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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sunshadow21" data-source="post: 6738501" data-attributes="member: 6667193">That seems to be the big divide: when to roll for charisma based skills. Most people I've met that have started since 3rd edition see the results of a charisma check as being no different from the results of any other check, and therefore no more of a loss of player agency than a failed stealth roll. Those who approach the game with a more classic mindset tend to be the ones that eschew skill checks in general, not just social skills, but most of those people I've met tend to eschew all skill checks, not just social skills. I can understand that a lot better than picking a small group of skills and drawing the line there as somehow being too far in terms of player agency. I've never seen social skills have any more impact on player agency than other skills, even in groups where they are routinely used both on NPCs and PCs. I guess my biggest difficulty is that no skill, ability, or magic spell has any more effect on player agency than what the players are willing to accept, and virtually every player I've met since starting to play (which admittedly is very strong on the "who cares, it's just another skill" side of the fence, but not entirely) have had no compunction with using social skills on PCs, or if they did, the compunction was in using skill checks in general, with little regard given to the charisma based skills specifically. It would seem that on the surface those skills have a greater impact than other skills, but they really don't; players that are willing to accept a minor penalty to a roll or two are perfectly capable, and often do, ignore what the dice roll says, and have no serious problems doing so. In the case of a deception roll or a diplomacy roll, it's really no different than me simply saying as a DM "you don't know anymore than what the NPC is saying" or "you really need to go this way unless you want to bring in a new PC or sit out this adventure because I don't have the time or energy to run a split party right now." In neither case is the PC hindered anymore than if they fail a stealth roll and don't get to find out about the sneaky scout following them before the scout returns to base and reports, making it harder for the PCs to act when they get to the base. The other factor that tends to reduce any limits on player agency is that for these skills to truly work, they have to be successfully used on every present PC (or NPC, if the PCs are using it) and that is really not all that easy. Convincing one PC that the traitor is telling the truth really has zero impact when two other PCs present know full and well that he is lying through his teeth; the one PC was still successfully deceived, but that deception doesn't last long enough for any kind of player agency to be inhibited if the other players act quick enough, and the player of the character deceived will generally wait for them to act precisely for that reason. At worst, the deceived player is caught flat-footed when the combat breaks out and doesn't get to act in the surprise round. If that is limiting player agency, than 90% of what I do as a DM, both in combat and out, could be taken as limiting player agency by someone really looking to take it to extremes, and that seems a bit of a stretch to me. If the argument was for all skills, the argument would make a lot more sense, but picking out charisma skills as somehow different seems very odd to me. When it is used the way that Iserith uses it, than it makes more sense, but I've never seen them used that way in any game I've ever been in. One game came close, but it was inconsistent enough of a game overall that it had little impact.If more people agreed that using those skills takes away player agency, you would have a lot more support in this thread. You and Iserith are taking the position that the DM cannot tell the player with anything short of magic how to run their character, but you do it each and every time you don't tell them about a invisible rogue about to backstab them or otherwise shape your dialogue based on what you think they should know, whether that decision is based on roleplay or dice rolling. Every single thing you do as a DM affects that PC and how they react; it may not always be direct, but you, as a DM cannot act without putting limits or constraints on the PCs. Even something as not fully describing a room puts limits on a PC. Charisma based skills do this no more and no less than anything else in the game, so it seems like an odd place to draw the line.At this point, I'm pretty much done posting on this thread because there is really nothing more that can be said. You and a few others very clearly believe that Charisma based skills are special, myself and others do not, and it's highly unlikely that either side will be able to truly convince the other of anything other than it's a good thing that not every group has to play the game the same way.EDIT: I think a big difficulty seems to come from how much impact people expect for a dice roll to be worth it. Most people don't believe that a charisma based skill has to force a PC to act a certain way in order to have a valid and notable impact. Putting up hurdles still has impact without forcing a PC to go down or ignore any given path; it simply makes certain paths more challenging, nothing less and nothing more. Player agency does not have to be compromised in the least, and the dice roll still has an impact that the player has to deal with.</blockquote>

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