Game Mechanics And Player Agency

Ovinomancer · Apr 19, 2018

Sadras said:
Of course in-game examples are never that black-and-white.

So I recently had a stand-off between NPCs and PCs in a variation of the module B10 Night's Dark Terror whereby the NPCs were requesting the immediate assistance of the PCs in helping them locate the stolen horses and rescue any survivors from the nearby villages. It was a strong argument by the NPCs. But equally compelling was a lead the PCs had uncovered which if followed would take them in the opposite direction. In-game the discussion between the two groups got very heated.

The PCs made the argument to the NPCs that they should abandon their homestead and return to the nearby city for safety given that many (if not all the nearby homesteads) had been destroyed and the goblin threat still loomed in the area. This was a decent argument by the PCs.
The NPCs were not willing to abandon all they had (their homes, their horses and their recently kidnapped loved ones). They were going to form a search party (with or without the help of the PCs). They believed the goblins were in full retreat given their failed attack on the homestead.

At what point do I call for a roll? Both the PCs and the NPCs had valid arguments. I preferred not to resolve this through mechanics and I think it was the right call for the emerging storyline.

I would have been detrimental to my table if I as DM had forced the PCs into a contested persuasion roll and the PCs had lost. @Hussar can you not see the dilemma one could possibly face with your solution?

If I may, I'd say this could have been a great opportunity for a check, but not to make the party do anything. If, as it seems, the party had conflicting goals. Foremost, the party was strongly in favor of following their lead, which meant they could not assist the survivors. The survivors were currently on a course of action that would endanger them, or so the party believed, and the party was also strongly in favor of sending the survivors to safety. This is a great place for a check to resolve the stakes of the situation. The party put forth an argument to the survivors that they abandon their rescue efforts and retreat to safety. The survivors wanted assistance in rescue efforts. This could play out in a few ways, depending on some particulars:

1. The party gets their way, but at a possible cost. In this resolution, the party will convince the survivors to return to the town regardless. This is useful because it allows the party to continue on their chosen path, but adds a potential complication to that path, namely how do the survivors feel about it? A check could be made with a success meaning that the survivors accept the party's argument and agree to return to town, freeing the party to continue without further issue. A failure, though, would have the survivors return to town, but be bitter about it and spread tales of how the party abandoned people they could have saved because they didn't care. Depending on what the party wants out of this and the future, this could be a big complication even as they're allowed to continue on their chosen path.

2. The party will have to re-evaluate their plans. In this resolution, the party makes the check to convince the survivors to flee to safety. A success will have the survivors agree, but a failure will have them refuse and organize their own rescue party. This leave the party with a new choice, abandon the survivors and follow the lead or delay the lead, possibly losing it, to assist the survivors. Either way, the import of the check should be clear -- the result is what will happen and it will not be open to continued rehashing. The party succeeds or has a new choice to make, but the situation changes.

And that last bit is an important thing I've embraced about checks. If the dice are rolled, the situation changes. I work to do this for every check, to make every check meaningful. Being open about this and setting stakes can be a method, but I find I don't always have to set explicit stakes especially since my players have adjusted to this method. Picking a lock, even, can be more fun if a failure leads to a change in circumstance. An example, for my last game: the rogue attempted to pick a rusty lock on an old treasure chest and failed. I narrated that a pick had become wedged into the lock and was stuck in the mechanism. The player now had the choice to try to pick the lock but break the tool at the same DC, or attempt to save the tool but break the lock at the same DC. The failure put a resource (the lockpick) in jeopardy and made that failure a moment of drama rather than an empty roll that could just be re-rolled until it succeeds. The player, by the way, being cautious, recovered her tool and broke the lock. This meant the barbarian was up next to smash it open, a feat easily accomplished but rendering the chest unusable for it's purpose of holding things. Also noisy, which reminded me to check to see if anything nearby heard.

Guest 6801328 · Apr 19, 2018

Interesting arguments continue to be made on both sides. I haven't really moved from my beliefs, but this has helped me elucidate, and even understand, what I feel in my gut. I think my own ideal expectations are:

a) If social skills are reciprocal (meaning they work NPC->PC the same way as PC->NPC) then they should be fully reciprocal. Since the DM sets the DC, depending on the goal, for NPCs, full reciprocity would mean the player sets the DC for his/her PC. Or skip the DC, in either direction, and leave it to the DM or player to incorporate the die roll as they see fit.

b) If the DM doesn't like that (either in general or for a specific situation), just skip the rolls entirely and narrate the outcome. So instead of using Geas or persuasion, just skip the scene and narrate: "You have been hired by the Duke..." This could optionally be preceded by, "Ok, I have a rescue mission planned out; everybody ok with that?"

Honestly I'm fine with either. The one thing I don't want is the illusion of choice, in the sense that if I make the 'wrong' choice I will be forced to change it.

TheSword · Apr 19, 2018

Sadras said:
Of course in-game examples are never that black-and-white.

So I recently had a stand-off between NPCs and PCs in a variation of the module B10 Night's Dark Terror whereby the NPCs were requesting the immediate assistance of the PCs in helping them locate the stolen horses and rescue any survivors from the nearby villages. It was a strong argument by the NPCs. But equally compelling was a lead the PCs had uncovered which if followed would take them in the opposite direction. In-game the discussion between the two groups got very heated.

The PCs made the argument to the NPCs that they should abandon their homestead and return to the nearby city for safety given that many (if not all the nearby homesteads) had been destroyed and the goblin threat still loomed in the area. This was a decent argument by the PCs.
The NPCs were not willing to abandon all they had (their homes, their horses and their recently kidnapped loved ones). They were going to form a search party (with or without the help of the PCs). They believed the goblins were in full retreat given their failed attack on the homestead.

At what point do I call for a roll? Both the PCs and the NPCs had valid arguments. I preferred not to resolve this through mechanics and I think it was the right call for the emerging storyline.

It would have been detrimental to my table if I as DM had forced the PCs into a contested persuasion roll and the PCs had lost. @Hussar can you not see the dilemma one could possibly face with your solution?

You are correct the clear cut cases are never the issue.

In this instance, I would have had the Vistani make their case and the PCs make their case. If a particularly charismatic persuasive Vistani wanted to attempt to persuade the PCs to change their mind I think it is probably best for the DM to roll a dice against a secret player persuasion roll) and then the DM uses the result to determine how convincing the Vistani is. If the players weren’t making their own arguments then I’d use passive persuasion [edit]

If the PCs agree to the Vistani request no roll is needed. If you think the players suggestion is so reasonable no roll is needed. If the Vistani say we will die before we leave our people then no roll is needed.

If the Vistani rolled very well I might say to the players “based on the Vistani’s arguments you think your lead can wait and that them leaving the camp to go to the town would be bad for xxx reasons (what ever reason is appropriate to them)”

This way you are not invalidating their choice but you are making in clear that the vistani’s argument is persuasive enough. If the PCs still ignored the choice then the Vistani would be reasonable to think the PCs were behaving irrationally - cue the exclamations of madness and the increasing of the reputation for being frivolous, or uncaring. “Hey you’re the adventurers who left those people behind to chase crazy leads...”

If the PCs argument was poorly conceived or the Vistanis request onerous I may modify the rolls. In this way roleplay informs the dice roll which then informs the remaining roleplay.

Ovinomancer · Apr 19, 2018

Aldarc said:
If this is the primary point on the "don't" side, with most of the rest expounding upon this point of contention, then I hope you do not mind me cutting out most of your post. I will cut out some key snippets. You raise a number of excellent points, and you elucidate them well, so I hope that I can respond to your post in a manner that does your excellent post respect and justice.

First on this point, I would not say "that NPCs and PCs are equivalent structures and should be impacted by mechanics in the same way." This position is too extreme of one that I hold nor I do appear to have said as much in what you have quoted. I would say that they are often similar structures and that there are in-game occurrences when they should be impacted by mechanics in the same way or perhaps an appropriately similar way.

Which I have neither assumned nor advocated for. In fact, I am not sure if this general scenario would be worth a skill check in the first place, given how - as nearly everyone in this debate has acknowledged - almost all groups will bite, at least as a courtesy to the GM. But if there was a scenario that required social skill checks with an NPC and the PC Party that would be suggestive of negotiations, my likeliest approach, both in the context of 4-5e, Fate, and potentially games like Pathfinder as well, would be to set up a skill challenge. (This touches heavily on your last three paragraphs on NPCs using social skills in the context of players, and I suspect would mostly agree here.) The players would roll their Diplomacy/Persuasion/Rapport skill check as part of a series of various rolls: e.g., Bluff/Deception, Insight/Sense Motive, etc. If the players roll a Diplomacy check, then I might treat this as a skill contest in which the NPC would then roll their Diplomacy bonus. If the NPC beat their roll, then the NPC would gain a "win" notch (or the PCs a "loss" notch) in these negotiations that would potentially affect the outcome conditions. See more below:

I largely agree with your points apart from logical leap in the bold. I do not think that it says this at all. Or at the very least, it requires some additional assumptions, steps, and other attitudes to be present that are not inherently implied in the statement. And again, my primary point is not a unilateral subjugation of the PCs to the rules of NPCs, but when apt. And in this case, the primary point of contention has been over the use of NPC skills.

But since this post, more helpful examples have come into play than the farcical Prince rolls a Diplomacy check so you are forced to save his daughter, namely an NPC/PC using a Bluff/Deception check on a PC. This is a point where the player often seeks to use an argument that appeals to their character's "head space" to opt-out of their characters being deceived.

As it seems we're largely agreed, I'd just take up the bit from the last paragraph as the remaining grounds of discussion. Good response, by the way, and thanks.

The deception check, I think, is useful only if the PCs are trying to do something to determine truthfulness. The NPC says whatever the NPC says. I don't change that based on how well they might have rolled. Instead, what is said is part of the framing, and the players can declare actions to engage that framing. In this case, I'd assume they'd state they were looking for signs of dishonesty in the NPC, which would be a WIS (Insight) check in 5e opposed by a CHA (deception) check. At this point, a fundamental difference in approach may occur as to how to adjudicate the results, but I'll try to bridge the gap.

Firstly, there's using Insight as a "truth check." A success would mean I would reveal to the players if the NPC was lying or telling the truth. A failure would would mean I tell the players they can't tell one way or the other. I suppose you could, at this point, decide that a failure meant you, as DM, should tell the player their PC believes the NPC, but what if the NPC is telling the truth -- do you now tell the player the PC disbelieves? That's weird. I'd rather go with getting information or not getting information - a success provides information relevant; a failure provides no new information.

So, in this case, the deception check by the NPC isn't to make the PCs believe the NPC, but to prevent knowledge that it is a lie (presumably) from being discovered. The players are still free to decide if the PCs believe or don't. I've had a lot of success with this method in my games, as it's been my default even back when I though NPCs should roll against PCs. It provides a way for Insight to be useful without being a 'you must believe' button.

In other systems, I don't think this particular situation can actually arise -- NPCs in most of the games that have been brought up aren't likely to inject a deception check against PCs. Rather, the PCs actions will result in consequences on failures that may include "you believe him or take stress" mechanics.

The second way is the way I've recently adopted: checks have meaning and change the situation. In this way, the setup is the same, but there's more consequence to the check. A success means the players don't just receive information about a lie, but find some concrete information/evidence that the NPC is lying -- they get a solid info chit they can use with other skill checks to prove the statement is a lie. Usually, I'd present this as the NPC continuing to speak but providing an obviously disprovable statement, or a recollection of a fact that the PC would know that shows out the lie. On the failure side, though, the PCs would not get any information, but would also now be in a position that they cannot prove the lie at all to others (all other (reasonably involved) NPCs believe the lie) AND the NPC is aware of their distrust (and perhaps others as well, depending on the situation). This puts the PCs in a decidedly more disadvantaged position with that NPC in the social conflict.

I disagree wholly with the argument that a deception check on the NPCs side means PCs believe them. Even in real life, this isn't true. I chose to extend belief to others, they never force it upon me. You may successfully lie to me, but that doesn't me you make me believe you, it means that I have no evidence you're untruthful. I may, for any number of biases, still choose to view you as untrustworthy. I do this for the majority of the very charismatic new anchors on the cable news shows (you can choose whichever suits your personal biases, I'm agnostic on which 'side' is worse), for instance. They can lie like champs (or, if you prefer, spin), but their skill at it doesn't mean I find them any more trustworthy.

hawkeyefan · Apr 19, 2018

Hussar said:
This is a much better example, IMO. This is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. The dice have said, "you believe this guy". That's what the game is telling you. Not the DM, the game. The mechanics are informing the player what his character thinks. To me, it's a better role player that will take that and run with it, even though the player himself might think it's bad. For the player to just unilaterally over rule the rules, is bad play, IMO. Just like we don't want players to declare that that attack missed because he dodged, we shouldn't let players just declare, "Nope, no matter what the game says, I don't believe him".

Is that what the dice have said? I suppose this would be an opposed roll, the Bluff of the NPC versus the Insight of the PC? Do you do degrees of success or simple pass/fail in a case like this?

To me, the mechanics aren't necessarily telling the character what he thinks so much as telling us how things seem. This guy seems like he's telling the truth. Whether the PC accepts that or not is ultimately up to the player.

Now, I'd expect the results to be taken into consideration, and my players tend to be willing to go along when their PCs fail at something, so perhaps that level of player buy in is what affords me the ability to go the route I do? I imagine that's very likely. But if for some reason one of them said "No way....I don't care what this guy says, I don't believe it" I wouldn't really have a problem with it.

Again, this is because ultimately, no one can actually force anyone to do something by word alone....so I don't think I would want that to be different in the game.

And just because the topic has come up, I largely treat the NPCs very similar. I don't allow the PCs to simply convince them to do things with a check.

Aldarc · Apr 19, 2018

Sadras said:
When does one roll to see whether the PC is persuaded?

I know that you are not asking me, but this is nevertheless a good question. My general approach to the question "when does one roll" almost invariably boils down to a core philosophy: roll when there are interesting consequences for both success and failure that can result from the roll.

It is tricky because the DM creates the NPC's stats. When is it fair and when is it not fair?

The GM would also otherwise set the DC, which players could equally regard as "unfair." So the trickiness does not necessarily go away on account of the NPC stats.

Elfcrusher said:
a) If social skills are reciprocal (meaning they work NPC->PC the same way as PC->NPC) then they should be fully reciprocal. Since the DM sets the DC, depending on the goal, for NPCs, full reciprocity would mean the player sets the DC for his/her PC. Or skip the DC, in either direction, and leave it to the DM or player to incorporate the die roll as they see fit.

That is an interesting idea, and I would be curious to see how that plays out, though providing a singular ladder for how do you rate on a Likert scale from

to

may be beneficial for providing standards for the DC. Another possibility worth exploring along this vein is that the skill roll does not have a binary outcome. There could be attitudal shifts instead depending upon the degree of success or failure, leaving the PC free to interpret that shift as appropriate for their character.

And thank you, [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], for your insights. You have given me a lot to consider, particularly in terms of interpreting the facing of skills.

Excursus:
To answer Shakespeare's question - "What's in a name? - I suspect that the answer is "A helluva a lot actually." And in this case, as seems evident throughout our discussions, the names of these skills likely communicate a lot in terms of their use and efficacy. And differences in those names can and do seemingly result in different understandings of the skill's purpose and efficacy as well. Diplomacy, for example, actually does have a more restrictive sense than the more general name of Persuasion. So does part of the problem rest in overly vague sense of a skill named 'Persuasion' over a skill named 'Diplomacy'? Or would the skill represented by 'Diplomacy' and 'Persuasion' (among others) still be just as sweet or sour smelling if it was represented by another name? Here, I am intentionally excluding the possibility that we ditch these skills entirely. Sorry, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].

Ovinomancer · Apr 19, 2018

Aldarc said:
I know that you are not asking me, but this is nevertheless a good question. My general approach to the question "when does one roll" almost invariably boils down to a core philosophy: roll when there are interesting consequences for both success and failure that can result from the roll.

The GM would also otherwise set the DC, which players could equally regard as "unfair." So the trickiness does not necessarily go away on account of the NPC stats.

That is an interesting idea, and I would be curious to see how that plays out, though providing a singular ladder for how do you rate on a Likert scale from to may be beneficial for providing standards for the DC. Another possibility worth exploring along this vein is that the skill roll does not have a binary outcome. There could be attitudal shifts instead depending upon the degree of success or failure, leaving the PC free to interpret that shift as appropriate for their character.

And thank you, [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], for your insights. You have given me a lot to consider, particularly in terms of interpreting the facing of skills.

Excursus:
To answer Shakespeare's question - "What's in a name? - I suspect that the answer is "A helluva a lot actually." And in this case, as seems evident throughout our discussions, the names of these skills likely communicate a lot in terms of their use and efficacy. And differences in those names can and do seemingly result in different understandings of the skill's purpose and efficacy as well. Diplomacy, for example, actually does have a more restrictive sense than the more general name of Persuasion. So does part of the problem rest in overly vague sense of a skill named 'Persuasion' over a skill named 'Diplomacy'? Or would the skill represented by 'Diplomacy' and 'Persuasion' (among others) still be just as sweet or sour smelling if it was represented by another name? Here, I am intentionally excluding the possibility that we ditch these skills entirely. Sorry, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].

De nada. Although, a shout out to @Iserth, [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and a host of others should entail for the assistance they've provided me along the way by making excellent, thought provoking arguments and exposing some alternative play frameworks. I wish I could recall all of the excellent posters, but, alas, memory is my dump stat.

hawkeyefan · Apr 19, 2018

pemerton said:
Is pointing to the influence and the effects of marketing campaigns and socially-embedded norms and practices a good way to rebut/I] the tenability/verisimilitude of social mechanics?

I'm not sure how the "no mechanics" view of the rules allows for these phenomena!

Well, I think I've been clear that mechanics are involved. I've said how I prefer for the mechanics to be involved, and my contention is that I don't like such mechanics to force players to have their characters behave a certain way. I'm not against mechanics in this area.

As for the examples I gave, I think it was clear. People can be stubborn, people can be set in their ways, people can be influenced by marketing or peer pressure....we can list all kinds of factors. But ultimately, people are still free to ignore any amount of good advice or direction that they want to ignore.

So not allowing mechanics to force behavior so much as suggest behavior would indeed allow for that phenomenon.

pemerton said:

Well, if some people aren't persuaded doesn't that tend to show that it was not, in fact, persuasive?

Click to expand...

Perhaps. But it also depends on the subject. Different people would view the persuasiveness of an argument differently, based on a lot of factors. This is why I said that calculating a target for each PC would be cumbersome. You could instead have each PC make a check against some kind of DC, established perhaps by the roll made for the NPC, but do you just use a skill stat? Do you make adjustments for things like Alignment or anything else? Certainly a Neutral Evil PC won't be as likely to agree to save someone as the Lawful Good PC, etc.

pemerton said:

Fireball uses a different DC for each person in the area. I'm not sure that blowing things up is inherently entitled to table time that talking to people isn't.

Click to expand...

No, it uses the same DC...it's the PCs who have different capabilities to make the saving throw. This may be a pedantic distinction, and if so, I'm sorry for that. I only point it out because I've been advocating having the PCs making the rolls in social interactions as much as possible, as I just described above. My concern would be something akin to the problem I have with 3E/Pathfinder where there are dozens and dozens of adjustments made to rolls. This is me looking at it purely in the mindframe of my 5E campaign....I prefer to keep the mechanics simple and easy to implement.

As for table time, I don't think that something in the game having a game mechanic automatically means it will take more or less table time than something without a mechanic, so I don't really see the point. Certainly a PC making an open lock check takes less time than it will take the GM to then describe the room beyond the locked door, right?

pemerton said:

As to the "different people respond differently" question:
Each of (1) to (4) allows for different people to respond differently.

Click to expand...

These seem like mechanics from different games. So I don't know if they allow for PCs to react differently. Three of the four amount to the PCs making the same decision to help the king, and one is where the PC does not help the king. Is there one game where each of these four options exist? It seems odd to cite mechanics from different games, except perhaps as a suggestion for incorporating such mechanics. In which case, these are all interesting, but again, I wouldn't see all four existing in the same game.

Tony Vargas · Apr 19, 2018

Ovinomancer said:
The first and the last parts are there to enable the middle part. If you're removing choice, then what you're doing is just narrating to the players, not playing an RPG. And, honestly, sometimes it's fine to narrate things

Yep. And, sometimes, if you narrate a PC's state of mind or choice, certain players'll get all upset about it, as this thread illustrates. So you let them choose their PC's state of mind, and let them make a choice, so they stay all immersed and maintain their illusion of being in control, and then narrate the results the game needs.

In other words, sure, you can remove agency, but that's exactly what I'm saying is a problem. Pointing out that you can still remove agency when my entire argument is that you shouldn't and the game is built in a way that if you use it's procedures with integrity you will not is rather... unhelpful?

Sometimes the truth is unhelpful to an argument, yes. The truth is some games leave the DM plenty of latitude to excise player agency via 'illusionism' (or 'Good DMing' or 'immersive play' or whatever, depending on who's making up the label), and others guard against it and/or build in greater player agency. The game in question happens to be one of the former. Arguing that you shouldn't do something the game enables you to do, and labeling that 'integrity' is essentially an argument that you shouldn't do it, because you said so. I tend to think DMs should use the full bag of tricks the game gives them, to deliver the best possible experience. In classic & 5e D&D, that includes not only engaging in illusionism, but also not using all the rules, not sharing which rules are & aren't being used nor the details of the mechanics when such would (for one instance) give away to the players things the characters don't know, and making up entirely new rules & mechanics (including situation-specific ones).

And, for the last part, this is noble cause corruption -- I believe I'm doing this thing for a noble cause, therefore my means are reasonable to achieve that cause. It's circular thinking and not valid.

Are you sure labeling the thing you're arguing against 'corruption' isn't the circular thinking going on. You're arguing DMs shouldn't use a technique that worked well for decades, and the reasons you come up with amount to pasting a label with a negative connotation over them.

You, as DM, have no special insight into what a better game is

Nope, you don't (well, you do have more information about the campaign as a whole than the players, and there's factors like breadth of exposure to different systems, depth & years of experience, etc..). But, ultimately, DM's are people too. But, as a DM, you do have a special responsibility to provide that better game. So you do your best.

"I can't tell you how you can tell, but I'm certain that it's not hard to tell?" Really. :|

Really. I'm not aware of any objective measure of subjective player experience - though I suppose a neuroscientist could hook players up to the right equipment and figure something out. But, humans are pretty good at assessing how other human being sitting right in front of them and making no special efforts to mask their state of mind, feel about something they're doing. We're social animals.

And yes, the role of DM is to provide flexibility in the situation, to create where the game leads. This doesn't also imply that the role of the DM is to occasionally override player moves and instead play the PCs for a bit so that the game works better.

I believe it does, based on having done & seen other DMs do that sort of thing with great success for many years.

I've also seen games where such isn't called for nearly so much (if at all). They play better 'above board.' But they give a different sort of experience, too. 'Less immersive' some would say.

I'm happy to run either sort and use the tools they provide to deliver the best experience I can.

Elfcrusher said:
I think my own ideal expectations are:

a) If social skills are reciprocal (meaning they work NPC->PC the same way as PC->NPC) then they should be fully reciprocal. Since the DM sets the DC, depending on the goal, for NPCs, full reciprocity would mean the player sets the DC for his/her PC.

That sounds workable, given a system with either a consequence to setting a high DC, or a mechanism for determining the DC that the player has input to. For instance, in 3.5, you'd be free to declare your initial attitude towards an NPC Diplomancer, including declaring it as 'hostile' even if there's no apparent reason for it (sometimes we just don't like someone on sight, or maybe you're just that suspicious by nature).

Otherwise the player can set an untouchable DC every time, and it's not functionally reciprocal.

Or skip the DC, in either direction, and leave it to the DM or player to incorporate the die roll as they see fit.

b) If the DM doesn't like that (either in general or for a specific situation), just skip the rolls entirely and narrate the outcome. So instead of using Geas or persuasion, just skip the scene and narrate: "You have been hired by the Duke..." This could optionally be preceded by, "Ok, I have a rescue mission planned out; everybody ok with that?"

Honestly I'm fine with either. The one thing I don't want is the illusion of choice, in the sense that if I make the 'wrong' choice I will be forced to change it.

What about the illusion of choice in the sense of a magician's force? Left or Right, your choice. But what's to the left or right changes behind the screen so that your choice (which is in no way forced nor changed) leads to the adventure, and you have no idea if you chose the way that 'really' led to the adventure in a game w/o illusionism, or if you chose 'wrong' in a game where the DM engages in such. Same freedom-of-player-choice play experience, same adventure, either way.

Ovinomancer said:
Firstly, there's using Insight as a "truth check." A success would mean I would reveal to the players if the NPC was lying or telling the truth. A failure would would mean I tell the players they can't tell one way or the other. I suppose you could, at this point, decide that a failure meant you, as DM, should tell the player their PC believes the NPC, but what if the NPC is telling the truth -- do you now tell the player the PC disbelieves? That's weird.

Is it? Getting something wrong is a plausible result of trying to determine something. Further, the roll likely gives it away. If the system is on a moderately high DC, Insight reveals that the subject is either being honest or 'holding something back,' on a higher DC it gives an idea what the lie may be, while hitting an easier DC means you 'can't tell,' and flubbing it gives you the opposite information from what's really going on. If that were the system, you'd need to take the roll behind the screen, or the player can just believe the opposite of what you tell him when he rolls really low.

I'd rather go with getting information or not getting information - a success provides information relevant; a failure provides no new information.

Logical from a gamist perspective, but leaving out a range of plausible results, so not so great from a narrative or simulation perspective.

I disagree wholly with the argument that a deception check on the NPCs side means PCs believe them.

Even if the DM rolls behind the screen and tells you "you're certain he's telling the truth" (either because the roll was a fantastic success and the NPC was being truthful, or because it's an abysmal failure and his deception was high), you can choose not to believe him - he could be mistaken, for instance, or you could feel that believing him would be too risky, or it could be that you believe something else with such conviction that a mere one other person honestly believing & truthfully relating a contrary fact is unacceptable to you and can be completely discounted.

Obviously, internet forum debates stand as strong evidence of the plausibility of that last.

Guest 6801328 · Apr 19, 2018

TheSword said:
If the Vistani rolled very well I might say to the players “based on the Vistani’s arguments you think your lead can wait and that them leaving the camp to go to the town would be bad for xxx reasons (what ever reason is appropriate to them)”

I would never (ever) do this. You just wrote "...you think that...". You just told the player what his PC thinks!

I might make the roll and say, "The Vistani gives an impassioned speech about honor and duty and family, and claim that he would rather die than abandon his home. Only a stone golem would be unmoved by his sincerity and resolve."

Then leave it up to the players to decide what they want to do with that.

If the PCs agree to the Vistani request no roll is needed. If you think the players suggestion is so reasonable no roll is needed. If the Vistani say we will die before we leave our people then no roll is needed.

If the PCs argument was poorly conceived or the Vistanis request onerous I may modify the rolls. In this way roleplay informs the dice roll which then informs the remaining roleplay.

This is basing the outcome on the arguments presented by the player. It's the player's, not the character's, cleverness that matters, as judged by the DM. So there's really nothing objective or character-centric about it.

So it seems inconsistent to me to then turn around and say, "...and I will decide how hard you will be to persuade (i.e., set the DC) and then let the dice determine if he persuades you."

If you are going to let the dice decide these things, then the only role of the roleplaying is to add flavor. It should all be dice.

Game Mechanics And Player Agency

Ovinomancer

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TheSword

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Ovinomancer

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hawkeyefan

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Aldarc

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Ovinomancer

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Tony Vargas

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