Roleplaying versus Roll-playing, social interactions

To an experienced roleplayer, Dice-less roleplaying is a Holy Grail to quest for, or it is a great evil that must be opposed.   Fans of dice-less roleplaying will point out that rolling dice can break a narrative flow and/or knock the players out of their in-game immersion. Opponents of dice-less roleplaying will ask why bother to give dot ratings on a ● to ●●●●● scale to various traits if you don't use them?   This applies to all aspects of roleplaying with or without dice but it applies to social situations more than other situations.  

Roleplaying versus Roll-playing: the two extremes

  One common argument against dice-less roleplaying is that we don't make players playing strong PCs become weightlifers. We don't make players playing genius PCs apply for MENSA, but we do sometimes make players playing social NPCs act socially. If social intereactions rely on the charisma of the player, not the character, why bother putting points in social attributes and abilities at all. You are arguably punishing players who "waste" points on character abilities they can't actually use or that otherwise won't matter.   On the other hand, one would argue that if you are going to just dice your way out of every social situation, why play a tabletop RPG at all when you can just play a MMO on a computer?  

My Second Favorite Solution

  One way to eliminate or at least reduce dice rolling but still have social traits matter is to go diceless, but keep the character's related dice pools in mind.   This requires a Game Master to be familar with his player's character's stats and be good at improvisation, but it can be a viable roleplaying tactic.   Basically, the Game Master makes NPCs act nicer and more agreeable to characters that have high social dice pools relative to characters than they are to characters with low social dice pools.   In RPG sessions, sometimes "real time" passes faster than "game time" and sometimes real time passes faster than game time. This is just the nature of the tabletop beast. But you can use this to your advantage. If an introverted player is playing a social character but they are running dice-less you can give them a leg up by giving plyaers of soical characters more time to come up with verbal responses that their characters make or more hints out of character than players with less socially oriented characters.   This level of dice-less roleplaying works better for relatively low stakes social interactions such as interacting with crowds and bystanders. It's not the best for high-powered negotiations and interactions with lots of narrative stakes. Ideally the situation is either a not challenging at all for one of the PC's skills, or the stakes are fairly, or both.   Examples for using diceless social rolls   (all the examples below assume the character has a high relevant dice pool)   -(Manipulation + Commerce) Rather than roll out or roleplay every act of haggling, if a character has a high dice pool for haggling, a Game Master could just give a set percentage discount on all routine purchases. Save the dice rolls and roleplaying for rare and important major purchases.   -(Appearance + Etiquette) The character doesn't have to roll into get into an exclusive location. The player (acting in character) can just warmly talk to people and act like she belongs and no one will question it.   -(Charisma + Etiquette) If the character has a relatively small favor to ask of a person in power such as borrowing a basic resource to achieve a goal the PC and the powerful person have in common, the player can just politely ask in character and get the request granted without rolling it out.   -(Charisma + Performance or Appearance + Performance or Dexterity + Performance) If a PC is performing a well-rehearsed act for an entertainment starved crowd, you can just assume the peformance is well received, you don't have to roll it out and the player definitely doesn't have to sing it out in real life.   -(Charisma + Expression or Manipulation + Expression) If it is really is in the NPCs best interest to get on board with the PC's plan (like a literal "fight for me if you want to live!" situation) and the PC is naturally charismatic and the player makes a reasonable attempt at giving an inspiring speech acting in-character. You don't need roll it, just let the speech work.  

My Favorite Solution

  I favor the middle path between the above extremes between dropping social dice rolls entirely or relying on social dice rolls entirely.   I say, use the dice to guide your roleplaying not replace your roleplaying. For very important social interactions, I favor a three-step strategy.   Step One: Establish goal and strategy.   Step Two: Roll the dice.   Step Three: Interpet the results.  

Step One, Lay out goals and strategies of the social interaction

  Most dialogue in books, movies, and television is often very efficient and dramatically poignant compared to real life dialogue. Ideally, the reader or watcher just sees the "good part". This is a good ideal to strive for though it is hard to reach.   Most real conversations are going to have a lot of prerequisate small talk and beating around the bush. Most real negotiations are going to have talking in circles and repetition before getting to the meat of a conversation.   The player says, "I want _____ and my strategy to convince the NPC to give me _____ is to (insert basic argument"   The Game Master lays out what the NPC wants and and their strategy or if the PC doesn't know NPC very well, he has to guess and figure out how to verbally respond to what he thinks the NPC will do.   A very lengthy negotiation between two characters can take easily take many hours or it can be handled with one set of opposed Manipulation + Expression or Manipulation + Commerce roll where no one talks.   But I believe it's a good idea to roleplay out in-character the character expressing the core of their verbal argument.   The Game Master can roleplay out in-character the core of the NPcs verbal arguments.   Then you can roleplay out your rebuttals for a little while or you can describe it narratively out of character by saying something along the lines of "I will point out ________, ______, and _______"   For instance, let's say Kormatin wants to convince some Border Barons and Baronesses to loan him soldiers to help overthrow some Swynfaredian puppet states that seem to be planning to annex their neighbors.   In every case, Kormatin needs to roll Manipulation + Expression to try to sway the leaders of the different Border Barons to join in, but he uses different selling points each time based on what he knew of the different realms and the known tendencies of their leaders.   The Red Streams Barony and Prophet's Pass Barony shared a border with the puppet state, so Kormatin pointed out the obvious potential threat but he added an appear to honor for the chivalry-minded Red Streams feudal lord and he appeal to the pragmatism for the ruling council of Prophet's Pass. When speaking to the elven leaders of Silfûrhëim, he pointed out that even though Silfûrhëim was far away now, if they kept their practice of invading one Border Barony every twenty to thirty years, they would be on Silfûrhëim's doorstep fairly soon by elven standards. Kormatin appealed to the greed and pride of the rulers of Centrum and the Barony of the Bees, and the love of freedom of the ruler of the Iron Hills Barony. In the case of the Iron Hills, rather than knock on his door, Kormatin instead went to the Baron's favorite hangouts and bought people rounds of drinks to get the Baron's attention.   The point is the player describes a series of actions and dialogues for each negotiations and rolls once to figure out how well he puts it all together rather than roll every baby step of the way. Likewise you don't have to roleplay out every step, just hit the critical points.  

Step Two, Roll the dice

  Roll the dice. Pretty self-explanatory. The Golden Rule of Dramatic Dice Systems applies. Pick an attribute and ability combination, pick a difficulty and roll it.   But if the player laid out a good argument or roleplayed well you can give a difficulty modifier. Sometimes you can go two tiers. For instance, Intelligence + Expression to plan to what you are going to say before had and Charisma + Etiquette or Manipulation + Etiquette to actually say out loud it later.   In some cases the preliminary prep roll can add to your pool either by pooling successes or turn phase one successes into phase two bonus dice. Othertimes it can not directly affect the second roll but a good prep roll can lower the difficulty of the presentation or a bad prep roll can raise the difficulty of the presentation.   Usually I prefer difficulty modifiers up or down to be based on how reasonable or outlandish yoru social goal is. Bonus dice are for good prep work.   Two phase social rolls are good for team play where one player can write the speech and the other player can give the speech.  

Step Three, Interpret the dice results

  It is one thing to say you succeed or fail, but as a game master (and a player), the tricky but rewarding part is to interpret what the dice say into narrative language.   In combat, the dice tell you how much or how little damage is inflicted and yes you can "you inflict four levels of damage" or you can say "He steps back after the mace blow leaving a huge dent in his breastplate, staggering and barely keeping on his feet". Or you you can replace "you inflict one level of damage" with "he grunts in pain briefly but doesn't slow down".   It's a little less clear how to narrate a "one-success" or "four-success" social roll versus a physical victory.   If you are negotiating for something or trying to persuade an NPC assumption, my basic assumption is that with three succcesses you more or less get what you wanted.   One success means you get a watered down or half-assed version of what you set out to get.   Two successes means you have to offer a small bribe or concession to get what you want.   Four successes means that you get what you wanted and the other person feels happy with the transaction. Your character might have made a friend or at least a contact going forward.   For five or more successes, the other person gives you more than you were aiming for.   But the real fun is failures and botches. As a player and a Game Master, your enjoyment of the game will increase if you can learn to appreciate your character's failures. They are often more fun and memorable than characters' successes and they can make the victories all the more sweeter.     Sometimes you can leave it to the Game Master to describe how and why a social roll fails, but players should be ecnouraged to narrate how and why they failed. I think players that explain and narrate their failures well are deserving of a bonus experience point or too.   I remember in a Vampire: the Dark Ages game, I played a merchant named Keelan in the Byzantine Empire wanting to leverage against the Venetian merchants moving in so I tried to carouse some people at a Venetian owned tavern to see if I could get inebriated people to slip some information they shouldn't say out loud. I botched my roll.   Rather than just say "Oh no, I failed" or worse try to backpedal with another roll, I just said "I guess Keelan accidentally let slip what he really thinks of Venetians." And Keelan was literally thrown out the bar. Fun times. I'll never forget that.  

Pushing the Roll

  "Pushing the roll" is a term used in some RPGs where you fail something but push forward anyway.   In combat, this is rarely a problem. If your arrow shot misses, it's not a big deal, fire another arrow, you don't have to push the roll. But in a social situation, failure is hard to claw back from because the person you are interacting already has a bad first impression of your interaction.   In most cases, this involves an ally stepping in and taking over the negotiation, at least briefly. "What my companion meant to say was ______".   If you don't have a companion to cover up your gaffe, and your character has to cover up his own gaffe, than you should probably spend a temporary Willpower point, and this won't give you a free success, it will let you try again.   To push a social roll, you have to change tactics. Flattery, bribery, appeals to one's morality, subtle threats, appeals to pride, and presenting logical arguments are all reasonable ways to try to persuade someone but if the first attempt fails, you have to try a diffent tactic. If the players don't come up with a meaningfully different tactic, they can't push a roll.   In this Game of Thrones scene, Tyrion tries to persuade Bronn to fight his battle by offering gold and gratitude, offering land, and appealing to his sense of masculine pride, and finally trying to persuade him based on their ties of friendship in one short scene. He didn't just say "I can give you gold" over and over again.   Pushing a failed social roll, should raise the difficulty by +1 whether the person pushing the roll is the original gaffer or an ally of the gaffer. Pushing a botched roll should be +3, assuming the Game Master even lets you "push" a botch at all.   The consequences of a failing a pushed roll should usually be more severe than the consequences of failing a normal social roll since you made the other person or persons very annoyed indeed.