Social Interactions and PCs

Hello Elegan/tg/entlemen

I was wondering about PCs and social interactions, and how you solve them at your table. I'm talking about inside the game here, I don't want to talk about inter-player drama, which is a whole another beast - one of very little interest.
I assume in most of the games you play you have some stat and mechanics regarding social interaction: charisma, fellowship, whatever the name.
My question is: what happens at your table when an action of convincing, haggling, charming, commanding is required? Do you only roll the dice and check the numbers? Do you only roleplay the scene without dice rolls (possibly discarding the stat altogether)? Do you mix the two, and how?

And most importantly, how do you manage these rolls when the PCs are on the receiving end? Do they just comply with the result of the dice and for example follow an NPC they previously didn't like, because the roll say so?

Let's share experiences.

> TL;DR How do your group manage social interaction rolls? How do the PCs fare on the receiving end of a Command/Charm action?

First, what do the rules say.
You are taking a fuckton of different mechanics across different games and grouping them together in way too small package.
So the answers to your questions are always dependent on the game and it's rules. Even on cases where rules don't give proper answer, they probably affect on the style of play on general level and that gets then applied to social situations too.

I'm not sticking my dick in the can of worms most of your post is about to open.

But what I will chime in on is rolls against players. Never take control away from the players, at least not with a major plot point involving mind control spells or some extreme shit.

However, I still will roll, and the results (opposed or otherwise) will be made available to the players to inform their decisions, often awarding a small bonus if they follow through.

Yeah the buyer for your magic item is pretty convincing with his haggling down the price. Will you actually lower it (or potentially have to find a new buyer)?

Yes he seems to be telling the truth, alright. Will you believe him or will there still be a nagging doubt in your mind?

Stuff like that.

Well I mostly GM Monsterhearts which means that the PCs influence each other in much the same way they influence NPCs; strings and conditions.

Strings are earned through certain actions and give players the ability to give bonuses and penalties to the people they have strings on, they can also offer each other xp to do what they want. NPCs can also spend strings on PCs to do the same thing.

Conditions are social weaknesses, personality traits, reputations, that sort of thing. Having a condition makes it easier for people to act against you socially, thus they wind up with more strings on you, and more ability to influence you

Yes, I am aware that there is a lot to say on the subject and a lot of different systems handling it - indeed I thought it was an interesting matter to discuss - but I think that operatively it can be narrowed down to two broad extremes, that is
> just follow the dice and see if the crunch requirements are met
> just let the player speak in total overlap with the character

(and of course the shades between them)

Both have different pros and cons and implications, and I'm interested to see how they are managed.
If you disagree with the two broad classifications premise please feel free to provide some examples, I'll learn something from them for sure.

I prefer the former. You don't get to know things ICly just because you know them OOCly, and neither are you immune to IC persuasion just because you aren't swayed OOC. You are not your character, nor are yiu the ultimate master of your character - that's me, the GM.

And I have a thing for noncon to con mindbreak, hypnosis, and gullible PCs getting roped into drug, drink, and dick.

> the can of worms most of your post is about to open
Heh, I try to be optimistic about the quality of the discussions we can have here.

>I still will roll, and the results (opposed or otherwise) will be made available to the players to inform their decisions, often awarding a small bonus if they follow through

Interesting design. So basically you try to give them a carrot if they comply with the dice roll result, but they are basically free to do as they please, in every case.

I am also aware that is generally a bad thing to rob players of their agency, but I am wondering if they should "get away with it" (I am lacking a better term, sorry) every time they wish.
So far I managed to either trick the players themselves when the NPC wanted to fool them (they were taken into custody by a fake guard patrol) or to give them enough motivation to follow their quests, I wonder if there is any other - "crunchier" - way to do the same.
One sound enough to be accepted as a normal game mechanic, I mean.

>Interesting design. So basically you try to give them a carrot if they comply with the dice roll result, but they are basically free to do as they please, in every case.


Yeah. I've yet to have it go wrong yet. I find that it adds a great opportunity to roleplay a more believable character. Step out of your comfort zone a bit and really ask yourself "what would my character do?" in circumstances where you might not have thought about it much. I mean how often does your character maybe want to do something that you yourself might not want to do?

Of course I also tend to run savage worlds, a system which outright says players are not subject to social rolls. I also tend to play up the action hero nature of wildcard (player characters and important npcs, in my case a very rare "natural" trait). They're the ones that aren't firmly attached to the whims of fate. Hell if you think about it player characters in general are kind of the only people in game worlds with proper free will. Everyone else is at the beck and call of the cosmos known as the gm.

That said, lying to players is easy as hell. Depending on the way you run games and the games you tend to run, it can be difficult for players to get in the mindset necessary to distrust their gm. Think about it. You ask and pretty much require them to trust your descriptions of things. Its a fundamental requirement of the game, and sometimes it can be difficult to divorce you from the characters you present them. I'll sometimes roll bluffing and persuasion in advance and really ham up lower rolls just to give my players a better chance at suspecting something because I know full well that if I'm subtle and competent about it they're not going to handle it.

I've no idea how to crunch it up much more than that.

>And I have a thing for noncon to con mindbreak, hypnosis, and gullible PCs getting roped into drug, drink, and dick.

You completely lost any foot you had to stand on with "that's me, the GM" by throwing this shit in there.

It's just more self interested power-trip fetish shit.

Got sort of a homebrew with seven broad skills, some of which have social applications. Basically characters with different shticks are better able to get on with NPCs of different social classes. Otherwise it still works similarly to a normal skill system.

Players do some RP first. Can be first person ("Malcolm! Look out for that snake!") or third ("I tell Malcolm there's a snake behind him.") depending on player preference.

I set the ability, skill, and difficulty based on the particulars if there are any. Plausible lies get lower DCs but can still fail, for instance. If there are few details the DC might default to something mid to high. If the details are particularly on point or the intent is something dirt simple to accomplish you might get a free pass (buying food at the set price doesn't require a roll, nor does creating a scene by drunkenly demanding to see the groom's manager at a wedding you weren't invited to).

Then players roll with the DC they come out of that with. If something unlikely happens, I might fill in gaps with extraneous details to explain why. Maybe this guard is especially gullible, or you've contradicted some fact they knew. It's not a must, but fun stuff can come out of this.

This isn't really that different from how I handle search checks or locked doors. If the hinges are on your side and you pry them out, the door is open with no roll. If you mention turning a drawer upside-down, the false bottom falls out regardless of what else your check turns up. Beyond wanting my players to think, giving them a little more for describing more will encourage them to live in their character's shoes a little more fully.

Oh, and I usually skip NPC rolls to influence players. This is maybe the one significant difference. PCs can still fail to notice and understand shit based on rolls, but there's no real fair way to set DCs on NPCs directly influencing PCs, since players get to decide what their characters believe, prioritize, etc.

My strategy is that 80% of the time I don't require social rolls, but if they're trying to do something special (IE convince an NPC to do something they know isn't in their interest or trick them etc) that's when I call for the roll. If they've RP'd the interaction well or come up with a compelling lie etc I'll give them bonuses, and if they picked a bad method (IE trying to intimidate someone who's proud / stubborn / twice their size) they might get a penalty.

I run the game, you play in it at my leisure. Don't like it? Run your own game.

Permaplayer shits are a dime a dozen, I guarantee you won't be missed.

The roling beforehand to see how "bad" you act while lying to the players is a good idea i will definetly use for myself. Cheesy acting incoming. Kudos for the idea

> You don't get to know things ICly just because you know them OOCly, and neither are you immune to IC persuasion just because you aren't swayed OOC

That's a principle I can get behind, but how do you manage to keep the party together if they are split by dice roll results?
For example, they are to be taken into custody by an obviously fake guard patrol, half the characters fails the roll and agree to be taken while the other half doesn't. And the whole group of players gets that the patrol is fake, at this point.

On a similar note, has anyone every handled this in a compelling manner in regards to illusions? I mean yeah phil says the giant lion is fake, but you were convinced.

rolling in advance is a quite nice tactic to know how the acting must go as a GM, I'll take notes about that, thank you very much for your advice.

About your carrot system, do the players know how much the bonus is? Is it big enough to really make them think about following the dice or is it something minor?
Also, is it an xp bonus, or a different kind of bonus?

Never make PC's do something out of the player's volition, but like implied (I think), use your other power as a GM, the things you tell.

If a character successfully lies to the party, tell the players that they seem to be telling the truth. If a character haggles, even with a a good reason, the character's presentation of the problem is important, too. A half-orc with low Cha haggling with gibberish might not bring the price lower, because the shopkeeper might not just understand what the character implies, or gets offended by the way the problem is presented.

Twist the things players say (In the NPC:s head) if they roll badly on social rolls.

I approve of this question

>also checked

Generally it will not be explicitly known. However play with me long enough and you'll probably be able to guess with a good degree of accuracy. I tend to be fairly consistent.

The rewards often scale with the actions being asked of the player, and I tend to avoid asking too much too often. Generally the rewards will be kept as natural as possible, after all walking fate's line is generally easier than trying to deviate. I have awarded meta resources in the past, but those tend to come from roleplaying in general with this sort of behavior. Savage worlds has a fairly linear progression and getting an edge ahead of another player isn't a huge deal. Likewise bennies vary in power from simple rerolls to the ability to potentially plot armor away a lethal attack. Generally if I hand out bennies as my meta reward they'll be persistent but not refresh when used unlike the bennies characters receive every session.

That said in the moment mostly what you get for following the carrot is avoiding a little whap with the stick. I tend to avoid serious cases of negative reinforcement, but as I've said, I tend not to ask much. Using my previous examples of keeping a buyer and trusting someone.

I've only run high fantasy high magic twice. The first was an unmitigated disaster of a learning experience, which has shaped me into the gm I am today. The second still had a huge pricetag associated with powerful magical artifacts. In my usual style of game magic items or their equivalent tend to be a big deal, and without a set pricetag. Certainly not easy to sell. It takes time to find someone able to afford them half the time, and that's usually because they have something you want more so than money. I also tend to include a ton of time pressure in my games, with lengthy breathers being long awaited respite. So losing a sale and having to find a new buyer could be a pretty painful hit to take.

(cont.)

Bit of both. Usually a blurb and a roll. Though depending on who we're talking to we can also end up in conversations where no rolls happen.

For the trust issue bit, think of it this way. If someone made a really heartfelt and honest remark (or super convincing lie) to a player, and they're still not buying it. There's pretty much only 2 reasons that npc is going to take away from the exchange. Either the player has it out for them, or they're a distrustful person in general.

That's a great way to push away npcs. Imagine how hurt you'd be if your friend just suddenly refused to believe you. Imagine how off put you'd be if someone you were talking to just treated you with extreme skepticism for in your mind no particular reason. Imagine how you'd deal with a character that can't be fooled by your guile and schemes.


That said I've had a little nap and thought of a little novel way of adding some crunch as previously requested. The specifics would still be a bit subjective, but how about a sort of pseudo alignment system. One side of the coin represents a more rigid adherence to the dice, and "to what their character would do" in general. The other extreme being a heavy disconnect between player and character, they don't acknowledge dice rolls, and they're clearly adherent to the players whims above all else.

I'm not sure what you'd want to do with one side or the other. But I feel like it shouldn't be too hard to come up with advantages and disadvantages to both, and even the more middling state.

For me, with 5e, we RP then roll. If you were convincing, you'd get advantage, if you weren't, you wouldn't, and if you were wholly unconvincing, or just don't RP at all, you get disadvantage.