Skills used by players on other players.

FrogReaver said:

Why isn’t Joining the villain a valid way to lose?

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It is. Nobody said it wasn't. You're missing the point if you think I said you couldn't. If the stakes are joining the villain and the players agree, then those are the stakes. But if that is completely unreasonable, then it obviously won't fly with the players. Hence the reason for having OOC conversations about what is winning and what is losing.

While you were storming the the villain's lair, the OOC assumption is that death may be the result. No need to talk about what victory is. Victory is living and capturing the Boss. But, you defeated the minions and have tied up and are questioning him.

Let's say The players party is 70% sure he really is the villain and they are about to kill that NPC, I might tell them, that the NPC is going to try to convince you to let him live. We will do a test and if he wins he gets to live but if he fails you can do whatever.

Players say, "We want more. We were interrogating him."
DM "o,k fine. If you win, you'll also know 100% whether he is the villain you are looking for. But, if you lose, you'll actually see that you've been wrong and he'll tell you the truth. You might very well want to join him."

You can barter this way.

One player might be completely opposed to joining but be perfectly fine with letting him go. The whole group might say, "nah, screw this, we kill him." But that was going to happen anyways.

In any case, once you have buy-in, the players have made an OOC decision to abide by the decision of the contest and play their characters appropriately depending on the result.

Edit: obviously, it should have an interesting outcome. You wouldn't do this with every mook probably. But maybe that guy wasn't actually the villain and the players are now involved in a whole new story arc. Or maybe he was and now it has shifted the focus of the campaign. Or maybe he was the villain and they let him live and now he gets to come back and be a recurring villain.

Oofta said:

Do people really want to have an NPC that can defeat the PCs with a simple persuasion check that forces the PCs to surrender or accept that they should join team BBEG?

To me it's one thing for a villain to use deception, even a persuasion or intimidate check to influence behavior. But force it? I've always run that what works for the PCs works just as well for NPCs. But if I have a villain with a sky-high persuasion, I would never consider the possibility that the NPC could make a single opposed roll to convince the PCs he's really a good guy.

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Would you let one check influence a combat? I wouldn't. It's a contest. A series of rolls vs a series of rolls. And you aren't forcing it, You are asking the players up front. Once again, it's more about the stakes than the actual contest. I was just using an example to answer FrogReaver's question. Joining a known villain is probably a pretty extreme case.

I'm curious how would you rp a diplomatic talk where the pcs risk losing something but can gain something by being successful? To me, if only the PCs can influence the NPCs and not vice versa, then aren't you lacking one whole side of a conflict?

clearstream said:

My gods I know what you mean. I constantly wish to be more a peacemaker, read others posts more carefully, understand their point of view with greater empathy. And then...

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Take it from me, you don't want to be a peacemaker. I've gotten blocked 3 times, and every time was because of that.




. . . maybe I'm just a terrible peacemaker.

Elfcrusher said:

And, yeah, @iserith and @Bawylie have had a huge impact on my style, too. When are you guys going to kickstart a DMing guide?

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Well, if anyone remembers the running joke from back on the WotC forums that @Bawylie was the angry GM...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theangrygm/the-angry-gm-the-website-the-book

TaranTheWanderer said:

If the stakes were to simply let the Villain live while they take his loot, then the 34 just means he's done a good job at convincing them that he's not so bad and now they will let him live.

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But what are the implications for constraints on player actions? Maybe the rogue kills him anyway, just because "I like doing things like that" (bonus points for the movie reference). How do you differentiate between an authentic roleplaying reason, and metagaming?

I say you can't, and that if you try you're just going to make things worse by creating wonky incentives.

So, sure, roll the dice if you think that adds information on which the players can build, but don't require them to interpret it in a specific way. If the players decide to play along with the DM's version of the narrative and let the villain live, that's fine. But stop worrying about it if they have other ideas. It's not necessarily "bad roleplaying". (This is what I meant earlier about "trust" and "respect".)

And when you get to that realization, you also realize you didn't need to roll in the first place. Just have the villain give a good speech, or narrate that if you're bad at improv. Then sit back and enjoy whatever your players decide to do.

This conversation has made me think about how I handle NPCs “using social skills” against PCs and if there’s a better way to handle that. So far, I have basically just not done it. I mostly just act out NPCs social interactions, and the only time I roll a die on their behalf is when they lie, to see if I tell the players that the NPC is clearly lying. Observant players can also sometimes pick up on this and notice that if I roll a d20 while they’re interacting with an NPC, the NPC is lying. And NPCs with proficiency in skills like intimidate end up going to waste. Thus far, I’ve just accepted those drawbacks, but thanks to this thread, I’m going to try something different in my next campaign, which is starting on Monday.

I think I’m going to have players resolve social actions that target them, whether the actor is a PC or an NPC. When I’m playing an NPC, I’ll just act out or paraphrase what they say, and let the players react as they wish, as I do now. When a player isn’t sure how they want their character to react to something, they can ask me to make a check for the NPC to resolve the uncertainty. So, when an NPC says something you think sounds fishy, you can choose to believers it, disbelieve it, or call for them to make a Deception check if you’re unsure. When an NPC says something threatening, you can choose to be frightened or not, or call for them to make an Intimidation to help you decide. Etc.

Charlaquin said:

So, when an NPC says something you think sounds fishy, you can choose to believers it, disbelieve it, or call for them to make a Deception check if you’re unsure. When an NPC says something threatening, you can choose to be frightened or not, or call for them to make an Intimidation to help you decide. Etc.

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At least for the first example, when the player's in doubt, I think you'd be better off if you had the player say something like "I watch the NPC for signs he's lying." It would be at this point that you can decide the NPC is a terrible liar and outright tell the player, or let the dice decide.

It essentially accomplishes the same thing, but the player is describing what his character is doing, watching for signs of lying, rather than what the NPC is doing. I prefer this order because it means the players are using their analytical skills (insight, perception, etc. ) against the NPCs and they stay focused on what their own character is doing.

Elfcrusher said:

But what are the implications for constraints on player actions? Maybe the rogue kills him anyway, just because "I like doing things like that" (bonus points for the movie reference).

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This thread has been filled with references to The Social Contract. When you make the stakes, you are making a social contract. The player playing the rogue says, I they don't want to do a test. They are going to kill the Villain regardless of the results. In this situation, the player has decided on the meta level, what their character will do. Then you don't have a test. The rogue kills the villain, the PCs never find out if they made the right decision(until maybe later when the true villain emerges) and the story continues. As several people pointed out, you can't force someone to do something they don't think their character would do.

But if the player of the rogue agrees, then they are bound by the contract. Just like you are bound to be unconscious when you reach 0hp. If you aren't going to abide by the rules of the game, then why play it. If the rogue turns around and kills the guy anyways, you'd probably not use this approach with this player anymore. The player has to be mature enough and honest enough to play by the rules set by the table.

Elfcrusher said:

How do you differentiate between an authentic roleplaying reason, and metagaming? I say you can't, and that if you try you're just going to make things worse by creating wonky incentives.

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You discuss motivations when you barter the stakes. "My character doesn't care if he's not the guy we're looking for, he's a necromancer and there's no way my character would let a necromancer live."

As a side note, I understand that this meta talk is not everyone's bag and it's hard to wrap one's head around. I suppose it sounds 'wonkey' if you've only ever played D&D. I find that when you start learning from other systems, you can find tools to add to your toolbox that work very well in D&D.

But it's probably worth trying. At worst you'll find out you are right and it doesn't work in your game. At best, it gives you another tool in your tool-belt. I think it's always better to say, "I've tried that but it didn't work because of XYZ." Instead of "I would never do that in my game, it would never work."

Elfcrusher said:

So, sure, roll the dice if you think that adds information on which the players can build, but don't require them to interpret it in a specific way. If the players decide to play along with the DM's version of the narrative and let the villain live, that's fine. But stop worrying about it if they have other ideas. It's not necessarily "bad roleplaying". (This is what I meant earlier about "trust" and "respect".) And when you get to that realization, you also realize you didn't need to roll in the first place. Just have the villain give a good speech, or narrate that if you're bad at improv. Then sit back and enjoy whatever your players decide to do.

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Well, you aren't requiring them to interpret it in a certain way. You are asking them how they'd like to interpret it.

I mean, you don't even have to roll the dice. You could say, "Hey, I have a cool idea about having this guy as a recurring villain with some neat plot hooks later on, would your characters let him go if he could persuade them? And the players could answer, "sure, yeah, that sounds fun." No roles needed, just narrate. I find Most players don't want to give things away for nothing, though. Or they might just say, "no, we've been hunting him forever. he's dead meat." But it may be worth asking.

In fact I've let NPCs go and told the DM, this "NPC is just too cool to kill, I think he'd make a great recurring villain."

This post feels philosophical, for some reason....

Satyrn said:

At least for the first example, when the player's in doubt, I think you'd be better off if you had the player say something like "I watch the NPC for signs he's lying." It would be at this point that you can decide the NPC is a terrible liar and outright tell the player, or let the dice decide.

It essentially accomplishes the same thing, but the player is describing what his character is doing, watching for signs of lying, rather than what the NPC is doing. I prefer this order because it means the players are using their analytical skills (insight, perception, etc. ) against the NPCs and they stay focused on what their own character is doing.

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Yeah, that’s a perfectly valid way to do it, and probably more in line with the RAI. Personally, I’m not a fan of the verbal gymnastics of describing “try to see if someone is lying” as an action. It’s the same as “I think back to my arcane studies to see if I remember anything about these runes.” Its an awkward sentence because you’re trying to describe an automatic mental reflex like memory as an action, and ultimately doesn’t give me any more information about the character’s approach than simply asking to make an Insight check or Arcana check, respectively. I prefer to handle the question of “do I know/notice [thing]?” with a passive check rather than asking players to twist those questions into the form of an action just to avoid having them ask to make a [skill used to notice thing] check.

To put it in iserith’s parlance, I see “try to remember something I know” and “try to notice something in my environment” as things all people are performing constantly, and are therefore better handled with a passive check.

I'm not sure if this has been brought up, because I don't wanna read 44 pages of discussion, but I've been considering adopting a concept from Masks: A New Generation, which has a Provoke move that can be used on other players. The gist of it is, on a success you can choose to either hinder your ally in some way should they act against your wishes, or offer a benefit to them if they play into your provocation. Works as a bit of a battlefield command-type move in combat, and it still functions perfectly well in a social context.

So if I were to port it to 5e, I'd probably build it on the (very bare) bones of the Inspiration system. If you want to Persuade your ally to do something they don't want to, use your Action to roll Persuasion. On a success, you can either

1. Grant the player Inspiration if they do what you want, OR
2. Give the player Disadvantage on the first roll they make contrary to your Persuasion

As for the DC, idk how I'd rule it. If I were publishing it for general use, I'd have to come up with some formula that takes into account Expertise shenanigans, but if I were just running it in a home game I'd probably just tell the player being Persuaded - before the roll - to set whatever DC they want. That second option only works with players you trust, though.

Of course, all of this only accounts for Persuasion/Intimidation. Deception/Insight and other such skills are unaccounted for, but eh. I only have so much to give.