Social Skills: Are they necessary.

[Pheonix0114]

I'm just wondering if people think it is necessary or not for a good tabletop rpg to feature social stats and skills i.e. Charisma, Diplomacy, Intimidate. I'm currently trying to make my own game as a challenge to myself and was wondering what the ENworld Community's opinion was.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For stripped-down RPGs that are not much more than war-games, no.

For robust & flexible RPGs meant to simulate a broad variety of non-combat situations a PC might encounter, yes.

 

[Pheonix0114]

The only reason I was thinking about was making social encounters come down to actual roleplaying instead of dice rolls, but I know that also could negatively affect some players.

 

[howandwhy99]

If the players are going to run characters in a world where NPCs exist, in other words: society, then you will want social stats. How effective is the character, not the player, in affecting other intelligent creatures and in what ways? Anything falling within the scope of your game is something you'll want to include.

Social skills I'd say no to. I don't care for skills as they often mean die roll mechanics rather than player actions. Think of it like swinging the Wii remote versus selecting attack in a turn-based game. How much relies on player ability? What are the abilities you are pressing?

 

[CotV]

This can be a tough one but I am a fan of social stats. It allows people who aren't naturally social gifted to play a character that is. With that said I always encourage players that want to role play social situations to do so but to keep in mind their characters social skills and knowledge and not just default to using their personal charms.

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

The issue with that, as always, is that you are effectively limiting or punishing players who might not be capable of being as diplomatic or intimidating as their characters. Some of the best villains and heroes in fiction have little to no combative ability, and it is the perfect skill to have the "face."

Transversely it can create a higher dependence on the character's skills and not the player's, but there has to be a balance between the two for the game to seem plausible and fun at the same time.

 

[Umbran]

As others have noted - if you take out social skills, then the character's social skills are the player's. How necessary they are depends what you want from a game. Relying on the player's skill can work, so long as all the players are on board with it, and that's what they want.

I've played in games where the character's social skills are the player's. I've played in live-action games where the character's combat skills were largely the player's - if you personally couldn't swing a boffer weapon well, you died in combat. Heck, I played an engineer in a game where the skill was represented by my own ability to kit-bash mechanical things together. They were all good games.

For a general-purpose game, I'd tend to want at least some minimal social-skill mechanics in there.

 

[Pheonix0114]

Thanks for the feed-back! I think the general consensus is that for a general purpose tabletop some social skills are necessary. Follow up, how to blend a character's performance in social situations with their skills to handle a eloquent speech by a non-charismatic character or a social faux pas made by a person whose character is a diplomacy master.

 

[MichaelSomething]

There are some things you will want to resolve with die rolls. For example...

PC: I use "advanced interrogation techniques" on the target! I grab a broom stick and stick it..."
DM: Ummm, just roll an intimidate check!

or

PC: I will seduce the guard! Hey, you big strong...
DM: Roll Diplomacy please!

or

PC: I, Lenoz, the greatest Drow Bard alive will now recite my new poem, "The dark dark of the darkness!"
DM: FOR THE LOVE OF GYGAX, MAKE A PERFORM ROLL!

 

[I'm A Banana]

General rule of thumb: You want stats for things you want players to do. The more you'd like players to do them, the more stats you're going to need.

So if you want your characters to frequently interact socially, social skills are necessary.

If you don't really care (say, you're designing a game that's all old-school dungeon crawling awesome), then they're not.