D&D 5E Persuade, Intimidate, and Deceive used vs. PCs

[GMforPowergamers]

at his point is there anyone in this thread willing to actually say that there style is to force a PC to think or act a certain way? if not can we at least put a nail in that coffin and change the way we talk about the subject... I mean really I don't think there is anything more inflammatory (without getting threads shut down because they are so bad) in an Rpg community then accuseing a DM of taking away player agency...

 

[iserith]

there is uncertainty no one knows how well in game the NPC does until he tries... you can describe and say all you want all that does is show how good or bad a orator you are (based on what you say you are quite skilled) how ever that is just you telling a story. Your NPC can be good or bad get lucky or unlucky, but your way doesn't take that into account at all. You say no check needed, I say "Yes there is, your CHARACTER (Pc or Npc) is trying an action, roll to see how well they do"

Just because a character or monster is trying an action does not mean a check is required. When the outcome of of that action is uncertain, the dice determine the results. When the outcome is not uncertain, the DM just narrates the results. (Or in some cases, the players do as I will demonstrate.)

So what is Beat Horsedeath trying to do? He's trying, for example, to get the PCs to surrender (goal) by putting on a fierce display of battle prowess (approach). The DM now asks him or herself: Does Beat Horsedeath achieve his goal given his approach, fail to achieve his goal, or is there uncertainty?

Before the DM can answer that question, he or she also has to consider how players are in control of how their characters act, think, and what they say. Which means that whether Beat Horsedeath achieves his goal given his approach is up to the players, not the DM, and not the dice. Therefore, the players determine the results of this part of the interaction. They might surrender, flee, attack - whatever they like.

You accused me of "hiding mechanics." I have proven this is not the case. I invoked no mechanics that could have been hidden.

except it is your out of game skill to tell the story and the players out of game skill of interpreting what you say or mean, and at no point is it refrencing the game world. You have ripped 1 whole pillar out of the game and just said "My way is better"

You keep referencing things like "it's just you telling a story" and "it's your out of game skill to tell the story," so I guess it's appropriate to remind you that D&D is a roleplaying game of storytelling in worlds of sword and sorcery. So yes, yes I am telling a story. As are the players.

With that in mind, when the DM is describing the environment (Beat Horsedeath trying to intimidate the PCs, for example), the DM is indeed referencing the game world by describing it. I'm not sure how anyone can see it differently. Perhaps you will kindly explain what you mean.

I think it is also more accurate to say of my position that I feel my way is better for me and for those with whom I game, not that it is universally better.

skill checks show how well or bad someone performs an action... the fact that I can describe my awesome jump, and/or do an awesome jump in the real world won't help my str 7 untrained in athletics and at disadvantage due to weight/encumbrance character jumping a 7ft pit. You can describe the intimidation all you want, but like jumping if you don't roll it in no way is tied to the character in the game it is mearly you out of game saying something...

it would be like me grabing a nerf sword and throwing you one and saying "Ok now lets see if you hit my hobgoblin?" see my hobgoblin has an AC, you have an attack mod... or in this case your monster has a skill use it instead of your skill in telling stories...

Ability checks (which is what I assume you mean by "skill checks") test a character’s or monster’s innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. However you decide to describe your "awesome jump," the DM reduces your description to a goal and approach and decides whether you succeed, fail, or whether the outcome is uncertain enough that you need to make an ability check to determine an outcome. Also, there is no need for an ability check in D&D 5e when it comes to jumping except in specific circumstances. Assuming there is not circumstance that is limiting you from moving at least 17 feet, I would just say you succeed in that jump, no roll. If you can't move at least 17 feet, then I would just say you fail, no roll.

Your hobgoblin-nerf sword analogy also doesn't hold. The DM describes the environment. The player describes what he or she wants to do. The DM narrates the result of the adventurer's actions. When the result is uncertain, the dice and mechanics come into play. How well you describe a thing doesn't weigh into it - only your goal and approach matters for the purposes of adjudication. An awesome, evocative description of an attack is the same in my view as "I attack the hobgobglin with my sword..." where it comes to determining uncertainty.

sure they can... the mechanics say my 2nd level fighter can't cast fireball... nothing I do, no matter how well I roleplay the exact semetic componenets will let me...

As I said, you can try to do anything. I didn't say you will succeed. In the case of your Deadlands game, if you would have tried, you may have put the GM into the position of admitting that it was not, in fact, a spell affecting your character.

well it's a subtype of game, just not board....

What I mean by that is the the rules in an RPG are largely descriptive ("here's how you can use the rules to adjudicate a thing if you want to"), not prescriptive ("you can only do the things the rules say you can do").

bull... in a game where you know that once an effect happens there is no way to undo it you would attempt to undo it knowing that it wont work in the hopes of working around the 'don't ask questions' rule... why not just skip the stupid middle parts and just explain what happened and let the PC ask questions...

It's not about "working around the 'don't ask questions' rule." It's about doing what I can to get out of a vampire's clutches. As I already mentioned, I would have at the very least tried to confirm I was under the effect of a spell via an appropriate in-game action. It is always a good policy to confirm one's assumptions in my view.

there is no way to determain if you are charmed in game... you can (if you have a resnable DM that lets you just directly ask quastions) ask if you are under a charm effect out of game..

"Based on what I know or have heard about magic and, specifically, charm spells, I try to tell whether or not I'm under the effect of one."

That is a fictional action that the DM can now adjudicate into success, failure, or uncertainty.

bull again you want to dance around and pretend there are all these options instead of just letting the PC ask you to clearfiy...same way he did.

Those are options. Valid ones that keep the action in the fiction and the scene moving forward rather than question-and-answer between the DM and player.

I'm truly sorry you had a bad experience with this DM. I could share plenty of bad-DM stories as well. But please don't make the mistake of lumping me in with this person simply because I prefer that players spend more time doing stuff with their characters in-game than in asking questions of the DM.

 

[MostlyDm]

Functionally not different, though one could argue it helps maintain a character focused mindset and atmosphere. I'd also wager it speeds up play since it eliminates a lot of opportunities for off-topic quips and exchanges.

For what it's worth, I don't think the "20 questions" style is wrong (it still occurs quite often at my table), but I can easily see why a good DM might discourage that form of interaction since it has the potential to take the focus off the scene and break immersion.

Interesting!

Some of the most immersion breaking experiences I've ever had as a player have been under "keep it in character" DMs.

If a DM presents me with an incomplete picture, that's normally fine. I'll ask a clarifying question or two to get my mental picture in place and then proceed. But if the DM forces me to act before I have a full mental picture of the scene, then immersion is impossible. It wasn't even established enough to be broken, in a sense. It just didn't occur.

And incomplete pictures are inevitable, at least on occasion. It's not a sign of poor DMing. You aren't psychic, you can't predict everything the players are going to need in order to properly conceptualize the scene. That's the beauty of communication, though. It's easy to resolve.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Just because a character or monster is trying an action does not mean a check is required. When the outcome of of that action is uncertain, the dice determine the results. When the outcome is not uncertain, the DM just narrates the results. (Or in some cases, the players do as I will demonstrate.)

So what is Beat Horsedeath trying to do? He's trying, for example, to get the PCs to surrender (goal) by putting on a fierce display of battle prowess (approach). The DM now asks him or herself: Does Beat Horsedeath achieve his goal given his approach, fail to achieve his goal, or is there uncertainty?

Before the DM can answer that question, he or she also has to consider how players are in control of how their characters act, think, and what they say. Which means that whether Beat Horsedeath achieves his goal given his approach is up to the players, not the DM, and not the dice. Therefore, the players determine the results of this part of the interaction. They might surrender, flee, attack - whatever they like.

You accused me of "hiding mechanics." I have proven this is not the case. I invoked no mechanics that could have been hidden.

What bothers me about your approach is that you completely ignore the fact that the player is not the character in determining the outcome of social interactions towards them only. I'm fairly certain that you allow stealth checks against the players' WIS (perception), but I fail to see the difference between that and refusing to allow intimidate checks against their CHA. Telling a player that the orc has successfully intimidated their character isn't telling the player what to think, it's telling the player what constraints his character is under, much like not telling the player about the thief sneaking up on him that his character hasn't noticed yet. The player still has his entire agency to declare his actions knowing his character is intimidated by the orc. It's just more information about the world and the character the player is playing, it's not telling the player how to play, it's not telling the player what the player is thinking, its saying that this orc, in this situation, scares their character. What do you do about it?

The way I see it is that you've critically undermined your position as inconsistent by admitting that you would tell a player what their character thinks when under supernatural or magical influence. I'm pretty sure that when a character fails a will save against a fear spell that you tell the player that they now have the frightened condition, just as I'm sure that when a character fails a wisdom save against a charm effect that you tell the player that their character now considers Bob the Vampire Lord their bestest of best friends. So, you've established that, given proper circumstances, you've no issue informing a player what their character is thinking. However, you seem to be adamant that one should never, ever tell a player what their character is thinking when targeted by a social skill check, but you haven't yet established what makes those mechanics different from the spell mechanics.

So, point blank, why are social skills (mechanics which target numbers on the character sheet) inherently different from magical mind magic (other mechanics which target numbers on the character sheet)?

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's the beauty of communication, though. It's easy to resolve.

Just a quick aside to say: would that this were true, the world would be a much better place.

 

[MostlyDm]

Just a quick aside to say: would that this were true, the world would be a much better place.

Heh. Point.

But I play with a group of friends. In the same way that my group of friends rarely has issues with war, genocide, prejudice, and so on. Communication *among our group* is usually pretty easy.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Heh. Point.

But I play with a group of friends. In the same way that my group of friends rarely has issues with war, genocide, prejudice, and so on. Communication *among our group* is usually pretty easy.

Lucky. My game group are also friends, but we come from many walks of life with the personalities to boot. If there's not a flareup between someone that could have been solved with better communication every other month, I'd think that someone had died.

 

[iserith]

I definitely need to read that far, then. To see the circumstances. Because as I said, one of the noteworthy examples so far is when someone wants to know if the fire looks likely to spread to other buildings. The player narrates "Charname checks to see if the fire will spread to other buildings" or something along those lines. This is functionally *not at all* different from simply saying "does it look like the fire could easily spread to nearby buildings?" Except one violates a "no questions" rule and the other does not.

I agree sometimes you need to curtail 20 questions, but only if the questions are unreasonable. It's less specifically about number of questions and more type of question, to my mind

What Ristamar said.

The difference between the two examples you cited has a lot to do with form, but it's form for a purpose. It keeps things flowing forward as a story would. It encourages the players to be thinking about things from their characters' perspectives. It also makes it easy for the DM to identify actions that need to be adjudicated or not.

If you want to scour the transcripts with a goal of finding where a question was asked and answered, you will find some - not many, but some. If your goal is to see what effect that approach has on the game exactly, you will no doubt see it in the quality of the interactions and storytelling that arises.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

This seems like a great example of the difference between PCs and NPCs.

Player says "my character intimidates the guard into letting us pass", rolls Intimidate skill. GM says "no, the guard is unmoved". Player complains "That's not fair, what's the point of taking skills anyway if they never work, this sucks!!'.

If you put it the other way around? The player still complains.

GM says "the guard intimidates your character into letting them pass", rolls Intimidate skill. Player complains "That's not fair, you are taking away my agency!".

This is why I made the comment about social skills being for PCs only, which appears to be the way several posters here play. This annoys me - a rule should apply all the time, not some of the time.

So, is there a way of using these skills that works in both directions?

 

[iserith]

and yet he defends the GM that was doing it... and tells me what I should have done... witch for the record was quite the game long before this...

I'm not defending him by any means. I've made that pretty clear, or so I thought. I have suggested what you could have done in the face of what the GM was presenting which you did not do at the time.

while he calls out '20 quastions' he also has his PCs try and fail at actions instead of just informing them...

That's not entirely accurate either. I endeavor to make sure that all actions the players describe their characters as doing are informed choices, to the extent it makes fictional sense to do so.

'recall lore' is great sometimes... but just letting the PC out of game ask "Is there anything commonly know" is fine too

Anything commonly known about a situation will typically be included in the scene framing. If the player wants information beyond that, they can explore or recall lore. If they recall lore and I feel the information he or she seeks is commonly known, then the attempt to recall lore succeeds, no roll.