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Role-Players vs. Actors
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7573287" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I guess the problem then is I'm struggling to understand what you are saying.</p><p></p><p>Most of the play of D&D I'm familiar with involves a combination of words and dice. Sometimes it happens in D&D that you can win without dice, but I'm unfamiliar with a circumstance in D&D where you can win without words.</p><p></p><p>I've encountered players that dump stat Charisma and then imagine that they can avoid the penalties of that by simply RPing well, and I've already explained in part my take on that. I thought that that was what we were talking about, but now you are divorcing the idea of "saying something well" from what you are talking about.</p><p></p><p>Returning to what I'm talking about, a tactically proficient player gains a large benefit in play by making good choices for his character in combat, while a tactically inept player may struggle despite system mastery because he makes bad choices in play. It's not power gaming to make good choices.</p><p></p><p>So considering the social sphere, it's often the case that NPCs the players may need to manipulate have particular goals, particular vulnerabilities, and so forth and that if the players correctly deduce the players motives that the players are much more likely to have their propositions succeed. I do not punish players for figuring out what these motives are and making 'correct' pitches to the NPC simply because they have low charisma and low intelligence on their character sheet. I do reward the players for appropriate RP and well worded dialogue, with small bonuses (or conversely with small penalties for really poor RP). </p><p></p><p>None of this in my opinion falls out side of partaking in the game, and none of this precludes ultimately resolving the situation with dice if in fact its 'dicey' social situation. What it does mean that perceptive players are likely by good strategy to put themselves on level terms negotiating with an NPC compared to unperceptive players with nominally more social PCs, just as tactical players can play their martial characters well. </p><p></p><p>Let me try to give an example, since abstraction tends to lead to misunderstanding.</p><p></p><p>Suppose the PC's are negotiating with a very honorable noble who finds himself in a situation where he is torn between his loyalty and duty towards his spouse and his loyalty and duty towards his country. Perhaps his spouse is in an adulterous affair with another noble, and the sorrid thing threatens the very fabric of the kingdom.</p><p></p><p>The PC's are much more likely to get a positive result - lower DC on a social test - if they confront the noble with evidence of the wife's affair, than if they make an accusation against her without evidence. In this case, even if he suspects the accusation may be true, his since of honor demands that absent incontrovertible proof he defend his wife's honor. So the wise player will seek to have such evidence in hand and be as sensitive as he can about the subject before breaching it, otherwise in his grief the noble might turn hostile and unwisely challenge the player to a duel on the spot!</p><p></p><p>Likewise, if the PC's are trying to persuade the noble to undertake a course of action, the DC of doing so will be much lower, perhaps nigh trivial, if they can suggest some ingenious course that allows him to in his mind not break faith with his country or his wife (being the sort that would forgive his wife's unfaithfulness if he could), because that is precisely and secretly what the noble would wish to do if he could, whereas asking the PC's to break faith with one or both will be much harder (and again, much easier to flub to the point the NPC becomes hostile). And the DC to persuade the noble to betray his own convictions to a serious degree, such as suggesting an alliance with the powers of evil, would be very high indeed (and if so much as suggested by someone with less than the oiliest of silver tongues, likely to bring about immediate hostility)! </p><p></p><p>This is why I say content matters, and why the player has to give some sort of example of what he's going to say. Not all social approaches are equally effective but depend on the context, which in this case is the wishes and character of the person you are speaking to. PC's that arm themselves by investigating the situation well and then figuring out the crux of it, tend to do a lot better in social challenges. Which is not to say that you can get away with trying to be the party spokesperson if you are playing a feral misanthrope with 6 charisma and no social skills, because even if you do have a good plan, regardless of how well you the player present your case, what comes out of the character's mouth is mostly unintelligible grunting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7573287, member: 4937"] I guess the problem then is I'm struggling to understand what you are saying. Most of the play of D&D I'm familiar with involves a combination of words and dice. Sometimes it happens in D&D that you can win without dice, but I'm unfamiliar with a circumstance in D&D where you can win without words. I've encountered players that dump stat Charisma and then imagine that they can avoid the penalties of that by simply RPing well, and I've already explained in part my take on that. I thought that that was what we were talking about, but now you are divorcing the idea of "saying something well" from what you are talking about. Returning to what I'm talking about, a tactically proficient player gains a large benefit in play by making good choices for his character in combat, while a tactically inept player may struggle despite system mastery because he makes bad choices in play. It's not power gaming to make good choices. So considering the social sphere, it's often the case that NPCs the players may need to manipulate have particular goals, particular vulnerabilities, and so forth and that if the players correctly deduce the players motives that the players are much more likely to have their propositions succeed. I do not punish players for figuring out what these motives are and making 'correct' pitches to the NPC simply because they have low charisma and low intelligence on their character sheet. I do reward the players for appropriate RP and well worded dialogue, with small bonuses (or conversely with small penalties for really poor RP). None of this in my opinion falls out side of partaking in the game, and none of this precludes ultimately resolving the situation with dice if in fact its 'dicey' social situation. What it does mean that perceptive players are likely by good strategy to put themselves on level terms negotiating with an NPC compared to unperceptive players with nominally more social PCs, just as tactical players can play their martial characters well. Let me try to give an example, since abstraction tends to lead to misunderstanding. Suppose the PC's are negotiating with a very honorable noble who finds himself in a situation where he is torn between his loyalty and duty towards his spouse and his loyalty and duty towards his country. Perhaps his spouse is in an adulterous affair with another noble, and the sorrid thing threatens the very fabric of the kingdom. The PC's are much more likely to get a positive result - lower DC on a social test - if they confront the noble with evidence of the wife's affair, than if they make an accusation against her without evidence. In this case, even if he suspects the accusation may be true, his since of honor demands that absent incontrovertible proof he defend his wife's honor. So the wise player will seek to have such evidence in hand and be as sensitive as he can about the subject before breaching it, otherwise in his grief the noble might turn hostile and unwisely challenge the player to a duel on the spot! Likewise, if the PC's are trying to persuade the noble to undertake a course of action, the DC of doing so will be much lower, perhaps nigh trivial, if they can suggest some ingenious course that allows him to in his mind not break faith with his country or his wife (being the sort that would forgive his wife's unfaithfulness if he could), because that is precisely and secretly what the noble would wish to do if he could, whereas asking the PC's to break faith with one or both will be much harder (and again, much easier to flub to the point the NPC becomes hostile). And the DC to persuade the noble to betray his own convictions to a serious degree, such as suggesting an alliance with the powers of evil, would be very high indeed (and if so much as suggested by someone with less than the oiliest of silver tongues, likely to bring about immediate hostility)! This is why I say content matters, and why the player has to give some sort of example of what he's going to say. Not all social approaches are equally effective but depend on the context, which in this case is the wishes and character of the person you are speaking to. PC's that arm themselves by investigating the situation well and then figuring out the crux of it, tend to do a lot better in social challenges. Which is not to say that you can get away with trying to be the party spokesperson if you are playing a feral misanthrope with 6 charisma and no social skills, because even if you do have a good plan, regardless of how well you the player present your case, what comes out of the character's mouth is mostly unintelligible grunting. [/QUOTE]
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