Social Combat and Physical Debates

A friend recently proposed that we play D&D with as many rules for social behaviour as for combat. My response was to use the D&D 5e rules as a framework to come up with feats and social combat styles that apply when speaking. So there would be social damage, and social fighting styles that mirror the dueling/two handed weapon/two weapon fighting styles. Nobody else seemed to be interested in this, and one player wasn't interested in any set of rules for social interactions. His opinion was mechanics are for combat, which we can't do for ourselves. The social interactions we can just role play, so we don't need any rules there. The thing is, the game still has social skills, that we are using anyway. So it still seems strange that a fight has round after round of checks, but an attempt at persuasion is a single roll.

Another idea I had was to reduce the fights from multiple rolls to a single roll, rather than require multiple rounds for social interactions. A character could have a fighting skill. In D&D 5e, barbarians, fighters, monks, paladins and rangers would have proficiency in this skill. Depending on the weapon used it would be a strength or dexterity skill. In a fight they would make an opposed skill check against their opponent's preferred skill. The winner of the check wins the fight. I think this would work well in a game where there is a lot of dueling for honour. Losing a fight could be a major setback, but it wouldn't mean the death of the character. It wouldn't work so well against monsters. Losing a fight to an owlbear would mean you had to run away, but if it won the fight it should really eat you. An important aspect of the game then would be avoiding fights with owlbears.

Magic could be another skill, or we could use the arcana skill for bards, sorcerers, warlocks and wizards. Clerics and druids could use religion as their magic skill. To fight another spellcaster, make opposed magic checks. If a spellcaster fights a combat character, they each use their preferred skill, and depending on who wins we narrate the nature of the fight.

So it might seem that having a single roll to determine the outcome of a fight is a bit hit or miss, and maybe that's true. I think alongside the roll to determine success or failure, a character needs to state the stakes they are fighting for. They can state that the winner will capture the loser, or the loser will be forced to retreat or escape. If they want to kill their opponent then they have to accept the risk of death. Again, this works well in a campaign where duelling for honour is common. Losing a duel is a setback, but it doesn't mean the end of the character. If you are fighting owlbears, then having the winner drive off the loser sounds about right. If you want an owlbear skin, then you have to risk getting eaten.

Setting the stakes might give a new meaning to social skills as well. In D&D 5e, using persuasion against an NPC is usually a check that the PC makes, not an opposed roll. The player states what they want to achieve, and if they succeed (against a DC set by the DM) then they get what they wanted. If not, they don't really achieve anything. Using the stakes system, the PC could enter a negotiation with an NPC. They might say "the loser comes around to the winner's way of thinking." If the player loses that opposed roll (against the NPC's persuasion) then the PC goes along with the other point of view. If the PC wins then the NPC comes around.

I'd like to try this out in a swashbuckling campaign, where we concentrate on the witty repartee more than the attack rolls. Setting up for a fight and dealing with the aftermath of a fight would be more important, and get a lot more talk time, than the fight itself.