D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Charlaquin]

Supposing the player established for me that they (speaking as character) were determined not to give up the information. And I, as DM, have established that this is the Queen's Own Supreme Torturer we are speaking of, who has brought a thousand traitors to confess their villainy, notwithstanding that each was equally determined not to spill. I'm going with - outcome uncertain

And that’s your prerogative. I’m just saying, I don’t think that’s what the rules say to do.

 

[Maxperson]

A counter-position is that ability checks (and skills in their relation) are game mechanics. Game mechanics constitute exceptions to the general rule - or I think more a principle - that players decide. The erroneous carve out is to say that some kinds of ability checks are not like other game mechanics.

That counter fails on its face. The Specific Beats general section says that the exceptions must be specific contradictions or exceptions. A game mechanic that has no such specificity fails that test right out of the gate.

Humans only have a ground speed as a general rule. Casting the fly spell carves out a specific exception, "The target(the human) gains a flying speed of 60 feet for the duration." Humans leave tracks as a general rule. Pass Without Trace carves out a specific exception/contradiction to that, "A creature that receives this bonus leaves behind no tracks or other traces of its passage."

That is the sort of exception that is required for you to override the general rule allowing the PCs to decide their thoughts and actions. See Menacing Strike for an example of that.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Generally, yes, though there is also support in the rules for multiple success/failure thresholds. An example of this would be drow poison, which causes the poisoned condition on a failed save, and also causes the unconscious condition if the save is failed by 5 or more.

Yes, although that's a saving throw and has a number of such examples. Without engaging one of the optional bits of rules, ability checks have no such threshold. They are entirely binary. Personally, I think this is a good choice for the way 5e has chosen to engage in action resolution. Since it focuses on atomic task resolution (as in it usually looks at small, discrete task resolution rather than broader resolutions) the pass/fail mechanic works well to create the fiction.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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? 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. This doesn't hinge on trust at all. 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.

And I think it's worth pointing out that everybody may be fine with playing "Mother May I" but it still is what it is. I mean, it's admittedly a kind of derogatory term, so it's hard to say, "Yeah, we're doing that."

"Policing" character thoughts/player decisions is another way of phrasing it that also gets push back.

But if the DM, or even the other players, have a view of how roleplaying should unfold, and are enforcing "rules" (which might just mean social contract) that don't exist in the rules books, then, yeah, it's Mother May I. Even if everybody agrees with those rules.

 

[Charlaquin]

I disagree with this last. You're confusing the player stating what their character does with a specific game action. If I declare my character tries to knock their opponent prone, this isn't engaging a specific action, it's a description of what I want my character to do. The GM then engages with that, decides if it's uncertain or not (and if not narrates outcome), and, if uncertain, looks for an appropriate mechanical solution -- usually an ability check. And, indeed, we have rules here that help the GM in this middle part by suggesting that knocking prone is something that is usually uncertain and that it should be a STR check opposed by STR or DEX, what proficiencies are relevant for each check, and then constrains the outcome space a tad more tightly than usual (although not much in the knock prone case). This is just an additional bit of increased resolution to the rule details, it's not a special category separate from ability checks. Same with the spells or class abilities -- the player is declaring an action and pointing to the mechanic they'd like to use, the GM still evaluates, and choose to use that mechanic. Those mechanics constrain the outcome space, but not the process.

The using of ability checks to resolve an action is still the same process, just with a different set of constraints on the outcome space for the GM. If you'd like to talk about why spells are so specific on these constraints while ability checks are not, that's an interesting discussion to have, but I don't think it's particularly pertinent to this discussion.

But you can indeed take the Shove action, a player-facing action option, which, much like spells, is a specific game action with specific effects. Resolving a declaration of the Shove action is a different, more specific process than resolving an improvised action, stated in terms of goal and approach. There are many such actions that have such specific resolution procedures, most of them either spells or “actions in combat.”

 

[clearstream]

If an NPC or PC makes an attempt to deceive, intimidate, or persuade a PC, the DM has to assess - like any other action - whether there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. There is no uncertain outcome in this situation, however, since the player determines what the character does, thinks, and says. It's certain that the outcome is whatever the player says it is. No uncertainty, no ability check.

It hinges on how a group grasps game mechanics in forming exceptions to players deciding. So far it seems that those arguing as you do, must say that there are game mechanics that are exceptions, and there are other kinds of mechanics that are not exceptions. The social skills fall into the latter category. But there is no robust, non-arbitrary test for what belongs in each category.

I thought about whether one could say that it comes down to whether the thing covered by the mechanic must be something a player cannot decide their character does. For example, in relation to shove, a player can't decide their character moves 5' when it is not their turn. One problem with that view is that there are cases when a thing is both covered by a mechanic and also something that a player could decide that their character does, such as feel frightened. Another is that a character can move out of turn, if a game mechanic permits or forces it, including if the player does and if the player does not want their character to so move. We end up searching for a boundary where none exists, or establishing the boundary on the basis of arbitrary assertions we make about what is allowed.

In real life many people who were tortured, died without giving up information. Or lasted a very long time. That combined with the PCs being heroes means that the DM probably shouldn't take away the Players right to decide for his PC. Unless the player agrees to that anyway.

Alas, but the Supreme Torturer rolled well and the character broke. Who knew that they would do that in the very first hour of torment? But so it went.

 

[Lyxen]

Right. Nobody here is arguing that nothing prevents it. The problem is that a lack of prevention doesn't equate to allowance. And even if it it did allow it, nothing anywhere in the social interaction section comes close to carving out an exception or contradiction to the general rule allowing the player to decide what his PC thinks or says. So even if you do allow it, the player is the one that gets to decide if the outcome is in doubt or if the attempt automatically succeeds/fails.

The rules just say "someone", so it's clearly any character in the game world. About the effects, see below.

The PHB involves any possible use of charisma on an NPC. Those wider checks use the rules, "Only roll if the outcome is in doubt," "Only roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure," and "The more difficult the task, the higher its DC." The effects of the check are open to DM interpretation based on the circumstances at hand.

Exactly, which means that there is no prescribed effect for success or failure whether on NPC or PC (and used by NPCs or PCs, although the PH speaks to players, clearly NPCs have social skills too), which means that it does not have prescriptive valus on anyone, whether PC or NPC. It's just that the DM interpret what it does on an NPC (which he controls) just as a player interprets what it does on a PC (which he controls).

I will add to this that the effect might, in every case, be partial depending on the circumstances, for example the kobold intimidated in sitting quietly might do it, or not, but he might also do it and plot something else as soon as the intimidator is away, etc.

 

[Lyxen]

If an NPC or PC makes an attempt to deceive, intimidate, or persuade a PC, the DM has to assess - like any other action - whether there's an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. There is no uncertain outcome in this situation, however, since the player determines what the character does, thinks, and says. It's certain that the outcome is whatever the player says it is. No uncertainty, no ability check.

This is where I disagree, there is uncertainty, namely whether the NPC will appear persuasive, intimidating to the PC, or whether his deception will be obvious or not. So an ability check is absolutely called for. After that, the PC can decide what he does with that information, but the information provided by the DM WILL depend on the result of the check, and in particular:

• He seems very convincing and truthful.
• He seemed unsure of himself and is uncomfortable, as if lying

 

[iserith]

It hinges on how a group grasps game mechanics in forming exceptions to players deciding. So far it seems that those arguing as you do, must say that there are game mechanics that are exceptions, and there are other kinds of mechanics that are not exceptions. The social skills fall into the latter category. But there is no robust, non-arbitrary test for what belongs in each category.

Specific beating general requires a specific contradiction which ability checks do not meet in this case. The key here is a lack of uncertainty negating the call for an ability check. It needn't go any further than that.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Sorry, meant to get back to this. No, this is still a poor argument. The existence of a rule to cover a specific action doesn't mean that lack of such a rule means you cannot do a different thing. This is, in essence, the reason to have a GM rather than a tightly codified set of rules -- to handle those areas the rules are lacking. And 5e is built on this premise of using the GM as much as possible to cover such rather than write rules as 3e did.

So, no, the rules for shove and grapple do not imply anything about other applications of ability checks. They merely codify how you would do a shove or grapple in more detail than is provided for other actions, most likely because these are common concepts in the combat engine and that engine has a higher resolution than anywhere else in the ruleset.

Ok, I've rolled this around for a while and I think I agree. Essentially they've kit-bashed their own general rules to create a useful specific rule, so there's nothing saying that DMs can't do the same thing.

My argument would be like looking at the "Idea Book" in an erector set and saying, "They have examples of trucks, but no space ships, so I guess this kit isn't supposed to be used to build space ships."

Fortunately, there are enough other reasons that an orc's attempt to intimidate my character can't force me to do something I don't want to that this particular argument is unnecessary.