Discord
Changelog
02-08-2014, 09:38 AM
(This post was last modified: 02-08-2014, 09:42 AM by The Philosopher.)
Curious that you should ask, MilesBeyond, it's a subject near and dear to my heart and something I've long discussed about before.
If we disregard character skills, instead choosing to rely on roleplay, we will have people who cannot persuade their way out of a paper sack roleplaying diplomats and people who actually invested skill points into them literally being considered useless, because RP alone will place certain characters on pedestals, regardless of actual, measurable skill.
It is a pernicious issue that logically leads to a dangerous slippery-slope; people RPing outside their stats or outside their alignment. Or, worse still, people simply going *blox!* whenever roleplaying. In other words, it leads to abuse and god-moding.
Skills and dice rolls are there to keep us from trampling eachother with rampant imaginations or arbitrary decisions, which is where some RP often slips into, RP I have actually witnessed in game. Numeric attributes and skills are there to give a fair chance to all parties and offer socially-oriented characters a means to triumph outside of combat. I am rather aware that there is a general consensus on demonizing those fiendish dice rolls as being disruptive of roleplay - roll-play and other loaded terms come into mind - but they were created for very good reasons. They protect all parties from god-moding, which I hold as the pinnacle of disgusting roleplay.
I understand the almost overzealous desire to protect one's own character from being influenced by others, or even forced toward being influenced, which is what I believe to be the greatest fear of those who protest against rolling a social skill during roleplay with other PCs. "I decide how my character reacts, not the dice and not someone else's character sheet!", and other such expressions, are used frequently. People don't want the control of their character to be surrendered or conditioned. Yet such an argument falls to pieces when we discuss, say, Hide and Spot - The one who invested in the first should be, by all rights, successful at evading the one who did not invest in the latter, in CvC. Another example is Perform, a social skill as much as the three aforementioned; if a good roll is achieved, then the performer plays well and this influences others. Everyone agrees. Why, then, is this not done for the other social skills? Why are social skills relegated to NPC interaction, as much living and breathing as the PCs themselves?
While people react well to descriptions and so on and certainly roleplay well, the double-standard regarding treatment of social and non-social skills is troubling, and is something I would see addressed and discussed. Roleplay etiquette is something I personally take very seriously. While I certainly do not defend or condone arbitrary rolls, which are just as bad as arbitrary roleplay, balancing both is, in my view, a necessity and something I would suggest for a healthier and more productive roleplaying environment for our collective playground.
In short, your social skills are as much worth, and should be as much worth, as your combat skills are in CvC. If Discipline is taken into account during combat, if AB and AC and STR modifiers and CON and all that shebang is rolled for in the system, then it stands to reason that yes, social skill rolls should very much be taken into account when they are made use of, whether in CvC or in CvE. I personally find it to be nothing short of god-moding to ignore another character's high skill rolls, a severe breach of roleplaying etiquette.
HOWEVER.
Social skill rolls should ALWAYS be based on RP, should ALWAYS take into account the opposing player's counter-rolls (including circumstancial bonuses or penalties he or she may decide, within reason) when there isn't a DM present to arbiter things, and should be used as much for flavour as for winning an argument/telling a convincing rumour/scaring others into shushing up. It is there to enrich our fun, not a tool for abusing.
You have every bit the right to utterly ignore a social skill roll that has no leg to stand on. But to ignore a properly based skill roll - with roleplay leading up to it, with respectful etiquette being employed and with both parties comfortable with things, as it IS CvC - is the height of disrespect. PCs have invested into their skills for a reason. Let's not relegate those skills to the back-water.
If we disregard character skills, instead choosing to rely on roleplay, we will have people who cannot persuade their way out of a paper sack roleplaying diplomats and people who actually invested skill points into them literally being considered useless, because RP alone will place certain characters on pedestals, regardless of actual, measurable skill.
It is a pernicious issue that logically leads to a dangerous slippery-slope; people RPing outside their stats or outside their alignment. Or, worse still, people simply going *blox!* whenever roleplaying. In other words, it leads to abuse and god-moding.
Skills and dice rolls are there to keep us from trampling eachother with rampant imaginations or arbitrary decisions, which is where some RP often slips into, RP I have actually witnessed in game. Numeric attributes and skills are there to give a fair chance to all parties and offer socially-oriented characters a means to triumph outside of combat. I am rather aware that there is a general consensus on demonizing those fiendish dice rolls as being disruptive of roleplay - roll-play and other loaded terms come into mind - but they were created for very good reasons. They protect all parties from god-moding, which I hold as the pinnacle of disgusting roleplay.
I understand the almost overzealous desire to protect one's own character from being influenced by others, or even forced toward being influenced, which is what I believe to be the greatest fear of those who protest against rolling a social skill during roleplay with other PCs. "I decide how my character reacts, not the dice and not someone else's character sheet!", and other such expressions, are used frequently. People don't want the control of their character to be surrendered or conditioned. Yet such an argument falls to pieces when we discuss, say, Hide and Spot - The one who invested in the first should be, by all rights, successful at evading the one who did not invest in the latter, in CvC. Another example is Perform, a social skill as much as the three aforementioned; if a good roll is achieved, then the performer plays well and this influences others. Everyone agrees. Why, then, is this not done for the other social skills? Why are social skills relegated to NPC interaction, as much living and breathing as the PCs themselves?
While people react well to descriptions and so on and certainly roleplay well, the double-standard regarding treatment of social and non-social skills is troubling, and is something I would see addressed and discussed. Roleplay etiquette is something I personally take very seriously. While I certainly do not defend or condone arbitrary rolls, which are just as bad as arbitrary roleplay, balancing both is, in my view, a necessity and something I would suggest for a healthier and more productive roleplaying environment for our collective playground.
In short, your social skills are as much worth, and should be as much worth, as your combat skills are in CvC. If Discipline is taken into account during combat, if AB and AC and STR modifiers and CON and all that shebang is rolled for in the system, then it stands to reason that yes, social skill rolls should very much be taken into account when they are made use of, whether in CvC or in CvE. I personally find it to be nothing short of god-moding to ignore another character's high skill rolls, a severe breach of roleplaying etiquette.
HOWEVER.
Social skill rolls should ALWAYS be based on RP, should ALWAYS take into account the opposing player's counter-rolls (including circumstancial bonuses or penalties he or she may decide, within reason) when there isn't a DM present to arbiter things, and should be used as much for flavour as for winning an argument/telling a convincing rumour/scaring others into shushing up. It is there to enrich our fun, not a tool for abusing.
You have every bit the right to utterly ignore a social skill roll that has no leg to stand on. But to ignore a properly based skill roll - with roleplay leading up to it, with respectful etiquette being employed and with both parties comfortable with things, as it IS CvC - is the height of disrespect. PCs have invested into their skills for a reason. Let's not relegate those skills to the back-water.