Do you know those games where you have the usual "big three" social offense skills? One for lying to people, one for talking to people in a mean way, and one for talking to people without lying or being mean?
D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, and 4e: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate D&D 5e: Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion Fate Core: Deceive, Provoke, Rapport
Would the "talking to people without lying or being mean" skill still be worth it if it was split up into two skills? On its own, it usually IS the most useful one of the bunch, so would splitting it up into two be acceptable?
Charles Perry
What two would you split it into?
Nolan Morris
How are you proposing the skill's domain be divided up?
Brayden Parker
Not him, but I could imagine it being split up into befriend and negotiate, with the former simply being getting someone to like you and the latter getting them to do something they otherwise wouldn't do. It'd be the difference between: >the guard lets you pass because you're homies4lyfe >the guard lets you pass because you offer him half his monthly wage as a bribe
Nicholas Adams
Or maybe logical vs. emotional?
Ryan Turner
not him, but diplomacy could be divided into "rhetoric" (convincing people through logical arguments that seem ironclad) and "charm" (convincing people through friendliness or even seduction).
Tyler Clark
How would you recommend splitting it up? A lot of social interaction doesn't really need numbers attached, and anything as vague as talking would fall under that to me. I guess you could create some sort of "first impression" skill, and leave other elements of charming people under the old name. You could also split it up between seduction and appealing to their other values I guess (I don't really see the point in this split though. I think they would basically be doomed to be the same with seduction being specifically more limited in application).
Lucas Lewis
Short answer: No. Long answer: Nooooooooooooo.
On more serious note - you're trying to fix a small branch on a tree that's twisted from the core. Individual attributes and skills are not equal, some are universally more useful than the others. And they were never meant to be equal.
I'm full aware this might be bait, but no man can resist combined charms of Horo and potato demon.
Matthew Butler
Do we need more social skills, though? Most games that even have a social mechanic have, in my expwrience, devolved into just the two: - nice talking - speeches, performance, verbal investigations, etc. - mean talking - lying, intimidating, etc.
Juan Collins
And Rhetoric could be divided in Ethos, Logos and Pathos...
Alexander Butler
Hell, you could probably get away with just using one and calling it "reputation" or something.
Robert Gutierrez
There's often some sort of "barter" skill in many systems that falls under what I think you mean by negotiate in a lot of systems
Julian Taylor
If you're not him, why are you replying? In any case neither of those really seem worth it. They're too limited.
Angel Rivera
Chronicles of Darkness has an interesting system Empathy (Reading and soothing people) Expression (Emotive communication such as speeches and writing) Intimidation (What is says on the tin) Persuasion (Getting your way without lying or threats, includes fast-talking and seduction) Socialize (Working a crowd) Subterfuge (Lying, Poker Face and related skills)
Easton Wood
Holo is cute!
CUTE!
Joseph Williams
It depends on what sort of campaign you're running. Fate Core is a good example, because the skill list is specifically meant to expand or contract to represent that. If you're running a campaign heavily focused on social skills and intrigue or political maneuvering, then splitting Rapport into two skills (maybe Rhetoric and Charm like one user suggested) could be worth it. If not, leave it as-is.
For D&D, the skill lists are already built around the sort of campaigns the rest of the system supports. Splitting up social skills in one of them wouldn't necessarily be useful, and could have unintentional effects. (Like nerfing those characters in 3.5/PF, because now they need to invest twice as many skill ranks in what's normally a niche part of D&D's dungeoneering focus). If you want a game that focuses more on social stuff, it could be worth it to look to something else.
Nicholas Bailey
But this Holo has Demon Lord (Female) attire.
That means somewhere out there there's Demon Lord (Female) wearing Holo's clothes or nothing at all.
Angel Anderson
She could be wearing skin. The skin of potatoes.
Justin Smith
Bullshitting and Flattery.
Nicholas Wright
You could split persuade into persuade (for trying to convince someone with logic) and charm (for doing the same with emotions & charm). I think CoC does that anyways.
Easton Torres
>In any case neither of those really seem worth it. They're too limited.
no more limited than intimidate really
Jonathan Watson
>throwing in your opinion is bad ???
Carter Rodriguez
Oh right, the bullshitting skill. I've forgotten about just how much fun I've had with the blather skill in Dark Heresy. Arguably that's really just a type of deceiving, but in that setting at least a dedicated ability to confusing people with words is pretty fun
Actually I think that kind of brings us to the problem with the OP's point. Out of his examples I'm not terribly familiar with fate, but why would DnD really need to make that distinction? Adding a skill in those would just weaken the scope of existing skills, while forcing a more dedicated social type character to lose a little utility elsewhere by creating a new thing to invest in. Some games it might make sense to have a shit ton of social skills, but at least some of the OP examples would kind of suffer for it, and those aren't games designed with complex social interaction as a feature in the first place. Diplomacy in 3.5 (Probably PF, but I don't know if they changed it) was pretty much exactly what a social skill shouldn't be however
Tyler Anderson
how about getting rid of these things entirely and handling social situations purely by dialogue
Nathan Ross
Why not get rid of all stats and freeform instead?
Benjamin Gutierrez
Intimidate is too limited, I would agree. I'd do away with it as well.
Blake Walker
I would say rather then making seperate skills that you have to rank/level up you put different ways of talking to people under a general social skill and have appropriate levels of difficult for attempting them and allowing specialization in one or more subsets.
Easton Diaz
sure I'll just get out some knives and swords and we'll simulate combat by killing each other you die in the game you die in real life
Liam Wood
This is how I play all my games. Anything else is for pussies.
Adrian James
In gurps it's persuasion and fasttalk, there are also public speaking, acting, interroagation and great number of other social skills however.
Sebastian Sullivan
I know Fate Core's default skill list should almost never be used as is, but the diversity and selecting from all the social skills I find a bit irritating in play.
Anyway, I decided to break all communication into "being coercive" and "connecting". With my interest in game balance, I have these skills oriented so that you can't attack minds with the connection skill by default but being coercive on its own can put off an NPC easily. The real fun, I think, is using NPC aspects to make certain approaches more challenging. It even made me consider pulling off a Deus Ex: HR personality-based attribute subsystem.
Alexander Nelson
...
Jaxon Morgan
BIG FAT-TIDDIED HOLO IS NOT CUTE
PLEASE AWAY AND RETURN WITH FLAT OF CHEST HOLO PLEASE
Tyler Bennett
No it can't, his definition of rhetoric in this instance is already a variation of logos.
Caleb King
I can't handle this much economics!
Michael Foster
T-TOO MACRO.
Mason Wilson
Problem with this is that not all players have this ability in real life, but any player should be able to play any character. It's just as valid to want to be a character who can talk his way out of anything as a character who can punch his way out of everything. Those kinds of "cool guy" fantasies are a major reason I (and I feel safe assuming most people) play RPGs in the first place, and if someone has a stutter or is just less than eloquent I think it's unfair to demand that as a prerequisite for playing an eloquent character.
