D&D General "I roll Persuasion."

[Reynard]

some random NPC could walk up and force my PC to do something he would never do.

That is a really weird take of this argument.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not in RPGs. Outside of some sort of magical/chemical control of the PCs, players in RPGs have agency over what their PCs think, say and do(or at least attempt to do).

I can guarantee you that I would never even consider playing a game where some random NPC could walk up and force my PC to do something he would never do.

unless the weird NPC had magic

 

[Bill Zebub]

as did I... we were talking about rules that could be made not ones already made

I guess you missed the part where you suddenly started ridiculing a position you don’t seem to understand.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think that this is true for 5e. The biggest mantra of the game designers is "Rulings(DM fiat) over rules." That tells us that DM fiat is expected/intended to be used throughout the entire process of game play.

I think you are talking about two very different things. I've not seen anything in 5e that convinces me that D&D is getting far from Trad play. I've got 5e published modules. They look very much like Trad play.

"Rulings over rules" is intended to explain why 5e is less rules light than 3e, and not that it requires less preparation. It's meant to suggest that the DM should be relying on their judgment to improvise rules to cover all the edge cases that the rules of 5e don't cover. It's very much meant to inform a process of play where the players give free form natural language propositions that won't be covered by the rules and therefore require "rulings". This contrasts strongly I think with PbtA rules where all possible propositions are Moves that the rules cover completely.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I guess you missed the part where you suddenly started ridiculing a position you don’t seem to understand.

What position do I not understand?

 

[Bill Zebub]

IMO, players in an RPG should be able to handle losing a social contest and having to give up some thing or do some thing their character would rather not but was forced to. it happens all the time in the inspirational fiction.

That makes sense, which is why I like the idea of, essentially, gambling: how much autonomy are you will to risk in order to maybe get your way? The mechanics would look different than combat, but it could be a really fun subsystem.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's meant to suggest that the DM should be relying on their judgment to improvise rules to cover all the edge cases that the rules of 5e don't cover. It's very much meant to inform a process of play where the players give free form natural language propositions that won't be covered by the rules and therefore require "rulings".

is not this DM fiat?

 

[Maxperson]

do you not believe in people that are just able to talk you into things? Even disregarding grifter/conmen what about simple salesmen. Have you never seen a salesman sell someone something they don't need?

To me? No. Salesmen don't have that kind of control, but mostly because I scrutinize everything and trust little that they say. From the flip side, it's amazing the kind of control over some people that salesmen have.

When I was young and worked in retail, I worked sales at a company similar to Bed, Bath and Beyond. I came up to a woman who had almost an entire bathroom picked out for her house. She told me how much she liked those items and asked my opinion. The colors didn't go well together and I told her that. Without any hesitation she put all of it down and asked me to pick out stuff for her. Stuff that SHE liked and wanted got tossed away because I gave my opinion. Still, that's very different from going up to her and talking her into buying something that she hates.

That's the key here. We all like things that we don't need, so it's pretty easy to talk us into buying things we like, but don't need. The entire game of D&D falls into this category. We like it, but we don't NEED it. I very much dislike the game of Diplomacy. I played it once and didn't enjoy a single minute of it for the many hours it took to finish. There's nobody in sales or anywhere else that could talk me into buying a copy of Diplomacy. It could be sitting at a convention on a flea market table for 10 cents and nobody would be capable of talking me into buying it.

 

[Celebrim]

IMO, players in an RPG should be able to handle losing a social contest and having to give up some thing or do some thing their character would rather not but was forced to. it happens all the time in the inspirational fiction.

In the inspirational fiction, how many author's wishes are being served by the story?

 

[Maxperson]

That is a really weird take of this argument.

It's a mental combat to force the PC/NPC to do something. If he would never do such a thing, can the player or DM just say no? Can he say that no matter how the social combat turns out that he isn't going to do that thing? If yes, then it's still up to the player do decide and agency is preserved. Of course, if it's yes then the social combat isn't necessary since it's up to the player/DM to decide just like it is now.