NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry, but there are reasons, you just don't value them.

As for "rules for such things", most of the examples I see involve guidance for the DM on how to set the DC, often including a caveat that the DM might rule that the desired outcome simply isn't possible. I personally have never seen a system that does not require some kind of judgment call about feasibility, unlike, say, a spell that explicitly says what the difficulty level is.

So my question is: if one is going to assume those rules can be applied in reverse to PCs (which might have to be assumed if the rules don't state as such) do you also reverse the role of who determines possibility and sets difficulty? If not, why not? Is it because players can't be trusted with that power?

I have explained many times in this thread. Players are strongly encouraged to protect their PCs from negative consequences. It's not fair to make them decide fairly how hard it should be to deliver a bad result to their own PC.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'd go so far as to say fiction-first is a near requirement for principled OSR play.

Yup. Fiction first is the only way I want to play.

 

[TwoSix]

So my question is: if one is going to assume those rules can be applied in reverse to PCs (which might have to be assumed if the rules don't state as such) do you also reverse the role of who determines possibility and sets difficulty? If not, why not? Is it because players can't be trusted with that power?

It's because virtually all TTRPGs aren't designed to be symmetric. The goal is to challenge the players through their PCs.

Whether the PC is persuading the NPC, or the NPC is persuading the PC, the goal of play is still the same; to push through a narrative change and see how it impacts the PCs.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I have explained many times in this thread. Players are strongly encouraged to protect their PCs from negative consequences. It's not fair to make them decide fairly how hard it should be to deliver a bad result to their own PC.

I think it's nonsense to suggest that that DMs are not also 'encouraged' (in a similar passive way) to protect their plots. And the potentially negative impact on the game from that is so much greater than it is from a player not playing along with something that was randomly determined in the first place.

So I simply don't buy the argument that players are less trustworthy than DMs and they need guardrails.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Is this a reference to Exalted 2e? Or to a certain approach to 5e D&D? Or some other RPG?

Yes. It would work so in Exalted 2e, it doesn't actually work in D&D 5e, as PCs cannot be affected by social skills like the NPCs can, but several people here insist that they should. You also have given several examples (from Torchbearer and Prince Valiant, I believe) which seem to imply that this is possible in those games. Given that you have had several opportunities to explain why this would not be the case in those games, but have failed to do so, I must assume it is the case.

Here are some possible elements of a social conflict, which can factor into its resolution:

*What is at stake, from the PCs' (and hence players') perspective, and from the NPC's perspective;​

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*What moves the GM is permitted to make for the NPCs they are controlling;​

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*To what degree the PCs are able to risk, or preserve, whatever it is that their players have put at stake in respect of them;​

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*How decisions made during the course of resolution, both by players and by the GM, factor into outcomes.​

Until we know how a particular social conflict system incorporates and expresses these various elements, we have literally no idea whether or not it permits the GM to dictate the players' goals.

Perhaps it would be illuminating if you told us how these things are handled in a game that you deem to have "good" social conflict system? Perhaps you could use the situation in your Torchbearer game, where the characters were convinced to surrender, and explain how the situation was handled mechanically regarding the parameters you outlined above?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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

Everyone who thinks the social skills should work on the PCs the same way they do on NPCs. So quite a few people.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But just because you strip them down mechanically doesn't mean you need to strip them down narratively or otherwise treat them differently in the fiction.

A different question; even games that have their thumb on the scale in terms of giving PCs advantages NPCs don't don't always treat them differently in the fiction, per se.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How does it work to force a player to do that, though? If a player isn't game to go along with the charade (of, say, pretending to believe an NPC, even though the player is convinced they are lying) there are a million ways to subvert that.

At some point, if a player is playing dishonestly, they're playing dishonestly, and that needs to be addressed directly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Maybe they didn't realize this new group plays that way, and this is the first time it has come up?

In which case that's the sign of an inadequate or nonexistent session 0.

 

[payn]

Everyone who thinks the social skills should work on the PCs the same way they do on NPCs. So quite a few people.

No, a few folks are suggesting people are saying this, but nobody is lining up to agree.