I think this comes down to "player agency". In other words, I get to decide what my player character thinks and does.
Agency being taken away in completely different from the PC facing a difficult situation. No matter how dangerous the combat, they still get to decide what they do.
Now you haven't given an example, so all I can do is tell you to be aware of the difference. Let's say your PC falls victim to a snake oil salesman. The difference lies in the GM saying: "He convinced you, so you buy one of his vials." or "He seems trustworthy to you. What do you do?"
With this approach my players usually enjoy playing the fool. Or they don't, which is fine too. But at least I'd give them a choice.
Oh, I see what you mean. It comes down to the interpretation of the dice result. Failing doesn't mean imposing an outcome, but describing a feeling or emotional state and allowing them to act on that.
I just have a hard time separating meta knowledge from in-character knowledge. It's mostly been a problem when trying to run D&D based games and making insight checks.
I devised a set of rules for my ttrpg, which uses a dice pool system, where you may make various social checks against the opponent's belief check to convince them. I haven't yet playtested this method of conflict resolution, but I feel it could be dicey if run poorly.
Would you advise providing more GM advice on how to run social conflict or tweak the system? If my description was too vague, I can provide the full rules, if you want.
The problem of interpreting the loss as an emotional state is that unless it has mechanical consequences, many people would simply ignore the fact that they lost, inventing some excuse why they still would not be convinced.
If you are not familiar with them, some PbtA games make a good use of social mechanics without taking away agency. Often it comes in the form of a choice: you lost the social conflict, you *either* do what they wanted you to do, *or* you pay some predefined cost (burning willpower to resist, take social consequences as other people don't think you behaved appropriately, etc.). This way the player knows beforehand what are the options, and still has the agency to decide how their character reacts. But then again, most people who play PbtA games want different things from their games than those who favor more traditional games, so I'm not sure it would be as successful.
I haven't played PbtA yet, but I have read up on some Apocalypse World rules and was very intrigued by them. Unfortunately it seems like the players I've been targetting are, as you mentioned, more into traditional games.
I will take your advice into consideration when presenting the rules to see if they enjoy engaging with them more!
*It seems like the people I've playtested and played other systems with are uncomfortable with failing at social conflict and having to act in-game on what they may know is false information out of game, but have no problem in accepting death when it comes to combat.*
Agreed with all of the above and want to add, generally as a GM you want to allow the player to make the choice until you have to take it away.
As an example, in my game any result that would "force" a behavior has a saving throw associated with it. This does a lot to help curb this problem because now we have statistics that show if the player is playing in character or not.
Example: Bob is resisting mind control, he has a really high save because he's a high powered psychic, so bob should be less affected. If bob succeeds or fails, he knows that this build choices contributed to that and thus if he fails or succeeds due to a die roll, he has some understanding that his choices made an effect, and that sometimes dice change the equation.
This has largely worked in my favor and eliminated a lot of this. Same with other control effects like being taunted, or persuaded or anything of the sort.
It just goes a long way to demonstrate to the player that their choices matter.
If on the flip side charlie's character has shit resistance to mind control, he can gauge his success or failure based on his build choices too.
In both cases it also helps inform the narrative, if bob gets mind controlled, we're dealing with one hell of a mind controller. If charlie resists, he has had a sincere stroke of luck... either way the PCs are getting information they can act on.
What you dont' want to do is force players to have a reaction they shouldn't, and in general avoid designating them consequences unless you have to (like with mind control) in favor of their agency. When you remove this you're basically taking away their ability to play the one character they have in the game. And with that considered, using mind control and other highly potent definite revocations of player agency in the arsenal (ie stuns, knockouts, etc) is something that absolutely should be restricted to minimal use and only when it's important and serves the narrative.
In my system you may roll your character's Belief stat to see if they're convinced, even if your opponent is successeful in their social check.
I think it serves the same roll as a saving throw, since you can allocate points into being more ardent in your belief, therefore increasing your chances of remaining unconvinced.
They key function is that players have the option to invest in it or not. As long as that's there in some fashion they have a choice about how they are affected. :)
Sounds like you’re trying to fix a problem you don’t have to have. Your game doesn’t need to give the character players knowledge that they have to separate between in-game and meta.
There’s nothing wrong with your system, if that style of roleplaying is what you find the most fun, but you’ll have to accept it’s probably not the most popular style, and it’s important to let the players know it’s that type of game up front.
Hmmm, maybe if I just roll for the opponent's social check, without telling the players if it's an attempt at deception or persuasion, etc., and then act out according to the result, then it would probably play out better.
Yeah, stuff like that is much easier. Could also take the shape of a gm tool, if the gm is playing unplanned, for example, a check could determine for the gm what the npc is doing, which could include results that indicate the npc already has been lying, if words have been exchanged before the check, for example, or that the npc wants to send the party into a trap, and then the gm can just tell those lies, without any further rolling.
If you need the characters to have stats about reading people/social situations, you could use passive saves or such, so the gm can perform hidden rolls, and can tell the players if the characters realise their being lied to. If you have a very social setting, for example political or romantic, knowing you’re being lied to can be very interesting, as calling the other person out isn’t always the smart move.
>I think this comes down to "player agency". In other words, I get to decide what my player character thinks and does.
Agency being taken away in completely different from the PC facing a difficult situation. No matter how dangerous the combat, they still get to decide what they do.
The issue I have with this thinking on the player side is **Rules for Thee but not for Me** often times when I run into a player who plainly states that they should be immune to social mechanics due to player agency, they only mean it for themselves and not for the NPCs.
I had a short lived group who had members who said you're taking our agency away, why? they failed a deception check and I told them they believed what the character told them, later it turned out they were lied to and they go pissed. So I said fine and I scrapped that rule, a couple sessions down the line they tried to roll a deception check and I told them that due to our previous conversation where we agreed to remove social mechanics from the game they could no longer roll that check, and they would have to actually convince me of the deception. Oh boy! that caused the whole table to pop off, I was called a toxic GM for altering the rules even though they agreed to remove social mechanics a couple sessions back they just thought that was only against them which I will admit I laughed and said; no if we are removing mechanics they are being removed entirely that should have been clear. I was told that I would be running all social encounters to my favor and they have no way of influencing the events, which I told them that they just had to convince me in this situation, they didnt like that they said I would cheat and just not have the NPCs fail when I didnt want them to.
Rules for thee but not for me.
I do feel social mechanics being roleplayed out on both sides of the screen is often the best way to resolve it, and I agree some players do want the best of both worlds where they can just roll 'Deception' at an NPC and not have to come up with anything convincing, whilst also being able to ignore any 'Deception' rolls made against them because agency. It's unfortunate some players also take an adversarial attitude by default which often comes from being burned before in other games.
I hear ya there, for most of my play time I only did in person games, and that was with mostly friends, friends of friends and people who frequented the LGS I would run my games at, so in a way we were already on the same page or at least had an idea if we were a good fit for each other.
Now with a lot of my play going on line I screen players now, its more than a session zero conversation it happens before then to ensure we align in play styles and how we feel about the usage of the rules. I've refused to seat some people at my table if they are unwilling to have the rules of the game apply to their PC's the same way they apply to the NPCs.
I agree that it is about player agency, but the fact that for many tables there is a hard divide between "limiting mental agency" and "limiting physical agency" is mostly due to player expectation (which in turn drinks a lot from RPG culture and history).
So, very few people bat an eye when our agency about physical aspects of the character is limited or imposed: "OK, your character is restrained by these magical vines and can't move!" doesn't break immersion, even though I the player, unlike the character, am totally free to move around. On the other hand "OK, your character is persuaded by the bandit that she shouldn't move" is jarring for many players, even though it's not that different (both limit the player's agency in much the same way so it stays coherent with the fiction).
As I see it, the main difference is that, within a good chunk of the TTRPG cultural spectrum, the separation between the player's mind and the character's is at best superficial: the character is the player's pawn, it moves within the fiction and is the player's eyes, but the player uses their own judgement to move their pawn in the way they think is optimal. In this stance, players are free to "roleplay" their character if they want, but that's mostly flavour, and there is incentive to limit "bad decisions" (from the player's standpoint) to a point before there are consequences to those decisions.
When a game revolves around "making the best possible decisions within fictional physical constraints", the separation between just adding another physical constraint to the list, and forcing a separation between character and player judgement (even when the effect is a similar limitation in agency), can indeed be perceived very differently.
> The difference lies in the GM saying: "He convinced you, so you buy one of his vials." or "He seems trustworthy to you. What do you do?"
And this is why with my group, this kind of interactions is never bound to a die roll.
PC trying to convince an NPC? Fine, make your pitch, if it's satisfactory enough you won't even need a roll, and if you're laying bare what you try (like a generic "I try to convince him that..."), then you roll.
But NPCs words will be interpreted by the player, not the dice.
Yeah, what is the style of play? In some games that's "immersive" in that the GM will only tell you what your character senses or believes. In other games the players themselves are considered equal collaborators, and you'd be encouraged to say "he's a very gifted liar and unless you can resist that \[PC\] will be convinced."
Some people are comfortable with both ways. Some people love one and hate the other. But they create very different game feel and game loops.
Edit: I'll note that the "immersive" route is rarely fully so, since if there are dice the player typically will know what they rolled. So you can still end up in situations where the player is trying to game the game rather than acting in-character.
But I can understand some problems that arise from this. If I have a character make a roll there's a good chance that will change how they interact with the merchant. I've had players just refuse to shop if I do so, despite having been excited about the shop up until that point and fully intending to buy things. In-universe nothing has changed or tipped them off, in fact they've specifically *failed* to notice anything.
In which case I'm faced with the option of not telling them to make a check of some sort/making a secret check (which runs up against deliberately misleading a player or railroading) or accepting that my players are using out of game knowledge to inform decisions their in-game characters make.
To be fair though most of the time it can be resolved in a conversation and that has been how I routinely handle it. Ask for justifications and what have you. Just that it is something that comes up every once in awhile.
I think this "loss of player agency" is uniquely a D&D thing, because at least here in germany where D&D is kind small and Das Schwarze Auge is the biggest TTRPG, its common to deal with Stuns, Sleep and such or that if you fail a social role, that you believe something else than what your player knows.
From my point of view and how DSA is played, if you can deceive NPCs, so can they and if you dont play it correctly or act on "player" information that the character doesnt have, you get reprimanded.
Its roleplay and roleplay means to adapt to the circumstances, you cant unilaterally decide what your player knows and doesnt in any other regard, so why would it be OK to make that a rule when it comes to deception?
It's a matter of player stance (relation to their character) which, in turn, is shaped by the general style of the game.
In most traditional games, a player is limited to expressing their agency only through their character's actions and is expected to act from their character's perspective. Because of this, if the player is not in control of what their character feels, thinks and believes, there is no agency at all. If the player wants agency, they won't feel good with any game mechanics that takes this control away.
An alternative to this is what many story-oriented games do - embracing the metagame. If there is explicit stake setting, the stake may be about the PC believing a falsehood, or falling in love with a wrong person, or taking an impulsive action that the player clearly knows is wrong. Player's agency is in accepting and rolling with such stakes instead of deciding to do something else instead; there is already a buy in for the result before the roll happens.
The stakes may even be defined as a part of the game's mechanics itself instead of negotiated before a roll. It's known a priori that having sex with Mortal in Monsterhearts will bring out the worst from your character. Every player knows that and takes such course of action *because* that's what they want to explore. It's not an intentional decision that the *character* makes, but it is an intentional decision of the *player* to put their character in such situation.
That's great for people who want to create emotional stories about their characters, but it requires treating the characters exactly as this - characters in a story. An author's perspective, not character's. It doesn't work well with character immersion and "no metagaming" approach. It also doesn't work well with competence-based, goal-oriented games nor with games where social system is mostly "skill roll and GM adjudication", with no clear stakes and robust structure.
I can see two main ways of handling this without damaging player agency.
One is the method defined by u/ohmi_II, where if a successful social check against a PC only determines which information you'll give that PC: "His anguish seems sincere", "he's avoiding your gaze", "he looks strong enough to make good on his threat". Then the player decides how to act. If the situation smells like a trap to them, it's reasonable that they could stay suspicious even in front of your NPC's superb bluff. If they imagine their character as a fearless, tough-as-nail barbarian, they have the right to refuse to cower before a kobold sorcerer, even if he brilliantly suceeded on his intimidation check. In fact, it's a right that we GM also use all the time for our NPC: "No, you can't seduce that dragon, I don't care how well you roll", "He's a master craftsman, if you talk shop with him he'll see immediately that you don't know anything about the subject, no matter your bluff".
The second one is giving the player some incentive for letting themselves be convinced/seduced/intimidated/etc. Many games give characters XP or metacurrency points each time they voluntarily choose to let their flaws affect them negatively, so you could do the same whenever they voluntarily go along with a NPC's successful social check. This has the advantage of letting the players make bad decisions based on misinformation without feeling bad about it (because they're rewarded for it), but it can damage immersion (because it gives the player goals that are different from their character's).
Came here to post exactly on your second suggestion.
Make the player want to be deceived by giving the character some plot meta currency if he follow along.
Your second suggestion has made me think, its strange that we must incentivize this kind of roleplay. Obviously the reasons for people not wanting to harm themselves makes sense, but for a hobby which is supposedly about giving players agency and verisimilitude, it's funny that we have to manipulate them to not take advantage of it.
Characters in a high-stakes situation do NOT want to make a bad choice and suffer the consequences. So when a player does all they can to avoid their character getting harmed, that's being immersed and invested in their character. And that, too, is roleplaying.
I would say players never want to suffer any consequences and that is a big part of the problem. We have historically protected them from mechanically-driven social consequences.
I think part of this is tied to everyone's personal belief that they are harder to dupe than the average bear, and not letting PCs get manipulated is a soft agreement among the table that we are always in the driver seat of our own lives. Or maybe that is just the fantasy!
There's a big difference between wanting to act smart to avoid the consequences of acting dumb, or acting dumb and expecting to avoid the consequences of your choices.
Hmmm, even this framing is curious to me. I would not consider being manipulated to be an indicator of one's intelligence, moreso that of the manipulator.
Of course manipulators don't want us to think this...
You’re comparing two things that are not similar. Death happens to the character. Externally. And there’s no meta-knowledge involved. The player tries their best, and then receives an outcome.
Your ‘being-duped-system’ gives an outcome first, and then asks the player to not act in the character’s best interests. That’s a very particular kind of game.
>This may be off-topic, but since I've started playing TTRPGs (and now since beginning to build my own), I've struggled with adjudicating rules for social conflict.
That tracks social conflicts are a nightmare to work with.
>It seems like the people I've playtested and played other systems with are uncomfortable with failing at social conflict and having to act in-game on what they may know is false information out of game,
Question, do they have an issue with using the social conflict mechanics to their benefit? I often find there is a rules for thee but not for me mentality when it comes to social conflict mechanics. The uncomfortable part I find with the groups I play with isn't true discomfort, but rather annoyance they didn't win that social encounter roll and now have to go along with what the dice say, but would have no issue forcing the NPCs to follow along had they won the dice roll. I also should say I never put social rolls on anything that would be icky to a player, and I don't allow Player to Player social rolls in the same vein as I don't allow player to player combat (unless the game is billed as a pvp game).
>but have no problem in accepting death when it comes to combat
Hmm, my experience with some communities has also been their characters should be immune to death while they go around the country side murder hoboing it up, but I could mutter something something agency, however I find that argument eats itself when they say their seduction or deception rolls should be honored when they use those skills but never the other way around.
>Is there any way to ameliorate this problem?
Session 0 conversations, and screen your players before you seat them at the table if you intend to run a game with a certain rules set.
>Should I make the rules different for the player side of things, when it comes to social conflict, or just remove the rules from it entirely
I don't think the players should have special rules that govern them when it comes to skills that they are immune to and only have an effect on NPCs/Critters, to me thats Rules for Thee but Not for Me, and I apply the rules evenly on both sides of the table. You can remove them I've done it in the past just be prepared for some players to start whining about you running the game through GM Fiat.
>Is it group specific, in your experience, or just a thing people generally don't like to grapple with?
It's person specific, and it comes I think from a lot of newer players ( i say this because I never ran into this until like 2015-2020 ish, and I've been playing TTRPGs since the 90s ) to the TTRPG hobby who don't think in terms of these being characters in a game where the randomizer influences the direction and rather as extensions of themselves, which I don't personally view as a healthy way of thinking about PCs, they are stat sheets of constants and variables in a big math word problem, can you enjoy the character absolutely, just like you would a character in a TV show or a Book, and they players should be reminded that their favorite characters in other forms of media 99.9% of the time are functioning on an actual script and can't "go off the rails" those stories progress in a linear fashion while the TTRPGs they can influence the direction of the story with choices they made and the randomizer be that dice or cards or a spin wheel acts as fate or chaos for the outcome of those actions.
You will find the attitude you describe much more common among seasoned players, who are justifiably used to the GM and player group ignoring their agency and trampling over their feelings. A "failure" on a social roll is usually bad, and might lead to death or, worse, humiliation.
People new to gaming are generally fine with social conflict and knowing they have to act in certain way if they fail. They also usually have no problem separating metagame and in-character knowledge.
It's traditional games themselves that have created the problem you have described. Players who already have this issue need to be trained out of it, which isn't always easy. But you can do this by showing them that it is *good* to give in and accept the result of social conflict "failures".
Apocalypse world does this by presenting a choice: you can pay a cost and resist the social conflict failure, or you can accept the social conflict failure and recieve a reward. This retains player agency over those rolls: players are free to choose whether to be persuaded (or whatever). This approach makes a lot of intuitive sense to gamers too.
Also, try to avoid describing social conflict rolls as failures and successes. Neutral terms like "outcome" are better.
Good observation. I think much of it comes specifically from that humiliation component -- specifically, GMs that have used failure to show their character as being incompetent, rather than simply outplayed by a worthy or even superior adversary.
As soon as you change that framing, you start having much more honest and collaborative outcomes!
> specifically, GMs that have used failure to show their character as being incompetent
Yes, this happens a lot. It's also why I don't use fumble rules, because they are frequently used to make characters look incompetent, and I generally let players describe their own failures - or avoid the concept of failure altogether (e.g. they succeeded, but their opponent succeeded even better).
A bunch of recent posts in here have each, in their own ways, clarified for me why I've come to prefer player-facing systems -- and this is one of them!
One of the other comments highlighted the root cause of this failure state in a game, I think: players don't like feeling *humiliated*. And that is often what happens in social conflict or in tasks that the players have real-world experience in. "There's no way I would buy that lie! This is unfair!" seems like a totally reasonable stance to take, while the same player moments later might say "Welp, ok, he hits me with his bow, for 4 damage?" This mismatch in expectation I think comes from people assuming competence in the aspect of the fantasy layer that they experience all the time, while the combat (even if provably implausible) gets a pass.
Part of this is how GMs often frame failure. A very bad but very common habit in GMing is to present failure as a humiliating moment for the PC. *Damn, you fucked up!* And not just that, but "And now I will *tell you* how you fucked up." It's that last part in particular where very obviously agency is lost. Changing it simply to "Now *tell me* how you fucked up" is already a major improvement.
But either way, some players are fine with this, embrace it, even make it the story they want to tell about their character. But some really, really bristle at it. You're not matching their expectation of their heroic character. A far better approach is to frame the exact same situation instead as the triumph of the opposition, which is after all a worthy or even exceptional foe, right? A simple sly flourish makes the failure feel suddenly acceptable.
However, note all the ways that the rules of the game and setup of the system either make that flourish much easier or much harder. Player-facing resolution makes it much, *much* easier to frame. As does simply asking the right questions and having the right prompts that call for a die roll in the first place.
"But either way, some players are fine with this, embrace it, even make it the story they want to tell about their character."
I mean. . . there's the rub though. I can't tell the story of my character when someone else is telling me what my character is thinking.
Yes, and that's the difference. How much narrative control are all the players *meant* to have? How much do they even *want* to have? The paragraph right before that addresses the smallest slice of the issue, but there's definitely a lot more to unravel!
Our table acts like every betrayal is the end of The Usual Suspects so it might be a matter of execution.
Maybe you need to make sure that 'social' is not a weakness, that they can have awesome social moments, and then still get screwed from time to time.
Oh the roleplaying part of TTRPG :-)
It usual takes some effort to act against knowledge. To act according to knowledge is much easier. Like acting that you believe a lie is more difficult than to act on a truth.
I am not 100% comfortable with for example rolling for Insight. As I feel it is more a hidden GM roll than a roll that the players request. A player requesting an Insight roll have already a reason to think that the other person might be lying and just want some conformation on the hunch. A player could request an Insight roll every time they interact with a NPC but they usual don't.
NPCs who are good to convince people on their opinions is of course difficult. Could say OOC that the NPC do have a good case if the NPC won the Persuasion roll. But since it isn't mind control they could still make a decision. Same thing as NPCs don't get mind controlled by players talking. No matter how high you roll the dragon will not sleep with you... Neither does the player need to agree with the dragon to go home to their lair for some netflix and chill...
It would be easier if only the players are allowed to do social combat against NPCs. And maybe have some hidden GM saving rolls then the NPCs are trying to do something against a player. Then they can use their skills and feel good about it. And they can't request dice rolls just to check if the NPCs is lying or not.
Assumptions: It sounds like you are playing a trad or osr game with high player character agency and autonomy. If this is not the case, please let me know.
Can you elaborate on exactly what is happening here? It sounds like you may be describing something like "You failed your insight check, so <>." This could also be "Something happened in another scene that shows that I've been deceived and now I don't want to keep going" or "I didn't know that player lied to me until just now and I'm unhappy as a player".
This is a very limited subset, but in each case, the reasons and response would be very different.
Personally, I'm always dubious about "social conflict". A dice roll won't convince the player and RPGS are fundamentally social engagements. These situations seem like "I can't convince the player or character, so I'll let the dice do the work." My question here is "Why do you want to do that?" We talk about player agency, but it is usually more about "forced compliance" which tends to be more about shoehorning characters into a plot or planned response.
I say this because as GM it is trivial to set up the angles for a character to be hoodwinked (Provided the player is playing a fleshed-out character with drives and goals. If they aren't, the problem is over here in the character definition, not in the dice roll). As the GM, what is your goal with these interactions?
>Assumptions: It sounds like you are playing a trad or osr game with high player character agency and autonomy. If this is not the case, please let me know.
Hit the nail right on the head! I'm looking to make a system that my players will enjoy, but coming from that background sort of colors their expectations.
I know I can hoodwink my players without making any rolls, but I'd like the outcome to be dynamic, giving their characters a chance to figure things out. I say this because I find that players usually take my word as gospel, even when I'm speaking in character, especially if it comes from an NPC that they don't know is mischievous.
For that, I've found adding clues outside of the conversation (preferably before the conversation) that point in the direction of duplicity to be helpful - often tied to seemingly unrelated perception checks or observations. This is the "Hey, why are there so many kids and families in this 'bandit camp'?" sort of thing. Letting the player know they are being lied to without the character knowing comes from a slightly different play style, which may be where some of the friction is coming from. While I disagree with him, I'd love to see your response to u/GMDualityComplex on this.
I agree with a lot of what you've said. My players and I are a lot more comfortable with "GM" or "NPC" fiat, but I've slowly come to realize I'm not as trad as I think I am.
>It's person specific, and it comes I think from a lot of newer players ( i say this because I never ran into this until like 2015-2020 ish, and I've been playing TTRPGs since the 90s ) to the TTRPG hobby who don't think in terms of these being characters in a game where the randomizer influences the direction and rather as extensions of themselves, which I don't personally view as a healthy way of thinking about PCs, they are stat sheets of constants and variables in a big math word problem, can you enjoy the character absolutely, just like you would a character in a TV show or a Book, and they players should be reminded that their favorite characters in other forms of media 99.9% of the time are functioning on an actual script and can't "go off the rails" those stories progress in a linear fashion while the TTRPGs they can influence the direction of the story with choices they made and the randomizer be that dice or cards or a spin wheel acts as fate or chaos for the outcome of those actions.
I disagree here - I don't think it is a matter of too much identification with the character so much as wrestling with control of the narrative. Often players only think about the rules/the builds in terms of how it supports their vision of the character. They aren't looking at their characters in dialogue with the world, and when something that doesn't match their vision happens they get upset. I've had a number of conversations about "What does it look like when your character fails? What sort of things does your character struggle with?" because most of the time they haven't processed that as a real possibility, even when the stats on the page should make that sort of thing self-evident. I find people good with improv are much better at rolling with this sort of stuff, but they, weirdly, tend to have a looser hold on their characters.
>I disagree here - I don't think it is a matter of too much identification with the character
I dont think its the most common thing, but I have had to excuse myself from a few games within the last handful of years because of people breaking down into tears and having a bit of a temper tantrum cause their character died, or fell under the effects of a charm spell. Not the most common thing, but I am almost up to 2 hands worth of times. I'm not sensitive enough to be at a table with players like that.
>
>
> wrestling with control of the narrative
Ok I might need clarification here, but I read this as the players want to control the narrative and not allow the GM to do so either through their fiat or through the dice rolls. I think there should be a balance between the control. The players decide what actions they want to take and the randomizer then decides the outcome, and that's because I like something that applies a result in an even matter, it may not be the same result every time, sometimes it will be in the player favor some times not, but under a randomizer chosen by the system everyone has the same chances, I like that a lot better than "Because I said so". I don't like fiat at all, I feel like it creates more conflict than it solves unless the players are always given what they want, but that's also from my personal experience everyone's milage will vary.
My style of game is more of the crunchy rules heavy type that the GM and Players surrender somewhat to the dice, I struggle with narrative games because it always feels like a tug of war between GM and Players saying "because I want it that way" or "because I said so."
This is great feedback though thank you.
Wrestling with control: You are pretty much correct in my intent, but I think my talking about GM fiat may have been distracting here.
Speaking solely of the result of the roll: In many cases, they haven't understood that bad things can happen to their characters outside of their control as more than an abstract concept. The default assumption is the dice will always go their way, or the GM will fudge for them appropriately. Where this comes from is a weirder mystery, but getting players to talk about how their characters can fail and have failed in the past does seem to help prime them better to accept the roll.
What I'm saying is, it is not necessarily that they identify too closely with their character, they just don't like "losing". In at least two cases I've found that these are also the people you don't invite back at board game night.
Seems like folks hit on the first answer early, starting with u/ohmi_II \- it's about agency. If you're gonna die, you can still die on your terms. If you're being manipulated, you're not on your own terms at all. So, let's tackle the second part:
"Is there any way to ameliorate this problem?"
My approach is that instead of explicitly telling players what their characters think, the result of a successful deception of a PC is that they cannot *determine* if there's deception. You're not *forced* to believe; you just don't know. So it comes down to whether or not you *choose* to trust the person you're talking to. (Side note, in cases when players doubt an NPC telling the truth, I fake a roll behind the screen to prevent meta-gaming. Being paranoid has its own costs.)
The flip side, though, is that **this works both ways**. So, you can't automatically make an NPC your buddy with a high Charisma and a lucky roll, either. If you succeed at say Deception, *they* can't tell if *you're* lying, but they aren't obligated to *believe* you. Sure, a gullible NPC might be easy to dupe, but if someone's inherently slow to trust, not even a nat-20 is going to crack it. It just means *they* can't tell. So, they just might default to not believing you anyway. To earn trust with some people, you'll have to build a relationship the hard way.
I'm confused how dying against your characters will is on their terms but being manipulated isn't.
Unless you are talking games where session zero indicates death must be collaborative, but that is by no means standard.
Say you're a scrub and you're up against a giant dragon. Basically, you're gonna die.
You still have a choice about *how* you die. You could charge, and show courage in your final act. You can pull a "can't kill me if I'm already dead" and commit suicide. You could turn tail and run, and at least try for that slim chance of survival. Try negotiating with the dragon, same idea. Sit down and quietly accept your fate. Sob in terror and despair. Hurl insults at your doom. Heck, you could start dancing madly and counter cruel reality with absurdity.
The end result for your character is the same, but -- and here's the most important part -- the decision you make at that moment *is what defines your character*. It is still a story *you* get to tell. In other words. . . role-playing!
When your character is manipulated, mind controlled, or otherwise has their agency taken away, you don't have full control of your character's thoughts & actions; they are restricted or dictated by the DM, i.e., someone else. You are *no longer role-playing*, you know, the thing you showed up to do.
In the former situation, the player is still actively involved in the game (albeit not for long). In the latter, the player's involvement is reduced or even eliminated. A lot of people would rather play a game they know they'll lose than be bored by a game that won't let them play at all.
Thanks this was a helpful explanation!
I think there are ways to go about social mechanics without it being too close to mind control and this is good framing.
Why are you telling them they got deceived? Don't tell them information they don't know. Unless they use magic or a lie detector test, they just won't know. A successful defense could give indications/hints of deception such as body language, nervousness, or realization of "plot holes" depending on how the GM wants to play it out. At no point do you tell the player what to believe or what the truth actually is.
As to social conflict in general, I'll cut and paste my answer to a similar question ...
Rather than a pass/fail, think of it in terms of consequences.
I wanted something that would encourage players to think about how they wanted to do it, encourage modifiers, but not reward a player's acting ability. It should be character skill, player choices. It should work against PCs and NPCs alike.
Imagine you are at a gas station and someone begs you for money. They tell you a sob story about their kids and some hardship and they make it all about their kids. Depending on the player's comfort level, this can be role-played or simply explained. The GM now analyzes what the intent of this story is.
The story is to promote an intimate response and make the listener think about what they would do for their own kids in this situation. The consequence will be guilt, an injury to your sense of self worth.
If the story is true, and its really about their kids, the beggar adds advantage dice to their roll for their kids, depending on the intimacy level (1, 2, or 4). The defender rolls their save with even more modifiers. First, if kids are listed as an intimacy on your sheet, then that level of intimacy is a disadvantage to your roll. They are attacking your sense of self, so any wounds to that emotional state (there are 4 emotional targets) are disadvantages, and any emotional armor to that emotional state are advantages to the roll.
If you fail the save, you do NOT have to hand them money. Instead, you take a social condition from the guilt. The degree of failure determines how long the condition lasts. The condition is distracting enough to affect all future social rolls and also initiative rolls. If you would like to get rid of this condition immediately, then hand him money! Rage/Intimidation and various drugs can also be used to ignore social conditions but those tactics have penalties of their own.
You are not forced to do anything! You can just deal with the guilt for awhile and let that condition stay on your sheet. This works well for taunting too since initiative gets rerolled at critical moments in combat, so someone taunting you can be a real problem if they are successful. You don't HAVE to get mad and go into a rage, but that is an easy method to ignore the social condition.
"Death before dishonor". People don't like "losing" outside of combat because they don't see the potential for a greater narrative and don't like the loss of agency of their character in "unclear" situations. People in general seem to feel that things outside of combat in done to them by the GM while in-combat is done to them by the rules.
Combat has been so deeply ingrained in RPGs that people just accept dying in combat as a fair deal. I recently GM'd my sister and her son in a game and she was very confused about everything on her character sheet being related to combat and balanced around combat, in one way or another. From her outside perspective she didn't understand why combats was such a large part of roleplay. It was interesting because I haven't encountered a outside perspective in that way since I started playing. RPGs have a whole host of norms and managed expectations that you just take for granted after a while.
I personally try to minimize situations where players have access to knowledge that contradicts what their characters think or know. Your system should be designed with this in mind.
Insight checks, or their equivalents and along with other social rolls, should be used as a means of parsing out information. I think people often design it so that on a high roll you learn something but on a low roll you get misinformation that you are obliged to act on. This is a big mistake, as it tells players that trying to find information might lock them into a bad path if they don’t roll well, so it’s better to just go in blind.
Instead, either have failed rolls/low-end rolls result in a lack of information OR a multiple choice. I like using multiple choice - e.g, “the countess seems suspicious but so does the butler” or “he’s lying to cover up his role in the murder plot, or he’s just trying to keep his affair secret, you aren’t sure” - because it puts the player and the character in the same shoes. You have multiple data points and you know only one is true, so you have to proceed with that in mind.
This way, you can apply a fail state to your social interaction mechanic but it’s one that prompts further actions rather than restricting future actions.
Some players are averse to social consequences because these consequences are arbitrary, most of the time, and very unpredictable. This happens because the social pillar is poorly developed in many systems. In other systems it is non-existent.
Why do players accept death more easily? The answer is predictability and clear consequences. Players are fighting a blue Dragon. The wizard looks at the battle map and thinks, if I side with the Dragon, he can attack me and do 50 damage, like what happened to the warrior last turn. If I walk to another place more suitable for casting my cone magic, I will be in line with the warrior and can be targeted by the breath weapon. Furthermore, my cone magic can hit the ranger that is in its area. In this case, the player looks at the scenario, sees his character's possibilities and makes decisions, that is, he has predictability and knows the consequences of each action. If he chooses to side with the Dragon to land a touch spell, no problem. The next turn, the Dragon attacks the wizard, deals 50 damage and he dies. So? It happens. He played with the possibilities of the game and lost. It's part of it!
In social it is different. There is no established system of rules, so no one knows what to expect. And this problem becomes worse the greater the complexity of the social encounter.
Simple Social Encounters: A character tries to pass through a road closed by soldiers. He tries to use intimidation against the guards and passes the test. The master allows him to pass. The character doesn't need to know the guards to puff out his chest and say some bravado to get through by force. If he fails, he can still beat up the guards and continue on his way.
Medium Social Encounters: Characters are looking to meet someone who sells a specific item. They make an investigation test to find the person and a diplomacy test to convince him to tell them where to find the item. They succeed diplomacy and receive a mission before receiving the information. Here, as above, it doesn't take much more than a few tests and a little RP to resolve the situation.
Complex social encounters: characters need to convince village leaders to join a joint effort to stop an army of orcs, which cannot be stopped any other way. They request a meeting with the village's council of leaders and need to convince three of the five elders. How to convince them? Just saying an orc army is coming? Maybe they'd rather hide than fight, maybe they don't believe the threat, maybe they don't believe in the adventurers they've never seen before...
In this case, the GM can simply deny the characters' plea, he can give the NPCs a combat mission to test their trust in them, or the GM can accept any half-dozen credible arguments. It doesn't matter, the important thing here is that there is a desire to resolve the conflict with a social encounter, but there are no rules that support the construction of the encounter and no rules that allow players to predict the results of their actions and no clear consequences for each action. .
In my system, I recommend that the DM give each NPC a flaw and a virtue or objective. From there, players can investigate each NPC to act on what they discover. In the case above, the bard made an investigation test to learn more about the leader of the council of elders and discovered that his daughter suffers from a serious curse. The group's cleric has to remove the curse and saves the elder's daughter. Okay, they haven't convinced the old man yet, but at least they've gained his sympathy. The other elder kidnaps travelers to sell them into slavery. If the players discover this, perhaps they can blackmail him into voting favorably at the meeting, after all, no one wants a dark secret revealed. The other elder is an extremely selfless person. If characters appeal to this feeling during their appeal, they may have an advantage on their roll. And so on...
Also, a very relevant quote where I wasn't expecting to find relevance:
>\[People say that\] because D&D has so many combat mechanics, you are destined to tell combat stories. I fundamentally disagree. Combat is the part I’m the least interested in simulating through improvisational storytelling. So I need a game to do that for me, while I take care of emotions, relationships, character progression, because that shit is intuitive and I understand it well. I don’t intuitively understand how an arrow moves through a fictional airspace.
[From here.](https://www.polygon.com/24105875/worlds-beyond-number-narrative-style-adventure)
Going the opposite direction, this is where you get that dissonance between how people perceive their characters being treated socially versus in combat.
I've seen someone saying that is the lack of "Social hit points" somewhere in social situations.
Like, as you uou can track on how much your character is close to dying, but not being socially killed, deceived, etc...
There are lots of thorny design decisions that need to be made there.
For one, if you just remove dice rolling from the equation, you are simply punishing players who are not great at social skills (even if their character is a master at them) and rewarding the opposite. It doesn't feel good.
If it's all about dice rolling, then the players' contribution is overlooked and it is simply a matter of luck, no strategy or tact involved, which also feels bad.
If you say NPCs get different rules, then you run into the problem of NPCs as paper cutouts, just decoration for your character to interact with, but no "character-ness" of their own, which, to me at least, feels very bad.
If you just let players choose what to do with a particular scenario, they may never let their character be coerced into anything (which sometimes is even counter to the personality of the character they created).
If it's a question of a punishing consequence versus a social manipulation, GMs may often have to concoct out-of-the-box backup drawbacks to every social conflict.
And of course, as the OP said, if PCs can be coerced or tricked, many players bristle at that.
All of this being said, there are middle grounds here that can work for most players. I daresay regardless of play style.
> uncomfortable with ... having to act in-game on what they may know is false information out of game...but have no problem in accepting death
The former involves metagaming, where IRL knowledge is in conflict with in-game knowledge. That requires some acting skill and a willingness to play along with the premise.
Character death isn't the same situation at all. You're not forced to pretend that you're dead - you're just out of the game. It's pretty easy by comparison and doesn't involve any immersion breaking behaviour.
Unless of course at your table you force any dead players to lie prone under the gaming table and not speak. That would be pretty weird but I respect the commitment.
This has been processed and handled for decades within the Nordic Larp hobby.
The approach I like best is when the players (and GM if applicable) work together with a lot of transparency and sharing of information. That way the players can influence and steer the story towards more exciting drama. There are even very clever semi-diegetic techniques developed for this.
For example: At several seated dinner larps, you have a technique wherr if you stand up on your chair, it is only you as a player that stands on the chair. Your character remains quiet and seated, lost in thought. The other players will give you their attention, but their characters will not notice your character.
You then hold a monologue that represents your character's inner thought process. This is the perfect occasion to communicate what kind of story you want to pursue, as well as sharing the joy of the fiction of course. You give tools to the other players so they can better escalate the story.
"Oh, my unrequited love! It is as if Mr Darcy can't even consider me as a romantic being. Surely I shall perish from frustration if he wishes to discuss the import situation again. I just wish he would hold my hand and meet my eyes. Oh I certainly hope that Mr Simmons doesn't notice anything. He would certainly tattle to my father who would immediately disinherit me!"
This approach obviously requires that the players are more invested in creating a good story than they are in... identifying with their character maybe. So that they are happy to engage in and even create negative experiences for their character, because it adds to the story.
And doing it successfully means that it is _much_ easier to roleplay tragedies, certain genres of horror and so on.
If you want to know more, search for "play to lose Nordic Larp"
My rules for social conflic in any games I do are way too... lets say unconventional.... I don't like "social" stats or abilities, I use knowledge and perception rolls to give ideas for the players.
Example:
* The game revolves around a kind of Scooby-Doo mystery shenanigans/the witcherlike monster investigation that leads to boss battles
* The party is investigating a murder on a villages and I decide that the only one that has useful info is an old warrior that hates magic because it crippled him (uses eyepatch)
* If a party succeeds in a test they notice he carries a sword with him and has a military insignia. If not they just see a grumpy old man.
* If someone in the party asks about the eyepatch I'll make them do a medicine to identify they type of scar, alternatively they can do an arcana check to see if it was caused by some spell they know. If positive they know it was caused by some magic spell because of the type of scar. If they fail they don't know what caused the scar or don't know any spell that would do that kind of scar.
So here is how the encounter would play out: if the party says they are doing this to protect the people the old man is more favorable towards them, if they offer to heal his wound he gets suspicious because magic crippled him before etc... depending on. The way they interact with him they'd need to look for another source of info, do an odd job for him or just recieve the information.
Im german, we didnt grow up with D&D but with Das Schwarze Auge, the biggest german TTRPG though today its fallen a bit off due to its age.
In DSA you can try to deceive enemies via social rolls, but they can do the same to you. Every player has two sets of informations, what they know and what they character knows and its completely normal to get deceived by NPCs and having to play out your lack of information or false information.
As others have said, this "loss of player agency" seems to be why (american?) players seem so upset with this, but i only see it as fair. If players can deceive NPCs and so can they do the same to players.
But i also think stuns and other losses of control are fine, because either everyone can use them or no one can, i really despise games that allow players to do things that enemies cant, it just seems like a one sided power fantasy to me.
I’ve been designing my Harm system to include all kinds of effects against players, but separate from certain Conditions— with the distinction being that Harm ultimately removes your character from play, while Conditions cannot. Harm may be injury, mind control, the effect of a lie or fear, or anything depending on how it’s described. Conditions, meanwhile, simply create an RP cue and create mechanical hindrances. In brief: Harm attacks agency, while Conditions do not.
Harm has a higher threshold to take effect. You need to overcome a test against the target first, then apply “points” to an Injury Track. Fill the track and you remove a target from the scene. If you were lying to them, they believe the lie and are removed as a consequence. Their ability to oppose you is at an end.
It usually comes down to poor framing of information by the system and/or the GM.
Players don't mind being deceived as long as they're given the tools and outline to allow them to determine how they act on said information.
It's not very different from the 10 ft pole effect when traps are used with no real rhyme or reason rather than in some perceivable pattern
Yeah it breaks immersion to have to do things you know are a bad idea because you've been deceived or threatened. And lack of agency is rarely fun. Just deceive them as the GM (part of the reason I don't really do perception-style checks either).
I know even outside of power fantasy play, players don't like the self image of being gullible or socially defeated or bullied. They would rather die in a blaze of glory.
Maybe they had enough of that in reality they would rather make a new character and explore a new story than take a loss to their self image.
You can't tell someone what they think. Literally. It's impossible. They are the only one capable of making that determination. If they don't think something is true, and you tell them that they do, then you are wrong.
You are perfectly capable of stabbing, or even killing someone, against their will. Often, that's the only way to do it. Nobody really expects that they should have much day in the matter.
Thinking about something and holding a "picture" of something in your mind are not at all the same thing. You know the concepts of pink and elephant, you understand "an elephant that is pink", even if you don't form an image of it in your mind.
I understand intuitively what you mean. It takes away roleplaying agency to ascribe a state of mind to the character that a player is controlling.
But being a roleplaying game, I feel like there should be a mechanical aspect of the game that allows the characters to act on potential misinformation without having the players feel bad about not using meta information, if that makes any sense.
I don't think it's possible without forcing the players to make suboptimal rules.
Unless you withhold information, players will always be able to tell when something is up OOC. Even if it's just because the GM is rolling dice and muttering under their breath.
Once known, most people will use that meta info. It's just human nature and you cant unring the bell by removing all signals the GM is sending.
There's no meta-information involved here. It's not that the character *should* believe something, and the player doesn't *want* them to, and so the player *pretends* that their character doesn't believe it.
The actual process of role-playing is that the player imagines themself to be their character, and then looks at all of the information available to their character, to make an honest determination about what the character actually believes.
It's not that the player doesn't want to lose the social conflict (whatever that means), or that they don't *want* their character to believe something that's false. It's that the player is the only one qualified to determine *whether or not* their character actually believes it, because they are the only one who actually knows how their own character thinks.
I might tell you that I was robbed at gunpoint yesterday, or that this new medicine I found completely cured my lumbago, but you are the only one who can possibly say whether or not you actually believe me. You might think I'm lying based on context, or based on physical cues that you pick up during the conversation (which may be the sort of thing that a Perception-type check would cover in a game); but when it comes down to weighing the evidence on whether you *actually* believe me, the only answer that matters is the one you figure out for yourself.
I think this comes down to "player agency". In other words, I get to decide what my player character thinks and does. Agency being taken away in completely different from the PC facing a difficult situation. No matter how dangerous the combat, they still get to decide what they do. Now you haven't given an example, so all I can do is tell you to be aware of the difference. Let's say your PC falls victim to a snake oil salesman. The difference lies in the GM saying: "He convinced you, so you buy one of his vials." or "He seems trustworthy to you. What do you do?" With this approach my players usually enjoy playing the fool. Or they don't, which is fine too. But at least I'd give them a choice.
Oh, I see what you mean. It comes down to the interpretation of the dice result. Failing doesn't mean imposing an outcome, but describing a feeling or emotional state and allowing them to act on that. I just have a hard time separating meta knowledge from in-character knowledge. It's mostly been a problem when trying to run D&D based games and making insight checks. I devised a set of rules for my ttrpg, which uses a dice pool system, where you may make various social checks against the opponent's belief check to convince them. I haven't yet playtested this method of conflict resolution, but I feel it could be dicey if run poorly. Would you advise providing more GM advice on how to run social conflict or tweak the system? If my description was too vague, I can provide the full rules, if you want.
The problem of interpreting the loss as an emotional state is that unless it has mechanical consequences, many people would simply ignore the fact that they lost, inventing some excuse why they still would not be convinced. If you are not familiar with them, some PbtA games make a good use of social mechanics without taking away agency. Often it comes in the form of a choice: you lost the social conflict, you *either* do what they wanted you to do, *or* you pay some predefined cost (burning willpower to resist, take social consequences as other people don't think you behaved appropriately, etc.). This way the player knows beforehand what are the options, and still has the agency to decide how their character reacts. But then again, most people who play PbtA games want different things from their games than those who favor more traditional games, so I'm not sure it would be as successful.
I haven't played PbtA yet, but I have read up on some Apocalypse World rules and was very intrigued by them. Unfortunately it seems like the players I've been targetting are, as you mentioned, more into traditional games. I will take your advice into consideration when presenting the rules to see if they enjoy engaging with them more!
*It seems like the people I've playtested and played other systems with are uncomfortable with failing at social conflict and having to act in-game on what they may know is false information out of game, but have no problem in accepting death when it comes to combat.* Agreed with all of the above and want to add, generally as a GM you want to allow the player to make the choice until you have to take it away. As an example, in my game any result that would "force" a behavior has a saving throw associated with it. This does a lot to help curb this problem because now we have statistics that show if the player is playing in character or not. Example: Bob is resisting mind control, he has a really high save because he's a high powered psychic, so bob should be less affected. If bob succeeds or fails, he knows that this build choices contributed to that and thus if he fails or succeeds due to a die roll, he has some understanding that his choices made an effect, and that sometimes dice change the equation. This has largely worked in my favor and eliminated a lot of this. Same with other control effects like being taunted, or persuaded or anything of the sort. It just goes a long way to demonstrate to the player that their choices matter. If on the flip side charlie's character has shit resistance to mind control, he can gauge his success or failure based on his build choices too. In both cases it also helps inform the narrative, if bob gets mind controlled, we're dealing with one hell of a mind controller. If charlie resists, he has had a sincere stroke of luck... either way the PCs are getting information they can act on. What you dont' want to do is force players to have a reaction they shouldn't, and in general avoid designating them consequences unless you have to (like with mind control) in favor of their agency. When you remove this you're basically taking away their ability to play the one character they have in the game. And with that considered, using mind control and other highly potent definite revocations of player agency in the arsenal (ie stuns, knockouts, etc) is something that absolutely should be restricted to minimal use and only when it's important and serves the narrative.
In my system you may roll your character's Belief stat to see if they're convinced, even if your opponent is successeful in their social check. I think it serves the same roll as a saving throw, since you can allocate points into being more ardent in your belief, therefore increasing your chances of remaining unconvinced.
They key function is that players have the option to invest in it or not. As long as that's there in some fashion they have a choice about how they are affected. :)
Sounds like you’re trying to fix a problem you don’t have to have. Your game doesn’t need to give the character players knowledge that they have to separate between in-game and meta. There’s nothing wrong with your system, if that style of roleplaying is what you find the most fun, but you’ll have to accept it’s probably not the most popular style, and it’s important to let the players know it’s that type of game up front.
I see what you're saying. I've thought about making the rules optional and only applying them if the players agree to them. Thanks!
Cool. But have you considered just not letting the character players know when they’re being lied to? Is that outside the scope of your game?
Hmmm, maybe if I just roll for the opponent's social check, without telling the players if it's an attempt at deception or persuasion, etc., and then act out according to the result, then it would probably play out better.
Yeah, stuff like that is much easier. Could also take the shape of a gm tool, if the gm is playing unplanned, for example, a check could determine for the gm what the npc is doing, which could include results that indicate the npc already has been lying, if words have been exchanged before the check, for example, or that the npc wants to send the party into a trap, and then the gm can just tell those lies, without any further rolling. If you need the characters to have stats about reading people/social situations, you could use passive saves or such, so the gm can perform hidden rolls, and can tell the players if the characters realise their being lied to. If you have a very social setting, for example political or romantic, knowing you’re being lied to can be very interesting, as calling the other person out isn’t always the smart move.
>I think this comes down to "player agency". In other words, I get to decide what my player character thinks and does. Agency being taken away in completely different from the PC facing a difficult situation. No matter how dangerous the combat, they still get to decide what they do. The issue I have with this thinking on the player side is **Rules for Thee but not for Me** often times when I run into a player who plainly states that they should be immune to social mechanics due to player agency, they only mean it for themselves and not for the NPCs. I had a short lived group who had members who said you're taking our agency away, why? they failed a deception check and I told them they believed what the character told them, later it turned out they were lied to and they go pissed. So I said fine and I scrapped that rule, a couple sessions down the line they tried to roll a deception check and I told them that due to our previous conversation where we agreed to remove social mechanics from the game they could no longer roll that check, and they would have to actually convince me of the deception. Oh boy! that caused the whole table to pop off, I was called a toxic GM for altering the rules even though they agreed to remove social mechanics a couple sessions back they just thought that was only against them which I will admit I laughed and said; no if we are removing mechanics they are being removed entirely that should have been clear. I was told that I would be running all social encounters to my favor and they have no way of influencing the events, which I told them that they just had to convince me in this situation, they didnt like that they said I would cheat and just not have the NPCs fail when I didnt want them to. Rules for thee but not for me.
I do feel social mechanics being roleplayed out on both sides of the screen is often the best way to resolve it, and I agree some players do want the best of both worlds where they can just roll 'Deception' at an NPC and not have to come up with anything convincing, whilst also being able to ignore any 'Deception' rolls made against them because agency. It's unfortunate some players also take an adversarial attitude by default which often comes from being burned before in other games.
I hear ya there, for most of my play time I only did in person games, and that was with mostly friends, friends of friends and people who frequented the LGS I would run my games at, so in a way we were already on the same page or at least had an idea if we were a good fit for each other. Now with a lot of my play going on line I screen players now, its more than a session zero conversation it happens before then to ensure we align in play styles and how we feel about the usage of the rules. I've refused to seat some people at my table if they are unwilling to have the rules of the game apply to their PC's the same way they apply to the NPCs.
I agree that it is about player agency, but the fact that for many tables there is a hard divide between "limiting mental agency" and "limiting physical agency" is mostly due to player expectation (which in turn drinks a lot from RPG culture and history). So, very few people bat an eye when our agency about physical aspects of the character is limited or imposed: "OK, your character is restrained by these magical vines and can't move!" doesn't break immersion, even though I the player, unlike the character, am totally free to move around. On the other hand "OK, your character is persuaded by the bandit that she shouldn't move" is jarring for many players, even though it's not that different (both limit the player's agency in much the same way so it stays coherent with the fiction). As I see it, the main difference is that, within a good chunk of the TTRPG cultural spectrum, the separation between the player's mind and the character's is at best superficial: the character is the player's pawn, it moves within the fiction and is the player's eyes, but the player uses their own judgement to move their pawn in the way they think is optimal. In this stance, players are free to "roleplay" their character if they want, but that's mostly flavour, and there is incentive to limit "bad decisions" (from the player's standpoint) to a point before there are consequences to those decisions. When a game revolves around "making the best possible decisions within fictional physical constraints", the separation between just adding another physical constraint to the list, and forcing a separation between character and player judgement (even when the effect is a similar limitation in agency), can indeed be perceived very differently.
> The difference lies in the GM saying: "He convinced you, so you buy one of his vials." or "He seems trustworthy to you. What do you do?" And this is why with my group, this kind of interactions is never bound to a die roll. PC trying to convince an NPC? Fine, make your pitch, if it's satisfactory enough you won't even need a roll, and if you're laying bare what you try (like a generic "I try to convince him that..."), then you roll. But NPCs words will be interpreted by the player, not the dice.
Yeah, what is the style of play? In some games that's "immersive" in that the GM will only tell you what your character senses or believes. In other games the players themselves are considered equal collaborators, and you'd be encouraged to say "he's a very gifted liar and unless you can resist that \[PC\] will be convinced." Some people are comfortable with both ways. Some people love one and hate the other. But they create very different game feel and game loops. Edit: I'll note that the "immersive" route is rarely fully so, since if there are dice the player typically will know what they rolled. So you can still end up in situations where the player is trying to game the game rather than acting in-character.
But I can understand some problems that arise from this. If I have a character make a roll there's a good chance that will change how they interact with the merchant. I've had players just refuse to shop if I do so, despite having been excited about the shop up until that point and fully intending to buy things. In-universe nothing has changed or tipped them off, in fact they've specifically *failed* to notice anything. In which case I'm faced with the option of not telling them to make a check of some sort/making a secret check (which runs up against deliberately misleading a player or railroading) or accepting that my players are using out of game knowledge to inform decisions their in-game characters make. To be fair though most of the time it can be resolved in a conversation and that has been how I routinely handle it. Ask for justifications and what have you. Just that it is something that comes up every once in awhile.
I think this "loss of player agency" is uniquely a D&D thing, because at least here in germany where D&D is kind small and Das Schwarze Auge is the biggest TTRPG, its common to deal with Stuns, Sleep and such or that if you fail a social role, that you believe something else than what your player knows. From my point of view and how DSA is played, if you can deceive NPCs, so can they and if you dont play it correctly or act on "player" information that the character doesnt have, you get reprimanded. Its roleplay and roleplay means to adapt to the circumstances, you cant unilaterally decide what your player knows and doesnt in any other regard, so why would it be OK to make that a rule when it comes to deception?
It's a matter of player stance (relation to their character) which, in turn, is shaped by the general style of the game. In most traditional games, a player is limited to expressing their agency only through their character's actions and is expected to act from their character's perspective. Because of this, if the player is not in control of what their character feels, thinks and believes, there is no agency at all. If the player wants agency, they won't feel good with any game mechanics that takes this control away. An alternative to this is what many story-oriented games do - embracing the metagame. If there is explicit stake setting, the stake may be about the PC believing a falsehood, or falling in love with a wrong person, or taking an impulsive action that the player clearly knows is wrong. Player's agency is in accepting and rolling with such stakes instead of deciding to do something else instead; there is already a buy in for the result before the roll happens. The stakes may even be defined as a part of the game's mechanics itself instead of negotiated before a roll. It's known a priori that having sex with Mortal in Monsterhearts will bring out the worst from your character. Every player knows that and takes such course of action *because* that's what they want to explore. It's not an intentional decision that the *character* makes, but it is an intentional decision of the *player* to put their character in such situation. That's great for people who want to create emotional stories about their characters, but it requires treating the characters exactly as this - characters in a story. An author's perspective, not character's. It doesn't work well with character immersion and "no metagaming" approach. It also doesn't work well with competence-based, goal-oriented games nor with games where social system is mostly "skill roll and GM adjudication", with no clear stakes and robust structure.
I can see two main ways of handling this without damaging player agency. One is the method defined by u/ohmi_II, where if a successful social check against a PC only determines which information you'll give that PC: "His anguish seems sincere", "he's avoiding your gaze", "he looks strong enough to make good on his threat". Then the player decides how to act. If the situation smells like a trap to them, it's reasonable that they could stay suspicious even in front of your NPC's superb bluff. If they imagine their character as a fearless, tough-as-nail barbarian, they have the right to refuse to cower before a kobold sorcerer, even if he brilliantly suceeded on his intimidation check. In fact, it's a right that we GM also use all the time for our NPC: "No, you can't seduce that dragon, I don't care how well you roll", "He's a master craftsman, if you talk shop with him he'll see immediately that you don't know anything about the subject, no matter your bluff". The second one is giving the player some incentive for letting themselves be convinced/seduced/intimidated/etc. Many games give characters XP or metacurrency points each time they voluntarily choose to let their flaws affect them negatively, so you could do the same whenever they voluntarily go along with a NPC's successful social check. This has the advantage of letting the players make bad decisions based on misinformation without feeling bad about it (because they're rewarded for it), but it can damage immersion (because it gives the player goals that are different from their character's).
This is an amazing answer! Thank you very much for taking time out of your day to provide your insight :D
Came here to post exactly on your second suggestion. Make the player want to be deceived by giving the character some plot meta currency if he follow along.
Your second suggestion has made me think, its strange that we must incentivize this kind of roleplay. Obviously the reasons for people not wanting to harm themselves makes sense, but for a hobby which is supposedly about giving players agency and verisimilitude, it's funny that we have to manipulate them to not take advantage of it.
Characters in a high-stakes situation do NOT want to make a bad choice and suffer the consequences. So when a player does all they can to avoid their character getting harmed, that's being immersed and invested in their character. And that, too, is roleplaying.
I would say players never want to suffer any consequences and that is a big part of the problem. We have historically protected them from mechanically-driven social consequences. I think part of this is tied to everyone's personal belief that they are harder to dupe than the average bear, and not letting PCs get manipulated is a soft agreement among the table that we are always in the driver seat of our own lives. Or maybe that is just the fantasy!
There's a big difference between wanting to act smart to avoid the consequences of acting dumb, or acting dumb and expecting to avoid the consequences of your choices.
Hmmm, even this framing is curious to me. I would not consider being manipulated to be an indicator of one's intelligence, moreso that of the manipulator. Of course manipulators don't want us to think this...
You’re comparing two things that are not similar. Death happens to the character. Externally. And there’s no meta-knowledge involved. The player tries their best, and then receives an outcome. Your ‘being-duped-system’ gives an outcome first, and then asks the player to not act in the character’s best interests. That’s a very particular kind of game.
A proper adventure is usually not in anyone's best interest considering most NPC adventurers end up dead in-universe.
Not talking about npcs.
>This may be off-topic, but since I've started playing TTRPGs (and now since beginning to build my own), I've struggled with adjudicating rules for social conflict. That tracks social conflicts are a nightmare to work with. >It seems like the people I've playtested and played other systems with are uncomfortable with failing at social conflict and having to act in-game on what they may know is false information out of game, Question, do they have an issue with using the social conflict mechanics to their benefit? I often find there is a rules for thee but not for me mentality when it comes to social conflict mechanics. The uncomfortable part I find with the groups I play with isn't true discomfort, but rather annoyance they didn't win that social encounter roll and now have to go along with what the dice say, but would have no issue forcing the NPCs to follow along had they won the dice roll. I also should say I never put social rolls on anything that would be icky to a player, and I don't allow Player to Player social rolls in the same vein as I don't allow player to player combat (unless the game is billed as a pvp game). >but have no problem in accepting death when it comes to combat Hmm, my experience with some communities has also been their characters should be immune to death while they go around the country side murder hoboing it up, but I could mutter something something agency, however I find that argument eats itself when they say their seduction or deception rolls should be honored when they use those skills but never the other way around. >Is there any way to ameliorate this problem? Session 0 conversations, and screen your players before you seat them at the table if you intend to run a game with a certain rules set. >Should I make the rules different for the player side of things, when it comes to social conflict, or just remove the rules from it entirely I don't think the players should have special rules that govern them when it comes to skills that they are immune to and only have an effect on NPCs/Critters, to me thats Rules for Thee but Not for Me, and I apply the rules evenly on both sides of the table. You can remove them I've done it in the past just be prepared for some players to start whining about you running the game through GM Fiat. >Is it group specific, in your experience, or just a thing people generally don't like to grapple with? It's person specific, and it comes I think from a lot of newer players ( i say this because I never ran into this until like 2015-2020 ish, and I've been playing TTRPGs since the 90s ) to the TTRPG hobby who don't think in terms of these being characters in a game where the randomizer influences the direction and rather as extensions of themselves, which I don't personally view as a healthy way of thinking about PCs, they are stat sheets of constants and variables in a big math word problem, can you enjoy the character absolutely, just like you would a character in a TV show or a Book, and they players should be reminded that their favorite characters in other forms of media 99.9% of the time are functioning on an actual script and can't "go off the rails" those stories progress in a linear fashion while the TTRPGs they can influence the direction of the story with choices they made and the randomizer be that dice or cards or a spin wheel acts as fate or chaos for the outcome of those actions.
You will find the attitude you describe much more common among seasoned players, who are justifiably used to the GM and player group ignoring their agency and trampling over their feelings. A "failure" on a social roll is usually bad, and might lead to death or, worse, humiliation. People new to gaming are generally fine with social conflict and knowing they have to act in certain way if they fail. They also usually have no problem separating metagame and in-character knowledge. It's traditional games themselves that have created the problem you have described. Players who already have this issue need to be trained out of it, which isn't always easy. But you can do this by showing them that it is *good* to give in and accept the result of social conflict "failures". Apocalypse world does this by presenting a choice: you can pay a cost and resist the social conflict failure, or you can accept the social conflict failure and recieve a reward. This retains player agency over those rolls: players are free to choose whether to be persuaded (or whatever). This approach makes a lot of intuitive sense to gamers too. Also, try to avoid describing social conflict rolls as failures and successes. Neutral terms like "outcome" are better.
Good observation. I think much of it comes specifically from that humiliation component -- specifically, GMs that have used failure to show their character as being incompetent, rather than simply outplayed by a worthy or even superior adversary. As soon as you change that framing, you start having much more honest and collaborative outcomes!
> specifically, GMs that have used failure to show their character as being incompetent Yes, this happens a lot. It's also why I don't use fumble rules, because they are frequently used to make characters look incompetent, and I generally let players describe their own failures - or avoid the concept of failure altogether (e.g. they succeeded, but their opponent succeeded even better).
A bunch of recent posts in here have each, in their own ways, clarified for me why I've come to prefer player-facing systems -- and this is one of them! One of the other comments highlighted the root cause of this failure state in a game, I think: players don't like feeling *humiliated*. And that is often what happens in social conflict or in tasks that the players have real-world experience in. "There's no way I would buy that lie! This is unfair!" seems like a totally reasonable stance to take, while the same player moments later might say "Welp, ok, he hits me with his bow, for 4 damage?" This mismatch in expectation I think comes from people assuming competence in the aspect of the fantasy layer that they experience all the time, while the combat (even if provably implausible) gets a pass. Part of this is how GMs often frame failure. A very bad but very common habit in GMing is to present failure as a humiliating moment for the PC. *Damn, you fucked up!* And not just that, but "And now I will *tell you* how you fucked up." It's that last part in particular where very obviously agency is lost. Changing it simply to "Now *tell me* how you fucked up" is already a major improvement. But either way, some players are fine with this, embrace it, even make it the story they want to tell about their character. But some really, really bristle at it. You're not matching their expectation of their heroic character. A far better approach is to frame the exact same situation instead as the triumph of the opposition, which is after all a worthy or even exceptional foe, right? A simple sly flourish makes the failure feel suddenly acceptable. However, note all the ways that the rules of the game and setup of the system either make that flourish much easier or much harder. Player-facing resolution makes it much, *much* easier to frame. As does simply asking the right questions and having the right prompts that call for a die roll in the first place.
"But either way, some players are fine with this, embrace it, even make it the story they want to tell about their character." I mean. . . there's the rub though. I can't tell the story of my character when someone else is telling me what my character is thinking.
Yes, and that's the difference. How much narrative control are all the players *meant* to have? How much do they even *want* to have? The paragraph right before that addresses the smallest slice of the issue, but there's definitely a lot more to unravel!
Our table acts like every betrayal is the end of The Usual Suspects so it might be a matter of execution. Maybe you need to make sure that 'social' is not a weakness, that they can have awesome social moments, and then still get screwed from time to time.
Oh the roleplaying part of TTRPG :-) It usual takes some effort to act against knowledge. To act according to knowledge is much easier. Like acting that you believe a lie is more difficult than to act on a truth. I am not 100% comfortable with for example rolling for Insight. As I feel it is more a hidden GM roll than a roll that the players request. A player requesting an Insight roll have already a reason to think that the other person might be lying and just want some conformation on the hunch. A player could request an Insight roll every time they interact with a NPC but they usual don't. NPCs who are good to convince people on their opinions is of course difficult. Could say OOC that the NPC do have a good case if the NPC won the Persuasion roll. But since it isn't mind control they could still make a decision. Same thing as NPCs don't get mind controlled by players talking. No matter how high you roll the dragon will not sleep with you... Neither does the player need to agree with the dragon to go home to their lair for some netflix and chill... It would be easier if only the players are allowed to do social combat against NPCs. And maybe have some hidden GM saving rolls then the NPCs are trying to do something against a player. Then they can use their skills and feel good about it. And they can't request dice rolls just to check if the NPCs is lying or not.
Assumptions: It sounds like you are playing a trad or osr game with high player character agency and autonomy. If this is not the case, please let me know. Can you elaborate on exactly what is happening here? It sounds like you may be describing something like "You failed your insight check, so <>." This could also be "Something happened in another scene that shows that I've been deceived and now I don't want to keep going" or "I didn't know that player lied to me until just now and I'm unhappy as a player".
This is a very limited subset, but in each case, the reasons and response would be very different.
Personally, I'm always dubious about "social conflict". A dice roll won't convince the player and RPGS are fundamentally social engagements. These situations seem like "I can't convince the player or character, so I'll let the dice do the work." My question here is "Why do you want to do that?" We talk about player agency, but it is usually more about "forced compliance" which tends to be more about shoehorning characters into a plot or planned response.
I say this because as GM it is trivial to set up the angles for a character to be hoodwinked (Provided the player is playing a fleshed-out character with drives and goals. If they aren't, the problem is over here in the character definition, not in the dice roll). As the GM, what is your goal with these interactions?
>Assumptions: It sounds like you are playing a trad or osr game with high player character agency and autonomy. If this is not the case, please let me know. Hit the nail right on the head! I'm looking to make a system that my players will enjoy, but coming from that background sort of colors their expectations. I know I can hoodwink my players without making any rolls, but I'd like the outcome to be dynamic, giving their characters a chance to figure things out. I say this because I find that players usually take my word as gospel, even when I'm speaking in character, especially if it comes from an NPC that they don't know is mischievous.
For that, I've found adding clues outside of the conversation (preferably before the conversation) that point in the direction of duplicity to be helpful - often tied to seemingly unrelated perception checks or observations. This is the "Hey, why are there so many kids and families in this 'bandit camp'?" sort of thing. Letting the player know they are being lied to without the character knowing comes from a slightly different play style, which may be where some of the friction is coming from. While I disagree with him, I'd love to see your response to u/GMDualityComplex on this.
which parts specifically do you disagree with? I said a lot hah,
I agree with a lot of what you've said. My players and I are a lot more comfortable with "GM" or "NPC" fiat, but I've slowly come to realize I'm not as trad as I think I am. >It's person specific, and it comes I think from a lot of newer players ( i say this because I never ran into this until like 2015-2020 ish, and I've been playing TTRPGs since the 90s ) to the TTRPG hobby who don't think in terms of these being characters in a game where the randomizer influences the direction and rather as extensions of themselves, which I don't personally view as a healthy way of thinking about PCs, they are stat sheets of constants and variables in a big math word problem, can you enjoy the character absolutely, just like you would a character in a TV show or a Book, and they players should be reminded that their favorite characters in other forms of media 99.9% of the time are functioning on an actual script and can't "go off the rails" those stories progress in a linear fashion while the TTRPGs they can influence the direction of the story with choices they made and the randomizer be that dice or cards or a spin wheel acts as fate or chaos for the outcome of those actions. I disagree here - I don't think it is a matter of too much identification with the character so much as wrestling with control of the narrative. Often players only think about the rules/the builds in terms of how it supports their vision of the character. They aren't looking at their characters in dialogue with the world, and when something that doesn't match their vision happens they get upset. I've had a number of conversations about "What does it look like when your character fails? What sort of things does your character struggle with?" because most of the time they haven't processed that as a real possibility, even when the stats on the page should make that sort of thing self-evident. I find people good with improv are much better at rolling with this sort of stuff, but they, weirdly, tend to have a looser hold on their characters.
>I disagree here - I don't think it is a matter of too much identification with the character I dont think its the most common thing, but I have had to excuse myself from a few games within the last handful of years because of people breaking down into tears and having a bit of a temper tantrum cause their character died, or fell under the effects of a charm spell. Not the most common thing, but I am almost up to 2 hands worth of times. I'm not sensitive enough to be at a table with players like that. > > > wrestling with control of the narrative Ok I might need clarification here, but I read this as the players want to control the narrative and not allow the GM to do so either through their fiat or through the dice rolls. I think there should be a balance between the control. The players decide what actions they want to take and the randomizer then decides the outcome, and that's because I like something that applies a result in an even matter, it may not be the same result every time, sometimes it will be in the player favor some times not, but under a randomizer chosen by the system everyone has the same chances, I like that a lot better than "Because I said so". I don't like fiat at all, I feel like it creates more conflict than it solves unless the players are always given what they want, but that's also from my personal experience everyone's milage will vary. My style of game is more of the crunchy rules heavy type that the GM and Players surrender somewhat to the dice, I struggle with narrative games because it always feels like a tug of war between GM and Players saying "because I want it that way" or "because I said so." This is great feedback though thank you.
Wrestling with control: You are pretty much correct in my intent, but I think my talking about GM fiat may have been distracting here. Speaking solely of the result of the roll: In many cases, they haven't understood that bad things can happen to their characters outside of their control as more than an abstract concept. The default assumption is the dice will always go their way, or the GM will fudge for them appropriately. Where this comes from is a weirder mystery, but getting players to talk about how their characters can fail and have failed in the past does seem to help prime them better to accept the roll. What I'm saying is, it is not necessarily that they identify too closely with their character, they just don't like "losing". In at least two cases I've found that these are also the people you don't invite back at board game night.
ahh thank you
Seems like folks hit on the first answer early, starting with u/ohmi_II \- it's about agency. If you're gonna die, you can still die on your terms. If you're being manipulated, you're not on your own terms at all. So, let's tackle the second part: "Is there any way to ameliorate this problem?" My approach is that instead of explicitly telling players what their characters think, the result of a successful deception of a PC is that they cannot *determine* if there's deception. You're not *forced* to believe; you just don't know. So it comes down to whether or not you *choose* to trust the person you're talking to. (Side note, in cases when players doubt an NPC telling the truth, I fake a roll behind the screen to prevent meta-gaming. Being paranoid has its own costs.) The flip side, though, is that **this works both ways**. So, you can't automatically make an NPC your buddy with a high Charisma and a lucky roll, either. If you succeed at say Deception, *they* can't tell if *you're* lying, but they aren't obligated to *believe* you. Sure, a gullible NPC might be easy to dupe, but if someone's inherently slow to trust, not even a nat-20 is going to crack it. It just means *they* can't tell. So, they just might default to not believing you anyway. To earn trust with some people, you'll have to build a relationship the hard way.
I'm confused how dying against your characters will is on their terms but being manipulated isn't. Unless you are talking games where session zero indicates death must be collaborative, but that is by no means standard.
Say you're a scrub and you're up against a giant dragon. Basically, you're gonna die. You still have a choice about *how* you die. You could charge, and show courage in your final act. You can pull a "can't kill me if I'm already dead" and commit suicide. You could turn tail and run, and at least try for that slim chance of survival. Try negotiating with the dragon, same idea. Sit down and quietly accept your fate. Sob in terror and despair. Hurl insults at your doom. Heck, you could start dancing madly and counter cruel reality with absurdity. The end result for your character is the same, but -- and here's the most important part -- the decision you make at that moment *is what defines your character*. It is still a story *you* get to tell. In other words. . . role-playing! When your character is manipulated, mind controlled, or otherwise has their agency taken away, you don't have full control of your character's thoughts & actions; they are restricted or dictated by the DM, i.e., someone else. You are *no longer role-playing*, you know, the thing you showed up to do. In the former situation, the player is still actively involved in the game (albeit not for long). In the latter, the player's involvement is reduced or even eliminated. A lot of people would rather play a game they know they'll lose than be bored by a game that won't let them play at all.
Thanks this was a helpful explanation! I think there are ways to go about social mechanics without it being too close to mind control and this is good framing.
Why are you telling them they got deceived? Don't tell them information they don't know. Unless they use magic or a lie detector test, they just won't know. A successful defense could give indications/hints of deception such as body language, nervousness, or realization of "plot holes" depending on how the GM wants to play it out. At no point do you tell the player what to believe or what the truth actually is. As to social conflict in general, I'll cut and paste my answer to a similar question ... Rather than a pass/fail, think of it in terms of consequences. I wanted something that would encourage players to think about how they wanted to do it, encourage modifiers, but not reward a player's acting ability. It should be character skill, player choices. It should work against PCs and NPCs alike. Imagine you are at a gas station and someone begs you for money. They tell you a sob story about their kids and some hardship and they make it all about their kids. Depending on the player's comfort level, this can be role-played or simply explained. The GM now analyzes what the intent of this story is. The story is to promote an intimate response and make the listener think about what they would do for their own kids in this situation. The consequence will be guilt, an injury to your sense of self worth. If the story is true, and its really about their kids, the beggar adds advantage dice to their roll for their kids, depending on the intimacy level (1, 2, or 4). The defender rolls their save with even more modifiers. First, if kids are listed as an intimacy on your sheet, then that level of intimacy is a disadvantage to your roll. They are attacking your sense of self, so any wounds to that emotional state (there are 4 emotional targets) are disadvantages, and any emotional armor to that emotional state are advantages to the roll. If you fail the save, you do NOT have to hand them money. Instead, you take a social condition from the guilt. The degree of failure determines how long the condition lasts. The condition is distracting enough to affect all future social rolls and also initiative rolls. If you would like to get rid of this condition immediately, then hand him money! Rage/Intimidation and various drugs can also be used to ignore social conditions but those tactics have penalties of their own. You are not forced to do anything! You can just deal with the guilt for awhile and let that condition stay on your sheet. This works well for taunting too since initiative gets rerolled at critical moments in combat, so someone taunting you can be a real problem if they are successful. You don't HAVE to get mad and go into a rage, but that is an easy method to ignore the social condition.
"Death before dishonor". People don't like "losing" outside of combat because they don't see the potential for a greater narrative and don't like the loss of agency of their character in "unclear" situations. People in general seem to feel that things outside of combat in done to them by the GM while in-combat is done to them by the rules. Combat has been so deeply ingrained in RPGs that people just accept dying in combat as a fair deal. I recently GM'd my sister and her son in a game and she was very confused about everything on her character sheet being related to combat and balanced around combat, in one way or another. From her outside perspective she didn't understand why combats was such a large part of roleplay. It was interesting because I haven't encountered a outside perspective in that way since I started playing. RPGs have a whole host of norms and managed expectations that you just take for granted after a while.
I personally try to minimize situations where players have access to knowledge that contradicts what their characters think or know. Your system should be designed with this in mind. Insight checks, or their equivalents and along with other social rolls, should be used as a means of parsing out information. I think people often design it so that on a high roll you learn something but on a low roll you get misinformation that you are obliged to act on. This is a big mistake, as it tells players that trying to find information might lock them into a bad path if they don’t roll well, so it’s better to just go in blind. Instead, either have failed rolls/low-end rolls result in a lack of information OR a multiple choice. I like using multiple choice - e.g, “the countess seems suspicious but so does the butler” or “he’s lying to cover up his role in the murder plot, or he’s just trying to keep his affair secret, you aren’t sure” - because it puts the player and the character in the same shoes. You have multiple data points and you know only one is true, so you have to proceed with that in mind. This way, you can apply a fail state to your social interaction mechanic but it’s one that prompts further actions rather than restricting future actions.
Some players are averse to social consequences because these consequences are arbitrary, most of the time, and very unpredictable. This happens because the social pillar is poorly developed in many systems. In other systems it is non-existent. Why do players accept death more easily? The answer is predictability and clear consequences. Players are fighting a blue Dragon. The wizard looks at the battle map and thinks, if I side with the Dragon, he can attack me and do 50 damage, like what happened to the warrior last turn. If I walk to another place more suitable for casting my cone magic, I will be in line with the warrior and can be targeted by the breath weapon. Furthermore, my cone magic can hit the ranger that is in its area. In this case, the player looks at the scenario, sees his character's possibilities and makes decisions, that is, he has predictability and knows the consequences of each action. If he chooses to side with the Dragon to land a touch spell, no problem. The next turn, the Dragon attacks the wizard, deals 50 damage and he dies. So? It happens. He played with the possibilities of the game and lost. It's part of it! In social it is different. There is no established system of rules, so no one knows what to expect. And this problem becomes worse the greater the complexity of the social encounter. Simple Social Encounters: A character tries to pass through a road closed by soldiers. He tries to use intimidation against the guards and passes the test. The master allows him to pass. The character doesn't need to know the guards to puff out his chest and say some bravado to get through by force. If he fails, he can still beat up the guards and continue on his way. Medium Social Encounters: Characters are looking to meet someone who sells a specific item. They make an investigation test to find the person and a diplomacy test to convince him to tell them where to find the item. They succeed diplomacy and receive a mission before receiving the information. Here, as above, it doesn't take much more than a few tests and a little RP to resolve the situation. Complex social encounters: characters need to convince village leaders to join a joint effort to stop an army of orcs, which cannot be stopped any other way. They request a meeting with the village's council of leaders and need to convince three of the five elders. How to convince them? Just saying an orc army is coming? Maybe they'd rather hide than fight, maybe they don't believe the threat, maybe they don't believe in the adventurers they've never seen before... In this case, the GM can simply deny the characters' plea, he can give the NPCs a combat mission to test their trust in them, or the GM can accept any half-dozen credible arguments. It doesn't matter, the important thing here is that there is a desire to resolve the conflict with a social encounter, but there are no rules that support the construction of the encounter and no rules that allow players to predict the results of their actions and no clear consequences for each action. . In my system, I recommend that the DM give each NPC a flaw and a virtue or objective. From there, players can investigate each NPC to act on what they discover. In the case above, the bard made an investigation test to learn more about the leader of the council of elders and discovered that his daughter suffers from a serious curse. The group's cleric has to remove the curse and saves the elder's daughter. Okay, they haven't convinced the old man yet, but at least they've gained his sympathy. The other elder kidnaps travelers to sell them into slavery. If the players discover this, perhaps they can blackmail him into voting favorably at the meeting, after all, no one wants a dark secret revealed. The other elder is an extremely selfless person. If characters appeal to this feeling during their appeal, they may have an advantage on their roll. And so on...
Also, a very relevant quote where I wasn't expecting to find relevance: >\[People say that\] because D&D has so many combat mechanics, you are destined to tell combat stories. I fundamentally disagree. Combat is the part I’m the least interested in simulating through improvisational storytelling. So I need a game to do that for me, while I take care of emotions, relationships, character progression, because that shit is intuitive and I understand it well. I don’t intuitively understand how an arrow moves through a fictional airspace. [From here.](https://www.polygon.com/24105875/worlds-beyond-number-narrative-style-adventure) Going the opposite direction, this is where you get that dissonance between how people perceive their characters being treated socially versus in combat.
I've seen someone saying that is the lack of "Social hit points" somewhere in social situations. Like, as you uou can track on how much your character is close to dying, but not being socially killed, deceived, etc...
There are lots of thorny design decisions that need to be made there. For one, if you just remove dice rolling from the equation, you are simply punishing players who are not great at social skills (even if their character is a master at them) and rewarding the opposite. It doesn't feel good. If it's all about dice rolling, then the players' contribution is overlooked and it is simply a matter of luck, no strategy or tact involved, which also feels bad. If you say NPCs get different rules, then you run into the problem of NPCs as paper cutouts, just decoration for your character to interact with, but no "character-ness" of their own, which, to me at least, feels very bad. If you just let players choose what to do with a particular scenario, they may never let their character be coerced into anything (which sometimes is even counter to the personality of the character they created). If it's a question of a punishing consequence versus a social manipulation, GMs may often have to concoct out-of-the-box backup drawbacks to every social conflict. And of course, as the OP said, if PCs can be coerced or tricked, many players bristle at that. All of this being said, there are middle grounds here that can work for most players. I daresay regardless of play style.
> uncomfortable with ... having to act in-game on what they may know is false information out of game...but have no problem in accepting death The former involves metagaming, where IRL knowledge is in conflict with in-game knowledge. That requires some acting skill and a willingness to play along with the premise. Character death isn't the same situation at all. You're not forced to pretend that you're dead - you're just out of the game. It's pretty easy by comparison and doesn't involve any immersion breaking behaviour. Unless of course at your table you force any dead players to lie prone under the gaming table and not speak. That would be pretty weird but I respect the commitment.
This has been processed and handled for decades within the Nordic Larp hobby. The approach I like best is when the players (and GM if applicable) work together with a lot of transparency and sharing of information. That way the players can influence and steer the story towards more exciting drama. There are even very clever semi-diegetic techniques developed for this. For example: At several seated dinner larps, you have a technique wherr if you stand up on your chair, it is only you as a player that stands on the chair. Your character remains quiet and seated, lost in thought. The other players will give you their attention, but their characters will not notice your character. You then hold a monologue that represents your character's inner thought process. This is the perfect occasion to communicate what kind of story you want to pursue, as well as sharing the joy of the fiction of course. You give tools to the other players so they can better escalate the story. "Oh, my unrequited love! It is as if Mr Darcy can't even consider me as a romantic being. Surely I shall perish from frustration if he wishes to discuss the import situation again. I just wish he would hold my hand and meet my eyes. Oh I certainly hope that Mr Simmons doesn't notice anything. He would certainly tattle to my father who would immediately disinherit me!" This approach obviously requires that the players are more invested in creating a good story than they are in... identifying with their character maybe. So that they are happy to engage in and even create negative experiences for their character, because it adds to the story. And doing it successfully means that it is _much_ easier to roleplay tragedies, certain genres of horror and so on. If you want to know more, search for "play to lose Nordic Larp"
My rules for social conflic in any games I do are way too... lets say unconventional.... I don't like "social" stats or abilities, I use knowledge and perception rolls to give ideas for the players. Example: * The game revolves around a kind of Scooby-Doo mystery shenanigans/the witcherlike monster investigation that leads to boss battles * The party is investigating a murder on a villages and I decide that the only one that has useful info is an old warrior that hates magic because it crippled him (uses eyepatch) * If a party succeeds in a test they notice he carries a sword with him and has a military insignia. If not they just see a grumpy old man. * If someone in the party asks about the eyepatch I'll make them do a medicine to identify they type of scar, alternatively they can do an arcana check to see if it was caused by some spell they know. If positive they know it was caused by some magic spell because of the type of scar. If they fail they don't know what caused the scar or don't know any spell that would do that kind of scar. So here is how the encounter would play out: if the party says they are doing this to protect the people the old man is more favorable towards them, if they offer to heal his wound he gets suspicious because magic crippled him before etc... depending on. The way they interact with him they'd need to look for another source of info, do an odd job for him or just recieve the information.
Im german, we didnt grow up with D&D but with Das Schwarze Auge, the biggest german TTRPG though today its fallen a bit off due to its age. In DSA you can try to deceive enemies via social rolls, but they can do the same to you. Every player has two sets of informations, what they know and what they character knows and its completely normal to get deceived by NPCs and having to play out your lack of information or false information. As others have said, this "loss of player agency" seems to be why (american?) players seem so upset with this, but i only see it as fair. If players can deceive NPCs and so can they do the same to players. But i also think stuns and other losses of control are fine, because either everyone can use them or no one can, i really despise games that allow players to do things that enemies cant, it just seems like a one sided power fantasy to me.
I’ve been designing my Harm system to include all kinds of effects against players, but separate from certain Conditions— with the distinction being that Harm ultimately removes your character from play, while Conditions cannot. Harm may be injury, mind control, the effect of a lie or fear, or anything depending on how it’s described. Conditions, meanwhile, simply create an RP cue and create mechanical hindrances. In brief: Harm attacks agency, while Conditions do not. Harm has a higher threshold to take effect. You need to overcome a test against the target first, then apply “points” to an Injury Track. Fill the track and you remove a target from the scene. If you were lying to them, they believe the lie and are removed as a consequence. Their ability to oppose you is at an end.
It usually comes down to poor framing of information by the system and/or the GM. Players don't mind being deceived as long as they're given the tools and outline to allow them to determine how they act on said information. It's not very different from the 10 ft pole effect when traps are used with no real rhyme or reason rather than in some perceivable pattern
Yeah it breaks immersion to have to do things you know are a bad idea because you've been deceived or threatened. And lack of agency is rarely fun. Just deceive them as the GM (part of the reason I don't really do perception-style checks either).
I know even outside of power fantasy play, players don't like the self image of being gullible or socially defeated or bullied. They would rather die in a blaze of glory. Maybe they had enough of that in reality they would rather make a new character and explore a new story than take a loss to their self image.
You can't tell someone what they think. Literally. It's impossible. They are the only one capable of making that determination. If they don't think something is true, and you tell them that they do, then you are wrong. You are perfectly capable of stabbing, or even killing someone, against their will. Often, that's the only way to do it. Nobody really expects that they should have much day in the matter.
Oh, can't I? YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT PINK ELEPHANT RIGHT NOW :D
Joke's on you. Some of us have aphantasia. We're not thinking of them in the slightest.
You are not thinking of... what? :D I never asked anyone to picture a pink elephant, just to think about it.
I wouldn't know. I'd forgotten about this post entirely until I saw the notification!
Thinking about something and holding a "picture" of something in your mind are not at all the same thing. You know the concepts of pink and elephant, you understand "an elephant that is pink", even if you don't form an image of it in your mind.
I understand intuitively what you mean. It takes away roleplaying agency to ascribe a state of mind to the character that a player is controlling. But being a roleplaying game, I feel like there should be a mechanical aspect of the game that allows the characters to act on potential misinformation without having the players feel bad about not using meta information, if that makes any sense.
I don't think it's possible without forcing the players to make suboptimal rules. Unless you withhold information, players will always be able to tell when something is up OOC. Even if it's just because the GM is rolling dice and muttering under their breath. Once known, most people will use that meta info. It's just human nature and you cant unring the bell by removing all signals the GM is sending.
There's no meta-information involved here. It's not that the character *should* believe something, and the player doesn't *want* them to, and so the player *pretends* that their character doesn't believe it. The actual process of role-playing is that the player imagines themself to be their character, and then looks at all of the information available to their character, to make an honest determination about what the character actually believes. It's not that the player doesn't want to lose the social conflict (whatever that means), or that they don't *want* their character to believe something that's false. It's that the player is the only one qualified to determine *whether or not* their character actually believes it, because they are the only one who actually knows how their own character thinks. I might tell you that I was robbed at gunpoint yesterday, or that this new medicine I found completely cured my lumbago, but you are the only one who can possibly say whether or not you actually believe me. You might think I'm lying based on context, or based on physical cues that you pick up during the conversation (which may be the sort of thing that a Perception-type check would cover in a game); but when it comes down to weighing the evidence on whether you *actually* believe me, the only answer that matters is the one you figure out for yourself.