All Characters Should be Good at Talking to NPCs

[pickin_grinnin]

Persuasion rolls and diplomacy checks or anything of that kind are for selling NPCs on terrible proposals or lies. If a player makes reasonable arguments that would be in an NPCs best interest to follow up on, then I will use my role as GM to make that NPC agree with the player. No kind of roll is necessary.
It's only when an NPC does not want to do what the players want, or their arguments seem highly doubtful, that players may make a roll on the relevant ability to maybe be able to convince the NPC otherwise.

That is how I do it, too.

I have NPCs react to PCs in the way that I think they would, given the personality of the NPC, the situation, and what the PC says. I reserve rolls for cases where the NPC would not react in the way the player wants them to, but the player really wants to try to push things. Anyone can try to reason with an NPC, barter, or even tell a convincing lie. Rolls come in when those things don't work on the NPC, and the player specifically wants to try to be more persuasive.

 

[Yora]

In general, rolling dice is for situation when an action could plausibly fail or succeed, and the GM does not know which one it should be or does not want the player to feel that it was an arbitrary choice to influence the story.

 

[Fenris-77]

I also tend to ask for rolls for manipulation type actions declarations and rely on actual roleplaying for the rest. In the case of D&D something else I do is for downtime stuff, like gathering rumors, or things like that, I'll allow any skill to be used if it applies to the group in question. If you want to mix and mingle with the hostlers, for example, I'd let you roll animal handling. I know that sounds odd, but I've always characterized it as 'talking shop', which is a very real thing. That means that every character is, at the very least, capable of mixing with NPCs who have shared skills and interests. I also like that it puts a little more emphasis sometimes on less-rolled skills and background choices.

 

[Mallus]

Here's what I did when running 3.5e. I never called for social skill checks (Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate). We talked things out in-character. But at any time a player could call for a social skill check, and I would abide by the results.

 

[Umbran]

This has never happened to me.

Are you overly relying on dice rolls to resolve social interactions? If you ask for skill checks too much, then obviously your players learn that they should not try to do anything that they have low scores at, and just let better characters do it. It's the old rollplaying vs roleplaying gamestyle decision.

I dunno. Maybe everyone else is depending too much on die rolls to resolve bloodily violent situations?

 

[Li Shenron]

I dunno. Maybe everyone else is depending too much on die rolls to resolve bloodily violent situations?

What do you mean? Combat is obviously different, always has been in D&D.

 

[Campbell]

What do you mean? Combat is obviously different, always has been in D&D.

It's not all that obvious to me. What makes the physical dimension worthy of simulation/representation, but not the psychological/neurological? I get that's how traditional games have generally treated things, but that does not mean it's ever made much sense. Especially if you have any measure of experience with athletics and know how much neurological and psychological factors play affect athletic performance.

 

[Umbran]

What do you mean? Combat is obviously different, always has been in D&D.

This is where we note that this thread is ot in the D&D forum. We are expected and invited to consider other things...

So, combat has always been different in D&D. That's a matter of tradition, as D&D has its roots in games that have no social interaction to speak of.

Other games have proven that it doesn't have to be different, and so that opens the question of why we continue to have it be different in D&D....

 

[Voadam]

You can LARP out a physically violent situation instead of using abstract dice game mechanics the same way you can first person roleplay a social interaction with an NPC instead of using abstract dice game mechanics. For a tabletop game it is not feasible to physically resolve violent situations or physical actions the same way it would be for a LARP while first person roleplaying would be feasible. So there is an obvious difference there.

You could also narratively abstract out both more than a dice game mechanic "OK that will work. You intimidate your prisoner to elicit the bandit gang's route and then successfully ambush them at the narrow pass they go through, one problem down."

When to use mechanics or not and what type of mechanics is partly a matter of taste and convenience and choice about focus and play experience.

 

[MGibster]

Are you overly relying on dice rolls to resolve social interactions? If you ask for skill checks too much, then obviously your players learn that they should not try to do anything that they have low scores at, and just let better characters do it. It's the old rollplaying vs roleplaying gamestyle decision.

It's certainly possible but I don't think that's the root cause as I've seen them behave the same way when other people are DMing. And it isn't all my players at all times. One player had a very memorable character who was terrible an interacting with people but he was overconfident and believed he could do anything. That character was a lot of fun. In recent years I've tried to limit the number of dice rolling in my games to those situations where the results might be interesting. If a character is going to be able to batter down a door eventually I don't make them roll I just say they batter it down after a few rounds. But at times I have caught myself thinking, "Why did I make the player roll?" in situations where the result didn't really matter.

A complete opposite approach (fully narrative) might be: the DM decides which is the winning option, and it's an automatic success when you guess it right, otherwise it's an automatic failure. Most probably this doesn't work well with nearly every D&D player, because D&D does have plenty of stats and mechanics, which are expected to be used eventually.

I do this at times. If I have an NPC motivated by money then offering him a bribe is almost certain to succeed with no roll necessary. In a game set in the 1930s, I had a PC police detective try to intimidate a mob capo by threatening to arrest him. I flat out told the PC that this wasn't going to work, but, as an experienced detective, you know this won't work so feel free to try another tact.

My personal feeling is that niche protection in RPGs is highly overrated. Most characters should have strengths and weaknesses, but I find it better to have much more well rounded characters who are good at multiple things instead of one specific thing they demand the spotlight in.

I'm in agreement with you. I like niche protection insofar as it provides a PC with an opportunity to shine on occasion. But it shouldn't be a straight jacket. You might have one character playing a wheel man but that doesn't mean you can't have other characters who are decent at driving a vehicle.