I like City of Mist's approach to persuasion. When a player succeeds on a persuasion roll, the GM has two options: The NPC either give in to the player's demands in some way(to various degrees depending on the roll) OR the NPC takes a status effect if they refuse to be persuaded. It could look something like this: PC is trying to convince a bank robber to release some hostages. The PC says "release the hostages and I'll let you talk to your wife on the phone" - There could be multiple outcomes. If the PC rolls well, he might agree to release all the hostages, or he may refuse but have a status effect that he's distracted because he keeps thinking about his wife, making it easier for someone to sneak into the bank. If the PC rolls a 7-9, he might agree to release one hostage instead of all of them. If the PC rolls badly, he might have misjudged how much the guy cares about his wife and made the situation worse. It's not perfect, but it does force the players to think about how they're persuading their target. In my experience it also leads to a bit more roleplaying as the players are likely to try to find some sort of leverage they can use for a boost to their roll.
Year Zero's manipulation and Cyberpunk RED's Facedown systems both work kinda like this. Honestly, it's what I'm leaning towards more and more for how to handle persuasion.
Fundamentals of satisfying social checks: -only make rolls if the outcome is in doubt. -have roleplay affect the difficulty and/or impact of the check, but do not actively penalize someone for not being a thespian. -allow players to explicitly initiate the check so long as skillful words could reasonably make a difference. (It feels awful if a character skill is worthless because the GM never calls for it.) -the GM decides the difficulty AND the ultimate outcome of the check, which may not be binary success/failure. (Perhaps the seduce roll would've never resulted in sleeping together, but a high persuasion ensures that the target is flattered rather than offended, or fantastic roleplaying ensures the NPC will cave to a demand, but a low roll could affect how much they compromise or how they feel about the interaction later on.) -The players are aware that all the above assumptions are being made about social checks.
I am composing a first video on almost this exact topic, but centered on my homebrew solutions to solve some specific problems in my game. I am slower than a dial-up modem about it, because my life. Still aiming to post before 2025 because optimism, but.... My point though: Do you want me to drop a line when that drops? Also asking for anyone else whose answer or comment may take the form of a video and/or whole subsystem they've designed. I guess.
As a DM, when my party wants to convince someone of something, I make them talk first. If what they say is rational, convincing, and within the bounds of how the NPC would act, I rarely make them roll at all. When they aren't particularly convincing, or what they are asking is outside the bounds of what someone would normally do, I make them roll. I usually make the check high, 16+, and tend to graduate successes. Barely succeeding will generally require some kind of bribe or trade, etc When theres no way on earth that someone would do what theyre asking, I make them roll. If they succeed, the character refuses. If they fail, the character will become suspicious and begin acting in ways more antagonistic to the party.
@allseeingeyetrpg One of my party members is a bard. He asked if he could persuads the Lord of a region to surrender his title and lordship I had him roll. He got a 23 after bonuses. The lord laughed and moved on with the conversation as if nothing had happened, but in a better mood
@@crackersphdinwumbology2831 Honestly, I wouldn't have called for a roll in this situation. I would have simply asked the player "Do you wanna keep going with this?" If they said yes, they get arrested. If no, the lord laughs and moves on.
@allseeingeyetrpg I like allowing their charisma (their player build) to let them glide from dangerous situations. Even if they take it in the wrong direction, a silver tongue and a smile can be disarming/charming enough! And hey, yeah, you could have just made it a laugh and move on. I felt like applying a risk of failure to the bard's shenanigans made it a more memorable and roleplay-focused experience.
@@crackersphdinwumbology2831 My philosophy is that a successful roll should mean "you perform your action as intended." Managing to keep your reputation intact after saying something dumb doesn't really seem like the intended goal of using a persuasion skill.
I'm personally partial to an in-between of several systems. Players have to roleplay their persuassion, but its not really dependent on what they say so much. Being socially suave IRL isn't the answer, but similar to combat where you can't just roll to win combat, you also can't just roll to win a conversation. An NPC will have reasons for disagreeing with the player, and the players will have to address these reasons to change how the NPC will act going forward. How the NPC will act is dependent on their opinions and values, but players can influence these. Influencing them is done through appropriate rolls. Identifying the reasons, and what might be done to address them, is also done through appropriate rolls. So, you want to convince a shopkeep to give you a free sample. Why won't the shopkeep do so? Because he'll lose money, which he uses to support his family. Its also a 'reward' for his hard work, and he's proud of the effort he puts into running the shop. To address this, the players will likely either need to convince him that he will make more money by giving them the free sample, or that it will contribute to his families' safety and wellbeing more than the money he loses will. Players will need to describe HOW they're going to convince him of these things, and may need to address further opinions the shopkeep holds in relation to that argument. I.E: "We're famous heroes, just seeing us with the item will make others want to buy it" is going to compete with the shopkeep's market knowledge - is this an item a lot of people actually buy, or is it something that's more niche in appeal - as well as how he views the player's ability to influence other's buying decisions just through their existence. In this, the players may not know how to convince him about the market, and so could make some form of check to identify what sort of argument would be convincing here, if any. Then they could use that argument, and roll their check to see how convincing they are at conveying their point. Alternatively, they could threaten the shopkeep's family, and roll to see how threatening they appear, however they may want to make a roll to understand how the shopkeep may react after this (Telling the guards, as an example), and convince them not to do so as well. If not wanting to threaten, they could try to convince the shopkeep his family is in danger due to whatever quest their on, and helping the party will help keep his family safe. Rolling to seduce a dragon would go similarly. Why doesn't the dragon want to sleep with the bard? There's a good chance that its because they don't view humans as desirable in that way, much like how normal adults don't find children or pets desirable in that way. That's something that's going to be very hard for the bard to change, likely the only way would be to somehow earn the respect of the dragon and have it view them as an equal. That might work if the DM wants that to be an option, and would likely lead to an interesting side quest, or it could just be a matter of preference and nothing can be done to change the dragon's view. That's also assuming that the dragon is a shapechanger that would let the anatomy work, otherwise that's a whole other issue that needs addressing. This kind of takes the best of most systems IMO; it doesn't feel like mind control as the agency is still with the NPC, the player's are just tinkering with the machine behind the NPC in a way to try and manipulate the NPC into doing what they want. It doesn't work for PvP unless the receiving player wants it to; a roll doesn't determine everything, the character actually needs to be address the characters concerns, and a player could just say that nothing would address those concerns. It also encourages roleplay and doesn't let the 'persuade button' work, but doesn't require strong social skills - what matters is the approach, not the execution. It stops players relying on just one social skill, as all have their place in understanding and them manipulating an NPC. Impossible conversions are still impossible, and its not really mechanically complex either. It also feels more like a real conversation, as it kind of is. It also has flexible scaling difficulty both in the DCs for convincing the NPC, but also in how many layers are added to the conversation and how deep the players need to go. The above shopkeep example could have stopped at just letting the players make a generic argument about how the shopkeep wouldn't be losing money by giving them the item if the DM didn't want to go more in depth, but if they felt it too easy and that the shopkeep should be more difficult to convince - they can add on the layers of convincing them about the premises of the player's argument, rather than just the argument itself. The biggest downside to it, as it requires prep work for major conversations, and a solid grasp of generic NPC archetypes (Or a prepared reference sheet) for minor conversations, and can be a lot of work for the GM. It also requires the discipline to stick to that understanding of the character and be willing to pause for a moment and figure out how to go deeper with a conversation, rather than just letting any attempt to convince an NPC slide. It is also a system that needs to be explained to players as to what their options are, and how they need to approach social encounters if their goal is to convince someone of something; its not quite as simple as pure role play, or one and done roll systems, and while it doesn't have the mechanical depth of social combat systems, it can be unintuitive as to what a player should actually do to accomplish their goal as it is different to traditional RPG systems - sort of like how theatre of the mind needs some explainining as to how things like positioning and distance will work without any concrete terrain to base this off.
This is basically how we were taught to do IRL persuasion in sales training. Every client has their objections (price too high, don't need our product, etc), and it's a matter of figuring out what you need to say to win them over.
i have found that the easiest way to do persuasion and other role-play heavy rules. 1. don't play 5e. 2. i also like to have the player roll, then regardless of what they roll, i will ask "so you ______, what approach did you use when you tried to persuade ____"? this is awesome because the player loses all the tension of "oh man i need to make this roleplay awesome because i want to succeed. they already know if they're going to succeed or not. and are just going to enjoy fleshing out the story a bit. i also don't pressure non-roleplayers. i usually say "just tell me the kind of conversation you had. was it about the weather? or maybe that new wanted poster? and they can generalize and give me a summary. it makes the players around the table enjoy the moment a lot more than "oh you succeeded and now here's the info you want..."
Why not have them roll first and then roleplay the results? You fail, roleplay blundering this conversation or do your best and accept that your roleplay is a result of the roll. If you rolled great, great, act like they are totally gonna do what you ask them to.
I've heard this option suggested once before, in a Taking20 videos from years and years ago. I've not tried it, nor do I know anyone who's tried it, so I can't speak to how well it works.
@@allseeingeyetrpgWorks quite well in a variation in my games: 1) Player outlines what they want to convince somebody of and rolls 2) Depending on their degree of success, the GM (me) gives them an outline of which arguments should work to convince them (or, if the idea was too ambitious, that no arguments could make them do that, then potentially giving a scaled down version that might be achievable; this stops the mind control flavor and keeps it grounded) 3) The persuasion is played out (with a bit of general understanding of "this but in more eloquent" in case the player cannot perform to the degree their character should); if they failed their roll they have to make do with what the player can come up with, so depending on what they then actually say they don't have to ruin everything because of a single roll (this of course relies on charismatic players to also skill their character in that way or not play their character charismatic; but that's best dealt with through personal discussions, IMO, similiar to "smart player playing a dumb character" or "notetaker playing a character with sieve for memory"). Also, though I haven't tried that yet, this could open up interesting avenues for using persuasion on PCs if you put step 2) into the hands of the player who's character should be persuaded (still needs a respectfull playgroup, of course, but honestly thinking on the question "is there really nothing to be said that could change my characters mind" has the potential to be a real roleplaying win; and if really nothing could convince the PC, simply tell the other player so).
I have the adventure zone crew use this on occasion, especially when it comes to interactions with probably hostile NPCs. It can be a lot of fun but I think it relies on people being willing and able to take the emotional hit of role playing a horrible conversational outcome. It can lead to really great moments though
Hmm, seems Exalted 3E might be one of the more interesting solutions to the social problem. The game has basically a social combat system that also ties in with a lot of other moving parts. First, characters have Intimacies - the things they believe in and the people they care about. If you want to persuade someone to do something important, you need to play into that. You can't convince a shopkeeper to go join you in clearing a dungeon... unless their daughter is captured there or something similar. You have ways to make characters gain and lose Intimacies, but it's a slow process. The Intimacies are not instantly obvious either, so you have to spend some time talking to someone and learning what they care about - that's a fun thing to do for social or perceptive characters! If you roleplay how you convince someone and make some impassionate scene, you get bonuses to your roll. The whole game revolves around Stunting - the better your description of something is, the better bonuses you have to that roll. If you are well statted into something it's pretty hard to fail so it's not D&D level of "everything has a 5% failure rate at least". Characters being persuaded have options to defend against the social. First you get a "static defence" against persuasion based on your skills. Then there are ways of boosting that even further as needed, and you also get to cite your Intimacies as a way to defend against persuasion attempts ("I won't go to war, I have a family to take care of"). Then, if you are persuaded, there are options to negate even that, but they come at a cost. If you go against your Intimacy, you accrue Limit, and since someone persuading you has to use your Intimacies, rejecting the persuasion gives you Limit. Once you have too much Limit, you get to have a big moment of engaging in a heroic tragic flaw and making the whole story worse in some epic way (Achilles wallowing in grief instead of fighting in the war). There are also safety tools against unwanted seduction attempts - the Red Rule. A player can outright reject any unwanted seduction attempt. And if you want to weasel your way out of being persuaded by having no Intimacies, you open yourself up to my favourite piece of magic in all of RPG - Cup Boils Over. Someone sufficiently skilled can just verbally dress down characters that care about nothing or ones that don't make sense (munchkins) so hard their soul becomes embarrased of the life they live it leaves their body, killing them, and goes straight into the cycle of reincarnation in shame. So yeah, the system may be a bit complicated, but it all comes down together to make characters that specialise in being social actually viable and an important part of a party as much as combat characters. This lets you solve problems via social with such mechanical finality as if you engaged in actual combat and the GM can't just handwave it away by saying "yeah, you rolled well, but they still end up doing what they were doing anyway". As for the same system being used against the players, it is really interesting to see. Heck, one of the more interesting Actual Plays I listened to, Fall of Jiara, had GM introduce a manipulative NPC that used this system against the players and it felt like a shark swimming in a school of small fishes. The players still had some recourse and ways to fall back on mechanics to protect themselves, but they chose to just accept the manipulation and "yes and" continue the game. So yeah, social can be just as interesting as combat if a game gives it enough focus and attention!
I had a DM who had a good method of only rolling the skill check if you could make an RP'd argument that was at least semi-coherent, so I definitely know that pain of making the RP argument and then rolling low. The bigger problem I remember coming up a lot wasn't my ability to come up with said arguments or the mismatch, as I was pretty often a party face and got used to that over time, but it was other party members adding commentary that could and would totally destroy my successful persuasion attempts. Like, I remember once convincing a guard to let the party into a prison to visit an NPC we had to rescue, ostensibly for visitation rights as his legal counsel, and then boom - one of the other players said something to another player at the table that gave the whole game away and it started a combat encounter . . . but not before causing a big debate about whether they were saying that in-character or out of character and it became a whole mess that really wasn't fun.
I am currently in the very early stages of making my own TTRPG - not even a week in - and already I have rules written that prevent "negotiation" mechanics from being engaged with unless both/all parties can be reasonably seen to both accept or refuse the terms being negotiated for in the context it is presented in. The idea of allowing gameplay mechanics to overrule the roleplay of a TTRPG is as crazy to me as allowing the roleplay to overrule the gameplay mechanics. Imagine a PC one-shotting the BBEG just because that's what the player said their PC did. That, to me, is just as absurd as a bard seducing a dragon with a nat 20. The two sides should compliment and fill in for one another, not override the other's area of expertise.
I use the approach of letting my players roleplay out interactions, but if there is a situation where they are trying to persuade the NPC of something then I dont interrupt the roleplay until they make their request or until it would warrant a decision. I would then decide on a DC that fits their roleplay and the reluctance of the NPC. When im deciding the DC, if it is easy enough and it fits their character then ill just say yes. Also if it is something the npc wouldnt do, id just say no. This rewards roleplay and also rewards stats.
There are a lot of challenges to this premise. Among the first of which is that part of why things like 'social combat' can feel weird is that there are actually multiple types of persuasion, not only in method but in what it is you are actually seeking to achieve. Persuading someone to do something is different from persuading them yo not do something, and persuading someone to do one big thing is different to several little things or a multi-faceted big thing. The outcomes are not necessarily binary or immediate, either. An antagonistic success/fail interaction with binary success/fail results feels like watered down combat because it is; there has to be some capacity for back-and-forth negotiation with ways of mechanical impact other than strict dominance of the other party for it to be and thus feel different. Part of the problem in most systems are that, A) the success and failure state in the narrative can be separate, and most mechanical systems create a relatively binary success/fail outcome, B) success and/or failure can be incremental or require multiple objections to be overcome or negotiated, C) the outcomes by the logic of the narrative likely scale with the quality of the persuasion and any fail states incurred, and D) the tolerance threshold for success and failure are no necessarily symmetrical; a high-tension subject with little room for success might fail at a single bad phrasing and night require several convincing arguments, or they mighr be laid-back yet immensely skeptical, ir easily persuaded yet highly volatile if the appeal does fail. Most mechanical systems to-date do not account for much of this and end up at-best simulating _one_ particular scenario type to a mediocre quality. There is akso that to the degree that you build this in mechanically, you are providing structural support to play characters more persuasive than yourself, though to the same degree deemphasizing personal player ability, and both tables and individuals vary on where their desires lay on that spectrum. What was originally a persuasion system ended up becoming the general action resolution system for my WIP TTRPG. Similar to what was mentioned in other comments, mine is predicated on presenting an argument against specific goals/opinions/perspectives that the other party has that disincline them to acquiesce towards the actor's appeal, with things like the DC and the amount that they have to be 'persuaded by' representing things like their conviction, resistance to change/emotional investment, etc. It is an entire social encounter design with its own stat block akin to D&D CR, albeit much simpler. Persuasion is ultimately way too variable an activitu for the feeling of it to be captured by anything less than a system with greater variability than the dice result success/fail threshold.
So the funny is both Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits and Torchbearer's abstract conflict rules include rules for compromise. If you reduce your opponents to "0 HP" but you've taken "damage" yourself, you owe them a compromise (either not getting everything you want, or them getting something they want. It goes some way to alleviating the issue you talk about with binary outcomes, since there are technically 9 possible outcomes once draws and all the different levels of compromise are taken into consideration.
Social combat is interesting but social hit points are just silly. The way I see it a social combat should work with “steps.” At the beginning of a social scene the GM should determine how many successful rolls the players would need to get what they want and how many unsuccessful rolls it would take to lose it, with that you can determine what the social latter looks like for the scene. For example, it may take 3 successful skill rolls to convince a judge that your friend didn’t commit a crime and only 2 unsuccessful rolls for him to be convicted. In this case the social latter would have 3 steps up and 2 steps down, if you succeed a roll you move up a step, if you fail you move down, hitting either end of the later ends the encounter. In the example of a court case you would logically expect to roll until you get a verdict, in any other situation you would have a limited number of rolls before the npc loses interest or gets annoyed. This isn’t a perfect system, of course, but I think it’s functional enough to use in home games.
Perform no, summarise yes. If I as a GM don't what you're trying to convince an NPC of, or how you're doing it, I can't effectively adjudicate the rules and tell you what to roll against what difficulty. So while I don't require my players to act out dialogue (I let them express their RP however they're most comfortable), I will push them to RP until I get enough detail. As for combat, the same applies. I do insist on getting enough info to adjudicate the rules (what action is being performed with what weapon against what target), and I can be quite pushy about it, but when it comes to _how_ that information is narrated and roleplayed, I'm very flexible. It's not the how that matters to me, it's the what.
I only call for persussian when you and someone else are trying to convince someone using the same sort of arguments and want him to pick your side. "Points on form" so to speak
This is one of the topics I find I am often debating myself with. Alien does have a forced social persuasion mechanic under the Command skill. However, it can only work on players you are in charge of which is normally not all of them in the one shots and costs you stress which you really don't want to do. I do find the manipulation skill much more interesting as you have to be very tactical with what you ask for and actually be well manipulative. I am generally more on the don't roll in most cases. I do get that it sucks for socially skilled players but then you have to think how would you make it fair for less tactically skilled players? If the player is doing something dumb, but their character is supposed to be smart do you give them an intelligence roll and then have them do something else? This just gets absurd at some point and the rolling can really break up conversation flow. I am really starting to like the Japense RPG perspective which is to just to not have persuasion stats and have the players actually have to persuade. Honestly this is better for somewhat socially awkward people like me as you will learn how to actually persuade people in a safe environment which you rarely get a chance to do. I am not sure how I feel about social combat games. I am trying five rings and it has that but I find the social combat interesting but it really does break up natural conversation and sometimes feel weird as many players are trying to force in certain abilities that make no real sense with the way the conversation is going.
I don't think anyone used Command in the Alien one-shot I ran, but all the PCs ended up hyper-stressed (and then dead) anyway. You do make an interesting point that when you take away persuasion elements of a character sheet, it does force people to think more about what they're saying. I've tried social combat in Torchbearer (which has a super-abstract conflict system that you can apply to basically anything), and while it could be awkward at times (especially as you have to choose your actions well in advance of actually roleplaying them), it did get the job done.
Personally i prefer to think social rolls are for npcs predisposition twoard the players and not about specific discusions. So someone can get friendlier twoard you but that does not mean he will change his mind on the topic. Also i prefer to think of charsma like stats as modifiers to roleplay than the other way around. Roleplaying is a skill. When you play basketball you use your basketball skills. When you roleplay you use your roleplay skills. Also the thing is the only way to get those skills is to do them, use roleplay be better at it.
So if you were to run a game of a basketball inside a tabletop RPG, would you make your players use a skill roll, or decide the outcome of the game by taking your players outside and shooting hoops with them? That's what this comes down to
@@jackmalin2528 Not really. Yes, we roleplay in roleplaying games, but unless you're doing full make-believe, you use dice and game mechanics to determine the outcome of your actions. My point is er you use player skill or character skill. Rolling dice for basketball or persuasion uses character skill, and playing real basketball or using pure roleplay relies on player skill. At the end of the day, it's up to you, but this is the choice you're making.
@@allseeingeyetrpg i use both in social tests its roleplay + skill as a modifier in other tests its skill + idea/roleplay as modifier The roleplay part matters and adds to the game sometimes more than the simple mechanics. Its a game, you would not say someone cant use their own strategy and tactic in a game of chess the same is in rpgs. We use the players starategy and tactics ideas in combat and we use roleplay in social situations
@allseeingeyetrpg Or when players insist on looking somewhere. "Fine. Roll Perception" "AYY, NAT 20" "You are _certain_ that there is nothing to find here"
Check out “why dnd exploration sucks” by deficient dm. Explains how to prep interactive items in a room, what they find out when the interact and if there is a secret they can roll to find it
@@IndyLaLune Just remember: if a player gets 3 Nat 20's on Perception checks in a row, you should give them a point of Inspiration for coming to a new paradigm shift in thought.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
I like City of Mist's approach to persuasion.
When a player succeeds on a persuasion roll, the GM has two options: The NPC either give in to the player's demands in some way(to various degrees depending on the roll) OR the NPC takes a status effect if they refuse to be persuaded.
It could look something like this:
PC is trying to convince a bank robber to release some hostages. The PC says "release the hostages and I'll let you talk to your wife on the phone" - There could be multiple outcomes. If the PC rolls well, he might agree to release all the hostages, or he may refuse but have a status effect that he's distracted because he keeps thinking about his wife, making it easier for someone to sneak into the bank. If the PC rolls a 7-9, he might agree to release one hostage instead of all of them. If the PC rolls badly, he might have misjudged how much the guy cares about his wife and made the situation worse.
It's not perfect, but it does force the players to think about how they're persuading their target. In my experience it also leads to a bit more roleplaying as the players are likely to try to find some sort of leverage they can use for a boost to their roll.
Year Zero's manipulation and Cyberpunk RED's Facedown systems both work kinda like this. Honestly, it's what I'm leaning towards more and more for how to handle persuasion.
Fundamentals of satisfying social checks:
-only make rolls if the outcome is in doubt.
-have roleplay affect the difficulty and/or impact of the check, but do not actively penalize someone for not being a thespian.
-allow players to explicitly initiate the check so long as skillful words could reasonably make a difference. (It feels awful if a character skill is worthless because the GM never calls for it.)
-the GM decides the difficulty AND the ultimate outcome of the check, which may not be binary success/failure. (Perhaps the seduce roll would've never resulted in sleeping together, but a high persuasion ensures that the target is flattered rather than offended, or fantastic roleplaying ensures the NPC will cave to a demand, but a low roll could affect how much they compromise or how they feel about the interaction later on.)
-The players are aware that all the above assumptions are being made about social checks.
Sounds absolutely perfect.
I am composing a first video on almost this exact topic, but centered on my homebrew solutions to solve some specific problems in my game.
I am slower than a dial-up modem about it, because my life. Still aiming to post before 2025 because optimism, but....
My point though:
Do you want me to drop a line when that drops?
Also asking for anyone else whose answer or comment may take the form of a video and/or whole subsystem they've designed. I guess.
As a DM, when my party wants to convince someone of something, I make them talk first.
If what they say is rational, convincing, and within the bounds of how the NPC would act, I rarely make them roll at all.
When they aren't particularly convincing, or what they are asking is outside the bounds of what someone would normally do, I make them roll. I usually make the check high, 16+, and tend to graduate successes. Barely succeeding will generally require some kind of bribe or trade, etc
When theres no way on earth that someone would do what theyre asking, I make them roll. If they succeed, the character refuses. If they fail, the character will become suspicious and begin acting in ways more antagonistic to the party.
Having an NPC refuse a player on a success is beyond the pale even for me.
@allseeingeyetrpg One of my party members is a bard. He asked if he could persuads the Lord of a region to surrender his title and lordship
I had him roll. He got a 23 after bonuses.
The lord laughed and moved on with the conversation as if nothing had happened, but in a better mood
@@crackersphdinwumbology2831 Honestly, I wouldn't have called for a roll in this situation. I would have simply asked the player "Do you wanna keep going with this?" If they said yes, they get arrested. If no, the lord laughs and moves on.
@allseeingeyetrpg I like allowing their charisma (their player build) to let them glide from dangerous situations. Even if they take it in the wrong direction, a silver tongue and a smile can be disarming/charming enough!
And hey, yeah, you could have just made it a laugh and move on. I felt like applying a risk of failure to the bard's shenanigans made it a more memorable and roleplay-focused experience.
@@crackersphdinwumbology2831 My philosophy is that a successful roll should mean "you perform your action as intended." Managing to keep your reputation intact after saying something dumb doesn't really seem like the intended goal of using a persuasion skill.
I'm personally partial to an in-between of several systems.
Players have to roleplay their persuassion, but its not really dependent on what they say so much. Being socially suave IRL isn't the answer, but similar to combat where you can't just roll to win combat, you also can't just roll to win a conversation.
An NPC will have reasons for disagreeing with the player, and the players will have to address these reasons to change how the NPC will act going forward. How the NPC will act is dependent on their opinions and values, but players can influence these. Influencing them is done through appropriate rolls. Identifying the reasons, and what might be done to address them, is also done through appropriate rolls.
So, you want to convince a shopkeep to give you a free sample. Why won't the shopkeep do so? Because he'll lose money, which he uses to support his family. Its also a 'reward' for his hard work, and he's proud of the effort he puts into running the shop. To address this, the players will likely either need to convince him that he will make more money by giving them the free sample, or that it will contribute to his families' safety and wellbeing more than the money he loses will. Players will need to describe HOW they're going to convince him of these things, and may need to address further opinions the shopkeep holds in relation to that argument. I.E: "We're famous heroes, just seeing us with the item will make others want to buy it" is going to compete with the shopkeep's market knowledge - is this an item a lot of people actually buy, or is it something that's more niche in appeal - as well as how he views the player's ability to influence other's buying decisions just through their existence. In this, the players may not know how to convince him about the market, and so could make some form of check to identify what sort of argument would be convincing here, if any. Then they could use that argument, and roll their check to see how convincing they are at conveying their point. Alternatively, they could threaten the shopkeep's family, and roll to see how threatening they appear, however they may want to make a roll to understand how the shopkeep may react after this (Telling the guards, as an example), and convince them not to do so as well. If not wanting to threaten, they could try to convince the shopkeep his family is in danger due to whatever quest their on, and helping the party will help keep his family safe.
Rolling to seduce a dragon would go similarly. Why doesn't the dragon want to sleep with the bard? There's a good chance that its because they don't view humans as desirable in that way, much like how normal adults don't find children or pets desirable in that way. That's something that's going to be very hard for the bard to change, likely the only way would be to somehow earn the respect of the dragon and have it view them as an equal. That might work if the DM wants that to be an option, and would likely lead to an interesting side quest, or it could just be a matter of preference and nothing can be done to change the dragon's view. That's also assuming that the dragon is a shapechanger that would let the anatomy work, otherwise that's a whole other issue that needs addressing.
This kind of takes the best of most systems IMO; it doesn't feel like mind control as the agency is still with the NPC, the player's are just tinkering with the machine behind the NPC in a way to try and manipulate the NPC into doing what they want. It doesn't work for PvP unless the receiving player wants it to; a roll doesn't determine everything, the character actually needs to be address the characters concerns, and a player could just say that nothing would address those concerns. It also encourages roleplay and doesn't let the 'persuade button' work, but doesn't require strong social skills - what matters is the approach, not the execution. It stops players relying on just one social skill, as all have their place in understanding and them manipulating an NPC. Impossible conversions are still impossible, and its not really mechanically complex either. It also feels more like a real conversation, as it kind of is. It also has flexible scaling difficulty both in the DCs for convincing the NPC, but also in how many layers are added to the conversation and how deep the players need to go. The above shopkeep example could have stopped at just letting the players make a generic argument about how the shopkeep wouldn't be losing money by giving them the item if the DM didn't want to go more in depth, but if they felt it too easy and that the shopkeep should be more difficult to convince - they can add on the layers of convincing them about the premises of the player's argument, rather than just the argument itself.
The biggest downside to it, as it requires prep work for major conversations, and a solid grasp of generic NPC archetypes (Or a prepared reference sheet) for minor conversations, and can be a lot of work for the GM. It also requires the discipline to stick to that understanding of the character and be willing to pause for a moment and figure out how to go deeper with a conversation, rather than just letting any attempt to convince an NPC slide. It is also a system that needs to be explained to players as to what their options are, and how they need to approach social encounters if their goal is to convince someone of something; its not quite as simple as pure role play, or one and done roll systems, and while it doesn't have the mechanical depth of social combat systems, it can be unintuitive as to what a player should actually do to accomplish their goal as it is different to traditional RPG systems - sort of like how theatre of the mind needs some explainining as to how things like positioning and distance will work without any concrete terrain to base this off.
This is basically how we were taught to do IRL persuasion in sales training. Every client has their objections (price too high, don't need our product, etc), and it's a matter of figuring out what you need to say to win them over.
i have found that the easiest way to do persuasion and other role-play heavy rules.
1. don't play 5e.
2. i also like to have the player roll, then regardless of what they roll, i will ask "so you ______, what approach did you use when you tried to persuade ____"?
this is awesome because the player loses all the tension of "oh man i need to make this roleplay awesome because i want to succeed. they already know if they're going to succeed or not. and are just going to enjoy fleshing out the story a bit.
i also don't pressure non-roleplayers. i usually say "just tell me the kind of conversation you had. was it about the weather? or maybe that new wanted poster? and they can generalize and give me a summary.
it makes the players around the table enjoy the moment a lot more than "oh you succeeded and now here's the info you want..."
Why not have them roll first and then roleplay the results? You fail, roleplay blundering this conversation or do your best and accept that your roleplay is a result of the roll. If you rolled great, great, act like they are totally gonna do what you ask them to.
I've heard this option suggested once before, in a Taking20 videos from years and years ago. I've not tried it, nor do I know anyone who's tried it, so I can't speak to how well it works.
@@allseeingeyetrpgWorks quite well in a variation in my games:
1) Player outlines what they want to convince somebody of and rolls
2) Depending on their degree of success, the GM (me) gives them an outline of which arguments should work to convince them (or, if the idea was too ambitious, that no arguments could make them do that, then potentially giving a scaled down version that might be achievable; this stops the mind control flavor and keeps it grounded)
3) The persuasion is played out (with a bit of general understanding of "this but in more eloquent" in case the player cannot perform to the degree their character should); if they failed their roll they have to make do with what the player can come up with, so depending on what they then actually say they don't have to ruin everything because of a single roll (this of course relies on charismatic players to also skill their character in that way or not play their character charismatic; but that's best dealt with through personal discussions, IMO, similiar to "smart player playing a dumb character" or "notetaker playing a character with sieve for memory").
Also, though I haven't tried that yet, this could open up interesting avenues for using persuasion on PCs if you put step 2) into the hands of the player who's character should be persuaded (still needs a respectfull playgroup, of course, but honestly thinking on the question "is there really nothing to be said that could change my characters mind" has the potential to be a real roleplaying win; and if really nothing could convince the PC, simply tell the other player so).
This seems like it can work so long as the players all agree with it
I have the adventure zone crew use this on occasion, especially when it comes to interactions with probably hostile NPCs. It can be a lot of fun but I think it relies on people being willing and able to take the emotional hit of role playing a horrible conversational outcome. It can lead to really great moments though
The issue with this is situational bonuses like advantage, which could only be granted by saying something the GM thinks is super persuasive.
Hmm, seems Exalted 3E might be one of the more interesting solutions to the social problem.
The game has basically a social combat system that also ties in with a lot of other moving parts.
First, characters have Intimacies - the things they believe in and the people they care about. If you want to persuade someone to do something important, you need to play into that. You can't convince a shopkeeper to go join you in clearing a dungeon... unless their daughter is captured there or something similar.
You have ways to make characters gain and lose Intimacies, but it's a slow process. The Intimacies are not instantly obvious either, so you have to spend some time talking to someone and learning what they care about - that's a fun thing to do for social or perceptive characters!
If you roleplay how you convince someone and make some impassionate scene, you get bonuses to your roll. The whole game revolves around Stunting - the better your description of something is, the better bonuses you have to that roll. If you are well statted into something it's pretty hard to fail so it's not D&D level of "everything has a 5% failure rate at least".
Characters being persuaded have options to defend against the social. First you get a "static defence" against persuasion based on your skills. Then there are ways of boosting that even further as needed, and you also get to cite your Intimacies as a way to defend against persuasion attempts ("I won't go to war, I have a family to take care of").
Then, if you are persuaded, there are options to negate even that, but they come at a cost. If you go against your Intimacy, you accrue Limit, and since someone persuading you has to use your Intimacies, rejecting the persuasion gives you Limit. Once you have too much Limit, you get to have a big moment of engaging in a heroic tragic flaw and making the whole story worse in some epic way (Achilles wallowing in grief instead of fighting in the war).
There are also safety tools against unwanted seduction attempts - the Red Rule. A player can outright reject any unwanted seduction attempt.
And if you want to weasel your way out of being persuaded by having no Intimacies, you open yourself up to my favourite piece of magic in all of RPG - Cup Boils Over. Someone sufficiently skilled can just verbally dress down characters that care about nothing or ones that don't make sense (munchkins) so hard their soul becomes embarrased of the life they live it leaves their body, killing them, and goes straight into the cycle of reincarnation in shame.
So yeah, the system may be a bit complicated, but it all comes down together to make characters that specialise in being social actually viable and an important part of a party as much as combat characters. This lets you solve problems via social with such mechanical finality as if you engaged in actual combat and the GM can't just handwave it away by saying "yeah, you rolled well, but they still end up doing what they were doing anyway".
As for the same system being used against the players, it is really interesting to see. Heck, one of the more interesting Actual Plays I listened to, Fall of Jiara, had GM introduce a manipulative NPC that used this system against the players and it felt like a shark swimming in a school of small fishes. The players still had some recourse and ways to fall back on mechanics to protect themselves, but they chose to just accept the manipulation and "yes and" continue the game.
So yeah, social can be just as interesting as combat if a game gives it enough focus and attention!
Wow, that's a lot of mechanics. But this is Exalted we're talking about, so no surprises there.
I had a DM who had a good method of only rolling the skill check if you could make an RP'd argument that was at least semi-coherent, so I definitely know that pain of making the RP argument and then rolling low. The bigger problem I remember coming up a lot wasn't my ability to come up with said arguments or the mismatch, as I was pretty often a party face and got used to that over time, but it was other party members adding commentary that could and would totally destroy my successful persuasion attempts.
Like, I remember once convincing a guard to let the party into a prison to visit an NPC we had to rescue, ostensibly for visitation rights as his legal counsel, and then boom - one of the other players said something to another player at the table that gave the whole game away and it started a combat encounter . . . but not before causing a big debate about whether they were saying that in-character or out of character and it became a whole mess that really wasn't fun.
Yeah, good teamwork is really important in social situations. If you aren't the party face, either make sure you're being helpful, or shut up.
I am currently in the very early stages of making my own TTRPG - not even a week in - and already I have rules written that prevent "negotiation" mechanics from being engaged with unless both/all parties can be reasonably seen to both accept or refuse the terms being negotiated for in the context it is presented in.
The idea of allowing gameplay mechanics to overrule the roleplay of a TTRPG is as crazy to me as allowing the roleplay to overrule the gameplay mechanics. Imagine a PC one-shotting the BBEG just because that's what the player said their PC did. That, to me, is just as absurd as a bard seducing a dragon with a nat 20. The two sides should compliment and fill in for one another, not override the other's area of expertise.
I use the approach of letting my players roleplay out interactions, but if there is a situation where they are trying to persuade the NPC of something then I dont interrupt the roleplay until they make their request or until it would warrant a decision. I would then decide on a DC that fits their roleplay and the reluctance of the NPC.
When im deciding the DC, if it is easy enough and it fits their character then ill just say yes. Also if it is something the npc wouldnt do, id just say no.
This rewards roleplay and also rewards stats.
There are a lot of challenges to this premise. Among the first of which is that part of why things like 'social combat' can feel weird is that there are actually multiple types of persuasion, not only in method but in what it is you are actually seeking to achieve. Persuading someone to do something is different from persuading them yo not do something, and persuading someone to do one big thing is different to several little things or a multi-faceted big thing. The outcomes are not necessarily binary or immediate, either. An antagonistic success/fail interaction with binary success/fail results feels like watered down combat because it is; there has to be some capacity for back-and-forth negotiation with ways of mechanical impact other than strict dominance of the other party for it to be and thus feel different.
Part of the problem in most systems are that, A) the success and failure state in the narrative can be separate, and most mechanical systems create a relatively binary success/fail outcome, B) success and/or failure can be incremental or require multiple objections to be overcome or negotiated, C) the outcomes by the logic of the narrative likely scale with the quality of the persuasion and any fail states incurred, and D) the tolerance threshold for success and failure are no necessarily symmetrical; a high-tension subject with little room for success might fail at a single bad phrasing and night require several convincing arguments, or they mighr be laid-back yet immensely skeptical, ir easily persuaded yet highly volatile if the appeal does fail. Most mechanical systems to-date do not account for much of this and end up at-best simulating _one_ particular scenario type to a mediocre quality. There is akso that to the degree that you build this in mechanically, you are providing structural support to play characters more persuasive than yourself, though to the same degree deemphasizing personal player ability, and both tables and individuals vary on where their desires lay on that spectrum.
What was originally a persuasion system ended up becoming the general action resolution system for my WIP TTRPG. Similar to what was mentioned in other comments, mine is predicated on presenting an argument against specific goals/opinions/perspectives that the other party has that disincline them to acquiesce towards the actor's appeal, with things like the DC and the amount that they have to be 'persuaded by' representing things like their conviction, resistance to change/emotional investment, etc. It is an entire social encounter design with its own stat block akin to D&D CR, albeit much simpler. Persuasion is ultimately way too variable an activitu for the feeling of it to be captured by anything less than a system with greater variability than the dice result success/fail threshold.
So the funny is both Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits and Torchbearer's abstract conflict rules include rules for compromise. If you reduce your opponents to "0 HP" but you've taken "damage" yourself, you owe them a compromise (either not getting everything you want, or them getting something they want. It goes some way to alleviating the issue you talk about with binary outcomes, since there are technically 9 possible outcomes once draws and all the different levels of compromise are taken into consideration.
Social combat is interesting but social hit points are just silly. The way I see it a social combat should work with “steps.” At the beginning of a social scene the GM should determine how many successful rolls the players would need to get what they want and how many unsuccessful rolls it would take to lose it, with that you can determine what the social latter looks like for the scene. For example, it may take 3 successful skill rolls to convince a judge that your friend didn’t commit a crime and only 2 unsuccessful rolls for him to be convicted. In this case the social latter would have 3 steps up and 2 steps down, if you succeed a roll you move up a step, if you fail you move down, hitting either end of the later ends the encounter. In the example of a court case you would logically expect to roll until you get a verdict, in any other situation you would have a limited number of rolls before the npc loses interest or gets annoyed. This isn’t a perfect system, of course, but I think it’s functional enough to use in home games.
You demand players "perform" detailed dialogue. Is it the same demand for combat action?
Perform no, summarise yes. If I as a GM don't what you're trying to convince an NPC of, or how you're doing it, I can't effectively adjudicate the rules and tell you what to roll against what difficulty. So while I don't require my players to act out dialogue (I let them express their RP however they're most comfortable), I will push them to RP until I get enough detail.
As for combat, the same applies. I do insist on getting enough info to adjudicate the rules (what action is being performed with what weapon against what target), and I can be quite pushy about it, but when it comes to _how_ that information is narrated and roleplayed, I'm very flexible. It's not the how that matters to me, it's the what.
I only call for persussian when you and someone else are trying to convince someone using the same sort of arguments and want him to pick your side.
"Points on form" so to speak
This is one of the topics I find I am often debating myself with. Alien does have a forced social persuasion mechanic under the Command skill. However, it can only work on players you are in charge of which is normally not all of them in the one shots and costs you stress which you really don't want to do. I do find the manipulation skill much more interesting as you have to be very tactical with what you ask for and actually be well manipulative.
I am generally more on the don't roll in most cases. I do get that it sucks for socially skilled players but then you have to think how would you make it fair for less tactically skilled players? If the player is doing something dumb, but their character is supposed to be smart do you give them an intelligence roll and then have them do something else? This just gets absurd at some point and the rolling can really break up conversation flow. I am really starting to like the Japense RPG perspective which is to just to not have persuasion stats and have the players actually have to persuade. Honestly this is better for somewhat socially awkward people like me as you will learn how to actually persuade people in a safe environment which you rarely get a chance to do.
I am not sure how I feel about social combat games. I am trying five rings and it has that but I find the social combat interesting but it really does break up natural conversation and sometimes feel weird as many players are trying to force in certain abilities that make no real sense with the way the conversation is going.
I don't think anyone used Command in the Alien one-shot I ran, but all the PCs ended up hyper-stressed (and then dead) anyway. You do make an interesting point that when you take away persuasion elements of a character sheet, it does force people to think more about what they're saying. I've tried social combat in Torchbearer (which has a super-abstract conflict system that you can apply to basically anything), and while it could be awkward at times (especially as you have to choose your actions well in advance of actually roleplaying them), it did get the job done.
Personally i prefer to think social rolls are for npcs predisposition twoard the players and not about specific discusions. So someone can get friendlier twoard you but that does not mean he will change his mind on the topic.
Also i prefer to think of charsma like stats as modifiers to roleplay than the other way around.
Roleplaying is a skill. When you play basketball you use your basketball skills. When you roleplay you use your roleplay skills. Also the thing is the only way to get those skills is to do them, use roleplay be better at it.
So if you were to run a game of a basketball inside a tabletop RPG, would you make your players use a skill roll, or decide the outcome of the game by taking your players outside and shooting hoops with them? That's what this comes down to
@@allseeingeyetrpg
A nonargument in basketball playing basketball is what we do. In roleplaying games we roleplay.
@@jackmalin2528 Not really. Yes, we roleplay in roleplaying games, but unless you're doing full make-believe, you use dice and game mechanics to determine the outcome of your actions. My point is er you use player skill or character skill. Rolling dice for basketball or persuasion uses character skill, and playing real basketball or using pure roleplay relies on player skill. At the end of the day, it's up to you, but this is the choice you're making.
@@allseeingeyetrpg i use both
in social tests its roleplay + skill as a modifier
in other tests its skill + idea/roleplay as modifier
The roleplay part matters and adds to the game sometimes more than the simple mechanics.
Its a game, you would not say someone cant use their own strategy and tactic in a game of chess
the same is in rpgs. We use the players starategy and tactics ideas in combat and we use roleplay in social situations
What about perception checks?
Perception checks probably need their own video. Basically I only call for them when there's something for the players to find.
@allseeingeyetrpg Or when players insist on looking somewhere.
"Fine. Roll Perception"
"AYY, NAT 20"
"You are _certain_ that there is nothing to find here"
@@IndyLaLune I mean, what else were you expecting from a perception check to look inside your own brain?
Check out “why dnd exploration sucks” by deficient dm. Explains how to prep interactive items in a room, what they find out when the interact and if there is a secret they can roll to find it
@@IndyLaLune Just remember: if a player gets 3 Nat 20's on Perception checks in a row, you should give them a point of Inspiration for coming to a new paradigm shift in thought.