User:Jim Groovester/d20 Dating

d20 Dating is a supplemental ruleset provided by Wizards of the Coast for their d20 games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, d20 Modern, and the Star Wars RPG. The ruleset provides details to gamemasters (GMs) who are presented with the disturbing circumstance of players who want their fictional proxies to date fictional, GM controlled characters.

While the rules themselves are fairly standard, some hardcore roleplayers have adopted the rules and applied them to real life with, it should be noted, a surprising amount of success.

Rules Summary

The supplement mostly focuses on the Diplomacy skill and associated Difficulty Checks (DC), which the designers believe figures prominently in real life dating. Diplomacy DCs governs how easy or hard it is to convince someone to believe or do something and Diplomacy skill the character's facility with these checks. These checks are made by rolling a twenty-sided die (d20), adding the player's Diplomacy skill and other modifiers, and comparing it to the Diplomacy DC. A roll is successful when the player's roll plus modifiers is greater than the DC.

Before a player can engage in dating with a GM controlled character, the concept of which should freak you the hell out, he (rarely she) must complete a few preparatory steps.

Step One

You couldn't kill a kobold with these scores, much less get laid.

The player must first determine his Attractiveness modifier before rolling dice over and over and calling it dating. The Attractiveness modifier is determined by adding the Charisma modifier to the Wisdom and Intelligence modifiers. The Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution modifiers should also be added together, although those three are only used in a specific instance.

People who use the supplement as a guide to real life dating must first calculate their own ability scores. Unfortunately, most of these scores are egregiously exaggerated. It is not uncommon for self-report ability scores to average 14 or 15, which would be indicative of an extraordinarily incredible human being. In reality, however, the scores would more likely average 7 or 8, with a slightly above average intelligence preventing total mediocrity and deserved unnotability. However, "half the man" phrases are still unapplicable, as most players would unqualifyingly fail them.