[Sipowitz]

When you say "need to roleplay", what level are you talking about though? Are we talking "I tell him some rubbish about bad paperwork, you know how the bosses are", "I tell him the paperwork must have gotten mixed up somewhere, and how I suspect Frank from accounting got rejected recently and is taking it out on people", "Urg, messed up paperwork again?! I'm getting bloody pissed at Frank, the guy got rejected by the boss's secretary and now he keeps taking it out on us by making files disappear for a while. The guy really oughta get fired, he's causing the company to bleed money in wasted time!", or somewhere inbetween?

For our group it would be
"Urg, messed up paperwork again?! I'm getting bloody pissed at Frank, the guy got rejected by the boss's secretary and now he keeps taking it out on us by making files disappear for a while. The guy really oughta get fired, he's causing the company to bleed money in wasted time!"

Have the conversation don't tell me the conversation.

[Namikaze]

We do, however, have experience with interacting with people on a regular basis.

That's a huge assumption - most of the players I know have very little to do with interacting with people.  Out of our whole group, I'm the only one that's ever had a management role, been in sales, or otherwise dealt with people on a regular basis.  Our players are mostly tech-heads who try to do their job and go home.  And that's been pretty much the norm for the last 20ish years that I've been GMing.

  You don't need to have the Charisma of my elf technomancer to play a face in a roleplaying game.  But you do need to actually roleplay the character.  It can be difficult at first, but hopefully the group you're in will be sufficiently supportive in allowing you to flex those new RP muscles.  And just like physical muscles, you have to start small and work your way up to the bigger stuff.

I agree that there should be roleplaying.  It's a roleplaying game.  It's not a battlemap with mechs (nothing against BattleMech, but Shadowrun it ain't).  However, does your GM say that you fail your dice roll if you don't roleplay?  What are the actual mechanics used here?  I asked the same question earlier and got no actual answer.  I'm hoping that someone in the "must roleplay" camp can give me an example of what they actually do.

[Top Dog]

We do, however, have experience with interacting with people on a regular basis.

That's a huge assumption - most of the players I know have very little to do with interacting with people.  Out of our whole group, I'm the only one that's ever had a management role, been in sales, or otherwise dealt with people on a regular basis.  Our players are mostly tech-heads who try to do their job and go home.  And that's been pretty much the norm for the last 20ish years that I've been GMing.

  You don't need to have the Charisma of my elf technomancer to play a face in a roleplaying game.  But you do need to actually roleplay the character.  It can be difficult at first, but hopefully the group you're in will be sufficiently supportive in allowing you to flex those new RP muscles.  And just like physical muscles, you have to start small and work your way up to the bigger stuff.

I agree that there should be roleplaying.  It's a roleplaying game.  It's not a battlemap with mechs (nothing against BattleMech, but Shadowrun it ain't).  However, does your GM say that you fail your dice roll if you don't roleplay?  What are the actual mechanics used here?  I asked the same question earlier and got no actual answer.  I'm hoping that someone in the "must roleplay" camp can give me an example of what they actually do.

I'm in the "should roleplay" camp, so I'm not too strict about it to my players (when I DM) - it's just something I'd like to do myself and encourage in players. But maybe my answer helps a bit too. I'll give a player time to come up with something to say, and if someone really can't come up with something compelling but his character reasonably would, I'd let it slide (or make other players give hints). For me it's not about punishing players, it's about improving roleplay.
A player flat out refusing to try hasn't come up yet, but I don't think that's something that can be solved with in-game penalties.

I should add that it's something that's grown over years of roleplaying. I'm not a terribly good public speaker myself, so as a beginning roleplayer I found it jarring to always speak in-character. I still use descriptive conversations occasionally, although I try to catch it and correct myself (unless it's an unimportant conversation). So I think player experience with roleplay is an important consideration as well.

[Lickintoad]

That's a huge assumption - most of the players I know have very little to do with interacting with people.  Out of our whole group, I'm the only one that's ever had a management role, been in sales, or otherwise dealt with people on a regular basis.  Our players are mostly tech-heads who try to do their job and go home.  And that's been pretty much the norm for the last 20ish years that I've been GMing.

It's not really a huge assumption.  The mere fact that you're playing a roleplaying game means you have experience interacting with people.  You don't need to be in sales or management to know how to verbally interact with another person.  Even those tech-heads who go to work and go home have to deal with people at work, at the store, at the restaurant, at home, and so on.  They probably have families and friends.  At the very least, they have a roleplaying group, and in order to play, there has to be interaction.

I agree that there should be roleplaying.  It's a roleplaying game.  It's not a battlemap with mechs (nothing against BattleMech, but Shadowrun it ain't).  However, does your GM say that you fail your dice roll if you don't roleplay?  What are the actual mechanics used here?  I asked the same question earlier and got no actual answer.  I'm hoping that someone in the "must roleplay" camp can give me an example of what they actually do.

In the examples given before, I'm good with the second or third.  I prefer the third, but the second is good, too.  And, sometimes, the second is preferable for dissemination of lots of boring information.  I would never say someone fails a dice roll because he didn't roleplay, because, without the roleplay, there can be no dice roll.  So, you just rolled your Con skill.  Awesome.  What was the lie?  Is it believable?  Do you have some sort of support for it?  Things like this go into determining the difficulty of the check.  As GM, I need to take all that into account in order to set the threshold.  "I roll a Con check" is not acceptable.  "I tell the cop that I've never even been to the Space Needle because I can't afford it, and I sure as hell didn't kill anyone there" is perfectly fine.  It doesn't always have to be purely dialogue, though some is preferable to none.

[Namikaze]

In the examples given before, I'm good with the second or third.  I prefer the third, but the second is good, too.  And, sometimes, the second is preferable for dissemination of lots of boring information.  I would never say someone fails a dice roll because he didn't roleplay, because, without the roleplay, there can be no dice roll.  So, you just rolled your Con skill.  Awesome.  What was the lie?  Is it believable?  Do you have some sort of support for it?  Things like this go into determining the difficulty of the check.  As GM, I need to take all that into account in order to set the threshold.  "I roll a Con check" is not acceptable.  "I tell the cop that I've never even been to the Space Needle because I can't afford it, and I sure as hell didn't kill anyone there" is perfectly fine.  It doesn't always have to be purely dialogue, though some is preferable to none.

That makes sense to me.  Telling the GM the goal of the conversation, and even a little detail about how the character goes about meeting that goal is tantamount to a street samurai telling the GM what he's aiming at and how he's firing his gun.  Makes perfect sense.  And I love roleplaying - so it sounds like your system does a good job of encouraging roleplay without penalizing those who are bad at it.  Kudos.

[Sipowitz]

That makes sense to me.  Telling the GM the goal of the conversation, and even a little detail about how the character goes about meeting that goal is tantamount to a street samurai telling the GM what he's aiming at and how he's firing his gun.  Makes perfect sense.  And I love roleplaying - so it sounds like your system does a good job of encouraging roleplay without penalizing those who are bad at it.  Kudos.

And we don't penalize people who are bad at it either.  We do penalize people who can't be bothered to try.
What I can say is you keep equating what one archetype does as being nearly identical to what another does.  That is not being accurate.
Perhaps it's easier to understand if I say we do first person roleplaying.  You act as if you are standing right there doing what needs to be done.

[Reiper]

Facing from my perspective (as a GM, and granted lenient GM at times).

If you roll good but aren't great at getting your point across RP wise, I'm not going to penalize you for it as long as you aren't doing something that would be totally socially unacceptable (cussing out your boss for example). But if you are in the ballpark, then you're good.

Now if you are an amazing Face RPer, I'll possibly end up granting you with a bonus karma now and then for just doing an amazing job, and there have been times when a face has been so convincing that I forget to even call for rolls (I try to not do that, but if I can get enthrawled sometimes).

But all in all, as long as you are making an effort, there is no reason to penalize you for not being a face in real life.

[Glyph]

I think someone rolling a social skill needs to at least describe what he is trying to do, and what tactic he is using.  For a guard at a gate, you need to at least give me something like "I'm trying to get this guy to let me through, and I'm pretending to be a maintenance guy."  I wouldn't really reward good roleplay with extra dice, no more than I would give extra dice to someone for describing his martial artist's attack in more detail.  But like Top Dog, I wouldn't penalize a player for a bluff that is described awkwardly.

Just like shooting a gun, not every tactic is going to work.  Maybe you're trying to pretend you're the boss's nephew and the receptionist knows everyone in his family, or maybe pretending to be a new hire won't cut it because even new hires would be in the database.  On the flip side, sometimes unknown factors can make social skills more effective.  If you are trying to frame the Sons of Sauron for a botched explosives job your team did, it might be an easier sell if the police chief is racist against orks.

Social skills should be comparatively subtle in their effects, too.  The SR5 rules may have potential problems similar to the SR4 rules, but their fluff is an improvement - it implies that social skills are more for PC vs. NPC than PC vs. PC, and their example of intimidation was a lot more realistic than the SR4 one.  The intimidated ganger lowers her weapon and is suddenly more amenable to talking first - note that she doesn't piss her pants in fear and then grovel.  I think a lot of problems arise because some players and GMs assume someone with high double-digit dice pools auto-succeeds in telling anyone to do anything.

If someone has high social skills/Charisma, though, I would give them more hints and more detailed descriptions - for someone normal, I might just say the Johnson is a bit brusque, but for a face, I might say he seems snappish because something is making him nervous, and that he seems like he is in a hurry for some reason.  Also, another intangible is that I would let them breeze through some situations that are a petty annoyance, or take some time and work, for other PCs.  Bouncers wave them in, people cross the street to hit on them, etc.

[shreck]

yes i have seen this come up in so many rpg games i have playd .
why is it always the social rolls where we get this whith .
we can say :
i shoot my gun.
i sneak into the building wile trying to avoid the cameras.
wile sneaking i try to get behind him to backstab .
and everything is ok .
but the moment we say :
i try to haggle to get a discount.
i slip the doorman a bribe to let me true.
i negociate whith mr johnson for a better payout .
we are not allowed to just pick up our dice and roll them but we have to play out the scene like its a larp .

olso bonuses and penalties becous of bad/good wordings is a dickmove imo.
there is a reason we have the dice and the skilpoints.

for the creator of the tread i woud give the advice to start small.
do not talk ingame yet but distance yourself from your character at first .
you can say thing like :
i nod at the apropriete moments and do the usual smaltalk whith the client .
i try to negociate a better payout for the mission wile i use extra expenses/disposebal gear/travel costs/... as an excuse.
i aproach my mark at the bar and use the sportsgame that is playing as an in to start the conversation rolling afterwards i liquere him/her up and try to get the info i need .
its easyer wen you talk in 3Rd person and switch to ingame voice once you feel more secure.

[Marcus]

Shreck does have a point, spelling aside.  Logical action description should be a perfectly valid basis for any roll, regardless of the skills and attribute involved. It is the only way to be consistent between all elements of the system. I would not consider that to be bad role playing in anyway, in fact it's solid and consistent role play. It may not be as entertaining to the table. Trying to go a little further is good for a number of reasons but there is no reason to complicate matters. Layout the scene, specify the conflict, arbitrate character interaction with the elements of the scene and between characters, enumerate or foreshadow consequences of character actions be they good or bad, conclude scene, advance to the next scene. To me that boils it down to it's most basic level.

[Sipowitz]

Depends on what role play means to you and yours.

Is role play meant to mean I play the role of the street samurai?
Is role play meant to mean I am playing Tommy 'Murphy' Jones; the smartass, to talkative for his own good, who seems to have a bad luck streak Street Samurai.

Logical action description is fine up to a point.

Murphy<looking through his scope>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers.  Putting a short burst into the middle Go-Ganger hopefully the others will scatter left and right."
Aims and fires at Go-Ganger
Okay with me.

Murphy<walking up to Go-Gangers>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers. Going to Con the Middle Go-Ganger.  Hopefully the other two will follow the middles lead"
Rolls Con.
Not okay with me.

[shreck]

Depends on what role play means to you and yours.

Is role play meant to mean I play the role of the street samurai?
Is role play meant to mean I am playing Tommy 'Murphy' Jones; the smartass, to talkative for his own good, who seems to have a bad luck streak Street Samurai.

Logical action description is fine up to a point.

Murphy<looking through his scope>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers.  Putting a short burst into the middle Go-Ganger hopefully the others will scatter left and right."
Aims and fires at Go-Ganger
Okay with me.

Murphy<walking up to Go-Gangers>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers. Going to Con the Middle Go-Ganger.  Hopefully the other two will follow the middles lead"
Rolls Con.
Not okay with me.

why not ?
both have spend points in the skills requierd , why is one allowed to roll his dice and the other one not ?
i suck at fighting in RL but i play a streetsam who kan kill cyberninjas whith a roll of a dice.
i suck at public speaking and whitty barter in RL but i play a face who can charm/bluff his way out of any situation whith the roll of a dice.
but wen you freeze up wen the spotlight is on you or you cant come up whith a good excuse wen everyone at the table is looking at you, you are not allowed to play a face ?

on page 140 we got a full table with all the + and - moddifiers wen using social skill so clearly we are suposed to roll the dice to see wat happens ?

[Namikaze]

Logical action description is fine up to a point.

Murphy<looking through his scope>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers.  Putting a short burst into the middle Go-Ganger hopefully the others will scatter left and right."
Aims and fires at Go-Ganger
Okay with me.

Murphy<walking up to Go-Gangers>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers. Going to Con the Middle Go-Ganger.  Hopefully the other two will follow the middles lead"
Rolls Con.
Not okay with me.

The fact that the same method is fine for one player and not for another is what I think a lot of people have issue with.  Again, no one's talking about your table specifically - just in general, it's fair to require the same out of both players.

The drawback to your method is that someone who wants to play a face and doesn't know how will get penalized or possibly scared off.  That's no good for anyone, since that person might turn out to be a great roleplayer down the line, had they only been given the chance.  The plus though, is that those at your table that aren't necessarily good roleplayers will get to see good roleplaying - and hopefully this will entice them to become good themselves.


Has anyone here ever noticed how hard it is to find really REALLY good roleplayers?  Usually these people become GMs, not because of the love of the rules or the stories but because of a love of the NPCs.  I feel that it is our responsibility as GMs to encourage people to push their boundaries and try new things.  I've got two new players at my table this week, both of whom have Pathfinder experience but that's about it.  They're both comfortable with the roleplaying angle, but they're not comfortable with the setting yet.  My expectation, or hope rather, is that after a few sessions they'll be very comfortable with the setting, and we'll see more and more of their character come out at the table.  Until then, if they want to stay mostly quiet and not roleplay heavily, then fine.

It's all about fairness, encouragement, and growth.  I feel that we have an obligation to these players to provide them with a great game, great story, and great fun.  If I started penalizing players for not being good at roleplaying, I think I'd be violating that commitment.

[Sipowitz]

Depends on what role play means to you and yours.

Is role play meant to mean I play the role of the street samurai?
Is role play meant to mean I am playing Tommy 'Murphy' Jones; the smartass, to talkative for his own good, who seems to have a bad luck streak Street Samurai.

Logical action description is fine up to a point.

Murphy<looking through his scope>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers.  Putting a short burst into the middle Go-Ganger hopefully the others will scatter left and right."
Aims and fires at Go-Ganger
Okay with me.

Murphy<walking up to Go-Gangers>(to other players) "I see 3 Go-Gangers. Going to Con the Middle Go-Ganger.  Hopefully the other two will follow the middles lead"
Rolls Con.
Not okay with me.

why not ?
both have spend points in the skills requierd , why is one allowed to roll his dice and the other one not ?
i suck at fighting in RL but i play a streetsam who kan kill cyberninjas whith a roll of a dice.
i suck at public speaking and whitty barter in RL but i play a face who can charm/bluff his way out of any situation whith the roll of a dice.
but wen you freeze up wen the spotlight is on you or you cant come up whith a good excuse wen everyone at the table is looking at you, you are not allowed to play a face ?

on page 140 we got a full table with all the + and - moddifiers wen using social skill so clearly we are suposed to roll the dice to see wat happens ?

Never said that both don't roll, they do.

[Angelone]

I find it extremely unfair that most groups will let most players get by with I shoot him, I banish it, I hack the Gibson, but make the face basically act out a scene. I feel that discourages role play more than it encourages it. I would let a get away with "I try to negotiate a higher rate for the run" or "I try to convince the bouncer to let us in". Those in my opinion are straight skill checks. Trying to hit someone up for information or pick up a target at a bar? That's a little more in depth, but I'm not going to penalize someone for being socially ackward in real life. It discourages them from trying something new and possibly getting better as a player.

If you make the face go into that much detail I feel you should make everyone do the same.  So "I shoot him" should be "I peek out from cover, scan the area, draw a bead on my target, and gently squeeze the trigger."