I know. I got the title wrong. It’s supposed to be How to Manage Social Interaction Like a Motherf$&%ing Dolphin.
First, let me say what a stupid title that is. It worked when I was writing an article about running good, fast-paced combats by jumping back and forth between mechanics and narration, but it doesn’t work for social interaction encounters. I should have rejected it when one of my Patreon supporters suggested it in my private Discord server. Not the idea. The idea was good. A nice, comprehensive article telling GMs how to keep a social interaction encounter flowing while switching between narration, mechanics, and role-playing INSPIRED by that dolphin combat article? Sure. But the title itself was just dumb as f$&%.
But second, you ain’t ready for that article. Sorry. Before I did the dolphin article, I wrote a bunch of other articles about how to properly resolve actions and how to plan a good combat encounter. The dolphin thing was the f$%&ing pinnacle – the centerpiece – of a series about running great combats. And while I don’t plan to faff around for five f$&%ing articles this time, I want to make sure I establish some of the core principles underlying social actions and the resolution thereof.
This article will do just that. It’ll take us back to one of my very first articles and the very first useful thing I ever taught you: how to resolve a single, solitary action and deal with the results. Except I’ll be looking at the issues specific to resolving social actions. Social interACTIONS! I think I called them once upon a time. That was as stupid as that dolphin s$&%.
But haven’t I covered this s$&% before? Haven’t I even written up an entire social encounter system for you?
Yes? No? Did I? I don’t remember. I mean, yes, I did come up with my own social encounter system. One I use in my own games and one I’ve revised dozens of times. And I’m pretty sure I shared that. As for the rest, I don’t f$&%ing remember. I’ve been at this for thirteen f$&%ing years. And while I’ve been at it, games have changed, editions have changed, I’ve changed, and tens of thousands of new people have discovered my s$&%. And they don’t want to read back through the archive. So, yeah, some of this s$&% might be a little remedial for some of you, but it’s worth putting it together in one comprehensive, definitive form as a preamble to an article my supporters specifically requested. Well, one supporter requested it and then a bunch of others piled on.
Besides, if I’d done a good job establishing all that social action crap already, people wouldn’t STILL be asking me to write articles about it. So, obviously, I need to try again.
How to Adjudicate SOCIAL Actions Like a Motherf$&%ing Boss
If you’ve been around here long enough – as in, like, a decade – you recognize that heading from one of my earliest articles. It was basically a definitive work on how to think like a GM. And it firmly established me as the guy who’d spend half my time explaining basic GMing thought patterns in a way no rulebook ever could.
Recently, my supporters clamored for me to write a definitive guide to resolving social actions and running social encounters. And they referenced a different old article of mine by way of example. And since my supporters are the ones paying me to write this s$&%, that was basically a request from my boss. So I had no choice but to run with it.
This is the first of two – maybe three, maybe more, who the f$&% knows – articles about how to properly handle social actions and run social encounters. This one is specifically about resolving individual social actions. The next is about stringing them into encounters and keeping the flow going. And while I’ve covered some of this s$&% before, I’m not sure how much I’ve covered and in what form and whether it’s still correct. And I’m not sure how much of my own rules and hacks were mixed up in that crap. Because I change the rules a lot. The game’s and my own.
This time, I’m going to hew as close to the rules as I can. Specifically, the rules of D&D 5E. I mean, that’s what everyone’s running anyway. And I don’t have time to wade through that bloated as f$&% Pathfinder core book right now. Sorry PF fanatics. Sucks backing the second banana, doesn’t it?
Point is, I’m not going to offer up special rules or hacks or anything here. At most, I might suggest things that other people might see as alternate rules but I see as tweaks because they basically involve me clarifying what I think the D&D core rules meant but sucked at saying. I think of them as RAWHBWBSWDSAWR: rules-as-would-have-been-written-by-someone-who-didn’t-suck-at-writing-rules. Aside from that, I’m mostly coloring inside the lines here. At most, we’ll differ on matters of interpretation. And, for once, we’re not going to fight about interpretation. I’m not even going to have hypothetical fights with potential commenters before the commenters have a chance to comment. Instead, I’m just going to tell y’all the way it’s going to be.
I’m Right, You’re Wrong, Shut Up
People fight a lot about social actions and social encounters. And most of the fights are stupid as f$&% because they’re predicated on the idea that social actions and social encounters should work completely differently from the entire rest of the f$&%ing game. And every time some brilliant, charismatic person tries to cut through all that crap and make it simple for everyone to run social interactions, I’m beset by a thousand shrieking morons shrieking about the RIGHT way to do it. I mean he is. The hypothetical, brilliant, and charismatic person. This isn’t autobiographical.
Anyway, I just want to cut through all the crap and make it simple for you to run social interactions. So I’m going to delete any moronic shrieking that shows up in the comment section. If you don’t like the way I tell people to run social interactions, JUST GO MAKE YOUR OWN F$&%ING WEBSITE AND WRITE YOUR OWN F$&%ING 5,000 WORD SCREED AND STOP USING MY COMMENT SECTION AS YOUR BLOGGING PLATFORM! Or, failing that, just keep doing whatever you’re doing at your game table and leave me alone. Because I’m really f$&%ing tired.
But because there’s so much shrieking and so many morons muddying the social-interaction-in-role-playing-game waters, I want to spell out my assumptions. My core principles. The correct principles to apply to social actions and social encounters. If you disagree with any of these, you should just stop reading because the rest of the article – and the following article(s) – won’t work for you. Just go run your game your own wrong way and don’t waste your time here.
Assumption 1: You Can’t Ignore Player Skill
Social actions work just like any other RPG action. The players – using their own player brains – have to decide what their characters are saying and doing. They must decide what arguments to make, what lies to tell, and whatever leverage to lever. It’s no different than when they have to decide what attack to make against which target using what weapon or what spell to cast or guess what kind of damage is most likely to hurt that elemental monster. And the players – using their own player brains – have to figure out what their target wants, why their target is opposing them, and how to overcome that opposition. It’s no different than when they have to answer a riddle or solve a murder or navigate an ancient labyrinth. It’s all the same s$&%. You can’t remove the player’s brain from the equation and a player can’t play a character with a substantially different brain from their own. Sorry.
Assumption 2: You Can’t Ignore Avatar Strength
Social actions work just like any other RPG action. The characters’ capabilities determine the odds that an action will succeed or fail. The players’ plans and decisions can affect the odds – substantially even – but when there’s a question about whether an action succeeds or fails, the outcome is determined by random chance and character statistics. Of course, character stats are determined by player skill too. Players decide how to spend their resources during character generation to give them the right edges in the right situations. And players know their characters’ strengths and weaknesses and develop plans to leverage their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. But the characters’ strengths and weaknesses are key to determining the outcome. There will be times when the best move is for a player’s character to shut up and let someone else handle things. There will be times when random chance will say an incompetent character succeeded where a competent character failed. Sorry.
Assumption 3: Talking In Character is Just for Funsies
Social actions work just like any other RPG action. There’s lots of ways to explain and describe them. As long as players can clearly convey the action to the GM and the rest of the table, it counts. And there’s no bonus points for really good descriptions or convincing actions. Players can just as accurately communicate their character’s words by describing what they say in the third person as they can by speaking in the first person as their character. And that’s all that matters. Players who like acting to the hilt and chewing the scenery can do so, but they’re no different than the SCA nerd with the creative writing degree who describes every swing of his sword in exciting and exacting detail. It adds some fun atmosphere, but it doesn’t change the substance of the game. You might be an amazing thespian and you might love it, but it doesn’t entitle you to special treatment. You might wish that all your players would speak in person, as their characters, but that ain’t something everyone is good at or comfortable with and it ain’t required in a role-playing game. Sorry.
Assumption 4: Player Agency is Sacrosanct
Social actions aren’t like any other RPG action because they’re asymmetric. PCs can never be subjected to social actions. Except in rare cases involving things like mind control and possession – and YES, I know YOU think that s$&% is problematic and therefore should be banned from every game ever even if they don’t involve you and I don’t give a single, solitary, tiny f$&% – except in rare cases wherein a character’s mind is magically under some other being’s control, every player must have complete and total control over what their character thinks and believes and what actions they choose to take. Many social actions use game mechanics to affect how creatures think, perceive, react, or behave. So they can’t be used against PCs without violating the player’s sacred agency over their own character. Social actions can be taken by PCs against NPCs or sometimes even by NPCs against other NPCs, but they can never be taken by one PC against another PC, nor by an NPC against a PC. There’s one exception that isn’t really social and isn’t really an action and involves a giant pain-in-the-a$& skill that no one knows how to handle right. But I’ll discuss the Insight skill in the next article.
Now Back to Our Show
So the article’s point has been pointed out and the assumptions have been assumed. My finger is ready on the ‘delete comment’ button to deal with any shrieking morons who show up. Let’s talk about how to deal with social actions.
A social action is any action a PC takes in which they try to affect the behavior of one or more NPCs by talking to them. Or sometimes, it’s an action an NPC takes in which it tries to affect the behavior of one more NPCs by talking to them. Or sometimes, it’s not about talking. But it’s always about communicating. When a PC writes a letter asking a lord to send soldiers to reinforce a town, that’s a social action. When a PC cracks his knuckles and glowers and growls at a goblin, hoping to scare it into telling the party where the secret passage is, that’s a social action. When a PC tries to befriend a stray blink dog with comforting noises and a bit of food, that’s a social action. The form of communication doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s an attempt to influence an NPC’s behavior.
And that’s important. Some GMs think social actions are about getting NPCs to think a certain way or believe a certain thing. They aren’t. This is why they aren’t all about persuasion – or Charisma (Persuasion) – and why the Logos, Ethos, and Pathos model that people are always going on about these days leaves a lot out. Social actions are about influencing behavior and nothing else. What’s in the NPC’s head doesn’t matter. What they do is all that counts. Does the army arrive or does the party have to defend the village alone? Does the goblin tell the PCs where the secret passage is or does he lie and send them into a trap or does he just scream and cry and beg? Does the blink dog accept the food or does it teleport-scurry away?
You adjudicate social actions the same way you adjudicate any action. And I already taught you a long, LONG time ago How to Adjudicate Actions Like a Motherf$&%ing Boss. Social actions aren’t any different. You follow the same steps. Remember these:
Determine the player’s intention and approach
Decide whether the action can succeed, whether it can fail, and whether there’s a cost or risk involved
Determine the outcome and the consequences
Describe the result
But while social actions aren’t different, there’s some unique issues that other actions don’t usually have. And social actions SEEM different. And that sabotages some GMs who think that, because they seem different, they actually are different and they’re thus resolved differently. So, given that, I’m going to run through those four steps and explain the unique issues social actions raise. That’ll get us on the same page. Then I can tell you how to be a social dolphin or whatever the f$&% I actually promised.
Action Declarations, Background Noise, and Implied Intentions
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An action always starts with the player declaring it. And a proper declaration includes an intention – a desired outcome – and an approach – a method by which the player intends to bring about that outcome. You can always rephrase an action as a desire to accomplish X by doing Y. As in, “I want to kill the orc by attacking it with my sword,” or “I want to open the door by smashing it down.” And GMs can’t resolve any action if they can’t identify the desired outcome and the intended approach.
But two things can make it hard to actually see a social action as a statement like that. And the first is background noise.
When the PCs are talking to an NPC and the NPC is talking back – which is a thing we in the business call a CONVERSATION – a lot of words fly back and forth. But most of the words are just that. Just words. Conversations – especially ones played out in first person – have a lot of filler crap. Pleasantries, banter, repetition, snark, posturing, empty threats, that kind of s$&%. Not everything the players say counts as an action. And, consequently, players shouldn’t be rolling dice after every single spoken line of dialogue. Instead, there’s a lot of back-and-forth and round-and-round punctuated by the occasional die roll. Which is why you don’t manage social encounters like a dolphin; you manage social encounters like a sea otter. But that’s something for the next article.
By the way, if you DO manage your social encounters that way, you’ll find people participate more even if they don’t have the right mechanical skills to back their actions up. One of the biggest moronic shrieks you hear about using mechanical rules to resolve social actions – especially in D&D – is the complaint that only the characters who are BEST at social interaction will participate. And that’s true. If you run your social encounters like turn-based combat. But you shouldn’t do that.
Anyway…
The other thing that makes it hard to spot a social action declaration is that social interaction is just so damned open-ended. But it has to be. I’ve talked about how trying to pare down social actions into specific classes of action with specific rules just destroys the thing that makes social interaction feel like social interaction. But I will admit that the thing that makes social interaction feel like social interaction also makes it a f$&%ing pain to adjudicate. Characters can say or do literally anything and anything they say or do could – at least potentially – lead to a desirable outcome. So the GM has to know how to translate literally anything into the language of action adjudication.
When a player says, for example, something like:
I say to the security guard, “I actually work for the company. I’m in plainclothes because the top brass doesn’t want anyone to know about this investigation. Could embarrass the executives. And no, I don’t have any ID on me. Could you imagine what would happen if I got caught with ID on me?”
They’re actually saying, “I want to trick the guard into letting me into the office by claiming I’m an undercover company agent.” When it comes to social actions, most of the intentions are implied. They aren’t stated outright.
There’s two things to do to avoid issues with background noise and vague action declarations. First, you – as the GM – have to know at all times what the players are trying to accomplish in a given scene or situation. If you ever find you’re not sure what the players’ actual goal is, it’s okay to stop the game and ask them outright. You can say:
“Just so I’m clear, guys, what are you actually trying to accomplish? OH! You want to get into the office to poke around for clues and maybe access the dude’s computer. Got it.”
Second, you have to listen carefully to everything the players say and assume there’s an action buried in it somewhere. Consider what they say they’re doing in the context of what they’re trying to accomplish. Whatever words come out of a player’s face-hole, consider whether there’s a way you could construe them as an attempt to get inside the office. If you can find a reasonable interpretation that aligns with the players’ goals, go with it.
To pull that off, you have to take things slow. You have to think in terms of action declarations first and formulate responses second. And that can be hard. When you’re playing out a conversation, you can get lost in character and respond before you think because you already know what the guard WOULD say in response. Slow yourself down. Think first, then resolve, then talk.
Can This Succeed? Can It Fail? Is There a Cost? Roll Dice
Once something comes out of the noise that seems like an action declaration, you’ve got to resolve the action. That means first you have to decide whether the declared action – usually, the words being said – could possibly lead to the desired outcome. And whether that action – those words – could possibly fail to lead to the desired outcome. And whether saying those words carries any kind of risk. And while your basic GMing adjudication skills won’t steer you wrong, there’s a couple of special things to remember.
First, remember that you don’t role-play. Role-playing is for players and expensive prostitutes, not for GMs. And I’m f$&%ing serious. This might be the most important thing you’ll get from this article. Get the idea that your playing characters right the f$&% out of your head. An NPC is a game construct. It’s just like a monster or a door or a trap or some kind of block-pushing puzzle. It’s a thing the players have to overcome to get what they want. It’s an obstacle. Nothing more. You don’t decide how the NPC behaves. You determine the outcomes of actions and you narrate the results.
Of course, NPCs have motivations. Of course, they have goals. Of course, they have reasons to oppose the players. And those things FEEL like role-playing things. They aren’t. They’re just the same as every attack and trait and vulnerability on a monster stat block. They create conflict and facilitate challenge. And they force players to puzzle out efficient strategies instead of throwing actions at random.
When a player takes a social action, you consider all those motives and goals and s$&% when you’re trying to decide whether there’s a chance that the action might work and a chance that it won’t. But you don’t actually decide the outcome. Just like you don’t decide whether attacks hit and whether lockpicking attempts succeed. You don’t decide whether the NPC accepts the bribe. You decide if there’s any possibility the NPC might accept the bribe and any possibility that they might not. Lots of GMs think bribes are automatic win buttons. But they aren’t. Not if you step back and think like a GM instead of a role-player. An NPC might have too much integrity to accept a bribe. An NPC might be worried about accepting money from obvious criminals who probably got it by selling drugs to whores or something. An NPC might realize the PCs are loaded with pretty expensive equipment and can afford way more than the ten gold coins they’re offering. The rules will decide if the NPC accepts the bribe. Not you. It ain’t your job.
When it comes to social actions, it’s usually safe to assume that ANY reasonable action that could succeed could also fail. Especially if you don’t have enough information to decide one way or the other. If there’s nothing in the NPC’s writeup that suggests they’re vulnerable to bribery and nothing that suggests they’d never accept a bribe, assume things could go either way. But, as always, do consider the situation first when deciding what can succeed and what can fail. A king in his own throne room with his court magician, general, and two dozen honor guards all present probably won’t be swayed by any intimidation attempt. It’s okay to say, “no way in hell can work!”
You can also safely assume every social action has a risk or cost. In combat, you assume every action has a cost simply because a failed action is a lost turn and turns are valuable. In social interactions, you assume every action has a cost because people are constantly adjusting the way they behave toward each other. Any action could wear down an NPC’s patience or offend them or leave them with lingering resentment. Which is another reason to always remember that social actions determine behavior, not thoughts. A good Charisma (Intimidation) check can scare an NPC into doing something at the moment, but when that moment passes, the festering anger might turn into a sinister plan for revenge. Or it might lead to a later attack when it’s mixed with some liquid courage from the local tavern. Even a good Charisma (Persuasion) check can wear off once the situation is over and the NPC has time to mull over their lingering doubts until they galvanize into a certain knowledge that they never should have gone along with the PCs.
Now, take everything I said in the paragraph above and think about consequences. Remember consequences? The lingering effects on the game world that grow from the choices players make and are determined independently of whether the players succeed or fail? I could probably do a whole article on the consequences of social actions. But your wheels should already be spinning.
And I hope I don’t have to remind you that you should be willing to set proper DCs and grant bonuses and penalties based on how likely you think the approach is to bend the NPC’s behavior in the desired direction. Or in the undesired direction.
Unambiguously Narrate the Results, In Character and Out
Every action resolution ends with you – the GM – narrating the result. And it shouldn’t surprise you that I specifically said, ‘narrate the result’ and not something like ‘perform the result’ or ‘role-play the result.’ Not that I’d say that last one. Because I – and apparently, I alone – know that role-playing isn’t acting. Or interacting.
Anyway, GMs narrate. They don’t play. They don’t role-play. They describe what happens in the world after the players take actions. Narrating the result of a social action might involve speaking in character – it’s okay if it does – but it should have a mix of third-person narrator speak and first-person acting.
Note that getting into that habit can also help you slow down and think in terms of action resolution instead of just blurting out responses like a f$&%ing role-player.
Remember, your goal is to clearly communicate the reality of the world. That’s your job. It’s more important for you to be unambiguously clear than it is for you to win a f$&%ing Academy Award for Best Supporting Elf in a Dramatic Adventure Module.
See, when it comes to real-life social interaction – and you’re going to have to trust me here because I know most of you aren’t good at real-life social interaction and don’t have a lot of experience – the thing about social interaction is that there’s a f$&%ton of subtext going on. People communicate a lot through tone of voice and body language. And when you remember that social encounters are basically just social puzzles to solve and social obstacles to overcome, you know that players need that subtextual information.
However great an actor you THINK you are, you can’t just speak and act the part. There’s too much room for misinterpretation and misunderstanding and for Messers Dunning and Kruger to reveal harsh truths about your acting talents. That’s why you don’t speak and act, you narrate. You don’t say this:
I don’t care who you guys work for; I can’t let anyone in without written authorization or without the say-so from my supervisor.
You say this:
The guard says firmly, “I can’t let you in without written authorization or without the say-so from my boss.” It’s clear he has his orders and intends to follow them to the letter, even if he believed your story.
Or you say this:
The guard thinks it over and says, uncertainly, “that doesn’t sound right. You really should have some kind of identification. I really don’t think I should let you in.” He seems nervous about turning you away, but he doesn’t sound convinced by your story either.
Those responses are more than playacting. They tell the players whether their approach is working or whether it probably won’t work. And they reveal information about the NPC and suggest other courses of action. The first guard probably won’t give in to any kind of lie, but if the players could work on the guard’s supervisor or come back with some forged documents, they might get in. The second guard is obviously on the fence and might simply give in to a stronger lie, a bit of leverage, or some forged evidence.
The narration shouldn’t leave anything up to interpretation. It should make the NPC’s behavior – the outcome – clear and it should invite further action. Or, if there’s no further action possible, it should convey that.
It really all comes down to understanding that you don’t think for NPCs. Because NPCs don’t think. They behave. And they behave based on the game’s rules and the players’ actions. You determine the behaviors and you narrate. You describe. Fortunately, it’s a hell of a lot easier to determine behaviors and narrate excuses for those behaviors than it is to role-play or playact or whatever.
And if you can wrap your head around that s$&%, then maybe you actually are ready to manage social interactions like a mother$&%ing sea otter.
Brilliant as usual, Angry.
RAWHBWBSWDSAWR is definitely a thing. That was really well said.
This is unrelated to the article, but I just wanted to say good job on sticking to your schedule since the last time you didn’t. 🙂 I know that was an important goal to you, and it seems like your current methods are really paying off. Congratulations!
Second this, great work.
I would really like to see an example of an actual social interaction the way you run them, with your thought processes along the way. I’m not certain I understand the way you’re thinking about the NPC’s responses.
Personally, I have a weirdly hard time finding the line between things that “can’t work” and things that “I don’t want to work” when dealing with social actions. I’d like to see your thought process on those decisions. I’m not sure why that’s so much more fuzzy for me with social actions than with other actions, but it is. (Maybe just because I have poor social skills in my real life)
I also feel like my players always expect NPCs to be FAR more flexible than a real human would be. Is that experience common to other GMs? Maybe I’m just a particularly inflexible person and so tend to create NPCs that are likewise inflexible.
I experience something that might be similar to (or exactly) what you describe as the players expecting ‘flexibility’ from NPCs. Although it is obviously me layering an interpretation on top of my players actions, it often seems to me that my players assume that their characters are talking to the DM instead of an NPC. More specifically, they will march up to an NPC who doesn’t know them from Adam and act as if the NPC should just understand who they are, why they are there, and that they are the good guys.
So assuming, for instance, that the PCs clearly understood intention is to get the baron to allow them to explore the dungeon below his castle, instead of an approach description such as “We introduce ourselves, mentioning our relationship with , tell him about , tell him , and tell him , and [optionally] tell him “, I get something like, “We ask/demand that the baron allow us to explore the dungeon.”
Usually, this all gets cleaned up as the DM (or the NPC) points out item by item what the NPC does not know, but it makes for a very weird conversation. And it requires that my NPCs all are extremely patient. Occasionally, they are not (often, by sheer coincidence, when I am not).
While I think I already generally approach social interactions as Angry is recommending, I’ll have to look back and think again to see if there is something there that might help alleviate this phenomenon.
Ugh, parts of my comment were elided because I surrounded them with pointy brackets. The second paragraph should be
So assuming, for instance, that the PCs clearly understood intention is to get the baron to allow them to explore the dungeon below his castle, instead of an approach description such as “We introduce ourselves, mentioning our relationship with [someone the baron knows and likes], tell him about [background of quest], tell him [why he should care], and tell him [what we hope to accomplish in the dungeon], and [[optionally]] tell him [how he would benefit]“, I get something like, “We ask/demand that the baron allow us to explore the dungeon.”
I suspect restating each character’s name and accomplishments every time they meet someone becomes tedious quickly.
Imagine watching a movie and the characters have to tell people who they are all the time. That’s easily 15-30 minutes of repetitive content that nobody wants.
As noted by Angry above, it’s perfectly good to do this stuff with 3rd person descriptions, which can be much shorter than the actual verbiage that the PC might use. Like orders of magnitude shorter.
Also, it would be nicer to avoid making comments that assume an interpretation of what the person you are replying to said that would be the stupidest possible thing to do. It’s kind of annoying.
I think the line actually exists where, assuming your players are playing as heroes, they know that their motivations are sound, they just have to convince the baron of that. It’s less about them having to retell the backstory of who they are everytime, but choosing what to say based on the Baron’s limited patience that will get him to act in the way they want. If they muck around and take ages to explain, that’s just an approach that’s unlikely to succeed because the Baron is __Impatient (Ratcatchers)__. The shotgun approach where they say everything doesn’t work, rather, the GM should underscore that NPCs don’t want to have their time wasted with your life story (wow, just like real life!) so it’s a choice of what to say and tell to get the action you want.
I exaggerated a bit, apologies if that came across as taking a stupid interpretation.
Point still stands though, it’s a sentence that gets repeated frequently and doesn’t contain do much in itself. Not saying players shouldn’t introduce themselves, just that if they don’t, well that’s not an issue in my opinion.
I let my players skip introductions – kind of like in a movie or TV show, where the scene just picks up right as all of that background stuff is wrapped up, and the characters move into the meat of the conversation.
I’m talking more about a player expecting to be able to convince NPCs with really weak arguments. Or expecting NPCs to take a whole lot of crap from them without complaint. They often seem surprised when I don’t have NPCs give in to weak arguments or when an NPC becomes hostile after they insult him/her. I’m not sure if my threshold for “what could work” is too high or if my players are just expecting everyone to roll over for them in an unrealistic way.
Ah, impossible to say as we only have your viewpoint and not theirs or an independent one. I guess that’s something you get a feeling for as you run games for different groups.
This is probably because they’ve had GMs who rolled over for every crappy argument because “look Ma, I rolled a 20 on my Decepsuastimidation check! That means I win!”
As soon as you have NPCs who push back and call them on their bulls$%t, (because you as a GM considered the action and decided that that approach wouldn’t lead to the intended outcome, LIKE YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BE DOING) they’ll catch up to the new world order of needing to puzzle through making good arguments. Are they trying to get the bandit to join them by appealing to a sense of heroism and doing the right thing? He doesn’t give a single solitary f&*k about that. You know you’ve got it right when your players PLAN before walking into social interactions saying things like, “Okay, what is this guy likely to want? What angle are we going to take with him?”
A last note, consequences are important for social actions too. Players don’t think about their words because a failed social interaction check (or even successful intimidation) rarely carries consequences. If a bullied NPC shows up later with a couple hired thugs, even ones that are way below the PCs pay grade, that makes them realise that they can’t just bully people into what they want. It’s not wrong to have a world where the NPCs have some spine, just like it’s not wrong to have a world where all the monsters have a greater AC than 0 and HP more than 1.
Not all groups play the same “overgame” sometimes a powertrip or monty haul is fun, then they meet a GM who doesn’t enjoy running that kind of game. If it’s a new-ish group, they need time to adapt or an explicit understanding of the game type. If they’ve been at this with you for years, maybe they just want a Monty Haul game.
From what you have explained, it doesn’t seems to me that your “reality threshold” is too high. It seems that your players are having trouble seeing the NPCs as anything beyond “press X to receive quest/item/info/etc”.
This could be either because they are not used to see NPCs as real people (maybe due to previous GMs); either because they don’t want to see NPCs as anything except quest givers and etc and they’d rather play an easy dungeoncrawl with some goblins to murder; or maybe you are not introducing your NPCs in a way that gives them the opportunity for meaningful interaction? And since they don’t see the opportunity the don’t bother with it?
(From your words this last option might not be it, but I decided to raise this point for the sake of completude).
If neither of these applies, maybe your threshold is indeed high. You could, perhaps, be making decisions based on your complete information about the world, not the incomplete info the NPC is supposed to have?
Anyway, I understand your struggle, for I suffer the same. It is specially hard for me because if I decide there is an adamantium door it’s easy to tell the players “you see an adamantium door, it is going to be hard to break”, but I can’t really decide that the guard is highly distrustful of everyone and tell them “from a glance, it seems this guy is hard to fool”…
…….Well… I just wrote the above and than I though: why not? Wouldn’t (isn’t) be possible to assess a person general personality from a glance? And if they want more info they can interact with said person and try to get a better feeling? Just the same way you can examine a room for secret doors, couldn’t you ask “the right questions” to know if this person would accept a bribe? In the room you waste time and you risk triggering the trap; with the guard you waste time with small chat and risk infuriating him if he is actually honest…
I am starting to think that I (we?) might be overcomplicating something simple.
Yes my players expect a lot from npcs too. NPCs shouldn’t be like real humans though, can’t remember which exact article Angry explained this but he did.
Worth diving into the archives for, if only so you can go around commenting “he said this a while back but can’t remember where”, which is what I seem to do a lot lately.
Yes, I think he’s getting at that same idea here, when he’s saying they are subject to the rules. And of course fiction differs from reality in all kinds of ways. Plenty of real-life stories would be considered “unrealistic” as fiction. I think that difference is what I’m wrestling with. I’m not sure if I’m holding too closely to “realistic” NPCs, or if my players are just expecting too much leeway from the NPCs.
Given that the GM writes the world and decides how fluffy or gritty the simulator runs, “can’t work” and “don’t want it to work” are almost synonymous. This applies to both the game engine mechanics and the narrative superstructure. And there’s enough variation between themes, moods, and genres that the only edge case is when You, the GM, write yourself into that conflict.
Re: Assumption 4: Player Agency is Sacrosanct
Is there going to be an article on adjudicating PC disputes?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this assumption seems to imply that Players are never to settle in-character disputes with dice. (i.e. “Both of you roll diplomacy, whoever rolls lower decides to go with the other’s plan”)
You are not wrong. Players cannot settle social disputes with dice.
Do you mean “The GM can never settle social disputes between PCs with dice”? Because I’ve frequently seen players choose to use dice rolls of their own volition in that situation. (“I’m not sure my wizard would believe that. Could your rogue roll a deception check, please? Ah, you rolled a 19? Ok, I’ll say I’m completely taken in.”) As long as no one tries to dictate how someone else’s character ‘should’ be acting based on the roll, it all seems to run smoothly and doesn’t seem to violate player agency. Or am I missing something?
Nope. Those players are utterly and completely wrong.
You’ve caught me off guard again. Why? Or will this be part of the article series?
Does it really need to be part of this article series? It’s already been explained so many times. I’m pretty sure it’s already been explained in THIS series. I’m fairly sure it’s been explained in THIS comment section. I’m moderating from my phone and it’s hard to check, but if my memory serves, it’s been explained in THIS reply thread. If my response caught you by surprise at this point, I’m not sure how much can be done.
[[ Error: Comment invalid. Problem detected between keyboard and chair. – Angry ]]
You probably have and I just didn’t notice it or it’s buried in a nonspecific explanation of why the behavior is incorrect to a group interaction game. Aaaaaand that’s why, innit? Casting lots for primacy isn’t interacting.
You should read the replies to this thread other than mine. Someone else already explained it so I don’t have to.
Players resolving this action with dice is the same as flipping a coin when deciding what to do in a given situation. If you aren’t choosing, you aren’t role-playing. In that case, just go home, pick up a choose-you-own-adventure book and roll dice to determine the outcome. That’s called being a passenger, not a player.
I agree with you if the players are doing this all the time. But if one time in a 6 month campaign, a player just can’t decide whether their character would go left or right, (or doesn’t feel they have enough information to decide) I don’t see the problem with flipping a coin.
Well, if you only stab one person in the throat every six months, that makes it “not murder” at all. Crossing the foul line in bowling just once in twenty games is still a foul. The definition of role playing doesn’t change just because it’s violated infrequently. And you might be okay with it at your table if it doesn’t happen too often, but it’s still incorrect. Axiomatically. When your players do that s$&%, they’ve stopped playing a role playing game. Sorry.
That’s fair. I completely agree that it’s not role playing. “you might be okay with it at your table if it doesn’t happen too often, but it’s still incorrect” is exactly right. I just don’t think the potential costs of trying to correct my player are worth avoiding it once every 6 months. 10 years from now, if these players are still with me and all the bigger issues have been corrected, maybe I’ll feel differently.
And saying that I realize, I shouldn’t be advising anyone that it’s fine to do this, just because it’s a relatively small problem – it still isn’t something anyone should teach or encourage.
I have also seen this in my games once or twice, and I haven’t interrupted, because it seemed as good as rock/paper/scissors or a coin flip as a way to decide. As long as both players are on board with it, it doesn’t bother me. It is really silly, though, for a player to think that although they’re incapable of deciding whether their character believes the rogue, (And I’m guessing they think they’re being impartial by using dice?) they’re perfectly capable of determining what the DC should be for that Deception check without bias.
I would be wary of setting this as a precedent, though. You don’t want that rogue later thinking he can get away with stealing all the party’s wealth as long as he rolls a good enough deception check. I’m fine with this in a friendly “let’s flip a coin to decide which way to go” kind of way, but not in a “Fine, but if I roll a 15 on my Deception Check, you have to accept it!” way.
And of course none of this is to disagree with Angry – if the players think that’s in the rules, they’re definitely wrong.
Which, by the way, is a very good implication 🙂
I like what you have here Angry. I generally enjoy most of your articles. The only issue I have with this is thr players who call your bluff, or more importantly murderhobo their way past the challenge. They can be lazy and stuff the body into a closet, cast charm enemy or any number of manipulate spells, or go to the extremes; and are very precise about hiding any evidence of crime. That however isn’t the point.
The point is many rpg games (including D&d) have so many various options to bypass social interaction that many players consider even talking to npcs to be not worth it. Even if said npc gives them clues.
Many rpgers are not the social craving roleplayers but the “oh I just kill the guard.” There should be consequnces for that among faction members, but it’s difficult to logically do so withoit sort of just being an @ssh0le gm going “oh my npcs will find the dead guard.” It’s the same thing the players are doing.
Even in online/console games you have dialogue prompts. But even if you blow it accidentally/comedically/or don’t care, there’s little weight. It’s not like the developer gm is gonna say “oh x npc was killed so the path to the end boss won’t open” because the players are the reason we play. And try to npt play with ourselves alone in the dark.
Now you can make the paths harder or more complicated if people stop socializing with npcs, but there are limits to that as well. Oh you killed the guards so boss X instead of boss Y is gonna fight you.
You have compounded the problem of being a gm. Not only are you taking time to make social npcs, but if yojr players ignore them, and you have to make MORE resources to deal with the players who ignore social interactions, you are making more work for yourself with a chance your players are gonna be slick and bypass it all.
The only solution is not to have a npc guard, but a faction guard. If the guard is killed (or 20) of them are, the faction is weaker, or maybe a different npc can get past after your players. Those consequences can work well because the whole social environment of the scene, city, country, world is at stake.
Just takes a massive amount of time to work out the details.
I’m sorry you don’t like the way your players play the game. Have you considered getting new players? Or, if you really prefer to blame the system, changing systems?
I was about to say, players going that route in my games will be looking for a new gm. There is zero satisfaction in adjudicating sociopathy.
Why is it unacceptable for the world to react to both the positive and negative actions the players undertake? A guard gets murdered on watch, there is investigation launched to find the criminals. Use the players actions (positives, neutral, and negative) as opportunities to show the world is in motion by having the world react to them.
If they ignore talking to a random clown for a clue, then they don’t get the clue. If you are following another person on the web’s advice, you should set up at least 3 avenues for clues anyway so if the players miss one or two, they can still find their way through.
A GM sets the stage and keeps the world in motion. There is nothing in the job description that says you need to let them win if they are doing ill-advised things.
This really sounds like a “keep your players or keep your game” situation to me. If this is your personal situation, and not a hypothetical, I’m sorry for your troubles. It sounds like the kind of player you’re talking about will murder ANY social challenge, regardless of what design advice you follow, so I don’t think this points to a flaw in Angry’s advice.
I stopped running and playing for… several years… because the pool of available players and GMs, and the games they played, didn’t match my tastes. I’ve many times left games and groups purely because of playstyle issues. Sorry, I play and run because it’s fun, I don’t exactly need other people to have fun. Social gaming isn’t my scene.
For what it’s worth, I always just have the players roleplay the social interaction, they just tell me what they have to say or do and then I have the NPCs act accordingly. I don’t use skills or dice rolls for that anymore. You make good points on the GM’s narration instead of roleplaying though.
Assumption 2: You Can’t Ignore Avatar Strength
[[ This comment has been deleted as the commenter’s abilities to type words and submit them as a comment far surpass their reading comprehension abilities. – Angry ]]
[[ P.S.: I didn’t change the commenter’s name. That’s really what they call themselves. ]]
In resolving interACTION, is there really a difference between reaction rolls from NPCs (modified by CHA) vs the PCs using skills (like persuasion) if you run the Angry Way?
The NPCs can’t make social rolls against the PCs. Even as reactions. I mean, it’s spelled out really, REALLY clearly. I don’t know why people are having such a hard time crow-barring this basic fact into their craniums.
I thought this meant they couldn’t say roll deception against the PCs insight or stuff like that. Reaction rolls didn’t break assumption 2 or 4. Do you not like that reaction rolls mask information from the players?
What the hell is a reaction roll, then?
Essentially isn’t it just moving the resolution to the GM side of the screen if it is modified by both player and character skill? For reference, like a B/X 2d6 reaction roll. It also feels different in play. If a player makes a good argument sometimes the NPC doesn’t buy it vs the PC sucks at making arguments. A pedantic difference but one that I think changes the fuzzy feel good part of the game over the actual mechanics. I was just curious your thoughts. I look forward to the rest of the series!
Thanks Angry!
The reaction roll affects the behavior of the NPCs, not the behavior of the PCs. That’s the difference. If I’m understanding what you mean by reaction rolls, that is.
The site won’t let me reply to your latest comment for some reason.
Yes I’m referring to a roll that effects the behavior of the NPCs based on the PC’s stats/skills+the player’s skill.
You just articulated it better than me.
This reaction stuff just sounds like an NPC being the defender in a contested roll. And I’m struck with the sudden realisation that I will never see an Angrystyle NPC with points in Bluff unless they use it in combat.
This sounds a lot like making the NPC do an opposed roll, like rolling the NPC’s persuasion against the PC’s persuasion to see whether the NPC is persuaded. Is that what you’re talking about?
There is no opposed roll. Reaction rolls have static DCs (usually) and are modified by the character’s charisma and skills. It’s more of a pre 3rd edition D&D thing.
I don’t quite get it, but it almost seems to me as if the NPC is making a saving throw? With the DC set by the player Charisma, proficiency, etc?
If that is it, there are psychological reasons for the players rolling the dice than the GM.
There are also game reasons. The NPC isn’t really doing anything (if I’m understanding right), just existing, so he shouldn’t be the one rolling the dice.
To me it also seems a bit contrived… Like, the player tells what his character says, and based on that I will decide an static DC and have the NPC roll against the player’s argument?
I might not have understood you idea.
It is certainly a sacrifice in verosimilitude if the GM outright tells them what the NPC is thinking instead of “roleplaying” the NPC and describing what gestures and facial expressions they make, letting the players figure it out by those small details.
At least my players seem to be able to tell if something is amiss, and a sucessful Insight check would unlock the kind of description you were suggesting. Of course, failing the Insight check gives them incomplete or misleading information (though never outright wrong info unless it’s a nat 1 or something).
After all, it’s not like the PCs can read minds. But they CAN use their Insight skills to make reasonable deductions based on things like tone of voice, choice of words and body language.
Would like to know your thoughts on this. What am I missing? Thanks in advance.
GM telling the players what the npc thinks is not what was suggested here. You can instead communicate the general impression an npc gives off. If the players want to know more they can then ask the GM a question which could lead to a die roll.
Alternatively, you could calculate a passive insight score (assuming that’s the right skill in your situation), analogous to the passive perception score, to give you some guidance here. If a character has a high Wisdom score and Insight proficiency you can give a fair bit of information, if it’s a duller character saying “the guard looks tense” would suffice.
If your players can tell something is wrong from your tone of voice or word use that’s great, but I for one can’t reliably manage that so I’m better off with narration.
That’s the thing, players don’t interpret things the same way, since people tend to reach different conclusions from the same clue. Say you point out the NPC was scowling while saying something. There’s a high likelihood that each player reaches a different conclusion about why the NPC was scolwing. This, in turn, may lead to interesting developments. They can make correct or wrong assumptions, or take a risk and use their Insight (if applicable) to “unlock” new information that may or may not be misleading, depending on success or failure. There is a precedent for this in the videogame Disco Elysium.
What they conclude from all that is still up to them. I do use passive scores, but mostly for what should be really obvious for anyone skilled in Insight and keep the actual checks as an option that is always available to players that might want to find out extra stuff, like whether an NPC is omitting something or lying.
By this method, you accentuate player agency by allowing them to do all the thinking and go from there, with results that are meaningful. It’s a compromise of railroading and GM quality of life in exchange for extra verosimilitude and player agency.
Not saying the standard method is wrong or bad btw. Just that this one sounds more fun for groups that find intrigue and pretend elf conversations fun.
In other words, “the GM is the Players’ general senses, including the surface thoughts analyzing moods, tone, and and body language”
If you want players to make decisions founded on information, then you need to give them the information. Some people get all snippy about how unrealistic it is for people to accurately judge distances to the foot in the middle of combat, and then get angry and confused when area-of-effect spells and calculated-to-the-foot combat movement becomes difficult to adjudicate; decide which failure modes you want to have in your game, and make it explicit that “guess what I mean” is one of them. As you’ve stated, players can’t read minds, least of all the DM’s mind. If you’re consistent with your descriptions and players understand what you mean then this could still work, but then we’re right back to “tell them what impact they’re having on the NPC” with extra steps that can and will go wrong at some point.
Anything that seems subtle to you will be impossible for anyone else to figure out. Anything that seems blatantly obvious to you is probably subtle to anyone else, and likely to be interpreted in at least as many different ways as you have players. On the plus side, the Action Declarations advice here will hopefully save you when you find out that the player is actually trying to rile up the rank-and-file gang member and trick them into revealing their boss by defending them by name, bolstered by your descriptions of terse responses and evasive behaviour as evidence that irritation was mounting and honour among thieves needs defending. If you meant to show through those reactions that the lackey was a punch-clock villain who really didn’t care, then at least now you know where the wrong idea got across, and you can tune your approach to keep the scene moving.
That’s the whole beauty of it. Entire wars have been started over misunderstandings and bad information, only for it to be found out centuries later that the whole thing started from a wrong assumption. In D&D terms, a whole new arc might begin over something like this.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Remember in this method, one would only do this when the NPC has an actual reason not to be as clear as he can. So it’s not like the players will be in constant risk of accidentally starting a shitstorm every time they ask a peasant for directions to the inn. (Passive Insight scores also help as insurance for this).
But then maybe my players are just that much smarter than the average and I’m assuming everyone would have it as easy as they do. They usually dominate social encounters.
This whole thing is begins with a strawman. At no point did I say the GM must describe absolutely everything about an NPCs mental state or attribute psychic powers to the PCs. What I said – and I stand by this 100% – is that the GM must clearly and unambiguously describe everything that a reasonable person would be able to see, hear, perceive, and ascertain if they were actually in that real situation instead of having it verbally described to them or possibly acted out to them. The players deserve to have that information and they deserve to have it stated in a way that could not possibly be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or overlooked. It is one thing to say that the guard, for example, will follow his orders to the letter based on the way he speaks and acts and the specific demands he makes of the characters. But that does not give away why the guard is behaving in that manner. Perhaps he is following the letter of his orders out of spite. Because he’s gotten into trouble before and hates his supervisor. Perhaps he actually BELIEVES the PCs but he’s being obstructionist to thumb his nose at his supervisor by following the rules PRECISELY in a way that he knows will create headaches for others. And the players misunderstanding the guard’s motives or guessing at them can still lead to all sorts of difficult situations.
When you go beyond that into the players misunderstanding things because your descriptions aren’t as clear as you think or because you’re not the actor you think you are, that’s what video game players call an “interface screw.” It’s a difficulty that is created because of the limitations of the medium. One that would not occur if the situation were a real situation involving real people, but one that occurs because of the way the situation has to be communicated. In this case, if you misdescribe something, that’s not something that would ever happen inside the world. Because in the world, no one relies on verbal descriptions from a narrator of indeterminate skill. They can see and hear. They can read body language and facial cues and posture. And people have evolved to see that stuff for 50,000 years. Possibly longer. They are really good at it. We just don’t appreciate it because it’s natural and unconscious.
So, yes, it’s a bug. It’s a bug of the user interface. Don’t give everything away but be unambiguously clear and precise with what you DO give away.
If that’s the case, then we were doing the same things except for the Insight thing which I don’t know how you handle.
I just roleplay the NPCZ and fill in any blanks in my acting (which aren’t common) with your style of description.
I’m afraid we don’t. There’s an important part of what I do that you’re missing. But if I said it, you’d laugh your ass off at me for hypocrisy and then claim it’s not something that you need to worry about it. So I guess we’ll leave this here.
“Slow yourself down. Think first, then resolve, then talk.”
I suspect this is where I often trip up. Maybe I want the conversation to run smoothly or seem natural or whatever. Sometimes I’m surprised by the approach my players take and I forget to slow myself down. Maybe this is a broader issue. Whatever the cause, I need to work on this more consciously in my game because all the articles in the world won’t help me if I can’t master this.
Thanks Angry.
It really can’t be restated enough, how much a pause for thought is worth. Any other blog is talking about how to pack as much game into every picosecond of a session and keep the pace moving. A GM is a single human brain running a game engine and narrative and hosting.
I tried to slow down last session and it really did help a lot. I still have plenty to improve on but we’re getting somewhere..
Thanks for the advice about narrating the consequence in both worldspeak and gamespeak. As soon as you say it, it’s obviously the right thing to do, but I don’t think I was doing it often enough.
“It’s an obstacle. Nothing more. You don’t decide how the NPC behaves. You determine the outcomes of actions and you narrate the results.
Of course, NPCs have motivations. Of course, they have goals. Of course, they have reasons to oppose the players. And those things FEEL like role-playing things. They aren’t. They’re just the same as every attack and trait and vulnerability on a monster stat block. They create conflict and facilitate challenge. And they force players to puzzle out efficient strategies instead of throwing actions at random.”
I found your essay enlightening, but I do not completely understand the difference between combat and social encounters dynamic. You say the GM should not choose NPC behaviour, because it is the outcome of the adjudication process and because the GM should not roleplay NPCs.
But is not role playing the monster or the NPC when during combat the GM chooses the actions for monster or NPC involved? I mean, the GM does not adjudicate only the result of the action with the rules, but he decides also what kind of action is taken. Maybe do you think that combat action of monster and NPCs are picked just following the best strategic plan?
The behavior of an NPC as the result of a PCs social action is not the equivalent of a monster’s action in combat, it’s analogous to what happens when they get hit by an attack or spell. As a GM, you can flavor the effect in a wide variety of ways, but you can’t change the mechanical outcome. A monster that gets hit by a long sword takes 10 damage. A monster that fails to save against hold person is paralyzed. An NPC that is subject to a successful bluff or charisma (deception) check is convinced by the argument. You get no say in that as a GM. You can describe the outcome as you wish, but the dice and rules – not you – determine what the NPC actually concludes.
I would also say that if you can’t tell the difference between a combat and a social interaction, you might have some serious antisocial tendencies.
So let’s check if I have understood the article correctly. Using Angry’s example and the Pathfinder 1E System (the one I actually own), the Situation would be the following:
The Party is trying to get access to a guarded location belonging to the Merchants Guild. They are not supposed to be there. As they don’t want to just slaughter their way past “people” just doing their jobs and get in trouble with City Watch and the rulers of the town, they try to trick their way inside by bluffing to the guard.
The Players describe their Characters actions, maybe in character, maybe not. I as GM listen and see if I can determine an Action from that Description, asking for clarity when needed. Once I figure the above intention out (trick the Guard to get past) and decide that yes, that has a chance of working, I ask for a Bluff check to see how well the lie is told in game. Following the rules, I now perform the Sense Motive check for the Guard to see if he manages to realize he or she is being lied to, and narrate the outcome based on that result and the Information I have about the Guard in Question.
This leads to further interaction from the players (in any possible from) or a completed scene, transitioning to the next.
Is my understanding here correct, or have I missed something important Angry?
Yes. It’s minor and nitpicky, but nonetheless extremely important. The skill check does NOT determine how well the lie is told. It only determines – when compared to the Sense Motive check which is essentially the DC of the check – it only determines whether the guard’s behavior is swayed toward the desired outcome by the lie. It could be a very poorly told lie leveled at an extremely gullible guard. Or it could be a poorly told lie to a bitter guard who is working his last day before starting a new job and has just stopped giving a shit. The d20 doesn’t determine how well the players did. It determines the outcome. It represents everything in the universe that might have affected the outcome that couldn’t be accounted for or foreseen by anyone. Including lapses in skill or judgment.
My wrong way is to base the description of the success or failure on how the attempt was roleplayed or the action was described. If the plan was poorly conceived or just depended on getting a lucky roll, and lo and behold nat 20!, then the attempting character has luckily blurted out tonight’s password and gained the guards confidence and perhaps a bit of extra info (assuming that success *was* possible and a roll permitted)…for example.
But now that you know the correct way, you don’t have to keep being wrong. Isn’t that nice?
I see. So it is a purely mechanical tool to determine if the Character bluffing is being believed or not. Thank you for clarifying that. I suspect it is rather easy to get confused there, especially as a beginning GM/DM.
“it could be a poorly told lie to a bitter guard who is working his last day before starting a new job and has just stopped giving a shit”
And now I have to write the line, “you know what; I’m gonna believe that” in my notes.
In terms of overall gameplay, are there times that any of you GMs feel that it’s best to set aside the rules and just run the social interaction? In other words, less dice rolling and more improvisation? For example, some of the most challenging, entertaining, and memorable encounters for players occur when I run the encounter with an enemy or major NPC like a poker game. The players have to read me as their opponent, determine whether to trust me or not, and make their choice(s). In that case, I already determined potential outcomes and I have a good handle on the motivations, etc. of the enemy or NPC (it’s not just a random guard).
The idea that more die rolling leads to less improvisation or less interaction or less anything is a false dilemma. And doing it this way violates the second assumption: you can’t ignore avatar strength. Players have a right to rely on their character’s abilities, strengths, and weaknesses when determining actual outcomes. While they have to figure out what is going on and decide what approaches to take and choose strategies most likely to succeed, the actual outcomes must always be reliant on the rules of the game and the character sheet.
Speaking as a player this is definitely something I wish more GMs understood. The most egregious case I’ve experienced was putting points into my character’s ability to play strategy games to prepare for the niche case where it might occur, and when it finally came up, with a world-altering magic item at stake, we were just told to play chess. I have no skill in chess, I lost spectacularly, and I was left wondering why i ever allocated those points.
I think that could be corrected by the DM purposefully making a mistake(s) that you can take advantage of in the chess game if you have a special skill. (Or perhaps correcting a really bad move by you). Otherwise, every interaction or encounter turns into a rolling opposing d20s, and a dramatic chess game is over in a half minute. This may be the 5e rules, but takes away immersion to me. (Which is why I prefer 1e or 2e over 3e, 4e, and 5e). In fact, 1e had rules for common card and dice games In it to potentially use in play, but I guess that can’t actually happen now because of avatar strengths or weaknesses.
Yes just rolling for chess would make the game be over quickly, but on the other extreme playing an in-game game against the GM isn’t great either.
It’s there a way to run it that doesn’t last too long and is still interesting? Perhaps chess is just the wrong choice here by the GM..
I’ve done this once or twice in non-social encounters when a player came up with a particularly creative / interesting solution to a problem.
If you can’t ignore avatar strength, you also can’t ignore avatar weakness. I’ve had plenty of clever ideas that other people thought were clever and when we tried them they failed pretty spectacularly- but I did get a pat on the back for the effort, and the failure usually gave us a better idea of the problem. So…
Yes, you’re right.
To be honest this was just a creative way to get rid of a monster in a single encounter using a minor illusion, not a big thing.
As a relatively new gm running his first campaign (all homebrew), perhaps I yet have to develop the moral courage to let the PCs fall flat on their faces and things go horribly wrong..
I do have one question that I haven’t seen you answer. How do you set the DC’s in a social interaction?
Do you assign every npc a personal charisma and wisdom stat with ranks in insight or deception and a proficiency modifier and then roll a d20 and add the modifier? Or do you just make up a dc based on whatever “feels right at the time”?
I’m not positive of the 5e rules on this, (I don’t play D&D much these days) but if you are meant to roll insight against the PC’s roll, keep in mind you can always give advantage or disadvantage to the PC or NPC depending on the situation. (or bonuses/penalties if you’re willing to use house rules, but I believe 5e as written uses only advantage/disadvantage)
Why not pick 10 / 15 / 20 as per the DMG like with all other DCs? You evaluate the situation and adjudicate, not difficult in theory.
It’s a contested roll… does 5e still have grapple rules like 3rd?
The initial question was “how do you set DCs […]”. Assigning stats and proficiencies and rolling against PCs is a lot more work than saying something is easy or hard.
Nobody asked, but here’s how I’ve learned to handle social interactions:
If I know the PCs are going to meet an important NPC, I determine a couple goals/desires and turn-offs for the NPC. I then provide descriptive narration to give the players ideas of the ‘personality’ of the NPC. During the social interaction, the players may role-play or describe what/how they are saying. In the interaction, I (as DM/NPC) will provide more information as to the NPCs goals/desires and turn offs. Based on how the players choose to interact with the encounter, they get bonuses or penalties. When they (or I) determine that the social encounter is over, one player rolls a charisma check based on the Conversation Reaction on DMG pg. 245.
For example: Players are approaching a local baron to ask for men-at-arms to help clear an orc cave. As they enter the great hall, I’ll tell them how the baron is dressed in fine armor on his throne, with a battle-worn greatsword across his legs. The baron addresses them in a haughty manner. I’ve already decided that the baron is haughty (+2 for showing respect/-2 for being disrespectful) and a warrior among men (+1 for deeds of bravery/-1 for acts or attitude of cowardice.
The players then conduct the social interaction, telling me (or role-playing) how they address the baron and how they ask for the aid. In the back-and-force, the baron’s ideals are reenforced.
At the end of the social encounter, one player (the one most involved) rolls a charisma check (persuasion, intimidation, whatever is most appropriate), adding the accumulated bonuses and penalties, with the DC determined by DMG pg. 245. As the baron doesn’t know the PCs from Adam, they roll on the Indifferent table.
This allows for player skill and avatar mechanics, while providing the players narrated descriptions and clues on how to respond to the encounter.
I just use Angry’s interACTION! system while pretending to be the NPC. Your system seems overly complicated.
I haven’t had a chance to actually play since discovering angry’s blog, but afaict everything he says agrees with and expounds on my 30 years of xp as an occaisional player and regular dm. As one commenter noted above (paraphrasing) “it’s obvious once angry says it”. While *I* won’t tell anyone their way is wrong, I will say that you will likely go wrong much less often doing things the angry way.
I personally assign a DC of 10, 15 or 20 to the roll depending on how dead set the NPC is on that particular objection, I sometimes add their passive Insight. The player may roll with Advantage if they make a really good argument/threat/performance/lie or Disadvantage if the opposite happens. Angry might scream at me for that last bit.
It’s easy to quickly write down the “Initial Behavior” “Desires” and “Dislikes” of an NPC during prep and use that to guide their behavior.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this series goes. I’m now running a society-focused campaign, and realized that I seriously need to improve my NPCs. The new series is well-timed!
I see some distinctions between the perspective here (GMs don’t role-play; run your NPCs as the objects of actions and resolve those just like any other action), and the three year-old perspective in “What Even is an NPC” (role-play everything; don’t run scenes, run characters). While they seem superficially contradictory, they look more like two views of a common philosophy; that intersection, though, is a little hazy to me. I get the sense that you’re describing mechanics here, while describing the aspects of the NPCs (and hence the results of the actions) there. It’s like that article describes how to determine the effects of setting off a trapped chest, while this one describes how to react to the PCs doing stuff that might trigger the trap or unlock the chest. But it’s still murky to me; can you clarify things a bit?
I can take a stab here! I think the difference is when it comes to designing NPCs (and playing them in a loose sense) vs. playing NPCs in specific social interactions.
When you create an NPC, you don’t want to think of them as an object or obstacle, even though the players may need to persuade/intimidate/pass some kind of check to get the Holy Mop of Destiny. The NPC should have motivations and reasons for doing what they do. You as the GM will play the character and have him behave according to his motivations, which will allow for a richer game experience.
However, when when the player lies that he is a High Holy Janitor and should therefore be given the Holy Mop of Destiny, don’t draw on your NPCs extensive backstory about how he went to Our Lady of Clean Houses Academy and would know that the player is lying. Treat the NPC as a locked chest, let the character roll, and if high enough, the chest opens.
I think a fair deal of arguing about the intelligence stat could be avoided if it was rebranded as “knowledge.” If it is your book-learning and not your smarts, it still makes sense for wizards to have it. You need an education to do arcane magic. Wizards record their spells and knowledge in spell books, etc.
I agree, you can’t play a character which is smarter than you. But you could play a character which is more knowledgeable than you. And it would clarify for GMs when to ask for rolls – when it’s time to see whether a character might know about something, like the “common knowledge” rolls of other systems. Do I happen to know this tidbit of encyclopedic knowledge? You might or you might not.
I just wanted to chip in on Assumption 1 by itself because I think it can stand alone and has been brought forward in other articles as well.
This interpretation is what I try to use as well and it works fairly well for me, usually. That pesky investigation skill kinda throws a wrench in this unfortunately. Not really game breaking, but it is annoying.
Yes, but as you can probably infer from the context in which I said it, that is not at all what I’m talking about. And it is therefore irrelevant and off topic.
For me I think, the key lessons from this article are GMs should provide similar narrative descriptions for social engagements as one does for any dungeon room and that the GM should figure out when it is appropriate to make a certain social roll.
I feel like I could do a better description of providing useful game information in NPC interactions. I know the NPC sentry captain can’t be intimidate, but I need to remember to tell the players “he’s unlikely to be scared off by you, considering he can easily ring a bell to summon his comrades” when I tell them their intimidation is ineffective. So that’s one thing I gleaned from this article, and I will tie a string around my finger to remember that for future games.
The other is trying to figure out when a roll is effective. I might be a little backwards here, my players often utilize various interaction means, I will react, and then they will ask if they can make an intimidation roll (or whatever interaction means they were using) to see if their influence was successful. I’m not a huge fan of this interaction course, mainly because it feels dumb for the players to ask if they can roll a specific skill when I should be recognizing that’s the means of persuasion the players are trying to use. So I could use some more help trying to recognize when the players are tying in the persuasion with the game’s skills.
As this series continues, I would love to hear thoughts on recognizing when it is the right time to ask for a roll from a player. Thoughts on using alternative social rolls, like making an athletics check for a social engagement as the PC tries to impress with athletics or something, would be welcome as well.
Thanks. Good article. I’ve already had the basic premise in mind from the adjudication article from way back. But it’s good to see it laid out specifically for social interaction adjudication.
Thank you for enlightening me on the role of NPCs as game constructs. I’ve always been of the opinion that characters in storytelling are just devices and not people, and yet I never thought to apply that mindset to RPGs. As an added bonus to just being, y’know, correct, it makes utilizing them way less complicated in general.