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

[Ahnehnois]

Metagaming isn't necessarily a bad thing. I try to encourage my players to make choices that further the story; sometimes they can use out-of-character knowledge to go in really interesting directions.

 

[nijineko]

Spoiler

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?

i adjusted my gamerules, because i don't believe there should be an effect which can force someone to behave against their will.

also, i play with people who are mature and will choose in character even if they know how it is going to turn out as a player. it's not something that can be enforced, and in fact, if you try to force your players, they are more likely to murphy you as a result.

part of it is dependent upon the dm's acting skill. the rest is up to the player. it's a collaborative game, you get out of it who you put into it.

 

[Starfox]

I got a pretty decent Bluff score myself - I can usually play my NPC's interactions reasonably well. And my players are brought up on TORG and other games with enforced social interaction rules. So its not generally a problem. But I don't mind to much when they ignore it either - there is a line between "normal" and "heroic" and PCs should be on the "heroic" side. I have more of aproblem with timid players than with overconfident ones.

 

[GreedySmurf]

I don't encounter this problem overly much, as my gaming group are all 30 somethings and have been playing together for a long time.

Something I use/have used in the past;
- XP bonus - if a player carries out an interaction like this, and particularly if they have the character do something the player would rather not do, I award a 'roleplaying' XP bonus. (scaled to make to matter to the PC's level)

In terms of your specific scenarios;
#1 - With the intimidate thing, use a game mechanic, I impose the 'shaken' condition on the character, thus if they still choose to duke it out they're disadvantaged in the fight.
#2 - This is actually the toughest one for me. I generally just let them keep going. Depending upon who hey're questioning.
#3 - As another poster said Diplomacy isn't charm person. A good check imparts no compulsion to do anything. It's funny with this scenario actually, in that by meta-gaming most players would want to help anyway, (well my players) because they would think I wouldn't waste time on a mundane task like that and would be waiting for the 'action' to start.

 

[Sunseeker]

Play with adults.

I assume by "adults" you're simply meaning people who will stay in character. But this isn't partciuarly an issue with my group or people I've played with, I've just noticed that there's really no rules enforcement on the issue.

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

I have done this with a few NPCs. In my current campaign the players are working indirectly on behalf of the King of a kingdom caught in the middle of an age-old civil war, they attempted to convince the king to send his armed forces to war against the aggressor kingdom. While they rolled high and certainly the kind was impressed with their eloquence, he would not be moved on the issue, he would not commit forces to an act of aggression, reasoning partially that he barely had enough forces to secure his own borders. It did somewhat bother me that my players expected him to just agree with them because they won the roll. Even though they had just saved him from a very obvious attack on his personage by the aggressor nation, he simply would not be moved to risk his whole kingdom to go to war over it.

Metagaming isn't necessarily a bad thing. I try to encourage my players to make choices that further the story; sometimes they can use out-of-character knowledge to go in really interesting directions.

I'm not out to stop my players from metagaming. There are always going to be areas a player is good in that their character isn't. The guy playing a barbariain may be a math whiz and solve my "puzzle of the ages" challenge, and I'm OK with that even if his character is running a 6 INT. I'm mostly looking to ensure they stay in-character most of the time, as above, even the dumb guy's sometimes have a lightbulb go off.

I don't encounter this problem overly much, as my gaming group are all 30 somethings and have been playing together for a long time.

Something I use/have used in the past;
- XP bonus - if a player carries out an interaction like this, and particularly if they have the character do something the player would rather not do, I award a 'roleplaying' XP bonus. (scaled to make to matter to the PC's level)

In terms of your specific scenarios;
#1 - With the intimidate thing, use a game mechanic, I impose the 'shaken' condition on the character, thus if they still choose to duke it out they're disadvantaged in the fight.
#2 - This is actually the toughest one for me. I generally just let them keep going. Depending upon who hey're questioning.
#3 - As another poster said Diplomacy isn't charm person. A good check imparts no compulsion to do anything. It's funny with this scenario actually, in that by meta-gaming most players would want to help anyway, (well my players) because they would think I wouldn't waste time on a mundane task like that and would be waiting for the 'action' to start.

I like the idea of using minor conditions for more overt skill failures. And I suppose I will have to run some more resistive NPCs.

 

[delericho]

I assume by "adults" you're simply meaning people who will stay in character. But this isn't partciuarly an issue with my group or people I've played with, I've just noticed that there's really no rules enforcement on the issue.

Essentially, yes. I've found that if the DM is relying on the game rules to prevent "bad behaviour", or they're having to constantly fight against player efforts to derail the game, then they're already in trouble before they start. In general, it's better to be up-front with players, point out that if they choose to break the game then they have that ability, but that the net effect is that the game sucks for everyone. Then, trust them to "do the right thing".

My experience is that that approach didn't work when we were younger, because of a teenaged tendancy to occasionally want to trash things for no good reason. However, with greater age came greater maturity (or, perhaps, I merely moved to a different group with more mature members). The net effect is that from my late-twenties onwards I realised I no longer needed to worry about game-destroying pathologies because the people playing were more mature - and that this was better for all concerned.

 

[Elf Witch]

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?

As others have said I play with adults who want to role play so that does make a difference.

In the three cases you described I would do these things

In the first I would describe the NPCs is a way that makes them sound scary letting the PC know that these guys are bad business. If the players decides to go a head and metagame the they can't possibly be this bad because of game rules then they get the living daylights knocked out of them. I have told my players that I run an organic world so assuming that every threat is level based for you to handle is not true and running away is sometimes the right thing to do. I think a lot depends on how the Bob has been playing his mage.

In the second if the paladin wants to keep questing the guy they can go ahead and choose not to believe that the guy is telling the truth but there will be consequences most nobles just don't take it and will have the power to stop the paladin by leaving or having them escorted out. Though I expect the player to have a good reason on why she refuses to believe the noble other than a metagame reason .

In the third well players have free choice and if the player refuses to do it and it is something important then later it may come back and bite them on the arse. Though I would describe it in a way to really make it sound important that the PC do this.

I can see both sides of this. Most players don't like having control taken away from them so that is why things like diplomacy don't work. Though in my games intimidate does work on players if they fail their will save they can choose how they act but there is penalty of -2 to attack to represent that the fact that they are scared of the person.

 

[steenan]

A functional game should specify how the social mechanics applies to the PCs. Players either buy in, or not.
If they buy in, they won't try to avoid whatever the dice bring. If they don't, it's time to change the system or houserule it until you have a game that the players want to play. Simple as that.
That's how I resolve similar issues at the table.


Of course, the question stated in the OP becomes meaningful when treated as a game design problem instead of a gamemastering problem. In other words: how should the social system be designed if we want the buy-in from as many players as possible.
There are a few ways that generally work - but none that is accepted by every player.

One approach is explicit stake negotiation. When a social conflict begins, the GM and the player (or two players, in case of a PC-PC conflict) discuss what will happen in case of a success, and what in case of a failure. The roll is made after both sides agree on the stakes. There is no problem with making players follow the result of a roll, because they already agreed on that before the roll was made. That is the approach I like best.
An advantage of explicit stakes is making all rolls meaningful - both risky and rewarding - because few people accept stakes that are obviously biased. On the other hand, some players are pulled out of immersion by a metagame negotiation, and some GMs don't like it because they cannot keep the potential results secred.

A more traditional approach is the carrot-and-stick method. The system rewards players when they follow up on results of a social roll, by granting them xp, fate points, willpower or some other resource that the game uses. Or it punishes them for not following the roll by penalizing actions that go against it. For example, a character isn't forced to run away or submit when successfully intimidated, but gets a reward when he does and a penalty when he attacks the offender. This is significantly less metagame than stakes negotiation and still does not force a player to violate their character concept.

The last approach I see as functional is removing social rolls entirely and moving the social interactions to the player level. It is simple and immersive, but it significantly weakens many character concepts and leaves a lot to player and GM fiat.