D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Bill Zebub]

The idea is that the rules on ability checks to resolve an attempt to influence a PC can be read as a specific rule creating an exception to the general roleplay rule similar to how spells can.

The social interaction influencing rules that are not explicitly for NPCs only would then apply to a PC similar to how casting a spell on a PC will work on them. These are pretty vague and narrative.

The big picture would then be more of a game concept of try to roleplay these specific influences in roleplaying your character. This can create more stage direction type roleplay hooks as part of the game or it can create a closer match of roleplay to mechanics.

Some like this type of playing a specific mechanics driven role roleplaying, others prefer deciding their own role to a greater extent in their roleplaying.

Different styles and preferences.

I agree with all of this. I don't prefer to play where you use some mechanics to create roleplaying cues, but it's valid.

However, nobody is arguing that it's invalid to use dice to generate roleplaying cues. Just that the rules don't explicitly say this is how skills/attributes are meant to be used.

 

[Charlaquin]

Explicitly.

The general rule of roleplaying being players determining how the character acts and thinks and feels is a general rule.

Lots of specific powers and things in the game go differently such as charm person which says roleplay as charmed.

The question is are the social interaction rules a specific rule that can be read to similarly apply to say roleplay as if persuaded or entertained or whatever.


That seems to be just begging the question of whether persuasion ability checks (179) are a rule that can contradict the general rule of of player decides (185).

To demonstrate let me add in more relevant information

"A DM can call for ability checks to resolve an attempt to influence someone (page 179). When that someone is a PC, the player decides how the character responds (page 185) unless a more specific rule applies. If the player is deciding, there is no uncertainty in the adjudication and thus no roll, if a check is a more specific rule for resolving an influence check then there is uncertainty and there can be a roll (PHB 174)."

Assuming ability checks are not an exception the logic chain is consistent and works with no roll and no RP direction to a player like a spell can.

Assuming ability checks can create an exception is also consistent with the logic chain and works with a possible roll and possible RP directions.

Yes, absolutely. Both interpretations are logically valid. But, the second relies on the premise that the rules for ability checks constitute an exception to the general rule. If no such exception exists, interpretation, while valid, is not sound. If you can cite an explicit exception to the general rule in the rules text describing ability checks, you will have proven the second interpretation sound, but so far no one has done so.

 

[HammerMan]

Really this argument isn't even about roleplaying games anymore, it's just kind of a surreal debate about language and logic. I'm half annoyed and half fascinated.

tbh I am getting annoyed becuse people don't think i have a vailid reading of the books

 

[HammerMan]

Obviously, but based on what principles and what passages from the rules have you arrived at this interpretation?

go back and reread alll my responces

I disagree. When a player describes an action (assuming it is a complete description, including goal and approach), what happens on a success is that the player succeeds in their goal. When an NPC takes an action in a social context, the outcome is not uncertain, since the player decides what their character does, so no roll is necessary to determine the outcome.

and i disagree with you. we both read it diffrent no better no worse.

I don’t get to decide, words just mean things. The quote cited did not contain an explicit exception to the general rule

sure it did you just don't like it

that the player decides what their character does.

no one has argued against this

Ok? But we’re arguing about what the rules say, which requires us to use epistemology to determine the validity and soundness of the interpretations being presented.

there is no soundness of the interpretations... there is your side saying ours isn't valid.
we interpretant differently not better not worse just different, and the book is written in a way of natural language to allow for such.

 

[Charlaquin]

I agree that we're really just making reasonable inferences. From skimming posts, it seems most agree that their presence has some meaning.

One explanation suggested above is that such skills are strictly for NPCs to use against NPCs. Although for me that is a reasonable use case, I don't believe that was on the designers' minds when they wrote "A monster is defined as any creature that can be interacted with and potentially fought and killed... The term also applies to... civilized folk who might be friends or rivals to the player characters." Friendship and rivalry sounds like social interaction, to me. Overall, what seems envisioned is that PCs will interact with NPCs (monsters.)

I don’t disagree that PCs are intended to interact with NPCs. This fact does not demonstrate that NPCs’ social skills are meant to be used in interaction with PCs.

I think it would be possible to say - yes, the PHB lays out the meaning of those skills for player characters, but it is silent on the meaning of those skills for monsters. So the matter is one of incompleteness, rather than contradiction.

Right, I’m not trying to prove NPCs’ skills aren’t meant to be used against PCs - trying to prove a negative is generally a pretty fruitless task. I’m arguing that the existence of social skills on NPCs, per se, is not evidence that they are meant to be used against PCs.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

tbh I am getting annoyed becuse people don't think i have a vailid reading of the books

As they said in school: "Show your work..."

Like with actual quotes from the PHB and/or DMG and how you interpret those quotes in play.

We might then be better able to understand where you are coming from in your claim that your playstyle is supported by the rules.

Or don't and we can continue to not understand. Really up to you at this point.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Explicitly.

The general rule of roleplaying being players determining how the character acts and thinks and feels is a general rule.

Lots of specific powers and things in the game go differently such as charm person which says roleplay as charmed.

The question is are the social interaction rules a specific rule that can be read to similarly apply to say roleplay as if persuaded or entertained or whatever.


That seems to be just begging the question of whether persuasion ability checks (179) are a rule that can contradict the general rule of of player decides (185).

To demonstrate let me add in more relevant information

"A DM can call for ability checks to resolve an attempt to influence someone (page 179). When that someone is a PC, the player decides how the character responds (page 185) unless a more specific rule applies. If the player is deciding, there is no uncertainty in the adjudication and thus no roll, if a check is a more specific rule for resolving an influence check then there is uncertainty and there can be a roll (PHB 174)."

Assuming ability checks are not an exception the logic chain is consistent and works with no roll and no RP direction to a player like a spell can.

Assuming ability checks can create an exception is also consistent with the logic chain and works with a possible roll and possible RP directions.

"A DM can call for ability checks to resolve an attempt to influence someone (page 179). When that someone is a PC, the player would normally decide how the character responds (page 185) however a more specific rule applies (an ability check being called to resolve the influence attempt). If the player is not deciding because of the more specific rules, there is no uncertainty in the adjudication and thus there can be a no roll (PHB 174)."

Neither demonstrates whether ability checks are an exception to the general roleplaying rule or not, just that both assumptions/interpretations are consistent with the way the rules work.

Yep this. I quite strongly feel that it is generally not fun to use social ability checks against PCs and it shouldn't be done, but nothing in the rules actually prohibits doing this. I see that Iserith is again doing their thing where they insist that their interpretation of intentionally vague rules that allow multiple interpretations is the RAW and anything else is house rules. I think they blocked me after the last time I challenged them for doing this.

 

[Charlaquin]

go back and reread alll my responces

and i disagree with you. we both read it diffrent no better no worse.

sure it did you just don't like it

no one has argued against this

there is no soundness of the interpretations... there is your side saying ours isn't valid.
we interpretant differently not better not worse just different, and the book is written in a way of natural language to allow for such.

If you aren’t going to accept the basic principles of epistemology, this discussion is pointless. Happy gaming.

 

[HammerMan]

As they said in school: "Show your work..."

Like with actual quotes from the PHB and/or DMG and how you interpret those quotes in play.

We might then be better able to understand where you are coming from in your claim that your playstyle is supported by the rules.

Or don't and we can continue to not understand. Really up to you at this point.

you have been given page numbers, examples of play, and what I do as house rules as apposed to what I do as my interpretation of the rules...

 

[HammerMan]

If you aren’t going to accept the basic principles of epistemology, this discussion is pointless. Happy gaming.

good, because I do not except your logic I do not except your debate club rules, and i do not think you get to decide what is and is not a valid reading of the rules.