeper objection there?


Whenever you realise you're trying to influence your conversation partner, you roll.
Maybe it'll take some practice for some people, but what is there about gaming that doesn't? It's not like we're born knowing how to play World of Darkness.

Good point. It's probably not as big a hindrance in practice as it looks like in theorycrafting.


Your 1st assumption is utterly not what I'm doing.
No, the 2nd one is more like it. You have the roll, you don't know whether it's a success or failure yet, but you know how good or bad it is - because it's a high or low number. You can base your roleplaying off that information.

Ah, alright. I read implications into your text you didn't mean to put there.
And... Well, I can see how that might work and encourage playing out the results of the roll. I can see the value in consulting the dice on "advice" how to play out a certain situation. Maybe I'll try that order out at some point, actually, it seems to line up somewhat with my playstyle (Thinking about it, I might have done things this way already sometimes without realising it. New perspectives are fun.)


Like so many people before me, I'm stopping player mental abilities over-writing their character's mental abilities.

A shy person can have a really hard time playing a smooth-talking roguish type. A smart charismatic guy might be playing a dumb uncouth dwarf - at least on paper. If we don't have a game system to handle social interaction, then this smart charismatic guy can easily play his character without the hindrance of the ability scores on the sheet, and our shy person will never be able to play out the fantasy of being a smooth talker.

Social skill rules support equal play. It's not the whole of the answer, but it helps.

I mean, sure, I didn't mean to object to that :smallwink:
As you can read above, my main problem with not having social skills is a slightly different one (The "I am not actually close enough in situation to feel confident to make that decision without input from the world-simulation-tools", aka. rules and dice one); but tying character ability to character ability score instead of player ability is a worthy goal, yes.
Your paragraph simply read as if it contained more than simply that statement, leading to my confusion (Mainly, the bit about optimal choices).


I don't remember saying I had made something like that, or that it was a revelation. It works in my group.

Thing is, the simplest part of this is what I want to bring to this forum - the idea of rolling first, then role-playing your result. I'm surprised by how hostile some people are to this idea: for the group I play with, it's worked fine. There are other people on this thread who seem to find it perfectly acceptable.

I'm not trying to tell people how they must have fun, just suggesting.

I apologize if I came across as hostile, it was not my intention. My objection was probably a mix of misunderstanding, seeing some problems it might have in play, and looking for something different.
I think while the "revalation" was admittedly a wordchoice by me, you did open your first post with "I think I've cracked it". To me, that implied a certain assumption of novelty on your part, and the assumption that you have solved a big problem with social systems. That, to me, doesn't seem to be the case.

As for groups... My L5R group actively asks me how their characters feel about certain things happening (Based on general society and Clan attitudes, mostly); while I have heard many people object heavily to the GM even suggesting how the characters might feel.
Even in this thread, I have seen people suggest that taking control from the player and giving it to the dice is evil - yet it is something people I play with, me included, often do out of our own free will, seeing multiple possibilities - giving in to the bottle being passed around or not; being freaked out by something coinciding with superstition, etc - and leaving the decision how to react to a roll on the respective stats (e.g. Mental control).
My point is: If it worked for your group, that's great, but your group might be the outlier (I dunno if it is). As you said it is part of something for publication, input from people seeing problems with it can help to consider - even if that consideration leads to the result of "no, this is a different playstyle from mine, my rule stays".


I should also concede that my example for the roll first was a bit harsh, they do have a bit of choice into how they mess the speech, which I did not show properly, (perhaps it should be 'I got a one, I suppose "Let's do it"')(and can again pass some of the responsibility to the other party), but the loss of character control is definitely beginning in a way that (I can understand) feels more intrusive than the equivalent in combat.

Out of curiosity, since I have so far failed to understand it: How is the loss of character control due to your character's ability to convince people or resist convincing more intrusive that the loss of character control due to your character's ability to kill things or resist being killed?


Is there a solution here? Is a system where, for examples from this thread, Altair the Vexed & Max_Killjoy could both sit down to play socially adept Characters, in a game of political intrigue and both could be happy using the mechanics of the game?

I'm asking because it's easy enough to use a system that works with your friends. It's harder, in my experience, finding a system that can work for social interaction in something like a weekly pickup game at your FLGS.

I am unsure if there is a solution. Because there are problems with all ways of doing it - some people just don't care about some problems.
If now a person that feels player control over their character has to be as absolute as possible, but doesn't mind player skill being important for a game; meets someone who cares a lot about player skill being out of the equasion, but doesn't mind some loss of control, they probably aren't gonna be happy under the same system.
It's a fundamental issue of what you value. For a pickup game, I'd probably suggest playing one that doesn't go too extreme in the "taking control" (Aka. Having rules) direction; something with checks that allow you to opt out (at a cost), but otherwise just... advertising your game with a direct statement of "player skill is out" or "Player skill is in", depending on preference. It is impossible to cater to all people in this regard.


This is important. I mean, like really important.

To some people ice rolls aren't supposed to be 'state of the world' checks, they are 'success/failure of your action due to how well you do it' checks. They determine how well you did the task, if it was good enough to succeed.

I'm not sure if it actually is a state of the world check, or if that is just an issue of semantics. I mean, "How the NPC reacts" is rather synonymous in this case with "how successfull you were at persuasion", maybe coupled with "how successfull the NPC was at resisting your attempt". This is clearly a success/failure check; phrasing it as "how the NPC reacts" merely puts the direct, visible impact of the success or failure as the focus.
Though on the other hand I do what you describe as state of the world checks all the time (sometimes rather explicitly), so I might just not see the problem.

Sinewmire
2017-08-31, 06:10 AM
I like the DnD style simplified social interaction.

We can let the dice decide whether or not the character was successful in what they were trying, and then roleplay the result.

I encourage my players to roleplay what their character is saying - if it is utterly ridiculous it's a fail anyway, and if it's extremely good I give them a bonus. if they're not comfortable with that - after all, I don't expect my characters to demonstrate their knowledge of fieldcraft to make a Survival roll - then I outline the rough details of the conversation they had with the NPC, working out the details between us.

I find that more complicated and detail systems tend to derail the roleplay, and we get bogged down in rules minutiae. Also, the more detailed the rules, the more open to abuse.

Black Crusades's social combat rules slowed the game to a standstill, and the rules for seduction basically meant that our Slaaneshi social butterly was like unto a god of persuasion - three significant conversations and you were Seduced and his slave for life, and he wasn't even all that high-powered a character.


I should also mention that I'm not using the skill list from d20 Modern, D&D 3.x or PF - in case you're wondering. They seem to gloss over social skills with just a few ultra-specific skills. I have "deception" (lies, disguise and acting), "intimidate" (fear, torture and threats), and "social" (negotiation, etiquette, social awareness).

Brilliant! You could call the first one "Bluff" the second "Intimidate" and the third one "Diplomacy"! Completely different to PF, D&D etc. :smallwink:

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-31, 06:55 AM
I'm sorry, but I just don't see it? Or rather, I see both of your examples, but I don't see how rolling on "I make the following speech", with the diceroll determining how convincing your speech actually was/how receptive the audience is to what you said is equivalent to rolling what comes out of your mouth.

Are you simply trying to object to describing what you say after the roll determined how persuasive it was? Or is there some deeper objection there?


I am objecting to the roll determining what comes out of the character's mouth, rather than the player. Which is literally (literally-literally) what someone said "should" happen.

If one wants better synchronization between what comes out of the character's mouth, and what comes up on the dice, then give a bonus or penalty on the roll, or slide the difficultly, or whatever works on the system, based on what the player has the character say.

There's also some responsibility on the player to play the character THEY created, and not try to game the system -- to not ignore or dump the "charm stat" (or whatever) and then play the character otherwise.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-08-31, 07:32 AM
I am objecting to the roll determining what comes out of the character's mouth, rather than the player. Which is literally (literally-literally) what someone said "should" happen.

No, it LITERALLY is not. Sheesh.

You roll the skill check, look at what you've got, and decide how you can reflect that sort of roll in your RP. Just like how when you roll to hit, you describe the outcome according to the roll - a near miss, a solid hit, whatever.

It's always up to you how you RP. You can decide that your character was perfectly correct in their diplomatic language, but must have missed something. You can decide that you were blunt and uncouth, but your target admires that.

By "you" I mean the players, and the GM is a player too, remember.


If one wants better synchronization between what comes out of the character's mouth, and what comes up on the dice, then give a bonus or penalty on the roll, or slide the difficultly, or whatever works on the system, based on what the player has the character say.

The system I'm using lets you choose how to approach your interaction, so you can get the DC lower, gain bonuses and what have you from sizing up the social situation. It's not a single roll, unlike most social game systems I've encountered - I'm looking at you, D&D 3.x...


There's also some responsibility on the player to play the character THEY created, and not try to game the system -- to not ignore or dump the "charm stat" (or whatever) and then play the character otherwise.

Yes. But most social interaction systems in games tend to err on the side of granting bonuses to "good roleplaying", which usually translates into "The player made a good argument, so I'm obliged to grant bonuses" - even when the player's character should not be doing that.

A GM playing with a highly charismatic player is going to be swayed by their charisma, and inclined to favour them even if the rules don't say they should. It's hard resisting charmers.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-31, 08:33 AM
No, it LITERALLY is not. Sheesh.

You roll the skill check, look at what you've got, and decide how you can reflect that sort of roll in your RP. Just like how when you roll to hit, you describe the outcome according to the roll - a near miss, a solid hit, whatever.

It's always up to you how you RP. You can decide that your character was perfectly correct in their diplomatic language, but must have missed something. You can decide that you were blunt and uncouth, but your target admires that.


OK, so I guess you didn't post this either:



The key thing is that you roll first, then do your RP based on the result - it stops you having any disjointed feelings about making a good speech and rolling badly, and stops shy players from being unable to play smooth social characters.


What you are describing in your two posts right there, is exactly the roll determining what comes out of the character's mouth. Depending on the roll, the character's actions change.

And that is not identical to how combat is handled. In combat, the character takes an action, and the result changes based on the dice -- the character still tries to hit the enemy, or trip, or grab, or whatever. The action is the same regardless of whether it succeeds or not.

And just as important, it doesn't matter how combat is handled, social interaction isn't combat.

Tanarii
2017-08-31, 09:43 AM
And that is not identical to how combat is handled. In combat, the character takes an action, and the result changes based on the dice -- the character still tries to hit the enemy, or trip, or grab, or whatever. The action is the same regardless of whether it succeeds or not.


The action hasn't changed any more than in combat:

A) "I attempt to stab him." Action declared. Dice roll, get result. Describe result. (ie flowery words come out of mouth.)

B) "I attempt to persuade him that X, because Y." Action declared. Dice roll, get result. Describe result. (ie flowery words come out of mouth.)

The action only changes if what you're attempting to persuade them of changes, or the (general) argument you use changes. In the post you quoted, he said "good speech" or "disjointed speech". He did not say the action changes, just the description. There's nothing wrong with describing the result of an action after you've resolved it with dice.

(I'll also note he's using RP to mean "talking" and "description" instead of "making decisions about my characters actions". That's only going to confuse the issue. IMO there's no RP nor any action declaration / decision in what he's talking about. Only post-result description.)

Cozzer
2017-08-31, 09:56 AM
A) "I attempt to stab him." Action declared. Dice roll, get result. Describe result. (ie flowery words come out of mouth.)

I think there might be a mistake in this part, unless they're some really.... :smallcool: pointy retorts.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-31, 10:02 AM
The action hasn't changed any more than in combat:

A) "I attempt to stab him." Action declared. Dice roll, get result. Describe result. (ie flowery words come out of mouth.)

B) "I attempt to persuade him that X, because Y." Action declared. Dice roll, get result. Describe result. (ie flowery words come out of mouth.)

The action only changes if what you're attempting to persuade them of changes, or the (general) argument you use changes. In the post you quoted, he said "good speech" or "disjointed speech". He did not say the action changes, just the description. There's nothing wrong with describing the result of an action after you've resolved it with dice.

(I'll also note he's using RP to mean "talking" and "description" instead of "making decisions about my characters actions". That's only going to confuse the issue. IMO there's no RP nor any action declaration / decision in what he's talking about. Only post-result description.)

"I stab (or whatever) at the enemy."
"I say the following to (NPC)."

Both describe an action -- it's the result that's in question.

NichG
2017-08-31, 10:12 AM
In combat systems, generally there's things you can do which rely on a character's quantified ability, but there are also things you can do which rely on strategic realities. For example, if you walk up to an enemy, your character will try not to get hit (in the form of, e.g., their Dexterity bonus to AC or their Dodge skill or whatever equivalents a given system has). But you can also position your character outside of an enemy's reach, such that no matter what the character's personal competencies are there is no way for the enemy to hit them. Depending on play style, build, etc, a given character depend more or less on their numerical scores.

When you have a social system that consists of 'say what you want to do, roll something, and find out how you did' or 'say your thing, maybe get a bonus, roll, and find out how you did', that only covers the ability-based part of things, not the strategic aspects. So if you try to use such a mechanic exclusively, you very quickly can run into nonsensical scenarios.

For example, you want to wipe out a particular group of bandits; you spy on them and find out that they've kidnapped the king's heir, so you go to the king and say 'I found your heir, he's being held captive by such and such bandits' with the idea that the king will proceed to wipe out the bandits, accomplishing your goal.

In this case, you want the king to wipe out the bandits, and the king also wants to wipe out the bandits, so logically there should be no question of persuasion. One way to run this is to say 'well, at this table when you want someone else to do something, you roll for it (but here have a bonus)' - if the character still fails the roll, they must have said that in such a terrible fashion that the king refuses to act on it. But that actually compels the king to hold the idiot ball - he wants his heir's location, here's a lead, and he's not even going to check up on it? You might have to really twist the world around to find a reasonable excuse for why the king doesn't act, like that the character offends someone else who puts pressure on the king to ignore this person or a functionary gets in the way, and things snowball because you need to find a way to invalidate a strategic reality to make what the dice said come to pass.

So I don't one should try to force everything through the final bottleneck of the roll. I think you can have the ability to roll, but the strategic certainties should still be respected and should constitute a valid, alternate component of how to negotiate social interactions. And that means that some players will primarily interact through the guaranteed success avenues (but will have to wait for opportune conditions before they can set up that success) while other players may adopt a play-style of trying to push through using ability instead.

Max_Killjoy
2017-08-31, 10:33 AM
In combat systems, generally there's things you can do which rely on a character's quantified ability, but there are also things you can do which rely on strategic realities. For example, if you walk up to an enemy, your character will try not to get hit (in the form of, e.g., their Dexterity bonus to AC or their Dodge skill or whatever equivalents a given system has). But you can also position your character outside of an enemy's reach, such that no matter what the character's personal competencies are there is no way for the enemy to hit them. Depending on play style, build, etc, a given character depend more or less on their numerical scores.

When you have a social system that consists of 'say what you want to do, roll something, and find out how you did' or 'say your thing, maybe get a bonus, roll, and find out how you did', that only covers the ability-based part of things, not the strategic aspects. So if you try to use such a mechanic exclusively, you very quickly can run into nonsensical scenarios.

For example, you want to wipe out a particular group of bandits; you spy on them and find out that they've kidnapped the king's heir, so you go to the king and say 'I found your heir, he's being held captive by such and such bandits' with the idea that the king will proceed to wipe out the bandits, accomplishing your goal.

In this case, you want the king to wipe out the bandits, and the king also wants to wipe out the bandits, so logically there should be no question of persuasion. One way to run this is to say 'well, at this table when you want someone else to do something, you roll for it (but here have a bonus)' - if the character still fails the roll, they must have said that in such a terrible fashion that the king refuses to act on it. But that actually compels the king to hold the idiot ball - he wants his heir's location, here's a lead, and he's not even going to check up on it? You might have to really twist the world around to find a reasonable excuse for why the king doesn't act, like that the character offends someone else who puts pressure on the king to ignore this person or a functionary gets in the way, and things snowball because you need to find a way to invalidate a strategic reality to make what the dice said come to pass.

So I don't one should try to force everything through the final bottleneck of the roll. I think you can have the ability to roll, but the strategic certainties should still be respected and should constitute a valid, alternate component of how to negotiate social interactions. And that means that some players will primarily interact through the guaranteed success avenues (but will have to wait for opportune conditions before they can set up that success) while other players may adopt a play-style of trying to push through using ability instead.

Agreed... as with anything else in an RPG, in the social interaction, there will come instances, based on the exact circumstances and actions, when a roll is not necessary, or is only for determining matters of degree.

If the NPC is totally helpless and immobile, the PC can stab them at their leisure.

If the PC and the NPC fully agree on motives and the action to be taken, there's no need for a roll to convince the NPC.

malachi
2017-08-31, 11:18 AM
In combat systems, generally there's things you can do which rely on a character's quantified ability, but there are also things you can do which rely on strategic realities. For example, if you walk up to an enemy, your character will try not to get hit (in the form of, e.g., their Dexterity bonus to AC or their Dodge skill or whatever equivalents a given system has). But you can also position your character outside of an enemy's reach, such that no matter what the character's personal competencies are there is no way for the enemy to hit them. Depending on play style, build, etc, a given character depend more or less on their numerical scores.

When you have a social system that consists of 'say what you want to do, roll something, and find out how you did' or 'say your thing, maybe get a bonus, roll, and find out how you did', that only covers the ability-based part of things, not the strategic aspects. So if you try to use such a mechanic exclusively, you very quickly can run into nonsensical scenarios.

For example, you want to wipe out a particular group of bandits; you spy on them and find out that they've kidnapped the king's heir, so you go to the king and say 'I found your heir, he's being held captive by such and such bandits' with the idea that the king will proceed to wipe out the bandits, accomplishing your goal.

In this case, you want the king to wipe out the bandits, and the king also wants to wipe out the bandits, so logically there should be no question of persuasion. One way to run this is to say 'well, at this table when you want someone else to do something, you roll for it (but here have a bonus)' - if the character still fails the roll, they must have said that in such a terrible fashion that the king refuses to act on it. But that actually compels the king to hold the idiot ball - he wants his heir's location, here's a lead, and he's not even going to check up on it? You might have to really twist the world around to find a reasonable excuse for why the king doesn't act, like that the character offends someone else who puts pressure on the king to ignore this person or a functionary gets in the way, and things snowball because you need to find a way to invalidate a strategic reality to make what the dice said come to pass.

So I don't one should try to force everything through the final bottleneck of the roll. I think you can have the ability to roll, but the strategic certainties should still be respected and should constitute a valid, alternate component of how to negotiate social interactions. And that means that some players will primarily interact through the guaranteed success avenues (but will have to wait for opportune conditions before they can set up that success) while other players may adopt a play-style of trying to push through using ability instead.

There are lots of reasons that the king may not do what they want to:

Kings have lots of things that need their attention, so maybe they can't afford to put any resources into getting a large enough military force to take out the bandits quickly enough to not risk them killing the hostage heir. Or maybe if military forces are moved around, another enemy will take some town, or unrest will spill over into revolt where there's a smaller military presence. Maybe there's just not enough money to pay for the logistics of getting a large enough force moved out there. Or maybe there are political concerns: the bandit forces are in/near another kingdom, and moving a large force there could trigger a military response from that nation; or maybe if the ambassador of the neighboring kingdom finds out that the heir was kidnapped they might reject some political arrangement and anything overt the king might do would reveal what had happened. Kings also have advisors with varying levels of aptitude, so maybe the military advisor is a coward and overplays the risks of the king sending in forces, so the roll would be used to convince the king over the advisor's suggestions.

There are lots of reasons that you may need to try to convince someone to do something they want and still fail. It doesn't become nonsensical unless you have a really flat world with only one thing going on at a time.
But in the cases where there isn't anything else going on (farmer Ted wants to go tend to his farms, but couldn't because he didn't know where his oxen went. You tell him where his oxen are. He goes and gets them, thanking you), there's no reason to roll.

NichG
2017-08-31, 11:52 AM
This is what I meant by the consequences snowballing. You have the contents of the treasury, the personalities of the king's advisors, and the local political circumstances depending on the result of my character's diplomacy check. The world is forced to change to make character skill matter where it doesn't actually factor in.

It's kinda like the Hitchhikers Guide idea about how flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing...

Tanarii
2017-08-31, 12:16 PM
I think there might be a mistake in this part, unless they're some really.... :smallcool: pointy retorts.I meant the players mouth, not the characters. But I like your interpretation better. :smallyuk:


"I stab (or whatever) at the enemy."
"I say the following to (NPC)."

Both describe an action -- it's the result that's in question.
The description doesn't need to include the details, just the intent. You don't have to describe precisely how your stab is going towards the enemy up to the point of resolution roll. Neither do you have to describe your precise wording before the resolution roll. What's necessary is intended action, approach, and intended result. After that the player or DM can describe the result based on the resolution, which can include a modification to how the intended action actually went down.

I'm not a fan of the approach, but it's common enough. Describing the action after resolution vs describing the counter / response are both valid. Describing how the stabber didn't angle the blade properly, so it bounced off the armor after resolution vs describing how the opponent turned and got his armor in the way based on how the player said they were stabbing the kidney at an upward angle. Describing exactly how you say the thing including quality of delivery after the resolution vs the npc reacting to how exactly how the player delivered the little speech.

jayem
2017-08-31, 12:42 PM
Out of curiosity, since I have so far failed to understand it: How is the loss of character control due to your character's ability to convince people or resist convincing more intrusive that the loss of character control due to your character's ability to kill things or resist being killed?

I kind of nudged on this earlier. My theory would be that aspects for convincing involve:
The lack of (actual relevant) roleplay in fighting
The fact that the characters are so far better than you anyway (so a failure is just more normal)
The combatant nature of combat, allowing greater acceptance of a die based winner
We (even actual soldiers) know much more about the experience of talking than of fighting
We (even us civilians) know much more about the theory of fighting than of talking
Combat already speaks of a loss of control
I'm a hypocrite
For being convinced, you can add:
It's actually going into the mind (which combat rarely does, you could argue about feints). You can still be you when you are being hit, it's harder to say your you when your minds distracted by hunger (still possible, whatever the advert says).

And for what it's worth for me that loss would be acceptable if I wanted to play a game where the decision to send Face into the crooks car shop rather than BA to be a properly tactical one. Or for the threat of panic, to be a realistic threat to have to plan against. Others of course would rather not play those worlds than suffer the drawbacks. (you can of course holograph it with the DM/players, so you can still get some of the experiences)
(tangent would those who don't like playing a character in particular game style, in general be happy to dm that game style, for the benefit of those that enjoy it)

Amphetryon
2017-08-31, 12:58 PM
It seems that a sticking point here may be one of "narrative distance." Combat interactions (in d20, at least) are generally at a further narrative distance than social interactions, allowing for a broader range of acceptable outcomes to result from the die roll. Social interactions are at a closer narrative distance, making some feel that a die roll doesn't provide enough granularity to cover the distance appropriately.

Am I off-base?

Thrudd
2017-08-31, 02:42 PM
I think an important element in deciding how to resolve and describe actions, whether social or combat or anything, is understanding and consistently applying what level of abstraction the rules are describing. This determines the manner in which players should be declaring their actions and intentions. In D&D, for example, players shouldn't be describing their combat maneuvers in specific detail - combat is resolved in chunks of time rather than maneuver by maneuver - you don't get to say "I slice at his neck", and if the attack succeeds then the target automatically dies with a slashed neck. You say "I attack with my sword"(with intent to kill implied, unless stated otherwise), and the dice determine what happened during that time period.

The same for social interaction - any mechanics that are used must operate at a specific level of abstraction. That determines what sort of action the players should be describing. Saying "I want to convince the NPC to let me into the party" is the same thing as saying "I tell the NPC that I had an invitation but it was lost when I fell in the river" is the same as delivering the excuse in first person character voice with dramatic inflections, just at different levels of abstraction. Depending on how the mechanics, one or more of these may be inappropriate or dissonant with how the game works.

A player who goes out of their way to dramatically perform their interactions might find their efforts pointless or unrewarded if the game determines an NPC's reaction mechanically, regardless. That sort of play would be more suited to a system where their performance can have some sway over the results, implying the GM would be subjectively determining part or all of an NPCs responses.

A player who isn't great at improvisational dramatic acting (or just doesn't want to), on the other hand, would probably appreciate a system that keeps interactions on a more abstract level and further removes GM subjectivity from the equation. Their character's ability and the mechanics determine everything, with the GM possibly filling in some dramatic interaction based on the results.

A middle ground might be having the player describe their general approach, ala Burning Wheel, and this will impact the result, while still being rather abstract. So, saying "I try to tempt the guard with a bribe to let me in" will have a bonus to work on a guard that has been determined to be greedy, but it will have a penalty or automatic failure for a guard that is determined to be very strict. What the guard's stance is would be determined possibly by a die roll at the beginning of the encounter, from a list of personalities and motivations. Engaging in general conversation will give a player a chance to suss out the guard's stance and personality with some form of perception or insight mechanic. For some, perhaps this is too "combatifying" social encounters, but I think it really is a good way to maintain verisimilitude with a manageable level of detail and the least possible subjectivity on part of the GM.

ImNotTrevor
2017-08-31, 10:41 PM
OK, so I guess you didn't post this either:
I thought you had distaste for Gotcha! tactics.

Must be a one-way street.





What you are describing in your two posts right there, is exactly the roll determining what comes out of the character's mouth. Depending on the roll, the character's actions change.

And that is not identical to how combat is handled. In combat, the character takes an action, and the result changes based on the dice -- the character still tries to hit the enemy, or trip, or grab, or whatever. The action is the same regardless of whether it succeeds or not.

And just as important, it doesn't matter how combat is handled, social interaction isn't combat.

This is a non-sequiteur. Just because they are two different things in actuality does not mean they can never have any form of overlap, or comparison point, ever.

You can, in fact, compare apples to donkeys.
Both are living things,
Both process sugar to produce ATP
They share a surprisingly large amount of their DNA.
They likely have a common ancestor if we go back far enough.
The same physics that determine how apples fall from trees apply to donkeys.

Being shoved by a giant and being blown by a tornado are very different things, but the same general Push Stuff mechanics can apply to both.

Two things being different in actuality does not mean we cannot use parts of how one is resolved to resolve the other, or use examples from the one as a comparison point.

Cross that problem off the list.

Gurifu
2017-08-31, 10:59 PM
Look up Dogs in the Vinyard. It's a little narrative game about demon-hunting Mormons in the Old West that happens to have one of the best conflict-resolution systems ever put to page.

Bohandas
2017-08-31, 11:40 PM
Theoretically the system should work fine as long as you don't try to give the character's exact word-for-word spiel. Then you can give the gist of the speech and the dice determine how well it is delivered. You choose what the character says and the dice decide how they say it.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-09-01, 02:24 AM
OK, so I guess you didn't post this either:

What you are describing in your two posts right there, is exactly the roll determining what comes out of the character's mouth. Depending on the roll, the character's actions change.

And that is not identical to how combat is handled. In combat, the character takes an action, and the result changes based on the dice -- the character still tries to hit the enemy, or trip, or grab, or whatever. The action is the same regardless of whether it succeeds or not.

And just as important, it doesn't matter how combat is handled, social interaction isn't combat.

One last thing before I give up: I've repeatedly said that you decide the intent and method of your social interaction before you roll. So you take your action - trying to get the guard to go away, by lying to him about something - the roll is made and you play out the result. You are still playing out the same action that you declared - trying to make him go away by lying about stuff. The action is the same - just the level of competence is not.

But okay, I get it - you just don't like this idea. I don't expect you to go "A-ha! Now I'm convinced, I take it all back."
You've read what I've posted, thought about it, and decided it isn't for you. You don't like the idea that how you play the social parts of the game should be determined by dice rolls, and you see the connection between dice roll and role-playing social actions as a step too far. I can sympathise with that. I personally think that my system is a good solution, but you clearly don't. It's not my place to tell people that they're having fun wrong.

Cluedrew
2017-09-01, 02:52 AM
Am I off-base?I think you may have hit an important point, a lot of the arguments about how social rules happen at lower levels of detail don't really make sense for me. But I think the idea that we expect them to occur at a higher level of detail might be right. For instance I see "I attack with my sword" and "I persuade by being friendly" as being a the same level of detail, yet I find myself more interested in the exact wording of the latter, than the swings of the former.

So maybe it is far to ask for more detail from a social system than a combat one, but I'm pretty sure that is what is happening.


But okay, I get it - you just don't like this idea.Something people forget: This is a hobby we do for fun, what we (and our group) like and don't like is more important than any objective measure of quality. For instance I think suddenly switching to free-form when social interactions come up is a bad system.* However that is assuming social interaction and the results of have narrative weight, if they don't (in a dungeon-crawler where conversation is mostly just flavour text) than breaking out rules for it is a waste of time and you might as well do free-form.

* For reasons I have explained elsewhere in great detail elsewhere and can again is needed.

Vknight
2017-09-01, 05:05 AM
I am honestly lost what is going on now?

Tanarii
2017-09-01, 09:33 AM
I think an important element in deciding how to resolve and describe actions, whether social or combat or anything, is understanding and consistently applying what level of abstraction the rules are describing. This determines the manner in which players should be declaring their actions and intentions. Agreed, that's best. Where people often get all hung up is assuming that the rules are necessarily simulationist. Or rather, not simulationist enough for their tastes.

The rules are there to tell you how to resolve an in-game situation. They are necessarily some part simulation and some part abstraction. Some aspects of declared action must be determined before resolution based on level of abstraction. Some aspects of outcomes must be determined after resolution based on how it resolves.

But stuff not covered by the rule can be described (or narrated, a term I dislike but many prefer) independently of the rule and resolution. Because they are not covered by the abstraction at all. Even timing doesn't necessarily matter for those aspects.

(Edit: another place people get hung up is not being able to separate the components of declaration vs description in any given player or DM statement. Which portion of a statement is which varies depending on level of abstraction. So the same statement can be parsed different ways in different game systems. Or even in the same system, if the level of abstraction in a system depends on table interpretation.)

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-01, 09:50 AM
I think you may have hit an important point, a lot of the arguments about how social rules happen at lower levels of detail don't really make sense for me. But I think the idea that we expect them to occur at a higher level of detail might be right. For instance I see "I attack with my sword" and "I persuade by being friendly" as being a the same level of detail, yet I find myself more interested in the exact wording of the latter, than the swings of the former.

So maybe it is far to ask for more detail from a social system than a combat one, but I'm pretty sure that is what is happening.

Something people forget: This is a hobby we do for fun, what we (and our group) like and don't like is more important than any objective measure of quality. For instance I think suddenly switching to free-form when social interactions come up is a bad system.* However that is assuming social interaction and the results of have narrative weight, if they don't (in a dungeon-crawler where conversation is mostly just flavour text) than breaking out rules for it is a waste of time and you might as well do free-form.

* For reasons I have explained elsewhere in great detail elsewhere and can again is needed.


Right, and what I don't find fun at all is a system trying to dictate what comes out of my character's mouth. That's my space in the game, not the rules', and not the GM's.

I also don't find "social interaction as combat" to be fun at all... I don't think it's accurate, and it reminds me of how some very toxic real-life people approach all interactions with others as a zero-sum dominance exercise.

And I'm willing to sacrifice consistency in the rules of a game to avoid both of those.

Tinkerer
2017-09-01, 11:23 AM
That's all fine and good. Just as long as you remember to remove the parts of the game which support those before playing. It is extremely frustrating to bring a charisma focused character to a table which removed all the support for one and didn't bother to tell anybody because they didn't think it was important.

I tend to use a combination of most of the approaches listed here. In particular the state of the world I use a lot of the time on all sorts of skill rolls, ever since I had a case where a STR 22 warrior tried to lift a gate and failed miserably only to have the STR 8 wizard walk up and hoist it fairly easily. Any gaps that I have within a NPCs character history might easily be filled in by what the character rolls. If a player tries to seduce a guard and rolls great but delivers a flat line I'll respond to by having that NPC particularly interested an aspect of that character (I can't resist redheads etc...). I tend to use this for exceptions where the dice roll and the RP have very little to do with each other, which can happen quite a bit.

I use flat out ignoring the specific words and purely relying on the roll usually as a replacement on parts which we have no interest in role-playing (a ten hour long negotiation session) or at times where the impact would be greater by not knowing the words(the halfling walks up, stands on a chair, and whispers 6 words in the angry barbarians ear. The barbarian turns white as a sheet and shakily walks away).

And most commonly I use the roll as a modifier for what was said. I do think that this is the standard for what I've seen around the table and it works... moderately well. Deliver a fantastic speech and roll poorly? You get a mediocre result. Deliver a shoddy speech and roll well? Same thing. Of course this is where things really start to break down when you have people specializing in the skills and other people ignoring the skills.

What I never do is follow RAW within the binary systems. D&D is the worst offender in this case and I tend to recommend people ignore 90% of the content under Bluff, Intimidate, and (especially) Diplomacy. I also tend to ignore most of the systems which remove player agency within them unless I have cleared it with each and every player before hand. This is one time where I am perfectly fine with the PCs having special PC powers protecting them from.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-01, 04:01 PM
That's all fine and good. Just as long as you remember to remove the parts of the game which support those before playing. It is extremely frustrating to bring a charisma focused character to a table which removed all the support for one and didn't bother to tell anybody because they didn't think it was important.

I tend to use a combination of most of the approaches listed here. In particular the state of the world I use a lot of the time on all sorts of skill rolls, ever since I had a case where a STR 22 warrior tried to lift a gate and failed miserably only to have the STR 8 wizard walk up and hoist it fairly easily. Any gaps that I have within a NPCs character history might easily be filled in by what the character rolls. If a player tries to seduce a guard and rolls great but delivers a flat line I'll respond to by having that NPC particularly interested an aspect of that character (I can't resist redheads etc...). I tend to use this for exceptions where the dice roll and the RP have very little to do with each other, which can happen quite a bit.

I use flat out ignoring the specific words and purely relying on the roll usually as a replacement on parts which we have no interest in role-playing (a ten hour long negotiation session) or at times where the impact would be greater by not knowing the words(the halfling walks up, stands on a chair, and whispers 6 words in the angry barbarians ear. The barbarian turns white as a sheet and shakily walks away).

And most commonly I use the roll as a modifier for what was said. I do think that this is the standard for what I've seen around the table and it works... moderately well. Deliver a fantastic speech and roll poorly? You get a mediocre result. Deliver a shoddy speech and roll well? Same thing. Of course this is where things really start to break down when you have people specializing in the skills and other people ignoring the skills.

What I never do is follow RAW within the binary systems. D&D is the worst offender in this case and I tend to recommend people ignore 90% of the content under Bluff, Intimidate, and (especially) Diplomacy. I also tend to ignore most of the systems which remove player agency within them unless I have cleared it with each and every player before hand. This is one time where I am perfectly fine with the PCs having special PC powers protecting them from.

I'm not saying "never roll for social interaction". I'm saying "don't try to dictate the PCs actions via the outcome of a roll, only the result of their actions", and "don't treat social interaction as combat / build social mechanics off the same presumptions as combat".

Tinkerer
2017-09-01, 04:20 PM
I'm not saying "never roll for social interaction". I'm saying "don't try to dictate the PCs actions via the outcome of a roll, only the result of their actions", and "don't treat social interaction as combat / build social mechanics off the same presumptions as combat".

Sorry I meant if you are dealing with a system that uses either one of those make certain to tell the players that you are not using them before hand. Yes, I had a GM who removed that portion in Exalted and didn't bother to tell us until we started. While that wasn't a social focused character he definitely dabbled heavily in it which meant about 1/5 of my starting points were tied up in something which was made completely worthless. I was not a happy camper.

Tanarii
2017-09-01, 05:07 PM
I'm not saying "never roll for social interaction". I'm saying "don't try to dictate the PCs actions via the outcome of a roll, only the result of their actions", and "don't treat social interaction as combat / build social mechanics off the same presumptions as combat".
What is an action dictated by the PC vs what is an outcome determined by resolution vs what is description (because not first two) depends on the level of abstraction. That's the entire point.

In some systems if you hit or miss is an outcome. In others, if you attack or balk at the last second and don't attack at all might be an outcome. In others, if you attack head or legs might be an outcome. Or various of those might be the declared action. Or they might just be description.

Similarly, in some systems if you persuade or don't persuade might be an outcome. In others, if you use a commanding tone, your voice squeaks, or you forget to make it carry might be an outcome. In others finding the right argument might be an outcome. Or they might be part of the declared actions. Or they might be descriptions.

Edit: and no, those don't have to have the same levels of abstraction. And yeah, I recognize your personal preference on the matter. But up to your 2nd to last post it wasn't coming across as a personal preference.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-01, 05:10 PM
What is an action dictated by the PC vs what is an outcome determined by resolution vs what is description (because not first two) depends on the level of abstraction. That's the entire point.

In some systems if you hit or miss is an outcome. In others, if you attack or balk at the last second and don't attack at all might be an outcome. In others, if you attack head or legs might be an outcome. Or various of those might be the declared action. Or they might just be description.

Similarly, in some systems if you persuade or don't persuade might be an outcome. In others, if you use a commanding tone, your voice squeaks, or you forget to make it carry might be an outcome. In others finding the right argument might be an outcome. Or they might be part of the declared actions. Or they might be descriptions.

Edit: and no, those don't have to have the same levels of abstraction. And yeah, I recognize your personal preference on the matter. But up to your 2nd to last post it wasn't coming across as a personal preference.

And I'm saying that systems that treat the character's intent or attempted action as "an outcome" are, IMO, broken.

Tanarii
2017-09-01, 05:31 PM
And I'm saying that systems that treat the character's intent or attempted action as "an outcome" are, IMO, broken.
"I hit the opponent" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

"I shoot him in the arm" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

"I persuade him that X" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

"I speak commandingly" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

You're declaring an opinion that doesn't make much sense (IMO) without you also including that you are going to draw the line between intent or attempted action vs outcome based on where it belongs, in your opinion.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-01, 05:42 PM
"I hit the opponent" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

"I shoot him in the arm" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

"I persuade him that X" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

"I speak commandingly" is possibly an intent / declared action, an outcome, or a description.

You're declaring an opinion that doesn't make much sense (IMO) without you also including that you are going to draw the line between intent or attempted action vs outcome based on where it belongs, in your opinion.

The character's intent is to hit the enemy. The attack is the action. Whether it hits is the outcome.

The character's intent is to persuade the NPC. The words are the action. Whether their words persuade the NPC is the outcome.


(Which I thought I made clear in earlier posts.)

Tinkerer
2017-09-01, 05:58 PM
Honestly both methods have their strengths and drawbacks. Acting based on your roll does reduce player agency slightly (although one can argue that the agency is there but shifted to character creation) and requires more player skill. Rolling after acting allows you to say what you wish however it can definitely lead to a disconnect between what is said and the roll. You could deliver an amazing speech and have it completely bomb. The problem is that this is one of the few aspects that we actually enact in our gaming. It's like having a dice roll for jumping in a LARP after you actually just jumped across a chasm. I doubt that we will ever have a system that everyone agrees on, we just need to find out what works best at our tables and work with it.

Tanarii
2017-09-01, 06:01 PM
(As I've already laid out more than once.)
Yes you have. And I'm attempting to show you that where you're drawing the line for those is, like, just your opinion, man. I mean, it's basically just like my opinion, man, too. :smallwink: but it's still not some universal fact.

As an example of what I'm talking about, from combat:
In warhammer, you roll to hit, but where you hit is an outcome. But you can also declare where you want to hit, and directly roll to hit that spot. Either way, a Hit is a Hit, metal on meat. That isn't open to description.

Meanwhile in D&D a 'hit' may not actually put metal on meat at all. It reduces hit points. The description of what a reduction in hit points means is entirely up to the DM or player, and can affect what the actual action taken looked like, retroactively so to speak.

In Apocalypse World, description IS the declared action, basically speaking. You don't attempt to seduce unless you attempt to seduce. The result is a narrative consequence of resolution of the action.

Meanwhile in D&D 3e and later, a social interaction check can be as simple as 'I try to persuade him that X' followed by DM saying to roll, possibly followed by description of how the persuasion went down. Or it can be the DM jumping in when the player trays something that sounds like an attempt to persuade and saying to roll, and giving the reaction. Or something in between.

Thrudd
2017-09-01, 06:38 PM
Some of this is an issue with imprecise language. While sometimes a player says "I hit with my sword", it should be understood that they really are saying "I would like to try to hit with my sword" (or they should be made to understand this if they are confused).

For social encounters adjudicated at a more abstract level - ie "I attempt to sweet talk the guard into letting us go past" - the result of the dice gives you the result of the attempt, and you generally wouldn't bother then acting out the actual dialogue. The GM will say "the guard seems friendly towards you now, he banters with you for a bit and lets you go in." - and that's the end of it. It would be weird and pointless for the GM at that point to reenact a conversation in detail with the result already known.

If conversations are acted out in real-time, the same mechanics can be used, the rules still mechanically decide how the NPC reacts. It's just a preference of the GM or group. I allow players to do either, whatever they feel comfortable with or inspired to do in the moment. Regardless of their actual performance, however, the dice will still determine the resulting reactions of NPCs.

If social interaction is going to be subjective, improvised in real-time with results being determined by what the GM thinks of your acting/speaking skills, then any mechanics which the game might have dedicated to social interaction should be removed/ignored, and allow all character building resources to be placed in other areas that will be mechanically relevant. In this case, the "party face" will be whoever in-real-life is the best speaker.

Max_Killjoy
2017-09-01, 07:57 PM
I'm going to quit before it gets to where people think I'm judging other people's fun, but if nothing else this thread has helped me put into words some do and do not for the system I'm working on.

Tanarii
2017-09-01, 08:04 PM
I'm going to quit before it gets to where people think I'm judging other people's fun, but if nothing else this thread has helped me put into words some do and do not for the system I'm working on.
You did a good job of dialing it back to just being your (strong and forceful) opinion IMO.

Ravens_cry
2017-09-01, 10:30 PM
Look up Dogs in the Vinyard. It's a little narrative game about demon-hunting Mormons in the Old West that happens to have one of the best conflict-resolution systems ever put to page.

Definitely. I was going to mention this and saw it on the second page. To elaborate, Dogs in the Vineyard you have a bunch of attributes. Not just things like being strong and such, but also experiences and knowledge and many other things, including your authority as a 'Dog' (the aforementioned demon-hunting Mormons). You roll dice at the start of a conflict and use the results in (remembering vaguely) a check and raise system, using attributes that are relevant to the situation at hand. It had deliciously tense moments that really created a wonderful game feel.