The Character-Player dichotomy, to metagame or not to metagame?

[Sunseeker]

A recent thread has brought to my attention an issue that I wonder if DDN may resolve, or any edition has stated explicit rules on how to handle.

When you succeed at intimidating an NPC, you basically force them into doing something for you or telling you some secret.
When you successfully Bluff or Diplomacy an NPC, you do much the same, tricking them into telling you something they otherwise wouldn't, or doing something for you.

However, when an NPC Bluffs a character, the player is under no obligation to act on that trickery. The same applies to diplomacy or intimidate. No matter how sweet talkin', big and bury or conniving an NPC is, no matter how well they roll against a character's scores, the player is under no obligation to act on that in the same way an NPC would to a player's advances. In the face of overwhelming forces of darkness, a player cannot be forced to do anything without some kind of spell or ability forcing them to. All skill-based checks against a character to get that character to do something are effectively meaningless so long as the player chooses not to act on them.

So, how do you resolve this? I'm not aware of any rules conferring negative effects upon a character for the loss of a skill-based check in these areas. Should the rules confer negative effects on players? If an NPC intimidates a character, should that character take penalties to their scores in some form in case the player chooses to act as though they aren't intimidated anyway? Should there be non-crunch RP penalties to a player who doesn't go with the roll? IE: if a player

It's one thing for a player to say they believe an NPC and stop pressing them when they lose their check, it's another for them to outright ignore the results of the roll. How would you handle such situations?

Lets give a couple of examples:
1: Bob the mage is shopping around town when two thugs come into the shop he's in an attempt to intimidate the owner. Bob, being a well-meaning fellow tells them to stop. The Thugs roll an intimidate against Bob, and being big, ughly, burly jerks beat him by a mile. Bob's player; Bill, chooses to fight them anyway.
-If the roles were reversed Bob would seriously reconsider starting a fight. These guys are big and scary! But because Bob is a player and there are no mechanical punishments for losing the check, the whole thing is meaningless. How would you handle Bill's apparent lack of RP?

2: Jane the paladin is questioning some Noble about a murder in town. The Noble successfully bluff's Jane into believing they had nothing to do with it. Jane is played by Brandi, who doesn't believe the Noble in the slightest and continues to aggressively question him.
-Would these roles be reversed, the Noble would have had no further overt suspicion of Jane and would have gone about his merry way, even if Jane really was the killer. How do you respond to Jane ignoring the results of the role?

3: Phil the rogue is wandering around town, some random Joe asks Phil to save his kitten from a tree, and successfully beats Phil in a Diplomacy check. Phil however, knowing that this will grant him jack for XP, refuses to help.
-Again, if this were Phil asking an NPC for the same thing, and winning the diplomacy check, the NPC would certainly help(though perhaps begrudgingly).

So, all you DMs and would be philosophers, how do you handle the Character-Player dichotomy in situations where the Character would be most likely bound to do something or act in a certain way because of their failed check, but the Player refuses for some non-game reason(or no reason at all)? As an extension, how strictly do you enforce RP and staying "in character" with your players?

 

[delericho]

However, when an NPC Bluffs a character, the player is under no obligation to act on that trickery...

So, how do you resolve this?

Play with adults. Sure, the player is under no obligation to act on the trickery, they really should choose to do so, unless they have good reason not to.

So, I expect my players to act accordingly, they know I expect them to act accordingly... but they also know that I trust them to play the game in the appropriate spirit.

 

[Li Shenron]

First of all, keep in mind that this is a playstyle issue: there is no "right" and "wrong" way to handle these situations.

In my case, I don't force any player into certain actions due to Intimidate, Diplomacy and Bluff checks against them. I don't see any need to do that. Actually, I don't even necessarily always roll those checks, but I certainly do if the player asks for them, e.g. the player says "I want to roll Sense Motive against this guy to see if he's lying".

How I would handle your specific examples:

1. The thugs rolling very high Intimidate would mean that I tell the players "these guys look really tough, they look very capable of kicing your a**es". The player can choose to ignore and attack, basically it means they don't trust their own PC's ability to figure out the level of challenge but what if they are wrong? If the DM always gives encounters that are easy (or at least quite possible) to beat, then clearly the players learn that no matter how tough the monsters/NPC look, they can always beat them. Well, then this is another problem, and the DM cannot blame it on the rules. I don't do this, I sometimes really give out an encounter that is very tough, and could even be impossible, and in those cases I definitely give clear clues about that (such as "this foe looks beyond any of you!"), so if you avoid having only easy/beatable encounters in your game, the players learn that backing off is sometimes the best thing to do.

2. I would never tell the player "your PC must believe what the NPC says". Instead I say "the NPC sounds very convincing, he's very probably telling the truth". The player can then do what she wants, but if she's wrong, she's going to pay the consequences in-game. Sometimes players gamble, and if they have fun doing that (even if it means to occasionally screw up the adventure), I don't see anything bad.

3. Once again, a high Diplomacy roll by the NPC simply means that I'm going to describe him as "very convincing", while a very poor roll could mean (depending on the situation) that I may say "he sounds suspiciously, as if hiding something" - that said, if he really has something to hide, because if the truth is that he really only is concerned with getting the kitten saved, I wouldn't add anything like that.

 

[pemerton]

The Sorcerer RPG (as I undestand it) has one way of handling this - losing a check (like an Intimidate check from an NPC) imposes a penalty on subsequent actions against the character who won the previous contest - so Bob the mage would suffer penalties to attack the thugs. (This could be treated as a metagame thing, or an ingame modelling of Bob's fear, depending on table preferences.)

 

[steeldragons]

Well, I'll open with this.

Play with adults. Sure, the player is under no obligation to act on the trickery, they really should choose to do so, unless they have good reason not to.

So, I expect my players to act accordingly, they know I expect them to act accordingly... but they also know that I trust them to play the game in the appropriate spirit.

See Li Shenron's, "No right or wrong way to handle these situations." Very true.

And raise you a "Good fer Goose? Good fer Gander." If the players feel no need to "play along"/follow the use of those skills, then, as DM, I see no reason I am beholden to them either. [same goes for things like using Mordenkainen's Disjunction, Polymorphs...or any other spell/magic, really...special tactics/combat moves, etc...]

Basically, if the player's open yon Can of [Purple] Worms, then that can is opened. Or, to use the contemparary parlance (as far s I understand it), if that's how the players "Roll" and they wish to "Bring it!" then that rolling HAS BEEN BROUGHT! ;P

"But I made my intimidate roll?!" whines the player.
"Yeah." shrugs the DM. "They're still not running away. In fact, they look kinda pissed..."

"I totally Bluffed his a$$!" cheers the paladin.
"You don't say." the Noble [DM] responds to your assertions. The npc doesn't remark on anything else and begins plans to eliminate the paladin since she's, obviously, on to him.

"Made my Diplomacy roll. They want to get that treasure for me out of the case." says Phil.
"They think it still looks trapped and refuse." says the DM.
"But I made my roll!" Phil protests.
"Yes. You did. Your diplomacy was quite eloquent. They listened carefully, mulled it over, and decided against."

I think everyone is just more happy when you are all adults (or capable of acting with maturity, no matter what the age).
--SD

 

[Quickleaf]

Here are my answers...

1: Bob the mage is shopping around town when two thugs come into the shop he's in an attempt to intimidate the owner. Bob, being a well-meaning fellow tells them to stop. The Thugs roll an intimidate against Bob, and being big, ughly, burly jerks beat him by a mile. Bob's player; Bill, chooses to fight them anyway.
-If the roles were reversed Bob would seriously reconsider starting a fight. These guys are big and scary! But because Bob is a player and there are no mechanical punishments for losing the check, the whole thing is meaningless. How would you handle Bill's apparent lack of RP?

First off, Bill is role-playing, he's just not role-playing the reaction to being intimidated that you expected; when pushed into a corner people can make unpredictable and unwise decisions (a lone mage in a close combat with rogues being a good example). Barring magic and weird stuff, players should always be in control of their characters IMO.

What I'd do if I wanted to portray these thugs as intimidating is include some (possibly misleading) metagame details and play off of the mage Player's fears. For example: "You notice one of the thugs has a guild tattoo on his neck - That same guild which fought with magebane weapons the last time you faced them." Or perhaps player is an especially LG type, so the shop owner pleads with the PC not to get involved because then the guild will take it out on his family. Or, if the mage Player is trying to operate covertly in town, have the thugs back down without a fight but ominously swear the mage hasn't seen the last of them...then feel free to have them pop up at the worst possible time down the road.

IOW, to really intimidate a PC you need to, on some level, scare the player. Some players feel a level of fear when they feel their PCs are outmatched in a fight, but others do not. Know your players.

2: Jane the paladin is questioning some Noble about a murder in town. The Noble successfully bluff's Jane into believing they had nothing to do with it. Jane is played by Brandi, who doesn't believe the Noble in the slightest and continues to aggressively question him.
-Would these roles be reversed, the Noble would have had no further overt suspicion of Jane and would have gone about his merry way, even if Jane really was the killer. How do you respond to Jane ignoring the results of the role?

The opposed bluff vs. insight scenario is always a bit tricky because even if you roll a bluff check behind a screen, the player sees you roll and thinks to themself "ok, the DM rolled, so the NPC has got to be lying." Unless you go to lengths (unnecessary rolls) to train your players out of this kind of thinking, my suggestion is to either pre-roll or take 10. So with that bit of meta out of the way...

He's a noble, if he feels offended or threatened and doesn't want to answer any more questions he doesn't have to. Have him disemble, make character attacks against the paladin, threaten to pull donations to the paladin's temple unless this "outrageous" line of questioning is dropped, or drop the name of an old villain who the paladin "should" be investigating. The noble ends the meeting when he wishes and is under no obligation to be questioned. You could even run with it and have the noble say "no one will ever believe you" and end their meeting.

However, I've got to say, if you really want to fool a PC you've also got to fool the player to some extent. So I'd question *why* is Brandi so suspicious of this noble? How did you as DM not fool her? What might have fooled her better?

3: Phil the rogue is wandering around town, some random Joe asks Phil to save his kitten from a tree, and successfully beats Phil in a Diplomacy check. Phil however, knowing that this will grant him jack for XP, refuses to help.
-Again, if this were Phil asking an NPC for the same thing, and winning the diplomacy check, the NPC would certainly help(though perhaps begrudgingly).

Ok, same as above, if you want to sell a quest (no matter how absurd) to the rogue you've got to sell it to Phil. This means knowing what motivates him as a player. Since in your example he sounds like a power gamer who wants "XP and loot", I'd suggest including one or both of these into the quest to rescue the kitten. How about the man is a non-guild thief who pays dues to the thieves guild for his autonomy. A recent score required he tie the treasure (a diamond) to a kitten which he placed on the window ledge. After he evaded the authorities, the thief couldn't find the kitten. With only 1 day before the guild master comes for his payment in blood, the thief asks the PC rogue for help, offering to split whatever is left of the diamond's value in gold after the guild masters due.

Also, Diplomacy is not charm person. Depending on the NPC's alignment, personality, and what they're doing, their reaction to a successful Diplomacy check could be very different.

Guard: "Yes I'm afraid it was one of our watch hounds that scared the poor thing. I'm on patrol so I can't help myself, but we'll move along so the kitten won't resist you when you climb up there to bring it down."

Mercenary: "Haha, sure why the hell not? Hire me and my band for a day and I'll go up there and rescue your kitten. Deal?"

Thief/con: "Happily good soul! ....Say, now that I'm up here and I have your kitten, I am feeling rather scared of heights. Some gold would certainly assuage my vertigo!"

Village boy: "Sure mister!" He falls trying to reach the cat and breaks his arm. His parents have stern words with the PCs about trying to turn their son into an adventurer.

 

[TerraDave]

Well, you can beat them on bluff vs insight. And if spells can compel behavior, then you could argue others can as well.

As pemerton also gives the example of a penalty, I think there are multiple games that do this and think it could work well in a "d20/D&D" set up...where lots of things have mechanical expressions.

 

[billd91]

Lets give a couple of examples:
1: Bob the mage is shopping around town when two thugs come into the shop he's in an attempt to intimidate the owner. Bob, being a well-meaning fellow tells them to stop. The Thugs roll an intimidate against Bob, and being big, ughly, burly jerks beat him by a mile. Bob's player; Bill, chooses to fight them anyway.
-If the roles were reversed Bob would seriously reconsider starting a fight. These guys are big and scary! But because Bob is a player and there are no mechanical punishments for losing the check, the whole thing is meaningless. How would you handle Bill's apparent lack of RP?

I'd tell the player that his character's estimation of the intimidating thugs is that they appear to be pretty tough customers and this may be hard to handle alone. I'd also treat the PC as demoralized based on the intimidation skill's description - that makes him shaken. It may not affect his spells much but it is a mechanical consequence of the thug's intimidation ability.

2: Jane the paladin is questioning some Noble about a murder in town. The Noble successfully bluff's Jane into believing they had nothing to do with it. Jane is played by Brandi, who doesn't believe the Noble in the slightest and continues to aggressively question him.
-Would these roles be reversed, the Noble would have had no further overt suspicion of Jane and would have gone about his merry way, even if Jane really was the killer. How do you respond to Jane ignoring the results of the role?

I do what Li Shenron does. I tell the player, if successfully bluffed, that the noble appears entirely sincere - the same thing I tell the player if the noble is telling the truth. I don't do any more than that. Consequences may fall as a result. Usually, that's enough.

3: Phil the rogue is wandering around town, some random Joe asks Phil to save his kitten from a tree, and successfully beats Phil in a Diplomacy check. Phil however, knowing that this will grant him jack for XP, refuses to help.
-Again, if this were Phil asking an NPC for the same thing, and winning the diplomacy check, the NPC would certainly help(though perhaps begrudgingly).

I would tell them that the random Joe makes a convincing case and that it's hard not to sympathize. But I always leave cooperation up to them... just like any NPC they successfully use diplomacy on has the free will to decide what he wants to do. How they handle something like this really isn't a question of metagaming the diplomacy away for me. Rather, it's a way for me to estimate and judge the content of the PC's character. Any time I include minor side quests like this, it would be for that purpose, not to exercise any use of interpersonal skills vs a PC.

 

[Ferghis]

As Li Shenron suggests, the rolls should indicate the kind of information provided to the players. The players can decide to gamble on the fact that the information might be wrong, and that's their freedom.

In the third case, a good diplomacy check for the NPC would yield something like the PC will look very bad in the local community if he refuses to assist, or some other social pressure.

Diplomacy is an interesting skill, but one that has been blown out of proportion. I personally consider it a check to make one particular proposal sound good, not to make friends. An excellent examination of the skill is here: http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html

 

[Ryujin]

If the player doesn't have his character react in a way that's reasonable for the situation, then you can use the game system to deal with the issue. For example if Bob is intimidated by the toughs, but doesn't act it, either penalize his attack rolls or buff the opponents. In other words make situational changes that reinforce what SHOULD have happened, in a way that encourages it to happen anyway.