Andererseits gesehen...wer brauch das hier: ? Social Interaction mit Würfeln lösen...das ist nicht ernst, oder?
o Social interations completely revamped. Dave Noonan:
"...And out comes a new iteration of our social challenge rules. We extracted a ton of useful data out of the test, and I'll probably spend the rest of the morning typing that up for my colleagues and messing with some the rules. But I can share some broad outlines with you.
1) I had perfect attendance at my table last night: 7 PCs, plus the dragon, plus the lich. A truly participatory social challenge at a table that big is going to be chaotic no matter how you structure it. Or at least you can't come up with rules that muzzle my players.
2) There was a lot of variety in both the mechanical techniques used (the checks/rolls/etc.) and the actual table dialogue. That's a pretty high priority, so it was good to see it emerge in actual play. But my table is predisposed to show those behaviors, so I can't see anything more definite than "it's a good system for people who throw themselves into that play style wholeheartedly."
3) The system we were testing involves skill checks (big surprise, huh?). One of the things I found fascinating was that some players preferred to deliver their dialogue, then roll the skill check and report the result. Others preferred to roll the skill check first, then deliver dialogue that matched their result (good or bad). The system works either way, so I might just make it explicit that you can "roll, then talk" or "talk, then roll."
4) There is a totally valid D&D playstyle that haaaaates the idea of social interactions being resolved with a die roll. This system should work for that playstyle, too, once you flip a few switches. That just isn't the playstyle we were testing last night.
The upshot? We had about 20 minutes of great dialogue at the table, then the lich was sufficiently convinced that the dragon was dangerously insane that he cautiously aided the PCs in attacking the dragon. Of course the lich turned on the PCs as the dragon fight was winding down. But the social challenge mattered, because the PCs were able to fight the dragon (with a little help), then fight the lich. That sure beats fighting dragon + lich."
