D&D General "I roll Persuasion."

[Ruin Explorer]

I tell you one thing you don't do - leave something that important to opposed rolls between the PC and NPC. That's just anti-climatic as heck.

What do you think D&D combat is exactly lol?

I thought it was obvious, but to be clear, the assumption is that the arguments are made alongside the rolls, and influence the rolls. You role-play between the rolls. That's like, D&D in a nutshell.

 

[Reynard]

"The GM can't really argue with himself"? Really?

One of the most famous sessions I ever ran was the ceasefire period during the Battle of Starmantle in which, with the city 2/3rds taken by the rebel army and the Queen's forces backed basically into her castle, the lesser lords and burgomasters sought audience with the PC leader of the rebellion in order to come to some sort of understanding with the potential new leaders of the country. This "meet and greet" was actually a pretext for resolving the question, "Who is going to be the new monarch if you win?" Twenty-one NPCs in my hands (more than that if you count NPC leaders of the rebellion), arguing with each other and the party, with the PC leader trying to persuade them to support his cause.

Absolutely you can argue with yourself. You just need a lot of prep work to do it convincingly.

I tell you one thing you don't do - leave something that important to opposed rolls between the PC and NPC. That's just anti-climatic as heck.

If your players enjoyed an impromptu one man show, good for you! But you weren't arguing with yourself, you were (improv) acting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If your players enjoyed an impromptu one man show, good for you! But you weren't arguing with yourself, you were (improv) acting.

From the sound of it he wasn't even fully improv-acting, but rather had elaborately prepared a good show! Kind of would have liked to see it!

 

[Bill Zebub]

I like your self-analysis to see if your thinking is consistent here, but please let me ask, would you be okay with a DM who "improv'd" that because X spell was cast on Y artifact, that artifact radiated pulses of fear for three rounds? Assume for the sake of the question that this sorta-basically made sense given the known properties of the artifact, but absolutely was not codified in the rules whatsoever? There isn't a "wrong" answer to this, I'm just trying to get a sense - I'm guessing you wouldn't like that either anyway.

Or what about a DM who rules that the roof instantly collapses because of a player casting Shatter right by a structural pillar (which the had no idea nor warning was structural, and indeed, we don't know if it was until the DM said it was), and then damaging and prone'ing and incapacitating PCs in the area (with no save for those except the ones on the edge)? I don't see a meaningful difference between a DM insisting my PC is incapacitated and prone, even though it's complete improv and I may find it entirely implausible, and insisting my PC is prone and incapacitated

I think from my perspective, if it's unreasonable for an improv'd non-magical effect to take away control, it unreasonable for a magical one too, if improv'd, and all improv'd infliction of serious conditions is probably crossing a similar line.

There's definitely a "degree of trust", issue, and a DM who is constantly improv'ing that his NPCs cause Frighten or similar effects non-magically is probably not going to be very popular with his players, but I suspect that is also true of a DM constantly improv'ing poison, paralysis, incapacitate and so on, on his PCs.

Either way I agree codification helps.

Good stuff. I appreciate the use of murky edge-case to tease out nuance, where so many posters instead try to find examples that prove the other side wrong.

I have no problem with either of your examples, for two reasons:
1. They apply to fairly specific circumstances, as opposed to skills that can be used by any character, any time, so they don't have the same kind of broad implications that I worry about.
2. In the first example, "but magic", which makes it more palatable to me. The second example is about the physical environment, and external/physical impact on PCs, which is the sole purview of the DM anyway (in my view).

So I guess it's not really just about codification, but also the mental/physical divide. It's a 2x2 matrix, where one question is, "Is it physical or mental?" and the other is "Is it codified or not?" Or maybe 2x2x2, with "Is it magical?" in the z-axis. It's mostly the cases where it's mental, non-magical, and not codified that really gets my hackles up, although codified/mental/non-magical also rubs me the wrong way on principle.

 

[payn]

Emphasis mine.
I feel like that is a very strange take. The whole point of that system was to round out characters by giving them multiple things that define their motivations.

My experience they are almost entirely ignored. The few times I saw it played out, it was spammed to a ridiculous point. "You are the guy who likes books!" "You are the guy that hates being alone" The BIFTs were reduced to an easily memorable statement that was played out like a sit-com. Ended up having the opposite effect of giving any rounding or interesting character motivation or personality. YMMV.

 

[Reynard]

My experience they are almost entirely ignored. The few times I saw it played out, it was spammed to a ridiculous point. "You are the guy who likes books!" "You are the guy that hates being alone" The BIFTs were reduced to an easily memorable statement that was played out like a sit-com. Ended up having the opposite effect of giving any rounding or interesting character motivation or personality. YMMV.

I don't use them, mostly because no one ever remembers Inspiration anyway, but defining 4 points of character versus 1 (alignment) just seems like it should result in rounder characters. But I see how it could end up just giving certain players a catch phrase, as you described.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What do you think D&D combat is exactly lol?

I thought it was obvious, but to be clear, the assumption is that the arguments are made alongside the rolls, and influence the rolls. You role-play between the rolls. That's like, D&D in a nutshell.

i try to imagine if enworld was a thing in the 70's and gary and dave got on here and people told them "Don't let PCs roll for hitting, make them show they can" or something something cinematic no opposed rolls

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Good stuff. I appreciate the use of murky edge-case to tease out nuance, where so many posters instead try to find examples that prove the other side wrong.

I have no problem with either of your examples, for two reasons:
1. They apply to fairly specific circumstances, as opposed to skills that can be used by any character, any time, so they don't have the same kind of broad implications that I worry about.
2. In the first example, "but magic", which makes it more palatable to me, and the example case is about the physical environment, and external/physical impact on PCs, which is the sole purview of the DM anyway (in my view).

So I guess it's not really just about codification, but also the mental/physical divide. It's a 2x2 matrix, where one question is, "Is it physical or mental?" and the other is "Is it codified or not?" Or maybe 2x2x2, with "Is it magical?" in the z-axis. It's mostly the cases where it's mental, non-magical, and not codified that really gets my hackles up, although codified/mental/non-magical also rubs me the wrong way on principle.

I think specificity is another interesting thing you bring up.

In the old Page 42 rules for 4E, the rules on improvising damage and condition infliction, one of the major factors that encouraged the DM to go with a higher "damage expression" or inflict nastier conditions was specificity. If this situation was unique, and not something the PC could easily replicate (which is actually, like, a lot of improv-situations), then it worked a lot better.

I think the same kind of applies here. Like, if the players have a very specific way to exploit the specific NPC's fears, then maybe having them inflict Frighten or whatever is absolutely fine. We've all probably had a bunch of Orcs or Goblins or the like flee from the PCs pulling some kind of scam that they were outnumbered or an army was coming up or something (assisted by illusion magic sometimes, but not always - I once had PCs pull it off with pots, a trumpet and a lot of shouting).

 

[payn]

yeah this is why we stopped using alignment (and never used the traits flaws ect) there is this super small list that are supposed to perfectly grab all of human experience

See, thats an exaggeration of the intent of alignment. It's not supposed to simulate all human experience. It's to inform motivations and methods of characters form a general sociological perspective. Also, in some editions, it provides mechanical systems for a cosmological setting.

I do agree, that often the trait and flaw systems are too narrow and not long enough to scratch the surface of personality and character. Which is why I dont consider alignment part of that, its general, not specific.

this reminds me of an issue with old world of darkness (another game that like D&D I still play) where players would pour over flaws that gave the most amount of pts for the least in game effect.

Right, the more mechanical the social trait is, the more min/max behavior appears.

 

[Bill Zebub]

is what drives me nuts... "magic can do this, but no one could ever imagine someone doing it"
grifters and con men just do not exists in some peoples fantasy life.

You are conflating what can happen in the real world with what gets implemented by deterministic game mechanics. Two examples to illustrate why this is the wrong way to think about it:

1. There are no mechanics for turning into an alcoholic from hanging out in taverns in D&D. And yet this happens all the time in the real world. "It drives me nuts that players can't imagine their characters becoming alcoholics." Claiming there isn't a rule making something happen to your character is not the same as not being able to imagine it happening to your character.

2. DM: "As you walk into the tent, the orc chieftain takes a huge bite from a haunch of meat, bone and all, and stares at you while he chews, bones loudly crunching. He swallows with a gulp and says, "So, are you prepared to surrender?""
Player: "Ha, that's awesome. Ok, my gnome is about the size of that haunch of meat, and I have a Wisdom of 7, so I would be a little freaked out by that. I stammer a bit and say, 'Uh...well, what terms were you thinking, sir?'"
There: an NPC influenced a PC. Working as intended.

Or maybe I should rephrase that last one as, "It drives me nuts...some people can't imagine players actually roleplaying, and think they need to compel them to roleplay in the way they think is correct."