NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5606092" data-attributes="member: 8835">Its obvious from the example, that the party really doesn't have a chance of succeeding.  The party was late, and chose the wrong person to impersonate (by not knowing enough about him to avoid the identity collision).I don't it has anything to do with the NPC being in "can't think" mode.  The game world says the lie you are trying to perpetrate has been directly contradicted in front of this NPC less than 20 minutes ago.as such, you are correct that the party isn't going to achieve their Bluff goal of "let me in".Out of curiousity, what determined the nature of the Diplomat?  What determined that he was a close friend of the king?  What determined his arrival time relative to the PCs?  Did the players have a chance of learning any of this and altering their plan?Why does it matter?   Because a thwarting DM would make up just such and NPC so as to block the PCs plan.That doesn't mean other styles of GMing wouldn't use the same trick (I might, just as a matter of complicating the players plan).  There may be some DM's who would roll for the real Diplomat's arrival time, and for his relationship to the king, just to take himself out of the equation.If the PCs had gotten their first (maybe they dickered around too long, so you decided they act late), would you have allowed them their skill checks to get into the castle?Bear in mind, in all this, I'm not really a fan of the social skills.  I rather prefer the players roleplay it out.  However, when it hits a "is this going to work" moment, rolling the dice takes the decision out of my hands, which makes me feel more comfortable that I'm not railroading them to a foregone conclusion.And that's my core question to Jameson.  Can my higher level social PC run a con that is well planned and prepared for to get past a guard?  Something that a real person can do in real life?  Obviously, it won't work on all guard situations, as any GM can set up an impenetrable gate keeper.I suspect we all agree that the social skill rules are weaksauce and easy to abuse.  However, I maintain that if you fix them, I should be able to play a social skills PC, who has a fair chance at getting past the guard.  Barring some genre reason where such a PC doesn't fit in.So, as JC says, Play As You Like.  Well, I'd like to play Daniel Ocean, high level Rogue with max ranks in social skills.  And we are going to research the stuffing out of that castle and sneak my team in so we can rob his vault.We are going to investigate all possible candidates for kinds of people allowed access to the castle, and the hours of gate operation, and any social vulnerabilities the staff may have (people with gambling debts are security holes).  Additionally, any regular deliveries or pick-ups are also vectors of entry.  Furthermore, the act of talking to a guard may be used as a distraction, even if that access attempt fails, the "standard delivery guy" behind me will probably be waved through as the guard and I go over my paper work.If I do ALL that research and succeed at my gather information checks for it, and get my Disguises in order, and am not stupid enough to attempt entry when the castle is on lockdown unless I'm posing as the SWAT team that the king is expecting, then why should I not have a fair chance of succeeding.  Versus the boring way of nuking the castle from orbit, killing everyone, teleporting it in, gassing the place, lighting it on fire, etc that the PCs are capable of doing in most D&D games.</blockquote>

Verification