NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Thomas Shey]

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.

I understand you think that. I simply disagree. I've seen enough of that over the years (both as a GM as a player) and think its a vast overstatement. Among other things the use of the social or mental skill is not the entirety of choices the player makes in the game; it usually doesn't even approach the majority of those choices.

 

[soviet]

Being persuaded, intimidated, deceived etc aren't decisions you make.

 

[Thomas Shey]

@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.)

The problem is that, at best, this takes an all-or-nothing view of how such skills apply. I don't disagree that to make them work properly you have to interfere in the decision process to some extent; but I do disagree that you can't make such things useful both in an empowerment and disempowerment way without robbing the character and player of all volition. It anything the disempowerment end is trickier with mental skills than social ones in some cases.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Being persuaded, intimidated, deceived etc aren't decisions you make.

Yes they are. You heard the argument. Do you believe it? Do you find it persuasive?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Being persuaded, intimidated, deceived etc aren't decisions you make.

Ok, but if you are free to make whatever subsequent decision you want, what's the point of being told that you are persuaded, intimidated, deceived, etc.

Or, to elaborate, if the rules of the game determine that "you are persuaded" then the freedom to make whatever decision you want can and often does lead to dissonance. You are persuaded, and yet you refuse the offer? That makes no sense. Or it dilutes the meaning of "you are..." to such a degree that the statement is meaningless.

But if you tweak the description to say "the NPC is very persuasive" then there's no dissonance when followed by, "Yeah, but I'm still not buying it."

 

[soviet]

Yes they are. You heard the argument. Do you believe it? Do you find it persuasive?

So propaganda, advertising, social media operant conditioning, and all that stuff are wholly ineffective? They merely bring something to a perfectly rational person's attention that they can choose to accept or reject from their position of perfect self control?

 

[soviet]

Ok, but if you are free to make whatever subsequent decision you want, what's the point of being told that you are persuaded, intimidated, deceived, etc.

I agree. Again, this is an area of inadequate game design.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Another thought experiment: the slippery villain NPC "makes a persuasion roll" (I hate the very phrase) and FAILS, but Susie Roleplayer says, "Actually, I think he makes a great point and I believe him!"

Do you allow it?

 

[Bill Zebub]

So propaganda, advertising, social media operant conditioning, and all that stuff are wholly ineffective? They merely bring something to a perfectly rational person's attention that they can choose to accept or reject from their position of perfect self control?

No. Those things influence some people, but not others, in largely unpredictable ways.

The question is: do you make that determination with dice, or do players decide how they respond?

And my follow-up question is: if you sometimes choose dice, how do you determine when to use dice, and when to let players make their own decisions.

P.S. Nobody is arguing that PCs are "perfectly rational" and thus should respond to stimuli in calculated ways. They are just arguing that letting players make the decision for their characters is a better way to resolve that uncertainty than is rolling dice.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So propaganda, advertising, social media operant conditioning, and all that stuff are wholly ineffective? They merely bring something to a perfectly rational person's attention that they can choose to accept or reject from their position of perfect self control?

That you can be influenced doesn't mean it is not your decision. Let the NPC make their argument, the GM will roleplay it. The players will decide what to think of it, by the interaction of their mental models of the character and the GM's performance. I have had several times NPCs trick PCs and convince of them to do things that might go against their interests. No dice rolls needed.

The literal basic structure of the game is that the GM presents the situation and the players decide how their characters react to it. That's what is happening here, and I have no desire to replace my players with the dice.