D&D General "I roll Persuasion."

[GMforPowergamers]

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.

yes but even breaking that down to 9 sets of 2word combo's doesn't work well.

just look at the alignment arguments anywhere... is batman LG NG CG or maybe N or LE or sometimes CE...
and you can do this with MOST characters with any range of interpretations and actions... some characters you can fill in all 9 spots argueing for.

Also, in some editions, it provides mechanical systems for a cosmological setting.

I was glad that with those gone we could just stop useing it.

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.

it reminds me of conmen cold reading "You had someone in your life that died right" it is so general it fitts anyone

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

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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:

okay... maybe not starting off telling someone how they think or feel is wrong would be more helpful... I will try to ignore that though.

1. There are no mechanics for turning into an alcoholic from hanging out in taverns in D&D.

okay... there are most likely 1,000 things that don't have spelled out mechanics... there isn't even a drunk condition (although we have fun with poisioned)

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.

okay but you see becoming an alcoholic would require they choose to go to the bar and drink... and I can't imagine what such a condition/flaw brings to the game. I may be wrong you might have a GREAT idea... but so far you are just saying "Here is something missing"

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.

I mean we could also play cow boys and natives and I could say "Bang I shot you" and the other kid lay down playing dead... the rules come up when he says "No you missed" we need a mechanic to resolve the uncertainty of "did I hit or miss"

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."

the way they think is correct... that seems more like someone worried about

the wrong way to think about it:

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Alignment is... a lot of thing, most of them bad.

bad, useless, a toothless subsystem tacked on for legacy sack... a meme...

 

[Maxperson]

does not charm and dominate already do this?
we HAVE effects for this.

the same way you don't (out of game) get mad that a NPC or PC spent a single action to dominated you to attack your party healer... now your character most likely wont like it when it wares off... why would if be worse if over a 10 min period you and a maste manipulator had a mental show down that ended with you being dominated or charmed... cause again when it wares off or is countered (deprograming even works on cult members) your character can hate the person.

It's different with magic. Relatively few NPCs have those spells, but everyone can talk to people. Not to mention, if we could just talk and charm/dominate people, what's the point of those spells? There's also a reason why cults go after people who are of certain mindsets that are open to manipulation, and why they are generally very small(it's hard to find lots of those people).

I would think so... a group of grifters can most likely not only get you to do X that you don't want to...but make you think it was your own idea in the first place...

the 'crazy' one everyone used to use on here was "No matter how high your bluff is you can't bluff the king into giving you his kingdom"

but I bet you could...set up a false identity as his nephew (since his brother disappeared) start by not wanting to impose... another character is impersonating the kings advisor and warns that there is some new threat... other party members make that threat look real. The 'new nephew' is set up to save the king from a threat that isn't really there... but the king feels he owes him and the advisor 'reluctantly' says you could give him a duke or baron title, but there are none available... and when the king says he can just make one 'it's good to be the king' the advisor says 'oh once in history your great great great grandfather made a position that was basically duke of the palace, and hiar to the thrown, but I don't think you want... and the king says he is going to do it since he has no kids of his own... yeah you just went from 2 warriors a fast talking rogue and a warlock that can disguise self at will to being a heart beat from king... oh and the king is sure it was his idea...

Yeah. Maybe. Think of internet scams and other ploys. There's a reason why they are mostly successful at scamming the elderly who tend not to think as clearly as those who are younger.

So you set all of that up and the king calls his wizard advisor to confirm your story with magic and other planar information, and the cleric to verify the truth by having you all speak under a zones of truth separately and then confirm the story. Or maybe you get lucky and the king is 90 years old, not mentally all there, and he falls for it.

In any case, the king is not a PC and doesn't have agency which you are stealing via social skills. Social skills by the way, which the 5e DMG strongly implies do not work on PCs, and which Crawford confirmed don't work on PCs.

 

[Maxperson]

never in my life have I meet someone so sure they can not be conned...

Nobody has yet. And people have tried.

 

[Maxperson]

These are the best marks. You convince them they are winning when the entire time they are being swindled.

Unless of course you are able recognize when things are too good to be true. I've had several people attempt it.

 

[Reynard]

It's different with magic.

This does seem to be a common perspective on the subject. I wonder why.

Have (general) you ever been pushed over the edge by an insult? Or maybe too tired to argue with someone? Or so smitten that you agree to things you know are a bad idea? If so, you have lost a "social combat." And if it can happen to you, it can happen your character.

 

[payn]

This does seem to be a common perspective on the subject. I wonder why.

Have (general) you ever been pushed over the edge by an insult? Or maybe too tired to argue with someone? Or so smitten that you agree to things you know are a bad idea? If so, you have lost a "social combat." And if it can happen to you, it can happen your character.

Its the uncanny valley between magic and mundane. Magic is special and rare and powerful, and mundane is routine and plentiful. So, folks might be able to stretch a bit and see social combat maybe giving the charmed person condition to a skill combat, but never something like dominate.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I can see that. How do you sniff them out? I can see this creating a lot of lone wolf hyper protective of their BIFTs so they dont get worked by the system players. How do you avoid that?

yeah... I was just thinking that. There was a 3.0 prestige class (I can't remember the name but in the first splat sword and fist) that made you batman light... you got cool powers but not if someone knew your name.

the problem was it never spelled out what your name meant (is it a magical true name, is it what your parents named you, is it any common name you accept and answer too?) I am going to give a little real life info about my name... it is Robert. that is what is on my birth certificate and all my pay checks... however I have also never in my life been in a class without another Robert. so here is all the (non insulting) names I have been called/known as Rob, Robby, Bob, Bobby, Beto, Bert, and Robert... plus sometimes just my last name (Sr year honors English) so to someone who knew me as Bobby, is that my name?

So when he introduced us to himself as hawk... everyone in town knew him as hawk, and he said that the only other people to know his real name died when he was a child (cause of course he was an orphan) nobody could ever use that weakness... but when pointed out that hawk had become his new name he got mad. Add to this we had a player at that time that for (reasons) had changed her name IRL, and got quite upset at the concept that if you change or choose a name it would not be a 'real name'...

Now we all knew this game would end up with PVP... but we got REALLY high like 15th level before it did. However the wizard had legend lore and wanted to use it to get "hawks" birth name and this caused an even BIGGER fight about what the word name means.

trying to hide facts leads to issues, and where "hawk" was not the only player doing the "I'm a lone wolf and no one can know me" routine I have to say that I can imagine that similar things would happen (and with NPCs too) if this was a more general rule

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This is what I use Insight for. Not lie detection.

yeah someone in the other thread said something about this and it stuck with me that I could (without useing the flaw system) use insight as a self help action... use insight hit DC X and you then get advantage on persuasion rolls against the target for a length of time