Today's question to ponder: are socials skills a bad model for social mechanics? I'm talking in a broader sense of "skills", obviously, since in OD&D, there are no skill rolls of any kind, so there is no need for social skills. But traditionally, players think of conversations as a task (persuade the NPC.) You roll to make an NPC do what you want. This leads to big Internet showdowns over whether NPCs should be allowed to make skill rolls against PCs.
My argument: in reality, social skills don't convince anybody to do anything; they direct people's attention towards or away from facts, predictions, or lies that will appeal to the listener.
Discussion?
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