Are the folks coordinating the Pathfinder effort interested in rules for resolving social encounters? I know one of the complaints with 4th edition (and to an extent, 3rd) is that it focuses too much on combat and not enough on other forms of encounters. Another problem with 3rd is the "diplomancer" issue in which any social encounter is going to be resolved by the one PC with the highest Diplomacy + Cha (or, rarely, Intimidate + Cha).
I have been using a variant system for social encounters which allows both complex social interaction without a lot of complex rules. I think I could translate these rules pretty easily into Pathfinder, but I wanted ot see if there was a lot of interest in such a project. Not everybody wants dice to interfere in "roleplaying" (though I think my system is there to enhance the roleplay and make it less likely to be resolved by DM fiat).
What are people's opinions?
Here's an idea:
What about requiring complex/multiple skills checks for social encounters?
In combat, it makes sense that you're making a single roll to resolve something. You're trying to answer a discrete question - do I hit my opponent?
Turning a social encounter into a discrete question - does this person like me? - makes less sense. If you make it a complex question, then the encounter becomes about a series of rolls and successes, rather than a single pass/fail roll. That makes more sense to me.
It also solves the problem of escalating DCs. Jason tried to address that by putting a cap on how many steps you can move an NPC up the attitude chart, but if you make social encounters about a series of rolls, the DCs and number of steps on a given roll becomes less important, and the number of successful rolls becomes paramount.
Still, a few guidelines on how to set up a social encounter and how to judge its CR when relevant would be useful for less experienced players and GMs.
Talking to someone should only come down to dice rolls if it's clear the roleplayer is struggling, and that's the DM's prerogative.
I agree completely. There's no need to make complicated rules for talking to someone.
That's totally counterproductive to the way my group plays.I also feel that as a GM, my hands are tied creatively if I'm expected to adhere to a table to determine the reactions of NPCs. Not fun.
Frankly said, the entire use of skills to minimize the playing of a role sucks. It works well when used to support role-playing, but if it means that people just roll dice to see if they convince someone or other of whatever, sorry... that ain't roleplaying at all.
Revive the old etiquette skill, players still had to play out whatever they wanted their characters to say, and they got to roll if there was a chance the characters knew something that the player would not have the character say.
A good use of social skills is akin to this:
bluff used when the party cleric shouts to the group of rogues that seriously outnumber the adventuring duo "Halt in the name of the Watch! You are surrounded! Drop your weapons!" Opposing rolls are made, and the rogues buy into the bluff and drop their weapons, thus helping the not-so-dynamic duo to escape.
The same done with merely stating "I try to bluff the rogues so that we can escape" is a huge load of BS IMO
And while that is an admirable goal, not everyone is good at that side of the game. Wouldn't it be nice to include a system for those of us who have trouble playing out a social encounter? I for one would love to have seen a better system in 3E then the simple Dip roll, and I know that my players have never been the best at playing out those sides of things.
What are they playing out then? I mean, aside from combat, the game is social encounters...
I would love to see a decent, robust social resolution mechanic.
I'm an Aspergers sufferer, and very bad in Social situations. gaming is something of an escape for me, I like to play social characters. But theres a lot of smug, elitist types who would insist I Rp my way though situations that I physically don't get. This is patently unfair. No one has ever told me I need to show actual magical training to play a wizard, my religois views have no bearing on my power to play a cleric, no ones ever said I need to prove I can handle a sword but my Real world socal savy is made to stand for my charicters. So much for fantasy.
We need better social mechanisms because the current one roll easily capped out system in D&D not only leaves those like me high and dry, but, because of D&D's encounter based experience, makes non combat encounters hard to adjudicate.
I would love to see a decent, robust social resolution mechanic.
I'm an Aspergers sufferer, and very bad in Social situations. gaming is something of an escape for me, I like to play social characters. But theres a lot of smug, elitist types who would insist I Rp my way though situations that I physically don't get. This is patently unfair. No one has ever told me I need to show actual magical training to play a wizard, my religois views have no bearing on my power to play a cleric, no ones ever said I need to prove I can handle a sword but my Real world socal savy is made to stand for my charicters. So much for fantasy.
We need better social mechanisms because the current one roll easily capped out system in D&D not only leaves those like me high and dry, but, because of D&D's encounter based experience, makes non combat encounters hard to adjudicate.
QFT.
Not everybody can be an amazing role player (in the related-to-acting sense).
That's why I think completely ditching social encounters to any kind of single, discrete question (Diplomacy - Do you like me? Y/N) is a simple, backwards compatible solution. Using the skill is still involved, and allows people a mechanic to excel at social skills they do not themselves personally possess.
Turning social (and really all non-combat) encounters into a series of rolls evaluated on accumulated successes and failures is an easy fix for the problem.
I would love to see a decent, robust social resolution mechanic.
I'm an Aspergers sufferer, and very bad in Social situations. gaming is something of an escape for me, I like to play social characters. But theres a lot of smug, elitist types who would insist I Rp my way though situations that I physically don't get. This is patently unfair. No one has ever told me I need to show actual magical training to play a wizard, my religois views have no bearing on my power to play a cleric, no ones ever said I need to prove I can handle a sword but my Real world socal savy is made to stand for my charicters. So much for fantasy.
We need better social mechanisms because the current one roll easily capped out system in D&D not only leaves those like me high and dry, but, because of D&D's encounter based experience, makes non combat encounters hard to adjudicate.
OK, I see what you mean, but the problem with that way, in general, is this: if every social aspect is handled by a mechanic we would also need a skill/feat area concerning intrigue etc. If you, as a player, can lay out to a DM what you want your character to do that is roleplaying as well, but if the entire affair is reduced to a couple rolls of the dice count me out.
Well I certainly try to speak everything my character says, but will often miss ques so being less subtle than I aught to be, or end out knowing what I want to achieve but unable to find the words, as well as just not being that personally persasave. Thus I'll try RP heavy, I like that its why I play what I do, but I know its not my strong suite and so I want a good, robust social system there for the days where the aspegers bites down on my mind and I personally find myself painting my way into a corner.
Archgamer, I completely understand your concern. My gaming group has been together since circa 1987. We used to roleplay social encounters with no dice (maybe the occasional Charisma check once in a blue moon). We had rotating DMs and some like social encounters, others didn't. nobody thought anything of it.
Then one day, one of the DMs (let's call him Jack) has a social encounter involving dwarves, so we turn to the guy playing our dwarf (let's call him Bill) and say "Why don't you take point on this?" and he responded, "No. Jack's DMing, so Joe will probably do better at the roleplay."
And this caused a huge furor with people accusing others of favoring other players, and ignoring players. Heck, before that comment, nobody thought there was a problem. (And frankly, the comment was utterly innocent. Bill chose to play a dwarf so he could be antisocial during social situations -- he just didn't want the social roleplay, so he was handing it over to Joe, who did like the social roleplay.)
The problem was Bill was, unintentionally, right. Joe did get more out of Jack during social roleplay. Not because Jack was playing favorites -- he was always a scrupulously fair DM -- but simply because Joe was Jack's roommate and he just knew what sort of approaches Jack would find persuasive.
Eventually the whole thing blew over, but it made us all extra wary during roleplay. It sucked.
So I developed the "alpha" version of my social encounter rules and introduced it to the group. There was a lot of trepidation. Won't this overshadow the role-play? Will we lose immersion? Why should human(oid) interaction be relegated to stupid dice?
But it worked. Clunky at first. The trick is, like combat, to allow individuals to come up with strategies -- social strategies in this case -- to implement and role-play that affect the ultimate dice rolls. Which means social encounters need to use more than just Charisma and two skills. The other trick, as others intimated, is to break out the encounter into a series of objectives. If it's all going to be resolved in one roll ("None may pass" "I got a 30 on my Diplomacy check" "You may pass") it's not worth the bother.
So please understand that I get your concerns. I think my system can accommodate them without overcomplicating things. It will also be good for people who are socially challenged who want to play social butterflies (and isn't pretending to be what your not a big part of D&D's allure?) And, of course, if you don't like it, ignoring these rules are the easiest things to do.
I think the current skill-use system already in place is all that is needed, at least for this main book. Simple, intuitive and easily manipulated.
I also believe instead of figuring out more ways to foster dice rolling instead of roleplaying isn't the best use of space. I'd rather see more ways to help people make an interesting and creative roleplaying encounter. But all of this should probably be done outside of the scope of this particular book.
Best.
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I don't know, I find the skill system pretty capable of handling the objectives of a social encounter without necessarily needing a whole new ruleset. First of all you need to get rid of static DCs on certain skill checks like diplomacy (well tumble or I guess athletics now to move through threatened areas also, but thats not social so back on topic) Diplomacy should be an opposed roll not a static DC, and it should never be able to move a person more than a single step at a time. but you should also be able to use subterfuge rolls to help but a failed subterfuge should merely give a modifier to the diplomacy check, not result in a failed encounter. Oh, but I am in the camp of giving XP for succesfully navigated social encounters.
PS heya Wrecan nice to see you on a new forum how are the MDMCs coming?
PS heya Wrecan nice to see you on a new forum how are the MDMCs coming?
Good! Next one should be up soon.
You can see a very rough outline I did for 3.5 and 4th by looking at my Gleemax blog, the link to which you can find in the sig of any of my posts in the WotC boards.
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I think the skills we have are enough, but it should not be a static roll. I like the alternates Rich Burlew and others have come up with, with the DC being NPC's level + Wis mod, and any other modifiers. I've been in games with diplomancers and it was ridiculous. Of course, it was also epic, which didn't help. I agree with the no more than one step at a time idea too.
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I would like to see the social skills combined into a single skill.
Have one "Yakking" skill, with several ways to do it; lying (bluff), reason or fellowship (diplomacy), or threats (intimidate).
All are communication, and as closely related as many other skill grouping. Let the different varieties have different effects and modifiers, and consolidate the skill list a bit more.
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I would like to see the social skills combined into a single skill.
Have one "Yakking" skill, with several ways to do it; lying (bluff), reason or fellowship (diplomacy), or threats (intimidate).
All are communication, and as closely related as many other skill grouping. Let the different varieties have different effects and modifiers, and consolidate the skill list a bit more.
Pretty much a "Persuasion" skill?
When I was consolidating the skill list down for a Fuzion-based Mekton game, I rolled a few "social manipulation" skills together under Persuasion (which was one of the preexisting skills), allowing the player to choose their "specialty" be it bribery, fast-talk, diplomacy, intimidation, seduction, or whatever.
Porting that idea over to D20, you could do the same thing and have the player choose their "type" of Persuasion much in the same way as Perform currently works.
Just a thought.
The problem with allowing all social interaction come down to one skill, like Diplomacy or Persuausion, is that it means only one person is going to do all the role-playing: the guy with the best Persuausion modifier. For everyone else, it's actually worse for the party if they participate. Such a system encourages Diplomancers.
Any social roleplay system needs to encourage all players to find a niche. It shouldn't all come down to one set of modifiers, if dice are to be involved at all.
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I strongly support a social encounter resolution mechanic. I agree that an important design goal for this is making it something that engages all characters in the party. One problem with Diplomacy is that it doesn't play well with other skills. There's no guidelines to say how much it helps you succeed in a negotiation if your rogue has bluffed the target, or the barbarian has intimidated them.
Victory points are a backwards-compatible solution that's been used in other Paizo adventures, like Tides of Dread. The bard's successful use of Diplomacy, the rogue's Bluff, and the barbarian's Intimidate can all earn victory points. So can clever scrying by the wizard, carefully-worded divination by the cleric, etc. The GM sets the DCs for these rolls and the number of VP needed to achieve partial success or complete success based on the difficulty of the social encounter.
The good reasons for including a robust social conflict have already been covered.
At the end of the day, if it is there and you would prefer not to use such a system, you don't have to. If it is not there and you'd like it to be, you miss it.
I personally think there is room for three socially specialised classes, based loosely on personality type.
Assertive: Leaders and seducers
Assertive characters Could have class abilities which grant them benifits dealing with crowds or mobs, there skills and social powers have almost super natural say over organisations and individuals. There pure force of personality means they are often able to forge strong and close bonds with a few people or get them selfs into the beds of others.
Agressive: Threatens and cajolers
Those who use social accumen like a sledge hammer. Class abilities based on threats, intimidation and the relentless waring down of another defences.
Passive: Deal makers and manipulators
A form of social aegis and deal makers, they provide intelligence based reasoning and can with time change even deeply held beleifs of others.
They are also excilent listeners and infomation gathers.
I posted most of this in another thread, but I think it helps here.
Arghamer, I think that better roleplaying and greater creativity come when under some constraints. As a player, if I see that I rolled well on my Diplomacy check, I have a clearer idea of how to play that scene. As a DM, if I see that a player failed a check, I can play that scene to bring about that resolution. Both parties can better tailor their efforts if they know where the efforts need to go. In combat, the dice decide almost everything; the players use their own tactical skills to get into position, but the dice decide success. This doesn't stop me from roleplaying in combat and describing what I'm doing. Quite the opposite, in fact, if I see I just barely managed to hit the guy, I can describe in much more exciting detail how I did so than if I had to just roleplay out what I thought should happen. In social conflicts, if I know how well I'm doing, I can come up with better, more interesting roleplay for that situation.
There should be a clear system for social conflict that provides a framework for acting in the scene. An argument can be as exciting as a combat, especially if the parties go back and forth in initiative-based turns with each party member able to contribute (e.g. the fighter holds the man up against the wall while the bard speaks calmly and slowly offering reasonable alternatives to being beaten while the paladin watches for deceptions and subtle changes in response, cuing the bard).
The social conflict rules should be simple; probably fitting onto one page with DCs and uses for various skills, maybe even some feats to allow new uses and bonuses. An effort should be made to ensure that all kinds of characters can have some meaningful impact upon the scene, just as all characters should have some meaningful impact upon combat.
In the interest of backwards compatibility, there shouldn't be a "social hit points" rule for individual characters, as no previously published materials will have them. Instead, scenes in general could have a certain number of "social points" which are deducted until a side wins or stops negotiations. Simple bluffing past the guards could require only 10 points to be made (One DC 10 check). Convincing the warmongering barbarian king to call off the assault, however, would have 150 points to deduct, requiring numerous rolls and assists by the whole party, while the players roleplay what their dice rolls actually mean in terms of action and the story.
The best part about having a comprehensive system is that it allows for all play styles. People who don't want to roleplay social situations don't have to; they can just roll dice. People who want no dice involved can simply ignore the rules, just as one could ignore certain combat rules in the interest of the story or game. Best of all, those who want an integrated system, as I do, can actually have it and have it work well.
Wrecan, I am very interested in seeing an outline for how your system works.
I second Lord Welkerfan. Wrekan, We'd really like to see what you've come up with.
Regards,
ZOOROOS
Contributor
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I'm playing in a 1st-edition Pendragon game with some folks. That game has a neat mechanic wherein you declare what you WANT your character to do, but then you have to make a die roll to see if he actually does that. The system is set up in such a way that there are no absolutes. You always have at least a 10% chance of your character acting in a way you don't want him to.
There's a list of something like 20 different traits, with half that are positive and directly opposed by an equal number that are negative (positive and negative in this case determined on how a Knight of the Round Table should act). So you have Bravery on one side and Cowardice on the other. The highest score you can have in any of these is 18, and you check against your scores by rolling a d20, with the goal of rolling below the ability score. (Thus the at least 10% chance of failure.) So even if you say you're character bravely rushes forward to face the dragon, there's a chance he does not. Most of the traits are more social than the bravery/cowardice one, but that's the only one I can remember off the top of my head.
I don't think that would work for PFRPG or any other OGL game, but it's a neat mechanic nonetheless. It takes some of the character's control out of the hands of the player, but it can force some interesting roleplaying situations.
It might also serve as a neat basis to rulesifying social interactions. Of course, you can kinda already do that with Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate as it is, except you can really tweak out those skills such that you almost never fail.
I think that people are missing the point of skills like Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate. You can still have your character say whatever you want, the training in the skills represents how your character handles themselves socially. Whether they make the correct gestures or facial expressions.
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Well, I guess I wasn't very succinct, but my point is: Saying the right thing means squat if you say it the wrong way.
The skills are not the problem, IMO, but the resolution system. Under the current system, trying to portray an exciting debate through rules and roleplaying takes only a couple of rolls, a lot of talking and nothing more. D&D is a gamist type of rpg, so that means that mechanics matters, especially if they serve to improve the fun at the gaming table. I don't see why social encounters and specially social combats shouldn't be portrayed with more detail and exciting twists and rolls.
Regards,
ZOOROOS
I think that people are missing the point of skills like Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate. You can still have your character say whatever you want, the training in the skills represents how your character handles themselves socially. Whether they make the correct gestures or facial expressions.
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Well, I guess I wasn't very succinct, but my point is: Saying the right thing means squat if you say it the wrong way.The skills are not the problem, IMO, but the resolution system. Under the current system, trying to portray an exciting debate through rules and roleplaying takes only a couple of rolls, a lot of talking and nothing more. D&D is a gamist type of rpg, so that means that mechanics matters, especially if they serve to improve the fun at the gaming table. I don't see why social encounters and specially social combats shouldn't be portrayed with more detail and exciting twists and rolls.
Regards,
ZOOROOS
I think it runs deeper than that. I have had a lot of bad experiences with D'n'D, Its ever increasing move away form story based gaming and shaky social rules which are given almost no space compaired to combat have set the feel of much of 3.x and most of the groups i have come across.
If Social conflict where given more attention in the rules, i beleive we would see more social conflicts in Published modules, a greater enphersis on intrigue based adventures.
I would like to see the social skills combined into a single skill.
Have one "Yakking" skill, with several ways to do it; lying (bluff), reason or fellowship (diplomacy), or threats (intimidate).
All are communication, and as closely related as many other skill grouping. Let the different varieties have different effects and modifiers, and consolidate the skill list a bit more.
I agree with Sam here. A Negotiation skill to cover all aspects of interpersonal communication (with an understanding some use an intimidating style, others a more diplomatic approach, etc) with adventure writers giving set DCs and varying levels of tangible results (clues, assistance, rewards)--rather than vague attitude changes.
As a method-actor style roleplayer myself, I know I'm going to continue to use my accents and mannerisms in social encounters regardless of social encounter rules. The acting is just my preferred form of expressing myself and exists independent of the game. The quality of "roleplaying" can never be quantified in an objective manner---so hence mechanical rewards should not be tied to it. The acting style roleplaying is "ars gratia artis."
While not a great mechanic for what is being discussed, the method I have used works to some degree.
First, I changed Diplomacy to be a contested roll. The target then makes an opposed roll using the following formula: 1d20 + target's Will save + current attitude modifier.
The person attempting to "win over" the target or convince the target of something he believes to be true makes a Diplomacy check as normal (If a person is uses lies in the act of Diplomacy, I may call for a Bluff check to be made instead of Diplomacy).
Current Attitude Modifiers
Hostile: +20 (or more, DM's discretion)
Unfriendly: +10
Indifferent: +0
Friendly: -5
Helpful: -10
If the character's Diplomacy check is higher, then the character succeeds at what he was attempting. Depending on what the player is trying to do, I may require multiple successes. A failure negates a previous success. Other players can assist, but each makes a Diplomacy roll. A bad roll by one player can negate the success of another. The attempt ends when the PC gets the needed successes or ends up with a net failure of half the successes needed.
This allows me to apply other modifiers, such as a dwarf getting a bonus when dealing with a dwarf, as needed.
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Chiming in here to say that not all of us are fantastic role-players, and sometimes need to lean on a few extra rules for guidance when our player skills don't match those of our characters. I enjoy RPing when I get on a roll with it, but if I'm feeling uninspired I don't like my character being limited by what I, the player, can muster.
In my group (mainly new players) I'll ask them to sketch out a general approach to whatever they're trying to accomplish and encourage them to embellish, but don't penalize them for being at a loss for words at that specific moment. If they come up with a particularly good (or bad) approach, then they'll sometimes get a conditional modifier on the roll, but IMO the final result shouldn't depend on RP for those of us who were standing behind the door when the Extemporaneous Speaking skills were being handed out.
I'm playing in a 1st-edition Pendragon game with some folks. That game has a neat mechanic wherein you declare what you WANT your character to do, but then you have to make a die roll to see if he actually does that.
I use something similar with the Alignment Score rule from Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual. I had my players note exactly how Good or Chaotic or Neutral their characters actually are, so if a player wants a character to do something that seems contrary to his or her alignment they're allowed an Alignment check to see if their better (or worse) nature wins out over the impulse of the moment ;)
Wrecan, I would also like to see what you have come up with if you don't mind the trouble.
You can see a rough outline of the mechanics of my ideas in the following link:
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Pretty much a "Persuasion" skill?
Yes.
The only reason I do not call it persuasion is I have trouble seeing brute intimidation being really persuasive, and bluff is a bit more lying and deceit.I took most of my inspiration from the disaster of social interaction that was MegaTraveller. It had Admin, Carousing, Liaison, and Streetwise; four different skills for doing the same thing with four different types of people. Then there was Bribery for another way to influence people. And if you did not have the proper skill, you essentially could not talk to those people. Theoretically you could, but the difficulty was so high and the penalties so massive for failure, that you were better off just pretending they were not there and cutting to the chase, doing what you needed to do illegally.
It was too much.
When I look at Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate, I see the same thing. Three skills that do the same thing, with just a different twist.
And yes, as those who agreed said, just like that. You talk with someone, you pick a method, you do it.
They are all still Charisma based, so even the fighter brute needs some element of personality to make his threats effective, they just have modifiers. Perhaps Intimidate gets a Strength bonus as well, so a strong fighter can break a brick on his head to get people to talk. Diplomacy gets a Wisdom modifier, so the cleric can speak insightfully. Bluff gets an Intelligence modifier, so the rogue can double talk, or the wizard baffle with technical mumbo-jumbo, and so forth.
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Pretty much a "Persuasion" skill?Yes.
The only reason I do not call it persuasion is I have trouble seeing brute intimidation being really persuasive, and bluff is a bit more lying and deceit.
I took most of my inspiration from the disaster of social interaction that was MegaTraveller. It had Admin, Carousing, Liaison, and Streetwise; four different skills for doing the same thing with four different types of people. Then there was Bribery for another way to influence people. And if you did not have the proper skill, you essentially could not talk to those people. Theoretically you could, but the difficulty was so high and the penalties so massive for failure, that you were better off just pretending they were not there and cutting to the chase, doing what you needed to do illegally.
It was too much.When I look at Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate, I see the same thing. Three skills that do the same thing, with just a different twist.
And yes, as those who agreed said, just like that. You talk with someone, you pick a method, you do it.
They are all still Charisma based, so even the fighter brute needs some element of personality to make his threats effective, they just have modifiers. Perhaps Intimidate gets a Strength bonus as well, so a strong fighter can break a brick on his head to get people to talk. Diplomacy gets a Wisdom modifier, so the cleric can speak insightfully. Bluff gets an Intelligence modifier, so the rogue can double talk, or the wizard baffle with technical mumbo-jumbo, and so forth.
This is something I could get behind.