D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[HammerMan]

Of course they aren't "mind control." But when you start rolling ability checks to determine whether a PC is deceived, persuaded, or intimidated, then you are saying what the PC thinks

no I am not. First we have already discussed my house rules so leave them out of what comes next. Second what happens to you is not what you think.

That you then say they can react however they want only serves to prove that all you're doing is going through a weird process that doesn't mean anything, except you're stepping on the player's role to determine what the PC thinks for no good reason.

okay now show the rule that lets someone intimidate (PC or NPC) dictate what someone thinks

The only thing it does is inform your description and give you a reason to penalize your players' XP if you want (as you stated upthread).

you are just not even responding to what I have typed for the last 70 pages at this point... I am starting to see the problem You get 1 impression, then make up your mind, then nothing that you read or see later will effect that impression, it is the opposite of what you say you do.

Your interpretation, such as it is, looks very twisted to me and is very much not a valid reading of the rules in my view. This will be my final interaction with you in this thread.

OKay, I will continue to interact with you anytime you say stuff like this, about your reading being the only one... however now I am starting to understand that you are like Sheldon and can not process new information as well as old, and as such your interpretations can never be reevaluated...

 

[Maxperson]

For those arguing that guidelines aren't rules, the DMG has these things to say about guidelines.

DMG page 5: "Chapter 5 presents guidelines and advice for running adventures set in dungeons, the wilderness, and other locales, and chapter 6 covers the time between adventures. Chapter 7 is all about treasure, magic items, and special rewards that help keep the players invested in your campaign." Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are all guidelines it seems.

DMG page 26: "Guidelines for creating a new background are provided in chapter 9, "Dungeon Master's Workshop." Making all those rules only guidelines.

DMG page 83(referring to encounter creation): "The preceding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventurers." So the primary thing the game is balanced around, the adventuring day and the encounter building "rules" are...........................guidelines! No rules there.

DMG page 87: "A group of monsters whose adjusted XP value constitutes an easy, medium, or hard challenge for the party, as determined using the encounter-building guidelines earlier in this chapter." More proof that all those encounter building rules are just guidelines.

DMG page 89: "For guidelines on generating monster-like stat blocks for an NPC, see chapter 9, "Dungeon Master's Workshop." So all the NPC creation rules are also just guidelines.

DMG page 103: "Chapter 8 provides guidelines for setting DCs and assigning statistics to doors and other objects." So all those rules on what stats objects have are just guidelines.

DMG page 105(and a lot of other pages): "Use the guidelines in chapter 8 to set an appropriate DC for any check made to spot or recognize a hazard." Isn't it interesting how chapter 8 and 9 are getting referred to as guidelines? I mean, those the chapters in the Master of Rules section. It's almost as if the game is saying that guidelines and rules are interchangeable.

DMG page 122: "A successful DC 20 Strength check is necessary to pry the cover open. The cover can also be smashed open (determine the cover's statistics using the guidelines in chapter 8)." Again we have the hard statistics provided in the Master of Rules section being referred to as guidelines.

DMG page 129: "At your discretion, you can allow players to design their own magic items, using the guidelines in chapter 9, "Dungeon Master's Workshop."" So now we have the magic item creation rules being referred to as guidelines.

DMG page 236: "Or you can fill out the group with NPC followers, using the guidelines in chapter 4, "Creating Nonplayer Characters."" The chapter 4 NPC creation rules are now guidelines.

DMG page 241: "It's best to let players award their inspiration as they see fit, but feel free to talk to them about following certain guidelines, particularly if you're trying to reinforce conventions of a certain genre." Guidelines are something to follow in order to reinforce things. Sounds like a rule.

DMG page 241: "A player follows whatever guidelines the group has agreed on for awarding inspiration." Again, guidelines as something to follow. A rule.

DMG page 260: "Chapter 3, "Creating Adventures," provides guidelines for designing combat encounters using experience points." So again we have all the rules for encounters and experience points being guidelines.

DMG page 263: "AS THE DUNGEON MASTER, YOU AREN'T LIMITED by the rules in the Player's Handbook, the guidelines in this book, or the selection of monsters in the Monster Manual." Uh, oh! Now the PHB only has rules and the DMG only has guidelines.

DMG page 263: "This chapter contains optional rules that you can use to customize your campaign, as well as guidelines on creating your own material, such as monsters and magic items." Whew! What a relief. At least the optional rules in the DMG are rules.

 

[Maxperson]

By the way, I'm actually 100% with you: there's a hierarchy, with rules at the top, with guidelines and flavor below that. I argued exactly this point much earlier in the thread, and had that basically summarily dismissed by @Ovinomancer, and nobody came in on my side, so I let it drop.

As my last post shows, the game treats rules and guidelines as somewhat interchangeable. That makes it really hard to tell the difference between a guidelines like, "you might want to call for a check when..." which are just advice, and guidelines like, "This is what RP is and controls" which is like a rule.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I had an idea relating to this. Modifying the cases slightly - the goal of the intimidating character in each case is to find out something from the intimidated character.

1) PC describes an approach using coercion to find out if an NPC prefers snails over oysters. As DM and complying with what I believe RAW entails, I decide the NPC is hostile due to this coercion so I call for a CHA (Intimidation) check from the PC and resolve it using the Hostile table from the DMG.

2) NPC describes an approach using coercion to find out if an PC prefers snails over oysters. I'm going to suggest this is put incorrectly, it should be

2') PC describes an approach using deception to avoid disclosing to a threatening NPC whether they prefer snails over oysters. So here the PC has the agency. They've said what they decided to do. Again, complying with RAW, I'm going to call for them to make a CHA (Deception) check contested by the NPC's CHA (Intimidation). Now you could say you want to make that WIS (Insight) for the NPC, and that would be fine, but as DM in this case I have decided that the challenge for the PC is resisting coercion.

What do you think?

I think this is some definite progress. @Bill Zebub has a great point that the player first gets to decide how the PC reacts to the threat in 2'. I think that's what you are getting at - that they've already decided they want their PC to engage - when you say: "They've said what they decided to do. " To be clear, what they want to do is... what exactly? To keep the scenario going, let's say the player, with reasonable specificity, wants the PC to do some fast-talking to avoid answering the question. (we're still talking about the scenario and not this forum, of course ) It's at this point that the DM decides the NPC may or may not buy it and will crank up the heat as a meaningful consequence for failure. The DM calls for the player to roll a CHA (Deception) check vs... DM's choice of NPC's CHA (Intimidation), WIS (Insight), passive WIS (Insight), or some other static DC based on the scene. On a success, NPC is distracted from the line of questioning about mollusks and engages with the new topic, granting the PC a temporary reprieve. On a failure, the NPC casts... Bonfire... but next to the chair. Patience is wearing thin, but not gone altogether. "What do you do next?"

 

[Swarmkeeper]

For those arguing that guidelines aren't rules, the DMG has these things to say about guidelines.

DMG page 5: "Chapter 5 presents guidelines and advice for running adventures set in dungeons, the wilderness, and other locales, and chapter 6 covers the time between adventures. Chapter 7 is all about treasure, magic items, and special rewards that help keep the players invested in your campaign." Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are all guidelines it seems.

DMG page 26: "Guidelines for creating a new background are provided in chapter 9, "Dungeon Master's Workshop." Making all those rules only guidelines.

DMG page 83(referring to encounter creation): "The preceding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventurers." So the primary thing the game is balanced around, the adventuring day and the encounter building "rules" are...........................guidelines! No rules there.

DMG page 87: "A group of monsters whose adjusted XP value constitutes an easy, medium, or hard challenge for the party, as determined using the encounter-building guidelines earlier in this chapter." More proof that all those encounter building rules are just guidelines.

DMG page 89: "For guidelines on generating monster-like stat blocks for an NPC, see chapter 9, "Dungeon Master's Workshop." So all the NPC creation rules are also just guidelines.

DMG page 103: "Chapter 8 provides guidelines for setting DCs and assigning statistics to doors and other objects." So all those rules on what stats objects have are just guidelines.

DMG page 105(and a lot of other pages): "Use the guidelines in chapter 8 to set an appropriate DC for any check made to spot or recognize a hazard." Isn't it interesting how chapter 8 and 9 are getting referred to as guidelines? I mean, those the chapters in the Master of Rules section. It's almost as if the game is saying that guidelines and rules are interchangeable.

DMG page 122: "A successful DC 20 Strength check is necessary to pry the cover open. The cover can also be smashed open (determine the cover's statistics using the guidelines in chapter 8)." Again we have the hard statistics provided in the Master of Rules section being referred to as guidelines.

DMG page 129: "At your discretion, you can allow players to design their own magic items, using the guidelines in chapter 9, "Dungeon Master's Workshop."" So now we have the magic item creation rules being referred to as guidelines.

DMG page 236: "Or you can fill out the group with NPC followers, using the guidelines in chapter 4, "Creating Nonplayer Characters."" The chapter 4 NPC creation rules are now guidelines.

DMG page 241: "It's best to let players award their inspiration as they see fit, but feel free to talk to them about following certain guidelines, particularly if you're trying to reinforce conventions of a certain genre." Guidelines are something to follow in order to reinforce things. Sounds like a rule.

DMG page 241: "A player follows whatever guidelines the group has agreed on for awarding inspiration." Again, guidelines as something to follow. A rule.

DMG page 260: "Chapter 3, "Creating Adventures," provides guidelines for designing combat encounters using experience points." So again we have all the rules for encounters and experience points being guidelines.

DMG page 263: "AS THE DUNGEON MASTER, YOU AREN'T LIMITED by the rules in the Player's Handbook, the guidelines in this book, or the selection of monsters in the Monster Manual." Uh, oh! Now the PHB only has rules and the DMG only has guidelines.

DMG page 263: "This chapter contains optional rules that you can use to customize your campaign, as well as guidelines on creating your own material, such as monsters and magic items." Whew! What a relief. At least the optional rules in the DMG are rules.

Crtl-F for the win!

 

[clearstream]

In general I'd rather have things posed so that there's a risk:reward analysis, and the player gets to decide. But an important component is that the player needs to be free to refuse the risk. If there's no choice, there's not really any point to offering a risk:reward scenario. So in the above, what happens if the player says, "Naw, I'll pass."?

Say when a bunch of monsters charge at the party: can they say "Naw, I'll pass"? The DM describes the situation, the player forms intents with that as their context.

Can you think of a case where it makes sense to do it another way? DM describes situation, and player disregards that and forms intents that don't follow?

 

[clearstream]

I think the example you provide here seems very tortured, pun intended. I believe exhaustion is the better mechanic to apply to torture situations which would impart (at level 1 exhaustion) disadvantage to ability checks. The player attempts the deception with the exhausted character. The DM, for whatever reason, thinks this action has an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure, at which point they call for a Charisma (Deception) check at disadvantage against a DC (perhaps NPC's passive Insight or a contest or just a set DC). On a success, the NPC believes them. On a failure, the NPC doesn't and things get worse e.g. additional torture is applied, stacking more levels of exhaustion.

No argument: exhaustion would be a great way to reify "...things get worse". It sounds like, while acknowledging DMs could choose to manage this in various ways, the case is one you would accept?

 

[Faolyn]

I think where some get twisted up on this is that they feel the need to roll dice when an action a monster takes smells faintly like it aligns with a "skill check." The monster lies to the PC, so they must make a Charisma (Deception) check. The DM here is failing to consider the rest of the adjudication process which, if they did, would tell them they can't proceed with that check because of the lack of uncertainty as to the outcome. What should happen therefore instead is the DM simply presents the lie to the PC and it's now up to the player to take action to determine whether that's the truth or not (or, alternatively, is persuaded by the NPC or intimidated).

I really am confused about what you mean when you say "lack of uncertainty" here--or why that means the check can't continue.

In the games I'm playing in or running, what usually happens is a player may ask the DM "can I roll Insight to see if the NPC is truthful?" (or words to that affect). The DM says OK, the player rolls, reports the number, and the DM will usually say something like "the NPC seems to be honest" or "something about the NPC seemed a bit off when they were saying that" or "the NPC is clearly lying through their teeth" or even "you can't really tell." Depending, of course, on the roll, the NPC's Deception, and whether or not they actually were lying. Of course "the NPC seems to be honest" could mean that the NPC is good at lying or is telling what they believe to be the truth, but isn't.

I mean, this is the point of the Insight skill, after all.

 

[iserith]

No argument: exhaustion would be a great way to reify "...things get worse". It sounds like, while acknowledging DMs could choose to manage this in various ways, the case is one you would accept?

Because the example was so tortured I had a hard time really following what is what the DM was adjudicating there, so I simplified it in a way that I think the rules show us. Certainly different DMs may call for different ability checks or skill proficiencies depending on their understanding of what the player is trying to do in context. For example it looks like you implemented the optional rule for using skill proficiencies with different ability scores. The question has ever been in this scenario whether there is uncertainty as to the outcome of a task to influence a PC. There isn't.

 

[HammerMan]

I really am confused about what you mean when you say "lack of uncertainty" here--or why that means the check can't continue.

In the games I'm playing in or running, what usually happens is a player may ask the DM "can I roll Insight to see if the NPC is truthful?" (or words to that affect). The DM says OK, the player rolls, reports the number, and the DM will usually say something like "the NPC seems to be honest" or "something about the NPC seemed a bit off when they were saying that" or "the NPC is clearly lying through their teeth" or even "you can't really tell." Depending, of course, on the roll, the NPC's Deception, and whether or not they actually were lying. Of course "the NPC seems to be honest" could mean that the NPC is good at lying or is telling what they believe to be the truth, but isn't.

I mean, this is the point of the Insight skill, after all.

I think it means you can just rule out right "you can't tell" or "He's telling the truth" or "He's lying" with no roll if you determine the PC is just good enough to roll.