Settings and Systems. Discussion.

[Coplantor]

Reasons for this thread to exist

1- Discussion and comparison of different systems and rules.

2- Collective effort to create and fix mechanincal aspects of rpg's

3- A place to draw inspiration from, share your ideas, know the opinion of others and make yours known.

4- To reduce the ammount of threads (mainly by me) asking about the opinion of the playground regarding different specific aspects of a game.

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Original First Post

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I'm not a cruncher I'm a fluffer.

I enjoy creating new worlds, races, and the such. Although most of those creations are lost somewhere within my head. Why? In some cases, beause I feel that the mechancs of the games I play wouldn't represent what I have in mind quite well.

But I just cant come up with solutions, I would like to publish some of these things. Some might work for systems like d20 and GURPS. But I like to create, I like to make new stuff. But most of the time, I dont know how.

Mostly inspired by the Hit Point Thread, the point of this thread is to have a place to discuss mechanincs and the way they serve the story/setting/fluff of a game for various reasons:

1- I enjoy discussion, just as long as it keeps civilized.

2- This could be a place to create new ideas, for those who really enjoy a particular system but there's just that little thing they would like to change and dont know how.

3- For those like me, who look forward to create their own games to have a place to compare the advantages of say, Wounds vs Hit Points, d20 vs 3d6, multiple kinds of dice vs one kind of die.

4- To reduce the ammount of threads (mainly by me) asking about the opinion of the playground regarding different specific aspects of a game.

In order to understand how to make a game mechanic, one should look at one that already exists and be able tell why it was done that way, so this would be the place too look at a rule and be able to say "Oh, I see what they did it that way" and share it with the rest of the playground.

To make it easier to move from topic to topic, we could change it one week from now.

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Previous Topic

Social Skills

Curent Topic

Xp though changing to Solo Campaigns

And please, let's keep this civilized.

[Thinker]

Just to have a topic to start discussing, social skills.

How much depends on the roll and how much on the player? Wich are "good" examples of systems that deal with social skills? How often should those appear?

And please, let's keep this civilized.

I think that a social system should be based on the skill of the character, not the player. It is not a prerequisite to be good at swordplay to play a warrior. Obviously, skilled use of magic is not an option. Why should people have to be good at social interactions to play characters who are as well?

Unfortunately I cannot think of any systems that I have played that have handled social situations very well. Exalted 2e really tries, but they turn it into another form of combat. D&D 3.X just does it badly (too easy to auto-succeed).

[Coplantor]

Unfortunately I cannot think of any systems that I have played that have handled social situations very well. Exalted 2e really tries, but they turn it into another form of combat. D&D 3.X just does it badly (too easy to auto-succeed).

Indeed, once you have enough ranks and other skill buffing stuff you can pretty much convince the average civilian of whatever you want.

Checks are a good abstraction, but going only by checks you cut down the RP experience.

The Bonus Dice from description that exalted uses seems like an intresting solution, but yeah...

[Yora]

I like to combine a bit of both. I let my players use skill checks, but I have them bringing up arguments first and then apply a bonus or penalty to their roll. Like with Bluff checks in D&D.
If a player has some really good points why a NPC should do a certain thing, it should be a success on a fairly low roll. Failure would mean they offended the NPC or it came out in a way that makes them appear very unreliable.

[Chiron0224]

I find in general that any mental stat which differs to widely from the abilities of the player in RL becomes difficult from a roleplaying perspective. You don't have to be strong or a good swordfighter to say "I rip the door off it's hinges" or "I attack it with my sword", respectively. However it can be difficult to roleplay a character who is noticeably smarter/more charismatic than yourself as you might not think of things/word things the way that they would. I always house rule that a player can tell me the gist of what his character is saying and then roll diplomacy/bluff/intimidate/gather information and the higher he rolls the better his character words it(and vice versa).

i.e. I'm going to tell the shop owner that if he doesn't give me a good deal on this sword I'm going to hurt him in some manner.

High result "Tell you what, either you give me a discount or your torso is going to be 'half off'."

low result "Don't make me smash you!!"::foams at the mouth a little::

[Coplantor]

Yeah, mental stats are quite problematic for those reasons (thoug they provide a lot of fun every now and then, specially when you roll poorly ).

But say, wich systems would you say had hit it right? Or wich ones are more "social" focused?

[Woodsman]

I speak with only the knowledge of D&D 3.5e

I tend to do more roleplay than rollplay with social skills, namely with Diplomacy. Bluff is opposed by Sense Motive, Intimidate has the level check, Gather Information requires hours of free time, but Diplomacy?

Nope, just roll the die and you can turn someone who was Hostile into a friend in about five minutes.

So I tend to ignore diplomacy rolls. Kind of a jerk thing to do, but if you want the king to go to war against the BBEG's nation, then you need to use actual facts and good reasons. You can't just say "Go to war!" and roll the Diplomacy check. It's how I work, of course.

Perhaps a Charisma check would work well enough.

[Chiron0224]

as for social focus I don't know but when it comes to the mental stat vs. player thing I really like the GURPS advantage common sense. The GM makes a secret roll against the player's int score whenever he feels the player is about to do something stupid and on a success he tells the player "you might not want to do that". There was a player in my group for a while for whom the advantage was mandatory.

[Coplantor]

Yeah, that's in my opinion the best advantage one can get in GURPS, players are ussually prone to ridiculous ways of thinking

[Psyx]

We play roleplaying games, and the clue is in the name. A player who is poor at social interactions should - IMHO- perhaps steer clear of overly socialite styled characters if they plan on resorting to 'I make a roll' roleplaying.

I personally like the system to support the roleplaying, rather than replace it. I also don't like it to be wholly dependant on the player.

I tend to make the player make any diplomacy-type roll near the beginning of a social encounter, and then use it as a guidance. A character who does well on a roll when dealing with their boss (say) can talk to me frankly as a GM, and it's 'metally fluffed up' a bit. And they can get away with asking questions that they otherwise couldn't politely bring up. On the other hand, those who score badly are assumed to be in 'yes sir, no sir' mode.

[TooManyBadgers]

I prefer heavy player involvement in any part of the game, rather than dice-dependency.

If a character is trying to persuade an NPC, I want to hear the player make a compelling argument or appeal. If a character is climbing up the side of a building, I expect the player to detail the challenge and to make it interesting.

Depending on how engaging the descriptions are, I'll give players small (but not insignificant) bonuses/penalties to the effects of their rolls.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Coplantor, I had work to do today

Re: Social Skills
The heart of this discussion is the following question: "Is the game about PCs v. NPCs or Players vs. DMs?"

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In a game with little-to-no "power" behind Social Skills, every social challenge comes down into how good the Player is at playing with the DM. If the Player can successfully manipulate the DM, he wins. Otherwise, the Player is only going to "win" as many social challenges as the DM wants him to. Of course, this encourages Players to spend a lot of time getting into the head of their DM - which is both flattering and encourages more "serious" RP.

In a game with lots of "power" behind Social Skills, a character is only as convincing as his sheet says he is. This gives less-charismatic Players a chance to "win" arguments and make outrageous bluffs, but it can also provoke "lazy RP" - "I roll to convince."

Obviously there are many points on the line between these two extremes, but this is the central question you must ask when designing a Social Skills system.

Personally, I'm a fan of an interpretation of the D&D4 rules spurred by the difficulties of adjudicated Social Skill Challenges.

D&D4 mandates fixed DCs for Skill Challenges, and a number of successes before a Challenge is complete. Unlike most earlier RPGs, it does not leave room for "extraordinary successes" nor "one-roll successes" which leave the DM a lot of implicit leeway in implementing a "Player vs. DM" interaction. This is good - IMHO if a Skill can't be used to achieve in-game results (or does so badly) then it's a busted mechanic. But what was I to do when a Player makes a brilliant statement and then blows their Diplomacy check?

My answer: the PC says what they want, but the die determines how the NPC reacts.

Each success brings the NPC closer to the resolution the PC wants - but each failure introduces a new hazard. Even the best argument might trigger a hiterto unknown prejudice of the NPC; and even the worst might pull at a hidden heartstring. But the challenge is not over until the NPC is overcome; even the best Diplomancer might sweat if he has to pass 6 or more checks before failing thrice - some of which might require him to act outside of his speciality!

This approach neatly balances the two approaches to Social Skills by keeping both sides engaged by the RP aspect (provoked by reacting to die rolls) without nerfing the ability of charismatic PCs to be persuasive and uncharismatic Players to play them.

EDIT: Mental stats in general are far more problematic - and I'm not going to type a dissertation on them now. That said, it is generally a bad idea to produce OOC puzzles (e.g. riddles, logic puzzles) that can be solved via IC mechanics (e.g. skill checks, mental stat checks).

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This both gives clever Players a boost over duller Players (they can solve problems even with bad rolls) but it can also turn brain teasers into games of "mother-may-I" with each Player rolling dice to get to play 20 Questions with the DM over something he expected the Players to solve themselves.

IMHO, riddles/puzzles should be solvable OOC but with IC skills being useful to gather hints. Perhaps a Knowledge check will reveal some extra information about the riddle style or form or maybe a Perception check will spot a clue. Never present a puzzle that can be solved purely OOC; make them ones that can be solved with Player ingenuity only once one-or-more IC skills have been successfully applied. How many skills need be applied depends on the sharpness of the Players, but at least folks get a chance to use their IC abilities for as many hints as they need.

[Coplantor]

Nice post OH!

Yes, complex checks are a good solution. When you say: some of which might require him to act outside of his speciality! you are talking about the different skills for the same problem aproach of 4th ed?

Also, wich social skills should always be present on a game? Intimidation and bluff seem to be the most common

[Oracle_Hunter]

Nice post OH!

Yes, complex checks are a good solution. When you say: some of which might require him to act outside of his speciality! you are talking about the different skills for the same problem aproach of 4th ed?

Also, wich social skills should always be present on a game? Intimidation and bluff seem to be the most common

The "different skills" approach is a bit of an artifice in Social Skill Challenges, but not impossible.

Basically, frame the reaction of the NPC such that one tactic is going to be easier than another. For example, a failed Diplomacy check might cause the Grizzled Warrior to thunder back about the "weakness" of the PC. If he tries a milquetoast response (Diplomacy) make it a Hard check - even tell him so, or allow a preemptive Insight check. On the other hand, a successful Intimidate is fully appropriate - so make it a Medium check.

Admittedly, for a Diplomancer, the DC of DMG 42 Skill Checks just aren't going to cut it. But a Hard check might be enough to make the Diplomancer sweat

Re: Social Skill Selection
IMHO, D&D4 covered all the bases in this regard
- Falsehood Convincing (Bluff)
- Truthful Convincing (Diplomacy)
- Convincing by Other Means (Intimidating)

Most other potential social skills (e.g. Leadership, Instruction, Innuendo) are usually more trouble than they're worth. They're either overspecialized or overlap with the general skills in confusing ways.

If you're treating Social Conflict like a conflict it's also handy to include Social Defenses. 4e does an incomplete job of this:
- Vs. Bluff (Insight / DMG 42 DC)
- Vs. Diplomacy (DMG 42 DC)
- Vs. Intimidate (Will NAD / DMG 42 DC)

For games that do an interesting job of modeling "social combat" like this, look at Burning Wheel and Warhammer Fantasy RPG ("WFRPG"). I have only read over Burning Wheel's rules, but their approach to conflict in general is sufficiently innovative to make it worth noting. WFRPG approaches Social Conflicts like Physical Conflicts - a novel approach, but one I'm still not happy with.

In general, I lean towards the "less is more" school of Social Skills. Give the PCs something they can use to influence RP, but not to dominate it or their thinking about it.

[Coplantor]

OK, question, how does those two RPG handle it then?

[Oracle_Hunter]

OK, question, how does those two RPG handle it then?

Er... well, it's a bit complicated. You should really pick up a copy of Burning Wheel if you intend to be a game designer - it's one of the most popular Indie RPGs and takes a unique approach to game design. If nothing else, it should give you a fresh perspective from which to analyze mainstream RPGs. I'm still learning the system myself

WFRPG is much simpler by comparison. WFRPG runs Social Challenges much like D&D4 originally did - both sides roll initiative, there's a success tracker, and both sides use Powers (e.g. Detect Weakness; Fear Me!), Defenses, and Skills to gain successes. The first side to 50% Success triggers some manner of beneficial effect. The actual dice-mechanic for WFRPG is distinctive (all custom dice with pictures rather than numbers) but doesn't do anything a traditional dice system couldn't duplicate.

[Coplantor]

So one is more like traditional combat (though it reminds me of 2nd ed psionic combat) but with "social" terms.

Also, is Burning Wheel legally available for free download?

[Oracle_Hunter]

So one is more like traditional combat (though it reminds me of 2nd ed psionic combat) but with "social" terms.

Also, is Burning Wheel legally available for free download?

(1) Yes. I don't know if I like it, but it is a different point of view.

(2) No, but IMHO it's worth shelling out $25 for the core rules if you want to get serious with homebrewing a system. It's written more like a game designer's notebook than as a system - though it's a fine system by all accounts as well.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Well, I'll be damned if this thread dies that easily.

New topic: Rules & Reality

Apropos this thread, I made a comment regarding the purpose of rules:

Rules should be shallow for unimportant stuff and in-depth for important stuff. What is important or unimportant depends on your design goals when making a game - but be sure you identify them!

. . .

Shallow and In-Depth mechanics can both be complicated, but neither should be. If a rule is difficult to use, it is a poorly designed rule. Nor does shallowness or depth of a rule indicate its fidelity to "reality;" freeform RPGs have among the most shallow rules for conversation (i.e. none) and yet they are much closer to reality than any Diplomacy mechanic.

Am I right? Is seeking to replicate "reality" a poor goal for system design? Do more "complex" rules really mean a greater approximation of "reality?" Do I use too many "quotation marks?"

So what say you?

[Coplantor]

I was about to post something more about social skills but, meh...

So, rules.

Complexity does not necessarily means a better aproximation to reality, I've seen rules heavy games that fail at it. At the same time, a great deal of complexity might end up alienating players,

I agree that trying to replicate reality is a poor goal, the goal of the game is to make it's own reality believable

[Emmerask]

I prefer heavy player involvement in any part of the game, rather than dice-dependency.

If a character is trying to persuade an NPC, I want to hear the player make a compelling argument or appeal. If a character is climbing up the side of a building, I expect the player to detail the challenge and to make it interesting.

Depending on how engaging the descriptions are, I'll give players small (but not insignificant) bonuses/penalties to the effects of their rolls.

Yep, thats how I do it too.
It has the added bonus that even not heavily social optimized characters and characters without a ton of skillpoints can interact with the world, outside of swordplay, too

[Thinker]

Level of complexity does not infer realism, ease of use, or quality. How the system is implemented as a whole does that. A game's system should be internally consistent in its approximation of reality and the entire world's physics should be consistent with the system being used. That said, a system should be adapted to whatever setting it is using to describe it.

If the rules for flight say that no creature with wings can achieve perfect maneuverability, the creatures in the setting should reflect that. If the setting calls for perfect-flight, winged creatures, an exception should be annotated in the rules, a new ability should be made (and given to those creatures), or the rule should be removed.

[Thinker]

I prefer heavy player involvement in any part of the game, rather than dice-dependency.

If a character is trying to persuade an NPC, I want to hear the player make a compelling argument or appeal. If a character is climbing up the side of a building, I expect the player to detail the challenge and to make it interesting.

Depending on how engaging the descriptions are, I'll give players small (but not insignificant) bonuses/penalties to the effects of their rolls.

So do you actively penalize players in your group who are awkward in social situations naturally, even if the player is trying to play a character who is good in such settings? Does the player of the bard who doesn't know what to say to the magistrate automatically fail because he can't come up with a logical argument on his own, despite being a renowned orator? Another example comes to mind that if a player describes his fencer doing a parry, riposte, and disarm maneuver, but does so wrongly, is he penalized by his GM (who may be far more knowledgeable about such matters)? Likewise, what if it is the GM who is awkward in most social settings, but knows how to tell a good story or doesn't know beans about real swordplay, rock climbing, jailbreaks, etc?

If that works for your group, I won't press you, but it seems that there would be drawbacks if that were applied across the board.

[Aroka]

Am I right? Is seeking to replicate "reality" a poor goal for system design? Do more "complex" rules really mean a greater approximation of "reality?" Do I use too many "quotation marks?"

So what say you?

Reality is irrelevant on its own, verisimilitude isn't; there's nothing necessarily realistic about superhero games, but they can feel "right" or "wrong." For some games/genres/settings, realism is verisimilitude.

You're dead on about the differences between deep/shallow, complex/simple, and realistic/unrealistic. The Riddle of Steel has the deepest, most realistic, most fun, and smoothest combat mechanic I've ever seen in a RPG. The depth and realism make it fun - there's so many real techniques you can use (and that are suggested by the rules themselves absent any knowledge of real combat), but everything uses the same simple resolution system (roll X dice against a target number, compare your successes to your opponent's), so it's damnably straightforward. It's been a while since I touched the game, and I haven't even known about it for more than a year or so, but I could probably still run a fight (at least if I had the maneuver lists and wound tables).

Depth and shallowness are pretty much relative, yes; you want important and common mechanics to be frequent. If a game isn't going to involve inventing and building Mad Science gadgets, your inventing and building rules can be shallow.

Complexity is always, always worse than simplicity. I can't think of a single instance where complexity (rather than depth) would serve better than simplicity. Complexity creates confusion, differing interpretations, disagreements, and lots of time wasted arguing it all and looking up the rules again.

Realism is a subjective value dependent on the setting, theme, and genre. It's important not to have a conflict between the rules and the theme here - if you're setting out to write a hard SF game, unrealistic rules will blow immersion and make play less satisfying. If you're setting out to create a game about cartoons smashing each other with anvils, realistic rules will suck the fun out of it. ("Your skull is fractured and you suffer brain damage, you're in a coma for 1d20 years and suffer a permanent penalty to your intelligence." "Damn that roadrunner!")


Thinker: You mean infer. "The reader infers what the text implies." (I think I actually learned the difference reading Cerebus: High Society.)

[Emmerask]

So do you actively penalize players in your group who are awkward in social situations naturally, even if the player is trying to play a character who is good in such settings? Does the player of the bard who doesn't know what to say to the magistrate automatically fail because he can't come up with a logical argument on his own, despite being a renowned orator? Another example comes to mind that if a player describes his fencer doing a parry, riposte, and disarm maneuver, but does so wrongly, is he penalized by his GM (who may be far more knowledgeable about such matters)? Likewise, what if it is the GM who is awkward in most social settings, but knows how to tell a good story or doesn't know beans about real swordplay, rock climbing, jailbreaks, etc?

If that works for your group, I won't press you, but it seems that there would be drawbacks if that were applied across the board.

Well most decisions have drawbacks, the other side of the medal would be that for example a fighter is now not "allowed" to interact with anyone anymore because he can´t even convince the local beggar that he needs information if you use rollplay.

[Thinker]

Thinker: You mean infer. "The reader infers what the text implies." (I think I actually learned the difference reading Cerebus: High Society.)

I'm sorry to go a little off topic, but I mean infer as opposed to what?

Well most decisions have drawbacks, the other side of the medal would be that for example a fighter is now not "allowed" to interact with anyone anymore because he can´t even convince the local beggar that he needs information if you use rollplay.

I assume you mean that his group wouldn't let him try, but I don't think that would be the case. Most skill systems that I've seen generally provide a chance for success with most skills, even if used untrained and a chance for failure, even if the character is adept at said skill. In these cases, unless there is a serious penalty for failure, it is in the group's interest to let everyone try.

[Earthwalker]

Re: Social Skills
The heart of this discussion is the following question: "Is the game about PCs v. NPCs or Players vs. DMs?"

I have always felt that if you want to play a character that can use social skills to convince people to do you bidding then you should buy the skills.

Have people role play over social situations and never role dice then you don't need skills / stats for social situations.

If you do have rules for them then they should be used.

If you want to have a system where good role playing is rewarded with a bonus, apply it to all skills in the system not just role playing, if people describe their combat actions well, give them a bonus as well, same for skill checks.

One thing I hate when GMing is a player, who has designed a character with no social skills, used Cha as a dump stat so he can get more combat pluses and then plays the character like he is the most eloquent of speakers. Play the character you built !!!

[LurkerInPlayground]

There's this very good blog post on skill challenges:

Skill Challenges are what D&D 4e has in place of roleplaying. And no, I’m not really kidding. As a method of injecting some pseudo-RP in a tabletop miniatures skirmish game, they make perfect sense: a series of discrete, finite dice rolls so you can get quickly get past the RP and on with the real business of pushing minis around, and to provide some meta-game tension to the “boring” process of thinking of solutions to problems and playing them out. As an aid to actual RP, they discourage what you want to encourage (creativity, experimentation, thinking as the character), and encourage what you want to discourage (meta-gaming and thinking inside the box). I think it’s particularly telling that as originally released, even after all the playtesting 4e got, the Skill Challenge numbers were utterly broken and had to be rewritten and released as errata.

In 0e, 1e and 2e; you found out what you needed to know to leverage successful diplomacy. Maybe you find that the city's Prince is a womanizer and has some dirty secrets he wants hidden. Or you decide to explicitly bribe the corrupt city official.

In this case, it's not simply a question of gaming the DM versus the NPC. The DM decides what is reasonable for the NPC's position. Logically, the DM may decide the master dwarven swordsmith may hate to haggle, simply because he doesn't have to; he's hired on commission and has many wealthy patrons. Rather, the PC's find out that he really wants to do this one project because he is bored from the lack of a professional challenge, but he hasn't been able to find the time or wherewithal to get dragon scales he needs. Or maybe they blackmail the smith. Or they do him a favor.

3e reduces this to a skill check. Oh sure, you can say that just need to do x. Where x usually means that the players can still ask for circumstantial bonuses or pick when they get to use skill checks. Rather than breaking into the Ducal palace, they can simply find the right city official to bribe.

4e has Skill Challenges. And as a DM, you have to pre-define a bunch of very specific skills and number of successes. This is a redundant and largely inoperable system. One, because even if you choose to be more flexible than the skill challenges as-written, that's really no different than the system you had in previous editions. Two, as written, a certain amount of failures cuts all further progress to achieving that task. It may be reasonable to roll a Nature check, but if you failed the Diplomacy, Intimidation and Bluff checks; that other approach automatically fails, no matter.

You could, of course, just say that people are playing it wrong. But that in itself is a problem with the rule. It shouldn't require a patch or obscure advice to work.

===

Older iterations of D&D didn't have skill systems for a reason; levels were a measure of the character's skill (along some broad heroic archetypes). Whether that skill be magic, fighting or skulking around in the night; everything that needs clear moderation is handled by levels. It stops players from Mary Suing the hell out of their character's skill special skill. Everything else can be moderated on-the-fly or be roleplayed.

Because, to be honest, having a silver tongue didn't really need to have a metagame element to it. The "game" to it doesn't need to be based on betting on the odds of a success when you can simply have players talk to an NPC. And really, is knowing how to swim really that important to you? (If it is, then you can moderate that based on character background or by a quick reference of ability scores.)

Thief skills merit its own discussion though. A thief being good a "Detect Traps" didn't prohibit other players from attempting to find traps; it's just that the thief got an automatic "free pass" at finding traps where other players had to use common sense and roleplay. Hence, this is why the 10-foot pole was a standard tool for detecting pit traps or hidden pressure plates. Additionally, the thief's player may still have to resort to this intuition to find traps, particularly if he didn't invest heavily in the skill; particularly if the DM was the sort to make traps that "are so cleverly hidden" that they imposed a percentile to "Detect Traps.

Whichever way you choose to model skill though, I think it ideal to avoid making the process of rolling the dice too automatic. Skills ought to work similar to early D&D thief skills: they ought to be extraordinary "get out of jail" cards; but they should never substitute for actual problem-solving or roleplay.

[Oracle_Hunter]

4e has Skill Challenges. And as a DM, you have to pre-define a bunch of very specific skills and number of successes. This is a redundant and largely inoperable system. One, because even if you choose to be more flexible than the skill challenges as-written, that's really no different than the system you had in previous editions. Two, as written, a certain amount of failures cuts all further progress to achieving that task. It may be reasonable to roll a Nature check, but if you failed the Diplomacy, Intimidation and Bluff checks; that other approach automatically fails, no matter.

You could, of course, just say that people are playing it wrong. But that in itself is a problem with the rule. It shouldn't require a patch or obscure advice to work.

They did fix it. Please check out the DMG2 description of how Skill Challenges work - they do not work as you described them.

In the event you don't actually need to run Skill Challenges in the near future, note that my description is more of a personal revelation than a RAW. It turns out WotC largely implemented my ideas on their own, but the lesson is still there.

I'm not going to argue about the "Players vs. DM or PCs vs. NPCs" statement because it is self-evidently true.

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Even if you are "deciding how the NPCs should react" you are interpreting this through the lens of your own personality. Your players will know what things appeal to you, personally, and when crafting dialogue will respond accordingly. Only the greatest actor can so deeply immerse himself in a role that his personal quirks are irrelevant; I am not such an actor and I doubt most people are. The more you let your personal judgment guide your NPCs' reactions, the less a character's "social skills" matter to the outcome of a social encounter. It is certainly one way to play, but it is by no means a better one - and it can work at cross-purposes with a game designed with "social skills" in mind.

It's a sliding scale, to be sure, but don't be fooled into thinking that your players aren't playing you when they are roleplaying

[Aroka]

I'm sorry to go a little off topic, but I mean infer as opposed to what?

Should've been "imply". Here:

Level of complexity does not infer realism