D&D General The Charisma Conundrum

[bloodtide]

So with spring nearly upon us, lots of local games are breaking up. One, the DM just decided to dump the game and walk away. Her last act was to kill all the PCs and end the game. Well, the players were not so happy. They are half way through "Dragon Heist" and would like to finish it. DMs are scarce, so eventually they come to me. And I say yes.

In order to do a soft restart at my suggestion, they all make new characters that are family members of the killed PC, and we pick up the adventure.

So, this a group of five 20 somethings, four young women and one guy: Doug.

Doug is the classic shy, awkward, not social sort of guy....he got into D&D as one of the other players is his sister. So when they make new characters, Doug dives into making a bard character so he can be the "Face" of the party. I know this will not work out.....

And sure enough when the game starts, Doug's character stays way in the back and does not role play or interact with any NPCs. Other then his sister, he does not speak much to anyone at the table. So he is sure not playing the Faceman of the group.....but he "wants to". The most he does is when the adventure calls for something like a charisma check he will roll that.

So, over the course of the next three games...Doug comes out of his shell a bit. He make some very sad attempts to role play the Faceman, but as he has very little real life charisma, he does this very poorly.

So all NPCs react badly to Doug's character, and when the rolls come up, he makes minuses for himself by his bad style of role play. And he has no interest in talking about it...or anything...and refuses to change.

So....today....the other three players(not Doug or his sister) come to me after the game to talk about this. They want me to just "let Doug be the Face". So that when role playing, no matter what Doug says "for real", all NPCs act like his character is the Greatest Guy of All Time...and he never gets a minus to a roll.

I said no. I require players to put at least a little effort into role playing or just play the dull robotic way. As soon as a player starts to role play, I hold them to the high standard.

And this is the Question as Old as the Game: what to do about the players that won't....or can't play the character they "want to be"? If the player "wants to be" something...does the DM alter game reality to make it so? Or not?

If a player with a Low Charisma Score "wants" to play a Faceman, do you as the DM "just make it happen"? I'm not a fan....and worse I think it's harmful. Sure Doug could mumble something and I could have NPCs go all "wow" and I could completely prop Doug up as a False Faceman. And sure he will "feel good" for a few seconds. But it won't be real. He will KNOW he just mumbled some random words.....and he will KNOW I just "made the NPCs fo all 'wow' " just because he wanted me too. So he "wants to play a Faceman", but the only way he can do it is a completely false way. And I don't think that is good or healthy.

 

[CreamCloud0]

if the player rolls well enough (don't adjust the DC because you think how they said it wasn't good enough) and has made somewhat of an honest attempt to have their character say something vaguely apropriate to the situation then YES have the NPCs respond well to them, DO NOT attempt to undermine the player's actions and desires because they don't live up to your standards or because you think you know best for them @bloodtide .

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do you make the same demands of the players with other stats? If a character is smarter than a player, do you handicap them based on what the player can do? Do players only get to be high Constitution fighters if they can run a 10 minute mile while you time them?

I'm with @CreamCloud0 on this.

You are on your way to having your players quit your group en masse.

 

[FrogReaver]

So with spring nearly upon us, lots of local games are breaking up. One, the DM just decided to dump the game and walk away. Her last act was to kill all the PCs and end the game. Well, the players were not so happy. They are half way through "Dragon Heist" and would like to finish it. DMs are scarce, so eventually they come to me. And I say yes.

In order to do a soft restart at my suggestion, they all make new characters that are family members of the killed PC, and we pick up the adventure.

So, this a group of five 20 somethings, four young women and one guy: Doug.

Doug is the classic shy, awkward, not social sort of guy....he got into D&D as one of the other players is his sister. So when they make new characters, Doug dives into making a bard character so he can be the "Face" of the party. I know this will not work out.....

And sure enough when the game starts, Doug's character stays way in the back and does not role play or interact with any NPCs. Other then his sister, he does not speak much to anyone at the table. So he is sure not playing the Faceman of the group.....but he "wants to". The most he does is when the adventure calls for something like a charisma check he will roll that.

So, over the course of the next three games...Doug comes out of his shell a bit. He make some very sad attempts to role play the Faceman, but as he has very little real life charisma, he does this very poorly.

So all NPCs react badly to Doug's character, and when the rolls come up, he makes minuses for himself by his bad style of role play. And he has no interest in talking about it...or anything...and refuses to change.

So....today....the other three players(not Doug or his sister) come to me after the game to talk about this. They want me to just "let Doug be the Face". So that when role playing, no matter what Doug says "for real", all NPCs act like his character is the Greatest Guy of All Time...and he never gets a minus to a roll.

I said no. I require players to put at least a little effort into role playing or just play the dull robotic way. As soon as a player starts to role play, I hold them to the high standard.

And this is the Question as Old as the Game: what to do about the players that won't....or can't play the character they "want to be"? If the player "wants to be" something...does the DM alter game reality to make it so? Or not?

If a player with a Low Charisma Score "wants" to play a Faceman, do you as the DM "just make it happen"? I'm not a fan....and worse I think it's harmful. Sure Doug could mumble something and I could have NPCs go all "wow" and I could completely prop Doug up as a False Faceman. And sure he will "feel good" for a few seconds. But it won't be real. He will KNOW he just mumbled some random words.....and he will KNOW I just "made the NPCs fo all 'wow' " just because he wanted me too. So he "wants to play a Faceman", but the only way he can do it is a completely false way. And I don't think that is good or healthy.

Maybe be more flexible. There is a happy middle ground.

I find it highly doubtful that you are properly characterizing the non-verbal queues of the NPCs in the conversation for Doug to be able to react to. (It’s really hard to do).

Instead what the players likely face is a featureless brick wall of an NPC that requires them to take a verbal shot in the dark to see what happens that you then penalize them for when they inevitably guess wrong.

Perhaps it’s the NPCs who you control that aren’t roleplaying accurately in their responses to a charismatic character - most of communication is non-verbal after all.

 

[payn]

Im guessing they are asking you let Doug be the face because the devil is in the details.

So, over the course of the next three games...Doug comes out of his shell a bit. He make some very sad attempts to role play the Faceman, but as he has very little real life charisma, he does this very poorly.

So all NPCs react badly to Doug's character, and when the rolls come up, he makes minuses for himself by his bad style of role play. And he has no interest in talking about it...or anything...and refuses to change.

Like, for example, this sound suspicious AF.

 

[Reynard]

This is a problem you are creating and imposing on Doug. Stop it. Encourage him. Help him make the right mechanical choices and teach him how to role play. Otherwise you are doing a disservice to Doug, your group and the hobby community.

 

[FrogReaver]

Im guessing they are asking you let Doug be the face because the devil is in the details.

Like, for example, this sound suspicious AF.

If I was to stat up @bloodtide as an NPC in my RPG, charisma would definitely be low. I don’t mean any offense by that, it just is my perception.

And it begs the question - how can someone really low in charisma really judge how high charisma functions in game?

 

[pawsplay]

I think you can just pretend Doug is a badly written, badly acted character in a TV show. Characters still react to his actual Charisma. However, his actions still matter. Just like the fighter's high Strength hardly matters if they don't engage in combat. Effort is expected.

 

[Minigiant]

Minigiant not particularly agile but Minigiant tends to play high dexterity characters.

People can play characters that don't match them.

You only get minus penalties for mentioning things that trigger the NPCs.

 

[Scribe]

His Charisma is on the character sheet.