Why aren't TTRPGS more like Paper Mario + Granular Damage Upgrades

When it comes to TTRPGs and their video game cousins, the obvious D&D inspired games come to mind first. But one thing I find weird is the seeming rarity and lack of "very low number" games. Paper Mario & Thousand Year Door are the most prominent; along with their more modern offspring like Bug Fables. Specifically; games with turn based combat, small scale battles with few characters or units, and very small damage numbers; typically ranging from 1-9 as a soft maximum for "normal" attacks, usually only accessible very late in the game. Instead, much more of the focus is placed on things like timing imputs to increase damage or reduce incoming damage, status effects, resource management in the form of consumable items and FP/TP/abilities, specific attack types and their counters (spike on head = can't jump on them) and target priority. While some of these are video game specific, most of the elements could be translated directly into a tabletop RPG style game with no issue. The strange thing is I really haven't seen it done before. I'm sure there are some smaller games that have similar systems in place; but the closest I can think of is something akin to fantasy wargaming or Warhammer-like games. This fits for them because making the many hundreds of units and models as complex as your average D&D character would be too daunting; so simple wound or instant-death mechanics, armor counted as single numbers which must be met or beat by attacks similar to Paper Mario defense; with dice more deciding individual outcomes over granular damage/health systems is a good fit here. Ironic that the game-mechanics I'm thinking would be the simplest and most immediately useful system for TTRPGs goes right back to the hobby's roots.

The benefits of such a system? Small numbers keep match simple and easily approachable. There is a level of strategy that is present here that isn't in more "swingy" dice-combat games like D&D. Hit Dice are a good approximation of how much health an enemy has, but even a d6 weapon has six possible outcomes, meaning any approximation of your resources in how many more turns it may take to defeat this enemy, or how much ammunition or spell-dice you need to use, or how many bandages you need to use to heal someone; etc. could all be off by about six times your estimate. It's unlikely, but a possibility. With a smaller number system, you can predict these things much more. Secondly, you create more immediate and obvious strategic depth in its basic systems. Defense reducing all incoming damage by +1 is much more obvious then a D&D esque weapon vs Armor-Class penetration rate; even though you know padded armor gives you +2 AC against blunt weapons or whatever, how much damage does it actually prevent? First you have to calculate the chance of the attack and then the average damage on a roll and so on, where as a Paper Mario system doing something similar is just -1 to damage. Very simple. Abilities that penetrate or remove armor (or grant bonus damage) are immediately obvious in how they'll influence the outcome of a battle. You can't grant +1 to a character's Attack per level up or +1 Defense per small gear upgrade for example, it'd be way too overwhelming and quickly break the math of the game- games with larger numbers have a lot more leeway. Plus, the smaller numbers makes moments of bigger impact grander and more memorable. I won't really notice when enemies start doing 1000 damage to me if the last fight they were doing 500+; but you will remember the first time a boss or a mob hits you for 10 damage in a Paper-Mario-Like. That's reserved for the "oh shit" moments. I also find systems like this more fun to mess around with, as there is a certain challenge to designing in such a tight space; But more on this later.

Of course, there are good reasons why we don't use this "small number" system for TTRPGs: Granularity. Highly granular systems allow for smaller advantages or changes that can adapt for more situations; a +1 to hit on a d20 is a fair benefit for a racial bonus or background feature of a character to show a varied and complete person as simulated in the game world. Giving a +1 to your Attack in a Paper Mario esque system could translate to a 50% increase or more; which means it could be many, many sessions or power-ups or require a big in-universe justification for this increase. Second, it also greatly reduces the amount of variety and "fuzz" of the rules, meaning situations play out with less randomness and encounter design has to be stricter. D&D can already kinda be solved in a math-y way but with a system like this it would get way worse. Players could potentially figure out the outcome of any given fight or encounter, leading to a more boring or "pass/fail" style of gameplay that wouldn't be as fun in my opinion. There might be some strategic value in knowing that you can always beat an ogre at your level (it does 3 damage a turn to you, you do 4 damage to it, and it has 20 health, so as long as you have at least 13 health and you can go first you know you can win), I don't think it's the kind of strategy or "character building" most people want to play TTRPGs for.

Also, obviously, it's because rolling dice is fun and tied to the wargaming roots of the hobby. This system necessitates dice rolling as being less important, and therefore, the most fun part of the hobby is less represented. All of this is obvious, and doesn't need to be stated by a pseudointellectual like myself. So instead, we're going to end this rant prematurely and go on to the game theory bit that's actually good.

How to add Damage Upgrades for Small Number Systems
Specifically for a Bug Fables or Paper Mario-like game or a TTRPG with a similar setup.

As stated above adding a +1 Damage modifier is only something you can do very occasionally as it throws the entire game out of whack. So how do we have meaningful character progression? The first way are increases to non-direct stats. So increased chance to hit, ease of minigame success, increased maximum hit points, having stronger or more varied access to moves and status effects, etc. This is already covered above. But how do we actually do more damage? Without relying on these conditionals or random chance mechanics? Instead, we do it based on damage deference and the action economy.

Abilities that pierce Defense could count as a damage increase. For example, you can upgrade your attack so it ignores one point of the opponent's Defense. This effectively means it deals +1 damage against armored opponents. However, I consider this a sidegrade, because it doesn't increase your damage to non-armored targets. While it is still an improvement (obviously if the choice is between an attack with one pierce and an attack with the same damage and zero pierce it's still better) it's still a conditional and will usually have some kind of opportunity cost. As such, this is more of a sidegrade then a direct improvement to our damage.

Another low impact upgrade that's more granular and modular is bonus damage over a long period, which I'm calling long-distance damage. Something like a "deals one bonus damage in ten turns" which upgrades into a "deals one bonus damage in nine turns" count as a form of progression but are so granular that they miss the breakpoint of the system. While technically being identical to an increase of +0.1 damage for our attack it won't factor in to most combats if the enemies we're fighting have reasonable (small) HP pools and our attacks deal at least 2-5 damage a turn with proper setup. You could also use this for a damage improvement mechanic but it's very boring and lame.

Finally, the other is "bonus damage per X turns of combat". Something like a charge or initiative bonus, where you get +1 damage on the first round of combat. Upgrade it, now you get +1 damage on the first two rounds of combat, and so on. While technically a damage increase, it's also a conditional (based on turn number) and once again too strong for what we are going for (small granular improvements to our attack power). So how we increase our damage output for a basic attack that has immediate effect (turn by turn), based directly on turn order/effective for the action economy, not based on a conditional or resource, and not superficial or too granular to be useful?

Stage Zero- Basic Attack
Deals a set amount of damage in one or more hits. This is the vanilla attack, or zero investment.

Stage One- Basic Attack w/ Vulnerability Frame
Deals a set amount of damage and makes the enemy vulnerable to damage (taking +1 damage) if you hit them again in the following turn. The reason why this is a small granular increase of effective damage here is because it's a one turn status effect, which means you have to capitalize on it for next turn or you lose it. This means if you are stunned, need to block or heal, out of magic point for your attack, enemy moves, etc. you cannot capitalize on it. This could also be improved one or more times (by making this vulnerability last one or more extra turns) but this I would not consider an effective increase in our damage output enough to count as a higher "stage" of damage improvement, as it is simply a more convenient method of +1 damage.

Stage Two- Basic Attack w/ Deferred Damage
Deals a set amount of damage and the enemy will take +1 damage after their next turn. The after part is important. If the status effect did damage at the start of the turn, it would be functionally identical to a damage increase when it matters. (ie; enemy has 1 HP remaining after you hit them, at the start of the their turn means they can't act as they are defeated which is the same as if you just did +1 damage to them on your turn.) But by having it happen after their turn, the enemy can take their turn/action (potentially being saved by a heal or dealing damage to you) AND THEN takes the additional damage point, effectively giving your attack +1 damage when it CAN'T hit the breakpoint of stopping an enemy's action.

Stage Three- Basic Attack that deals +1 Damage
Deals a set amount of damage +1. Effective and immediate damage increase.

This three stage system is the most granular method of increasing damage in a way that actually changes the turn economy (ie; defeating an enemy before another turn can pass). Obviously game mechanics can be much deeper then this, but at its core mathematical principles, this one could serve as the basis for a character to advance their attack power in a game like this in a way that's actionable. So instead of getting a +1 Attack badge, you'd have to equip three to get that same effect, and each badge would give you the next stage. If you had four advancements in this system, then the attack would do +1 damage and give a 1 turn vulnerability frame and so on.

The one thing the 2005 Wonka movie absolutely nails

Don't worry this isn't some clickbait "the 2005 Wonka Movie is better then you remember" sort of thing. Given its age, the Tim Burton film fails squarely in that shitty cgi "reimagining" and first wave of bad-to-mediocre remakes (I don't know if this one is bad though I'm not a critic). I have a lot of nostalgia for this film, as it's the one I watched as a kid. I never saw the 1964 film (but I did read the original book) until much later as an adult going on my "classic movies" craze. I think I watched it during covid. Now with a more critical eye; I can certainly appreciate the original film more. I think it has that sort of comfy, shot on film atmosphere that old films have. They are both very "on acid" feeling movies though.

There's something interesting about films like this. It tries to be a remake that tells its own story, a fresh modern coat of paint on an older product, but when you look at it now it's terribly dated and very set in its era of mid 2000s clean aesthetic. It's been superseded by an even newer film; which may one day also be replaced by an even newer remake. That's the thing about remake culture, the new shiny one eventually gets replaced, which will leave behind ugly, awkward middle children who are neither the timeless classics nor the shiny new thing.

However, every piece of media is influenced by the time and period in which it was created. There's something about this film in particular that it does really, really well; and that's modernizing some of the "bad kid" characters. Ultimately Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is about succession and parenthood, and about how ultimately it's the parents who make bad kids. The other kids are spoiled, but Charlie gets nothing. So Charlie is the good kid, and so he is rewarded, while the others are punished. It's a very classic Christian myth.

But there's one character in particular the 2005 film does so much better then the original it isn't even close. I'm genuinely a little surprised there isn't more talk about it. 

The Kids & Their Moral Failings
In Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, each kid that breaks the rules of the factory does so because of a huge character flaw. The Oompa Loompas songs tell us what each kid did wrong, but also make sure to hint that the problem with each kid really stems from their parents. Augustus is too hedonistic and greedy, and his parents don't stop him or set boundaries for his health or well-being. Veruca Salt is just a terrible spoiled brat who was never told no to anything by her rich parents. Mike Teavee is media obsessed and lives in fantasy; characterized by Westerns in the first film (that era of brainrot slop) and video games in the second. If a new one was made in today's zeitgeist he'd probably be watching tiktok. Out of all of kids; the most forgettable one is probably Violet (except as the source of that weird inflation/blueberrification fetish), and in the original film her characterization and "flaw" is probably the weakest out of all of the kids. She... chews gum? Obviously it's a pet peeve of Roald Dahl, but it really isn't some indication of some massive character flaw other then being a gross habit. In the book she's fleshed out more; being more rude and gossipy, so the "chewing all day" thing could kinda be seen as a shorthand for talking behind people's back and being a rude, nasty child. Perhaps this could hint at the kind of no-restrictions parenting that allows children to have bad habits; being rude to people with no filter, chewing gum, maybe even leading to smoking or other bad behaviors. Obviously this is a very liberal interpretation. But then, look at the remake handled it.

Instead of just chewing gum as a bad habit, it's recontextualized as a competition; trying to get the world record in chewing the same piece of gum. Her entire character is reworked towards the idea of being a sort of over-achieving, competitive, nasty kid who thinks they have infinite potential and the arrogance behind it. And this is absolutely perfect for the moral failing of her mother.

Remember, this movie came out in the early 2000s, which was the era defined by helicopter parenting. Bad parent/child relationships are common among every generation, that's how generational trauma works (and raising kids isn't easy) but specifically I feel this era was where people really started to take a critical eye to these over-achiever, "living vicariously through my child" type of people, and putting up warnings in media to basically say why this is a bad thing. This was even the height of the craze (at least that I can remember) of the knee-jerk overblown reaction to things like participation trophies in schools and attendance awards; and while not directly related to Violet's character, it's part of the cultural undercurrent.

Look at their living room. In a panning shot for this scene, we see yet more trophies on another glass shelf before it cuts to Violet and her mother standing there, in identical athletic suits. There are no toys in this room. Across from there are a bunch of reporters to which Violet describes wanting to find the ticket, and be "better" then all the other ticket winners and be the one kid to "claim the special prize". The entire time, her mother is staring at her intensely with a crazed expression, like making sure she doesn't fumble her words or make a single mistake in front of all these reporters. She makes sure to show off her own trophies and awards, but the focus is clearly on her child. The father is not in the picture. Even her winning the ticket, something that should be appreciated as sheer luck and random chance, is chalked up to being her skill or yet again an achievement to work towards.

While it's not really accurate to the book; children and their problems aren't really the same as they were in 1964. I feel like this era, the era of the internet and mass media but not-quite social media was the perfect conditions for this very specific type of person; ambitious and driven, but not in a good way. Overly obsessed with looks and superficial value. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, and with a world ever-shrinking in personal possibilities as every sport and industry became hyper optimized; the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" era of achievement was in full force. Amass pointless awards and world records even if they mean nothing; being a world champion gum chewer is a perfect shorthand for this kind of achievement. It doesn't represent any kind of personal growth or societal problem being solved; it's just a big number for your own ego. And her mother is the one behind it all; wanting her child to succeed and placing this pressure on her not because it would make her happy, but because she has to just be the best. You're the best kid, so I'm the best mom. Looking up the scene online, I've seen some people say there was a "mother vs daughter competitiveness" thing going on here, but I really don't see it. Violet's mom even says "She's just a driven young woman. I have no idea where she gets it.". I think it's pretty clear. She's a tiger mom.

Coming from someone who is a bit of an underachiever myself; I can't say I've been the victim of this kind of parenting myself. I have no trauma. But I did have friends who did. Kids who were literally afraid of showing their report card to their parents, kids who were in multiple clubs and HAD to be Valedictorian and HAD to have all AP classes and just HAD to get into the best collages and so on. It's not that working hard and achieving things is bad, it's the fact that parents do it their kids in a destructive and unhealthy way. I think it's easy to forget what it was like as a kid, because as an adult at some point you realize that you'll never live up to your full possible potential, you'll accept it. There are always people better then you, but also people worse. You can always sink into mediocrity and feel some comfort in it. You're at the age where you know people fail and burn out, so you can take things a little easier yourself, at least mentally. No matter how arrogant you are, this grounds you. But kids don't have this. Their parents word is law, and their approval is the most important thing in the world. It's no longer get a bad grade and feel bad because of that, it's get a bad grade and make your mom or dad upset and disappointed in you, and that's much worse. This version of Wonka has a much better Violet for this reason, because it's a cautionary tale that if you hollow out your child and fill them with your dreams instead of theirs, and put all the pressure on them to succeed at any cost, it turns out that eventually they'll blow up.

What's the Fourth Role?

The holy trinity of combat roles in cooperative video games (popularized by MMOs) are the Tank, DPS, and Support. Later on, these roles became more commonplace in competitive and cooperative games; even designing game systems around them such as Overwatch or Marvel Rivals with its hero shooter elements with characters in dedicated roles. More flexible games may allow characters of various classes to offset these roles; like a Warrior being able to specialize more in damage by dual-wielding weapons or carrying one weapon and a shield for "tanking". It's important to note this distinction transcends class, race, weapon choice, etc. this is the ROLE in which this character or player is supposed to be played. It goes beyond the "class fantasy".

For a combat focused game; I think you can't do much better then the holy trinity. I don't honestly have a problem with it. Tabletop games have a slightly different, though similar approach to this, but we get more into the class fantasy stuff later. For multiplayer video games, the common sentiment is that this trinity can't be broken because it encompasses all the of the possible interactions in the game space; Dealing damage, surviving damage, and reversing damage are pretty much all of the direct interactions you can have with another team of players or NPC monsters in a standard game not related to game specific gimmicks or mechanics; which go outside the scope of this role breakdown.

Note: I also feel I should mention here that it's likely equally as viable (and perhaps more interesting) if these basic roles just do the same things as usual but in different ways. Like a burst healer vs a regeneration healer, or a tank who gains stacking defensive buffs to reduce their damage taken or regenerates a portion of damage dealt, or a "dodge tank", etc. The flavor of the exact mechanics can vary and make characters and roles feel unique even if they all eventually boil down to "do damage and don't die". 

The most commonly put out 4th role to this system is a split of the support and healer role; usually with a debuff or crowd-control focus being on the 4th new role and a sole focus of healing and sustaining on the healer class. While I quite like this thematically; the issue is that very few games actually have such an important focus on crowdcontrol or buffs/debuffs that an entire role needs to be dedicated to it. Imagine a game where a person buffing your damage output was as necessary as a healer; you would have to do so little damage at baseline that the game would be extremely unfun. So to if you couldn't survive against a wave of enemies if you literally didn't have this 4th Mezzmer class to stun them; then trying to complete this content or dungeon or whatever would be extremely reliant on some kind of specific mechanic; more like a puzzle then a fair and creative combat arena. Many games instead split these abilities up and across the other roles; Tanks having the stuns or shields or slows that keep enemies from getting too aggressive, and Supports having escape abilities, shields, or buffs as part of their kit to improve teammate effectiveness when not directly dealing damage. Damage-Dealers tend to have the least of these moves but that's because they are also the most effective role at actually completing the objective (killing people) and are differentiated from tanks with having high mobility or range; so it's a fair trade off; but sometimes they get stuff like short term stuns or mobility-reducing tools to make it easier to finish off opponents.

The other issue with making the 4th role a Support/Buff/Debuff specialist is if the game also features solo play. Since your type of interaction is "support allies/reduce enemy effectiveness" you have the worst solo effectiveness right besides the healer, who at least gets to heal themselves. If anything you could break the class Trifecta down further into just two sides of a coin; Damage Dealers & Support. Because let's face it; in most games, tanks CAN also do damage. It's no fun if you literally can't hurt enemies, and in MMOs especially tanks need to be able to grab enemy aggro, so there is really a sliding scale between survival/offensive power between tanks & dps classes. This is even a common role in some games; something like a "Bruiser" or "Off-Tank" which has some of the properties of both these roles.

Another 4th possible role, and a personal favorite of mine is the "utility". This sounds similar to the above Support/Buff/Disabler role but instead more focuses on providing some kind of useful non-numerical combat advantage to their team, similar to an Engineer from TF2 with teleporters, some of the operatives in Rainbow Six Siege providing vision and information, the XP soak and map control of a Lost Vikings player in Heroes of the Storm, etc. The problem with this role is it isn't as universal across all games and game-modes, and is often too character specific. For example off the top of your head you could easily imagine five different DPS characters with different primary weapons; pistols, shotguns, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, flamethrower. Without even giving you any more information how these characters are or what skills or stats they may have; you can already imagine five different playstyles and unique ranges where these characters could be useful and fit the DPS role. The issue with a utility character is five different variation of "deployable teleporter that get your teammates back in the fight quicker" isn't nearly as interesting and doesn't conjure up ideas of different gameplay. It also has an issue with the game and map design. 

For example, if the game has only one game mode, like a standard 5v5 MOBA, then a utility character fully focused on map control and pushing waves that doesn't interact as much with the enemy team is fine. But now if the developers wanted to add a 4v4 arena deathmatch mode; this character would be almost useless. Contrary, if they added a 3 to 5 player PvE cooperative mode where you defend a fortress from waves of enemies; this character could instead become extremely broken and stronger then all the others because it was designed with the mindset that it'd be weak in a straight up fight (outside the holy trinity) but strong in the macrogame sense. It can also be annoying from the "dps is fun and healing isn't" perspective. If your game featured a character that can give other characters flight for a limited time, that power would be extremely strong and a desirable character on your team. But why play the guy that gives other people flight when you could be the cool gun character that kills everyone now with wings? Healers are already a role developers have to coerce players into playing with bonus XP and strong mechanics because nobody wants to be the "support" that enables their teammates to do everything. There's also just less ideas that work to fully design a character's kit around that aren't tied to damage/combat in some way; partially because we've been acclimatized to games where combat is the main/only focus, so it's naturally much more deep and complex feeling then most other game systems out there.

Of course, this entire Tank/Healer/DPS paradigm is related to combat focused competitive games. Games without combat or with a much different focus don't have the same goals and your characters will be different, and as such, players will instead have different roles.

Fighter, Rogue, Mage
The classic fantasy archetypes of Fighter, Rogue, and Mage are extremely common in fantasy fiction, and act as a sort of basis for character classes and choices. I personally really like this setup, even though I think it suffers from some very specific limitations. If you boiled down every class to its core elements, removing all the setting-specific fluff, it would come down to one of these three archetypes or a combination of them. But notice how these archetypes exist without a gameplay loop tied to them? It's less of an optimized combat trinity and more of a aesthetic and role-in-the-fiction.

Originally in D&D, the original trifecta was Fighter, Magic-User, and Cleric. I don't think this really works for our purpose because too many archetypal characters are cut out (Dashing rogues, archers, dick-ass thieves, etc.) and it's too specific to it's setting fiction. Plus having the axis be Fighter (no magic) to Wizard (all the magic) and Cleric (half magic but a little fighting too) feels wrong to me; makes Cleric feel less like a distinct class and more of a multiclass option. Having just one of the primary archetypes be magical feels "right".

Briefly I'd like to touch on the oldschool "square" of Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Magic-User. I think this one is a bit better then the above Fighter/Cleric/Wizard system, but I still don't like it. Having 50% of the class choices have a magic archetype, even if the magic is very different, feels negative to me. We also get into the above video-gamey problem of Wizard stepping on the toes of the other roles, but that's a much bigger topic talked about to death. I think for a dungeoneering squad it fits well, since the Cleric kinda has a role as a healer/support class that the Wizard doesn't, but it doesn't have that same distinctness that the Fighter/Rogue/Wizard trifecta does. It's also much easier to imagine more classes building off that base formula. Fighter + Mage makes a spellblade, or warlock, or paladin or whatever is easy to understand. Thief + Mage makes a Bard or Shadowblade. That's cool. But if you have four, how is that supposed to work? Fighter + Cleric makes... Paladin? What's a Mage + Cleric? How do you divine up between these roles for potential secondary archetypes? Or what if you want to include a setting whose fictional world doesn't have the cosmology that supports a Cleric? I'm not saying you can't do it, I just don't like it.

This fantasy trinity is useful to act as a baseline for creative work. But it's not based on direct gameplay like the combat triangle is in our above example; it's more based on aesthetics and the roles within the fiction. In D&D or generic fantasy TTRPG adventures; what sort of trifecta would we use instead? 

Fighter, Rogue, Sage
My concept, which I have shilled endlessly on this blog, is basically to take the three core fictional archetypes above (Fighter, Rogue, and Mage) and twist them into roles fitting the core gameplay of a standard D&D-esque OSR dungeon-crawling adventure. Basically having each class specialize in one of the roles. I renamed the Magic-User to Sage, simply to denote the difference in their role, but aesthetically they are very similar (wise, read spellbooks, use a staff, limited armor and weapons, etc.). This keep most of the aesthetic of a Wizard but more as a support class. It's a concept I used to shill a lot over the years, but in recent times I have greatly softened on it. The main purpose of this though was to try and fit the Sage underneath one of the core pillars of OSR gameplay; which is Resource Management. Using this, each class has a role they specialize in doing to overcome the challenges of the game world.

Fighters specialize in combat and direct force.
Rogues specialize in (safely) exploring the dungeon environment & overcoming hazards.
Sages specialize in resource management.

These three obstacles; Combat, Exploration, and Resource management are the primary vectors of "gameplay" and the difficulty or challenges to overcome in the game world. I think these three classes fit onto these most neatly; the attempt to pair classes with their actual gameplay function similar to the Tank/DPS/Healer roles in a video game. But there's a small issue here. These three obstacles are not the same as the three pillars of D&D. They don't encompass the entire game. The (official?) Three pillars I am referring to are the pillars of Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction. One issue I have with this definition is, while the pillar of Social Interaction is certainly huge in the TTRPG game space, it's usually the most "freeform" part of the entire game. It's certainly an important aspect, but it could be regulated to a background element, or even roped in to the "Exploration" part of the game. For example, the pillars don't dictate that worldbuilding, lore, or environmental interaction is its own pillar, but these are background elements that determine what is going on just as much as character interaction. I don't disagree with it, but i find it strange that Resource Management isn't included, when it's so core to even modern D&D's game design, much less OSR style stuff.

With that said, if you want to continue our above design of making classes specialize in one of the "pillars" of the game; how can you do that for Social Interaction? If you want to say the Fighter & Rogue specialize in the combat and exploration part of the game; who is the social interaction master? The wizard is one option, as Wizards often have the tools required to interact socially both with friendly NPCs and monsters (Charm, comprehend languages, etc.) but that's usually not their explicit role in a party AND it also flies against the fiction, where Wizards are often less Charismatic then other classes since Charisma isn't an important stat. So if not Wizards; or if we include Wizards in our above schema, what roles can we create that exemplify social interaction?

For one, I don't think social interaction can be gamified as easily as other systems. You could make it into a minigame where players can't choose directly what they say; in the same way you can't arbitrarily decide if your attack hits or misses; or the much discussed "social combat system". As such, you can't choose to say a smart thing in a situation when trying to convince something of something. This is often rolled into Speechchecks or the Charisma modifier, but I never liked this solution as similar to Perception rolls you take the control out of the hands of the player. It'd be like forcing players to make an Intelligence check or roll a "Tactics" skill to make a good battle plan before a fight; it's just not something that is done.

(However I do like thinking about it; like imaginable an alternate universe where D&D never had a dedicated combat system and so it's as freeform as Speechcraft is, but diplomacy is so important they focused the majority of the game's mechanics around it.) 

Courtier class from Fantasycraft

So how would this social interaction specialist look? Would they have daily powers, or enhanced reaction checks? Similar to stealth (which is already a big problem), the binary success or failure states of a reaction check is kinda difficult to base a class around. Fighters get lots of chances for their benefits (high health, high chance to hit, etc.) to shine through even with randomness, Wizards get their spells, but Roguish or skill characters kinda just have to suck it up if they make a bad roll. Even if they're bad at it, they still have to be the one to do the action. This is a greater problem in TTRPGs over the concept of the "face" character doing all the interaction (always the one with the highest Charisma score) as it's not a real tactical or game play-inspired choice. Making this a class would only solidify this role even more. Second, I have a small pet peeve around making classes where you only need one. Having more Fighters is always good, having more Magic-Users or Clerics is always good, since that means more spells, but usually you don't really need more then one Thief. Having maybe two as a backup in case the first one dies might be good, and maybe more could be added if the game featured a lot of specific-skills where each individual rogue could specialize in different things so you can justify having more then one, but there is just less inherent usefulness to having multiple. The social interaction guy would be even worse for this because, presumably, you'd always have him be the "party face" and having more then one besides a backup is pointless.

Secondly; any rule you add to restrict social interaction is another rule that restricts player creativity and the "gameplay" of the game. Even if you're "allowed" to technically bribe people, your social expert getting a +2 bonus or letting the money be treated as 50% higher in amount for the purposes of bribing officials equal to their yearly salaries for a small benefit or whatever will force players to use this to their advantage, because otherwise it would not be optimal play. (Side note: Reading the Courtier description back does give me an idea for its secondary usefulness as a healer/support role if you use a abstracted HP or grit system, like Goblin Punch's recent Spirit post. But is this just a reskinned Cleric for your city-crawling campaign? Yikes.) Being able to force people to be your friend or hear you out once per day or w/e is interesting but it's a daily power; a forced gamification of a system that should be a part of the main game. The exception of course being supernatural or mystic powers; but still this is less interesting then just having it be default. The other more obvious rule restriction on social interaction is languages and this, fair enough, would give the class a useful benefit and/or give a reason to bring multiple. So you could have one who speaks Bugbear and one who speaks Gnollish or whatever. The issue with this is it's a very binary, kinda boring system. You either know it or you don't, and shutting off social interaction entirely unless you bring the specific key skill needed is a type of encounter design that I don't think is very popular. If you have a hint that there could be Frost Giants in your adventure early on and people decide to learn Giantish then that's interesting enough; but it's more something a character would want to learn on their own and not as interesting as a class feature.

The third and final primary issue with the social-specialist class is a matter of theme. There are a lot of Charismatic characters in fantasy and fiction, but it isn't really an "archetype" the way a Fighter or Mage is. The charismatic, attractive lead is a narrative archetype, but isn't really their "class". Sometimes the pretty face of the party who talks everyone out of trouble is the dashing rogue, or the cunning Wizard, or the damsel in distress. Having a game world you're using in an attempt to emulate myth, legends, and fun fantasy adventures and 1/4th of all adventurers are some courtesan or merchant class would take me out of it a bit; even though I think these are the best examples of roles you could make into this social specialist class. Bards? Maybe, but specific. Merchants or Courtiers? Very tied to social class and often NPCs.

But what if I told you there already was a social specialist in D&D-esque adventure games? And I don't mean player role or the DM's favorite, I mean an actual mechanically backed class. This is probably of no surprise to you, but... it's just the Rogue.

Even if we ignore later D&D skill rank systems in which Rogues tend to get the most points, Rogues have a lot of benefits that give them a social advantage. Being able to hide away out of sight, they can kinda avoid monster encounters; which means they can avoid social interactions they aren't well-prepared for. Being able to climb and sneak around means they're more likely to be able to interact with people out of the way; like the rare friendly monster, a captured prisoner without the guards knowing, or first contact with talking magic items. AD&D also has thieves cant, which while a setting-specific inclusion, is something that would theoretically make a Rogues/Thief just so slightly better at social interaction then other classes; even the Name-Level benefit of a thief in getting to run a thieves guild or a gang of scoundrels is very a "urban" type of reward and likely is set up at an important town with lots of trade and important NPCs, as opposed to the more utilitarian Fighter fortress or Magic-User's reclusive wizard tower and laboratory.

I always wondered what Class benefited the most from Charisma. Obviously having more hirelings (and starting gold) is useful for everyone, but who actually benefits the most from it? I honestly still think it's the Rogue. You could think of Charisma as a sort of "Stealth Defense" score; since it's highly likely that if you get caught sneaking somewhere they'll be some explaining to do; this also allows me to pair off the base attributes to the three class archetypes in a way that tickles me. Fighters like Strength and Constitution, Wizards or Sages like Intelligence and Wisdom, and the Rogues like Dexterity and Charisma. That way, in the same way Fighters can be more hit-y or tank-y, and Wizards can be smart or wise, Rogues can kinda lean towards being dashing or sneaky. Instead of a 4th archetypal role, we expand one of the existing ones and fatten up our trifecta.