[5E D&D] Beating the 'Look at the Non-Combat Stuff!' drums.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So as you guys have known, I have been doing a lot of thinking about 5E D&D and trying to come up with ways to create a 'masterstroke' for it to get people onboard. Because I am a cynical kinda guy, most of my masterstrokes have been towards trying to produce the next 'four legs good, two legs bad'. Because I am also an idealist, I also want them to be GOOD, too; if the game isn't balanced but my fanboys bleat that it is, then the game has failed. At least to me.

But anyway, one major point of attack that 5E D&D could do that hasn't been touched on much is improving the non-combat minigame. Aside from the fact that only the most diehard of Real Men can stomach a game that magic teaparties everything but combat (which invariably leads to the game being combat-focused), having a good non-combat system is a great marketing technique. Claiming (with legitimacy) that a group can have a satisfying campaign without going into combat once is a GREAT propaganda coup, even though few tables will actually want to do this. Even if no one uses it, it's great to have it there.

The thing is that the term 'non combat system' is extremely broad. A lot of people use it as a euphemism for 'skill system', but as we can see from the complaints of 4E that it encompasses more than that. It's really more of an approach to the game than a system. The problem unfortunately is that people point out with justification that actually having a powerful non-combat engine in the game would take up too much space and take out the time devoted pimping the combat portion--which remains the major attraction of D&D. Trust me, I'm feeling you on this. So the overall goal really is to take underbaked points in 3E and 4E and inflate them a bit into something respectable. You don't need to introduce a whole new system for adjucating a dynamic skill usage--just fix skill challenges.

That said, here's my list on how to achieve this goal and why:

Default campaign setting integrated into rules wherever possible.
Aside from the fact that more specific elements charm people more than less specific elements, you can easily get some non-combat cred points just by name and history-dropping stuff into supposedly campaign-agnostic elements in your game. Seriously, no one gives a shit that Mordenkainen's Sword is named the way it is; similarly, no-one will care if the Maul is renamed the Skaarsguard Greatmaul. If people feel that the name is inappropriate, they can just mentally edit the name away.

This also means that you will need a...

Primer for default campaign setting.
The people who say that they liked 4E's intentionally generic campaign setting system are being silly. It's EASIER to ignore than to create something from nothing and a lot of people complained that 4E's campaign setting, such that it is, is vanilla and Not There. But then again, you don't have that much time to describe what's going on in your campaign setting. So seriously, in the DMG you should have about 25-30 pages pontificating the major details of your setting, like the overall history, major ongoing conflicts, overview of geography, etc.. You should still have a more detailed setting going on, but for people too lazy or harried to create a campaign setting from scratch (or not knowing what their DM is going to use) they should at least be pointed in the right direction. And of course not having a default setting feeds the charges that all you care about is combat--because the combat engine doesn't care about the backstory of your game or the motivations of the actors in it.

Combat experience is gone for good.
While I still think that monster experience is good for judging encounter difficulty, the idea of killing monsters for experience needs to die in a fire. The game should flat-out say that sneaking into the castle and ganking the lich king undetected nets you just as much of a reward as charging in and wrecking peoples' faces. The monster experience budget should be called something like 'Monster Points'.

By the same token, the idea of assigning quest rewards by Easy/Medium/Hard needs to go. You get a fixed level-appropriate amount for completing an objective. You do not get any extra experience because the journey was difficult or you lost someone. When you do things like that, it devalues the journey.

A working, transparent economy.
Making an economy is really hard. D&D's insistence on game elements that break the economy makes it nearly impossible. Still, you have to do it. Few things break immersion more (and get people to accuse you of being an MMORPG clone) than having an economy that just doesn't make any damn sense. The first thing that you should do is decouple all but the weakest magical and fantastic items from the economy. Then you can worry about the laws of supply and demand and prices making sense. That thing you did in 3E where you could get a magical sword by trading Walls of Iron was STUPID, but it was just as stupid to erase the prices for ingots of iron.

Skill Challenge system.
I don't need to elaborate on this. We know that it failed miserably and we know that people want one in the game. So we make this happen.

Ritual system, Only Not Ass.
I think that in principle a lot of people were fine with the idea of the wizard not being able to just wave his hands and construct castles whenever; even people who agreed that wizards should do stuff that awesome balked at the idea of that coming out of their combat pool. But then they messed it all up by making the ritual system bland, too expensive, and too weak. Seriously, the only universal prerequisites to the ritual system should be level (is the person awesome enough to do this?) and time (does the person have enough time to do this?). I think people were cool with the idea of people taking 10 minutes to change the weather, but not if the weather change was going to be in a 4 mile radius.

A Time/Distance/Value Progression System.
This is one of the few good ideas that Mutants and Masterminds d20 came up with. And it should go into the game. It lets you have escalating effects that eventually feel really epic without fucking up the math too much.

More robust equipment system.
There doesn't really need to be that much work done here. Just use 3E's equipment list and add a few more cool-sounding things to it. I can understand why you would want to go with 4E's system, because honestly most of the equipment system got into the way, but we're doing it to add non-combat cred.

Magical item system with more geegaw in it.
Seriously, people love immovable rods and rods of wonder. They don't really do much or advance the plot unless the DM is feeling in a Rube Goldberg mood, but players love 'em. Again, I understand why 4E took them out (and why they hastily tried to shoehorn them in later) but that kind of stuff just fuels the 'OMG MMORPG' complaint. Put the vendor trash in and more importantly don't charge people for vendor trash. People love getting darkskulls as presents, but they feel offended if you ask them to forgo a magical sword for one. People should randomly receive them.

Better trap system.
Now, 4E's system of traps was actually a big step up from 3E's abysmal system. They just had two major problems with it: the first one being that they didn't take it far enough. Now a lot of groups don't use traps (I sure don't) but groups that do want the effect of traps to be BIG. No one enjoys traps where you can just burn a healing surge and forget about it. The trap system should have more lingering or more lethal effects to it. The DM should also be encouraged to integrate them more into combat encounters. I thought it was a very simple thing and a good idea to have flame breath traps in the same room as the Elite Salamander Guard. I have no idea why 4E's adventures and encounter-building systems didn't use them more often.

Cursed magical items.
Again, I don't like them. But they add grognard cred. They should be amusing inconveniences like a genderbending belt or something that turns someone's skin into some ridiculous shade; no one likes insta-kill magical items.

Two-tiered skill system.
The two-tiered skill system works as a combination of AD&D's magic tea party profession system and the 'talents' system you see in games like Dragon Age TTRPG. In the first one, people pick broad jobs like 'professor' and 'diplomat' and 'innkeeper'. They come with some free associated skill to them like Stealth or Profession, but mainly it's a freeform thing where you convince the DM that you can break open the lock to a jail cell because you have a hardcore blacksmith skill. I know that there are a lot of problems with this nonspecific approach, but seriously, people get enormous woodies at being told that they can use their 'imagination' and 'creativity' and 'basketweaving' to advance the plot.

The idea however is that over time, when blacksmithing becomes a weaker and weaker excuse for higher-level shit it gets phased out. But it doesn't matter, because they have a talent system that replaces the mundane stuff with increasing amounts of crazy. For example, an athletics talent would give you the associated skill but also come with a blanket list of stunts to it like, I dunno, being able to swim for insanely long periods of time. The higher up you go in the talent tree the more crazy it gets. The reason why you do this is so that you can keep the overall numbers low while also still letting people do crazy stuff. The idea of balance eventually being able to let you walk on clouds is fine. The idea of it being 120 DC is fucking ridiculous.

World politics simulator.
In order to make the world feel more 'alive' and give the game its sweet, sweet non-combat cred that it needs, the game desperately needs one of these. How does it work?

It's simple. Every major government or force gets assigned several ratings, such as Happiness of Peasants, Military Might, Economic Strength, Atrocity, etc. For a major event or every so often, the DM (or PC) rolls on a chart to see which major events the government underwent. They can be things like 'discovered a vein of gold in the borders' or 'famine has struck the country', which adjusts the modifiers. If a number (or combination of numbers) gets and stays high enough, they can roll another number to see what happens. For example, if Economic Strength and Noble Happiness gets too low, there's a chance that they will attack someone. Players can do actions that will force a roll immediately or automatically give a modifier (i.e. if the popular king is assassinated by the party, that event gets pulled up).

Small-time castle, hireling, and army creation system.
It doesn't have to be major or anything. Just Stronghold Builder's Guide cut up and compressed into about 20 or so pages, focusing mostly on 'mundane' armies and staffs. More complicated ones, you'll have to buy the damn book.

Monster Manual should have more fluff to it... within reason.
Siding with 4E, I can totally understand why they decided to go light on monster description. One of the goals was to make pulling up a monster on the fly easier to do and if you're doing that you don't really need to go too much into detail about the bestiary. However, not having it at all does offend people and fuels the 'OMG MMORPG' complaint.

My solution? The front part of your monster manual should have a monster encyclopedia in alphabetical order. All of the descriptions and non-combat stuff and terrain and junk that doesn't really help a DM quick-constructing a party goes here. The back of the monster manual has monsters arranged by CR and by theme and only has the things required strictly for combat.

[Zinegata]

Have you ever taken a look at how Mouse Guard resolves non-combat conflicts?

Might be an enlightening primer on how make even non-combat stuff interesting.

[RobbyPants]

What I like about the two-tiered skill system is that you can have professions come from a different bucket than cool effects. The moment you have players choose between basket weaving and negating bad effects in combat, they choose the latter every time. So, rather than saying "pick any five", you say "pick two from here and five from here", you'll end up with people who actually have professions.

[Orca]

Monster Manual should have more fluff to it... within reason.
Siding with 4E, I can totally understand why they decided to go light on monster description. One of the goals was to make pulling up a monster on the fly easier to do and if you're doing that you don't really need to go too much into detail about the bestiary. However, not having it at all does offend people and fuels the 'OMG MMORPG' complaint.

My solution? The front part of your monster manual should have a monster encyclopedia in alphabetical order. All of the descriptions and non-combat stuff and terrain and junk that doesn't really help a DM quick-constructing a party goes here. The back of the monster manual has monsters arranged by CR and by theme and only has the things required strictly for combat.

Most of the stuff before this I'd like to see, even if it was done half-well, but this part I don't like at all. It's a real pain having to flick between two or more locations for closely-linked information. If you had a second copy of combat only info in soft copy that'd work though.

[JonSetanta]

What I like about the two-tiered skill system is that you can have professions come from a different bucket than cool effects. The moment you have players choose between basket weaving and negating bad effects in combat, they choose the latter every time. So, rather than saying "pick any five", you say "pick two from here and five from here", you'll end up with people who actually have professions.

Indeed, one of the better aspects of AD&D.

[Zinegata]

Having a seperate pool for combat and non-combat skills definitely has merit.

[Dean]

Separate pools for combat and non-combat abilities: Yes

Separate sections for Monster's fluff and crunch?: Absolutely not, horrible idea. 3E had this one right. You can tell the fluff from the crunch because it's NOT the bit that's bolded and listed in a particular block fashion in the middle of the page. That way you can look at the monsters fluff if you want to but nobody looks at the page for a Boulette and gets confused for where to look for it's combat info.

Out-of-combat systems: In another thread I once proposed that we basically give up on making ALL non-combat systems interesting and only focus on the following three areas
1: Stealth sub-game
2: Athletics/Survival sub-game
3: Diplomacy/Interpersonal dealing sub game
And to some degree on Knowledge and Research gathering and Item creation. But BASICALLY work on the top three. Because it would not seem like a waste of space to me to have a section approximately half as detailed as the combat section for rules on sneaking and hiding and distracting and etc etc. So basically create a section of rules and SYSTEMS to run those three things. Because I would say that Combat, Sneaking, Athletics, and Diplomacy are basically 95% of what a Hero in fiction does. And if you have shitty rules for basket weaving or "Innkeeping" no one cares but if your stealth rules suck I notice every single adventure.

[JonSetanta]

In another thread I once proposed that we basically give up on making ALL non-combat systems interesting and only focus on the following three areas
1: Stealth sub-game
2: Athletics/Survival sub-game
3: Diplomacy/Interpersonal dealing sub game

I'm interested. Link the way?

[Dean]

I'm interested. Link the way?

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51449

The particular post I'm referencing is 7th from the end, but the whole thing is worth a read. One of TarkisFlux's comment in particular was perceptive.

[JonSetanta]

The last paragraph hints that multiple die rolls should be used in the Stealth minigame.

IMO social minigames should follow suit. We have a reaction chart going from Hostile to Friendly but it seems poorly implemented with Diplomacy.
Perhaps Stealth could use similar, going from Alert to Seeking to Detected for anyone doing the spotting/listening.

[mean_liar]

4e's Skill Challenge system, done better, would work. It's a fine framework to start with, just not a good one to end with. A lot of the criticisms on this site are great suggestions for improvements.

[Calibron]

The last paragraph hints that multiple die rolls should be used in the Stealth minigame.

IMO social minigames should follow suit. We have a reaction chart going from Hostile to Friendly but it seems poorly implemented with Diplomacy.

Ambivalent, Unsure, Wavering, Beholden, Convinced will be the states of damage in a Social combat that correspond to Healthy, Winded, Bruised, Wounded, and Unconscious.

In social combat a character will function much as they would as would in the battlefield, with certain subjects or topics standing as difficult or damaging terrain that would want to be avoided, and attacks on the enemies position being interpreted, dicewise, the same as a physical attack on their person would be in more deadly combat. Special attacks or defenses would render the opponent incapable of using certain options or broaching certain topics, or push them into unfavorable "terrain" in the argument. Unfortunately this would discourage singular debates since they would put the spotlight on a single PC for an extended period of time. When arguing in front of, or to, a crowd special powers could be brought to the fore to make the crowd more friendly to you or more aggressive towards your enemy so that the huddled masses themselves, as a whole, would, whether the point of the debate or not, could bring attacks themselves to the social combat once you, or your opponent, have gotten them on your side.

That's what I've got for my current project, along with some mechanics, that I've apparently failed to write down and am too drunk to recreate on the spot, so...use that as inspiration if you will.

Note: Highly Drunk; may not be sensible.

[Zinegata]

I'd honestly prefer something closer to the Mouse Guard method of non-combat resolution than Skill Challenges.

Edit: Quote tags. For the love of God, quote tags!

[A Man In Black]

Ambivalent, Unsure, Wavering, Beholden, Convinced will be the states of damage in a Social combat that correspond to Healthy, Winded, Bruised, Wounded, and Unconscious.

Ambivalent is "possessed of strongly conflicted feelings"; Archie is ambivalent about his feelings towards Betty and Veronica.

What you want there is indifferent; Jughead is indifferent to Betty and Veronica.

[Dean]

I wish this forum had a "like" button

[RadiantPhoenix]

Ambivalent, Unsure, Wavering, Beholden, Convinced will be the states of damage in a Social combat that correspond to Healthy, Winded, Bruised, Wounded, and Unconscious.

In social combat a character will function much as they would as would in the battlefield, with certain subjects or topics standing as difficult or damaging terrain that would want to be avoided, and attacks on the enemies position being interpreted, dicewise, the same as a physical attack on their person would be in more deadly combat. Special attacks or defenses would render the opponent incapable of using certain options or broaching certain topics, or push them into unfavorable "terrain" in the argument. Unfortunately this would discourage singular debates since they would put the spotlight on a single PC for an extended period of time. When arguing in front of, or to, a crowd special powers could be brought to the fore to make the crowd more friendly to you or more aggressive towards your enemy so that the huddled masses themselves, as a whole, would, whether the point of the debate or not, could bring attacks themselves to the social combat once you, or your opponent, have gotten them on your side.

That's what I've got for my current project, along with some mechanics, that I've apparently failed to write down and am too drunk to recreate on the spot, so...use that as inspiration if you will.

Note: Highly Drunk; may not be sensible.

So, you would basically use the combat minigame as a metaphor for the social minigame? While this sounds amazing for a non-serious game, it seems like the sort of thing that a lot of people would have strong objections to difficult social terrain.

It also reminds me of a schlock mercenary comic where a debate between two characters is rendered as combat in just such a manner.

[mean_liar]

I'd honestly prefer something closer to the Mouse Guard method of non-combat resolution than Skill Challenges.

Details please. I haven't played/read Mouse Guard.

[Calibron]

So, you would basically use the combat minigame as a metaphor for the social minigame? While this sounds amazing for a non-serious game, it seems like the sort of thing that a lot of people would have strong objections to difficult social terrain.

It also reminds me of a schlock mercenary comic where a debate between two characters is rendered as combat in just such a manner.

There are moderate differences in execution, the tactical movement is not nearly as robust as in normal combat, you use entirly different powers, and the effects of powers don't translate directly, but the basic mechanics are mostly identical. People say they want the social minigame to be just as functional as combat, so...

When I get around to writing the social combat system down I'll show them to you side-by-side.

Thanks, MiB, I'll make sure to fix that.

[Zinegata]

I'd honestly prefer something closer to the Mouse Guard method of non-combat resolution than Skill Challenges.

Details please. I haven't played/read Mouse Guard.

Conflict resolution in Mouse Guard is actually an outgrowth of its combat system (which is highly abstracted).

But steps are basically this:

1) Choose a conflict type - i.e. Argue, Negotiate, or Fight. Everyone must pick the same conflict. No "I try to talk to the monsters while the party stabs it to death".

2) Write down each side's objective. (i.e. "Convince the innkeeper to give us supplies")

3) Calculate your starting disposition. Disposition is your "hitpoints" for a particular challenge. The disposition is based on the skill level and attributes of the initiating character. So for God's sake let the guy with the negotiation skill initiate a negotiation.

4) Each side then (secretly) picks three actions. The actions can be an "Attack", "Defend", "Maneuver", or "Feint".

5) Both sides reveal one action at a time. You compare the actions and compare it to a handy chart. Resolve based on the chart. Continue until one side loses all disposition. Each character must take their turn taking an action (i.e. no one can sit out).

Sample of a negotiation:

Kenzie and Saxon are talking to innkeeper Anne to give them some honey.

Kenzie and Saxon's objective is to get honey from Anne.

Anne's objective is to brush them both away politely.

Kenzie has high negotiation skill and initiates. He rolls for disposition and gets a 7.

Anne also has hige negotiation skill and rolls for her disposition. She gets a 6.

Kenzie and Saxon decide their actions will be Feint, Maneuver, Attack. (Fluff-wise, Kenzie will pretend to visit Anne for different reasons, Saxon will then bring the conversation to the need for supplies, and Kenzie will finish with a direct demand for supplies)

Anne goes for Feint, Feint, Maneuver (fluffwise, she knows they're deadbeats who want her honey and she's just stringing them along until she can find something else to do without looking rude)

Both sides reveal their actions. It's a Feint vs Feint. Kenzie and Anne are gonna pretend-flirt each other!

Consulting the Mouse Guard resolution chart, what happens is a "versus test". Both sides roll their negotiation/charm skill. Higher total wins, and the loser loses disposition based on the difference.

Kenzie rolls and gets a 4. Anne rolls and gets a 3. Anne is caught a little offguard by Kenzie's flattery. Her disposition goes down by 1.

And then continue until one side loses all disposition. At which point, the winning team achieves their objective.

Overall, I like this conflict resolution system very much. Fairly elegant and it's not just dice rolling - some strategy is involved as well.

[Ice9]

Sounds like it could be workable. The fact that each side gets the same number of actions avoids weird results like bringing along a huge horde of groupies to spam social attacks, and the double-blind picking adds some tactics while feeling different than physical combat (which personally, I prefer).

It does still require all characters to either have some amount of social skills or be an albatross in social conflicts, but at least with the different maneuvers that potentially use different skills, you can have a character that's bad at some aspects of socializing but not dead weight. For instance, Axebeard Beardaxe may have little skill in deception or flattery (Feint), but he can certainly stone-wall unwanted inquiries and make intimidating demands (Defend/Attack).

[Zinegata]

One thing I forgot to mention is that the skills that you roll when you "Attack", "Defend", "Feint", or "Maneuver" are actually different. Feint uses the "Deciever" skill for instance, instead of Negotiation.

So you can have the challenge play out in such a way that when a player's turn comes up, the move allocated for them is one that takes advantage of their skills the best.

But yeah, being able to prevent social spamming attacks is one of the things I like best about the system. But I think what's particularly novel (which we don't see in D&D) is how your HP for the encounter is governmed by your skills, as opposed to just being a static number.

[PoliteNewb]

*succinct summation of Mouse Guard social combat

Interesting. Questions:

1.) You say each person needs to take actions (can't sit out), but there are only 3 actions per exchange. How does that work if there are 5 people in on the negotiations (on the same side)?

2.) What happens if the 3 actions are resolved, but both sides still have disposition left? I would guess "do it again", but want to be sure.

3.) How does this prevent spamming? Because apparently you can select the same action more than once, so what keeps Beardaxe Axebeard from just spamming "Attack Attack Attack", and basically getting in somebody's face saying "gimme the honey" over and over again?

[Zinegata]

Here are the answers:

1) Mouseguard doesn't actually like having more than 3 players in a party . However, they offer the following options:

a) Have 5 players do one challenge. On the first round, Players 1, 2, and 3 get to act. On the second round, Players 4, 5, and 1 get to act. And so forth.

b) Split the party into several teams, with each team doing a seperate challenge. (i.e. Have one team negotiate with Anne, while another team flirts with her daughter).

2) Yep, keep at it until one side has 0 disposition.

An important rule I forgot to mention however: Even if you win, as long as you lost some disposition, your opponent gets to extract some compromises out of you.

So let's say Kenzie and Saxon bring Anne's disposition down to zero due to their charming ways. But Anne makes them lose half of their disposition too. In this case, Anne gets to extract a concession out of Kenzie and Saxon - maybe she asks them to do chores for her?

3) Some actions are countered by other actions. So going Attack Attack Attack is very bad if your opponent goes Defend Defend Defend.

For instance (I'm going from memory right now, so I may be wrong), if you play a Defend against a Feint, the person who played Defend doesn't get to roll at all. The player who played Feint just rolls dice, and all the successes are immediately applied as damage.

[Sashi]

If your choices go up against each other in order (no "I attack twice and you only defended once, so one attack goes through) then it seems like your best strategy is to just roll a d3 to determine each of your action choices and deny your opponent the ability to psychoanalyze you.

[Zinegata]

Rolling a D3 isn't a good idea Sashi (D4 actually, because there are 4 choices).

Given that each action uses a different skill (i.e. Feint = Deceiver Skill, Attack = Negotiation Skill), it actually pays to make sure that you line up your actions in a way that takes advantage of each player's skill as it comes up.

Sometimes though, you may want to mix things up a bit. For instance, let's say you know Anne the NPC is a great Defender. You're almost certain she'll pick "Defend".

Lieam meanwhile is good on Attack, but it's generally countered by Defend. So he instead chooses Feint. His deceiver skill (Feint) isn't that good, but on a Feint vs Defend the defender doesn't even get to roll.

It's honestly more a simple game of bluff that was elegantly added on top of an RPG resolution system.

Edit: I think I should put up the chart when I get access to the book again. I don't think it's perfect, but I like how it elegantly adds bluffing to conflict resolution, which I think actually jives very well for social conflicts.