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Pleh
2018-05-09, 03:53 PM
Forgive me on the title, it's hard to explain in few enough characters.

First off, I know a common view around here is to disband social skills mechanics entirely and replace them simply with freeform roleplaying. I like the idea and see the value, but that won't be any help to the question I want to ask.

I was tinkering with a custom system I'm designing (as most around here do at some point) and as I approached the subject of social skill mechanics, I began to wonder why D&D bothers separating diplomacy and bluff (or their alternative monikers, persuasion and deception, et al)? It seems clear to me that whether you were telling the truth ultimately doesn't change the act of convincing someone to believe something (unless you just stink at lying, but that feels like it's better represented by a flaw than a lack of investment of training). I know that isn't the only thing those skills are used for necessarily, but it feels like the primary use for either.

I had an idea. What if I lumped them together as the "Charm" skill? Convincing someone to believe and cooperate with you becomes how well you relate to them and less about whether the premise is sincere or counterfeit (again, unless your character suffers a nervous tick whenever they try to mislead other people). Obviously, if you are lying, the believability of the lie still comes into play, but so does the truth if the truth happens to be outlandish. The skill becomes focused on how good you are at winning the hearts and minds of others and whether you use this power for good or evil becomes a personal choice of conscience.

Most of my experience is D&D. Are there other systems that already do something like this? If not, are there any reasons that other systems consistently avoid this mechanic?

Koo Rehtorb
2018-05-09, 04:09 PM
It depends on the system, really. Of the games I've recently played:

Stars Without Number has one social skill: Persuade.

Torchbearer has four social skills: Persuader, Manipulator, Orator and Haggler.

In PbtA systems, outside of playbook specific stuff, you're just going to be rolling a stat to do a thing. Hot for Seduce/Manipulate, Hard for Go Aggro, etc.

Burning Wheel has: Brutal Intimidation, Coarse Persuasion, Command, Conspicuous, Etiquette, Extortion, Falsehood, Haggling, Inconspicuous, Instruction, Interrogation, Intimidation, Oratory, Persuasion, Ratiquette, Religious Diatribe, Rhetoric, Seduction, Silent Fury, Soothing Platitudes, Stentorious Debate, Suasion, Troll Etiquette, Ugly Truth and Voice of Thunder.

I think the common factor is the more nuanced and political you want the game to be the more robust the social system needs to be. Burning Wheel is hands down the best RPG for courtly intrigue, but that sort of skill list is massive overkill for a game that isn't about that.

Altair_the_Vexed
2018-05-09, 04:31 PM
They're quite different things - related, perhaps, but different.

Deception requires you to present falsehoods as true. Persuasion does not. Many people are not good at lying - so it's common to split them out.

The fact that lots of people who are charming turn out to also be deceptive doesn't mean that charming behaviour includes deception. I think that actually, if someone is really genuinely persuasive without deception, then you'd hardly notice they were doing it at all, and you wouldn't mind even if you did. It's the gits who trick us into things that make you think that deception is inherent in any charming demeanor.

LibraryOgre
2018-05-09, 05:26 PM
Really, it comes down to what you want your social skills to do, mechanically. I've become more of a fan of social combat as time has gone on, simply because of the dictum "Mechanical choices should have mechanical consequences." If Bob does not invest in Resist Persuasion and Sara does, and they're faced with someone who is being intimidating, Bob should not be able to say "I'm not intimidated" and have it mechanically matter... he may PLAY like he's brave, but Sara paid to be hard as nails... Bob can't declare it by fiat.

In designing more robust social combat systems for games that don't have them, I consider the various skills and what they should do. Now, this following bit requires knowing a bit about Hackmaster to completely follow, but I think that design principle shows through... the skills have a specific arena in which they're best employed.

Why Social Conflict?
Why Social Conflict rules? While one might argue that people should be willing to play the rolls against them (acting intimidated when they fail a Resist Persuasion v. Intimidation roll, or falling for it when someone uses Skilled Liar to mislead you, even though the player knows things the character does not), the fact is that success in Hackmaster is largely binary. HOW do I act intimidated? What is the effect of being intimidated on interactions with the aggressor? Is there a difference between falling for a lie by only a point or two, or when I fail by 50 points?

In short, social conflict systems exist to inform roleplaying, and provide mechanical advantages and disadvantages to mechanical acts. If you choose not to invest in Resist Persuasion and face someone with a high Intimidation skill, that choice should have consequences; likewise, if I choose to invest in Resist Persuasion, it should give me a meaningful advantage when facing interrogation over Bob, who is counting on 11/03 Wisdom... Bob shouldn't be able to say "Well, my character wouldn't be scared, no matter what the dice say!" and then do as Bob pleases anyway. I paid for my character to not be scared; Bob is just declaring his immunity by fiat.

The most basic social conflict roll is a single opposed test, with the aggressor rolling a skill based on whichever tack they intend to take, and the defender rolling an opposition skill based on that attack. This test may take very little time (Fast Talking or Distraction), or it may be an involved conversation (Interrogation or Diplomacy); this is determined by the GM. If the initial pass allows for it, a second check might be made, or the defender may counter-offer, if reasonable.

Note that many modifiers apply to these rolls; while a salesman might be able to convince you to buy a monkey, it can be Very Difficult for him to do so if you don’t want to buy a monkey, or if you don’t have the money he’s asking you for. Depending on their plan, it may also involve several different rolls, each of which is a possible point of failure for either of you… if they must convince you of a lie (Skilled Liar), in order to Persuade you to come to their room, where they might Seduce you, each of those is separate considerations, with its own difficulty (though, if you enthusiastically accept the lie, they may find it easier to Persuade you, and so on). A frequent and large modifier to this roll is one’s Encounter Reaction, as laid out on pages 66 and 67 of the GMG. A Player character does receive some advantage, here… their opponents never receive a bonus to aggressive skills based on encounter reaction. Even if you genuinely like an NPC or another player, they have no bonus to influence your PC without magic or prior social skill use.

Declining Social Conflict
It is possible to decline social conflict. However, in many cases, this represents simply going along with whatever the person wants. Don’t want to risk a Morale roll against someone trying to intimidate you? Do whatever they’re asking you to. Don’t want to endure weeks of torture? Just tell them everything, right at first. Declining social conflict will prevent you from having to fight, but may wind up impacting your honor, your purse, and your prospects.

But I Don’t Want to Do That!
Inevitably, PCs will fail social conflict rolls, either due to not beefing up their resist persuasion, or simple bad luck. They may argue that their character wouldn’t do that, that THEY are not convinced so their CHARACTER is not convinced, or that it ruins the fun if something other than a magical spell can force their character to behave precisely as the player wishes. This is somewhat analogous to arguing that their character DIDN’T die because the orc drove a spear through their chest, because it’s no fun if they have to do what they don’t want their character to do. Hackmaster is a game of choices, consequences, and, occasionally, luck eating your character like he’s a bar peanut. If you chose not to invest in Resist Persuasion or other social skills, then you are going to have a similar result in social conflicts to someone who chooses not to wear armor in physical conflicts. If you did invest in Resist Persuasion and have a horrible run of luck with the dice, well, sometimes even the dragon gets killed, and he’s got armor for days and hit points for miles. But, being a game of fairness, Hackmaster has a few remedies for those who don’t want to do what the dice tell them.

Honor, Luck, and Metagame mechanics
PCs faced with unfortunate rolls can always choose to use mulligans, reverse mulligans, bonuses, and honor burn to change the outcome. Luck points may also be used, within their restrictions, and Chivalry Points may be used to alter the roll IF it is a key, heroic roll in the story. You may use Chivalry Points to Intimidate Count Evilus, to resist his torture, or to influence the Treaty of Crag Keep, but it would not be much of a knightly story if you used them to haggle for a better price for your room or to Persuade the guards not to tell your wife about your indiscretions.

Ignoring the Results
If a player chooses to completely ignore the results of social conflict, doing whatever the like, anyway, then there is a built in mechanism for reprimanding them: the honor calculation. Each level, honor is calculated as on pages 114 and 115 of the Player’s Handbook. A player who ignores social conflict results should be judged harshly in the “General Role-Play” category… being immune to social conflict is little different than deciding that Fear of Heights was a nice bunch of BPs, and not a possibly crippling flaw in a high-wire thief.

The Progress of Social Conflict
The first part of social conflict is establishing the battlefield on which the players are facing each other; this is done through the Encounter Reaction check, as detailed in the GMG on pages 65-67. Player characters are, in most conflicts, immune to this chart… unless altered by magic or social conflict, their default reaction towards others is -2/+2… no bonus or penalty. Others, however, react to them and, should a GM choose to dice out a social conflict between NPCs, they may have different reactions to each other (a noble may be dismissive of the beggar person asking them for alms, while the beggar has a generally positive opinion of the noble).

Bonuses from a red (negative) reaction act as bonuses to defensive skill use; bonuses from a green (positive) reaction act as bonuses to aggressive skill use against the target. If, for example, Knuckles the Dwarf walks up to two guardsmen, and receives a -3/-7 reaction from the half-orc, and a +3/+7 reaction from the dwarf, his attempt to Persuade the half-orc would see the half-orc get a +10% bonus to Resist Persuasion… he doesn’t like Knuckles, he doesn’t trust Knuckles, so Knuckles is going to have to be good to get past him. Conversely, Knuckles will get a +5% bonus to his Persuasion skill against the dwarf… the dwarf thinks he’s ok, and is willing to listen. Depending on the circumstances, Intimidation, Interrogation, and Torture can be exceptions to this; if the general racial reaction to the aggressor’s race by the defender’s race is Fearful, or if the defender is Cowardly or otherwise of low Morale, encounter reaction modifiers can be bonuses to those skills… pixie-faeries are quite willing to be intimidated by grel. This is subject to GM discretion.

Once the general encounter reaction is known, the aggressor should choose her tack, and the skill associated with it, while the defender should choose his tack and the skill associated with it. The different skills have different uses and different outcomes, outlined below. In all cases, Resist Persuasion is an appropriate counter-skill to choose for defense; stubbornness will not get you far, but it can keep you from moving. Those highly skilled in other areas, however, might choose another skill; if your character is better at appraising than they are at resisting persuasion, they may fall back on that to avoid paying too much for goods, while a skilled salesman might use their own sales acumen to sell the seller on selling to them at the buyer’s price.

Social conflict then hinges on an opposed roll, the aggressive skil vs. the counter-skill; the results of this are compared to the “Social Conflict Results” table. Success, in this case, is determined as “Success for the aggressor”, while failure is “Failure for the aggressor.” In some cases, you will have instances of mutual aggression. You might find this in a diplomatic negotiation, an oratory debate, or when two burly fighters have a good-old-fashioned Intimidation stare-down. In that case, whoever wins gets results based on their degree of success; the loser of the contest does not likewise get the results of their failure.

Most social conflict is over after a single pass, which might take seconds, minutes, hours, or even days. Any success by more than 50 points, or failure by more than 25 points, results in an end to that social conflict, as there’s been a clear victor. Results in between might allow a new test; those tests suffer the results of the first test; it’s hard to intimidate someone who’s already made you stand down by force of will, and hard to seduce someone who’s already laughed you off. The table notes several instances where new tests are allowed; the GM may decide if others are appropriate.

The Skills and How They Are Used
Diplomacy: Diplomacy is best used when the goal is a long-term arrangement between groups; while it can be applied at the individual level, the nuances of diplomacy are in policy, and the give and take of interested parties and occasional non-compliance. Diplomacy’s end game is an agreement to take action, not necessarily a given action. It is often opposed by Diplomacy, where both sides are attempting to gain benefits and avoid costs.

Distraction: Distraction is about the instant; gaining attention for just a moment, to allow something else to happen. Great success at distraction results in longer distractions. It is only really opposed by Resist Persuasion; resisting the urge to look at the noisy, shiny, thing and concentrate on the task at hand.

Fast Talking: “If you can’t dazzle them with style, baffle them with .” Fast talking is a mirror to Distraction, in that its purpose is to divert the defender from paying attention to what the aggressor is doing. Fast Talking can be resisted by Scrutiny, as someone who pays enough attention to what’s happening will notice that you’re not really saying anything, and, possibly, note whatever you’re concealing.

Interrogation: Interrogation is compelling someone to answer questions without physical torture. A little bit Intimidation, a little bit Persuasion, Interrogation can be foiled by a Skilled Liar… someone capable of making the interrogator believe what they wish.

Intimidation: Intimidation is the fine art of making others consider their mortality, and its relative insignificance to your day. Success makes your opponent back down; great success may scare them off entirely. Intimidation can be resisted with Resist Persuasion, or opposed with Intimidation of your own. Intimidation can subject a player character to a morale check.

Oration: Oration is best used on large groups of people, bringing them around to your point of view by influencing their encounter reaction level. While Seduction is a targeted attack at an individual, Oration is an area of effect; trying to reverse them gets a tad weird, as the Orator who focuses on a single person lacks the fine control to tune their argument to the individual, and the seducer trying to work a crowd lacks the broad appeal. Oration can be opposed with Oration; debating an Orator and refuting their points can prevent them from affecting the crowd. Oration is one of the skills that can subject a player character to encounter reactions.

Persuasion: Persuasion is attempting to gain an immediate favor from someone, with little concrete offered in return; straight quid-pro-quo relationships are more often Diplomacy or Salesmanship, depending on the nature of the promises. Unsurprisingly, it is resisted with Resist Persuasion.

Salesmanship: Salesmanship is the art of the deal; exchanging money or goods for goods or services. It’s a matter of the give and take of cost and value; this much for so many, that much for so many more, and sweetening the deal without necessarily increasing your own cost. It can be resisted with Salesmanship, Resist Persuasion, or the appropriate Appraisal… knowing the value of something can help you avoid overpaying for it.

Seduction: While Seduction is usually thought of in carnal terms, the Art of Seduction is about improving a single person’s reaction to you. While this can involve carnal activity, it can also simply be a matter of finding out what they like and emphasizing that; a perfect cup of tea, a touch on the shoulder when they need it, or even stepping back so they can step forward. A skilled seduction artist makes their target love them; they can be foiled by a skilled actor, able to fake the responses that a seducer uses to gauge their next action. Seduction is one of the skills that can subject a player character to encounter reactions.

Skilled Liar: Skilled Liar is the art of making someone believe things that are not true. The more evidence there is, and the less immediate the circumstances, the harder it is to pull off a lie… a guilty man might believe “The guards are coming”, simply because the price of not believing it if it’s true is so high, but calmly informing a sage of meteorology that the sky is green is unlikely to be successful. Skilled Liar can be opposed with sufficient observation; noting tells that the person may not be telling the truth, as well as any evidence that what is said is not true.

Torture: Interrogation more sinister sibling, Torture “enhances” the typical questioning with the application of pain and discomfort to encourage a response. It is more likely to result in false positives than Interrogation, as desperate subjects say anything to end the torment, but has a visceral component that makes it possible with sadists and those who care less about the truth than breaking their opponents. A Skilled Liar can confound a torturer, getting them to follow false leads… though, some torturers may not care that they’ve received information.

Sidebar: Social Conflict or Simple Rolls
When should you use Social Conflict, and when you should use simple rolls? Generally, the more crucial the roll, and the more important the target, the more you should consider using Social Conflict. One does not need social conflict for every meat pie and white lie, but important interactions with important NPCs (or PCs) should fall back on basic social conflict rules.

Sidebar: PVP Social Conflict
There will come times when player characters will find themselves involved in social conflict with other player characters. Is your thief character lying about stealing from the party? Is your mage haggling with the fighter over an Illusionary Leather Armor spell? While role-playing can be used to resolve these, social conflict rules can be used to speed up the game and ajudicate cases of metagame knowledge… the whole table may know that the thief pocketed that ruby, but can their players catch it? The ambiguity can be resolved fairly with the dice, rather than an endless parade of “Did not!” v. “Did so!”

Link to table (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xgT1y_dBbeWWHuHuq3mrSUgA2mlYeTuGO70qPztD-_k/edit#gid=0)

Pleh
2018-05-09, 05:47 PM
The fact that lots of people who are charming turn out to also be deceptive doesn't mean that charming behaviour includes deception. I think that actually, if someone is really genuinely persuasive without deception, then you'd hardly notice they were doing it at all, and you wouldn't mind even if you did. It's the gits who trick us into things that make you think that deception is inherent in any charming demeanor.

Actually this isn't anything like what I was suggesting.

"Deception is inherent in any charming demeanor" isn't an equivalent statement to "charm is inherent in any deceptive performance."

Now, of course, some forms of deception involve very little effort to ingratiate the mark, but that's where I would be using the term, "charm" loosely to describe most any kind of reading the other person and using your understanding to produce a desired effect. This accurately describes an attempt to deceive as well as to persuade in a sincere and truthful manner.

The real difference under this structure is whether you are betraying the other person's trust and if that impedes your ability to charm them. But again, the truth can be so offputting or unreal seeming as to impede your ability to charm as well.

Does that communicate my idea more clearly?

PairO'Dice Lost
2018-05-10, 06:19 PM
The reason to have separate Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate skills is to allow separation of different archetypes and differentiating characters. Silver-tongued con men and corrupt politicians invest in Bluff, famous orators and kind-hearted princesses invest in Diplomacy, and muscled barbarians and stone-cold killers invest in Intimidate...and the con man can't try to project steely competence or appeal to his listeners' better ideals, the orator can't brazenly lie to a crowd or stoop so low as to threaten violence, and the barbarian can't use fancy city-man words for dishonorable trickery or pointless talking, because it's not in their respective natures.

Having a single Charm skill means that they're all equally competent at each of those tasks. Sure, most of the time they wouldn't try it anyway, but if forced into that position due to circumstances they could still succeed easily, barring large ad hoc GM penalties. This is similar to the issue of combining other skills: if you combine Climb, Jump, and Swim into Athletics, then an agile tribal warrior from the distant desert and a giant spider can both swim just as well as they can climb or jump despite the former never having seen a body of water larger than a tub before and the latter being a frikkin' giant spider.

So if you don't care about occasionally crossing archetypes or intend the GM to just say "no, it doesn't fit your character, you can't do that" (which most players would have a big problem with, by the way), or it's more important/realistic to you that someone good at one of those areas is competent in the others, then combining everything into one Social skill is fine; if you want to have more detail in the skill system and allow PCs to mechanically differentiate themselves from others, leave them separate.

A good way to thread the needle is the idea of skill groups or subskills. If you either have a Charm skill with Charm (Bluff), Charm (Diplomacy), and Charm (Intimidate) subskills, or have the three skills as "real" skills grouped into a Charm group and let characters invest in Charm rather than investing in Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate (possibly with restrictions, like per-class in D&D or requiring certain merits or templates in point-based systems), then you get the best of both worlds. The rogue can invest resources in Bluff, the paladin can invest resources in Diplomacy, and the barbarian can invest resources in Intimidate, so they each have their own niches, and the bard can invest resources in Charm and be good at all three without spending three (sub)skills' worth of resources.

Knaight
2018-05-10, 06:44 PM
Persuasion and Bluff are related skills, but there's a lot of ways for people to be better at one than the other beyond just being bad at lying or not. Rhetoric is a complex field with a lot of different skills within it, and while there are other ways to separate them (e.g. the classic ethos, pathos, logos split, which could actually be pretty fun when combined with resist ethos, resist pathos, resist logos to reflect different characters different ways of thinking) a division between presenting true information in such a way that it influences people and just lying is a real one.

Spore
2018-05-10, 07:13 PM
By this point I honestly would throw Bluff into the intelligence pool to create a hard differentiation between both. Charisma "Charm" and Intelligence "Logic" (maybe even together with Investigation?) could then be used to either convince the target by the force of your personality or by the sheer integrity of your arguments and logical structuring.

Altair_the_Vexed
2018-05-11, 04:41 AM
Actually this isn't anything like what I was suggesting.

"Deception is inherent in any charming demeanor" isn't an equivalent statement to "charm is inherent in any deceptive performance."

Now, of course, some forms of deception involve very little effort to ingratiate the mark, but that's where I would be using the term, "charm" loosely to describe most any kind of reading the other person and using your understanding to produce a desired effect. This accurately describes an attempt to deceive as well as to persuade in a sincere and truthful manner.

The real difference under this structure is whether you are betraying the other person's trust and if that impedes your ability to charm them. But again, the truth can be so offputting or unreal seeming as to impede your ability to charm as well.

Does that communicate my idea more clearly?

I knew that wasn't what you were suggesting - sorry if I appeared to imply that. I was using the term "makes you think" in the sense of "makes one think", or "makes us think".

Clearly persuasion and deception are mutually supporting - being good at one is likely to leak over into being good at the other - but I don't think it's necessarily always so. It's quite reasonable to think that a person who is good at charming or persuading folk may not be good at lying, and vice versa.

It's easy to imagine someone being blunt and forceful and getting people to see their point of view just by plainly laying it out - no sugar-coating, no deception.
Similarly, it's easy to think of a person who is exceptionally evasive, able to deflect questions without appearing to, but isn't very able to push forward their own agenda.

Of course, for a rules-light game, it'd probably be fine to pull persuasion and deception together - but in such a system I'd expect the same sort of merging to be applied to other skills and talents: for example, a merger of jumping, running, swimming, climbing, endurance, and so on into "Athletics".

Pleh
2018-05-11, 05:33 AM
It depends on the system, really. Of the games I've recently played:

Stars Without Number has one social skill: Persuade.

Torchbearer has four social skills: Persuader, Manipulator, Orator and Haggler.

In PbtA systems, outside of playbook specific stuff, you're just going to be rolling a stat to do a thing. Hot for Seduce/Manipulate, Hard for Go Aggro, etc.

Burning Wheel has: Brutal Intimidation, Coarse Persuasion, Command, Conspicuous, Etiquette, Extortion, Falsehood, Haggling, Inconspicuous, Instruction, Interrogation, Intimidation, Oratory, Persuasion, Ratiquette, Religious Diatribe, Rhetoric, Seduction, Silent Fury, Soothing Platitudes, Stentorious Debate, Suasion, Troll Etiquette, Ugly Truth and Voice of Thunder.

I think the common factor is the more nuanced and political you want the game to be the more robust the social system needs to be. Burning Wheel is hands down the best RPG for courtly intrigue, but that sort of skill list is massive overkill for a game that isn't about that.


Really, it comes down to what you want your social skills to do, mechanically. I've become more of a fan of social combat as time has gone on, simply because of the dictum "Mechanical choices should have mechanical consequences." If Bob does not invest in Resist Persuasion and Sara does, and they're faced with someone who is being intimidating, Bob should not be able to say "I'm not intimidated" and have it mechanically matter... he may PLAY like he's brave, but Sara paid to be hard as nails... Bob can't declare it by fiat.

In designing more robust social combat systems for games that don't have them, I consider the various skills and what they should do. Now, this following bit requires knowing a bit about Hackmaster to completely follow, but I think that design principle shows through... the skills have a specific arena in which they're best employed.

Why Social Conflict?
Why Social Conflict rules? While one might argue that people should be willing to play the rolls against them (acting intimidated when they fail a Resist Persuasion v. Intimidation roll, or falling for it when someone uses Skilled Liar to mislead you, even though the player knows things the character does not), the fact is that success in Hackmaster is largely binary. HOW do I act intimidated? What is the effect of being intimidated on interactions with the aggressor? Is there a difference between falling for a lie by only a point or two, or when I fail by 50 points?

In short, social conflict systems exist to inform roleplaying, and provide mechanical advantages and disadvantages to mechanical acts. If you choose not to invest in Resist Persuasion and face someone with a high Intimidation skill, that choice should have consequences; likewise, if I choose to invest in Resist Persuasion, it should give me a meaningful advantage when facing interrogation over Bob, who is counting on 11/03 Wisdom... Bob shouldn't be able to say "Well, my character wouldn't be scared, no matter what the dice say!" and then do as Bob pleases anyway. I paid for my character to not be scared; Bob is just declaring his immunity by fiat.

The most basic social conflict roll is a single opposed test, with the aggressor rolling a skill based on whichever tack they intend to take, and the defender rolling an opposition skill based on that attack. This test may take very little time (Fast Talking or Distraction), or it may be an involved conversation (Interrogation or Diplomacy); this is determined by the GM. If the initial pass allows for it, a second check might be made, or the defender may counter-offer, if reasonable.

Note that many modifiers apply to these rolls; while a salesman might be able to convince you to buy a monkey, it can be Very Difficult for him to do so if you don’t want to buy a monkey, or if you don’t have the money he’s asking you for. Depending on their plan, it may also involve several different rolls, each of which is a possible point of failure for either of you… if they must convince you of a lie (Skilled Liar), in order to Persuade you to come to their room, where they might Seduce you, each of those is separate considerations, with its own difficulty (though, if you enthusiastically accept the lie, they may find it easier to Persuade you, and so on). A frequent and large modifier to this roll is one’s Encounter Reaction, as laid out on pages 66 and 67 of the GMG. A Player character does receive some advantage, here… their opponents never receive a bonus to aggressive skills based on encounter reaction. Even if you genuinely like an NPC or another player, they have no bonus to influence your PC without magic or prior social skill use.

Declining Social Conflict
It is possible to decline social conflict. However, in many cases, this represents simply going along with whatever the person wants. Don’t want to risk a Morale roll against someone trying to intimidate you? Do whatever they’re asking you to. Don’t want to endure weeks of torture? Just tell them everything, right at first. Declining social conflict will prevent you from having to fight, but may wind up impacting your honor, your purse, and your prospects.

But I Don’t Want to Do That!
Inevitably, PCs will fail social conflict rolls, either due to not beefing up their resist persuasion, or simple bad luck. They may argue that their character wouldn’t do that, that THEY are not convinced so their CHARACTER is not convinced, or that it ruins the fun if something other than a magical spell can force their character to behave precisely as the player wishes. This is somewhat analogous to arguing that their character DIDN’T die because the orc drove a spear through their chest, because it’s no fun if they have to do what they don’t want their character to do. Hackmaster is a game of choices, consequences, and, occasionally, luck eating your character like he’s a bar peanut. If you chose not to invest in Resist Persuasion or other social skills, then you are going to have a similar result in social conflicts to someone who chooses not to wear armor in physical conflicts. If you did invest in Resist Persuasion and have a horrible run of luck with the dice, well, sometimes even the dragon gets killed, and he’s got armor for days and hit points for miles. But, being a game of fairness, Hackmaster has a few remedies for those who don’t want to do what the dice tell them.

Honor, Luck, and Metagame mechanics
PCs faced with unfortunate rolls can always choose to use mulligans, reverse mulligans, bonuses, and honor burn to change the outcome. Luck points may also be used, within their restrictions, and Chivalry Points may be used to alter the roll IF it is a key, heroic roll in the story. You may use Chivalry Points to Intimidate Count Evilus, to resist his torture, or to influence the Treaty of Crag Keep, but it would not be much of a knightly story if you used them to haggle for a better price for your room or to Persuade the guards not to tell your wife about your indiscretions.

Ignoring the Results
If a player chooses to completely ignore the results of social conflict, doing whatever the like, anyway, then there is a built in mechanism for reprimanding them: the honor calculation. Each level, honor is calculated as on pages 114 and 115 of the Player’s Handbook. A player who ignores social conflict results should be judged harshly in the “General Role-Play” category… being immune to social conflict is little different than deciding that Fear of Heights was a nice bunch of BPs, and not a possibly crippling flaw in a high-wire thief.

The Progress of Social Conflict
The first part of social conflict is establishing the battlefield on which the players are facing each other; this is done through the Encounter Reaction check, as detailed in the GMG on pages 65-67. Player characters are, in most conflicts, immune to this chart… unless altered by magic or social conflict, their default reaction towards others is -2/+2… no bonus or penalty. Others, however, react to them and, should a GM choose to dice out a social conflict between NPCs, they may have different reactions to each other (a noble may be dismissive of the beggar person asking them for alms, while the beggar has a generally positive opinion of the noble).

Bonuses from a red (negative) reaction act as bonuses to defensive skill use; bonuses from a green (positive) reaction act as bonuses to aggressive skill use against the target. If, for example, Knuckles the Dwarf walks up to two guardsmen, and receives a -3/-7 reaction from the half-orc, and a +3/+7 reaction from the dwarf, his attempt to Persuade the half-orc would see the half-orc get a +10% bonus to Resist Persuasion… he doesn’t like Knuckles, he doesn’t trust Knuckles, so Knuckles is going to have to be good to get past him. Conversely, Knuckles will get a +5% bonus to his Persuasion skill against the dwarf… the dwarf thinks he’s ok, and is willing to listen. Depending on the circumstances, Intimidation, Interrogation, and Torture can be exceptions to this; if the general racial reaction to the aggressor’s race by the defender’s race is Fearful, or if the defender is Cowardly or otherwise of low Morale, encounter reaction modifiers can be bonuses to those skills… pixie-faeries are quite willing to be intimidated by grel. This is subject to GM discretion.

Once the general encounter reaction is known, the aggressor should choose her tack, and the skill associated with it, while the defender should choose his tack and the skill associated with it. The different skills have different uses and different outcomes, outlined below. In all cases, Resist Persuasion is an appropriate counter-skill to choose for defense; stubbornness will not get you far, but it can keep you from moving. Those highly skilled in other areas, however, might choose another skill; if your character is better at appraising than they are at resisting persuasion, they may fall back on that to avoid paying too much for goods, while a skilled salesman might use their own sales acumen to sell the seller on selling to them at the buyer’s price.

Social conflict then hinges on an opposed roll, the aggressive skil vs. the counter-skill; the results of this are compared to the “Social Conflict Results” table. Success, in this case, is determined as “Success for the aggressor”, while failure is “Failure for the aggressor.” In some cases, you will have instances of mutual aggression. You might find this in a diplomatic negotiation, an oratory debate, or when two burly fighters have a good-old-fashioned Intimidation stare-down. In that case, whoever wins gets results based on their degree of success; the loser of the contest does not likewise get the results of their failure.

Most social conflict is over after a single pass, which might take seconds, minutes, hours, or even days. Any success by more than 50 points, or failure by more than 25 points, results in an end to that social conflict, as there’s been a clear victor. Results in between might allow a new test; those tests suffer the results of the first test; it’s hard to intimidate someone who’s already made you stand down by force of will, and hard to seduce someone who’s already laughed you off. The table notes several instances where new tests are allowed; the GM may decide if others are appropriate.

The Skills and How They Are Used
Diplomacy: Diplomacy is best used when the goal is a long-term arrangement between groups; while it can be applied at the individual level, the nuances of diplomacy are in policy, and the give and take of interested parties and occasional non-compliance. Diplomacy’s end game is an agreement to take action, not necessarily a given action. It is often opposed by Diplomacy, where both sides are attempting to gain benefits and avoid costs.

Distraction: Distraction is about the instant; gaining attention for just a moment, to allow something else to happen. Great success at distraction results in longer distractions. It is only really opposed by Resist Persuasion; resisting the urge to look at the noisy, shiny, thing and concentrate on the task at hand.

Fast Talking: “If you can’t dazzle them with style, baffle them with .” Fast talking is a mirror to Distraction, in that its purpose is to divert the defender from paying attention to what the aggressor is doing. Fast Talking can be resisted by Scrutiny, as someone who pays enough attention to what’s happening will notice that you’re not really saying anything, and, possibly, note whatever you’re concealing.

Interrogation: Interrogation is compelling someone to answer questions without physical torture. A little bit Intimidation, a little bit Persuasion, Interrogation can be foiled by a Skilled Liar… someone capable of making the interrogator believe what they wish.

Intimidation: Intimidation is the fine art of making others consider their mortality, and its relative insignificance to your day. Success makes your opponent back down; great success may scare them off entirely. Intimidation can be resisted with Resist Persuasion, or opposed with Intimidation of your own. Intimidation can subject a player character to a morale check.

Oration: Oration is best used on large groups of people, bringing them around to your point of view by influencing their encounter reaction level. While Seduction is a targeted attack at an individual, Oration is an area of effect; trying to reverse them gets a tad weird, as the Orator who focuses on a single person lacks the fine control to tune their argument to the individual, and the seducer trying to work a crowd lacks the broad appeal. Oration can be opposed with Oration; debating an Orator and refuting their points can prevent them from affecting the crowd. Oration is one of the skills that can subject a player character to encounter reactions.

Persuasion: Persuasion is attempting to gain an immediate favor from someone, with little concrete offered in return; straight quid-pro-quo relationships are more often Diplomacy or Salesmanship, depending on the nature of the promises. Unsurprisingly, it is resisted with Resist Persuasion.

Salesmanship: Salesmanship is the art of the deal; exchanging money or goods for goods or services. It’s a matter of the give and take of cost and value; this much for so many, that much for so many more, and sweetening the deal without necessarily increasing your own cost. It can be resisted with Salesmanship, Resist Persuasion, or the appropriate Appraisal… knowing the value of something can help you avoid overpaying for it.

Seduction: While Seduction is usually thought of in carnal terms, the Art of Seduction is about improving a single person’s reaction to you. While this can involve carnal activity, it can also simply be a matter of finding out what they like and emphasizing that; a perfect cup of tea, a touch on the shoulder when they need it, or even stepping back so they can step forward. A skilled seduction artist makes their target love them; they can be foiled by a skilled actor, able to fake the responses that a seducer uses to gauge their next action. Seduction is one of the skills that can subject a player character to encounter reactions.

Skilled Liar: Skilled Liar is the art of making someone believe things that are not true. The more evidence there is, and the less immediate the circumstances, the harder it is to pull off a lie… a guilty man might believe “The guards are coming”, simply because the price of not believing it if it’s true is so high, but calmly informing a sage of meteorology that the sky is green is unlikely to be successful. Skilled Liar can be opposed with sufficient observation; noting tells that the person may not be telling the truth, as well as any evidence that what is said is not true.

Torture: Interrogation more sinister sibling, Torture “enhances” the typical questioning with the application of pain and discomfort to encourage a response. It is more likely to result in false positives than Interrogation, as desperate subjects say anything to end the torment, but has a visceral component that makes it possible with sadists and those who care less about the truth than breaking their opponents. A Skilled Liar can confound a torturer, getting them to follow false leads… though, some torturers may not care that they’ve received information.

Sidebar: Social Conflict or Simple Rolls
When should you use Social Conflict, and when you should use simple rolls? Generally, the more crucial the roll, and the more important the target, the more you should consider using Social Conflict. One does not need social conflict for every meat pie and white lie, but important interactions with important NPCs (or PCs) should fall back on basic social conflict rules.

Sidebar: PVP Social Conflict
There will come times when player characters will find themselves involved in social conflict with other player characters. Is your thief character lying about stealing from the party? Is your mage haggling with the fighter over an Illusionary Leather Armor spell? While role-playing can be used to resolve these, social conflict rules can be used to speed up the game and ajudicate cases of metagame knowledge… the whole table may know that the thief pocketed that ruby, but can their players catch it? The ambiguity can be resolved fairly with the dice, rather than an endless parade of “Did not!” v. “Did so!”

Link to table (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xgT1y_dBbeWWHuHuq3mrSUgA2mlYeTuGO70qPztD-_k/edit#gid=0)

First off, I felt these were some particularly helpful answers: some systems do exactly what I'm proposing (more or less) while others go in completely the opposite direction and both are completely valid because games emphasize Social Combat differently.

That said, I've always been more of a fan of grouping the skills together that I've seen in the transition from 3.5 to 5e, let me revisit that topic here in a minute as some people have brought up that subject already.

I want to be clear that everything I'm advocating here is meant to be presented as opinion rather than fact. Especially in written form, my explanations of my personal perspective can seem like argumentation when they're meant to be more simple elaborations of my thoughts and open ended inquisitions. I'm working on it.


The reason to have separate Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate skills is to allow separation of different archetypes and differentiating characters. Silver-tongued con men and corrupt politicians invest in Bluff, famous orators and kind-hearted princesses invest in Diplomacy, and muscled barbarians and stone-cold killers invest in Intimidate...and the con man can't try to project steely competence or appeal to his listeners' better ideals, the orator can't brazenly lie to a crowd or stoop so low as to threaten violence, and the barbarian can't use fancy city-man words for dishonorable trickery or pointless talking, because it's not in their respective natures.

Actually, I had forgotten Intimidate in the discussion up to this point, which is a pretty substantial oversight on my part. I'm not sure that a single Charm skill would properly cover what is supposed to be happening when you attempt to intimidate a target. In fact, one of the criticisms I was pondering of my own design was what to do about the "Straight Man" Con (similar to Good Cop Bad Cop, but applicable to any situation with two cooperating cons) that requires that one person be Charming and the other specifically trying to make themselves look unappealing and undesirable.

Not that I've ever really seen this level of social combat tactics in my D&D games, but it's a popular enough fantasy trope that I would hope my finished system could cover it on at least a rudimentary level.To put it simply, why does Bluff require that you make the other person like you when several cons actually require the opposite effect with no decrease in the amount of deception being employed?

It definitely feels like a skill described as "charm" doesn't seem like it should include skills that do the opposite of charming a person. But when I go back to my original definition of the skill: "the ability to read and understand a person well enough to present yourself and your words in such a way as to be convincing to them," it makes me feel like that skill would absolutely be useful in intimidating or "uncharming" the other person.

Which leads me to the tentative conclusion that I might just be struggling with what best to name such a group skill.

On that point, I have been toying with the idea of making Charm more of a derived Trait (like HP) that is calculated from core abilities like Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma to give you a score (that can be independently modified by character options) and using it as the "core stat" for the family of skills that involve social combat.

I suppose that answers this one as well:


By this point I honestly would throw Bluff into the intelligence pool to create a hard differentiation between both. Charisma "Charm" and Intelligence "Logic" (maybe even together with Investigation?) could then be used to either convince the target by the force of your personality or by the sheer integrity of your arguments and logical structuring.


Having a single Charm skill means that they're all equally competent at each of those tasks. Sure, most of the time they wouldn't try it anyway, but if forced into that position due to circumstances they could still succeed easily, barring large ad hoc GM penalties. This is similar to the issue of combining other skills: if you combine Climb, Jump, and Swim into Athletics, then an agile tribal warrior from the distant desert and a giant spider can both swim just as well as they can climb or jump despite the former never having seen a body of water larger than a tub before and the latter being a frikkin' giant spider.

So if you don't care about occasionally crossing archetypes or intend the GM to just say "no, it doesn't fit your character, you can't do that" (which most players would have a big problem with, by the way), or it's more important/realistic to you that someone good at one of those areas is competent in the others, then combining everything into one Social skill is fine; if you want to have more detail in the skill system and allow PCs to mechanically differentiate themselves from others, leave them separate.

Okay, let's come back to the example of Athletics that I mentioned I would do earlier.

I like the 5e Athletics and Acrobatics groupings. My reason is that after 10 years of playing 3.5, I was always disheartened at the amount of effort it took to be legitimately good at the whole group of skills related to these things without sacrificing other character abilities or stooping to magic spells (because no one is actually THAT good at this stuff unless they just aren't good at anything else or manipulate the rules for cheese).

Now, I see the counter argument and it's valid: "but why is the Giant Spider good at swimming just because it's good at climbing?" First off, if I were writing the system and came to this problem, I would fix it by saying, "The Spider is terrible at climbing, but every creature with legs can walk without penalty and the Spider has the advantage of being allowed to walk on walls freely. They aren't making climb checks at any point."

That said, if I found myself playing a system that suggested the spider was excellent at swimming when it clearly shouldn't be and my players were stopping the game to protest, I'd probably just say, "sure, that makes sense," because I don't consider any of the rules in D&D to be higher priority than the active session. Of course, considering how long it takes creatures to drown, the spider likely would sink to the bottom and walk along the bottom back to the edge of the water (assuming it wasn't an ocean, but why on earth were you fighting a giant spider on the opens seas if it wasn't a naturally aquatic animal anyway?)

A good way to thread the needle is the idea of skill groups or subskills. If you either have a Charm skill with Charm (Bluff), Charm (Diplomacy), and Charm (Intimidate) subskills, or have the three skills as "real" skills grouped into a Charm group and let characters invest in Charm rather than investing in Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate (possibly with restrictions, like per-class in D&D or requiring certain merits or templates in point-based systems), then you get the best of both worlds. The rogue can invest resources in Bluff, the paladin can invest resources in Diplomacy, and the barbarian can invest resources in Intimidate, so they each have their own niches, and the bard can invest resources in Charm and be good at all three without spending three (sub)skills' worth of resources.[/QUOTE]

I had more thoughts and questions, but they'll have to wait for now.

Thank you all for the responses so far. They've been very thought provoking.

Anonymouswizard
2018-05-11, 09:13 AM
I once had a GM declare that Bluff skills are used to convince people of statements, while Persuasion skills were used to convince people to act, with games including seperate Diplomacy and Persuasion skills having Diplomacy walk the middle line.

It worked surprisingly well. The only time I've had a bonus to my bluff roll four telling the truth but it worked.

I own hands with one social skill, some with none, and a few with a handful. While I honestly prefer one to three I have to say that each variation does has it's merits. My list of Lamentations of the Flame Princess house rules includes a single skill for all social interactions (influence), and it works well because social stuff isn't a big part of those games. My GURPS games take the ruleset's decent number of social skills but no social combat and go for scenarios where taking to people is important, but not the focus. And so on.

Combining social skills into one works, as long as social skills aren't important to the game.

PairO'Dice Lost
2018-05-11, 12:59 PM
It definitely feels like a skill described as "charm" doesn't seem like it should include skills that do the opposite of charming a person. But when I go back to my original definition of the skill: "the ability to read and understand a person well enough to present yourself and your words in such a way as to be convincing to them," it makes me feel like that skill would absolutely be useful in intimidating or "uncharming" the other person.

Which leads me to the tentative conclusion that I might just be struggling with what best to name such a group skill.

One good option is "Rapport," which is what Fate calls its main social skill in most hacks. It simply means being able to understand and communicate with others well, without the specific personality connotations of Charm, so it should encompass Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate equally well.


On that point, I have been toying with the idea of making Charm more of a derived Trait (like HP) that is calculated from core abilities like Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma to give you a score (that can be independently modified by character options) and using it as the "core stat" for the family of skills that involve social combat.

I suppose that answers this one as well:

If you want to make this a derived stat, then I'd suggest also making Perception (Spot/Listen/Sense Motive, and probably Search) a derived stat as well. Not only is that a helpful change in general to avoid the "absolutely everyone wants max ranks in Spot and Listen to avoid ambushes" issue, but ensuring that everyone automatically has level-appropriate Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Spot, and Sense Motive makes it easier to design social conflict since you can assume that Bluff vs. Spot, Bluff vs. Sense Motive, Diplomacy vs. Sense Motive, etc. matchups will all be viable for at least some of the party.


Now, I see the counter argument and it's valid: "but why is the Giant Spider good at swimming just because it's good at climbing?" First off, if I were writing the system and came to this problem, I would fix it by saying, "The Spider is terrible at climbing, but every creature with legs can walk without penalty and the Spider has the advantage of being allowed to walk on walls freely. They aren't making climb checks at any point."

Climb and Swim in particular actually have a pretty good solution to the problem in core already: creatures with a climb speed or swim speed can automatically climb or swim at a certain rate and then get an inherent +8 bonus to checks to do something fancy like climb while being attacked or swim in a storm, allowing those creatures to have low ranks in a hypothetical Athletics skill but still a good modifier for Athletics (Climb) or Athletics (Swim) if the need arises.

That's where the subskill/skill group comes in, being able to enumerate both the larger groupings and the individual applications so you get things like "Invisibility grants +20 to Stealth (Hide) and silence obviates Stealth (Move Silently), so you can just roll Stealth most of the time but roll them separately if it's ever important to determine whether you're seen but not heard or vice versa" as opposed to things like "Invisibility and silence grant large bonuses to Stealth, so silence makes you harder to see and invisibility makes you harder to hear."


That said, if I found myself playing a system that suggested the spider was excellent at swimming when it clearly shouldn't be and my players were stopping the game to protest, I'd probably just say, "sure, that makes sense," because I don't consider any of the rules in D&D to be higher priority than the active session. Of course, considering how long it takes creatures to drown, the spider likely would sink to the bottom and walk along the bottom back to the edge of the water (assuming it wasn't an ocean, but why on earth were you fighting a giant spider on the opens seas if it wasn't a naturally aquatic animal anyway?)

Yeah, most of the time it doesn't really matter; I was explaining what the general rationale for keeping skills separate is, not why I personally would have a problem with combining them.

One easy way to solve the issue is to assess an "unfamiliarity" penalty, similar to nonproficiency penalties for weapons, when making checks that wouldn't make sense with a given background. If you're a desert-based warrior or a giant spider trying to swim, you get a -4 penalty to Athletics (Swim) checks but your Athletics (any other subskill) checks are unaffected. This naturally leads to unskilled creatures (low-level warriors and giant spiders) being bad at swimming when they should be but skilled characters (high-level warriors and...awakened giant spiders?) being Just That Good so they could still swim at a minor penalty to indicate their lack of familiarity--and since it's based in the flavor rather than being a "you didn't buy the right skill" sort of thing, if a desert warrior spends a lot of time on ships where he could theoretically practice swimming the DM can stop assessing the penalty to represent a newfound comfort with the task (but a giant spider, which is a mindless beast and doesn't make a habit of swimming laps, would be stuck with it).

This setup works nicely across the system, from honor-bound paladins being unfamiliar with Rapport (Bluff), adventurers encountering a crashed starship in the Barrier Peaks being unfamiliar with Knowledge (Technology), and so forth. Generally, a token concession to "my background says X" is enough to make the system feel right without imposing too much mechanical complexity.

Pleh
2018-05-11, 06:24 PM
Ok, I've got some time to catch up now.


Persuasion and Bluff are related skills, but there's a lot of ways for people to be better at one than the other beyond just being bad at lying or not. Rhetoric is a complex field with a lot of different skills within it, and while there are other ways to separate them (e.g. the classic ethos, pathos, logos split, which could actually be pretty fun when combined with resist ethos, resist pathos, resist logos to reflect different characters different ways of thinking) a division between presenting true information in such a way that it influences people and just lying is a real one.

I don't know what it is about this paragraph, but I feel as though if I were reading this kind of explanation in an RPG rulebook to explain how their social combat system works, I would glaze over, chuck the book aside, and tell my friends I'd rather just simplify the rolling mechanics than brush up on my psychology 101.


By this point I honestly would throw Bluff into the intelligence pool to create a hard differentiation between both. Charisma "Charm" and Intelligence "Logic" (maybe even together with Investigation?) could then be used to either convince the target by the force of your personality or by the sheer integrity of your arguments and logical structuring.

Actually, while I replied to this a bit earlier, I do have a bit of an aversion to this concept. Locking Bluff into Intelligence and Charm into Charisma would suggest that you could never try to bluff just by being a very charming fellow or make a diplomatic compromise through an appeal to the other person's sense of reason (which definitely messes with both my cognitive verisimilitude as well as my expectation of narrative tropes).

If I go with the Charm as Derived Stat, it would probably include all the mental stats in some combination.


I once had a GM declare that Bluff skills are used to convince people of statements, while Persuasion skills were used to convince people to act, with games including seperate Diplomacy and Persuasion skills having Diplomacy walk the middle line.

It worked surprisingly well. The only time I've had a bonus to my bluff roll four telling the truth but it worked.

This isn't very far off from what I was originally thinking, I suppose. Based on how you're describing these skills, I might have rather called Persuasion the "convince of statement," then Suggestion would be "convince to act," and Diplomacy works well for that middle territory. Haggling might work for that middle ground as well, or Deal Making. Seems like the point there is the skill of leveraging the "give and take" sort of like Binder Checks while making a pact.


I own hands with one social skill, some with none, and a few with a handful. While I honestly prefer one to three I have to say that each variation does has it's merits. My list of Lamentations of the Flame Princess house rules includes a single skill for all social interactions (influence), and it works well because social stuff isn't a big part of those games. My GURPS games take the ruleset's decent number of social skills but no social combat and go for scenarios where taking to people is important, but not the focus. And so on.

Combining social skills into one works, as long as social skills aren't important to the game.

This argument comes up a little, but I'm not completely convinced. You see, earlier I mentioned that there have been times in 3.5 where I was playing characters that are more physically focused: fighters, barbarians, rangers, scouts, monks, etc. The skill system in the game was quite diverse in the athletics and acrobatics style skills, which should imply that these skills are an important part of the game. And they ARE important in the infrequent cases that they come up, but that only makes it hurt all the more when I have to choose between actually being competent at these skills and focusing on the far more frequently relevant Combat abilities. After all, worst that can happen if I don't have enough athletics or acrobatics is that I'll have to soak some falling damage, expend some mundane resources like rope, or get help from the caster.

So I'm not too convinced that combining skills only helps games that deprioritize the skill set. In some cases, it can help the skills be safer investments (you don't have to put as much resources into them and the investments apply themselves further than they would if they were limited to specific scenarios). This is independent of how much they come into play in the game. Grouping them together makes them more accessible.

Does it close down niches? I dunno. Seems like any character I wanted to be in the "high spot" niche I wasn't exactly thrilled to be shortchanged on Listen and Search. Last time I wanted to be skilled at Jump I wasn't exactly looking at Climb and Swim to be outside that niche.

Actually, 3.5 Synergy rules feels like the right idea just not going far enough. It's that idea that some skills have some bleed through (being good at Balance ought to improve a number of other physical skills that require agility and control). Lumping them all into group skills actually strikes me as a more eloquent representation of this.


One good option is "Rapport," which is what Fate calls its main social skill in most hacks. It simply means being able to understand and communicate with others well, without the specific personality connotations of Charm, so it should encompass Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate equally well.

I also considered, "Insight" but it seems too broad (and better used in 5e).


If you want to make this a derived stat, then I'd suggest also making Perception (Spot/Listen/Sense Motive, and probably Search) a derived stat as well. Not only is that a helpful change in general to avoid the "absolutely everyone wants max ranks in Spot and Listen to avoid ambushes" issue, but ensuring that everyone automatically has level-appropriate Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Spot, and Sense Motive makes it easier to design social conflict since you can assume that Bluff vs. Spot, Bluff vs. Sense Motive, Diplomacy vs. Sense Motive, etc. matchups will all be viable for at least some of the party.

Yes, that was definitely on the table. I mostly hadn't mentioned it because I didn't want the thread to wander too far off topic. But to pull back the curtain a bit more for a moment, I was also thinking about making Endurance a Derived Trait that could potentially affect HP, HD, and Fort Saves (or whatever my game ends up using for those purposes).

The rest of your points are good. I'll need some more time to ponder.

RazorChain
2018-05-12, 01:02 PM
Forgive me on the title, it's hard to explain in few enough characters.

First off, I know a common view around here is to disband social skills mechanics entirely and replace them simply with freeform roleplaying. I like the idea and see the value, but that won't be any help to the question I want to ask.

I was tinkering with a custom system I'm designing (as most around here do at some point) and as I approached the subject of social skill mechanics, I began to wonder why D&D bothers separating diplomacy and bluff (or their alternative monikers, persuasion and deception, et al)? It seems clear to me that whether you were telling the truth ultimately doesn't change the act of convincing someone to believe something (unless you just stink at lying, but that feels like it's better represented by a flaw than a lack of investment of training). I know that isn't the only thing those skills are used for necessarily, but it feels like the primary use for either.

I had an idea. What if I lumped them together as the "Charm" skill? Convincing someone to believe and cooperate with you becomes how well you relate to them and less about whether the premise is sincere or counterfeit (again, unless your character suffers a nervous tick whenever they try to mislead other people). Obviously, if you are lying, the believability of the lie still comes into play, but so does the truth if the truth happens to be outlandish. The skill becomes focused on how good you are at winning the hearts and minds of others and whether you use this power for good or evil becomes a personal choice of conscience.

Most of my experience is D&D. Are there other systems that already do something like this? If not, are there any reasons that other systems consistently avoid this mechanic?


Some people like nuanced skill system while others don't. You can easily just pick up TWERPS which has only one stat if you like to simplify things.

With nuanced skill system it gives you options to personalize your character further. Let's say if you are a good diplomat and negotiator, it doesn't mean that you are a good con artist. This is why systems have variety of skills.

Or you can just simplify more and have Social, Combat, Knowledge, Magic and be done with it.

Gurps has a very nuanced skill system where you can have fast talk, diplomacy, acting, savour-faire, public speaking, intimidation, interrogation, sex appeal. All of these skills have a different purpose in the system.

Then Gurps has a simplified skill system where you have skill like SCIENCE! and just get done with it.

Persuasion and Bluff are different skills. You persuade the king that stationing a garrison near the goblin forest is good for trade that will get him more tax reveneues in the long run and level up his troops protecting the caravans. You are using rhetoric, logic and reason to convince the king to give you what you want, which is garrison near the goblin forest.

Bluffing is where you tell the king that the goblin warchief is mustering his forces for a raid and he has to send garrison to protect the border of his kingdom. You are bluffing, you have no clue who the goblin warchief is if there is any and if he's going raiding. You are just making stuff up to get the king to send troops to the goblin forest.

Pleh
2018-05-12, 03:15 PM
Persuasion and Bluff are different skills. You persuade the king that stationing a garrison near the goblin forest is good for trade that will get him more tax reveneues in the long run and level up his troops protecting the caravans. You are using rhetoric, logic and reason to convince the king to give you what you want, which is garrison near the goblin forest.

Bluffing is where you tell the king that the goblin warchief is mustering his forces for a raid and he has to send garrison to protect the border of his kingdom. You are bluffing, you have no clue who the goblin warchief is if there is any and if he's going raiding. You are just making stuff up to get the king to send troops to the goblin forest.

I don't really need help understanding the distinctions some games make. I play with those rules every week. I understand them. I just feel like combining them might be superior, which is why I was looking at opinions and alternative rule systems to contrast with.

After all, you can use rhetoric, logic, and reason while making a bluff. You could try to persuade the king without knowledge of the goblin warchief or misleading the king.

My reason for wanting to examine the pros and cons of combining the skills comes from the fact that (using your king example) the king can't tell the difference between your bluff check and your persuasion check (with few exceptions). There have been games I've played where the distinction was contested between players in the meta conversation.

I was inspired to talk about it when I started viewing the skill check from the perspective of the target. If the target of the check can't tell the difference, what benefit does the metagame have by making the distinction? Isn't it more about winning people over than truth or lies?

tedcahill2
2018-05-12, 10:06 PM
There are a lot of long posts here, and I didn't read them all. So please ignore if this has been mentioned.

The separation of the skills comes down with how granular the system aims to me. Simply put, the skill involved in diplomacy v bluff v intimidation can all be easily wrapped up into persuasion (i.e. using your words to convince other people to do what you want).

By that logic though balance, tumble, and escape artist could be wrapped into acrobatics and jump, climb and swim could be wrapped into athletics and hide and move silently in stealth and... you get my point.

Like you I'm working on some custom game mechanics and when I started getting into skills I ran into the same issue. I started toying with the idea of skill groups (getting multiple related skills at a lower investment) but there was still a lingering issue for me. If I make a character that good at diplomacy (let's just call it rank 5) then how the hell could I be so bad (let's say rank 0) at bluff and intimidation. Like you, I said to myself "the foundation of the skills are the same, social interactions, how can you be so good at one and so bad at the other". I'm still working on the details but I settled on using foundation skills and various focuses.

Using Persuasion as an example: persuasion would be a foundation skill, you can raise a foundation skill to rank 4. The persuasion foundation skill has the following focuses: diplomacy, negotiation, and intimidation (I have another foundation skill called deception that covers bluff and impersonation). A skill focus can never be more than double the rank of it's foundation skill. So to max diplomacy someone would have 4 ranks in persuasion and 8 ranks in diplomacy; clearly better at diplomacy, but still decent at other persuasive skills.

On a side note, the reason I kept persuasion and deception separate is because even though they both use words to convince someone of doing something, I think true deception, weaving a believable lie or impersonating someone you're disguised as, is a very different skill than persuading someone to your way of thinking. It's so much more than just words, it's tone and body language and I think they intersect less than you'd think.

Corneel
2018-05-13, 07:33 AM
My reason for wanting to examine the pros and cons of combining the skills comes from the fact that (using your king example) the king can't tell the difference between your bluff check and your persuasion check (with few exceptions). There have been games I've played where the distinction was contested between players in the meta conversation.

I was inspired to talk about it when I started viewing the skill check from the perspective of the target. If the target of the check can't tell the difference, what benefit does the metagame have by making the distinction? Isn't it more about winning people over than truth or lies?
When you succeed at the roll you might be right that there's no difference. When you fail on the other hand you'll be in the eyes of the king an untrustworthy liar in just one of the two cases. The fact that I probably don't have to explain which case is which is more than enough reason to keep two different skills.

Pleh
2018-05-13, 07:39 AM
When you succeed at the roll you might be right that there's no difference. When you fail on the other hand you'll be in the eyes of the king an untrustworthy liar in just one of the two cases. The fact that I probably don't have to explain which case is which is more than enough reason to keep two different skills.

Actually, if you bungle the Persuasion bad enough, you could be mistaken for lying. If you fail a bluff, just not very badly, you might not be accused, even if they become suspicious.

Corneel
2018-05-13, 08:08 AM
Actually, if you bungle the Persuasion bad enough, you could be mistaken for lying. If you fail a bluff, just not very badly, you might not be accused, even if they become suspicious.
Those are nuances that depend on the system you use and in edge cases; the basic difference remains.

But in the same line there is also the issue of persistence. The result of persuasion or any social skill that based on reasoning and setting out the facts is that you will have changed their mind, you influenced the way they make decisions and thus the result will be more persistent.

With bluff, you don't change their mind, you don't change how they reason, you just feed their existing thought processes wrong or biased information. However good your bluff is, when the person finds out you've been lying, which they more often then not will, sooner or later, goodwill dissipate immediately.

On the other hand, Bluff is easier or broader, you can make up any old nonsense, while for Persuasion you need at least the kernel of a sensible argument.

Pleh
2018-05-13, 09:01 AM
Those are nuances that depend on the system you use and in edge cases; the basic difference remains.

But in the same line there is also the issue of persistence. The result of persuasion or any social skill that based on reasoning and setting out the facts is that you will have changed their mind, you influenced the way they make decisions and thus the result will be more persistent.

With bluff, you don't change their mind, you don't change how they reason, you just feed their existing thought processes wrong or biased information. However good your bluff is, when the person finds out you've been lying, which they more often then not will, sooner or later, goodwill dissipate immediately.

On the other hand, Bluff is easier or broader, you can make up any old nonsense, while for Persuasion you need at least the kernel of a sensible argument.

I find it interesting that you would suggest that persuasion is the rational reasonable method of applying social skills while bluffing is not. Just a few responses earlier someone was claiming the opposite.

To clarify I guess what I'm really trying to say is that people keep trying to suggest that the delineation is very very clear but then they seem to have different ideas about exactly where the delineation occurs. This shakes my confidence in the veracity of their point

Corneel
2018-05-13, 10:17 AM
I find it interesting that you would suggest that persuasion is the rational reasonable method of applying social skills while bluffing is not. Just a few responses earlier someone was claiming the opposite.
Where? What I see is that someone suggesting linking bluff with intelligence. The way intelligence is used in D&D, it's certainly not exclusively about rationality, but includes what I would call "cunning" or "street smarts" and that is something you could argue is used in a bluff.
ETA: OK, I see it now. Note that he's the only one to interpret bluff that way and the main gist of his point is to have two different social skills, one Int based and the other Cha based (neither one called bluff). In view of how the rest view Persuasion and Bluff, I think asking an explanation on that would not be remiss.


To clarify I guess what I'm really trying to say is that people keep trying to suggest that the delineation is very very clear but then they seem to have different ideas about exactly where the delineation occurs. This shakes my confidence in the veracity of their point
I'm not saying the delineation is necessarily clear, but that is no reason to do away with different categories/skills etc. The delineation between different dialects in the Dutch-German dialect continuum is also arbitrary with the line between Dutch and German dialects having more to do with politics than linguistic differences (the dialect of my hometown, on the border of Belgian & Dutch Limburg, is closer to the dialect of Aachen in Germany than that of Ostend on the Belgian coast). That doesn't mean that grouping dialects in larger groups isn't a useful tool, and that there are substantial differences when you move 50 miles in any direction.

Or to go with a more D&D-y example: there is a whole group of bladed weapons that exist and the fact that there is an actual variation of lengths, weights and widths gradually transitioning into each other doesn't make the D&D categories of dagger, short sword, rapier, long sword, broad sword, bastard sword and great sword useless. Another person might want to simplify that into three categories: daggers, one handed swords and two handed swords for example and they would not necessarily be wrong. There's a case to be made for both, all depends on what level of detail you want and how heavily this is going to feature in your game and/or campaign.

And to continue, this will also mean that social skills might be carved up differently, and even sometimes bleeding into/overlapping with other large domains (such as intellectual skills or stealth).

Pleh
2018-05-13, 11:59 AM
Thanks for bearing with me. I recognize this is a bit of a sticky subject to begin with.


I'm not saying the delineation is necessarily clear, but that is no reason to do away with different categories/skills etc.

Well the lack of clariry doesn't strike me as a reason to move away from granular skill categories. It's more of a reason to not allow myself to be too attached to that design.

The reason I feel a repulsion (like electric charge, not emotional disgust) to granular skills is that it's beginning to feel to me like it closes more doors than it opens. People argue in support on the basis of protecting niches, but (from my experience in 3.5) it feels like it ends up preventing the niches people actually want to play from having all the tools they need.

I mean, the best skills are the caster skills, not only because magic is trump card, but because they really don't granulate the related skills. Caster skills (again, 3.5) boil down to Concentration, Spellcraft, Know. Arcana, and UMD. Can you imagine if there was granulated Knowledges for each school of arcane magic? Granulated UMD for each category of magic device? Separate Divine and Arcane Spellcraft? I mean, why should knowing how to use a wand allow you to be just as good at using a scroll? From a game balance concern, having skills that handle the magic trump card and don't have to spread skill points over 6 times as many skills. They have enough points to keep up with DC curves because each skill covers a broad stretch of power.

I like lumping jump, climb, swim into athletics. Characters that have reason to train in one usually don't have reason to neglect the others (except maybe swim, it's the odd duck sometimes) unless they just don't have enough skill points.

And I ask about the social skill set because it seems to flirt that line between representing totally different abilities, and related abilities that few would develop independent of the other skills (almost that you might have to intentionally omit the others to not end up getting better at them incidentally).


Or to go with a more D&D-y example: there is a whole group of bladed weapons that exist and the fact that there is an actual variation of lengths, weights and widths gradually transitioning into each other doesn't make the D&D categories of dagger, short sword, rapier, long sword, broad sword, bastard sword and great sword useless. Another person might want to simplify that into three categories: daggers, one handed swords and two handed swords for example and they would not necessarily be wrong. There's a case to be made for both, all depends on what level of detail you want and how heavily this is going to feature in your game and/or campaign.

Funny you mention that, because I was thinking about adopting a universal damage system to free players up from the optimization game and use whatever weapons they want. No more giving up that one esoteric weapon that perfectly fits your concept just because this other weapon that everyone uses is the best weapon for that type of character.


And to continue, this will also mean that social skills might be carved up differently, and even sometimes bleeding into/overlapping with other large domains (such as intellectual skills or stealth).

I'm intrigued. Got any examples of this bleed through into large domains?

Corneel
2018-05-13, 01:15 PM
I'm intrigued. Got any examples of this bleed through into large domains?
Note that I'm speaking in general terms and not D&D specific, and as mentioned it probably means cutting up things differently from D&D 3.5. So I mean that certain social skills or proficiencies or whatever you like to call them might at the edges touch upon non-social skill domains (like knowledge or stealth), so the larger domains being like social, intellect/knowledge, physical, etc.

I'm also an advocate of not automatically tying skills to attributes (so for instance not always using Cha with a certain social skill but depending on circumstances and what you're trying to do, sometimes use Int or Wis). So this plays into this.

But here are some examples/ideas. Note that these are not really for your standard D&D:

Mercantile: includes haggling for price, but also having a general idea of the relative value of most merchandise and having an general idea where to find what in a marketplace/bazaar (social+knowledge/intellect)
Subterfuge: can in certain cases have some overlap with Stealth, like when shadowing someone or when trying to meld with the crowd.
Streetwise: knowing the ins and outs of the underbelly of the cities and how to interact with them (social+knowledge/intellect)
Politics and Bureaucracy: knowing your way around the people that administrate the (other) people, how to peddle influence and who, how and when to bribe (social+knowledge/intellect)

Pleh
2018-05-13, 02:21 PM
Note that I'm speaking in general terms and not D&D specific, and as mentioned it probably means cutting up things differently from D&D 3.5.

I draw on 3.5 as my personal primary source of RPG expetience, so posting here is actually looking for advice from a larger pool of experience without buying and reading dozens of books.


Mercantile: includes haggling for price, but also having a general idea of the relative value of most merchandise and having an general idea where to find what in a marketplace/bazaar (social+knowledge/intellect)
Subterfuge: can in certain cases have some overlap with Stealth, like when shadowing someone or when trying to meld with the crowd.
Streetwise: knowing the ins and outs of the underbelly of the cities and how to interact with them (social+knowledge/intellect)
Politics and Bureaucracy: knowing your way around the people that administrate the (other) people, how to peddle influence and who, how and when to bribe (social+knowledge/intellect)

This is excellent. I'll have to take some time to chew on this model for a bit. Much appreciated.

Corneel
2018-05-13, 04:26 PM
I draw on 3.5 as my personal primary source of RPG expetience, so posting here is actually looking for advice from a larger pool of experience without buying and reading dozens of books.



This is excellent. I'll have to take some time to chew on this model for a bit. Much appreciated.
I'll give you the more purely social ones then also:
Charm: Improving your relation with a person, improving their disposition, without necessarily looking for a specific outcome. Basic uses are flattery, seduction, making friends etc., might be used for fast-talking.
Swagger: Making an impression, be imposing. Basic uses are intimidation, and boasting or telling impressive tales (about yourself).
Leadership: Motivating troops, getting them to obey or rallying them. Wider applications in firing up a mob to storm the palace for instance or giving motivating speeches.
Empathy: A bit like "Sense motive" but larger. You have read on people and it might even be used more actively in drawing out people or in a non-confrontational interrogation (think of a cop interviewing a child witness).
Subterfuge: Deception, lies and disguise. Feigning facts and emotions. Fitting in with the crowd and pretending to be what you aren't.
Persuasion: Reasoning with people to try to get them to see your point of view. Convincing people. More than 50% of this forum.
Socialise: Hanging with the crowd, mingle and gossip and hear the juicy stories (much of 3.5's gather information would fall under this), showing someone a night on the town.

PairO'Dice Lost
2018-05-13, 06:45 PM
I mean, the best skills are the caster skills, not only because magic is trump card, but because they really don't granulate the related skills. Caster skills (again, 3.5) boil down to Concentration, Spellcraft, Know. Arcana, and UMD. Can you imagine if there was granulated Knowledges for each school of arcane magic? Granulated UMD for each category of magic device? Separate Divine and Arcane Spellcraft? I mean, why should knowing how to use a wand allow you to be just as good at using a scroll? From a game balance concern, having skills that handle the magic trump card and don't have to spread skill points over 6 times as many skills. They have enough points to keep up with DC curves because each skill covers a broad stretch of power.

They do granulate those skills a bit, actually. I end up playing "knowledge monkey"/"sage" type characters frequently on the rare occasion that I play rather than DM, because it usually means I'm shepherding a bunch of new players and having someone who can be the plot exposition guy is helpful. There are 10 different Knowledge subskills when they could really make do with fewer, and if you want to play someone who has level-appropriate ranks in all of them you basically have to play an Int-based caster who can afford to jack up his Int to get enough skill points. Which is really annoying, because you're rarely asked to roll, say, Knowledge (Dungeoneering), but on the off chance you are, it's usually something important.

And as for Kn:Arcana/Spellcraft/UMD, psionics has a separate trio of Kn:Psionics/Psicraft/UPD skills, so as soon as psionics are introduced you suddenly need twice as many skills to ID and work with magical effects and items you might run into...and I've known more than one DM to decide, upon seeing that, that splitting up Spellcraft and UMD into arcane and divine versions, and then introducing similar skills for incarnum, binding, etc., would be a good idea.

Which is to say that I completely agree with your overall point, and the situation is actually worse than you portrayed. :smallwink:


Funny you mention that, because I was thinking about adopting a universal damage system to free players up from the optimization game and use whatever weapons they want. No more giving up that one esoteric weapon that perfectly fits your concept just because this other weapon that everyone uses is the best weapon for that type of character.

In one of my current campaigns I'm using a build-your-own-weapon system, and it definitely helps remove the "one weapon to rule them all" issue. Pick a proficiency level (simple, martial, or exotic) to determine proficiency and the number of quality slots it has, pick one or more weapon groups based on proficiency level (like axes, mauls, spears, etc.) to determine damage type and proficiency benefits (I also have an expanded proficiency system; more on that if you're interested), pick weapon qualities (Massive for more damage, Reach for reach, Subtle for faster draw and hiding bonuses, Flexible for going around shields, etc.) up to the number of slots you have, and you have whatever weapon fits your vision for your character.


And I ask about the social skill set because it seems to flirt that line between representing totally different abilities, and related abilities that few would develop independent of the other skills (almost that you might have to intentionally omit the others to not end up getting better at them incidentally).


Note that I'm speaking in general terms and not D&D specific, and as mentioned it probably means cutting up things differently from D&D 3.5. So I mean that certain social skills or proficiencies or whatever you like to call them might at the edges touch upon non-social skill domains (like knowledge or stealth), so the larger domains being like social, intellect/knowledge, physical, etc.

I'm also an advocate of not automatically tying skills to attributes (so for instance not always using Cha with a certain social skill but depending on circumstances and what you're trying to do, sometimes use Int or Wis). So this plays into this.

I've used something similar to this in the past, and am working on fleshing out a more complete system. Basically, going farther than not always using an associated ability score, skills don't have an associated ability score and each skill can be used with each of the six attributes (in theory; some combinations won't be used often or at all), kind of like how Shadowrun has un-attribute-associated skills and always specifies "Roll [stat]+[skill]" for its checks. My skill list looks a lot like Corneel's, where each skill represents a general approach to doing things rather than representing the things you do.

Individual tasks/subskills for each skill (the "things you do" part) do have associated ability scores, though, based on what kind of task each is: Str-based rolls generally involved physical force or movement, Dex-based rolls generally involve finesse or complex/intricate/involved tasks, Con-based rolls generally involve long-term or endurance-based tasks, Int-based rolls generally involve knowing things (and replace Knowledge-type skills), Wis-based rolls generally involve intuition or observing/noticing details, and Cha-based rolls generally involve social interaction.

Detailed examples spoilered for length:

For a relevant social skills example, there are two skills for doing things in an underhanded fashion (Deception and Stealth, the former for tricking or misdirecting people and the latter for doing things unnoticed), and there's a skill called Culture that covers both "culture" as in customs and social institutions, like Corneel's Politics skill above, and also "culture" as in the arts and other upper-class pastimes. Here's how you might use those skills in practice and with which attributes:


Ability scoreDeception skill uses3e analogsStealth skill uses3e analogsCulture skill uses3e analogs[th]
StrFooling people as to what combat maneuver you're attempting, making people think you'll punch their head off if they don't cooperateBluff (feinting), IntimidateRapid stealthy movement, hanging from windowsills for a whileHide/Move Silently (with penalties for movement)N/AN/A
DexLegerdemain, pickpocketingSleight of Hand, Open Lock (simple locks)Careful stealthy movement, silently removing windowsHide/Move Silently (used normally), Disable Device (traps), Open Lock (complex/puzzle locks)Playing instruments, art forms like painting or weavingCraft (Painting/Pottery/etc.), Perform (technical performance)
ConN/AN/AExtended stealth (like a sniper lying in wait or hanging from the rafters to overhear a conversation)N/AN/AN/A
IntForging documents, making and using ciphersForgery, Decipher Script (codes)Tailing people unnoticed, identifying hidden entrance points, constructing camouflageKnowledge (Architecture/Dungeoneering), Survival (urban tracking), some class featuresCultural knowledge, navigating bureaucracyAppraise, Knowledge (History/Local/Nobility), Decipher Script (legalese)
Wis"Reading" a mark for a later con, identifying fellow ne'er-do-wellsInnuendo (3.0), Sense Motive (noticing lies)Noticing pressure plates and alarmsSearch, TrapfindingIdentifying movers and shakers, determining how honest or corrupt an official isInnuendo (3.0), Sense Motive (getting a hunch)
ChaLying, making yourself look more dangerous or well-connectedBluff (lying), Intimidate, Gather Information (word on the street)Disguises, impersonationDisguise, Diplomacy (appeal to authority)Wheeling and dealing, public performanceDiplomacy (illicit deals), Perform (emotional performance), Gather Information (gossip at a party)


(A "N/A" doesn't mean those skill+attribute combinations can't be used, just that I couldn't think of a good example off the top of my head while making the table.)

So as you can see, these skill groupings mean that non-traditional social skills can all be used for social stuff, and there's some overlap in Bluff-like, Diplomacy-like, and Intimidate-like tasks depending on who the audience is and how you're going about the task. There's also ways to slice things up by attribute, like being able to train only certain attributes for a given skill for fewer resources than training the whole skill, having Bardic Knowledge effectively being able to substitute for any Int-based skill checks and Rage granting something similar for Str-based checks, and so forth, but that's all outside the skills themselves.

There aren't actual Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate skills in this setup that characters can take since all of those skills' uses fall under other skills (nor are there Knowledge or Spot/Listen skills, since those fall under Int- and Wis-based tasks, respectively, of other skills), but each of those is mostly covered by just one to three skills (Deception/Tactics, Culture/Empathy/Insight, and Deception/Empathy, respectively) so you can "be good at Bluff" without too much investment and it's possible to "be good at social skills" with enough skills trained.

So this has the benefits of the skill group/subskill setup I mentioned earlier, in that each skill covers quite a broad area so that characters can be fairly competent by default without investing too many resources into one area, but between splitting uses of certain old skills over multiple new skills and allowing training/specialization of subskills you don't have an issue where all the social characters invest in the same one to two "social interaction" skills and end up too similar to one another and you don't have to make a character or creature good at a bunch of related things if you want them to be good at one particular thing.


And to your earlier point about magic skills, though it's not directly relevant to the social skill discussion, there's Arcana, Nature, and Religion for arcane, divine (druid-y), and divine (priestly) magic, respectively. They each have areas of mundane use--the usual Knowledge (Arcana/Nature/Religion) stuff, plus Arcana has alchemy, harvesting and using monster parts, and working with magic traps; Nature has Survival and Profession (Sailor) navigation stuff, the parts of animal breeding and training that don't fall under Empathy, and herbalism and potion-making; and Religion has the social religious stuff like holidays, minor miracles like prophetic dreams and omens, and everything related to undead-slaying. On the magical side, they all have basically identical uses for their different categories of magic: Str for busting through force effects or other magical barriers and disrupting usage of magical abilities, Dex for hiding somatic components or using them in constricted spaces, Con for concentration and not losing spells when attacked, Int for identifying spells and items and some parts of UMD, Wis for sensing magic, and Cha for the rest of UMD and misdirecting observers as to what you're trying to cast.

So not only does this slightly granulate the magic skills so that "magic guy," "sneaky guy," and "social guy" can all handle their main area of focus with a single skill if they want to but really need two or three skills to cover everything, but it folds together the directly magical skills with other skills that martial and skilled classes might find useful (fighters might want Arcana for mage-slaying and Nature for healing without a divine caster, rangers want Nature for getting along in the wild and Religion to deal with some favored enemies, and so on) so that at higher levels you don't have the noncasters who have been immersed in magic and magic-users for many levels now still being unable to ID an enemy spell because they can't afford to and have no pressing reason to invest in Spellcraft.

Pleh
2018-05-14, 04:58 AM
They do granulate those skills a bit, actually. I end up playing "knowledge monkey"/"sage" type characters frequently on the rare occasion that I play rather than DM, because it usually means I'm shepherding a bunch of new players and having someone who can be the plot exposition guy is helpful. There are 10 different Knowledge subskills when they could really make do with fewer, and if you want to play someone who has level-appropriate ranks in all of them you basically have to play an Int-based caster who can afford to jack up his Int to get enough skill points. Which is really annoying, because you're rarely asked to roll, say, Knowledge (Dungeoneering), but on the off chance you are, it's usually something important.

And as for Kn:Arcana/Spellcraft/UMD, psionics has a separate trio of Kn:Psionics/Psicraft/UPD skills, so as soon as psionics are introduced you suddenly need twice as many skills to ID and work with magical effects and items you might run into...and I've known more than one DM to decide, upon seeing that, that splitting up Spellcraft and UMD into arcane and divine versions, and then introducing similar skills for incarnum, binding, etc., would be a good idea.

Which is to say that I completely agree with your overall point, and the situation is actually worse than you portrayed. :smallwink:

First off, the high int caster/sage is only one of the three builds I've seen commonly playing knowledge monkey in 3.5. The other two are Bard (bardic knowledge goes a long way) and Factotum (for knowledge devotion + inspiration synergy, knowledge truly is power). The caster/sage often grabs a few extra knowledges for having some bonus points leftover (and we rarely bother with psi skills, so maybe that's half my problem)


In one of my current campaigns I'm using a build-your-own-weapon system, and it definitely helps remove the "one weapon to rule them all" issue. Pick a proficiency level (simple, martial, or exotic) to determine proficiency and the number of quality slots it has, pick one or more weapon groups based on proficiency level (like axes, mauls, spears, etc.) to determine damage type and proficiency benefits (I also have an expanded proficiency system; more on that if you're interested), pick weapon qualities (Massive for more damage, Reach for reach, Subtle for faster draw and hiding bonuses, Flexible for going around shields, etc.) up to the number of slots you have, and you have whatever weapon fits your vision for your character.

I'm definitely interested, if you have the time.


I've used something similar to this in the past, and am working on fleshing out a more complete system. Basically, going farther than not always using an associated ability score, skills don't have an associated ability score and each skill can be used with each of the six attributes (in theory; some combinations won't be used often or at all), kind of like how Shadowrun has un-attribute-associated skills and always specifies "Roll [stat]+[skill]" for its checks. My skill list looks a lot like Corneel's, where each skill represents a general approach to doing things rather than representing the things you do.

This does remind me about that Serenity/Firefly RPG book I own that does something like this. Never really got a chance to play it, but maybe it's got some more things I had forgotten about

PairO'Dice Lost
2018-05-14, 03:17 PM
I'm definitely interested, if you have the time.

Of course. So, the basic goals of the system are (A) to fold in the boring-but-useful feats into things you get for free at starting levels, (B) to add "hooks" for downtime activities like training and crafting, and (C) to provide a way for low-level characters to be very good smiths, sages, guards, and so forth without requiring them to have lots of HD for the feats or skill ranks they'd otherwise require to fill those roles.

Explanation spoilered for length:
There are six proficiency categories and three proficiency ranks. The categories are Weapon, Armor, Knowledge, Profession, Region, and Faction. The first two map to weapon and armor proficiencies, the second two map to Knowledge and Profession/Perform subskills, and the last two sorta kinda map to affiliation rules and the variant Knowledge (Local) rules for Forgotten Realms. The proficiency ranks are Basic, Expert, and Master. Basic proficiency removes nonproficiency penalties and Expert and Master each grant a general benefit by category, and each proficiency has its own Basic/Expert/Master perks as well that are roughly on the scale of a feat.

Various other parts of the rules are modified to use proficiencies as prerequisites as much as possible, such as shortening feat trees and taking feat and skill taxes out of PrC prerequisites. They can also be used numerically for certain things (Basic = 1, Expert = 2, Master = 3), like multiplying crafting progress or adding to a weapon's threat range and other things that would be nice to scale to a small degree.

Weapon Proficiencies
These are by weapon type and fighting style: Axes, Crossbows, Dual Weapons, Mobile Fighting, Natural Weapons, etc. The general Expert perk is to not provoke AoOs when making combat maneuvers with associated weapons and the general Master perk is to reduce iterative or multiattack penalties with associated weapons; specific perks include things like Reflexive Toss for Master Thrown Weapons (threaten an area and make AoOs with thrown weapons) or Never Surrounded for Expert Dual Weapons (negate flanking bonuses while wielding two weapons).

Armor Proficiencies
These are by weight and material: Light Armor, Light Shields, Hide Armor, Scale Armor, Unarmored, etc. The general Expert perk is to increase AC by +1 and the general Master perk is to decrease ASF and effective armor weight for encumbrance; specific perks include things like Duck and Cover for Master Heavy Shields (take a move action to gain cover or improved cover) or Scorn Blows for Expert Heavy Armor (adds DR).

Because weapons and armor use a build-your-own system in conjunction to these rules, weapon and armor proficiencies are used to determine whether you can use common/rare/exotic armors and wield simple/martial/exotic weapons, and they also replace "boring" feats like Shield Specialization or Two-Weapon Defense.

Knowledge Proficiencies
These are by knowledge category: Outer Planes, Fey, Ancient History, Warfare, Commerce, etc. The general Expert perk is +5 to Knowledge checks in a sub-field like Outer Planes (Upper Planes) and the ability to take 10 on all such checks even under pressure and the general Master perk is +10 in a sub-sub-field like Outer Planes (Lower Planes [Gehenna]) and the ability to take 15 on those checks; specific perks include Art of War for Master Warfare (predict enemies' mass combat maneuvers) and Portal Hound for Expert Outer Planes (sense nearby portals and gain some idea of how to activate them).

Profession Proficiencies
These are by profession: Craftsman, Sailor, Barrister, Steward, Herbalist, etc. The general Expert perk is +5 to Profession checks in a sub-field like Craftsman (Blacksmithing) and the ability to roll Profession in place of other skill checks in a limited fashion (e.g. Expert Sailor could let you roll Profession instead of Climb to climb a ship's rigging, instead of Use Rope to tie up a ship, and so on) and the general Master perk is +10 in a sub-sub-field like Craftsman (Blacksmithing [Swords]) and a large reduction in the time required for relevant long-term tasks like crafting or researching things; specific perks include Common Language Families for Master Linguist (be able to speak and understand unknown languages at a basic level) and Pack Mule for Expert Laborer (increase encumbrance limits and reduce speed penalties for being encumbered).

Knowledge and profession proficiencies are used to replace Knowledge and Profession subskills in the core rules or to augment the skill tasks in the revised skill system posted earlier, and to replace "boring" feats like Skill Focus. The sub-field/sub-sub-field thing lets you have, say, a sage who's an expert on famous red dragons during the Third Suloise Dynasty or a blacksmith capable of reforging that broken legendary dwarven hammer without needing them to be ~12th level to let them reliably make DC 30 checks.

Region Proficiencies
These are by political region or natural region: Cormyr, The Sword Coast, North Underdark, The Sea of Swords, The Plane Of Fire, etc. Each rank gives you some knowledge of the area in all categories as a Knowledge proficiency one rank lower (so e.g. Basic Cormyr would give a Thayan the kind of common knowledge known by anyone who grew up in Cormyr, Expert Cormyr would give him Basic Politics, Basic Geography, Basic History, etc. knowledge strictly as it relates to Cormyr, and Master Cormyr would give him Expert Politics, Expert Geography, Expert History, etc. knowledge) and lets you speak some of the dominant languages of the region with varying levels of fluency (including things like local accents, handy for rogueish or diplomatic types).

Faction Proficiencies
These are by group: Cormyrean Nobility, Waterdeep Thieves Guild, Suel Arcanamachs, House Cannith, The Athar, etc. Each rank gives you some insider knowledge relevant to the faction in all categories as a Knowledge proficiency one rank lower, as Region proficiencies do, and gives you appropriate social benefits (and drawbacks) when your allegiance is known.

There are no specific perks for Region or Faction proficiencies, as they're very setting-specific and there are a bazillion regions and factions that would need to be filled out, but each rank gives a character a benefit of the player's choice from a short list of perks, including things like taking a regional feat after 1st level, meeting a race or affiliation PrC prereq despite not being that race or a member of that organization, gaining a big bonus to a certain Affiliation score, making a local contacts in a new area, and the like.

These proficiencies are used to address some rules quirks like "commoners can't make the Knowledge DC to identify a cow" or "this elf grew up in a forbidding forest but can't navigate it because the Survival DCs are too high," and to give mechanical weight to flavor/background things like an elf who grew up among dwarves or an orphan taken in by the Assassin's Guild so players and DMs don't have to have "But my character would know/have X!" conversations.


Each class and each race grants a fixed set weapon and armor proficiencies at the Basic level; (sub)races grant certain region proficiencies (often some fixed and some player-selectable from a certain) set, and (sub)classes grant fixed and selectable knowledge proficiencies. Characters can start with N profession and faction proficiencies of their choice (where N is higher if you start at higher levels). Multiple granted proficiencies stack to increase their rank, and each character gains bonus proficiency ranks like they gain bonus skill ranks from Int which may be spent to increase any proficiencies they like or to gain Basic proficiencies they weren't granted through their race or class.

For a very basic example, let's say elf grants Basic Swords and Basic Bows, fighter grants Basic proficiency with all weapon and armor proficiencies, wood elf lets you choose between Basic Dalelands and Basic High Forest, and fighter lets you choose between Basic History and Basic Warfare. A wood elf fighter would start with Expert Bows, Expert Swords, Basic High Forest, and Basic Warfare, and could pick any Profession or Faction proficiency desired; if the character has bonus proficiency ranks from Int, he could increase Expert Bows to Master Bows, increase Basic Warfare to Expert Warfare, or pick up, say, Basic Fey.


This does remind me about that Serenity/Firefly RPG book I own that does something like this. Never really got a chance to play it, but maybe it's got some more things I had forgotten about

Having skills and stats be entirely independent and specifying stat+skill every time is a common thing for dice pool systems, like Firefly and Shadowrun but also like the World of Darkness games, Legend of the Five Rings, and more. D&D has generally stuck to fixed ability scores for three reasons, first because 1e Non-Weapon Proficiencies were tied to ability scores because everything not class-based was tied to ability scores in those days and the ability associations were kept through the editions, second because in the 2e days anything that looked like they were copying from anything White Wolf would have been rejected out of hand, and third because D&D has been focused on being "the beginner RPG" for a while so a system where you can calculate one number for each skill and write it down instead of having to add a stat modifier each time was viewed as being better for playability.

But every edition has had a "Using NWPs/skills with a nonstandard ability score" section in the DMG or UA, going back to the original 1e introduction of NWPs, so the stat association was more of a "here's a guideline for beginners, the DM can get creative if they want to" thing that ended up being viewed more as a straitjacket and used as-is, the same way 3e PrCs were intended to be custom-made by DMs for specific settings or specific campaigns, but players liked the example ones and wanted to use them as-is and DMs didn't want to have to write up new ones for every game, so they kept publishing a lot more. So dissociating stats and skills isn't as revolutionary or "not-D&D" as it might seem at first.