D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Hussar]

Ok, let's back up a second shall we?

We're all DM's. All of us here are running games. So, that means that every single poster here has been in the position where the players attempt to influence an NPC through some sort of social skills in order to achieve some sort of goal. This is basic game mastering. We're all capable of doing it.

Do you believe that the DM is incapable of responding in good faith to the player's actions? Do you feel that it is mind control of the NPC's when they make a successful check? I certainly don't. I look at the check, take the situation into account and react in the manner I feel is most reasonable given the context of the situation. IOW, I act in good faith to use the mechanics to influence how the NPC acts.

Again, this isn't unusual I don't think. This is pretty standard in any sort of RPG.

So, if you can do this as a DM and act in good faith, why are you incapable of doing it as a player? As a DM, you have to do this many, many times over the course of a campaign as the players attempt various social skill checks, reaction checks, intimidation checks, whatever to influence the NPCs. And ever time, you react in good faith.

Why are players somehow incapable of doing the same? Why do you believe that players are not capable of playing in good faith? Why do you believe that players, when subject to some sort of influence roll, will either subvert the roll in the most advantageous manner possible (IOW, play in bad faith) or will immediately cry out "MIND CONTROL!!" and lose their poop over the loss of agency?

It's frankly utterly baffling to me. I don't think so poorly of my players to be honest. I expect them, at the most basic level, to play in good faith. Playing in bad faith is no fun for anyone. So why automatically assume that players will always act in bad faith?

 

[Hussar]

No. The "successful" persuasion roll forces me to act out of character for my PC. That's mind control. That's not at all like an attack roll. There's no mind control involved in the roll to hit. Only one of those removes all agency from me, and it's not the attack roll.

That removal of agency is why 5e social skills aren't intended to work on PCs.

Continuing to conflate mind control with not mind control isn't going to change the situation. You're looking at aspects 1 and 2, but failing take aspect 3 into consideration where #3 changes the entire thing.

Again, no. After all, a successful attack roll could take away your movement (there's a number of ways), depending on the system could take away your actions.

And, again, I recommend you read my last post. Do you feel the same way as a DM? Do you think your players are exercising mind control over your NPC's?

The reason social skills in 5e aren't intended to work on PC's is 100% due to the conservatism of D&D fans. It has nothing whatsoever to do with agency.

 

[Maxperson]

If the thief succeeds on the roll and opens the lock successfully, then the cook is either not there because she wasn't brought by the sound, or is there but unaware of the thief opening the door.

So now the quiet picking of the lock guarantees quiet opening of the door and quiet entering of the kitchen? And the cook has to be there or she wouldn't be present to hear the failed check. If the check determines if she's there or not, we're back to having a quantum cook who is both there and not there until the die roll fixes her in place somewhere.

I haven't explained why the thief becomes a keystone cop because I haven't said that they would. I've said that's a silly way to resolve the matter. If you choose to do so, be my guest, but I wouldn't do that. To me, a thief potentially making noise while picking a lock and attracting attention is a perfectly reasonable thing to happen.

The skilled thief making a lot of noise on a failure, when he is using the same level of skill at lockpicking as with a success, is silly. The noise for failure would actually less than with a success because you don't have tumblers tripping and the final click open of the lock.

For some reason, you don't think it's reasonable... but at this point I don't know if you'll ever get it, Max. We may just be at that point where we have to shrug and accept that. I don't think that anything I've advocated for to make the scenario with the thief and the cook work has been nonsensical... quite the opposite.

Correct. I'm never going to "get" quieter = louder.

Max, it's not about the status of the characters' lives. It's telling the GM what to be thinking about when he makes decisions.

Then the principle has nothing to do with making characters' lives not boring, which is what I have been saying.

The same way you might get to a point where you need to make a ruling in D&D and you think "how can I handle this as a neutral arbiter" the principle is telling a GM of Apocalypse World to think "how can I use this decision to make the characters' lives interesting".

See, if they included a "more" in-between "lives" and "interesting," it might be accurate. At least it wouldn't be guaranteed to be wrong like it is when it's worded as written.

I mean, here's a principle I live by: "A parent should protect their children."

Seems reasonable right?

Or if someone said this to me, should I respond with "I don't need to keep my kids safe, they're not in danger"?

That's a really bad analogy. An accurate analogy would be if the principle is, "A parent should make their childrens' lives interesting." and then described it as protecting the child from danger when it rears its head.

My principle of making the characters' lives not boring leads me to make something happen on the failed attempt... hence the introduction of the cook. That's not me being neutral... that's me making a move that complicates matters for the character. I want to see what they do now.

I could do that, too, and without having that principle. Because the principle is really, "make something interesting happen on a failed attempt," and not anything to do with characters lives being boring.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, no. After all, a successful attack roll could take away your movement (there's a number of ways), depending on the system could take away your actions.

And, again, I recommend you read my last post. Do you feel the same way as a DM? Do you think your players are exercising mind control over your NPC's?

The reason social skills in 5e aren't intended to work on PC's is 100% due to the conservatism of D&D fans. It has nothing whatsoever to do with agency.

Lack of movement =/= lack of agency over what a character thinks and feels.

As for the players exercising mind control over the NPCs. Yes they are. They are diminishing MY agency when they do that. However, since I control 10 billion and 1 NPCs, the amount of agency I lose is a tiny fraction of 1%. Since players control only one being, the loss of agency is 100%. I'm find with a microfractional loss of agency. I'm not fine with complete loss of agency.

And it's 100% about agency.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/143-changing-your-game-with-social-interactions-in

"I often get asked, are these skills meant to be used against player characters? And honestly they're not, because so much of how a player character talks and feels is really just up to the player's decision. We don't want dice to override the characterization that a player is bringing to their character."

 

[Enrahim]

Fair enough, I suppose, but I don't really get the issue.

Like, to turn this around the other way: The books themselves for "traditional-GM" gaming, namely OD&D and 1e, contain some things which explicitly tell the GM to do some crappy, crappy things. There's no need for interpretation; it's literally right there at the surface of the text. Instructions to be passive-aggressive, for example, or to coerce and manipulate the players. Even if we set aside the obvious problem bits, "interpretation" can be (and 100% has been) applied to things like cloakers and ear seekers and cursed items to indicate "the GM's job is to f#$k with their players".

I will also note that Monsterhearts is kind of picking on the most extreme option available, because it is consciously and explicitly a game about playing Teen Wolf-type characters: that is, teenage monsters (or monster-lovers) trying to figure themselves out. It contains X-rated content (there are moves specifically related to if, whether, and how a character has sex with other characters) and is very specifically about cultivating a "teenage soap opera drama" type atmosphere. The tamer versions should resemble something like Buffy and Angel--which were both still romance-heavy, violent dramas. Would you take to task all of D&D and its close kin (e.g. games like 13A and PF2e) just because Gygax once wrote that GMs should coerce players into dropping their non-human characters and instead playing human ones? If not, then painting the whole of PbtA via your concerns induced by only a single implementation of its ideas, especially if you have not read the actual rules text for most (any?) PbtA games, just seems like an inherently unfair argument.

Absolutely. Which promts me again to reiterate: There was no (intended) generalisation in my post. Hawkeyefan asked a spesific question. I answered that spesific question.

 

[Enrahim]

Ok, let's back up a second shall we?

We're all DM's. All of us here are running games. So, that means that every single poster here has been in the position where the players attempt to influence an NPC through some sort of social skills in order to achieve some sort of goal. This is basic game mastering. We're all capable of doing it.

Do you believe that the DM is incapable of responding in good faith to the player's actions? Do you feel that it is mind control of the NPC's when they make a successful check? I certainly don't. I look at the check, take the situation into account and react in the manner I feel is most reasonable given the context of the situation. IOW, I act in good faith to use the mechanics to influence how the NPC acts.

Again, this isn't unusual I don't think. This is pretty standard in any sort of RPG.

So, if you can do this as a DM and act in good faith, why are you incapable of doing it as a player? As a DM, you have to do this many, many times over the course of a campaign as the players attempt various social skill checks, reaction checks, intimidation checks, whatever to influence the NPCs. And ever time, you react in good faith.

Why are players somehow incapable of doing the same? Why do you believe that players are not capable of playing in good faith? Why do you believe that players, when subject to some sort of influence roll, will either subvert the roll in the most advantageous manner possible (IOW, play in bad faith) or will immediately cry out "MIND CONTROL!!" and lose their poop over the loss of agency?

It's frankly utterly baffling to me. I don't think so poorly of my players to be honest. I expect them, at the most basic level, to play in good faith. Playing in bad faith is no fun for anyone. So why automatically assume that players will always act in bad faith?

One of the main argument I have seen against this is that it is immersion breaking. The DM analogy do not work on this.

Another with regard to "good faith" is that for a DM this is much more clearly defined, as they are supposed to be neutral. A player are having special responsibilities related to their character's and group's success. They can be put in a squeze between acting "in good faith" toward their neutral intepetation of the situation, and "in good faith" toward their obligation to their character and party.

To illustrate the latter. I have experimented with having a character not get knocked out on 0 hp. Rather to try to interpret it as the character now being to scared to attempt anything risky. I had to abandon that concept. The reason was that it was too hard for the players to interpret. I had one situation where there was a serious conflict between players brewing as one thought another was overplaying the rule in light of the spirit of team play.

(Edit - To add clarifying detail. The character acted panicky in a situation where that could compromise group security, and a more composed frightened play might have been a possible interpretation of the situation)

 

[Lanefan]

Except that the determination to not run away has nothing to do with playing "in character" but, with whatever is most advantageous to the player. Running away makes a LOT of sense when a beholder just disintegrated your friend. Running away when you are already wounded and baddies are closing in is very much in character.

With the bolded, I agree. I don't need mechanics to force me to do it.

It doesn't play nice with the "no companion left behind" types, but that's no concern of mine.

Believing an NPC or not because you Dungeon Master doesn't make what you feel, not your character, what YOU feel, is a compelling argument is 100% not playing "in character".

Here we've really only got two choices in the end:

1 - rely on player-side good faith, or
2 - take away quite a bit of their agency by letting game mechanics force their play.

The dice provide the direction. You provide the script. By never allowing the dice to determine the mental state of your character and insisting that you, and only you, can ever do that, combined with the fact that you just said that players will never accept any outcome that is disadvantageous to themselves, means that no player actually ever plays in character. Players will always do the cost/benefit analysis and choose the best option. That's not "method acting". That's very much not playing a personality.

To the bolded: some will, most of the time. Others won't; instead they'll do something rash or gonzo or unexpected. And IMO the best ones will be rational sometimes and not at other times, depending on what they're playing for a character at the moment and playing true to the usual degree of rationality that particular character tends to apply.

Right now, for example, in my game my SO is running two characters in the party (they all are, and believe me they're gonna need 'em!). Mechanically, these two characters are pretty much identical* - same class, same level, same species, same deity (they're both supposedly healing Clerics) - but each has very well-established patterns of how they approach things that makes them widely different in play. One of them charges into combat at every opportunity and always has, because she thinks she's tougher than she really is and healing can wait till the fighting's done; while the other has a long history of being the rational voice in the room and usually goes for diplomacy first if the chance presents. In short: one is Kirk, one is Picard.

* - when she rolled up the second one the first was on long-term covid hiatus, I don't think she ever expected them to both wind up in the same party and yet several years later, here they are.

To me, not allowing for the dice to influence how a character behaves is far more immersive breaking. It means that characters act very implausibly all the time.

This again kinda comes down to a question of good faith on the player side of things. Personally, I'd rather not have too many mechanics that force roleplay; charm effects, fear and panic effects, and mind control are already enough I think.

 

[Lanefan]

Ugh. The worst of all worlds. The only way I can convince an NPC is if I game the DM and hope that whatever reading I have of the DM gives me the results I want.

I thought you insisted on a neutral DM? What could possibly be more neutral than following mechanics?

While I agree with your point about mechanics being more neutral, I detest rules that work one way for PCs and another for NPCs. I'm a hard-liner in the "it works the same for everyone" camp as I see the PCs as being, at their root, inhabitants of their setting just like everyone else and thus subject to the same limitations and-or lack thereof.

And so, that leaves me a choice between a) letting mechanics have a fairly frequent say in how players play their characters, or b) removing those mechanics entirely thus leaving the NPCs just as freeform as the PCs. I long ago chose the latter option, and I just have to make sure I play the NPCs as true to themselves as I can...which I'll freely admit is sometimes easier than other times.

 

[Lanefan]

I think it would be quite interesting for people on the opposite side of many discussions to get together and play couple of sessions with each other - each side exemplifying their approach. I think in actual play our games may not be so different or, even if they are different, even if we still don't agree with each other on much of anything, we might come to a better understanding.

Also, on the bright side since it would likely have to be remote we couldn't come to blows.

Nah - if it's remote, I'm out.

But get us together in a pub sometime and hells yeah, count me in. Even if we didn't actually play anything, the discussion and arguments would be increasingly epic per beer consumed!

 

[Lanefan]

You seem to be mistaken.

I am not talking about extending infinite charity to players.

Neither am I.

I am talking about giving a charitable interpretation to other posters here, and to the rules of games you neither play nor even actually know.

When someone posts some direct-quoted rules text and that text says X, it's not my fault if I read it as saying X even though the writer may have intended it to be read as saying Y. And this goes right back to day one; Gygax was guilty of this on a far too frequent basis and I (and others) have spent decades trying to tweak his game such that what says X, means X.

The work is still ongoing.

If I were to approach the "traditional-GM" "sandbox-y" approach as you say I should--well, I got told off about that. By you and others, didn't I? When I said that the rules leave things open for horrific abuse and zero accountability, I was told "well GMs don't do that, or if they do you should stop gaming with them".

Pretty sure you were one of those people telling me that

Oh, probably, if you were speaking from a position of no GM can be trusted.

Probably, if

So why does the standard not apply equally? Why is the "traditional-GM" approach given maximum charity, presuming the GM is a perfect little angel, a saint who never does anything except for the purest and most sincere of motives? Because you can sure as shiitake bet that any given "traditional-GM" game isn't written "such that those interpretations can't happen". Quite the opposite--many of them are written consciously, albeit not strictly intentionally (that is, knowing it's there, but not trying to make it be there), such that they would include that thing.

Indeed, traditional games often leave way too much room for faulty interpretation as well.

That said, none of us are perfect GMs. I'm not. You're not. No-one here is. But what we all do, I think, is try to make the best of what we have; with success measured by level of player enthusiasm around coming back next week for more.