What computer game(s) would you love to see made PnP?

[ShadowDragon8685]

This probably isn't such a strange question; what computer games, or at least their settings, do you think would make for a great Pencil and Paper experience?

Obviously, there's all the RPG games, most of which would be at least half-way decent. (On that note, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura FTW.) But I was thinking more about... Other games, other settings.


For me, I think the one I'd like to see made into an RPG right now the most is probably Red Faction. As a living, breathing setting, it's not all that developed - at least, the development isn't out in the open like it is in, say, an RPG, but it's clear that what you see is built upon a rich and diverse story you haven't yet seen. I think the best times to set a Red Faction game would either be very shortly prior to, during, or shortly after the events of Red Faction: Guerrilla. Deciding on a system to use would be a pain, but I think Mongoose Traveller might be a decent fit.

What would you be happy to see make the transition from computer to tabletop? Would you like to see it be fit into an existing system (such as d20, WW's Storyteller system, one of the Shadowrun systems, Traveller, or something else,) or made with a custom, from-scratch system?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Planescape: Torment

(see what i did thar)

(Or: I'M TALKING TO YOU, WIZARDS OF THE COAST. I MIGHT, just -MIGHT- start caring about D&D again if you stopped pissing over the grave of Gary Gygax for five minutes and actually brought back the greatest D&D setting ever made)


Or, comedy option: Plants vs. Zombies!

[SilverWingedSeraph]

I've considered making a Deus Ex RPG using something like the oWOD or Exalted-type rules. I would quite like seeing that setting as a PnP RPG, I think. Just as long as it ignores most of Invisible War. Invisible War has some decent parts to it, but over-all it's... bad.

[Norade]

A Super Mario PnP RPG could be fun. Who doesn't want to ride a dinosaur, eat mushrooms that come from bricks and crush thine enemies with a might leap?

[ShadowDragon8685]

I've considered making a Deus Ex RPG using something like the oWOD or Exalted-type rules. I would quite like seeing that setting as a PnP RPG, I think. Just as long as it ignores most of Invisible War. Invisible War has some decent parts to it, but over-all it's... bad.

Oh yes, Deus Ex would would be awesome. But I'd think that Shadowrun 4th Edition would be a better fit, seeing as how Deus Ex is all about cyber and nano transhumanism, and Shadowrun has all of that already and made for it. All you'd have to do would be to make the various x-wares rarer.

A Super Mario PnP RPG could be fun. Who doesn't want to ride a dinosaur, eat mushrooms that come from bricks and crush thine enemies with a might leap?

You know... It would be. If you based it off the Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars setting idea, where we know there's an external threat to Mario's world sufficient enough to make even Bowser join forces with Mario and Peach, and there's all those other places to explore, like Monster Town and Cloud Kingdom and the Tadpole pond and all...

The question is, who are the players? Mushroom People? Various monsters/other races? Humans from Earth, trying to get home? A mix thereof?

That... That would be interesting, though. If anything, I'd perhaps think of going with the Exalted Second Edition rules for this. The concept of Charms lend themselves well to the various special abilities that Mario, et al, learn, and mote pools can very easily become flower power pools. You'd need to give everyone a crap-ton of health boxes, though.

[Bedlam]

I'd say fallout.

I remeber breafly playing a Fallout campaign 5-6 years ago, I think we used a modified D&D 3rd ed system for it.

[Tasoth]

If you want Deus Ex, try Cyberpunk V3.0. It runs the gamut of transhumanism from fold away cybernetics, full borg with no mental problems, nanites, genetic modification and what have you.

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Honestly, I'm not really super-keen on learning a new ruleset, largely because of all the systems I've used, the Storyteller system is the one that has appealed to me the most. It has its flaws, but parts of it just work so well that I can't stand the thought of switching to another RPG system. Most of the Attributes and Skills from the old WoD system could be carried over into a Deus Ex setting with little difficulty. I'd just need to make rules for nano-augmentation and cybernetics myself, which wouldn't be too difficult I don't think, especially since many powers from Exalted or Vampire or whatever could already work fairly well as augmentations with just a little tweaking.

Perhaps I'll look into Shadowrun 4th Ed and Cyberpunk V3.0, however. It is always nice to try new things.

[Stark]

Jagged Alliance 2.

Representing the fast, detailed combat in PnP would be hilariously slow. Its basically a PnP system already, but doing it manually would be glacial.

Actually, how is this even an issue? I could run a Rome : Total War or Bioshock 2 game right now. It's the other way (ie, using software to speed PnP play or using boardgame complexity in computer games) that is a real issue.

[General Zod]

Isn't this what GURPS is for? Take a generic ruleset and plug in your own setting.

[Bakustra]

Jagged Alliance 2.

Representing the fast, detailed combat in PnP would be hilariously slow. Its basically a PnP system already, but doing it manually would be glacial.

Actually, how is this even an issue? I could run a Rome : Total War or Bioshock 2 game right now. It's the other way (ie, using software to speed PnP play or using boardgame complexity in computer games) that is a real issue.

But Stark, you forgot that every setting needs a unique engine! It's essential to maintaining ambience, unlike such unimportant aspects as "setting" and "names" and all that garbage.

Kidding aside, I would suggest a faithful replication of "generic jRPG franchise", so that a significant proportion of the no-fun players gravitate to it naturally (and promptly kill each other, since it would be a combination of grognards and munchkins). I think that boardgame complexity is not necessarily a bad thing in computer games, depending on the context. For example, if you have a fairly open-ended system in-game that players are intended to explore and exploit individually, it behooves you to make it simple to understand. See the Shin Megami Tensei games' Demon Fusion system as a good example.

The obvious counter-example, though, is a Civ-like method wherein everything that should be under-the-hood is so simple that players can cheese their way completely through the game, and it detracts immensely from the game. See, well, every Civilization game, but dishonor goes to Civ 4, which still occasionally falls prey to phalanxes defeating riflemen after 15-odd years. Sadly, most RPGs do something like this by showing off numbers and statistics. I have my own half-rant thoughts on this but I doubt that people want to really hear them.

Isn't this what GURPS is for? Take a generic ruleset and plug in your own setting.

No, not really. You can do that with virtually any system, depending on how you want to make the game (D&D rules are not good for a social interaction-heavy setting or style of play), but GURPS, being a numbers-heavy and crunchy sort of system from what I've seen of it, would not be good for portraying settings which demand fast, fluid action.

[Stark]

I guess maybe people think some comptuer games woudl require an engine with features or mechanics that are new or interesting, like... Deus Ex having 'nano drone factory in your brain' mechanics or something. Some games would I guess need a kind of Pendragon-esque traits system for RP, but let's be honest; how many people pick a system for the RP support?

[Bakustra]

I guess maybe people think some comptuer games woudl require an engine with features or mechanics that are new or interesting, like... Deus Ex having 'nano drone factory in your brain' mechanics or something. Some games would I guess need a kind of Pendragon-esque traits system for RP, but let's be honest; how many people pick a system for the RP support?

Exactly. I can think of a handful of games that might need some specialist rules(like Total War and moving armies around, say), but not really anything new. If people want intricate rules for Deus Ex- or Bioshock-esque body mods, then I'm sure that there's a GURPS book available or three. As for RP support fanatics, your guess is as good as mine. I'm going to say twelve, maybe.

[GuppyShark]

All paper RPG systems are just combat resolution systems anyway.

Player: "I shoot him."
GM: "Roll Firearms skill, that's at -2 for cover and range, +1 for your weapon specialisation."

Player: "I try to convince him to leave his employer and work for me. I'm rolling for my Diplomacy skill."
GM: "What the hell do you think this is, we're supposed to be role-playing. RP it out!"

You never get to roll social

[General Zod]

All paper RPG systems are just combat resolution systems anyway.

Player: "I shoot him."
GM: "Roll Firearms skill, that's at -2 for cover and range, +1 for your weapon specialisation."

Player: "I try to convince him to leave his employer and work for me. I'm rolling for my Diplomacy skill."
GM: "What the hell do you think this is, we're supposed to be role-playing. RP it out!"

You never get to roll social

It's even more hilarious in a group. You can have all the social stats in the world but if you can't play it out most people will ignore them.

[Norade]

All paper RPG systems are just combat resolution systems anyway.

Player: "I shoot him."
GM: "Roll Firearms skill, that's at -2 for cover and range, +1 for your weapon specialisation."

Player: "I try to convince him to leave his employer and work for me. I'm rolling for my Diplomacy skill."
GM: "What the hell do you think this is, we're supposed to be role-playing. RP it out!"

You never get to roll social

It's even more hilarious in a group. You can have all the social stats in the world but if you can't play it out most people will ignore them.

Back when a new player joined our group he tried to impress the other players and rolled a critical failure on his diplomacy check so the meanest of the other PC's thought he was flirting with him. Needless to say that was the first and last die roll to influence PC's made in our group.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I guess maybe people think some comptuer games woudl require an engine with features or mechanics that are new or interesting, like... Deus Ex having 'nano drone factory in your brain' mechanics or something. Some games would I guess need a kind of Pendragon-esque traits system for RP, but let's be honest; how many people pick a system for the RP support?

Exactly. I can think of a handful of games that might need some specialist rules(like Total War and moving armies around, say), but not really anything new. If people want intricate rules for Deus Ex- or Bioshock-esque body mods, then I'm sure that there's a GURPS book available or three. As for RP support fanatics, your guess is as good as mine. I'm going to say twelve, maybe.

Shadowrun, I'm telling you. It's already based in large part around body modifications and such.


As for never getting to roll social, it's a legitimate problem and a pain. If you have a really good argument and a good reason but somehow you completely flub the dice roll, it's pretty silly. On the other manipulator, if you have someone who's a god of social skills and they try something absolutely preposterous - like convincing the BBEG to lay down his arms and surrender that no one more needs to die - and they pull it off by the dice - then that can leave everyone flabbergasted, not to mention leave the combat guys feeling as if they've been cheated out of their climactic clash between good and evil.


Weirdly, I think Exalted may handle this best, with it's system of Intimacies and social combat and what-not. That's not saying a whole lot, though, it's just saying that it's probably the best social resolution system that doesn't involve making a pitch to the DM and having them fiat it.

[Stark]

Or ... You could role play. Pendragon et al had systems for makng RP game-meaningful which worked well in both directions.

Most players just don't give a shit about RP, and everything is just contest rolls.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I'd say fallout.

I remeber breafly playing a Fallout campaign 5-6 years ago, I think we used a modified D&D 3rd ed system for it.

They actually had one. Until it was cancelled.
Link

[ShadowDragon8685]

Or ... You could role play. Pendragon et al had systems for makng RP game-meaningful which worked well in both directions.

You might as well suggest that combat be handled by making the player take out an SCA sword and attempt to beat the tar out of the GM (standing in for the orc) to determine whether his valorous and skilled fighter is victorious in single combat over the mighty greenskin.

Not everybody who roleplays is capable of the things their characters are capable of. I can't fly a starfighter, channel the Force or engage in a lightsaber duel. I can't call down thunder from the heavens and fireballs from my fingertips. I can't hack five orcs to bits in a hideously stacked cage-match. I cannot parry the Godspear of All-Searing Noon, a weapon which definitionally hits no matter how high the defenses and deals an infinite amount of damage, with a butterknife and shout defiance at the Unconquered Sun for daring to attempt to turn his powers upon me, one of his own Chosen.

So what, exactly, makes you think and espouse the view that only those who have the gift of gab in real life can and should have the right to play the character with the gift of gab in the game? Indeed, I dare say that for someone who has a speech impediment, or is cripplingly shy and awkward at social interactions with unfamiliar people, playing a character who's smoother at talking than James Bond and more skilled at oration than the bastard love-child of John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama is as appealing as the thought of playing a wiry, lightning-fast spy is to someone who's fat and slow.

So why should that guy get to play his lightning-fast spy, when the guy who's not capable of effective social interactions (let alone effective fast-talking or negotiating) is told that if he wants to play someone who can sell ice to an Eskimo he'll have to "role play it"

Most players just don't give a shit about RP, and everything is just contest rolls.

Because die rolls are the accepted and expected conflict resolution method in a roleplaying game? The fast-talker's player doesn't tell the GM the details of (or worse, actually hold the conversation with the GM) exactly how he convinces the King to admit the party into Ye Royale Armoury to have their pick of the magic swag in advance of taking on the highly dangerous mission any more than the fighter's player needs to pull out a sword and engage in a contest of physical acumen with someone in order to determine how the combat is resolved.

[Stark]

Did you just equate combat and role-play encouraging player assists that create drama? That adversarial attitude is why most PnP games suck.

Mechanics can support, inform and encourage RP rather than replace it with 'I roll my cheat skill'.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Did you just equate combat and role-play encouraging player assists that create drama? That adversarial attitude is why most PnP games suck.

Mechanics can support, inform and encourage RP rather than replace it with 'I roll my cheat skill'.

Again, you're missing the point.

If you use dice resolutions for everything but talking, but the ST sits in for NPCs and makes the players talk to him, you wind up with glaring problems and inconsistencies, such as the Charisma 6, Int 8, no social or intellectual skill Dire Orc barbarian played by a guy who has a a fast mind and a fast wit being the party fast-talker despite his stats not supporting it at all, and you wind up with the guy who's the sputtering, poor social person IRL but who's playing a Charisma 20, Int 16 Glorious Elf Bard that should be able to mesmerize people with his stare, let alone be able to convince someone to follow a course of action, being forced to try and resolve a situation that his character is supposedly good at by using his real-life social skills in place of the characters.

It is directly analogous to expecting the player of a combat-focused character to resolve his character's battle with someone else by using their real-life melee skills in place of those of their character. It's bullshit, and it rapidly leads to frustration for the person who's playing the character who should be able to sell a bucketfull of sand to a Saudi, because their character's social interaction skill isn't what matters, it only "informs" his own (poor) social skills.


*Dire Orcs, by the way, are like regular Orcs but spikier and sharper. Glorious Elves are like regular elves except their skin glitters with gold flecks, and they develop manes of hair that are either uniformly golden waterfalls or gigantic, over-the-top multicolored attention-getting 1980s throwbacks.

[Norade]

Did you just equate combat and role-play encouraging player assists that create drama? That adversarial attitude is why most PnP games suck.

Mechanics can support, inform and encourage RP rather than replace it with 'I roll my cheat skill'.

Again, you're missing the point.

If you use dice resolutions for everything but talking, but the ST sits in for NPCs and makes the players talk to him, you wind up with glaring problems and inconsistencies, such as the Charisma 6, Int 8, no social or intellectual skill Dire Orc barbarian played by a guy who has a a fast mind and a fast wit being the party fast-talker despite his stats not supporting it at all, and you wind up with the guy who's the sputtering, poor social person IRL but who's playing a Charisma 20, Int 16 Glorious Elf Bard that should be able to mesmerize people with his stare, let alone be able to convince someone to follow a course of action, being forced to try and resolve a situation that his character is supposedly good at by using his real-life social skills in place of the characters.

It is directly analogous to expecting the player of a combat-focused character to resolve his character's battle with someone else by using their real-life melee skills in place of those of their character. It's bullshit, and it rapidly leads to frustration for the person who's playing the character who should be able to sell a bucketfull of sand to a Saudi, because their character's social interaction skill isn't what matters, it only "informs" his own (poor) social skills.


*Dire Orcs, by the way, are like regular Orcs but spikier and sharper. Glorious Elves are like regular elves except their skin glitters with gold flecks, and they develop manes of hair that are either uniformly golden waterfalls or gigantic, over-the-top multicolored attention-getting 1980s throwbacks.

It comes down to, don't play something you suck at playing. If you have the tactical skills of a retarded housefly, no amount of good stats and dice luck will allow you to dominate combat, that is unless you build something so retarded that you might as well say I win. If you suck ass at talking, maybe try an easier role until you get the hang of it and branch out from there. Just because you can roll a die doesn't mean you should.

If you ask any gamer the best sessions are often the ones that are well described and draw the players in with nary a die roll to be seen. My favorite session ever was the first level heroes of horror game where the PC's ran from ghost sounds and a pot being moved by mage hand. They were so into it they ignored the fact that they could have won in straight combat and stayed in character the entire session. Had they rolled a die versus fear I would have ended the game right there, packed up, and left and these are long time friends I was playing with.

If you have issues with players getting out of character or meta gaming slap the player with an exp penalty or have him roll a new character. Don't make them roll dice to see if he remembered his mittens, helmet, and name tag. Sounds like you just hang out with a group of like minded retards who wouldn't know in character if they got insulted by it.

[Stark]

I have no idea how 'use mechanics to make RP situations informative and fun' somehow means I'm saying you shouldn't use dice. Maybe it's rude, but you're pretty ignorant if you think my example of Pendragon doesn't use dice; indeed what is the point of all those 'character' numbers if you don't roll them? The mechanics can just HELP rather than REPLACE the roleplaying; something so complex some RPers literally can't understand.

Oh sorry, I'm 'missing the point'.

Like Norade says, all kinds of ROLE PLAYING doesn't need to involve dice; systems that provide the player with stats to inform character actions (ie courage, honesty, whatever) and a feedback method to change these values through trial means everyone role plays to role play because the role playing makes the role play in role.

Better than 'I rolled fear +2 chaotic sight, I'm cool'.

[ShadowDragon8685]

It comes down to, don't play something you suck at playing. If you have the tactical skills of a retarded housefly, no amount of good stats and dice luck will allow you to dominate combat, that is unless you build something so retarded that you might as well say I win. If you suck ass at talking, maybe try an easier role until you get the hang of it and branch out from there. Just because you can roll a die doesn't mean you should.

Actually, it can. There are, and should be, builds for the epic warrior who doesn't need nor want any tactic more advanced than "run out there and chop them all to death." It's a risky proposition, but if he's capable of doing it you shouldn't call him retarded for pulling it off.

Again, you're missing the point. Role-playing, playing a character, does not necessarily require that you amateur method-act everything the character says. Many people do prefer that, but when it comes down social contest resolution, that invalidates social character builds since it's almost always the case that the GM ignores the die roll unless it's hilariously bad and just has the decision based on whether he thinks the player was convincing or not.

This is unfairly penalizing to the guy who chooses to sink character resources into "resolving situations by talking." It is, in fact, directly analogous to making the guy with the fighter pull out a sword and beat up somebody who will be fighting back with it.

Now, can you stunt that way, if you say, have a player who is skilled with a sword and uses a prop to demonstrate what exactly he's doing? Sure, you can, but that should be what informs the dice rolls, not the other way 'round. If a guy uses a retard argument but he's so amazingly charismatic that people lap it up, as befits the die roll, then the retard argument should work! If, on the other hand, he uses a brilliant argument but his character couldn't talk his way out of a parking meter ticket with coins in hand and the meter expired for less than a minute, as befitting a craptastic dice roll with a lot of penalties, then that, too, should inform the argument by giving him a bonus which will be swallowed up by the mountains of his character's social inability, not define the argument, and the brilliant argument should fail.

If you ask any gamer the best sessions are often the ones that are well described and draw the players in with nary a die roll to be seen. My favorite session ever was the first level heroes of horror game where the PC's ran from ghost sounds and a pot being moved by mage hand. They were so into it they ignored the fact that they could have won in straight combat and stayed in character the entire session. Had they rolled a die versus fear I would have ended the game right there, packed up, and left and these are long time friends I was playing with.

I find that unlikely. I also find it bizzare, since the situation clearly wasn't one where supernatural fear was being inflicted, so why in the world should they have had to roll a die Vs. fear?

Unless, of course, it was an Exalted like system, in which case a player who thinks the situation is spooky and creepy and isn't entirely sure how his character would react would be within his rights to say "Hm. Gonna roll Valor and see just how weirded-out my character is," and let that push his actions.

In fact, I did that a fortnight or so ago, Saturday before last. Modern Exalted was the setting, my character had been informally asked by an FBI agent acquaintance to check out a yacht owned by a bunch of mobsters. Sneaking on board from the gangplank was more or less impossible given the Charms I had so I had to leap across from the next Yacht over, only to find out the place is lousy with mobsters on the party deck. I want to get below and search for evidence, so I come up with the idea of climbing to the top deck and slipping down the stairs from behind, only to find the top deck has another guard up there as well. At this point, the situation looks realistically impossible for a stealth entry barring outright invisibility (a feat beyond my character's means,) and a reasonable person might give up, but my character is one of the Night Caste of the Solar Exalted, and he has Valor 3. An impossible infiltration is the kind of thing he might take as a challenge - but also the kind of thing he might back down from. I know this since he was me, and I was firmly ambivalent as regards the situation.

So I rolled my Valor die, deciding that anything above a two (equal to or greater to my Valor score) would be a "go for it," 2 or less would be "Leave and report on the situation." Came up 4, so I stunted out an incredible ballsy display of testecular fortitude in climbing through the window in the span of a few moments, right behind the guard on top. Jaws dropped, ST said that the balls that took and the Stunt bonus canceled out the huge bonus he should get for noticing a guy climbing in behind him, so it came down to opposed Stealth Vs. Awareness. I rolled crap, invoked my Third Stealth Excellency, rolled even worse crap, kept my first crap roll, the guy rolled his Awareness. And tied my crap roll. It came down to opposed Essence rolls, him vs. me. He had E2, I had E3. He rolled a ten and an eight, scoring three successes on two dice. I rolled two tens and a four.

As the ST put it, "and the group may now exhale." Die rolling was involved, and it was tense, and it was Awesome. Awesome that you never would have seen because you would've fucked off down the local the moment I said I was going to let a die decide if I was suffering from an excess of competitiveness and continued in the obviously foolhardy infiltration attempt when I could've legged it with very valuable intelligence gathered just from being able to see the party.

If you have issues with players getting out of character or meta gaming slap the player with an exp penalty or have him roll a new character. Don't make them roll dice to see if he remembered his mittens, helmet, and name tag. Sounds like you just hang out with a group of like minded retards who wouldn't know in character if they got insulted by it.

Nobody is advocating making people roll to see if they remembered to bring their gear.

I am advocating letting them roll to see if they convince someone of something contentious, rather than demanding that they convince me, as stand-in for the NPC, of it, with their real-life social skills. Here's how I see this working.

Example a: Bad social skills player, Glorious Elf Rocker-Bard PC. "I, um... I want the king to let us, uh... You know, take his, uh... Stock, of, uh... Err.. S... You know! His, um... Supplies! For the trip." "Supplies?" "Y-You know... Magic stuff?" "Oh! You want him to let you loot his royal armory of the rare magical items within in order to aid you on your quest?" "Y-Yeah, exactly." "Roll it. He's very disinclined to let you run off with his magical stuff, but give it a go. DC 34, no bonuses or penalties."

*Roll: 10 + 25 = 35 Vs. DC 34.*

"The king agrees with your argument that sending you on a quest ill-prepared means he is damaging your chances of accomplishing the quest he has set you upon. Though he vows dire vengeance should you cross him by taking his things and running, he swears you all to oath (non-magical) and lets you have your pick of the royal armory. You're advised not to take anything but what you can actually use."

Example B: Great social skills player, good method actor, Dire Orc Barbarian PC. "GM, I'm going to address the king." "Okay. Go for it." "My Liege! You set us forth on a nigh-impossible errand, so precarious in nature that you have lost three of your own champions on the quest! You know our reputation, you know we shall not fail and we shall not falter, but you ask us to do this without any assistance whatsoever! If you demand your lands to be freed of this menace once and for all, it would behoove you to gird us in the finest armour available to you and arm us with your stoutest arms before we set off, for as you can surely see, your means are far beyond ours!"

*GM impressed.* "Wow. +5 bonus for a logical and impassioned argument that plays to his motivations, but you're still asking him to hand adventurers their reward before they set out. DC 25. Roll it." (Yes, he not only awarded a bonus of +5, but lowered the DC. This kind of thing really will happen, when an ST is asked to eyeball an off-the-cuff DC for something, he'll arbitrarily set it based on the player's description. This amounts to a bonus of +19 over what the other guy had - hardly beans.)

*Roll: 10 - 4 + 9 = 15 vs. DC 25.*

"The King is infuriated by your insinuation that he has set before you an overly difficult task, embarrassed by your bringing up the topic of his dead champions, and made wrathful by your rightly calling him out in front of his court on him setting this quest before you with no assistance. Also, he doesn't like your smell. He leans forward off his throne, and the courtiers gasp. In a raspy voice, he says, "You believe you should have some assistance beforehand on this matter of petty extermination, Orc?" There's real venom in his voice when he calls you orc. He snatches the coin-purse from the belt of the vizier next to him, and throws it down at your feet, assorted gold and silver coins with the odd copper, a rare platinum or gem, spilling out over the floor of the throne room. In total it amounts to about 650 GP, but you'll have to get down on your hands and knees to collect it - no doubt by the king's design. "There is your assistance, orc. Take it and be gone, you'll get no more until you bring me the head of the criminal I've sent you after!"


And you seem to be arguing for the reverse; that the guy with great real-life speaking should pretty much run shod-rough over social situations because he can talk rings around you despite the fact that his character is about as appealing and good at arguing as a pile of llama shit, the GM, but the guy whose character is supposed to be a great social lubricant winds up being about as effective a social lubricant as melted sugar is a sexual one.

You will note, by the way, I didn't take the liberty of "inserting" stumbles, fumbles, language problems, Inappropriate loud and immediate vulgar insulting of the King or what-have-you. I took what he said exactly as he said it, the way he said it, because that's the way his barbarian speaks, by his choosing, and I'm fine with that. But, owing to his woefully insufficient roll, despite my absolutely gelding the difficulty of the situation for him thanks to that amazing argument of his, he still manages to rub the king raw by pressing the wrong buttons and he faces the problem of discrimination owing to being large, green, smelly and spiky, which in all results in him getting a modicum of his request (assistance,) but it comes in the form of such a backhanded insult that he's probably going to (at best) turn his back coldly and leave, if not actually get the situation worse by saying something back to the King.

I have no idea how 'use mechanics to make RP situations informative and fun' somehow means I'm saying you shouldn't use dice. Maybe it's rude, but you're pretty ignorant if you think my example of Pendragon doesn't use dice; indeed what is the point of all those 'character' numbers if you don't roll them? The mechanics can just HELP rather than REPLACE the roleplaying; something so complex some RPers literally can't understand.

Oh sorry, I'm 'missing the point'.

You are missing the point. The mechanics are the situation-resolution method, not the method-acting. The role-playing can and should HELP the rollplaying. I'll freely award bonuses, even in systems (like d20) that don't codify bonuses like that, for excellent and awesome descriptions of what you're doing in a fight, or good, immediate in-character talking as part of influencing negotiations, But the roleplaying should not give you a free pass to bypass the rollplaying. You still have to roll your dice and take your chances when something matters (tying your shoes or not tripping as you walk into a pub doesn't matter, tying your shoes whilst hanging from a cliff to keep the magical boots that someone tried to disarm from you on your feet matters. Not tripping as you're battling over lava on a precarious perch matters. Epic shoe-tying or balance-keeping stunts can and will get you bonuses to those feats, but in the end it still comes down to a die roll.)

Like Norade says, all kinds of ROLE PLAYING doesn't need to involve dice; systems that provide the player with stats to inform character actions (ie courage, honesty, whatever) and a feedback method to change these values through trial means everyone role plays to role play because the role playing makes the role play in role.

Better than 'I rolled fear +2 chaotic sight, I'm cool'.

wtf did you just say? Did you just have a breakdown of linguistic communications? I think you just botched a Charisma + Linguistics roll!