NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[payn]

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.

Yeap, I don’t like fudging out by anybody and was just explaining it from both sides of the screen. Nor would I ever have fall in love based on a die roll. The entire set up seems like a gotcha disguised as a question.

 

[payn]

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.

There is role playing the game the way you want to, and there is gaming the system. I’m more of a play into it than around it type. It’s more of a play style issue for me. Moot because I’d never do the sceanario set up or tell a player “your character wouldn’t do that” as a GM anyways.

 

[pemerton]

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.

This is a little bit like a curse in BW or Torchbearer that rewrites/adds a Belief. This happened to the Elven Dreamwalker in my TB campaign, who was cursed by an Elfstone that had been possessed by the spirit of Mim the Petty-Dwarf.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

It’s such a weird aspect of TTRPG discussion that we feel we need to account for people who are going to sit down and not do their best to follow the rules for the game.

It’s like trying to discuss chess openings and trying to account for people who don’t like THAT opening and will just flip the board over, or will pout because you got to play white this time.

 

[AnotherGuy]

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

Much truth, I'd say each table should use whatever mechanic they deem suitable to encourage character roleplay if that is your jam. I use a big-ass monitor (TV) with a quick table to the list of TIBF's so it is fairly easy and visible for us with the rule that one has to rotate their use of their PC's TIBFs to earn XP, so one cannot button mash one for XP all the time.
It works for us, for now, but for sure there are better and simpler systems out there for this.

It is only 1 of the 3 methods for level progression, so a player can choose to avoid it completely,but it does not pay them to.

 

[payn]

Much truth, I'd say each table should use whatever mechanic they deem suitable to encourage character roleplay if that is your jam. I use a big-ass monitor (TV) with a quick table to the list of TIBF's so it is fairly easy and visible for us with the rule that one has to rotate their use of their PC's TIBFs to earn XP, so one cannot button mash one for XP all the time.
It works for us, for now, but for sure there are better and simpler systems out there for this.

And it is only 1 of the 3 methods of progression.

That sounds excellent. I just haven’t found anyone that wanted to use BIFTs beyond chargen.

 

[AnotherGuy]

This is a little bit like a curse in BW or Torchbearer that rewrites/adds a Belief. This happened to the Elven Dreamwalker in my TB campaign, who was cursed by an Elfstone that had been possessed by the spirit of Mim the Petty-Dwarf.

Exactly, there is so much use for character tenets from your curses (really cool idea), influential artifacts, to dramatic experiences, character evolution, battling an intelligent weapon (which I have used and nominated hp to each TIBF)...of course these tenets need to have a mechanical influence to be worth it.
After many years, and trials, I have found a way to make it work in our D&D games and one of the key elements was to allow for characters to increase their capacity of just 4 as suggested by 5e (2014).

These beliefs can also be used for setting stakes (consequences) in fiction-appropriate skill challenges other than the obvious and overused death.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It’s such a weird aspect of TTRPG discussion that we feel we need to account for people who are going to sit down and not do their best to follow the rules for the game.

It’s like trying to discuss chess openings and trying to account for people who don’t like THAT opening and will just flip the board over, or will pout because you got to play white this time.

Well, a couple of things here:

1. Some people in the hobby have been taught that if they're GMs they don't need to follow the rules; even if well meaning, it simply means they're breaking the rules for what they think is "the greater good". And since that's true, and since any given player may not agree with the GM's idea of what makes for "the greater good", but they don't get the get-out-of-rules-free card the GM gets in parts of the hobby, some of them learn that if they need to address this (since its also often viewed that arguing with the GM is "bad play") they have to game process--or outright cheat.

2. There are enough moving parts in most games its often hard to spot if someone is doing this--but it can still have ripple effects that they do.

(This only addresses the "flip the board" part of your statement, but the very first part can also be a cause of the "pout" part.)

Edit: And this doesn't even get into the question of people who don't like some of the rules of the game but can't get people to change them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

If I had to join a game of D&D, I'd ask the table/DM what are the homebrew rules because I'd expect there to be some deviation from RAW and this goes back all the way to 1e.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No. I'm saying I create a personality and experiences for my PC and sometimes I KNOW 100% how he would react to something based on that and my vision for him. Sometimes not.

And my response is, obviously you have every right to do this. However, I find this sort of characterization shallow and unconvincing in general, to me. I want the character concept tested and explored fully. Instead of a predetermined absolute inviolable idea that can't be challenged Narrativist styles of play generally don't take who you think you are as ground truth. You want to show your loyalty? Prove it, withstand temptation, and not just by fiat. You have to do it, or fail, and it's all on the table. For me, that's truly inhabiting the character.