NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[TwoSix]

How about instead of asserting it confidently you actually explained how it works?

You know @pemerton has posted entire threads of actual play examples of Torchbearer, right?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You know @pemerton has posted entire threads of actual play examples of Torchbearer, right?

Yes. And I am not going to go trough dozens of pages of campaign log to infer how a system works. Summary of the rules or even better a direct quote of the rules will fit into one post.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes. And I am not going to go trough dozens of pages of campaign log to infer how a system works. Summary of the rules or even better a direct quote of the rules will fit into one post.

"How the rules bind framing" is a bit too broad for a rules snippet. Reading play examples with included GM thoughts as to why they made the decisions they did is pretty much the gold standard to understand different games.

 

[payn]

Here's the thing; NPCs shouldn't be built or played like PCs. If you cast away the idea that NPCs should have skill bonuses and proficiencies and Deception modifiers the "problem" ceases to exist.

I'm not even a little but an OSR-loving grognard but the ideas that PCs and NPCs (and "monsters" in general) should all follow the exact same rules from top to bottom is the worst thing that Wizards of the Coast did to the game.

Ohhh I get to say this finally! 3E fixed the PC and NPC difference problem but but Grogs wanted tradition.

 

[Maxperson]

Here's the thing; NPCs shouldn't be built or played like PCs. If you cast away the idea that NPCs should have skill bonuses and proficiencies and Deception modifiers the "problem" ceases to exist.

I'm not even a little but an OSR-loving grognard but the ideas that PCs and NPCs (and "monsters" in general) should all follow the exact same rules from top to bottom is the worst thing that Wizards of the Coast did to the game.

TSR, not WotC. TSR built NPCs the same and used mostly the same rules. NPCs used morale rules and PCs did not. In 3e PCs were explicitly exempted from social skills being used against them while NPCs were not. 4e I think broke the mold further, but I didn't play it so I can't be certain. 5e uses very different rules for the most part, though there are rules that DM can use to build NPCs like PCs.

There were no editions where PCs and NPCs used the exact same rules, and that difference has become progressively wider with each edition WotC has created.

 

[Maxperson]

Perhaps not, but IMO they are meant to represent the same creature, even if how they are mechanically constructed is different.

Which doesn't mean that the same rules should be used for NPCs and PCs with regard to social skills. As I explained earlier in the thread, the die roll that "convinces" the NPC represents the NPC's choice. The DM is leaving the choice to believe or not to the roll. The player doesn't do that, so his PC has the exact same ability to choose that the NPC has, but he doesn't use the dice to determine that choice. He simply chooses for his PC.

The exact same choice represented by different mechanics for PCs and NPCs. Being the same creature is preserved.

 

[Maxperson]

I will assert quite confidently that the players in my Torchbearer game have more agency - to set and pursue goals for their PCs, to shape the fiction, to establish what play is about - than in the typical 5e D&D game. The presence of social mechanics is actually one manifestation of this - they (i) allow the players to bind the GM, and (ii) allow the players to establish binding stakes, and (iii) allow the players to shape the way the GM frames scenes that follow.

Sure, but if we follow the way some folks in this thread want D&D persuasion to work, all I have to do is tell your PC to abandon his goals and then succeed in a persuasion check, and your PC will abandon them.

Persuasion skill as mental magic is far more harmful to agency than falling off of a log ever will be.

 

[Micah Sweet]

TSR, not WotC. TSR built NPCs the same and used mostly the same rules. NPCs used morale rules and PCs did not. In 3e PCs were explicitly exempted from social skills being used against them while NPCs were not. 4e I think broke the mold further, but I didn't play it so I can't be certain. 5e uses very different rules for the most part, though there are rules that DM can use to build NPCs like PCs.

There were no editions where PCs and NPCs used the exact same rules, and that difference has become progressively wider with each edition WotC has created.

Once we got into WotC's era, that gap got too wide for my comfort.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which doesn't mean that the same rules should be used for NPCs and PCs with regard to social skills. As I explained earlier in the thread, the die roll that "convinces" the NPC represents the NPCs choice. The DM is leaving the choice to believe or not to the roll. The player doesn't do that, so his PC has the exact same ability to choose that the NPC has, but he doesn't use the dice to determine that choice. He simply chooses for his PC.

The exact same choice represented by different mechanics for PCs and NPCs. Being the same creature is preserved.

Not really, because now the NPC has mechanical elements that don't work on PCs for arbitrary reasons, while those same elements do work if they're on a PC.

 

[payn]

Sure, but if we follow the way some folks in this thread want D&D persuasion to work, all I have to do is tell your PC to abandon his goals and then succeed in a persuasion check, and your PC will abandon them.

Persuasion skill as mental magic is far more harmful to agency than falling off of a log ever will be.