Kaelik wrote:Shadzar, you have two characters, Bardy McBard the Charismatic, and Ugly McQuiet the Hated.
A good system should involve Bardy McBard being better at convincing people of things than Ugly McQuiet regardless of which player is controlling them.
There are people who are good at being convincing. There are people who are bad at it. The Players natural ability to convince people of things should not determine their characters ability, just like my personal ability to punch people in the face has no influence on my characters ability to punch faces.
It is possible to have a different design goal. However, every single game that has a codified skill system is declaring, "We want McBard played by a 12 year old brat to be more likely to convince the King than McQuiet played by a Trial Lawyer."
There is a word for not having a social system and putting it up to player ability. That is called Magic Tea Party. And it has absolutely no business being within 100 miles of a game in which people have a Cha score.
Secondly, skill challenges don't just represent Diplomacy. They also represent (supposedly) dealing with the environment, surviving a flash flood, climbing a giant rock face with traps going off in your face, ect.
I will personally let your character win D&D forever if you are actually so crazy that you think character success at climbing shit should be based on how good the player is at climbing shit.
You solved the problem in your own post. If you have an ability score called CHA short ofr charisma, then you don't need some complex system to determine things.
The DM just needs to take into account the CHA of the character compared to the person they are trying to talk to.
Higher CHA means more likely to convince someone. I have never had a problem taking the player into consideration as a DM as to what they are doing. One of the reasons is that not every player plays alone. They play as a group. The odds of only a single player being around any NPC to deal with the matter are moot. The reason being another can come along and ask something and get more.
CHA and these skills are also not auto-wins. Many people are "popular" or have higher charisma than others in the real world, but often find themselves at odds with some people that just don't like them. No matter what the charisma is, it isn't a magic "everyone loves me" stat score.
Again this is where the DM comes into play to do his job, and doesn't need this skill challenge system. The DM would take the playerinto consideration and how well he is trying with his own skills to do the job, and let it pas or fail based on the player. A more well spoken player may not find the same being so easy for him because it is measured against the player.
McBard puts 100% into it with the high stat score and succeeds, but McQuiet only puts 10% into it (same real time and amount of work as McBard player) but due to low stat socre and not putting that much effort into it doesn't succeed.
It is just something DMs learn over time to be able to work with any player they have that may have some difficulty in roleplaying. Again some static system that tries to fix it all for everyone won't work, because everyone is different. The DM should work with his group to make things work for them. Otherwise if you just need a system or quick fix, flip the coin to make it a 50/50 chance.
PhoneLobster wrote:Hi Shadzar! I'll address your point for a second, but then I'd like you to do a tangential favor for me.
shadzar wrote:There isn't going to be a system where you can ever min-max a non-combat situation such as skill challenges unless you devote your time to that system, nd just everyone go by the dice.
So there isn't any min maxing of a non combat mechanics... unless they exist and someone min maxes them?
And look, I'm all in favor of arbitrary role played crap as a means of dealing with many of these parts of game play. But you think that can't be exploited?
Amateur dramatics skills aside. You are talking about what essentially is a game of "May I please Sir?" with the GM. And you can totally game that system, the GM is full of exploitable loopholes to negotiate your way through. It's just a mildly different skills set to remembering to pick all your options so they stack up in a large pile.
Now onto my favor...
Phone Lobster's Basket Weaver Survey!
OK so you've expressed an opinion that there are players (presumably like yourself) who
aren't "Min Maxer's", "Munchkins", or Combat obsessed psycho clowns or whatever.
However I have a theory that these players, these "Real Role Players" if you will
do not really exist.
So could you answer these survey questions for me.
1) Do you choose to use an RPG rules system where ~90% of the rules focus on combat?
2) Are ~90% of the rules you actually use in game play combat related rules?
3) How much time would you say you spend resolving combat in your various sessions? 10% or less? 80% or more? Something else?
4) Of the time you don't spend resolving combats how much of it is spent maneuvering to effect combats, such as sneaking, socializing or using other negotiations with the GM to try to effect, apply or avoid combat circumstances, allies, abilities, ambushes, environments, etc... ?
5) Of the events you would deem "Most Important" to the outcome of the "story" of an adventure or campaign (such as defeating the villain who was trying to destroy the world or whatever), how many of those events were combat events? What proportion of such events were instead resolved using Profession(Basket Weaving), or something like it?
5a) If such formalized skills as Profession(Basket Weaving) displease you, how many such events were instead resolved by just negotiating with the GM until he agreed that things just turned out a certain way "Because of Role Play"?
5b) If 5a applies, were the players in your group OK with that happening? Or were some displeased for some reason?
6) Are your characters specialists at Combat? That is, are their classes and professions actually primarily Combat related in nature?
7) Have you ever selected a selectable character ability simply because it made your character better at Combat?
8 ) Do you enjoy resolving combat in RPGs?
9) Do you enjoy resolving Basket Weaving in RPGs?
10) Do you ever try to "Role Play" a situation using no formal rules but disagree with your GMs determination of the results?
11) Are you in fact Big Foot, the Lockness Monster, or a Bunyip?
So anyway I could, and should make a longer quiz, but if you could get me some answers on that some time soon I might start keeping some sort of record of this.
It's all for science. Though I'm afraid if your answers DO indicate you are an actual real life Basket Weaver I will have to send native trackers into the Jungle to shoot you with tranquilizers so we can bring you in to prove your actual existence and start a captive breeding program to save the species.
Just like I would if you answer yes to question 11.
Only a bad DM is full of these so called exploitable loopholes. The DM isn't there to be beaten, and any player trying to game the system or the DM, isn't playing the game correctly, because rather than working with the other player to ensure a fun game for all, they are just using all the other players at the table for their own amusement, and I would shouw them the door right quickly once that was recognized by myself, or another player brought it up, if they didn't change their ways and start working WITH the other players rather than against them. D&D is a coopertive game, not a competitive one.
To your questions: (You may want to sit down for this one, because I am likely a beast you have never encountered before.
)
1- I don't base my choice for an RPG on combat rules or other rules, other than to what extent they portray the game as to something I would be interested in playing.
2- This I cannot answer, because again I don't look at the rules trying to divide them out. Odds are if the most often things having to be ruled on are combat, then I am playing a miniature game rather than an RPG. RPG is not all about combat, not do I even allow it on either side of the screen to be over 40% combat oriented.
3- Don't measure it. When I DM it takes as long as the players require to think of what strange things they want to do, and when I play it takes as long for us to decide what strange things we want to hit the DM with.
4-
Your little survey seems like you must always be running late for something after the game where you have to always keep track of the time and watch a clock while playing. I don't play that way, and again could not tell how much time is spent in either part of the game, because I devote all the time to playing it rather than clock watching. Combat only comes into mind for me while playing when Initiative is rolled, and stops after it is resolved. Everything else done is devoted to other things and combat is only a footnote in the games when thinking about it comes into play. There is much much more to the game than combat.
5- That is easy. Zero were combat events, because the thing most important to the story is the decision of where or not to take the hook to begin with. If you don't take the hook then nothing else can happen, and which hook you do take never says up front whether you are running a gauntlet of creatures, or having a long dinner with some aristocrat to discus some treaty.
5a- This seems to be something about 3.5 and this "profession (basket weaving)" you are mentioning. I cannot really related to what you are even asking since I don't play 2.5 and up editions of (A)D&D.
5b- Since I don't know what your 5a means, then I cannot answer this as it relates directly to the previous answer that I could not give.
6- Nope.
7- Nope. I don't build minis stat cards. I stopped making minis games a few decades ago. I choose what suits the personality of the character I am trying to create.
8- I enjoy when it is over, so we can get back to the game....
9- Let us change you strange Basket Weaving to Fletching, and I can answer yes I do enjoy it. Sadly there is too much other stuff to do and people to meet in the game to ever have enough time to sit and do it for anything more than the small number of arrows needed by my compatriots, or enough to sell for a few drinks in the next town.
10- DM/GM is God of the table. At no time should there be rules discussion during game sessions, and any questions about a ruling should be had between sessions, and still the DM is always right.
Rule 1: The DM is always right.
Rule 2: When the DM is wrong, refer to Rule 1.
You chose the DM, so you chose to accept what they say.
11- "I am a Meat Popsicle" — Corbin Dallas
A guesstimate, since you like percentages, would say 80% of my games time is spent outside of combat. If we wanted to play a combat type games would would break out the Mage Knight, Warhammer, or various other wargames we possess and play them for much much better combat rules within a game that has the focus on combat where it is properly handled.
