New File Added: Custom Rules Version for Birthright

[Fizz]

I can not say that a noble cant be a warrior for instance but what if a noble does not want to be a warrior

But you can argue that for any class or any description. What if a ranger doesn't want to be a warrior? I mean, if you take this argument to its full extent, then you end up with a classless system (which is fine if you want to do that).

, then the commoner class fits in for him and by adding skills and abilities that will complement such a class its viable in the game.

The problem with this is nomenclature. Noble and commoner mean the exact opposite thing. And guilder was meant to represent the middle-class, so that's a different meaning as well.

In your paradigm you're combining all three into the lowest common demoninator. But remember the meaning of the word "commoner". It means normal, ordinary, unspecial.

The bard class tried to play an all around type of character often choosen by players in order to meta game or abuse the rules, not to mention the vomiting outcome it could take in the 3rd edition games.

You can run into abuses in 3E, yes, but your rules aren't based on 3E. Though i don't know what you mean by "vomiting outcome". 2nd edition didn't have enough mechanics to allow for serious abuses.

The guildier on the other hand made us feel itself was not complete nor it had anything to offer to a player, advancing in skills and abilities in a class like the commoner withing the skeptic of beeing a guildier is true for us, cause skills make the guildier and the noble not stats and powerfull class abilities.

I highly disagree. In a skills-based system, the guilder really shines. Warriors are best for combat, wizards are best for magic, etc... But Guilders were your skills experts. Think of MacGyver or Leonardo DaVinci- those sorts of archetypes fit perfectly into the Guilder class. These could absolutely be good adventurers. I myself had great fun with a dwarf guilder- master builder of small mechanical devices.

Now, if the campaign doesn't allow the opportunities for a class to shine, then any class can look bad. If a campaign has little combat, then warriors get to do little. If there is no opportunity to sneak, then thieves look horrible. Thus, if you allow plenty of usage of skills, then guilders ought to be awesome.

We find out that skills must have a thesis upon which they must be worked around and the social skills have none. Thus we have come upon the fact that social skills can be roleplayed by anyone because what determines who can intimidate and who cannot and be rolled against a PC or NPCs Wis/Intuition score that determines also the perception of a character.

Of course social skills have a thesis.

* In the case of persuasion, it's a matter of reading your target- picking up on subtle facial expressions, changes in demeanor, etc.

* In the case of diplomacy, it's about understanding their political sensitivities and / or sensing when they lie.

* People can certainly lie with different degrees of success. And some people are better at picking up on lies than others.

* Also consider the skill of cold-reading that "psychics" use to convince people of their "powers".

All of the above are examples of social skills that your players may not know, but they may want their character to be skilled in them. And all of the above can can be learned.

For example, say the DM is playing a lying villain. Your player PC wants to determine if the villain is lying.
With no social skills:
then it's the player trying to figure out if the DM is lying.
With social skills:
the PC hero trying to determine if the villain is lying.

So since social skills do have a thesis, as you put it, i don't see how it's any different from combat, magic or any other skill. The player doesn't have to know all the nitty-gritty details of how to do something (be it combat or sensing a lie), he just needs to know that his character knows it.

Note I'm not saying in any way that you should take away roleplaying, but the skills help fill in the details that your players simply won't have. This makes these skills useful.

Hope that better explains what i'm trying to say.


-Fizz

[ebatalis]

But you can argue that for any class or any description. What if a ranger doesn't want to be a warrior? I mean, if you take this argument to its full extent, then you end up with a classless system (which is fine if you want to do that).

The ranger class is something that is already defined and if you do read about it in the rulebook you will see that if you take that path its an one way road, more or less like the Paladin. No most of the times Rangers are devoted to what they are about to engage at. Since it seems we have a small misunderstanding here, by warrior I mean the "fighter" class.

The problem with this is nomenclature. Noble and commoner mean the exact opposite thing. And guilder was meant to represent the middle-class, so that's a different meaning as well. In your paradigm you're combining all three into the lowest common demoninator. But remember the meaning of the word "commoner". It means normal, ordinary, unspecial.

"This is tottly wrong, the word commoner is just the simplest and most appealing word to give to the class, the class is nothing sort of a Commoner. A blooded noble who does not fit the role of all the above classes, a princess in made, a traders son, and more or less roles in a society that do not have to fit in the "canon" class system do fit perfectly in the "commoner" class. Also do not misunderstand again the word commoner with the actuall social role, in our system if you pay the time to read it all characters begining a campaign start out as 0 level commoners being the heirs of a domain or the misfits of the slums. Since I have to explain more no player starts a 45 year old know it all google knowledgeable dude in our campaigns, most start out at the very start of their life in a new world, Cerilia. Our aim is to build legacies for 0 to hero. This system allows the player to walk up to some point at which he will choose his class orientation or even and that happens most of the times, players just fall into the commoner class which corresponds to what most people come around to play, the musician, the noble, the scounder, the misfit, the wannabe and so many other roles I can come upon that are not tied and should not really be tied to the strict lines of a class.

You can run into abuses in 3E, yes, but your rules aren't based on 3E. Though i don't know what you mean by "vomiting outcome". 2nd edition didn't have enough mechanics to allow for serious abuses.

I will go pass the fact that 3E led to the death of role playing and the birth of roll playing and no commonent further.

I highly disagree. In a skills-based system, the guilder really shines. ...

We both agree that the guildier is a perfect role on any campaign , yes. Although if you pay close attention to the class as it was made in the 2nd edition it was like they were trying to put something out of the frying pan hastely. The Guildier class in the 2nd edition has no actual game role, and it is badly presented. Although I will agree that players and campaign wise any role can shine.

Of course social skills have a thesis...

Yes I tottaly agree, and this is what our game system is all about, skills...skills....skills...skills, do pay the time to read a tad about it, but it is about skills that can exist, not skills that players dont have or they will never be able to have, because some things are not skills.

Many things are skills and knowledge, lying and knowing about it is not, bullying and knowing how to avoid it is not and players in and out of game are not able to know if someone is lying, its the only "real" role playing you can have, why spoil it with a roll.



I love your point, and I love the way you put it out there, thanks.

[Thelandrin]

I will go pass the fact that 3E led to the death of role playing and the birth of roll playing and no commonent further.

Let's leave that particular line of enquiry right there. Edition warring is unpleasant and unwanted, no matter which editions are involved.

[Fizz]

Also do not misunderstand again the word commoner with the actuall social role, in our system if you pay the time to read it all characters begining a campaign start out as 0 level commoners being the heirs of a domain or the misfits of the slums.

It's that word "commoner" that i think is the problem. Maybe if you had a different name. Maybe it's just me, but "commoner" in a medieval setting is immediately going to have the connotation of social class. Maybe saying just 0-level is enough.

We both agree that the guildier is a perfect role on any campaign , yes. Although if you pay close attention to the class as it was made in the 2nd edition it was like they were trying to put something out of the frying pan hastely. The Guildier class in the 2nd edition has no actual game role, and it is badly presented. Although I will agree that players and campaign wise any role can shine.

No, i think the guilder in 2nd Ed was simple but potent. It relied heavily on nonweapon proficiencies, and received massive benefits to those. If your campaign was dependent on those, then guilders could have a fantastic role in a game.

The guilder is not the warrior, he's not the magician, he's not the priest, and he's not the sneak. He's the skills-guy. Which is why i think he'd be great in your system.

Also note that it's "guilder", not "guildier" (no second 'i').

So since social skills do have a thesis, as you put it, i don't see how it's any different from combat, magic or any other skill. ---Hence Social skills dont exist and have no thesis.

This doesn't make sense- i don't know what you're saying here. If something is learnable, should it not be a skill? Combat and magic can be learned- they have their own mechanics. Social skills can be learned and thus can be skills. See below.

Yes I tottaly agree, and this is what our game system is all about, skills...skills....skills...skills, do pay the time to read a tad about it, but it is about skills that can exist, not skills that players dont have or they will never be able to have, because some things are not skills.

Many things are skills and knowledge, lying and knowing about it is not, bullying and knowing how to avoid it is not and players in and out of game are not able to know if someone is lying, its the only "real" role playing you can have, why spoil it with a roll.

There are absolutely practiced liars in the world, and there are absolutely people trained to detect them. Just do a google search for "how to lie" and "how to detect a lie" and you can read about it. Absolutely this is something that can be learned.

The same goes for diplomacy, persuasion, etiquette, etc. There are ways of saying things in certain ways so as not to antagonize the other person, and ways of saying things to convince other people of your point of view. No doubt at some point in your life you have encountered someone who said the exact wrong thing at the wrong time- that's a failed diplomacy check!

As for intimidate, i think a case could be made for it too. But there are many ways to intimidate- physical and mental. I agree that this may be a bit too specific to be a skill, and could be subsumed under a different skill.

I don't think having these skills ruins roleplaying. Rather it adds to it- it allows the character to be able to do something that the player might not. I'm not a good fencer, but that doesn't mean my character has to be. Similarly, i myself may not be able to tell a lie without making it obvious, but that doesn't mean my character should be consigned to the same fate.

But don't get me wrong- the situation should be roleplayed out. I would not let a player say "i try to convince" without a description, just as i expect more than "i attack" during combat. Then at the end or the interaction, the character makes the roll to see if he successfully persuaded / outlied / etc the target.

Social interactions are quite often a task- getting information from someone, or outwitting the powerful ogre guarding a bridge. It's something in the campaign that needs to be overcome. Think of it as "verbal combat".


-Fizz

[AndrewTall]

I use social skills in a few ways:

1. Hints. Players can use the skills to get information, etc about targets that make is easier for them to know what sort of approach will work - so a diplomacy check might give "the king seems distracted and on edge, he settles matters hastily and seems irritated by petitioners with drawn out stories" or etiquette "the knight on the second to the kings right seems slightly uneasy in his position, his sur-coat is clean but the embroidery appears rushed - you would say he is but newly promoted, a swift look about shows the many of the knights in attendance are also recently promoted - and most seem very young.

2. Skill plus Role-play checks - in combat I'd give a bonus for innovative tactics, great description, the same goes with social interactions but more so. That way you allow good role-players to optimise their characters chances, but you avoid a player by-passing their character in play - a character who is played as having great social skills should have the relevant ability points and skills but I've seen players min-max them towards combat and still play them as silver-tongued.

3. Success. If you don't want to roll during role-play you can use the skill level/ability scores etc to instead dictate the degree of success of failure.

4. Options. Another approach is simply not to permit characters to take various paths unless they have the relevant capability - so unless the character has an adjust bluff ability of, say, 12 they can't try to bluff the guard, while they need 15 to try to bluff the sheriff.

I see mechanics for the social side of the game as less developed than the combat side, but no reason not to use mechanics - I've seen the combat side de-mechanised with good results, but the character building side of the game is a lot of fun and provides a solid base for the players to build the character around so prefer the mechanical approach myself.