Skills used by players on other players.

[robus]

Honestly I think this whole debate would be more clear if we stuck with a scenario where an NPC was trying to persuade a PC. The most important parts of the debate would still be there, without PvP clouding the issue.

Nice try Elfcrusher, but you've taken us down that road before! http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?470302-Persuade-Intimidate-and-Deceive-used-vs-PCs

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'd be curious if [MENTION=57914]GameOgre[/MENTION] would feel the "roleplaying" is improved at his table if the players subscribed to this approach.

But I was also struck by his longer post in which he seemed to indicate that "roleplaying" isn't so much a player determining how the character thinks and acts, and what it says (which is what the rules define it as). Rather it seems the character's thoughts and reactions to the world aren't in the player's control precisely, but in the dice and statblock's control. Then the "roleplay" is the player acting out what the dice and statblocks tell them.

If that's an accurate assessment of his view - and I am trying to be charitable and not reductive - I have to wonder where that comes from. (Please let me know if I misinterpreted in any case.)

You are describing two ways of role playing a situation. Do I make a character that I want to role play in a specific Way and build the character around that or do I roll and character and take on that characters’s persona.

Personally, I usually have an idea of the kind of character I want to play before I roll stats but sometimes my rolls don’t work out as I planned and the character changes before we even start. I like to tell the Dm what I want to do and, if a role is required, I’m happy to narrate differently based on failure or success instead saying, “I failed, but my character would do xyz anyways.”

I think that’s an important part of playing. Even in defeat, you should get to own your death scene, so to speak. But that’s the why, if you are going to use pvp, the stakes should be clear ahead of time so the defeated character can narrate within the rules that have been drawn.

 

[Ratskinner]

Side comment:

There seems to be an argument, directly or indirectly by multiple posters, that a player needs to "pay" in some way for having a character with a dump stat and part of paying for it is, for example, folding in an argument between characters, acting stupid or playing dumb, not sussing out a lie, etc. Or abiding by the result of an ability check by another player's character.

I think when we're saying "pay" we're saying "play the character's faults" or "play the character as written". If you've got a dumb or weak willed character who suddenly sprouts iron-willed resistance to a charming character's arguments....well this seems the same as if the physically weak character simply declares that he resists the grapple of the stronger character or something like that. That is to say, if we would resolve the physical conflict with dice, then we should resolve the social conflict with dice as well. (D&D may not be particularly suited to this sort of thing, but that's a different discussion.*)

The potential conflict is in a perceived loss of player agency on the part of the weak-willed character and a de-protagonization of the charming character. Some of mentioned that they just remove the part of player agency that would allow for PvP die-rolling entirely. To me, that seems an incomplete and somewhat heavy-handed, but that can vary from table to table.

This can be problematic in at least one way when a player attempts to make up for his character's written stats with their own Intelligence or Charisma. That is, the 8 Charisma PC who nonetheless fast-talks his way past the guards because the player fast-talked the DM, or the 8 Int PC solves the complex mathematical cypher puzzle using his player's physics degree. I'm not sure I'd call it cheating so much as unsporting.

I therefore submit that the player is not really gaining any benefit from the DM having the players work out their PvP issues between them without reference to the mechanics. I'd even go so far to say that, if anything, doing so is a penalty of sorts, a tax on the player for their build choices which is unnecessary. There is, after all, a whole world of villains and monsters out there to lie to, steal from, and murder and all manner of social and exploration challenges in between. Why anyone would turn to the party for that conflict is a little baffling. But in any case those dump stats will come back to haunt that character without any additional burden of mechanics being used in PvP.

I hope that made sense. I'm still in the process of thinking it through.

Does character A talking to character B to try to convince them of a course of action count as conflict? I mean, IRL and in the genre sources, characters will discuss things or argue with each other a lot. I don't think we're talking about something like "give me your wallet", but more like "let's go defend the village before we go hunting the orcs." (Then again, its not like picking your friend's pocket is unheard of in the relevant media, either.)

The rest of what your talking about will vary quite a bit from table to table. Some groups start and end at the dungeon entrance while others spend tons of time politicking around town. Part of being a good GM would be taking a clue from the players' choices and characters' stats and tailoring adventures so that folks get a reasonable chance to shine. However, we are not all blessed with such DMs. ::shrug::

I don't know that there is a universally applicable answer to this question. However, I have seen far more (especially old-school, it would seem) folks who would forbid the social skill checks for "Can I try to Persuade him that we should protect the village?" but cheerfully let the dice roll for "Enough! I try to cut the thief down for his insolence." and that, IMO, leads to a broken game.

*One way is that D&D tends to resolve social situations in very few die rolls and mechanical interactions, whereas combat is typically resolved with many. Which, come to think of it, can lead to the odd situation where a 30 second combat might take 30 minutes to resolve but a 30 minute argument might take 30 seconds to resolve.

 

[robus]

But I was also struck by his longer post in which he seemed to indicate that "roleplaying" isn't so much a player determining how the character thinks and acts, and what it says (which is what the rules define it as). Rather it seems the character's thoughts and reactions to the world aren't in the player's control precisely, but in the dice and statblock's control. Then the "roleplay" is the player acting out what the dice and statblocks tell them.

The big issue in this approach IMHO is that it opens the player up to judgement by the others at the table. If you don't perform that Int 6 stat satisfactorily then you can be accusing of poor roleplaying. Depending on the dynamics at the table things could get quite ugly (we've certainly seen some reports of people getting very upset at players inability, or unwillingness, to roleplay to their stats).

Why open that door? All a character sheet does is provide some broad strokes about the character and some stats that help resolve uncertainty in a standardized way in the gameworld. The guts of the character reside in the players head. The character is nothing without the unique personality of the player animating it. Let people play how they want and let their imaginations take their character where it does.

As Frankie used to say: Relax

 

[FrogReaver]

Nice try Elfcrusher, but you've taken us down that road before! http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?470302-Persuade-Intimidate-and-Deceive-used-vs-PCs

It’s not very helpful to bring up a 3 year old thread

 

[Guest 6801328]

That is, the 8 Charisma PC who nonetheless fast-talks his way past the guards because the player fast-talked the DM, or the 8 Int PC solves the complex mathematical cypher puzzle using his player's physics degree. I'm not sure I'd call it cheating so much as unsporting.

There seems to be an assumption here that a score of 8 means "really bad at everything related to that stat".

So should a character with 12 Charisma be portrayed as a silver-tongued, fast-talking charmer? Because 12 is exactly as far above the "average" score as 8 is below it.

How about the 12 Intelligence character? Always solving problems through analysis and logic?

Really an 8 means "very slightly (-1 on a d20, or 5%, to be specific) worse at something than average".

But there are a lot of people here who seem to think that a "dump stat" of 8 means your feebleness in that area is a defining characteristic of the character.

 

[robus]

It’s not very helpful to bring up a 3 year old thread

??!!

 

[Guest 6801328]

It’s not very helpful to bring up a 3 year old thread

I think he was just poking fun at me (which is fine!). I had forgotten about that thread. But, yeah, I've been thinking about these things for a long, long time. Pretty much every topic (including Warlords) that really grabs me is some variant of the Player Agency issue.

 

[Hriston]

A case that troubles me is thinking about Strength (Athletics) for a grapple, versus Charisma (Persuasion) to persuade. You, as the player, can't determine that your character isn't grappled, if you lose the contest against an NPC's Strength (Athletics). You could well say "I walk away from the NPC", choosing not to ignore that your Speed has been made 0 in that situation: the skill check overrides your decision. So far as I understand, many people agree with that. Implying that perhaps many people agree that a skill check can override a player decision. A similar case can be made for Dexterity (Stealth). I think many people would agree that ordinarily, a player can't decide to see a hidden PC or NPC.

This line of reasoning makes me hypothesise that it's not just about "you as a player determining how your character thinks, acts and talks", because in the cited instances skill checks override that. You don't get to act how you want, if what you want is to walk away from a successful grapple or perceive a successful hider.

What you seem to be describing is that D&D is generally not played in director stance. You control the decisions and actions of your character only. You don't control aspects of the environment or other characters. Being grappled by another character or having another character successfully hidden from you are things outside of your character and therefore not under your control as a player. What is under your control is what your character decides to do about being grappled or about a creature hiding from it. You can decide your character tries to break the grapple, and you can decide your character searches for the hidden creature. In the case of another character trying to influence your character's decision-making through "tact, social graces, or good nature", or any other non-magical means, you decide what your character thinks. There's really no room for the dice to play a role in this situation.

 

[robus]

I think he was just poking fun at me (which is fine!). I had forgotten about that thread. But, yeah, I've been thinking about these things for a long, long time. Pretty much every topic (including Warlords) that really grabs me is some variant of the Player Agency issue.

Well it was in fun, but also relevant in that we've have been down a very similar road and 3 years is still within 5e's time frame (and helpful for anyone who wanted to review a discussion on that topic... )