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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hypersmurf" data-source="post: 1427665" data-attributes="member: 1656">I've found that my favourite players to DM are the ones who can accept a nudge from the DM.  Not overriding control, but influence.The best example I can remember was when the party rogue slipped the unconscious cleric a drug.  It increased her Con, brought her conscious, and allowed her to Cure the other unconscious PCs... but it also had some minor side effects, namely paranoia and mild hallucinations.It was a PbEM, so it was easy to send a lot of private messages to the player.  The first one said, basically, "By the way - Delyn's feeling a little bit paranoid.  Play with it."Then she started receiving apparent telepathic communications from someone who had died several years earlier.  And a second private message - "Delyn doesn't see any reason to consider this unusual."And the player - who wasn't aware that the cleric had been drugged, and so had no clue why these things were happening - ran with it.  The cleric started acting suspicious, and talking to the voices in her head, and was surprised (and, of course, even more suspicious) when the other PCs found her behaviour abnormal. I like it when a player can accept a directive like "This freaky occurence seems normal to you" without feeling that the DM is impinging on their freedom.I like being able to roll an Intimidate check for an NPC and pass a player a note that says "You have the distinct feeling this guy could take you all with one hand tied behind his back."  I'm not going to say "... and you're so terrified that you fall to your knees and hand him the evil artifact", but I do expect the player to take into account the fact that this is a scary guy.  Even if he's really a high-Cha Expert with Skill Focus: Intimidate who happened to roll high, and he looks like a fop in a pansy silk shirt, there's something about him that frightens the PC a little bit.  The PC might respond to that fear with bluster, or with nervousness, or with rigid discipline hiding the shiver in his spine, or with abject terror - that's up to the player, based on the personality of the PC.  As a player, he might suspect the guy's just a mook... but the PC has that nagging doubt.A high Diplomacy check on the part of an NPC might receive an addendum of "... and the way he puts it makes it sound pretty reasonable."A high Bluff check might gain a "... and, you know, it's not as unlikely as it sounds."A cue like that might make the player even more suspicious... but I'd expect him to dial his PC's paranoia down a notch in response.  If he feels that, even taking that into account, the PC still doesn't believe it, that's fine.  If he feels that it's reasonable that the Bluff would cause the PC to take the line at face value, that's fine as well.But just as a low-Cha player should be able to gain some benefit in social situations from playing a high-Cha Bard or Rogue, so should a low-Cha DM be able to expect his players to give him a little considered response to a high-Cha NPC.-Hyp.</blockquote>

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