The request for specific text for ability checks is moot -- if your argument is that they're framed for use by PCs, then you've abandoned the reasoning for monsters to have social proficiencies -- those ability checks are not available if ability checks are framed for use only by PCs.
I haven’t abandoned anything. It is true that the text in the players’ handbook describing how skills are used is framed in terms of a PC being the one taking action. It is also true that the DM can make ability checks to resolve uncertainty in the outcome of an NPC’s action, and that the NPC’s proficiency bonus can apply to such an ability check if one of the NPC’s skills or other proficiencies is relevant. It is not true, in my evaluation, that the outcome of an action an NPC takes to try and socially influence a PC is uncertain.
Further, this absolutely doesn't dispense with PC use on another PC.
Indeed it doesn’t, but the outcome of such an action would not be uncertain either.
The argument that there's no uncertainty is pulling forward that initial assumption to the middle of the argument. It has to hold here as well for this to be true. However, the problem is that it's the GM's estimation of what's uncertain, not the players. So, here we're now saying that the GM is being constrained in their authority by this rule and that's pulling it clearly in front of multiple statements that the GM determines uncertainty without carve out for the single mention in the roleplaying section.
The DM certainly
can decide that the outcome of an action made to socially influence a player character is uncertain, just as the DM
can decide that the outcome of an action made to harm the player character physically is not uncertain. However, I do not see support in the rules for the DM doing either.
In other words, we're pulling a much more obscure reference (ie, I'm not going to look in the roleplaying section to find out how CHA checks works with regards to PCs if I don't recall or am learning the rules) to confront a rule oft stated in multiple places. This is pulling a single sentence from an unusual place (discussion how roleplaying works and describing what it is and not action adjudication) and giving it greater precedence over very clear rules text that doesn't carve anything out.
How Charisma checks work is the DM calls for them when the outcome of an action made to influence another character is uncertain. The player’s handbook expresses this to the player as, “A charisma check might arise when you try to influence or entertain others, when you try to make an impression or tell a convincing lie, or when you are navigating a tricky social situation.” Those are all examples of times a player could expect the DM to call for a Charisma check. They are not exhaustive, and they are not the only cases a Charisma check might be used, but they are sufficient to communicate to the player when they may be called upon to make such a check. They do not seem to support the idea that the DM ought to make such a check when an NPC takes an action meant to socially influence a player.
But, if we go with this, it still doesn't override the GM's authority to determine what's uncertain. The GM can very well impose such a check and just end up in the same place as we previously discussed with the player still determining to do whatever they want. These rules have no teeth to start, and you're layering another toothless version of them but insisting this one has a nasty bite! It doesn't really follow.
I don’t know what you’re going on about with rules having teeth or bites. None of the rules of D&D have teeth, the rules go out of their way to tell you to ignore them if you want to. And I’m not saying people shouldn’t do so. I’m saying, I don’t see support in the rules for the DM making an ability check when an NPC tries to socially influence a PC. Folks can (and regularly do) do things without the rules’ support, and that’s fine.
And, again, your closing is that you're claiming a better argument for your side, but that there is no wrong argument.
I think you are getting the wrong idea about what I’m saying. “My side” is that the rules don’t seem to instruct the DM to make an ability check to resolve an NPC’s attempt to socially influence a PC. If one were to argue that the rules don’t say the DM shouldn’t make an ability check to resolve an NPC’s attempt to socially influence a PC, I would have no objection. But people have been trying to argue that the rules
do tell the DM to make an ability check to resolve an NPC’s attempt to socially influence a PC. And so far, I have not seen very convincing arguments in support of that position.
This is foundationally flawed logic. If no argument can be wrong, then there's little point to claiming a better argument.
What are you talking about? Of course arguments can be wrong.
I also find this construction to be badly framed -- while I agree that one should play as one finds fun, and how you play doesn't seem to harm me in any way, if we're discussing the rules of the game then there are actually wrong ways to play with relation to those rules. You can change those rules, but then we're not strictly talking about the same game anymore. So, if you're making an argument based on the rules, then you are explicitly stating that, with regard to the rules, there are wrong ways to play even as you can allow for those ways to not be wrong for the people playing them.
When the rules say “ignore these rules if you feel like it,” I see no point in arguing about what is or isn’t a “wrong way to play in relation to the rules.” The rules permit everything, no position that something isn’t allowed by the rules really holds up. I am instead taking a position on what the rules
support. By the rules, you don’t have to follow the rules, but there are some things the rules will support you in doing, and some things you’re on your own with. I believe that the DM making ability checks to resolve actions made to socially influence PCs is the latter category of thing.
For example, if I ignore hitpoints and have everything die in the first hit, I am playing incorrectly according to the rules.
No, since the rules say you can ignore them, you are not playing incorrectly by the rules. You are, however, playing in a way the rules don’t support. You’re voiding the warranty, in a sense.
If my table has fun doing this, I should keep at it -- it's not wrong for me to do so in relation to the fun I'm having at the table.
Agreed.
