D&D General A History of Violence: Killing in D&D

[Micah Sweet]

Speak for yourself and people you play with. If properly structured (as carrot-and-stick processes rather than action demand processes) I've seen plenty of people willing to deal with it.

In a D&D-styled game?

 

[MGibster]

Which is fine until and unless one takes the stance, as I do, that if those mechanics work against NPCs they have to equally work against PCs; at which point the player-side desire for social mechanics scurries back into the corner.

This is a frequent problem in my experience. For a lot of players, it doesn't matter what they rolled on their Sense Motive check or even how well the NPC rolled for Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Deception. Their character is going to do whatever the player decides is the best choice. If I ran my NPCs like that I don't think they'd be happy at all. Sometimes I just like to throw a friendly NPC in odd places just to watch players squirm.

 

[MGibster]

I like role playing and negotiating with NPCs in a manner that does not include having their livers on a stick. But if I'm playing a game of D&D I'm walking in expecting a good deal of combat. We can do all the RPG stuff an negotiate from time-to-time, but I demand blood.

 

[payn]

This is a frequent problem in my experience. For a lot of players, it doesn't matter what they rolled on their Sense Motive check or even how well the NPC rolled for Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Deception. Their character is going to do whatever the player decides is the best choice. If I ran my NPCs like that I don't think they'd be happy at all. Sometimes I just like to throw a friendly NPC in odd places just to watch players squirm.

If a PC rolls well on diplo what do you have the NPC do? Im just curious.

I often view it as one of those scenes in TV/film where unknown folks square off. Maybe its a clerk in a store or an innkeeper. Starts off indifferent, but PC might talk them up a bit for a discount and/or a rumor. Or, you have the classic hostile standoff where both parties have their hands on their weapons, but a quick witted face gets everybody to hold for a moment and talk it through. What comes next depends on how the player lays out the reasoning and the NPC decides how to engage.

What I dont do is have NPCs get diplomancied into spilling their guts and handing over their wallets while betraying their benefactors all to the PC's content and desire. It's not mind control, but can aid in turning a situation around.

 

[MGibster]

If a PC rolls well on diplo what do you have the NPC do? Im just curious.

I honestly forgot 5th edition didn't have Diplomacy as a skill. Generally speaking, so long as the PC isn't asking for something unreasonable, I'll give them what they want on a successful roll. What's reasonable? That's a good question and one of the reasons I like you so much. What's reasonable or unreasonable just depends on context and is something the DM must decide as the situation presents itself. And this is what makes social situations difficult to adjudicate using the rules. It's so easy with combat, but it's a little harder with social interactions.

What I dont do is have NPCs get diplomancied into spilling their guts and handing over their wallets while betraying their benefactors all to the PC's content and desire. It's not mind control, but can aid in turning a situation around.

Bingo.

 

[Voadam]

I honestly forgot 5th edition didn't have Diplomacy as a skill.

Persuasion is the 5e equivalent.

5e RAW gives a DM a huge variety of options for how they handle social interactions, including full DM ad hoc adjudication with no roll.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I wonder how players would react if GMs started having their NPCs being totally unaffected by all their social rolls and/or RPing, what’s good for the goose...

 

[Mannahnin]

In a D&D-styled game?

5E has the Frightened and Charmed conditions. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to re-introduce Shaken, and to introduce other similar mechanical conditions which could be imposed by skills.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And over time, the door-kickers' influence on the game grew stronger, and balance between the styles was broken.

I think the hyper-cautious approach was going to be less and less common the moment GMs got away from gotcha GMing. In my experience it had far less to do with the quality of opposition than overuse of traps.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In a D&D-styled game?

I don't see why it'd be any different in a D&D style game as long as it does the carrot-and-stick approach. The games I saw it used in were otherwise standard trad action-adventure games.