Better Social Stats in Fantasy TTRPGs

Why your barbarian wants to skip the talking and get to the killing.

I’m Colin, and I’m a professional video game designer. This is Drolleries, where I write about d&d, ttrpgs, and game design.

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Imagine this scenario. You’re running a game of d&d, and your PCs are a heavily armored knight, a shifty-looking cloaked ranger, and a colorfully dressed musician holding a lute. All three of them walk into the crime lord’s underground base to negotiate a hostage situation. Who’s doing the talking?

Luke approaches Jabba in Return of the Jedi.

Well, probably the one with the lute. They’re a bard, right? They play music and inspire their allies in combat, so that means that they must be good at negotiating, right?

With the crime lord? Really? But why?

Is it only because we, as d&d 5e players, know that bards have high Charisma, and therefore have good bonuses in Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation? What about the shifty-looking ranger with a criminal background? Well, they probably have bad Charisma, which means their social skills are not as good as the bard’s, so they shouldn’t do any of the talking, even if their character might seem more convincing to the crime lord.

I don’t think it should be like this.

If this were a movie or a fantasy novel, we would expect any and all of these characters to do the talking, based on their personalities and beliefs and backstories — not based on their choice of weapon.

Who Is Useful in Social Scenes?

In 5e, not every class is expected to be useful in social encounters.

A natural consequence of this expectation is the idea of the “face” of the party. A “face” is a character who is so good at interacting with NPCs that they can, and most often should, carry the other party members through a social encounter by being the only one to speak. The idea is that just like all parties need a healer and a tank, all parties should have a face.

The fact that the ranger has a lower bonus to the Charisma-based social skills discourages them from participating in roleplaying scenes. If they say something in character, they risk being called on by the DM to make a Charisma check, and in that moment, the entire party’s thoughts echo in their head: “The bard should’ve said that.”

Better if the ranger and fighter wait outside while the bard chops it up with the crime lord 1-on-1.

This makes worse the often-complained-about issue of the barbarian wanting to cut short all the chit-chat with some head-chopping. Of course they want to move on, they’re literally sitting on their ass waiting for their character to be useful. They’re waiting for y’all to be done talking in silly voices so they can play the game again. I don’t think we should fault them for acting out. I’d do the same if I were in their shoes.

But why is the same not true for combat?

Combat is such an important part of the game that we expect each character is equally useful. Not necessarily equally useful in every encounter, or useful in the same way, but we expect that over time, each character will have their time to shine, and that with teamwork, they can combine their asymmetrical strengths to achieve victory.

The cleric can heal, the barbarian takes tons of hits, and the rogue can sneak attack a crucial backline target. Even the wizard, the closest to a jack-of-all-trades with the sheer variety of spells available to them, can’t succeed on their own in every scenario. They have few hit points, so they depend on their teammates to keep damage-dealing enemies away from them.

So why is the same not true for social scenes? Why can an 18-Charisma bard make all the rolls for the entire party without their participation?

I think social encounters should be equally, if not more, important than combat encounters, and that all players should be able to contribute in their own unique ways.

Monster of the Week

In Monster of the Week (a Powered by the Apocalypse system), the core stats are Charm, Cool, Sharp, Tough, and Weird, and all but one are useful in social situations. Most playbooks also give you features that improve your social abilities in specific scenarios (or allow you to use your best stat for other moves).

Most analogous to Charisma, you can use Charm to “manipulate someone,” but that’s not your only option. Cool is used to “act under pressure” and “help out,” both of which could be used in social situations. Sharp is used to “read a bad situation,” and Tough is used to “protect someone.” In 5e parlance, the Persuasion, Intimidation, and Deception skills are spread out amongst all the ability scores, meaning all classes have their own unique strengths.

For example, the Expert (with +2 to Sharp) can read the bouncer’s intentions, then the Chosen (+2 to Cool) can act under pressure to smoothly lie about which frat brother invited them to the party. If that fails, the Mundane (+2 to Charm) can manipulate the bouncer into letting them in anyways. And if that doesn’t work, then the Wronged (+2 to Tough) can always kick some ass, or use one of their abilities to manipulate someone with Tough.

Blade uses kick some ass on the bouncer.

The story that’s created from this scenario is much more interesting to me than one character rolling Charisma 3 times while the other PCs stay silent. And most importantly, it’s more fun for all the players. Nobody’s discouraged from participating, and everyone gets their time in the spotlight.

I think this works great for Monster of the Week, but if I were to solve this problem in a fantasy game, I’d do it a bit differently…

My Solution

In designing my own heroic fantasy ttrpg, I’ve tackled this problem a different way. In the current version, you choose your combat class and your social archetype separately. Like combat classes, social archetypes give you a handful of abilities as well as your social stats.

The social archetypes are:

• Leader. A virtuous and inspiring leader. Captain America, T’Challa, Duke Leto.

• Expert. A rational mind with extensive knowledge. Bruce Banner, Doctor Strange.

• Tactician. A deal-making pragmatist and negotiator. Tywin Lannister.

• Upstanding. A friendly, kind, and moral person. Spider-Man, Frodo.

• Trickster. A liar, a flirt, and a comedian. Loki, Scanlan.

• Suave. Self-confident, cool, and unbothered. Tony Stark, Han Solo.

• Tough. Gruff and blunt, either of few words or little patience. Wolverine, John Wick.

And the social stats are:

• Reason. Logical thinking, facts, and utilitarianism.

• Empathy. Emotion, kindness, care for others.

• Virtue. Morality, honor, appeal to principles.

• Guile. Cunning, sharpness, quick wit, deceit.

• Charm. Likability, charisma, force of personality.

• Menace. Imposing presence, intimidation, coercion.

When a player makes a roll, they tell the GM which stat they’re using, with the GM’s approval, of course. You can’t threaten someone’s life using empathy.

So the Expert has high Reason, the Leader has high Virtue, the Tough has high Menace, and the Trickster has high Guile and/or Charm.

My goal with this system was to enable and encourage unorthodox combinations. Not every sorcerer has to be charismatic, not every wizard has to be intelligent, not every fighter/barbarian has to be stupid.

Your backstab-y rogue character could be a Trickster archetype with high Guile, but they could also be an Upstanding with high Empathy or Virtue. What would that look like to you? Your reckless melee fighter could be a Tough with high Menace, but they could also be an Expert with high Reason. An Expert Barbarian? That sounds like Bruce Banner to me. You can’t make a Bruce Banner/Hulk-type character in 5e without sacrificing your combat stats in some way.

Not quite the barely-literate barbarian archetype

Affinities

Naturally, certain NPCs respond better when you roll with certain stats, called an affinity. In my system, this means when you roll with an NPC’s affinity, you get advantage (+1d4 on a 2d10 roll).

You can imagine how an honorable knight has an affinity for Virtue, or a court wizard has an affinity for Reason, or a slimy crime lord has an affinity for Guile, or a cowardly goblin has an affinity for Menace.

This encourages all characters to contribute, but also shines the spotlight on certain characters once the NPC’s affinity is discovered (either through guesswork or my system’s read person equivalent).

In one of my playtests, the Tactician Sorcerer used read person to learn that Karzug, the leader of the Black Tusk Orcs, had an affinity for Menace (he respects toughness, bravery, and people who stand up to his bullying). Then, the players turned to the Tough Bard in the party and encouraged him to try something. He stood up to Karzug, got in his face, and started talking shit, getting a bonus in his attempt. You can see how this system of affinities and each player having unique strengths in social scenes created this cool moment of teamwork.

Karzug probably would’ve wanted his son to usurp him.

Through designing and playtesting my ttrpg, I’ve learned my players love this. It’s by far their favorite part so far. And all I did was guarantee everyone at the table can play the game.

I think the fact this was so impactful on their experience says something the tradition of D&D and how we blindly accept many of its unexamined assumptions.

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