NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Thomas Shey]

I dont think it fair to saddle the workload as a strike against NPC = PC conceptually because just about everything was too much work in high level 3E and I say this as someone who finds 3E to be their favorite edition.

Well, as I've said before, I don't hold it as a strike against NPC = PC. I hold it as a strike against the exception based design D&D is saddled with.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This might not be visible to those who only played games up to, say, 8th level,

I really became aware of the "problem" not from playing increasingly complex NPCs, but from playing other games that dramatically simplify NPCs. Which made me realize those simplifications were all I needed, and it was easier to run NPCs in those games.

 

[TwoSix]

What happens if a player speaks up and says, "Hey, I don't like the dice dictating to me how to play my character in these cases. I got a 1 on my Insight check, but I don't really believe the NPC, and I don't think it's fun to pretend to believe them." What happens then?

Got me. That's between them and the GM, I guess.

If I'm DMing 5e, I don't use social skills on PCs, which nips the issue in the bud.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I really became aware of the "problem" not from playing increasingly complex NPCs, but from playing other games that dramatically simplify NPCs. Which made me realize those simplifications were all I needed, and it was easier to run NPCs in those games.

As I said, there are plenty of other games that get by with treating NPCs and PCs essentially identically (some you can strip off information likely to be irrelevant, such as non-combat elements on NPCs that are only going to be relevant in combat, but you don't need to, its just superflous), usually because even at higher levels they have far less moving parts on even an equivalent PC. This is particularly visible with spellcasters which have more things to keep track of in D&D (and some offshoots) than in any game outside the D&D-sphere I've ever played, but things like feats and class abilities can play into this too, because they aren't designed to any common metric.

 

[pemerton]

You are right, by that definition.

Other things that are no different from an agency perspective: coveting a magic item, being moved by a sunset, wanting to learn a new spell, deciding to enter the scary dungeon, or even leaving the tavern in the first place.

I want to know where the line is: when do I have agency, and when does the game tell me how my character should be played?

When I suggested something similar upthread, your response was (I paraphrase) that it depends on the amount of narrative surprise resulting from the decision point. But that's entirely subjective.

The ultimate point of a RPG's mechanics is to introduce surprises - stuff that people aren't just going to agree is what happens next. I mean, if the mechanics didn't do this then we could just proceed by way of agreement and free-ranging negotiation.

What elements of the fiction are within the scope of such surprises is a matter of rules design. Just to give one example, in 3E, 4e and 5e D&D a PC is basically always able to move wherever they want, subject to rules about unoccupied squares and the like. This is not a site, in the fiction, of surprise. Rather, these rules facilitate other stuff - like the making of attack rolls, the forcing of saving throws, etc - which are the site of surprise.

But in Burning Wheel - just to pick an example - movement in the context of the extended melee conflict rules (Fight!) does require an opposed check against one's foe. There is a possibility of surprise in a site of the fiction that does not yield such possibilities in the last 25 year's worth of D&D.

Or consider spellcasting: again, in D&D a player's declaration that their PC casts a spell is typically always successful - spells are not miscast and don't fizzle, etc, except in very particular circumstances. But other RPGs are quite different - Rolemaster is one; Torchbearer 2e is another.

And the same variety of possibilities and approaches obtains in the context of social elements of the fiction. In your approach, the PC is only affected, socially, if the player chooses to play their PC that way. So in the context of the process of play, it is all about the player making decisions for their PC, and others going along because they respect the players' "ownership" of their PC.

But in a game with social mechanics, how a PC responds socially can be a matter of surprise, just as (say) whether or not an enemy hoplite runs the PC through with their spear.

 

[pemerton]

They are both events that occur in the fiction, but only the trick deprives the player of choice. Only it takes away agency. The player chose for the PC to take the risk on the log. The player did not choose for his PC to be forced to believe the troll.

The player chose to make a move that had a risk of failure - namely, they tried to navigate back to the Tower of Stars. The test failed and so, as per the rules, I introduced a twist - a Trickery conflict vs the Troll.

The analogue in classic D&D play would be failing a saving throw (or similar sort of roll) and thus triggering the trap, hence being obliged to declare actions to avoid the consequences. Such actions might include balancing on narrow ledges.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Who has argued that this is how D&D persuasion should work?

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's 100% false. There is nothing arbitrary with a good reason. Preserving player agency is the opposite of arbitrary.

And again, both PCs and NPCs have the choice of whether to believe or not, so in the fiction nothing has changed, Both the PC human and NPC human are treated as the same creature. Different mechanical representations for that choice don't make the choice disappear or treat them as different creatures.

You think the PC would be fine with rolling a Charisma (persuasion) check with an obviously successful result and the GM telling them, "no, the NPC doesn't believe you"? Because under your style the PC can absolutely do that, at any time and for any reason.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm not saying anything about what makes something a RPG, or not. I mean, clearly classic D&D is a RPG, and its only "social" conflict mechanics are charm-type spells used by NPCs on PCs. And clearly Classic Traveller is a RPG, and its only "social" conflict mechanics are the morale rules, which as discussed upthread affect PCs.

But I saying something about the relationship between social mechanics and player agency, namely, that it is simply false to assert that good social mechanics reduce player agency.

Well, "good" is a subjective term.

That aside, as I said just upthread, I agree that when a player agrees to abide by the result of a roll, even though their subsequent actions might be constrained, the fact that they agreed to the stakes means its not loss of agency.

Many RPGs depend on this division. The one I'm familiar with that states it most clearly is Apocalypse World.

It's actually fairly straightforward, from a pedantic perspective, to come up with examples that cross the line: for instance, if physical event X occurs in the fictional world, and a PC who has normal perceptual and cognitive faculties is perceiving X, then the PC will form the belief that X has occurred. This is a basic consequence of being an embodied being with sensory capabilities.

I disagree with that assertion. From a realism standpoint, people completely misinterpret their sensory perceptions all the time. But, more importantly, from a game standpoint if the DM narrates that a door is shut, and I want to claim my character believes there is no door there....so what? When I try to go through the door and fail, maybe I will decide I believe in the door after all, but maybe I will come up with a new "belief" to explain it. It might completely and utterly defy the reality the DM describes. But it's valid. (And this example is silly and I would soon get tired of playing with somebody who does that more than once.)

This pedantic example does occasionally cause problems, because there are some events that are hard to describe in perceptual terms devoid of assumptions about a PC's belief system, values etc (eg suppose a player is playing a barbarian outlander, and they see a shopkeeper working on an abacus, it is not straightforward to narrate the perception in a way that doesn't beg certain questions about the PC's response and incorporation of that phenomenon into their own comportment towards the world they are in).

But a lot of the time the line is clear enough.

Well, they are one and the same in the following sense: they are events that can occur in the fiction that constitute failures on the part of the PC - in one case a failure to successfully traverse the narrow way; in the other case a failure to successfully remain faithful as one wishes to.

And they are one and the same in another sense too: they can both be failures that contradict the player's aspiration for their PC, in terms of how the PC will move through the world, make their mark, achieve great things and avoid failure, etc.

You mentioned an example like this before. I don't have a problem with the game state contradicting the player's internal mental state. E.g., I may want my character to be a human fighter, but magic turns him into a centaur wizard, or whatever your example was.

But if I say, "My character still believes he is a human fighter, and this is all a dream that he refuses to accept," again that's valid.

I don't know how you handle knowledge checks in your RPGing, but the outcome of a knowledge check can mean that the result of the action declaration is the existence of an internal mental state (a memory or belief).

I freely acknowledge (and have repeatedly said) that I struggle to use "knowledge checks" in a way that I find satisfactory. But that's because it's often hard to think of good consequences for failure, not because it's dictating an internal mental state. I might say, "Yes, you are an adventurer in a dangerous world so you would know that fire will keep trolls from regenerating." And you might say, "Um, yeah, but my character has never believed that. He's going to use frost." Totally fine. Your character, your internal mental state.

 

[Micah Sweet]

DM: The NPC succeeds his his persuasion roll, so you hand over the McGuffin that is in your hand.
Me: I would never do that, so I refuse.
DM: Sorry, I've determined that it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility and the die roll succeeded.
Me: But I would never do that, so I refuse.
DM: You hand over the McGuffin anyway, since the persuasion check succeeded.

How is that not the equivalent to mind control and loss of my agency to decide what my character does?

It's not a False Dichotomy at all. Either I have full control to decide what my character thinks and does, or I don't. There is no middle ground where I still have full control(100% agency).

I'm sorry, I simply don't live in a world where I can expect a player to always ignore their PCs best interests sufficiently to roleplay a negative consequence of a social interaction when they should. Your world may be full of such paragons of roleplaying integrity. Mine is full of players who do the best they can, and DMs doing the same.