D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Swarmkeeper]

okay, then outright NO! 100% no...
th problem is
the goal that you defined for your PC

Part of the basic game loop is for the player to tell the DM what the PC wants to accomplish and how they are going about doing it. How is that a problem? How can a DM adjudicate an action if the player doesn't indicate what the goal of the PC is?

 

[HammerMan]

I have a rather different philosophy of play from you, in that I can completely hold that a success to climb a tree and find a clue can very much mean that there is a clue there to be found. It's a different approach, and not one that's terribly congruent with 5e in general, but one that can be deployed in this way. This is a very different discussion, but suffice it to say that my arguments do not rest upon your examples to be cogent.

except my arguement is that if there is no clue there, the check can't put a clue there (I guess unless you DM that way I don't and I don't think I know anyone that does)
SO
Making an Intimidate check is not "so they run away" the PC/NPC/MONSTER still reacts to the intimidation with 100% control (unless a diffrent rule changes that like a spell).

So I can't imagine telling a DM "I succseeded in the DC to Intimidate you set so they have to grovel and surrender, you can't have them yell for help!" any more then I can imagine "But you set a DC to climb the tree and I made it so there MUST be a clue up here" or (in my real life example of play) "I told you I wanted to ripp the bar off so we could go in, and made the athletics check to ripp it off I should be able get in the door now..."

 

[Bill Zebub]

... back in 4e we had a PC joke about "Push ups for insight" becuse they could then make a str+athletics check... they even had a thing on there phone about how exersise increaed blood flow and let you think clearer... we still joke about it many (too many don't make an old man count) years later.

I’ve seen a lot of posts where people make passing references to the long, long time they’ve been playing D&D, but that’s the first time I’ve seen 4e used that way.

Are we really there already?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Not quite. That section says the GM determines if it's possible, which goes back to the normal play loop. If they GM determines it's uncertain and calls for a roll, then the implication is strongly that a success will improve attitude. Or, the implication that success should be honored is as strong as it is for any other ability check, which is to say not very strong. You'll note that the rules don't actually suggest that the GM is bound by the result of the called for check, only that one is made and the GM then determines the outcome. A sad bit of oversight, if you ask my opinion.

Yes, ok, it does use the play loop. But it really just gives advice and guidance on how to structure that, I suspect just to make the loop go around additional times. It doesn’t really formalize any additional rules.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Not at all, depending on the argument.

"The absence of any replicable data contradicting quantum chromodynamics..." would be a pretty good start.

But if it pleases you I'll rephrase it:

"The presence of Shove and Grapple abilities is telling."

Sorry, meant to get back to this. No, this is still a poor argument. The existence of a rule to cover a specific action doesn't mean that lack of such a rule means you cannot do a different thing. This is, in essence, the reason to have a GM rather than a tightly codified set of rules -- to handle those areas the rules are lacking. And 5e is built on this premise of using the GM as much as possible to cover such rather than write rules as 3e did.

So, no, the rules for shove and grapple do not imply anything about other applications of ability checks. They merely codify how you would do a shove or grapple in more detail than is provided for other actions, most likely because these are common concepts in the combat engine and that engine has a higher resolution than anywhere else in the ruleset.

 

[Lyxen]

Part of the basic game loop is for the player to tell the DM what the PC wants to accomplish and how they are going about doing it. How is that a problem? How can a DM adjudicate an action if the player doesn't indicate what the goal of the PC is?

I am not sure it's exactly the intent of the loop. The player describes the actions that his PC is doing, but he does not have to describe the intent. Actually, at our tables, we frown upon people describing the intent, as it takes time, and it should not be that obvious unless the PC, in character explain what his intent is. The main problem that we faced at some point in time was people trying to justify their actions that way to avoid criticism from others, which led to endless debates. By describing the actions only, we gained a lot of time and eliminated this fruitless discussions.

 

[HammerMan]

Part of the basic game loop is for the player to tell the DM what the PC wants to accomplish and how they are going about doing it. How is that a problem? How can a DM adjudicate an action if the player doesn't indicate what the goal of the PC is?

the PC can state the goal (and in most circumstances, even sociol ones) if they are paying attention and know the table they can make some pretty good educated choices on what they can and can not accomplish. However they do NOT ever get to tell the DM what the result is. They get to try the action, make a check if one is needed, then the DM narrates the result.

I can guess kobold fight or flight response is going to be flight WAY more then fight, I can guess that Orc and ogers fight or flight response will be fight more often then not, and I would bet most DMs would have Hobgoblins more of a tatical mindset even when intimidated as to weather fight or flight kicked in.
(fight or flight is a super simplification, they could cower and beg, they could surrender, they could yell for help, they could throw something and run, i am sure I am missing possibilities)

 

[Ovinomancer]

except my arguement is that if there is no clue there, the check can't put a clue there (I guess unless you DM that way I don't and I don't think I know anyone that does)
SO
Making an Intimidate check is not "so they run away" the PC/NPC/MONSTER still reacts to the intimidation with 100% control (unless a diffrent rule changes that like a spell).

So I can't imagine telling a DM "I succseeded in the DC to Intimidate you set so they have to grovel and surrender, you can't have them yell for help!" any more then I can imagine "But you set a DC to climb the tree and I made it so there MUST be a clue up here" or (in my real life example of play) "I told you I wanted to ripp the bar off so we could go in, and made the athletics check to ripp it off I should be able get in the door now..."

Yes, I understood your argument. I disagree with it. Or, rather, I disagree in that there is a perfectly good approach to play where such a check does put a clue there.

Your second para here is really part of the larger problems I have with 5e play advice. The player's goal is clearly to intimidate the target into submission, but the GM is under no constraint to honor this even on a successful check result. Instead, the GM can freely cast about for a way to sidle out from the direct check or just largely ignore it and have the player's goal be thwarted while paying bare lip service to the check result. Mind you, I don't disagree that the rules allow for exactly what you say, I just do not like it and do not play that way and strongly advocate for a different approach -- one were the check results are actually honored, both on success and on failure.

 

[HammerMan]

I’ve seen a lot of posts where people make passing references to the long, long time they’ve been playing D&D, but that’s the first time I’ve seen 4e used that way.

Are we really there already?

damn it... okay, ets do this, 4e came out in 2008, this was one of our early games in the first mod so 2008 most likely cause we switched right away but maybe 2009... so we are end of 2021, so 12ish years ago... please don't make me count back to the 2e "+1 jimmy bless"

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes, ok, it does use the play loop. But it really just gives advice and guidance on how to structure that, I suspect just to make the loop go around additional times. It doesn’t really formalize any additional rules.

It does, in that it establishes attitudes and what you can expect to get from NPCs with such attitudes and a pathway to improving attitudes using the normal play loop. That's new rules not present before this section. Most people even ignore this little structure and do whatever because they already know how to do social interactions and don't need any rules for them. However, a large amount of that ends up like @HammerMan's example of the screaming intimidated prisoner alerting all the nearby baddies. In other words, free reign for the GM to do whatever they wanted.