Why A Party Face Is A Bad Idea

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

There's an interesting thing about social skill rolls: We typically do them backwards, compared to everything else.

Let's say your character is attempting to climb a cliff. You'd roll, and then determine how well you climb the cliff.

Meanwhile, with social skill rolls, we tend to, metaphorically speaking, give a detailed description of how well we climbed the cliff, and then roll to see how well we actually climbed the cliff.

Or in short, if we were convincing a zombie to dance the Monster Mash, we might begin with an elevator pitch ("It's classic music that's been an unhallowed monster tradition for centuries."), continue on with some logic ("It will totally make you popular with that ghoul over there"), and then finish with an impassioned plea ("Plus, you've been sitting here holding up the wall for two hours. Come on, get out there and dance!").

And then we roll an 18 on our Fast-Talk skill, and it turns out what we actually did was blather on for thirty minutes about the history and culture of the Monster Mash, and annoyed everyone within hearing distance.

Or we could roll our Fast-Talk skill, and then RP that roll. ;)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Yeah. My group started having this problem a while back. We decided to go through the various "realms" of adventuring (social engineering, combat, investigation, etc) and divide them up into methodologies and have everyone have their own methodology for engaging with each one with the skills and tools that support it. Then when it gets to the talky bits the party has 3-4 different types of faces who can go about it in different ways, and end up taking turns based on what's needed, or coordinating together. In theory we do the same thing with investigation and combat. It has worked the best in combat, and second best in investigation.

Aside from the player skill dependency issue you observed, there's a definite lack of point economy in this, because traits like Charisma that very efficiently improve a full-service face character lose their shine when the influence skills are instead distributed over many characters.

Probably less true in investigation, where useful skills are probably too spread out to fall under one efficient Talent.

Originally Posted by Refplace

It just seems to me to be how things are setup. For example my current party consists of...

• Primary Face Diplomacy 20, Attractive, Voice Charisma 3
• Leader Handsome, Charisma, Leadership
• Mage Transcendent Appearance
• Slammer Intimidation with some perks
• Spearfighter Attractive, Savior-Faire (High Society)

Were all martial artists in a Wuxia/Xianxia campaign and I think everyone has some reaction bonuses with the Face and Leaders being the best generally but our slammer has a very high Intimidation skill.
So in town most get a chance to do something.

This comes off to me as a situation where all (or most) of the table took the view that their PC being more or less socially appealing was something they wanted, and built accordingly. Which is perfectly reasonable! The stereotype of PCs as misfit-and-freaky technical specialists isn't compulsory, and may be unappealing (depending on taste) in a game where social relationships outside the PC group are a meaningful possibility.

Which can certainly change the party social engineering calculus. There probably aren't many situations where your spearfighter PC should take point socially, but they're not usually going to bring shame on themselves and everyone associated with them by being socially engaged.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

There's an interesting thing about social skill rolls: We typically do them backwards, compared to everything else.

Let's say your character is attempting to climb a cliff. You'd roll, and then determine how well you climb the cliff.

Meanwhile, with social skill rolls, we tend to, metaphorically speaking, give a detailed description of how well we climbed the cliff, and then roll to see how well we actually climbed the cliff.

Or in short, if we were convincing a zombie to dance the Monster Mash, we might begin with an elevator pitch ("It's classic music that's been an unhallowed monster tradition for centuries."), continue on with some logic ("It will totally make you popular with that ghoul over there"), and then finish with an impassioned plea ("Plus, you've been sitting here holding up the wall for two hours. Come on, get out there and dance!").

And then we roll an 18 on our Fast-Talk skill, and it turns out what we actually did was blather on for thirty minutes about the history and culture of the Monster Mash, and annoyed everyone within hearing distance.

Or we could roll our Fast-Talk skill, and then RP that roll. ;)

There are a thing or two there that aren't really limited to social skills.

One is that with most skills you may want to be particular about the details either to try to benefit the rolls directly (use a nearby tree to get over a wall rather than scaling the wall directly, make sure it's noted that you're using applicable tools for bonuses) or to try to control outcomes outside the scope of the dice (you're always poking stuff with a 10-foot pole, not sticking your hands in potentially-trapped holes or anything like that).

The other is that sometimes, at some tables you can skip the danger of a bad die roll entirely if the GM finds your narration sufficiently good... And some GMs consider just rolling skill to solve something without presenting the solution in detail unsatisfactory.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Anthony

In general any skill division that winds up with one PC doing most of the stuff for an extended scene while other people just sit around is poor game play (other notable offenders are stealth recon missions and netrunners), but it's rather tricky to fix.

I've never bought into the idea that one smart, charming person with nice skin and good teeth can talk to villagers, and keep them completely distracted from the minotaur with poor personal hygiene, the filed-tooth barbarian with a collection of elf ears as a necklace, and the mysterious individual in a dark-red robe with the hood up and a twisted ebon staff with a skull on the end. I particularly don't buy that all three "non-face" characters will stand there quietly, passively, and doing nothing to incite reaction problems, even though they've all got a stack of social disadvantages.

People who've played with me know that my "idiot thug" PCs go out of their way to be involved in the social interaction, otherwise I'm not earning those disad points for being a total mess :) Reaction penalties are not a harmless "dump stat", and that's really the big problem I have with a "Party face" - it makes no more sense that the "non-social" characters are ignored than the "non-combat" characters are just simply ignored in combat, like they've become invisible and intangible.

EDIT: My point in part being "Therefore, if the rest of the party isn't involved, the players aren't playing their problems correctly and the GM's NPCs aren't reacting to them properly."

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Aside from the player skill dependency issue you observed, there's a definite lack of point economy in this, because traits like Charisma that very efficiently improve a full-service face character lose their shine when the influence skills are instead distributed over many characters.

Probably less true in investigation, where useful skills are probably too spread out to fall under one efficient Talent.

Yeah. We use buckets of points. In all things all the time, but also somewhat generally. E.g. characters might have 30ish points to flush out their social engineering role, another 30ish for their spy methodology, another 50ish for combative abilities, 20ish for knowledge skills and lore, 30ish for a unique useful niche skill set, and then a handful for miscellaneous and background stuff. (numbers vary by campaign power level, of course!)

Everyone's IQ and DX are fixed at a number set by the GM based on how cinematic the game will be because improving at combative abilities and magic tend to be big features of the game and if one person improves at one of those faster than everyone else or learns new abilities at higher levels than everyone else it tends to feel bad for everyone else.

And then all of that is treated as guidelines instead of hard rules and the GM is the one who actually makes everyone's character sheets based on the concepts and skill roles and stuff the players say they want so he can adjust things as needed to make sure everyone is roughly as point economic as everyone else.

It's all very egalitarian.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Bruno

EDIT: My point in part being "Therefore, if the rest of the party isn't involved, the players aren't playing their problems correctly and the GM's NPCs aren't reacting to them properly."

In terms of fun factor, "I'm involved by desperately trying to stay out of trouble" isn't a lot better than "not involved at all". Generating challenges where everyone can feel they're an asset to the party probably requires significant design changes (such as heavily discouraging or straight disallowing gigantic reaction penalties).

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

There are a thing or two there that aren't really limited to social skills.

One is that with most skills you may want to be particular about the details either to try to benefit the rolls directly (use a nearby tree to get over a wall rather than scaling the wall directly, make sure it's noted that you're using applicable tools for bonuses) or to try to control outcomes outside the scope of the dice (you're always poking stuff with a 10-foot pole, not sticking your hands in potentially-trapped holes or anything like that).

The other is that sometimes, at some tables you can skip the danger of a bad die roll entirely if the GM finds your narration sufficiently good... And some GMs consider just rolling skill to solve something without presenting the solution in detail unsatisfactory.

That is true; however, with social skills, there is still a strong tendency to describe the action, then roll; while with other skills, there is still a strong tendency to declare a goal, then roll, then describe the action.

And, naturally, multiple paradigms of RPG mechanics do exist; and no general statement is going to cover all of them.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I've never bought into the idea that one smart, charming person with nice skin and good teeth can talk to villagers, and keep them completely distracted from the minotaur with poor personal hygiene, the filed-tooth barbarian with a collection of elf ears as a necklace, and the mysterious individual in a dark-red robe with the hood up and a twisted ebon staff with a skull on the end. I particularly don't buy that all three "non-face" characters will stand there quietly, passively, and doing nothing to incite reaction problems, even though they've all got a stack of social disadvantages.

People who've played with me know that my "idiot thug" PCs go out of their way to be involved in the social interaction, otherwise I'm not earning those disad points for being a total mess :) Reaction penalties are not a harmless "dump stat", and that's really the big problem I have with a "Party face" - it makes no more sense that the "non-social" characters are ignored than the "non-combat" characters are just simply ignored in combat, like they've become invisible and intangible.

EDIT: My point in part being "Therefore, if the rest of the party isn't involved, the players aren't playing their problems correctly and the GM's NPCs aren't reacting to them properly."

The tactical fix for that, of course, is to outright remove the more obtrusively intolerable PCs from the scene - leave them at a safe distance, hide them, etcetera.

Of course, that may mean that the face can't count on their backup if the situation turns into something where an unwashed minotaur is an asset rather than a liability. And depending on their collected Disadvantages, they may well find their way into trouble wherever they are - it just won't be blowing up right in the middle of the Face's work.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

That is true; however, with social skills, there is still a strong tendency to describe the action, then roll; while with other skills, there is still a strong tendency to declare a goal, then roll, then describe the action.

I think both my parenthetical examples (trap-detection and climbing or other environmental traversal) are situations where there's a strong tendency to describe what you're trying to do rather than what you're trying to achieve by doing it.

[scc]

Originally Posted by borithan

Does it really come from D&D? I thought the idea of a "face", was a "real world" term, ie the person who meets people to iron out a deal? And while I realise 3.5 D&D did kind of encourage this kind of behaviour because of the absurd level of specialisation needed to make someone competent at a skill, it kind of has similarities to the older idea of the "Party leader", the character who would be presumed to be the prime person interacting for the group, I presume to make it simpler for the GM! However, I think the likely identity of the character might have changed from "This is the fighter, who as he is a active forceful man of action would be the leader" to "This is the bard/Sorcerer/Paladin, cos their CHA is high, and so it makes sense he is the one who invested points in social skills. The big dumb fighter is back their making grumpy faces and the occasional incomprehensible grunt."

While the term face might come from else where, 'party face' definitely seems to be a D&D term.

Originally Posted by borithan

Of course in really old school games, there was no mechanical aspect of social encounters. It was entirely down to how you played it out. Does make things hard for people who struggle to think of good things to say, but want to play a "social" character, but also avoids the inconsistencies of "well, you just insulted that man to his face, but rolled really high on your social check, so he actually really likes you" or "Well, that seems like an entirely reasonable offer, and you presented it well, but that critical failure means he wants you dead." Obviously you can have these things play a part even in a mechanical system but then again, you may be punishing player ability unfairly, and you might get complaints about players not getting the benefit of character abilities they have invested in. In some ways, the "this scene happens entirely off camera, and is resolved by a dice roll" is possibly the fairest, but only really works for a game like DF where you are expected to spend most of your time battling monsters and exploring.

I feel that forcing players to roleplay to that extant breaks the entire idea of a roleplaying game, after all the party sword wielder isn't expected to actually know how to use a sword, so why should the diplomat actually know diplomacy? There's also the problem that this encourages murder-hobo behavior.