D&D 5E How to model a party of cinematically charismatic heroes?

[5ekyu]

Yes, we agree that you do sound crazy. I certainly didn't suggest removing mechanics from the game. See "The Middle Path" in the DMG, pages 236-237.



I don't see why you'd have any emotional reaction at all to how someone else runs their games, but it does explain a lot of your posts on enworld.

As I have said in multiple threads now, a player is tasked with describing what he or she wants to do. That means stating an approach to a goal. Stating the approach to the goal is roleplaying now matter how you communicate it. Therefore, if you are skillful at coming up with effective approaches to goals such that you end up rolling less than other people at the table, yes, you may be more successful over time. That's okay in my view. Player skill should matter in a game as as I see it and putting one's character in the best possible fictional position to achieve success is smart play (to the extent smart play is seen as achieving more successes than failures).

However, the way one presents a goal and approach to the DM is unimportant to adjudication. The player may use an active or descriptive approach to roleplaying or some combination of the two. If the long, inspiring speech by one player (active approach) still just effectively boils down to the simple statement of goal and approach by another player (descriptive approach), they have the same chance of success. So, no, being a "wordsmith" or a thespian or the like doesn't give you any particular advantage.

Re the "no particular advantage"...

It seems clear in your games that it is a particular advantage to get you to choose auto-play over uncertain. You have made that i think clear.

While yes you may not give extra benefit for thespian-fu i think that what some may be expressing is not some shakespearean acting job but instead knowing how to "play iserith." A player who is better at manipulating you through there choices of how they describe their actions would seem to have better success at getting you to the auto-play.

Now maybe you want to see yourself as somehow immune to persuasion, but for i think many of us we would not think that of ourselves.

That is one of the reasons i choose to try and keep auto-play to the realm of "too easy to bother with" or "too impossible to matter" (both of which often never even need screen time and choice) end of the player skill to character skill spectrum AND to keep mechanics and character abilities in mind and factors in play at all stages of the resolution process, not put as a consolation round if you did not win in the auto-play round.

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[happyhermit]

The heroes on the big screen all have bags of charisma. ...

Yeah, I guess I don't really see that for the most part. When I look at D&D like ensembles such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Defenders, Firefly, etc I really don't see very high charisma across the board, there is pretty much always one that could have it as a dump stat even. I think your idea of advantage is great but I think the opposite of using it as a baseline is the way to go. As others have mentioned most characters are situationaly good at charisma related skills and abilities, so giving them advantage (or just letting them succeed) in those case is the best solution. Oh, and a HUGE number of characters have advantage on persuasion checks to "get some" because the writers want them to succeed for obvious reasons, that sort of thing is often more welcome in movies than in rpgs so it needn't carry over.

 

[Sunseeker]

And I have. Many times in many threads. I even use a lot of the same words and phrases from the Basic Rules and DMG. But it seems possible that an emotional response to an approach suggested by the DMG may be interfering with your ability to understand the argument. I present the DMG reference in hopes that someone else saying the same thing may be better received.

It's not a personal attack. Your admission does, in fact, explain a lot of the posts you've made on these forums. It's useful information for all of us to know you have emotional reactions to how people you don't play D&D with run their games. It informs us how to interact with you going forward. Thank you.

Passive-aggressive behavior will not be tolerated.

This in summary has been the problem with Charisma since the inception of the game, and is a debate that will never end as long as the stat exists. On the one hand, your right. Mechanics exist for a reason, and you want to allow a person with low social skills to play a smooth-talker character. Just as you would have a weakling to play a super strong fighter. Further, a character shouldn't "have their cake and eat it too" with an 8 charisma but amazing speeches.

On the other, role-playing is talking. And there are people that are just better at it than others. If a player gives a dramatic epic speech, many DMs want to reward that....stats be damned.

This debate has no victor; it will continue until all of us our dead, cold, and in the ground.

Sure, I realize that, and I find it to be highly unfortunate. We're all here to play a game and enjoy ourselves, not to worry that our inability to write a great speech means our character is more at risk than someone else.

And this is coming from a person capable of great speechwriting. That's just not what I'm here to do.

 

[iserith]

While yes you may not give extra benefit for thespian-fu i think that what some may be expressing is not some shakespearean acting job but instead knowing how to "play iserith." A player who is better at manipulating you through there choices of how they describe their actions would seem to have better success at getting you to the auto-play.

As I said, how someone describes their actions has no bearing on adjudication. I boil down what they say to a goal and approach and resolve.

Now maybe you want to see yourself as somehow immune to persuasion, but for i think many of us we would not think that of ourselves.

I am not immune to persuasion, but I strive to be fair and consistent and I have prep to fall back on. I'm also balancing out the use of dice against deciding on success, as the DMG recommends ("The Middle Path"), and avoiding the drawbacks pointed out in the "Ignoring the Dice" approach (also in the DMG). I also have players who play in good faith and manipulating the DM isn't that. So this is not a concern I have though I have heard the "gaming the DM" argument a lot.

If we could go back to the WotC forums, especially in the D&D Next Playtest or What's a DM to Do sub-forums (and possibly in enworld's Next playtest forum a while back, which I think they had), you would see me making that very same argument. I thought it was a clever attack on a standard approach suggested by the (then) new game and it certainly lined up with the D&D 4e paradigm from which I was arguing. I didn't realize back then that "gaming the DM" is actually describing an act of bad faith by the players. I now believe it is inadvisable to construct an approach to DMing that counteracts bad faith play. I'd rather deal with bad faith play outside the context of the game and play to the "Middle Path" as described in the DMG.

I hope you will see, as I did, the folly of this "gaming the DM" argument, especially as applied to adherents of the Middle Path.

 

[iserith]

Passive-aggressive behavior will not be tolerated.

Huh? I'm being both direct and thankful for your admission, and not being even a bit aggressive. If hearing about the way I play D&D in an exchange that you initiated provokes an emotional reaction strong enough where you are applying to well-meaning attempts at discourse a tone that is not intended, I recommend making use of the "block" feature. I'm trying to communicate with you in good faith here.

 

[5ekyu]

As I said, how someone describes their actions has no bearing on adjudication. I boil down what they say to a goal and approach and resolve.



I am not immune to persuasion, but I strive to be fair and consistent and I have prep to fall back on. I'm also balancing out the use of dice against deciding on success, as the DMG recommends ("The Middle Path"), and avoiding the drawbacks pointed out in the "Ignoring the Dice" approach (also in the DMG). I also have players who play in good faith and manipulating the DM isn't that. So this is not a concern I have though I have heard the "gaming the DM" argument a lot.

If we could go back to the WotC forums, especially in the D&D Next Playtest or What's a DM to Do sub-forums (and possibly in enworld's Next playtest forum a while back, which I think they had), you would see me making that very same argument. I thought it was a clever attack on a standard approach suggested by the (then) new game and it certainly lined up with the D&D 4e paradigm from which I was arguing. I didn't realize back then that "gaming the DM" is actually describing an act of bad faith by the players. I now believe it is inadvisable to construct an approach to DMing that counteracts bad faith play. I'd rather deal with bad faith play outside the context of the game and play to the "Middle Path" as described in the DMG.

I hope you will see, as I did, the folly of this "gaming the DM" argument, especially as applied to adherents of the Middle Path.

Your belief in how little "how someone describes" influences your adjudications is refeshing. Few people i know seem as confident in their ability to so clearly prevent being influenced.

That is why i choose to - as a Middle Path guy - draw that divisor between "i decide character and mechanics dont matter and its my call alone" and " character and mechanics play a role" much father back on the "play skill -character skill" and "GM says yes/no - character and mechanics say yes/no" spectrums after the player describes their effort/approach/action.

To me it seems not a type of game i would enjoy as much if i made my players go through an elaborate chargen process but then GMed in a way that made winning in the auto-play stage take such a prominent opening round stage that they have to fail at to even see those mechanics.

If i were going that route i might also adopt some of the DMG options to reduce chargen, like say the option for Ability Proficiencies or Background proficiencies (throwing out skills and tools) which seem far more in sync with higher levels of weight being put on the player-gm interplay.

Maybe you did. iDK.

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[iserith]

Your belief in how little "how someone describes" influences your adjudications is refeshing. Few people i know seem as confident in their ability to so clearly prevent being influenced.

Thanks! As I said, I'm not immune to persuasion, but ours is a game where the players aren't trying persuade me. So it's a non-issue. The "gaming the DM" argument is really only applicable to bad faith play. I'm sorry that I used to try to conflate it with good faith play at one point in order to criticize how other people play.

That is why i choose to - as a Middle Path guy - draw that divisor between "i decide character and mechanics dont matter and its my call alone" and " character and mechanics play a role" much father back on the "play skill -character skill" and "GM says yes/no - character and mechanics say yes/no" spectrums after the player describes their effort/approach/action.

To me it seems not a type of game i would enjoy as much if i made my players go through an elaborate chargen process but then GMed in a way that made winning in the auto-play stage take such a prominent opening round stage that they have to fail at to even see those mechanics.

It's not that elaborate in my view. Compared to the last two editions anyway. And you speak as if I'm not using the Middle Path which balances out granting automatic success with calling for rolls. After all, the player would have to perform a task that is so free of conflict and stress that there's no chance of failure while avoiding doing anything in appropriate or impossible. How often do you suppose they have such utter control over a dangerous adventuring environment to see that to fruition? Perhaps it's not as often as you think. In fact, it rather seems like you believe we're not referencing the mechanics at all in my games. I can assure you that's not the case.

If i were going that route i might also adopt some of the DMG options to reduce chargen, like say the option for Ability Proficiencies or Background proficiencies (throwing out skills and tools) which seem far more in sync with higher levels of weight being put on the player-gm interplay.

Maybe you did. iDK.

I didn't.

The original poster wanted to know how to get cinematically charismatic characters at the table. The approach I use sorts that out without doing anything outside of what the Basic Rules and DMG recommends and is also applicable to combat and exploration challenges.

 

[5ekyu]

Thanks! As I said, I'm not immune to persuasion, but ours is a game where the players aren't trying persuade me. So it's a non-issue. The "gaming the DM" argument is really only applicable to bad faith play. I'm sorry that I used to try to conflate it with good faith play at one point in order to criticize how other people play.



It's not that elaborate in my view. Compared to the last two editions anyway. And you speak as if I'm not using the Middle Path which balances out granting automatic success with calling for rolls. After all, the player would have to perform a task that is so free of conflict and stress that there's no chance of failure while avoiding doing anything in appropriate or impossible. How often do you suppose they have such utter control over a dangerous adventuring environment to see that to fruition? Perhaps it's not as often as you think. In fact, it rather seems like you believe we're not referencing the mechanics at all in my games. I can assure you that's not the case.



I didn't.

The original poster wanted to know how to get cinematically charismatic characters at the table. The approach I use sorts that out without doing anything outside of what the Basic Rules and DMG recommends and is also applicable to combat and exploration challenges.

Actually iserith i dont think i came close to asserting you were not using middle path. What i did try to show is there is a rather broad spectrum in the middle path based on how much the GM uses the auto-play by dint of their personal threshold for where "no chance of failure" etc kicks in. Some, perhaps many, set that threshold at mostly the obvious too eady stuff like not rolling to walk across floor. Others obviously may set that higher allowing more and more situations to be resolved with only the player's skill in the player-gm interaction being involved in a given circumstance with no reference to character skill.

I see a number of potential pitfalls with putting more and more of the resolutions into the gm-player interaction (with no character stst and mechanics) involved (even if they were not listed in the DMG.)

As for how much you use it in fact in your game (i never implied you never used mechanics btw) i take you at your word thats its enough that trying to get more auto-play is a better more winning strategy that you specifically mention it so often here as "strstegy" and even go into other games and advise those players of the same.

Are you now trying to say this is a minor thing, not that critical, not that important etc for your games, that it wont produce a siginificant difference in success?

If so that seems a new take on its significance.

But that spectrum of how much of the ability check gameplay falls into "player-gm" resolution without ever needing "character and mechanics" involved has no right or wrong answer in the midfle path or even the other paths. Different RPGs and different tables within given RPGs are all over the place.

My preference is to have the resolution after scene setup and action description/approach to be mostly in the hands of "character-mechanics" (or at least in the shadow of those) rather than in the "GM decides" based on the "GM-Player" dialog especially for important matters (with exceptions only for the more extreme beyond easy and out of possibility cases.)

I also find it keeps the gameplay not as much like two separate systems - one for fighting and other such cases (where that 1 and 20 rule means almost always mechanics and charactrr in play in the resolution) and one for ability checks (where the GM tells you its best strategy as player to keep mechanics out of play in the resolution altogether by succeeding at the auto-play side.)









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[iserith]

Actually iserith i dont think i came close to asserting you were not using middle path. What i did try to show is there is a rather broad spectrum in the middle path based on how much the GM uses the auto-play by dint of their personal threshold for where "no chance of failure" etc kicks in. Some, perhaps many, set that threshold at mostly the obvious too eady stuff like not rolling to walk across floor. Others obviously may set that higher allowing more and more situations to be resolved with only the player's skill in the player-gm interaction being involved in a given circumstance with no reference to character skill.

I set the threshold on a case-by-case basis. Each situation needs to be judged individually in my view with an eye toward consistency and fairness.

I see a number of potential pitfalls with putting more and more of the resolutions into the gm-player interaction (with no character stst and mechanics) involved (even if they were not listed in the DMG.)

As for how much you use it in fact in your game (i never implied you never used mechanics btw) i take you at your word thats its enough that trying to get more auto-play is a better more winning strategy that you specifically mention it so often here as "strstegy" and even go into other games and advise those players of the same.

Are you now trying to say this is a minor thing, not that critical, not that important etc for your games, that it wont produce a siginificant difference in success?

If so that seems a new take on its significance.

It seems self-evident to me that describing a cogent approach to a goal in an effort to remove uncertainty from the outcome is a better strategy for success than describing a less cogent approach to a goal and/or asking to roll dice.

But that spectrum of how much of the ability check gameplay falls into "player-gm" resolution without ever needing "character and mechanics" involved has no right or wrong answer in the midfle path or even the other paths. Different RPGs and different tables within given RPGs are all over the place.

We're talking about this RPG - D&D 5e - in this forum. I also don't say one means of resolution is better than another. Rather, I state what I believe is self-evident above.

My preference is to have the resolution after scene setup and action description/approach to be mostly in the hands of "character-mechanics" (or at least in the shadow of those) rather than in the "GM decides" based on the "GM-Player" dialog especially for important matters (with exceptions only for the more extreme beyond easy and out of possibility cases.)

I also find it keeps the gameplay not as much like two separate systems - one for fighting and other such cases (where that 1 and 20 rule means almost always mechanics and charactrr in play in the resolution) and one for ability checks (where the GM tells you its best strategy as player to keep mechanics out of play in the resolution altogether by succeeding at the auto-play side.)

It's not separate systems though. It's all intertwined. The Basic Rules tell players to pay close attention and use approaches that align with the character's best bonuses and skills in case they have to roll. It's riskier to do otherwise. So this is taken care of on the player side to the extent players heed that advice (and in my experience, they do by and large). I don't need to worry about it on the DM side. I just need to judge the approach.

 

[5ekyu]

Iserith

". I also don't say one means of resolution is better than another."

While technically true you do reference how you avoid the drawbacks of the other option(s) both here and in other threads and in the other threads have stated clearly you chose the one without any drawbacks.

So, it really does seem thay saying the others have drawbacks and this one doesnt (a position i dont agree with) is indeed describing one as better than the others, just not so explicitly as your denial is.



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