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Pleh
2018-09-09, 09:24 AM
One of the major components of RPGs is what kinds of contests are mechanically structured.

Martial ("Combat" might be too general and overlap with other forms of contest) is usually rather thoroughly codified in the rules. In most systems, you roll dice to attack (or defend against) an opponent and success in attacking brings the enemy closer to physical disability (usually death).

Social is a different field that unfortunately in D&D is simplified to a single opposed roll. Why can't there be a system of similar persuasive mechanics where success gradually brings an opponent into agreement with you?

Perception is another field of contest usually reduced in D&D to a single opposed roll. How boring would combat be if the fight was abstracted by a single opposed roll? Stealth games become engaging when fumbling in stealth has the opportunity to recover with tactical response.

Magic has a finger in all these fields, but also has it's own separate arena of Counterspelling and Dispelling. Again, we see single opposed rolls where the system could be far more engaging if it were more tactical.

I don't have time for every thought on this right now, but I'll elaborate more soon.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I've got a few more minutes and no one's replied, so I'll edit to avoid double posts (sorry if it hits any ninjas/swordsages).

Disclosure: I draw a lot on D&D part because it's the main staple of TTRPGs, but also it's where most of my experience is.

When I speak of "tactical gameplay" for martial combat in D&D, I mean there are options for how to win without just shifting bonuses and penalties around. You can two hand a greatsword to take the upper hand with damage output, or you can use a spiked chain and shutdown charging enemies with trip attacks. Likewise, you can pick up a bow and kite the enemy around obstacles (or just fly above them). All of these choices belong in the same Field of Contest. You're using the same opposed skills (BAB vs AC), but you're trading some advantages for other advantages in response to your enemy's strategy. This "Field of Contest" is tactically diverse. You can change the course of the encounter as it progesses without having to totally change the game being played (like turning into a Social contest by trying to diplomancy the enemy out of hostility). While game changing is a valid tactic, I mean to define Tactical Gameplay differently to suggest that Martial Combat has tactical diversity without leaving that Field of Contest.

Social, Perception, and (let's call it) Counterspelling each could easily borrow the basic Combat framework from Martial to deeply enhance their tactical diversity.

Social already has some diversity. Most RPGs seem to have some representation of Bluff, Intimidation, and Persuasion (sometimes Haggling). There's some tactical choice to be made here. But (in D&D) it still seems to come down to a single check (sometimes a few follow ups if the first didn't outright fail or succeed) that tries to account for all the variables supposedly relevant to the check. But one of the results of D&D Persuasion is the infamous "Diplomancy," where a high enough skill modifier produces almost magical effects. I feel this wouldn't seem so spectacular if it weren't so suddenly resolved. Sure, sometimes you manage to say just the right thing and it totally changes someone's mind, but then sometimes you roll high and one shot enemies with a powerful strike. Wouldn't it be more fun/satisfying to see the progress of your character's argumentation unfold, round by round?

You can hopefully see the application to the fields of Perception (vs Stealth) and Counterspelling. Stealth already has some tactical diversity, but most of it just isn't given teeth to make much difference. The big ones are sneaking around undetected, but the concept of Sleight of Hand can be expanded to "hiding in plain sight" and being seen, but not noticed. Surely there could be a lot more tactical options here. Why is stealth generally over the moment a check is failed? Martial combat generally isn't over once an opponent lands a blow. I get the idea that you can't hide from someone looking at you without cover or concealment, but then they lock most of the options for breaking line of sight away under magic, which leaves much to be desired.

A couple other Fields that might be fun to make more tactical might be Movement and Healing. Movement as a component of martial combat is already quite tactical, but adding a layer of Parkour could benefit the Combat Tumblers and any encounter including a chase scene. It's somewhat anticlimactic to just roll opposed checks until someone trips or uses a spell. The Healing Contest could be amped up to expand the Heal skill and include Poisons and Diseases along with Injuries as the Opposed actor you battle with round by round (the urgency being to respond to the threat before the damage becomes more difficult to reverse).

And don't get me wrong. The power of magic to change any game into a Counterspelling contest is exactly the point of Magic. It's the trump suit and whoever has the higher trump is probably going to win. But it's almost too easy (in D&D). I know we don't want to balance a mechanic by making it annoying to use, that's not what I'm trying to suggest. I like the 3.5 Warlock and letting magic be as easy as At Will abilities in a game filled with daily spell slots. The diversity of the spells grants spellpower a tremendous tactical diversity on many Fields of Contest. I feel like the problem becomes that there's not much diversity of countermeasure. Some spells have specific counterspells and some spells directly counter enemy magic universally, but there's not exactly any tactical nuance to counterspelling. If you're successful, nothing happens and that is supposed to be exciting and engaging (that a turn was wasted). It's all or nothing and over in a round.

Now what if counterspelling was a war of attrition? What if somehow Will was another set of HP and spellcasters had to wear enemies down before they are weak enough for the spell to seize them? Clearly, some enemies will be naturally more or less vulnerable to magic than others. I imagine if I borrow the SW Saga Shield Rating rules and refluff them as Spell Resistance. Suppose every creature in 3.5 had SR, but it was equal to 15+Will modifier (+5 for magic resistant creatures and -5 for magic vulnerable creatures) and each time you beat their SR, it gets reduced by 5. Then creatures with weakened SR could make a Concentration check as a Standard Action to restore 5 points of SR (up to their max).

Now imagine if Fighters had a feat that disrupts this SR and Rogues could damage SR with sneak attacks. The wizard uses some low level buffs for allies, who go to work reducing the opponent's SR so the Wizard can finish with their game ender.

That's plenty enough for now. I hope it makes my first thoughts more clear.

Silly Name
2018-09-09, 11:34 AM
The short answer is that D&D remains a combat-focused system, and that social and perception contests being reduced to a single opposed roll is because of that.

There are a bunch of good systems out there with different and deeper mechanics for social encounters or stealth Vs. perception, because that's what they want to focus on. But they likely sacrifice something else in favour of their focus, because that's just how things are: if you focus on certain aspects, others will be neglected (of course, there are different degrees of neglect).

Koo Rehtorb
2018-09-09, 12:07 PM
D&D provides simplified mechanics for things like diplomacy and investigations because the game isn't about that so it gives you a tool to roll a die and then get back to killing things already.

Pleh
2018-09-09, 03:21 PM
Well, I get that combat is the main focus for D&D. Getting past that, I'm more interested in exploring the concept of building other forms of contest by beginning with the robust combat frame and tweaking it to fit.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-09-09, 03:32 PM
Well, you said your focus is D&D. All I can suggest is you look at some other RPGs that don't prioritize tactical combat over everything else. These are things that already exist. I don't think hacking D&D to focus on other things is an especially productive way to go about it. D&D is good at what D&D wants to be good at it.

RazorChain
2018-09-09, 05:03 PM
Gurps did this with it's supplement GURPS:Social Engineering. I run a highly political game where I draw a lot on those rules where the players use influence rolls and social perception to gain leverage.

This means that having positive reaction modifiers for initial impressions counts and using rank, status and reputation which is codified in the rules amounts to something.

So veiled insults, social slights, flattery, bluffs, even outright intimidation and all kinds of influence rolls become important aspect during scenes that contain court intrigue and even when dealing with the criminal underworld.

Knaight
2018-09-09, 06:23 PM
Outside of D&D other fields of contest are more common - from other action heavy games having chase rules to more focus on stealth or social systems. For instance Chronica Feudalis is built around exactly those four fields, with simplified interactions for everything else. Beyond those four there's also games with much more detailed rules for economic conflict, such as Red Markets, and rules for large scale institutional conflict in a variety of fields, such as Reign.

Pleh
2018-09-09, 07:25 PM
Well, you said your focus is D&D. All I can suggest is you look at some other RPGs that don't prioritize tactical combat over everything else. These are things that already exist. I don't think hacking D&D to focus on other things is an especially productive way to go about it. D&D is good at what D&D wants to be good at it.

Then I miscommunicated. I meant to say that I have to start there because it's 90% of what I know, not that I necessarily wanted to end it there.

RazorChain
2018-09-09, 10:01 PM
Magic in some instances falls under the tactical element, at least during combat.

Some systems like Ars Magic have you doing research to get the result you want, track down an item for arcane connection or find something for the law of sympathetic magic, then you have to prepare a ritual, use your Ars liberales for best effect, do a horoscope to cast it at the best time according to the position of the heavenly bodies. Then you can finally cast your spell.

It also has a decent multi turn rules for non lethal magical duels.

Then again you track time differently in Ars Magic a where most campaigns span decades.

What factors in DnD is that you never fail your spells unless interrupted.

Then we also have to factor in time, more rolls take more time

ExLibrisMortis
2018-09-09, 10:27 PM
Perception, in D&D 3.5, is mostly a matter of special senses (darkvision, blindsight, Mindsight, touchsight, Lifesense, tremorsense, blindsense, see invisibility, true seeing, Nemesis, scent, scry...) and their countermeasures, but I agree it's not nearly as structured and accessible as simple melee combat.

D&D 3.5 social skills are clearer and more structured, just very simple and monotonous. I'm not sure a good set of rules covers social interaction to the same level of detail as melee combat ("roll 12 or higher to land this argument for 2d8+4 morale points of damage--they've only got 10 morale points left before you convince them!"), but a simple d20 roll doesn't cut it. I started writing a set of house rules for negotiation processes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23343762&postcount=83), with the idea that it's like a trick-taking game where each trick is a contested proposition/argument, but I think it ended up being too complicated for shorter or routine conversations, and too monotonous to really match the melee combat system in depth (also because I used the D&D skill system, which is pretty monotonous).

Pleh
2018-09-10, 04:53 AM
In various threads, I keep hearing good things about Ars Magica. I'll need to see if I can budget a copy of that game sometime.

ExLibris, that link wasn't working for me somehow, but you seem to have my point pretty well. I'm envisioning a variant of D&D where characters have more derived traits similar to HP and AC for these other forms of challenge. Maybe Morale could be the character's resistance to persuasion against their own beliefs (like their Social HP) and Resolve could be their resistance to individual arguments (like AC). There could then be a notoriety/reputation system that parallels attack bonus, like honor/infamy and authority structure such as guild membership or even a sherriff badge.

A big rule has to be that Diplomancy can't be a trump in PVP (though the rules should be robust enough to cover that scenario). I think that cheapens the game experience when one player can tell another player what their character is going to do just because one character is optimized for winning arguments. I know 3.5 already allows Dominating party members to some degree, but I'd want to make it clear that Social PVP should only happen when both players are happy to accept the possible outcomes of the duel. It shouldn't be used in place of players taking time to discuss party direction, motivation, and objective.

Other derived traits might be Awareness (as like a Passive Perception AC), Mutability (bonus to stealth "attack"), Focus (for Counterspell attack mod), and my previously mentioned SR for the Spell/Counterspell arena.

I'm just trying to get the gist of the idea out there. Maybe it's like another system already published, maybe it's just unique for now.

RazorChain
2018-09-11, 01:21 AM
4th edition of Ars Magic a is free

http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG0204.php

Kaptin Keen
2018-09-11, 03:24 AM
Social is a different field that unfortunately in D&D is simplified to a single opposed roll. Why can't there be a system of similar persuasive mechanics where success gradually brings an opponent into agreement with you?

Perception is another field of contest usually reduced in D&D to a single opposed roll. How boring would combat be if the fight was abstracted by a single opposed roll? Stealth games become engaging when fumbling in stealth has the opportunity to recover with tactical response.

I feel in DND social interactions should be roleplayed. The roll should always affect - but not determine - the outcome. So you're haggling over the price of a new charger (or whatever), and you roleplay that to perfection - then you roll the dice, and fail miserably. In my book, you should still get a good price for the animal, but with some sort of nod towards the bad dice roll. Like, you get the horse, but now you need all the saddle and barding and other gear, and that needs to be tailored for such a fine specimen, and that's gonna cost you a pretty penny.

Perception is, by it's nature, is all or nothing. Whether it's a ships sail on the horizon, or sneaking past a guard - it's either spotted, or it isn't. That's not to say that it automatically ends there. A guard that's somehow alerted might investigate, or he might sound a general alarm.

In other words, I'm not sure I agree it's all black or white. But the systems you mention need you to actively work with them to be interesting. That's good or bad - depending on whether you do or not.

Pleh
2018-09-11, 05:08 AM
I feel in DND social interactions should be roleplayed.

There are two school of thought: social should be roleplayed, social should be mechanically abstracted. Both are valid, but if you have a mechanical ruleset, players can set it aside to roleplay instead at any time. If you don't have rules, then it's much harder to compensate when a player expects their character to be a smooth talker, but isn't sure how to play it out in a given scenario.

Ultimately, I find it more useful to have rules you might not need for every game dialogue then need rules you don't have.


Perception is, by it's nature, is all or nothing.

Yes and no. Martial Combat is very all or nothing, too. Your attack hits or it doesn't. You either die or keep on living.

My point is that perception can be gradual like martial combat, too. You fail a check snd a stick snaps loudly below your foot. The guard might immediately notice you, turn hostile, and initiate combat. But we're missing an opportunity for engaging gameplay if that is what failure always looks like. Instead, the guard turns to investigate the noise, rolling to try to locate the source. R
The rogue counters with a maneuver to dive behind cover to hide, then the next round of checks begins.

Thinker
2018-09-11, 08:29 AM
I find that when I want to create a new process (whether for an RPG or, more often, for work) it helps to start with a flowchart. That helps me to visualize where I want to start, where I want to end, and how to get there. In your case, you should create a flowchart for social conflict and for perception. It sounds like you already have some ideas and you can fill in details as you refine your process more. Then, it's just a matter of building a few rules that support your proposed process.

Kaptin Keen
2018-09-11, 11:47 AM
There are two school of thought: social should be roleplayed, social should be mechanically abstracted. Both are valid, but if you have a mechanical ruleset, players can set it aside to roleplay instead at any time. If you don't have rules, then it's much harder to compensate when a player expects their character to be a smooth talker, but isn't sure how to play it out in a given scenario.

Ultimately, I find it more useful to have rules you might not need for every game dialogue then need rules you don't have.

Yes and no. Martial Combat is very all or nothing, too. Your attack hits or it doesn't. You either die or keep on living.

My point is that perception can be gradual like martial combat, too. You fail a check snd a stick snaps loudly below your foot. The guard might immediately notice you, turn hostile, and initiate combat. But we're missing an opportunity for engaging gameplay if that is what failure always looks like. Instead, the guard turns to investigate the noise, rolling to try to locate the source. R
The rogue counters with a maneuver to dive behind cover to hide, then the next round of checks begins.

I think the only thing we really disagree on is whether DND works for social interaction and the sort of ability based checks that perception is an example of. You could say that a climb check is as, or more hit-or-miss than a perception test.

I think I agree that the rules for those things in DND aren't great. But I think if they were stronger, more mechanically robust, that would be worse. I think it works as is, but maybe the designers should have explained how a single missed test doesn't automatically mean you should roll for initiative. Or that you fall to your death. Or that you get swindled on the horse trade.

But then on the other hand, I think those rules are entirely deliberate on the part of the DND designers. I think they felt (100% guesswork here) that giving stealth to rogues was game breaking enough, and giving them the chance to recover from a failed check would be just horrendously OP =)

terodil
2018-09-11, 03:52 PM
Pardon me if this is my inexperience talking, but I do not quite understand where the problem with D&D seems to reside for the OP and a lot of the (other) posters in this thread.

Rule 0: The DM creates the game world. If you (the DM) design the NPC properly, if the NPC has motivations, flaws, convictions etc, then it is easy enough to model a social interaction with the tools that D&D gives you. The rulebooks allow you to set the DC (e.g., politics-savvy monarch vs. gullible peasant), to hand out (dis)advantages (e.g., degree of goal overlap, or bonus for impressive roleplay via inspiration), and it even presents some suggestions on how to introduce reputation levels that PCs can build up with the NPCs. Nowhere does it say that social interactions have to be single step only. Quite the contrary, in fact, as the example with the reputation guidelines shows. If your PCs beat the DCs simply by virtue of their high modifiers, then you have failed to apply the same concept you naturally use when designing combat scenarios (XP threshold calculations etc.) to social situations. You have all the tools, why not use them?

Koo Rehtorb
2018-09-11, 03:56 PM
I'd like to expand on this a bit. Pardon me if this is my inexperience talking, but I do not quite understand where the problem with D&D seems to reside for the OP and a lot of the (other) posters in this thread.

Rule 0: The DM creates the game world. If you (the DM) design the NPC properly, if the NPC has motivations, flaws, convictions etc, then it is easy enough to model a social interaction with the tools that D&D gives you. The rulebook allows you to set the DC (e.g., monarch vs. peasant), to hand out (dis)advantages (e.g., degree of goal overlap), and it even presents some bits on reputation that PCs can build up with NPCs. Nowhere does it say that social interactions have to be single step only. Quite the contrary, in fact, as the example with the reputation guidelines shows. If your PCs beat the DCs simply by virtue of their high modifiers, then you have failed to apply the same concept you naturally use when designing combat scenarios (XP threshold calculations etc.) to social situations. You have all the tools, why not use them?

The "issue" is this is not in the rules in the same way things like hit points are. You have very clear rules for saying how much damage getting hit by a longsword does, how many hit points you have, and what happens when you run out of hit points. Rules for gradually chipping away at someone's point of view to convince them to join your side is much more "make it up yourself".

terodil
2018-09-11, 04:06 PM
The "issue" is this is not in the rules in the same way things like hit points are. You have very clear rules for saying how much damage getting hit by a longsword does, how many hit points you have, and what happens when you run out of hit points. Rules for gradually chipping away at someone's point of view to convince them to join your side is much more "make it up yourself".
With respect, that is just shifting the issue around. The equivalent of the 'sword does x damage' rule is the 'DC = CHA + modifiers' rule. The design of the combat situation, however, whether it's easy or not, whether it requires strategic thinking and preparation or not, is the equivalent of the design of the social interaction, which says whether your PCs need to chip away at an NPC's conviction for a long time or not, for example. Both are equally 'make it up yourself' -- source of the fun and, IMO, proof of the mettle of the DM.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-09-11, 05:07 PM
With respect, that is just shifting the issue around. The equivalent of the 'sword does x damage' rule is the 'DC = CHA + modifiers' rule. The design of the combat situation, however, whether it's easy or not, whether it requires strategic thinking and preparation or not, is the equivalent of the design of the social interaction, which says whether your PCs need to chip away at an NPC's conviction for a long time or not, for example. Both are equally 'make it up yourself' -- source of the fun and, IMO, proof of the mettle of the DM.

They are not equivalent situations. You can take a monster out of the monster manual, stick it in front of the PCs, and have explicit rules for every step of this interaction. You cannot do this for social situations and have anywhere near the amount of rules detail to play the scene out with in D&D.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it is, in fact, a different thing.

Knaight
2018-09-11, 05:47 PM
With respect, that is just shifting the issue around. The equivalent of the 'sword does x damage' rule is the 'DC = CHA + modifiers' rule. The design of the combat situation, however, whether it's easy or not, whether it requires strategic thinking and preparation or not, is the equivalent of the design of the social interaction, which says whether your PCs need to chip away at an NPC's conviction for a long time or not, for example. Both are equally 'make it up yourself' -- source of the fun and, IMO, proof of the mettle of the DM.

That's not even slightly true - the equivalent of DC = CHA +modifiers would be if combat was handled as a one round opposed fight check, where DC = Dex + modifiers or similar. That's not a bad way to handle things in a game not focused on combat, but it would get real old real fast in the typical D&D style game.

The same applies to other conflicts. The mere difference between a one roll conflict and an extended one with options means a lot, and that's without getting into other factors.

terodil
2018-09-11, 06:26 PM
They are not equivalent situations. You can take a monster out of the monster manual, stick it in front of the PCs, and have explicit rules for every step of this interaction. You cannot do this for social situations and have anywhere near the amount of rules detail to play the scene out with in D&D.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it is, in fact, a different thing.
I agree that "equivalent" was too specific a word. And I agree with you in as far as rule detail is concerned, but I still disagree with the conclusion made upstream in this thread, which you seem to not necessarily share (which was that D&D sucked for social interactions because you ended up with single rolls or auto-successes).

The pure number of rolls required by the rules to resolve a situation is hardly indicative of how good or bad a system is. Rules are just a tool, not the objective. The question should be: Does the system provide you with the necessary tools to resolve situations in an engaging way?

And yes, yes it does. The rules for fights are indeed more detailed than for social interactions. Does this mean that encounter #973 against monster #1356 (type #34) is automatically engaging? No. You need variety. The monster needs to have, at the very least, a purpose, ideally a motivation, perhaps even a personality, a quirk, etc. Involving environmental hazards is also fun. In short, you need effort and inspiration on the part of the GM. The rules don't help with that at all. Same thing with social interactions. If all your social interactions are ended with an autosuccess the instant they pop up, you simply have not put enough love into them. Would it have helped if the rules said 'in such-and-such circumstance, you make an additional roll against X'? No. Making them multi-stage, fiddling with DC, advantage and other stuff (e.g. party assist rules, keyword good cop bad cop) would -- the tools are all there. The equivalent of having an instant-auto-success social interaction is throwing a single goblin in front of the level 10 adventuring party. No love, no fun; the tools that describe, in great detail, how you throw that goblin in front of the bus do not change a thing.

So simply pointing at the number of rules governing combat and the dicerolls involved and calling that 'better' is not really a convincing argument. Firstly, better at what? Engaging GM + players? See above. Secondly, it also compares apples and oranges. Granted that social interactions, by their nature, always require a bit more thought, you should still compare combat and social encounters prepared with somewhat similar degrees of effort and inspiration.

GaelofDarkness
2018-09-11, 06:54 PM
I've been playing around with the idea of expanding the way "encounters" are handled, which are essentially the fields of contest the OP is talking about. I don't have a solid system to do any of this - I just wing it - but I might try codifying some of these ideas.

For both stealth and social encounters I have this notion that progress should be both general and specific. I also think that there should be graduations to the success and failure of these types of encounters. For social encounters, the general side of things might be represented by the party's reputation while the specific is represented by the specific relationship between a PC and NPC. They can appeal to a character's sensibilities, fears, desires or exert leverage based on other relationships they have - and these all provide different routes that can lead to success. If it's not a throwaway social interaction, I wouldn't reduce it to a single check - but make so the NPC has something like "social-HP" or a stubbornness score requiring say three successes or one critical success. The PCs can then try to beat this in a variety of ways but have to be sensible about it. If one PC is trying to seduce the target and then another tries intimidation, progress from the seduction would regress. I wonder if there should maybe be multiple scales tracking the party's progress and the first to hit the social-hp marks victory. The gradual nature of this kind of encounter might be that you start with someone who wants you dead, progress to them being inclined to let you leave without a fight and reach a point where they give you the information you wanted with a success. The quality of that success might mean the information comes with a catch - the NPC holding some detail back or insisting on collateral or a favor in exchange.

I think it's important to allow roleplaying during social encounters, so I don't think the social rules should be too tightly codified, instead they should be loose enough to give the GM and players leeway if it suits their purposes.

For stealth encounters, the general side of things is how well the party is at keeping their profile low. The average or sum of the initial stealth check they make goes into a "stealth-hp". As the stealth-hp goes down - with them making a noise or a moved item being noticed, all modeled by stealth/perception checks and the like - the alertness of the area goes up. In a small bandit camp, the stealth-hp/alertness swings more than in the overlord's keep because of the size of the location and how quickly a guard might get the attention of others. This means things like stealth checks becoming more difficult, guards actively searching because they heard a noise, the entire place on high alert because they know you're there and if the party did really poorly a bunch of enemies chasing you outside that you now need to escape. The specific comes down to the individual interactions of NPCs and PCs. A PC running in front of and clearly being seen by a guard does not raise the damage the stealth-hp of the party unless the running is loud enough to travel or the guard sounds the alarm (sounding the alarm being a worst case scenario where the stealth-hp effectively drops to 0 and escape is probably you're only out - I might let a party find a hiding spot and see if they could wait it out for a few hours and then have to deal with higher difficulty after if they were stubborn though). Tactics like choosing good hiding spots out of line of sight, moving between patrols, cutting down a side corridor when someone's coming to investigate a sound and distractions give different possible avenues for success.

In contrast to social encounters, if the group wants a tactical stealth game, I think you should pull out a map with patrol tokens moving first predictably and then potentially in response to the players, all the while keeping track of lines of sight and the like. Obviously, that's not for everyone - but it can be fun and swing really quickly between tense and comical which is something that can be really hard to pull off. For example: The guard is coming to check the drawing room - the rouge, monk and barbarian all have the speed to get out the other door in time but the halfling sorcerer is too slow and ends up moving around the chaise lounge to stay on the opposite side to the guard, then jumping from behind piece of furniture to piece of furniture as the rest of the players are - ooc - laughing at the ludicrousness of the gnome hiding behind a lamp. That takes a turn when gnome gets out through the door the guard came in and is now separated from the party and around the corner from a patrol route.

A more engaging counterspelling system could be cool - but I don't think it should slow things down too much for other players. I love old fairy-tales with a focus on riddles and contests of wit and I have this big book of brainteasers that's been gathering dust for years. How about you have an opposed roll and depending on how well or poorly it goes you give the player a different difficulty of teaser - a riddle, a trivia question, a trick question, whatever - and if they get it right the counterspelling succeeds. If they get it wrong, the counterspelling fails. Maybe you could have a "phone my familiar" option letting another player weigh in as long as they role play as the caster's familiar? Could be a bit of a laugh.

ExLibrisMortis
2018-09-11, 08:19 PM
The rules don't help with that at all.
The D&D 3.5 combat rules help you describe what is happening in-universe, by virtue of each individual (successful) attack being modelled, by virtue of having the difference between high natural armour and high Dexterity, by virtue of having position and time to keep track of, and by generally being complex and complicated. You can take the mechanical transcript of a combat encounter and that tells a story.

The D&D 3.5 skill rules, which govern social interaction, are not like that. They are useless in describing what's happening.

"You succeed on your Diplomacy check, great!"
"What does that do?"
" ...Handbook?"
"Please!?"
"I really need to know if this was an appeal to honour or a promise of future riches!"

Thus spoke the handbook: "They are the same".

Yes, a sufficiently great DM can cover for the poverty of the rules, but if you want a consistent, tactical, I'd almost say (non-trivially) optimizable social system, you're going to need more than "big number beat little number".

Knaight
2018-09-11, 08:22 PM
Social mechanics are also just one of many examples, which has been laser focused on recently because it's the one with the largest body of work to defend D&D. Chase scenes are action scenes, much like combat - and unlike combat they have approximately nothing there for them.

terodil
2018-09-11, 08:39 PM
You can take the mechanical transcript of a combat encounter and that tells a story.
That's my point: Without effort on the part of GM and players, it absolutely does not. The example you provided for social interactions I can just as easily replicate for combat. Or would you consider this a story?

"Roll attack."
"18."
"What was monster type #34's AC again? Right. You hit. Roll damage."
"7."
"Doesn't kill him. Next!"


Yes, a sufficiently great DM can cover for the poverty of the rules, but if you want a consistent, tactical, I'd almost say (non-trivially) optimizable social system, you're going to need more than "big number beat little number".
Fair enough, in as far as numeric optimisation is concerned. But again, as you yourself just said, 'big number beat little number' is not terribly exciting for most people. My point is that in the grand scheme of things whatever rules you may draw up, the greatest leverage, the greatest effect, the greatest optimisation with regard to the goal of RPGs relies on GM and player creativity and engagement.

Knaight
2018-09-11, 08:41 PM
That's my point: Without effort on the part of GM and players, it absolutely does not. The example you provided for social interactions I can just as easily replicate for combat. Or would you consider this a story?

And a hammer doesn't drive in a nail without being swung - that doesn't mean that it's not somehow better suited to that than some random rock. These subsystems are tools, and acting like them not operating autonomous somehow negates that is dubious.

terodil
2018-09-11, 09:03 PM
And a hammer doesn't drive in a nail without being swung - that doesn't mean that it's not somehow better suited to that than some random rock. These subsystems are tools, and acting like them not operating autonomous somehow negates that is dubious.
I agree, in principle, but then you'd need to demonstrate that there exists a hammer that is strictly superior to the rock we've been using so far. I'm not saying there isn't one, all I'm saying is that I personally don't believe that any amount of effort invested into the design and observance of more complex rules (the hammer) will provide better pay-off in terms of GM/player engagement than the same amount of effort invested into RPing the results granted by the rock instead.

ExLibrisMortis
2018-09-11, 09:23 PM
I agree, in principle, but then you'd need to demonstrate that there exists a hammer that is strictly superior to the rock we've been using so far. I'm not saying there isn't one, all I'm saying is that I personally don't believe that any amount of effort invested into the design and observance of more complex rules (the hammer) will provide better pay-off in terms of GM/player engagement than the same amount of effort invested into RPing the results granted by the rock instead.
What does that mean, "invest the same amount of effort into RPing"? Because "effort" isn't something you can just divide into chunks and reallocate. Time is, sure, you can reallocate future time. Do you mean that x hours of sitting at the table playing gets you better RP than x hours thinking about it, discussing it, structuring it? I wouldn't think so. Hours at a table can suck, and thinking about what went wrong would be helpful. And if someone who had done a lot of that thinking were then to share that wisdom, that would be good for a lot of people. Hey, what if we considered rulesets to be a way to share the effort of one person (the designer) amongst many groups of RPers to improve their experience?

Pleh
2018-09-12, 05:47 AM
Wow. It picked up while I was off for a bit.

First off, terodil, I wouldn't presume to suggest changing D&D would make it "better." Changing a tool rarely makes it better in every possible way. It's a give and take that will make it better for certain applications than others.

Some people wouldn't like my changes. If I were to do it well, hopefully a good number of people might like them as well. I'm just exploring the effectiveness of the concept.


the equivalent of DC = CHA +modifiers would be if combat was handled as a one round opposed fight check, where DC = Dex + modifiers or similar. That's not a bad way to handle things in a game not focused on combat, but it would get real old real fast in the typical D&D style game.

This is more or less the gist of the concept. We don't put up with this oversimplified mechanics in combat, if we're including rules for these other interactions, why not make those rules more robust as well?

Though I think Kaptain Keen might be right that it may have been intentional by D&D creators to deliberately snub these other forms of play. But I wouldn't accept that as reason to NOT change the system. Rather it would be justication for undoing their snubbing and (hopefully) making the games as inclusive of various styles of play as can be.


For both stealth and social encounters I have this notion that progress should be both general and specific. I also think that there should be graduations to the success and failure of these types of encounters. For social encounters, the general side of things might be represented by the party's reputation while the specific is represented by the specific relationship between a PC and NPC. They can appeal to a character's sensibilities, fears, desires or exert leverage based on other relationships they have - and these all provide different routes that can lead to success. If it's not a throwaway social interaction, I wouldn't reduce it to a single check - but make so the NPC has something like "social-HP" or a stubbornness score requiring say three successes or one critical success. The PCs can then try to beat this in a variety of ways but have to be sensible about it. If one PC is trying to seduce the target and then another tries intimidation, progress from the seduction would regress. I wonder if there should maybe be multiple scales tracking the party's progress and the first to hit the social-hp marks victory. The gradual nature of this kind of encounter might be that you start with someone who wants you dead, progress to them being inclined to let you leave without a fight and reach a point where they give you the information you wanted with a success. The quality of that success might mean the information comes with a catch - the NPC holding some detail back or insisting on collateral or a favor in exchange.

I've always favored the notion of having active and passive "defenses" on things similar to this idea of general and specific. I like to assume creatures are constantly "taking 10" on perception checks to notice danger (maybe at -5 if the are at ease and preoccupied) and that they may choose to actively search at any time if they feel they need to do more than rely on peripheral vision. It also can help mitigate metagaming because players don't need to be asked to make perception checks and they won't automatically fail. Even if an enemy they are unaware of is sneaking up on them, they are still considered to be taking 10 at all times (unless sleeping or distracted, like preparing spells) and if they read the scenario and correctly guess that it would be a great place for an ambush, they can still choose to roll the d20 for a chance to notice things their passive perception would miss.


I think it's important to allow roleplaying during social encounters, so I don't think the social rules should be too tightly codified, instead they should be loose enough to give the GM and players leeway if it suits their purposes.

I agree, but I would add that combat rules specify when characters are in combat and not in combat. The real trick to "social combat" would be to rigorously define when it was truly applicable.

I see a sliding scale of social interactions that form groups that behave in certain ways (but can be altered greatly based on context, so for simplicity, let's start with a neutral context: a nonhostile verbal discourse).

On one end, you could have totally amenable conversations with no point of contention. There's no need for rules for this, just use roleplay. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a fanatical opposition (still nonhostile, just aggressively unagreeable like some of the more useless debates on this forum) and so there's not much hope for changing the other person's mind unless you can provide an argument that has meaning to them.

Between these stages, there is a wide range of social interactions where there exists contention of wills, but still openness to dialogue. This is the social battleground. It parallels actual combat in the sense that you can't fight somone who surrenders and does not defend themselves (rather it is pointless to try) and that there are some combats that simply can't be reasonably won (unless you can somehow shift the balance of the tactical advantages).

In short, if the outcome is clear from the start, you don't need to make people roll at all (or maybe the system's single roll check is enough). A social combat system would be rather situational (though to be honest, Combat itself is rather situational and most adventures are constructed to throw PCs right into places of highest statistical chances of finding combat).

I like your other ideas as well, but my time this morning is getting short, so I'll come back to this if I can. There are a few other things I want to touch on first.


The D&D 3.5 combat rules help you describe what is happening in-universe, by virtue of each individual (successful) attack being modelled, by virtue of having the difference between high natural armour and high Dexterity, by virtue of having position and time to keep track of, and by generally being complex and complicated. You can take the mechanical transcript of a combat encounter and that tells a story.


That's my point: Without effort on the part of GM and players, it absolutely does not. The example you provided for social interactions I can just as easily replicate for combat. Or would you consider this a story?

"Roll attack."
"18."
"What was monster type #34's AC again? Right. You hit. Roll damage."
"7."
"Doesn't kill him. Next!"

Ah, see this is a difference of playstyle, not an inadequacy of the rules.

Using this example, I could say:

Next player: "I roll attack. I rolled a 14."
DM *internally*: ok, that beats 10, which is the standard Luck miss chance, so the attack hits except for modifiers. Monster 34 isn't wearing armor or shields and Dex Mod is 2, so it didn't manage to dodge the attack. But the monster has 3 Nat Armor, so...
DM: "The attack glances off the creature's thick hide."

The Nuances of the combat system give players a lot of information to extrapolate without having to make it all up from scratch. There are actually lines for players to read between.

A diplomacy check doesn't get this kind of help from the rules.

Pelle
2018-09-12, 07:45 AM
A diplomacy check doesn't get this kind of help from the rules.

This doesn't make any sense to me, if you don't have any context, how can you make a check at all? Rolling a diplomacy check without knowing what you want to achieve nor the arguments you use is putting the cart before the horse. As it is for combat mechanics; the player wants the character to attack with his sword -> attack action, not the other way around.


I can see why you might want a more complicated social combat system for certain special situations or if the player is bad at arguing, but I am perfectly happy with the simple roll die vs. DC. It gives you space to act out the discussion in a natural way. Only if it turns out that the result of the discussion is uncertain, you need to roll, and then it is often easy to set the stakes based on the situation.

I only have limited experience with more complicated social combat from Torchbearer, which uses the same conflict system for physical and social combat; choose Attack, Defend, Feint or Maneuver actions to chip away at HP. It can be fun, but to me it tends to get a little in the way of acting out the conversation in character. First of all, you can't just go on discussing freeform back and forth, you need to wait for the mechanics. Also, you often want to choose some type of action because it is good mechanically, but it is hard to make it make sense in context and thus you get some weak arguments. And sometimes you have a winning argument in context, but you can't really use it fully because mechanically the opponent has more social HP left. So you kind of need to feel out what is appropriate as one social action, so that the whole scene makes sense.

I am not that used to it yet though, though I see that it can probably work good as a source of inspiration for what kind of arguments to make. Still, feels more like it is better suited for a more storygaming approach to rpgs, since it limits a bit what you can say.

Pleh
2018-09-12, 09:47 AM
This doesn't make any sense to me, if you don't have any context, how can you make a check at all? Rolling a diplomacy check without knowing what you want to achieve nor the arguments you use is putting the cart before the horse. As it is for combat mechanics; the player wants the character to attack with his sword -> attack action, not the other way around.


I can see why you might want a more complicated social combat system for certain special situations or if the player is bad at arguing, but I am perfectly happy with the simple roll die vs. DC. It gives you space to act out the discussion in a natural way. Only if it turns out that the result of the discussion is uncertain, you need to roll, and then it is often easy to set the stakes based on the situation.

I only have limited experience with more complicated social combat from Torchbearer, which uses the same conflict system for physical and social combat; choose Attack, Defend, Feint or Maneuver actions to chip away at HP. It can be fun, but to me it tends to get a little in the way of acting out the conversation in character. First of all, you can't just go on discussing freeform back and forth, you need to wait for the mechanics. Also, you often want to choose some type of action because it is good mechanically, but it is hard to make it make sense in context and thus you get some weak arguments. And sometimes you have a winning argument in context, but you can't really use it fully because mechanically the opponent has more social HP left. So you kind of need to feel out what is appropriate as one social action, so that the whole scene makes sense.

I am not that used to it yet though, though I see that it can probably work good as a source of inspiration for what kind of arguments to make. Still, feels more like it is better suited for a more storygaming approach to rpgs, since it limits a bit what you can say.

This is what I meant when I was saying that Combat is actually more situational than TTRPGs tend to make them out to be. Yes, the circumstances for round by round Social Combat would be far less common than passing conversations with NPCs.

Then again, you don't necessarily roll Initiative every time the PCs want to sit down for drinks at the tavern (unless they are actually racing to be seated for some reason).

It feels a bit like we're just making excuses when we want RULES for combat that is situational, but we structure the game to produce a disproportionate number of them anyway and then we want FREEFORM when we get into verbal exchanges with the NPCs. As if wanting to play a game that has rules somehow means you're just bad at arguing. Maybe we just like playing games that have rules even when we're pretty good at arguing besides?

I like what L5R actually did with all this. Their Campaign Setting really struck a Thematic Tone where Social Reputation was almost more important than Fighting Monsters (which you always hoped was a rare occurrence because by the time you're actually fighting taint monsters, things have usually gone VERY WRONG). The ability to argue fluently and persuasively was at least as important as your skill with a blade in terms of who was going to comply with your requests as you tried to do business on behalf of your lord.

I really don't see the point in arguing that "Social combat really doesn't come up all that often" because that's something the game designers fabricated, when I'm suggesting changing it so it wouldn't be that way anymore.

And again, I know this wouldn't be the preferred game for everyone to begin with. I'm just looking at how it might work if someone (possibly me) did the work to make a game like this: D&D that handles Social and Stealth like it does Combat (at least in scenarios where the contest would otherwise be in question).

The point? To make these other forms of gameplay more engaging to the players that come to the table wanting to play characters who specialize in these skills.