D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Lyxen]

It’s not RAW (at least I don’t think so) but I’ve seen Inspiration used to impose disadvantage on a NPC’s roll.

No, it's not RAW: "If you have inspiration, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll."

Also, although it's 5e and anything the DM rules is the way it should be played, I wouldn't have allowed it. Getting advantage on your roll, yes, you are the one inspired, but disadvantage on someone else's roll is something else entirely and I am not sure that I like the implications of that in terms of use.

 

[Charlaquin]

so we have gotten to the point where the argument is that the Cha, and the prof in Intimadate mean nothing and are not rules at all?

No, we have not.

ding ding ding... I wish people would say this more and "it's not allowed/written in the rules" less

No one has said it’s not allowed.

except again how is insperation effecting the orc roll one way or other?

It isn’t. The inspiration discussion was a tangent.

I also let my players call for rolls too, even with each other (Oh god the humanity)
I play with 7 people over 3 campaigns (2 weekly 1 monthly) of the 8 of us (me+7) 6 of us DM regularly, and the other two have DMed not just past editions but 5e,

Ok

so we don't have alot of "That is for the DM to decide" we have much more friendly fun

Implying that the way other people run the game is unfriendly? Sorry, but no. It’s great that you have fun the way you play. It’s not more friendly than the way other people play.

 

[HammerMan]

Certainly not in stone, but it is right there in the PHB page 185.

and that is the way I run it. Nothing I do is in anyway apart from how I read pg 185.

I may have missed it, too. Do you have a page number (or numbers) to support how your way is supported by the 5e rule set?

I don't think I gave a page number, but every monster in the 5e MM that has a social skill.
not a page (don't have book on me) Roll20

• Skills Intimidation +2

It’s not RAW (at least I don’t think so) but I’ve seen Inspiration used to impose disadvantage on a NPC’s roll.

I have not heard of that, but again none of my groups really use the inspiration... I do find it funny that in the same post asking for a page number of a rule you say "It's not RAW"

You do see how advising, no matter how benevolently it is done, is telling someone how to do something, yes?

no. I don't

forget gaming for a minute. If me and my fiancé have a fight, it will almost for sure be talked about on game night (especially if the fight is ongoing) Chris, Becky and Ross can all advise me on what I can do and what they think are best with out telling me how to do something. Advise and tell have VASTLY different connotations.

Now back to the game table idea, If I run a halfling divination wizard with lucky and the halfling luck feat (so like 8+ level) I have ALOT of resources that can effect the table. I can reroll my 1's, but once per turn I can let an ally in range reroll a 1, and I have 3 luck points for me or people in range to reroll, and I have 2 pregenerated d20 rolls that can be substituted (I think it has to be before the roll but not100% sure). In both cases my Hafling is my character and I get to decide what to do with all of those resources. another player at the table telling me to use my pregenerated nat 20 to get his/her PC up from a death save at one table sounds very different to me then another asking me to use it, or even the DM advising "you may want to use that"

Now if the DM said "I don't like killing players so you have to use your nat 20 now" I would almost for sure walk away from that table.
If the PC said "Just do it, you need me don't be a jerk" I would be annoyed but most likely stay at table (unless other irritants happened)
If the PC said "Hey, can you help me out with my death saves" that I THINK is pretty normal for a D&D experience.
If the DM said "Hey if I were you I would use one of your thingeis to make sure they make this save" that doesn't seem to have the implication of 'telling me how to play my character'

and of course all of that was not the example I used... becuse in MY EXAMPLE i said the player could ask...

 

[Bill Zebub]

Having read just the OP and a few posts further, my first reaction is that if you don't want game-mechanical social skills to work when PCs (or NPCs) use them against PCs (which is fine) then they shouldn't "work" against NPCs either: the DM should be able to react as the NPC wold to attempted persuation just like a player does as a PC, because the NPC is in that moment the DM's character.

Although as a player I want to make my own decisions, as DM I want to fall back on the mechanics. For two reasons:
1) I want to be a (more) neutral arbiter of outcomes.
2) It's too much work to fully roleplay all those different characters, on top of all the other work of DMing.

So I take your point, but that's not how I want to DM. I'd be fine with other DMs doing it when I'm a player, though.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Can it be used one PC to another? If so, I feel it suffers the technical flaw of being able to be used unreasonably an XP generator. One could say - don't use the rules unreasonably - but that is no excuse for badly written rules.

Therefore, is Parley solely NPC to PC?

Yeah, I thought of that as well. I think it is a design flaw, but....I guess I just wouldn't play with people who abused it.

 

[HammerMan]

Implying that the way other people run the game is unfriendly? Sorry, but no. It’s great that you have fun the way you play. It’s not more friendly than the way other people play.

yes perefect, that is exactly what I implied and not that the line between DM and Player isn't some all important to the rules monolith... perfect.

 

[HammerMan]

It isn’t. The inspiration discussion was a tangent.

except your argument is my way of letting the orc roll intimadate effects players ability to spend inspiration

 

[Bill Zebub]

Concretely, why do you feel just deciding is better? And if just deciding is better, why use the stochastic mechanics of RPG at all? Surely you can just decide that the ogre crits the paladin with that maul? Note that I am not asking these questions to be answered directly, but rather to cast a searchlight on the motives for letting the stochastic mechanics guide even behind the scenes events.

This is what I think @Charlaquin and @iserith have been getting at, and why the whole thing about using dice to resolve uncertainty point is so important, and not pedantic/semantic. Since players control their characters' action declarations, there's no uncertainty, and thus no roll is needed.

(One might argue that "being intimidated" isn't an action declaration, but, as I pointed out, if being intimidated doesn't restrict action declarations then it's just a roleplaying cue, and if it's just a roleplaying cue does it really need mechanical reinforcement? That smells to me like not trusting other players to roleplay.)

Interestingly, the opposition to their stance seems to fall into two camps with similar but opposite arguments:
@Lanefan seems to agree that there's no uncertainty if the PC's player claims there's no uncertainty, but that the same is true of NPCs, with the DM being the "player". (And I sort of agree with him: it is up to the DM to decide if there's uncertainty in those cases.)
The other camp says that there is uncertainty, that just like players can't declare their weapon hits, they can't declare they aren't intimidated.

 

[Bill Zebub]

so we have gotten to the point where the argument is that the Cha, and the prof in Intimadate mean nothing and are not rules at all?

This falls into the same category of statements as those that begin with "So you are saying that...."

 

[HammerMan]

This is what I think @Charlaquin and @iserith have been getting at, and why the whole thing about using dice to resolve uncertainty point is so important, and not pedantic/semantic. Since players control their characters' action declarations, there's no uncertainty, and thus no roll is needed.

and that is fine for there games, no one is saying they need to change. People ARE claiming that we are not using the rules because we read them differently... We DO se an uncertainty, and as such we roll.

(One might argue that "being intimidated" isn't an action declaration, but, as I pointed out, if being intimidated doesn't restrict action declarations then it's just a roleplaying cue, and if it's just a roleplaying cue does it really need mechanical reinforcement? That smells to me like not trusting other players to roleplay.)

right, becuse no matter how many time me or others have said we let the player RP, and we pretty much trust them to, you decide to read some extra motive into it other then "we disagree on reading of the rules"

Interestingly, the opposition to their stance seems to fall into two camps with similar but opposite arguments:
@Lanefan seems to agree that there's no uncertainty if the PC's player claims there's no uncertainty, but that the same is true of NPCs, with the DM being the "player". (And I sort of agree with him: it is up to the DM to decide if there's uncertainty in those cases.)
The other camp says that there is uncertainty, that just like players can't declare their weapon hits, they can't declare they aren't intimidated.

and again, this comes down to us reading the rules differently, and as such we can discus the pros and cons but if we keep insisting "My way is the only way supported by the rules" it leads to these weird circle again.