I've been reading some posts regarding rolling dice for social conflicts and not using GM fiat to rule the outcome.  I heartily agree but have a question, but first my game experience.

Shadowrun.  The players, myself included, need to get into a corporate function .  We have invitations and approach the guards on the door.  My character specialised in interaction skills and he was very good.  After a brief discussion with the other PC's I decide to see if we can get a couple of my collegues inside the building with their pistols.  I approach the securtiy on the door, "My name is blah blah, here is my invertation these are my security and I need them to come in armed"(or something like that).  Security reponds," thats not necessary we have security under control".  Gamemaster fiat. No chance of getting the guns in, no dice roll.

At the time I was a little peeved, what is the point of having the skill if you can't use it, but I thought well I suppose they are professionals and would probably get into trouble if they allowed us to bring guns in.  But is that enough reason to not allow a dice roll?  It could have been very important in the game to be armed at that time(it wasn't as it happened).

My question is how to resolve such a conflict when it is completely in the interests of one party memeber to decide in a certain way that the GM would seriously consider a fiat situation.  How many successes or what DC(however this is resolved in any game) does it take to make a NPC  murderer confess?

I am running a game of TROS.  Next adventure has a character in it thats a chaos cultist pretending to be a priest.  The PC's will have ample opportunity to interact with him.  Obviously he doesn't want them to know this but should it be possible to get it out of him using interaction skills?  When I was playing a shifty NPC in the past I would look askance and generally 'act' shifty.  I've come to realise that this doesn't really work as only one player usually picks up on it and it has nothing to do with his characters skills!

Thanks
Aaron.

Hi Aaron,

One way I've seen dice used in a functional way (especially on the forge) is in a bartering method. Bartering about the modifiers, the DC and all the other fiddlies, until just like bartering about the price of an item, both parties come to a satisfactory price (or one of them decides they aren't interested in buying/selling at the current prices and moves on).

However, for that method to work, the seller/the GM has to be interested in selling. If he isn't, then your stuffed. There is no arguement in 'what's the point of a skill'. It's like arguing 'what's the point of a market' when a vendor wont sell you something. In addition, the buying/player has to be interested in paying something. If you want a free ride when the GM is actually ready to barter, well then the GM is equally stuffed.

Do you have enough info to help with your TROS situation yet?

Being someone that largely despises social rolling of any kind, I will say that, when forced into it, I tend to run things more along these lines:

I don't generally give even the most remote of a shit how good your social attributes are... until you come up with something plausible.  Thus, even if you are Don effing Juan, the line, "come on," ain't gettin' the virgin grrl's pants off.  However, if you can run through a scenario that makes me smile ("Baby, it's war, and I ship out tomorrow, and I know that I can't ask you to wait for me, I just want to know, to really feel, that now, just now, you love me." -- zzzziiiippp) or sounds halfway decent ("Everybody's first time is a bad experience, that's the nature of the first time.  People will spin you a tale of magic and wonder, but it is awkward, brief, and terrible.  Let's get that part out of the way, and focus on making a memory that will last somewhere down the line, after we've had some practice at this."), then they get to roll their social dice.

The idea is that I don't want someone strolling up to the security and saying "I roll my manipulation," or what-have-you.  In your case, I probably would have fiated your monkey-ass as well... these guys are paid to do a job, and you've just invited them to perform it (first rule of conning, don't offer them the "no" opportunity until you can see that they already want to go your way... then it is a question of "do I want to be an asshole?" rather than "can I allow this?").  If you were to manage either to cause some sort of scene ("Do you know who I am!?  I am the fucking Chief Accounts Officer for ABC Corp!  There is a terrorist threat currently against me, and me, personally, so either you let my men register their presence with you, and carry their tools, discreetly, or you assign two personal bodyguards to follow me fucking EVERYWHERE tonight!") or somehow distract the officers ("the ol' guest-having-seizures routine while your boys slip around the metal detector", I would have more sympathy.  Now they balance perimeter/planned security against your needs, they may cave, they may not... how good can you bluff?  Further, even if you fail, they grant you two nameless goons to trail you all night, and your boys have a chance to pull the quick one-two on them and, voila, armed.  This sounds like a well-thought idea, complete with compromising half-success.  I'd listen, waver, and say, "No problem, roll your tootin'-out-the-shit attribute... the difficulty to let them give your guys a pass is high, they're good bodyguards... but, they may believe you enough to give you one or two personal security detail -- we'll call that less-than-totally-successful".

In the end, if a social roll must be made, it will definitely be in the vein of "this is as good as they can come up with, it is time for fate"... or "this excuse sucks, they fail"... or "damn, that's good, no roll needed".  Your excuse, to me, falls into one of the first two... but surely not the third.

Dav

Hi, Aaron. Tough questions.
With your Shadowrun situation, it's a tough call. In some cases, it will be perfectly reasonable to say, "no roll - you can't succeed." This happens in other situations, too. "You're facing that dragon with just a toothpick?" "You want to cross the sea with no boat?" There are social situations where no roll is justified, but it should usually be apparent that this is the case. "This CEO who recently discovered me embezzling funds - I'm going to fast talk him into make me his company's chief accountant."
But if the thing the player wants seems even slightly possible, I always allow a roll. I use movie or book heroes as my model - I think of a film in the same genre, and imagine: "would characters in this movie be able to pull off that stunt?" If the answer's yes, I allow them to try - often with an openly disclosed penalty.
Also, if the thing they want doesn't seem plausible, I mention this, and ask them if they want to try some other approach. In your example, for example, I might have decided the security here don't allow anyone else to have guns. In that case, I'd say, without rolling, "it's clear that you aren't going to persuade them. Do you want to try another way of getting guns in?" This leaves the way open for PCs to try hiding guns and fooling the security scanners, or finding someone on the security staff they can bribe or blackmail to help get their guns inside. I'd also point out that if their deceit was discovered, it will lead to further potential for conflict.
(By the way, did you and your fellow PCs who were denied guns encounter non-security NPCs who had managed to get guns inside? If so, then this is a sign your irritation was justified. If not, then that's a sign your GM treated you fairly.)

Your second question: keeping your treacherous cultist sneaky.
If you don't mind players knowing things their characters don't, this is super-easy. Just play your sneaky character as extravagantly suspicious as you like, and then when the players realise, which shouldn't take long, let them roll something against the sneaky guy's Sincerity. If Sneaky guy wins, tell them he has allayed their suspicions, and ask them to play their characters accordingly. Then you can have lots of fun situations where the players try to innocently manoeuvre their characters into situations where they might have a chance of discovering his deceit, while their characters are acting all trusting. (And where failed rolls mean he manages to make them look guilty.)
If this might not work for your group, you could create a situation in which the players can't openly act against sneaky-guy, even when they know he's a villain. Maybe the local prince favours him, and the prince's party are travelling with him. Or maybe he's a cousin of the Prince! So the adventure then becomes not about figuring out who the bad guy is, but to figure out how to expose him, or get rid of him without anyone knowing it was them who did him in.
Failing an approach like either of those, you're stuck in GM Fiat territory. You have a secret you want (and maybe need) the players to discover, but have to work to make it hard for them to find out, thus setting both you and them up for dissatisfaction. Whether they decide to investigate this guy is entirely dependent on what you tell them, and how you describe his actions. If you are waiting for one of them to notice something about your portrayal of him before getting them to make a roll, you are relying on a particularly unreliable form of GM Fiat: just how well the players interpret your acting skills.

So it looks like neither of these two questions are really about rolling interactions - they are both about when to use GM fiat and when not to. Perosnally, I've grown to seriously dislike "find the GM's secret" type adventures, because of the GM Fiuat issue, and so would recommend using the DITV approach - get that secret (sneaky-guy) in their face, let them know he's a bad guy, but then give them difficult choices about what to do about it like I described above.

Speaking more generally with regard to rolling interactions. I always make clear what the roll is for in general terms, and if I expect the PC to act in a certain way when they lose, I make this obvious during the build-up to the roll. "Your wife's sister has been getting you drunk. Let's see if she gets you to go to bed with her. Roll." In this case, a failure for the player might not mean he jumps in the sack - it might mean instead that someone sees him heading to bed, before he stops himself and leaves. That depends on the situation and the character (and, if the system uses margins of failure, just how big a failure it was).

Also, as a counterpoint to Dav, I don't require players to come up with flowery descriptions of their actions, nor do I give them any positive modifier at all for how well they act it out. The only reward they receive for that is seeing me and the other players grinning and showing signs of enjoyment. I'd be perfectly happy with someone saying, "I roll my manipulation." In that case, I'll usually respond with a probing question, like, "what sort of things do you say, how do you manipulate him?" They'll usually be able to say something to that ("Um, I'm arrogant, so um, maybe my confidence dispels his doubts") - the purpose of my question is not to get the player to act out, but to give me a context for the roll, so that I can describe what success or failure looks like when needed. Then we roll.

Callan,
I'll have to have a bit of poke around the forge for what your talking about, I haven't seen anything about the bartering method.  It sounds interesting.

Dav,
I used to play with a referee who ignored social rolls.  I found it quite frustrating.  While I appreciate your desire to 'role play', I am one for trying to talk in character etc, I don't believe it is essential.  Social interaction, IMO, should be covered by the mechanics of the game just like any other action.  I don't require the players to demostrate how they are going to attack the enemy before they roll the dice.  If they want to thats great, but its not necessary.  The same can be said of any and all other activities the characters partake in.  To me talking is just one of these activities.

Darren,
But wouldn't you play those two examples out.  Sure there is very little chance of defeating the Dragon or crossing  the sea but it is possible.  Does the English Channel count as a sea? :) .

The guns in the function weren't, in the end, an issue.  We were in and out so fast it didn't matter. 

I really like the idea of the players knowing and trying to devise some way of their characters catching on.  I think that sort of thing might really appeal to a couple of my players, so I'll work on that.  Thanks.

I think my greatest irritant for any social rolling, more than anything, comes with the fact that a social interaction is not the equivalent of a simple machine.  You can run things that way, of course (mainly because I haven't set forth my army of Make-Them-Play-Like-Davs), but, at some point, you want some measure of decision-making/creative thinking to happen.  When a guy with some insane bluff starts lying, that's just plain kosher, hell, obviously, that's the guy's bag... here's the thing, you (the GM) makes a call on something, anything... you toss me info via an NPC, I'm a big boy, I'll make my own call as to whether you are shitting me or not, I don't need help.  Whenever I see a stat or some attribute like bluffing or persuading or anything, I get irritated because that's the meat of any game (social interaction, I mean, not the bluffing, per se).  If I wanted it to be a system, I would go cavort with that mass of sociopaths that people call mmog (because, no matter how you argue it, and no matter what anomalous moment you saw or your friend experienced, there is no "rp" to be had). 

The whole idea of "Guy says X", I say: "Cool, he's lying", and the GM says "What is your truthdetection/diplomacy/subterfuge/whatever" and I respond "Y"... But here's the thing: I never asked, said, or mentioned I wanted to use it.  You can only manipulate or bluff someone who cares.  If someone is merely listening for the verbs... you know, skimming the surface, you have no shot, this guy couldn't care less.  Social interaction is odd to me in a game system.  In combat, or magic, or anything, you have this choice (how you go about it)... social rolls are always some opposed nightmare of dice versus dice with some sort of chart about how sexy I am (and let me just say, I am sex-ay)... very much a killer to those times you have some sort of kickass plan and drop a 1 right out of the gate.  Terrible.

I have never actually played a game where someone could say "I kill him" and I say "Kickass, roll it up".  If you want someone dead, great... how?  You bet your ass you need a plan of action, I won't magic the guy dead for you because you dropped a 6 three times in a row and point imperiously at your character sheet.

Dav

Aaron wrote:
Darren,
But wouldn't you play those two examples out.  Sure there is very little chance of defeating the Dragon or crossing  the sea but it is possible.  Does the English Channel count as a sea? :) .

Dav wrote:
If I wanted it to be a system, I would go cavort with that mass of sociopaths that people call mmog (because, no matter how you argue it, and no matter what anomalous moment you saw or your friend experienced, there is no "rp" to be had). 

The whole idea of "Guy says X", I say: "Cool, he's lying", and the GM says "What is your truthdetection/diplomacy/subterfuge/whatever" and I respond "Y"... But here's the thing: I never asked, said, or mentioned I wanted to use it.  You can only manipulate or bluff someone who cares.  If someone is merely listening for the verbs... you know, skimming the surface, you have no shot, this guy couldn't care less.  Social interaction is odd to me in a game system.  In combat, or magic, or anything, you have this choice (how you go about it)... social rolls are always some opposed nightmare of dice versus dice with some sort of chart about how sexy I am (and let me just say, I am sex-ay)... very much a killer to those times you have some sort of kickass plan and drop a 1 right out of the gate.  Terrible.

I have never actually played a game where someone could say "I kill him" and I say "Kickass, roll it up".  If you want someone dead, great... how?  You bet your ass you need a plan of action, I won't magic the guy dead for you because you dropped a 6 three times in a row and point imperiously at your character sheet.

It might be worth you having a look at this thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19744.0 wher I had a conversation with Ron about a very similar topic.  I found it very useful.

Regards,
Dan.

I think part of it comes down to "How interesting are social interactions for you?"

From what I've seen, mechanics tend to surround and bracket interesting interactions in a game that works, but where the meat of the interestingness is, that's where the players get to make choices.

If what your group finds interesting is tactics and being badass in combat...it's probably a poor fit to have combat that is all resolved in one, simple roll.  Your group doesn't get to explore tactics and decision making in combat at all if it just goes "We decide to have combat -> die roll -> Result of combat decided."  On the other hand, if your group doesn't find that kind of stuff interesting, it may very well be enough to say "Okay, we have a fight.  Uhh, roll a d6 - on a 4 or higher we win, on 3 or less they do."

Same goes for IC social interaction.  Many people see some types of social interaction as the point of roleplaying, just as others see making tactical decisions in combat as the point.  To them "I roll to talk my way past the guards" is just as boring as a real tactical guy who is interested in combat hearing "Okay...I roll to see if we can defeat the ninja".  It's not just important that the ninja is defeated - what is important is how the ninja is defeated!

For the people you're playing with...okay, there could be other explanations, too, mind you...but if social interaction is, well, the point...then maybe you should try breaking it down into smaller chunks.  Instead of trying to roll to convince someone, maybe your GM would be friendlier to the idea if you rolled for specific things.  I know many players who would very much take objection to "Okay, let's roll intimidation - if he wins, he cows you, you back down, and give him what he wants!", but who don't have a problem with "Okay, let's roll intimidation - if he wins, he puts you off your guard and causes you to back up, but you don't have to actually give him the McGuffin."  For things like that...well, I've heard excellent things about the social combat type stuff in Burning Wheel...

But maybe that would still be distasteful.  It may be that social interaction is so much the point of what is going on, that any mechanics would water it down.  It'd be like showing up at a football game and saying "Hey, instead of wrestling around with that ball, let's play paper rock scissors to see whose endzone the ball ends up in first?"

Or, of course, it was just how the GM wanted it to go.  He didn't want to play paper rock scissors, but neither did he want to play football - he knew the ball had to be in a particular endzone, done.  For some reason, social interaction tends to land in this court a lot more than combat...I'm not sure whether that's because GMs are more likely to have a predetermined outcome in mind for social situations, or instead that an actual fight is usually so complex, game mechanics wise, that if the GM wants to make sure one side or the other wins, he can often get very good at ensuring it happens without use of visible fiat.  One roll "If I get a 12 or better, he confesses!" social mechanics are a lot harder to subtly engineer.

I will mention that Dogs in the Vineyard is, after all, not a task-based resolution system, so the comparison you made may not entirely be fair.  And even then - the area of focus is different - in Dogs the system seems more geared towards making players make thematic or moral choices instead of tactical ones.  The question isn't "How do I talk my way past the Steward?", it's "What am I willing to do to get past the Steward?"  But Dogs would be crippled if you had to roll to see if your character could escalate a conflict, for instance - you'd be taking away player choice in the arena that matters. 

Besides, if I was running Dogs(which, admittedly, I only have done three times), I probably wouldn't take "Can we talk our way past the security guards with our guns?" unedited as stakes for a conflict.  It's hedging your bets.  "Can we get our guns past the guards?" I think is a better phrased, more open-ended conflict. 

Just like I'd think saying "Can we rid this town of sin and move on to the next?" probably would be a discouraged conflict in the first five minutes of a Dogs session, but whadever.

Dogs comment may be a bit of a tangent, but it made me think of something else related...  If we are going to look at conflict for social rolls...  Part of the reason many GMs will object to "Social rolling your way past" something is because it often seems an attempt to "get something for nothing".  This is probably a by-product of the fact that if you fight someone, there's something to loose.  Half the time, people don't make it happen that way with social rolls.  You're not putting anything on the table.  A lot of GMs who'd object to "Okay...I wanna bluff my way past the guards with our guns, can I just roll for it?" might be more happy with "Okay...I wanna bluff my way past the guards with our guns...if I make it, they buy the story and let us in...but if I fail, they get suspicious and decide to boot us from the event, period.  We'll have to sneak or fight our way in if I fail."  Then you're putting something on the table - you're risking something, as opposed to just trying to get something for "free".

Overall point - people deny social rolls for all sorts of reasons.  Knowing the reason is a big part of knowing how to bridge the gap(and knowing whether it can be bridged in the first place).

Dav wrote:
Social interaction is odd to me in a game system.  In combat, or magic, or anything, you have this choice (how you go about it)... social rolls are always some opposed nightmare of dice versus dice with some sort of chart about how sexy I am (and let me just say, I am sex-ay)... very much a killer to those times you have some sort of kickass plan and drop a 1 right out of the gate.  Terrible.

I'm going to use an example from D&D since it is a "traditional" rpg and that seems to be the original focs here.  Here's a paraphrase from an actual scene in one of our games where I was the GM.  The characters are trying to talk their way into the city of Nesme.  Normally there wouldn't be a problem but the party has 2 Drow and a Tiefling in it, so issues arose.  The players decide to let the Paladin do the talking (smart choice).

Me:  Okay, the guards pretty much aren't going to let you in with 2 Drow and a Tiefling in the party.  In fact, they're rather suspicious of you for traveling with them, Paladin of Selune or not.

Player:  I want to use Diplomacy to try to talk him into letting us into the city.  I am a Paladin after all.  My standing with the chuch ought to count for something.  I'll vouch for my companions's character.

Me:  That'll work.  You can roll your Diplomacy.  Get +2 synergy from your Orate skill and +2 for being a Paladin.  The guard will roll Sense Motive (it seems more applicable than anything else).  He'll get +2 because Drow are really distrusted.  If you win, he'll let them in but they have to give over their weapons and they can only stay in the Inn right next to the gate and don't have free run of the city.  You can go wherever you want.  If you lose, they send you on your way.

Player:  That sucks.  I want to convince them to let us in without all the restrictions.

Me:  The guards will get another +2 to their roll if you try that and if you lose they'll be convinced you're up to no good and attempt to arrest you.

Player:  I don't care.  I'm going for it.

Now, there was a good bit more conversation than that and there was some in-character chit-chat going on throughout, but that is the basic gist of things.  The key to making this more interesting than just rolling a die and either getting in or not was in negotiating the bonuses and the specifics about the goal for the characters.  Using dice for Social skills only makes sense.  Why have them on the sheet otherwise.  I know that if Social skills were simply fiated in a game I played, I'd never put a single point into them.  I'd completely pump up the combat stuff, since I'd know those points would be worth it.

Dav,
It seems to me that using your methods for social interaction, it would be very difficult for a player who is shy or has a tendency to get tongue-tied to play a smooth-talking con-artist type character. Maybe this isn't an issue in your group - in fact maybe that's the way your group prefers it. But I think you can understand that many other role-players feel that a player should be able to play a character with skills he doesn't have - whether those are physical skills, combat skills, superior intelligence, whatever.

The opposite problem can also occur. In my group, my GM has a similar take on social interaction as you do. What often happens is that the most outgoing player - let's call him Jay* - often purposely makes a character who is supposed to lack social skills. (I think Jay does this because he is often the centre of attention, and he wants the other players to get the chance to do more NPC interaction and whatnot.) But what always happens is that Jay's character ends up being the one to sweet-talk the guards, make deals with the rich people, etc. -- because he's the most effective at it, even when he's playing an albino outlander! (Jay's -1 Bluff is better than my +5, because +5 is useless if you don't get to roll.) So not only are less-outgoing players prevented from playing smooth-talkers, but smooth-talkers can't play socially challenged characters.

*I think it's very important to also note, that Jay is the one who has known and played with the GM the longest, by orders of magnitude. So Jay has a good sense of what he finds plausible. When social rolls can't happen until the player describes something the GM finds plausible, it's the GM that determines that plausibility. Thus it's GM fiat that determines when the social skills on the character sheet can be used.

One solution is for the GM and player to hash out the player's "action plan" together (with the GM making suggestions and the player having final say over what his character does). This will let the player do what he wants, while preserving plausibility for everyone. However, I realize that it can be tough to interrupt role-play to do this, especially when speaking in character.

Cheers, Mike

Wel my long rampling post died somewhere on the internet so here is the short version.

I think that you have to be aware of the limitation of the system. Shadowrun for example is a poor system for dealign with social conflict and a poor system for encouraging players to look at moral choices. You can try to get either of those in there, but you will be operating outside of the system as written.

Other games have different focuses...

Call of Cthulhu has poor (in my oppinion) conflict resolution. I have dropped the whole thing before and just had people make one Luck Roll to avoid a 3 hour long battle, which was really not that interesting. Of course the focus of CoC is not on combat, but investigation.

Dogs has very streamlines social resolution tied right to coonflict resolution. It is built for this. so it gives good tools.

Burnign Wheel is the simular as it gives great tools for social resolution.

You have to be aware of the limitations of the sytems. and as a player need to call for conflict/tsk rolls as appropriate to the system. Though this can be wickedly difficutl to be sure.

Jason

I think there is a sort of double standard when it comes to social interactions.  You can declare an attack roll in almost any game system and have it resolved right then and there.  No need to describe how you swing (or thrust with) the sword.  Nothing about stance or maneuver.  It's noteworthy that there are plenty of players with no clue about swordsmanship, gunfighting or phaser marksmanship that can play combat oriented characters just fine - they need to know the combat rules not a bunch of crap about parries, thrusts or phaser settings.

Many GMs, on the other hand, (and I'm guilty of this, too) require a certain amount of in character dialogue, with a plausible story or whatever as a pre-requisite to a social attack roll.  And yet, to my memory, there is generally no in game rules text that calls for such.  It's just something that's grown up - unless someone can point me to the origins of this sort of issue.

If social skill interactions were tied into a more comprehensive "social conflict" rules matrix, you might not have that issue.  I'll raise the point next time I GM a session - no need to speak in character to get a social skill roll.  Instead, just try your luck and we'll run it like a regular skill.

The origins of roll for combat, talk for social is traceable to the lack of anything other than combat stats in original D&D. But actually, I think it goes back further than that, into wargaming. Avalon Hill's Diplomacy comes to mind as a great example (where in fact the whole game actually is in the non-mechanical negotiation between players). But I think the campaign miniatures gaming that D&D grew out of was the more direct source (but that was almost certainly influenced by Diplomacy). And ultimately it centers on the early struggle to come to grips with what this role playing thing was all about.

I wonder if Dogs in the Vinyard would have been possible 25 years ago?

Of course it's also worth noting that those who are good at social conniving will also drive play towards talk for social. And their very skill at social conniving helps them accomplish this. Imagine if gaming was dominated by muscular bullies... We would be rolling for social skills and wrestling to resolve sword fights... Or worse, actually using swords....

Frank

Gaerik wrote: I know that if Social skills were simply fiated in a game I played, I'd never put a single point into them.  I'd completely pump up the combat stuff, since I'd know those points would be worth it.

Mike wrote: It seems to me that using your methods for social interaction, it would be very difficult for a player who is shy or has a tendency to get tongue-tied to play a smooth-talking con-artist type character.

Precious wrote: I think there is a sort of double standard when it comes to social interactions.

There were a lot of people saying many things that sounded closely related, so I will sum by using this quote as my baseline (aside from the mmorpg comment, to which my answer is simply "no," typing stuff (poorly), is not roleplaying):

"It seems to me that using your methods for social interaction, it would be very difficult for a player who is shy or has a tendency to get tongue-tied to play a smooth-talking con-artist type character. "

This is true.  However, in the same manner that I don't expect to play a good basketball game against well-oiled large men who get payed to do it, I don't much suffer the shy in my games.  I am not some sort of egalitarian that-okay-do-your-best style of player or GM.  If you suck, and you bog the shite down, I will boot you... it is simple.  It also makes things rather enjoyable for those who do play.  I am, quite simply, an elitist of roleplaying... I'm not patient with beginners, and I have little tolerance for the water-heads that feel that taking the time to read the exact effing wording of a book is a good idea.  If a game has a "this is roleplaying" section to it, I generally put it down and leave it alone. 

As for using synecdoche: ...and?  Look, if you want to have a substantive argument about something with as much option and material as role-playing, generalizations occur... welcome to life.  My generalizations refer specifically to games that deal with social interaction rolls as a quick-fix, uninvolved chance roll.  I don't like 'em, and they corrupt the main function of a roleplaying group, which would be to interact. 

Look, in the end, it comes down to a simple idea of what, in general, one plays games for: killing things and generally being a sociopath, or interacting and looking for depth in a storyline.  If you are one of those players that hates the talky bits because it interrupts your dismembering of those you see as "enemy", then, by all means, buy a computer game... or play D&D, either works equally as well.  However, if the killing bits interrupt your ability to define and direct the story and narrative as it stands (except in rare you-pushed-me-to-it circumstances), then computer games and D&D probably isn't your bag.  Of course, for those demented and argumentative "what about us in the middle" people, pick a hole and fuck it... you get on my nerves or something... anyone who tries that middle-ground tactic owes me a damned drink.

Dav

I'll change the subject from the value of rolling for social conflicts to how it might be done.

Aaron wrote:
Shadowrun.  The players, myself included, need to get into a corporate function .  We have invitations and approach the guards on the door.  .....I approach the securtiy on the door, "My name is blah blah, here is my invertation these are my security and I need them to come in armed"(or something like that).

More.
Actual.
Play.

... in this actual-play thread.

That's the moderator talkin'.

Best, Ron

Dav wrote: My generalizations refer specifically to games that deal with social interaction rolls as a quick-fix, uninvolved chance roll.  I don't like 'em, and they corrupt the main function of a roleplaying group, which would be to interact.

Dav wrote: However, if the killing bits interrupt your ability to define and direct the story and narrative as it stands (except in rare you-pushed-me-to-it circumstances), then computer games and D&D probably isn't your bag.

Ohhh-kay. More moderation.

Dav made some serious points that you guys would do well to listen to, rather than denigrate. Over-generalized? Maybe a bit. Opinionated? Sure.

But I'm not liking the childish gibes I'm reading in response. In addition to actual-play talk, I'm also saying, post with genuine respect and interest in what others are saying. This is not a site for clearing the area around your intellectual turf.

Will, I am wondering what you and the DM are planning to do next time such a situation comes up. Did he say? I hope he did listen to you, because a number of folks I've played with dug in their heels very hard on this point. They really, really didn't want players to be able to influence NPCs ... at all ... unless it fit with their plans or amused them in some kind of useful way.

Best, Ron

Dav wrote:
Look, in the end, it comes down to a simple idea of what, in general, one plays games for: killing things and generally being a sociopath, or interacting and looking for depth in a storyline.  If you are one of those players that hates the talky bits because it interrupts your dismembering of those you see as "enemy", then, by all means, buy a computer game... or play D&D, either works equally as well.  However, if the killing bits interrupt your ability to define and direct the story and narrative as it stands (except in rare you-pushed-me-to-it circumstances), then computer games and D&D probably isn't your bag.  Of course, for those demented and argumentative "what about us in the middle" people, pick a hole and fuck it... you get on my nerves or something... anyone who tries that middle-ground tactic owes me a damned drink.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Dav, lighten the fuck up.

Best, Ron

Actual play, although it's Amber DRPG and so there was no rolling.

I have a friend who loves gaming and has many of the skills we normally associate with "ROLE-not-ROLL playing" down pat. However, in real life she's somewhat meek. I have long since made it clear that her meekness is not entirely my problem in player-to-player interaction. She accepts responsibility for jumping into the action when she wants to. You might call it pushing and not waiting for me to pull, if you like that slang. However, her meekness translated somewhat into the game world as well. She is not intimidating, she's never been intimidating, and doesn't know the first thing about intimidating people. Her attempts to do so generally end up being somewhat comic, because they're either weak or over the top.

In this Amber campaign, she was playing an extremely cunning and savvy assassin type. The character concept and the points she put into Psyche, Strength and Warfare said she ought to be able to intimidate someone, so I'd generally let her give me a general statement and assume that what the character did in the SIS was an effective execution of the player's intent. ("It sounds better in Thari!" was a running joke in our group anyway.) So the player would say, "I show him my knife- the really flashy one- and tell him that I'll do horrible things to him if he tries to back out of the deal." I'd respond with, "When he sees the total lack of emotion in your eyes as you start discussing the ways a good sorcerer can hurt a man, he just falls apart on you. There's no way this guy would dare mess with you now." Everyone was generally happy with this - I say generally because at a higher level nobody was really happy with the Amber DRPG rules.

The harder problem, which sometimes comes up in the Shadowrun game I play in now, is when players with social skills ignore their characters total lack of same. Our GM is usually pretty good about it, though, because he does insist on having people roll. If the character lacks the skill or botches the roll, he'll say something like, "Yeah, that was a good line of BS, but unfortunately, coming out of your character's mouth, it's sounds like a really good line of BS. Nobody's buying it." Since the GMs commitment to making people roll for things is well-known, people generally accept it with good grace.

This issue is so fully tied up with the social contract of your group that it almost goes without saying.

As this is an actual play thread my most recent experience follows:

Call of Cthulu / Delta Green - filler game between HeroQuest campaigns
(names changed to protect the innocent & guilty)

Relevent player Mick: Loves playing the roguish, thief like, fast-talking guys. As this was a pre-gen, high character death, rolling campaign, designed to have fun during breaks from HQ I gave him an ex-pat English private eye.

Setup: Players work for a secretive group within the Vatican, look and feel is modern conspiracy with cyberpunk elements of mistrust and manipulation.

Scene: Private Eye tries to fast-talk himself past the officious woman at a recently installed military high security section in the Cairo museum. Micks words: "I use my Fast-talk and claim to be a researcher with a valid reason to enter".

Now, I am a low prep GM who is happy to let the story go where the players take things, but I thought it was a stretch even if the character was good at the skill. But the player was obviously upset with this,  citing the fact that that's how fast-talk works in this game.  My decision was no, she has a closed list of people and he just couldn't force his name onto that list by fast-talk alone

The real problem here is Mick had a totally valid point, and I felt his suggestion was a cop out. I had placed the barriers there to make it a challenge, not to have it waved aside by charisma alone.

In the end the computer expert hacked his name onto the list which worked for me.

But, fact is, we all had made the mistake of not defining our mode of play. HeroQuest to CoC is a serious gear change, we should have had a few words before we began, to define our playing style for the game. I would have pushed for realistic social interaction (don't care if its acted or not) Mick may have pushed for a roll and see approach. Either way we wouldn't have had the situation arise, and in our group, either way would have been fun.

Lesson learned: even in a quick adventure with pre-generated characters and a low attachment to them based on the high death rate you should still have a quick chat about the style of play and the rule set.

Jamie

Lesson learned: even in a quick adventure with pre-generated characters and a low attachment to them based on the high death rate you should still have a quick chat about the style of play and the rule set.

The harder problem, which sometimes comes up in the Shadowrun game I play in now, is when players with social skills ignore their characters total lack of same. Our GM is usually pretty good about it, though, because he does insist on having people roll. If the character lacks the skill or botches the roll, he'll say something like, "Yeah, that was a good line of BS, but unfortunately, coming out of your character's mouth, it's sounds like a really good line of BS. Nobody's buying it." Since the GMs commitment to making people roll for things is well-known, people generally accept it with good grace.

This topic reminds me of some of my earliest roleplaying, as a teenager in the late 80s/early 90s. My group started out with Marvel Super Heroes and branched out into Middle Earth Roleplaying from ICE. We were still emeging from the primordial slime of pawn-stance brawling punctuated by occasional bouts of playacting, mainly comedy bits of varying quality. Initially our GM was my best friend Lee, and after a time I started GMing as well, and we would trade off the role, each having a Player Character for a given campaign and simply running them as NPCs when it was our turn.

I think I was among the first in our group to start wanting something more "serious" and rewarding out of play, and I began designing characters more as characters in a story, as opposed to glorified video game avatars. My early attempts were crude, basically consisting of sacrificing combat power in favor of brains, charisma and social skills. At one point I had a rogue ("Scout" in MERP parlance), Alex Vanderskye,  who I envisioned as a dashing, quick-witted, silver-tongued devil. Our chargen method was rolling stats randomly, then assigning at player discretion, so I had de-prioritized strength and consitution (or whatever it's called in MERP), and poured everything into agility, intelligence, charisma and appearance. But in play,whenever I tried to bring Alex's attributes out, whether for color, or for actual effectiveness, I was brushed off, even laughed off. Like, "haha, Joel, you know you can't play smooth," or "Alex is using big words again, yawn, when's the next fight?" Not in so many words, necessarily, but that general attitude. Everyone respected and took cues from Lee's big lug of a barbarian, simply through Lee's sheer force of personality.

I had a shock when I managed a look at Lee's character sheet--"Shanar the Barbarian" had an Intelligence of 30 or so, and abysmal charisma and appearance to boot. I told Lee how unfair it felt that Shanar got to "pretend" to be the intelligent, commanding leader guy without the stats to back it up, and Lee was just, like, *shrug*. I don't remember the conversation exactly, but I believe it was heavily weighted withthe assumption that of COURSE if you don't "roleplay it" witty or suave or intelligent or whatever enough, then your character won't be that way.

I had two issues with this, not necessarily with Lee but with the whole group. The first was that my play was being shot down by the group, which was very much a social rejection issue. . .I put myself out there, and get eye-rolls and in essence a big hearty "get off the stage!" Even if it was in more ofa teasing way than outright vicious, it was still painful, especially when I watched Lee gain group approval constantly, and I felt, in light of his character's actual stats, in a cheating way. The second was a more concrete issue of fairness, in relation to the game currency. SImply put, I had chosen to spend my currency differently than the other players, on presumably legitimate areas of focus, and was being marginalized in those areas via popularity contest. And of course, since I had sacrificed the other areas, I was automatically marginalized there, too (though it didn't matter that i consistentlyrolled for shit against all odds, a trend that continues to this day).

We never really worked this out. Most if not all of the Geek Fallacies were at work in keeping the group together in spite of these and other frustrations, and we really didn't have a developed faculty for addressing these issues--I certainly couldn't have articulated the above paragraph; what issues I DID try to address were expressed very crudely and ineffectually, suffering from everyone carrying around their own little idea of what roleplaying is inside their head, and asuming we all knew whateach other was talking about. Plus we all shared a lot of lousy assumptions in common. We grew in sophistication regarding techniques, over the years, but our play remained rather limited. The game degenerated to a large degree due to (among other things) Lee's increasing reliance on humor in his GMing (and a brutally deprotagonizing humor at that), to the point that the game sessions were just an ongoing Monty Python routine, with some fights and skill rolls. We had some fun, because Lee WAS pretty funny and charasmatic, but it was unsatisfying on the whole. We eventually eventually broke up when people moved and it was too much of a pain to get together regularly.

I guess my point is that without clear systemic constraints (not that those NEED to be dicerolling constraints, mind) on all aspects of the game, play will be very prone to bullying of whatever stripe. The mix between mechanical versus "acted out" (can we please stop calling it "roleplaying"? It confuses the issue.) can be variable; for instance requiring a plausible plan before allowing a bluff check or whatever, is a reasonable option. But the constraints must be explicit. These constraints can exist purely at the social contract level, though they should still be very clear. As you can see by the above account, SC is often nebulous, non-explicit, and poorly understood. Dav, I would have no problem with something like your "no wet-nursing" policy, if I was briefed on it going in. but if that "you suck, I boot you" jive was sprung on me during play, I'd have a definite problem with it. And I get the feeling you wouldn't much care. . .but you can hardly call it functional behavior between adults. Come to think of it, I think the cry of "synechdoche" was tossed around too frivolously before, but I may have found the true Synechdoche in your thinking: You seem to assume that your way of roleplaying is what all roleplaying is. Youj ust can't assume that; sure, fine, insist on plahying your way, but let everyone know up front what that way is, so no one gets sucker-punched two sessions in.

So in the end this all becomes Social Contract, Social Contract, Social Contract. . .but with a nod to the importance of design, because if more of the games referenced had explicit support for these things, we wouldn't be left to hash it out on our own.

Peace,
-Joel

PS In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that in the MERP game above, I did the very same thing to one of my brothers regarding HIS intelligent, flower-tongued character. It was only years later that I realized the hypocrisy. I'm not proud of it, but there it is.

Joel, well said.  Well explained actual play.

The only  thing I have to add is this strikes me as very, very true:

So in the end this all becomes Social Contract, Social Contract, Social Contract. . .but with a nod to the importance of design, because if more of the games referenced had explicit support for these things, we wouldn't be left to hash it out on our own.

Yeah, good point. Thinking of it thatway helps to avoid erroneously thinking of this as a "play the rules as written" issue.

Hi Storn,

Storn wrote:
How?

This is not meant to be flippant.  But your excellent example seems like a long talk, not a quick chat.

This stuff ain't easy.  Unless you have that system that really tackles social die-rolling/role playing head on...(Burning Wheel comes to mind...

Unless, the quick chat comes down to "roleplay it out, convince the GM" or "roll it and see".  But if it is a combo of both, like BW's rules, then that ain't a quick chat...then you have to get down to the expectations of the genres and how that meets the expectations of the players and your expectations as the GM.

Just a thought on the general problem of a player whose skill at something is far higher than that of their character, whether that's social interaction, setting knowledge, or whatever.

It can take a great deal of skill to do something deliberately badly. Why not make use of that?

If a player for whom words come easily is running a crude barbarian, then when he tries to persuade the guards to let them past, he can use his grasp of language to make sure that the way he insults their mothers is really amusing to listen to, and the excuse he comes up with is so far-fetched as to be completely unbelievable, even as the rest of the party cover their eyes and go "noooo!"

A long time ago now, we were handing over control of a campaign to a new GM - I'd created the universe, modified the rules, developed the background, and run it for years. We felt there might be a problem that once I was a player not a GM, my universe knowledge might creep out into character knowledge. So I created Leonara the incredibly dumb paladin, whose thinking was (preferably) done by her NPC unicorn mount, whose knowledge of the universe was seen through a filter of ignorance, prejudice, and stupidity, and who had a Jump To Wrong Conclusion skill of around 150% (we were using modified BRP). She was great fun to play, and every time any background knowledge was required, I could look at what I knew as a player, work out what Leonara might know, which of the (wrong) options would make most fun in play (to create a little conflict but not too much), and go with that. Without having the background knowledge to start with, I couldn't have jumped to plot-useful wrong conclusions. Being stupid in a narratively-useful way required a lot of thought :)

You know, I first encountered the lack of formal rules to support social interaction way back in the mid-80s.  We were playing AD&D 1st ed.  Now I realize that Dean, the GM, was running a great gamist game and the three other players were really digging it.  But I had chosen to play a high charisma ranger (who was later transformed into a Choatic Good paladin by GM fiat, but that's another story).  I wanted the opportunity to interact with NPCs instead of just fighting them.  The only provision for this in the rules was some sketchy talk about attribute rolls.  My desire was largely frustrated because there were no clear rules for social interaction resolution and, as a result, Dean only provided resolutions that involved the well-described rules of violence.  So our character's hacked and slashed.

I've only recently learned that Tunnels and Trolls, the other major game available at that time that supported gamist play _did_ include options for social resolution (CHR SRs).

In my experience -- AD&D, RuneQuest, DragonQuest, HERO, and even FUDGE all sufferred from this because, while there were detailed rules for violent conflict, there was nothing much for non-violent.  I even felt this lack in my first attempts to GM The Riddle of Steel. 

It wasn't until I played games that put all kinds of conflict resolution through the same process (Trollbabe and Hero Wars) that I really began to get how social interaction can be done with rolls and have significant impact on game events.  The key is indeed structure and treating all conflict the same way.  After that, when I played TROS, I applied to social interaction the structure I mentioned in an earlier post here, which is derived from TB and HW. 

A double-standard has endured through the years.  On the one hand, player success in combat is judged by choice of tactics and rolling dice, while player success in social interaction is judged first by real-world ability to persuade people at the table.  Is it fair that one activity be judged _within_ the fiction of the game, while the other is judged by player performance _outside_ the fiction? 

Let's go back to the example of the security guard denying a player's gambit at persuasion before dice have even rolled.  What if, instead the player had declared a fight, and the GM had said, "You just don't look like you're ready to hit him yet.  Persuade me that you can actual take him." ?

Alan wrote:

Let's go back to the example of the security guard denying a player's gambit at persuasion before dice have even rolled.  What if, instead the player had declared a fight, and the GM had said, "You just don't look like you're ready to hit him yet.  Persuade me that you can actual take him." ?

I was in a CoC game once, where I decided my PC had a southern accent. It was fun to do, okay? :) When I say I am at the start, the GM goes "Really??" in this way I just didn't understand at the time.

Anyway, we end up in the swamps. There were confederate soldiers hiding out there (ever since the war) which of course means a confrontation vs them with their rifles because were outsiders. Err, except my character who gets one chance to say something. I blub it and then I'm treated exactly like everyone else in the party.

Reading through this thread, though, I wonder if it's a matter of social skills simply - zing - eliminating conflict. Ie, they just get rid of conflict. That's actually pretty boring. Just removing conflict is - flat. And that's why GM's instinctually ignore them at times. While players love them and because of that, at least in my case, haven't actually thought about how they just remove conflict.

Social skills that shape and kneed conflict, now that's interesting. But following the wargame designs, they are typically designed in a 'eliminate the conflict' way.

I don't think the traditional gaming systems do design social skills to eliminate conflict. Certainly not any more than skills like lockpicking, stealth, or demolitions. What they do is eliminate combat - which in many systems, eliminates the only part of many systems that has well-explained rules for dealing danger and adversity to the PCs.
By simply tagging on failure conditions for rolls, and using Mike Holmes patented line, "failure means conflict," social and other non-combat skills can still provide tension and conflict.

Darren wrote:
I don't think the traditional gaming systems do design social skills to eliminate conflict. Certainly not any more than skills like lockpicking, stealth, or demolitions. What they do is eliminate combat - which in many systems, eliminates the only part of many systems that has well-explained rules for dealing danger and adversity to the PCs.
By simply tagging on failure conditions for rolls, and using Mike Holmes patented line, "failure means conflict," social and other non-combat skills can still provide tension and conflict.

Ron asked Aaron:

Ron wrote:
Will, I am wondering what you and the DM are planning to do next time such a situation comes up. Did he say? I hope he did listen to you, because a number of folks I've played with dug in their heels very hard on this point. They really, really didn't want players to be able to influence NPCs ... at all ... unless it fit with their plans or amused them in some kind of useful way.

Sorry I've been absent for a bit everybody!
Quite alot of useful information and insight which I think will help me quite a bit and while it did seem to get off track a bit I still think it's been very helpful.
My next TROS session is in  a couple of weeks.  We left if last time with the villagers all frightened and enraged by someone stealing and killing the townsfolks children.  The PC's just came back form battling an animated Scarecrow, one of them carrying the hat it had been wearing that had fallen off durign the fight.  One of the villagers recognises the hat and the call goes up that its all farmer Bobs fault and they are off to lynch him.  The PC are going to try and stop them.  This is another Social conflict.  I don't mind whether farmer Bob cops it or not so its going to be up to the players to convince the mob,(not me!)
I grabbed a copy of Trollbabe and have been devouring that and am looking over Burning Wheel and d20 Dynasties and Demagogues(I got this a while back as I have had this social conflict problem for a while!) and am going to try and come up witha social combat system for TROS that is similar to the combat system, for consistency.

Thanks for coming back to it, Aaron.

I'll call this a good point for closing this thread, but also for encouraging others (as well as Aaron, after the next game) to begin new Actual Play threads which build on the points and questions that arose here.

So, it's closed now. But don't think of this thread as stopped, but rather as spawning offspring ... go ye forth and multiply.

Best, Ron

I grabbed a copy of Trollbabe and have been devouring that and am looking over Burning Wheel and d20 Dynasties and Demagogues(I got this a while back as I have had this social conflict problem for a while!) and am going to try and come up witha social combat system for TROS that is similar to the combat system, for consistency.