D&D General "I roll Persuasion."

[GMforPowergamers]

When your significant other wants something that you really dont, you'll likely acquiesce.

this reminds me of a comdian talking about his wife

When I got married I learned that the only way to make it work is compromise... we are going to go eat, and I want to go to the steak house she wants to go to the Italian place so we 'compromise' and go to the Italian place. When we go to movies and I want to go to horror and her to rom coms we 'compromise' and go to the rom com. When planning our vacation I wanted to go to New Jersey, and she wanted to go to Mass, so we 'compromised' and went to Mass...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

My character’s mind, on the other hand, is mine and mine alone. I’ll no more let the GM tell me that I find an NPC persuasive than I will allow them to tell me I find the orc’s max damage crit roll intimidating.

until they use the word magic...

when a succubus or vampire effects your mind you will have no issue playing out that all of a sudden the character's mind changed.

 

[Bedrockgames]

As a spinoff of the astoundingly long lived "I roll perception" thread:

I don't mind D&D social encounters being about players presenting ideas to NPCs and GMs deciding how that goes with maybe a persuasion roll involved or whatever, but I actually like the idea of full on "social combat" system just as intricate and tactically satisfying as the physical combat one. There would be positions taken, and angles of rhetorical attack, and specific maneuvers and even social specific magic, all dedicated to winnowing down "Resolve" or "Social Hit Points" to find out who won.

I tried a rough design once with a courtly intrigue adventure in an otherwise standard D&D campaign and a couple players completely balked -- especially the one playing the face (who felt like the system undermined his high Charisma and high Persuasion skill).

How do you feel about "social combat" in D&D? Do you think any edition of D&D has gotten social encounters "right"? Are there and 3rd party things (for any edition) that you think work for "social combat"? Am I just looking for a way to play "Ace Attorney" in D&D?

I always prefer talking in character to 'I roll persuasion'. How I tend to use skills like this is to make "I roll persuasion" not a viable action. You can talk, and the GM might ask for a persuade if the GM doesn't know how people would react to what you say or what you say is underwhelming (but you have a lot of ranks in Peruasion so there ought to be other factors than your words alone that would make what you just said more compelling----because your character's skills indicate you are persuasive). For me personally, this works a lot better. I find it hard to run games and annoying to play in games where there is an important social exchange but 1) it plays out like exposition, or 2) I don't even know what was said specifically. There are exceptions. If time is being glossed over and background details are being hand waved, and a persuasion roll is made to see how well a character is handling something effectively "off screen" I find that less jarring.

In terms of systems for social combat, I just can't get into them. They take away one of the key things I enjoy about an RPG. It feels like I just turned a conversation into a board game

 

[payn]

Obviously, any social system that compels behavior is going to require buy in from the players and include safety tools. I don't think those facts mean the idea is unworkable, though.

Yeah I think that's an uphill battle because folks are moving away from any removal of agency of a PC. At this point, I just assume social combat is the PC trying diplomacy, intimidation, persuasion, or other social methods of drawing action from their target. If the PC doesn't succeed, the NPC doesn't help them and they need to find another course of action to achieve their goal.

If I was attempting to make a social combat system more interesting, I would focus on making the above more interesting.

 

[payn]

this reminds me of a comdian talking about his wife

When I got married I learned that the only way to make it work is compromise... we are going to go eat, and I want to go to the steak house she wants to go to the Italian place so we 'compromise' and go to the Italian place. When we go to movies and I want to go to horror and her to rom coms we 'compromise' and go to the rom com. When planning our vacation I wanted to go to New Jersey, and she wanted to go to Mass, so we 'compromised' and went to Mass...

Rodney Dangerfield used to talk about the arrangements he had with his wife. They agreed not to smoke cigs until after they had sex. He complained about not smoking for over six months and now she is up to a pack a day.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

In addition, a social combat system removes agency from the players. An NPC who defeats a PC in a social combat to get you to dance naked on top of a table has made that PC do it almost surely against the player's will.

does not charm and dominate already do this?
we HAVE effects for this.

the same way you don't (out of game) get mad that a NPC or PC spent a single action to dominated you to attack your party healer... now your character most likely wont like it when it wares off... why would if be worse if over a 10 min period you and a maste manipulator had a mental show down that ended with you being dominated or charmed... cause again when it wares off or is countered (deprograming even works on cult members) your character can hate the person.

Also, how would mass social combat work? If 5 people are all "attacking" you socially to get you to do something, do they burn your will down far more quickly than 1?

I would think so... a group of grifters can most likely not only get you to do X that you don't want to...but make you think it was your own idea in the first place...

the 'crazy' one everyone used to use on here was "No matter how high your bluff is you can't bluff the king into giving you his kingdom"

but I bet you could...set up a false identity as his nephew (since his brother disappeared) start by not wanting to impose... another character is impersonating the kings advisor and warns that there is some new threat... other party members make that threat look real. The 'new nephew' is set up to save the king from a threat that isn't really there... but the king feels he owes him and the advisor 'reluctantly' says you could give him a duke or baron title, but there are none available... and when the king says he can just make one 'it's good to be the king' the advisor says 'oh once in history your great great great grandfather made a position that was basically duke of the palace, and hiar to the thrown, but I don't think you want... and the king says he is going to do it since he has no kids of his own... yeah you just went from 2 warriors a fast talking rogue and a warlock that can disguise self at will to being a heart beat from king... oh and the king is sure it was his idea...

entire con man shows and movies are written like this... "Lets go steal us a kingdom"

and here is the best part... in the middle of 1 con you might need something and that whole paragraph of a month or three's work could be a montage so that you then have the character having access to the kingdom for the other con.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I gave in to peer pressure once on a field trip when I was about 8. My classmates talked me into stealing a small knife from a gift shop. Then they turned me in to the teachers. Lesson learned. Since then no amount of pressure has been able to get me to do something I don't want to or know is wrong....................unless there are external pressures like a parent saying if I don't do it I will get beat or no dinner. Simple verbal pressure, though? Nope.

never in my life have I meet someone so sure they can not be conned...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I like skill challenges. I think they have some strengths compared to social conflict systems where both the players and the GM roll (eg Burning Wheel, Prince Valiant, Torchbearer, Marvel Heroic RP).

I do think skill challanges where a great start....and I lament that we have lost years of improving them with the advent of 5e

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think @Bill Zebub has the right take on this. Unless you have players willingly to play along with the apparent "logical results" of any type of social combat and change their character's opinions or views based upon what the dice said at the conclusion of the combat... you're not going to get effective results.

I mean heck... we already see the issues noawadays with just things like Intimidation. If @el-remmen was to run one of their polls to ask "If a DM rolled Intimidation against your PC and succeeded, would you go along with the result?" I'm pretty sure we'd see plenty of folks vote No, and reply with that their character's reactions are their own-- the player's decision, the player's choice-- and dice rolls can't and won't force them to behave or react differently. And if that's true, then bothering with an entire social combat system isn't going to make things different.

I often wonder what those players do when they fail a save vs a fear spell

 

[payn]

never in my life have I meet someone so sure they can not be conned...

These are the best marks. You convince them they are winning when the entire time they are being swindled.