D&D 5E Using social skills on other PCs

[Bill Zebub]

This topic gets re-hashed a lot, it seems, and in general my stance is that social skills don't 'work' on other PCs.

But I was just reading some of the early materials for Stonetop, a kickstarted PoA game, and came across this:

View attachment 147502

I like that a lot. It leaves the target PC fully in control of the player, but also provides a framework for Cha skills to 'work' on other PCs.

I don't have an elegant way to map that to 5e rules, but thought I'd throw it out there as a middle ground between the two sides of the debate.

EDIT: Try again on the attachment....

 

[el-remmen]

That appears to be a broken link?

 

[HammerMan]

I use social skills as an RP aid for players but not force.

"The orc tries to initmadate you and gets a 24" means the orc is scarier then the "The oger tries to initmadte you and gets a 12" what those numbers mean are up to the player...

I do however penelize xp of fearless players... if they literally say "Nothing can scare me" or never react I start taking 10% of xp for the whole group..

 

[HammerMan]

Also, back in 3e I had a DM do "reverse checks" like with bluff...

so if I wanted to bluff an NPC I would roll bluff the DM would roll sense motive (I think that was the name of the insight skill)
so if the DM wanted to bluff us he wouldn't use a skill unless one of us asked if we could trust the NPC then we would roll sense motive he would roll bluff (even if telling truth) and compair numbers...
initmadate, pesrrsuade, diplomacy all worked the same way, we RPed until we had a quastion but once we rolled we had to go with the rolls.

 

[payn]

I use social skills as an RP aid for players but not force.

"The orc tries to initmadate you and gets a 24" means the orc is scarier then the "The oger tries to initmadte you and gets a 12" what those numbers mean are up to the player...

I do however penelize xp of fearless players... if they literally say "Nothing can scare me" or never react I start taking 10% of xp for the whole group..

This is how I roll too. Minus the XP stuff cause I dont use it anymore.

 

[iserith]

Looks like a broken link, but ultimately for anything like what you suggest to work in D&D 5e, it would require changing the rules around the player being the sole person who can decide what the character does, says, and thinks (short of magical compulsion or the like). I would not care for such a rule. I never roll dice when the outcome is certain and, given that the player always decides how their character responds to an attempt at deception, intimidation, or persuasion, there is no need to roll.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

5e PvP - combat or social - while possibly fun is best avoided, IME.

That said, one resolution method is to have the player of the target PC decide if it worked or not or if they want to roll for it. This tends to eliminate the possibility of hard feelings that might arise when someone else essentially controls another player’s PC.

EDIT: ninja’d by iserith!

 

[iserith]

5e PvP - combat or social - while possibly fun is best avoided, IME.

That said, one resolution method is to have the player of the target PC decide if it worked or not or if they want to roll for it. This tends to eliminate the possibility of hard feelings that might arise when someone else essentially controls another player’s PC.

EDIT: ninja’d by iserith!

Yes, agreed. Players can decide amongst themselves how they want to resolve these things. They can flip a coin or do rock, paper, scissors for all I care - just leave me out of the resolution process. I don't call for rolls where the result is certain and the rules establish that how the character responds is up to the player.

 

[Anselyn]

changing the rules around the player being the sole person who can decide what the character does, says, and thinks

Is this a rule of the game? RAW? Or a conventional play style? Or implicit to our understanding of what is an RPG.

 

[iserith]

Is this a rule of the game? RAW? Or a conventional play style? Or implicit to our understanding of what is an RPG.

It's under the definition of roleplaying in the PHB, page 185, and the delineation of roles in the play loop in How to Play on page 6. Taken together, only the player gets to decide what their character does, says, and thinks establishing it via description. The DM has no say here, short of magical compulsion or the like.