Frustrations with 3E

[Vaxalon]

... one of the players in the group I mentioned likes to play characters who are diplomatic, verbally subtle, and full of intrigue. He himself couldn't do any of those to save his life. What this method allows us to do is translate his performance into his character's performance (OK, he's being unusually polite and indirect. What would happen if a character with +16 Diplomacy were to be unusully polite and indirect). This does, of course, require that all players know what's on everybody's character sheets.

Adjustments in the other direction can be handled by roleplay. In other words, if you are diplomatic but you play a character that isn't, you better not use your diplomatic savvy.
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Remember that any overture can be interpreted positively and negatively.  Someone who's being nice can seem condescending; someone who's being confident can seem overbearing.

[Rob Carriere]

Remember that any overture can be interpreted positively and negatively.  Someone who's being nice can seem condescending; someone who's being confident can seem overbearing.

Sure. But, let's say I'm GMing. The particular player I'm talking about is a good friend and I'm confident that I can figure out what he means for the character to project. And, should that confidence turn out to be misplaced, I'm silly enough to ask. So the miscommunication, if any, is purely the in-game miscommunication between the PC and the NPC. You can handle that the exact same way you would have handled it if you'd been tossing dice all over the table.

In other words, the method I proposed is neither better nor worse at this aspect than the fortune method it is based on.

None of which changes that miscommunication can be great and exhilarating fun on all sides of the table :-)
SR
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[Adam Dray]

Rob Carriere suggested a Take Ten rule when players role-play the social challenges rather than roll dice. Another way to handle it is to give the player a small bonus or penalty to a die roll at the end to determine success.

"I liked the way you guilted the little twerp into telling you the name of the thief. Make a Diplomacy roll at +4."

"I don't think you can scare the bouncer. He's bigger than you and your threats really aren't going to frighten anyone. Make an Intimidate roll at -2."

This system lets players role-play (the fun part) and roll dice, too (taking into consideration the character's skill). It's fortune in the middle, with all its well known problems, but it works well enough.

[Rob Carriere]

Adam,
You're entirely right. I've played in, and enjoyed, games like that.
SR
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[greyorm]

Thank you for the suggestions, everyone (Chris, Rob, Adam)! I will add these to the list to pass along to my players for discussion.

NN (what is your real name?), you ask a good question, though it is something that has honestly never come up before in play (and I have played with this group for many years). I am not certain what the reaction to such would be, though I assume the players would simply make it up on the spot. I cannot say for certain, as I am reminded of the time one player became very concerned and slightly uncomfortable when a sorcerer successfully charmed her character, and she was asked to play her character as such.

As you can see, this points to the desire to avoid any sort of Pawn stance (rather, any sort of getting "out of character"), so there is a good possibility that at least this player would be unfcomfortable with stepping outside her character and into (I believe) Director stance to "make up facts within the game world." As such, I do not know what would occur.

(BTW, someone correct me if such a situation, as Vax described, is more akin to Author stance.)

Finally, Mike, that is a really good suggestion. I have used it in the past, as well, though to ill-effect. That may have been just my own lack of experience in keeping up with two (or more) windows at once, however. I believe in order for it to work for our group, we would have to add an extra "social" window, so that everyone can feel as though they are still part of the same game (something I believe is rather important to our group).

I will definitely bring this up with the players, though thus far I have repeatedly heard, "I don't mind waiting for my turn, it gives me a chance to do other things around here" regarding the current situation. Note, despite these statements, I am still not fond of proceeding in the current fashion because of the problems with someone quite possibly not getting to their turn before they or I need to sign off for the night (which has happened before and I feel is utterly unfair to the player(s) involved). So even if "they don't mind", it is still a concern for that reason.

[Mike Holmes]

Finally, Mike, that is a really good suggestion. I have used it in the past, as well, though to ill-effect. That may have been just my own lack of experience in keeping up with two (or more) windows at once, however. I believe in order for it to work for our group, we would have to add an extra "social" window, so that everyone can feel as though they are still part of the same game (something I believe is rather important to our group).

Absolutely. I'm working off of the Indie Netgaming model here, which assumes an "OOC" window, and a "Narration" window. In this case, I just open a second narration window. But you're absolutely right that you need to have a window for chatting along, clarifying rules, etc.

There are some issues with the in-game/out-of-game method (for example logging them synchronously becomes impossible), but generally I think it's a very cool way to deal with the issues at hand. You never wonder if somebody's character is saying something, or if it's the player, etc.

Oh, and yeah, it's a skill. Took me a while to get any good with it. Moreover, it doesn't double your output or anything near it. It just keeps people more engaged with their characters.

Mike