D&D 5E Persuade, Intimidate, and Deceive used vs. PCs

c0wfunk said:

Odd, since they continue to market it to new players as the best entry point for learning the game.

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I would say it's a great attempt, but falls short in some areas. Still, LMoP remains my favorite D&D 5e module so far.

iserith said:

I would say it's a great attempt, but falls short in some areas. Still, LMoP remains my favorite D&D 5e module so far.

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Do you count the Sundering adventures? They’re technically for the playtest rather than 5e proper, but I loved them. Murder in Baldur’s Gate is probably my favorite “5e” module, and Legacy of the Crystal Shard was damn good too. After those two and LMoP, I had high hopes for HotDQ and RoT, but was sadly disappointed, and the later hardcovers still haven’t quite lived up to those early modules for me since.

I had a short encounter in my campaign where my players were sailing the world, when they noticed a strange fortress in the shape of a skull in the middle of the ocean. A booming voice warned them not to come any closer, or he would incinerate their ship. A few fireballs flew out to sea to make an intimidating display. He also warned them that he could strike them from any angle, so they'd better leave. I rolled low on the intimidate though.

One of the players asked: Can I tell if he's serious, or is this all a big bluff?

Since the npc rolled bad on his intimidate, I allowed for an insight check to determine that the voice seemed a bit nervous. I also told the player that the voice seemed altered by means of magic, and that it seemed like the voice was not really looking for a fight.

So they approached the fortress from behind, and found a peaceful wizard who just wanted to be left alone.

Elfcrusher said:

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Now that I'm on a keyboard, though, I want to expand on my earlier post.

I can think of three broad categories of ways to play this:
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3) So I think the best bet is to try #2, but instead of relying on it just do it for flavor and assume your players are going to figure out truth, and use that to force some really hard decisions on them. They guess that the sweet old man is really something evil, and that if they help with the ritual bad stuff is going to happen, BUT: 1) if they don't help, something else bad is going to happen, like a beloved NPC dying 2) If they do help they are going to get a sweeeeeeet magic item, and 3) the beloved NPC shares with them a plan for how they can complete the ritual, save said NPC from dying, get the sweet magic item, and THEN still thwart the demon, getting their cake and eating it, too.

So they do it, but then the brilliant plan fails and the demon gets away, after all.

That's when they find out the beloved NPC is actually in league with the demon. And the magic item is a fake.

The moral of the story is: DON'T HELP DEMONS COMPLETE RITUALS.

Sheesh.

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heh .. I definitely like this approach but of course my particulars are a bit different and I haven't quite settled on the best approach / line of persuasion & deception and I'm now about 12 hours from game time

The scene is a bit complex - the BBEG is the one they've been chasing since we started and this is their first encounter so there is bias to overcome. They will first meet a doppleganger disguised as BBEG as the big bad hides in his/her spider form - this individual is a gender ambiguous drow who can polymorph into a phase spider. S/he is a hexblade warlock as is one of my PCs. The warlock PC started getting hints in his dreams last session that there was a link between the big bad and his patron. So the goal of the BBEG here is to open a portal guarded by a wraith in order to get to the shadowfell to visit / pay tribute to the raven queen.

The PCs have been more effective than BBEG's own forces in reaching the goal so s/he is looking to gain their services any way possible - first attempting to appeal to the idea that s/he has been portrayed falsely as evil and is really the victim of oppressive forces and disloyal underlings - which s/he probably believes. But if that fails, using magic - hold person at 5th level, phantasmal killer, mass suggestion are tools to accomplish this. There will also be ample spiders around, and more being produced from nearby eggs every round if we end up in battle, as well as a cadre of bugbears waiting to ambush with nets. So there will likely not be character deaths, but if they fail they'd be captured and would wake up in the Shadowfell.

To complicate things further there is a statue that is actually a neutral Azer guarding the area where the PCs will start the session who will wake up and start attacking if there is a battle and a Wraith who hates all of them guarding the room at the other end of the cavern where the portal ritual will occur.

So - obviously a lot going on here and I likely expect and will quite enjoy a big climactic boss battle, but I wanted to start with the social encounter and see how we navigate it. So far most of them have been fairly awkward (from both the player's and me as a DM) as we get used to playing this type of game. None of us are terribly comfortable with the acting side of things but they all enjoy role playing in the sense of thinking about how their character will react to things as presented and we are all long and close friends so socially comfortable in that sense. All that is to say I'm looking for a balance but I want to push things a little here. We are approaching level 5 and moving into bigger worlds and adventures, so I want to up the ante a bit, mechanically as well as narratively, and in the role playing interactions as well.

Thanks for the sounding board, cheers.

iserith said:

I would say it's a great attempt, but falls short in some areas. Still, LMoP remains my favorite D&D 5e module so far.

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It will be interesting to see if the new Stranger Things starter set supplants LMoP as the go to intro. Still, the consensus I've gathered is that LMoP is "pretty good" and I haven't seen an argument there is a better place to start. I've quite enjoyed running it, there is a lot of great content and a lot of things that seem intentionally vague leaving room for expanding and filling in as things go.

Charlaquin said:

Do you count the Sundering adventures? They’re technically for the playtest rather than 5e proper, but I loved them. Murder in Baldur’s Gate is probably my favorite “5e” module, and Legacy of the Crystal Shard was damn good too. After those two and LMoP, I had high hopes for HotDQ and RoT, but was sadly disappointed, and the later hardcovers still haven’t quite lived up to those early modules for me since.

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I didn't read, play, or run any of the D&D Next playtest adventures with the exception of Mines of Madness which I played in. At the time, I was writing up my own scenarios for the playtest called Next World which lampooned the new edition and the forum discussions that were going on.

iserith said:

I didn't read, play, or run any of the D&D Next playtest adventures with the exception of Mines of Madness which I played in. At the time, I was writing up my own scenarios for the playtest called Next World which lampooned the new edition and the forum discussions that were going on.

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That was the one with grognardia and king neckbeard and the three pillars of adventuring, right? I loved reading that, I really wish I had run it at the time. Sadly, I don’t think the humor would be so topical if I tried to run it now.

Charlaquin said:

That was the one with grognardia and king neckbeard and the three pillars of adventuring, right? I loved reading that, I really wish I had run it at the time. Sadly, I don’t think the humor would be so topical if I tried to run it now.

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Haha, thanks. Yeah those scenarios are part of a larger adventure called "Trope." When I go back and read those, I can definitely see how much 4e influence I still had in my thinking.

iserith said:

Haha, thanks. Yeah those scenarios are part of a larger adventure called "Trope." When I go back and read those, I can definitely see how much 4e influence I still had in my thinking.

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To be fair, 5e’s design style hadn’t quite been solidified yet, so it makes sense that you’d have leaned on 4e for that stability.

Elfcrusher said:

Any reactions? How many people play the way that's described in those three scenarios?

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For me they go a bit differently.

Player: "I think he's lying."
DM: "Okay. What are you going to do?"

The player has told me that the PC thinks he's lying. There's no need for a roll at that point.

DM: "The guard stares at you with an intimidating look on his face. He succeeds on his intimidation roll."
Player: "Oh, ok I guess I'll just keep moving then." (or any other way to roleplay the situation)

Player: "I don't think I want to do this quest for only 100 gold."
DM: "Okay. The Magistrate pauses for a moment in thought. "I will offer 125 gold and no more. If you don't want it at that price I will hire someone else.""


For me, skills are useful, but they are not mind control. If I were to use persuade on a PC, I would inform the player that the NPC is being very persuasive. It's still going to be up to the player to figure out with all that is going on in game if a successful persuade check is sufficient to change his mind. Just as if an NPC just wouldn't ever do something, I don't care if the player rolls 25 or 30 on his persuade check. It's not going to happen. A successful insight into someone's statement will yield a "He seems to be truthful or he seems to be lying." Again, it will be up to the player to react to that.