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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 6059777">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?</blockquote>

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