Rebalance between the 3 pillars

[Cheesegear]

No question the game rules emphasize combat more. It wouldn't hurt for more discussion about non-combat stuff, but how far do you go?

How far can you go?

What do players get out of combat? What incentivises them to do a combat, even when it's arguably against both the characters' and players' interests?
- XP (character progression)
- Loot (character progression)
- Power Fantasy and/or Achievement (player progression)

What do players get out of a social encounter? What incentivises them to socialise with fictional characters (all of whom are actually the same person), even when it's arguably against both the characters' and players' interests?
- XP? ...Probably not. Most DMs don't work this way.
- Loot? ...I mean, it's not like we can just say 'Give us your magical sword or nothing will happen and we'll just walk away no harm done. Sorry, guv.'
- Escapism?

- I've said many times, in many threads, that in order to actually roleplay, the player needs to have real-world intelligence, charisma, and a not small amount of empathy so that they can pretend to be someone else that they aren't. This is a real skill. Not every player has those qualities. Whilst a player might want to be someone else...They can't. At least, not when they receive pushbacks from the dice and from the DM. This makes them frustrated. This causes them to default to combat because it's simply easier and the rules are codified. The DM has to abide by certain rules. I know what those rules are. I can play against the DM in a combat. But I can't play against the DM in a social encounter because the DM is the one holding all the cards.
- In my, personal experience DMing for a long time, those players who do have real-world intelligence, charisma and empathy...Simply play as themselves. They already have self-esteem and they have no need for escapism. 'My character is me, but also I cast spells.'

- Well, story, I guess. When the players talk to people, they can learn what's happening and pick up adventure hooks and rumours and whatnot. However, because video games ruined D&D, I've lost count of the number of times where my players have asked to 'see or find a job board at a tavern or inn.' Skip the roleplaying. Just tell us the quest you've written, please. You're going to funnel us that way anyway so you may as well just tell us what the adventure you have planned, is. Why the **** do we have to figure it out for ourselves? That being said...What if your players aren't interested in your story, and/or - worse - your story just sucks? What then?

Exploration? ...Same deal. What do the players get out of it? Why should they do it?
- Random Encounters? No thank you. I, the DM, have very little interest in running an encounter or challenge that doesn't progress the story or engage my characters. 'This is here because the dice said it was here, not because it makes sense or adds to the narrative.' Additionally, my sessions are typically short. There's not a lot of time for screwing around.
- Immersion? This is 100% down to the DM's ability to describe the world. Some DMs are bad at it. How do they describe the house? How do they describe the dark alley? How do they describe the waterfall? How do they describe the 10 ft. cave? But again, if a player already prefers combat, they're not getting anything out of how well a DM describes the NPC's dress or how many tiers does the cake have. Exploration has no purpose, unless the DM puts something there...
- Loot. If I go to that rock on the hill, do I get anything? Or shall I just keep walking down the road? This is where Skinner Box theory comes into play. Sometimes, a rock is just a rock. Sometimes, a rock is actually a shrine with offerings the party can take. As long as there's a chance there might be something, the player might walk into the empty alley with nothing. That being said, if you're the kind of DM who introduces somewhere to go to, and then the players go there, and you give them nothing at all? ...First, **** you. Second, you've just wasted valuable real-world session time convincing us to make skill checks and climb that rock face and take 2d6 fall damage for literally no reason. **** you, again!
- XP. Similar to social encounters. Most DMs aren't going to give you XP for just walking around. That's one of the main criticisms of Lord of the Rings. That's why the walking had to be broken up with by - surprise! - combats. You walked, uneventfully, down the road, through the woods, through the rough-hewn valley. The journey took you three days. Gain 100 XP each. Umm...No. This is probably where Milestone XP is probably more useful. However, when you use Milestone XP, you take away one of the driving forces of doing anything for the players - earning XP. So there are pitfalls with that.

Nobody wants to explore. That's why spells that ignore exploration, are so good. They bypass dumb **** the players don't care about. 'How are you ever going to survive three days in the wilderness!?' ...The Cleric has Create Food & Water, and at least one player has the Outlander Background. Thanks for playing. The Bard has Leomund's Tiny Hut. Can we just move this along?

Nobody wants to socialise. That's why Charm spells are so useful. Because they skip dumb socialising that the players can't do, and/or don't want to do. I Charm the target. They're immediately my friend. Not only do I have advantage on the Charisma checks now, but also the target regards me as friendly and will be more willing to do or tell/give me what I want anyway so all the DCs go down on top of my advantage. Baller. Socialising is dumb. Just use spells.

What can you, the DM, offer your players so that they want to explore and socialise?
You don't need to add extra bull**** mechanics that make the game more difficult. Because if the mechanic is pointless and difficult, the players are going to ignore it, or specifically find spells and abilities that let them bypass the dumb ****.

To go back to the OP.

It seems, without having done full qualitative analyses that:
Combat options > social options > exploration options.

Because in the eyes of the majority of the community, combat is the only pillar of the game that's worth anything.
Why is that?
Why don't players want to do the other two pillars? Actor is a ****ing amazing feat and you can't tell me otherwise. But, why would I choose that - again, amazing - Feat, when I can choose something more in line with what I actually want to do - which is combat?

And that's the elephant in the room that nobody addresses:
Why don't your players like socialising and exploration? And what can you, the DM, do to fix that?

[dmhelp]

Why don't your players like socialising and exploration? And what can you, the DM, do to fix that?

The thing is if they like socializing and role-playing you are going to do that with them regardless of if they are proficient in the right skills.

[MoiMagnus]

What do players get out of a social encounter? [...]
- XP? ...Probably not. Most DMs don't work this way.

XP: One of the reasons I love milestone level-up is that IME, DMs more often value non-combat encounters. If a social encounter makes you progress significantly, this will bring you up to the next milestone.

[Cheesegear]

The thing is if they like socializing and role-playing you are going to do that with them regardless of if they are proficient in the right skills.

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

[ZRN]

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

You're doing a good job of spelling out scenarios where social/exploration checks don't work because the DM and/or player does a bad job with them. (In the "inspiring speech" example: the DM could simply say everyone is super-inspired and eager for the fight, and then add a persuasion roll to see if they also get some other mechanical benefit. But I'll also point out that if she was doing a great job planning out combat tactics but her ranger died because she had 8 Con, nobody would blame the rules.)

dmhelp actually does a good job pointing out the flipside, too: at tables where social encounters DO work, it's not because the rules are so good; the rules mostly just don't get in the way. D&D isn't necessarily a combat-focused game; it's a game hat works under the assumption that you need very specific rules for combat and magic, but pretty much everything else the DM should be able to adjudicate with some skill checks. That puts a lot of weight on the DM in a social or exploration-heavy campaign, but it doesn't necessarily make D&D bad at those things.

[MrStabby]

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

So they way I run social rolling is that the DC is deermined by what you say. If she was saying awesome stuff, then the DC is lower. If it was a bit of a stretch then higher DC. So yeah, failure is an option otherwise it sucks to be one of the people who didn't dump Charisma to be better at social interactions.

[Selrahc]

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.

Fail forward should probably be the standard in this context. A failure means there is some sort of an unexpected cost. The players can take the cost and proceed, or accept the failure.

[Sorinth]

If anything, if a player wants to socialise and roleplay, the dice and mechanics actually get in the way of it.

Had this one girl make a 3-ish minute speech about everything the town has been through up until this point, and that the town has to rally and prepare for the siege and this is the plan and this is what's going to happen, and here's how we can get through this...

As a Ranger, Charisma was her dump stat, and she definitely was not proficient in Persuasion. After 3-ish minutes of uninterrupted talking (that had the other plays also shutting up for once), do I make her roll a dice? Should I reward her such good roleplaying with a potential failure on the dice roll? Or do ignore that the townsfolk are panicked and scared and just 'Yep, it happens, and by the way here's also Inspiration.'?

Failing at a diplomacy or 'planning' check is so much worse than failing an attack roll. Since diplomacy and exploration usually take a lot more real-world time to puzzle out. So after 5 minutes of hard roleplaying, everything comes down to a dice roll...Roll a '4', with your Persuasion mod of +5...9. You don't even pass a DC 10, GG thanks for playing, the last five minutes was pointless, and now that the dice roll has failed, the challenge target reaches for their weapon. Roll initiative ladies and gents, we're doing a combat and the last five minutes was pointless 'cause the other three players wanted to shank the guy in the first place.
(Also again, see why valuable Charm spells are just better than having a high CHA score or proficiency in talking.)

This is covered in the DMG but maybe it could be done better. The DM has to decide what failure represents just like they decide what passing means. The whole meme about the bard seducing every monster they meet comes to mind. In your example, the Persuasion check doesn't have to represent whether the villagers rally to the town defences or not. Maybe failure is that 25% of the villagers flee in the face of danger and success would mean only a couple rich merchants try to flee. Failure makes the coming fight harder but doesn't render the past 5min pointless because maybe if nobody attempted to rally the town then 75% would flee.

A skill check should rarely represent absolute failure vs absolute success.

[Segev]

The reason that the combat pillar will always be the best is because that is what kills you or causes a TPK. The social pillar is just the background story/roleplaying. There is already too much rolling involved. Yeah, you could turn exploration into a minigame…. But do you really want to? It seems better suited to videogames.

Although dark sun removing all food and water spells does sound fun. That is basically removing class exploration pillar benefits to put people on a more level playing field to benefit the story.

In 5e dark sun would you not allow ranger natural explorer? Or would everyone splash 1 ranger?

How much of this is simply bias built on what is, rather than what could or should be?

The longer post right after this one on why people don't want to engage exploration and social pillars has some very good points, but I will even disagree there that loot is not obtainable via socialization. Allies are a form of "loot" in a sense. Convincing foes to surrender is a social angle, as is turning defeated foes to your side.

That people don't use social rules - such as they are - to their fullest is not a fault of the rules. If they're poorly designed, or if they're one-and-done rolls (akin to resolving combat by having you roll a "fighting check" and determining whether the party lives or dies based on that one roll), then yes, they get in the way more than they help facilitate any sort of social play as a "pillar." Those kinds of resolution are more suited to "single moves" in the game, not to entire efforts.

5e actually has surprisingly good social mechanics. Not perfect, but good, especially for a D&D game. The traits (ideals, bonds, flaws) are discoverable and are hooks you can base your RP choices around, and can enable the player to influence how difficult his social rolls are. The rules for adjusting attitudes are similarly good, and attitudes give at least a rough idea of what you can persuade somebody to do.

And while I understand the quandary you feel you have with the impassioned speech by the Ranger with 8 charisma, I have to ask: if the halfling wizard with 8 strength described this beautiful scene where he hefted the 300-lb barbarian's unconscious body over his shoulder and leapt the 15-foot chasm and ran down the mountain just ahead of the charging goblins, dodging and weaving through their rain of hurled javelins, would you feel bad if the Strength (Athletics) roll didn't let him actually make that leap and if his Strength itself doesn't let him carry that barbarian? No, you'd more likely argue that he'd described his character doing something his character can't do. Same with your Ranger: letting the player give this magnificent speech and then saying it's "unfair" that the 8 Charisma and nonproficiency should mean the Ranger has a high probability of failure is actually being unfair to anybody who did put stat points into Charisma and did take Persuasion as a proficiency!

Let the Ranger make the speech, then look to see if it touches on the ideals, bonds, and flaws of the townsfolk. Check their attitude, and maybe let the Ranger roll a couple of times to see if she can raise the attitude. Maybe let her get one level for free if the speech hit them in the ideals or bonds. Then have her roll. Heck, let the result determine how many she persuades, with a low result being "no more than a handful" and a high result being "a plurality or small majority" and a very high result (likely impossible since she can't hit 20 without guidance or the like) get enough that the villagers all join in due to social pressure.

As for what the rewards for such a social encounter are? You get allies to help with the fight (loot)! You get to be the heroic leader (power fantasy)!

For a social encounter with a hostile or otherwise obstructive group that needs to be overcome to get what you want, persuading them to not be a problem is "defeating" the encounter, and SHOULD be worth the same XP as killing them would be.

WHY is an exploration minigame better suited to video games? This is a serious question; what makes you say that?

Dark Sun removing the spells that trivialize resource management isn't making exploration better because it's removing mechanics. It's making exploration "better" because it's compelling you to engage with the subsystem of resource management. It makes exploration have rewards by making otherwise-unexciting things like discovering an oasis into rewards every bit as good as winning that random encounter. Now, remember how random encounters were disparaged in a later post because they advance nothing? That's a similar problem to Dark Sun's approach. Except Dark Sun made oases have interesting things at them, so compelling players to seek them out also gave motivation to find interesting things.

Exploration pillar, if game-ified better, does need to reward players for engaging with it. Resource management should be a challenge, but it should be one with rewards for doing it as well as penalties for doing it and running out. Part of the trouble is that "conveniently forgetting" to track your food and water is only to the benefit of the players in terms of basic player incentives: it costs mental energy and game time to remember to track your food and water usage, and can involve (in real play) having to stop and ask "wait, how many days has it been since X?" and then making sure you really updated it. The only reward for tracking it accurately, then, is that you actually have less of it and might discover you're out or close to out. Whereas if you forget it or ignore it, you simply don't suffer penalties as you don't "realize" you're out. You've still got it because you aren't tracking it.

It's like spells, except using spells is a BENEFIT, and doesn't happen off-screen very much. Each use is at least slightly memorable, and failure to track as you use it is nearly inexcusable due to the fact that there's a definite point in gameplay at the table where it is used, unlike rations, which happen in variable amounts literally during the DM saying, "And then you finally make it to the dungeon," and you have to track those days of travel, and stopping to record the ration expenditures actually stalls the game - if only for a moment - and breaks the momentum the DM was just setting up with his intro to where you're arriving.

A codified exploration system, with actual turns and choices each turn involving choices as to how to expend resources as you move, with rewards for expending them well or making good choices and better rewards with potential penalties for taking risks... would improve that pillar and give the players more to interact with. It would also let you create mechanics for various classes that interacted with those choices and the mechanics of those moves in order to make the classes more powerful when engaging the system, rather than giving them the equivalent of having Barbarian Rage be, "You automatically win a fight when you rage."

[Cheesegear]

So they way I run social rolling is that the DC is determined by what you say.

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

On the flip side, if you have one or more [insert any mental illness/disability you believe would have a detrimental effect on roleplaying, and you're probably correct] player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

[Segev]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

On the flip side, if you have one or more [insert any mental illness/disability you believe would have a detrimental effect on roleplaying, and you're probably correct] player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

The way I prefer to see this handled is that, yes, if you give a good speech, you get credit for it in the same way somebody who describes a good speech - or WHY the speech their PC gives is good - would: a good speech naturally will tend to hit on the right notes, while a player engaging with the rules but unable to confidently give "a good speech" will still be able to competently describe the goal of the speech - to bring up this point, that detail, to emphasize this or that, and to bring it all together and play off of these known sympathies of the audience.

If player 1 gives a speech that tugs at the King's heartstrings by mentioning his lost love, and player 2 explains that his PC gives a speech that subtly references the King's lost love to tie it into this important point, both get the same mechanical bonus for it.

[MaxWilson]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

That doesn't compute. If you said "this is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult seek out Expertise", I could see where you're coming from, but where do you get the inference that they just give up and stop trying?

It's not like they give up and stop trying (IME) when it's the other way around: players with only +0 or -2 to Performance or Persuasion still attempt things that require Performance or Persuasion rolls, because the alternative is to do nothing (w/rt Performance or Persuasion) and because having some chance of success is better than having zero chance of success. The randomness of the d20 roll is big enough to ensure that they succeed a fair amount of the time, too.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

But if someone else does the talking, they will say something different (or won't say anything at all). If you're the one who has the idea to ask the recalcitrant king who he's so grumpy and what you can do to help, maybe that means you'll be rolling Persuasion DC 10 to get him to open up, even if hypothetically someone else who took the time to buddy up to them first (share common experiences, etc.) might have a DC of 5 instead. But who cares? Your DC is 10, and that's doable. You're not being "punished", you're being empowered to accomplish your goals with a high chance of success, and if you for some reason feel that the DM is setting DCs too high you can always seek mechanical benefits beforehand like Bardic Inspiration, Enhance Ability, etc.

That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

Sure, that's valid too. There doesn't have to be a roll. Rolling is for when there's some doubt.

On the flip side, if you have one or more [insert any mental illness/disability you believe would have a detrimental effect on roleplaying, and you're probably correct] player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

"Describing the idea of what they want to say" still relies on player skill. E.g. someone who doesn't understand enough about people to resolve the recalcitrant king's issues first before asking for a favor, and instead just demands that he do XYZ (sponsor their expedition?), will have a worse chance of success than someone who knows something about people.

If player 1 gives a speech that tugs at the King's heartstrings by mentioning his lost love, and player 2 explains that his PC gives a speech that subtly references the King's lost love to tie it into this important point, both get the same mechanical bonus for it.

Yes, this exactly.

[ZRN]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

Do you take a similar line on people who suck at combat tactics or rules details? Or do you hand-hold a little bit, help them figure out their modifiers, remind them of abilities that would be useful, etc.?

I feel like the issue is the same: there are some people whose brains just aren't wired for certain types of thinking, and that doesn't mean they're unintelligent or even uncharismatic - but it may mean it's on the DM to help them along a little so that they can have the same fantasy-fulfilling fun everyone else at the table does.

If your player just isn't getting the social cues you're putting out, have them roll a (low-DC) Insight check to say something like, "the villagers look really nervous - you feel like they could really use a pep talk." And, yes, encourage them to describe their character's approach rather than actually give the speech themselves, if that's easier for them, and take into account when judging e.g. the DC that you're evaluating the character's approach, not the player's effectiveness. (This cuts both ways: your drama-nerd players don't get low DCs on everything just because they're actually good at speeches.)

[Reach Weapon]

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

I think this gets back to which stats and skills actually impact the game world. It seems to me that the table should be prepared to help when a player is having trouble getting their character to live up to their high INT, WIS or CHA, and accepting when a player's brilliance gets filtered through their character's dump stats into something less beneficial.

[Sorinth]

Do you take a similar line on people who suck at combat tactics or rules details? Or do you hand-hold a little bit, help them figure out their modifiers, remind them of abilities that would be useful, etc.?

I feel like the issue is the same: there are some people whose brains just aren't wired for certain types of thinking, and that doesn't mean they're unintelligent or even uncharismatic - but it may mean it's on the DM to help them along a little so that they can have the same fantasy-fulfilling fun everyone else at the table does.

If your player just isn't getting the social cues you're putting out, have them roll a (low-DC) Insight check to say something like, "the villagers look really nervous - you feel like they could really use a pep talk." And, yes, encourage them to describe their character's approach rather than actually give the speech themselves, if that's easier for them, and take into account when judging e.g. the DC that you're evaluating the character's approach, not the player's effectiveness. (This cuts both ways: your drama-nerd players don't get low DCs on everything just because they're actually good at speeches.)

Just as a note in combat the simple solution for a character who is supposed to be tactical when the player isn't is to allow table talk. If other players at the table can offer suggestions the character will probably end up making better tactical decisions.

[Pex]

A character with 8 CH and not proficient in Persuasion does not mean he can never influence anyone. There doesn't always have to be a roll. If the player figured out the right thing to say to the NPC at the right moment the NPC acts accordingly by DM fiat. There's only supposed to be a roll when there's a chance it doesn't work. Then the player rolls. If he fails, he fails, and it doesn't matter how eloquently the player spoke and the game is not wrong. If the player complains his character didn't convince the NPC, remind the player the next time he wants to play a PC who can influence people with words he should play a character with a higher charisma and/or proficiency in Persuasion.

As for the players who can't speak eloquently, if they're playing an 8 CH not proficient in Persuasion character, they're probably ok not being the face of the party. If they're happy enjoying the game while others do the talking with NPCs because they get joy from the combat, experiencing the story, and hanging out with friends, let them. When they do play the high CH proficient in Persuasion character, then yes they do get to influence NPC behavior. They do have to say something, tell the DM what they're trying to accomplish, and the character is likely to succeed because of the high investment in influence. In either case it's worth a try to encourage the player to speak up more as far as speaking in character makes for a fun playing the game experience, but if the player rather not let him be.

Whether the player who doesn't want to speak in character is welcome to continue playing in your group is beyond the scope of topic.

[Havlock]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Cheese is harsh, but so so right.

If you want bad roleplayers to be horible roleplayers, make them tell you what they say in a social encounter while staying in character, and then make them do a persuasion check so you can reinforce how bad they are at social interactions.

Player: My bard walks up to the barmaid and tries to seduce her.
DM: OK, what do you say to her?
Player: If I knew what to say to her I wouldn't be playing D&D.

[MaxWilson]

Cheese is harsh, but so so right.

If you want bad roleplayers to be horible roleplayers, make them tell you what they say in a social encounter while staying in character, and then make them do a persuasion check so you can reinforce how bad they are at social interactions.

Player: My bard walks up to the barmaid and tries to seduce her.
DM: OK, what do you say to her?
Player: If I knew what to say to her I wouldn't be playing D&D.

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her" you're essentially telling me that you will only succeed with girls who are basically already looking for someone to seduce them. I might call that a 35% chance that she's gettable (in a certain kind of universe modeled on 21st century America), and in that 35% case I'll ask you for a DC 10 Performance or Persuasion check (your choice) to acquire a floozy on a short-term basis. (This could get interesting if the floozy is also someone important in her own right.) As long as you're willing to hit on multiple women per night, you can acquire as many floozies as you want, purely on the strength of your Performance rolls. (Higher DCs for higher status, more in-demand floozies because they're pickier.)

But if you give me a convincing approach grounded in RP, you can potentially build relationships and emotions with girls outside that 35%. You don't even necessarily need to be a good actor, but you do need to roleplay--practice empathy and get into someone else's head.

I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat. Sure, you can get the Easy girls, but the Deadly x2 and Deadly x6-equivalent girls take more than the equivalent of "I Rage and Recklessly attack the closest monster twice."

Some girls just can't be seduced with standard techniques.

[sithlordnergal]

So, I think the exploration pillar might be more developed then people realize. There are pretty darn clear cut rules for mapping places out, exploring dungeons, finding hidden areas/traps, rules on vision and how it affects checks, hunting down/tracking creatures, ect. I think the problem is that people are mistaking exploration for travel.
Exploration is hardly ever boring, you're discovering new things and places, trying to make sure you avoid any potential pitfalls, you're usually making checks all the time.

Travel, on the other hand, is boring. Instead of trying to figure out where you are, traveling is when you're trying to get from point A to point B. Consider Tomb of Annihilation and the map of Chult. When you first start out, its completely covered. You don't know where anything is, and its your job to map things out. You pick a direction and you start exploring, or you hunt down rumors and start following them. That is exploration right there. Eventually though, that exploration ends as you figure out where you need to go. You're no longer following rumors or just striking it out into the jungle to figure out where things are. Instead you're trying to get from Port Nyanzaru to Omu, because you know Omu is where the BBEG is and you're on a timer to stop him.

Which brings me to the Ranger. Natural Explorer has a loooot of issues. Its an ability that ranges from completely useless to absolutely game breaking. It doesn't give players an interesting way to interact with the world, it just removes any chance for failure. But I think the worst parts of Natural Explorer that it actually has nothing to do with exploration at all, and it even removes the DM's ability to add in dynamic exploration opportunities.

Think about it, what does Natural Explorer do? Well, it lets the group ignore the effects of difficult terrain while traveling, you can't become lost, you don't make perception checks at disadvantage if you're doing extra activities while traveling, you can stealth and keep moving at a normal pace while traveling if you're alone, it lets you find double the amount of food, and finally it gives you some bonuses to tracking.

Out of those 6 different abilities, 4 of them deal with traveling, and only one of them really pertains directly to exploration. The worst offender is the fact that you can't become lost. When you're exploring, its basically useless. Sure, you can't become lost, but you can't really go directly to a place if you don't know where it is. All it does when you're exploring is let you backtrack perfectly. But as soon as you know the location of where you need/want to go? Well now it removes possible exploration opportunities the DM might throw at you since you can't get lost.

Now don't get me wrong, the DM still has some options. They could put a temple in front of you to explore, or create some sort of interesting section that can't be crossed and forces the group to take a detour. But its not the same as trying to hunt down the location itself, or being lost in a forest and trying to find your way back only to stumble onto something cool.

[Deathtongue]

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her" you're essentially telling me that you will only succeed with girls who are basically already looking for someone to seduce them. I might call that a 35% chance that she's gettable (in a certain kind of universe modeled on 21st century America), and in that 35% case I'll ask you for a DC 10 Performance or Persuasion check (your choice) to acquire a floozy on a short-term basis. (This could get interesting if the floozy is also someone important in her own right.) As long as you're willing to hit on multiple women per night, you can acquire as many floozies as you want, purely on the strength of your Performance rolls. (Higher DCs for higher status, more in-demand floozies because they're pickier.)

But if you give me a convincing approach grounded in RP, you can potentially build relationships and emotions with girls outside that 35%. You don't even necessarily need to be a good actor, but you do need to roleplay--practice empathy and get into someone else's head.

For a game like D&D, this is a prime example of the Magician Superhero Problem. Making people jump through a bunch of roleplaying hoops before you let them take actions on their character sheet that magical characters, assuming that they even need to bother with the rigmarole at all, hurts characters who don't have things like Prestidigitation or Detect Thoughts to remove a few hoops more than it trains amateur roleplayers in their craft.

[Sorinth]

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her" you're essentially telling me that you will only succeed with girls who are basically already looking for someone to seduce them. I might call that a 35% chance that she's gettable (in a certain kind of universe modeled on 21st century America), and in that 35% case I'll ask you for a DC 10 Performance or Persuasion check (your choice) to acquire a floozy on a short-term basis. (This could get interesting if the floozy is also someone important in her own right.) As long as you're willing to hit on multiple women per night, you can acquire as many floozies as you want, purely on the strength of your Performance rolls. (Higher DCs for higher status, more in-demand floozies because they're pickier.)

But if you give me a convincing approach grounded in RP, you can potentially build relationships and emotions with girls outside that 35%. You don't even necessarily need to be a good actor, but you do need to roleplay--practice empathy and get into someone else's head.

I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat. Sure, you can get the Easy girls, but the Deadly x2 and Deadly x6-equivalent girls take more than the equivalent of "I Rage and Recklessly attack the closest monster twice."

Some girls just can't be seduced with standard techniques.

And what happens if in real life I'm terrible at seducing someone and have no idea what women want or what strategy is effective? Your challenging the player not the character and that is problematic.

[MaxWilson]

For a game like D&D, this is a prime example of the Magician Superhero Problem. Making people jump through a bunch of roleplaying hoops before you let them take actions on their character sheet that magical characters, assuming that they even need to bother with the rigmarole at all, hurts characters who don't have things like Prestidigitation or Detect Thoughts to remove a few hoops more than it trains amateur roleplayers in their craft.

That "Magician" sounds like a Schrodinger's Wizard, not an actual 5E wizard.

An actual 5E wizard is going to have the exact same issues as anyone else trying to seduce people. There is no "seduce anyone" spell. (No, Dominate Person clearly doesn't work for this due to duration issues.) If you want to seduce e.g. a non- heating girl who already is engaged to be married, you're going to have to reach beyond "I seduce her" and give me an actual approach that you intend to try.

And what happens if in real life I'm terrible at seducing someone and have no idea what women want or what strategy is effective? Your challenging the player not the character and that is problematic.

What happens if in real life you have no idea what an effective tactical doctrine is or to judge threats?

If you're bad at the game, I'm sorry, but you're going to be worse at the game than someone who is good at the game (at least, those aspects of it). If you ask me, as a DM, to help your character get good at it, I'm going to point you to a teacher who can help you get better, but that will involve either (1) actually teaching the player, or (2) the player ceding some control of the character to the DM or other players in order to make those effective decisions for you. (Do you really want to do that?)

I'd be open to either. If you want me to coach you on combat tactics and run some practice combats with you I'll be happy to do so. If you want me to give hints or even run your PC during combat I'll be much more reluctant but will if you insist.

[Elbeyon]

Quote

A lot of weird energy in this post about women.

It is good practice as a gm to help the players out if they are struggling with some aspect of the game. I think it can be reasonable to ask for more details too. Pointed/leading questions can really help out the player to establish some more info when they are coming up blank.

I'm no more going to let you dice your way to nontrivial victories out of combat than in combat.

Have you ever told a player they missed an attack because their rp wasn't good enough? "You described a goblin worthy attack. You need to rp better if you want to hit this dragon. Disregard the 27 attack roll, you fail your attack roll." I'm betting you've never done that.

[MaxWilson]

A lot of weird energy in this post about women.

Please don't go there.

Have you ever told a player they missed an attack because their rp wasn't good enough? "You described a goblin worthy attack. You need to rp better if you want to hit this dragon. Disregard the 27 attack roll, you fail your attack roll." I'm betting you've never done that.

Have I ever killed a PC in combat because their RP wasn't wise enough? What about players who attack when they should be fleeing, or flee when they should be novaing? Yep, I've killed them. You feel bad for them, true, but a game where poor decisions still lead to guaranteed success is not a game I'm willing to run.

[Sorinth]

What happens if in real life you have no idea what an effective tactical doctrine is or to judge threats?

If you're bad at the game, I'm sorry, but you're going to be worse at the game than someone who is good at the game (at least, those aspects of it). If you ask me, as a DM, to help your character get good at it, I'm going to point you to a teacher who can help you get better, but that will involve either (1) actually teaching the player, or (2) the player ceding some control of the character to the DM or other players in order to make those effective decisions for you. (Do you really want to do that?)

Should I have to show off my personal sword swinging skills in order to make an attack roll?

Everybody is entitled to play the game how they want, but I 100% believe it should be as inclusive as possible. If a shy person who can't make small talk wants to play as a smooth talking bard then the game should accommodate them. A gentle push here and there to help them get outside the comfort zone, sure by all means, telling them 'git gud' on the other hand is terrible. And like others said, in the end it's just going to push people to use magic to "cheat".

[Reach Weapon]

As for what the rewards for such a social encounter are? You get allies to help with the fight (loot)! You get to be the heroic leader (power fantasy)!

For a social encounter with a hostile or otherwise obstructive group that needs to be overcome to get what you want, persuading them to not be a problem is "defeating" the encounter, and SHOULD be worth the same XP as killing them would be.

I might suggest that using social skills to get a more powerful ally to resolve the issue is also the party winning and deserving of XP. The party simply can not survive long if they resort to combat to defeat the the Viscount they embarrassed, but they can certainly find a way to get the Duke to make it so they quit getting arrested and slated for execution every time they roll into town.

A codified exploration system, with actual turns and choices each turn involving choices as to how to expend resources as you move, with rewards for expending them well or making good choices and better rewards with potential penalties for taking risks... would improve that pillar and give the players more to interact with. It would also let you create mechanics for various classes that interacted with those choices and the mechanics of those moves in order to make the classes more powerful when engaging the system, rather than giving them the equivalent of having Barbarian Rage be, "You automatically win a fight when you rage."

I don't know that the only way to make exploration meaningful is deep accountancy, although I do tend to rule that characters just don't have improperly tracked resources (I think you forgot it a few camps back) rather than the other way around. I think characters are engaged with this pillar when they're experiencing the world as a dynamic system that will indifferently swallow them or a series of puzzles to be teased apart.

[MaxWilson]

DM: "Okay then, what do you mean by 'seduce'? What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?"

If you can't tell me anything except "I try to seduce her"...

Should I have to show off my personal sword swinging skills in order to make an attack roll?

Everybody is entitled to play the game how they want, but I 100% believe it should be as inclusive as possible. If a shy person who can't make small talk wants to play as a smooth talking bard then the game should accommodate them. A gentle push here and there to help them get outside the comfort zone, sure by all means, telling them 'git gud' on the other hand is terrible. And like others said, in the end it's just going to push people to use magic to "cheat".

"I seduce the barmaid" = "I kill the monster."

Again the question is, "Well sure, but how?" The brute-force approach ("I roll attacks until I can't attack any more") will work in certain Easy cases, but that's a minority of cases. In the case where failure has no real cost and you can just move on to a different target and try again, you'll have a lot of successes even if you're not especially successful the majority of times.

"Making an attack roll [with a particular weapon such as a longbow]" = "executing a particular social strategy [such as attempting to make the target think you're funny]". It works against some targets and is rubbish against others (swords don't work well against birds).

"Git gud" is your wording, not mine. I said, "What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?" This is like asking someone "are you going to kill the monster with a sword or with a bow?"

I might suggest that using social skills to get a more powerful ally to resolve the issue is also the party winning and deserving of XP. The party simply can not survive long if they resort to combat to defeat the the Viscount they embarrassed, but they can certainly find a way to get the Duke to make it so they quit getting arrested and slated for execution every time they roll into town.

IME one of the benefits of introducing Reputation as a separate game structure is that players are more likely to seek these kinds of social solutions (when they feel like it) instead of feeling like reducing the Duke to zero HP is the only way to make him stop. We had a recent thread on this topic...

[MrStabby]

This is a perfect example of why players who find roleplaying difficult, keep not doing it.

Some players lack the charisma, intelligence and empathy to know what to say or how to say it - even in a fictional situation. If you're going to punish not-reward them when they talk because they - themselves, not their character - spoke badly and/or incorrectly...They may as well not have spoken at all, and let someone else do the talking...Just like their real life.

That's why I often opt out of making social rolls. If the player, talking, has an extremely good idea and does a decent job of roleplaying...Why introduce dice to ruin it?

On the flip side, if you have one or more [insert any mental illness/disability you believe would have a detrimental effect on roleplaying, and you're probably correct] player(s) at your table, like I do; It's best just to have them describe the idea of what they want to say...And then have them roll a dice and use their maths modifiers that they understand, which is much easier than going back and forth with a player with [mental illness] trying to struggle through a - entirely fictional - conversation and slowing down the whole game whilst they think real hard about the specific thing to say to get the Guard to give them a passphrase.

Yeah, sure if, to use your example, you have a player at your table that has a mental illness or needs some special accomodations then you can adjust.

I am not requireing people to give a speech and then I grade it. I am talking about things like "I try and persuade the Duke to release the prisoner by pointing out how useful they could be as an ally and appealing to sympathy over his own missing daughter, pointing out that the prisoner also has family missing them"

Part of the aim of this is to give more players a role in the social pillar of the game. If the social pillar is just the domain of high charisma classes you are excluding a lot of people. If you can say "I try to persuade them by citing religious texts of Lathander" or "I watch their reactions to see if my attempts to persuade them are working at all or to see if I can try another approach" then you can work more and different stats and skills into the social pillar. Sure, you might still be making a Cha (persuasion) check but your knowledge and insight has let you make an easier one.

I want players to be involved and the more ways I can give them to use their skills the better. Where skills determine how they can go about getting an advantage in conversation, I think you get a better game.

However, I fully accept this is not going to work equally well at all tables; different tables have different needs.

[Kane0]

Cheese has some damn good posts in this thread I must say.

Roleplaying and exploration is dumb, because it's hard. Combat is not hard. Therefore, combat is a better solution to almost every problem. Which is why it's 'seen as' better and/or more important.

I'm sure there are other games and 3rd party systems that accomplish the same kind of quantitative approach to interaction that D&D does for combat, but right now i'm drawing mental blanks.

[Sorinth]

"I seduce the barmaid" = "I kill the monster."

Again the question is, "Well sure, but how?" The brute-force approach ("I roll attacks until I can't attack any more") will work in certain Easy cases, but that's a minority of cases. In the case where failure has no real cost and you can just move on to a different target and try again, you'll have a lot of successes even if you're not especially successful the majority of times.

"Making an attack roll [with a particular weapon such as a longbow]" = "executing a particular social strategy [such as attempting to make the target think you're funny]". It works against some targets and is rubbish against others (swords don't work well against birds).

"Git gud" is your wording, not mine. I said, "What's the idea behind your actions? What thoughts are you trying to plant in her head, and what's your strategy for doing so?" This is like asking someone "are you going to kill the monster with a sword or with a bow?"

A Fighter is going to brute-force and attack and attack and attack until the monster is dead. So by all means if the fighter needs 3 successful attacks to defeat the monster make the seduction attempt a best of 5, throw in a complication if you want. But what pickup strategy to use is the same ask asking what attack routine you use when fencing. Someone who doesn't know will give a bad answer, and frankly the DM probably has little idea what a good answer is anyways so it's far better to turn to the dice.