D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Ovinomancer]

I think we are agreeing, but please clarify if not. I am saying that all game mechanics - ability checks (even CHA ability checks) included - can override player authority over the beliefs and actions of their character. Perhaps we don't agree that there is a general rule that except where overrided by a game mechanic, players decide what their characters think and do.


That too, is my intended point. I wanted to adduce such examples into the argument.

Fast moving thread sometimes, hard to keep everyone's current positions in mind. It appears we are in agreement.

 

[Lyxen]

Failure to get intent means the GM assumes it.

Why should he ? Just take the actions at face value, like most people do in normal life.

This leads to problems. If intent is so time consuming that you ban it from your tables, I'm not sure what that play even looks like. Can you describe what you've experienced with player's including intent? What must a player announce to search a door for traps if he cannot suggest that the PC's intent is to find any traps on the door?

It was not a problem of DM, it was a problem of players, some of them saying "I do this because my intent is that one" in the hope that other players would maybe suggest a better course of action to achieve that intent, or would understand some subliminal message, or just because the player want to justify his actions.

We have stopped this, and now people just describe the actions of their characters, and if someone has doubts or wants clarification, they can ask in character what the intent is and receive an intent in character, although not in combat or in any case restricted by combat communication limits.

The day we implemented this, the amount of time spent fighting was divided in half, and a lot of other debates were cut short as well. Not to mention nice in character qui pro quos when people interpreted actions the wrong way, just as happens in normal life, assuming a nasty intent or the other way around.

 

[Maxperson]

and there is nothing that says how intimidate works at all...

That's not true.

We know it's a charisma check by a PC "...to influence someone through overt threats, hostile actions and physical violence." When the PC makes such an attempt, "...the DM might ask you to make a Charisma (Intimidation) check."

The PHB is written in natural language talking to the players and the DM is not going to ask himself to make such a check, so the natural language is for it to work on NPCs, not PCs.

The result of success or failure of the attempt to influence the NPC through intimidation is up to the DM.

 

[Maxperson]

the only rule in the game that is PC only is Death Saves.

That's not true, either. Read the Monsters and Death section which carves out specific exceptions to that.

 

[HammerMan]

It's not a trust issue. I don't really see how you can have a successful game of any stripe with trust issues. It's a conception issue -- who's directing play when?

well by RAW the DM is incontrol of everything but PCs (including all things the PC feels,sees,smells,tastes, and like 20 other senses) in my home games it is a little diffrent becuse we all like to horse around and add little things, but that is still 90% of my game.

In yours, it's the GM's ideas of how things should go at all times. The players are in Mother May I mode, asking for concessions or suggesting ideas.

nope, infact since we all know my defualt answer is "Yes, and" they almost never need to ask may they, or what will happen if...

This doesn't hinge on trust at all.

except the part where the players trust the DM to control the world (including NPCs and Monsters) in ways that make the game fun and playable with a bit of challange.

It's a preference that if I've engaged the fiction and made a check that the result of that check is honored in play. This also requires trust. I find the immediate reach for "trust issues" any time the authority of the GM to do whatever they want to be simplistic and myopic. There are other reasons I can want my check results to matter.

As for the not 100% right, that's what failures are for, not successes. Again, my opinion on play.

again being successful at something AND getting someone (or something) to react to your success the way you want are two different things.

You ripped the bar off the door
You climbed the tree
You growled in a mencing way
You spoke an oddly specific and way overly gross and gorey speech and made him believe you meant it
You recalled the lore you asked to recall

none of these go father...

if the door is still magically sealed and locked it isn't openable even though you wanted to open it
If there was nothing up the tree you climbed it, but found nothing
If growling at the guard made him yell for back up you still scared the poop out of him
You made a great Intimidate check (even if the way you said it freaked out the table and paused gameplay)but instead of just taking your money he fell back scared and those dogs you wanted to buy are now in full protector mode.
If the lore isn't enough to know who cast the spell, you still made the check and sucseeded in remembering it, I gave it to you, but you still need to find out who cast the spell.

 

[HammerMan]

That's not true.

We know it's a charisma check by a PC "...to influence someone through overt threats, hostile actions and physical violence." When the PC makes such an attempt, "...the DM might ask you to make a Charisma (Intimidation) check."

The PHB is written in natural language talking to the players and the DM is not going to ask himself to make such a check, so the natural language is for it to work on NPCs, not PCs.

The result of success or failure of the attempt to influence the NPC through intimidation is up to the DM.

and how does that influence play out? Once someone is intimidated how do they react?

 

[Maxperson]

the limited number shows that they DID think about them useing it...

That's an assumption, not a fact.

 

[Charlaquin]

It would be helpful if you'd stop Fisking. I'm not delivering a Gish Gallop, so separating sentences that are thematically connected is really just looking to isolate and defeat in turn rather than deal with the argument as a whole. This is apparent throughout as the only argument you're really putting forward is that you like your assumption and are using it as a club while ignoring any other issues that arise from it.

Your posts often contain several points I take issue with. Separating them is an easier way to make sure I address them all. But, I’ll try to take your posts in bigger blocks if you prefer.

For example, in the first exchange the structure of your argument is that:
Assumption: All text is rules unless specifically called out otherwise.
Assertion: Ability checks are all written from the stance of the PCs taking action.
Conclusion: Monsters can also use ability checks despite no rules text indicating this, just not specific ones.

There are numerous problems with this. The one I was addressing was that there is no logical result from the assumptions and assertions that can result in that conclusion. You've smuggled in additional assumptions but not stated them. It's a bad argument. However, the larger problem for your argument is that the opening for the Ability checks specifically says they can be used by both the PCs and the Monsters. No special carve out is made for any of the six abilities or their associated proficiencies. In short, this entire argument is flawed at the assertion level.

You’re misrepresenting my argument here. My argument is:

Assumption: All text is rules unless specifically called out otherwise.
Assertion: According to the text, the DM determines the outcomes of actions, calling for an ability check to be made if necessary to resolve uncertainty in the outcome.
Assertion: The text stating that players decide what their characters do makes the outcome of any action taken with the goal of forcing the character to decide to do something certain, unless the rules governing that action contain a specific exception to that general rule.
Conclusion: The rules do not support the DM in calling for an ability check to resolve an action taken with the goal of forcing the character to decide to do something.

There have basically been two ways people have tried to counter this argument: one is to say that the rules for ability checks in the player’s handbook constitute a specific exception to the general rule that players decide what their characters do. This argument is not compelling to me, because I do not see anywhere in that text that the general rule is directly contradicted. From my reading, that text is addressed to the player and serves to inform them of when they might be called upon by the DM to make an ability check. The other is to try to argue that the text saying players decide what their characters do is not rules text. That is certainly possible; if my assumption is incorrect, then my conclusion is not necessarily sound. My counter to that is, if not all text in the rule books is rules text, and the rule books don’t tell us what text is rules text and what text isn’t, then we have no means by which to establish what the actual rules are. And maybe that is the case, but I favor an interpretation that gives a clear foundation from which to understand the rules.

This means that we're back to dealing with your assumption with regards to the single sentence in the Roleplaying section of the DMG (not even the PHB, so a player not reading the DMG is unaware of this critical rule and a GM that hasn't scrutinized the text for oddly placed rules would similarly be unaware of this critical rule). And the rest of your post follows this argument. You claim that your assumption makes the least hash of the rest of the rules, except I'm not sure it doesn't. For one, we have to take this single sentence and read it back into the entirety of the rest of the rules such that in a step where multiple places in the text the GM is assigned the job of determining uncertainty we have to consider this one sentence is a strong and inviolable constraint on the GM's responsibility.

I find it a little strange that you criticize my argument for taking yours point by point instead of holistically, and then argue for an interpretation of the rules that takes them point by point instead of holistically.

Yet it's not mentioned in any of these places at all. Instead, we have additional rules information that does tell us monsters use CHA ability checks in exactly the same way as PCs. We have rules information that tells us that success on these abilities for both monsters and PCs is the same. Granted, we have additional information for NPCs that we do not have for PCs for how these can interact, but this doesn't obviate the multitude of other rules that indicate parity between PCs and NPCs and also how the text fails to note this critical limitation on the GM in the multiple places it talks about how the GM determines uncertainty and resolves it.

In my reading, PCs and NPCs do not “use” ability checks. The DM makes ability checks to resolve uncertainty in the outcome of actions, or calls on the players to do so. In this way, there is parity between how the players and the DM employ ability checks. When a PC takes an action with an uncertain outcome, the DM calls on that PC’s player to make an ability check. When an NPC takes an action with an uncertain outcome, the DM makes an ability check. When a character - be they PC or NPC - attempts to force a PC to make a decision, the outcome of that action is not uncertain, unless the rules governing that action contain a specific exception to the rule in question. Therefore, there is not support in the rules for the DM to make or call for an ability check to resolve such an action.

In short, your argument that your reading makes the most sense has to overcome the problem that it relies on taking a single sentence from a section not about running the game but about how players can engage in roleplaying and extrapolates that into a binding constraint on the GM that's not mentioned in the at least 4 other places I can think of that the part of the basic play loop relating to the GM determining uncertainty is discussed in detail.

It’s not a particularly binding constraint. The DM can decide to call for an ability check in that situation, just as they can decide not to call for an attack roll when one character tries to harm another. But, I don’t believe the rules support the DM in either ruling.

The argument also has to deal with the fact that this kind of reading (all text is rules unless specifically excluded by the text) leads to numerous other contradictions and confusion points. It also directly flies in the face of the natural language approach the developers have been clear about where conversational styles were adopted in large sections of the book that are not meant to be read as explicit rules.

I believe there are many places that the stated intent of the rules clearly contradict the idea that the language in the rules is natural. It is intact quite technical despite a conversational tone. At any rate, I don’t agree that this interpretation leads to contradictions. Maybe you could point one out.

My suggestion would be to abandon the claim that you have the most bestest epistemologically sound argument. It relies on assumption as much as any other, and has to engage in special pleading for the conflicts it creates as well.

I don’t make such a claim. There was one person who’s counter arguments against my position were not epistemologically sound. I have stopped engaging with that person. I acknowledge that my argument relies on an assumption. I think it’s a good assumption and I have not been given reason to believe it doesn’t hold up.

I don't disagree with your conclusion -- social skills working on PCs is icky, involves GM Czege violations, and steps hard on the narrow front of player agency in 5e.

That’s not my conclusion. We agree on how best to run the game, but apparently not on why.

There are plenty of good reasons to not allow this. Heck, even your reading of the rules is a good and solid reason. Claiming it's the most bestest logical reading, though, it kinda out-of-bounds. It's a reasonable reading, but it's not as solid as you seem to think it is.

Again, I don’t claim it’s the bestest logical reasoning. I think it’s well reasoned, and so far arguments against it have not been very compelling.

Finally, to drive home the point about social skills and the problem with the Roleplaying Rule -- insight vs deception. If the PC is declaring an action to get a read on an NPC, that can be resolved by the PC's Insight vs the NPC's Deception. The result informs the PC of how their character thinks on the topic. Yes, I'm aware that you can take pains to carefully state the result in a way that doesn't directly tell the player how their PC thinks, but that's just a smokescreen, because the player is fundamentally asking to resolve what their PC thinks of the NPC. Unless you stick to just describing facial tics and eye shifts, in which case you're either encoding the same info into a puzzle for the PC or just providing largely useless information the player can't reconcile, the result of this check will be telling the player something their PC thinks. And this is a specifically allowed interaction in the rules, so it's 100% under the "all text is rules" assumption. We now have to engage in some form of special pleading to excuse this violation of the rule (probably under some form of "specific defeats general" which then opens new fronts against why CHA checks, being more specific, don't overrule the Roleplaying Rule). There are logical holes all over this argument as well. It's not really the argument's fault, though, 5e is written in a loose manner that defies strict interpretation.

Ok, see this is a pretty compelling counterpoint. Here’s my rebuttal to it:

The PHB says, “Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.” So, an example of an action a player might take that the rules would support the DM in calling for a Wisdom (Insight) check to resolve would be one where the PC attempts to discern information about another character’s emotional state by observing their body language. I would argue that the goal is not to determine what the PC thinks, but what they notice. It is comparable to a check to find hidden details of the environment or to recall lore; the uncertainty is in what information the character gleans, not what they think about it. I do actually have a preference for giving this information in terms of what the character can directly observe rather than feeding the player specific conclusions based on that information, but I do think the rules support a more “you can tell he’s nervous based on the way his eyes dart around” type of answer.

I happen to agree in large part with the approach you employ, I just can't stand behind this argument to support it.

I still think you’re getting the wrong impression of what my argument actually is.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Why should he ? Just take the actions at face value, like most people do in normal life.



It was not a problem of DM, it was a problem of players, some of them saying "I do this because my intent is that one" in the hope that other players would maybe suggest a better course of action to achieve that intent, or would understand some subliminal message, or just because the player want to justify his actions.

We have stopped this, and now people just describe the actions of their characters, and if someone has doubts or wants clarification, they can ask in character what the intent is and receive an intent in character, although not in combat or in any case restricted by combat communication limits.

The day we implemented this, the amount of time spent fighting was divided in half, and a lot of other debates were cut short as well. Not to mention nice in character qui pro quos when people interpreted actions the wrong way, just as happens in normal life, assuming a nasty intent or the other way around.

Weird. I mean, if I search a door for traps, I usually say something like, "Bob searches the door for traps." I include my intent. But, you're saying that this causes arguments? I'm not sure I follow that. It seems the problem you're describing is much larger in scope and actually something different.

I mean, if I want to intimidate a captured kobold into sitting quietly, can I not include this as my intent? Do I just say I'm intimidating the kobold and hope the GM takes it at the same face value I intended it? Or should I just expect to get what I get?

 

[Lyxen]

That's not true.
We know it's a charisma check by a PC "...to influence someone through overt threats, hostile actions and physical violence." When the PC makes such an attempt, "...the DM might ask you to make a Charisma (Intimidation) check."

The PHB is written in natural language talking to the players and the DM is not going to ask himself to make such a check, so the natural language is for it to work on NPCs, not PCs.

I don't want to go over all the rules again, but above, it just mentions "someone", it does not specify whether that someone is a PC or an NPC, actually.

The result of success or failure of the attempt to influence the NPC through intimidation is up to the DM.

And as you point out here, except in the case where the attempt is on a NPC to change his attitude (which is a DMG rule), we still don't know how it works, there is no technical effect associated with success or failure.