Regardless of system, the groups I've been in tended toward using whoever specialized in the check with a circumstance or untyped bonus or outright waiving social skill checks in favor of RP in that sort of situation.
Now, clearly that won't work for every table. A stickler gm will want that check and therefore encourage that character not to take point in social situations except when explicitly only acting to aid. This doesn't work anymore with the aid DC being 20 instead of 10 unfortunately.
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Let's assume players 7+ lvl. For example some social encounter is happening and a player says something great. Or, better, not that great, but good. Now it's time for a check! You tell the player that and it occurs that his character has Deception/Diplomacy/Intimidation untrained. Which means that for ~7 lvl it would be an already bad roll, and for 15+ lvl it would be a critical failure.
So what do you do? Ignore social skills and checks? What about PFS? Force players with unsocial characters to be silent unless they are forced to roll a guaranteed failure? Introduce DCs which not only un-levelled but also depend on who is rolling them?
I tend to allow other skills to be used on a per check basis.
If the very religious Paladin explains why their faith supports such action I'd allow Religion, if the very Arcane Wizard starts explaining things about magic I'd allow Arcana.Now, if the character is acting like a diplomat without being Trained in Diplomacy I'll certainly encourage the player to get Trained at some point. It's not like if it was hard in PF2.
I remember one part of AoA where the book says "if a player does a good interpretation you can automatically gives it a success or even a critical success".
As GM you always can give a result instead of roll a dice if the player does a good interpretation that is able to convince the NPC you can simply give it a success. To avoid override the diplomacy skill you can allow non-trained chars to do this but without the critical chance.
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What about PFS?
Several PFS adventures use variations during social encounters to allow for skills other than Diplomacy, so on the rare occasion when I'm GMing an Untrained group, I'll usually just increase the DC by 2 and allow a different, but appropriate skill to be used.
But also, most unsocial characters I've encountered have a Hireling for Diplomacy, so it's not an obstacle I encounter often.
And, of course, a GM shouldn't be faulted for not allowing that flexibility. It is their call, and sometimes PCs just fail.
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Let's assume players 7+ lvl. For example some social encounter is happening and a player says something great. Or, better, not that great, but good. Now it's time for a check! You tell the player that and it occurs that his character has Deception/Diplomacy/Intimidation untrained. Which means that for ~7 lvl it would be an already bad roll, and for 15+ lvl it would be a critical failure.
So what do you do? Ignore social skills and checks? What about PFS? Force players with unsocial characters to be silent unless they are forced to roll a guaranteed failure? Introduce DCs which not only un-levelled but also depend on who is rolling them?
Obviously, you need to severely punish the player for breaking character...
Okay, maybe not, but this is a very basic issue for RPGs: What do you do when there is a sizable gulf (in either direction) between the character and the player for Mental / Social checks (Oddly enough, in my experience players are never required to physically climb a wall or make a long-jump before they can make an Athletics check for their character).
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This isn't a problem that's new to PF2 of course. You can have the same problem in Vampire, Shadowrun, PF1 or really another game system with social stats where you can have a sizable difference between someone who invested to be good at it, and someone who didn't but still does the RP.
I think you want a solution that:
- Doesn't involve telling people with low social stats that they should shut up and mind their place and wait for dumb violence to happen again. If people are engaged with the story that's good and shouldn't be shut down.
- On the other hand, also doesn't devalue the investment of people who did build a social character and spent points on that.
One way you could approach it is that social efforts are often team efforts. One person says some things, then another person says some things, and then a roll happens to see if you got what you wanted. So one character could start the social effort, but the roll can be made by anyone who joined in the talks.
PF2 Aid Another rules don't require you to use the same ability to aid that's being used by the person you want to aid. If you're trying to say, sweettalk a blacksmith, one person could start off by giving serious technical praise of their work, using Crafting to Aid an eventual Diplomacy check by another party member to Make an Impression.
That might be a fair compromise? As a character without strong social skills you can get involved in the RP, but you do need someone who did invest to seal the deal. But your contribution matters both on a RP and mechanical level.
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Yeah, this can really end up being a problem when you have players that have very different personalities and social skills than their characters do.
A couple worst case scenarios:
A player who tanks their character's social skills knowing that they can just use their own IRL social skill to get automatic successes based on their role-play.
A player who doesn't have much social skill, but is trying to play a character that does.
Basically what I think is that the players should be allowed to make commentary about what may happen in the game, but if they want it to have any mechanical effect or actually happen in-game, then they are subject to having to make the appropriate checks. If they don't want to make the checks, or if their character couldn't possibly succeed at the check, then their commentary is just hypothetical.
It is the same thing we normally do for physical skill checks too.
Player: 'Hey, maybe I could just swim across this river.'
GM: 'Uh, sure. Athletics check to swim. DC 25 since this is a fast flowing river.'
Player: 'Oh, I am actually untrained in Athletics.'
GM: 'Well, you can make the check untrained if you want, or just skip the idea.'
Why should we do differently for social skills?
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I agree with you on that as a point of fairness - equal investment in different abilities should count equally. But this question keeps coming back, and there has to be a reason for that.
I don't think your character doing athletics and your character talking are entirely the same. In a way it's about breaking through the fourth wall; when you speak as your character in the first person it's like you're breaking into the stage from the outside. When you say that your character swims across the stream you're not literally swimming yourself. But when you're talking as your character, you are.
It's a bit similar to puzzles: a smart analytical player might be playing a dumb barbarian but be intrigued by the puzzle put in the adventure. And in a way, a puzzle in an adventure is addressed to the player, not to the character (otherwise, why are you letting the player think it through instead of the character rolling to overcome it?). So puzzles kind of break the fourth wall in the regular direction.
So since these things aren't entirely the same, I don't think insisting on handling them totally the same is really going to make people super happy. Because it involves too much telling people that they can't get involved in the game because their characters aren't such and so.
That's why I proposed my alternative: everyone can be involved, but the decisive checks should be social checks, so you really want to get the social skill characters involved too. But others can use their subject expertises to help set up the socials for success. This way everyone gets to participate.
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I agree with you on that as a point of fairness - equal investment in different abilities should count equally. But this question keeps coming back, and there has to be a reason for that.
Because people like squeezing every last bonus and automatic success that they can from their GM?
It's a bit similar to puzzles: a smart analytical player might be playing a dumb barbarian but be intrigued by the puzzle put in the adventure. And in a way, a puzzle in an adventure is addressed to the player, not to the character (otherwise, why are you letting the player think it through instead of the character rolling to overcome it?). So puzzles kind of break the fourth wall in the regular direction.
Being an analytical person, I do tend to play high INT characters. But if I was playing an INT-dumped Monk or something like that, then I would have to either bite my tongue, or over-the-board help the other players to let their characters solve the puzzle.
And really, the challenges should be challenging the characters, not the players - for this exact reason.
Because as someone who isn't very socially adept, if I do decide to play a Swashbuckler or Oracle or something high-CHA like that and I keep getting the CHA-dumped Dwarf fighter taking over all of the social interaction encounters simply because that player is a lot better and faster at coming up with witty comments, then
This way everyone gets to participate.
I'm not going to feel like I am participating.
Yes, some people make PCs that cannot positively participate in social encounters, much like some (albeit rarely) make PCs with few combat contributions. IMO either is a major error in a well-rounded campaign, and in PF2 it's so, so easy to at least play backup that there's no excuse other than they'd been willing to sacrifice that opportunity to pay for some benefit elsewhere. Again, an error.
My last campaign was for an RPG set in brutal conditions so I'd had to make a point about remembering that PCs should have some way to contribute in social conditions as there'd be more than our last campaign in the same world. And in a campaign based around the dynamics of city politics I'd advise the opposite, to remember that some combats will require all PCs to contribute. Or in a Thieves' Guild campaign, you'd better have a Stealth (or facsimile) so that you can do the stealth missions, otherwise yeah, the party might need to leave your PC behind.
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But also, most unsocial characters I've encountered have a Hireling for Diplomacy, so it's not an obstacle I encounter often.I completely ignore hirelings. Guess they have some uses and I should have a look.
They're only not useful if you're already Trained in every Skill. Then after Level 2 they're only not useful if you're already Expert in every Skill.
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Yes, some people make PCs that cannot positively participate in social encounters, much like some (albeit rarely) make PCs with few combat contributions. IMO either is a major error in a well-rounded campaign, and in PF2 it's so, so easy to at least play backup that there's no excuse other than they'd been willing to sacrifice that opportunity to pay for some benefit elsewhere. Again, an error.
This doesn't really strike me as a fair analogy. Combat efficacy is something baked into every class by default. You have to go out of your way to make a non-combat character.
Being poor at diplomacy is a matter of not investing in one particular skill out of 16 when you generally only get to be good at a handful of them.
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Twice during the my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign the party had to persuade the local leadership about the machinations of the Ironfang Legion. I wanted this to be a group effort, but only two PCs in the 7-member party were experts in Diplomacy.
I decided that they would tell stories of their encounters against the Ironfang Legion and they could roll the check against the skill that was most important during that encounter. Thus, the ranger could tell of hiding in the forest from the Ironfang patrols trying to hunt down innocent villagers and roll his persuasiveness with his Survival skill. The druid could tell of allying with a Wood Giant against the Legion after the legion burned parts of the forest, and helping restore the burnout afterwards. He rolled on his Nature skill. The monk trained in Warfare Lore gave a military assessment of an Ironfang army that the party defeated. And so on. The players challenged themselves to pick a different skill each time one of them spoke, though that was not a requirement, because I roleplayed the listeners as being more receptive if they valued that skill. And every player felt that their character had contributed in a way that reflected the character's strengths.
In real life, making a connection with others is often about common interests rather than smooth talking.
Yes, some people make PCs that cannot positively participate in social encounters, much like some (albeit rarely) make PCs with few combat contributions. IMO either is a major error in a well-rounded campaign, and in PF2 it's so, so easy to at least play backup that there's no excuse other than they'd been willing to sacrifice that opportunity to pay for some benefit elsewhere. Again, an error.This doesn't really strike me as a fair analogy. Combat efficacy is something baked into every class by default. You have to go out of your way to make a non-combat character.
Being poor at diplomacy is a matter of not investing in one particular skill out of 16 when you generally only get to be good at a handful of them.
It's fair because of the game-time allotted & effort involved. One of those handful of good skills should be one that's useful in social situations because one out of a handful of obstacles will be social. And if the player/PC doesn't then they've explicitly chosen to make an unsocial/socially inept PC to play. So they shouldn't be surprised when they have to step back during social encounters.
It only takes being trained or taking Untrained Improvisation to have a decent chance of Aid. And options aren't limited to Diplomacy or Charisma skills when there's Society, Lore, & other Recall Knowledge skills that should help a low-Cha PC give advice to face PCs. And Perception/Sense Motive is valuable and available to several classes and/or high Wisdom PCs. Like others above, I leave room for other skills, like if they can find a common interest (et al) to talk about (not that those could be predicted making a build).
The only players that should be surprised they can't contribute well to social situations are those not forewarned that there'd be social situations. Veterans should know this, and for newbies I'd put a bit of that blame on the GMs or whoever helped build that PC.
(Note that I'm talking as a Dwarf fan, so I feel the cost.)
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I agree with you on that as a point of fairness - equal investment in different abilities should count equally. But this question keeps coming back, and there has to be a reason for that.Because people like squeezing every last bonus and automatic success that they can from their GM?
No, because telling people that they'd better keep quiet during the RP parts of the adventure is bad.
If the GM follows pretty standard GMing advice to put in some content of special interest for each character, then at some point each character is going to want to do some talking directly to NPCs, instead of delegating all of it to the designated socialite.
And making Diplomacy (and Deception and Intimidate) mandatory for everyone to take isn't the solution either. For one, you'll still be bad at it (the difference between Trained and Cha 10, and Master and Cha 18 plus an item bonus is almost the difference between a success or a crit).
Also, the amount of skills people get per character is kinda set up to encourage the party to spread things around, not for everyone to take the same skills. The one skill from PF1 that everyone had to have was Perception so they made that one baked in. They didn't do that with Diplomacy, Deception and Intimidate.
Backing to OP and turning the question to a more mechanic solution. You can always use Proficiency without Level to solve these situations. But this will require some adjustment in encounters and may broke some things like Untrained Improvisation.
You can also give some kind of Untrained Improvisation but to use only in social skills (deception, diplomacy and intimidation) to your players for free.
I think you can inspiration from the influence subsystem.
Charisma skills always work but depending on the NPC you can have Arcana, Religion or something else if it pertains to the discussion or their personality.
You can also let people contribute with Perception to read the character to help yourself and others do better.
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Deception checks are another area to be careful about. I see players forget when their character tells a lie or tries to pass off a technicality as not a lie.
No, because telling people that they'd better keep quiet during the RP parts of the adventure is bad.
[player stories]
As a player, I don't restrain myself from interacting when I play a low Charisma character (I have to admit I have hard time being completely silent). But I don't hesitate to have a negative contribution: My Paladin regularly considers with suspicion the NPCs that are supposed to help us, my Ranger insults nearly everyone (she has her issues) and with my Alchemist I love to speak for minutes about things that absolutely no one cares about until finally another PC interrupts her to get back on the subject.Having a low Charisma doesn't mean being silent. And I find these kind of interactions quite funny.
In general, GMs tend to ignore these character contributions, which is also what I expect people to do when they face a low-Charisma character.
[/player stories]
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To be clear, I am not trying to say that low CHA characters need to not participate in social engagements at all. I'm just saying that if they are doing something that should require a skill check, that they need to actually make the skill check if they want the mechanical benefits of that successful skill check. No free pass just because the player is high CHA.
No, because telling people that they'd better keep quiet during the RP parts of the adventure is bad.[player stories]
As a player, I don't restrain myself from interacting when I play a low Charisma character (I have to admit I have hard time being completely silent). But I don't hesitate to have a negative contribution: My Paladin regularly considers with suspicion the NPCs that are supposed to help us, my Ranger insults nearly everyone (she has her issues) and with my Alchemist I love to speak for minutes about things that absolutely no one cares about until finally another PC interrupts her to get back on the subject.
Having a low Charisma doesn't mean being silent. And I find these kind of interactions quite funny.
In general, GMs tend to ignore these character contributions, which is also what I expect people to do when they face a low-Charisma character.
[/player stories]
Reminds me of a PFS session w/ no dedicated face so my dwarf (w/ no advocacy from me myself) stepped up to the plate. There was visible relief around the table until they realized what he was saying (which wasn't kneecapping the party, yet neither was it helping). Let's say it encouraged others to participate and they did swimmingly. :-)
I just give a variation of untrained improvisation for every character that only works in situations in which their character would be used to, like basic diplomacy for most characters.
It a low charisma character or one that is untrained in social skills makes a really good case a GM could either give a bonus to the character’s roll or lower the DC, since the character did something to appeal to the NPC.
I think of it like the good argument is a tool that can help make things easier to convince someone, like a tool that aids in physic checks. If you need to make a climb check, and there’s a rope or a ladder the DC for the climb check goes down, but the character still needs to make the actual climb, so there’s a chance they miss a rung on the ladder and start slipping down.
A convincing statement to appeal to an NPC should work similarly. The NPC sees a benefit in the argument, but isn’t totally convinced, so the PC still needs to make the check.
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If the GM is going to give everyone Trained at Diplomacy, or Untrained Improvisation, or the equivalent (by giving out GM circumstance bonuses of +2+Level for good roleplay or by lowering DCs by that amount), it should be done prior to character creation so nobody wastes a skill on things the GM is going to give for free.
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Make the roll before the roleplay.
The result of the check--to me, at least--is how the NPC interprets the character's overture. A player who wants to make a Diplomacy check to Improve Attitude or Make a Request should succinctly summarize what they want to accomplish including any attempts to apply a certain logic or take advantage of a bias and then make a check (with reasonable circumstance modifiers for convincing logic or playing off a bias).
Then they can make a speech, if they want to.
I prefer this so that players don't waste their time prior to rolling a 2 on the dice, and I feel it equalizes the charismatic players with the non-charismatic players.
If your character is untrained in Diplomacy and has a +0 Charisma modifier or worse, that character shouldn't be making the efforts to Improve Attitude or Make a Request unless the party is desperate. That doesn't mean the player can't have their character interact with the NPC or give ideas to the "Face of the Party." Unless the character says something egregiously offensive (e.g., "We'll burn your house down if you don't stop being stupid."), I don't apply too much from the commentary of non-rolling characters on the result.
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I'm only unclear on one thing: What kind of social checks are you dealing with here?
If they are ones that are intended to be difficult and scale with level then... yeah, this is working as intended, I wouldn't let my mother or brother EVER do the talking in a group setting if we had to convince somebody to do something that they are not apt to agree to or have qualms about it. Similarly, the most functionally common kind of this check is almost certainly going to be to Demoralize an opponent that scales with the level of the creature targeted and... again is working correctly.
BUT - If we're just talking about, well, talking, specifically with run of the mill NPCs in order to ask for directions, scare a drunk at the tavern, or weasel your way out of a civil fine from a lower-ranking city/town guard then those should all be things with FAR lower DCs that should still be perfectly attainable for the PC with a bit of luck, after all, most level 0 NPCs should be able to do this kind of thing routinely without TOO much fear that they really went and put their foot in their mouth every time.
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If the failure outcome is uninteresting, e.g., asking for directions to the tavern, nobody should roll at all. Just have it succeed.
Rolling is only necessary (or even desired) when there are two or more interesting outcomes and it needs to be decided which one of those interesting outcomes happens.
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If the failure outcome is uninteresting, e.g., asking for directions to the tavern, nobody should roll at all. Just have it succeed.
Rolling is only necessary (or even desired) when there are two or more interesting outcomes and it needs to be decided which one of those interesting outcomes happens.
Huh? I'd argue the exact opposite, and quite fervently at that. Failure for these kinds of checks IS the interesting outcome and is really the only reason to bother having those kinds of interactions in the first place rather than just having players metagame handwavium navigate everywhere and learn things/gain an advantage in areas they're not familiar with.
I'm having a difficult time wrapping my head around what you mean unless the game is run by locomotive down a singular track, you have to give the party chances to fail, otherwise, it isn't a game at all. Certainly, if the PC that was attempting this was the one in the party that was specialized then there is no need to roll at all but that is the antithesis of the whole discussion here, we are talking about someone is is Untrained at best and utterly inept at the worst who is attempting these checks and if you just wholesale bypass any chance they have at failing then you're actively taking away from what makes their character unique and also essentially punishing the party members who did specialize so they don't need to worry about failing this stuff.
I mean, it's a rare enough thing for most of us when we're out in public to merely ask a simple question of a stranger and expect much more than to be brushed off, much less get accurate information or have them commit to doing something that they are not being paid to do at that very moment.
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Huh? I'd argue the exact opposite, and quite fervently at that. Failure for these kinds of checks IS the interesting outcome and is really the only reason to bother having those kinds of interactions in the first place rather than just having players metagame handwavium navigate everywhere and learn things/gain an advantage in areas they're not familiar with.If the failure outcome is uninteresting, e.g., asking for directions to the tavern, nobody should roll at all. Just have it succeed.
Rolling is only necessary (or even desired) when there are two or more interesting outcomes and it needs to be decided which one of those interesting outcomes happens.
What type of scenario would you be talking about? The scenario that Watery Soup gave - asking directions to a local tavern - isn't something that would be at all interesting to fail at. You would probably have to be playing a character at disability-level socially inept in order to have any role-play value for that.
It would be like asking for Acrobatics(balance) checks in order to use Stride actions on regular terrain. But hey, it might be an interesting role-play moment for your character if you fail...
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Getting lost in an unfamiliar location because you phrased a question poorly or due to failing to properly motivate someone to ACTUALLY help you isn't/can't be interesting?
Also, the idea that the mere fact that they're a PC or adventurer renders them immune to this kind of social failure strikes me as a markedly ableist idea if I'm being frank with you.
Hell, half of my most treasured memories from youth come from just such a thing when trying to get to a concert venue, bar, or restaurant when upon getting bad information left me or my friends on the wander.
Last point: All of these things would fall under the rules for those skills that they're using and they always indicate that there is, in fact, a DC for them, waving that away for convenience is not only incorrect but it flat out denies opportunities for interesting things to happen in the first place, unless, again, you're working the game using railroad principals in which case no such conversation or check would even take place regardless as the GM might as well just instantly teleport the party from one significant planned adventure location to the next. Maybe though, the misunderstanding here simply comes out of personal playstyle and preference which is always going to vary so I'm not exactly fussed over it, I just am personally perplexed by the idea that allowing for failure on easy stuff by PCs who are functionally able to fail is bad form.
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Getting lost in an unfamiliar location because you phrased a question poorly or due to failing to properly motivate someone to ACTUALLY help you isn't/can't be interesting?
No, I am trying to understand why doing something routine would have a risk of failure. At least one that would be meaningful enough to be part of the campaign.
When I ask for directions to Wal-Mart, I get all sorts of different responses. Sometimes the person doesn't know where it is. Sometimes the person doesn't have time to answer me or doesn't answer for some other reason. Sometimes the person gives perfectly reasonable directions. Sometimes the person tries to give directions, but the directions are too confusing to understand properly.
I haven't ever had someone get angry with me for asking. Impatient is the worst response.
So of those options, the only one that results in what you are talking about would be the person that I am not able to communicate with effectively. Sometimes because of language barrier problems. Sometimes because the area is confusing and therefore the directions are also.
Also, the idea that the mere fact that they're a PC or adventurer renders them immune to this kind of social failure strikes me as a markedly ableist idea if I'm being frank with you.
To be honest, I am disability-level bad at social interactions. There are certainly people worse off than I am who would have more problems than I do if they need to ask directions to Wal-Mart.
But even when I do have problems with it, all it does is waste a few minutes of time and maybe some gas driving to where Wal-Mart isn't and asking someone else for directions.
I'm still failing to see how this would be noteworthy to a campaign on a regular basis. Maybe for a plot-related inciting event. But just a 'Hey we just rolled into town. Where can we find some rooms for the night?' How many possible ways could that be phrased badly that would be both plot-worthy and believable that the characters would actually say?
If there is a good reason for a meaningful DC to be set for the check - certainly run the skill check. But for mundane things?
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I just am personally perplexed by the idea that allowing for failure on easy stuff by PCs who are functionally able to fail is bad form.
Also, my counterpoint is still valid. PCs are functionally able to trip over their own feet while walking across an even and unobstructed floor. So do you also roll Acrobatics(balance) checks for every Stride action that they take?
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Now we're getting into what events are worthy of screen time, which get summarized, which are part of a montage, and which hit the cutting room floor. Sure it's meaningful that it took 38 houses to find a witness (whether fake or legit), that's a lot of labor on the part of the PCs, but it'd be torturous to RP the other 37 encounters along the way. It's best to focus on the meaningful parts where player/PC choices/rolls matter.
In a similar vein tied to the OP, somebody inadequate at challenging social encounters should still do fine in mundane ones. One of the GM-side errors to beware is having mundane reality ramp up its difficulty simply because PCs leveled up. Sure, maneuvering in the court of the Night Sidhe Queen should be challenge worthy to the best diplomats, but back in normal venues the DCs should remain static, and fairly low. If anything, a spike in difficulty should be a warning of sorts!
This is a game, not a reality simulator.
I don't make rolls to see if characters get heart attacks, or diabetes, or diarrhea, even though it would be super realistic to do so. Nobody ever gets a charlie horse or sneezes in combat, or stubs their toes stumbling around at the bar. In the same vein, random people flagged down on the street know the directions to public locations and have zero motivation to mislead.
If giving out bad instructions and sending your characters to the wrong part of the city is fun or advances the story, by all means make the roll.
But 99% of a city is going to be uninteresting, and 99% of the people in the city are going about their mundane business. It's okay to fast forward to the 1%.
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One of the things I think it comes down to is, if you plan to make that failed die roll interesting, by all means have the die roll happen. If the result of the failure is the party gets lost in a nondescript part of the city making another die roll to find the tavern again, nothing interesting happened except a delay in the adventure that everybody already was interested in. It was already said just upthrrad but it's a matter of what kinds of events are worthy of screen time.
If the failed roll leads to a fun episode on the adventure, it becomes part of the adventure, not a meaningless distraction or pointless aside. If it only delays the fun adventure, it is not railroading to cut to the dramatic bits rather than frustrate and foil the players because their dice won't let them play the game they actually sat down to participate in.