Exploration and social - the two pillars that have no mechanics

[Mastikator]

TL;DR: is it a good thing that exploration and social encounters have not been gamified in D&D 5e?
I think yes.

Long thread; reading anyway:

This topic is often brough up in many threads on this forum. The social pillar and the exploration pillar are very underdeveloped in D&D 5e, so any class or subclass that gets features in those areas are somewhere between worthless, ribbon and some other words.

Like if you grab the skill expert feat and take expertise in survival, or religion, or persuasion you've kinda wasted the feat, right? Why not take expertise in athletics so you can grapple, or perception so you can detect hidden enemies? Those seem like objectively superior options in a tactical wargame like D&D5e.

Ok so here's where I start quoting a bunch of people who are smarter than me and have thought about this more than me (and thus persuaded me).

Spoiler: Luke Gearing, abstractions

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Mechanisms abstract the thing they describe or simulate.
This can be done to speed up play, or to make something complex more easily grasped.

The number of factors that go into a fight are too many to simulate or describe - so we abstract.
Buying many individual items takes time which isn’t always going to be fun - so we abstract.
Abstraction requires the loss of detail.

The things you don’t abstract are the meat of the game.
This is why games* aren’t about what their mechanisms are about - or, if you insist, don’t have to be. Leaving the gap for something to be approached in more detail and nuance gives that thing more primacy.

*In truth, this is talking about game books - the game, the thing that happens up to the table, is an entirely different thing which encapsulates and supersedes the book.

- https://lukegearing.blot.im/mechanisms-as-abstraction

Spoiler: The lack of stealth mechanics

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Great thread. For my part a big thing that we didn’t design for in #mothershipRPG was stealth mechanics. But the game is also about running and hiding. We don’t have fleeing rules either.
[etc]
I wanted this moment:

"I want to hide"
"Okay where are you hiding"
"Crap what's around me?"
"Gear lockers, surgical bed, ventilation shaft."
"Crap"
"It's coming."
"Okay, the lockers"
"You won't fit with your vacauit on, do you take it off?"
"No, I need the armor. The ventilation shaft."
"Alright, you have to unscrew it."
"Is there time?"
"You can make a speed check."
"No screw it. I hide under the bed"

- https://twitter.com/seanmccoy/status...72287785787392

Spoiler: Choosing D&D5e as a narrative game, because it doesn't gamify narrative

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[Calling D&D a combat-oriented game] would sort of be like looking at a stove and being like, This has nothing to do with food. You can’t eat metal. Clearly this contraption is for moving gas around and having a clock on it. If it was about food, there would be some food here. [...] What you should get is a machine that is either made of food, or has food in it. [...]

I’m going to bring the food. The food is my favorite part. [People say that] because D&D has so many combat mechanics, you are destined to tell combat stories. I fundamentally disagree. Combat is the part I’m the least interested in simulating through improvisational storytelling. So I need a game to do that for me, while I take care of emotions, relationships, character progression, because that **** is intuitive and I understand it well. I don’t intuitively understand how an arrow moves through a fictional airspace.

- https://www.polygon.com/24105875/wor...tyle-adventure

There was one thing that really irked me in the 1D&D playtest, the social rules. It suggested that the players handbook would contain rules for how to make NPCs improve their disposition towards a PC, and make them do things for them.

This is the exact opposite of what I want in an RPG. No way in hell will I let the rules gamify social encounters. When I run social encounters there are many ways I can handle it, I can ask the player to speak in character to the NPC, or I can ask them what they want out of the encounter and then abstract it. But no way am I ever accepting a situation where the player says "I want to roll persuasion to make this NPC like me more, then I want to roll deception to make them do me a favor". NO, TALK TO THEM!!!

In many situations I've seen this also be a problem for stealth checks. I've seen players say "I want to hide" while in plain sight. Where are you hiding? This isn't Skyrim where you can just crouch and become unseen! In fact, it's not a video game. In a video game anything that isn't gamified isn't a part of the game. This is an RPG, if something isn't in the rules you can just do it. I may ask for a skill check.
You may extrapolate the same logic for the exploration pillar, which luckily didn't get the same treatment in the UA.

I don't want rules for social encounters. I don't want rules for exploration. Rulings not rules is a strength of 5e. How does social work? You talk to people! How does exploration work? You use your 5 senses and move around, prodding things!

[NichG]

Some rules tell you how to resolve things - that establishes the context in which things make sense. Other rules give you stuff to play with.

The second is good for these pillars, while the first is bad for social and good for exploration to some degree (but not to the exclusion of unknowns) IMO.

For example, social mechanics that give you information but don't direct resolution, like being able to ask 'who in this room hates each other based on body language?' are extra toys to play with without forcing resolution when it wouldn't make sense or would exclude desired nuance. Social mechanics surrounding, say, the mechanics of peerage could be good - having X rank lets you declare a duel against someone of Y rank without evidence, at Z rank it's illegal of someone of W rank to directly speak poorly of you, etc.

Doesn't mean someone won't do it, but it defines a very relevant system within which social interaction takes place. It's a stove, not the meal.

For exploration, stuff like 'how fast can we travel in jungle, how much supplies does that consume, what happens if we don't have them' is useful for planning. That's stuff where some standardization of resolution is good - you can still have encounters and maybe the cart gets lost or weevils infest the supplies or someone finds game to hunt.

Stuff that says what treasure a CR 8 5-room ruin should have, that should be DM suggestions not player-facing rules.

As far as exploration toys, stuff that lets you build paths, bridges, scout with animals or spells, etc all exists and is good for exploration mechanics. You could easily add more, in a 'exploration toy' rather than 'resolution mechanic' way and I think it would be good. Let dwarves track mechanisms through the floor or walls. Let rangers create lures and repellants to create monster-free corridors. Let fighters get a roll to prevent casualties for large groups going through dangerous marches, etc.

[NecessaryWeevil]

I agree that I don't want - even as a player - a game where I simply throw some dice and shout "I persuade them!"

However - and I'm sure this has been brought up in response frequently also - RPGs are also about being and doing things we can't (or think we can't) in real life.
If I can't open my mouth without boring or alienating people in real life, I might dream about playing Joe (Jane) Cool in a game: someone who can talk their way out of most situations.
If I can't invest character building resources in meaningful social advantages, then that possibility would seem to be closed off to me.
The kind of thing NichG points to might be helpful in that direction.

[stoutstien]

I agree that I don't want - even as a player - a game where I simply throw some dice and shout "I persuade them!"

However - and I'm sure this has been brought up in response frequently also - RPGs are also about being and doing things we can't (or think we can't) in real life.
If I can't open my mouth without boring or alienating people in real life, I might dream about playing Joe (Jane) Cool in a game: someone who can talk their way out of most situations.
If I can't invest character building resources in meaningful social advantages, then that possibility would seem to be closed off to me.
The kind of thing NichG points to might be helpful in that direction.

You don't need to be able to do it in real life.

you just have to accurately be able to describe the intent of your actions.

Would like to think that role-playing is how you speak or even how you control the character in reality all role-playing is internalized so everybody else just sees the outcome of that rather than the actual thing.

[DarknessEternal]

I agree that I don't want - even as a player - a game where I simply throw some dice and shout "I persuade them!"

Ok, but unless you can throw a fireball in real life, you can't in the game either. Fair?

Sarcasm aside, characters already can do what players cannot. Why would you want to gatekeep the game away from people.

[JNAProductions]

Ok, but unless you can throw a fireball in real life, you can't in the game either. Fair?

Sarcasm aside, characters already can do what players cannot. Why would you want to gatekeep the game away from people.

That’s a really uncharitable take on their post.

I’ll echo NichG, as they put good thoughts down well. One could add more rules to 5E’s exploration and social pillars without reducing the fun.

[Kane0]

If I can't open my mouth without boring or alienating people in real life, I might dream about playing Joe (Jane) Cool in a game: someone who can talk their way out of most situations.
If I can't invest character building resources in meaningful social advantages, then that possibility would seem to be closed off to me.

Even worse if its the DM that is that sort of person, then the entire table is facing those challenges. Some extra tools to handle things mechanically can be equally used to assist the DM as well as the players, just as they can be abused to tale away fun from the experience.

Edit: and it goes for exploration too. Most people have come across DMs that play the 'guess what im thinking' game which i wager is not a terribly great experience for most

[NecessaryWeevil]

My meaning doesn't seem to be coming across. I'm not trying to gatekeep anything. Let me try again.
If I envision my character as a great swordsman, there are (to some extent) build decisions that I can take to make my character a dangerous melee threat and one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the party. The mechanics will support that fantasy.
However, I understand the OP as saying there shouldn't be any mechanics governing social interactions, which I take to also mean that there is no way to play a character who is one of the most persuasive people in the party. That there should be no mechanics supporting that fantasy.

EDIT: Kane0 and JNAP seem to get what I'm trying to say.

[stoutstien]

My meaning doesn't seem to be coming across. I'm not trying to gatekeep anything. Let me try again.
If I envision my character as a great swordsman, there are (to some extent) build decisions that I can take to make my character a dangerous melee threat and one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the party. The mechanics will support that fantasy.
However, I understand the OP as saying there shouldn't be any mechanics governing social interactions, which I take to also mean that there is no way to play a character who is one of the most persuasive people in the party. That there should be no mechanics supporting that fantasy.

I don't anyone has argued that there needs to be no mechanical backing it's just you don't want to over invest in that because it distracts from the actual goal.
Like in your example you don't need a bunch of fiddly bonuses to be the most person you could simply have a feature that says:

Creatures will believe any reasonable thing you tell them until proven otherwise. Additionally you have advantage on any charisma checks to influence others as long as you have not performed a hostile action versus them or their allies.

Not only does this support the idea of approaching things from an in-game perspective rather than smashing a social attack button it also prevents the mindset that you can roll some obscene high number and talk a lord to hand over their holdings

[NecessaryWeevil]

I don't want rules for social encounters. I don't want rules for exploration. Rulings not rules is a strength of 5e. How does social work? You talk to people! How does exploration work? You use your 5 senses and move around, prodding things!

This seemed pretty clear to me, but perhaps I took it too literally. Your suggestion seems reasonable.

[KorvinStarmast]

TL;DR: is it a good thing that exploration and social encounters have not been gamified in D&D 5e?
I think yes.

Likewise, and I have nothing further to say.
Except:
If they'd just take alignment back to L/N/C they would undo some damage from self inflicted wounds.

[Skrum]

I gotta disagree. There's just too much space between "no rules, just vibes!" and removing all humanity via mechanics and rolls to conclude that trying to codify any of it is a bad idea.

I've heard people say this kind of stuff before, as like a pitch for rules-lite games. "There's no rules, ergo you can do anything!" Ehhh maybe? Thing is, I don't think mechanics are on the opposite end of spontaneity or creativity. Well-written rules make a framework that can facilitate play; inform the player of what they can do, how they can react...create a context for how to think about the game.

I will say, this case is better made about social interactions than exploration. While I do wish 5e had a little more guidance about how persuasion and the like work, I agree that the nuances of conversation make that really really hard. In a kind of best of bad options, keeping persuasion/intimidate/deception as super simple, "roleplay at the table and then make a simple roll to see how effective it is" is probably fine.

Exploration though...yeah hard disagree. Navigating a wilderness, tracking, finding food, finding shelter, getting un-lost, all of these should be codified and given much more explicit guidance. I don't need to roleplay looking for berries, I just need to know how good my character is at finding them - and what happens when I fail.

[Mastikator]

Some rules tell you how to resolve things - that establishes the context in which things make sense. Other rules give you stuff to play with.

The second is good for these pillars, while the first is bad for social and good for exploration to some degree (but not to the exclusion of unknowns) IMO.

For example, social mechanics that give you information but don't direct resolution, like being able to ask 'who in this room hates each other based on body language?' are extra toys to play with without forcing resolution when it wouldn't make sense or would exclude desired nuance. Social mechanics surrounding, say, the mechanics of peerage could be good - having X rank lets you declare a duel against someone of Y rank without evidence, at Z rank it's illegal of someone of W rank to directly speak poorly of you, etc.

Doesn't mean someone won't do it, but it defines a very relevant system within which social interaction takes place. It's a stove, not the meal.

For exploration, stuff like 'how fast can we travel in jungle, how much supplies does that consume, what happens if we don't have them' is useful for planning. That's stuff where some standardization of resolution is good - you can still have encounters and maybe the cart gets lost or weevils infest the supplies or someone finds game to hunt.

Stuff that says what treasure a CR 8 5-room ruin should have, that should be DM suggestions not player-facing rules.

As far as exploration toys, stuff that lets you build paths, bridges, scout with animals or spells, etc all exists and is good for exploration mechanics. You could easily add more, in a 'exploration toy' rather than 'resolution mechanic' way and I think it would be good. Let dwarves track mechanisms through the floor or walls. Let rangers create lures and repellants to create monster-free corridors. Let fighters get a roll to prevent casualties for large groups going through dangerous marches, etc.

IMO the jungle example gets to the heart of it. No two jungles are alike, you may have one jungle with enormous trees that block off light and has little undergrowth, so travel is relatively easy but celestial navigation is impossible. You may have another jungle with dense undergrowth that either require you to constantly hack with a machete; slowing your travel to a noisy crawl. A jungle may have beasts, fey or monstrosities, there may be humanoids living there that build roads or traps. The water may be drinkable or infested with parasites so you need to boil it, or poisoned and can't be purified without magic. The land may be enchanted or cursed.

All these add up to this (IMO) salient point: you can't have a standardized gamified ruleset for traversing jungles. Each jungle needs their own rules. It's up to the module and DM to decide what it takes to traverse a jungle. Maybe it's just a survival check to make sure you don't get lost. Maybe you need someone to make perception checks to avoid getting ambushed. Maybe you can make arcana or nature checks to benefit from the enchantment. One jungle may have wolves and tigers that will leave the players alone, in another the DM rolls on a random encounter list that puts the players against a hydra.

If the players want to hunt for food they should be able to say that, but I don't want any kind of standardized point system or table.

My meaning doesn't seem to be coming across. I'm not trying to gatekeep anything. Let me try again.
If I envision my character as a great swordsman, there are (to some extent) build decisions that I can take to make my character a dangerous melee threat and one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the party. The mechanics will support that fantasy.
However, I understand the OP as saying there shouldn't be any mechanics governing social interactions, which I take to also mean that there is no way to play a character who is one of the most persuasive people in the party. That there should be no mechanics supporting that fantasy.

EDIT: Kane0 and JNAP seem to get what I'm trying to say.

There are mechanics for being a persuasive character, you can be proficient and even have expertise in the skill persuasion. Same for deception, intimidation and insight. You can also take the inspiring leader feat. That is all fine.

What I don't want is to have the social encounter be gamified. In the UA there were options for "improve NPC attitude", that is already too much. That should only serve as advice for the DM, not suggestions for the player.

-

I've seen many people in multiple threads complain that many skills are useless because there are no systems that engage with those skills. There is no gamified system of nature, so therefore the nature skill is irrelevant. The scout's expertise in nature is nothing more than a ribbon.
But is it though? Is it possible to use that skill to find natural poisons, or find caves, or figure out what kind of creatures live in a wilderness based on the local flora or trails?

[GloatingSwine]

IMO the jungle example gets to the heart of it. No two jungles are alike, you may have one jungle with enormous trees that block off light and has little undergrowth, so travel is relatively easy but celestial navigation is impossible. You may have another jungle with dense undergrowth that either require you to constantly hack with a machete; slowing your travel to a noisy crawl. A jungle may have beasts, fey or monstrosities, there may be humanoids living there that build roads or traps. The water may be drinkable or infested with parasites so you need to boil it, or poisoned and can't be purified without magic. The land may be enchanted or cursed.

Man, sure sounds like this is the sort of place where a set of abstractions would be helpful to let players know how they might be able to interact with different sorts of jungles in a broad and easily graspable manner.

If the players want to hunt for food they should be able to say that, but I don't want any kind of standardized point system or table.

How will the players predict the outcome of doing this, how will their predictions change based on their chosen classes and investments?

There are mechanics for being a persuasive character, you can be proficient and even have expertise in the skill persuasion. Same for deception, intimidation and insight. You can also take the inspiring leader feat. That is all fine.

What I don't want is to have the social encounter be gamified. In the UA there were options for "improve NPC attitude", that is already too much. That should only serve as advice for the DM, not suggestions for the player.

How do the players predict their characters' ability to persuade other people in general, in order to make a baseline for their ability in a specific situation? It rather sounded in the OP like you didn't want to use the persuasion related skills at all, you even got all shouty about it.

[claypigeons]

I'm not a charismatic person, without charisma skills and speech mechanics, I could never accurately portray such a character.

It's a dice based game. If you don't want to play with dice, don't. Or play a different game. The system isn't the problem.

Player wishes to persuade, they inform the dm. DM asks them the gist of what they say, DM can assign a bonuses or advantage as they see fit, and then the player rolls.

A player running a bard shouldn't have to prepare motivational speeches and sick roasts ahead of every session for each inspiration and intimidation.

[Kurald Galain]

TL;DR: is it a good thing that exploration and social encounters have not been gamified in D&D 5e?

There is a wide gap between "having no mechanics" (which is a bad thing) and "being gamified" (which is also a bad thing). It strikes me that your thread title is about one extreme but your top post is actually about the other extreme.

In other words, it's quite reasonable to conclude (in fact, I'd say this is probably a majority opinion) that 3E has too many rules for out-of-combat situations, while at the same time 5E has too few rules (or as your thread title suggests, none at all) for out-of-combat situations.

[stoutstien]

I've been pondering on this aspect for my WIP.

When you talk about players interacting with the environment or NPCs it's not necessarily about the quantity or the extensiveness of the mechanics you use. It's about having mechanics that are usable but not required because the players actions are two open-ended otherwise.

So when you're talking about influencing an NPC's actions (splitting things like intimidation persuasion into different things is silly because you don't care what they think you only care about how they act) you never want to get to a point where one mechanic is necessary to resolve it.

For example if you're going to use a morale system to check if a faction is going to stick around and keep fighting that's fine but you don't want to integrate so much into it where you can't ignore it when it doesn't make any sense.

[Sorinth]

I'm of the opinion that we don't need highly structured game mechanics/systems for exploration/social pillars. I don't have an issue with players wanting to simply press that persuasion/deception button during an social interaction, but what a successful roll actually means shouldn't be defined by the players or a rulebook it's something that needs to be defined by the DM.

So you want to talk your way past some guards, you can talk in character for the whole thing or just say I want to try to talk my way past the guards. Though the later I would ask a few questions about method, are you trying to be get them to like you so they do you a favour, are you trying to pretend like you actually have the proper authority/permission, etc... What I don't want to see is the book/rules saying if a player rolls a 20+ on Persuasion they can change an NPCs attitude from Wary to Friendly, and the Friendly Attitude rule says that they will perform a Moderate Favour, and then a sample list of what Moderate Favours look like. The DM should be the one deciding what success looks like, is success let them pass, is it let them pass but one guard provides an escort to where they claim they were going, is it turned away with directions to the public area but no alarm raised, is it turned away and escorted to the public area but at least they aren't arresting you. All those could be appropriate success states depending on the details of the encounter, the guards finding you very close to a public area vs outside the king's chambers are going to greatly influence what success and failure look like.


For exploration my definition is more about player choice, the party exploring a dungeon and come to a T junction and having to decide left or right is the exploration pillar. If done badly the players have no information about either direction and it's basically random, done properly they will have/had opportunities to gain information about what each direction will entail and can make a more informed decision where they balance risk/reward.

[Sorinth]

I've been pondering on this aspect for my WIP.

When you talk about players interacting with the environment or NPCs it's not necessarily about the quantity or the extensiveness of the mechanics you use. It's about having mechanics that are usable but not required because the players actions are two open-ended otherwise.

So when you're talking about influencing an NPC's actions (splitting things like intimidation persuasion into different things is silly because you don't care what they think you only care about how they act) you never want to get to a point where one mechanic is necessary to resolve it.

For example if you're going to use a morale system to check if a faction is going to stick around and keep fighting that's fine but you don't want to integrate so much into it where you can't ignore it when it doesn't make any sense.

I could see merging Persuasion/Deception into a single skill, but Intimidation seems very different. And although for one off encounters it's true don't care what they think only how they act for NPCs you will encounter more then once then it very much matters what they think.

[NichG]

IMO the jungle example gets to the heart of it. No two jungles are alike, you may have one jungle with enormous trees that block off light and has little undergrowth, so travel is relatively easy but celestial navigation is impossible. You may have another jungle with dense undergrowth that either require you to constantly hack with a machete; slowing your travel to a noisy crawl. A jungle may have beasts, fey or monstrosities, there may be humanoids living there that build roads or traps. The water may be drinkable or infested with parasites so you need to boil it, or poisoned and can't be purified without magic. The land may be enchanted or cursed.

All these add up to this (IMO) salient point: you can't have a standardized gamified ruleset for traversing jungles. Each jungle needs their own rules. It's up to the module and DM to decide what it takes to traverse a jungle. Maybe it's just a survival check to make sure you don't get lost. Maybe you need someone to make perception checks to avoid getting ambushed. Maybe you can make arcana or nature checks to benefit from the enchantment. One jungle may have wolves and tigers that will leave the players alone, in another the DM rolls on a random encounter list that puts the players against a hydra.

If the players want to hunt for food they should be able to say that, but I don't want any kind of standardized point system or table.

But what are you actually gaining here, that you couldn't have otherwise?

If you really want everything to be totally unique to the fullest extent possible, you could run a jungle exploration game in 6 second intervals on a giant battlemap, so every bush, rock, bit of pathway, etc is resolved in its full glory. But that's pointless detail - it would be getting in the way of the game, rather than contributing. Even if, strictly speaking, that is the true diversity of jungle environments - every foot of it is a different foot than every other foot of it. This foot has a spiderweb, that foot has a casava plant, that foot over there has a bit of squelchy mud and a steeper incline, etc. But you don't actually need that level of detail to make it feel unique - even without mechanics you're surely going to abstract away miles of jungle as 'okay, you bushwhack your way for 8 hours or so and make a mile of progress before you start to get exhausted'.

It's also easy enough to make a system of mechanics that has open ports for the DM to introduce variation - new terrain types, new modifiers, caravan-level status conditions, weather, custom encounter tables, specific set-piece location-based encounters, etc. So having some mechanical resolution for the dungeon doesn't exclude you making each jungle unique in ways you feel are important to convey, it just means you'll be conveying at least part of that uniqueness within a framework that makes those differences concretely meaningful as to their consequences. E.g. not just 'this is a really dense jungle' but 'this is a really dense jungle as jungles go, so you only move at half of the speed you would in other jungle terrain you've seen in your career'. Or, not just 'this jungle is clear at ground level but extremely dense at the canopy' but 'because this jungle has clear forest floor and dense canopy, you don't take bushwhacking penalties for travel on foot, but modes of flight and vertical travel have to bushwhack whenever they try to cross the canopy line'.

It forces you to say what details matter to the level of abstraction that will be used for resolution. Which isn't a bad thing, IMO.

For a game that involves long-distance exploration of wilderness environments, planning is really part of real-world processes that made such adventures viable. The more uncertain your information (or the more variable the chance aspects are), the shorter plans can be before they're basically nonsense. So in a game where the DM is resistant to setting expectations on the basis of wanting there to be unique surprises, the flip side is that generally speaking the game has to either be following the DM's plan or player-made plans have to be pretty short. A day trip across a wilderness with some camping supplies just in case, to get to a nearby fort? Sure. A three-month long expedition to the south pole, when you don't know if you can realistically make 4 miles or 8 miles or 16 miles a day? It's just not going to happen unless the players assume that the DM will fiddle with things to make it viable-but-challenging.

So being able to predict things like 'can we hunt for our own food?' or 'how much in the way of supplies should we pack for this route?' are, IMO, important to the actual interesting game-play - which is to make plans that are viable for exploring challenging environments, and then adapt those plans due to specific changes in circumstance or events which occur. 'Hey, we heard of treasure 50 miles off of our route, can we afford to change it?' or 'Hey, our plans looked fine but then half our supplies spoiled, how can we still make it back?' are interesting. 'Hey, we had 12 days of supply but now we have 6 days; but we don't really know how long it would take to go anywhere, so I guess we just go and hope the DM doesn't TPK us from starvation' is not so interesting. Nor, honestly, is playing a guessing game of trying various actions to feel out the DM's hidden mental model of the effectiveness of those things in this particular environment.

The DM can provide this information in response to specific questions during a planning phase of course, but as I see it, providing information in advance about how something is going to be resolved is just writing mechanics. If you're going to write mechanics anyhow, might as well be thinking in terms of a consistent framework. There's of course the 'do I trust WotC to write it?' issue, but I think that's a totally separate issue as to whether or not having mechanics could be beneficial if they were the right sort of mechanics.

...

Now, as for social stuff, I think its a very different issue. Part of the issue with social mechanics for resolution has to do with reinforcing a really bad mental model that already exists in a lot of players - that social interaction basically boils down to 'forcing people to do what I want with words', e.g. that its primarily about conflict resolution in the first place. Adding a resolution mechanic for something like persuasion reinforces that misconception, and tends to lead to social interactions being more and more like 'combat' than about finding mutually beneficial solutions for conflicting interests.

That is to say, for me at least, the primary gameplay in a social situation isn't 'who has the wittier comebacks', it's 'how well can you understand the needs of the various participants' and 'given an understanding of the needs of the participants (in the context of the rest of the game state), can you come up with paths that are better for everyone than a breakdown in communication'. A character's 'skill at Persuasion' doesn't even belong in this model, honestly - it encourages overriding the needs of others in the scenario rather than finding out where they're better cooperatively met.

But this is exactly where I think having social 'toys' can be useful. That may be my mental model, but a player's mental model might be 'what really matters is how eloquent I am, and a really charismatic bastard should just be able to roll over anyone and treat them like objects rather than like agents'. So by explicitly writing mechanics that work within my mental model but don't do anything within the 'hit the enemy with my words' model, I can communicate what sort of things I expect a socially effective character to actually be doing. That's why I'll have a bunch of things for gathering information and maybe some things for swaying crowds or abstracted systems (like getting paperwork through a bureaucracy), but I never put something that is of the form 'roll to make them think a certain way'. Not for friendliness, not for lying, not for negotiation, not for persuasion.

Instead, its always 'you can use your abilities to get me as GM to promise concretely something about how the NPC would react' rather than to 'make the NPC react'. That is to say, a social character could extract an OOC promise 'if you offer at least a 250gp bribe, this particular guard will accept it and not report you' or 'that guard over there will do it for 100gp' or to find out in advance 'this other guard will immediately turn hostile at any suggestion of a bribe, no matter how much'. So the mechanics become a vehicle for me to introduce those differences, rather than a way for those differences to be erased.

But no, you cannot play a character who is 'so charismatic that people just do what they say' in my games unless you're using actual stuff marked as mind control. And anything that lets a character do that, whether its an epic skill check or a spell or whatever, would be considered as a use of forceful compulsion by societies capable of understanding what the character did - e.g. its a hostile act, violent or even lethal self-defense against it is usually justified, the victim is not responsible for actions they take under that control, etc. I don't have a problem with characters having mind control powers, I specifically have a problem with social interaction reducing to 'socially acceptable mind control'. That's not what it's for - if that's what you want to do, play a caster with Charm Person and Dominate Person.

On the other hand, if you actually do embrace the cooperative social model, then its possible to leverage that to power way outside of what your level should normally allow. A Lv1 character with no skills dropping the right information in the ear of the Lv20 godking can get the godking to act on their behalf - not because they can beat the godking in a roll-off, but because they picked the information where it's just in the godking's best interest to act in a way that also happens to help them. Will the Lv1 guy just happen to have that information? Well, usually not. But if they do actually get such information and realize its relevance, the godking isn't going to hold the idiot ball of 'I'll ignore it because the character flubbed their roll'.

The mechanics then that the player can access would then for example help them identify that important information and its value, e.g. 'because you rolled a 18 on this check, you realize that the thing that came up briefly in the last conversation about figures in silver cloaks flying across the Trenton river would actually be really important information to the local lord; you can negotiate a favor out of him - at minimum, something like 500gp of cash, but more value if its in directions the local lord finds convenient to pay back at no real cost such as granting temporary privileges or rights within his territory; its shy of getting you a knighthood or anything permanent though'.

Note that in my case, once you've gotten the info, it still doesn't depend on 'how good of a public speaker the player is'. Once you have the thing of value, the skill says OOC 'all you have to do is hand this over and ask for something within its price range, and it will work' (and also note, you can do this without succeeding in the skill check and it would still work; but you don't get the guarantee, or the explicit knowledge of what particular information is relevant and valuable). But what it doesn't let you do is go up and offer nothing at all and rely just on the numbers on the character sheet to get you through. The gameplay is finding what the lord needs, fears, desires, etc; getting some leverage over those things; and then using that leverage to construct a deal that is (or appears) mutually beneficial. I don't want mechanics that encourage players to pay character resources in exchange for being able to skip that. But mechanics which make it more clear what the players do need to do, and which cut through uncertainties in trying to read my mind about whether a given approach will work? That's constructive.

[stoutstien]

I could see merging Persuasion/Deception into a single skill, but Intimidation seems very different. And although for one off encounters it's true don't care what they think only how they act for NPCs you will encounter more then once then it very much matters what they think.

It does matter what they think but your <skill> approach is largely irrelevant as it's your choices that make the difference. How one NPC reacts to bribes or threats of physical force is a in game factor rather than something you can point at on your sheet.

So while intimidation and persuasion differ it's not on the PCs/players side that determines which is which.

[Sorinth]

It does matter what they think but your <skill> approach is largely irrelevant as it's your choices that make the difference. How one NPC reacts to bribes or threats of physical force is a in game factor rather than something you can point at on your sheet.

So while intimidation and persuasion differ it's not on the PCs/players side that determines which is which.

So you think every person is going to be equally good at intimidating people as they are at befriending people? I don't buy that at all, plenty of people would be poor at making friends but can be very intimidating and vice versa.

[stoutstien]

So you think every person is going to be equally good at intimidating people as they are at befriending people? I don't buy that at all, plenty of people would be poor at making friends but can be very intimidating and vice versa.

No but nobody is also equally as good at intimidating everybody regardless of the situation.

Now if it said something like you are better at threatening people with physical harm then that is a more put together statement because it apply that it affects things that are affected by physical harm rather than just vague scary power. In the same vein somebody who's good at threatening somebody with financial ruin is probably going to talk and act very differently but they're both using some kind of coercion.

By mapping in the way they do now is exactly where you ended the point where a 3-ft tall gnome is somehow more intimidating than an 8 ft half orc with a bloody axe.

[Sorinth]

No but nobody is also equally as good at intimidating everybody regardless of the situation.

Now if it said something like you are better at threatening people with physical harm then that is a more put together statement because it apply that it affects things that are affected by physical harm rather than just vague scary power. In the same vein somebody who's good at threatening somebody with financial ruin is probably going to talk and act very differently but they're both using some kind of coercion.

By mapping in the way they do now is exactly where you ended the point where a 3-ft tall gnome is somehow more intimidating than an 8 ft half orc with a bloody axe.

You've lost me, some people are better at physically intimidating then others right? That means if it comes down to a check that they should either get a higher bonus to the roll or they face a lower DC right? I can't figure out what you actually think this should be resolved.

[stoutstien]

You've lost me, some people are better at physically intimidating then others right? That means if it comes down to a check that they should either get a higher bonus to the roll or they face a lower DC right? I can't figure out what you actually think this should be resolved.

The problem is the same skill/ability governs being physically intimidating is also for other form of coercion.

At the same time you could rationalize any social interaction to fall under any of the other ones so they're all just kind of wishy-washy anyways. It's restrictive in ways it isn't helpful but also not providing enough guidelines otherwise.

This means you end up at a point where where if that is something you want to be good at you are also equally good at all the other stuff so it kind of feels meh.

I get why they broke it up or else charisma would be even more loaded than it is but it didn't actually fix anything by doing it this way.

[Blatant Beast]

Exploration though...yeah hard disagree. Navigating a wilderness, tracking, finding food, finding shelter, getting un-lost, all of these should be codified and given much more explicit guidance. I don't need to roleplay looking for berries, I just need to know how good my character is at finding them - and what happens when I fail.

There are rules for this. The focus of those rules is abstracting Overland travel issues into D20 Dice rolls, and not Roleplaying the day.

If your timescale is less than this, then just use the ability check mechanic. The Traveller RPG and 3e had a similiar issue; both systems abounded with overly complicated resolution systems for situations that did not require it.

Finding berries is just a matter of time and the availability if berries. You don't need to even roll dice, let alone have a complicated resolution formula to resolve it.

You find berries if berries are to be found.

[Kane0]

If anyone does know of some well made exploration mechanics I have a seafaring game coming up in the sometime-future that would appreciate them

[Aimeryan]

TL;DR: is it a good thing that exploration and social encounters have not been gamified in D&D 5e?
I think yes.

Hard disagree: the point of a game is to provide rules. Rules are tools that DMs and Players alike can use to craft their adventures. A lack of tools does not prevent this, but it can make it more difficult. The presence of tools do not force you to use them. Therefore, it is always advantageous to have tools and not use them than to not have tools and lack for doing so.

If you are capable of handcrafting two pillars of the game without the rules, then you can probably do the same for another pillar - in which case, why are you buying the books?

[Sorinth]

Exploration though...yeah hard disagree. Navigating a wilderness, tracking, finding food, finding shelter, getting un-lost, all of these should be codified and given much more explicit guidance. I don't need to roleplay looking for berries, I just need to know how good my character is at finding them - and what happens when I fail.

There are codified rules for all those things except finding shelter since they decided shelter isn't relevant to resting (A big miss in my view). But the rest all have been codified, navigating a wilderness, tracking, finding food, getting lost, it's all there and pretty straightforward without needing the DM to make "rulings".

Honestly the problem is those things just aren't very interesting so if that's what you consider the meat of what the exploration pillar should be it's going to be lacking. If they were to make a complex/immersive survival system for travel that's probably going to turn off a lot of tables which makes it a hard sell and is why the exploration pillar needs to be about more then just travel & food.

[Blatant Beast]

If you are capable of handcrafting two pillars of the game without the rules, then you can probably do the same for another pillar - in which case, why are you buying the books?

I find this a remarkably bad take.
Firstly, the DMG has a dense section on adjusting Attitudes, so the game does have tables that handle the social sphere.

Have those that say 5e lacks X rule, even read the DMG? Are you reading the Overland travel section of the PHB, or like most people did you skip over it?

Ultimately, these matters reduce down to a matter of taste. Those that do not like the Ability Check Resolution system inherent to 5e seemingly are the same ones that want more Social/Exploration rules.

I'm sure third party products have exactly what you want, barring that Mongoose's Traveller version has all the rules you would ever want, give it a try.