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Role playing ineloquent characters is it's own reward. Usually on the order of 4 build points...
i got one of those, a bloatmage with -2 diplomacy. recently i was playing him at a con and the other players were just sitting there while i talked. after a few minutes I stopped and told them you might want to jump in cause my character will mess this up. i have to remind myself of that. roll the dice and than start being rude cause that low roll is your characters best.
Venture-Agent, Massachusetts—Boston Metro
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Do we do the same thing for someone who just rolls her climb skill checks? or her swim? Does she have to say "I'm doing a 'dog paddle' over to the wall and try to climb out... ah... using both hands to boost me out of the water and the wall as leverage." Should she take us down to the hotel pool to show us HOW her character does that swim check? (realizing here that my wife would do MUCH better at this - as I can't swim and she is a Water Aerobics instructor.)
Isn't the climb skill the most common skill that grants circumstantial modifiers for purposefully narrating what you do? And its usually the one that even compared to diplomacy always gets narrated because it changes its a hefty hefty bonus/reduction in DC.
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I feel like a lot of the issue with the social skills and "roll play / role play" is the result of the mere existence of the skills.
But this is because I'm an old timer too. In early editions of D&D there were no skill checks. How on earth did we resolve social encounters then? Well, we bluffed, we intimidated, we even sometimes attempted to be diplomatic. But all of that was done in simple conversation, with no dice rolling involved. The DM could judge outcomes based on NPC motivations, and what was actually said.
The transition to codified social skills has resulted in much of the debate and discussion with NPCs being rendered irrelevant because a player can say "I diplomacy: I rolled 38" and that's all within the rules, regardless of how much or how little actual talking has occurred.
I suppose I just prefer for the old way when it comes to social encounters.
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While I would want to see more eloquent PLAYERS that play their PCs in Roles. Is the PC a gruff uncultured barbarian? Play it that way.... but I'm not sure if I should "reward" the player by giving the character a bonus to his social skill checks. I guess if the Player were to build a hut to play in, I could give his wizard PC a bonus to Survival checks... but it still seems a bit miss placed.
Okay, you keep acting as if this is a unique situation in the game and it's not. There are hundreds if not thousands of examples where the player's skill can make a difference for their character. Naming absurd options where it might not work in other skills does absolutely nothing to udermine the idea that it works in some circumstances
And if my players want to build a pillow fort on the spot? yeah that much fun is worth a +2. Knock yourselves out.
More likely they'd get the bonus from using something they have with them (the gnome wears a tarp like a superman cape) , or remembering the thick rich mud of the area (a la the excelebt survival hut videos) , or the very big leaves mentioned in the scenario, or using the sap to seal the place up or something.
If someone is uncultured and still making the facey talky talk skill checks* they're going to have to do it in a way that would actually work: someone with the int to diplomacy skill checks can launch into sesquepadelian loquaciousness or the dwarf can be brutally honest But perfectly on point and reasonable.
* gives you some idea of where MY diplomacy score is.
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Here's a side note... just my opinion, and we all know how much that's worth...
I have noticed that the rules in Ultimate Intrigue seem to be an attempt to turn the Role Playing aspect of our game into a set of Rolls. To convert the Role Playing into Roll Playing.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's how it seems to me.
Change Social Encounters into Social Combat - with dice rolls...
My response to ultimate intrigue and how it relates to pfs can be found under A general ARRRGHH over ultimate intrigue and its impact on reading the rules for PFS
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I don't see how giving them misinformation is against RAW.I thought we were supposed to run as written. That strikes me as a possibly reasonable house rule that has absolutely NO place in Society play.
Also, I wonder how many GMs provide misinformation for a poor knowledge check?
Because the rules don't say "Give misinformation on a failed roll"?
Its EXACTLY the same limitation that means that I can't have the player stab himself in the foot on a failed attack roll. Even if that attack roll was a 1.
There is a HUGE difference between "You don't know" and "You think it has DR Slashing".
I've had GMs very obviously lie to me as a joke many a time. Just as I've had players very obviously lie on a low roll as a joke. But the key word there is "joke"
Now THIS is a topic I'm quite interested in!
It reminds me of a Starfinder game I played once. One of my teammates was playing a face. but when it came around time to RP the conversation, they seemed quite out of their comfort zone. I wanted to jump in and help, but given my character's rather mediocre Charisma score... It's at that point that I realized that I'd LOVE to be on face duty, but sadly, limited ability points and my desire for tip-top combat performance kinda stifled that. (On a somewhat related note, I would later find out that I botched a Diplomacy check to gather information so badly that my big mouth apparently tipped off and ticked off some enemies we faced later that day.) So it got me thinking, what would be the right balance between roleplay and ability score so as to not trivialize either?
I'd like to hear other opinions on this, but I'm thinking something like this: Pretty much anyone with a 10 Charisma or higher could feasibly hold a diplomatic discussion. In such cases, roleplaying it out is a viable option, should the player prefer it, only taking into account Diplomacy checks for mood improvement and making requests. What others have said in this thread about giving bonuses based on roleplay sounds good as well.
And finally, this is a bit off-topic, but NOW I'm wondering how I can play my innocently insensitive and brutally honest 7 Cha Barbarian kid without actively sabotaging my party or coming off as a jerk. Hmm...
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I thought we were supposed to run as written. That strikes me as a possibly reasonable house rule that has absolutely NO place in Society play.
Depends a lot on the situation. I was not suggesting a poor roll to identify a lich is gonna get you, "its a dragon!" At the same time, roll poorly against a skeletal champion and you might get, "it looks like a skeleton" or botch a roll vs a bebilith, you might get, "it looks like a huge spider, but there's something unusual about it that you cannot put your finger on." Those are perfectly reasonable descriptions and not the same as "its a [redacted]."
The fact that I cannot recall any GMs doing this means this is all hypothetical anyway. I've flubbed a check to identify creatures before and the GM simply said I had no idea what it was. That a d6 was being used as a pawn didn't help visualization and prevented any guessing based on its appearance whatsoever. If I see a skeletal creature, I am may not determine its an actual skeleton or some more powerful variant, but if it has any damage reduction, its a good bet its overcome with bludgeoning (at least). That's a reasonable assumption.
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At the same time, roll poorly against a skeletal champion and you might get, "it looks like a skeleton" or botch a roll vs a bebilith, you might get, "it looks like a huge spider, but there's something unusual about it that you cannot put your finger on." Those are perfectly reasonable descriptions and not the same as "its a [redacted]."
These I have absolutely no problem with at all. Looks like I misinterpreted what you meant before
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Story time.
Once, a long time ago, and in an organized play campaign that shall remain nameless, was a jaded table where no one roleplayed. After about an hour of trying to get the players to pay attention and to stop talking while he was describing a room, the GM silently got up, grabbed his coffee, and said, "I'll be back in a few minutes.".
Three hours later, the GM returned to the deserted table, dropped a pile of signed chronicle sheets, and packed his stuff.
Legend has it that he got a standing ovation.