NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Crimson Longinus]

I find the idea of a PC’s feelings/emotions being entirely beyond influence from rules to be quite the opposite of immersive, or inhabitation.

PCs are fictional constructs. Often, we build them ahead of play. Sometimes, entirely, depending on the game and play expectations. We already know what the PC would and wouldn’t do in a given situation before they’re ever actually in that situation.

But that’s not how actual people work.

Sure, people may have beliefs or standards or similar qualities that may allow us to imagine how they’d react in a given circumstance. But we will never know if we are correct until they are in that circumstance and take action.

Actual people can be incredibly surprising.

To remove that element of surprise… that ability to be unsure, to get to some decision point and realize “oh, no… I’m not actually gonna do what everyone thinks I’m gonna do”… take that away, and I don’t know what it is the player is “immersing into” or “inhabiting”.

It seems more like a costume than a character.

I think when you’re free to control a PC’s emotions and reactions 100% of the time without input from the rules, and you’ve largely decided ahead of time exactly who this character is, what you’re really doing is “portraying” rather than immersing or inhabiting. You’re acting as the character and making decisions based on who you’ve already decided they are.

Without some amount of discovery through play… without the player learning about the character during play… I don’t really see inhabitation as possible.

This is so strange to me. Such surprises can still arise, they just arise from unexpected interaction between the situation and the mental model of the character. Just like your surprising reactions in the real life arise from the interaction between your mind and the situation you're in.

I have had a character in my game to switch sides at the end battle of the campaign because they were moved by the events and the villain's monologue. And I am sure no one, including the player of that character, could have guessed that would happen before the session.

The whole idea that you need dice for this, that the dice are desirable for this is utterly alien to me.

 

[Aldarc]

I find the idea of a PC’s feelings/emotions being entirely beyond influence from rules to be quite the opposite of immersive, or inhabitation.

PCs are fictional constructs. Often, we build them ahead of play. Sometimes, entirely, depending on the game and play expectations. We already know what the PC would and wouldn’t do in a given situation before they’re ever actually in that situation.

But that’s not how actual people work.

Sure, people may have beliefs or standards or similar qualities that may allow us to imagine how they’d react in a given circumstance. But we will never know if we are correct until they are in that circumstance and take action.

Actual people can be incredibly surprising.

To remove that element of surprise… that ability to be unsure, to get to some decision point and realize “oh, no… I’m not actually gonna do what everyone thinks I’m gonna do”… take that away, and I don’t know what it is the player is “immersing into” or “inhabiting”.

It seems more like a costume than a character.

I think when you’re free to control a PC’s emotions and reactions 100% of the time without input from the rules, and you’ve largely decided ahead of time exactly who this character is, what you’re really doing is “portraying” rather than immersing or inhabiting. You’re acting as the character and making decisions based on who you’ve already decided they are.

Without some amount of discovery through play… without the player learning about the character during play… I don’t really see inhabitation as possible.

To be clear: I agree with you.

However, I also do not mind this sort of "costume" play when I know that I am playing it. I also sympathize with those who want this out of their games, because I think that some people do come to play TTRPGs for "power fantasy" play, and what you describe above can be at odds with "power fantasy" play. That may be the case, for example, with Neo-Trad/OC play. (I can't remember how the consensus landed on those terms in that thread from last year about Neo-Trad vs. OC.)

But my goal in that sort of play is also not the sort of inhabitation as you describe above. It may even be as simple as "watch my character do cool s#*t!"

 

[Bae'zel]

Last night a Beholder used a Fear ray on the party Barbarian, who then failed his resistance check.

I told the player that “your character feels afraid for probably the first time in his life; he’s more afraid of the fear itself than the monster before him, tell us how he reacts”.

The player was really angry and upset.

I reassured him by reminding him that this specific quest was his character’s idea and that it was really important to him (to retrieve a valuable diamond so he could resurrect his NPC buddy); without some peril or tension, this quest would be anticlimactic; the payoff will be greater if it is a challenge.

Many games have rules effects that alter how a PC behaves or reacts. It isn’t inherently a bad thing, but you have to be ready to negotiate with people who hate that loss of control (the same people fret terribly if they get knocked out in a fight).

It is a challenge, but some manner of reassurance can help…

 

[Bill Zebub]

Last night a Beholder used a Fear ray on the party Barbarian, who then failed his resistance check.

I told the player that “your character feels afraid for probably the first time in his life; he’s more afraid of the fear itself than the monster before him, tell us how he reacts”.

The player was really angry and upset.

I reassured him by reminding him that this specific quest was his character’s idea and that it was really important to him (to retrieve a valuable diamond so he could resurrect his NPC buddy); without some peril or tension, this quest would be anticlimactic; the payoff will be greater if it is a challenge.

Many games have rules effects that alter how a PC behaves or reacts. It isn’t inherently a bad thing, but you have to be ready to negotiate with people who hate that loss of control (the same people fret terribly if they get knocked out in a fight).

It is a challenge, but some manner of reassurance can help…

What system was this?

 

[Bae'zel]

What system was this?

To keep things neutral, I'll say a D20 system (D&D Xe, Pathfinder, OSR etc..).

Target got hit by a spell ray, makes a roll to resist the magical effect, on a fail, is fearful of the monster (refuses to approach it, even for combat).

 

[Bill Zebub]

To keep things neutral, I'll say a D20 system (D&D Xe, Pathfinder, OSR etc..).

Target got hit by a spell ray, makes a roll to resist the magical effect, on a fail, is fearful of the monster (refuses to approach it, even for combat).

Why not just tell the player what the mechanical constraints are? E.g. "You must use all your movement speed to move away from the Beholder, and if you attack it will be distadvantage." Then let the player imagine for themselves what their character is thinking. Maybe they want to roleplay terror? Maybe they want to imagine their mind is intact but their body is acting of its own volition, just making the barbarian even more furious? Or...whatever?

 

[Bae'zel]

Why not just tell the player what the mechanical constraints are? E.g. "You must use all your movement speed to move away from the Beholder, and if you attack it will be distadvantage." Then let the player imagine for themselves what their character is thinking. Maybe they want to roleplay terror? Maybe they want to imagine their mind is intact but their body is acting of its own volition, just making the barbarian even more furious? Or...whatever?

I did explain the mechanical constraints. He didn't like the mechanics. He wanted to go fight the monster. He didn't like rules preventing him from doing what he wanted. He didn't believe that his barbarian should ever be afraid for any reason.

I tried to soften the blow by saying that he wasn't so much afraid of the monster, but afraid at the concept of being afraid (you know, so that his rugged warrior didn't lose as much "face"). But it was a bad call, so I tried again by asking him to tell us how his character reacts. To roleplay it out.

I'm sure plenty of people here will tear me a new one for my approach, but in the heat of the moment, I tried my best with very good intentions and still effed up.

GMing isn't always easy when the rules say: "temporarily, the PC cannot be free to do whatever they want", some players will simply resist that, no matter what. It isn't jsut a D20 thing.

Before any of you accuse me of all sorts of things, I try never to have a character be knocked out or removed from the action for too long. As a player, I hated waiting it out for longer than a few turns. So I actively encourage other players to help out: stabilize a fallen ally, dispel the magic, help them stand up etc.

 

[zakael19]

This is so strange to me. Such surprises can still arise, they just arise from unexpected interaction between the situation and the mental model of the character. Just like your surprising reactions in the real life arise from the interaction between your mind and the situation you're in.

I have had a character in my game to switch sides at the end battle of the campaign because they were moved by the events and the villain's monologue. And I am sure no one, including the player of that character, could have guessed that would happen before the session.

The whole idea that you need dice for this, that the dice are desirable for this is utterly alien to me.

The dice/rules are desirable for this because they let you test your character absent from yourself, they enhance the uncertainty and distinction of that character as a person you can never truly inhabit (you aren't feeling the heavy sword in their hands, seeing the tears run down their friend's face, tasting the blood in their mouth); the closest being the like nearly hallucination Nordic LARP type play.

Essentially, a deliberately created ruleset that allows the world to act on a character's inner state (and outer state for that matter) can greatly enhance the illusion of that character as a being existing in a world it knows. This was like, (one of) the incredible paradigm shifting design moments in Apocalypse World: Read a Person where you have a back and forth with another player in a way which tries to reveal to the table as a whole what exactly two people engaging in a charged conversation with all the body language and movement and vocal cues & etc would actually be able to get.

Totally get that some people don't like this idea of mild-separation and retaining their character as a mental model of a character you're running in your meat substrate vice trying to pretend you're actually them. In every game that I've played where the mechanics squeeze at the character's mental/emotional states and ask hard questions and we then drag those things out into the shared conversation for everybody to see it's been just so much higher quality stuff to say then first person talking-IC has tended to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why not just tell the player what the mechanical constraints are? E.g. "You must use all your movement speed to move away from the Beholder, and if you attack it will be distadvantage." Then let the player imagine for themselves what their character is thinking. Maybe they want to roleplay terror? Maybe they want to imagine their mind is intact but their body is acting of its own volition, just making the barbarian even more furious? Or...whatever?

Seems very "gamey" to me, and extraordinarily dry, but I'm sure some folks would see it as freeing instead. To each their own.

 

[zakael19]

I did explain the mechanical constraints. He didn't like the mechanics. He wanted to go fight the monster. He didn't like rules preventing him from doing what he wanted. He didn't believe that his barbarian should ever be afraid for any reason.

I tried to soften the blow by saying that he wasn't so much afraid of the monster, but afraid at the concept of being afraid (you know, so that his rugged warrior didn't lose as much "face"). But it was a bad call, so I tried again by asking him to tell us how his character reacts. To roleplay it out.

I'm sure plenty of people here will tear me a new one for my approach, but in the heat of the moment, I tried my best with very good intentions and still effed up.

GMing isn't always easy when the rules say: "temporarily, the PC cannot be free to do whatever they want", some players will simply resist that, no matter what. It isn't jsut a D20 thing.

Before any of you accuse me of all sorts of things, I try never to have a character be knocked out or removed from the action for too long. As a player, I hated waiting it out for longer than a few turns. So I actively encourage other players to help out: stabilize a fallen ally, dispel the magic, help them stand up etc.

I mean, the only thing I would've done differently is asked the player to talk about their fear. To me, stuff like that is a moment for the character to further define themselves.

Now, if your game is primarily a power fantasy and nobody really gets into that sort of inner-life level of interaction, maybe "you feel some involuntary fear wash over you and you hate it but can't fight it" is about as far as I'd go.