Elf-hair Bowstring

[Insect King]

And maybe some humility might be in order, too.

He wouldn't be the first to come here saying "such-and-such rule is bad" only to eventually realize that it was far more subtle and well-designed than it first appeared.

Hell, I hope so.

C.

[Insect King]

If I'm reading this correctly, essentially you are ignoring some of the rules of the game (Social Encounters) in favor of your own free-form improv, and then complaining that the rules you are ignoring have no real purpose.

The social interaction rules indicate how many failed communication rolls are allowed. Standing is general social prestige and you apply Valour or Wisdom as situational modifiers according to the audience.

And yes, we mostly stopped using the tolerance rules (I think the GM fudges something like them as a yardstick but mainly gauges the interaction on its own merits). As players, we use dialogue and the GM may call for an appropriate roll if need be. It's simpler and faster. We split interaction duties between the hobbit, who has lots of courtesy and is the party PR liaison, and the elf, with his lots of awe, is the bringer of bad news.

To me that sort of sounds like resolving combat through arm-wrestling at the table, and then complaining that the combat section is extraneous.

Awww, what a nice straw man and you made it all for me. Thanks.

Cheers,

Chris.

[Deadmanwalking]

That's not really a strawman, though it is an exaggeration. The game has a well developed set of mechanics for social interaction that make social skills really useful and good. If you don't use those rules, you'll absolutely find social skills less useful, but it's not the game's fault since you aren't actually using the rules that make them so.

Per the actual rules, you should all use Insight at the beginning of every Encounter, then either Courtesy, Awe, or Riddle to introduce yourself, then other skills in the encounter itself for the most part (Courtesy almost never comes up after introductions IME, while Awe does so only rarely), which makes Persuade and Inspire quite useful as well.

And using the mechanics doesn't involve not talking things through, it just involves doing so and then rolling to see how well your words worked. For the record.

Oh, and on a pedantic note, Standing only applies with your own Culture (and any that have adopted you), not everyone.

[Terisonen]

That's not really a strawman, though it is an exaggeration. The game has a well developed set of mechanics for social interaction that make social skills really useful and good. If you don't use those rules, you'll absolutely find social skills less useful, but it's not the game's fault since you aren't actually using the rules that make them so.

Per the actual rules, you should all use Insight at the beginning of every Encounter, then either Courtesy, Awe, or Riddle to introduce yourself, then other skills in the encounter itself for the most part (Courtesy almost never comes up after introductions IME, while Awe does so only rarely), which makes Persuade and Inspire quite useful as well.

And using the mechanics doesn't involve not talking things through, it just involves doing so and then rolling to see how well your words worked. For the record.

Oh, and on a pedantic note, Standing only applies with your own Culture (and any that have adopted you), not everyone.

I always thinked that you can have many Standing value, that match with the culture aimed at.

[Deadmanwalking]

I always thinked that you can have many Standing value, that match with the culture aimed at.

That's a logical and reasonable House Rule, but not the way the rules actually work. By default, unless adopted, you're a foreigner and thus inherently a little more suspect (ie: can't apply your Standing) than all but the least trusted natives.

[Glorelendil]

"Strawman" must be the second most incorrectly used word on the internet. After "moot".