D&D General "I roll Persuasion."

[pemerton]

This thread is strange. There are actual working "social combat" systems in some actual RPGs, and presumably a 5e D&D system would resemble one or more of these.

For instances, 4e D&D had skill challenges that could be used to resolve social situations. Why wouldn't something like this work for 5e D&D?

 

[Reynard]

No. It's like 1 or 2 orcs jumping a 1st level fighter. If the PC can lose, and it's possible for that loss to force him to do something he would never do, then that particular social combat system is crap. If it can't force an outcome like that, then I'm not sure what the point of it is.

Why are you ignoring the proposition that the stakes are set by the player(s) before the contest begins? Why are you so adamantly assuming that the whole idea is some ruse to force your character to do horrible things?

 

[Bill Zebub]

If your position is that you don't think it would be fun to have a social combat system where PCs can force NPCs into specific actions, but failing to do so has consequences, then fine. You don't think it would be fun, no problem. But persuasion is something people seem to treat like it is nothing with any power, when it is the most fundamentally powerful thing in society beyond pure violence.

No, I have said that I think a more robust, interesting “social combat” subsystem could be cool. I just don’t think one needs to invoke real life examples of extreme persuasion to justify it, nor would I want enablement of those extreme examples to be the goal. YMMV.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think you should.

I don't. I am the one who pointed it out, after all.

Whereas FATE very much encourages the GM to flex his omnipotence during the game to create obstacles and problems in response to the players efforts.

In D&D, creating new resources in order to keep alive a favored NPC villain is considered bad form. In FATE, it's considered normal and even encouraged.

Not quite.

The GM is expected to create difficulties and problems. But not "as a response to the players' efforts". It is not supposed to be a "move-countermove" dynamic, and is not supposed to be adversarial. The GM is not creating difficulties for the purpose of protecting their favored NPC alive. They are crating difficulties because difficulties are interesting.

And at this point, we can note that Fate is from... Evil Hat Productions. The people who brought us Blades in the Dark, and the GM Principle, "Be a fan of the PCs". The advice giving to GMs in Fate about exercising their power are not so succinct, but amount to something very similar.

Player control over the narrative therefore depends not on the game, but no an on going metagame conversation.

This sentence abstracts what actually happens in play behind jargon.

Personally, as a player I find no real distinction between "No" and "Yes, and..." except that "Yes, and..." feels far more frustrating and adversarial to me in practice.

I cannot speak to your experience, or diagnose your particular problems, not having witnessed them. I can make guesses, but I'd not have much confidence in them.

I have played and run a lot of Fate - it has never been adversarial for me on either side of the screen.

Consider the two scenarios:

Player: May I have a cupcake?
DM: No.
Player: Alright, may I have a cookie?

Player: May I have a cupcake?
DM: Yes, and when you take a bite out of it, it has live roach in it!
Player: I think I'm going to skip the cookie.

Except, of course, that's not what is happening. The player is not asking if they can have a thing. They are asking if they can try to accomplish a thing.

If the player asks if they can make cupcakes, the GM is not supposed to negate baking success - they are supposed to add to the situation. A more proper complication is not a live roach in the cupcake, as that ruins the cupcake. Better would be, the obnoxious neighbors come to the door, see the cupcakes, and ask if they could have them because they look delicious. The cupcakes are still just as nice, but having them for dessert after dinner got a bit more complicated....

In practice I find that this simply allows the FATE GM to decide whatever consequences he wants based on his arbitrary definitions of the above terms.

Yes, and in D&D, every single room can have a trap in it that says, "Rocks fall, everyone dies". Absolutely nothing in the contract prohibits that adventure design fiat. No game actually protects you from problematic GM behavior. A clever person can always find ways to abuse a ruleset.

In most traditional RPGs, the rules present a sort of contract the specifies how the fictional positioning will be changed by your success so that you know if you ask for a cookie and pass your fortune test, you will at least get a cookie. But in FATE...

In other games, you make a success, that changes your fictional positioning in a predictable way. But, you don't know what's in the next room or if there's about to be a random encounter - your fictional positioning is going to change, out of the PCs control, in a moment anyway.

The only difference is the time when the changing element is chosen. In traditional games it is before the session. In games with "success at a cost" mechanics, it is in response to a roll. Same event, different timing.

As you say, I never know what I'm going to get. The lock may be well and truly picked, but because it is "success with a cost" the thing I may get with my cookie may in fact be much worse than not getting the cookie at all.

But, that's always the case. In no game does picking the lock determine what happens next. It only allows the PCs to move the narrative into the next room, if they wish. It opens a narrative choice, but does not determine where the narrative will go.

But when the fiat is made actually makes an enormous amount of difference in terms of the GMs stance as referee and arbiter.

Eh. GM as "referee" is a posture assumed for traditional games. It should not be assumed to be relevant for non-traditional games. D&D is often like a soccer match. Fate generally isn't.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t even understand what you mean. I want the players to make hard choices regarding what their characters will do rather than have the dice to decide that.

What I mean is that when everything is up to the player to decide about their character, then there is no real risk to the character. The player's concept of their character will prevail. Think of combat and how there's a risk that the character may not make it through. If combat worked the same way... where the player decides the outcome... then there'd be no risk to combat.

I mean this in a general way. There can still be risk in the sense of the hard choices you've suggested. Perhaps they reveal something about the character based on the choice they make, that kind of thing. What I'm saying is not meant as an absolute. But I think that games that tend to have social mechanics are usually more about examining a character rather than portraying a character.

So in D&D, it's a matter of "My fighter is brave and nothing will scare him" but another game it would be "Is your fighter brave?"

What sort of consequences? If some random stranger is trying to persuade my PC to do something he would never do and my PC loses, what sort of bad thing happens and why?

The idea that a random stranger would just walk up and persuade your character to do something they'd never do is not really one that anyone is putting forth. But it's hard to say for sure because how do we determine what a character would never do? Sure, there may be some easy ones we can list... my character is Lawful Good and would never harm an innocent. Okay, sure.

But what about yielding in combat when below 10% of HP? What about letting the pretty NPC pass through the city gate because she smiled at you? What about letting a known criminal off the hook because they're a childhood friend? Or because they make you laugh?

There are so many subtleties involved that looking at it all as mind control renders the discussion muddied. People are subject to influence all the time. It doesn't have to be about extreme things to matter.

Those rules were also I presume known to the players and agreed to in advance. Agreement like that renders something that would remove agency in another game okay in the one being agreed to.

Right, but we're talking about if D&D had such rules. If so, then they'd be agreed to, so I don't know what agency really has to do with it. I don't think anyone is suggesting that anyone spring this stuff out of the blue in their next 5E game.

I don't think there's really an answer to this. Someone might not view one as meaningfully different than the other, you view them as similar, but different, and a third person might see a profound difference.

How I personally view it is similar to how you view it. If I choose to have my PC die holding off a horde of orcs in a narrow ravine so the others can escape, that means more to me than an uncontrolled death, but not so much more that I don't want the risk of uncontrolled death to be gone.

I think the difference is pretty clear and meaningful. One is a choice, the other is not.

How does this "I wouldn't use it for coerced behavior as often..." not imply that he would sometimes use it for coerced behavior?

I think it's more a matter of misalignment of what coercion means. Absolute control versus mere influence.

 

[pemerton]

In Prince Valiant, both PCs and NPCs receive bonus dice (or penalties, if appropriate) that reflect morale, emotional commitment, etc. Some of these are handed out by the GM (which is me, at our table). Sometimes they are generated by the players - eg the PC who is the Marshall of the PCs' military order sometimes uses his Oratory to inspire the troops. It's also permissible, in the system, for the GM to call for a check on Presence (essentially a morale check) for a PC to do something particularly brave, like engaging certain fearsome creatures in melee, or patting a wolf while it is growling at you.

Classic Traveller has some moderately elaborate subsystems for when PCs deal with NPC bureaucrats, smugglers, etc, based around the Admin, Bribery and Streetwise skills, as well as planetary Law Levels. There are also morale rules that are both PC- and NPC-affecting. If the PCs have a Leader among them, that gives the players a bonus to their morale checks.

None of this is about mind control. It does open up avenues of play and resulting permutations in the fiction. A player can of course always decide that their PC is (say) scared of the growling wolf, but part of the premise of RPGing (it seems to me) is that we don't always have free choice of the fiction. That's why we have rules, dice, etc.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't get why social influence is always associated with conmen and manipulators.

Social influence is also that football coach who inspires you to play harder than you know you could. That friend who helps lift you out of depression. The mentor who shows you that track you are on is the wrong one. The squad leader who helps you get it together. The family member who returns the support you give them. The partner who believes in you when you don't believe in yourself.

This is social influence:

So is this:

I am very pro warlord for this reason

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It’s not really about liking it, it is about coherent immersion based on the idea of the character.

My problem is the coherent immersion idea of "my character can't be conned or manipulated" sounds exactly as viable to me as someone showing up with a first level fighter that the idea is "I never miss and always hit"

Being conned doesn’t feel like mind control, it feels like great idea at the moment. If the GMs presentation of the situation doesn’t feel like that to the immersed POV of my character, then the GM rolling 27 doesn’t change that. Being forced to go along will break my immersion and violate my character concept.

because your character concept from the jump is someone that even someone with 8 or more pts in getting people to do things CANT get YOU to do things no matter what

(I say 8 or more since you didn't call out the 27 as a natural 20)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Only one of the two things can supersede will. Supernatural can override it. Talking to someone cannot.

again as I just said to someone else... this only makes sense if you think a character can not ever be tricked or manipulated...

and that seems to make as much sense as a character concept immune to damage

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This is pretty blatantly a false equivalence. Control due to magic/supernatural abilities is not at all the same as someone talking to you or the DM telling you how your PC feels about something mundane.

I don't think that a con man or grifter (or since people say I am too negative a good leader) is mundane... I don't think every commoner can do it. I would be fine with con man/grifter being gated behind the same thing leadership abilities are (No matter how inspiring I role play my NPC I can't give the d8 unless I have the leadership ability and if a PC I need a feat or feature like bard inspiration)