Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[FrogReaver]

I'm not saying it solves the problem completely. If you have a hack and slash player and a diplomancer, it certainly won't help.

Yea, I think we are on the same page there.

However, I'd say it's less about guessing the right response and more intuiting it. If the DM is forcing the players to guess without any hints to the NPCs personality, they're (IMO) doing it wrong. There should be explicit or implicit information as to what the NPC wants to hear.

I apologize if guess had the wrong connotation. I didn't mean to imply it was necessarily a completely information-less guess. But, what I'm saying is this is the playstyle of treating NPC social interactions as puzzles. Which is fine if your group enjoys that. But for many of us such a style is lacking. We dislike it because we feel it forces our PC's to do something they may not do in order to help with a social situation. Which potentially leaves us basically 3 options, voluntarily sit out the encounter, do what our PC wouldn't do for the good of the group, or do what our PC would do and lose the social encounter for the team. I get why option 3 in your playstyle would come across as bad faith. I'm just coming at this from the position that if we are doing social encounters then they shouldn't put me as a player in that kind of unfun position to begin with.

The player can most certainly help as well as hinder. If you stroke the ego of the egomaniacal overlord, you're probably helping. If you insult him, you're probably hindering the effort. IME, it's typically a matter of using common sense basic social skills to avoid hindering the effort.

See to me that reads: NPC social interactions are puzzles and you can typically solve them this way. But the ultimate implication to me is clear: you can't play your character socially any way I don't agree with, because there is going to be hell to pay if you do.

 

[Maxperson]

IMO. The problem with Diplomancer players is that they insist that since they are the best at talking that they are the only ones who ever talk. They do this because inevitably social encounters are ran such that PCs not adept in social skills are a detriment when they attempt to do anything. That leads to feelings that anyone else doing anything in a social encounter is sabotaging their time to shine. This is unlike every other pillar of the game.

That's why I have my NPCs ask questions and speak to everyone. Even if the players try to set up someone as the "Face," they will all have to talk and be involved in any rolls that may be called for. Not everyone all the time, but enough that they generally don't bother to hold back when talking to NPCs anymore.

 

[pemerton]

1 dimensional NPC's that have to be solved as a puzzle are always going to lead to situations like what we had here.

<snip>

The DM chose the NPC reaction. That's at the DMs feet. You keep calling the player disruptive with nothing to support that notion - nor whether it was justifiable for him to be bored in the first place.

I fully agree with the second half of what I've quoted. And mostly agree with the first half - maybe always is too strong if taken literally, but I think there are problems with "negotiation as puzzle-solving" in general, and especially if this is meant to require that the PCs cooperate with nasty people.

If the Face is doing Face Things, don't interrupt, any more than you'd want someone to interrupt the Stealth Dude while he was doing Stealth Dude Things, or the I Know That Guy while he's Knowing Things

To me, this only reinforces the issues with NPC-as-puzzle. It's being expressly equated to a problem for "face guy" as scouting out may be for "stealth guy" etc.

To me that is completely unrealistic. When the Riders of Rohan encounter Aragorn, GImli and Legolas chasing the orcs, Eomer addresses all of them. When Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Minas Tirith Denethor grills Pippin because he knows he can get more intelligence from him than from Gandalf. When Frodo and Sam speak to Faramir, Sam - though subordinate in rank - interjects from time to time because there are things he wants to say.

In the Death Star, when Luke and Han encounter Princess Leia both speak to her. Earlier, in the discussion at Mos Eisley about hiring a ship, Ben, Luke, Han and Chewie all take part.

In some formal contexts it might make sense that only a herald or diplomat speaks, but apart from issues of realism that seems to make for relatively uninteresting game play. If a situation is to involve only one PC that seems to me like it should flow from the fiction - both the "plot" and the theme - and not from some notion of "face", "stealth", "combat" etc.

 

[Fenris-77]

Part of the problem there is lingering notions of niche protection and stat use maximization. Since activity X, social interaction in this case, has a mechanic that relies on a d20 roll that's individualized by player, there's a real incentive to let the character with the highest modifier do activity X. Not only is the mechanical advantage there, but the player has also devoted some design space to being good at X, so there's some impetus to let him have his hero moment. All of that makes perfect sense from a player facing perspective, and sometimes no sense at all from a fictional perspective.

One way to manage this is to let everyone speak, but with the understanding that if a roll becomes necessary then the character with the highest mod can 'take the lead' (i.e. make the roll). At my table this would be barring any of the characters saying something potentially offensive or some such before that moment arrives.

 

[prabe]

To me, this only reinforces the issues with NPC-as-puzzle. It's being expressly equated to a problem for "face guy" as scouting out may be for "stealth guy" etc.

To me, it reinforces the idea that the PC are working as a team. At a minimum "don't interfere with the Face Guy" could be taken as "don't insult the guy he's talking with." That is the core incident we were originally talking about.

To me that is completely unrealistic. When the Riders of Rohan encounter Aragorn, GImli and Legolas chasing the orcs, Eomer addresses all of them. When Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Minas Tirith Denethor grills Pippin because he knows he can get more intelligence from him than from Gandalf. When Frodo and Sam speak to Faramir, Sam - though subordinate in rank - interjects from time to time because there are things he wants to say.

In the Death Star, when Luke and Han encounter Princess Leia both speak to her. Earlier, in the discussion at Mos Eisley about hiring a ship, Ben, Luke, Han and Chewie all take part.

And I'm pretty sure none of what happened in either instance is "interference." There are examples upthread how to handle this so no one is left out.

In some formal contexts it might make sense that only a herald or diplomat speaks, but apart from issues of realism that seems to make for relatively uninteresting game play. If a situation is to involve only one PC that seems to me like it should flow from the fiction - both the "plot" and the theme - and not from some notion of "face", "stealth", "combat" etc.

I don't entirely disagree with this, which is why I encourage the parties I GM for to split if there are different things they want to accomplish. If they don't, I don't hold asides against the party, but insults (which to be honest I don't remember having come up) would be a different matter.

 

[prabe]

Part of the problem there is lingering notions of niche protection and stat use maximization. Since activity X, social interaction in this case, has a mechanic that relies on a d20 roll that's individualized by player, there's a real incentive to let the character with the highest modifier do activity X. Not only is the mechanical advantage there, but the player has also devoted some design space to being good at X, so there's some impetus to let him have his hero moment. All of that makes perfect sense from a player facing perspective, and sometimes no sense at all from a fictional perspective.

One way to manage this is to let everyone speak, but with the understanding that if a roll becomes necessary then the character with the highest mod can 'take the lead' (i.e. make the roll). At my table this would be barring any of the characters saying something potentially offensive or some such before that moment arrives.

Shockingly, that's not particularly different from how I do it--though I do a lot through roleplay and/or passive checks.

I'm not sure I'd consider niche protection in itself a problem, necessarily, though expectations around it might be.

 

[pemerton]

As far as everyone participating, I agree that's a fine ideal, but not every PC is going to be able to be helpful in every situation.

I think the word helpful is pretty fundamental here.

I talk with groups of people all the time - groups of students; groups of colleagues; groups of friends; etc. In those groups, normally some are more articulate than others. But they are not the only ones who speak. I have things I want to know from others (eg What is it that you're finding hard about this example? or What movie do you want to see?). I have things I want to say to others, which prompt them to respond. They have ideas and knowledge and emotions that they want to express, so they speak.

It's striking to me that, in a thread about "realistic" consequences, a defender of those is putting forward such an unrealistic picture of human interactions.

The problem with Diplomancer players is that they insist that since they are the best at talking that they are the only ones who ever talk. They do this because inevitably social encounters are ran such that PCs not adept in social skills are a detriment when they attempt to do anything. That leads to feelings that anyone else doing anything in a social encounter is sabotaging their time to shine. This is unlike every other pillar of the game.

Combat all characters are better off doing something than nothing.
Exploration, typically every character can find a way to help. Lookout for danger, navigate, scout ahead, look for food, watch for traps, etc.
Social, basically anyone but the character with the highest social skills contributing is detrimental.

So I don't really blame diplomancer players for their sentiments, the entire game tends to get ran in such a way that their feelings are only natural. I think instead maybe we focus on how the game can handle multiple players interacting in a social encounter without being a detriment.

The starting point is for the GM to think about the situation similarly to how s/he might think about a combat. For instance, why does the mad tyrant not address the barbarian or thief or whomever directly (as Eomer does to Gimili).

The next step is to think more carefully about how to adjudicate the resulting action declarations. In particular, if we take it as given that Gimli's player (ie the player of the relatively low-CHA dwarf) is more likely to fail a check than is Aragorn's player (whose paladin has at least 17 CHA!), how do we resolve this? In LotR Eomer still lends Gimli a horse, but there is an outstanding dispute between them about whether Galadriel is the most beautiful woman in Middle Earth.

Of course there are many many other ways to think about making sense of a failure in social interaction. I just point to that one because it's fairly fresh in my mind and it is the sort of thing that I don't hear much about in accounts of D&D play.

EDIT: And here we have Exhibits A and B:

At my table, if multiple characters are talking to an NPC then at the time the check is called the DM will ask, "so who wants to lead the check?", but everyone's contributions affect the DC (which in some cases might admittedly be to the group's detriment, but that's simply because that character said something that hindered the effort).

If the entire party is at the negotiation, I let all the players contribute to the conversation and ask the face-type to make the appropriate check.

This will never produce a situation in which Eomer lets the group go, and even lends them horses, but has a meaningful outstanding dispute with GImli. It flattens out all the fiction.

There are RPGing systems that do this for combat - eg Tunnels & Trolls - but D&D has never been one of them. Why flatten out social interaction when it is so easy not to. It's not as if D&D has never come up with an alternative approach that avoids such flattening out ie the skill challenge.

 

[pemerton]

I think the combat analog would be the enemy captain challenges your strongest to a 1v1 duel to settle the differences. Now the rest of the players are sitting back watching and any meaningful action on their part could quickly undermine all the efforts of the PC engaged in the duel. I think such a situation has a place, but it should be exceedingly rare. I'm willing to say the same about analogous social encounters.

This is a fair analogy.

Part of the problem there is lingering notions of niche protection and stat use maximization. Since activity X, social interaction in this case, has a mechanic that relies on a d20 roll that's individualized by player, there's a real incentive to let the character with the highest modifier do activity X. Not only is the mechanical advantage there, but the player has also devoted some design space to being good at X, so there's some impetus to let him have his hero moment. All of that makes perfect sense from a player facing perspective, and sometimes no sense at all from a fictional perspective.

One way to manage this is to let everyone speak, but with the understanding that if a roll becomes necessary then the character with the highest mod can 'take the lead' (i.e. make the roll). At my table this would be barring any of the characters saying something potentially offensive or some such before that moment arrives.

This is not going to permit dynamic social interaction. And it means that PC build choices around CHA and the like become reduced in signficance.

To me, it reinforces the idea that the PC are working as a team. At a minimum "don't interfere with the Face Guy" could be taken as "don't insult the guy he's talking with." That is the core incident we were originally talking about.

And I'm pretty sure none of what happened in either instance is "interference."

In the passage from The Two Towers that I referred to, Gimili does insult Eomer: "You speak evil of that which is fair beyond the reach of your though, and only little wit can excuse you." When Eomer gets angry and threatens GImli, Legolas draws his bow and nocks an arrow "with hands that moved quicker than sight" and replies "You would die before your stroke fell."

Yet at the end of the scene Eomer lets the three go, contrary to a direct order he is under to detain them, and he lends them horses.

If a GM follows the approach to adjudication that you advocate, I don't see how such a sequence would ever be possible. Likewise if players follows your prescriptions.

I'd say it's less about guessing the right response and more intuiting it. If the DM is forcing the players to guess without any hints to the NPCs personality, they're (IMO) doing it wrong. There should be explicit or implicit information as to what the NPC wants to hear.

This is still NPC as puzzle. With a pre-determined "right response" which the player are expected to infer from the GM's clues.

In my view this will only ever produce shallow social encounters, with no sense of depth to the characters and no sense of human reality in the events that unfold.

When Legolas, Gimil and Aragorn meet Eomer and his riders it is not a puzzle to be solved. It is a situation to be engaged. JRRT gives us one account of how it unfolded. Obviously we can imagine other possibilities. At a minimum, a FRPG social resolution system should be capable of emulating this sort of thing - the encounter of the heroes with a noble person who is torn between doing the right thing and loyalty to a misguided lord.

And D&D has actually had that resolution technology, even if it has subsequently laid it aside. It shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for 5e to handle this in some fashion.

 

[prabe]

I think the word helpful is pretty fundamental here.

Sure, though I was thinking more in am around-the-table gameplay sense than I think you think I was. To wit:

As far as everyone participating, I agree that's a fine ideal, but not every PC is going to be able to be helpful in every situation. Having a character not do anything in a given scene isn't really any different from splitting the party, which at least one of my parties does often (and which I encourage, because in-fiction it means everyone is doing something, even if at-the-table that's not exactly the case).

It's not particularly uncommon for one character to do the talking, either because they're good at it or because they have some goal they're pursuing. There are some parties where everyone goes to every scene, because the players have learned the risks of splitting the party; my position is that letting a character be there idly isn't any different around the table than having that same player waiting for the metaphorical jump-cut to different story-thread.

As I said elsewhere:

My approach is twofold. If the entire party is at the negotiation, I let all the players contribute to the conversation and ask the face-type to make the appropriate check. If there are party members who want to do something else, I let the party split, and I jump back and forth between the threads. I think it's easier to remain engaged at the table when you know you'll be doing what you want to be doing, soon (as opposed to trusting that there'll be an encounter or something later on that plays more to your style).

If a player was offered the opportunity for their character to be elsewhere, and they chose to be at the negotiation scene, they really really need to not screw things up for the players who wanted the negotiation scene, IMO. I might give the player a chance to step back from interfering, but as I've said elsewhere I've learned from experience that's not likely to happen.

I talk with groups of people all the time - groups of students; groups of colleagues; groups of friends; etc. In those groups, normally some are more articulate than others. But they are not the only ones who speak. I have things I want to know from others (eg What is it that you're finding hard about this example? or What movie do you want to see?). I have things I want to say to others, which prompt them to respond. They have ideas and knowledge and emotions that they want to express, so they speak.

Right. And in-fiction conversations in a TRPG aren't really any more like real conversations than dialogue in fiction is. People really don't speak the way they do in fiction, in any medium.

It's striking to me that, in a thread about "realistic" consequences, a defender of those is putting forward such an unrealistic picture of human interactions.

I suspect that many people in this thread--including me--have been using "realism" and related words to talk about verisimilitude, which is not the same thing.

The starting point is for the GM to think about the situation similarly to how s/he might think about a combat. For instance, why does the mad tyrant not address the barbarian or thief or whomever directly (as Eomer does to Gimili).

That would be the way a GM in Fate (among other games) would approach it, yes, but D&D doesn't treat social situations as combat. Some of us prefer it this way, others prefer other systems; I don't think anyone is wrong, here.

 

[prabe]

In the passage from The Two Towers that I referred to, Gimili does insult Eomer: "You speak evil of that which is fair beyond the reach of your though, and only little wit can excuse you." When Eomer gets angry and threatens GImli, Legolas draws his bow and nocks an arrow "with hands that moved quicker than sight" and replies "You would die before your stroke fell."

Yet at the end of the scene Eomer lets the three go, contrary to a direct order he is under to detain them, and he lends them horses.

If a GM follows the approach to adjudication that you advocate, I don't see how such a sequence would ever be possible. Likewise if players follows your prescriptions.

I tell you three times I tell you three times I tell you three times: Tolkien was not writing a TRPG campaign. Tolkien was not writing a TRPG campaign. Tolkien was not writing a TRPG campaign.