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Jan 26, 2013 -- 7:24AM, Maxperson wrote:

Jan 26, 2013 -- 1:21AM, Chakravant wrote:

Jan 26, 2013 -- 1:14AM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

Jan 25, 2013 -- 9:23PM, Maxperson wrote:

..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />While the group is together most of the time, the NPCs will address them individually most of the time. 

They address the person who is talking, not the fighter who happens to be standing in the back of the group. So if the bard is addressing them, they're not going to be saying "HEY YOU!" to the fighter and asking him questions when he hasn't even said anything or doesn't even seem like he has anything to contribute.

And presumably the only reason your DM is doing that is so that he can force the fighter to make a social check.

If the fighter doesn't talk or do anything to stand out from the group, I'm not sure why an NPC would ever single him out over the guy talking to him.

"You, the surly untalkative one in the back, come parlay with me!"  I've never really understood the concept behind demanding the non-social one to participate in social skill challenges either.  If a party has a "face man", it is obviously for a reason.

Never heard of polite conversation?  Never heard of the fact that people percieve things differently and make note of different things?

Dorak, what did you think about the encounter with the wizard?  Do you think he will return?  (lots of other questions)

Sure, an NPC can ask the other party members questions, and might ask a few just to make sure he's not being scammed.  But if a party has a "leader", why not defer to them?  Isn't that their role in the party?

If I'm paying lots of money, or if I have lots to lose, or if I'm risking something on a group, or, or, or.... then I am going to want to get to know everyone in the group, not just one person. 

Once again, I run NPCs as if they are real people with wants, desires, personality, etc.

You describe two different events and have them occurring simultaneously to justify your stance.  Casual conversation rarely occurs in instances where money is on the line.
The average social challenge I see is generally more of an intelligence gathering sort, which requires PCs to endear an NPC to them enough to begin a more free exchange of information.  There is little casual conversation or monetary wariness involved in such exchanges in my experience, and a more direct (but not total) exchange between the NPC and a single PC quite common.

Jan 26, 2013 -- 2:23PM, jonathan_sicari wrote:

..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />Now that we've  both puffed our chests and acted like monkeys contesting dominant status, can we stop with the emotional attacks?
 

You haven't flung nearly enough poop at one another for that.

Jan 25, 2013 -- 3:48PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

Jan 25, 2013 -- 1:57PM, Maxperson wrote:

No.  You let the rogue try the trap because he has trapfinding and disarm as a class skill.  He's the best because of his class, not because of a few measly points of dex.  You are also still trying to distract from the real argument being put forth by me by focusing on traps, rather than dex as a whole.  That tactic fails.

He's the best simply because he has the best bonus. Some comes from his class, some comes from his better dexterity, whatever. The point is that the guy with the best score performs the action. So if you're not the best at disarming traps, your skill at that is basically irrelevant.

That's the point.

The fact that "Face" is a role tells people that there's social specializations and that like any specialty, you step back and let the specialist do his work, the same as you would the lockpicking guy.

This might work if the DM is an idiot and only has NPCs address the "face", but DMs don't do that.  If an NPC asked your character something and he didn't responde because he isn't the "face", the reaction would go much worse for the party than if he just responded like a "person" is supposed to.

Usually NPCs tend to address the PCs as a whole. This isn't Vampire the Masquerade where the PCs aren't really working together and have thier own agendas. There it kind of matters if you're a mediocre face character because sometimes you have to stand alone. But this is D&D, the game where the party does everything together.

As for this tactic of having NPCs directly address certain PCs to bypass the face, I've never seen any DM use that tactic. Pretty much when you go to the king or lord or whatever the quest giver is, you have one guy address him. He doesn't randomly ask "Hey, you! What's your favorite color?" to force a random PC to make a diplomcy check that isnt the party face. That feels like a DM counter to a diplomancer character where he tries to screw him over by disallowing him to use his skill. Like the bard walks up to the barkeep and asks him for information, and suddenly the barkeep strikes a random conversation up with the 8 charisma fighter even though he said nothing, because he wants to showcase the fighter's weak charisma. That feels more like DM vindictiveness to me.

And even if your DM does use that heavy-handed method, it still limits you to talking only whenever the DM feels like pointing the finger at you (which in every game I've been in is never).

But here's a more real scenario. Lets say your party walks into town looking for rumors. Now if you're running with "DM decides" and no socail mechanics, then you have your party split up and everyone gets their own little roleplaying scene asking around for rumors. Maybe the wizard goes to talk to a local sage, the bard goes to the tavern and the fighter goes around the fighters guild or guard barracks. Great.

Now once you introduce the "dice rule all" method, now the bard does all of that. The bard systematically goes from place to place asking people. And while the bard is doing that, everyone else just sits on thier hands doing nothing or perhaps you just abstract the whole gather process into a single roll to avoid boring the party. And if the DM does the process of randomly asking PCs for no reason to screw the bard, then the bard PC is going to ask that everyone else sits at the town gate to avoid sabotaging his chances of getting info, because now, extra PCs are not merely nonfactors, they're actually hindrances. Because if the bard had walked in alone, he'd be making all the checks.

Now, I realize all the proclaimed benefits for social systems and social mechanics, but really at the end of the day is scenario 2 actually more fun? I just don't think so. I'm sure some would disagree of course, but I've tried both ways, and the dice method just isn't fun. All it really seems to do is exclude people from roleplaying.

Nice slippery slope there.

Jan 26, 2013 -- 11:26AM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

Jan 26, 2013 -- 10:58AM, Maxperson wrote:

Jan 26, 2013 -- 9:56AM, blacksheepcannibal wrote:

"Getting to know somebody" that you're about to pay money to is not something that needs a diplomacy check.

Who said anything about diplomacy checks?

Uh... you did.

Your entire point is that having a 14 charisma might be relevant even if you're not the face, because you're going to randomly single someone out even fi you're quiet to force them to answer questions. Presumably the point of that is to make some form of charisma-based check. Otherwise, your whole argument earlier about a charisma 14 being relevant wouldn't make a single bit of sense if you never use it for anything.

Diplomacy is not the only use for charisma.  There are in fact untyped stat checks, including charisma checks.  There are other skill checks.  And then there's just the 14 charisma that the DM knows about and accounts for WITH NO CHECK AT ALL.  NPCs will treat a 14 charisma character better than an 8 charisma character without every rolling for a check.  I'm not going to roll dozens of times for every NPC that the character meets.  For the most part, I'm just going to go off of the charisma of the character.  Charisma matters.

I didn't specifically bring up diplomacy checks.

When the communist paladin NPC started romancing the party's Ranger, the whole group was not indeed addressed.