So here's my problem. A player picks a concept/class that doesn't have diplomacy, bluff, or intimidate and as a result never wants to talk to NPCs. I've noticed this both while playing and DMing. In the cases I'm thinking of most of the players have great ideas and want to say things, but in end it always comes down to either "Let the party face character do the all interactions because I have a bad diplomacy/bluff/intimidate score (and thus I'm scared of botching the roll)" or worse, no one wants to speak to NPCs at all.
In a game that I'm playing in no one has put ranks in any social skills and so no one ever wants to talk, including me (which is hard to cope with because I normally play the party face). In the game I'm DMing things aren't much better, as only the party face ever talks to NPCs (and always via intimidate because it's the only social skill he has).
I feel that the rules of the game are encouraging this behavior. I don't think this is an issue of poor character/group design. I feel like all characters should feel free to talk and have a fair chance at influencing others, but I do feel that characters who are invested in these skills should benefit from them in some way.
So here are my questions:
1. Does anyone else run into this problem of non-party face characters not wanting to speak to NPCs? If so, how does your table deal with them?
2. Can anyone give any suggestions/house rules to make social skills less necessary but still reward the players who want to invest in them?
Thanks,
-Jake
I found similar things in games I've played in.
Some people never want to talk/ interact if they can't "make the roll".. which can be understandable, based on the DM. You can have the "social" skills... be it diplomacy, intimidate, etc.. and try to RP that out.. but the DM doesn't grasp that at all.
He/she is basically just looking for a "mechanical" die roll with little to no roleplay involved.
Never experienced this problem. Everyone in my groups keep yakkin it up, big time, myself included.
We roll social dice whenever the GM wants us to, or if we want a certain outcome, and don't feel like we have what it takes, to get it simply by being in-character.
I guess this is not at all useful to you. :C
-Nearyn
2. Can anyone give any suggestions/house rules to make social skills less necessary but still reward the players who want to invest in them?
There are a few ways. My go to answer is to give modifiers based on what someone says, or even let what they say out weight the value of a good dice roll. This works in both ways. Someone that only does something that could be taken negatively takes a penalty, someone who says just the right things gets a bonus to their total. If you explain that it'll be fine and they can always make the roll, but what they say helps, then sometimes that helps people actually try to speak.
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In my campaign prep with my players, or when I add a new player, I usually have some version of the following advice that I give them:
"Remember that this game is a role playing game. The intent is for characters to have personalities and for characters to interact with other player characters and with NPCs according to their personalities. It can be very tempting to play the game 'by the numbers' and have one party member identified as 'the face' and all NPC interactions occur through that one player. I strongly recommend that you avoid this temptation. Some of the most memorable, funny or compelling moments in my gaming career have come when player characters act in accordance with their personality which can sometimes be in direct opposition to their skills and abilities. Also remember that in real life everyone sometimes reacts to emotional impulses against their own better judgment. That is exactly the sort of thing that allows for true role playing of your characters. If you allow the game mechanics to rule the actions of your characters, instead of their own personalities and impulses, you are at risk of missing out on some of the most engaging and frequently hilarious aspects of playing this game. It's not all about swinging pointy sticks and manipulating the awesome cosmic powers of the universe. Sometimes it's just about kicking back and vicariously allowing yourself to live in the moment of a fantasy universe."
This seems like the perfect use of aide another. Let the whole group roll for the interaction. DC 10 to aide the face of the group.
Then everyone can talk and participate and not really have to worry about blown rolls. One group check per encounter.
I found similar things in games I've played in.
Some people never want to talk/ interact if they can't "make the roll".. which can be understandable, based on the DM. You can have the "social" skills... be it diplomacy, intimidate, etc.. and try to RP that out.. but the DM doesn't grasp that at all.
He/she is basically just looking for a "mechanical" die roll with little to no roleplay involved.
This is pretty much what I believe is happening in my groups. What I'd like to find is a way to encourage RPing the interaction as opposed to making it as you've said, "a mechanical die roll," while still rewarding the players who have invested in these skills.
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..how in the name of Pete do they buy things? Assuming they negotiate prices, if they intimidate /every/ shopkeeper he's going to start closing the shop when he sees them coming.
Like try to imagine that. He walks into the Kohls.. "YOU"RE GONNA SELL ME THESE FOR HALF OFF! KOHLS BUCKS!!! AAARGH!"
Then goes to buy some mexican food, "BURRITOS OR I SMASH YOUR FACE!"
And of course, he gets lost, so he's rolling down the street (trying to sub in intimidate for diplomacy on a gather info roll, I imagine) yelling out the window of his car that if someone doesn't tell him where the nearest Kinko's is, he'll start breaking legs.
This is absurd, yes, but thats why I'm detailing it. This is what a guy who uses intimidate for every social interaction looks like.
Intimidate is a sometimes food, not a go-to for social interactions (for anyone short of a sociopath, barbarian, mafiosos, or lunatic)
Also mechanically it has diminishing returns. The DCs keep going up (both from them building a resistance to the intimidate, and their base attitude dropping).
And what they fear isn't the roll, its the repercussions. He's afraid if he tries a diplomacy check and does badly they'll lose out on something. A way around this is to make normal checks easy. I remember horror stories of a guy who demanded like DC 18 checks on diplomacy or you could only sell things for 1/20th of their value. You want stuff like 'you can sell at 1/2, but diplomacy improves.'
Also, make it clear that diplomacy is just for when you try to convince someone of soemthing outside the ordinary. Not every social interaction should be the party making demands or trying to convince people to fight against the Dark Lord.
They stay mute? Have the NPCs respond to that.
Only one character speaks? Have the NPCs notice that.
Character uses only Intimidate? Have the NPCs respond to that negatively.
If the characters don't interact with the NPCs, then make the NPCs interact with them.
But also, I would make it so that a check isn't needed for many scenarios and simple interaction works. Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate shouldn't be required skills to use for simple things. They should be situational skills for specific instances.
Diplomacy isn't your skill to converse with someone, it's the ability to convince someone to agree with you, lower their hostility, or get information out of them. If I were to give my players a check to haggle with a merchant I wouldn't even require diplomacy, I would use a Charisma or Intelligence check, or even just let the characters actually speak with the merchant and haggle as if he was me. They could use diplomacy or intimidate if they wanted to of course, but that wouldn't be the necessity.
Generally I just let the players do whatever they want with regards to NPC interaction and only call for the use of a skill check when a specific event triggers one, or when a player declares they would like to use one.
Like try to imagine that. He walks into the Kohls.. "YOU"RE GONNA SELL ME THESE FOR HALF OFF! KOHLS BUCKS!!! AAARGH!"Then goes to buy some mexican food, "BURRITOS OR I SMASH YOUR FACE!"
This made me LOL. Also I fully agree with how ridiculous it is, but I also don't blame the player when he has a 0 in Diplomacy and +13 in Intimidate for thinking that he should choose one over the other.
This seems like the perfect use of aide another. Let the whole group roll for the interaction. DC 10 to aide the face of the group.Then everyone can talk and participate and not really have to worry about blown rolls. One group check per encounter.
This is not a bad idea at all.
In my campaign prep with my players, or when I add a new player, I usually have some version of the following advice that I give them:
I think it's just that the rules are stacked against the players for this. I don't have too many fond memories of AD&D rules, but I think in this case the lack mechanical rolling for social interactions made them a lot more fun. Also what I think happens in Pathfinder/3.0/3.5 is that players basically learn to shut up after failing enough times, be it in the current game or in past games.
There are a few ways. My go to answer is to give modifiers based on what someone says, or even let what they say out weight the value of a good dice roll. This works in both ways. Someone that only does something that could be taken negatively takes a penalty, someone who says just the right things gets a bonus to their total. If you explain that it'll be fine and they can always make the roll, but what they say helps, then sometimes that helps people actually try to speak.
This is basically using situational modifiers, right? I do think they're useful, but if they're not public to the players then they may still be unlikely to use these skills? I'm not sure really.
Never experienced this problem. Everyone in my groups keep yakkin it up, big time, myself included.We roll social dice whenever the GM wants us to, or if we want a certain outcome, and don't feel like we have what it takes, to get it simply by being in-character.
I guess this is not at all useful to you. :C
Actually it is useful. Your group doesn't have this problem because you only use these skill when you need to actually influence someone to do something normal RPing can't solve. I personally think this is a great idea and probably the original intent of the skills, but I feel like too often DMs (myself included) feel inclined to require these skills for basic tasks.
Thanks everyone so far for the suggestions. Also sorry if I quoted anyone wrong. I don't often post on forums.
They stay mute? Have the NPCs respond to that.
Only one character speaks? Have the NPCs notice that.
Character uses only Intimidate? Have the NPCs respond to that negatively.If the characters don't interact with the NPCs, then make the NPCs interact with them.
This is valid, but doesn't solve the problem of these social skills being so necessary for social interactions. This at best has players speaking and still just failing rolls. That said, I think as a DM I'm just going to use Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate less often. Also, I'll try to find ways to not make them needed and instead allow them to open up new possible paths of action (which is not so easy as I'm GMing an adventure path so I'll have to add these myself).
2. Can anyone give any suggestions/house rules to make social skills less necessary but still reward the players who want to invest in them?
1.) Don't resolve every/most/any social encounters with a roll. If a player is RPing well, go with it: If there's smoke coming from a house down the street and a PC runs up to a guard shouting "Fire!" there's no need to make a roll. If the PCs help the guard put out a fire and then explain that the burned down building was where they were staying, it's reasonable for the guard to offer them accommodations in thanks, moving the story along. Maybe give the PCs bonuses to their rolls for good RP, maybe give them several rolls throughout the conversation so they have multiple chances to succeed (this can be a fun way to steer the conversation.) Let them know that they can and likely will succeed if they put in the effort.
2.) Don't marginalize face characters, though. If they're spending resources to be persuasive, give them a chance to shine even if the player isn't the most eloquent person.
3.) Some people don't enjoy the "roleplaying" aspects as much as others, or in the same way. My fiancee constantly surprises me by the adventures she likes most, which also happen to be the adventures with the least NPC interaction. She really enjoys describing what her character does, but isn't so keen on interacting. Everyone's different, let them enjoy the game the way that they want.
1.) I agree with this
2.) Can you give some example ways you reward players?
3.) This very valid an is the case for some of the players that I play with (though not all). The reason for me posting this thread is that in the last session I played in we almost came to a complete halt when a social encounter was required. None of had the social skills if we didn't want to role play it and let a die roll decide our fates, but I think we also all expected that role playing past it wouldn't work either as our DM would likely require a Diplomacy roll, which he did, and of course the NPC was very unhelpful. I also don't blame my DM for this as he was simply following the rules listed in the Adventure Path.
Jake, I am currently deliberately running a "palace intrigue" campaign, where social skills are critical.
But they aren't critical for every interaction. Even in this campaign where diplomacy, intimidation and bluff are one of the key aspects of advancing the plot, I might only have four situations in an entire session where a die roll is called for.
My general rule of thumb is that I only engage the game's mechanical aspects when there are significant consequences involved. Buying dinner, asking for directions, renting a pony.... those are all just stuff that happens. Unless the player is trying to do something unusual or special, I just role play it out and react to the situation.
John Compton uses a technique for Diplomacy/Intimidate/Bluff that I've decided to adopt. He encourages the players to talk to the NPC, listens to what they say, and then calls for skill rolls based on the interaction.
For example, if two players are making the same argument, he'll have the one who initiated the argument (or talked the most, sometimes) roll and the other assist. He determines whether to have them roll Diplomacy or Intimidate or Bluff based on they say and their attitude toward the NPC.
I'll let you know how this works out for me as a GM, but as a player, I really liked the effect. (And I wasn't playing a face character in that game.)
This is valid, but doesn't solve the problem of these social skills being so necessary for social interactions. This at best has players speaking and still just failing rolls. That said, I think as a DM I'm just going to use Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate less often. Also, I'll try to find ways to not make them needed and instead allow them to open up new possible paths of action (which is not so easy as I'm GMing an adventure path so I'll have to add these myself).They stay mute? Have the NPCs respond to that.
Only one character speaks? Have the NPCs notice that.
Character uses only Intimidate? Have the NPCs respond to that negatively.If the characters don't interact with the NPCs, then make the NPCs interact with them.
You missed my edit which addresses that.
Jake, I am currently deliberately running a "palace intrigue" campaign, where social skills are critical.
But they aren't critical for every interaction. Even in this campaign where diplomacy, intimidation and bluff are one of the key aspects of advancing the plot, I might only have four situations in an entire session where a die roll is called for.
My general rule of thumb is that I only engage the game's mechanical aspects when there are significant consequences involved. Buying dinner, asking for directions, renting a pony.... those are all just stuff that happens. Unless the player is trying to do something unusual or special, I just role play it out and react to the situation.
I perhaps have made things sound worse than they are. The examples I'm thinking of were trying to find information from a shopkeep about a customer and to get the mayor of the city to give us access to evidence for a crime we were trying to solve. Both cases, especially the second, are outside of a normal day to day tasks and probably should require rolls. That's when our group froze, and of course it's happening in other interactions as well where we have to convince anyone of anything.
edit: Also, we did find a way to deal with the second one. We found a way to buff up our guy with okay charisma and let him do the interaction solo. He still failed, sadly.
You missed my edit which addresses that.
Ah I see it now. Thanks. I did miss it.
I think there's been some really good advice here that has made me think about the situations while both DMing and playing. I'll try to come up with a final solution and I'm sure the other DM will too as he saw the problem arise as well. For me, I'm likely going to require a lot less rolls and let the PC's RP through social encounters if they choose. The only thing I need to be sure of is that the intimidator in my campaign still has opportunities to shine.
Thanks for all the advice. It's 11PM here in Thailand so I'm going to sleep. Cheers.
-Jake
Hm. Not really a problem I've noticed in my own groups.
If I had this problem, though, I would solve it by having NPCs "target" specific PCs for response with things like "What's his deal?" or soft insults. Then force social rolls to gauge the PC's response, even if they remain silent, with things like body language, etc.
I wouldn't do this constantly, just once in a while so that people are aware that they sacrificed the social aspect of the game. Do it every time and you're being a jerk GM, just as much as the guy who always targets the spell book/object focus/familiar, or the GM who sunders everything.
Saying nothing doesn't make you invisible, and the types of NPCs often featured in these games will usually want to know who they're dealing with.
Another trick is to start advertising NPCs views of the PCs. You may want to sprinkle a sense motive in there now and again, but for the most part if an NPC is "unfriendly" you could actually use that term openly, as a game term, as much as you would describe an enemy's weapon and armor. When players know that the DCs are hard and fast, they will see more value in social skills. Many GMs just don't exercise this power, and so it is all seen as fluffy nonsense (because that's what it becomes!)
One other thing to watch out for is to make sure social scenes are a vehicle for painting the portrait of the PCs that the players want. Don't throw it back in their face. If you create a reality where they really should have put ranks in intimidate so that their silent glowering was actually menacing instead of buffoonish, be prepared to offer them a chance to rearrange stats and skills to get the experience they want. Put it to them in those terms, too: "If you want to be the intimidating muscle in the background, even one skill rank goes a long way."
There is also a style of play where everyone is a brutish sociopath, and words are cheap. Sometimes, it works to just embrace it.
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So here's my problem. A player picks a concept/class that doesn't have diplomacy, bluff, or intimidate and as a result never wants to talk to NPCs. I've noticed this both while playing and DMing. In the cases I'm thinking of most of the players have great ideas and want to say things, but in end it always comes down to either "Let the party face character do the all interactions because I have a bad diplomacy/bluff/intimidate score (and thus I'm scared of botching the roll)" or worse, no one wants to speak to NPCs at all.
In order to be afraid of botching the roll, the players must believe that doing so is going to have meaningful negative consequences. In order for this to prevent them from ever speaking to NPCs at all, the players must believe that any/every NPC interaction could involve a check.
To put those two observations together: If your players never talk to NPCs because they're afraid they'll botch the check, that means they believe (whether correct or not) that any dialogue with an NPC will require a skill check whose failure will hurt them significantly.
If they're choosing not to interact when they'd like to, it's pretty obvious that they're scared. Some GM (whether the current one, or one or more previous ones) has trained them to expect serious risk whenever they interact with anyone/anything, and so they're acting based on that expectation.
If you want to change the behavior, you're going to have to change the expectation. If you want them to stop hiding, you're going to have to show them it's safe.
This seems like the perfect use of aide another. Let the whole group roll for the interaction. DC 10 to aide the face of the group.
Then everyone can talk and participate and not really have to worry about blown rolls. One group check per encounter.
If I were to give my players a check to haggle with a merchant I wouldn't even require diplomacy, I would use a Charisma or Intelligence check, or even just let the characters actually speak with the merchant and haggle as if he was me. They could use diplomacy or intimidate if they wanted to of course, but that wouldn't be the necessity.
Have you seen the optimization on this board? Many people think that a CHA of 5 is perfectly reasonable. You find similar things with INT for many martial classes too, sadly. It makes me appreciate a good 4d6b3 rolling for stats, since everyone at least should start off near decent in most stats.
Just automatically throwing the +2 for multiple contributor or a +1 for only one contributor would be enough to encourage them. No risk, and a simple reward. Not applicable to the "only intimidate" scenario (you need a different solution for that), but still useful for most cases.
It can be difficult for groups where the players may be less socially skilled than their characters, or you have one or two players that irl are 'face/social' people and always step up and talk eloquently even because it's how they are.
I'm dotting this for later. I'm looking to start DM-ing soon, and this is the type of thing I need to set myself a standard for.
Little comments on the various posts:
A lot of these things will, unfortunately, minimize the importance of people who build themselves up to be charismatic/diplomatic. It's a hard to set. Most checks should not be critical I believe. Good roleplay should be rewarded. But if having no diplomatics skills is equal to having some, they'll gravitate away from those roles.
Little note on roleplay emphasis:
I built myself to be a party face in a game, but it's a large group.The DM has strong emphasis on roleplay, but each time I try to put an effort in roleplaying, I'm never given the time to reflect on what I want to say (I believe it's namely because of the size of the group). They claim a "realism" thing (IE, in real life, you dont get time to think) but the pnp experience is so fragmented that I can never properly get into character/get a good idea of how the character would react. I'll admit I'm getting a bit disillusioned about pnp's roleplaying potential. For somebody who has a slower thought process, this kind of play is very frustrating.
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This was my solution:
Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate are now roleplay based only. The bluff skill is replaced with Feint/Secret Message skill, and Intimidate is replaced with Demoralize skill.
After I had read this, I was convinced. The diplomacy rules (and others) were just generally bad, and Pathfinder didn't do anything to improve it over 3.X in any significant way. I decided to foster more roleplaying from characters that potentially wouldn't ever involve themselves in social interactions because they feared failing a check and making their situation or the situaiton of the group worse. Now I just ask them to talk. If the characters don't have to look at a number and associate it with failure I think they're more inclined to participate.
So here are my questions:
1. Does anyone else run into this problem of non-party face characters not wanting to speak to NPCs? If so, how does your table deal with them?
Speak at all? No, everyone speaks, but generally, the 'face(s)' take the lead when trying to accomplish something. There is a difference between chatting in a bar or getting instruction from the local magistrate to go hunt down the band of theives, and trying to talk your way past the guards at the gates to a city. Everyone participates in the former, the people bad at talking try to avoid the latter, but sometimes the party is split up, or character dictates one might pipe in.
For instance, in one game, a member of our party is a tiefling with a 5 charisma. And he plays it appropriately. He is rude, annoying and generally says the wrong thing all the time. Sometimes its a character's job to distract dralnuv with drink while we try to talk to people, or the charismatic characters try to play damage control after he says something abrasive.
But sometimes, its just him and my ranger(also not good with people), because the party split up, and we have to do the talking. It often goes badly, but so be it. We roleplay out the likely failure to talk to the town guard the same way we would when the charming noblewoman would have been talking.
2. Can anyone give any suggestions/house rules to make social skills less necessary but still reward the players who want to invest in them?Thanks,
-Jake
I dont do anything of the sort. It would be like making combat skills less necessary. There are class features (like stern gaze) that revolve around social skills. Marginalizing them because no one wants to spend the ranks is a bad idea in my mind.
This was my solution:
Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate are now roleplay based only. The bluff skill is replaced with Feint/Secret Message skill, and Intimidate is replaced with Demoralize skill.
After I had read this, I was convinced. The diplomacy rules (and others) were just generally bad, and Pathfinder didn't do anything to improve it over 3.X in any significant way. I decided to foster more roleplaying from characters that potentially wouldn't ever involve themselves in social interactions because they feared failing a check and making their situation or the situaiton of the group worse. Now I just ask them to talk. If the characters don't have to look at a number and associate it with failure I think they're more inclined to participate.
Interestingly enough, I think one of my DMs is unintentionally doing this. Diplomacy is really only used to convice people to take a deal.
Elsewhere, he's trying to use the relationship rules form ultimate campaign. In this case, if we want to make people better/worst friends, it's not a straight diplomacy check. We have one guy that's trying to turn a rakshasa chaotic good (quite the challenge), so each day, he talks to it, does a charisma (not diplomacy) check, tries to learn more about it, etc. The rakshasa is still extremely unhelpful after a few weeks, but it's going forward slowly.
This might be a case of inconsistency, but the relationship rules from ultimate campaign do a much more coherent job of elaborating how to "make people like you". (or hate you for that matter). It does need a bit more work (1 point per level is pretty insignificant) but it gives an interesting basis for develloping relationships.
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I let anyone who takes part in a conversation roll an Aid Another to help whoever does the majority of the talking usually. In some situations a specific character will be the focus because of plot or background and sometimes a character (usually a face) will specifically say they want to roll their skill and make an effort.
But just going with everyone involved getting to Aid Another often makes skill checks reasonably achievable regardless, +2 from another 3 or 4 players makes a big difference and encourages everyone to be involved in conversations/social situations.
Hell, it doesn't even have to be a social skill they Aid Another with if they can come up with the right reason, in one recent example from Kingmaker of a public debate between the parties leader and an opposing bard the cavalier made a profession soldier check to have local guards who were very well liked 'happen' to be patrolling nearby & call out support for the party leader, the rogue made a Knowledge: Local check to find out who supported the bard and then the inquisitor made an intimidate check to scare those people them away from turning up to the debate whilst the cleric made a Knowledge: Religion check the day before using it to remind clergy at various appropriate churches that their gods smiled upon rightful rulership and perhaps they should mention that in their morning masses. Each of these gave the party leader a +2 on his diplomacy check in the debate, which they ended up 'winning' handily.
1. Does anyone else run into this problem of non-party face characters not wanting to speak to NPCs? If so, how does your table deal with them?
Yes. I know when I'm not the face character I clam up so the face can do his thing, same way i don't try fiddling the lock when I have the manual dexterity of a mitten wearing horse.
2. Can anyone give any suggestions/house rules to make social skills less necessary but still reward the players who want to invest in them?
Simply have NPCs that aren't mission critical to act with, just for fun.
2. Can anyone give any suggestions/house rules to make social skills less necessary but still reward the players who want to invest in them?Simply have NPCs that aren't mission critical to act with, just for fun.
Well, if every NPC is an encounter that is mission critical, that starts to create some problems in how I run the game. Mission critical NPCs should be sprinkled in amongst normal NPCS so that the GM is not telegraphing his/her intentions simply through the introduction of their NPCs. If every NPC my character meets is critical to the plot, I'm going to start feeling pretty well railroaded.
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Last night played PFS and a standing rule with our DM is "you must tell me what you are going to say for diplomacy/intimidate checks" not I roll a 16 for diplomacy.
Sometimes a player is shy and/or does not want to embrace their inner geek especially around a new group of folks. Had 1 last night first time at a PFS game(Stolen Heir). My wizard who is charisma impaired was speaking to an elderly lady in the service of the master of the house said something....rather crude to her rolled a 4 for diplomacy and basically fall flat on my face....But it did loosen up our new player seeing someone make a complete fool of himself and seeing no judgement cast.
I agree with claxon about your second question just let them talk and roleplay it out.
This brings up the 'rollplay' vs 'roleplay' arguments. No one playstyle will fit any one group.
I typically agree with Adamantine Dragon, but I will throw in one reservation I have with his method of 'only the important NPCs get rolls'. Do the PCs know which NPCs are the important ones? If not then alarm bells would start ringing in my head when you ask for a roll. Yeah, it's metagaming but it's a hard thing to turn off sometimes.
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I do 3 different things.
1- I grant considerable bonuses to social skill checks if the player roleplays it well. If he actually roleplays the speech or threat instead of simply saying "I roll Diplomacy/Intimidate/Whatever", they get sizeable bonuses who vary from +2 to +4. Even +10 are not unheard of. That said, I never penalize a player for not roleplaying. Some players are incapable, or simply not interested in voicing their characters' words. That's their choice. They can simply "rollplay" if they choose to do so, there is no harm in that.
2- I require social skills for difficult or extraordinary interactions. You don't need to roll Diplomacy to ask for directions, nor do you need Intimidate to convince the commoner your well-armed character will harm him (unless the commoner has reason to believe otherwise)
3- Sometimes, NPCs will directly interact with silent PCs. The Bard may be rolling a great Diplomacy check, but nothing stops the King from simply asking "And what about you? What do you have to say?" to the Fighter with Cha 7.
So here are some idea's I'm tossing around for the campaign I'm DMing.
1.) Give everyone 1 free skill point per level that must be spent on a social skill. If you already have a social skill then enjoy your free skill point.
The hope with this rule is no one will feel like they can't contribute to social encounters because they don't have the required skills. This doesn't completely step on the toes of the party face because they likely have higher charisma, but it does still step on their toes a bit.
2.) Try to reintroduce synergy skills, but have them scale as opposed to the flat +2 bonus for 5 ranks in 3.5. Maybe something like +2 for 4 ranks, +4 for 8 ranks, and so on.
The objective with this idea is to reward players who want to invest in being a social guy. This gives them ways to really increase their bonuses and stand out from the other characters who will also have diplomacy skills due to the free skill points. This could be done for almost no cost because they can use their free skill points to focus on these synergy bonuses.
3.) Try to be better about not requiring a diplomacy/bluff/intimidate check for every social encounter.
One resounding theme from this thread is that too many people become over dependent on these skills to handle anything social, when really they should only be used for more important encounters. I am guilty of this as well and it's something I'll look to correct.
Can you guys help out and give some feedback and/or suggestions to my 3 ideas here? Thanks again everyone. This has been a really useful thread and I'm glad to see there are others out there with similar problems who it may help.
I don't require my players make social rolls unless that's what they are trying to do. Banter is banter, but trying to sway an NPC nicely or with threats, or intentionaly decieving them requires a roll.
This brings up the 'rollplay' vs 'roleplay' arguments. No one playstyle will fit any one group.
I typically agree with Adamantine Dragon, but I will throw in one reservation I have with his method of 'only the important NPCs get rolls'. Do the PCs know which NPCs are the important ones? If not then alarm bells would start ringing in my head when you ask for a roll. Yeah, it's metagaming but it's a hard thing to turn off sometimes.
In my games I only require rolls on skills when they are important to the plot. Sometimes I roll them secretly. Sometimes it's obvious. For example, the last time I needed diplomacy rolls from the players was in the command tent of a general in preparation for a major battle and the party had to convince two generals that they needed to NOT go to war because a bigger threat was about to overwhelm both of them and they would need to work together to have a chance to survive.
That's a pretty good example of when I call for rolls.
I think if you have game where players won't talk to NPC due lacking skills in diplomacy then you have GM that isn't running skill check in manner that allows player to interact with NPCs.
Diplomacy is an untrained skilled. Anyone can use it. The DC for it trivial when dealing with helpful NPC, DC 1 mostly. Even if you have -2 Chr you can ask for simple directions or advice with no chance of failure. Detailed advice or simple aid or roll of 3 or more. 8 or get some form of complicated aid. So Take 10 to get that.
If the GM isn't putting at a some Helpful NPC out there then the person no diplomacy will struggle. They will then not bother interacting with NPCs. The GM doesn't have to litter the place with helpful NPC but you should have some to keep things interest for those lacking in social skills during non combat situation.
As well give those with out the skills a chance to use other abilities to gain situational bonus to diplomacy. That's what Paizo does in their adventure paths. Do X and get +5 bonus to diplomacy with an NPC. It could be something as simple as have common interest or belief. The both worship the same god so +5 to diplomacy.
Humans are social animals that require human interaction to maintain their psychological health. If they refuse to ever interact with other people have them start suffering penalties to all their rolls due to crippling depression. :p
A lot of people have suggested to punish players who don't want to speak and I think that's the wrong way to do things. I'm a teacher and punishment never works as form of motivation. What I want to do instead is encourage people to feel more comfortable with speaking to NPCs, and I think a lot of the problem may be fear of failure. Another significant reason may be that it's not on their character sheet so they don't do it. I'm hoping that by giving free social skills out that will change things up a bit.
This is prittymuch the reason i quit dm-ing. A refusal to interact with non-plot central npc's.