Why make a distinction for magic items and their effects in this way, if one can't ignore their effect in combat, or on spot/listen checks, et cetera?

I mean, I disapprove of the idea that people invest a tiny amount in something but have more money than god and can get a higher check than the other guy who spent the whole buck and a quarter. I disapprove in principle, but as far as game mechanics goes that's just the way the cookie crumbles. If we want it to be different, then we should make the game different. But otherwise, that's the balance in play.

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Mathus, Void Apostle of the New Moon

There's no need to submit to that. The cookie crumbles how we arbitrarily say it does. It's just not technically feasible to strip social skills from items in game.

The other option is reporting your investment in your bio, I suppose. "This man has clearly spent quantifiable effort into being persuasive, deceitful and intimidating. If you don't acknowledge that, you're a fucking jerk." That actually sounds kind of funny, I may do that anyway½

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I personally think the RP angle is just too heavy on these skills to make a "fix" way to approach them.

I mean if someone comes to me:

Hey you know I could use some gold, gimme some, please. *rolls 50 persuade*

I would still go "yeah bugger off".

While if someone goes

"Oh dear, I just lost my job. I cannot find a new one, the unemployment rate has just increased so much around cordor. Those awful adventurers destroy all the economy. And now little Jacob has gone sick too. I don't know to afford the medicine. I don't know how to feed him. And with those clothes, they are old, they are shabby. I look like a beggar. Who would employ me? Please, have a heart. Could you spare a few coins for a poor man who has been struck hard by bad luck this month?"

I would totally dig that even with lower persuade roll or no roll at all.

It also depends on the character personality. A nice guy would easier be persuaded into something, like some greedy, selfish, grumbly bastard when it comes to charity and aid.

On the other hand tha selfish, greedy, grumbly bastard likely is much easier persuaded to aid with a foul deed than the nice and friendly guy.

I guess you get my drift.

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Eh, I really don't see much of a point in have a roll that excludes all magical modifiers for the social skills for the same reason I don't see a point in having the system for any other skill.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a new rule making the social skills redundant, as they are such are ludicrously conditional skill.

Hell, Drakos has 20+ ranks in bluff/persuade/intimidate and I crap you not, for all the years that I have had him, the most I ever got from using those skills, is scaring a damn badger.

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Drakos could actually scare a badger...? o A o

Yeah but she's a half-elf (I think? I know she's part elven).

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

Bluff, Persuade, Intimidate and to a lesser extent perform rolls I will pretty much ignore and expect to have ignored, if no RP is put into them. Period. A person walking up and standing there and rolling a perform check isn't going to get random applause from me regardless of the role, unless they actually put effort into RPing playing a beautiful song or write a song to sing or something like that.


That said, Bluff can be a lot of fun. I had, for a brief time, a dwarven rogue who got caught pickpocketing and managed to bluff his way out of the situation by claiming his mark had been clumsy and backed into him while going by.

Speaking of pickpocketing, I've learned to be very very leery of using this skill, because a lot of people will flip shit and even if you pass the roll will accost you then try to argue their character keeps their money under their armor or in a pocket plane or some other insanely impractical thing from a mechanical standpoint to compensate for.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

This topic depressed me enough to dock 5 points off my planned Persuade investment and move them into Bluff. Bluff at least can be used for very straightforward, practical things like disguises and even sleight of hand (like hiding the wand you're using to make it seem like you're actually casting a spell).

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Pickpocket is for sleight of hand. It's dex based this was decided before, not bluff.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

Well, I'll be using Bluff. Tough luck for you!

(Though it doesn't seem Sleight of Hand the D&D skill even applies to much other than pickpocketing and hiding an item - which the wand could arguably be, but the whole action is more of a Bluff even in vanilla D&D.)

Edit: Oh! I just noticed you can display a fake alignment with a Bluff check of 70. And its epic use really does allow for a Suggestion to be planted, so it's not justifiable to ignore it even if the rules don't demand it. Not if you accept other PnP abilities and spells. Yeah, totally taking it.

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I've invested 26 skill points on persuade so far.

Sometimes that horse just needs to be beat again.

Persuade/Diplomacy not being usuable towards PCs is a PnP rule, where only 6 people in the entire universe are PCs, all the others being NPCs. I don't think that should apply to multiplayer situations. Changing it to persuade was probably the correct idea.

For the people that like to ignore social skills, or the modifier, is there a reason to invest points into the Charisma stat (excluding the mechanical benefit to sorcerers and the like)? Because that's the argument I hear; That everyone should just munchkin-build their character as everything dictated by charisma is handled by how well I can type, and if my argument happens to fall whichever why you have already decided (without my argument) your character will respond.

The dice roll shows how well this particular effort has gone. It could even cover things the character rolling has no control over at all. Letting it completely decide ignores the effort the character has put into being skilled. Ignoring it misses the random element that is one of the cornerstones of DnD. The modifier shows the general skill and aptitude of the character in question. Ignoring the modifier (whether because it's possible someone is using magic to bolster their skills, or because your character is just that cool) is obviously ignoring the skill and aptitude of the character is question. You don't do that if they attack you, why should this value on their character sheet be different?

Note that no one should ever dictate how your character responds, and people that think they should are wrong and should be educated. But not allowing characters to influence yours, beyond the combat mechanics, mean that everything will boil down to the combat mechanics eventually.

Entirely ignoring the social skill values, leaving it entirely dependent on the words typed, is essentially saying that people cannot play a character more charismatic then they are themselves. You can play a character stronger, faster, smarter, able to wield magical forces, and make pacts with dark forces... but charismatic characters, well those are reserved for the eloquent people, and you just don't cut it.

Since you guys like examples, though usually in the ridiculous end of things, here's a realistic one:
Paladin adventures out with an Assassin unknowingly (as the Assassin obviously doesn't go about screaming what they are to every passing do-gooder). During the course of their travels, the Assassin is pleasant, cordial, useful, and generally a decent guy. In a fight the Assassin paralyzes a foe with their death attack, triggering the Paladin's spidey sense. A confrontation happens wherein the the Paladin accuses the Assassin of using dishonorable/evil tactics (rather then outright accusing the character of being Hur-Dur Ebil). The Assassin calmly explains that a small amount of nerve poison applied to the weapon actually relieves them of pain, making the kill more humane, while also making it safer to cleanse the earth of the evil creature. *rolls bluff/persuade*

With a roll of 1+25 mod, a score of 26 is achieved. But they rolled a 1, which with a skill is not a critical failure, but is still an extremely poor attempt (their body language was off, they didn't bother to look the character in the eyes, and the assassin's contempt for the Paladin could be heard under his words, they mentioned something about the Paladin's mother resembling that dead orc). With a roll of 20+25, a score of 45 is achieved, an extremely good attempt (eye contact made, a temporary bond established, the tempo and pitch of their voice correct to bolster empathy, the 'easing of pain' reminded the Paladin of the years of pain their mother went through before dying).

Use of poison is generally evil and unsporting, but death should be humane, and the safety of companions is important. What should the Paladin do? Ignore the rolls altogether, accusing the Assassin of being pure EBVIL *smite*? Allow for some ambiguity in their morals until they can confer with an authority in the church (should the Paladin's intelligence score be considered?)? Ignore the situation so they can continue to level together? Should the Assassin kill the Paladin off without even bothering to talk, since there is no chance of convincing them anyways (as social skills essentially don't exist)?

Which one of those situations creates further, deeper, and more interesting roleplay situations? Which one adds to or grows the characters in question?

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Moot point.

Dms have said they want your ability scores to dictate your character. You shouldn't be charming with 6 cha and shoukdnt have 8 int and proclaim to understand everything or read every novel in an hour. Or 10 str and be able to lift a building off your wife. Or 8 con and be able to take a beating or work or run all day.

Folks can do whatever they want but doesn't mean its right. Play your characters like they are. If you don't have dexterity , you aren't a nimble dodgey fucker. Plain and simple.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

If you can make a persuasive argument that convinces my characters, they would go along with it. The problem is most people just say "Don't do this" or "Do this" and expect everyone to follow along.

At least one of my characters talks sarcastically about this, he believes its the condition of all adventurers, good or evil, to want to be the hero and they are too busy trying to stick their nose in and be the head one to listen to or actually help each other.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

It stems from:

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feel the blood gushing from your anusfeel the blood gushing from your anus

Just input from a single DM here:

I don't care too much what rolls or skills or whatever you use to represent these social situations with one another. If those subjecting others to or being subjected to the rolls agree that that is the best way to do it, then hooray. I may think they are strange or silly. I may not agree with them because I feel they dont' take everything into effect. But they don't really impact anything involving anyone outside of you and the players who agree.*

When you interact with my NPCs, it is different. Sometimes I don't make you make a roll because I have checked your social skill investments myself and I determine how successful I think you would reasonably be after tossing a d20 myself. Other times I may prompt you if I think it is close or particularly crucial (or just to help you have that feeling that finally you got something out of that investment!)

Until the designers somehow add a better and more fair skill system to Amia, which I have inquired about and doesn't seem likely, it really is something that has to be negotiated between you players. You are not likely to convince everyone...but more power to you if you struggle and come up with a good system that everyone likes and wants to use. I just personally think that at present you don't have much to work with.



*Caveat: sometimes the interactions between 2 PCs can have a lot of impact on other PCs, like the ones in their respective factions, for instance. I'm not blind to that. But still, something that just needs to be worked out amongst the peeps.

Yeah I don't like persuade specifically as a skill in large part because its Charisma based. In large part, charisma only has a little to do with convince people to do things in some situations. Other things should affect your persuasiveness as well, like your relative intelligence. You can be really charismatic but if your character isn't smart enough to put a cohesive sentence together or come up with actual legitimate logical reasons to do or not do something, they aren't going to be able to convince people.

That's just me. I tend to warn people though when they roll a check that I expect them to actually do something associated with the check, otherwise I will ignore it.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

Unless asked by a DM (which never happened) I am not taking "skills" such as persuade and intimidate into consideration. Ever.

Should it be on a server where it is impossible to boost these skills beyond extreme I would have a different approach. Alas...

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Mercadier - *sleeps six feet under the warm sands of Khem*
Alex - Life is adventure or nothing!
Eddie - Sex, drugs and rock'n... more sex.
=========
Obsidian (inactive)

I would be for letting items work for fighting and such. Of course taunt being 100+ to kick those epic mages or bosses or brainy critters, etc. But when its "for RP" I would be very fond of a system that would discount items and only taken skills, ability attributes, feats and supernatural stuff like spells, bard songs, auras and the like.

I think this sets a much fairer system where there is not a 50 skills coming from items or the likes.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

You actually just proved my point there in your second paragraph. The only problem with Bluff/Persuade/Intimidate (Bluff has another: Everyone OOCly knows you're lying) is there is no counter-roll for it.

Sure, your character might be very persuasive, but my character might be very good at resisting. How am I supposed to portray that with dice? You can say Will Save if you like, but that's just asking to fail every single Persuade check since anyone can get their Persuade high enough where a 1 beats nearly every Will Save on the server.

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Remember when I knew a boxer, baby

Persuade isn't supposed to be used on PCs for this very reason - there is no counter-roll. You are either poorly, moderately, or well-received by NPCs based on your roll, and your actions modify that further (by applying heavy bonuses or penalties to that roll). Since it's so much more potentially important (and vague) when used on PCs, it's better not to have it work at all.

I heartily recommend the use of the general Persuade skill as a guideline for how amicable/convincing your PC seems to be, however. But only as a loose guideline.

In fact, the only skill check that is meant to oppose a saving throw in the base game is Bardic Music, wherein the perform check can set the DC for some things. Considering that stuff like Curse Song is considered irresistible on this server, that would seem to be the general case.

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Mathus, Void Apostle of the New Moon

No, because your saying your character is as good at the opposed roll as the roller is at their roll, always. Your saying that if the character using the skill has a score of 1, they have just as much of a chance of using that score successfully on your character as someone with a score of 99.

We fully agree on the lack of counter skills. And that no skill in one character can or should dictate some other character's actions. We are even agreeing on letting other characters influence ours. And we agree that the roll should have some role (heh). But for someone reason you don't think the skill investment of the other character should be considered.

I used a 25 because that is within reason of both raw skill, or augmented with bonuses, putting it in the ambiguous middle ground that most things happen in. If the modifier was 1, the end rolls would be very different (2, and 21), neither of which showing much actual skill at persuasion or bluff, only pure chance and happenstance.



I don't get it. Why is acceptable to boost my hide, perform, spot, discipline, concentration, animal empathy, UMD, etc... but magic to bolster my persuasion abilities is too far beyond the realm of acceptable suspension of disbelief? There's magic to summon the dead back (and give them life, or force their dead remains into servitude), magic to instantly disintegrate things... and even magic to make me more charismatic. But magic that makes lies more believable is too much?

Personally I would swear I know people IRL that have that sort of magic. Cause I don't see how anyone listens to a word they say.

I think people are just scared to RP weakness. No one (her at least) is claiming these skills to pull ridiculous/impossible things over on other characters. Just that their character might be more charismatic then they themselves are, and magic would bolster that as well.

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Well: whether we include item modifiers or not, a simple report function would be much more in line with the way those skills are to be used between PCs than an actual dice roll.

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+1

Well... you think wrong.

Just because you have not yet met anyone who would abuse the skill it does not mean they do not exist.



As he said.

Persuade, Intimidate, Bluff etc... are no go with me. Amarice summed it up reather nicely. Do not try rolls on me - win me by RP. I have no troubles to be bluffed, intimidated or persuaded by quality RP.

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Mercadier - *sleeps six feet under the warm sands of Khem*
Alex - Life is adventure or nothing!
Eddie - Sex, drugs and rock'n... more sex.
=========
Obsidian (inactive)

There is only one class that can actually get ALL three of them over that level and hell yeah he needs them, he lies, persuades and attempts to scare people everyday.

But one that that has always annoyed me, is that a skill that should take one option, is divided into three! Hell, in Pathfinder they merged bluff, persuade and intimidate into speechcraft, but in D&D people are expected to spread 3 sets of points if they want to do it? I can see why no one likes the damn skills, expecially in this server's high demand for power building (social skills cost precious skills points, which means intelligence, which means taking points from other attributes).

One of the major problems with the situation is how much of a joke the social skills has become, barely anyone ever recognizes them at all and if any players pull of a badass speech to convince the NPCs, even without any skills, I get the idea they would be treated the same as someone who did have the skills, which simply kills the point of having them.

I hate to say it, but what I think we need is a clear cut DM ruling on when social skills are used, where they are required and how do they influence our character's strengths (I mean, he can't be a master diplomat ONLY when NPCs are around).

Oh? And pickpocket? Got that too

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Ah well. I want to be a man of my word, so I guess there's no choice: Guardian is officially declared a jerk and put on the black list of people not to play with. >_>

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So... because someone else abuses something, everyone else gets lumped into the same category? Seriously, you just claimed that because someone, some other time, abused a skill (against you even?), no other player can use those skills WITH you ever again, even correctly.

I know bad situations exist, and I know people abuse the game engine. I don't think it's even possible in this situation, because in the end you are still in control of your character. Even if you allow another character to influence yours. And I doubt it was abused (for the above reason), but I'm sure one party or the other used it incorrectly. Ignore+Report the griefers, educate the people misunderstanding their skills, and roll with the ongoing co-authored story we are writing here.

Or don't, of course. No one is even hinting at a rule change, more a change in heart of the players (your black, black hearts). Give Socials a chance, and all that Hippie nonsense. But don't let the griefers win. They aren't worth it.

Also, I think my bluff character is just gonna roll bluff checks every few minutes, regardless of the veracity of what he is saying. I'm kinda curious how people respond. So far I've just been investing skill points, but not using the skill.

The sky is gorgeous tonight *bluff*.

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I can understand the problem quite well. I recall from playing PnP, we had a bard perform for a crowd, rolled high, the crowd was in awe. We didn't have the player make up a song to display for the DM and other players, just rolled and went. Fun times. That will never work on a world like Amia, because quite frankly, emoting *plays a lovely song* is a lot more boring than typing out the music to moonlight sonata. It's actually why I find bards to be one of the hardest classes to play, because you can have a character with super music and have no musical talent yourself, and you'll never be known as a musical genius even if your character should be one. It's, to me, something of an OOC/IC separation issue, you shouldn't have OOC skill to bluff/persuade/intimidate/perform, yet... on the other end, it's hard to make a compelling story or character if you just use the rolls. I wish I had an easy solution, but I have one suggestion that might help.

Instead of making rolls out of nowhere, it might be a good idea for the other party to send a tell requesting a skill roll to the other player trying to make the point, and adjust RP based on what the roll goes with minimal interruption. I could, myself see a situation like this:...

PC 1: I need to talk to you.
PC 2: I hate you and I'm busy. I'll have time to talk to you sometime never.
PC 1: Look, it's really important. I know you don't care for me, but you still care about PC 3 in your heart, don't you? Please, it's important, she's in trouble, and I care for PC 3 too....
PC 2: [Tell to PC 1] // Could you roll persuade for that please?
PC 1: [Tell to PC 2] // Sure thing, just a sec... *rolls*

If (Roll high) {
PC 1: *Takes a few deep breaths, looks PC 1 in the eyes, squarely, now addressing him, but still not exactly with a friendly disposition* Go ahead, just be quick about it.
(RP continues)
} else if (Roll low) {
PC 1: No, I'm not talking to you. I can help her and I can do it WITHOUT your help. Now go away. *Turns away*
}

I think something like that would be better. I'm not sure how practical it is but eh... YMMV depending on your play styles.


Fwuzzy approves of this message and also reminds forest goers that those without sufficient intimidate may recieve badger related maulings. *Snarl!*

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I play:

I honestly hate that to have a character who is persuasive, you have to be at the top of your persuasive game at all times and and have to convince the player more than the character. I honestly hate that to have a character who is a successful liar, you basically have to successfully lie to other players.

I don't understand why most people are so quick to get on board with playing up negatives but then don't want acknowledge strengths. I don't understand why it seems like no one bats a lash at a high Spellcraft score, but a high Bluff (which CAN be used on other PCs and DOES have social application, not just combat application) is downplayed.

We're playing characters that are better than we are at things. They're spellcasters, or warriors, or whatever. We don't expect the players who play Weapon Masters to actually know everything about their character's weapon of choice, although I hope people are suitably impressed when someone does do that - but we don't demand that they, they player, prove to us how much of a weapon master they are in order to accept that their character is one. Yet, we seem to expect that a character who has social savvy must be just as savvy as the amount of points their character has in that skill - or worse, in my opinion, accept a character who has NO social skills as being incredibly good at Bluff because the player happens to be very good at lying and not emoting anything that would give them away or drop hints.

It's all very backwards, to me. It's like a nebulous crazy world were we've learned to at once demand that numbers on our character sheets be obeyed and mean things (play your low Charisma, earth genasi!) and then in the same breath say how it's all suggestions and can and should be ignored, and man, you're really just an uncreative godmodder trying to force your numbers on my RP.

There's just no consistency, even before we broach the matter of different styles of play or the rules not enforcing social skills or dice rolls that aren't strictly handled by NWN forcing your character to do something (like run away in fear).

I just don't see why there isn't room for it all being on equal ground.


Addendum: Yeah, and basically what Kobro said.

Any kind of social skill rolls tend to promote an unhealthy approach to RP. There should be no need to have a measure for how well a player can RP his or her character, and that is, I think, what the question ultimately comes down to. Don't you trust the person with whom you play to carry out his or her character convincingly? Or don't you trust the interpretation of the other player? Does s/he really need to invest in social skills to make up for the lack of a decent portrayal of character through emotes?

It seems to motivate RP as a win-lose situation, where in fact there is only mutualism as long as you stay true to your concept and character. Each of us knows what our characters are like; a dwarf warrior may be suspicious of things, whereas a gnome wizard is often naíve and easily fooled. Such comments as 'N-no, I-I swear I didn't eat the c-cake! *said the gnome gingerly while licking crumbs off of his fingers*' does not only arouse suspicion in almost anyone but also pictures the gnome as a bad liar. A mutual trust in each other is so much more rewarding than relying on rolls to foreshadow future events. Besides, allowing the roll of a die to dictate your character's actions is such a turnoff.

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UCE THIS, YOU COW.

I think people should get off the case of Charisma, then, besides as a measure of bonus spell slots, it should determine nothing else - I'm also not being facetious. It's an incredible double standard to hold people to one set of social mechanics and then deny the rest.

You're failing to understand the real problem with the social skills. There's nothing to counter them. I could stack the skill and pretty much get anyone to do anything I want if we all listened to the skill rolls. That's not fun. That's not roleplay. That's actually a form of powergaming, which is hilarious.

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Remember when I knew a boxer, baby

The problem with the mere existence of a charisma score and social skills, is that the presence of them seemingly dictates that they require players to take them in order allow a way to role-play their characters...

...If that makes any sense.

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Charisma is an overall expression of force of character. Or that's one definition of it. There's also Wisdom and Intelligence that define personality to constitute a character's social skills. I fail to understand how that is a doublestandard.

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UCE THIS, YOU COW.

People just need to accept if you can't pull off a persuasive character you can't pull it off. As for getting into the comparison to WM or something... well there is no physical implementation in the game other than dice rolling. NWN thrives however on social interaction. Getting into the argument about not being able to rp high INT scores or the like... well do you think a good actor needs to be as smart as Einstein to give a great performance of him in a play?

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Imyrr - "I need your heartbeat to haunt me, your cold lips to breathe, a promise; that tomorrow I'll wake up somewhere new."

Letum is absolutely right, by the way. And it's Derk who keeps failing to understand: it's not about rolling the skills. It's about rolling the skills. Whatever the roll, and whether there is a counter-roll, the skill is either there or it isn't. You are free to determine the DC necessary to convince your PC of something, just as a DM determines the situational DC for his NPCs, but you should not be free (in the name of common decency) to ignore skill investment. Ever, of any skill. It is precisely a double standard, as Liz pointed out before too: demanding that our character sheets affect our RP but denying any effect they might have on yours.

Allowing the roll of a die to guide your character's actions is such a turn-on. It takes power from you and makes you adjust. It reminds you you're not the sole author of your Mary Sue story. And to be honest, I find it a little disingenuous to claim you know beforehand what your character will find convincing; you don't even know that about yourself. There's a good chance a charismatic person you admire will one day completely change your attitude about something. Ignoring that possibility in game to preserve your carefully-crafted, static portrayal of your character is unsportsmanlike and not very true to your character as a living, complicated person besides.

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In a play, no. But if said actor was so impressive people wanted him to prove it in his laboratory.. well then there is issues.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

And more to the point: do you think the actor improvises? Somebody wrote the play, and if it's a good and convincing one, they studied the primary documents about Einstein's life. If it concerns his scientific work, the writer needs to have understood it enough to faithfully reproduce it. The actor does what he's told. Much like the role-player should do what the dice tell him, even if he doesn't fully understand it himself.

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I fail to see how your last sentence related to any of the previous ones, which I do agree with.

Also whats the deal with all the recent rash of "This should be played -this- way posts?". You'd think after twelve years people would realize that the stats and skills are suggested guidelines meant to be followed and nothing more. You -should- stick to them but the ones without enforced mechanical applications will only be open to a broad interpretation that will vary wildly from individual to individual. Ultimately you have no way of enforcing it and if you did... well that's scary. "I got banned by the dms for not rping my charisma as 14." You just need to trust each other and play and if you think someone is an asshat that doesn't represent their stats and it effects you in such a negative way that you cannot handle it.. don't play with them or just consider them an asshat and move on.

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Imyrr - "I need your heartbeat to haunt me, your cold lips to breathe, a promise; that tomorrow I'll wake up somewhere new."

But you can't because that's simply not how the skills even work. My AB score doesn't dictate that I automatically hit you, no matter how high it is; Nor does it force an auto submit. A high persuasion doesn't let you automatically dictate the actions of other characters (PC or NPC). Just like the AB score, it simply shows that the character is good at doing that. Or poor. But because people don't seem to know how to RP their character being persuaded, without being persuaded themselves (or letting other people misuse the skill), it gets labelled as trying to control other characters.

It's that win-lose mentality that is the problem... I fully agree with Uncle-Optustus on that. But I don't consider letting the skill values of the characters influence how they are played out to be win-lose... unless the player behind the character is playing that way. And they likely are with other aspects just as much. But the people asking for social skills to be considered seem like they are asking people to play with them, rather then against.

It's a double standard because your expecting people with a persuasive character to put points into charisma, and then refusing any sort of mechanical benefit from it. And then wondering why people dump charisma and play their force of personality any way they like. There's no benefit to high charisma, and no detriment for a low score.

And yes, what your saying is that your expecting the actor portraying Einstein to be as smart as Einstein... only replacing Einstein with someone extremely charismatic. And there are dice rolls (that's what those skills modify), just like for the WM, but the relevant skills are being denied.

And even without a proper counter skill, which is most definitely an issue, you can still use the skill roll itself to see how good the character rolling it is at that particular activity.

Heh, maybe we need to add another line to the 'waiver of rule-based protections' thread. "I accept the possibility of social skills". Though I don't think that idea, on the forum, helps much, in the game. Tacking what you do or do not consent to on your character's bio seems an interesting alternative.

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That's what this topic is about, really. Nobody wants anything enforced by rules. We just want to make people see reason by way of argument, and if that fails, by collective stigmatization. Some players have declared they will ignore social skill investment because they don't like it, so we need to show that won't fly with us. I don't really want to stop playing with anyone, but I will if it degenerates into intentional trolling.

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I'm just going to be honest and I mean this out of saving many people frustration, not to be dictate people can't play their characters. The intelligent arguments for the use of these social skills on pc's rests on the -assumption- that the person is already being competently persuasive to begin with to make the decision so close a call as to require a roll. The problem is that if it is that close it should and is often left up to the other player then to competently and reasonably respond on their own character's unguessable criterias. This isn't meta gaming, this isn't god gaming, this is roleplay. So really the first standard, you have to already play a character that is competently persuasive in roleplay is agreed upon and the only one that imo really matters. If you want to be an evil manipulator or a cunning diplomat, well you have to come off as such. Putting points into those skills if you lack those things to begin with, is only going to lead you and everyone else to frustration when you try to apply them.

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Imyrr - "I need your heartbeat to haunt me, your cold lips to breathe, a promise; that tomorrow I'll wake up somewhere new."

Congratulations. You've said essentially what I've been saying this entire time.

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Remember when I knew a boxer, baby

This is my point, as well. The counter to AB is AC.

If you want to persuade my character, by all means, do so. It's going to be your roleplay that does it, not the dice roll. My character has a personality, thoughts, emotions, goals that can't be defined by clicking a plus sign on a level up screen. Why should your clicking of said plus sign have anything to do with it, especially when there's nothing that I can click to make him resistant/susceptible to said persuasions.

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Remember when I knew a boxer, baby

This is exactly how it should work. And exactly the approach I have. RP > Rolls.

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Mercadier - *sleeps six feet under the warm sands of Khem*
Alex - Life is adventure or nothing!
Eddie - Sex, drugs and rock'n... more sex.
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Obsidian (inactive)