How structured do you like the Social Pillar? [Archive]

PhoenixPhyre

2024-01-25, 01:26 PM

Note: the "three pillars" aren't separate scenarios. You can have social during combat, you can have exploration during social, etc. You can even have combat during a more generally social scene[0]. The pillars are things you can try to do, not exclusive types of scenes.

Social: talking to people.
Combat: fighting people (including things that don't/can't talk).
Exploration: interacting with the non-people environment.

I prefer "talking to people" to be very unstructured so that it can handle any situation from trying to find a cease-fire during combat to interrogation to negotiating in good faith with people willing to compromise to a full-dress fancy ball scene. So just using a basic set of more generic uncertainty-resolution tools with general guidelines about acceptable outcomes[1] and a few more specific "features" that shift the probabilities is enough.

At most, codifying something like an NPC "attitude" and how it affects the Zone of Negotiable Agreement (ie the range of things you can possibly get out of that social scenario), with people ill-disposed toward you or your cause being less willing to give you good things and more willing to react badly and people well-disposed having the reverse, with lots of people in the middle.

I do not want something like "social combat". Because most of the social stuff that happens in my games is not well represented by adversarial systems.

[0] See the duel between the Man in Black and Inigo Montoya on the cliffs. Here, the important part of the outcome was from the social interactions, not the actual duel. If the MiB had simply gone all out from the get go, the rest of the movie falls apart entirely. It was the witty banter coupled with superior skills that won Inigo over later on.
[1] Some things are just not possible to get via social engineering short of outright mind control. And on the flip side, teaching people who archetypally don't have the best social skills[2] about the give-and-take of conversation and what are likely outcomes is important.
[2] ie TTRPG players, although this stereotype is diminishing in validity IMO.

NichG

2024-01-25, 02:42 PM

My preference is to leave actual character decisions entirely to the agency of the controller of the character, but to have the system provide mechanical ways for characters to obtain information, understand and predict decision processes, and in some cases enforce outcomes.

So for example, things I use in my own systems:
- The ability (skill) to 'take back' something you said that didn't land right. At high skill, you can know in-character what they would have said, so you can even use this to 'interrogate' someone without them realizing it, Coil style.
- The ability (skill) to know the most important reason why someone might accept or refuse a deal
- The ability (skill) to know what someone most wants in the current situation (not the same thing!)
- The ability (skill) to determine if and why the setting for a discussion or something in the immediate context would prevent agreement or cooperation (for example, is the person you're talking to glancing at someone else in the room when you're trying to get them to agree to something)
- The ability (skill) to model someone else and simulate a discussion with them based on things the characters currently know, without actually talking to that person. Like 'Perfect Trace' from Shokugeki no Soma.
- A bond that two characters can invest in to gain extra of a kind of mental protection and stability that in-setting translates to an XP equivalent, but if they ever betray the bond they both lose double the resources they invested.
- I will also generally be overly verbose about why someone is saying or doing things specifically in regards to what a player is trying to achieve by talking with them once the party is generally at a superhuman level of competency compared to the real world or if there are any extreme senses in play, but I don't formalize that. That's more of a stylistic thing, trying to make it feel superhuman to play a superhuman character. This'll be stuff

Explicit 'powers' are an exception to this limit - mind control is something that can happen through psionics, superpowers, spells, etc. However my general rule of thumb is that these are equivalent to kill states, and so if the system has any kind of ablative defenses or 'right to respond', there generally won't be any way to completely bypass that. E.g. if we were talking about a D&D offshoot, you'd need to reduce someone to 'zero hitpoints' before you could make Dominate Person stick, but Dominate Person would do some quantity of nonlethal damage as part of its operation. In practice that would mean you could easily (and subtly) dominate characters lower level than you, but an equal level character - regardless of their saving throws - wouldn't be a realistic target to stealth-dominate. You could of course wear them down and then bring them under your control. In practice I run a lot of stuff that isn't D&D, so this tends to be a bit less awkward than 'hitpoints' exactly - the main design conceit I use is a 'right to respond' where characters generally have some kind of resources they can use to buy off consequences, and regardless of their state of awareness or even consciousness the player (or GM) can always choose to spend those resources in respond to an attack (without the character necessarily becoming aware they were attacked in-character).

I do give mechanical abilities which directly influence decisions when it comes to influencing crowds or other undifferentiated groups of people (a company of soldiers, 'the local police', etc). Any specific individual is immune to these, but if you want to do something like spread a rumor to give someone else a bad reputation, or improve the morale of troops, or cause a crowd to panic then those things can have specific mechanics for when and how they can happen. This would also fly with respect to mechanical abilities that position someone relative to society or organizations as a whole - you could e.g. have a skill that allows you to 'excuse acting as if one rank higher than you actually are' in an organization, or a trait that means 'organizations will seek to capture rather than kill you' (note - doesn't help against an individual who personally wants to kill you), or a background that means 'guards ignore minor crimes', or things like that.

Another kind of mechanical ability that I'll give is things involving 'finding contacts' and the like - something where you can manipulate the odds or qualities of a previously undefined NPC that 'your character knew in their backstory' that 'your character met during downtime'.

In terms of structure that isn't specifically 'powers' or buttons to push, I don't tend to use an explicit rubric for 'how a character decides', but I do try to put things into the world that are needed or wanted and where there are explicit reasons in the world why those things would be needed or wanted. For example, in a game where nation-building levels of things matter, I gave stuff like 'labor' and 'wealth' and 'ores' and 'food' an abstracted representation as well as a general rule about how those resources expire when not used - e.g. you can't stockpile Labor, you can only stockpile Food for so long, etc. Certain actions at the level of nations explicitly cost these things, so a player can figure out 'if I were to arrange a trade deal to get this one nation 3 units of Ore, thats what they would need to be able to build that Arcane University they've been wanting this season.' That makes it a bit easier to figure out 'what kinds of offers would they go for?' compared to if it were all undefined and a player had to be like 'I have 3000kg of iron ore, thats a lot, right? They'd be willing to make me a minor noble for that, right?'.

Vahnavoi

2024-01-25, 03:30 PM

How structured I like social interactions to be varies immensely on type of game. Sometimes, special rules for social interaction just are the game, such as in scenarios based around social deduction (for simple examples, see: Werewolf, Mafia, Murder, etc.)

I don't particularly care for rolling dice to model social interactions, though. There are three classic dice-based mechanics I do use that are relevant to social scenarios: morale checks, reaction rolls and hiring retainers, and that last one can be extended to cover any case of haggling or negotiation if I have no better ideas. But for the most part, I prefer to give structure to social scenarios by defining who the actors are, what they want and what they know. Or, in different words: by giving well-defined roles to present characters.

Relationship and organization charts, alliance matrices, cards of hidden information, secret messages, restricted format communication, guessing games and social deduction, clear and comprehensible personality traits to act out, those are solid structures to build social games on.

LibraryOgre

2024-01-25, 05:27 PM

My general rule is "Mechanical choices should have mechanical impacts."

If the game has a Willpower skill (eg WEG Star Wars), then investing in the Willpower skill should give me mechanical advantages over the guy who does not... say, if we're getting tortured or interrogated, Bob with a 2D skill should not get to declare his immunity to interrogation because he doesn't think his character would give in, while I've got a 6D in Willpower and can resist because I've put skill dice into it... i.e. my character's resistance is mechanically reinforced, not just declared by fiat. It's no different than "Well, I don't think I would get stabbed in the chest by an orc spear, so I didn't die just now." Sure, I didn't spend any resources in learning to wear armor or defend myself in combat, but why should I get stabbed in the chest because of that?

It's a bit of a tough spot, I know, because if you've got social skills in the system, they should be mechanically useful; there should be guidance on how to use them, and that guidance should work within the system. However, it can also lead to the famous "I roll a 20. He sleeps with me now." ... though that also happens just as much with combat.

Telok

2024-01-25, 08:52 PM

Optional.

I like it when I can roll percentile and a d10 to tell the players their ship spends two weeks in the Warp and they arrive three months later at their destination. Or, if they're pushing it or being risky we can actually roll for each step to see what goes wrong and how they try to fix it or exactly what goes wrong.

I like it when you can roll a quick group check to drive off the wandering critter that provides local color & info/clues but isn't a real threat. Or I can break out the map & minis for the PCs (grav tank, dropship, & hover-boke) vs. a battalion of swordsmen, half a dozen undead giant beetle APCs, a few necromancers, and a dragon casting meteor storm & teleports.

I like it when I can once-and-done the PCs shaking down a drunk or an assassin lying to them. Or there's actual structures so I don't have to make up absolutely everything from scratch for the interrogations and trials after they screw up trying to hijack the ship of a maple syrup smuggler when its docked in NYC harbor.

For simple stuff the one & done method is fine. But I really appreciate some decent structures for stuff that's more difficult for the GM or the players. Lots of players have some level of difficulty with the characters being affected mentally of socially. Quite often the weak-willed impulsive coward has nerves of steel when faced with interrogation or temptation. Plus there's real advantages to having some sort of structure when the players are involved with a rumor & smear campaign among their peers, whether its them trashing someone or someone trashing them.

Without a structure the GM must make up these things for themselves which will most likely not go well if they have little or no experience with game design, theory, and probability. I've seen things like "make three performance checks", and the player knows instantly its basically impossible (about 1/16 or 1/18) no matter how plausible it sounds to the GM. In addition the players can't anticipate what may happen beyond the broadest strokes ("you failed one check and the king orders you flogged & imprisoned" "well I'd never have tried if I knew that" "theres nothing written so I had to make it up"). If they can't predict anything beyond "there will probably be charisma checks of some sort" they are less likely to try stuff, especially once they get burned by a GM who might think three 30% chances for success are equal to a 90% success rate.

With a structure the GM can use it, change it, or discard it, as they see fit. The players, knowing there's a structure for a thing can weigh how good their characters are at something, and what the likely risks of failure are, before they attempt it. There's no point for me as a player making a "face" type character if I never roll stuff because the GM thinks the social stuff is all automatic or impossible based on the character's class, the request, or secret npc info.

Another example? "Ok, ready to cross the desert? Bought all the stuff you need Group wis+survival checks for dc 15.... Well the cleric and you made it but the other four failed, and now you're lost in the middle of the desert without food or water. What do you do?" Because of course not having rules for desert treks means your party figuring out how many camels, how many waterskins, maps to oasis, and bringing a compass just allows to roll instead of autofail. Sure, that's an exploration one, but without any structures there's no difference between exploration and socialization.

JusticeZero

2024-01-25, 09:36 PM

KorvinStarmast

2024-01-25, 11:11 PM

I don't like how people use social skills like mind control. That's a bit of a problem that is illustrated by a certain rogue in a certain comic strip.
Social skills are not, actually, magic.

Telok

2024-01-25, 11:32 PM

I don't like how people use social skills like mind control.

That's not anything I think I've ever seen in systems with actual developed social systems. D&D 3, 4, 5, & derivatives yeah. But those aren't developed social systems. Usually they're just a set of skills tacked on to the base system with a binary "yes it works"/"nope didn't work" resolution setup where there's an expectation that rolling a 20 is a special extra effect.

Pauly

2024-01-26, 01:04 AM

JusticeZero

2024-01-26, 03:42 AM

That's not anything I think I've ever seen in systems with actual developed social systems.

Can you explain why adding extra rolls and like, a "damage" track is going to be any different? Because if I say "No, I'm not doing that, yuck, I don't even like guys like that," and the reaction is "Roll for social initiative! What's your defense score vs. Seduction?" I am not going to see any difference over a flat roll... and I don't see how the second situation is going to deter crazed allos with defective player social skills who rolled up a "face".

Satinavian

2024-01-26, 04:07 AM

Kurald Galain

2024-01-26, 05:43 AM

In principle, I like having a system for debate contests (e.g. your party and their rivals are both in court and have to convince the court to take their side).

However, in practice I have not found any such system that isn't either trivial ("yeah, just roll your best skill and make something up") or overly complicated ("you get to pick one of eight social strategies, then your opponent also picks one, but each strategy has a small modifier against particular other ones, and they have different skills attached but you can make other checks to find out what your opponent is doing before he does, but you could also replace a skill by some other skill with a modifier...").

Vahnavoi

2024-01-26, 08:59 AM

My general rule is "Mechanical choices should have mechanical impacts."

That is reasonable. However, tabletop players are collectively very dumb about what count as social mechanics. To wit: when playing with real living humans who can understand a natural language, speech and writing are mechanics, and who you speak or write to and what you tell them are mechanical choices. This applies even when dice are in play. In fact, all dice-based mechanics rely on it: after all, no roll gets made, and no roll means anything, before a player communicates the right game-specific words to the right person.

Understanding communication as a mechanic and language as a game is key to setting up social systems.

---

There's no point for me as a player making a "face" type character if I never roll stuff because the GM thinks the social stuff is all automatic or impossible based on the character's class, the request, or secret npc info.

That's only true when the sole thing being a "face" does is improve yours odds on a die roll. I get why you would complain about it, since that is a common pitfall of dice-based game design, but there a lot of ways not reliant on dice to make being the front of a party worthwhile - such as the right class actually giving you, as a player, more information on which requests you can make, what secrets other characters hold, and who you can talk to.

---

I don't like how people use social skills like mind control.

That's not anything I think I've ever seen in systems with actual developed social systems.

Can you explain why adding extra rolls and like, a "damage" track is going to be any different?

I agree with Telok in that well-developed social systems rarely have that problem and a can explain how such systems are structured to avoid this:

The first part is that in well-developed social systems, a player rarely gets to do things like no-context "I roll to seduce". As noted earlier, the key to such systems is that present characters have actual well-defined roles. In case of seduction, a possible target has list of likes and dislikes. The seducer may or may not have foreknowledge of their target's preferences. Instead of "damage track", there would be one or more relationship values that go up or down when the relevant likes or dislikes are touched upon. A poor relationship value is grounds for termination of interaction or outright hostility, while good relationships give more leeway for poor requests and create more favorable interactions.

So, in such a system, a character having a defined dislike for guys in a romantic sense, by default means that overt romantic gestures from a guy will be rebuffed, and if the seducer persists, they will be met with negative or hostile reactions. A successful seduction attempt would be reliant on pursuing a non-romantic track or the seducer making significant effort to change or disguise the fact that they're a guy.

Mind control, in such a system, would involve either being able to directly alter a character's likes or dislikes ("I cast a spell, you like guys now"), or being able to alter perceptions of a character so that a disliked thing appears to be a liked thing ("I cast a spell, I appear to not be a guy anymore").

KorvinStarmast

2024-01-26, 09:24 AM

I like playing games/campaigns with strong investigative elements so I prefer game systems that have a strong structure to the social elements. Without getting into system specifics I prefer systems that use a variety of abilities to determine different social elements. I don't like D&D or GURPS where social skills a essentially run off a single ability. Investigative scenarios (we had one in our last Star Trek RPG session) can be multilayered, and work best when die rolls are scarce to non-existent. But all of the players need to be engaged in them, so for large groups they can be clunky. For three players? Lots of engagement.

One thing I detest and despise is 'sense motive'. In any game involving investigation I believe it should be up to the players to work out which NPCs are trustworthy and which are
not. Yes. Actual role play. I agree.

I do like my social rules more structured to the point that the stats are more important than the words of the players. I find that approach to be the opposite of role play.
However i am very lukewarm on social combat systems. Social interaction is very different from combat a 100% agree.

... tabletop players are collectively very dumb about what count as social mechanics. To wit: when playing with real living humans who can understand a natural language, speech and writing are mechanics, and who you speak or write to and what you tell them are mechanical choices.

This applies even when dice are in play.

In fact, all dice-based mechanics rely on it: after all, no roll gets made, and no roll means anything, before a player communicates the right game-specific words to the right person.

Understanding communication as a mechanic and language as a game is key to setting up social systems.

Could you cite a few systems that do this well?

That's only true when the sole thing being a "face" does is improve yours odds on a die roll. I get why you would complain about it, since that is a common pitfall of dice-based game design, but there a lot of ways not reliant on dice to make being the front of a party worthwhile - such as the right class actually giving you, as a player, more information on which requests you can make, what secrets other characters hold, and who you can talk to. It still requires a player to engage with the scenario and the system.

The first part is that in well-developed social systems, a player rarely gets to do things like no-context "I roll to seduce". As noted earlier, the key to such systems is that present characters have actual well-defined roles.

In case of seduction, a possible target has list of likes and dislikes. The seducer may or may not have foreknowledge of their target's preferences. Instead of "damage track", there would be one or more relationship values that go up or down when the relevant likes or dislikes are touched upon. A poor relationship value is grounds for termination of interaction or outright hostility, while good relationships give more leeway for poor requests and create more favorable interactions.

So, in such a system, a character having a defined dislike for guys in a romantic sense, by default means that overt romantic gestures from a guy will be rebuffed, and if the seducer persists, they will be met with negative or hostile reactions. A successful seduction attempt would be reliant on pursuing a non-romantic track or the seducer making significant effort to change or disguise the fact that they're a guy.

Mind control, in such a system, would involve either being able to directly alter a character's likes or dislikes ("I cast a spell, you like guys now"), or being able to alter perceptions of a character so that a disliked thing appears to be a liked thing ("I cast a spell, I appear to not be a guy anymore"). Or, "these are not the droids you are looking for" can play out as "I am not the romantic partner you were looking for" .. or something like that.

Mastikator

2024-01-26, 09:33 AM

So yeah I basically agree with everything PhoenixPhyre said. I prefer the social pillar to be you talk in character as your PC and the DM talks in character as the NPC. You only roll when you try to convince an NPC, or threaten or lie or change their attitude and the outcome matters and isn't fixed.

OldTrees1

2024-01-26, 09:56 AM

I don't like how people use social skills like mind control. I don't care if you rolled a 20 (5% chance), I'm not going to climb in bed with someone that I'm literally not attracted to, that's really creepy, I don't understand how that even would work, and I've had someone try to pull that on me and watched it pulled on guys at the table. The gamified nature of the systems seems to enable bad behavior like that.

Can you explain why adding extra rolls and like, a "damage" track is going to be any different? Because if I say "No, I'm not doing that, yuck, I don't even like guys like that," and the reaction is "Roll for social initiative! What's your defense score vs. Seduction?" I am not going to see any difference over a flat roll... and I don't see how the second situation is going to deter crazed allos with defective player social skills who rolled up a "face".

I think this is a result of a DM's ruling on what the consequences of the social interaction could be, rather than a result of the specific mechanics/lack-of-mechanics using in the social interaction. (3E Diplomacy might be an exception.)

If the DM rules social checks/combat is "this determines how persuasive the argument was, but a non-starter will always fail" then this issue does not happen for non-starters.

There are differences of opinion on what remains a non-starter when faced by overwhelming disparity in social interactions (See The AI Box Experiment about a superintelligence trying to convince a human to let it out of the box). So some DMs might rule that, with enough coercion and leverage, something might not be a non-starter. (Obviously resorting to coercion, especially this much coercion, makes it even more creepy)

As a result it can be a common practice to say the PCs are immune to social interaction mechanics. (Especially to preempt and mitigate defective player social skills). For tables with better player social skills, they might keep the "PCs are immune" but allow player A voluntarily request player B use the social interaction mechanics as part of how player A decides how PC A will react.

LibraryOgre

2024-01-26, 10:38 AM

Can you explain why adding extra rolls and like, a "damage" track is going to be any different? Because if I say "No, I'm not doing that, yuck, I don't even like guys like that," and the reaction is "Roll for social initiative! What's your defense score vs. Seduction?" I am not going to see any difference over a flat roll... and I don't see how the second situation is going to deter crazed allos with defective player social skills who rolled up a "face".

Basically the same way that having combat systems prevents every fight being reduced to a single die roll. If we handled physical combat like D&D handles social encounters, it would be "I hit him with my sword. I rolled a 14. He's dead now." Or "Natural 20! I killed the entire group!"

If a system involves multiple die rolls, with degrees of success over time (damage, for example), it makes it less likely that a single action will decide the encounter. Strict social combat, with "damage" isn't necessary, but it is an example of a way to stretch out the mechanical aspects of social interaction, and make them less one-sided.

I've recently come around to "roll first, then role-play" for social encounters, much like we do with combat. If you roll poorly, you describe/role-play what that bad roll looks like.

Another place where explicit social abilities and social defense skills or ratings comes in handy is things like Intimidation. How intimidated are you? What does being Intimidated (to that degree) mean? What's the difference between falling for a Con by 1 point, or failing by 20? (https://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2016/12/d6-social-combat.html)

Satinavian

2024-01-26, 11:38 AM

That's not anything I think I've ever seen in systems with actual developed social systems. D&D 3, 4, 5, & derivatives yeah. But those aren't developed social systems. Usually they're just a set of skills tacked on to the base system with a binary "yes it works"/"nope didn't work" resolution setup where there's an expectation that rolling a 20 is a special extra effect.
There are a couple of bad systems that focus way too much on "who wins the social combat" and way to little on the stakes. There it can happen that suddenly utterly ridiculous things are at stake (because why not) but it doesn't influence the resolution much.

Of course some systems are afraid to say "No, you can't convince anyone to go along with that" if a PC has maxed out social skills. Because for that someone has to judge which requests are unreasonable and the rulebook can't really do that.

Mordar

2024-01-26, 12:15 PM

One thing I detest and despise is 'sense motive'. In any game involving investigation I believe it should be up to the players to work out which NPCs are trustworthy and which are not. Simply the fact of rolling a dice and knowing the score and the character's modifiers gives the players far too much meta knowledge.

I want to agree but can't. My primary issues are (a) this means you can never play a character that is better at reading other people than you are, or better at understanding social nuance than you are (to be trite, this is akin to saying "You can't bench 250, and you aren't an expert armed combatant, so you can't play a Fighter with 16 strength"); and (b) seldom are DMs good enough actors to accurately portray the NPCs they are voicing.

I do want players to put effort into acting (preferred) or describing (acceptable) their speech to sway the king or the mob-with-pitchforks. I want players to think and debate and examine. But I also want them to be able to play roles they don't match in real life. And I don't mind if Thrudd the Barbarian is actually played by the love child of Sherlock Holmes, Stephen Hawking and Ken Jennings and can put clues together like no one else even though his stat sheet says Int 7 and no relevant skills.

Basically the same way that having combat systems prevents every fight being reduced to a single die roll. If we handled physical combat like D&D handles social encounters, it would be "I hit him with my sword. I rolled a 14. He's dead now." Or "Natural 20! I killed the entire group!"

If a system involves multiple die rolls, with degrees of success over time (damage, for example), it makes it less likely that a single action will decide the encounter. Strict social combat, with "damage" isn't necessary, but it is an example of a way to stretch out the mechanical aspects of social interaction, and make them less one-sided.

As I recall the Slayers D20 RPG had a mechanism for exactly this. Sure, tongue in cheek and meant to replicate the teasing/trash talking from the series, but a very interesting idea and useful nugget to file away.

- M

Telok

2024-01-26, 12:24 PM

I think there's also a lot of confusion over what qualifies as a developed social system.

Many people are using the term "social combat" as though all actions have to be reduced to some sort a murderous stabbery but some murder-stabs have the 'social talking' tag on them. Thats like saying all character physical actions have to use the combat rules. There are games like that, ones with no space in the movement rules between 'slow combat jog' and 'daily overland travel distance' where there's no way to sprint or run a in the rules. Those generate weirdness that has to be fixed by the GM. They also have issues with GMs less familiar with the things not covered in the rules and less flexible or inclined to improv or homebrew. When you assume that you map all social interactions to "social combat" it comes out just as weird and jankey as if you try to map every single physical action the characters take to the physical combat rules.

Another frequent one is the idea that just adding 'social hit points' means there's a social system. It doesn't, you're just stretching out the number of rolls with that. It would be like taking a game where all combat is a single opposed roll and just adding hit points. The game's combat is still just a series of opposed rolls, it just takes longer now. A well developed physical combat system has things like opportunity attacks, position advantages, conditional modifiers, different ways to affect opponents, and (hopefully) has baked in more ways to succeed than just killing everything in a genocidal bloodbath. Likewise a minimum functioning social system will have more options and outcomes than just rolling charisma at other characters until they get mind controlled.

Beelzebub1111

2024-01-26, 01:07 PM

I really like traveller's ability to mix and match stats with skills depending on the situation

"I'm going to kick your ass if you don't cooperate!" Indimiatation(Strength)
"I'm going to bring the wrath of my family down on you if you don't cooperate" Indimidation(Social Standing)

Yora

2024-01-26, 03:52 PM

It we're talking about PCs talking, I prefer players to do talking by talking.

If the revealed information does not force an NPC's hand in what to do with it, and the NPC isn't already excited about doing what the PCs suggest, there might be a single skill check at the end of the conversation, modified by how strong a case the players made and how resistant the NPC is towards going along with their appeal, to determine if the players get their way or not.

Vahnavoi

2024-01-26, 05:07 PM

Could you cite a few systems that do this well?

Do what well? Social interactions as a whole, or demonstrating the point (that communication is a mechanic and language is a game)?

icefractal

2024-01-26, 05:55 PM

Basically the same way that having combat systems prevents every fight being reduced to a single die roll. If we handled physical combat like D&D handles social encounters, it would be "I hit him with my sword. I rolled a 14. He's dead now." Or "Natural 20! I killed the entire group!"

If a system involves multiple die rolls, with degrees of success over time (damage, for example), it makes it less likely that a single action will decide the encounter. Strict social combat, with "damage" isn't necessary, but it is an example of a way to stretch out the mechanical aspects of social interaction, and make them less one-sided.I think this is somewhat orthogonal to what JusticeZero was talking about - the issue (AFAICT) wasn't that the process was too boring or too swingy, the issue was that the final output was too implausible and/or undesirable. Whether someone says "nat 20, I seduce you" or "after this half hour of social combat, I've scored enough Influence Points to seduce you", it's still bad.

My personal preference is that social skills are like using physical skills to navigate an environment. You don't need to describe compellingly how you use the handholds when you roll Climb to go up a cliff. But it does matter what cliff you're trying to climb, and not all obstacles can be solved by climbing.

So for example:
1) "Your crown is the key to unlock the magic map we've found - how about we bring it here, you unlock it, and we'll both know what it says?" - easy, like climbing up a hill
2) "The map is inscribed on a wall, we'll lead you and any bodyguards you want to bring there" - mid, climbing a steep rocky slope
3) "The map is inscribed on a wall - we'll bring you there but nobody else, because we want to keep the location a secret" - harder, now you're climbing a cliff
4) "Lend us your crown for a few hours, then we'll bring it back with the transcribed map" - also cliff-like, I think it'd vary from king to king whether its easier or harder than #3.
5) "Lend us your crown, won't be more than a few days (no offer of info-sharing)" - now you're climbing a sheer and smooth wall; you better be the god of smooth-talking.
6) "Just give us the crown dip****, find another hat to wear." - no, this is the equivalent of trying to "climb" to the moon, or "climb" through a locked door.

Is this unfair to people who don't know what the right thing to say is, despite their characters having high Diplomacy skill? IDK, is it unfair to people that you can't simply say "I'm playing a Diviner 15, so please tell me all the info we need to win"? You have to actually decide which spells to cast and which questions to ask. Or if you're playing a "tactical mastermind", you still have to decide where to move in combat, who to attack, which weapon/maneuver to use when applicable, etc.

Another aspect I look for in social mechanics is that there needs to be safety-valves for common sense. If the system produces a result like "um, well, I guess your character agrees to betray all his friends for a free sandwich ... no, its not supernatural compulsion ... they just made the sandwich sound really good" - then no, the system has failed. Personally, that kind of thing can kill my interest in a character (and entire campaign even) much faster than bad plot or clunky pacing.

And in terms of "well the PCs are immune, of course" - I pretty much view a system saying "the PCs are immune to the social mechanics" as admitting that their social mechanics aren't very good. And is also an incomplete solution because - hot take incoming - GMs are allowed to care about NPCs sometimes.

Like, not every NPC, it's fine if the normal procedure is just "you rolled high enough, they do what you wanted", but it does need exceptions. If players are allowed to reject their PC acting in bizarrely out-of-character ways (and they very much are, IMO), then GMs are as well, when it's important to them. Like "oh the GM has infinite NPCs" - true, but so do the players, they could always retire their PC and put in a new one. Investment is the factor, in both cases.

LibraryOgre

2024-01-26, 06:45 PM

Another aspect I look for in social mechanics is that there needs to be safety-valves for common sense. If the system produces a result like "um, well, I guess your character agrees to betray all his friends for a free sandwich ... no, its not supernatural compulsion ... they just made the sandwich sound really good" - then no, the system has failed. Personally, that kind of thing can kill my interest in a character (and entire campaign even) much faster than bad plot or clunky pacing.

And in terms of "well the PCs are immune, of course" - I pretty much view a system saying "the PCs are immune to the social mechanics" as admitting that their social mechanics aren't very good. And is also an incomplete solution because - hot take incoming - GMs are allowed to care about NPCs sometimes.

Like, not every NPC, it's fine if the normal procedure is just "you rolled high enough, they do what you wanted", but it does need exceptions. If players are allowed to reject their PC acting in bizarrely out-of-character ways (and they very much are, IMO), then GMs are as well, when it's important to them. Like "oh the GM has infinite NPCs" - true, but so do the players, they could always retire their PC and put in a new one. Investment is the factor, in both cases.

And I agree, here; I'm not saying that there shouldn't be "No, that doesn't make any sense" outs... my problem comes when players get to decide that they are immune to things based on their idea of the character.

I go back to the interrogation example. It is a situation entirely about forcing someone to do something they do not want to do (give information) via social skills. In such a situation, where you have Bob with a 2D Willpower, and Sarah with a 6D Willpower, does Bob get to say "No, I won't give that information, because Knuckles wouldn't do that?" Does Bob get to totally opt out of it, because he's decided his character is immune? If so, what's the value of Sarah having made her character resistant, if Bob gets to declare it?

Because that's the flip side of "No, the character won't do that, because it's out of character." That's not the system declaring Knuckles immune to social skills... that's Bob declaring his character immune to social skills. He won't be frightened, except by magic, because his character is fearless, right? He won't be convinced, except by magic, because his character is stubborn. But he's got that 2D Willpower, while Sarah's built up her character into someone who *is* fearless, and can be stubborn.

And that's where I draw us back to physical combat as an example. Sure, I'm playing a 1st level magic-user, with a d4 HP, no armor, and an 8 dexterity, but there's no way that I should die from a spear-thrust to the chest. My character concept is of someone who is a master of the martial arts, there's no way I would be surprised, or get hit by a spear. Did I mechanically invest in any of these things? No. But dying from combat is against my character concept, just as being afraid is against Bob's. Bob didn't have to invest in "resist being intimidated" to not be intimidated, why should I have to invest in "resist being stabbed" to not be stabbed?

Mechanical choices... including the choice not to invest in social skills... should have mechanical consequences. If you have those kinds of mechanical choices, be it a complex web of social skills or an attribute labelled "Charisma... then investing in them should be to your benefit in those situations, and not investing in them should cost you.

NichG

2024-01-26, 07:50 PM

The solution is not to make agency a tax of the character building system in the first place. Just don't have a Willpower stat that implies it's a gateway to being able to actually do what you decide to do.

There's hundreds of words we can use to describe characters. If a particular choice seems to be forcing you into a position where you have to make people roll to make choices for their character, just call the stats and skills something else.

Or just put clear mechanical demarcations. You can say 'this is called Willpower, but specifically it has to do with the ability to shake off the effects of drugs and spells; that is what you buy by investing in it'.

For interrogation, I'd run it as needing to have leverage the subject cares about. If you don't, or if you can't understand the subject enough to identify it, you don't get a confession. I won't make attributes or skills that say they can force that matter. But you can use your skills to identify that leverage or to interpret reactions when you raise possibilities or other such things. 'This guy really wants to avoid jail' vs 'this guy is protecting their family, threatening them is useless but either guaranteeing the family's safety can work'.

It's like, IMC anyone can declare their character immune to persuasion - in fact let's just say that all characters are. But that probably doesn't mean your character is going to ignore the world and the parts of the world others can control. 'If you don't tell us, I will disjoin your magic items. If you tell us, you can leave right now' might still present a reality that character (or their player) is willing to spill the beans to prevent.

icefractal

2024-01-26, 08:55 PM

I go back to the interrogation example. It is a situation entirely about forcing someone to do something they do not want to do (give information) via social skills. In such a situation, where you have Bob with a 2D Willpower, and Sarah with a 6D Willpower, does Bob get to say "No, I won't give that information, because Knuckles wouldn't do that?" Does Bob get to totally opt out of it, because he's decided his character is immune? If so, what's the value of Sarah having made her character resistant, if Bob gets to declare it?
For interrogation, I'd consider that a different situation because it's blatant and relies on a captive subject. Sure, in that situation, you can compel things that ordinary interaction couldn't. Brainwashing, same deal.
"After you were taken captive by the villains, they (over the course of some time) brainwashed you into betraying your friends" - yeah, that's fine (well, unlikely to be my kind of campaign, but fine on a general level); it's not BS like "they just persuaded you to betray all your friends in a casual conversation".

For a physical analogy, you can steal someone's wallet without them noticing, but you can't steal the shirt they're currently wearing without them noticing, regardless of your pickpocket skill. But if you instead mugged them for it (the equivalent to interrogation), then yeah, you can get the shirt.

Also, on a world-consistency level, it means that best practices are just "don't let strangers kidnap you" rather than "don't let strangers talk to you". Much more reasonable.

LibraryOgre

2024-01-27, 10:45 AM

The solution is not to make agency a tax of the character building system in the first place. Just don't have a Willpower stat that implies it's a gateway to being able to actually do what you decide to do.

There's hundreds of words we can use to describe characters. If a particular choice seems to be forcing you into a position where you have to make people roll to make choices for their character, just call the stats and skills something else.

Or just put clear mechanical demarcations. You can say 'this is called Willpower, but specifically it has to do with the ability to shake off the effects of drugs and spells; that is what you buy by investing in it'.

To me, this is not much different than saying "Yeah, I didn't invest in being immune to stabbing, but I'm totally immune to stabbing."

Stats describe characters. If I want to cast spells, I need to have an ability (class or whatever) that lets me cast spells. If I want to fight well, I need to have abilities that make me able to fight. And if I want to be free of the social influences of others, I should need to have abilities to resist that.

Folks like to make exceptions for magic... "Oh, he has an 8 Wisdom and no proficiency in Wisdom saves, of course he's vulnerable to Charm Person"... but an 8 Wisdom indicates a moderately low willpower. Why is a moderately low willpower immune to social skills, but not magic? Can I declare my 8 Dexterity doesn't ACTUALLY mean a penalty to AC, just a penalty to Dexterity Saving Throws? Can I have my Devotion Paladin spit on the symbols of their deity without becoming an Oathbreaker? Because I don't want to lose my Oath bonuses?

Again, I'm not saying "Impossible results should be possible", just "Possible results shouldn't be impossible just because someone says 'I don't wanna.'" You're not losing agency over your character, your character is suffering the consequences of their build, just as if you decided not to invest in fighting skills or learning magic. Failure to do that is choosing not to role-play... it's deciding that "Fear of Heights" was a cool source of extra build points for your high-wire thief, that you never have to worry about again, and that you don't need to be a spell-caster to actually cast spells.

NichG

2024-01-27, 11:29 AM

To me, this is not much different than saying "Yeah, I didn't invest in being immune to stabbing, but I'm totally immune to stabbing."

Stats describe characters. If I want to cast spells, I need to have an ability (class or whatever) that lets me cast spells. If I want to fight well, I need to have abilities that make me able to fight. And if I want to be free of the social influences of others, I should need to have abilities to resist that.

Folks like to make exceptions for magic... "Oh, he has an 8 Wisdom and no proficiency in Wisdom saves, of course he's vulnerable to Charm Person"... but an 8 Wisdom indicates a moderately low willpower. Why is a moderately low willpower immune to social skills, but not magic? Can I declare my 8 Dexterity doesn't ACTUALLY mean a penalty to AC, just a penalty to Dexterity Saving Throws? Can I have my Devotion Paladin spit on the symbols of their deity without becoming an Oathbreaker? Because I don't want to lose my Oath bonuses?

Again, I'm not saying "Impossible results should be possible", just "Possible results shouldn't be impossible just because someone says 'I don't wanna.'" You're not losing agency over your character, your character is suffering the consequences of their build, just as if you decided not to invest in fighting skills or learning magic. Failure to do that is choosing not to role-play... it's deciding that "Fear of Heights" was a cool source of extra build points for your high-wire thief, that you never have to worry about again, and that you don't need to be a spell-caster to actually cast spells.
[/quote]

There are games where it is in fact an appropriate and good design for a player to be able to say 'no, actually my character doesn't die'. For example, the 'death flag' idea where players have control over whether their character risks death, or just injury or somehow leaving the scene. It's a very useful thing to do if you want to encourage players to take bigger risks and play larger than life characters. The player knows the character won't die, but the character doesn't.

Not all outcomes automatically have to be on the table. Not all outcomes have to be given to the dice to decide. It's a design choice. In, say, D&D you don't need to invest into a stat in order to be able to know the best place to stand on a battlefield or the best spell to cast in a given situation. You also *can't* invest in a stat that would let you know those things. It's given to the player to do - a design choice in order to make the player engage in some parts of decision making and not others. It wouldn't be structurally invalid to have such a stat or skill in D&D, where in order to not do something dumb like Leeroy Jenkins into the enemy you have to make a Wisdom check or something, but from a design perspective that comes at a cost of engagement. So we make the design decision not to model those things with a stat.

Same thing with my model of social interaction that I use for designing my own systems. I prefer to design a system that doesn't promise that 'socialling at someone hard enough that they have to do what you say or believe what you want them to' is actually possible in-universe in the first place. That's motivated by my own mental model of socialization being more about cooperative than adversarial interactions (and the recognition that the default stance in a tabletop RPG can often skew towards the adversarial when NPCs are effectively means to an end for whatever the players currently are trying to do). It's also motivated by my design goals that significantly value control over your own characterization and the character's mental processes over 'everything has a stat' - both on the DM side and the player side.

So by making social skills about information rather than compulsion, I get to have things which people can invest in to be better in the social arena (because I'm upfront that the social minigame is all about understanding the other people accurately, so information is power; as opposed to being about your or your character's charisma), but also a system where character agency is perfectly preserved as far as their own decisions. I don't protect, say, a character's ability to remain conscious or 'not poisoned' or 'no wounded' or things like that, because of an intentional recognition that those things impacting a character are qualitatively different when it comes to a feel of ownership and being able to immerse yourself in a character than 'you have to be friends with this guy, even if you see he's doing awful stuff on the side, because he's just that charming' or 'you failed the minigame, so you were successfully seduced'. Plus, 'making decisions' is the very thing I need players at the table for, so trying to remove or filter those possibilities is shooting myself in the foot. I'm interested in for example whether someone thinks its worth it to retire their character to save an NPC or not - that means I want to know if their answer is yes or no, not if the dice's answer is yes or no.

In my campaigns, I don't want players to have to pay build taxes to have their character have a certain personality. I don't want players to have to pay build taxes to have their characters come up with clever plans or figure out mysteries. So I don't make those things have stats. In such a case, I'm obviously not going to have a flaw called 'fear of heights' that's worth any build points. But I don't have to! When I'm designing a system, I get to decide what things will be mechanized and what things should be left to roleplay or even just player metagame will.

I mean, you can look at something like FATAL to get an exaggerated idea of all sorts of things we could have stats for, but which its probably just better not to (barring a campaign specialized in those sorts of things). Because you could stat a thing doesn't mean you must do so, or even that you should for a given design goal.

LibraryOgre

2024-01-27, 12:43 PM

In my campaigns, I don't want players to have to pay build taxes to have their character have a certain personality. I don't want players to have to pay build taxes to have their characters come up with clever plans or figure out mysteries. So I don't make those things have stats. In such a case, I'm obviously not going to have a flaw called 'fear of heights' that's worth any build points. But I don't have to! When I'm designing a system, I get to decide what things will be mechanized and what things should be left to roleplay or even just player metagame will.

So, to be clear, my argument is "Mechanical choices should have mechanical consequences", and your response is "When you're making a game, just don't make them mechanical choices"? I've been saying, repeatedly, that if Sarah pays for something, Bob shouldn't get to declare it for free... your solution is "Sarah shouldn't have to pay for it"?

Which, yes, if you apply it as a design principle, that's fine. But if the designer *didn't* apply it as a design principle... if fear of height can be a thing worth build points, if "resists manipulation" is a thing that costs build points... then making those choices should have consequences.

I mean, you can look at something like FATAL to get an exaggerated idea of all sorts of things we could have stats for, but which its probably just better not to (barring a campaign specialized in those sorts of things). Because you could stat a thing doesn't mean you must do so, or even that you should for a given design goal.

I find comparing things to FATAL to be needlessly antagonistic.

NichG

2024-01-27, 02:08 PM

So, to be clear, my argument is "Mechanical choices should have mechanical consequences", and your response is "When you're making a game, just don't make them mechanical choices"? I've been saying, repeatedly, that if Sarah pays for something, Bob shouldn't get to declare it for free... your solution is "Sarah shouldn't have to pay for it"?

Which, yes, if you apply it as a design principle, that's fine. But if the designer *didn't* apply it as a design principle... if fear of height can be a thing worth build points, if "resists manipulation" is a thing that costs build points... then making those choices should have consequences.

Yes, this is correct. First, from the perspective of 'how structured do you like the Social Pillar', it seems to me to be fair game to take it that you have a choice of systems in order to express your preference over. So e.g. 'if the system says you have to pay to be brave, I don't like that' is an answer. I'd reject the assumption that we have to take as given that we're stuck with a system in which Sarah pays for that in the first place. I don't want Sarah or Bob or anyone to have to pay for e.g. 'my character is loyal and self-sacrificing'. So I make sure that I run games in which you don't have to pay for those things, which I feel neatly resolves the justification you gave for why it should have mechanical effect.

But also I take the perspective that when you're running a game, you're always trying to achieve some goals at the table as to what you want the game to feel like to play, and so you're always acting as a designer when you GM. Sure, maybe instead of writing a system from scratch to do that, you choose to run a system that doesn't fight you in what you're trying to achieve. But the idea that e.g. the Charisma stat is a fait accompli so its our job to make it count (even when the underlying system doesn't even do this!), seems like sort of circular (or perhaps backwards?) reasoning to me. Just rename the stat, or remove the stat, or heck just explain 'mechanically, this stat only does these things'. Or if you like it as is and it forwards your design goals, that's great too, but then the reason to keep it is because you want those interactions mechanized that way, not 'because you have to or it would be unfair'.

But it's not a forced choice.

Slipjig

2024-01-27, 02:22 PM

However, it can also lead to the famous "I roll a 20. He sleeps with me now." ... though that also happens just as much with combat.

This is where DM fiat is not only allowable, but absolutely necessary for the game to run properly. A Nat 20 means the possible outcome attainable BY THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER IN THE TOTALITY OF THEIR CURRENT CIRCUMSTAMCES. The DM determines what the Best Possible and Worst Possible limits are, not the Player. If the DM decides that a particular character isn't looking to shag right now, that Nat 20 might translate to, "The princess blows you off, though she finds you amusing enough that she DOESN'T call her guards over to beat up the impertinent lowborn peasant trying to make a pass at her."

KorvinStarmast

2024-01-27, 03:19 PM

Do what well? Social interactions as a whole, or demonstrating the point (that communication is a mechanic and language is a game)? This bit:

Understanding communication as a mechanic and language as a game is key to setting up social systems. I'd be interested in seeing what games do well with communication as a mechanic and language as a game. (And I may not quite be grasping the point you were making there).

JusticeZero

2024-01-27, 03:38 PM

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be "No, that doesn't make any sense" outs... my problem comes when players get to decide that they are immune to things based on their idea of the character.

And I'm just noting that any time you have a social resolution system...

See it from the point of view of the new girl at the table. She's a little bit reserved and doesn't want to make a scene. She's the only woman in the room. And then the creepy guy across the table grins at her, declares a seduction check and grabs his dice.

That's... literally a situation where she wants to declare that she is "immune to things based on their idea of the character". Certain results should not even be on the possible result chart.

Look at interrogation. I'll say it flat out: Torture doesn't work. Historically, it never has. Success had always come out of discovering how to broker a mutually beneficial deal. Sometimes you can get people to accidentally say things they didn't mean to, and that's a skill thing, but that's the person making a mistake, not them betraying their convictions. Torture just gets people to start spouting whatever they think the torturer wants to hear, and there's no way to get any accuracy out of that.

The chart of possible results isn't shaped the way the person making the check would like, and they can't change that.

Just adding more mechanics to "I force you to act contrary to your character" won't solve the issue.

Vahnavoi

2024-01-27, 05:17 PM

This bit: I'd be interested in seeing what games do well with communication as a mechanic and language as a game. (And I may not quite be grasping the point you were making there).

Consider Alias and similar word-guessing games. The first lesson of the game is how to communicate a concept when the trivial way is blocked. The second lesson is how to communicate a concept so that only some who are present get it.

Now consider that in the context of a specific roleplaying scenario: name magic is real. If you utter the name of a thing, it will draw attention of that thing. If that sounds far-fetched, consider a more mundane social contexts of evading law enforcement or a religious inquisition. So it may be vital to communicate a concept, but the simple way to do it leads to unwanted consequences. Hence, how you communicate changes what information is passed to who and thus changes the state of the game.

The punchline is that while Alias and the above sample scenarios highlight this feature of language to create particular challenges, the feature is present every time you use language with another person.

GloatingSwine

2024-01-27, 05:22 PM

I've recently come around to "roll first, then role-play" for social encounters, much like we do with combat. If you roll poorly, you describe/role-play what that bad roll looks like.

I think that does kinda miss the step that should come before every kind of check.

The player should say what outcome they want (not what they're going to do, what they want to achieve by doing it, so "I want to menace the servant into revealing his master's schedule for the evening" not "I intimidate the servant"), and how they're going to try and achieve that outcome, and then once the GM has decided if it can work and how hard it's going to be then if that player likes the am-dram side of play and can manage to do it without hogging the spotlight for too long they can act it out after the roll.

Jay R

2024-01-27, 07:50 PM

This is where DM fiat is not only allowable, but absolutely necessary for the game to run properly. A Nat 20 means the possible outcome attainable BY THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER IN THE TOTALITY OF THEIR CURRENT CIRCUMSTAMCES. The DM determines what the Best Possible and Worst Possible limits are, not the Player. If the DM decides that a particular character isn't looking to shag right now, that Nat 20 might translate to, "The princess blows you off, though she finds you amusing enough that she DOESN'T call her guards over to beat up the impertinent lowborn peasant trying to make a pass at her."

I agree with what I think you meant, but not with the way you phrased it. A Nat 20 doesn't mean the best possible outcome. It means the most likely of the top 5% of possible outcomes. You can't win the lottery with a natural 20, even though it is technically a possible outcome.

Lucas Yew

2024-01-27, 08:10 PM

Whatever the system specifics are, I do not want player social skills to trump over character social skills.

Cluedrew

2024-01-27, 08:53 PM

Oh, this reminds me of It's not my fault, I am just doing what the dice say my character would do! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?504803-It-s-not-my-fault-I-am-just-doing-what-the-dice-say-my-character-would-do!) Which is one of my favourite threads of all time. And one with the highest word counts.

I'm not going to say that I don't think the amount of rules or structure is nearly as important as how they are set up. There are a lot of terrible social rules out there at various levels of complexity. On the simple side you have systems that treat a conversation like picking a lock. On the complex side you have systems that treat a conversation like tactical combat. Neither captures conversations very well.

If I have some general rule it would be don't apply one system to all social interactions if you want interesting results. And yes, even if the modifier is different d20+mod vs. target number, binary pass/fail, is one system. But beyond that there is a lot of things to say on a case by case basis. Like if you try to persuade someone and fail, they might have their guard up if you try to convince them again immediately afterwards. Oh and one other general rule is it is very hard to solve out-of-character problems with in-character solutions.

But to answer the original question: I like them to be about as structured as I like combat to be structured, which is closer to D&D's skill system than its combat system but definitely between the two.

Kish

2024-01-27, 09:03 PM

I would think "there is zero chance of seducing someone who is not attracted to your sex" would be noncontroversial.

(I've certainly done it with a PC approaching an NPC and getting "yeah, no chance there at all" shut down. And in the case I'm thinking of, the character actually was attracted to male dragons, she just wasn't interested in dating outside her species even if she looked like a human at the moment.)

JusticeZero

2024-01-27, 11:20 PM

I would think "there is zero chance of seducing someone who is not attracted to your sex" would be noncontroversial.

As an aside, it's not a huge improvement if the creepy GM says "But didn't you have a boyfriend last year? Save vs. seduce!"

And as an aside to the "Everything must be paid for" crowd, how many build points in either direction is it worth to be bisexual or asexual?

Adventures should have a couple of results that are feasible for interaction for NPCs of note, and some defaults for miscellaneous people. Interaction needs time and can indeed be seen as being equivalent to picking a lock, which may involve a minigame. Opening a lock means you open the box; it doesn't mean that the box does anything beyond opening. The guy at the bar knows a dude that has been in the building. Success vs. x and he'll tell you who it is. Critical and he'll mention something neat about the security. But that's the ceiling to the interaction. Fail and you'll have to find a different way in. Botch and he'll call the guards you're hiding from.

kyoryu

2024-01-27, 11:22 PM

I do like my social rules more structured to the point that the stats are more important than the words of the players. The players should decide on what they try to achieve, what general method and bring in points why the other side should act like they want for the GM to consider. Anything beyond should depend on stats and rolls.

Pretty much this. The player is responsible for what they're trying to get and the general approach to getting it - what they're offering or threatening.

If it is possible but not definite, the dice tell us the result.

However i am very lukewarm on social combat systems. Social interaction is very different from combat and while it is always nice from system design to not build countless subsystems no one can remember, combat rules usually fail hard for most kinds of social interaction. Because combat is in essence adversarial, but social interactions rarely, at least not for all sides.

Agreed, however some kind of mechanics and pacing can be useful, but emulating combat doesn't work too well.

Leon

2024-01-28, 12:43 AM

Fairly unstructured ~ Social should be down to talking to and between characters with some guidelines on how interactions are for the particular game and expectations.
There should always be an emphasis on the words used rather than words as cover for a check result, a check result can be a useful part of a social encounter but it shouldn't be the only thing.

Telok

2024-01-28, 01:01 AM

Agreed, however some kind of mechanics and pacing can be useful, but emulating combat doesn't work too well.

Emulating combat works great for social situations that are themselves a form of combat. But just like using the combat rules to run sailing a ship or a heist will get you stupid results, so will using a system designed to resolve hostile debates or interrogations when you apply it to things like seduction or a con job. I wouldn't use d&d to run a 3 musketeers type intrigue & dueling game because I'd have to create the intrigue bits from scratch and d&d combat is terrible for one-on-one duels. So don't try to use a social combat system for debates & interrogations for things that it isn't designed for. A good social system is more akin to an exploration or journey system than to a combat system.

The issue of course being that you have to recognize what a system is for. D&d style combat systems don't handle assassinations, vehicular combat, or mass combat well. Those are well recognized combat situations that the particular system isn't designed to handle but inexperienced GMs still attempt out of ignorance because the game doesn't outright tell you that it isn't supposed to be used for those. Likewise a number of other games aren't any better at telling you what their social systems are designed to do and what you shouldn't use them for. So GMs inexperienced in sussing out what the use case of a social system is, will often try to use them for the wrong thing. That's where you get the crap outcomes and people talking about all social sysyems being bad and no system being the best option.

Cluedrew

2024-01-28, 10:33 AM

As an aside, it's not a huge improvement if the creepy GM says "But didn't you have a boyfriend last year? Save vs. seduce!"OK, I kind of hinted at this in my last post but I want to call it out.

Better rules will not fix this situation. Guarantying that the seduction attempt fails is an improvement, but this is still a "maybe just don't play with that group" situation. There still was inappropriate seduction attempt that should not have happened and... maybe this isn't the place to talk about why so let's just say it is for this conversation. Anyways, I don't want to sacrifice the quality of a healthy game to make an toxic/unhealthy game slightly less bad.

Although, in this case it is a bit of a hypothetical, I'm not sure I would play or design a game with dedicated seduction rules. But still, the underlying principle stands, trying to design your system in a way to keep bad actors from miss using it is pretty much impossible. There are some edge cases were good rules and good advice can definitely help things, but if your story starts with "the creepy GM" I don't think this is one of those.

Kish

2024-01-28, 11:31 AM

OK, I kind of hinted at this in my last post but I want to call it out.

Better rules will not fix this situation. Guarantying that the seduction attempt fails is an improvement, but this is still a "maybe just don't play with that group" situation. There still was inappropriate seduction attempt that should not have happened and... maybe this isn't the place to talk about why so let's just say it is for this conversation. Anyways, I don't want to sacrifice the quality of a healthy game to make an toxic/unhealthy game slightly less bad.
Yes, this. In the social dynamic you describe, JusticeZero, what exactly would the difference be if the game system was perfect in every way? Would that make "the creepy GM" not creepy?

Flyfly

2024-01-28, 11:33 AM

Personally, I am not a fan of mechanising the social pillar.

Not out of any belief that it cannot be mechanised reasonably well, but rather because I believe that pillars offering drastically different forms of play is a desirable feature.

To explain this a bit further: Combat is very mechanised! You obviously can still do things by GM fiat and do unexpected things, but most of the time, things are done by the rules. Social, when un mechanised is more or less "we talk it out, and maybe do a Charisma check of some sort", done by GM fiat.

I believe that neither of these 'modes' is actually very fun;

Say, playing combat by the rules may be fun for a bit, but TTRPGs are not designed like boardgames. These skirmishes aren't that fun to play, and I wouldn't do so forever.

Say, with social play there is a lot of play by "GM fiat". That's not a bad thing either and I enjoy it too, but without mechanics the game feels toothless, it feels like playing a "mother may I" with your GM. It's not something I'd like to do forever either.

(Exploration is usually somewhere between the two - more mechanics than Social, but also a good amount of GM fiat too)

The trick to making this all work is alternating between those mods, so none of them gets too stale. And for that to work, one of those mods will have to be 'soft' one on the mechanics. And it so happens that Social pillar is a great fit for it!

JusticeZero

2024-01-28, 04:02 PM

Yes, this. In the social dynamic you describe, JusticeZero, what exactly would the difference be if the game system was perfect in every way? Would that make "the creepy GM" not creepy?

By putting the unacceptable result outside of the range of allowable results.
You can't pick a lock on a chest in such a sublime fashion that the box has more treasure in it than was put into it. A seduction was never available in the box. You can't unlock it with a skill check.

Pauly

2024-01-28, 04:17 PM

I want to agree but can't. My primary issues are (a) this means you can never play a character that is better at reading other people than you are, or better at understanding social nuance than you are (to be trite, this is akin to saying "You can't bench 250, and you aren't an expert armed combatant, so you can't play a Fighter with 16 strength"); and (b) seldom are DMs good enough actors to accurately portray the NPCs they are voicing.

I do want players to put effort into acting (preferred) or describing (acceptable) their speech to sway the king or the mob-with-pitchforks. I want players to think and debate and examine. But I also want them to be able to play roles they don't match in real life. And I don't mind if Thrudd the Barbarian is actually played by the love child of Sherlock Holmes, Stephen Hawking and Ken Jennings and can put clues together like no one else even though his stat sheet says Int 7 and no relevant skills.

- M

My issues with ‘sense motive’ or similar include
1) The player rolls the dice and they know if they got a 2 + modifiers or a 19 + modifiers. The metagame knowledge cannot be un-knowed.
2) In a previous career I spent 15 years investigating fraud. My experience is that if anyone says they can tell by body language or demeanor if someone is truthful or not they are just guessing. The only fail safe way to tell if someone is being honest is to verify if what they said maps onto provable facts.
Studies have shown that highly experienced police officers who think they are good at detecting liars (i.e. have high ‘sense motive in D&D terms) are worse at detecting liars than new recruits who know they know nothing.
3) people are good at imagining what different physical abilities than they have mean. They are bad at imagining what mental/social skills that are different their own mean.

Now if you’re playing a sword and sandals hack and slash by all means roll the sense motive to get an idea if the vizier with a pencil mustache and carrying a snake headed staff is trustworthy or not. But if you are playing a game where there is more subtle interactions then I say it is up to the players to work out who is trustworthy based on the facts uncovered in play.

Vahnavoi

2024-01-28, 04:51 PM

@Cluedrew: are you sure you are talking of the same problem as JusticeZero? Because a seduction attempt being inappropriate is not the same as seduction result being inappropriate. In the former case, rules are adjusted to prohibit the attempt, in the latter case, they rules adjusted so the inappropriate result cannot happen, but the ability to make attempts remains.

Your point about bad actors is only halfway correct. It is impossible to make foolproof rules for people unwilling or unable to follow them, that much is true - but those aren't the people you make the rules for. Game rules - all of them - are instructions for people to change their behaviour. If people are acting oddly in your game, then the very first thing to check is what you instructed them to do, rather than assume they are odd people who'd do odd things regardless. It's only safe to conclude a rule change is ineffective after trying one out and finding it doesn't take. Trying to make sweeping statements about what rules can and cannot do in a vacuum is spitting on the face of empiricism.

KorvinStarmast

2024-01-28, 05:40 PM

Whatever the system specifics are, I do not want player social skills to trump over character social skills.

I would think "there is zero chance of seducing someone who is not attracted to your sex" would be noncontroversial.

How nice to have this juxtaposition right here.
Point 1 supports roll play.
Point 2 favors role play

InvisibleBison

2024-01-28, 05:43 PM

How nice to have this juxtaposition right here.
Point 1 supports roll play.
Point 2 favors role play

Point 1 also supports role play, in that it allows you to play people who have skills that you do not, and prevents you from using skills that you have but your character lacks.

icefractal

2024-01-28, 05:49 PM

Personally, I am not a fan of mechanising the social pillar.

Not out of any belief that it cannot be mechanised reasonably well, but rather because I believe that pillars offering drastically different forms of play is a desirable feature.

...

The trick to making this all work is alternating between those mods, so none of them gets too stale. And for that to work, one of those mods will have to be 'soft' one on the mechanics. And it so happens that Social pillar is a great fit for it!You know, I think I agree with this. Obviously preferences vary, but a game that's all one extreme or the other tends to be less fun for me. Because I like the ability to do some improv and freeform roleplaying, but I don't want to only do that, I need some crunchier aspects to have it feel solid and provide a different type of fun. And conversely, staying in tactical mode the entire game usually feels subpar.

As for what's "fair" to players? Big meh. Big giant meh. Any way you design the system is going to be better for some players and worse for others. Is 3.x combat fair in that sense? Hell no, it isn't! It would be much more fair to have the fight come down to only combat checks with very few player choices involved. As it stands, between two characters with the exact same skills and stats, one of them can end up performing like a tactical genius while the other one blunders around making mistakes, based solely on the players' skill. Heck, the blundering one could end up being the one with higher Int/Wis and (backstory-wise) more combat experience. But do I want to replace 3.x combat with just "roll a combat check"? No, because the tactical combat is fun (for people who like tactical combat), and the fun is more important than making sure the results reflect the characters only.

That said, the game should be up front about that! If you're going to make social interactions come down to pure roleplaying, then get rid of the skills which now don't do anything, don't leave them there as a trap for players to stumble into. And if it's partially RP, partially skills? Adjust the costing of those skills as appropriate. Notice, for example, how 3.x doesn't have a "being good at combat tactics" skill, or a "logistical planning" skill.

NichG

2024-01-28, 05:52 PM

Role play as depiction of a role vs role play as immersion into a role...

Cluedrew

2024-01-28, 08:51 PM

Not out of any belief that it cannot be mechanised reasonably well, but rather because I believe that pillars offering drastically different forms of play is a desirable feature. [...] Say, playing combat by the rules may be fun for a bit, but TTRPGs are not designed like boardgames. These skirmishes aren't that fun to play, and I wouldn't do so forever.I may disagree. Depends on what you mean for "different forms of play". For instance, I agree with the second part of the quote but for different reasons. Even the most tactical systems are still role-playing games and that puts constraints on them that mean it is very hard for them to shine as a tactical game. Not that some systems don't for some people, but personally I have yet to find a tactical system that doesn't have me reading a book after a few combats because it is boring, long and I don't really need to be paying attention to take my turns effectively and quickly.

While some variation between pillars is good, that is what makes them different pillars instead of just one pillar applied multiple times, if they get too far away from each other it becomes harder for them to synergise with each other. Now if you just want to mix two or three different experiences, that is fine, but I like things to feed into each other more.

@Cluedrew: are you sure you are talking of the same problem as JusticeZero?I believe so. Also I only touched on it in the line about edge cases, but I know, I just wasn't focusing on that.

Role play as depiction of a role vs role play as immersion into a role...Recently I head someone talking about their favourite hobby (it was a physical activity) and someone mentioned a computer game that was based on it. They said they don't care about games based on their hobby because nothing except the real thing can simulate the real thing. The point of this story is that immersion into the role is also different than simulation. Put a different way we can't really get perfection, you just have to aim for the part of the experience you want to capture.

Similar things could be said could be said of depiction, but considering we are often depicting fantastical levels of abilities, if not straight up entirely fantastical abilities, perfect depiction is a stranger idea in general. And I think there is some overlap between all three of these.

NichG

2024-01-28, 09:34 PM

Recently I head someone talking about their favourite hobby (it was a physical activity) and someone mentioned a computer game that was based on it. They said they don't care about games based on their hobby because nothing except the real thing can simulate the real thing. The point of this story is that immersion into the role is also different than simulation. Put a different way we can't really get perfection, you just have to aim for the part of the experience you want to capture.

Similar things could be said could be said of depiction, but considering we are often depicting fantastical levels of abilities, if not straight up entirely fantastical abilities, perfect depiction is a stranger idea in general. And I think there is some overlap between all three of these.

Well I mean, you can have two people say they want to roleplay, but one might mean 'I want to depict a character' and the other might mean 'I want to experience what it is like to be this character'. It matters a lot when it comes to metagame resolutions of some of the stat/player conflicts.

Like, it's commonly mentioned to solve the issue of the dumb character coming up with the smart plan by saying 'okay, everyone plan OOC, but then the person with the smartest character is the one who says the plan IC'. If someone means by roleplay 'depicting someone different than your real self', then that's a solution. But it's not a solution (nor was there a problem necessarily) for someone whose goal in roleplay is to 'experience being in a different role than your real self is in'.

But they can both legitimately be called roleplay, so it can be a communication hazard...

Cluedrew

2024-01-28, 10:09 PM

That makes sense. I guess I was thinking more about how you achieve those things.

Hytheter

2024-01-29, 01:51 AM

This is a pretty complex topic and I have a lot of thoughts on it. Let me start with some definitions: For the purposes of this post, Roleplaying is the act of deciding what your character says and does within the game world, then relaying these decisions through Describing and/or Acting. Acting, of course, is when you portray your character's actions directly by speaking in character, gesturing, making facial expressions and so on, while Describing is when you state in general terms what your character is saying or doing without actually doing it yourself. I'm making a point to distinguish between Roleplaying and Acting because I feel the two are often conflated; as far as I'm concerned Acting is NOT Roleplaying - it is an expression of Roleplaying (as is describing) but is not Roleplaying in and of itself. Which is pretty important when it comes to...

Should Roleplaying Require Social Skills?

Personally, I am in the camp that social interactions should be mostly mediated through Roleplaying and that RPGs do not even require social mechanics or stats of any kind (but they can add to experience nonetheless; don't take this as a total condemnation of social mechanics). A common objection to this sentiment - one already expressed in this thread - is that players should be empowered to play a charismatic or socially adept character without actually being one themselves. This is where I suspect the Roleplaying/Acting conflation plays a part. If seduction requires the player have a charming smile and smoothly deliver flirtations, if deception requires the player to talk quickly and confidently while keeping eye contact and never stuttering, if command requires the player to have a booming voice and an imperious stance, etc... then, yeah, that's probably a tall order for some people and is going to cause conflict between their vision for the character and the practical reality at the table.

I do not condone such requirements. You see, I am also in the camp that Describing is a 100% valid expression of Roleplaying, that Acting is unnecessary. Acting is desirable because it is fun and it can enhance investment and immersion in the game, but it should not be considered a requirement for participation. However...

"I seduce her" isn't really a description. Same goes for "I intimidate him," "I persuade them," "I deceive it," and so on. It's just not enough to go on! You need, at minimum, to describe how you're going about the action and what you're hoping to achieve or else how is the GM supposed to adjudicate the result? "I intimidate him with thinly veiled threats of violence" will differ wildly from "I intimidate him by threatening to tell his wife about his visits to the brothel" in all sorts of ways, from the likelihood of success, to the mechanics invoked, to the immediate outcomes and the long term consequences. Same goes for what you're trying to accomplish, though that at least will usually be implicit from context. You don't need a sinister glare and a menacing tone of voice, or to state your threats word for word, but you need at least a general idea.

Some people seem to think even this much is unreasonable. "My intimidate stat is high, so my character should just know what buttons to press to get the right result!" Sure, knowing what might make people tick is a social skill as much a charming smile or a menacing tone, but if you can't even manage that much I don't know what you're expecting. At best you're offloading a small amount off mental effort to the GM by forcing them to fill in blanks, which is not only lazy but may well result in them contradicting your character vision anyway. "I intimdate him!" "Uh, alright, you break a chair with your bare hands and he runs screaming." "Huh?! My character would never do something so brutish, thank you very much. And I didn't want to scare him off, I wanted his wallet!"

Why Use Mechanics, Then?

As I said above, I don't think social mechanics are necessary in RPGs. You could well navigate any social interaction entirely with Roleplaying, where the the outcomes hinge entirely on the actions performed. Strike the NPC's nerve just right and you'll get what you want from them; say the wrong thing and you might make the situation worse. This is a very natural and intuitive way of handling things.

However, it does put some burden on the GM to resolve things in a fair and reasonable manner, and that's where social mechanics can come in handy. If it's not super obvious that an action should succeed or fail, the GM can offload that decision to a dice roll. And to be clear, I do mean SUPER obvious - if social skills are something the player invests into with their character build, the GM should leave the space between "sure thing" and "no way" pretty open so that those investments are rewarded (and lack of investments punished, of course! :smallamused:). Games don't need social mechanics but if your game has them you'd better use them, else those invested in those mechanics will feel snubbed! Plus, rolling dice is fun.

Obviously just declaring "I roll intimidate" is bad, but that's due to insufficient description (as per preceding section) rather than a failure of mechanics. They still have to declare an approach and a desired outcome because it will affect the skills used, the DC, or whether there's even a roll at all. "Isn't choosing a DC just putting the burden back on the GM again?" Only if you overthink it. The game will work fine if you use the same fallback every time, but modifying the DC can be a useful tool if the GM deems it appropriate.

Of course, there are mechanics beyond simply inserting the odd dice roll into an otherwise Roleplayed interaction, but I think it only gets more prickly the more systematic you make it. RPGs are already conversational in nature, so rules for conversation don't really seem necessary, and trying to impose them risks infringing upon the nuances that social interactions have. "Social combat" to me seems especially undesirable since, well, social interaction isn't combat. It's not a zero-sum game and it's not about defeating the other side. Well, not usually. Combat is already a lossy abstraction, of course, but a necessary one; we can't exactly draw swords and hack at each other in real life just because some goblins appeared. But if it's just talking, well, we're doing that already, so how many rules do we really need?

Insight/Sense Motive

Mostly I've been focusing on the active side of the social equation, but of course understanding others is a key part of interaction as well.

Some people don't like insight as a mechanic and think it should be resolved through roleplaying. Obviously I don't hate this in the abstract... But it's important to stress that this cannot be done with Acting alone. Requiring both good acting from the GM and good interpretation of social cues by the players is a recipe for disaster. It's not hard to imagine, for example, that the GM's stuttering might be misinterpreted as the NPC's nervousness or vice versa. Just too many failure points. If you want to clue players in to the NPC's thoughts and feelings, description is probably the way to do it...

Though then again, this might instead be too obvious. I mean, if you explicitly describe the character as having eyes darting around and fidgeting and stuttering and whatnot, the players will obviously realise something is up. Personally, I don't think that's such a terrible thing, though. Information dropped into the game is wasted if the players don't pick up on it, anyway. And it's not like the clue contains all the answers. Are they nervous because they're lying to you or because they are scared of something? Only further action can reveal the truth.

And if you still want some uncertainty... Well, there's mechanics. Personally I think a lot of the distaste of Insight mechanics comes from using them wrong. Yeah, if they roll high and you say "he's lying" then that kind of ruins it, but I think that's the wrong way to do it. The successful roll should reveal the clues, not the answers - because of your roll, you can see that he's fidgeting and may be nervous, but again, you won't know why without pursuing the matter further.

Flyfly

2024-01-29, 02:03 AM

I may disagree.

<...>

While some variation between pillars is good, that is what makes them different pillars instead of just one pillar applied multiple times, if they get too far away from each other it becomes harder for them to synergise with each other. Now if you just want to mix two or three different experiences, that is fine, but I like things to feed into each other more.

I think it's likely that we are in agreement here!

This all is ultimately why it's best for pillars to be delineated by how heavily they are mechanised instead of just having different mechanics (e.g. very heavily mechanised combat vs very lightly mechanised social play). That way they can still exist within the same ruleset that communicates or at least is able to communicate with itself. I wouldn't want a "now we are a playing a different minigame" situation either!

kyoryu

2024-01-29, 12:43 PM

Emulating combat works great for social situations that are themselves a form of combat.

Fair. I play Fate, and there combat is (generally) resolved using a system called Conflict. Conflicts can also be social.

The problem is that many people use Conflict as the assumed scene structure even in cases where one of the other ones would make more sense - which is most of the time.

That's where you get the crap outcomes and people talking about all social sysyems being bad and no system being the best option.

Also fair. I'll also note Fate Conflicts are very different from D&D combat.

OK, I kind of hinted at this in my last post but I want to call it out.

Better rules will not fix this situation. Guarantying that the seduction attempt fails is an improvement, but this is still a "maybe just don't play with that group" situation. There still was inappropriate seduction attempt that should not have happened and... maybe this isn't the place to talk about why so let's just say it is for this conversation. Anyways, I don't want to sacrifice the quality of a healthy game to make an toxic/unhealthy game slightly less bad.

Yes. 100%. I have lost any interest in games that put in extensive guardrails to prevent stuff like the above, because I don't want to play with people that would do that stuff if only the rules didn't stop them.

Also, it really brings a few things to light:

1. Social rules should only come into play if the answer to whether someone would do something is "maybe", or if you're deliberately trying to to take away agency (like in an argument where you're really trying to shout someone down and make them not really capable of continuing, and lose their cool in one way or another and nope out).
2. Social rules should only ever be used to sway PC actions in that latter case, never to force a player to do something outside of that scenario (where you're really modeling the PC losing their cool).

Although, in this case it is a bit of a hypothetical, I'm not sure I would play or design a game with dedicated seduction rules.

Especially if they're intended to be targeted at PCs.

But still, the underlying principle stands, trying to design your system in a way to keep bad actors from miss using it is pretty much impossible. There are some edge cases were good rules and good advice can definitely help things, but if your story starts with "the creepy GM" I don't think this is one of those.

The bad actor will always find a way. That's been pretty much my experience with every bad player, ever. Their bad behavior might take different forms, but it's always present.

Should Roleplaying Require Social Skills?

I think you have to define "social skills".

I'd divide it into two categories - the tactical and the presentation.

Tactical is all about what approach you take - what leverage you use, etc. Presentation is how you say it.

I absolutely do not think RPGs should require you to have good presentation skills. I do think it's reasonable to say you should have good tactical skills. You should know or learn that finding out what motivates people and appealing to that is the way to sway them, and appealing to (say) a guard who's a parent might work better (then again, might not) if you bring the kids into it in some way - either in a positive (yay, I'll give you money you can use for your kids! If you let me in, it'll help protect your kids!) way, or a negative way (do it or else). Meanwhile, the guard who's a terminal bachelor living a life of pleasure will require very different leverage to get to do stuff.

To me, this is much like combat. We don't expect you to swing a sword, but we do expect you to realize the tactics you use for one group of enemies - how you position yourself and your group, how you prioritize targets, etc. - are not the ones you'd use for a different group.

A common objection to this sentiment - one already expressed in this thread - is that players should be empowered to play a charismatic or socially adept character without actually being one themselves. This is where I suspect the Roleplaying/Acting conflation plays a part. If seduction requires the player have a charming smile and smoothly deliver flirtations, if deception requires the player to talk quickly and confidently while keeping eye contact and never stuttering, if command requires the player to have a booming voice and an imperious stance, etc... then, yeah, that's probably a tall order for some people and is going to cause conflict between their vision for the character and the practical reality at the table.

Correct, which is why I think players should not be required to have presentation skills.

"I intimidate him with thinly veiled threats of violence" will differ wildly from "I intimidate him by threatening to tell his wife about his visits to the brothel" in all sorts of ways, from the likelihood of success, to the mechanics invoked, to the immediate outcomes and the long term consequences. Same goes for what you're trying to accomplish, though that at least will usually be implicit from context. You don't need a sinister glare and a menacing tone of voice, or to state your threats word for word, but you need at least a general idea.

Precisely.

Some people seem to think even this much is unreasonable. "My intimidate stat is high, so my character should just know what buttons to press to get the right result!"

This is the same as expecting to say "I try to defeat the enemy, my fighting skills should be enough, why do I have to position myself?" in a combat. (Or, in a more TotM game, describe where you are and what you're doing).

However, it does put some burden on the GM to resolve things in a fair and reasonable manner, and that's where social mechanics can come in handy. If it's not super obvious that an action should succeed or fail, the GM can offload that decision to a dice roll. And to be clear, I do mean SUPER obvious - if social skills are something the player invests into with their character build, the GM should leave the space between "sure thing" and "no way" pretty open so that those investments are rewarded (and lack of investments punished, of course! :smallamused:). Games don't need social mechanics but if your game has them you'd better use them, else those invested in those mechanics will feel snubbed! Plus, rolling dice is fun.

Precisely. It's for the maybe cases, and those should be reasonably wide. Asking the King to give you the Kingdom because you asked nicely won't fail. Offering someone a ton of money to do something that has no apparent risk and no real cost to them should probably always work (unless it's raising suspicion, but you get the point).

Obviously just declaring "I roll intimidate" is bad, but that's due to insufficient description (as per preceding section) rather than a failure of mechanics. They still have to declare an approach and a desired outcome because it will affect the skills used, the DC, or whether there's even a roll at all. "Isn't choosing a DC just putting the burden back on the GM again?" Only if you overthink it. The game will work fine if you use the same fallback every time, but modifying the DC can be a useful tool if the GM deems it appropriate.

I think of it as "leverage". Or, in easier terms, social interactions in RPG terms are trades - you want something, and you offer something. Identifying what you're offering is key. It can be positive (you'll get this good thing) or negative (I won't do this bad thing). But fundamentally, it's a trade. If the trade is too lopsided, you just auto-nope or yes it. Otherwise, roll the dice, and feel free to modify the difficulty by how lopsided the trade is.

Of course, there are mechanics beyond simply inserting the odd dice roll into an otherwise Roleplayed interaction, but I think it only gets more prickly the more systematic you make it. RPGs are already conversational in nature, so rules for conversation don't really seem necessary, and trying to impose them risks infringing upon the nuances that social interactions have. "Social combat" to me seems especially undesirable since, well, social interaction isn't combat. It's not a zero-sum game and it's not about defeating the other side. Well, not usually. Combat is already a lossy abstraction, of course, but a necessary one; we can't exactly draw swords and hack at each other in real life just because some goblins appeared. But if it's just talking, well, we're doing that already, so how many rules do we really need?

Agreed on that. There's a few edge cases. Looking at Fate, again, a Conflict can basically be thought of as any situation where two parties want conflicting things, and each is in the way of the other, and the only resolution is to get one party to give up. Not agree. So "social combat" can work in a scenario where you're really trying to, one way or another, not convince the other party to agree but to give up, either rage-quitting, acquiescing through guilt, etc. It's a situation where you win by making the other party feel bad.

And if you still want some uncertainty... Well, there's mechanics. Personally I think a lot of the distaste of Insight mechanics comes from using them wrong. Yeah, if they roll high and you say "he's lying" then that kind of ruins it, but I think that's the wrong way to do it. The successful roll should reveal the clues, not the answers - because of your roll, you can see that he's fidgeting and may be nervous, but again, you won't know why without pursuing the matter further.

Yeah, skills like this shouldn't be mind reading.

KorvinStarmast

2024-01-29, 01:01 PM

Fair. I play Fate, and there combat is (generally) resolved using a system called Conflict. Conflicts can also be social. The problem is that many people use Conflict as the assumed scene structure even in cases where one of the other ones would make more sense - which is most of the time. Some day, maybe our group will try a fate based game. Not betting on it.

As to role playing for a social interaction, for any player the most important two things to describe is Intent and Approach. For this to work, the GM/DM has to be trusted to be a referee, not an opposing personality. You can do this either in first person or third person, but describing intent and approach (the things character intends to do and how they intend to accomplish that) gives scope to the interaction. (And IIRC, in Dungeon World it allows for the right Move to be selected for that situation)

1. Social rules should only come into play if the answer to whether someone would do something is "maybe", or if you're deliberately trying to take away agency

2. Social rules should only ever be used to sway PC actions in that latter case, never to force a player to do something outside of that scenario (where you're really modeling the PC losing their cool). Good guidelines. You expect to simply roll a d20 and seduce the dragon.

I think you have to define "social skills".
Can of worms, opened. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, skills like this shouldn't be mind reading. Indeed.

kyoryu

2024-01-29, 01:56 PM

Some day, maybe our group will try a fate based game. Not betting on it.

I could probably be talked into running a one-shot. If your "Texas" happens to be of the "Austin" variety, that'd be even easier.

As to role playing for a social interaction, for any player the most important two things to describe is Intent and Approach. For this to work, the GM/DM has to be trusted to be a referee, not an opposing personality. You can do this either in first person or third person, but describing intent and approach (the things character intends to do and how they intend to accomplish that) gives scope to the interaction. (And IIRC, in Dungeon World it allows for the right Move to be selected for that situation)

Yeah, Intent and Task is one of the best pieces of gaming tech like ever.

I do think in social situations, especially, "leverage" or "what trade are you offering" are important parts of the Approach that should be detailed out.

Can of worms, opened. :smallbiggrin:

Which is why I defined some categories :smallbiggrin:

Specifically, I've met a lot of people that think "being stubborn and refusing to compromise" is a social skill. And while it is, I suppose, it's a very limited one and edges on bullying.

Other people think that "social skills" means "using really flowery language". Again, that's not really false but it's an extremely limited view.

The truly important social skill, in my view, is understanding what people want and figuring out how to make them an offer that they'll accept (using some combination of carrot and stick). Using a soft framework that emphasizes that gets a lot of legs, in my mind, and can actually help teach social skills.

Mordar

2024-01-29, 02:43 PM

My issues with ‘sense motive’ or similar include
1) The player rolls the dice and they know if they got a 2 + modifiers or a 19 + modifiers. The metagame knowledge cannot be un-knowed.
2) In a previous career I spent 15 years investigating fraud. My experience is that if anyone says they can tell by body language or demeanor if someone is truthful or not they are just guessing. The only fail safe way to tell if someone is being honest is to verify if what they said maps onto provable facts.
Studies have shown that highly experienced police officers who think they are good at detecting liars (i.e. have high ‘sense motive in D&D terms) are worse at detecting liars than new recruits who know they know nothing.
3) people are good at imagining what different physical abilities than they have mean. They are bad at imagining what mental/social skills that are different their own mean.

Now if you’re playing a sword and sandals hack and slash by all means roll the sense motive to get an idea if the vizier with a pencil mustache and carrying a snake headed staff is trustworthy or not. But if you are playing a game where there is more subtle interactions then I say it is up to the players to work out who is trustworthy based on the facts uncovered in play.

I understand, and again to some extent agree. Specifically to these, though:

#1 - I like rolls of that nature (see also Hide, Spot, Search, etc) to be "behind the screen" rolls to preserve knowledge (both as a player and a GM);

#2 - The lie-detection skills are to give you an impression, not a fail-safe. Lots of research on lots of cues, so I view sense motive as a combination "Do you notice the cues?" and "Do you recognize what the cues mean"...so yes, the body language, speech inflection and word choice might all mean "He's lying!" but they could also mean "He has a horrible headache, mid-level social anxiety, his kid was up all night with a cough, and you announced you are a huge Yankees fan." Confidence in the detection of evasiveness doesn't always mean X, and very seldom means X because Y (where Y = the investigator's preconceived notion absent corroborating evidence);

#2 tldr - I accept the limitation of the models, much like I accept that there's no way a fight comes down to just two criteria;

#3 - All day. However, I'm not sure of the impact here.

Just as an addition to point #2 - thinking you have a good Sense Motive skill doesn't mean you do. Modeled systems with discreet Sense Motive scores can tell you if you have a good Sense Motive skill or not.

Again, I think we're probably a lot closer in opinion than we are apart...but if I can't work out who seems trustworthy until I have definitive proof that they're not, I'm going to end up with a lot seaside property in Oklahoma, a number of deeds to bridges without a lot of toll revenue, and a lot of puppet strings hanging from my back.

- M

GloatingSwine

2024-01-29, 02:48 PM

Why Use Mechanics, Then?

As I said above, I don't think social mechanics are necessary in RPGs. You could well navigate any social interaction entirely with Roleplaying, where the the outcomes hinge entirely on the actions performed. Strike the NPC's nerve just right and you'll get what you want from them; say the wrong thing and you might make the situation worse. This is a very natural and intuitive way of handling things.

I think at least some level of social mechanics enhances roleplay as long as the DM is sufficiently inventive and permissive about what the skill system can be used to do.

It would be very hard without a character's skills to lean on to have, for instance, a character who uses intelligence through Investigation to be a Sherlock Holmes style detective who scrutinises a person's appearance and draws deductions that appear to be near-magical knowledge to other people who don't have their vast wealth of knowledge to draw on because, well, the NPCs aren't real and you can't actually scrutinise them with your own eyes.

Also it means you can do stuff like separate and specialise the tasks, like the intelligence based investigator can scope out a target, deduce the best approach, and then hand that information over to the face who makes the approach. Making the big serious social stuff a team activity.

icefractal

2024-01-29, 03:27 PM

I think you could have social mechanics that were designed to assist in roleplayed-out social interaction rather than replacing it. For example:
* Save when you say something that will (unintentionally) be insulting/provoking - if you succeed, then you just thought about saying it rather than actually saying it.
* In a negotiation, get a read on how high/low the other person is willing to go, and how difficult it would be to push that far.
* Sense Motive as (effectively) Spot/Listen to notice small tells that indicate nervousness (or "more interest than they want to portray" or other reactions).
* Get a clue for possible negotiation tactics when you're out of ideas.
* Hype up something so it appears better (or worse) than it is. Not infinitely, but enough to make a difference in a negotiation that was already close.
* Convey true sincerity, and/or convincingly portray false sincerity.

Off the top of my head, IDK if I've seen this in practice, but it seems entirely possible.

KorvinStarmast

2024-01-29, 03:57 PM

I could probably be talked into running a one-shot. If your "Texas" happens to be of the "Austin" variety, that'd be even easier. I have a friend who DMs on line who lives in that area, but I do not. PM if you'd like to discuss further.

Yeah, Intent and Task is one of the best pieces of gaming tech like ever. It allows a player to focus their thought when framed that way. Honestly, just thinking along those lines helpf me as a DM with NPC interactions.

I do think in social situations, especially, "leverage" or "what trade are you offering" are important parts of the Approach that should be detailed out. Yes, good point.

Specifically, I've met a lot of people that think "being stubborn and refusing to compromise" is a social skill. And while it is, I suppose, it's a very limited one and edges on bullying. And while now and again it has a place in a role playing game, it can also detract form the whole table's experience. Situation dependent.

Other people think that "social skills" means "using really flowery language". Again, that's not really false but it's an extremely limited view. Yes, that also has its place but it needs to be one of the tools in the box, not the one size fits all tool.

The truly important social skill, in my view, is understanding what people want and figuring out how to make them an offer that they'll accept (using some combination of carrot and stick).
Using a soft framework that emphasizes that gets a lot of legs, in my mind, and can actually help teach social skills. Yes. You bring me back to a few counselling sessions I was in a few decades ago where the whole mechanism of deal making, and the offer/counteroffer chain was emphasized.

Vahnavoi

2024-01-30, 03:57 AM

@Hytheter: you're close enough to correct that I won't nitpick your distinction between roleplaying and acting, but you didn't quite take your observations to their logical conclusion.

Yes, you can substitute a description for physical action, but that's a skill just as well. Which gets to something I always end up explaining in discussions about this topic: a game can not eliminate player skill. Game rules are instruction for people on how to behave, they only define which skills the players are using and to what extent.

This also relevant to point kyoryu made above, about distinction between tactical and representational skills. It may sound reasonable to say a roleplaying game shouldn't require good representational skills, but it isn't actually useful. Why? Because when your format is play between humans, representational skills are vital, and good representational skills improve the game for every participant. It's possible to adjust what the absolute minimum requirement of skill is, but keeping it there would be counter-productive. Why? Because people adjust to expectations. If you never require anything more from players, they also won't do more. Everything descriptive is reduced to the minimum level.

Dialogue at a game table being trivialized to things like "I roll seduction" is a symptom of that. This in turn loops to the point I made to KorvinStarmast about Alias and communication games. "I roll seduction" is equivalent to Alias player just blurting out what's on their card. It stems from nobody explaining to and demanding from a player "you can't just say that, you have to use your own words, that's part of the game".

---

It would be very hard without a character's skills to lean on to have, for instance, a character who uses intelligence through Investigation to be a Sherlock Holmes style detective who scrutinises a person's appearance and draws deductions that appear to be near-magical knowledge to other people who don't have their vast wealth of knowledge to draw on because, well, the NPCs aren't real and you can't actually scrutinise them with your own eyes.

You're sort of missing that your formulation of the problem gives away the solution:

You can actually have the player scrutinize an NPC with their own eyes by providing a visual reference (such as a photo or drawing), and you can simulate "what Sherlock Holmes would know" by drawing attention to specific parts of that reference.

That is how you turn the player's own eyes and deductive ability into a game mechanic.

The overarching point ties to my reply to Hytheter, above. Placing player skill into opposition with character skill is nonsense. Everything in a game builds on player skills, all the game rules, including rules on character skills, just define which skills. People should stop assuming that a mechanic about a skill means a player doesn't use that very same skill for real in a game - it just doesn't have to work that way.

kyoryu

2024-01-30, 01:01 PM

This also relevant to point kyoryu made above, about distinction between tactical and representational skills. It may sound reasonable to say a roleplaying game shouldn't require good representational skills, but it isn't actually useful. Why? Because when your format is play between humans, representational skills are vital, and good representational skills improve the game for every participant. It's possible to adjust what the absolute minimum requirement of skill is, but keeping it there would be counter-productive. Why? Because people adjust to expectations. If you never require anything more from players, they also won't do more. Everything descriptive is reduced to the minimum level.

My point was strictly scoped, and you're going beyond that.

Of course speaking/presentational skills are important in a game that is, at the end of the day, mostly talking.

That's not the point I'm making. I'm advocating that, when resolving social rolls (assuming you have them), that the GM's opinion of how "good" your speech is shouldn't impact the ruling explicitly.. The factors that go into it should be:

1) The NPC, and their goals and desires and needs.
2) The specific approach used - what leverage are you using, or to use different language, what offer are you making?
3) If you are using mechanical resolution, the skills or abilities of the two characters
4) If you are using mechanical resolution, the randomizer being used, assuming there is one

The specific words and tone being used should not be an explicit input (in my opinion, to avoid a number of issues*). Presentation skills will still inevitably be an implicit input, as your ability to communicate your approach to the GM is going to be impacted by your own communication skills.

Also, the skill of "make a flowery sounding speech" or "acting" is slightly different than the skill of "presenting an idea clearly to the GM".

(Also, I fully agree that player skill is always a factor, inherently. The only question is which skills you want to focus on, how much, and how explicit that requirement is).
-----

* Specifically,
1. Allowing less socially-skilled players to be able to play more socially-skilled characters.
2. Preventing social "skills" that boil down to "refusal to compromise or accept defeat" from dominating the social sphere.

If these are not issues to you, then there's no issue with have representation impacting the result.

Vahnavoi

2024-01-30, 02:10 PM

My point was strictly scoped, and you're going beyond that.

Of course speaking/presentational skills are important in a game that is, at the end of the day, mostly talking.

That's not the point I'm making. I'm advocating that, when resolving social rolls (assuming you have them), that the GM's opinion of how "good" your speech is shouldn't impact the ruling explicitly.. The factors that go into it should be:

1) The NPC, and their goals and desires and needs.
2) The specific approach used - what leverage are you using, or to use different language, what offer are you making?
3) If you are using mechanical resolution, the skills or abilities of the two characters
4) If you are using mechanical resolution, the randomizer being used, assuming there is one

The specific words and tone being used should not be an explicit input (in my opinion, to avoid a number of issues*). Presentation skills will still inevitably be an implicit input, as your ability to communicate your approach to the GM is going to be impacted by your own communication skills.

You are using "good" as a weasel word. The four points you lists are are criteria for what counts as good speech. It is also impossible to hit these four points without paying attention to specific words the player says, because how else are you going to find out the necessary information? This is the exact point I made earlier. If your criteria includes game-specific mechanical resolution, then a player has to use vocabulary of that mechanical system. You are at most swapping one set of magic words for another.

Cutting tone out of consideration is purely arbitrary and extremely unnatural for in-person communication. Precisely since you cannot eliminate its implicit effect, the idea that it shouldn't be dealt explicitly is nonsense: it should be dealt with explicitly because then you can explicitly identify what a player has problems with, which also allows explicit consideration of additional advantages or handicaps to even a playing field.

Also, the skill of "make a flowery sounding speech" or "acting" is slightly different than the skill of "presenting an idea clearly to the GM".

"Making flowery sounding speech" is not the definition of acting in any sane person's vocabulary. Most aspects of acting, chiefly non-verbal forms of communication such as tone, emoting and gestures, have nothing to do with that, and demonstrably help people present ideas faster and with more clarity.

icefractal

2024-01-30, 02:44 PM

You are using "good" as a weasel word. The four points you lists are are criteria for what counts as good speech. It is also impossible to hit these four points without paying attention to specific words the player says, because how else are you going to find out the necessary information? This is the exact point I made earlier. If your criteria includes game-specific mechanical resolution, then a player has to use vocabulary of that mechanical system. You are at most swapping one set of magic words for another.It's possible to hit those four points without even having specific dialog, much less using body language / intonation!

To oversimplify, there are five levels you could present an argument in a TTRPG:
1) Vague - "I use Diplomacy to get into the castle" - too unspecified for most purposes, although in a simple situation (normal haggling, say) it can be enough.
2) General - specify what the main argument you're making is, can be an overview, ie - "I remind the guard that our authority as inspectors comes directly from the Empress, and that unless the Baron is specifically refuting that then he needs to let us in" - can satisfy all four points in many cases, though not all.
3) Detailed - as with General, can be a description of the argument, just including more detail and negotiation. Satisfies all four points.
4) Specific Dialog - you say the exact lines your character would say, in first-person. But just the lines, you could be making angry threats IC while leaning back in your chair perfectly calm OOC.
5) Acting - you use the appropriate body language and tone for what you're saying.

#4 and #5 can enhance the game if the players are up for that, but they're not necessary to satisfy the four points above, or for me (as a GM) to meaningfully adjudicate the situation.

kyoryu

2024-01-30, 02:53 PM

Vahnavoi

2024-01-30, 03:42 PM

It's possible to hit those four points without even having specific dialog, much less using body language / intonation!

To oversimplify, there are five levels you could present an argument in a TTRPG:
1) Vague - "I use Diplomacy to get into the castle" - too unspecified for most purposes, although in a simple situation (normal haggling, say) it can be enough.

Bad example. That is not vague at all in the context of d20 system and similar games you most likely get this example from. To the contrary, in context, it is very specific, referencing particular body of rules text. It is a fine example of a system-specific magic word. The flaw in this approach is reductiveness, not vagueness.

A better example would be "I talk my way into the castle".

2) General - specify what the main argument you're making is, can be 3rd-person overview, ie - "I remind the guard that our authority as inspectors comes directly from the Empress, and that unless the Baron is specifically refuting that then he needs to let us in" - can satisfy all four points in many cases, though not all.

This can satisfy all the points yes. It does so by referencing specific game details and events. There is a limited number of ways to get this point across in English to another English-speaking person, and it is reliant on that person having shared understanding of those details. If you think in this style of play the specific words don't count, you're badly mistaken.

4) Specific Dialog - you say the exact lines your character would say, in first-person. But just the lines, you could be making angry threats IC while leaning back in your chair perfectly calm OOC.

5) Acting - you use the appropriate body language and tone for what you're saying

You know what would be an apt line for the character? "Our authority comes directly from the Empress! Unless the Baron is specifically refuting that, he needs to let us in!"

Number five is just the same, but said with gusto.

I skipped number three because I don't find it to be meaningfully distinct from the steps before and after. You're imagining description and acting as more distinct than the actually are, especially when it comes to doing this in person. In practice, virtually all arguments specific enough to fit your step two can trivially be turned into character dialogue, because they already are intelligible dialogue.

#4 and #5 can enhance the game if the players are up for that, but they're not necessary to satisfy the four points above, or for me (as a GM) to meaningfully adjudicate the situation.

The fact that they enhance a game is reason enough to explicitly incorporate them into a game. Not doing so is reductive. That is the disagreement between me and kyoryu, not whether these are necessary.

KorvinStarmast

2024-01-30, 04:01 PM

4) Specific Dialog - you say the exact lines your character would say, in first-person. But just the lines, you could be making angry threats IC while leaning back in your chair perfectly calm OOC. As far back as I can remember, that is how role playing happened. You spoke as though you were the character in your own words. To me, that is the default, be it Space Quest, Empire of the Petal Throne, Traveler, Rune Quest, Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Trolls.

Maybe the way this has changed - where people will only refer to their PC/avatar/alt in the third person, has to do with Third person agency/view in video and CRPGs, or maybe it's the Bo Jackson effect (Bo would sometimes refer to himself in the third person, as have other pro athletes, and it took a while for me to get used to people doing that).

This is a hypothesis, and is limited to my own observations both in person and on line for a long time.

A better example would be "I talk my way into the castle". Which, if coupled with "intent" and "approach" framing can fit together in a variety of game systems.

"Our authority comes directly from the Empress! Unless the Baron is specifically refuting that, he needs to let us in!" A nice and concise first person dialogue opener that does not need a lot of flowery language.

Beyond the flowery language tic that some players have (it has never been required, but it can be a nice flourish in a given circumstance) in a related topic I have found, to my dismay over the years, that the ability to express one's self verbally is becoming rarer - and not just in game but in the work place.)

kyoryu

2024-01-30, 05:38 PM

As far back as I can remember, that is how role playing happened. You spoke as though you were the character in your own words. To me, that is the default, be it Space Quest, Empire of the Petal Throne, Traveler, Rune Quest, Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Trolls.

Same, and it's my preference. My point is that given a mechanical system, the information given in steps 1-3 of the process are sufficient to resolve the action, especially if you don't want to base success on the player's "flowery language" skill.

Which, if coupled with "intent" and "approach" framing can fit together in a variety of game systems.
A nice and concise first person dialogue opener that does not need a lot of flowery language.

Indeed. However, i think there's a lot of history behind "making a 'good' speech is how you get your way in social scenes". Which... I think the more intent/task based approach is a lot more interesting. Which is part of why I'm explicitly arguing that "flowery speech" should not give a mechanical bonus. Sometimes being more interesting is its own reward.

Of course, if you're fine with "people without flowery speech skills can't do social characters" and wanting to encourage said speech is a goal, then by all means, make that the thing that drives success.

icefractal

2024-01-30, 08:09 PM

The fact that they enhance a game is reason enough to explicitly incorporate them into a game. Not doing so is reductive. That is the disagreement between me and kyoryu, not whether these are necessary.

It is also impossible to hit these four points without paying attention to specific words the player says, because how else are you going to find out the necessary information?
:smallconfused:

The specific example for #2 was poorly chosen though - I wanted a short example, but this is a case where there's plausibly little difference between the "description/summary" and "full" forms. But in most cases, when presenting an argument, you don't just literally present a one sentence thesis and then drop the mic. Like imagine it was the Baron in question you're saying this too, not a guard, and in front of other people - a successful use of social skills would probably involve some etiquette, face-saving opportunities for him to get the point without explicitly flaunting authority, etc. Like, think of a negotiation scene in a movie vs a summary listing the salient points of compromise.

Maybe the way this has changed - where people will only refer to their PC/avatar/alt in the third person, has to do with Third person agency/view in video and CRPGs, or maybe it's the Bo Jackson effect (Bo would sometimes refer to himself in the third person, as have other pro athletes, and it took a while for me to get used to people doing that).3rd person was actually a writing mistake on my part, I meant zoomed-out / summarized. That said, some players have referred to their characters in 3rd person since I've been playing, so for over 20 years - it's not a new thing. And from what I've heard from OG players, playing in "pawn stance" with much more emphasis on tactics/gameplay than character interaction has been a common thing since literally the start of the hobby, possibly more so than it is now.

kyoryu

2024-01-30, 08:27 PM

GloatingSwine

2024-01-30, 09:51 PM

You're sort of missing that your formulation of the problem gives away the solution:

You can actually have the player scrutinize an NPC with their own eyes by providing a visual reference (such as a photo or drawing), and you can simulate "what Sherlock Holmes would know" by drawing attention to specific parts of that reference.

No you can't.

I know you like to pretend you're omnicapable and can provide absolultely any experience anyone may desire but actually you're not. You drew a stick figure and pretended it had all the details about the particular type of mud on the shoes that revealed everything about where the NPC had been and what they'd been doing there.

That's the kind of detail you can only provide by responding to a player choosing to use investigation skills in the moment. You can't draw it, you can tell them about it.

Hytheter

2024-01-31, 03:03 AM

Vahnavoi

2024-01-31, 08:34 AM

:smallconfused:

The specific example for #2 was poorly chosen though - I wanted a short example, but this is a case where there's plausibly little difference between the "description/summary" and "full" forms. But in most cases, when presenting an argument, you don't just literally present a one sentence thesis and then drop the mic. Like imagine it was the Baron in question you're saying this too, not a guard, and in front of other people - a successful use of social skills would probably involve some etiquette, face-saving opportunities for him to get the point without explicitly flaunting authority, etc. Like, think of a negotiation scene in a movie vs a summary listing the salient points of compromise.

The only difference you're succesfully establishing between two and three is length, which is immaterial to both my point and kyoryu's. I don't have a reason to imagine talking to the Baron taking any longer than talking to a guard, for the same reason that kyoryu's four points can be applied regardless of how many steps a game's mechanical resolution engine has.

3rd person was actually a writing mistake on my part, I meant zoomed-out / summarized. That said, some players have referred to their characters in 3rd person since I've been playing, so for over 20 years - it's not a new thing. And from what I've heard from OG players, playing in "pawn stance" with much more emphasis on tactics/gameplay than character interaction has been a common thing since literally the start of the hobby, possibly more so than it is now.

I know and am not denying that. I'm pointing out that 3rd person descriptions are often less different from acting than people acknowledge - in person, often literally just the pronouns used in speech change.

As for "pawn stance", you realize that "putting more emphasis on tactics/gameplay" comes at the cost of de-emphasizing character interactions? It's just another way of saying that doing things that way is reductive, which is my whole point. It makes sense for people who care more/i] about some other aspect of a game. It doesn't make sense for people who care about character interactions.

"Tactics/gameplay" isn't even the correct term. Plain social interaction has tactics and is gameplay on its own. It's just weasel words for literally any other activity than social interaction.

---

No you can't.

I know you like to pretend you're omnicapable and can provide absolultely any experience anyone may desire but actually you're not.

I'm well aware that a game's ceiling for what experiences it can offer are limited by the people in it and setting up. That's not a refutation of the general point. Visual props can be and are used by tabletop games all the time.

You drew a stick figure and pretended it had all the details about the particular type of mud on the shoes that revealed everything about where the NPC had been and what they'd been doing there.

That's the kind of detail you can only provide by responding to a player choosing to use investigation skills in the moment. You can't draw it, you can tell them about it

If you're talking of me personally, I can do far better than stick figures. If I want to, I can leave the tabletop medium entirely and stage a crime scene for a live-action roleplay. Providing realist pictures or photographs is a midling effort.

But even if I'm drawing just stick figures, I'm still engaging my players' ability to deduce from visual cues - that part isn't pretension, it is simply what is mechanically happening. Getting all the details isn't necessary to get to that goal, the bar is met far earlier. I am not forced to substitute [i]verbal descriptions for visual descriptions (ie., pictures) when simpler visual description suffices, just like I don't need to substitute a dice game for social interaction when the option to substitute a simpler social interaction is right there. Or, in reference to point made to icefractal above, I can substitute a shorter conversation for longer one and still engage conversation skills of my players.

More, I know people who play roleplaying games entirely through medium of drawing. It's evidently something that can be done if the participants want to. So: if you want to give players a chance to play a character like Sherlock Holmes, why wouldn't you go through the trouble of facilitating using the skills Sherlock Holmes does? And if you're not doing that, what about the resultant gameplay is supposed to count as "playing Sherlock Holmes? Independent of whether you can offer the experience, if you aren't offering it, what is your pretension achievong? What is the actual draw for the game, if it has no relationship to actually doing things in the way Sherlock Holmes would?

icefractal

2024-01-31, 03:23 PM

The only difference you're succesfully establishing between two and three is length, which is immaterial to both my point and kyoryu's. I don't have a reason to imagine talking to the Baron taking any longer than talking to a guard, for the same reason that kyoryu's four points can be applied regardless of how many steps a game's mechanical resolution engine has.
At this point I'm not sure whether I'm failing my communication checks to convey a message or you're reading them incorrectly, but communication definitely isn't happening.

You said this:

In practice, virtually all arguments specific enough to fit your step two can trivially be turned into character dialogue, because they already are intelligible dialogue.Saying that #4 was basically the same as #2. Not #3. That is what I'm talking about. Yes, #3 is #2 with more information (which is in some cases, but not always, necessary to adjudicate the result), just like #5 is #4 with body language and tone. They're a continuum, not entirely separate paradigms.

And then the following section (about 3rd person / pawn stance / etc) is all in response to KorwinStarmast's post, not yours, which is why I quoted that post right before it.

Vogie

2024-02-01, 03:30 PM

Let's try to reframe this in a different way.

One of the things I dislike about some TTRPGs & their GMs is the use of puzzles and riddles. There are plenty of times when a puzzle and riddle kind of makes sense - The evil wizard has something password-protected hidden in a vault somewhere, so they leave themselves little clues in case they can't remember the password when they return. But it doesn't matter if I'm playing a highly intelligent character or one that is dumb as rocks - I personally am not able to reliably figure out a riddle on any given hour. And in my playgroup of six, there are plenty of times where we'll run into something in some game that should really be completely obvious, but for whatever reason, on this particular Sunday afternoon, we're all stumped.

I'm in the camp that this is a failure of game design - on equal level as encountering a locked door with no one with thieves' tools in the party and having to turn around and go back to town. That being said, we want the game to also be fun - the puzzle shouldn't be "Someone roll a 27 on an intelligence check"... because that isn't a puzzle. When you're in a game where a critical success unlocks the world's best lock, it makes sense that players could also think that a critical success should unlock their opponent's best argument (or pants). It's kind of like ultracrepidarianism - where because someone is an expert at one thing, they think they're also an expert at this unrelated thing. Except with the game mechanics equating to all things in the same game world reacting in the same manner.

That being said, I have to agree that a character's social skills shouldn't ultimately be determined by their player's innate charisma, for the same reason we don't expect that for strength or intelligence. At the same time, as IceFractal pointed out, playing a character with maxed out divination shouldn't mean their character should just know how to fix any given problem. NichG also pointed out that even the most "tactical genius" character won't know where best to stand or which spell to use, simply because that isn't a possible character option to choose.

Unless, of course, you design it in.

In Pathfinder 2e, they added a trait called "secret" to a collection of relatively normal actions. If a PC is hiding, lying, trying to sense someone's motive, among other things, the player doesn't roll - instead, the player is supposed to just give the GM their modifier, who rolls it in secret, then gives the player information... but without telling them the numerical result. It more accurately gives the table an realistic approach - I hide (but am I hidden?); I think the wanderer is telling the truth (but are they really?); I don't see any indication that there are bandits lying in wait to ambush us (is that because they don't exist or because I rolled poorly on Perception?) - by using the GM as a balancing match. Secret rolls aren't a particularly loved mechanic, as far as I can tell, because it leaves that information somewhat undetermined. Players like not only rolling the dice, but also being able to have the meta-knowledge of what the die actually says gives them a sense of control.

So, one way to make your system's social interaction mechanics work is by doing something similar (interestingly, PF2e doesn't do this - both the Make a Request & Make an Impression actions are not secret). Whatever mechanic you have set up for social back & forth, that could be rolled secretly. It gives the same back-and-forth that you would see in such an encounter, but the players have to simply accept the results, as they don't have the meta-knowledge to argue against the game master. This can spread out to knowledge things as well - perhaps that "tactical genius" can use a corresponding secret check to find the best spot to stand or the best spell to use... with the knowledge that the information they receive does have a diminishing chance to be incorrect.

Implementing this type of secret check also has a hidden benefit that you can use to better control your table. Instead of asking a certain person to roll for their own PC to access revelatory information, you just ask for their modifier and you roll. This will stop the "I am Spartacus" popcorn rolls that parties tend to do - Asking player A to roll, say, perception for a specific reason so often causes players B, C, and D to also announce that they're rolling perception, regardless if they have a reason to do so. When you do the rolling, that seems to eliminate the desire for the other players to dogpile on their fellow players. This is merely an anecdote of my group.

Another option would be to expand the idea of a character to having more stats, and then all of your existing combat mechanics can then be applied 1:1. Instead of having a static willpower stat that is a Target Number to be rolled against, make it Will Points that act in the same manner. Like gijoemike mentioned on the first page talking about Legend of the Five Rings having courtier, etiquette, sincerity, temptation, intimidation & investigation as their social stats will create a much more dynamic options for a social back & forth system than one that has, for example, only Persuasion/Diplomacy, Intimidation and Deception. Creatures could have both a physical target Number and a mental Target number, which needs to be cleared before effects can happen - stabs or insults. If you build your social system in this manner, all of the mechanics we use for physical combat can be mirrored on the mental/social side of the character sheet. The same language we use for physical damage vs Hit Points can be turned around to be used for Social damage vs Will points (or whatever they're called).

Resistance - instead of reducing or halving damage, it's now reducing the efficacy of social maneuvers. The Veteran Guard might have resistance to bribes and the Dwarvish tavern owner might have resistance to Elves
Weakness or vulnerability - instead of augmenting or doubling damage it's now increasing the efficacy of those same maneuvers. That same Veteran Guard might have a weakness towards others with military backgrounds, and that Dwarvish Tavern owner might have a weakness to other dwarves.
Immunity - this acts precisely the same. The average monarch might have immunity to breaking up their kingdom; much to the Bard's dismay, that dragon is immune to their romantic advances.
Traits - These work in multiple ways. Just like the "mindless" trait might have the residual meaning that the creature is immune to mental effects like suggestion, perhaps the Greed trait makes that creature immune or even openly hostile to requests for their wealth; The Narcissistic trait might imply the creature is weak to admiration and resistant to empathy or sympathy.

Then you'd include various levels of attitude and social conditions that can affect targets - reputation, renown, honor, insulted, traumatized. Reminiscent of how the Torchbearer condition list includes "Afraid" and "Angry" alongside more expected conditions like "fatigued" and "injured".

As a variant of that, you wouldn't have to lock yourself into a single line. Maybe there are multiple TNs that all have their own spectrums. Helpful to Hostile, for example, might be an entire line by itself, completely separate from Friendly to Unfriendly, Observant to Aloof, Proper to Indecent, Paragon to Renegade, or however you want to break them up. When a GM is generating NPCs, they can choose how they feel, or just roll a die (so Friendly could be 6 and unfriendly could be 1 on a d6). Another gauge that could be interesting is an amount of social awareness - this can gate the amount of requests that any given person can take. You're not going to be able to make 17 requests in succession of the prince... but you might eventually break down the bartender. This type of setup could also be reflected in how other things work. A Critical Success Save vs your charming spell may mean that not only are they uncharmed, but they also are now aware you tried to magically charm them and their social awareness is suddenly sky-high.

Once you have some sort of system in place to mechanically represent the social encounters, the rest of your system can begin to interact with that setup. The above-mentioned person with high divination might be able to try a request first, and if it goes poorly they can say "that was an alternate future, I instead would like to do..." a number of times. Players who want extremely charismatic characters might be able to turn critical fails into regular fails whenever they use a social maneuver, or be able to insult someone even if they don't share a language through their points/feats/etc investment. This is especially useful if you have a system with degrees of success - PbtA games have three, Pathfinder 2e has 4, and I'm pretty sure there's one out there that goes the full 6 "No, and | No | No, but | Yes, but | Yes | Yes, and", but I can't remember the name offhand.