NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[GMMichael]

skill checks tell the character what they THINK is true.

Something like combat is more concrete. If you beat this AC check…you get to cause a quantifiable outcome of X damage.

Is there a concrete outcome to a skill check?

Guessing you meant "social skill checks" above, because "I want to use my skill to hop over the fence," isn't usually followed by, "okay, you think you hopped over the fence." Except, that's not what most skill checks do (that I've seen, anyway). A skill check, in D&D, is a success/failure determination, with an outcome determined by the DM.

It's important to note at this point that since D&D lets the PC attempt anything, any listing of what's possible in skill descriptions will be incomplete. 6e seems to have made a concerted effort to change that with its tidal wave of new rules and codifications, but I think it still left a backdoor open with "you can improvise other actions."

So, the "concrete" outcomes you're looking for must be spelled out in the skill descriptions, don't cover all possibilities, and are limited to the other game rules with which they interact. Like the attack roll. "If you succeed, you deal damage." You're welcome to call those your non-terrible rules, but they don't define a very fun RPG. In that case, either everything is technically laid out in a massive set of rules, or you're constrained to a relatively small set of non-terrible rules. "Can I knock the giant's healing potion off its belt?" Must be answered by: "hang on, let's look up the Disarming Rules and see if we're allowed to treat it as a weapon," or "sorry, we got rid of the terrible rules, and that's not covered by the concrete rules."

So here we are; gray area, GM-fiat rules are necessary in D&D (but not all games). Some GMs and PCs are fine with rulings that affect PC free will. Others aren't. As far as I know, there's no D&D rule that says, "the DM can't make decisions for PCs," which is effectively what a successful social skill check does. It's also what Fear and Charm effects do. So I'd say that WotC supports the DM telling a PC that she "believes" something. For the OP, it's only a "waste of a skill" if you're telling it to the type of player who is out to win instead of play.

 

[KYRON45]

Guessing you meant "social skill checks" above, because "I want to use my skill to hop over the fence," isn't usually followed by, "okay, you think you hopped over the fence." Except, that's not what most skill checks do (that I've seen, anyway). A skill check, in D&D, is a success/failure determination, with an outcome determined by the DM.

It's important to note at this point that since D&D lets the PC attempt anything, any listing of what's possible in skill descriptions will be incomplete. 6e seems to have made a concerted effort to change that with its tidal wave of new rules and codifications, but I think it still left a backdoor open with "you can improvise other actions."

So, the "concrete" outcomes you're looking for must be spelled out in the skill descriptions, don't cover all possibilities, and are limited to the other game rules with which they interact. Like the attack roll. "If you succeed, you deal damage." You're welcome to call those your non-terrible rules, but they don't define a very fun RPG. In that case, either everything is technically laid out in a massive set of rules, or you're constrained to a relatively small set of non-terrible rules. "Can I knock the giant's healing potion off its belt?" Must be answered by: "hang on, let's look up the Disarming Rules and see if we're allowed to treat it as a weapon," or "sorry, we got rid of the terrible rules, and that's not covered by the concrete rules."

So here we are; gray area, GM-fiat rules are necessary in D&D (but not all games). Some GMs and PCs are fine with rulings that affect PC free will. Others aren't. As far as I know, there's no D&D rule that says, "the DM can't make decisions for PCs," which is effectively what a successful social skill check does. It's also what Fear and Charm effects do. So I'd say that WotC supports the DM telling a PC that she "believes" something. For the OP, it's only a "waste of a skill" if you're telling it to the type of player who is out to win instead of play.

The length of your reply about what a skill check is or isn’t….thats why I don’t care for them. Just this man’s opinion.

 

[TheSword]

My preference with highly persuasive NPCs is to present plausible and attractive proportions to the players. They understand what motivates the players and provides those options.

With highly deceptive NPCs I present convincing and plausible statements.

With highly intimidating NPCs I present asymmetrical situations that make the players feel vulnerable.

I don’t roll checks for NPCs to force a certain behaviour from the players. For all the reasons the OP gave.

 

[Greg K]

I am in the camp that player characters are subject to Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation as it is not uncommon for major characters to be affected by social skills. Mal is deceived and seduced by Saffron. Both Zoe and Simon have intimidated Jayne in Firefly. Guy Gardner gets intimidated by Batman in JLA. Those are just a few examples. So, I don't see why PCs in an rpg should be any different.

Now, depending upon circumstances, I, as the GM, might grant Advantage or Disadvantage to the roll or modify the DC to use D&D terms (in some circumstances, I might rule affecting the PC is impossible). Ultimately, though, PCs can still subject to social skills when I run.

 

[bloodtide]

Any thoughts on this? How do you/would you handle it?)

The Skill does not do very much, as per the rules. Things like fast-talking, pulling a con, gambling, pass yourself off in a disguise, dull someone's suspicions with false assurances, or maintain a straight face while telling a blatant lie.

That is really not that much. And it is all very simple and direct. To have a NPC "maintain a straight face while telling a blatant lie", does nothing to 'control the actions' of the PC or Player.

Though, like all social skills, it really does depend on how you play the game.

If your game does not care much about role playing then you can just have NPCs "to something deceptive" and have the PC "fall for it". This works great for all combat games. PC's can just "be tricked" and then the player will just say "whatever, can we get back to some combat now?"

If your game likes to have lots of deep role playing, well the skills are a drop in a bucket to all that.

Sure, you can have an NPC "pull something" on a PC for a couple seconds during an "action" moment.

This really does not effect hours, days and months of deep role playing. You can have an NPC doing all sorts of social things up front and behind the screen; public and private; large and small. Where the players, for real using their real life mental abilities to figure things out.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm building an NPC adversary for a campaign (a cleric of Asmodeus), and their key Deity skill is deception.

But then it occurred to me that rolling to see if the NPC successfully deceived the PC's takes away player agency. That is, the player should be able to decide whether their PC believes the NPC or not.

So, from that perspective, social skill abilities for NPCs are a waste of a skill "slot". (Game mechanically speaking, not from a roleplay perspective)

Any thoughts on this? How do you/would you handle it?)

I don't see anything wrong with saying "Given what you know, the NPC seems convincing." If they still want to ignore it, they do; I don't consider Deception an unlimited card to play on NPCs, either.

(An alternate approach is to penalize, but not force, PCs that don't act in accordance with the social skill results).

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't see anything wrong with saying "Given what you know, the NPC seems convincing." If they still want to ignore it, they do; I don't consider Deception an unlimited card to play on NPCs, either.

(An alternate approach is to penalize, but not force, PCs that don't act in accordance with the social skill results).

This seems very reasonable. My answer to the OP is to use that NPC skill to shoot the DC for relevant tests versus (so sense motive and similar in this case). That said, I don't always give precise DCs for rolls for things where the failure state is also significantly informative (perception type stuff, etc etc).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I guess this can be difficult. A guideline is - if the outcome is not in doubt, don't roll. But sometimes you only realize that it isn't really in doubt after you already rolled, because you didn't think of it immediately or realize that the players are just too skeptical of the situation or NPC. I guess in such cases you can just shrug and keep it with a "he sounds sincere and honest."

But in some cases, maybe you can inspire doubt in the players. Like, if they distrust him by default but he successfully deceives them, give them some misleading clue? Something that, if they follow up, gives the NPC an advantage or a way out, even if it is not exactly what they wanted. If it makes sense.

Example:
The distrusted NPC feigns innocence of a crime he actually commited. "If he's lying, he might be trying to save the real culprit." Now the players might look into other culprits, or offer the NPC some kind of deal, and the NPC can use that to send them after someone else, distract them or whatever.

The distrusted NPC is sending them to a location to lure them into a trap. "He's sending you there on a merry goose chase, better stick close to him." The NPC doesn't get what he wants exactly, but maybe he can set up a different trap.

The distrusted NPC is sending them to a location for a merry goose chase so he can do whatever. "He might be sending you to a trap." There is a decent chance player characters will actually enter a known trap, well-prepared and hoping to uncover new evidence or catch some of the NPCs allies in the act, anything to prove his true plans, motivations or actions.

 

[Professor Murder]

A guard jamming their pike into a PCs guts interrupts their agency.
A ravine being too far to jump across interrupts their agency.
If your game has social or mental systems use them. If a player elects to have poor stats for said interactions, knowing that skills using them will come up, they exerted their agency then. They took their gamble. Sometimes it wont pay off for them.

 

[KYRON45]

Always seemed to me that “agency” was just a nonsense buzz word.
Tell the DM what you want to do….thats the agency that players have. If you want more of this mythical agency…you DM.

And now i have to go chase some kids off my lawn.