NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Micah Sweet]

I think you're misinterpreting what a successful decieve roll actually means as it applies to a player. All it means is that the player, and thus the character, thinks the NPC is telling the truth. There's absolutely nothing that compels the player to believe that the statement is true or especially to act on it. The roll doesn't determine what the player or PC believes though. The player can decide to act on that information however they like. Roleplaying doesn't compel the player to act either, althought they could. I know this is similar to what you're saying, but I don't think that the phrase "do what the character would do" is especially useful here except as a very loose rubric.

Personally, just because an NPC makes a skill check I'm not likely to do somethign with my character that I think is stupid, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to. As a GM I never roll skills like this against PCs for this reason - I leave the reasoning bit to the player. I'll give them the info and they can roll to see if they detect falsehood if the system has such a mechanic. That's more than enough IMO. I think it's illustrative that many RPGs don't have anything like that mechanic and still manage to social interaction just fine.

I'm generally of the opinion that a game should either have rules for social interaction in setting that apply to everyone or it shouldn't have rules for such beyond free roleplay at all.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm generally of the opinion that a game should either have rules for social interaction in setting that apply to everyone or it shouldn't have rules for such beyond free roleplay at all.

I don't think you can apply the same rules to NPC and PCs in any kind of useful way for social interaction. An interesting difference of opion! Free roleplay does work, and my favorite systems treat social interaction with a light touch. I dislike crunchy SI mechanics.

 

[KYRON45]

I don't see how this is true of older games versus newer games. I don't disagree that there are more people talking about rules and digging into what they mean now (like, internet now), but that's all armchair philosophy. It doesn't change rules nor does it force anyone to change how they play rule set X. All it does is perhaps produce more annoying moments when playing with strangers where player X gets a dopamine rush from deploying a rules argument they read somewhere to try and force an issue. That doesn't change the rules either, and I don't think it's really any different from the old school rules lawyer.

It's not a matter of system or age of system or edition or game design. It's a matter of how people play.
Take 10 5e DMs and id bet that you have 10 different playstyles which goes to show you that the rules are just guidelines.
Strangers are just people the DM hasn't bent to their will yet.

 

[Fenris-77]

It's not a matter of system or age of system or edition or game design. It's a matter of how people play.
Take 10 5e DMs and id bet that you have 10 different playstyles which goes to show you that the rules are just guidelines.
Strangers are just people the DM hasn't bent to their will yet.

Oh yeah, no doubt. That's not the same as saying that those ten individual styles are equaly informed by the actual rules or a deep well of DM experience however. That's not really a judgement of those (hypothetical) styles per se, just a fact levened by my own experience, perferences, and opinion. Not everone has the same grasp of the nuances of the rules and not everyone has years and years of DM experience to draw on. I'll also freely admit that there are going to be DMs who have read the rules and who have years of experience and who will disgaree with me in part or whole, so there's that.

This isn't the first time I've read about the idea of DM force and social interaction rolls, so obviously there's a reason people end up with that conclusion. That doesn't mean I think it's the best or most useful way to play though. In this specific case I think people are missing the key differences between player action declarations and what the DM does, and they aren't the same thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think you can apply the same rules to NPC and PCs in any kind of useful way for social interaction. An interesting difference of opion! Free roleplay does work, and my favorite systems treat social interaction with a light touch. I dislike crunchy SI mechanics.

This is a "whatever floats your boat" situation (as is so much else), as I absolutely do feel you can apply social interaction rules to PCs and NPCs equally. This is largely because I don't see PCs as any more special or fundamentally different than fictionally similar NPCs.

 

[Fenris-77]

This is a "whatever floats your boat" situation (as is so much else), as I absolutely do feel you can apply social interaction rules to PCs and NPCs equally. This is largely because I don't see PCs as any more special or fundamentally different than fictionally similar NPCs.

I'm not even sure how'd you'd manage that. When a player declares an SI interaction there's a bit about expected outcome - so I'm going to decieve the guard into thinking I'm a castle page so he'll let me into the castle. You don't get the expected outcome with skill checks related to PCs. They just aren't the same thing, so I struggle to see how you can 'apply the same rules'. What am I missing?

 

[kenada]

I think you're misinterpreting what a successful decieve roll actually means as it applies to a player. All it means is that the player, and thus the character, thinks the NPC is telling the truth. There's absolutely nothing that compels the player to believe that the statement is true or especially to act on it. The roll doesn't determine what the player or PC believes though. The player can decide to act on that information however they like. Roleplaying doesn't compel the player to act either, althought they could. I know this is similar to what you're saying, but I don't think that the phrase "do what the character would do" is especially useful here except as a very loose rubric.

I agree that the rules in D&D typically aren’t self-enforcing (such as how Baker describes here), but I’m separating what the player thinks from what the character thinks. Otherwise, it muddles (or limits) resolution of certain situations (like the one posed in the OP). Obviously, I would prefer a game that does a better job of handling these interactions, but that’s not what’s being asked.

Personally, just because an NPC makes a skill check I'm not likely to do somethign with my character that I think is stupid, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to. As a GM I never roll skills like this against PCs for this reason - I leave the reasoning bit to the player. I'll give them the info and they can roll to see if they detect falsehood if the system has such a mechanic. That's more than enough IMO.

If the change in game state (due to a check, etc) would result in the character’s doing something stupid¹, I see no reason not to do the stupid thing. I think that makes play more interesting.

I think it's illustrative that many RPGs don't have anything like that mechanic and still manage to social interaction just fine.

I generally prefer games with open information, so the issue of player versus character knowledge/thinking is settled up front as necessarily separate. That how my game works. NPCs don’t roll against PCs, but an NPC could lie as a consequence. If the player chooses not to mitigate that possibility or resist the consequence after the roll, then play proceeds as if the lie is true (until it manifests or circumstances change).

---

[1]: Assuming good faith play by everyone at the table. If not, then the stupid result is the least of the table’s problems.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not even sure how'd you'd manage that. When a player declares an SI interaction there's a bit about expected outcome - so I'm going to decieve the guard into thinking I'm a castle page so he'll let me into the castle. You don't get the expected outcome with skill checks related to PCs. They just aren't the same thing, so I struggle to see how you can 'apply the same rules'. What am I missing?

Why wouldn't you get the expected outcome? The only way I see that happening is that the players ignore the dice results when they're applied to their PCs.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There was a time when you simply could or could not do things. I don't think there was much of a philosophy behind it all back in the before times. If you didn't like something (system/setting), you found something you liked.
Now that there are more people than ever playing there are more analysts and philosophers interpreting things.

To assume people were not talking about this sort of thing 40 years ago is to simply note you were not hanging in the right spaces 40 years ago.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think that cases where the character knows that what the NPC is saying is false is actually pretty narrow. I also don't think it's an issue of agency at all. All that a decieve roll does is relate information without any mechanical proof that the NPC is lying. Players might still suspect a lie, and are still free to act on that information or not. Conversatiuons about agency only make sense if that player is being compelled to play their character in a specific way. The D&D skill system doesn't compell player characters to act in any particular way, so it doesn't make sense to talk about agency.

Two things:

1. Note that this is in TTRPG, not one of the D&D fora;
2. Its not the case that all games make an intrinsic distinction between PCs and NPCs here, and even with ones that do, that distinction is not non-controversial.