On Social Skills for Characters in RPGs

I've seen a number of arguments for and against the presence of character social skills in tabletop RPGs, and further discussion on how they should operate in play if they're present at all. I'm personally in favor of social skills as a quantifiable advantage on one's character sheet. That is to say, I think a player should be able to buy skills and abilities for his or her character which make that character more capable through the game's mechanics of getting what he or she wants in social situations, be it through impassioned plea or conniving falsehood.

I understand the argument against letting modifiers to die rolls dictate the success or failure of social activities in play. After all, folks in this hobby tend to pride themselves on the "roleplaying" part of our hobby. We're dismissive sometimes of "those guys playing World of Warcraft" and their so-called RPG because there's no actual roleplaying required to get by in the game. Players of offline console or computer RPGs get a little closer to being able to roleplay a character and have a meaningful impact on the game's world, but they're still generally picking a canned response from a list of possibilities. A player can't have his character ask unscripted questions in the game, so the sophistication levels off at a point akin to a choose-your-own-adventure book with a dice roll happening behind the curtain. This is a sorry substitute for having the freedom to say whatever comes to mind when we roleplay at the table. Given that freedom in the tabletop medium of play, I can see why some would disdain relegating success or failure to a roll of dice.

Still, when push comes to shove, I can't let go of letting game mechanics help a PC out in social situations, and my argument in favor of this centers on escapism. One of the major reasons I play tabletop RPGs is to be able to get away from the ordinary life I live every day. For three or four hours a week, I'm not that chunky single guy with an under-utilized college degree. I'm a bold fighter or a cunning wizard with a world depending on my victory. I'm taking part in a legendary tale with the fate of the world resting on its outcome.

So we play, and we escape. We do it through a medium of words spoken around a table. We let die rolls alongside game mechanics substitute for the fact that I'm not a muscle-bound swordsman or a master of fearful arcane magic. Why should it be any different for a player who wants to escape by playing a silver-tongued seductress or charismatic general? Being socially competent is no less or more silly a thing to wish one could be than any other ability.

I think the medium is a big part of why people argue against the mechanical modifications to social activities. There's a freedom of will at stake for PCs and NPCs. If you, acting like your character, couldn't convince King Lockmoor to lend his troops to your cause, why should he illogically buckle once the player rolls the dice? I admit that it can threaten the believability of the fiction in some cases.

There are a few things I can think of that your group can do in play to limit the disconnectedness between what a player might narrate and the amount of impact the dice might claim he's had.

Let Uncomfortable Players Narrate Social Actions in 3rd Person - This is probably a less desirable solution for most games. The majority of players I've run into prefer to speak for their characters in 1st person. Still, if a less skilled player controls a face character, he or she may be more comfortable saying, "I ask him this," than he or she is stammering through the question in character. The more eloquent character's speech can be imagined as happening in the fiction.

Roll Before Speaking - This one may or may not work well depending on preferred styles of play. I think it mostly helps in situations in which the player is more charismatic than the character. If a player knows whether his or her roll has succeeded in advance, he or she can flub the execution or deliver smoothly in response. There's a degree to which this takes away free will that can grate on some players, but it does prevent the disconnect that happens when a really convincing argument goes nowhere because the dice said so. Alternately, the GM could fix the result on his or her end by making a reason for the NPC to take offense at or misunderstand something that the character said in response to a classy delivery. Basically, the GM canonizes a logical reason for the attempt to fail which likely didn't exist prior to the flubbed die roll.

Let the Die Roll Generate Hints - Couple this with rolling before speaking. If a socially-inept player with a smooth character makes a great successful roll, take a moment out-of-character as the GM to deliver some info about what would sway the NPC more. If a player is told, "The king is a known friend of the dwarven lord you defended earlier. If you can show some evidence that you're also that lord's friend, he'll be more likely to budge," that player will be primed to provide sensible narration.

There's a good reason that people are divided on the issue of using social skills in RPGs. The amount of reliance on die rolls and modifiers in social situations can have a great impact on how entertaining and immersive the resulting fiction is. While I understand that, I still think it's a greater shame to limit the breadth of escapism by forcing players to come to the table with a particular competency just to play a character archetype effectively. A little extra effort can help curb inconsistencies in narration, and I think it's worth the effort to let a player play his or her dream character.