Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7289322" data-attributes="member: 97077">The Social Interaction guidelines in the DMG are a decent framework for this. I used that as inspiration for the way I set up social interaction challenges. Now, here I'm talking about important things, not just any old chat with an NPC. In my games, the players can "claim" Inspiration by playing to their personal characteristics once per trait, ideal, bond, and flaw (once per session each). This is so I don't have to keep track of 20 characteristics during play (I'm lazy and often drunk) and the PCs can rely upon it as a consistent resource if they play to the established characterization.NPCs in a social interaction challenge can do the same, only when the DM plays to those characteristics, it generates a point of Antagonism. It's like Inspiration for the NPC, but Antagonism is spent to impart disadvantage on a d20 roll the PCs make. If the PCs are able to discern the NPC's personal characteristics before the DM claims Antagonism for them, it negates the NPC's ability to claim Antagonism for those characteristics - the PC has got them pegged or whatever. This is a good task for PCs who don't have great Charisma but passable Wisdom or Insight proficiency, so it allows more PCs than the "party face" to confidently participate. An NPC being able to fairly easily throw disadvantage on the PCs sucks, especially if it's a spellcaster NPC. They are going to want to shut that down! So this is an incentive to pay attention and try to read the mannerisms of the NPC and may call for a Wisdom (Insight) check as per the Social Interaction rules.The NPC starts with a set attitude, usually Hostile or Indifferent which are basically difficulty settings - it's harder to move the NPC to Friendly if they start Hostile, right? Once the PCs make clear their goal during the interaction, the NPC can then offer up a number of objections to that relative to their own goal and characteristics. Overcoming those objections is the objective. It's more difficult if more objections must be overcome to move the needle on the attitude up a notch. Two, maybe three, is about right in my opinion. These might call for Charisma checks, when it's uncertain, and the players can roll with advantage if they play off the NPC's personal characteristics per the Social Interaction rules. But, hey, if they make a good argument or an awful one (relative to the NPC's characteristics and goals), maybe they just succeed or fail outright, no roll, just like anything else. You may also want to sketch out what might get an automatic failure and telegraph that during the interaction e.g. a haughty nobleman who will brook no attempt at intimidation.Once the objections are either handled or not, you see where the attitude sits. Then the PCs can make one final go at getting what they want. The Social Interaction rules show the DCs and outcomes based on the attitude, if you decide to call for a check. The result is that they either get what they want or they don't or maybe they get the result for a lower DC (basically, success at a cost or with a setback).Anyway, that's the structure of it from the DM's side so you have something to go on. It's doesn't play out so mechanically at the table. Good luck, let me know if you have any questions.</blockquote>

Verification