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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7742356" data-attributes="member: 42582">So if this wasn't a warlord thread, now it's become one?!?!Given [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s optimistic post just above this one, I'll try to keep my deraiing of it to that one comment.So I'll try a different way in: declining the offered beer seems like it might be rude. Does the PC in question have an unlimited capacity for declining polite invitations or requests?In real life, there are innumerable occasions every day in which someone does something not because s/he really wants to but because some sort of social custom or expectation operates to produce the behaviour. A really simple example is greeting someone (whether a nod, a word, a handshake, whatever) in response to that other person's greeting; or perhaps just in response to his/her presence, if that then leads one to offer them a greeting.If we assume that the PCs in a RPG never respond to social cues of this sort, and never participate in the associated practices, unless the player says so, then we're positing incredibly austere, alienated individuals as PCs. Because hardly any of the time is this sort of thing actually played out. (At least in my experience.)In a classic D&D game, though, asking the player on this occasion whether or not the PC takes the drink offered by the hag of course causes all sorts of suspicion on the part of the player! There must be something going on to make this banality suddenly worth time at the table.The previous three or four paragraphs don't offer a particular mechanical solution - but I think, if the game is going to produce verisimilitudinous characters who have somewhat normal social and affective responses, there needs to be some sort of structure or limit around the capacity of the players just to say "no, I don't like it and I don't do it" whenever some sort of social pressure comes up in play. Whether the limit is established by way of a resource, or by way of the need for a check, or - as is the case in many systems - some sort of interaction of the two, is a further more detailed design question.(If the player takes Affectively Disconnected from Others as some sort of character trait that's a further complicating factor, but that should be affecting his/her CHA checks on behalf of the PC also, I think.)</blockquote>

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