I have a curious question. When I run a campaign I usually roll for the intricate stuff, i.e. hacking, combat, rigging and the like, but i usually roleplay the contact info. I will go by how they ask for the info or treat the contact as to how they get their info. I also roleplay the first meeting and negotiating of the price. If it is not to outrageous and they make a good argument i usually let them up the price. Does anyone play this way or are the rolls the most important. I guess it all depends on the group. My group likes it that way and it actually speeds it up a little instead of waiting on rolls for stuff that is really dependant on how the character acts as opposed to the using of a tool or such.


Trevor

A mixture. Roleplaying can and does add modifiers to your rolls in my games.

Right. I'm all for roleplaying as much as possible, but when it comes down to the Face negociating his way out of 3 guns pointed at his head, it's the CHARACTER than has Negociation 6, not the player. You gotta know when to let the dice do the talking.

My preferance is the character has to earn the die roll. Saying, "I negotiate" is going to confuse the hell out of a Johnson. Give me a story, make it worthy, it does not have to be great. Then you earn the ability to roll your negotiation/con/etc.

For example:

GM: The Johnson says, "Given your reputation as capable operators, my employer is willing to offer you 3,000 for each of your team members. That's 15,000 :nuyen, and a fair offer."

Player: Well look, this is a more serious job than you're leading on. I know a little about this facility and they'll never have security as ligh as you're implying. You have to know that this will cost you more than 15 large to get done. Now if you should offer us 20, we may be able to accomidate your requests."

GM: Okay, roll your negotiation.

Social skills are just like any other skill.

The character with all the combat skills - if the player doesn't have a clue about tactics, he's going to do little good.

The hacker - if the player can't figure out what to hack and when and how to go about it, he won't produce results.

The face - if the player can't come up with some reasonable arguments, he'll get his pants negotiated off. Just like the samurai who finds good cover gets advantages, if the face presents good arguments he gets modifiers to the roll.

In the end, they all have to roll their dice to evaluate the effects of their actions though.

I prefer actual roleplaying to dice rolling for everything. It allows the players to be more creative.

I'm pretty much in the camp of roleplaying most communication, but will sometimes end up with rolling it out when neither side is overly convincing. But, that is not a hard-fast rule...for a lot of stuff, I don't like the dice getting in the way and my players are cool with that. I certainly just don't have players call out that they are negotiating and get a roll...then need to argue/debate and if they are good, I'll give it to them...if just ok, then we'll go to the rolls...

Now, that is all assuming they are roleplaying within the bounds of their character...someone with 1 negotiation, will likely have to roll even with a great argument, but I give more leeway with the higher skills...

In my game, a social situation gets some roleplaying, which then gives a bonus or penalty to the social roll.

No. I might require you to roll dice to see how well you end up negotiating, but you should at least have an idea as to how your going to go about it. Social skills are important.

...had an interesting outcome to one of the encounters in On The Run where a bit of spontaneous in character rollplay defused a potential combat situation.

I think its always fun when you take the time to plan an awesome combat situation and then the players find a way around the combat.

It's not like the two are mutually exclusive.

Except on rpg.net.

I let the players roleplay as far as they can get (which can get really funny lol). If they get stuck, but did ok, they roll the dice. If they roleplay well enough, they still have to roll eventually, but they might get some bonus dice.

I don't think it's fair to combat PCs for players to be able to roleplay through every social interaction. Why would anyone spend points on social skills when they're a good roleplayer? Though my group's current face would be in trouble if his PC didn't have those social skills lol But at least he tries.

Also if a player says something particularly stupid (which happens often lmao), I'll sometimes let them make an etiquette check to correct their blunder.

role play contacts and then if you need to know "how good" you did e.g. negotiation, it comes to dice.

So a mix.

I used to be very strictly a roleplaying kind of GM. I used to frown upon rolling for social skills at all, as that was supposed to be played out instead, with the stats as a guideline like Deek said. But now I've used dice rolls for just about everything for years. It's just more fun and less demanding. I still prefer to improvise how dice rolls are made though. I only follow the rules to the best of my ability and without holding up the game with too much going through the books. (Something that was very hard to do in SR3 when missing a modifier would determine the outcome of a fight, but SR4 has come with my salvation hooray!).

I think the best way to handle that (die rolls for social situations) is to role play it out as best as possible (using stats for a guide), and then offer a modifier based on quality of the RP. That way even the most shy, least talkative, most socially inept booger in the world can still try playing a Face once or twice and do okay, but those who enjoy (and are capable of) RPing that sort of thing out still get rewarded for putting forth the effort, etc.

Hm... in the games I run, facts offer modifiers, nice descriptions don't - no matter if it's combat or social interaction.
Roleplay is assumed as the bare minimum, and impressive RP is rewarded with extra karma - but that doesn't change the fact that the outcome is decided by the numbers.

It's a hard balance to hit.

I am a very fine example of the player that is less experienced that his characters. I can't make tactical decisions. And I can't diplomatize to save my life - I end up saying dumb things, and just glaring at my DM.

I can bluff like a mofo, and I can make a character that can punch holes in a Troll Sam. But I'd like to occasionally play a diplomatic character, not a con, or a smart combatant, rather than a straight up smasher.

I have two choices:

1. Do a subpar job - play a face, or a tactical guy. And negotiate badly, or make bad plans. I'm not a big fan of this. Sure, I may learn eventually. But probably not. "Okay, X doesn't work. Y doesn't work. Z doesn't work. Maybe A?" when I'm looking for "XXyZssayA" isn't gonna help. And I'm getting frustrated, and defaulting back to, you guessed it, the smasher.

2. Get bonuses from the rolls. If my GM is good (and mine usually are), I'll posit a plan. My GM knows that I have a character that is likely to know a better plan. So as I posit, he'll say "You also realize that going in by that route is likely to cause an alarm. Maybe the sewers would be better." And then I incorporate that in to my new plan. After a bit, I have a good plan, and it works. Now I have a *good* example. Same way with negotiating. "I tell him I'll eat his spleen if he doesn't give me the money." "You're pretty sure that he's not going to respond to threats very well." "Oh. Well then, I ask about his sick mother." "She's fine, thanks. That's nice of you for asking. Maybe I can spare a couple more Nuyen...."

So I don't think I should simply roll dice and get a plan from the GM. But the GM needs to guide my plans, or my conversations.

And:

as a GM, I prefer ROLEplay. And my players enjoy it more since they get more done with less damage to them. When we start ROLLplaying they generally start getting hurt. Granted you have to roll them dice even when roleplaying (for skill checks). But when combat starts when pain starts....

well I have some new players.. hopefully they see this or maybe not.. I can always use more blood shed..

dog

I'm a bit of both. But I will never penalise a player for not roleplaying a situation correctly. If one of my more taciturn players would like to pick up some social skills and negotiate with the Johnson, I'm not going to require them to say everything in character - a simple description of what the goal is and what justification they have for the greater price is fine.

Otherwise you are penalising the character for the players deficiencies. I don't ask for a ballistics analysis every time a player takes a shot, so why should there be a double standard for social skills?

Finally, take note that I do like it when players talk in character and put things across in words, and I will generally reward that kind of stuff, but I'm not going to let the charisma 2 character dominate negotiations just because their player goes to the debating club.

As a result, several of my players have opted to raise their characters charisma because I've told them that "with a charisma score that low, it's unlikely you'd be taking the lead on this". (this to a character with charisma 1 and no social skills)