Make everyone decent at the social minigame or get rid of it

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:54 am

You know what? I really hate the D&D archetype of the 'slovenly dumbass who can slay dragons but can't talk his way out of a wet paper bag'.

It's not a fair tradeoff. Even if all of the stats were equal, having a low intelligence or charisma score impacts the roleplay of your character a lot more than having a low strength or constitution. This is the heroic fantasy genre; while there are high-level characters who don't do much influencing or schmoozing, that's not because they can't, it's because they don't want to either because they're some kind of hated outsider or are trying to keep a low profile or whatever.

Either the social system should let any kind of adventurer participate in it if they want to or we should get rid of it altogether. The standard D&D trope of some guy who wants peace between the nations but having to shut up during the peace tribunal because he'll just wreck negotiations has got to stop.[/whisper]

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Thu May 21, 2009 6:41 am

I've been saying this forever.

Talking takes a lot of time and like combat, it's something you want everyone to be involved in.

The concept of a face character is bullshit

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu May 21, 2009 12:55 pm

It depends on the game concept. If you're playing Star Wars or L5R, it's entirely OK for one guy to run around all silent-like with a sword while another character plays a courtesan who only barely knows which end is the sharp end. That's because the set of obstacles are varied between combat, social, and various other setting based specific hurdles such as spaceship races or ordering peasants around. In such circumstances, being a "talky guy" or a "fighting guy" is not something that your character needs to justify their existence.

This kind of rubric extends to games mimicking Mission Impossible, The Firm, or Grimm's Tales. But not really to D&D. In D&D pretty much the entire mission is to slay the dragon and then rescue the princess. There's not really any division of labor you can do where one person rescues the princess after the dragon's defeat and another person wires the bridge to explode to prevent the gestapo from striking back, because there fucking isn't a gestapo coming for a counter attack. There's just a dragon. And then there's a princess. And the whole party deals with the first problem and then the whole party deals with the second.

If the players were playing something similar to an adventure game, or having to keep a bunch of balls in the air to make their missions succeed, then having characters with orthogonal abilities would be interesting and helpful. But that's not the assumption in D&D. You're basically just storming a crack house and then taking their shit. Over and over again. Everyone pretty much just needs to have SWAT abilities.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu May 21, 2009 4:04 pm

I brought this problem up with a DM and they were basically all 'that's the tradeoff you get for playing a low-CHA character'.

And you know, this is just unfair. Theoretically, a bard or a paladin contributes just as much in combat as a barbarian. So when it comes time to beseech the Ice Queen and they're the only ones with CHA abilities, they get to have more face time and therefore 'more fun'. It's like when people say 'this class is better for roleplaying' except for the fact that it's true.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu May 21, 2009 4:44 pm

In my Street Fighter games I always handed out the appropriate XP amounts, and then an additional sum to be used solely on non-combat abilities.

In any similar game (its oWoD) with skill splits you can encourage all players to have something worth doing by taking away the opportunity cost of doing anything other than learning how to hurt people.

Caedrus · Post by **Caedrus** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:29 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:If the players were playing something similar to an adventure game, or having to keep a bunch of balls in the air to make their missions succeed, then having characters with orthogonal abilities would be interesting and helpful. But that's not the assumption in D&D. You're basically just storming a crack house and then taking their shit. Over and over again. Everyone pretty much just needs to have SWAT abilities.

-Username17

I dunno, I've actually run quite a few D&D games where you *did* need to keep a bunch of balls in the air to make missions succeed. I don't think D&D has to be limited to the "break down the door" style of play. Adventures would include puzzle solving, social intrigue, investigation, combat, and so forth not just in the same day, but often even *at the same time.* Then again, I am also aware that most people aren't doing anything like that at all and are in fact just going and fighting the dragon head on. However, a more creative storyteller can add all kinds of complications into that otherwise straightforward scenario.

Maybe it's not the *assumption* in D&D by D&D's designers, but I think there is a real desire among many to play adventure games in a D&D-like system.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri May 22, 2009 3:55 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I brought this problem up with a DM and they were basically all 'that's the tradeoff you get for playing a low-CHA character'.

And you know, this is just unfair. Theoretically, a bard or a paladin contributes just as much in combat as a barbarian. So when it comes time to beseech the Ice Queen and they're the only ones with CHA abilities, they get to have more face time and therefore 'more fun'. It's like when people say 'this class is better for roleplaying' except for the fact that it's true.

Yeah, charisma is just a bullshit stat anyway, as is the weird idea that bards are supposed to be more charismatic than fighters. Seriously... no. The leaders of men and armies in literature are almost always fighters or mages, never bards. Conan is just as successful with the ladies as any bard, and Gandalf is damn persuasive too.

And I hate the explanation of "Well he's some super character who could afford to max charisma and intelligence."

Seriously, charisma shouldn't even fucking exist. There should be a trait called "Attractive" and that's it.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:27 am

I also consider Wisdom a dumb stat, while we're at it. For townspeople, dragons sometimes go to them and roast them, and that's unavoidable. Adventurers, on the other hand, go to the dragon to be roasted, and that is pretty much the opposite of wise.

Unless you want to tell me that the truly wise and intelligent know they can achieve cosmic power in a couple of weeks of hard, vigorous adventuring - in which case I think you're dealing with a setting that is unable to hold together due to being destroyed and reformed more often than people buy new calendars, so we really should admit that it doesn't work like that and the PCs are just special.

But I can support ditching Charisma as well. There's nothing wrong with just stating "Adventurers are all charismatic (unless you don't want yours to be, in which case you're not, but you don't get something in exchange for it)". And it'd save me in points as I wouldn't need to always throw points into a more or less useless stat just because it fits how I see my character.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:35 pm

Koumei wrote:I also consider Wisdom a dumb stat, while we're at it. For townspeople, dragons sometimes go to them and roast them, and that's unavoidable. Adventurers, on the other hand, go to the dragon to be roasted, and that is pretty much the opposite of wise.

Yeah, wisdom isn't really all that great a stat either. And it always bothered me that the perception skills got put into wisdom. I can see sense motive, but spot and listen? If anything it's the dexterity guy who is usually the observant one, not the "wise" one.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:57 pm

Makes total sense to me.

If they had called Wisdom, "Wits", and Intelligence, "Education", I think it would clear up a lot since my impression is that those are much more apt descriptors, given what those stats do in DnD.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Fri May 22, 2009 5:03 pm

Ah, every attribute discussion just convinces me even more that they are a bad idea.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:05 pm

ckafrica wrote:Ah, every attribute discussion just convinces me even more that they are a bad idea.

I can think of three circumstances in which attributes as numbers are useful. As "broad skills", you can tie together a set of skills that offer diminishing returns when taken together into an attribute which costs less than the total cost of the skills. This works so long as skill sets automatically flip over into attributes when the cost becomes equivalent. They can also be useful in a game where a single attributes maps to multiple skills and vice-versa. Finally, they're useful in a system like SAME.

That said, there's a lot of appeal to making attributes non-numeric or folding them into more specific skills.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Fri May 22, 2009 8:56 pm

Attributes become an extra layer of classes on top of everything else. Tying an explicit class to an attribute means that we can divide up the possibility space of classes they might take along attribute combination lines. It makes you able to jump out of explicit classes into a set of other explicit classes more easily/effectively and enacts a higher level scheme of feature association. You get fewer Gish builds, which might be a good or bad thing according to your design goals.

But, it can also backfire if we have Linear X, Quadratic/Exponential Y. Like D&D with Strength vs Intelligence.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri May 22, 2009 10:51 pm

Heath Robinson wrote:It makes you able to jump out of explicit classes into a set of other explicit classes more easily

No it doesn't. It just makes it harder to jump to other classes. It's a negative rather than positive effect influencing that issue.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Sat May 23, 2009 12:31 am

My apologies, it appears I omitted the "than others" there. Shan't edit it in now that it's been mentioned.

Part of the reason it backfires badly is that if you have a set of attribute-attached abilities that grow faster than the abilities attached to other attributes you have a barrier to people switching to the abilities that define the expected standard for effectiveness. See Fighter vs Wizard, where the Fighter can't even switch to progressing in Wizard or Cleric later on to start approaching the same standard as their partymates.

If all things were balanced then it's easier to sell this kind of thing, because it restricts people from encroaching on the roles of other party members. Role protection can be good if it's thematically appropriate.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Sat May 23, 2009 10:13 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote: I can think of three circumstances in which attributes as numbers are useful. As "broad skills", you can tie together a set of skills that offer diminishing returns when taken together into an attribute which costs less than the total cost of the skills. This works so long as skill sets automatically flip over into attributes when the cost becomes equivalent. They can also be useful in a game where a single attributes maps to multiple skills and vice-versa. Finally, they're useful in a system like SAME.

That said, there's a lot of appeal to making attributes non-numeric or folding them into more specific skills.

Things like STR for hitting with melee just seem A: counter-intuitive; and B: limiting of character concepts. Having to buy weapon finesse or zen archery to be able to be good at something is fucking annoying IMHO. Why not just have a "good at hitting shit: ranged" stat and whether it is you're your iron concentration, your brute strength or your nimble grace that allows you to do it is completely up to you.

The thing that annoys me of the broad skill idea is that it binds certain concepts together. You can't be the super sneaky guy without being a good shot. You can't be really perceptive and be a weak willed pushover. You can't be a deadly melee combattant without being a muscle bound brute. I'd much rather have dozens of skills that start a default level (which might vary from skill to skill) and players then buy up the ones they feel are important.

I did kind of like the FATE "Aspect" kind of attribute though.

Caedrus · Post by **Caedrus** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:01 pm

What do you think of Guild Wars style attributes?

You know, where your stats are things like "Healing Prayers" and "Hammer Mastery" and "Fire Magic"

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:27 pm

Aren't those usually called "skills"?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:44 pm

ckafrica wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote: I can think of three circumstances in which attributes as numbers are useful. As "broad skills", you can tie together a set of skills that offer diminishing returns when taken together into an attribute which costs less than the total cost of the skills. This works so long as skill sets automatically flip over into attributes when the cost becomes equivalent. They can also be useful in a game where a single attributes maps to multiple skills and vice-versa. Finally, they're useful in a system like SAME.

That said, there's a lot of appeal to making attributes non-numeric or folding them into more specific skills.
Things like STR for hitting with melee just seem A: counter-intuitive; and B: limiting of character concepts. Having to buy weapon finesse or zen archery to be able to be good at something is fucking annoying IMHO. Why not just have a "good at hitting shit: ranged" stat and whether it is you're your iron concentration, your brute strength or your nimble grace that allows you to do it is completely up to you.

The thing that annoys me of the broad skill idea is that it binds certain concepts together. You can't be the super sneaky guy without being a good shot. You can't be really perceptive and be a weak willed pushover. You can't be a deadly melee combattant without being a muscle bound brute. I'd much rather have dozens of skills that start a default level (which might vary from skill to skill) and players then buy up the ones they feel are important.

I did kind of like the FATE "Aspect" kind of attribute though.

Wow, I think you just ignored everything I wrote. Was that really supposed to be a reply to me?

Caedrus · Post by **Caedrus** » Sun May 24, 2009 3:16 am

IGTN wrote:Aren't those usually called "skills"?

You don't usually apply a "skill" to your Fireball, you apply your Intelligence. Functionally, it's more comparable to attributes. Moreover, stuff like "Strength" are still there in GW, except that Strength is a Fighter Attribute that he can raise to apply to Skills (maneuvers, in D&D lingo) like Power Attack.

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Sun May 24, 2009 3:32 am

If a game system had:
Category A, with entries like:
Fire Manipulation
Archery
Mace Styles
Stealth

and Category B, with entries like:
Fireball
Pinning Shot
Bone Smasher
Backstab

I'd be inclined to call Category A "Skills" and Category B something else, maybe "Powers." That said, as long as you're consistent with your terminology, the game works.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Sun May 24, 2009 3:14 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote: Wow, I think you just ignored everything I wrote. Was that really supposed to be a reply to me?

Hmmm, thought my comments on broad skills was directed at yours but on second look I did ignore"This works so long as skill sets automatically flip over into attributes when the cost becomes equivalent." (I did ignore 2 & 3 because I've never seen a system that uses 2 and never real looked at SAME carefully). I've got a bitch of a head cold the past few days so my brain ain't all with it.

I'd agree that if you're going to do "broad skill" attributes you'd need to do it that way (let collectives flip back to the attribute) or wise anyone with a brain will only buy attributes. But I'd still argue that it's better to just keep them as completely different skills because even if the points it would cost to get +1 shoot, dodge, and stealth makes it cheaper just to have +1 Dex, I might still not want those other things that +1 Dex includes. If there is no choice to buy in discount bundles then there is never any loss in buying everything separately. Sure you might need more points but that is just a shift in character design balance.

That being said one of tricky things regarding skills is how specialized or general you decide to make them. Just science? Physics, chemistry and biology as separate skills? What about nuclear physics; do we need/want to go that far? To me that is the difficulty that replaces the attributes, though it is one I prefer.

For things people haven't taken skills in that would normally be covered by an attribute, I'd suggest setting defaults for skills all players should have, and have other skills that are training only (like knowledge skills).

Pertaining to non numeric attributes, things like FATE aspects are interesting as they allow you to describe your character without having them liked directly to any particular skill. That being said, knowing my players, if one had "smart" written on their character sheet which provided a bonus to any action that was related to being "smart", I could see him trying to claim it on a head shot because it is obviously the smart thing to do.

Caedrus I've never played Guild Wars can you explain more?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Sun May 24, 2009 3:48 pm

It's the Defaulting that makes Attributes a convenient idea.

Seriously, if you have ever played the Window system for any length of time you can end up with a laundry list of skills to cover the various nuances to the character.

Now, the Window sucks and I hate it, but that's not the point. The point is that at times, you can accept a bit of zooming out on some issues to keep things tight.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun May 24, 2009 9:50 pm

Default skill bonuses are NOT related specifically to attributes.

You do not NEED attributes to have default difficulties and bonuses for untrained skill checks.

Making that mistake is a simple case of just not realizing there is anything in the world different to D&D 3.X and the various systems that do it that way largely just because for a while it was fashionable.

All that attributes as default skills give you... is all the problems people already mentioned. My Barbarian and someone elses god damn Sorcerer have both never ever been in a city or interacted with civilization yet the sorcerer gets a +6 better "Gather Information/Street Wise" type skill check than me ? Just because? Fuck that shit.

No if you recognize attributes themselves as a bad thing then attributes as "default skills" are also A BAD THING for the exact same reasons.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun May 24, 2009 10:52 pm

ckafrica wrote:Hmmm, thought my comments on broad skills was directed at yours but on second look I did ignore"This works so long as skill sets automatically flip over into attributes when the cost becomes equivalent." (I did ignore 2 & 3 because I've never seen a system that uses 2 and never real looked at SAME carefully). I've got a bitch of a head cold the past few days so my brain ain't all with it.

Yeah, I've been struggling with an end of semester cold as well. Happens every fucking time.

SAME is worth describing, and works as follows:
Your attributes are Strength, Agility, Moxie, and Elan (hence the name). All physical attacks use A for the attack roll, which is also defended against via A. They use S for the damage, which is defended against with S. All 'magical' (generally mental) attacks use E for attack/dodge and M for damage/defense (or maybe the other way around...). There are some subtleties to make it work, but that's the general idea.

A character who pumps everything into A will hit more often (and be hit less often) than a character pumping everything S. The A-pumping character will steadily wear down a foe while taking damage in bursts, and the S character will deal damage in bursts while slowly being worn down.
Character {A=1,S=0} is perfectly matched to character {A=0,S=1}, against each other or against any foes, but they feel different.

Now take the example of a 'mage' {S=1,A=1,M=0,E=0} vs. a 'warrior' {S=0,A=0,M=1,E=1}: they're also perfectly balance against each other, because they're both effectively at +2 to attacks (or -2 to defense). Combat goes faster between mis-matched characters, because they aren't good at defending against each other's attacks. This is another situation where the balance is the same but the feel is different.

A character that spreads things out play exactly in between: less bursty damage than is given by a strength character or taken by an agility character, less regular hits than an agility character, and fewer misses than a strength character. Similarly, they'll last equally long against a mage or warrior. As berfore, there are some subtleties needed to make it work, but that's the general idea.

ckafrica wrote:I'd agree that if you're going to do "broad skill" attributes you'd need to do it that way (let collectives flip back to the attribute) or wise anyone with a brain will only buy attributes. But I'd still argue that it's better to just keep them as completely different skills because even if the points it would cost to get +1 shoot, dodge, and stealth makes it cheaper just to have +1 Dex, I might still not want those other things that +1 Dex includes. If there is no choice to buy in discount bundles then there is never any loss in buying everything separately. Sure you might need more points but that is just a shift in character design balance.

If you set attributes up so that they correspond to purely synergistic skills, then there's never any reason not to take them instead of individual skills. However, take a look at a different example: Charisma = {Persuade, Intimidate}. If you have Persuasion, there's little reason to buy Intimidate as well. However, some archetypes depend on having both despite the diminishing returns. One way to accommodate that is making each of the skills cost 2 and Charisma 3, which assumes that Inimidate is about half as useful when you already have Persuade.

You could just give some kind of "synergy discount" instead, with exactly the same result. It's a matter of aesthetics.

ckafrica wrote:That being said one of tricky things regarding skills is how specialized or general you decide to make them. Just science? Physics, chemistry and biology as separate skills? What about nuclear physics; do we need/want to go that far? To me that is the difficulty that replaces the attributes, though it is one I prefer.

Granularity is a problem you have to confront regardless of whether you use attributes or not, and should usually be based on the setting. Yeah, it's a difficult problem.

ckafrica wrote:For things people haven't taken skills in that would normally be covered by an attribute, I'd suggest setting defaults for skills all players should have, and have other skills that are training only (like knowledge skills).

I like the idea of letting the player explain why her 'nearest neighbor' skill applies, and then letting her use it with some standard penalty. However, that sort of thing has to be done carefully or it will encourage overspecialization. This is actually somewhat of an argument in favor of attributes as skill groups, which allows for easy determination of the nearest.

ckafrica wrote:Pertaining to non numeric attributes, things like FATE aspects are interesting as they allow you to describe your character without having them liked directly to any particular skill. That being said, knowing my players, if one had "smart" written on their character sheet which provided a bonus to any action that was related to being "smart", I could see him trying to claim it on a head shot because it is obviously the smart thing to do.

SotC requires much more interpretation and metagame interaction to determine how aspects apply. It has a very nice system for doing so, but certainly some games shouldn't have to support that sort of thing. However, you don't have to allow aspects be potentially anything any apply to potentially anything. If you're using predefined aspects like "strong", "fast", and "sneaky", they can have specific qualitative and quantitative effects without being numbers. In a sense it's just less granularity, but it can sidestep the temptation to use attribute numbers where they shouldn't apply.