Skills used by players on other players.

[Beowulf]

To bring things back around again, “lone wolf” role playing can sometimes be awesome and sometimes disruptive. When it’s awesome everybody is on board, so you trust everybody to narrate without needing dice rolls. When it’s disruptive it may seem like you need dice rolls, but the real problem is that somebody is being disruptive.

 

[FrogReaver]

To bring things back around again, “lone wolf” role playing can sometimes be awesome and sometimes disruptive. When it’s awesome everybody is on board, so you trust everybody to narrate without needing dice rolls. When it’s disruptive it may seem like you need dice rolls, but the real problem is that somebody is being disruptive.

I think you said it much better than me. That was basically the point I was trying to make. Most character concepts can be awesome and fun as long as everyone is on board.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's not right to bring complaints from a totally different thread with a totally different topic into any other thread. If you can't be mature enough to not do that then there's no sense in speaking to you.

Okay, man, I see you've determined it's everyone else that's the problem you keep having. You do you.

 

[Garthanos]

I have recently been thinking even of spells or spell like powers might offer up roleplaying choices....
nstead of taking them away - here is a thematic example i

Dragons Awe

Some people flee (movement towards is slowed and away at a bonus attacks are weakened)
Some get all wild and risky (both attacks and defenses are penalized).
Some freeze up (losing actions / move reduced to zero)
Some may spend some resource to force themselves to function normally.

That is off the cuff and the choices arent at all balanced but that is the thought.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

So here we go again.

In my game tonight a player with a 20 Cha and Expertise in Persuasion, who plays the face man of the party was role playing his character and trying to talk another pc into doing what he wanted(helping some villagers). The other pc was a really slow witted barbarian half orc but he wasn't willing to role play his character being motivated and persuaded by the face man. I told the face man to make a persuasion roll and the barb to make a insight check.

The Barb failed and so I told him the Face man sounded very convincing and that his instinct was to go along with it, for the face mans sake if nothing else. I explained this wasn't something like charm or mind control but to try to role play the change of heart after listening to the face mans words.

The Player was having none of it. He refused to go along and even made aggressive actions against in character against the other character. I halted the game and tried to handle the situation but he wasn't having it.(he is a friend who normally is a great player) He just felt like HE should decide what his character thought.

I said your right. You can, its called role playing. YOU are not standing there talking to the face man, your character IS. YOU'R CHARACTER doesn't have you mental abilities.Nor does the face mans player have his characters. It's called role playing. Do it.

So yeah things got a little heated and he was saying he thought the other pc shouldn't be allowed to use his skill on other pc's and in frustration I said fine, Then his strength and con and dex give no benefit either, his skill with a weapon doesn't work on pc's now any skills like stealth and perception. After all why should they?

After like 3 min we all cooled down and 5 min later were going on again BUT with the matter pretty much unresolved, just ignored. I decided to just let it go and let everyone cool off.


This isn't the first time this has been brought up in the game and I just do not understand where it is coming from.

To me it would be just like saying"Oh your barbarian wants to lift that? ok well lift up the front of my car and if you can do it then fine"

I do not understand why some players refuse to see the way of it.

I mean that player would NEVER let anyone "Get one over" on his low int/wis character EVER. It's just horrible role playing yeah but it would also pretty much make sure no one ever played a face man again.

This is really something that is going to depend on the player and the group. I (and my group) would agree with you, although there would rarely be a roll, they’ll just go by their ability scores and role play it appropriately.

For too many players, though, they feel it goes against their precious “player agency” which I totally disagree with. It’s impacting their character agency, and as you point out, they are free to role play the scenario in any way they want, but appropriately. To put it a different way, telling a wizard with an 8 Strength that they cannot lift a portcullis isn’t impacting player agency.

It’s an interesting subject, because there are times (charm magic for one) where a character’s free will or good judgement is impaired, but player’s often take offense at this. There are lots of interesting stories where this might apply, but some players frequently resist. We have an Impaired condition (used when drunk, among other things) where a Wisdom saving throw may be required or you make a poor choice.

In circumstances like a lycanthrope, we leave it up to the player to decide if they wish to control the beast or have the DM do it. If there’s a question of what choice would be good, then we just make a Wisdom save.

Another thing I always see is questioning “player vs player” when this is “character vs character.” But some players have difficulty separating the two (the player agency vs character agency again).

However, the flip side is that this doesn’t work well when other players are not playing “in character.” It becomes an issue when it does become player vs player and folks take advantage of the in-game play to deal with out-of-game issues. It’s also potentially a problem with players who don’t understand role-playing well, and simply do what they want in the moment, causing intra-party strife where it doesn’t really belong.

We find that by using the rules/stats to inform our role-playing even in social situations between PCs that it increases immersion and the depth of the characters. But it does require the table to be in agreement with such an approach, including letting each player remain in charge of their reactions. The rolls just help them determine how to shape that reaction.