D&D General System and RP NPC interactions

[iserith]

But a lot of us just like talking it out.

Like I said, I don't enforce it. If a player doesn't want to act things out I will accept a description, but that's partly because I can't be bothered to be consistent. Sometimes, I'm not feeling it, or having trouble getting into an NPC, so I'll stop my silly accent and fall back into 'he tells you that..' mode.

But I'm sure there are GMs who like the acting more than me and expect the same from their players. If their players don't want to do that, a conversation is called for.

Yeah, do what you like. But know what you're doing. And whether your players like it too.

And - I cannot stress this enough - know when the social interaction challenge is over and move the heck on.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think it would be better to have this talk with your DM than us. The best we can do is tell you how we run the game and why, but that won’t help you if your DM doesn’t want to change the way they run the game.

For whatever it’s worth, what I do is ask my players to describe their actions in terms of what they want to accomplish and what their character does to try and accomplish it. So, in a social interaction you might say, “I try to persuade him to help us by appealing to his sense of pity and morality.” If a player wants to act out exactly what their character says, they can, but I’ll be listening for what they seem to want to accomplish and how they’re trying to accomplish it in a broad sense. Then, I will call for a check if their character’s approach seems like it might succeed, might fail, and has a consequence for failure. Otherwise I will describe the results without calling for a check.

I believe this to be consistent with what the rules describe. Unfortunately, if your DM insists that you must act out what your character says, and relies on this acting alone to determine the results, there is probably little you can do to convince them to change their behavior. Talk to them, explain how you understand the rules and why you think the way they’re running it isn’t fair to you as players. But in my experience, DMs who do this are very difficult to convince to change their ways.