NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[hawkeyefan]

Ok but why is this nearly the same set of events in my Stonetop too, lol. Down to the midwife having concerns! And the artifacts going into the Vault!

I would have to say it’s because your game is awesome!

The one difference is that another PC had to convince the Judge not to just smash some things, and store them to see if they could better the town (the discussion was “yeah but he’s only willing to be swayed because it’s the Marshal who I look up to as a wise mentor asking - who the rolled a 11 to resolve that conflict”).

Good stuff!

So in our game, we’ve tried to allow more passage of time than I think is easy. Seasons have come and gone a bit more rapidly, and we’ve tried to do more with the homestead stuff. As a result, two of our original PCs have retired and left Stonetop. One of them was the Lightbearer, who was the daughter of the aging NPC Judge. Her father went off with her, and a new Judge has arrived to take his place, as a new PC for one of the players who retired their first one.

So this Judge is young and inexperienced and is new to Stonetop. As a result, he’s concerned by the Seeker’s artifact and tends to trust a valued community member like the midwife, even though she’s a manipulative jerk.

We had established before the new Judge showed up that there are a handful of similar artifacts already locked away in the Vault. Then they also recovered one from an NPC warlord. So to the Judge’s eye, letting a twenty hear old woman run around freely with one seems like insanity.

This is why the player agreed that he could be persuaded. So we invoked the move because just letting him decide lacked the surprising element.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yesterday I wasp playing Blades in the Dark. My character, a low class thief and another character were investigating the disappearance of some street urchins my character knew. Due some terrible rolls the situation got dangerous, and my character's old nemesis, a certain cop arrived and shot the another character, hitting them badly. (At this point my character though this another character might have died.) So I rushed the cop, who shot me too, but missed, I knifed him a bit, and held the wounded copper against the wall. I threatened him. I suspected it was not a coincidence h was there, I suspected he might have something to do with the missing kids. So I told him he better come clean, or I'll slit his throat. And he did break, and he did tell me. He had taken the kids, they were held at the work camp and it was specifically a trap laid for me as he knew I'd come searching for these urchins.

This scene was very immersive to me. I had been genuinely worried about these kids, (my character comes from similar background) and I was genuinely surprised when the cop arrived, I was genuinely scared for the another character, and I was genuinely angry at this bloody cop. So when he had told me what I needed to know, I knew what I would do, and that decisions, if it can be called such, came to me at that moment, I had had no time to plan how this would end. So I took my knife from his throat, said, "Ok, I'll keep my word," and knifed him in the gut killing him. I watched as he blood poured from his mouth, as he collapsed to the ground. I stood there, stared his corpse lying in the expanding pool of red. The other character had gotten up and limped next to me. "I though you were dead, mate," I said.

It was "optimally" probably not a wise move. Killing people brings trouble in this game, and killing a cop, and a high ranking one in this case, is much worse. We got quite a bit of heat for this and I'm sure there will be more trouble later. But I also knew this is what my character had to do at this moment.

And I am very glad that there were no mechanics involved that interfered with the emotional state or the decisions of my character, those arose from his persona and the situation. I did not need dice to tell me to be angry, and had the dice told me that at that moment my character hesitates, that they must show mercy or that the cop can convince me to spare their life, the game would have been ruined.

 

[Bae'zel]

My takeaway from this thread: game rules, or GM narration should never interfere with a player's choice of how to roleplay their character. Social mechanics (eg persuasion, intimidation, deception) are only for impacting NPCs.

For some, this also includes supernatural effects of behavior, such as sanity from Lovecraftian RPGs or spells that charm or frighten.

Interesting. I don't completely agree; if an in game effect (eg an exhaustion or stress effect says that your character is upset, tired, weary) triggers, that should be a framework, or guidance on how the player should roleplay their character. There should be consequences beyond "-1 to social dice rolls", but hey that's just me.

To each their own: we're all free to ignore the rules that displease us. I wonder how people who don't use behaviour-modifying rules feel about games like Call of Cthulhu or Free League games that have lots of emotionsl / psychological effects baked in.

 

[AnotherGuy]

A player's character currently stuck in Sigil is running through a modified Doors to the Unknown module. He came across a shard (a piece of the Rod of 7 Parts) behind one of the doors and he successfully attuned to it. He discovered that possessing but more importantly attuning to such an artifact could incur (over time) personality changes to one's character.

i.e. traits, ideals, bonds or flaws could alter in the direction of the Lawful alignment. Characters are homebrewed to have multiple TIBFs. We would use saving throw mechanics to determine possible changes.

Given that one of the ways to progress in levels in our campaign is to earn XP's by leaning into a TIBF, this would encourage the player to have their character behave in a way that aligns with their in-fiction state in order to generate XPs.

In the same way, if the table is in a agreement that a PC is violating one or more of their TIBFs while Pursuading or Deceiving, I as DM may impose a disadvantage on those checks.

 

[payn]

Ok, hypothetical scenario time:

GM: "Yeah (explains dice result) it looks like you fall in love with the NPC"
Player: "What does that mean mechanically?"
GM: "Well, nothing. You're just supposed to roleplay Helga falling in love with Vile Enpeecee the Devious."
Player: "Ok, well I swing my axe and bash his head in."
GM: "Huh? That's not roleplaying. I said you fall in love with him..."
Player: "Yeah, well, that's what I saw me mum do to me dad when I was a wee lass. And she said she did it because she loved him, and she warned me, 'Helga, don't never go fallin' in love wit nobody. Never trust 'em."
GM: "You never put that in your backstory..."
Player: "Well, I can't put EVERYTHING in my backstory. Did I leave that part out?"

Upthread several people talked about being 'surprised' by the outcome of social interactions. I would think everybody at the table would be surprised by this turn of events, not to mention revelations of Helga's untraditional upbringing.

So....who would have a problem with this player's decision, and why?

Skipping all the issues I have with this setup, I’d call it a fudge out. By that I mean an on the spot dodge out of earnestly playing the game.

For example, if a GM puts a troll up against the PCs but forgets one of them has a fire ability and out of nowhere says, “Um actually this troll is weak against cold instead” It’s possible the GM made this change ahead of time, just like a player could be earnest in their RP, but it appears to be an on the spot change up to dodge playing out what’s on the table.

A player's character currently stuck in Sigil is running through a modified Doors to the Unknown module. He came across a shard (a piece of the Rod of 7 Parts) behind one of the doors and he successfully attuned to it. He discovered that possessing but more importantly attuning to such an artifact could incur (over time) personality changes to one's character.

i.e. traits, ideals, bonds or flaws could alter in the direction of the Lawful alignment. Characters are homebrewed to have multiple TIBFs. We would use saving throw mechanics to determine possible changes.

Given that one of the ways to progress in levels in our campaign is to earn XP's by leaning into a TIBF, this would encourage the player to have their character behave in a way that aligns with their in-fiction state in order to generate XPs.

In the same way, if the table is in a agreement that a PC is violating one or more of their TIBFs while Pursuading or Deceiving, I as DM may impose a disadvantage on those checks.

I found BIFTs to be an issue when it came to a table wide impact. No longer is the RP aid generally applied, but is specific to each character. That’s a lot for GMs and players to keep track of. So, they usually don’t. YMMV

 

[Celebrim]

Skipping all the issues I have with this setup, I’d call it a fudge out. By that I mean an on the spot dodge out of earnestly playing the game.

Agreed, but the GM also "fudged out".

It's the GM's responsibility to tell a good story and make events that happen within it believable. If it's not remotely believable for the PC to fall for the NPC just because the GM rolled or otherwise compelled that result, why should the play not play the same game the GM is playing?

A roll for a social challenge can never create in itself a transcript of play. Rolling seduction for the NPC and then saying, "You are now madly in love with the NPC" never creates the circumstances or conversation which if written down in a novel or otherwise turned into a different form of story-telling media causes the audiences to understand why it happened and believe it.

At least in this case the player tried to provide that transcript to justify the story moment. If anything, they "fudged out" less hard than the GM did.

As a GM, if I want the player character to fall for an NPC, I try my darndest to make a character that could be someone's literary crush and try my best to suggest a relationship which an audience would "ship". And if my player isn't interested in that, well then they aren't interested for whatever reason.

If you want players to hold NPCs as having value, or provoke hate or love toward NPCs, make good NPCs.

 

[Bae'zel]

The only time I'd say that a GM can declare 'your character falls madly in love with this NPC' is when the targetted character failed to resist a powerful love spell, potion or item.

Even then, I'd hope that the GM isn't a creeper about it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Skipping all the issues I have with this setup, I’d call it a fudge out. By that I mean an on the spot dodge out of earnestly playing the game.

I both agree with that (even though I wrote the scenario) and...so what? I mean, is it something to worry about? While in this case it seems very like it was a fudge out, there are certainly lots of edge cases where it's hard to tell what's going on in the mind of the player. And the harder we try to police it, the more subtle and devious they will be in trying to hide it.

I feel like a lot of accusations of "bad roleplaying" of this type really means "not how I think it should be played." That Player A (or GM) feels that if somebody else doesn't play the game that they themselves would, if that was their character, that it diminishes their own enjoyment of the game.

I don't get that. Yeah, really bad 1st person acting annoys me, but in terms of decisions and motivations of other players, I can't control that so I just don't let it bother me. I play my character the way I want to.

 

[Celebrim]

The only time I'd say that a GM can declare 'your character falls madly in love with this NPC' is when the targeted character failed to resist a powerful love spell, potion or item.

Even then, I'd hope that the GM isn't a creeper about it.

Agreed, but note that in this case the transcript of play creates a believable story. The audience goes, "Why did the PC fall madly in love with this NPC? Oh, because a love potion coerced them!" We're not asked to believe that the PC loves the NPC for an out of game out of narrative reason. And of course, this story also creates certain expectations regarding the validity of the relationship and the abusiveness of it.

But agreed that the GM best have the highest nobliest motives in turning the story in that direction and to have obtained consent to this story. The "writer's barely disguised fetish" is gross enough in context of a reader, much less at a game table. Just because you can explore something doesn't mean you should. Plenty of historical themes and human nature to explore at your table without gravitating to or fixating on the one that blurs the lines the most between the fiction and the reality.

 

[Bill Zebub]

But agreed that the GM best have the highest nobliest motives...

I think one of my most intransigent opinions in all of this is that trust should be 100% symmetric. I don't ascribe to any argument that assumes GMs are more trustworthy than players. Even if, statistically, one could demonstrate that players are less trustworthy, I think it's a bad premise to start from. I'd rather just not play.