Alright, so the age old problem with social skills, is the issue of role playing vs roll playing. On the one hand side steopping the conversation and just hurling the dice feels pretty lame.

But on the other hand you don't neccessarily want to make a character with strong social skills impossible to play by your charisma one player. It's not like you look across the table and tell someone they're too much of a little wuss to play a troll street sam.

I'm thinking that maybe a way to get this to work is to treat social skills a bit more like perception. On an initial roll maybe you feed the character some juicy tidbits (photo of the security guards wife is turned away on his desk, there is lipstick on his collar, and it matches the shade worn by his secretary), and then beat them with the cluebat a few times so captain oblivious can actually pull this off and feel slick the way the twippy player gets to have fun with his sammy.

Anybody tried something like this?

Think it might work well?

And perhaps more importantly, any particularly good ideas for things to feed the face? This will obviously be harder than just having the players shoot people, and it'd help to have a handy pile of ideas to pull out of my rear as they come up.

Limit the role of the Face to the player who's actually been on more than one date with the same person?

I think in addition to clues, the face character's charisma should affect how NPCs react to the character. The GM can also use some description to occasionally remind the other players that the character is pretty sociable and appealing.

Conversely, a character with a low Charisma and low or missing social skills should have to work a lot harder to get the same result that the charismatic character gets with no effort at all. Things like getting past a club bouncer, or having a ganger think the character is "all right for a suit".

Have you ever read the Myth series? The character of Aahz is a very good example of someone with low social skills who still tries to get by in social situations - and he really has to work at it. He intimidates people when he isn't trying to, people who have any kind of power or leverage over him tend to be real pricks about it, people don't trust him, and even getting people to act in their own self interest is a major struggle for him (note that his people skills do improve in the later books).

Contrast that to Skeeve, who is one of the most powerful characters in the series, not because of his moderate magical power, but because he knows how to deal with people and has lots and lots of loyal friends. But unlike, say, Miles Vorkosigan, I could see a socially inept player running Skeeve, because a GM playing the NPC reactions appropriately would be a big factor in making the character seem like a face.


Some general ideas:

Tell the face when someone seems to be sincere, when they seem to be hiding something, and when they are trying to hide their attraction, or revulsion, to one of the PCs. Tell them things that seem "off" about a character - like a supposed Triad posse which has one of the "bad luck" numbers of members, or a Johnson who flubs a detail about the company he supposedly works for.

At this point, you've already lost me.

Have the dice pool of the challenge be appropriate for the dice pool of the characters involved.
Role play in any way your table feel is appropriate.
Give dice for role playing in any way your table feels is appropriate.

High dice pools do NOT prevent role play. Low dice pools do not CREATE role play. They are two separate things.

If someone has high social skills and low charisma then they've made up for their natural disadvantage through training and experience. (I can't type this and NOT think of Temple Grandin.) If you throw a pornomancer at them, they're gonna fail and the GM simply has to take that into account when creating challenges. The character may be more "Lie to Me" than Naturally Blonde and can't compete with a Natural Blonde with "Lie to Me" abilities, so the table has to accept that those sorts of challenges aren't on the table.

I wouldn't use this rule at my table, as we've found a good balance between just playing out various roles, and rolling the dice when we hit obstacles. But I am interested in how it works out for you!

I, as someone who is fairly socially inept (I'm an introvert and dislike interacting with people), could never role play a face. High dice pools or otherwise, therefore:

High dice pools do not CREATE role play. Low dice pools do not PREVENT role play.

Which is more the problem than the former statement, and the point of this thread.

Adendum:



Intentional misspelling?

Rollplay: the type of play that arises from the (mis)conception that roleplay is about how many dice you roll.

Also agreed. They're just dice pools. (more below)

No. Just seeing it back and forth and my brain gets lazy. I think I got it corrected already before I read this but I'll re-check.

-------------------------------

Dice pools and role play. I sometimes find it frustrating knowing what parts a character is expected to role play (almost did it again). As someone with squat for social skills residing somewhere on the autism scale, role playing a face is horrible for me because I know less about social skills than the writers of Shadowrun knew about guns. It frustrates me that someone who shouldn't be allowed on a firing range without an escort can "role play" a master of weapons because the dice substitute for player experience but someone with less social skills shies away from playing a face because the player is expected to have similar knowledge to the character and should know what to say and do.

At some point the player needs to let the dice substitute for their lack of knowledge. The DM needs to tell the player that his character knows to do X, even if the player doesn't know to do X. Having an arbitrary change "dice for combat, actual behavior for negotiation" doesn't feel like role playing to me. It just feels arbitrary. Next time we'll play at the range and player's character only shoots as well as the players do that day.

If a player doesn't have the personal ability to act out the social encounter, just have describe what kind of outcome he's after and reflect it with the dice rolls. Then describe the scene like you would any other. This is no different than someone playing a magician; they can't cast spells in the real world, so limiting their character actions by their own inability is pretty goofy. As long as they're trying to play their character the way that character is designed to be played, there's no reason to penalize or hamper them. You just have to go about it a little differently.

If a player does have incredible personal charm and wants to act out the scene directly, by all means let him. Just make sure he's reflecting what's happening with the dice rolls. His thuggish ork character shouldn't get a bonus just because he is a natural born charmer any more than a Formula 1 racer should get a bonus when he's playing a character who doesn't even have a piloting skill.

For some reason, a lot of GMs do exactly that, though, and I really don't get it. Having a great idea is one thing, but using personal knowledge and ability to give your character knowledge and abilities they don't possess is silly. It doesn't matter if it's social, technical, or anything else.

In other words, when an incompetent boob of a player says his Agility 9, Pistols 6 character pulls out his Predator and attempts to blow a guard away, how do you resolve that? Do exactly the same thing with the socially inept player.

I wouldn't make a face character play out all of the minutia, every time, especially for things that would be simple for a face, like getting past a bouncer. On the other hand, social skills are generally more involved than "point the gun, pull the trigger". The sammie with his super-high dice pool rolls to shoot his gun - the GM doesn't have him roll the dice once to see whether he won the encounter. No more than the sneaky guy rolling infiltration and the GM telling him "Okay, you snuck in and got the prototype."

So if someone wants to be a face, they need to give me a few more pertinent details. So you're intimidating the ganger. How, exactly, is your puny Strength: 2 character doing this? Are you intimating that you have underworld connections? Staring him down with your cold, dead eyes and a wintry smile? Claiming you have some commlink footage of him doing something? Likewise, getting past the guard gate. Do you tell him you're the new hire, and they don't have your credentials yet? Tell him you're here to meet the VP, hush-hush? Tell him you're part of the cleaning crew, and they can vouch for you? You don't have to roleplay ALL of it out, but give me enough to work with.

Whenever my players want to do something really mundane I just say to myself "We're gonna need a montage!", and a lot of social interactions fall under that category.

Hee hee. That reminded me of:
http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/tom-brad...gII_oYNH7gQfUpA

Maybe I should show that to the players to explain why things go down the way they do.



I not sure. But I think you might have gotten mixed up with what I was talking about.

The CHARACTER has high social skills, charisma, and a few bonuses on the side. The PLAYER however has low social skills, low charisma, and a penalty for needing a spritzing of Febreze.

But in the same way the little twip wants to play a troll sammy they want to play a face, and I'd like to let them in a way that works out, but doesn't eliminate role playing. Actually I'd like more face action all around.




So, wait, you're saying that I essentially take over their character for a little bit to get them through the conversation/encounter?

No. I'm saying you handle it like you handle everything else in the game. If you want to be overly descriptive, you're free to do so. If not, you describe the outcome like you do during a firefight or any other action a character takes. There isn't anything special about social encounters. Glyph pretty much nailed it.

At my group's table, we've always used Judge Intentions as a sort of social perception roll - even against other players. We're good/mature enough to navigate the social intracies of 'my character feels like x, looks nervous, you glitched and thing she's eyeing you up'. The kind of thing that gives other players insight into what is going on and what shaping the scene, instead of just flat out giving out information.(or doing something silly, like treating an interrogation or a conversation as an Extended Test - we actually tend to play it out)

Character ability vs player ability needs to be handled in the same way as character knowledge vs player knowledge.

The problem is that knowledge is knowable.

Meaning that while I, as a player, do not know the back allies of Seattle or who the Druglord Kingpin is, I am aware that such knowledge exists. I.e. I can Google it.

Skills, on the other hand, are not. Every situation is different and requires very quick thinking. In combat, the quick thinking is handled by dice rolls and situational modifiers. Social cues are far far more subtle.

Meaning that unless I, as a player, have studied swordplay, I could not give an accurate retelling of how my character with Blades 6, uses his knifey thing. I can get as far as "pointy bit goes into other man." For combat, this is enough: define "other man" and roll some dice. I don't have to know, or even decide, if I'm using a jab or a slice. Or if I'm executing a feint (kicking the guy's foot and then punching him in the face with the pommel when he looks down).*

Cue social situations.

I don't know how charismatic people act. I don't know their mannerisms, have their vocabulary, their tonal inflection. I haven't studied it as one might watch rats in a maze. So I, as a player, cannot give an accurate impression of how my Charisma 7, Smooth Talking 6 character sidles up to a bouncer, slips him a $50, and says quietly "You didn't see me." <-- that sentence took a bit of work and some Hollywood Artistic License (i.e. I saw it in a movie).

I can get as far as "I bribe the guard." For social interaction this is not enough: How much of a bribe? What do I say? Does the guy look frustrated, comfortable, inattentive, lazy? What posture am I in? Is he even the right guy to bribe!?

*I have done some karate, ages and ages ago, so I do know a little about punching people, and kicking someone's foot will distract them. Hell, do it often enough and they'll stop watching your foot giving you another opening to take advantage of (i.e. kick them in the groin with it instead).

That entire post is just one huge contradiction.

Why doesn't the gunman have to know which one of his pistols to use? Why doesn't he have to know how to aim properly? Or when to pull the trigger? Or if he's in the right posture? Or whether or not his target looks scared, intimidated, or completely unconcerned that he's pointing a gun at him? Or if his target is even the right guy to shoot?! (Yes, some of those questions are stupid, but no more than the ones you posed for Mr. Smooth Talker.)

Why do minor details like this only matter in social encounters?

Players don't have to know all the little details about what their characters are capable of doing. It doesn't matter one iota whether or not it's a social encounter or any other type of encounter. Yes, supplying basic information for what you want to do is necessary ("I bribe a guard" is on par with "I shoot my gun" -- you need more input for both of those actions). But nerdy, zit-faced wallflowers have every right to play a smooth, sophisticated character as much as some tubby bastard who can barely stand up without breathing heavily has to play an acrobatic gunslinger adept.

I think social skills are one of the most misunderstood aspects of the game. They are not mind control and should not be treated as such, and sometimes NPCs will react to a good social roll in a way not intended by the face. For instance, an elf pornomancer who seduces a Humanis goon won't have him eating out of her hand back at his place, but instead will have him violently showing her why humans are supreme in a back alley, quite possibly with some friends along for the (pardon the pun) ride.

I always get my players to role play social skills, just as I would expect the sammie to use tactics such as cover or make decisions such as whether to go SA, FA, narrow burst or wide burst. A very brief social encounter can be roleplayed in full, but all I need from the player is the cut and thrust of how they are trying to convince the NPC. Based on what the player tells me their character is using as arguements, I will give them a positive or negative DP modifier to their dice roll.

So the CHA 1 player playing the CHA 7 face doesn't need to make loquacious rabble rousing speeches themselves, but if they are trying to convince a gang to join forces with them against a triad they will have to tell me what motivational hooks they are using to persuade the gang to help and the dice and the GM can take it from there.

A lot of what you people are debating is what the 'right/wrong' ways to do Social skills, when it would be better to find GOOD ways to do so. Again, as mentioned, Glyph hit it pretty good. Give the DM enough to work with, (s)he's got their own plans with how they will react, hopefully, so modifiers can be adjusted from there, as stated by Midas.

The difference is that, to some degree, everyone knows how firing a gun works. Sure there's a lot of minor details involved and most of us would never be able to manage it, yes.

But with social skills, those of us who are socially inept don't understand how social interaction works. Trust me when I say this, dealing with people is hard for me. I have trouble recognizing emotion (difficulty empathizing), difficulty remembering names and connecting them to faces, as well as being shy and mild mannered (i.e. I'm more likely to back away from a verbal fight than get involved).

I understand on a mechanical/logical level that charismatic people are good at what they do, but I don't know how to emulate it.

Hell, I can't even figure out how to explain this. I just spent the last five minutes staring at a blinking cursor at the end of the above line.

Your post seems pretty popular.

Though again as I'd asked Ol' Scratch are you saying that you sort of take over their character a bit, or do you just go very abstract.

I think going abstract works well for fast talk. It's rather a bit like rolling dodge. You're trying to rush by the guard, but instead of doing a backflip off of his desk your character is trying to say they're late to a meeting or something. Very easy to handle abstractly, and the fluff or a tiny bit of imagination provide a host of possible excuses you could try. Intimidation can be like that too. Ditto bribes I suppose, anything fast that has a feel like a single action.

The issue however is when a situation is more complicated. The rule book devotes pages and pages to how one manages a complex firefight, and whole books to additional rules and relevant gear. And it's trivial to understand someone who is an exceptional shot, they simply shoot very accurately despite various distractions or other things going on.

I think faces often feel like a mage might if you tore all the spells out of the rulebook.

Their character has an attribute and a skill, and there's a target. They have a vague feeling that they ought to be able to do something. But without any "spells" they're drawing a blank as to what to do.

Is that what you're trying to get at Draco18s?

As a player I'd call a time out if something like that happened outside of a critical glitch--and even then this shit better be something that's cool with everyone else around the table-- and it'd probably lead to a pretty ugly argument. "It didn't occur to your social expert that things were starting to get a li'l rape-y" is the exact sort of bullshit people are talking about when they say there's a gap between character experience and player experience. You can basically end up trolling your players for playing a character whose skills exceed their own capabilities and it's not something that hits me as enjoyable.

Something like that, yeah.
Or at least, part of it. I think the other part is that some people don't need those rules: they are charismatic people who do that kind of thing all the time and also people who don't understand why the rest of us do need them.

I agree: a good way to characterize the flow of social DPs to social effects is via 'tools' (='guns', 'spells', 'weapons', whatever, as well as 'taking cover', 'flanking'…). This does hurt the socially 'unimaginative' player, but in the same way that tactically 'unimaginative' players are hurt by not taking cover, choosing the right ammo, and so on. Yes? I know I've said this before, it seemed okay then.

Basically, you have to have watched action movies to know what to do in combat/whatever; you have to have watched con movies (and/or been a human being facrissake) to know what to do in social situations.

Doesn't mean we're good at it.
(And I have watched con movies, but I still can't quite figure out how to apply those techniques to playing a charismatic character)

That's okay, we're just as bad at 'realistic' tactics. As long as you *do* something, people agree with it, and *something* happens, it's a good RPG. The only problem is when you do nothing (or do something no one can agree with).

Let me make a comparison.

A friend of mine, Jim, is such a charismatic person, but also creative and intelligent. He's run some of the best games I've ever been witness to. He's also made some of the most interesting characters I've ever meet.

That said, here's what I can remember of a D&D 4 published campaign we did.

Some tomb-ghost-thing is questioning the party and determining if they are Right and Just and should have the Legendary Artifact of Plot.

A question is asked, something along the lines of "Why are you here?" and Jim pipes up with a very good reply, before anyone else can get two syllables out. I don't recall what it was he said any more, but it was well worded, answered the question, and also justified why we should have Phat Loots.

GM said, "And...that answered his next question too." (Something along the lines of "why do you consider yourselves 'good'")

Jim had no real way of knowing that the ghost was going to ask that, but not only had a prepared reply, he'd given it before it was asked!

The question is: Did his character have the appropriate skills and abilities to be that clever and sophisticated, or was he playing a dumb-as-rocks barbarian with a Charisma of 6? And was any kind of Diplomacy or Bluff skill test rolled to see if it actually worked? Because if not, he was simply using his own knowledge and ability to basically "cheat" rather than actually playing his character or the game itself.

Again: Social encounters are not special or unique. They should be treated just like any other kind of encounter.

Right. Which is indeed cheating. I'm not sure how that's related to what I said, though, Draco18s.

The question here is 'how can a not-smart player play a smart character?'; replace 'smart' with 'social', 'tactical', anything. It's the same basic question, which is good; it allows us to use the same basic answer. When you say, 'I shoot him', you roll do see if your character can *do* that. When you say, 'I say blah blah <something witty>'… you roll to see if your character can say that.

The issue of 'don't metagame' is a separate, and pretty simple, issue.

That wasn't my point, now was it?

Irrespective of his character's charisma and skills, that's what social interaction does look like, whether we like it or not.

That's someone who knows how to be a face, being a face. Those of us who can't pull off something like that are left with dice.

NPC: "Why are you here?"
PC: *Rolls charisma dice* Four hits.
GM: "You give the correct answer."

But what is your point? 'Some people know how to socialize?'

And in this kind of situation, The DM could help out, throw a few hints, or help work out a good answer with the face, if the face's player is welcome to it. Hell, even if the player wouldn't know what to say, saying anything to accompany the dice roll could possibly make things hilarious.

I could be a fan of the GM giving bonuses/penalties towards a player if they come up with something good, but I would think that it should probably be discussed beforehand with the players and a note made of it. Hell, challenge the player every now and then with the roll, have them offer up a good explanation/comment, but if they really are a bit challenged in the social aspect, don't penalize them too much, if at all.

</ramble>

No one is saying that's how you go about it. You still have to explain what it is you're doing and how you're going about doing it. It's just up to the dice and other game mechanics to determine if it's successful, not your own personal ability. In other words, it should look more like this:

GM: "The security guard sees you coming and stands up to intervene. 'What are you doing here?' he asks, obviously annoyed by your presence."
PC: "I try to convince him that we're from the utility company and that we need to check for some faulty wiring." <rolls appropriate dice>
GM: <counters with his own rolls> "The guard gives a slightly suspicious look, but then nods you past, apparently satisfied by your explanation."

The thing is, by merely choosing what kind of Charisma+Skill combination they want to use and what they hope to accomplish you can start to get a pretty decent idea of what they are going to try to do. Generally you try to fool people (con), put some of your cards on the table and make an exchange of some sort (negotiate), appeal to authority (leadership) or try get in their head (intimidate). That the scenario can use more fleshing out than that is definitely true but as a GM I simply don't feel as hung out to dry as draco's example would imply and there's some definite starting points to work with.

Ah ha!

So we admit that social combat isn't like gun combat at all!



Well, yes. But that's the mechanical equivalent of deciding whether to use a shotgun (longarms) or a P93 (automatics) to kill someone.

Except that in social encounters, each of those skills have vastly different purposes from each other. Using con to lie your way past a guard is the combat equivalent of "I want to kill that guy" and we all know that there's more to it than that.

Just to jump back a bit:


Not really.

NPC: "Why are you here?"
PC: "Because 14 pancakes shingle a dog house." *8 successes on the dice*
GM: *Not impressed*

How do you figure? "Gun combat" should look similar. You shouldn't be able to just say "<rolls dice> four hits" in response to a combat situation. You need to describe what it is your doing.

"I'm shooting him" *rolls dice* "Four hits."

Yes, the other guy rolls too (in both situations), but that's what gun combat boils down to: each person decides that they're killing someone else and rolls a handful of dice. There's a few other modifiers you can drag into it, yes (say, aiming) but social situations lack these modifiers as mechanical bonuses and instead rely on player skill--NOT CHARACTER SKILL--to invent and often just to justify the dice roll rather than aid the dice roll.

I honestly have no idea why you're having so much trouble with this concept. It isn't rocket science. You don't have to be a smooth pimp to describe that you want to try walk up to some woman at the bar and throw her your best pick-up lines, then roll the dice to see how it plays out. And you don't have to be a tactical genius to describe that you want to quick draw your pistol and shoot the guy to the left, then roll the dice to see how it plays out. It's all the same, dude.

Generally speaking because:

The GM asks a question. The response cannot be "I tell a lie" and rolling dice. Social situations have almost never been that simple. They always involve an ACTUAL RESPONSE from the player, which is backed up by a throw of the dice to see how effective it was.

Akin to having to require every player pick up a toy gun and point it at a target on the wall and pull the trigger before they can pick up the dice to see how well they shot the other guy.

The point is, I daresay, that you're already saying, "I'm *shooting* him." You're not saying, "I'm combatting him." And you're shooting him with a certain gun, with certain bullets, etc.

And I think you *can* say, "I tell a lie." It's not optimal, but it's acceptable. What you can't do is say, "I social him".

Yes, and when a GM describes a combat situation, you can't just furrow your brow and nasally vomit up "Derp, I attack him!" You have to say how you're attacking him, what you're attacking with, how you're drawing the weapon if any, and any other circumstantial information needed as appropriate to that situation. Likewise, when a GM has an NPC ask a question, you can say "I tell a lie," but you then have to follow it up with what kind of a lie, even if just a rough description of what you're trying to do. If you have an actually convincing lie prepared, so much the better. At best it might get you a special bonus on the dice roll, but that's no different than coming up with a brilliant tactical move in a combat situation.

Ahh... so....you're saying that there's more choices, like



What are those options when talking to someone?

The rules say I have four:

How to act (Etiquette--the least well defined skill of all time, almost the point of not being an active skill)
Lying (Con)
Making a deal (Negotiation)
Dominating them into submission, verbally (Intimidate)

NONE of these options equate to "attack someone: pick a skill (longarms, unarmed, blades, automatics, pistols, clubs) and options (bullet type, aiming, cover) plus situational (running, concealment, vision penalties)"



If only it was that simple. Without feel like a copout. Yes, "I tell a convincing lie" is the table-effect of saying "I attack him." But "I attack him" is the reason I no longer play D&D.

Now here's a question:

What dice roll constitutes "I tell the truth"?

Leadership, probably. I still think you're wrong about copout, and about 'I attack him'. My point is more that choosing the lie (even the 'type of lie') is equivalent to taking cover or flanking: no dice roll, just 'world knowledge'. Also, we didn't really mention 'stating the goal'. Along with, 'I lie', it should be clear what the intended result is.

Let's look at other examples.
• First Aid? Pretty naked: 'I medic him.'
• Infiltration? Usually elaborated: 'I climb the fence, peek from behind the wall…'.
• Magic? Naked again: 'I cast stunball'… somehow. But at least you've chosen the spell.
… and so on? There seems to be a range of 'extent of elaboration', but social is in the middle someplace.

I still disagree, but I'm going to stop trying to explain it.

My final comment is this:
It's frustrating being someone who doesn't know how to socially engineer the world around you. There's no way I can explain my experience to you, because you simply won't be able to grasp how difficult it is to not know what to say and when to say it, even trying to walk you through exactly what I think in a certain situation won't work because your mind will have already jumped to the conclusion that I cannot make, or have difficulty making.

I would love to be someone like my grandmother (I have a picture of her and the Dali Lama*), but I simply don't have the guts to not-care about who's fingers I step on on my way to absolute power. That is: I don't like hurting people's feelings (my grandmother had no such qualms). Thus she got where she got, and I have a desk job writing code.

I like writing code, don't get me wrong, but I also haven't shaken the hands of interesting people.

*If you don't know how difficult that is, simple: it's really damn hard to get a personal photo of you and the Dali Lama taken with your own camera. It simply does not happen.

I'm sorry that you're giving up, because I still don't understand what you're talking about. The simple fact is that the player doesn't need to know what the character knows. It does make better RP, but it's hardly necessary, *and* everyone can learn (maybe the basics, maybe slowly) the 'vocabulary' of any RP task (social, combat, whatever). Once you discount metagaming, all RP tasks are the same kind of thing. Things like socializing and planning are indeed trickier, but not categorically different. They all take imagination, potentially outside of your experience, potentially outside of your previous imaginings.

Here's a problem, and it's not a game problem:

I, as being someone who is not good in social situations, have difficulty playing RPGs in general because, in general, RPGs are social situations.

That's a new and different problem from what I've seen in this thread, though. Given the gamer stereotypes, I doubt you're alone, though. As on a recent Big Bang Theory, 'god help this game if socially inept people can't play'. But some people might know nothing about planning ahead, and they might have trouble playing planning-ahead games (all of them). But they can learn, and be helped along. In the end, it might be not worth it to them. *shrug*

I'm learning, obviously. But I find asynchronous mediums much easier to deal with.

I'm glad to hear that. A good GM and group should be okay with you wherever you are along that path, though. If you said to me (GM), "I want to get this guy to like us," but you had no idea at all how to do that, that would be okay (for a beginner). You would choose/be prompted to choose a method: name-dropping, flattery, flirting, gift, etc., and this choice would determine the Active Skill. But, you could also choose an Active Skill (at random, 'I'll use Leadership'), and the GM/group could also nudge you from there to the RP method (perhaps 'inspiring solidarity'). In either of these cases, player non-social-ness isn't inhibiting a social character, and all players should also be happy with their play/roleplay. Right?

See, I'd never have considered "flattery" as a tactic for getting someone to like you.

In any case, "yes" is the answer to your question, with emphasis on "should."