NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[TwoSix]

Acting out a script (calling it "randomly generated" is disingenuous at best) or even watching such a script being acted put has been known to generate an emotional experience. Hollywood could provide an example or two.

And it's not a script, importantly. It's a result, influenced by your gameplay and decisions, with the narration of that result being done in real time at the moment of play. The immediacy matters quite a bit.

 

[pemerton]

"Better sense" is doing some unnecessary work there. I would certainly presume @pemerton knows his table well enough to know if such a narration would be problematic.

Thank you.

The actual play posts that I linked to even talk about this!

 

[pemerton]

Agency is what a player has his PC believes and what actions he takes.

In all social situations, since agency is belief, I have to have complete choice or my agency is gone.

With the dex check, I can decide my PC think he will 100% succeed, possibly succeed or fail, or 100% has no chance. My agency is preserved with regard to deciding what the PC believes. Now to agency in deciding what the PC does. What he does is try to walk a tightrope. Does he try to walk a tightrope? Yes that is the action he takes. Success or failure isn't an action. That's action resolution, which is not a part of player agency.

Telling the player that his PC can't try to walk the tightrope is a no no, since it removes his agency. Telling him that the result of his attempt to walk the tightrope is that he falls, is not a no no, since action resolution does not take away player agency.

Your definition of agency is at best merely a reflection of your own preferences, and at worst arbitrary stipulation.

I don't see falling of a log and being tricked by a troll as different, as far as agency is concerned. They are both events that occur, in the fiction, to the PC.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's the rules taking precedence over the player's agency over the PC, which is the point I was arguing.

Right, so is Dominate Person.

Deception and Persuasion checks are also a rule. Having the DM set the stakes and determine plausibility for what checks can achieve is also a rule.

Are we talking about 5e? Yes, Deception and Persuasion checks are mechanics with rules. But the applicable rules talk about how DMs can use those when players declare actions. Any "use" of those skills by PCs needs to be extrapolated.

Unless you've noticed something that I haven't.

(If we're not talking about 5e....and this thread is not in a D&D forum...then, yes, of course the rules are whatever the game in questions says they are.)

As a set of guidelines for deciding what stakes are appropriate, I don't think special exceptions for the PC's decision making should be carved out from the bulk of the rules.

Again, if we are talking about 5e I don't think there's a special exception. The play loop defined for PCs is:

1. The player declares an action as a goal and approach. ("I want to persuade the guard to let us through by showing sympathy for the crappy assignments he always gets.")
2. The DM decides if that action automatically succeeds or fails, or if there is uncertainty. ("Hmm...how likely do I think this is to work?")
3. If there is uncertainty, and there is a meaningful consequence for failure, the DM may set a DC and ask for an attribute roll, possibly modified by a skill proficiency. ("Ok, that is going to take a DC 13 Charisma (Persuasion) check, but if you fail the guard is going to get suspicious.")
4. The player then makes the roll (or, in my game, may decide that the risk:reward profile is not attractive, and change their mind.)

Although 5e does not describe what to do if an NPC tries to persuade a PC, for those who think the rules should apply equally, I suggest we follow that exact same play loop, but in reverse. Which means the player decides whether success or failure is automatic. And if the player isn't sure, they are free to set some stakes and ask for a roll.

I can allow that one might not like doing it this way, and might choose to keep all that decision making with the DM, but I don't see how one could possibly claim that the 5e rules instruct us to do that.

Nor do I understand any argument for such a think might be necessary. What's the objection to giving the player the same control over their character that the DM has over theirs?

 

[pemerton]

It is simple logic. If NPC can convince PCs via social rules, then it follows they can influence the goals of the PC. There is no way around it.

I'm going to trust my hundreds of hours of play experience over your "logical" deduction, performed a priori in ignorance of the rules of the games in question or any experience playing them.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think that the Warlord archetype is "cunning," "inspiring," "strategic," and "tactical" more so than "leader." I see them as "playmakers" more so than "leaders." They provide the assists and create the screens so that Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan can score the big points in the highlight reel. I think that they are more "point guard" than "quarterback."

I would absolutely love to see a write-up of a class that accomplished this in the flavor text.

 

[pemerton]

...while remerging how common sexual assault actually is...

Huh? Are you now asserting that I sexually assaulted two players in my group?

 

[pemerton]

He didn't state this as a concept "for his table". He made a general statement about player consent to sexual content - that they don't necessarily get to have it!

This is actually an utterly false statement, with no basis in anything I've posted in this thread and contradicted by the actual play posts. I invite you, therefore, to retract it.

 

[pemerton]

IMO that would be a great example of character transformation/evolution, which is great storytelling, but pretty rare to see at the gaming table IME

It's pretty frequent, in the sorts of games I play, to see character change resulting (in part, at least) from interactions with NPCs that unfold according to social resolution mechanics.

 

[TwoSix]

Although 5e does not describe what to do if an NPC tries to persuade a PC, for those who think the rules should apply equally, I suggest we follow that exact same play loop, but in reverse. Which means the player decides whether success or failure is automatic. And if the player isn't sure, they are free to set some stakes and ask for a roll.

No?

Are you stating that the player should be the arbiter of determining whether or not an NPC can impact them with any skill check?

I'm pretty lax, but most games I know put the arbitration of stakes and their plausibility in the hands of the GM, no matter who or what is being impacted.