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RP is about the DM and the players. Not about rules of the game. Only DM and player can kill RP. If the rule help player and DM to RP why not... but it is not necessary:D

Awesome_Dude wrote:

Punishing people for their shortcomings is about as horrible and elitist as you can get. It's also incredibly hypocritical when you only do it to the shy people.

Not to agree or disagree with you here, but doesn't the game also punish people for real life shortcomings in intelligence? Does the game not penalize poor, or poorly thought out, decisions? Don't physical games penalize people for being slower, weaker, or less coordinated? Granted, many physical games are competitive rather than cooperative, but the point still remains: should a game (any game) penalize or reward a player based upon the player's own qualities or deficiencies? Now, bringing it back to the game at hand, if we grant that it is acceptable for a game to reward or penalize a participant based upon their attributes, should roleplaying games (specifically D&D) do so? If not, should we (and if so, how would we) go about eliminating the inherent advantages that smarter or more charismatic players have? I mean, at that point you're trying to address group dynamics and social interaction and that's really outside of the scope of the game.

That said, I'm in favor of good social conflict rules and I hope 4e delivers. It's something I've been looking for for a long time.

Subedei wrote:

Hey now, I grew up on Final Fantasy and if anything, I feel it's helped my roleplaying.

Their style may not be your cup of tea, but they're undeniably well written and compelling stories.

Heh, even if they did receive horrible translations till 7 :P .


Remember, it's in the dmg, so it will probably be more of a tool for dm's to come up with social encounters quickly than the mechanics the player will be using to actually interact with the npcs (those would be in the phb under diplomacy or its equivalent).

Well again, much like alignment, its all player choice and there has always been the hack and slashers vs cinematic players.

Yes I have been on the end of the ugly stick where your statistical level 19 wis or Int or Cha guy was asked to respond to a question or Woo a maiden or convince a King and they laughed at your rhetoric. "hahaha, is that the best you can up with? And someone else would say, its the best Henry can come up with maybe, "hahahaha" the Maiden spits in your face and slaps you and walks away. Strength, Con and Dex are straight forward pretty much and you roll for success. Anything else requires communication and the DMs I know suck at bringing color to the game with it.

At Conventions, people aren't "required" to roleplay. They have to complete a list of objectives to advance in a tournament. Roleplay is not discouraged, but it helps ZERO to advancing, or so was my experience the few times I played at a Con and so also my friends confirmed when they played.

Again, this is another one of those grey areas where the manufacturers would hope it could be something settled by gaming groups but no, it does not except but a great group of people who take grains of salt with play yet manage the game so one doesn't dogma out the other.

The people who I know play all hate Game Mastering, so they leave it up to the same guy. Our time is precious and there is an X amount of time frame to game in. So we are told to keep talking to a minimum, if to even talk at all because people want to ADVANCE and gain LOOT! And are further reasons why I dont play. As one guy said, DnD is not suppose to be a miniatures battle game with a splash of story line and a "have at theee!" theme.

They way the guys I know play, I am better off playing an MMO - swat monster gain exp and loot to level to swat monster gain exp and loot. Its much more convenient to use with the same results. Just most attitudes online suck and in the end its just farming for: exp, loot, resources.

Thus I play an old free game still available - Angband (aka Moria).

Mookie37 wrote:

I find it amusing that people are complaining about a social combat system in D&D killing role play when the WoD games - home to the biggest roleplay not rollplay elitists that I know of - has had one for years.

Dingdingdingding! Give this man a prize!

World of Darkness has always encouraged roleplaying over dice rolling. Yet they had complex rolls for social encounters (including seduction) since day one. I think honest to God, dynamic social encounter rules are the best thing to happen to D&D for a long time.

And how about this? Relay on the dice, -and- play it out, adding circumstance modifiers depending on the performance if its good?