Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[pemerton]

I'd go even further and simply have the NPC ask other PCs about things because that's generally how conversations work. Even in a situation like this where there may be protocols and etiquette to follow. Why wouldn't the NPC ever think "hmmm they've no doubt asked the bard to state their case because he's a smooth talker.....let me see what this sneering brute over here has to say"? I mean, the OP makes an appeal to what's realistic, but expects certain party members to keep their mouths shut for purely gamist reasons.

<snip>

if a preference for "realism" is cited, I'd kind of expect that preference to apply throughout the encounter, and not just to the outcome.

Right. I think I posted the same thing upthread.

The idea of the many-headed hyrda (or Voltron as you said not far upthread) is about as artificial as it gets. Outside of the con/heist genre - which Ravenloft if not as best I understand it - where is there adventure/action fiction in which only "the face" speaks?

 

[pemerton]

* The NPC calls for his Captain to arrest this fool. The Captain (who suddenly becomes the intersection of the PCs successful check, the Baron's Flaw, and the setting at large) pauses and says "...he says nothing different than what the people are saying in the safety and privacy of their homes sir...arresting him will not sanitize that image...it will further sully it." After which, the Baron clearly shrinks and blanches while he gathers himself (after which the GM will either reframe the conflict with his next move from the Baron or another NPC present, or a player can make a follow-up move to reframe things).

The fact that you've invoked "aimed at the Captain" is a not-so-subtle indicator that you're not quite understanding how the dynamics of this work. Neither the player in their action declaration nor the PC within the fiction are "aiming their words at the Captain." What is happening is deft GMing. You need an emergent consequence which honors the players success while simultaneously honoring the nature of the situation and the component parts of the fiction. The gamestate and the fiction need to change positively. How are those two changed positively? The GM evolves the post-resolution fiction to put the Baron and the Captain at odds, thus stealing some of the Baron's boldness and, in the case of 5e D&D, revealing the nature of their relationship, thus providing an asset (the Bond) for the players to deploy in subsequent action declarations.

PC declares (roughly) "I try to talk the Mad Tyrant out of arresting us."

GM says, "The Captain says ..."

So, having the PC's success on a check affect a character other than the one the player intended--and declared--is ... an awful lot like taking control of the character away from the player.

Also, from the description of the event, the Captain wasn't there to hear the insult, so all he knows is the Mad Tyrant is ordering the PCs taken away in irons.

Sorry, no sale.

Huh?

In the OP: the player declares an action aimed at the tyrant (the insult), the action fails to achieve some sort of success (eg cowing the tyrant - we don't know whether the GM decided that by fiat or called for a check that failed), and then the guards turn up. The guards are part of the narration of failure.

In Manbearcat's example: the player declares an action aimed at the tyran (the insult), the action achives success (ie changes the mind of the tyrant, by cowing him) and the GM uses the guards as part of the narration of that change of mind - the success manifests via the trusted lieutenant whose words induce shame. As he puts it, "You need an emergent consequence which honors the players success while simultaneously honoring the nature of the situation and the component parts of the fiction."

This is no different, its basic structure, from narrating a successful attack as invovling the enemy stumbling on a stone and loosing his/her footing. Or as per my Prince Valiant post not far upthread, narrating the lance splintering and a shard of wood going through the visor split and into the brain of the NPC knight, killing him.

Manbearcat calls it deft GMing, and is correct. The GM takes control of that stuff which is his/hers - the NPCs - and uses those to change the ficiton in a way that honours the player's success. It's pretty much the opposite of what I see in the OP and much of the ensuing discussion, which involves the GM focusing intently on only one aspect of his/her stuff - the tyrant - and using that to ensure that the player can't get what s/he wants out of the situation.

My reference much earlier to the possibility of the guards being drunk, or disloyal in the fact of yet another manifestation of madness, are in the same ballpark as what Manbearcat has suggested. I think it's not a coincidence that we've both fastened on the guards: because these are crucial for the tyrant to actually act in the scene, but within the context of the fiction they are human beings with their own motivations which need not conform at all to those of their ostensible master. (Qv Emoer and Faramir disobeying direct instructions from their lords and kinsmen to detain strangers.)

EDIT: some of this was already said by @Ovinomancer upthread.

Also saw this:

Conversely, overuse can lead to scenarios where there is no fail state or real consequences. Work with the Baron and you get what you need. Anger him and you still get what you need.

You seem to be ignoring the difference between successful and failed checks. @Manbearcat was describing a possible narration of a successful check.

 

[pemerton]

Not every NPC needs to be swayable or manipulable by the PCs

Why not?

Every orc is killable. (By application of the combat rules.)

Every forest is passable. (By application of the exploration and movement rules.)

Why is every NPC not influlencable?

Of course some orcs won't be killed - they have too many hp, or the players just roll very poorly.

And some forest won't be passed - the players fail their CON/exhaustion-type checks, fail their WIS/Survivial or whatever checks, or whatever is appropriate.

But those are outcomes of the action resolution procedures. Why shoul NPCs be different?

If the check against the Captain fails, should the characters now be given a chance to convince the guards to turn against their Captain? If they fail against the guards, should they have a chance to convince the servants to rise up against the guards? None of that is entirely unreasonable, but it's also not something that necessarily desirable.

What does desirable mean here?

What is undesirable about the players declaring actions for their PCs to try and change the fiction?

Whether the fiction permits what you describe is a further question. Eg if the PCs and relevant NPCs aren't in the same room then they will need telepathy or the post if they are going to communicate. But that's about fictional positioning, not about desirability.

Depending on the system, and hence how situations are framed and how the lesser NPCs figure as part of the situation, there may also be finality rules that apply. But D&D isn't a system that uses very form framing of situations, and nor does it have terribly strict rules about finality. So if the PCs can contrive to talk to the servants ,and instigate their revolt, I don't see what the problem is.

(The closest thing I can think of in my recent play was when the PCs in my Prince Valiant game conquered a castle in Burgundy leading their small warband at the head of a spontaneous peasant uprising. It was quite exciting.)

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Why is every NPC not influlencable?

I was just about to make a joke, but realized it would be taken down immediately.

Some NPCs are increasingly stubborn. There's also a point to where each NPC will do something. Try to persuade the king to commit suicide, and it's probably not going to happen.

I agree, all NPCs can be persuaded to do things, but there is a line. A lot of NPCs cannot be persuaded to do certain things, I think their point was.

 

[prabe]

You seem to be ignoring the difference between successful and failed checks. @Manbearcat was describing a possible narration of a successful check.

And there were successful checks, or at least one, and the PCs that walked away walked away. That's how the OP described it. They just happened after the insult, which in the OP's telling didn't sound like any sort of attempt to alter the thinking of anyone. It didn't even sound as though it was an attempt to intimidate, to me.

Is part of this that you think the insult was an action, which should have succeeded? No, because you describe it as a failure.

It seemed to me as though that was narrating success by describing the actions of an NPC who hadn't seen the events in the OP's incident. Whom the PCs would not have been attempting to influence--could not have been attempting to influence. In spite of whatever the action declarations had been. If I say, "My character attempts to talk the Mad Tyrant out of executing Mr. Insulty," and you say, "The Captain, coming into the room, turns to the BurgerMaster and says (paraphrasing) 'I will not obey you, sir,' " I will at the least be confused as to why effect aimed at the BurgerMaster seems to have hit the Captain. You have (metaphorically) moved my hand from one target to another that was not there when I declared my action. That doesn't seem deft, it seems clumsy as hell.

It also looked to me as though there was some editing of the BurgerMaster--which is totally fine, even if those traits, et al. were maybe not entirely consistent with what I've gathered of the published adventure. I was, I'm afraid, engaged in a little light mockery when I invented similar tags for the invented NPC (the Captain) that made it easy to shift the events back in the direction of the OP's incident; the point, to the extent I had one, is that it is trivially easy to shift the story by rewriting NPCs, if you want to.

 

[pemerton]

Some NPCs are increasingly stubborn. There's also a point to where each NPC will do something. Try to persuade the king to commit suicide, and it's probably not going to happen.

Maybe, maybe not. It might depend on the king's prior dispostion.

But in any event I didn't express a view on whether or not any NPC can be influenced to do anything. I wondered why some NPCs are immune to all influence.

A lot of NPCs cannot be persuaded to do certain things, I think their point was.

In that case they'll clarify. That wasn't what they wrote, and I don't think it's what they meant.

 

[Fenris-77]

A trap is a static threat.

NPCs are not static. The are (in the fiction) human beings with all the complexity and dynamism that implies; and (in the play of the game) characters around whom the action will pivot.

And NPCs are opportunities, not threats. That's why one can encounter a warband leader (let's call him Eomer) who is carrying out his sworn duty to detain you, and have the encounter end up in him releasing you with a loan of horses. That's why alies can become enemies (eg Saruman) and enemies allies (eg Magneto).

So I think the comparison to traps is not that helpful. In saying this I take myself to be in agreement with some recent posts from FrogReaver, and with some posts further upthread by @hawkeyefan.

The static nature of a trap isn't what I was talking about at all. I was talking about how a trap can be a fun obstacle or challenge when it's perhaps foreshadowed or telegraphed, and/or is in some way a non-trivial challenge and intereatsing challenge that the PCs are given an opportunity to interact with. Or it can be a completely random black box, with no warning, that just impales a PC. Like traps, NPCs are more useful when you have telegraphing, or information of some kind to work with, either before hand or gained during interaction, that you can use to help guide a dynamic social encounter. Or they can be black box that has responses to things, but not for reasons that are made available, forcing PCs to play the 20 questions game to try and figure things out. Some questions are cool, no doubt, but I'd prefer to give some information for PCs to base their approach on. Hopefully that makes the comparison more clear. Non-specific, I'll admit, but hopefully clearer.

 

[pemerton]

in my Sigil game, one of my players has a contact as part of his background that provides side-quests. This NPC is always helpful, never duplicitous, and always is on the side of the PCs. This is true because it's a background investment by the player, so it doesn't bite in at all, much like taking a feat shouldn't bite you. This NPC is a vehicle for the player to engage his PC's goals

In my 4e game one of the PCs ended up with a herald/valet-type NPC - recruited from among some rescued NPCs and modelled mechanically (once that book came out) on some ideas in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium.

That sort of NPC is bascially a device. Similar to a familiar: in the same game the mage's dragonling familiar occasionally did amusing things (in the sense of Cartoon Channel or Super Pets amusing) but it's all basically colour. (The rather plump dragonling did live in the magical hamper of Everlasting Provisions, which applied a penalty to the number of serves available when said basked was opened, but that was with the agreement of the player rather than a GM-imposed penalty.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, I meant period. I do realize that not everyone agrees with that stance, but lots do. I'm not giving up my 'rights' to that PC just because it isn't currently being played, for whatever reason. In some cases, like I've moved away and will never play with those people again I'd be fine with it, but I'd still want to talk to the DM about it. I can't think of too many reason why I'd deny a DM the request to use my character as an NPC. but that really isn't the point.

It's not about it being a player character really, it's about it being my character, played or not. Different strokes though, for sure.

Huh. I mean, I'm a strong proponent of maintaining player authorities, especially in D&D where they are so thin, but that's well past where I'd even be remotely concerned. I see it, though; it's like ownership of an idea, which we protect with laws in many cases it's such a strong motivation (talking copyright, trademark, and patents here). You made this piece of fiction, it's yours, and someone else using it is violating that in an almost personal (maybe not almost) way, right? I can see it. I suppose, though, that I look at my PCs as part of a shared fiction, so it's a shared ownership already for me. I think that I'm more performative -- I'm jealous of my prerogative when I'm performing, but when I'm not, I'm okay if someone wants to try on a different interpretation.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I can smell your mockery. If it were so innocuous and easy, it would get done every time and we wouldn't have this thread. Sadly though, it doesn't get done all the time, even by professional writers, never mind by homebrewing GMs, who have a lot on their plate. Also, the quality of the handles makes a big difference. So I guess that is innocuously true if you wanted to ignore all the context, example and detail I've provided over the last few pages.

No mockery intended. I literally meant that that was an inoffensive truth, in that we had just exchanged disagreements but that I didn't find anything objectionable about the statement that failure to properly frame a scene leads to trouble. Whether it's a social scene or a combat one.