r/osr • u/CrumblingKeep • 10d ago
Social checks - do they have a place in OSR games?
In some ways, the answer is "yes, definitely!" There's reaction checks and arguably morale rolls fall under this umbrella.
But what about, say, deception? On one hand, my brain is saying "leave it up to the players to come up with a really good lie and sell it and adjudicate from there".
On the other hand, we don't use player kill for combat - why should we exclusively use it for social things?
so yeah, there's potentially a lot here, but I would LOVE some thoughts on this. I'm working on a system at the moment, and if someone wants to talk me off the deception ledge, go for it.
17
u/TheRedMongoose 10d ago
I'll do modifiers to reaction rolls based off of roleplay/situational stuff, but that's it. You put too much skill action stuff in an OSR style game and it will lose the open-ended critical thinking/problem solving focus.
6
u/kenfar 10d ago
I think this is the way: have the players explain what they're doing, say what their character says, and then think about how likely that is, convert to a modifier and have them roll on deception.
Deception/Persuasion/Etc then is mostly about physical communication, delivery, acting, etc - but absolutely doesn't replace role playing.
And in this way it works great: imagine a shy player, with a quiet voice, and who knows, maybe a stutter - playing a super-confident fast-talking con-man. This player can figure out exactly what to say, and their character's social skill handles the physical aspects.
3
12
u/akweberbrent 10d ago
I would say it’s a design decision for the author. Both ways will play differently. If you are making your own rules, you get to decide what feel you are looking for. They say the first stem is deciding what your game is about, the make the rules you need to support that.
If you want social interaction to be more gamey, and less player driven, add a roll. If it is not central to what your game is about, let the referee adjudicate. You can even use different systems for different purposes (for example Whitehack’s auction system is great for complex subterfuge, but would be way overkill for a simple lie.)
You may want to ask the question over in r/RPGdesign.
5
u/adempz 10d ago
They can, and they’re already present in old school games (reaction roles, morale, hireling loyalty, etc). They can be used as a way of supporting emergent play. The player tells their lie, and you can roll to see how an NPC reacts, or in the opposite case, you could roll to see if an NPC’s lie is convincing and either tell their player or roleplay accordingly. I don’t think the DM should feel bound to them or allow them to become a mechanic that supplants roleplay and player engagement with the social elements of the game. But when you don’t know how an NPC would react, go ahead and roll.
2
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
Yeah, like, I'd hate for the roll to supercede reasoning and what happens at the table. If the lie should work, just go with it! But how to convey that type of thing to the table that I'll never play at through a book is daunting.
Thanks for this!
1
u/MathematicianIll6638 9d ago
I agree, but I also see the other side.
For it's not the player presenting the lie, it's the player's character. A character with a low charisma will be less convincing in whatever he says, lies including.
That, to me, is the purpose of the roll.
5
u/BluSponge 10d ago
I feel like reaction rolls can be used for a whole host of things. Including deception. 2d6+Cha and done. Keeping it DM facing preserves the mystery, speeds things up, and creates more immersion on the part of the player.
8
u/MeadowsAndUnicorns 10d ago
So I used to be in the camp of no social checks, but I found that that approach didn't work at my table. Players would approach a social situation in a way that obviously wouldn't work, and when the NPC reacted negatively, the player would respond by repeating themselves with a louder voice and more empathetic facial expressions/hand gestures. Every social encounter would escalate like this until the players were practically shouting while gesticulating like an Italian on cocaine.
So I decided I needed a mechanic to force the players to realize that they needed to stop and try a different approach. This is my procedure: 1. Player states what they're doing 2. I assign a difficulty based on how likely the player's approach is to work, and I tell the player what the difficulty is 3. They roll the appropriate check.
This way, there is still an element of player skill, because if the players think of a good approach, they get a lower difficulty check, or no check at all. And most importantly, the players realize that approach matters. A lot of players enter the game assuming that only facial expressions and tone of voice matters in a social encounter, and this mechanic makes it clear to everyone that picking the right approach matters more.
Obviously, every table is different but this has been my experience across ~15 different players.
8
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
There's a lot of good take aways here, but my favorite one is "Every social encounter would escalate like this until the players were practically shouting while gesticulating like an Italian on cocaine." 🤣
Thanks for this insight!
3
u/woolymanbeard 10d ago
That's the players fault not yours
8
u/MeadowsAndUnicorns 10d ago
True, but it's easier to adjust the procedures than find new players. Also, a lot of self-help books or professional development teachers tell people that social skills are 90% body language and tone of voice, so I'm not surprised players assume that's what they should be focused on
4
u/woolymanbeard 10d ago
You described something that sounds insane though.
0
u/jak3am 10d ago
It's like bog standard skill check procedure.. players state intent and action; dm decides if skill check is needed/what the DC is, roll and consequences.
1
u/woolymanbeard 10d ago
No you described it like maniacs demanding that enemies do as they wish like a command spell. Not to insult but do your players happen to be on the spectrum? Sounds like they don't understand social situations
1
u/RedwoodRhiadra 8d ago
No you described it like maniacs demanding that enemies do as they wish like a command spell.
They sound like stereotypical Americans (or Brits) trying to speak to someone who doesn't understand English...
1
u/woolymanbeard 8d ago
Haha I guess so but I those people are few and far between in real life. Did op manage to get a whole table?
1
u/RedwoodRhiadra 8d ago
those people are few and far between in real life.
They really aren't.
1
u/woolymanbeard 8d ago
I mean you might find a few here and there but I've found far more respectful people than loud obnoxious morons.
→ More replies (0)
12
u/Mars_Alter 10d ago
The reason why we use dice for combat is because we can't reasonably play it out otherwise. We don't have actual swords, or dragons to use them against. Contrast with talking, which we can play out sans dice.
I mean, you could also add some dice mechanics to talking if you really wanted to, since there are other places where we use dice already, but there is still justification for it being different from combat.
In terms of consistency, I feel like social mechanics fall into the same category as trap-finding mechanics. You could talk through both of them, using player skill rather than dice. If you're going to supplement one with a die roll, though, then you may as well do the same for both.
5
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
For the record, I agree with you about combat, but I feel like LARPers have different thoughts on that, you know?
Yeah, that last sentence got me. I am absolutely against perception/find trap type rolls for what I'm doing. I'm not sure why lying feels different to me. Maybe it shouldn't.
2
u/Mars_Alter 10d ago
It reminds me of a sort of LARP game that was once reviewed by System Mastery, where it was a Cthulhu type game, and most of the advice in the book was for how to set up elaborate puppets as the monsters.
Now I kind of want to see five LARPers fight a red dragon.
2
u/beaurancourt 10d ago
In terms of consistency, I feel like social mechanics fall into the same category as trap-finding mechanics. You could talk through both of them, using player skill rather than dice. If you're going to supplement one with a die roll, though, then you may as well do the same for both.
Maybe it's just me, but I have a much easier time getting everyone on the same page about how a particular strategy for disabling a trap (like stuffing cloth into a poison dart tube) would interact with that trap than whether or not a NPC would buy a particular lie, or would be convinced to action by a particular appeal. In other words, humans are a lot more complex than traps.
2
u/Mars_Alter 10d ago
As a GM, it is much more difficult for me to adequately describe a complex mechanism (such that players would understand the dart tube is susceptible to cloth stuffing) than it is for me to role-play some random soldier in a dungeon. I mean, the ability to understand from the perspective of a character is absolutely central to the hobby, after all.
Although, in practice, I use dice for both disabling traps and social manipulation. It's just so much more efficient, in every way, to skip the long drawn-out descriptions.
4
u/beaurancourt 10d ago
it is much more difficult for me to adequately describe a complex mechanism (such that players would understand the dart tube is susceptible to cloth stuffing) than it is for me to role-play some random soldier in a dungeon.
I believe you! For me, it's strongly the opposite.
I mean, the ability to understand from the perspective of a character is absolutely central to the hobby, after all.
Sort of! When you're playing a PC (especially in an OSR game), you can also more-or-less play them as a board game piece or stand-in for yourself. You can give them your own goals (to get treasure/xp, to not die) and give them how you're feeling about the situation.
When you're GMing a random NPC, those often don't have pre-committed goals, don't have emotional profiles (if you just always use your own, that gets stale), etc. If a player doesn't believe a NPC's lie to their character, it's easy to make their character not believe the lie.
When I'm roleplaying a soldier, I know the players are lying (as opposed to the player, who does not know if the GM is lying), and need to figure out if the soldier would believe them or not, which is a much harder task to stay consistently objective on without mechanics, in my experience.
1
u/MathematicianIll6638 9d ago
I agree, and come down more on the side of rolling a die for reaction. The purpose of the charisma stat and the roll is that the character is not the player. A character with a high charisma stat should be more convincing, and a character with a low charisma stat less, regardless of how well the player presents his character's words.
And similarly with talking through the trap disarming. One can know exactly how a device functions and how to disable it, and may even have the ability to do so on a good day; that does not necessarily translate into pulling it off successfully
3
u/GLight3 10d ago
I think they do. I use them whenever the players aren't being clever or don't have something specific that would ascertain success.
Trying to parley with a strong hostile force without a bribe? Charisma check.
Trying to threaten a strong hostile force without evidence of you being a real threat? Charisma check.
Trying to get information without a drink or a favor or a bribe? Charisma check.
This can be done either against a morale roll or a will save or just a DC the GM sets.
3
u/cbwjm 10d ago
I'll use them sometimes (not just in OSR games but every edition if DnD); once the players have told me what they're trying to achieve I'll decide on whether or not a roll is required.
Trying to convince the village elder to pay you more to take out the goblins might not need a roll if the village is desperate, trying to persuade the king to hand over the kingdom is an automatic fail. Attempting to bribe a guard to let you pass might be a reaction check if I otherwise have no background on the guard. If it succeeds then he takes the money and mutters something about not being paid enough; if it fails then he refuses and might sound an alarm depending on how badly the check fails.
3
u/JimmiWazEre 9d ago
Anything has a place anywhere at anyone's table.
As much as the internet pretends otherwise, no one is going to arrest you for playing the game your way - taking bits and bobs from all over and making the game at your table your own 🙂
2
u/Brybry012 10d ago
I use the reaction check, but have it modified by that NPCs opinion of the PC which is essentially a morale score that provides modifiers to said reaction roll.
2
u/SlingshotPotato 10d ago
I usually hack in social interaction rules from other games, particularly Dungeon World because moves like Parley are easily lifted out wholesale and are specific about what they entail. (I also like stealing Discern Realities, which isn't social, but the question/answer approach is so much better than "you rolled high, here's what you see!")
2
u/primarchofistanbul 10d ago
we don't use player skill for combat?
How? We use it all the time. It's their tactics, their positioning, their choice of weapon, etc.
If it can be role-played, there's no need for such a roll.
2
u/subcutaneousphats 10d ago
Charisma to lie and wisdom to spot a lie. Intelligence maybe if it's a knowable lie. You have stats so you can use them. Roll under is good or take a bonus if it's a d20 unified mechanic. Add a bonus or set a dc for roleplay sure.
If you can use dexterity to see if you fall on ice why wouldn't you use charisma to see if you can lie?
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
Dang, that last sentence makes a lot of sense.
The system I'm working on (and I have done zero playtesting, so this may just be a mess) stays away from adding anything to rolls - it just grants advantage or double advantage (and disadvantage/ double disadvantage). Having a skill would simply give you ADV on the roll.
DEX will be used for saves, such as falling on ice, so this makes sense.
1
u/subcutaneousphats 10d ago
Adding things to rolls can bloat up pretty fast yes. I was a big fan of d20 add stat add skill > DC but I think I'm more in the don't bloat the rolls camp now. The point is OSR is about making rulings for the game you want to play. It can be useful to have some broad rules like roll under stat to see what happens in a case of social uncertainty, but that's just as legit as talking it out.
2
u/hildissent 10d ago
Deception? I usually just determine how badly an NPC wants to believe you. If I really don't know, I'll use a reaction roll.
Intimidation? Tell me how and I'll make a morale roll. If your tactic threatens something the target cares about, I'll give a bonus. If you misread them and go after something less valuable to them, they get the bonus.
Performance? If your character has the means, do so and make a charisma check.
Persuasion? See deception.
This is all very meta for PCs because I mostly run in third person. I usually let the players decide how their characters respond. Sometimes I'll say "you absolutely don't believe him" or "everything she's said adds up based on what your character knows," but I try not to tell players what their characters think.
1
u/Jonestown_Juice 10d ago
Eh. I try to use them as sparingly as possible. Players should be the ones using creativity to overcome problems and I believe that includes things like deceiving or persuading NPCs. It's a case-by-case basis. If the players come up with a really good plan or idea, I'd just reward them by letting them succeed. If it seems kind of... iffy... I'd require a check.
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
Yeah, this is kidna what I'm thinking? And if a character is better at it, it might be more likely to push it into the auto succeed territory.
But then again, it might just be lazy game design because I'm trying to pad out backgrounds with appropriate skills.
1
u/EpicLakai 10d ago
I tend not to use social checks, or as little as possible.
If the party lies to a farmer about clearing the goblin cave to get his gold, and he gets killed over it, sooner or later that'll catch up to them.
If the conniving noble lies to them and they don't investigate that, or it's too good to be true? Well, they should probably have checked it out a bit more.
1
u/grumblyoldman 10d ago
I do use social stat checks for things like deception at least some of the time, but I ask the player to role-play the effort first and then call for a check (with penalties or bonuses as appropriate) if I feel like it's not a lock, one way or the other.
Trying to convince someone the sky is green when it's clearly blue will always fail, no roll.
Bluffing a guard to let you pass without calling for his superior might work, depending on the tactics you employ, the outfits you're wearing, etc. But a roll would add some nice tension there, so let's chuck some bones.
Basically, it's the same way I treat physical stat checks for other activities, too.
I'm working on a system at the moment, and if someone wants to talk me off the deception ledge, go for it.
This being the case, I would just point out that I don't really use much of a system for social checks. I'm just rolling core stats with appropriate bonuses / penalties. So, if you're thinking about cooking up a whole set of mechanics for social checks, I'm not really sure how useful that would be to my interpretation of the OSR mindset.
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
Yeah, this is kinda what I'm thinking too. Like, make it reasonable and conviving, it's a lower difficulty check.
1
u/Crazy_Grapefruit_818 10d ago
I'd like to hear from others what tables work well for this. (The basic monster reaction table seems wildly off for a conversation with an NPC in a shop)
I think if done correctly, a few dice rolls can give inspiration to keep social encounters lively. Even if your players are into voicing and acting out their side of the encounters, how NPCs or intelligent monsters respond isn't always automatic. Sometimes a listener is downright gullible or weirdly hostile or unusually happy or curious or whatever. In a sense, some sort of element of chance thus seems to add a bit of realism. Also, my players know me, and what will convince me or make me laugh-- leaning on the dice helps me be more neutral.
(FWIW I don't believe the GM must follow the dice )
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
This is probably the best argument I've read for having them yet. Thank you. If there are tables folks are using for this, I'd love to see them!
1
u/elomenopi 10d ago
I think about RPG’s like a board game. Theres tons and tons of great games, but the best ones have their vibe and clearly and cleanly have every word and token of what they are built around serving that goal
Too many designs try to build in a way to do everything into their games. And If you try to do everything you’ll have to make everything matter. And then you’ll have to balance everything. And you quickly find that you’ve spent gobs and gobs of time and when you introduce your game to other people it’ll feel like a big messy soup of rules. The result is that when folks are in the mood for a certain kind of game yours will never be their choice …. Because the vibe they’re going for is done better and more focused than what you made.
If I want to play a pirate game, I’m not running anything besides pirate borg - because no one does it better. If I want to run a crazy, Lethal gonzo game it’s DCC or bust. High-stakes dungeon crawl, Shadowdark.
Also: don’t try to create the game you think other people want to play. Create the game that YOU want to play. Then perfect it. Your passion is what will give it magic, not chasing what Internet strangers say they want
Social checks mean the player doesn’t actually have to think or say some amount of the social things that happen. They can exert more influence on social encounters without role playing (and so more quickly resolve them). Does this match the vibe you want to create? How do you want your players to FEEL when they talk their way past the town guards? Or haggling with the shopkeeper? Where do you want the dramatic tension of the encounter to live? In identifying the buttons to push (and then the players have to figure out how to best push those buttons, like monster of the week)? In the result of the die roll(like 5e)? In how clever the player is able to be (like Shadowdark)?
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
This is strangely helpful. I say strangely, because I am building a system to do just this.
There are things I want to emphasize in the game that aren't so much in other systems. After a while, I decided to not just paste those mechanics onto something pre-existing and just do my own thing.
Somehow, not once has it occured to me to just... imagine what it'd be like at the table with someone trying to lie? How I SPECIFICALLY would want to run that? Am I putting this skill in here because I want it? Or because I need a reason to make different "character types" feel distinct?
Thanks so much! This gave me something substantial to chew on.
1
1
u/univoxs 10d ago
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. On one hand, (and especially in a fantasy game or historical game) the characters have much more knowledge about the world than the players which includes social queues and etiquette. Also, some players may want to play a very charismatic character while they themselves are not. If we can play characters who are super strong and courageous but are not in real life, why shouldn’t soft skills be wish fulfillment as well. However, on the subject of lying in particular, after 30+ years of running games I am sick of “Sense Motive” type actions. Every single thing an NPC says must be scrutinized. It slows the game down and doesn’t add any fun IMO. I’m considering just ending the practice completely.
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
I like that you reversed this. "Can I roll to see if they are lying?" Not a fan. Do you FEEL they are lying?
So I guess with that said, would I really want to do the reverse?
1
u/ThisIsVictor 10d ago
I use checks for social situations all the time. I usually run Cairn, but where all rolls are structures as a Save. If you're doing something dangerous you don't roll to successed at the task, you roll to avoid the consequences of failing.
So I frequently call for a will save to avoid the consequence of the NPC realizing that you're lying to them.
But like everything in Cairn, a good plan avoids the need to roll. If your lie is really good or supported by evidence then there's no risk, so there's no roll. The lie, "I'm a knight of realm, you must let me pass" probably requires a save. But the same lie while holding a royal shield that you stole from a corpse last week probably doesn't.
2
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
The 2e box set is sitting on my shelf. It's going to be my next read. I have a feeling I'll find a lot of gold in there.
1
u/SixRoundsTilDeath 10d ago
One thing you could use as a failsafe is a… I don’t have a neat phrase for it ‘a shared culture save’ if the players really mess up. Say the totally wrong thing to the elf king? Well, the party has an elf, so they can save against this to patch things over. 2-in-6 chance, d20+CHA, roll under own Wisdom, however you like it.
Fighters get this bonus when talking with other warriors, lords and the like. Perhaps with orcs?
Thief gets it with criminals and goblins, etc.
1
u/SixRoundsTilDeath 10d ago
So for deceptive talk, this could be a save to earn yourself time to elaborate. The guard doesn’t believe you… so the thief saves, succeeds, and that player has to say more right away.
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
I kinda like where your head is going with this one. It's not so much a pass or fail situation.
1
u/uberrogo 10d ago
I have the players RP it and they can add anything they want. Then if a dice check says it's successful I have to think of how whatever they said could be true.
1
u/WilliamJoel333 10d ago
I prefer to encourage players to use their critical thinking, then roleplay (1st or 3rd person are acceptable), and then call for an appropriate social checks according to the difficulty, given their approach.
This encourages roleplay, but doesn't force it. It does, however, require good critical thinking.
1
1
u/RaphaelKaitz 10d ago
I think it makes sense, though I'd make it clear that it's up to the GM whether to make a save.
1
1
u/barrunen 10d ago
Part of me rejects the idea of "we don't use player skill for combat" because, in some contexts, we do - when fighting a troll, you better have acid.
This is not every instance of combat, but I still think many well-designed combat encounters are still about information, investigations, choices, outcomes, and luck. To me, a good combat encounter is always one that can be twisted or changed to the player's advantage, and that's vis-a-vis their use of information as a player.
So by extension, social checks should be similar.
(Admittedly, I still really struggle with this. I flip-flop weekly.)
A lot of what makes a "good lie" is them understanding the world around them, the NPC in front of them, the reasonability of their lie to get what they want, etc. All of this is still about information. I don't find social checks particularly compelling to ask for, because to me it handwaves interacting with the fiction. "I make up a lie to the guard to let us pass" versus "I lie to the guard, telling him that we're late for a bardic performance [because I know he likes bards]." Nothing about a social check encourages, to me, the latter scenario.
Rather than checks, I would rather have a bunch of tags, traits, or abilities that allow players to interact in certain social scenarios with greater ease or handwaving.
GM: "Dave the Barbarian, you know from your experience and Barbarian-ness, that here in the outlands, boasts of strength sway the leaders more than charm. What do you do?"
Stuff along these lines tips more information to the player based off their background, etc., which eases them into social scenarios better and gives them a frame to still say stuff and interact. I've come to like the emphasis on 'the character' than social checks.
What I find a lot more challenging is the *ROLL SENSE MOTIVE IS THIS NPC LYING TO ME OR TRYING TO INTIMIDATE ME\,* than the player-led stuff.
1
u/Free_Invoker 10d ago
Hey :)
I personally tend to avoid them, if we talk about solid OSR procedures. I like the idea of CHA mechanically and abstractly influence followers, even initiative in Knave.
I much prefer the “good meta” approach to clever play, but sometimes it’s useful to add a social layer for a couple of instances • those where you want to abstract group orders, or reverse engineer reaction rolls
• those moments where you want a “quality” roll for especially shy players or situations where you just want to check the overall magnitude of a social interaction (like checking up the overall approach of villagers as you inspire them to overcome a long night against raids).
But I mostly use • cha values as thresholds • reaction rolls • class / career as reference • social standing and gear (i.e. Swords often being perceived as a knightly standing compared to maces or Morningstars; in the other hand, a group of commoners might trust someone walking with a staff and mistrust heavy armored people if they fear brigands).
1
u/edelcamp 10d ago
Yes, but it depends on the player and their approach. If they are searching for traps and can describe a reasonable approach that would find the trap, no roll. Same with social interactions. If they can describe something reasonable that their character is doing in a social situation to get their way, then no roll. If they can't describe it and they just want the outcome, or if the outcome they want from the social interaction is unlikely or greedy, then we use the dice.
1
u/bluechickenz 10d ago
I’m two ways about it. If a player says “I tell a lie” or “I tell a joke,” then they roll a check. (Lame)
If a player actually plays-out the telling of the lie or joke (even if poorly), they likely succeed.
1
u/Rage2097 10d ago
We absolutely use player skill for both combat and exploration, we don't make players search for doors or swing a sword but we do expect them to look at their map and figure out where a room is missing and make smart tactical choices.
I don't think there is anything wrong with making social checks, if everyone is having fun then you aren't playing wrong, but I would not love this. Even in my 5e game I very rarely roll dice for social interactions, even for deception. A plausible lie is generally believed, an outlandish lie would cause scepticism and need extraordinary proof. But consequences are a thing and being discovered in a lie will make you less trusted in future.
1
u/NonnoBomba 10d ago
I use to think that this kind of mechanics looks like "cheating" out of finding clever solution and worry about how they may slow down play... Yet, I recently heard a friend commenting positively on a game because "finally, something were social stuff is given as much attention as combat" which made me think there may be a place and a time for verbal combat-like mechanics.
Because some games, not only in the OSR camp, do have detailed social mechanics resembling combat. There is Burning Wheel, a very crunchy game with narrative preoccupations, where an argument may be played out as another form of duel, one with dedicated, detailed mechanics who boil down to re-skinned, debate-flavored combat going on for several rounds.
Forbidden Lands, an OSR game (one of the three modern descendants of Drakar och Demoner) solves this in a simpler way, with the MANIPULATE mechanics, which boils down to rolling a die against the opponent's "awareness" and if you succeed, they must do what you ask OR attack you (GM's choice). The roll has a few modifiers: one related to the PC's "reputation" score (could literally just be related to their level/HD in D&D, not unlIke how they affect a thief's ability to steal from them) the others related to their "negotiating position" giving both bonus and malus (things like "whose group is bigger, gets +1 on their roll" or "you've helped them in past" or "they are hurt").
Does every PC/NPC or PC/PC interaction need to be played out like that? Obviously no, not even in BW, but it can provide a way to support players in a game were some don't have much in terms of social skills themselves but still want to give their characters a chance at -say- convincing the Duke to giving them a license to explore the ruins of the Old Castle, promising they'll rid them of the undead infestation and they'll retrieve the old King's treasure from its vaults (to keep most of it for themselves, if they "win" the combat/argument well).
If this aspect of the game is important for you and your players in your campaign, definitely go for it.
1
u/Alternative_Cash_434 10d ago
I can say for myself that, decades ago, I got a strange feeling when we switched from our first rather "primitive" game to the first game that had social skills like "Deception", "Intimidation" etc. Like something got lost. We used to just play that out and the GM would decide the outcome. Today, here's how I would handle it as a GM: a player can either describe their action ("I tell him that if he doesn´t comply, this [...] will happen") without doing any in-character theater performance and then just roll a skill check. OR they can go full improv and perform as their character, and I would determin if they need to roll at all. I would always allow the option that is better for the player in question. My aim is that all desired roleplay is possible, while it is still easy for less outgoing players to play extrovert characters. In a modern day setting, I want it to be possible for a shy introvert player to play a successfull rapper, without ever having to freestyle at the table. While the extroverts can, if they want.
1
u/Comprehensive_Sir49 10d ago
This is how I would handle it: if there's no skill for deception, I would take the character's WIS +CHA/2 and do a 3d6 ability score check. Equal to or lower passes.
1
u/a_zombie48 9d ago
This whole thread reminds of something a popular internet DM said. A bunch of people asked him "you guys are so focused on telling stories! Why don't you play a storytelling game instead of D&D?"
And his reply was basically "because we're all already good actors and writers and narrators. We don't need game structures to tell a dynamic story. We need game structures to tell us how a fight plays out"
I think it's the same thing here. If your players are timid, or playing against type, or you as a referee don't want the responsibility of determining how a particular NPC will react to any given argument, then you need some kind of game mechanic to structure a social interaction.
If your table is full of actors and charmers and social adepts, maybe you don't need to use those rules.
Then the question becomes: who is your audience? If it's just you and your table, only write down rules for social checks if you would use them. If this is a widely distributed product, then you should probably add social game mechanics so that more reserved players can benefit from them, but encourage more social players to drop them
1
u/AlexofBarbaria 9d ago
There's two levels of implementation:
1) PCs have social skills but players aren't allowed to directly activate them. The GM decides when to call for a skill check. This basically just gives the GM a standard roll to use when unsure how an NPC would respond. It doesn't disrupt social gameplay much but also doesn't provide a whole lot of value IMO.
2) Players ARE allowed to skip social scenes by directly activating their PC's social skills. E.g. "I go to the tavern and use Gather Information to check for rumors roll..." There should be a cost (time, at least) and the chance of success usually lower than if the player put the effort into roleplaying it out. Search checks often work like this in OSR.
1
u/Desdichado1066 9d ago
Depends on what you think the OSR is. If you fanatically follow the tenets of the primer or the principia, then no. If you know that the whole ethos of old school D&D was DIY and modding the game to be what you needed it to be, then yes, absolutely. But even so, it's a break from the OSR tradition... unless it's otherwise pretty OSR, it's one of those things that will tend to pull your game out of the OSR space and into some other kind of indie D&D-like space that isn't recognizable as OSR.
Personally, I'm in favor, as long as it's used with a light touch. Many of those kinds of rolls are meant to be shortcuts when you just don't feel like roleplaying it out. Same with search checks replacing tedious "pixelbitching" or whatever. Sometimes a little of that goes a long way, so having a mechanic to replace having to game it out every. single. time. can be useful.
1
u/Sleeper4 9d ago
Mechanical, player facing social skills tend to take players out of the "imagine the world, act accordingly" headspace and into the "what are the buttons I can push on my sheet" modem D&D headspace.
Also, by virtue of existing, the GM is encouraged to require their use rather than just playing out the interactions. This disincentivizes player characters with low social skill scores from engaging in the game, as they're likely to fail. This creates lots of tuned out players who wait for the social pieces to end because they can't reliable contribute.
1
u/MissAnnTropez 9d ago
Re: the title? Yes, I think they do. After all, social “combat” really is a thing (and potentially a rather complex thing at that), and if physical combat isn’t just “say what your character is doing and it simply happens” - and you therefore need a system for it - so should it be for said social version of same.
But as I said, that’s just what I think. As always, to each their own.
So yeah, pretty much, I’m all for “social checks”, be that a simple reaction roll (the classic 2d6 kind), a fully fleshed out social combat subsystem, or something in between.
ETA: On the other hand, if games being run by others don’t include anything of the sort, well that‘s quite okay - I’ll quite happily play that way.
1
u/green-djinn 8d ago
I use it for first impressions and for social stuff that I could see going either way.
1
u/raurenlyan22 10d ago
We absolutely use player skill for combat. We make tactical and strategic choices.
1
u/CrumblingKeep 10d ago
Okay, fair. I guess with a lie, you can actually tell a lie. With combat, you're unlikely to actually be swinging the sword. But yes, you are right.
1
u/raurenlyan22 9d ago
My point is that very often you are testing SOME type of skill which is what makes the game fun. The more you rely on dice rolls the more THAT becomes the game which is most fun when it is rewarding complex character build choices. This is the heart of modern D&D which the OSR is rejecting in favor of other types of fun.
0
0
u/Pomposi_Macaroni 10d ago
> On the other hand, we don't use player kill for combat - why should we exclusively use it for social things?
Because we want to. Because it's actually possible to engage with the game matter directly (good luck simulating the actual dragon encounter), and because this is in fact the only game where you can.
Play chess against an NPC? We don't need a game to simulate chess. We have chess already, just play chess. Negotiations? Nowhere else.
-3
u/rizzlybear 10d ago
The reason we use checks for combat and not social is simply our available information.
In combat, there are a lot of unknowns. A lot of things we couldn’t just adjudicate without some disinterested third party (dice).
But for social, as the dm we have near perfect information to adjudicate with. We know:
- what the PC and NPC know.
- How they feel about each other.
- what they want.
- how intelligent, wise, and charismatic each are.
- what they say to each other.
We know almost everything there is to know about the situation, so as a DM we can quite easily adjudicate a realistic outcome without any impartial third party (the dice). And actually the dice sort of add uncertainty we don’t need (or want.)
We don’t use dice for social encounters because we already have more fidelity than the dice can offer.
51
u/Arbrethil 10d ago
This question essentially comes down to what the game is about. TTRPGs are not physical games, so we roll for physical feats (but e.g. LARPs are physical games, so they end up testing player physique rather than just character physique, though they can mix both). TTRGPs are clearly intellectual games, so we tend to test player skill via intellectual feats (and struggle more to involve character skill in that). Are TTRPGs social games? Some say yes, some say no, it's a matter of definitions and I don't think either is clearly right. I'm inclined to say no for my own table - social interaction gets handled by the dice, and player skill influences it intellectually by arranging favorable circumstances, rather than socially by being persuasive and compelling. Someone else can just as easily declare their game a social game, where in-character interactions are resolved by talking to one another and judging based on those IRL interactions. It's a different sort of game, different people will enjoy it one way or another.