D&D (2024) DMG talk: Additional Starting Attitudes

[Hriston]

I've had issues in the past with Indifferent NPCs being somewhat boring with which to interact, so I'm planning in future sessions for it to mean the NPC is unsure whether to help or harm the PCs, with "help" meaning something like allowing them to pass by unmolested. I think this might also make Friendly NPCs more interesting in situations where risk is involved, say for a Friendly guard for whom letting the party pass could risk them losing their job.

 

[aco175]

I still use the five-tier system (Hostile --> Unfriendly --> Neutral --> Friendly --> Helpful) from 3.5E. The DC to improve an NPCs disposition is 12, +5 for each tier.

So for example, let's say the party is attacked by assassins (Hostile). The bard tries to smooth-talk them into letting them go, and makes a Persuasion check. The player rolls well, and gets a 19 total. That's enough to improve their disposition 2 levels (DC 17) to Neutral, but not quite enough to make them Friendly (DC 22). The assassins now have a Neutral disposition toward the party, so they will probably accept a bribe.

I like this idea. Would rolling poorly affect attitude as well? Miss turning a neutral shopkeeper to friendly by bartering with him by 5 or more makes him angry and now unfriendly.

 

[CleverNickName]

I like this idea. Would rolling poorly affect attitude as well? Miss turning a neutral shopkeeper to friendly by bartering with him by 5 or more makes him angry and now unfriendly.

Usually that only happens with Intimidation: you can intimidate someone into helping you, but their attitude will go back to the (initial - 1) disposition when the scene ends. But I can see a case for really bad Persuasion results too.

 

[Scott Christian]

I think the three are sufficient.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is a lovely example of having a system that WotC built work well to the point that it is very easy for individual DMs to expand upon the system themselves if they feel their own table would benefit from it.

If the system works well with three levels, then a DM can expand it out to five with little issue if that's how they choose. But it's nothing that WotC needs to do themselves for every table as the default.