I have never understood why D&D, and games like it, are described as a "three-legged stool" of combat, exploration, and social interaction, yet just about every game will give you 20 pages of combat rules, 2 pages of exploration rules, and a one-size-fits-all 2d6 reaction table.
The problem I have with all of this comes down to this quote by you: "The DM, being another player..." I don't want to be another player. I want to be a neutral arbiter of how the world responds to player actions.
I feel like saying social interaction should lean on DM adjudication overly burdens the person at the table who is already the most burdened by the mechanics of the game.
I think you can make the DM more of a neutral arbiter in social situations, but at the cost of more prep that gives you specific personality traits for NPCs. Have you looked at Draw Steel's social rules? They might be what you're looking for.
I don't want to argue about it because, suffice to say, it's a matter of preference and I'd be lying if I said I'm right and you're wrong. I do think there's a group of gamers out there for whom some more procedural guardrails would be welcomed. I have not checked out Draw Steel but sounds like it's worth a look, thanks for the heads up.
But social interactions are by their very nature extremely soft. The “factors” to consider in that combat example are specific, concrete things. The enemy is 200ft away, my bow does d6 damage, its armor is X, etc etc. it can be quantified. But that’s not how social interactions go. Whether or not a person listens to me is affected by a million and 1 unknown variables, from the character’s past, the player’s personality, wether or not the NPC was grumpy today because he didn’t get his favorite muffin. It’s impossible to try and quantify those things and the unknown nature of that is what makes NPCs and characters feel alive, vs complex rules which would make them more like robots running through game mechanics.
Edit: To add, as the post talked about, combat needs rules because it needs to be resolved in a shared reality. If I shoot my arrow at an enemy, there can’t be variation in how everyone in the table accept it as part of the shared fiction. The arrow either hit, or it didn’t. It either killed him, or it didn’t. Social interactions are the total opposite. A character telling a group of 5 players a secret might end with 5 different outcomes. Maybe the Paladin trusts him, maybe the rogue player think he’s a liar, maybe the halfling thinks he’s telling the truth, but we can’t trust him for long. Everyone disagreeing on what really happened is the whole special sauce to that interaction.
If it was a bunch of mechanics that determined if it was true or not, that incredibly interesting character moment and decision space collapses into “game mechanics”
Combat has the same million and 1 unknown variables. There's a reason why no one uses the 1e combat rules for speed factor or damage determined by size of opponent or AC adjustment. We narrowed combat down to the rules that mattered. We can do the same for social interaction. That being said, I acknowledge that this game may not be the best place to attempt that.
This article gave me a new angle in which to see game mechanics. Up to now, I have never thought of mechanics in game design in this very common sense practical way i.e. that of a system that prevents arguments among players. I just saw game mechanics as simple, automatic ways to resolve uncertainty in acts or events in a fantasy world. However, from game design perspective, especially with a emphasis on people having fun with a system...it makes sense that game mechanics would evolve in this way. People want people to play their games, so they want them to have fun, and therefore build systems to prevent conflicts among players, not just to account for "what happens".
I think there should be optional rules for social interactions, so that if the players start chatting up an NPC the DM knows nothing about (as they always seem to do), the DM doesn't find themselves working without a net. For NPCs that the DM knows how they would react to various things, these rules can be ignored.
I have never understood why D&D, and games like it, are described as a "three-legged stool" of combat, exploration, and social interaction, yet just about every game will give you 20 pages of combat rules, 2 pages of exploration rules, and a one-size-fits-all 2d6 reaction table.
The problem I have with all of this comes down to this quote by you: "The DM, being another player..." I don't want to be another player. I want to be a neutral arbiter of how the world responds to player actions.
I feel like saying social interaction should lean on DM adjudication overly burdens the person at the table who is already the most burdened by the mechanics of the game.
I think you can make the DM more of a neutral arbiter in social situations, but at the cost of more prep that gives you specific personality traits for NPCs. Have you looked at Draw Steel's social rules? They might be what you're looking for.
I don't want to argue about it because, suffice to say, it's a matter of preference and I'd be lying if I said I'm right and you're wrong. I do think there's a group of gamers out there for whom some more procedural guardrails would be welcomed. I have not checked out Draw Steel but sounds like it's worth a look, thanks for the heads up.
But social interactions are by their very nature extremely soft. The “factors” to consider in that combat example are specific, concrete things. The enemy is 200ft away, my bow does d6 damage, its armor is X, etc etc. it can be quantified. But that’s not how social interactions go. Whether or not a person listens to me is affected by a million and 1 unknown variables, from the character’s past, the player’s personality, wether or not the NPC was grumpy today because he didn’t get his favorite muffin. It’s impossible to try and quantify those things and the unknown nature of that is what makes NPCs and characters feel alive, vs complex rules which would make them more like robots running through game mechanics.
Edit: To add, as the post talked about, combat needs rules because it needs to be resolved in a shared reality. If I shoot my arrow at an enemy, there can’t be variation in how everyone in the table accept it as part of the shared fiction. The arrow either hit, or it didn’t. It either killed him, or it didn’t. Social interactions are the total opposite. A character telling a group of 5 players a secret might end with 5 different outcomes. Maybe the Paladin trusts him, maybe the rogue player think he’s a liar, maybe the halfling thinks he’s telling the truth, but we can’t trust him for long. Everyone disagreeing on what really happened is the whole special sauce to that interaction.
If it was a bunch of mechanics that determined if it was true or not, that incredibly interesting character moment and decision space collapses into “game mechanics”
Combat has the same million and 1 unknown variables. There's a reason why no one uses the 1e combat rules for speed factor or damage determined by size of opponent or AC adjustment. We narrowed combat down to the rules that mattered. We can do the same for social interaction. That being said, I acknowledge that this game may not be the best place to attempt that.
This article gave me a new angle in which to see game mechanics. Up to now, I have never thought of mechanics in game design in this very common sense practical way i.e. that of a system that prevents arguments among players. I just saw game mechanics as simple, automatic ways to resolve uncertainty in acts or events in a fantasy world. However, from game design perspective, especially with a emphasis on people having fun with a system...it makes sense that game mechanics would evolve in this way. People want people to play their games, so they want them to have fun, and therefore build systems to prevent conflicts among players, not just to account for "what happens".
I think there should be optional rules for social interactions, so that if the players start chatting up an NPC the DM knows nothing about (as they always seem to do), the DM doesn't find themselves working without a net. For NPCs that the DM knows how they would react to various things, these rules can be ignored.
I think this is where random tables really shine. If I have no idea what to do, I can ask the dice.
> The players can make informed decisions if they take the time to read [the rules] (let’s pause to let every DM out there chuckle at that thought…)
Seems like a game design skill issue. Manuals aren't fun to read, but players read plenty of text in other genres of games.