Are social mechanics necessary to have a truly engaging roleplaying experience?
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Are social mechanics necessary to have a truly engaging roleplaying experience?
>food analogy
I've yet to see satisfying social mechanics that don't become too abstract and meaningless, but I remain open to the possibility.
Exalted 3e does it right.
It's so weird how literally no one here mentions Exalted 3e or Essence when those two have really great social systems. Do you guys seriously just ALL play D&D or ultra rules lite Everyone Is Greg or someshit?
To be fair, nobody really expects the high-flying action demigod simulator to have a great social system. I sure as frick didn'.
Exalted is kind of niche in its concept.
I probably would have fun playing Exalted when I was younger (instead of D&D). Now I'm at the point where I have to avoid bad balance because I can't stop myself from trying to fix it.
It actually works against him: a stove has a mechanism for cooking food. For DnD to be like the stove in his metaphor, it would have to have some kind of mechanical interaction with RP like the stove does with food. A better metaphor would be like saying that having some shelves in your bathroom makes it a pantry because you can put food on them. Yes it's true, but people still aren't going to think that's the main purpose of the fricking bathroom you twat.
It's like saying you want to cook pasta but only have a toaster oven, not an open range. Sure, you can improvise, but the toaster oven is not designed to cook pots on top of it.
why do I keep seeing autists get upset about food analogies?
Is it because they all get upset if the sauce touches the potatoes, or they have to eat a new vegetable?
Very often it's children of immigrants who were practically forced to play the role of a token in social dynamics while knowing that cultures can be radically different. If you want a game with a female villain go get a Slavic female. They don't condone violence against females. They demand violence against women.
any amount of social mechanics gets in the way of the game, slows down the pace of playing it, and is limiting.
any amount of mechanics gets in the way of the game, slows down the pace of playing it, and is limiting.
I don’t like theater improv and find it the most unbalanced part of the game since it relies on player skill instead of character.
I like systems that just have a roll and let some characters add story elements, like connections and favors owed. Gives them minor story editing abilities.
Like you have to go get the lord to agree to something and one of the characters can add that they know the servant who will share info about the lord.
>Are social mechanics necessary?
only if you have no interest in roleplaying it all yourselves. In the same way, if you have no interest in combat, flip a coin to see if you win and move on. It's all about finding the level of abstraction you and your players want to engage in.
HOLY FRICKING SHIT, RUN ANOTHER SYSTEM YOU HACK. DND IS A COMBAT-PRIMARY SYSTEM BECAUSE IT WAS BUILT FOR DUNGEON CRAWLING. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN BUILT FOR DUNGEON CRAWLING. YOU WANT TO RUN SOMETHING SOCIAL-HEAVY? GO LEGEND OF THE FIVE RINGS.
My group doesn't even fight combat anymore, I just assume they win and describe their characters beating enemies while we all drink beer.
thats pretty based actually.
It just happened one night when I realized they were pretty high level and haven't had anyone knocked down unconscious in combat in like ten sessions. They didn't stop me and it's happened the past three sessions. We do spend most of our sessions roleplaying though, I tend to gloss over when combat starts and just narrate them winning so I can pivot back to more social encounters. I have no idea how to deescalate from this back to normal combat again. My hunch is that I should introduce a strong main antagonist, and then them doing combat again will make a lot of sense.
the only way to beat a combat master is through cheating.
go grander in theatre of conflict.
magic items.
maybe a mechanic that gives them an opportunity to depower their character for some army/kingdom building mechanic.
Change game systems to something less crunchy.
Several PbtA games have ways to turn entire combats into a single roll so you get back to the roleplay faster. That leaves the possibility of the drama of failure, or pyrrhic victory, but without the time slog.
In my City of Mist game I'll usually turn social encounters into exchanging different tags, so a player might use Hit With All You've Got to inflict Convinced - 2 while an npc will retaliate with Dismissal - 3 or Shut Down - 3. Though it is a bit confusing when the Convince move narrows this down into one roll, though that's typically for less important conversations I guess.
Any suggestions on improving on this?
yeah, do not run a system with social mechanics. Just roleplay.
I mostly ignored that stuff. What I would do in your stead is only use social encounters as a battle when it's really important, like a court case. Basically any time there are actual stakes. You don't need to draw out an argument, just roleplay the argument. But if it's a rap battle for the sake of the city and nobody actually wants to improv rap verses, then you fight it out.
Thats really fricking gay actually. "bro we don't even roll dice we just assume we win and describe HOW we beat them with psychopathic gory description" is like the peak of the Mercer zeitgeist slowly settling over the TTRPG hobby like the carcinogenic smog that it is. It's a sickly sweet smell that entices the simple-minded to linger in its vapors, the "rule of cool" homosexualry that now permeates RPGs turning these games into childish powerwanks that are necessary for "escapism" i.e. shallow dopamine hits for people with unsuccessful and unsatisfying careers. It's like those homosexual DMs who say they don't even use monster stats or write down hit points, they just decide the monsters die when they say. It wastes everyone's time and makes the entire thing a pointless exercise. But everyone calls it "based" as if the game is an inconvenience and they are being "chads" somehow by ignoring the rules of a game that they chose to play in their own free time.
THEN DON'T FRICKING PLAY IT
don't like the rules? Don't like having to actually stand up and take responsibility like a man. "oh but it's muh weekend I shouldn't have to take responsibilities that's for my REAL job as a low level manager at Amazon" bro shut the frick up. Go play fricking cards against humanity if you want that kind of low effort brewskis and bros bullshit. Better yet, go play monkeybars in a transformer station and do society a favor.
nogames mad at people having fun
>mad because his group would never accept his low quality storyshitting
>shallow dopamine hits for people with unsuccessful and unsatisfying careers
Would Aristotle have approved of your motives for gaming, oh enlightened one?
>It's like those homosexual DMs who say they don't even use monster stats or write down hit points, they just decide the monsters die when they say. It wastes everyone's time and makes the entire thing a pointless exercise. But everyone calls it "based" as if the game is an inconvenience and they are being "chads" somehow by ignoring the rules of a game that they chose to play in their own free time.
>THEN DON'T FRICKING PLAY IT
Good take
>>>
> Anonymous 03/31/24(Sun)21:50:49 No.92344732▶
Is it because they all get upset if the sauce touches the potatoes, or they have to eat a new vegetable?
>
Are social mechanics necessary to have a truly engaging roleplaying experience? (OP)
>>food analogy
>I've yet to see satisfying social mechanics that don't become too abstract and meaningless, but I remain open to the possibility.
Pretty stupid take tbh
im confused if this recc of legend of the five rings is legit or if its an insult.
Nah, Legend of the Five Rings is the Bushido Simulator. Fighting is something you only do like, twice in a campaign. The vast majority of interactions are social, and designed to test players by making them balance their personal ambitions (Ninjo) and Clan Obligations (Giri.)
No it's not, moron. It's all about fighting other people or demons. It's about a society of warriors that wages wars for the pettiest of reasons.
This thread is giving me the notion that we're all blind men feeling up an inordinately patient elephant.
>Fighting is something you only do like, twice in a campaign.
>It's all about fighting other people or demons.
L5R varies hard by design. You have the Crab clan off fighting the Shadowlands, and any campaign there is samurai going into 'Nam hell. Then there's the Phoenix on the other side of the empire who will marry off or even outright expel a capable warrior for not fitting in with their pacifist tendencies - or at least say that was the reason while being arrogant and condescending.
the game is the table everyone gathers around.
like uh
gametable
the game itself is a social action.
or if its these new fangeled "solo games" i.e. fancy sudoku
its a semiotic action.
the social ascpects of the game play to the socialization level of the group.
i group of strangers will often focus on the rules instead of social aspects.
a group of familiar friends tend to play fast and loose with rules.
i agree that social mechanics are nessicary.
but if they are forced they may work against socializing the group and make people uncomfortable in a setting thats supposed to be a fun antertainment.
however, i will admit sometimes a bit of forced interaction might be a positive stress for the group in bonding. and have better post growth effects.
No and gamifying social interaction is just stupid, the kind of wargaming autism that doesn't surprise me coming from TSR. Charisma shouldn't be a stat, but quantifiable social authority such as domains and reputation should be. Everything else should be down to the players' ability to roleplay.
>b-b-but I'm a fricking super autist who cannot even emulate simplified human social interaction!
lol. lmao, even.
Is gamifying combat dumb? Why can't I just describe in a really cool way how I decapitate the dragon?
Why do you need me to roll to pick a lock, can't I just emulate picking it and you just handwave it away?
Why have any mechanics at all, it's just autism after all.
About the only kind of system that has social mechanics that are not complete shit are things like A Dirty World where it is not another seperate subsystem that works differently to the rest of everything and isn't a magic I win because my magic voice says so button.
A truly engaging roleplaying experience, no, but if you want "being good at manipulating, understanding and otherwise dealing nonviolent with people" to be a valid specialization you need a social system.
If the specializations are single target dps, control, buffing, healing, and aoe dps, like in 5e? You don't need a social system but your system is 100% combat focused.
Brennan is being fricking obtuse here, he's just one of the people who benefits the most financially from the stupid "5e IS a universal system" trend.
Lancer has a ton of rules about mech combat: it's mostly about mech combat
Gumshoe games have a lot of mechanics about investigating mysteries: they're mostly about investigating mysteries
Older D&D editions mostly have rules about exploring dungeons and combat: they're about exploring dungeons and killing the monsters in them
Blades in the Dark mostly has rules about engaging in heists or otherwise doing crimes: it's a game about being criminals
Fiasco mostly has rules about escalating drama and getting your life ruined: it's a game about dramatically going down in flames
5e has rules for fighting 6-8 encounters per day: it's about fighting 6-8 encounters per day.
>5e has rules for fighting 6-8 encounters per day: it's about fighting 6-8 encounters per day.
Sidestepping the indisputable fact that 5e DOES have a social system, if only because of the rules about the Skill Profiencies and a few spells related to social roles, nobody fricking runs 6 to 8 encounters a day.
I was being slightly facetious here, obviously nobody runs 6-8 encounters, it'd be miserable.
That doesn't mean 5e isn't designed for it, it just means that not only is the system extremely focused on combat, half the classes (the long rest focused ones, mostly full casters but also Paladins) are way better than they're "meant to be," at combat.
>Sidestepping the indisputable fact that 5e DOES have a social system, if only because of the rules about the Skill Profiencies
You're an idiot.
"You can roll Charisma (Persuasion) to try to convince people of things or inspire a crowd" isn't a social system.
Would you elaborate what elements are needed for social system then?
For reference, 5e has
>starting NPC attitude (hostile, indifferent, friendly)
>attitude can be modified by discovering an NPC's bond, ideal, or flaw
>can choose to charm, deceive, or bully into helping you
>(optional) decisions can affect renown with certain factions
I'm not saying it's good, but I'd argue it at least exists.
>can choose to charm, deceive, or bully into helping you
Aren't those all a single stat?
>You can roll Charisma (Persuasion) to try to convince people of things or inspire a crowd" isn't a social system
No. It is. Not as fleshed other RPGs, granted. But it does have a system. Idiot.
>t. hasn't read the DMG
>That doesn't mean 5e isn't designed for it
Arguably, this is one of 5e's problems that will not get fixed with the next edition either. The features are there. One of the six attributes and several of the pared-down skill list are aimed at social interaction. Like every other system in D&D that is not combat oriented, it's just completely lacking in depth and treated like an afterthought, because combat isn't just the focus, it's the whole game. They don't even really expect players to do much that isn't just hurrying along to the next fight.
I don’t feel bad about it because I don’t care for 5e and WotC is WotC, but it is a hell of a trip that everyone has accepted the idea that 6-8 is expected rather than read the actual context that they “can handle” that many. That is, six is pushing it and you probably shouldn’t do more than eight.
The real issue is roleplaying social is hard to get right. Even freeform devolves into a moronic mess just as often as crunchy social combat ends up distracting from the roleplay. The main issue is we don’t have an effective procedure for modern roleplaying. Back in the day everyone used Diplomacy for the basis of social RP but nobody knows about that game anymore.
Reminder, of course, that the game Diplomacy does not actually have any rules mechanics for diplomacy.
And yet, everyone agrees the game is about diplomacy.
Seems to work out fine.
Diplomacy encourages social interactions by its rules making it virtually impossible to win battles without another player's cooperation. However, due to simultaneous resolution, it is possible to deceive another player as to your true intentions, causing them to engage in battles they will lose or leaving them vulnerable to your own attacks. These complex and often treacherous social interactions are the natural and nigh-inevitable consequence of the game's rules.
Now do the same for D&D 5e. I'll wait.
Yeah, I went to look it up myself, the anon missed the fifteen million "or maybe it does nothing, you decide" caveats that are SOP for the 5e DMG. For example, it's not "attitude can be modified by discovering an NPC's bond, ideal, or flaw," it's:
> If the adventurers say or do the right things during an interaction (perhaps by touching on a creature's ideal, bond, or flaw), they can make a hostile creature temporarily indifferent, or make an indifferent creature temporarily friendly.
The same applies for pretty much everything he said - not actual rules, but vague ideas of how you COULD resolve a social encounter.
I give you credit for going back to read the section, but with your
>not actual rules
autism it's pearls before swine.
You undersell the value of backgrounds and their characteristics: ideals, flaws and bonds. Most systems don't even cover this stuff or mainly do so as a way to squeeze out some points during chargen by taking disadvantages.
NTA but you are literally talking the DMG's half-assed dog shit advice of
>Hey if the players make a persuasive argument regarding one of the three character traits and NPC has, it might be more effective 🙂
as a social mechanic worth saying it's not the most barebones social system possible. The "rule" is more advice to remember that NPCs have things they care about than it is an actual fricking rule about how that works. Saying it's not really a rule is entirely fair and valid for how noncommittal it is. Most of the DMG is advice or poorly-made optional rules, at best. If it was rules for an ACTUAL social system it would be in the PHB, so the players could actually know the rules of the system they're supposed to be able to use.
Exalted 3e has literally this thing about targeting traits or ideals but it builds a massive and involved system around it that rewards the player for actually understanding an NPC and knowing how to leverage their skills against the NPC, or vice-versa in the case of an NPC using a player's traits (because the social system is NOT a one-way street like 5e's). The important that is that it has RULES so both the player and GM know how it works and aren't just going purely off of fiat because the book says "perhaps this might happen :)"
>Blades in the Dark is a game about heists
No, it's a game by people who watched a bunch of heist movies complete with retroactive declarations.
>Brennan
I should have figured it was that homosexual. He preaches so much shit that is utterly detached from 5e and then rushes back at the end of every pretentious proclamation about roleplaying games to suck WotC's crooked dick, because he has the worst fricking case of D&D brainrot of any e-celeb currently profiting from this moronic grift.
I think the Dnd-focus is specifically because it really isn't a grift for the guy. He's been playing since he was a kid, grew up in a very 80s-nerd-household (his mom did scifi comics I think) and he went to/helped out at literal larp camps. He's just fully in the DnD zone, money helps but he's been doing the same shit with no budget for long enough. That's why he doesn't do any make-a-ttrpg stuff that CR or whatever do - he literally just really likes DnD
He's not going to frick you.
That's a shame, he seems nice
My point isn't to say hes fine, just to say the reason he seems so dedicated to DnD being the perfect game forever isn't because hes a grifter, hes just been huffing dnd's fumes for 30 years.
I feel like that's covered by "D&D brainrot," but all good, at any rate.
All you've explained is that this man spent a lot of time doing things that are not explicitly D&D, like LARP Camp, and always comes back to praising D&D because... he's a fricking moron.
>if you want "being good at manipulating, understanding and otherwise dealing nonviolent with people" to be a valid specialization you need a social system.
Nonsense. Players just have to Git Gud. There's tutorials all over the Internet.
Kinda disappointed with brennan. He does so well playing in other systems, you'd think he'd get why they're used. Even in the podcast this is referencing, Worlds beyond number, he has to remind his players that violence isn't the only answer, despite the fact that violence is on their character sheets.
>Stove analogy
what if I want a cold brew, or a lemonade? you need a fridge for that.
What if I want ice cream? You can use the stove to temper the eggs for a custard, but thats just one part of it.
what if i want smoked meat or barbecue? You can theoretically use a stovetop, but you get better results with tools suited for the task.
They can help, but aren't necessary.
The bare minimum for what qualifies as roleplaying (in terms of what it means as opposed to how theater kids feel about it) is deciding the actions and behaviors of a person who isn't yourself, fictional or otherwise.
You can move a figure across a grid, and that's roleplaying.
Sorry if that triggers anyone, that's just the way it is.
Sort of? Sometimes? Rules that illustrate or reflect a characters beliefs, drives and relationships are good for games that emulate certain kinds of fiction. Sam's love and loyalty towards Frodo giving him the courage to fight off Shelob, for example. If I was playing that fight out in a game, I'd probably give Shelob the giant spider some kind of fear effect, but Sam, upon seeing that Frodo is in danger, gets a big boost to his morale too.
We see this kind of scenario in fiction all the time, where characters draw on last reserves of courage and determination based on their beliefs and relationships.
>improvisational storytelling
This man is describing not engaging with the rules at all and attributing it as a feature of D&D as if it were something D&D is somehow especially capable of doing. He's also a colossal moron. A stove is for preparing food. A poorly made stove with irregular heat and missing components will make preparing food more difficult, though a skilled and patient chef may still prepare a quality meal with it. This doesn't mean the stove is responsible for the chef's abilities and patience.
Only basic ones, such as expanding on rules and culture, are more important in facilitating roleplay.
DESU
The analogy works when you realize she's putting the food in the washing machine thinking it's an oven.
>I don't intuitively understand how an arrow moves through a fictional airspace.
Wooboy.
FATE unironically has great social combat. It's completely analogous to real combat and doesn't replace social interaction, but rather lets you engage in hostile diplomacy to compel others to stop being an obstacle in social situations.
I play to escape from myself. In the same way I don't have the physical strength or dexterity to engage in combat in real life like my character, I also don't have the charisma to navigate social situations deftly, hence the desire to play it in game mechanics because while I may be an autistic dork, my character is James Bond mixed with Andrew Tate.
Mechanics, no. Agreements for how to handle social situations, yes. "Whatever amuses the GM at the moment" is no way to go through life.
>Agreements for how to handle social situations
I think this would qualify as "mechanic" in a way, you sort of codify a procedure.
/tg/ knows how to get in a fight (and lose) but not how interpersonal relationships work.
Something something depends on something something pointless argument something something drink bleach and die
>Are social mechanics necessary to have a truly engaging roleplaying experience?
I wouldn't say they're necessary, but they can be great and the do benefit it pretty well. You can also have an engaging roleplaying experience with combat if the rules are conducive to it. But you can technically have a really engaging roleplaying experience with literally no rules and just doing freeform bullshit.
Which is basically what the guy in your pic is doing, for what it's worth. Which is fine, and you can totally do that. But he's moronic for claiming that D&D is not a game focused on combat (despite not being very good at it). I assume he has a vested interest in claiming it's not or he's one of those people that tries to make a homebrew to play Star Wars in D&D because he's a fricking idiot and refuses to even consider other games.
Social mechanics can be a lot of fun and add a lot to the game, and it allows a greater breadth of specialization. When you can ACTUALLY be good at talking and make that your character's focus, it means a lot more when you succeed at it. Rather than being able to trivially invest in it because the party needs somebody with a bonus to Persuasion. Games like Burning Wheel, Exalted, and Conan 2d20 are all D&D-adjacent in that they're fantasy systems (but obviously wildly different and much better at their niches than 5e is at them, or is at its own niche), and they all have very different and interesting takes on social systems. Importantly, their systems don't REPLACE RPing, it just makes a social character have to actually think about how they are "attacking" with words. Just like how a combat character can't just say they want to stab a dude, roll for it, and trust in GM Fiat.
Conan 2d20 is my favorite example because its social mechanics extend to actual combat (which is deliberately a large focus of the game because lmao it's fricking Conan), in which social characters are good at doing damage to enemy morale.
>Conan 2d20 is my favorite example because its social mechanics extend to actual combat (which is deliberately a large focus of the game because lmao it's fricking Conan), in which social characters are good at doing damage to enemy morale.
This is a thing you see in Honor + Intrigue too, where its social battle mechanics can be used in regular battles to throw off an opponent, meaning everyone gets SOMETHING to do in battle. You'd have to deliberately build a character with Flaws associated with combat to not have a path to being fairly competent.
Neat.
>DnDrones learn about unified mechanics in games and get their panties full of jello
Oh gee, a single resolution for everything that allows to use things interchangeably, how could this be...
Don't reply to me, illiterate.
>[People say that] because D&D has so many combat mechanics, you are destined to tell combat stories. I fundamentally disagree. Combat is the part I'm least interested in simulating through improvisational storytelling.
No, they say that D&D has so many combat mechanics, because it is a game about combat.
Imagine a game exactly like D&D, except that instead of having the combat engine it does have, each character just has a "combat ability" number and then instead of having combat take place with actual gameplay, everybody just rolls a single d20, adds their numbers, and looks at a big old chart to determine how many resources get depleted over the course of the combat. You show up at a dungeon, roll 1d20, add Dungeoneering, and the DM says, "you found yea many gold coins in loot and killed 13 goblins." This game would have EXACTLY as many non-combat mechanics as D&D, EXACTLY as much ability to handle improvisational storytelling, and all that other gay bullshit that isn't combat.
D&D brainrot also means that you can't understand that different RPG systems, by having actual social systems, naturally bias the stories in a particular way. Monsterhearts is a game about horny teens boinking each other and ruining their lives because the mechanics (including the social mechanics) are all built around this. Exalted 3e is a game about heroes deciding the history of their nations and the social mechanics are all built around your passions and beliefs, and others using those to motivate action on your part.
D&D is about a small group of morons killing things with swords because that is all the mechanics are built to handle. You can staple on some improv bullshit but that has nothing to do with D&D whatsoever.
Imagine if you had a game that functioned as you described in combat but every character had class abilities like "proficiency bonus times per day, you can successfully intuit the leader of a group you observe," or "once per short rest, know what an NPC would accept as a bribe for a particular favor" or "when you spread a rumor gain 3d6 bonus dice to the <specific mechanically defined roll to see how far the rumor spreads>" or "when an npc attempts to understand your PC's motivations, spend 2 social maneuver points to immediate roll to improve their attitude towards your PC"
And then some butthole was like "People say that because anti-D&D has so many social mechanics, you're destined to tell social stories. But I just like that the rules get out of the way when my PCs are delving through dungeons, the social rules are all there because I don't know the precise speed and persistence of a malicious rumor about the king's doctor that's been spread through a royal court. Combat is actually my favorite part, I don't care about social influence that much."
i mean, if you role-play as a non-sentient hammer, i'd say no
I always dump all social skills in every game that has them. I don't need them. I can just talk.
The problem is that D&D is a stovetop, but people want baked foods rather than grilled meats.
Counterpoint to the moronation in the OPic: saying that d&d isn’t a combat game is like looking at a stove and saying “this isn’t a metal appliance. It’s got plastic nobs, shards of paint, and rubber tubes. It’s ONLY 90% metal, and is therefore not a metal appliance, smug smug chucklefrick jerkjerk.”
“What do you mean, blenders exist? What do you mean, they’re 90% plastic? An appliance can’t be tailor made for specific things, aa help me I’m going insane lemme put my smoothie in the oven again”
FRICKING moron. You’re talking about d&d, not Shadowrun.
Not all players are as socially capable as their characters, so social encounter mechanics are there to avoid punishing a player for not being as well-spoken in real life. Their character shouldn't be punished for something the player can't accomplish, not that the player shouldn't at least try.
Social mechanics allow players to have a modicum of arbitration that isn't solely dictated some some other autist's beliefs about how arguing and persuading works, based on his own lacking social skills.
Your moronic GM sees you, not your character, trying to get his way by talking to NPCs instead of playing the game "correctly". You see a stubborn frickwit controlling John the Poopsmith NPC, stonewalling your character because your friend is an antisocial moron who thinks everyone else is dumber than him. Lack of mechanics and rules between either side means it falls on the GM to do whatever he wants, instead of deferring to the system, which should have something, anything, to help things function more smoothly.
Just don't play with unhinged autists, especially not as a GM. No mechanic will protect you when they are in charge of the parameters going into it.
Think of it as an additional filter. If you sit down with a GM and he's actively refusing to use mechanics that are provided to every player, included on every character sheet, and in some cases, backed by character options and abilities, you either know this guy fricking sucks and has no imagination, or more charitably, you know where his priorities lie and not to put any stock in being able to talk your way through a situation.
It's the same reason Knowledge checks and the like are a thing - it allows you to roleplay as a character smarter than yourself and gives you information of the world in an in-universe manner.
this analogy doesn't work because all the other stoves would need to be edible in it, since other rpgs do have plenty of rules for stuff other than combat
they're not just unnecessary, they actively detract from the experience.
mechanics are mechanical, which makes them mix poorly with organic social elements.
this is also why social simulation in vidya is so exceedingly rare, since computers do not have the intuition for anything that's not strict mechanics.
*did not
I feel the same about combat. RPGs are the best when we all just shoot the shit and then decide what makes most sense (my character succeeding in everything).
Social interaction and combat aren't the same thing and shouldn't be handled through the same mechanical abstraction. This isn't hard to grasp.
This may be hard for you to understand but you can have different mechanics
You're still rolling die and adding numbers, let's not pretend we're not talking about D&D. You do not need a die and stat sheet to abstract human interaction, you just need a DM who isn't being an intentional shithead and non-moron players (and mechanical systems will not save you from those problems anyways).
The fascination with gamifying everything is TSR autism.
>You're still rolling die and adding numbers
Why don't we use such a mechanical system to adjudicate combat? Just roll 1d20 and add your Strength and if you roll high enough, the enemy dies.
I'd love to know what point you think you're making here.
>Social interaction and combat aren't the same and shouldn't use similar systems
>YEAH WELL WHAT IF THEY DID HURR HURR WOULDN'T THAT BE DUMB?
Yes?
A functional social system is not "rolling a die and adding numbers," just like a functional combat system is not "rolling a die and adding numbers." There is no reason anybody would ever say that we should just "roll a die and add numbers" to do a good social system. It's the fact that that is all that is contained in D&D's social system that makes it a bad social system.
>It's the fact that that is all that is contained in D&D's social system
That's in fact not a fact.
Yes it is. See? I can do it too. Except I'm actually right.
It's a fact you didn't read the DMG.
I read the DMG, that's a big part of why I hate 5e so much. But please, oh wise one, reveal to us all what "rules" you think are present in the DMG to handle social situations, so we can compare them to games with actual meaningful social rules.
NTA, but
You can actually have mechanics that ARENT rolling a die & adding numbers. You could have cards, you could have Genesys dice, you can actually try to be creative
No.
>I don't need mechanics because I can adlib, therefore other people don't need to have mechanics either.
>Oh btw I need combat mechanics because I'm a moron who can't visualize combat though.
This fricker says these two things in the same fricking breath but can't understand the hypocrisy rgpn
It really do be “these are objectively the best because I like them” hours.
>Are social mechanics necessary to have a truly engaging roleplaying experience?
Are combat mechanics? It depends on what system and what game you want but generally if a game has no mechanics that could complicate or drive social interaction and you want a game that's heavy on the social apsect, its stupid to use a system that objectively doesn't give a shit about those thins.
No. Talking is woke.
>Are social mechanics necessary to have a truly engaging roleplaying experience?
They can enhance things yeah.
It's unlikely that in a ttrpg group everyone will be equally engaged by all aspects, and even if they were, some variety can also be fun.
I hate theater kids and failed novelists wanting to play their manuscript.
When I was a kid DND wasn’t a storytelling game it was a problem solving game. This really clicked for me when I played historical war games and realized it really wasn’t me vs the other side but that we were modeling an engagement. Like I wasn’t 100% in control of the army, the dice and tables simulated a lot of what the army could do down to how far my soldiers would match or how much they would turn their formation.
Emergent stories happen when players let go of trying to tell the story. The dice and your responses to it are the possible story.
Best example I ever heard, no one goes fishing expecting to get a story, fishing stories are just something that happens if you fish enough. That’s what role playing was like in the 80s.
Nobody gives a shit about the 80's. Put on a Pat Benetar album and have a nice day.
I care. Everything was better.
Your games sounds like you are a hammer and everything is a nail bro. I hope not everyone thinks this is always the case with OSR but comments like this is why people think it does.
He's a 5E gay that comes here to larp like he has been playing for a long time because he thinks people will give him attention. Every second gay on here is like "I started with the red box" or some shit. It is as tedious as it is fake.
Forcing me to listen to you role play your zany so interesting other kin sounds like viewing everything as a nail that needs to listen to your validity before getting hammered and a therapy session.
Having a problem solving system that just gives a group of players various problems and letting them puzzle out solutions sounds like a game with myriad of options.
>I hate theater kids and failed novelists wanting to play their manuscript.
This is the top sign of an autist incapable of trying new things or realizing that narrativist play still consists of problem solving if your GM isn't a complete mouthbreather.
Someone please give an example of a good social mechanic in a game, how it works and why it's good.
No.
>Someone please give an example of a good social mechanic in a game, how it works and why it's good.
Reaction rolls. You roll 2d6, on a 2 the monster attacks, on a 3-5 the monster is unfriendly, on a 6-8 it's neutral, on a 9-11 it's friendly, and on a 12 it's helpful.
It's good because it introduces a random variable into the roleplay aspect of the game - you don't know how the monster perceives the PCs and it creates the opportunity for the PCs to negotiate with the creature. It also keeps all monsters from being combat encounters.
But it's randomized so it's not just the GM saying "this monster is friendly/unfriendly."
Aside from that:
Fate's Aspects lend themselves to social mechanics. If someone is Cowardly or Yellow to the Bone, it means you can use it against him to intimidate him or frighten him away.
Exalted 3E. It's a combination of Social Influence actions and Intimacies/Ties.
>Intimacies cover your relationships and personal principles, with Minor/Major/Defining intensities to determine how important each is to you
>if social influence used against you contradicts your Intimacies, you can enhance your resistance to that Influence by the intensity of the opposing Intimacy
>conversely, if the one trying to influence you makes an argument that supports an Intimacy you have, your resistance is reduced
>Influence is a general term for social interactions aimed at accomplishing a specific goal and is split into a variety (Instill, Persuade, Bargain, Threaten, Inspire, Read Intentions)
>Instill can be used to create new Intimacies or change existing ones
>Persuade is its own system for convincing targets to perform tasks for you, taking advantage of their Intimacies
>Bargain is Persuade, but you're leveraging a bribe/gift/favor to make them do what you want instead of an emotional appeal
>Threaten is as you'd guess — using intimidation, convincing the target to obey with the threat of negatives consequences. Don't need bribes or Intimacies, but will make further social interactions progressively harder
>Inspire is used to push the target into feeling a specific emotion/passion and give them a drive to act upon it. This can be then leveraged for further Social Influence action
>Read Intentions is both classical D&D Insight and also how you determine a target's Intimacies, letting you figure what the target values or hates.
So a system for establishing what a character cares about, and then a menagerie of social options to convince/manipulate/seduce them into acting/feeling/doing what you want. Of course there's a shitload of other variables like your Appearance (hotness stat) giving you a bonus against people swayed by looks, additional forms of social defense, being able to influence entire crowds, using body language/writing and etc. Socialites ahoy.
>Someone please give an example of a good social mechanic in a game, how it works and why it's good
I'm not a fan of ultra rules lite theater kid shit so I'll use World of Darkness as an example, which is much more focused on social interaction and intrigue than combat but is still a very crunchy system with plenty of rules governing interactions. In World of Darkness your character's background isn't just "I was john fighterman the farm boy until I took my first level of fighter", since the games are largely about people becoming monsters who you were as a person is often just as important as what kind of monster you are. You have various Backgrounds representing this, and can spend XP or your freebies at character creation on things like dots in Resources to be a wealthy recluse Bruce Wayne type instead of being a hobo living in a box, Fame so your character is well-known and has a public face, Allies and Contacts for "I know a guy" moments where you can reach out to people you have connections with to get answers, and even stuff like Herd for a bunch of live-in blood dolls who willingly let you feed from them, or a trusted Retainer who can undertake tasks on your behalf. In D&D it's usually frowned upon to just say "oh yeah I'm totally a rich noble with a private army at my beck and call" in your backstory because there's no mechanics associated with it, being a dirty hobo living in a cardboard box is exactly the same opportunity cost as being an Imperial prince or noble. In WoD you can actually spend the character building resources to be a reclusive billionaire or secretly in charge of your local Freemason lodge or whatever, and put dots in Haven for a pimping mansion, meanwhile the combat-focused Brujah blender can have no social status and be living in a cardboard box or crashing in your couch because he ignored all that shit and just dumped his XP in being able to go toe to toe with a werewolf
In Monsterhearts, a game designed to emulate teen supernatural dramas like Vampire Diaries, you have a limited array of social moves, all of which have specific mechanical impacts: Turn Someone On (gives you a string; on a partial sux, they have to "give themselves to you," promise you something they think you want, OR give you a string, their choice), Manipulate an NPC (offer the NPC something to get them to do what you want; on a partial sux, you instead or told what you have to do to get them to do what you want), Shut Someone Down (make them sad and they lose a string on you). Strings can be spent to help you with rolls against characters, or offered to other PCs to get them to do what you want. Monsterhearts is a PvP-ish game so there's generally at least one player who turns into a Big Bad for the party.
Then skins (classes) add onto this basic mechanic with their own special social oriented moves, such as the Fae, who has moves revolving around promises (which, if you remember, are one of the things Manipulate an NPC can get you). Characters also have Sex Moves, which are unique to the class and trigger when you bone. For example, the Fae's sex move is "When you lie naked with another, you can ask them for a promise. If they refuse, take 2 Strings on them."
This creates interesting mechanical interplay and encourages conflict between characters as they act like spazzes and ruin each other's/their own lives in return for XP.
I think some groups will benefit from social procedures. Quite aside from skills and dice and so on, we have clear procedures for combat. Players waiting their turns, outcomes like death or defeat being clear, movement abstracted to grids, etc.
A lot of scenes are ruined not by a lack of rules, but by one (or more) players not understanding what is needed to move on, or the established realities of the situation, or when a matter has been resolved (for good or ill).
The GM sometimes establishing "you need to reach a more equitable agreement before the NPC can agree" or "it is clear the NPC does not believe you are authorised to be in this room" or simply "this approach has now failed: change tack or withdraw" could rescue a lot of shitty circular dialogues.
I can agree with this from my experience so far.
It often happens that one or two members of the party would enter a sort of loop trying to squeeze some information out of an npc that may or may not have it and between successful and failed rolls and arguments and stuff, it would be neat to have a procedural stop sign so that the DM doesn't simply have to go "you guys aren't getting anything else out of him, move on".
There is one game where social mechanics are one of its selling points.
Do you know what social etiquette is? How many times have you suffered in life for being oblivious to social rules? If your game focus is social intrigue then you need them. if not, don't bother with them.
Thoughts on this response?
TLDW: By not having mechanics around a certain aspect of the game, it makes the conversation about that aspect of the game, using mothership as an example, theres no running and hiding rules in a game where runnning and hiding is the best option
As far as I'm concerned, the "does system matter" debate is a solved issue. It fricking does. A table's ability to skirt around and soft RP and handwave their way through situations that a system doesn't support or actively bucks against, isn't an example of system not mattering. It's a demonstration that it does matter. Needing outside factors and overall mood adjustments just to get close to the desired style of play is just further arguing for a better system. He spends the entire video arguing against the point he's actually making and it's just tiresome to listen to him try to arrive at a substantial conclusion.
>By not having rules for everything that's not combat, it means there's MORE focus on non-combat and less abstraction!
That's not how it fricking works. What he's describing is the workload put on the GM. By not having rules for everything else, it means the GM has to make up more shit and create more rulings on the fly which amount to the players having less agency because it comes down to being whatever the GM comes up with, instead of being a system or procedure or ruleset for them to engage with to try and achieve the desired gameplay.
>But what about this game where instead of making a hide check you make another check to see if you can hide?!
Wow, instead of making a roll you just make a different roll?! I'm so fricking surprirsed this is coming from the moron who wrote Knave. I never would have expected such a lazy, brainless homosexual could have such moronic opinions.
>But what about this game where instead of making a hide check you make another check to see if you can hide?!
>Wow, instead of making a roll you just make a different roll?!
The player's options were, make a speed check, take off armor, or no roll.
>What he's describing is the workload put on the GM
the original argument is that Brennan wants to add his own roleplay stuff because he is good at improv. he's using the system to fill the gaps for what he doesn't want to provide because the focus of the game is not on combat.
That said, my take is that by this logic, the perfect system would be one that doesn't have or use the charisma stat, and abstracts fights to a single roll so he can focus on roleplay.
Brennan uses D&D 5th edition because it's the most popular system and his career literally depends on appealing to a paying audience. Any actual justification beyond "this is what's most productive for my career" is so OBVIOUSLY specious it's not even worth listening to. "Um, actually, it's a total coincidence that the most popular TTRPG that makes me the most money just so happens to be perfect in every way and actually all of its flaws are secretly good things, it's really the best system and I would be running 5e for my paid content streams even if it was as unpopular as FASERIP!" is so OBVIOUSLY untrue. If you actually thought that way you'd be playing fricking Tunnels and Trolls and preaching about how lightweight the system is and how much flexibility it gives you in character creation and how combat is smoothly abstracted, not playing a gsme game where player classes have exclusively abilities focused on initiative-based combat and dungeon crawling without a SINGLE feature NOT related to this (go look at the Fighter's class features in 5e and count how many are for combat...) and then saying "actually the game is about improv storytelling and comedy!"
No. You're mostly ignoring the rules for the actual game you're playing and then doing a bunch of improv storytelling and comedy. Which is a bit like saying ARMA3 is "actually a game about improv storytelling and roleplay and combat" just because it has voice chat, and "actually I don't particularly care for guns or first person shooter mechanics, ARMA3 is simply the best game for the kind of in depth storytelling I care about!"
>Brennan wants to add his own roleplay stuff because **he is good at improv. **
Which would be a perfectly fine argument, if it was the one being made. Neither of them did. Brennan gave his moronic stove analogy and QB came up with two other morons trying to explain how handwaving and houseruling means system doesn't matter, and even he still retreated to "he's a professional improv guy so that works for him!" which sidesteps the argument entirely.
>Which would be a perfectly fine argument, if it was the one being made. Neither of them did. Brennan gave his moronic stove analogy
That was the point being made.
Brennan is good at improv and roleplaying without mechanics(he brings the food), all he needs now is the stove, which he doesn't implicitly have. The stove argument is really bad, but I think the point is that he wants to fill the gap of what he doesn't already have.
>Brennan wants to add his own roleplay stuff because he is good at improv.
have you ever tried to run one of those super rules light 10 page systems? like a pbta or something where it has 3 stats and the gameplay section is "Make a Move (roll epicness)"
basically what happens is you have to make the rest of the game yourself because there isn't enough present to actually run a session. you get through character creation and realize the rest of procedure is "play pretend"
this is basically what he's advocating except he's doing it in a game that does have functional rules. the functional rules are for combat, though.
absolutely any system works fine if you're going to throw out half of it and make your own rules. you probably don't even need a formal system at that point, just some vague understanding of when to roll dice.
the value of a book is that someone else made up rules for you, play-tested them and adjusted them to a certain purpose. this is why you would read one in the first place.
>basically what happens is you have to make the rest of the game yourself because there isn't enough present to actually run a session. you get through character creation and realize the rest of procedure is "play pretend"
>this is basically what he's advocating except he's doing it in a game that does have functional rules. the functional rules are for combat, though.
The thing is about Brennan, that he and his players are experienced improv performers, so they actually do follow a set of rules, it's just not rules in the game, it's rules meant to entertain viewers. In his specific case it's probably better not to get gamey mechanics involved.
>okay guys, Call.of Cthulhu is the best game for playing super sentai megazord mech piloting, anyone who disagrees is a moron
>what? there's no rules for anything remotely adjacent to that in it? what are you talking about
>Ugh, you fool. That's like saying a stove has to be made of food. It doesn't need rules for super sentai megazord mech combat, I'm bringing that. The food is my favorite part, just like the mecha battles. I don't need a stove that comes pre-loaded with food, just like I don't need Call of Cthulhu to have mecha battles. I need it to have rules for sanity checks doing research at the library because those are the parts I care least about managing myself!"
absolutely moronic argument and the definition of brain rot from somebody unwilling to admit their mouth is vacuum-sealed to WOTC's fricking wiener.
That's kind of a dumb analogy but his point is valid, we went over this a lot in the 2e/3e edition wars. There's nothing wrong with non-combat mechanics but there's also nothing wrong with wanting to freeform it.
I'll say that if you're going to have a lot of noncombat mechanics, or social mechanics in particular, then they should streamline and enrich the whole experience. It shouldn't be horsepoints, you shouldn't have mechanics just for the sake of having mechanics, you should assume that people know how to play pretend on their own and your rules should always add value in some way.
lol, 3e/4e edition wars. I wasn't there for the 2e/3e wars. I guess they happened IRL which is weird.
>I don't intuitively understand how an arrow moves through a fictional airspace.
This is just bait. It has to be. This whole thing is just a troll post.
I used to do a lot of freeform fight RP online and my findings are that it's rather unsatisfying. It always seemed to come down to sheer crap-artistry and making the other guy look less reasonable than you. But then those same people with their silly demigod characters would accidentally get distracted by a social situation and have fun in spite of themselves.
Theoretically, if two people want diametrically opposed results from a social encounter then it could devolve into the same sort of turd-artistry but I never really saw that. Most roleplayers become brutally goal-oriented in combat, they want their character to win or to come as close as possible to winning, whereas 'winning' at social situations is a much fuzzier thing based on how they see their characters and how they want their characters to be seen.
This is one of the most intellectual dishonest false analogies I've ever read, and I used to grade undergraduate papers.
A framework for cooking doesn't need to be made of food any more than a framework for resolving combat needs to be made of violence. That's absolutely fricking moronic.
D&D is a rules-lite combat engine. That's all there is. "Combat stories" is already an overreach, it's a strawman - no one has ever claimed D&D tells any stories.
Who the frick wrote this OP? I want to know their name.
Brennan Mulligan. It's a dumb analogy but his point is that he wants to use D&D because it has a very barebones social system, which makes sense for him and his style.
He wants to use D&D because he wants to replicate CR's breakout success and licensing deals.
His style? I just looked this guy up, he wrote for CollegeHumor. His career is based on referential humor and "hahaha member the 90s" and selling advertisements. He has no style or aesthetic, he is a professional cultural leech.
It makes sense because he's a designated WotC wiener-sucker and for no other reason. Everything that isn't combat isn't just flimsier, but is still tied to the same general bounded accuracy progression curve, on top of granting nothing in the way of out-of-combat progression.
If he wants to admit that he's just a moronic b***hboy homosexual who tries to run everything in D&D, despite having decades and countless tables worth of feedback on why that's a bad idea, then so be it. Let's not pretend it's a good idea just because mister failed comedian jumped on the D&D content mill at the right time.
>Let's not pretend it's a good idea just because mister failed comedian jumped on the D&D content mill at the right time.
If your goal is to entertain your viewers with your improv you probably don't want actual mechanics to get in the way. Is it a good way to play a social-oriented game at home with your friends? No, but for streaming as trained improv comedians it's probably the best way to go.
yeah I'm a bit skeptical of the argument that "oh it works fine, I don't need rules for social stuff, I need rules for combat only" when THE D&D COMBAT RULES ARE STILL INTIMATELY TIED TO YOUR BARE BONES SOCIAL RESOLUTION!
This homosexual still calls for Insight and Persuasion and Deception checks, the core resolution mechanic of "add your ability score plus proficiency" is still in play. Your universal proficiency bonus that's tied to bounded accuracy and player hit-rates against monsters is BY DEFINITION being used for the social mechanics! Same with how persuasive or charismatic you can be, Charisma exists in a game where it's not just a social stat but is the primary attribute for half the spellcasters, spell attacks, spell DC, and even shit like hexblade warlock melee attacks!
This argument would be more believable if they were doing something like playing LANCER and spending 95% of their time outside of the mech and treating it like fricking Evangelion where the mech combat is just brief interludes of teenage angst and violence because your character inside and outside of the mech legitimately use entirely different mechanics, and lancer outside the mech is basically just a post -it note saying "play pretend and do something cool"
BUT THAT DOESN'T EVEN WORK FOR D&D! If you say you don't care about rules for roleplay and improv blah blah blah, you only need rules for combat, then why are you being a disingenuous little homosexual and calling for skill checks that are IMPLICITLY tied to combat ability? The reason your D&D character can't be super ultra persuasive even at low levels is because it would make you too powerful in combat to have a 25+ Charisma since Charisma is a fricking combat stat, same with your Proficiency in lying to people or intimidating them being ONE TO ONE DIRECTLY CORRELATED with your ability to set them on fire. For frick's sake, the mathematical bonus you use to cast Disintegrate or Firebolt is IDENTICAL to Persuasion, PROF+CHA.
QRD on Lancer? It sounds like Battletech RPG.
Incompetent amateur RPG that people want you to believe is a real game.
Mecha combat TTRPG which is a 4e derivative in combat, with extremely loosey-goosey out of combat stuff. Had some friends who played it, they seemed to be having a good time. Seems to have standard indie dev problem of being made by basically one guy who will never actually finish it.
Mechanics can frick shit up but mechanics that are made well and are steeped in the tone/setting make even the most 'mechanics-focused' autist be able to better immerse in the game.
Now I see why is called D&D brainrot.
>improvisational storytelling
See there's yer problem chief, you've mistaken this *game* for some poofter amateur dramatics society at the local community hall.
And the whole "but it's too aaaabstract" line is moronic, it's a dice-based tabletop game, everything is fricking abstracted. If rolling a dice and comparing stats/checking a table is sufficient in your mind to simulate disarming a trapped door, rushing a room fool of monsters, backflipping over the front rank while drawing your swords and then engaging in extended melee combat, as well as the aftermath of that then there's no reason it shouldn't also be sufficient to represent conversations with merchants or attempts to extract information from a hostile adversary or even your clumsy and fumbling attempts to mimic romance. No reason at all...unless you're not actually there to play a game, but rather to grandstand and act the fool and put on dumb voices like you're a six year old in the playground making pewpew noises and yelling about how your friend's shots didn't count 'cos you have invulnerability shield times a thousand.
If you're that much of a homosexual just join an actual theatre company instead of inflicting your poofery on gamers.
>then there's no reason it shouldn't also be sufficient to represent conversations with merchants or attempts to extract information from a hostile adversary or even your clumsy and fumbling attempts to mimic romance.
There are assloads of reasons and all of them are subjective.
>See there's yer problem chief, you've mistaken this *game* for some poofter amateur dramatics society at the local community hall.
lol, you posturing twats, you are so silly.
>t. homosexual with no argument
What's there to argue? D&D is a poofter amateur dramatics thing, in addition to being many other things, and no one ever wants to abstract the fun part down to a simple check. People just have different ideas about which parts are the fun parts.
Once you've seen clips of this guy where he's just overacting and screaming and putting on the most overblown voices imaginable and it's supposed to be some HECCIN EPIC DRAMATIC MOMENT it makes sense why he thinks improv and theatrics make up for lack of gameplay. He's putting on a show, quite literally. His advice and opinions are worthless for anyone without a dozen cameras and a full production crew just a few feet away, with a table full of players who are only there to also put on a show, be entertaining, and go along with the script they've been provided.
It's not
>this works for me because this is the style I've developed and honed to work best in tandem with my experience for using this ruleset which best bolsters my strengths and weaknesses
But actually
>this works for the kind of show we're putting on for the audience, because 5e is familiar to enough people that it will be easier to just use that instead of trying to explain rules in the middle of a show they are only watching because we're looking to hook people with melodrama and theatrics so they keep paying for our shitty streaming service.
>Once you've seen clips of this guy where he's just overacting and screaming and putting on the most overblown voices imaginable and it's supposed to be some HECCIN EPIC DRAMATIC MOMENT
That doesn't sound like a good show, that sounds like a good game.
It's not.