If It's All About Fighting, Then How About... Social Combat?

[Brobdingnagian]

As Frank pointed out in some other thread, characters should have two classes: a combat class, and a non-combat class. I can't find the thread, so if anyone could tell me where it is, that'd be great. On to the point now.

D&D is, at its heart, a wargame. It's all about fighting. But not everyone wants to fight, or at least, they want to do something other than just fighting. So they tried throwing together some rules for skills and stuff that... don't really work too well. The combat in D&D isn't perfect, but it's a fair sight better than the non-combat stuff... so let's make all non-combat stuff use combat rules.

First, let's do four non-combat classes. I can't remember what Frank had, so I'll just guess around and make stuff up. We'll call them...

Socialist - Talks to people and gets stuff done by getting others to do it for him.

Craftsman - Makes stuff and sells it or gets a Socialist to sell it for him.

Spy - Hides, spots, steals, finds traps... general sneaky stuff.

Generalist - Does a bit of everything. I'm not sure how well this one would work... NPC class, maybe?

Then we take all the combat rules and apply them to non-combat stuff based on your non-combat class. For starters, let's take BAB and damage. For a Socialist, outside of combat, he'd have a base social bonus (BSB) and instead of weapon damage, it'd be damage that scales by level. But here's the kicker: you don't roll to hit. You just roll damage, and add your base bonus. So, maybe 1d3 + CHA at first level, then 1d4 at second, 1d6 at third... and so on. And then of course, there's always items that could improve your Charisma and your 'social damage' in one way or another.

And then, when you wanna haggle or negotiate or convince the mayor's bodyguards to let you past, you roll social combat.

The obvious problem is, if the guard has a non-combat class that is not a Socialist, what do we do? And so we give everyone 1/2 progression in a non-combat class they don't have.

So let's say this guard is a level 4 whatever with a Charisma of 11, and he's also a Spy. Your Socialist is level 3 with a Charisma of 15, and he tries to talk his way past. We roll combat. Rather than rolling initiative, though, they both go at the same time.

The guard rolls 1d4 + 2, so... let's be nice and call it a 5. Your Socialist rolls 1d6 + 5. He wins regardless, because he's that good at talking. But wait! The guard was given clear orders not to let anyone suspicious pass. So now he gets a bonus of 2... it'd be higher, but you're not carrying any weapons, so you're not that suspicious.

So the guard averages a 6.5 now. Your Socialist averages an 8.5. On an average roll, you'll win, but it's still possible for you to lose.

On winning and losing: The only reason to roll more than once is if there's more than one person involved. Who's side you're on is decided before social combat. Everyone involved rolls once, and they take the average roll from each side. If you're arguing with fifty people... just roll five times and take that average instead.

Now let's not go all stupid and make something like 'non-combat hit points'. Only roll once. Whoever rolls higher wins. It's that simple.

As for Craftsman and Spy... well, you guys figure it out. I just want to be able to talk my way through things without it being broken or useless. I don't care for making stuff or sneaking around so much.

[PhoneLobster]

Here's the problem. The idea of a social character class is that you give everyone a role in social parts of the game, because sitting on you hands isn't fun, but...

Socialist - Sits on his hands unless in a talking phase of the game.

Craftsman - Sits on his hands unless in a down time/economic phase of the game.

Spy - Sits on his hands unless in an exploration/discovery phase of the game.

Your "social" classes are actual a social class, an economic class and an exploration class, neatly identifying not ONE out of combat phase of the game but three. And the problem is those phases are moderately distinct, separate, important and large.

So you are indeed giving everyone an out of combat role, but you aren't solving the sitting on hands during phases of the game problem.

To really give everyone a "social" class then you should give out roles which are different but all occur within the social phase of the game like I don't know...

Liar
Seducer
Honest honorable type person who gets benefits from that
Manipulator
Dude who sees through all the deceptive social stuff
etc...

[JonSetanta]

Now, if there were ways to advance both combat and social aspects of characters as if they were on two seperate but equal tracks at same time, maybe more players would be encouraged to fill out backgrounds instead of "I have no past, my Strength is 18, I focus in Greatsword, I kick butt..."

A single bonus feat or gestalt combination of these social roles included into each character in a way that does not impede or provide in-combat bonuses would be nice.

[Catharz]

IMO this is more simply accomplished by the multiple mental damage tracks system in SAME.

So if you want to intimidate someone you roll your Elan against their Elan-based mental AC, and then they soak against your Moxie-based damage. If they take damage, they start suffering penalties for being scared (similar to D&D feat progression), until they're paralyzed by fear or have died of fright.
If you charm them, they start filling up the charm damage track and take charm penalties until they're completely in your thrall. If you try to confuse them, they progress down the confusion track.

These three correspond to Intimidate, Diplomacy, and Bluff, and are useful both in and out of combat.


You could even do the same thing in D&D, probably using wisdom and charisma, and possibly will saves and skill ranks (although it wouldn't be balanced). It's already almost set up that way.

[Crissa]

Vanguard came up with a social combat component to their MMO...

...But I hear that you can't actually get very far using it exclusively, though you can skip it and grind exclusively.

-Crissa

[Brobdingnagian]

Scrolling through the responses I've gotten here...

PhoneLobster - I think you may have missed my point. If everyone gets a Social rank and the Socialist just gets more, then everyone can still contribute during a talking situation. Everyone can help the Craftsman make his crafting rolls, and everyone can help the Spy make his Spot rolls. This would allow the whole party to contribute in something normally reserved for a single member by making all checks into a single average.

Making it more specific limits a player's options even more. Truth be told, there's not much difference in principle between buying something for cheaper than normal and negotiating a peace treaty between two countries. The difference is merely in difficulty and scale. Anyone who is trained to operate on a social level does so in all fashions. It's true that a person could specialise in a certain area of social interaction, but I don't feel the need to get into that just yet.

sigma999 - That's what I'm trying to do here.

Catharz - I agree the SAME system works well, but I'm trying to make a D&D system here. Each one of these 'classes' would have a mental attribute to fit it best.

Craftsman - Intelligence
Spy - Wisdom
Socialist - Charisma

I'm still not sure how to make the Craftsman and Spy working, but it's not so easy as social interaction. Spy could work the same way except you don't know there's someone else until you've won your Spy roll. With crafting you're not really against anyone, so... I dunno.

Crissa - I didn't know that. Thanks.

So, people, any advice pertaining to how I can make these other two work?

[Manxome]

If everyone gets a Social rank and the Socialist just gets more, then everyone can still contribute during a talking situation. Everyone can help the Craftsman make his crafting rolls, and everyone can help the Spy make his Spot rolls. This would allow the whole party to contribute in something normally reserved for a single member by making all checks into a single average.

Actually, unless I'm missing something, you're more likely to hurt your cause than help it if you open your mouth while the party Socialist is talking, because unless you can roll higher than the Socialist, you make your side's average go down, not up.


And I don't really see how you're using the combat rules here. This sounds like a simple opposed skill check, except you roll a die based on your class level instead of rolling a d20 and adding skill ranks. I don't know whether your approach is more or less balanced, but it doesn't sound conceptually more interesting or robust to me.

[RandomCasualty]

1185910599[/unixtime]]
And I don't really see how you're using the combat rules here. This sounds like a simple opposed skill check, except you roll a die based on your class level instead of rolling a d20 and adding skill ranks. I don't know whether your approach is more or less balanced, but it doesn't sound conceptually more interesting or robust to me.

Yeah, I second that, it doesn't sound like combat at all. There are no manuevers, no combat actions. It's just "roll your dice and see who wins".

[Endovior]

Well, then, give everyone some sort of social hit points. Base it off Wisdom, like regular HP is based off Constitution. Then use Charisma for Social Attack/Defense, and Wisdom for Social Resistance, and you've got a use for those stats apart from magicians.

[PhoneLobster]

I think you may have missed my point. If everyone gets a Social rank and the Socialist just gets more, then everyone can still contribute during a talking situation. Everyone can help the Craftsman make his crafting rolls, and everyone can help the Spy make his Spot rolls.

And my point is that it sucks to sit on your hands while someone else gets the glory for a large segment of the game.

Saying "And I, pretty much worthlessly, generically assist him in having all the glory for this large segment of the game" is NOT a worthwhile and enjoyable role for a large part of the game. In fact, its just like sitting on you hands.

You want social interactions like combat? Well in combat being nothing but a source of flanking for the rogue or nothing but another +1 attack bonus for the fighter etc... is NOT a role in that large phase of the game.

Because those are things that happen almost accidentally just for being a character with an actual real role of your own.

In combat we are, at least supposed to, be seeing different roles like the guy who cops hits and deals them out, the guy who deals extra nasty circumstantial stabbing, the guy who slings crazy spell effects, the guy who turns into an animal to do those various things, etc...

If you want to mirror that socially you need diverse roles and maneuvers that all happen during the same social interaction to create a rich and enjoyable experience for ALL players during that large chunk of game play.

Giving ONE character the vague "I'm the party face" power and everyone else the "I try to help him be party face" power is not solving squat.

See you seem to be describing is a circumstance kinda like it is already. The GM tells a little story, the party face tells a little story then the party face makes a roll, and maybe his friends make some rather irrelevant rolls, and then the GM tells a little story based on the party face's story and result.

A working rich combat style situation would see the GM produce an opponent who rolls high on social iniative and pulls out a "Probing question" attack, the party liar tries to counter with a "Ludicrous cover story" maneuver, while the party seducer makes a "lean forward so they can look down my cleavage" attack on the opponents allies so they are distracted and the party Can't-Get-One-Past-Me-Guy readies an "I heard that!" action in case of a "secretly make fun of them" action by the enemies to influence the bystanders to think poorly of the party.

ALSO

There are further complications to having "social character classes" that are actually only any good in separate and different phases of the game, not all including social interaction.

You have the problem of what sort of optimal selections the party should, or will be making.

Because you know, odds are no one really NEEDS to be craftsman guy, and if being craftsman guy hurts you in the bigger and more important "Talking to stuff" or "not getting abushed" phases of the game then you REALLY don't need to be the craftsman guy.

Meanwhile you really could use Party Face Guy, and its a fun role to be. But the party probably only NEEDS one.

Meanwhile EVERYONE can see the big and obvious benefits of hearing the guy sneaking up behind you with the dagger. Or being the guy sneaking up behind you with the dagger. So prettymuch anyone is gonna like being the Spy. And the party can likely support and enjoy any number of them.

So odds are you are just going to have a million spies, and one party face per party, MAYBE a single craftsman if you are lucky and someone makes a dumb choice for whatever reason. Now this is slightly better than a situation where you can include people who get to do NONE of those things because they are also called a Fighter but its not really that different.

Meanwhile you can't be a sneaky conman, its one or the other, you can't be an alert weapon smith, you can't be a lieing swords salesman. If thats any better because you CAN be a Fighter Conman who cannot sneak or contribute to down time economy stuff then I don't see how.

No, its unacceptable. You can no more allow a trade off between seducing the princess and sneaking past her body guards than you can allow the trade off between seducing the princess and slaying the dragon.

So I'm all for social combat and related classes/options, to avoid sitting on you hands while another player has all the fun, I have been for ages, I got stuff on this forum from years ago advocating just that.

Its just that what you are proposing here doesn't look like it does that.

[Username17]

Your "social" classes are actual a social class, an economic class and an exploration class, neatly identifying not ONE out of combat phase of the game but three. And the problem is those phases are moderately distinct, separate, important and large.

That's an important thing to keep in mind. Just as your combat contribution is measured in contribution to combat, rather than "healing" or "damage output" necessarily; non-combat actions are measured in contribution to legwork or resource accumulation and not necessarily spying or divination or whatever.

So just as you go into the phase of the game where you are fighting the trolls you could plausibly be pulling your weight by stabbing people in the face, by healing friends, or by slowing the trolls or any of a number of other things - you can quite reasonably expect everyone to be contributing something when you're gathering information. Maybe one character hits the streets and gathers rumors while another player goes through musty old books and yet a third character actually sneaks over to the Duke's house and listens at windows.

And when it's time for the players to get some money one player might sit around and sing in the tavern for coins while another makes swords for the market and another character haggles in marketplaces.

And when it's time to bypass enemies without combat, some characters might want to get good intelligence through scouting and simply avoid potential enemies, while another player might bargain enemies into friends, and yet a third character might lead an army of monsters around that fights it out with enemy armies off camera.

Whatever. But whatever it is that the party is doing in the big sense should be something that everyone is contributing to in some way.

-Username17

[Manxome]

And when it's time to bypass enemies without combat, some characters might want to get good intelligence through scouting and simply avoid potential enemies, while another player might bargain enemies into friends, and yet a third character might lead an army of monsters around that fights it out with enemy armies off camera.

Unlike your previous examples, that's three mutually exclusive options rather than three effects that all combine to achieve a single goal, and thus is probably not a good example. For that reason, I think it would make more sense to consider avoiding combat to be a reward (or side-effect) of accomplishing some non-combat task (like gathering information or diplomacy) rather than as a task itself, at least for the purposes of dividing non-combat labor as you were discussing in that post.

To make an analogy, you can get into the treasure vault by fighting the guards or by forging credentials and bluffing your way in or by secretly tunneling through the wall, but you don't do all of those at once, and so having one specialist in each of those areas doesn't mean that everyone is contributing, it means that you pick one strategy and everyone who can't help with that specific strategy sits on their hands--if you've got one tunneler and one diplomat and one fighter, only one person gets to play. Instead, you need everyone in the party to be able to contribute to one of those strategies--for example, one person who casts an illusion to make you look like guards, one person who reads their minds so that you know the right passwords, and one person who can fast-talk the other guards to convince them you should be there.

Your other examples are excellent, though.


One other model you might want to consider is where everyone trades off to accomplish a goal; where everyone has a necessary skill but they're not all used simultaneously. For example, one person gathers intelligence about the security and layout, another person forges the credentials you need to look like you belong there, and a third person fast-talks the guards. That's effectively the same set-up as the previous example, except that two of your party members are now accomplishing their jobs (fake authority and stolen information) through preparation rather than on-the-fly.

On the downside, this means that everyone is still "useless" at some phase of the operation. On the upside, everyone gets their own private moment to shine, and the operation requires less coordination, and so is more plausible both to invent and to implement. I could see people both liking and disliking that arrangement.

[Brobdingnagian]

Okay, I get the point that my original idea isn't going to work worth a crap. Can anyone tell me how to actually make this whole 'doing things without killing everything in my path' thing work? Because normally in D&D... it doesn't.