What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, the reverse is also true. Attempts to intimidate are not fear spells. Attempts to know if somebody is lying are not detect lie spells. Attempts to persuade are not charm spells.

The GM does not have to assign a probability and roll a die; they can just decide whether or not it works.

So success DCs don't mean anything?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, yes, that's because they were actually a threat at the time, and he knew it. They weren't first level fighters and he rolled badly.

Fair enough, but if a bad roll can be ignored, then there shouldn't be a roll at all.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So success DCs don't mean anything?

They do, but ultimately it is the GM who assigns them. And they can also say that some things are so easy that they automatically succeed or that they are impossible. In such situations DC is not needed. The GM can just decide that it is not possible to persuade Sauron to give up the One Ring, for example.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I suggest no such thing. Your character can be a rat-catcher hat dies at the next kobold fight. But the player still has only one character at the moment and the GM has the whole world to worry about. And the GM is omniscient. It just is not the same and it is bizarre to think that it would.

And absolutely nothing suggest that the characters could not be tricked, convinced etc. Of course they can! It is just that because the fictional situation that is presented is such that it happens, not because the dice said so.



But the GM gets to decide what the NPC can be convinced of, just like the player gets to decide what their character can be convinced of.

Unless the Player rolls high on their social skill though, right?

 

[Bill Zebub]

So success DCs don't mean anything?

As a DM I find DCs to be useful because I don't really know how my hastily sketched NPCs would respond, and because I know what the PCs are planning because the players have been talking about. Dice help me make a neutral decision.

But...I do try to not to use the dice unless the players are risking a consequence if they fail.

Unless the Player rolls high on their social skill though, right?

If the GM asks for the roll to help them make the decision, then yes. The player doesn't have a "right" to roll.

Likewise, if the player can't decide how to make a decision and asks the GM to roll, well then that's fine.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Fair enough, but if a bad roll can be ignored, then there shouldn't be a roll at all.

Hey, we agree on something!

Although probably not on what we do about it. In my case it's "roll dice less often!"

 

[Micah Sweet]

They do, but ultimately it is the GM who assigns them. And they can also say that some things are so easy that they automatically succeed or that they are impossible. In such situations DC is not needed. The GM can just decide that it is not possible to persuade Sauron to give up the One Ring, for example.

Perhaps it is just my personal experience, but I've seen many GMs and Players alike over the years avoid negative effects (from social skills and other stuff) on their played characters like the plague. As a GM, I do my best to play my NPCs fairly and accurately according to their knowledge, capabilities, and personalities, not on how I would like the story to go or what I want their fate to be in the moment. I would very much like Players to do the same with their PCs, and while I'm aware that varying knowledge and potentially high investment can make this challenging for the Player, I still think that should be the goal. I'm not asking the PC to give up the "hero" business because an NPC critted their Persuasion check. But acting in accordance with a failed Insight check the Player initiated to determine trustworthiness? Being intimidated by an intimidating situation (as determined by a die roll that takes all those little things we have to abstract into account)? I don't think these things are too much to ask. Not at my table anyway. We all play differently, and how you do it is just as valid for your group as how I do it is for mine.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Perhaps it is just my personal experience, but I've seen many GMs and Players alike over the years avoid negative effects (from social skills and other stuff) on their played characters like the plague. As a GM, I do my best to play my NPCs fairly and accurately according to their knowledge, capabilities, and personalities, not on how I would like the story to go or what I want their fate to be in the moment. I would very much like Players to do the same with their PCs, and while I'm aware that varying knowledge and potentially high investment can make this challenging for the Player, I still think that should be the goal. I'm not asking the PC to give up the "hero" business because an NPC critted their Persuasion check. But acting in accordance with a failed Insight check the Player initiated to determine trustworthiness? Being intimidated by an intimidating situation (as determined by a die roll that takes all those little things we have to abstract into account)? I don't think these things are too much to ask. Not at my table anyway. We all play differently, and how you do it is just as valid for your group as how I do it is for mine.

The thing is this:

"A NPC rolled 26 on their joke telling roll."

Did you laugh?

Sure, you can pretend it was funny and force a fake laugh, but it just doesn't feel the same than the GM actually presenting the NPC as funny and you genuinely finding it so. Real feeling requires presenting the situation so that it happens. And it is not hard for NPCs to convince PCs of all sort of things, as the GM controls how everything is presented. And for the players it feels far more satisfying to be genuinely surprised when the NPC they trusted turns out to be traitor, if they actually believed them instead of just pretending to believe them because the dice said so. (And again, we can see why the same thing cannot work in reverse with the omniscient GM.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

The thing is this:

"A NPC rolled 26 on their joke telling roll."

Did you laugh?

Sure, you can pretend it was funny and force a fake laugh, but it just doesn't feel the same than the GM actually presenting the NPC as funny and you genuinely finding it so. Real feeling requires presenting the situation so that it happens. And it is not hard for NPCs to convince PCs of all sort of things, as the GM controls how everything is presented. And for the players it feels far more satisfying to be genuinely surprised when the NPC they trusted turns out to be traitor, if they actually believed them instead of just pretending to believe them because the dice said so. (And again, we can see why the same thing cannot work in reverse with the omniscient GM.)

This just reads as a one-sided demand that the GM be a charismatic actor type with solid social skills to accomplishing that sort of thing in the game, while the Player has no such requirement when interacting with NPCs.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This just reads as a one-sided demand that the GM be a charismatic actor type with solid social skills to accomplishing that sort of thing in the game,

That certainly helps! But things of course can be represented in different ways, not necessarily by acting, it can be also via evocative descriptions and other storytelling techniques. But yeah, if the GM cannot evoke genuine feeling in the players somehow, they will never be a very good GM. Like imagine watching a movie that did not evoke any feelings in you. What a drag.

while the Player has no such requirement when interacting with NPCs.

Well, if they are it will certainly make that game more enjoyable to everyone. But the reason for asymmetry is the different knowledge sets of participants. The player probably knows more about their character than the GM of the NPC, meanwhile the GM knows massively more about all sort of things the NPC would not know about. Like the player can be genuinely misled by the NPC, but the same simply cannot happen in reverse.