PC Problem

[FireLance]

I'm playing 3.5 D&D. Sorry for not clarifying. It's my first group. We've had about 5-6 sessions already (We do it every Wednesday after school).

Could I check how old you and your friends are? Given that you're meeting after school, it seems likely that you are in your teens, but I don't want to jump to conclusions.

I think it's important to establish first of all why your friend wants to play such a persuasive character.

If he's new to D&D, and to RPGs in general, he may be adopting a competitive mindset with respect to the game. In other words, your friend wants to "win" D&D, and he thinks that being persuasive is the best way to do so. If so, you should emphasize that there are many challenges in the game that cannot be "won" through diplomacy, and that having too specialized a character means that he will only be useful part of the time(athough very effective when he is useful). However, if he is aware of and prepared to accept this, let him play his character!

A more worrying alternative is that he could be adopting too competitive a mindset and is using the game to "beat" the other players, including you as the DM. If so, you should emphasize that D&D is a co-operative game, and that it is also his responsibility to ensure that all the other players, including the DM, are having fun. This means, among other things, that his PC has to share the limelight with the other players' PCs, and that he will not be able to control the reactions of the other players' PCs. If he is not able to adopt this mindset, then perhaps D&D is not the game for him.

Hopefully, however, he is just keen on playing an extremely persuasive character, is willing to help ensure that the other players have fun, and will not be annoyed that persuasion doesn't always work. If so, do give him opportunities to show off his persuasion skills frequently, including the occasional spectacular success, and find some way to communicate to him early when persuasion isn't going to work or isn't going to bring any additional benefits so that he doesn't get frustrated that he has little to show after spending a lot of time and effort. One good way is to use the Insight skill - a fairly low DC Insight check (at least initially) would be a good way to communicate to him in-game how far an NPC could be persuaded.

 

[Wik]

I was wondering if there is a better way of doing the grid system and all. Currently we're using Heroscape as everything. It seems good enough but, I was wondering if there was an easier way. Perhaps there's a program I could use instead? I'm currently using my laptop for a lot of the records, such as keeping track of the HP and such.

We buy a flat of 1 inch scale graph paper at Staples for around ten bucks. It has about 100 sheets of paper, and it's a good three feet by two feet (or thereabouts). You just write on the paper with normals pens and pencils, you can prep planned battle scenes in advance, and all that fun stuff. Just make sure to recycle the papers as much as possible - no point wasting the dead trees, right?

 

[Pseudopsyche]

You can let your friend play a charismatic liar without letting him mind-control the other PCs. Give him NPCs to deceive and overcome. But the party is off limits, unless another player is interested in playing with the idea. Let his fun be an asset to the group instead of coming at the group's expense.

 

[pawsplay]

See that's the thing. He doesn't get it when I wont let him Dip people into doing things that would go against their core morals. Such as a paladin raping small children. Extreme example but, I would be surprised if he wouldn't be mad if I failed his roll.

And BTW he's going to be putting almost all of his skill points into bluff and dip.

Make him read and re-read the skill descriptions until his eyes bleed. Diplomacy can't force someone to take any action. If an evil villain would gladly sacrifice his truted lieutenant, why would he stick his neck out for someone just because he feels Friendly? There is no level of positive reaction that will cause a Paladin to violate his code except of his own free will.

 

[~EE~]

Could I check how old you and your friends are? Given that you're meeting after school, it seems likely that you are in your teens, but I don't want to jump to conclusions.

I think it's important to establish first of all why your friend wants to play such a persuasive character.

If he's new to D&D, and to RPGs in general, he may be adopting a competitive mindset with respect to the game. In other words, your friend wants to "win" D&D, and he thinks that being persuasive is the best way to do so. If so, you should emphasize that there are many challenges in the game that cannot be "won" through diplomacy, and that having too specialized a character means that he will only be useful part of the time(athough very effective when he is useful). However, if he is aware of and prepared to accept this, let him play his character!

A more worrying alternative is that he could be adopting too competitive a mindset and is using the game to "beat" the other players, including you as the DM. If so, you should emphasize that D&D is a co-operative game, and that it is also his responsibility to ensure that all the other players, including the DM, are having fun. This means, among other things, that his PC has to share the limelight with the other players' PCs, and that he will not be able to control the reactions of the other players' PCs. If he is not able to adopt this mindset, then perhaps D&D is not the game for him.

Hopefully, however, he is just keen on playing an extremely persuasive character, is willing to help ensure that the other players have fun, and will not be annoyed that persuasion doesn't always work. If so, do give him opportunities to show off his persuasion skills frequently, including the occasional spectacular success, and find some way to communicate to him early when persuasion isn't going to work or isn't going to bring any additional benefits so that he doesn't get frustrated that he has little to show after spending a lot of time and effort. One good way is to use the Insight skill - a fairly low DC Insight check (at least initially) would be a good way to communicate to him in-game how far an NPC could be persuaded.

We're 17-18 except, our Japanese teacher who is 26.
He isn't really new to RPGs, table top games yes, but RPGs in general, no. He's played old school games like Zelda and Gauntlet to new stuff like Fallout and WoW. WoW he's played the crap out of but, that's not D&D at all. Anyway...My personal guess to why he's doing this is based on a few different things. He said straight out that he's good at lying in real life. Indeed he is. To a point but, that is irrelevant to my theory. I think he's attempting to base his chara off of himself and attempting to become all powerful through words. I do agree with the point that he could be attempting to beat everyone but, only subconsciously. Every time someone gets anything that's better than his, he attempts to one up them or attempts to get rid of whatever is better then him. I got a pair of headphones from Mt. Dew, he immediately attempted to win them off of me and, when he failed got pissed. He has yet to one up that but, when I did beat him legitly through CoD4, a lot, he attempted to foil me by not letting my play until HE got Modern Warfare 2. (He owns the game, I do not) He does do these things but, I doubt he is aware of why he does them. I could list more reasons but, I would then get into psychology and, this is not the place.

We buy a flat of 1 inch scale graph paper at Staples for around ten bucks. It has about 100 sheets of paper, and it's a good three feet by two feet (or thereabouts). You just write on the paper with normals pens and pencils, you can prep planned battle scenes in advance, and all that fun stuff. Just make sure to recycle the papers as much as possible - no point wasting the dead trees, right?

I don't live ANYWHERE near a staples or any other bargain place. 100 miles from Canada in a forest wasteland pretty much. Biggest thing we have near me is Target and Kmart. Anything else is an hour and a half drive south but, I don't think they have a staples. I was considering doing that but, laminating it to be reused. I have yet to find the paper though. Any thoughts about reusing it?

Make him read and re-read the skill descriptions until his eyes bleed. Diplomacy can't force someone to take any action. If an evil villain would gladly sacrifice his truted lieutenant, why would he stick his neck out for someone just because he feels Friendly? There is no level of positive reaction that will cause a Paladin to violate his code except of his own free will.

He has read the skills descriptions, a lot. In fact, that's what got him into thinking that Bluff was the ultimate lying skill to make people do what he wanted and believe what he wanted. Semi correct but, he then preceded to get pissed, make fun of me, and not speak to me until one of my friends, who is more respected apparently, told him as well. He then preceded to re roll as a bard. Now he believes he can do the same with Diplomacy.

I was thinking of letting him attempt to make others do what he wanted but, if it goes through, take out the part that they do it unless, it's something I really believe they would do.

 

[jdrakeh]

He then preceded to re roll as a bard. Now he believes he can do the same with Diplomacy.

Normally I disagree with Kzach, but I think he may be right here. Having faced a similar situation in the past, I did exactly as he recommends and everything worked out for the better.

 

[FireLance]

We're 17-18 except, our Japanese teacher who is 26.
He isn't really new to RPGs, table top games yes, but RPGs in general, no. He's played old school games like Zelda and Gauntlet to new stuff like Fallout and WoW. WoW he's played the crap out of but, that's not D&D at all. Anyway...My personal guess to why he's doing this is based on a few different things. He said straight out that he's good at lying in real life. Indeed he is. To a point but, that is irrelevant to my theory. I think he's attempting to base his chara off of himself and attempting to become all powerful through words. I do agree with the point that he could be attempting to beat everyone but, only subconsciously. Every time someone gets anything that's better than his, he attempts to one up them or attempts to get rid of whatever is better then him. I got a pair of headphones from Mt. Dew, he immediately attempted to win them off of me and, when he failed got pissed. He has yet to one up that but, when I did beat him legitly through CoD4, a lot, he attempted to foil me by not letting my play until HE got Modern Warfare 2. (He owns the game, I do not) He does do these things but, I doubt he is aware of why he does them. I could list more reasons but, I would then get into psychology and, this is not the place.

He definitely seems to be the overcompetitive type, and his past experiences with RPGs appear to be with those that emphasize competition rather than co-operation. My sense is, unless he can adopt a co-operative mindset when playing table-top games (and since you know him better than the rest of us strangers in Internet land, you will have to make this call yourself), either he or the rest of the people he plays with will end up not enjoying the game.

 

[pawsplay]

i think you just have to let him know up front that if he thinks Diplomacy will make everyone do what he wants, he will be disappointed.

 

[Oryan77]

All you have to do to show that his logic about how the skills work is wrong is to make an NPC with better social skills than his PC will have. Then use the NPCs bluff vs his sense motive check and hopefully you will beat his check. I'm sure he would find it ridiculous when you force him to obey your NPC just because he's so "diplomatic" or a good liar.

It's as simple as that.

Put it this way, I don't care how good of a liar your buddy is in real life. If he came to my house and told me that he's my long lost cousin and he needs to stay at my house for the night because his house burned down, that doesn't give him a free pass to make me do whatever he wants. I'll tell him he's full of crap and if he doesn't leave my property I'm going to have my wife beat him up (she's real tough, believe me ). Would he let a random guy stay the night if the guy was a good liar? I doubt it. So why would a PC or NPC just do whatever he wants just because his PC has some high numbers on a character sheet?

Players always think what they do is perfectly normal & they use the rules as their ammo to back it up....until you start doing it to them just as much and they see how stupid it is

 

[~EE~]

Would you approve of this then? Since we're pretty much just starting out I'll let it be for now. If he attempts to make an NPC do something, unless it's something he would very likely do, I'll say he doesn't do it but, he thinks about it. I wont put it that bluntly but, I'll do something like that. Later, if it gets out of hand I'll either tell him to stop or ban him.