NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[pemerton]

For me at least, I do not want to rely every time on my personal deception skills to try outwit an entire table of friends. Oh I will try, do not get me wrong, I'm happy to use roleplaying skills but I also like that there is an element of a game in this hobby.

Years ago now I ran a skill challenge in 4e D&D, where the PCs were bargaining with a Pact Hag. One of the players failed a check, and I told that player that the hag suggested to his PC that he should move from where he was standing to place XYZ, and that he did so. (This was the prelude to the hag then pulling the cord that opened the trapdoor.)

Magicians, swindlers etc can be quite skilled at getting a person to move to a particular place in a room. A Pact Hag is also quite good at this. But it's not very easy to perform the same sort of manipulation when all the methods that the con-artist uses - involving the positioning of their body, the use of eyes and voice, etc - are not available (given that the player is just sitting at a table talking, and not actually moving around at all).

Perhaps I'm confusing things here but I'm pretty sure you have taken the opposite position when it comes to the knowledge a character has. As an example, a DM calls you to make a skill check for the PC to see if they are aware that fire is more effective against a troll.
In that instance you disagreed with player having to roleplay such lack of knowledge which conflicted with the player's knowledge but in this instance you're arguing for players to accept the established fiction as dictated by the dice.

If I have made a mess of things, I apologise but this is what I'm recalling from past conversations.

I don't think the following two situations are very similar:

*A player is resolving a combat in a RPG, where their goal is to win the combat. They know that the appropriate tactic is to use fire. But they pretend not to know, and do something ineffective.

*A player is playing their PC, and (as their PC) takes a risk to rescue the beautiful woman, sweeping her up in their arms. The player does not fall in love with the NPC, but the rules of the game dictate that their PC is smitten.​

To me, I can't see how the first situation is very interesting as game play. In fact, it seems terrible.

I know that the second situation can be interesting as game play, because I've played through it, and it was interesting and fun.

 

[FrogReaver]

It seems to work like this in your games. Characters fall in love with NPCs because of dice rolls etc.

The only alternative approach is that Characters fall in love with NPCs because some participant (player, GM, etc) decided it was so.

It's either dice or decide.

 

[pemerton]

It seems to work like this in your games. Characters fall in love with NPCs because of dice rolls etc.

You seem to be assuming that there is no framing, role play etc. When there is - and I've posted some actual play reports of it.

You have said you don't accept it, you however have failed to explain why this actually doesn't happen. Roll determines character is in love with an NPC: goals affected. A character convinces another that they should stop pursuing their love: goals affected.

What player-authored goal was changed or negated?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You seem to be assuming that there is no framing, role play etc. When there is - and I've posted some actual play reports of it.

But if the framing and narration was convincing and evocative enough that the player would feel that the natural outcome would be that their character is convinced, smitten etc, then you didn't need the rules to tell them that!

What player-authored goal was changed or negated?

Are you using this in some weird technical sense or something? You don't think that in a game of Arthurian knights, a knight falling in love with a lady will affect that knight's goals? You don't think that if a character wants to pursue something, and another character convinces them not to do that, it won't affect the character's goals?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Either way.

I think those are quite different things, but as you will.

 

[thefutilist]

Are you able to elaborate on what you see the difference as being?

Again, I would be interested in hearing more about the issues of expressive coherence that you are referring to.

When I think of coherence in the context of social conflicts in RPGing - and I'm not sure if this counts as expressive coherence - I think first of the common tendency to subordinate the genuine social and emotional life of the character to considerations of expedience - whether that be "party cohesion" (common in adventure-oriented RPGing) or other practical concerns that are seen as necessary to make the game work. But I don't know if this is the sort of issue that you have in mind.

This seems a bit pessimistic to me!

I'll give it a try but a lot of what I'm going to talk about is upstream of the thread topic so we don't get to social mechanics until much later, if at all because it might become obvious where the differences lie, I don't know.

Also I wish I had more PG examples but unfortunately I'm pulling off other stuff I've written to people and it would be a lot of work to redo everything from the ground up.


Here's an example of some roleplay. I'll be using the names Jim and Alex to refer to the actual players and whatever character names to refer to the characters.


The situation is: A failing girl group nearing the end of a disastrous tour, they have three dates left. The manager is the owner of the company and it consists of, well just him. You have a run down dance studio / office in the bad part of town. Play is going to take place exclusively in the studio over the course of maybe a week.

What we're playing to find out: Whether the group carries on or not (across the whole game, not just in this scene)


The players (in this scene) are Alex: Cindy, Jim: Bob.

Cindy approaches Bob and says that she wants to try out her songs they're not as poppy as the ones they brought from the song writer but they're more expressive and have more personal meaning.

Bob says to Cindy: This isn’t about art it’s about money. Artists starve. Yada yada. Besides I know what I’m doing.

Cindy says: well you don’t know what you’re doing because we aren’t getting anywhere.

Bob lights a cigarette looking a little annoyed.

Bob: Rome wasn’t built in a day

Cindy: We’re not building Rome at all

Bob: I’m the manager here, you want to perform your own songs, form your own group.

Alex narrates Cindy pulling down the blinds.

Cindy: Just these next three shows and...I’ll CENSORED. (1)

Bob: You can CENSORED if you like but we’re not playing your songs at those shows.



So the first thing to notice is that this is a bit garbled. I left it that way because a lot of roleplay is like that and I didn't want to give a super polished example.

So just talking about the fiction here. We have this sequence of events.

We learn that Cindy is a song writer and her art is important to her (or something like that)

Then we learn that Bob prioritises money over art AND he's exerting his authority over Cindy, or doesn't like his expertise questioned (or something like that. It could be a bit confusing)

Cindy questions his authority and Bob gets annoyed, this results in Bob flat out using his authority to shut Cindy down.

Cindy changes tact and we find out that Bob priorities money? something over what Cindy is offering.


INTERPRETATION

So as an audience member, let's say someone else sitting at the table and watching these people roleplay. There's stuff we don't know and some stuff we have to infer.

We know Cindy values getting her songs played over her body but we can't say exactly why. Like is it because she just wants her art to connect with people, is it because she thinks they'd be more successful playing her songs (she seems to think that), but what does that bring her, does success equal money and fame or just a broader platform.

We know that Cindy's escalated across a moral line but we don't know how much of a big deal that is. It might be barely a big deal at all, if Cindy loves sex and finds Bob attractive then it's not that much of a big deal. If she's in a committed relationship then we find out that her art means more than the relationship. We just don't know.

One way we can look at the scene is like this:


Cindy uses three different methods to persuade Bob and the order she uses them and what she expects probably says a lot about her priorities and world view.

She asks

She appeals to Bob's need for money via attacking his expertise/authority.

She appeals to Bob's horniness.


Because stuff is sparse and we don't know a lot, if we frame this in terms of conflicts between priorities we have.


Cindy ask appeals to Bobs mutual sense of artistic appreciation maybe.
Bob's conflict is 'love of art' v 'need to make money.' (money wins)

Cindy then appeals to Bob's need to make money via an attack on his expertise
Bob's conflict is 'retain his authority' v 'need to make money.' (authority wins)

Cindy then appeals to Bob's horniness via seduction
Bob's conflict is 'retain his authority' v 'get his rocks off' (authority wins)


QUESTIONS

So first up. Does this seem like irrelevant gibberish that doesn't even begin to answer the question and/or it's just written so haphazardly you can't make or heads nor tails of it. Be honest because I don't want to write a load more because you're too polite to tell me I sound like a crazy person or it doesn't seem at all relevant.

Now putting it like the above (Cindy appeals and Bob is torn between two priorities and has to choose) is dive bombing a lot of nuance but do you agree that we can very broadly conceive of the scene in those terms?

Another way to conceive of the scene or at least part of it, is an argument over facts of the matter. So Bob might just disagree with Cindy that playing her 'emo pop' would actually make them more money. If we focussed on the facts then then the interpretation of the scene ends up being a bit different. Are you on board with that?

We can also talk about reward within the scene. So if we viewed roleplay as a challenge based medium then we could be focussing on Cindy's tactics and whether she won or lost (I think we both take this as a given so I'll be ignoring this specific delineation from here on in)

An interesting one. We could conceive of it as the actual creation of priorities. So what the scene is doing is showing us who Bob is rather than what he prioritises. This is a really tricky one and part of why this can be so hard to talk about. You might see a difference and you might not, if you don't it doesn't matter too much because I'll be returning to this later.

and if you don't just think this is gibberish then I can also take questions before I move on.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I don't think the following two situations are very similar:

*A player is resolving a combat in a RPG, where their goal is to win the combat. They know that the appropriate tactic is to use fire. But they pretend not to know, and do something ineffective.​

​

*A player is playing their PC, and (as their PC) takes a risk to rescue the beautiful woman, sweeping her up in their arms. The player does not fall in love with the NPC, but the rules of the game dictate that their PC is smitten.​

To me, I can't see how the first situation is very interesting as game play. In fact, it seems terrible.

I wholeheartedly agree the first situation is uninteresting and indeed terrible.
However, for the sake of this discussion, if we can change the second example to something less PC-favouring for comparative purposes.

*A player is playing their PC, and they are persuaded/deceived (not charmed) to leave their post for a moment to follow the beckoning of a beautiful woman, a persistent child or a sickly old man who is doing it for distraction purposes.

Would you allow this in your game? Personally I would.
It is similar to your pact hag example but this is but a mundane NPC.

 

[pemerton]

I wholeheartedly agree the first situation is uninteresting and indeed terrible.

Agreement!

However, for the sake of this discussion, if we can change the second example to something less PC-favouring for comparative purposes.

*A player is playing their PC, and they are persuaded/deceived (not charmed) to leave their post for a moment to follow the beckoning of a beautiful woman, a persistent child or a sickly old man who is doing it for distraction purposes.

Would you allow this in your game? Personally I would.
It is similar to your pact hag example but this is but a mundane NPC.

In the abstract, I think my answer is "yes" - but I'm trying to think of an actual play example.

Upthread, I posted some actual play excerpts that set out how one of the PCs had her Elfstone stolen from her by a NPC. In the fiction, that must have consisted of some sort of distraction or similar. At the table, the loss of the Elfstone was narrated as a consequence to a failed test - "When you get back to your mum's house, you notice that your Elfstone is missing" - and it wasn't until some time later (both in the fiction, and in the real world - four or five sessions later) that the truth of who had stolen it was revealed.

Another example in the neighbourhood, that I think I also mentioned upthread, was when the PCs were being lured by a Troll Haunt into the Troll Fens, so that it could catch and eat them. This was resolved as a Trickery conflict. I (as GM, acting for the Troll) won; but the PCs earned a compromise, and so the Troll did lure them into the Fens but didn't catch them. Rather, they were lost.

The last time there was something very close to sticking to a post happened, at least that I can remember, was in our Prince Valiant game (Sir Gerren, Sir Justin (the former's son) and Sir Morgath are PCs, in command of a warband; the other characters are all NPCs; I've snipped the prelude which explains how the PCs and some of their troops came to be in this friendly castle worried about an attack by a larger force of enemies):

I asked Sir Gerren's player what Gerren was doing. The reply was, checking the castle's defences. I said that a roll of Battle + Presence (9 dice) could strengthen the defences on 5 or more successes (ie give another die penalty to attacking forces), while two or fewer successes would mean something had gone wrong. Naturally the roll was two successes! As Sir Gerren was at a tower battlement, backlit by torches, an arrow struck him for 1 point of Brawn lost. I then said that he could see someone - a spy - who had infiltrated via the postern and was trying to open the main gate. I asked Gerren's player whether he was prepared to leap from the tower to stop the spy, as Tintin would. He was. I can't recall the difficulty I set - 4 or 5, I think - with every success short of that on Brawn + Agility being a point of Brawn lost in the landing. With Brawn 4 and no Agility skill, 2 points were lost, leaving Sir Gerren with only 1 Brawn to brawl with the spy. Their first round of brawling did not let the spy get to the gate, but nor did Sir Gerren disable him. Sir Gerren called for help, and with a success on his Presence + Oratory check guards came running and the gate remained closed. But about this same time, Flora announced in distress that Theo was missing from the nursery! Sir Morgath spoke to the servants in the castle, including the basement (Fellowship + Presence, with good successes) and they had seen nothing; Sir Gerren looked out from the battlement, and might have seen the riders leaving where Satyrion had spirited Theo out the postern, but failed his Presence check.

Down in the courtyard, Sir Gerren could see that Sir Andreas was getting ready to ride forth searching for his son. He tried to persuade him to hold off, that this was too big a risk to the defence of the castle; but failed: Sir Andreas reminded him that when his son (Sir Justin) had been in trouble, he had risked everything to rescue him (ie in the battle earlier that day). But Sir Andreas agreed that Sir Gerren, Sir Justin and their troops could ride with him. An oratory check mustered the men, although it was one success short of the difficulty I'd set and so they were at -1 for fighting due to the rapidity of the mustering (loose saddles, poorly donned armour, etc). And so Andreas rode out with 2 of his house-knights, 3 sergeants and 6 men-at-arms, as well as Sir Justin, Sir Gerren, their scout Rhan, and their 12 men-at-arms. Sir Morgath's player insisted quite forcefully that his scout retainer, Agol the Bloodthirsty, was remaining with him in the castle. It was only once the posse had ridden out, to the echoes of me the GM saying "no backsies!", that the players fully computed that their two commanders with Battle 6 each had left the castle under the command of the teenager Flora and Sir Morgath with his Battle 1.

<snip>

In the meantime, the feared night-time assault on Andreas's castle took place. The assaulting force had 1D (Battle 2 + Presence 3 - 4D for the castle) vs Morgath's 2D (Battle 1 + Presence 4 -3D for being outnumbered 3 to 1: the 155 reinforcements, less the 5 riders with Satyrion and Wassel, meant the attackers numbered 235, while Morgath had himself, Agol, 22 archers, 30 men-at-arms, 15 sergeants and a house-knight - 70 in total). I rolled a success on the NPCs die, which counts as two (because full successes rolled grants +1 success), while Morgath's player rolled only 1. So it was 1D each. And we rolled again, and 1 succeeded and Morgath's player did not. He did roll fine on his courage and survival checks, and so we agreed that Morgath had fallen back into the donjon with Agol, Elizabeth and Flora, defending them to the last. He asked Flora if there was any way out, and I consulted the scenario: Flora "shows them a secret tunnel (that she is fairly sure Sir [Satyrion] knows nothing of)" and so Morgath and friends were able to escape the fallen castle. Agol was successful (Hunting + Presence) in leading them to join up with the others on the plain between the two castles.

This wasn't quite a case of deception, but the actions of the NPCs prompted the players to make choices for their characters which left the friendly castle very poorly defended, without them properly realising what they had done until it was too late.

If I have followed @Crimson Longinus's posts correctly, the claim is that this is the only legitimate/genuine way to manipulate the players (and their PCs) into making bad choices, being deceived, etc. As you can see, I don't agree. Player decision-making and GM-narration have different work to do in a RPG, being triggered in different ways (and those ways differ from system to system) and relating differently to stakes, consequences, etc. But fictional facts about what the PCs do, how they are tricked or manipulated or deceived or whatever, can in my view occur as an element of either (that is, either GM narration or player decision-making) - subject of course to all the general rules and principles that govern both.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So if we accept that real people are authentic, then certainly authentic resolution is perfectly possible with characters as well.

Not really. There is no way to resolve fictional conflict authentically… because it’s all made up. It’s inauthentic by nature.

No matter how immersed you are in your character, you aren’t actually making the decisions they are making. You are making a decision as a player.

A lot of posters seem to have hard time conceiving this, as they seem to be under impression that it cannot be done and you need rules to force the players to pretend that they've been goaded or misled.

No one has said that, as far as I have seen. That seems more like a mischaracterization of people saying that sometimes allowing the system to have a say about what a character thinks or feels is valid, and perhaps, even preferable.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This wasn't quite a case of deception, but the actions of the NPCs prompted the players to make choices for their characters which left the friendly castle very poorly defended, without them properly realising what they had done until it was too late.

I quite liked this scenario. And yeas, unless the debate between the PC knights about whether to leave or stay was handled via mechanics (and there was no mention of it, so I assume not) then this is basically how I like things to operate.

If I have followed @Crimson Longinus's posts correctly, the claim is that this is the only legitimate/genuine way to manipulate the players (and their PCs) into making bad choices, being deceived, etc.

"Only legitimate" is perhaps a bit stronger I'd put it, but I think this is hella lot better approach! At least to me it is far more immersive, and far more compelling to genuinely make these questionable decisions or to be genuinely deceived than to just pretend it is so because the rules told me so. And in some cases the latter can be super immersion breaking.