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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9226306" data-attributes="member: 71699">I think the Social Interaction rules in the DMG indicate how declaring consequences up front can make task resolution play out akin to conflict resolution (for obvious reasons, really.) So as a first take I will run through that procedure, and then let's rake it over...1. Starting attitude = Indifferent (although ordinarily Friendly, they're shrugging off the calming hand on their shoulder... still not actively hostile to their nearest kin!) 2. Play out the conversation (GM says how NPC reacts). Anyone can resort to violence as they traverse this. Attitude may be shifted to more amenable (i.e. Friendly) assuming player knows what their brother cares about (IBFs.) This is a case of negotiation - via fictional speech acts - between players and DM. 3. Say players negotiate their way to Friendly through leveraging the TIBF mechanic. A Friendly creature will "accept a significant risk or sacrifice to do as asked." GM has to decide what sort of a deal this is (how NPC reacts). To my reading, backing down is a significant sacrifice for their brother. 4. Players want a success result (an outcome) that includes accepting a significant sacrifice to do as asked (brother eats his bitterness.) GM's job is to judge whether their performance will connect with that outcome, subject to resolution. Only players propose performances. GM legitimates the final pairing - whose resolution will be binding on all participants. 5. The 'performance pairing' can straightforwardly be Charisma ability check == accepts a significant sacrifice to do as asked (eats their bitterness). Whether a skill applies is down to player fiction (fiction-first, essentially). Are they dulling their brother's suspicions with false assurances, cowing him with a show of strength or threats, or appealing to his better nature and social mores? GM must also say what the pairing is for failure - the brother's reaction is what's at stake - so "rage will blind him and he'll shoot his own kin" (resort to violence... despair will come later). Again, nothing prevents players making proposals here... that's down to group practice. 6. Players have another choice here which they must make before committing to rolling: they can back down. This again depends on group practices. Some groups pre-agree that proposing a performance commits to that performance, but typically I see folk allowing clarifications... which produces this option.In summary, for(a) the detailed architecture is per text found in the 5e DMG. That might feel like cheating the test, but all it's doing is highlighting that it doesn't matter who declares the pairing up front. It can be game designer, GM, players, stochastic, whatever. We can have a debate about whether we are more comfortable with game designer declaring pairings or GM declaring pairings, but because we can choose whichever works for us that ultimately has nothing to do with whether mapping consequences to performances up front makes task resolution play out in an orderly fashion. (b) the situation is resolved either with players talking their brother down, players backing down, or as the outcome of combat. It's nailed down to either the brother shoots the wife, (then maybe despairs, the procurer hires some guns, whatever... triggering a new - escalated - situation) or players talk / beat him down. (c) the GM did no more than a DitV GM would, i.e. they chose reactions, and decided on odds just as they'd choose what dice their NPC's pick up and how they deploy them So let's rake that over then...</blockquote>

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