D&D General "I roll Persuasion."

[Bill Zebub]

I’m not a huge fan of such magic either, but an NPC mechanically influencing the thoughts of my character against my will feels like mind control. That’s less of a problem if it is supposed to be actual mind control rather than a conversation.

When it happens, I like to imagine that my character is still him/herself, locked away in their brain screaming, "Wait! What are you doing with my body! Stop!"

 

[Reynard]

As somebody very opposed to the DM ever getting to dictate what my character thinks, I get the knee-jerk reaction. AND I think a social combat system in which that couldn't occur could be really fun. The critical thing is that there's a risk:reward system that is understood by the players.

I like the idea of setting stakes at the beginning, which alleviates that since the player has to agree to those stakes. I would actually use it primarily as a tool to adjudicate arguments between a PC and and NPC where another NPC is going to decide (like a trail or an appeal for aid or whatever).

 

[Celebrim]

What I'm talking about is very much DM fiat.

Ok. Yep. It is definitely DM fiat. I don't think it is going to cause me to modify my statement any.

You claimed that the only DM fiat was mostly in the preparation prior to the adventure.

I still 100% back my statement. Declaring rulings isn't nearly as powerful of use of a fiat as altering the fiction, so it's still true that DM fiat in D&D is mostly used in preparation.

Moreover your gotcha here is completely taking my comment out of context, as I was making that comment directly in response to Umbran's statement that most people didn't think about preparation as being fiat so the sort of fiat being discussed at the time was very much control over the fiction. And to me, control over the fiction is the ultimate fiat power. And I think this is made very evident by how many people will feel like the GM "fudging" is a form of cheating and wrong or at the very least something to be avoided, while being perfectly content to let the GM smith out rulings as needed. And I don't think the answer to that is merely "because that is what they are used to". One is much more assertion of authority over the narrative than the other.

 

[HammerMan]

My dad was a conman for years. He started as a used car salesman (cliche much) and when I was small he would have someone else in the place pick a car and bet them that the next customer he spoke to would walk away buying that car. (Again he has no idea what or who walks in next) and he did it often enough that people didn’t want to bet him any more.
He also sold rusted old railroad spike we (my brother and I) would find in and by the tracks by spray painting them solve or gold putting them in a Kay jewelers box and get hundreds for them… and I can’t believe anyone showed up “wanting” some weird Kay’s collectible train thing ( maybe he got lucky and got a train guy)

The ones that got me the most twisted though was when one of his victims would catch him and he would talk his way out of trouble.

The fact that I can’t make a non magic NPC that could do any of that annoys me to no end.

 

[Maxperson]

I still 100% back my statement. Declaring rulings isn't nearly as powerful of use of a fiat as altering the fiction, so it's still true that DM fiat in D&D is mostly used in preparation.

I don't agree with that. Changing the rules fundamentally alters how game play happens, which the vast majority of the time also impacts the fiction. I think it's every bit as powerful.

Moreover your gotcha here is completely taking my comment out of context, as I was making that comment directly in response to Umbran's statement that most people didn't think about preparation as being fiat so the sort of fiat being discussed at the time was very much control over the fiction.

It wasn't a "gotcha." It was a disagreement. While you were responding to Umbran, your response made a statement about fiat that reached beyond that context. You may not have intended it, but that's how your response reads.

And I think this is made very evident by how many people will feel like the GM "fudging" is a form of cheating and wrong or at the very least something to be avoided, while being perfectly content to let the GM smith out rulings as needed.

Fudging is both rules and fictional fiat, as a change to the number of hit points that the dragon has affects both the rules AND the fictional dragon.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

yeaaaaa that's not how fate works. I gave a short description of stress tracks & consequences earlier but I left out aspects & the fate fractal deliberately because they are deceptively deep & complex things that appear very simple, that apparent simplicity makes them easy ti misunderstand before even getting to the ways of using them to declare & compel with them.

• A player could spend a fate point & point out that the fancy tea party they are at should really be the kind of place where it would be trivial to acquire a cookie just by taking it off the plate they were already holding. In doing so the player wove into existence the cookie, the plate it was on,the fact that they were previously given the plate, & to be honest the fact that they were given the plate with cookies.
• The gm could also spend a fate point & declare that on the cookies have live cockroaches citing the aspect of exactly who is hosting the party
• The p;ayer or a different player could even spend a fate point to make their own character's cookie have live roaches causing their character to have trouble because of an aspect the character themselves has.
• Some of thosecould be accomplished without spending the fate point by spending an action or gain a fate point if it's a compel. Ignoring a compel requires you to spend a fate point rather than gain one

Bifts are what you get when aspects/compels/declarations are summarized & the listener thinks they understandthe whole iceberg based on the visible tip above the surface

this sounds like calvinball...or bill and ted "I remembered the trash can"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Something like that would be supernatural in origin, regardless of what they called it. One thing I remember from reading 4e is that they said that the martial power source wasn't magic in the traditional sense, which made it magic in an untraditional sense. It's how they justified give fighters supernaturally powerful abilities.

If it's supernatural, then it overcomes my objections. If it's not, then my objections remain.

it just strikes me as odd that the flavor text tag will change for "okay" to "Don't take my autonomy"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I’m not a huge fan of such magic either, but an NPC mechanically influencing the thoughts of my character against my will feels like mind control. That’s less of a problem if it is supposed to be actual mind control rather than a conversation.

I mean your not SUPPOSED to like a con man getting you to do something... that's the thing when the grift is found out you should feel like you were controlled

 

[GMforPowergamers]

When it happens, I like to imagine that my character is still him/herself, locked away in their brain screaming, "Wait! What are you doing with my body! Stop!"

would that thought help you if a fast talking grifter tricked you?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Now in Stonetop, the GM is principally constrained to be a fan of the characters...but that doesn't entail "curating play so that the players are basically cosplaying/LARPing their preconceptions of their PC."

This caught my attention. I want to LARP my idea of my character so if the game gets on the way of that then I’m not going to like it.