An interesting thing here on player agency. If you take the power of a characters stats choices or you make a player do what the other player wants … your stealing player agency either way.
As I said on the previous page, in that first case (negating the power of the player's choices when making his character) it's kind of mean, but it's not actually affecting player agency. Player agency is a matter of controlling what your character thinks and what actions he takes, not how successful he is at those actions.
- As a Face who was proficient with persuasion I have had my GM make my character auto-fail all social arguments because I was not persuasive enough as a player... completely ignoring my characters stats... So I asked him, when the fighter makes a strength check, you don't make him lift so see how strong he is first, when a Druid makes and animal check you don't make him give your dog his pills first, so why is it that you make the face argue as a player to convince an NPC and why do you make the rogue player describe in step by step narration how to investigate or preserve enemies as a scout but then just roll for disarming traps? Why not make the player actually pick the lock? It's highly inconsistent and it devalues curtain player skills because the skills don't matter at your table the player have to do it in reality to count.
Yeah, I agree. It's why I never require my players to actually come up with persuasive arguments, let alone voice act them, if they don't want to. And if they try, I don't try to judge the quality and have that result in modifiers. Because that would be ME being persuaded, not the NPC. And I don't want to have to roleplay all my NPCs because I would let my own biases get in the way. So I use dice to tell me what the NPCs do.
Still, none of that has anything to do with player agency.
Skill checks are skill checks and should 100% of the time require a role (that actually matters with a preset DC, not just for show with an auto fail) or the GM is meta gaming a crime of which GMs hold players accountable.
By definition a skill check requires a roll. That's what it is.
But a player saying "I'm going to try to persuade the NPC" or "I'm going to try to swim the river" or "I will try to identify that herb" are not making skill checks. They are declaring actions. The DM might, if he/she thinks the outcome is uncertain, ask for a skill check.
Likewise, if a player says, "I want to persuade the (player character) Barbarian to hand over all his gold" the correct response from the DM is, "Go ahead." In this case no dice are needed because the Barbarian's player can decide for himself what is persuasive and what isn't.
Now,
that player might decide the outcome is uncertain and say, "Gimme a roll." But that's totally up to him/her. No, that's not in the rules, but the player is free to use whatever criteria they want. The might flip a coin for themselves. Or use a Magic 8 ball. Or just simply decide, "There's no way my character would be persuaded of that without magic being used."
But to have somebody else say, "The Face is going to roll and you have to abide by the results" would be akin to telling the DM, "I'm going to make a Persuasion roll and if I succeed the King has to open his treasury for me. Don't worry, I'll give myself a high DC." Nuh-uh.