NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Celebrim]

I consider the loss of completely free choice a lesser evil than many people not being able to play characters wrapped around mental or social skills or traits.

I not talking about the loss of completely free choice. I'm talking about the loss of all choice.

The only way to let a player of any mental or social skill or trait play a character of any mental or social skill or trait is take all volition and agency from the player. This is an absolute truth.

 

[Celebrim]

This seems to discount acting as a skill in itself. Plenty of folks portray characters on screen that possess skills they do not.

Of course they do. And, they have little or no volition in their actions, because they are following a script and doing the actions that someone has written for those characters. This is exactly what my statements would predict.

 

[Celebrim]

I'd like to express my disagreement with this conclusion in the strongest possible terms.

I know people dislike this conclusion, but how much you dislike it doesn't change the truth of it.

Engaging with mechanics meant to model their character is absolutely playing their character*, and participating in the game.

I never said that it wasn't. I don't think you actually understand the argument.

If a player is allowed to make their choices or left to make their own choices based on their own store of intelligence, wisdom, charisma, empathy and virtue then inevitably some of them will not be able to play a character that is very different than themselves. Various devices can be created to give the character's insight on how to behave, but even with that insight there is no guarantee that they will be able to put one and one together and make two. It's even hard to go the other way. I know a player who is useless at playing characters lacking in virtue no matter how hard he tries, because his own character is such that he's not able to imagine or comfortably make unvirtuous choices. He's always bad at it, so that there is no point in him trying to play a selfish or ruthless character. Likewise, it's hard to fake stupidity. It's very hard to metagame successfully and consistently against yourself, because there is always a difference between knowing something is unwise or stupid and not knowing something is unwise or stupid.

The only way to deal this is to take away the volition completely and have some sort of engine that makes choices on the character's behalf based on the attributes of the character. "Your character wouldn't want to do that." But then the player isn't playing the character, but rather the GM combined with the rules engine is. The character is now simulated and the player watches while the GM provides the script.

This is a conclusion many players find offensive because they have never wanted to admit to limitations in the ability to simulate the world or in particularly their ability to play every hero or villain their imagination desired. But as a GM, I run up against this problem all the time precisely because I'm called upon to play so many more different kinds of characters. And I would like to think that I can play more than my fair share of different sorts of characters and bring more than my fair share of NPCs to life to entertain players as part of my GMing skill. But I can't play every sort of character as not every sort of talent is in me.

 

[pemerton]

This raises the question why the GM rolls. Remaining consistent with the rules requires taking this into consideration:

The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.​

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As well as this:

Roleplaying is, literally, the act of playing out a role. In this case, it’s you as a player determining how your character thinks, acts, and talks.​

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So, if the question is how a PC reacts to an NPC's performance, there's no uncertainty because the player determines how the PC reacts, therefore there is no roll.

I take what you say about rolling, but I think my underlying point still stands. So let me put it another way:

For a NPC just as for a PC, the CHA stat represents (inter alia) how charming they are, and the Performance skill represents their capacity to delight an audience. Suppose a NPC has a 20 CHA (for +5) and a +8 Performance bonus (prof + expertise), for an overall CHA (Performance) bonus of +13. Those stats are meant to tell us something about this NPC.

If a player consistently portrays their PC as indifferent to, or unmoved by, the NPC's performances, what does that mean about the fiction? At a certain point, it seems to me to come close to the player insisting that to them the performer's cap is blue, even though the GM has narrated it as red.

 

[Aldarc]

I'll also add that despite my stance about player agency, there are certainly LOTS of times I roleplay my character suboptimally in spite of my own knowledge. I just want it to be my choice, not mandate from the table/DM.

Sure, but not everyone would consciously take that stance, and some people may say that they do this, but then find ways, whether consciously or not, to play the game optimally to win, ways that are perhaps against the spirit of roleplaying the character with integrity. The choice to play sub-optimally may also mean that people may choose to play in ways that lead to flat characters who are never affected by external agents simply because the player's choice is to refuse affection.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I take what you say about rolling, but I think my underlying point still stands. So let me put it another way:

For a NPC just as for a PC, the CHA stat represents (inter alia) how charming they are, and the Performance skill represents their capacity to delight an audience. Suppose a NPC has a 20 CHA (for +5) and a +8 Performance bonus (prof + expertise), for an overall CHA (Performance) bonus of +13. Those stats are meant to tell us something about this NPC.

If a player consistently portrays their PC as indifferent to, or unmoved by, the NPC's performances, what does that mean about the fiction? At a certain point, it seems to me to come close to the player insisting that to them the performer's cap is blue, even though the GM has narrated it as red.

No, it is just means they're one of those people who don't really care about the Beatles, Madonna, Taylor Swift etc.

Like my partner doesn't really like David Bowie's music, which is as close as being objectively wrong as it is possible in such matters.

In any case, it is, according to the rules of D&D 5e, for the player to decide how their character feels.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Celebrim is absolutely right. You cannot eliminate the player skill without eliminating the player agency. As long as the game contains decisions that matter that the players get to make using their own brains, the player skill will have an impact. We can of course have mechanics that simulate some aspects of the character skill, but trying to eliminate the player skill entirely is both impossible and foolish; were you to succeed, you would have destroyed the game.

This often comes up when discussion social skills or deduction, but it applies to all aspects of the gameplay. In combat a player with better grasp of tactics and the rules will perform better than one with a poor grasp of such things. (This became very apparent to me in a long 4e campaign I was playing in. 5e is somewhat more forgiving, but the issue still exists.)

 

[Xamnam]

I know people dislike this conclusion, but how much you dislike it doesn't change the truth of it.

I disagreed with it not out of dislike, but because I do not find it to be as factual as you claim it is, nor as objective as your framing. Your previous comment and the remainder of this post does little to convince me of the bulk of your perspective. I do understand the argument you're advancing, I can see your starting points, and I certainly don't disagree with all of them, but then you make jumps I find entirely unsupported by your premises, and contradicted by my personal experiences. However, I do have to imagine that you would find those likewise unconvincing.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I take what you say about rolling, but I think my underlying point still stands. So let me put it another way:

For a NPC just as for a PC, the CHA stat represents (inter alia) how charming they are, and the Performance skill represents their capacity to delight an audience. Suppose a NPC has a 20 CHA (for +5) and a +8 Performance bonus (prof + expertise), for an overall CHA (Performance) bonus of +13. Those stats are meant to tell us something about this NPC.

If a player consistently portrays their PC as indifferent to, or unmoved by, the NPC's performances, what does that mean about the fiction? At a certain point, it seems to me to come close to the player insisting that to them the performer's cap is blue, even though the GM has narrated it as red.

There is a politician alive today who, apparently, is utterly charming to tens of millions of people. They adore him/her. They drive great distances to hear him/her speak. The laugh at his/her jokes, cheer at his/her declarations, believe his/her promises.

High charisma, right?

But I can't watch this person without wanting to vomit. Their voice makes me think of a loud-mouth, drunk boor in a bar. I see still images and all I can think is, "If stupid has a look, this is it."

So my take is that "Charisma" is somehow not like the other five attributes. There is no objective truth to it.* It's either in the eyes of the beholder, or some % of the time it has the opposite intended effect? Or....something?

And unless we want to somehow model that complexity with rules, it seems to me the easiest way to handle it in-game is to just let players represent that however they feel like. Some players will use that freedom to always seek the greatest advantage. Others will lean into it and imagine creative ways to roleplay. Others will just let the dice decide for them.

Aren't all those options just fine?

*Honestly Wisdom and Intelligence are also kind of wonky, because we use the same words to mean so many different things. You can have tons of Intelligence in some domains, and zero in others.

 

[Hriston]

I take what you say about rolling, but I think my underlying point still stands. So let me put it another way:

For a NPC just as for a PC, the CHA stat represents (inter alia) how charming they are, and the Performance skill represents their capacity to delight an audience. Suppose a NPC has a 20 CHA (for +5) and a +8 Performance bonus (prof + expertise), for an overall CHA (Performance) bonus of +13. Those stats are meant to tell us something about this NPC.

If a player consistently portrays their PC as indifferent to, or unmoved by, the NPC's performances, what does that mean about the fiction? At a certain point, it seems to me to come close to the player insisting that to them the performer's cap is blue, even though the GM has narrated it as red.

The GM can certainly narrate that the NPC has a reputation as an objectively and expertly competent and gifted performer, a virtuoso in their craft, is well liked and regarded by all, etc, but I don't think that narration should ever contain "you (the PC) are entertained/influenced by their performance" because that's for the player to decide in playing their character. What, I believe, the stats tell us about the NPC is that when their skill as a performer is tested by an ability check, they will generally succeed more often, when compared to many other characters.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my son which was inspired by the idea floating around in a few threads on these boards recently that some skills in 5E might objectively be better than others, and the conversation turned to how/on what criteria do we judge that. My position, that came out of that conversation, is the purpose of the skills list is to provide a palate of choices for portraying different characters which is what should determine the effectiveness of any particular skill. I.e. the utility of the skill is to the player in portraying their character rather than to the character in terms of overall effectiveness in the game world or some such thing. I think this is as true for the DM as for the players, so I'm in agreement with the idea that the NPC's high Charisma score and proficiency and expertise in Performance is a signal to the other players that the GM intends for the character's ability to delight audiences to factor into gameplay.

How I think that happens is through action declarations. By declaring actions for their character that rely on the character's skills and abilities, especially in high-stakes situations where the outcome is in doubt, the players/GM have a chance to portray their character in a way that sticks. If a player says their PC doesn't find the NPC's performance particularly compelling, casting doubt on the NPC's abilities as an entertainer, a strong result for the NPC in an ability check can have the effect of putting pressure on that player to eat their words.