But social encounters don ' t necessarily involve roleplaying . FPS dont necessarily involve shooting , you can play CoD without pulling the trigger once . People pull the trigger because its more fun that way . All DD cares about in terms of any action or encounter is success or failure . Have you never seen anyone talk to an NPC and not gain relevant information about their quest ? The DND that you are talking about sounds like a video game . The DND that I play has an evolving , living world . Not ever NPC knows where the bandits camp out , or that the dragon has a vanity issue or whatever . Some just have lives . Now , if you consider not gaining the information you wanted as a failure , then sure , you ' re technically correct . But thats not the only way to look at it .