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

[Hussar]

I disagree here. Killing a character is permanent, yes, but taking them over and making them act in ways contrary to what the player wants is kind of worse. It's akin to mind control in a way, made worse because it's not caused by a magical effect.

Again though, let's not get too far into the weeds. We're not talking about "ways". We're talking about a single way. Same as a social check with an NPC. You don't allow a persuasion check to force an NPC to do something that the NPC would never do. So, why would it be any different for a PC? The effect has to be plausible, same as it is for an NPC.

So the example of giving away a magic item is right off the table. No NPC would ever give away a magic item based on a persuasion check (barring specific examples of course). So, why would a PC? Now, running away because your courage failed you in the face of seeing horrific things done to the person beside you? Perfectly plausible. The fact that the PC's NEVER suffer any sort of trauma or anything like that is far less plausible at the end of the day. Your character can never be influenced by a persuasive argument? Not very plausible. So on and so forth.

Comparing a single event in the course of a campaign to the death of the character seems a bit over the top no? It's like @Maxperson's examples of how losing control of an NPC for a single check is okay because he has millions of NPC's, but is totally different from a player losing a tiny bit of control for a short period of time in a campaign.
Heck, you even double down on the players not being trustworthy with:

Because you can't. Because why should they? Nearly every other roll involves the players choosing to do something, or else succumbing to magical compulsion. This sort of roll has neither choice nor a good reason beyond GM fiat for the players to accept.

So, players cannot be trusted to act in good faith, thus we should not have social rules.

 

[Lanefan]

What you are arguing is 6 in one, half dozen in the other. There's no significant difference between.

DC is 15:

20 and higher: success
15-19: success with complication
14 or lower: failure. (maybe failure with extras on 1-4 as well)

And...

DC is 15:

DC 15 and higher: complete success
DC 10-14: success with complication
9 or lower: failure.

There's a massive difference.

In the first example the DC is 15. In the second example the DC is in fact 10, not 15; as in 5e (and 3e and I think 4e also) success is defined as matching or beating the DC.

For someone who likes quoting RAW I'm surprised you're cool with this.

 

[Hussar]

Even if the GM is not very good at actually delivering such a speech like that for real, they can still roll for the NPC's Performance or whatever and say "you can feel your pulse quicken as you listen to his very convincing points" and still leave it up to the players to decide if they want to bite the hook or not.

But, you just got through saying that adding mechanical heft to this is impossible since players cannot be trusted to act in good faith, but, lacking any mechanical heft is fine because players will act in good faith.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see how that solves the problem. If you don't allow the player to change their again declaration in response, then there was hardly any point to informing them in the first place, or if they can, you're back to negotiation as they fish for different consequences.

Telling the player the potential consequences is fine if-when the PC in the fiction would reasonably know or be able to project said consequences.

Thus, if the PC knows there's a ritual happening on the clifftop and that time is of the essence, then by all means make sure the player knows this as well.

But if the PC doesn't and can't know about the ritual until she's already at the clifftop and can see/hear it then IMO telling the player about it any sooner is not the way to go. The PC is flying blind, thus so should be the player.

 

[Lanefan]

I do have to wonder if this mentality is due to crazy ideas being hindered, vetoed, or outright punished by the GM.

Edit: I don't (necessarily) mean you, unless you are the only GM they've ever had.

I don't think so, as it largely matched their personalities in other areas of life.

If someone comes up with a crazy idea that has a low chance of success than that's what it'll have. If needs be I'll even point this out up front. But I'm not going to give bonuses to crazy ideas, nor am I going to shut them down and not give them any chance (exception: if it's a blatant rules exploit then down it gets summarily shut).

 

[Lanefan]

Remember that fail forward is there to keep the game moving. So such an event should mean that either another way through is revealed--someone ages ago brought up the idea of "you can't pick the lock, but you suddenly notice an open third-story window"

This is where we differ.

Sure there can be an open third-story window but I want there to be that very important intervening step where the player actually has the character look for another way in after being balked at the door, as opposed to booting the door in or giving up and leaving or whatever.

Here, you're instead handing the obvious next move to the player on a silver platter and by so doing virtually eliminating any other possibilities for what the player might have the character (try to) do.

 

[TwoSix]

Then the actual DC should be 10, not 15.

Yes it's terminology, but it's terminology that matters. A lot.

I think you’ll have to explain why it matters, because it seems like a fair amount of people (myself included) aren’t understanding this distinction you view as important.

It’s coming across to me like this definition of success is almost tautological.

 

[Hussar]

Here, you're instead handing the obvious next move to the player on a silver platter and by so doing virtually eliminating any other possibilities for what the player might have the character (try to) do.

From my personal point of view, the reason for this is pacing. I want my games to have a MUCH higher pace than you do. We've had enough discussions over the year to know that this is true. I have zero interest in delaying the players just to satisfy my own need for them to play 20 questions in order to move forward.

I know that the next step is in that room. The players know that the next step is in that room. All the interesting stuff is in that room. Faffing about, wasting table time is one of the most frustrating things I find in RPG's. I detest this in RPG's and don't do it as a DM.

 

[Maxperson]

Do you allow players to persuade NPC's to do things that that NPC would never do?

No. Assuming I know the NPC well enough, which as I said is only a very few of them. If I don't know, that's what rolls are for. You don't roll in 5e if the outcome isn't in doubt.

Never minding the failure in math. Losing a tiny slice of control over the course of a session or campaign is no different than losing control over an NPC for the entire time that NPC is on screen but will only be on screen for a tiny amount of time. In both cases, the argument for loss of control is the same - it's a tiny, tiny amount of the entirety of the campaign. That's just the way math works.

You're adding up the wrong thing. Your math works, but it's irrelevant. The relevant math is that for that social mind control event the player is losing 100% of his agency for 100% of his characters.

The DM isn't anywhere near that.

You keep trying to play silly buggers semantic games here. An arbitrary die roll to create an encounter is both quantum and not quantum at the same time. If the DM rolls it, it's not quantum, but, if the player rolls it, suddenly it's quantum. If an NPC is convinced to do something by a skill check, that's not a significant loss of agency because it's only one NPC among all that you play during a campaign, but, allowing a PC to be convinced to do something by a skill check is a 100% loss of agency despite the fact that it's only a tiny fraction of the actions you will take over the course of the campaign.

I mean, if I say for the 21st time that the DM is also engaging in a quantum roll, will you acknowledge it then? Or will you continue to incorrectly portray what I've been saying for quite literally 600ish pages? It was very early that we agreed that what the DM did was quantum as well, it's just that its impact is very different for the DM, and very different due to the timing.

How many times do I need to repeat myself about the DM roll being quantum?

 

[Maxperson]

Then the actual DC should be 10, not 15.

Yes it's terminology, but it's terminology that matters. A lot.

The base DC is for full success. The lesser DC is partial success. If we drop the DC to 10, then we have to drop the partial success DC even lower.