Skills used by players on other players.

[Blue]

Sorry, but can you explain how characters do something without the players saying they do it?

Sure thing. characters live in the world. Therefore it is my responsibility to give the characters the information they would notice simply existing.

If I told one character "You see what look like words in some language engraved on the sealed arch" and another character "you see the sentence 'Speak Friend and Enter' in dwarven runes around the sealed arch", I am having the characters do something - experience the world - without the player having to explicitly tell me they are doing so because it's already an assumption.

By the same thing, if a player intentionally had his character lie in such a way to present it as true to the listeners, then they are using deception (charisma) even if they don't call out using the skill by name.

To be frank, this and @clearstream's examples are "I want to be able to use the mechanics to he 100% sure, with no risk, that I can treat another as if tgey are bad."

Would you be okay with an insight check that, if failed, means you must 100% and with utter, unshakable conviction believe the other character is telling the truth? No, what insight represents is a risk free check to establish the proof to treat another as a bad actor, in this case a liar. That's not interesting enough for a roll.

I'm not sure how you think any of that applies to what I've been saying.

On the other hand, players do build their characters to be better or worse at things, and taking away the player's intentions on if their character is skilled at reading people (or knowing arcana, or spotting traps, or whatever) it taking away player agency.

 

[Beowulf]

I

Thanks for pre-judging. If you notice I haven't taken sides anywhere else in this thread. I was attempting to get information about this when it wasn't player agency at risk.

I am unaware that there was any requirement that he needed to respond to a question that did not apply to him or his table.



Exactly. And therefore I correctly called him out for not adding to the discussion.



Again pre-judging for the trap.

If I mis-read and your questions were intended in a spirit of cooperative inquiry then I apologize.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Let the target player set the DC of any social skill checks rolled against them, depending on how hard they feel it should be to convince their character to go along with the proposal.
If nobody ever sets a DC that's even theoretically achievable, you can conclude that your group isn't interested in rolling for in character talking.

 

[Guest 6801328]

A DM might choose to make these rolls on behalf of the players. The benefit is obvious if the liar gets the higher result: it prevents other characters treating "deceived" as equal to "no information". Unfortunately it penalises the character using insight, because they can't differentiate a getting the lower result, from getting the higher result where the other character also turned out to be honest. My experience at the table has been that it's usually more fun just to let players make their own rolls, in the open.

I will agree that it's a bummer when somebody builds a character a certain way and the DM never gives him a chance to use it. E.g., I once rolled a rogue in a game where the DM...who I didn't know well...hated stealth.

But how is that loss of player agency? In the rogue example, I was still free to try to stealth, it just rarely worked.

I mean, yeah, you can always stretch the definition. "I can't do what I want when I'm unconscious...loss of player agency!!!!" But what's the point of having terms like "player agency" if we're going to use it to mean "I get the outcomes I want"?

 

[Guest 6801328]

Let the target player set the DC of any social skill checks rolled against them, depending on how hard they feel it should be to convince their character to go along with the proposal.
If nobody ever sets a DC that's even theoretically achievable, you can conclude that your group isn't interested in rolling for in character talking.

Yeah that's the problem with making it a contested check: the target doesn't have any say in how his character feels about the issue. It's exactly as hard/easy to convince him to kill his brother as it is to persuade him to have another beer.

 

[iserith]

I will agree that it's a bummer when somebody builds a character a certain way and the DM never gives him a chance to use it. E.g., I once rolled a rogue in a game where the DM...who I didn't know well...hated stealth.

But how is that loss of player agency? In the rogue example, I was still free to try to stealth, it just rarely worked.

I mean, yeah, you can always stretch the definition. "I can't do what I want when I'm unconscious...loss of player agency!!!!" But what's the point of having terms like "player agency" if we're going to use it to mean "I get the outcomes I want"?

Right. The best definition in my opinion for agency is simply being able to make reasonably informed decisions for your character that have an actual impact on the game world. That's all there is to it, really. "Reasonably informed decisions" come from the DM providing an adequate description of the environment and being consistent with rulings. Having an "actual impact on the game world" comes from the DM fairly narrating the results of the adventurers' actions. Making decisions for your character comes from the DM and everyone else letting you do your thing instead of trying to tell you what your character thinks or how he or she acts.

 

[clearstream]

You haven't changed anything exceot the one sided-ness of the math. The anticipated outcome isn't any different, just the chance of success. Moving numbers around doesn't actually change the question, just your perception of who should "win".

I can see that my point was not clear enough. The example isn't about who would win. It is about characters that have relevant abilities that are different from the abilities of their players. I'm not completely gullible, but as a player I'm more gullible than a Rogue Inquisitive with high Wisdom, Ear for Deceit, and Expertise in Insight is. This points out that player-to-player does not represent or successfully stand in for character-to-character.

Sure, it's different. But you haven't nade the case for why it shouldn't be. The rules clearly state tgat it's tge player who has sole power to determine what a character thinks, and there's no clear exception to this outside of magic. So, the rule differs on a clear basis and yet you keep asking if this situation or that is enough to void the rule. It's very odd. Not that you can't do it how you want, but that you think a new extreme example will somehow change the thinking that only players say what their characters think.

Again this seems to miss the mark in a pretty profound way. We can probably agree that, absent players, characters don't do anything. Right? So I can put on one side living persons, who take on the role of players, and I can assign them with characters. Those players then decide what their assigned characters think, act and say. Two sides Players | Characters. Which side is character thinking, acting, saying occurring on?

Well, characters are the player avatar inside the fiction, and the things they do in the fiction are mediated through rules. Acts are a clear case. As a player I can decide that my character is going to walk away from the ogre, but if the ogre has my character grappled then the rules prevent it from carrying out my decision. Character thoughts are an interesting case, because it seems like there are features in the game that can override them, just as grappling reduced my characters speed to 0.

All this has nothing to do with changing what the player decides. The player can continue to decide whatever they wish. What it has to do with is how those decisions are translated or implemented into the fiction. Player decisions can then come in the form "given the rules allow it, my in game avatar (character) will". It's interesting the acceptance of "magic" as the "clear exception". In terms of the games metaphysical framework, "magic" isn't really an exception at all. Persuasion could be given a "magic" designation and that wouldn't fix the issues people have with it being used on characters. It seems to me more important to look at the tightly-defined effects, limited durations, and other checks and costs of spells, in understanding how Persuasion could be made to work in a fair and more acceptable way character-to-character.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah that's the problem with making it a contested check: the target doesn't have any say in how his character feels about the issue. It's exactly as hard/easy to convince him to kill his brother as it is to persuade him to have another beer.

Wait, now I'm really confused. You're saying you have to convince a barbarian to have another beer?

 

[clearstream]

Yeah that's the problem with making it a contested check: the target doesn't have any say in how his character feels about the issue. It's exactly as hard/easy to convince him to kill his brother as it is to persuade him to have another beer.

Not exactly. When the player states that this is something they have decided it is very unlikely their character will agree to, a DM can give them advantage, and give the face disadvantage. A DM can even stack a modifier for circumstances on top, if that feels justified, such as being convinced to kill his brother. In that case, it could also be made clear a risk of the character becoming lastingly hostile to the proposer, with some kind of ongoing mechanic to support that (taking the attitudes in the DMG as a guide perhaps).

 

[Guest 6801328]

...instead of trying to tell you what your character thinks or how he or she acts.

Or, as it is so often phrased, what your character "would do" in a given situation, as if there were any such thing. All it really means is "what I think your character would do".

Or, "how I would roleplay your character if it were mine". Even though it's not.