D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

Then that player has just found the perfect opportunity to get over that shyness or lack of social acumen.

The DM (and the rest of the table) can and certainly should cut some slack to said player to start with, but IMO it's on the player to at least make an effort.
Sure, but shouldn't the fact that the player invested in a high CHA and the social skills to match also matter?

The DM and other players shouldn't just be "cutting that player some slack..." there should be actual requirements to do so. And not just initially, but while the player is playing that character.
 

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No one ever said the CR people haven't always played traditional games with a more thespian mind set than those games are particularly designed for. They definitely have. Turns out a bunch of voice actors playing an RPG is a good fit for streaming long-form entertainment for profit. Who knew?

I was responding to "They’re entertaining folks other than themselves...". According to them they're playing the game much like they played at home. They are obviously far better at acting than my table will ever be, but what is RP but improv acting in character to the other people at the table? For them, as far as they're concerned what they are doing still.

I've watched other streams where it's pretty obvious that they have prepared ahead and are trying to hit certain plot points. According to Mercer and company, the only thing they consider for con shows is that there is a time limit.
 

What about the shy player who has no "real life" charisma or social acumen wanting to play the dashing and socially gifted bard?

Does that player have any less right to want to (and be able to) play that character than the player who can't even bench the bar without any weights on it gets to play the STR 20 barbarian who can kick down obstacles with ease?

Speaking for myself, I do fall back on charisma skill checks, with DC based on the content of what is said, not how well it's said.
Throw in history with the NPC(s). Depending on circumstances the DC may be automatic success or nearly impossible.
 

Sure, but shouldn't the fact that the player invested in a high CHA and the social skills to match also matter?

The DM and other players shouldn't just be "cutting that player some slack..." there should be actual requirements to do so. And not just initially, but while the player is playing that character.
Only to a very limited point. After that, all involved just have to admit that there's a mismatch between the player's natural abilities and what that player is trying to do in the game.

If my natural position on a hockey team is left wing then sure I can try my hand at playing goalie but I (and worse, my team-mates!) have to accept that I'm not going to be anywhere near as good at it as someone who has a talent for goaltending.
 

What about the shy player who has no "real life" charisma or social acumen wanting to play the dashing and socially gifted bard?

Does that player have any less right to want to (and be able to) play that character than the player who can't even bench the bar without any weights on it gets to play the STR 20 barbarian who can kick down obstacles with ease?
Then that player has just found the perfect opportunity to get over that shyness or lack of social acumen.

The DM (and the rest of the table) can and certainly should cut some slack to said player to start with, but IMO it's on the player to at least make an effort.

I sympathize/empathize with both of those statements but too often each of them are used as either a trap card★ equivalent in systems lacking solid social resolution mechanics like fate draw steel☆ have. by meeting the NPC with whichever the GM wasn't using to either pen the NPC in verbal back & forth or shut it down with a wall of diplomacy. IMO it really works best when the GM & players use a mix of the two under the GM's discretion in systems like d&d with less robust social interaction frameworks.

Sure it should matter when a player who takes a social skill and "invested" in charisma by having a class that uses it as the primary attribute, but that doesn't mean the GM needs to allow "these aren't the droids you are looking for" style mind control diplomancy or zero effort "I roll persuade"



☆ I know there are others & suspect someone is ready to say "but what about X system, it has them too". Those just aren't systems I consider myself well enough versed in to discuss so I'm not even mentioning my suspects here.
★ Back in the 90s(early 2000's?) there was a pretty bad cartoon based on a TCG where practically every episode or two would have someone say "you've triggered my trap card" & go from a bad situation to (almost always) immediate victory
 

Only to a very limited point. After that, all involved just have to admit that there's a mismatch between the player's natural abilities and what that player is trying to do in the game.

If my natural position on a hockey team is left wing then sure I can try my hand at playing goalie but I (and worse, my team-mates!) have to accept that I'm not going to be anywhere near as good at it as someone who has a talent for goaltending.
By extension then, you wouldn't let someone who can't pick a lock or scale a wall play a rogue?

Someone who can't properly swing a longsword play a fighter?

And, of course, if the player can't properly perform the gesture for magic missile - wizard is right out!
 

Because, and @Oofta already hit this upthread, if you're thinking as a player using rules rather than as your character in the situation you've veered into the metagame.

Thus, if I'm in-character thinking up ways of how best to persuade the Duke to finance our risky venture into the wilds, that's "game". But if I'm instead (or even side-along) thinking something like "I need to score six influence points on this guy before his finance minister scores three against me", that's meta all the way and is going to (almost for sure negatively) affect how I inhabit and roleplay my character.
But isn't that pretty much on you? I mean, you're the one roleplaying your character.
 

By extension then, you wouldn't let someone who can't pick a lock or scale a wall play a rogue?

Someone who can't properly swing a longsword play a fighter?

And, of course, if the player can't properly perform the gesture for magic missile - wizard is right out!
It's funny because it's relevant. IMO you should be able to make and play a character effectively that is capable of whatever the rules allow, even if your personal talents and those of the PC don't align.
 

Charisma is an attribute in the game and persuasion is a skill in 5e, so if, say, a player is trying to sweet talk some intel out of a guard, I will ask the player, even a nervous newbie, to tell me how they are doing that or what they say, and then set the DC according to how good their approach is. But their character's attributes and skills have to be rewarded (or lack of same punished); that's a primary mechanic of 5e.

To me it's same as taking a characters strrength/athletics into account when they are forcing a door, or something. The character might be capable of things that far exceed what their player could manage IRL. So an extra charismatic character should have an easier time persuading that guard, even if the player doesn't RP it super well.
 

But here’s the thing: while you may disagree that the two-line description I suggested coded “chaotic” to you, absolutely nothing in the description coded “lawful”.

Although I suspect this isn’t your intent, the response comes off a bit “hey, you play that monk, as long as you still choose to be lawful”.

Which goes back to the original point: I cannot play a chaotic monk, for whatever value of chaotic the DM may apply, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.
D&D "lawful" encompasses two different sorts of concerns - adherence to custom/tradition/social role and self-discipline. When we narrow our focus to "lawful good" then we see a further notion that self-disciplined action, that adheres to custom/tradition/social role, will also make people as a whole live safer, healthier, more peaceful lives.

This will all work for a certain conception of the paladin, provided that everything else is in place (eg the world is an Arthurian one, in which upholding the customs of the land through one's self-disciplined actions coheres with upholding goodness and the divine plan). It's easy to make it come apart, though, if we posit a Robin Hood-ish world, or the world of some martial arts films, where an evil king/courtier etc has taken over, so that adherence to social role will undermine the traditions that have tended to make the people live good lives, and will rather lead to the oppression of the people and the selfish enrichment of the "false" ruler. Is Robin Hood CG (because opposing the "false" ruler, by pursuing his own individual path by striking at tax collectors from his hidden forest redoubt) or LG (because loyal to King Richard, maintaining a "true" band of retainers - the merry men - while trying to restore the traditional order by deposing the "false" ruler)? The D&D rules for alignment offer us no help in answering this question.

In the context of the monk, similar sorts of breaking-down of alignment coherence can occur. And because the monk's self-discipline can easily drift in a more ascetic direction and a more esoteric direction than the paladin's, it's easier to set up a world context in which adherence to custom, tradition and social role and self-discipline come into conflict. For instance, the lawful monk might have to reject certain sorts of food, the normal trappings of family life, etc, and also have to perform certain rituals or uphold certain taboos (as part of the esoteric aspects of their self-discipline) - which can lead to obvious conflicts with custom and so on, if the world is not set up in a certain way. We see this variation in martial arts films, where sometimes the monks are a slightly odd but very welcome part of the social order, while sometimes they are dangerous outsiders whom the mainstream authorities tolerate at best.

Again, the D&D alignment rules offer us no help in answering these questions.

A further source of conflict occurs in the context of martial/military orders who self-consciously follow a code that distinguishes them from, and elevates them above, the ordinary warrior. Romanticised/idealised versions of knights and samurai are examples. These characters are self-disciplined, members of an order and tradition, immensely conscious of social position, etc - and so are clearly lawful! (Says the author of the paladin and the original OA.) Yet they are also hard for ordinary rulers and generals to discipline, tend to act autonomously and on their own individual concerns/motives on the battlefield (eg calling out enemy warriors for single combat), etc - and so are clearly chaotic! (Says the author of the old White Dwarf article "Dungeons and . . . Dragoons?")

This is yet a further matter on which the D&D alignment rules offer no assistance.

I don't regard it as a criticism of the alignment rules that they offer no assistance for social/political/moral circumstances that depart from a very particular set of assumptions: those are just the assumptions that the game is based on. I do get a bit frustrated by proponents of D&D alignment who try and maintain that the rules have some sort of coherence or applicability beyond those assumptions, as if they could provide some universal framework for characterising personalities and political/moral commitments.
 

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