D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[HammerMan]

People are free to be incorrect about their reading of the rules. This has nothing to do with respect. I don't lose respect for someone who is not correct. I respect you're a person trying to do your best to make a fun game for your group. You can do that and still be incorrect as to what the rules say on this matter.

you do not get to determain who is and isn't right.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Ah, I get it now. Because the DM is narrating the outcomes of the check, not the behaviors of the PCs.

I mean, let's take the Frightened condition as an example. Even if the DM said that the result of a check imposed the Frightened condition upon the PC, then what? The PC would be bound by the mechanics of the Frightened condition: disadvantage on checks and attacks while the source of fright is within sight, and can't move closer to the source of fright. None of that infringes upon the player determining how their character thinks, speaks, or acts. They might think or say "I ain't afraid of no source of fright", but so what? They can't do certain things as a result. They might try to act brave and move closer but, again, so what? The just because you attempt to do something doesn't mean you can't do it. The player is still deciding on their PC's behaviors - thoughts, actions, speech. The outcomes of those behaviors are constrained now however.

My issue with this example is the movement component. I’m fine with the disadvantage on attacks because you can still swing your sword. I’d even be fine with automatic misses.

But the movement? What exactly happens when I say, “I walk toward the orc”?

“You just can’t.”

I hate that answer. That sounds an awful lot like, “You aren’t allowed to make that decision.”

 

[Lanefan]

What? I argued nothing of the kind. I said that players can (a) roleplay their characters any way they wish. That does not mean (b) they will ignore everything the DM is saying.

(letters inserted into quote for reference)

The problem is that taking (a) to an extreme can and does lead directly to (b).

DM says "No evil PCs". Player says "I can roleplay my character any way I wish" and under cover of this maxim evils the hell out of it. Who wins? (in this particular instance I side with the player).

 

[iserith]

you do not get to determain who is and isn't right.

Sure I can. It's an opinion, but I can definitely formulate my own opinions of someone's position.

 

[Charlaquin]

I believe you when you say you haven't seen a convincing argument. You assert that there can never be uncertainty in specific cases and then anything that contradicts that is easily shunting into configurations where they don't matter.

Nothing has so far been shown to me that contradicts my assertion that the outcome of an attempt to force a player’s character to make a certain decision is not uncertain.

It doesn't matter that monsters have CHA proficiencies because they'll never deploy them outside of GM solo play (itself not well supported in the rules).

“Deploying Proficiencies” is not how proficiencies work, by my understanding of the rules.

It doesn't matter that monster explicitly use ability checks like players to accomplish tasks because you've neatly excised the task of influencing PCs from consideration.

Monsters do use ability checks like players do to accomplish tasks in my understanding of the rules (or to be more accurate, the DM employs ability checks to resolve monsters’ actions like they call for the players to make ability checks to resolve PCs’ actions).

It doesn't matter that the rules explicitly call out a use of a CHA skill to influence what a PC thinks because we've got a neat trick that obfuscates this so we can pretend it doesn't actually tell players what PCs think.

What use of a Charisma skill to influence what a PC thinks are you referring to? I don’t recall anyone citing such a rule.

We also have another neat trick that separates out what a PC knows from what a PC thinks -- a rather strange and arbitrary distinction only useful to support the initial assertion.

I don’t see how that’s a “trick.” What a character knows and what a character thinks are different. They just are. Words mean things.

In fact, the point being missed by all of this is that if you don't adopt the initial assertion you have -- one, if I could remind, that is based on assumption and not direct reference in the rules -

You mean the assumption that all the text in the rulebook is rules text? I’m not shy about my interpretation being founded on that assumption. I think it’s a pretty good assumption. The alternative would be that the rule books contain some text that isn’t rules, and doesn’t call that text out as special. Now, maybe that is indeed the case, and if it is, my position doesn’t really hold up. But as the text is unclear on the matter, we have to assume one way or the other. Any interpretation of the text must be based either on the assumption that the text in question is rules, or the assumption that it is not. Personally, I think the assumption that the text in the rule book is rules is the stronger one.

- all of these other things immediately add weight to the argument that PCs can be influenced by social proficiencies. This is the logical failure point for me -- your argument is circular. The initial assumption is really assuming the conclusion, so every step along the way is easily dealt with because it's always been right from the initial assumption (that the initial assumption causes other problems in other areas is not considered in this case). The can be shown by this pointing out that all of the evidence against you've discounted entirely because of the initial assumption and not any other reason. If you remove that assumption, that evidence is hard to discount otherwise. Your entire argument is assuming the conclusion in the premise.

I don’t think that what you’ve presented as evidence against my position… is. It doesn’t contradict my position like you say it does. So far the best argument against my case I’ve seen is that I’m merely assuming all the text in the rule book is rules, and see above for my stance on that matter. I don’t think you’ve demonstrated that my argument is circular. I’ve explained how each of my assertions flows from one to the other. I would actually argue (and I have, in this thread) that the notion that the social skills are an exception to the player’s ability to decide what their character does is circular, because it relies on the results of a successful ability check to justify the making of an ability check in the first place. It assumes it’s premise that an ability check should be made in that situation.

 

[Lanefan]

I actually don’t think the rules of 5e are hard and fast at all. They straight-up tell you you don’t have to follow them if you don’t want to.

Yet a lot of the argument in this thread seems to be revolving around either different interpretations of the rules (hardly surprising, this is D&D we're talking about!) or different degrees to which a DM/table has chosen to follow them; and if the rules are posited as guidelines then arguing about how closely people adhere to them seems somehow really pointless.

I’m arguing about what the rules support, not what they allow. They allow anything and everything you feel like, so that would be a pretty pointless thing to argue about. But they do support certain things. If you want to run fireball as a spell that does 8d6 fire damage to each creature in a 20-foot-radius sphere of a point within 120 feet of the caster that fails a Dexterity saving throw, and half that much fire damage to each creature in that area that passes, the rules support you in that. If you want to run fireball as a spell that does something else, the rules allow that (because they allow anything and everything), but they don’t support it (because they don’t provide any guidelines around running the spell that way).

For me the difference between "support" and "allow" is fairly small, if any.

 

[Charlaquin]

They would have to recognize that advice on how to roleplay is actually a critical rule that governs large sections of play. I find this assertion to be particularly bald.

Really?! You've adjusted so many of them. You have a special way of dealing with insight vs deception that involves convoluted descriptions while still passing on the information for what the PC is supposed to think about it. You have an artificial distinction between knowing a thing and thinking a thing. You have parts of monster stat blocks being there only to support GM solo play. You have to modify how the basic loop of play functions for particular things. I don't see how you can actually say you haven't adjusted things, even if you believe all of these to be proper and correct! The case for not having to adjust these things would be if each of them was clearly presented in the rules so as to not need the additional thought and alignment to your premise! I mean, we can argue about if these things are persuasive or not, but I can't, for the life of me, see any valid argument for no adjustment needed!

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean by “adjustment.” The objections you raise here do not, in my assessment, contradict my position. The entirety of a monster’s stat block is functional under my interpretation, and consistent with how PCs “use skills.” I find your insistence that what a character knows and what a character thinks are the same thing absurd on its face. I don’t know what you mean by “I have to modify how the basic loop of play functions for particular things” - the basic loop of play is foundational to my interpretation!

 

[HammerMan]

This is where the thing about celebrities/clowns/dogs that you mocked is relevant. Intimidation and persuasiveness (among other things) aren’t objective truths. They are highly dependent upon the observer.

yes, but the game actually has a skill we can fall back on that is (in some rather vauge general way) supposed to represent how intimidating someone can make themselves... and epically when trained I assume that creature (PC/NPC) has trained a bit in how to do it.

Where I agree you I, chris, and becky all find different things scary, I would be VERY broken out of a batman movie if the first time he appears in a shadowy jump scare way none of the criminals flinched...

“The orc was highly intimidating” really means that it exhibited behaviors that some people, but not all, would find intimidating.

okay I can accept that.
I can even except if every now and then a player (or a DM) just out right says "No, that just isn't going to do it" the same way I some times as a DM look at someone weird when they ask if they can have the AC of the moon (old 3e joke) or anything like that... no auto fail is built into the system. Yes auto succuss is built into the system (and my own house rule of no roll needed for any dc less then 10 if trained is even MORE liberal then the defualt that has DCs to roll of 5)

For example, your little anecdote upthread about your sister and her boyfriend…my reaction to that was probably a lot different than you may have imagined. But other people might have had totally different reactions.

actually that WAS my point

what happened and how I reacted may not always be predictable, and it for sure is not always the way you or anyone else will react.

So the important question is: since people react to the same stimuli in different ways, how do we determine how a D&D character reacts?

depends, for the most part we just ask the person playing that character,

And in the absence of more specific rules (such as would be the case with charm spells, or a berserker barbarian’s intimidating presence, or an aboleth’s mind control) the only text we have that is universally applicable is that the player decides.

yes that is what I have been saying...
Orc/Dragon intimidates
succubuss seduces
king makes a persuasive argument

now you decide how you react to this stimuli.

BUT the orc can FAIL to intimidate, and I think with a +2 giving him a range of 3-22 is pretty big, and that is where the die comes in sometimes...

So, no. Although lots in the books is open to interpretation, in this case your interpretation is incorrect.

no it isn't I have back it up multi times

 

[HammerMan]

Sure I can. It's an opinion, but I can definitely formulate my own opinions of someone's position.

yes and as such you can tell people how you read it... when you try to pretend that you are able to out right declair yourself right and everyone else wrong is where the issue comes up.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yet a lot of the argument in this thread seems to be revolving around either different interpretations of the rules (hardly surprising, this is D&D we're talking about!) or different degrees to which a DM/table has chosen to follow them; and if the rules are posited as guidelines then arguing about how closely people adhere to them seems somehow really pointless.

I mean, yeah, we’re arguing about whether or not the rules say to do a thing while all agreeing that it’s ok to do that thing whether the rules say so or not. I’d say pointless is a fair way to describe this argument.

For me the difference between "support" and "allow" is fairly small, if any.

I mean… The rules don’t tell you to run fireball as a spell that deals cold damage to each target in a line. You could run it that way, and the rules don’t disallow it. But you wouldn’t get any help from the rules in doing that. That’s the difference.