I treat it the way I would combat. Not every player is a great tactical thinker, but they’ve got to do their best anyway and see how it plays out. I would never require a player to speak their lines totally in-character; describing an abstract argument is enough for me. But if you really can’t think of anything, then... sorry, but I don’t believe in letting the dice play the game for you.
Not to be a pain, but I assume you don’t take your players out into the yard and have everyone try to hit stuff (nevermind hit you) with sticks, right?
That’s not really relevant to my stated position. Hitting stuff with sticks is not playing the game. Deciding what your character says and does is.
It's entirely relevant. In the same way that playing a Monk shouldn't be limited to people who are actually good at martial arts, playing a high-charisma character shouldn't be limited to people who actually have high charisma themselves. Yes, it's better for the experience if they player offers up more than "I try to deceive the shopkeeper", but the player shouldn't be penalized for not being as gifted a liar as their character who's proficient in Deception.
Again, no. You’re conflating two different things and putting words in my mouth at the same time. “I try to deceive the shopkeeper” is absolutely not comparable to “I make an attack with my quarterstaff and then spend a ki to follow up with flurry of blows as a bonus action.”
”I try to deceive the shopkeeper” is on the level of “I engage in combat with the enemy.” If you want to start comparing things to “I attack the enemy with [specific weapon]” you need to start thinking “I tell the shopkeeper someone outside needs their help so I can look through the store unsupervised.”
Just as I would never play out a combat for you, I’m not going to make up what your character says for you. I will never expect a player to actually sell me their lie, but if they can’t even tell me what the lie is, they’re not going to be able to deceive anyone.
Except what the character is saying is the functional equivalent to swinging a quarterstaff when you're in a social encounter vs. a combat encounter. So you're still asking the player to be good at something instead of the character, which is MY point. A player shouldn't be punished for trying to play a character who is good at stuff that they the player aren't good at. I do believe the player should try to do more than just say "I try to deceive the shopkeeper", but they shouldn't be punished for being less socially skilled than their character.
First of all, the core idea of what a character says is not functionally equivalent to swinging a quarterstaff. It’s functionally equivalent to deciding to attack with a quarterstaff instead of a different weapon, or instead of running away, or instead of anything else they may do. The functional equivalent of actually swinging the quarterstaff is word choice, inflection, body language, the pleading look on the character’s face that begs to be believed, none of which I’ve even hinted at requiring from a player. Saying “I deceive the shopkeeper” is like saying “I use athletics.” How are you deceiving? How are you using athletics? Are you jumping? Are you wall-running? Are you telling them you’re the police? Literally all I am asking is that players play the game instead of making me do it for them.
Secondly, though for the third time, nothing I’ve said suggests punishing a player for being socially unskilled. If you’re only going to respond to strawman arguments I haven’t actually raised, I’m not going to engage with you further.
Perhaps I wasn't clear, it isn't that the players can't think of an argument, or do not enjoy role playing. The road blocks that we run into are more that we are role playing, but what we say as players isn't "good enough" on its own to merit the result that we are trying to achieve - and the DM is not calling for a dice roll throughout the entire encounter/interaction for our characters to shine in what they can do as charismatic characters.
99.9% of all DM style vs. player style problems are solved when you do the following:
Take what's being said/asked/expressed on a forum (or anywhere that exists outside of that group) and discuss that at your table, with your actual DM.
No matter what we tell you, if the DM doesn't know your thoughts (and resolution ideas), it won't matter. Bring it up in person. Hash it out. Move on (continue the game or leave the group).
Perhaps I wasn't clear, it isn't that the players can't think of an argument, or do not enjoy role playing. The road blocks that we run into are more that we are role playing, but what we say as players isn't "good enough" on its own to merit the result that we are trying to achieve - and the DM is not calling for a dice roll throughout the entire encounter/interaction for our characters to shine in what they can do as charismatic characters.
I think I'm with you, it sounds like the DM is demanding/commanding performances, which presumes a lot of their players.
I'm also with Jacked_Goblin, this is something to return to the table with or have a side conversation over.
A lot of the "serious role player" DMs bring a lot of other game philosophies to the table that they may or may not be aware of. Yes, yes "Critical Role" and whatever else Geeks and Sundry or whoever puts out there. But there's also Storyteller systems and other "diceless" forms for role playing gaming, which in their origins came with claims of "freeing up" play and the imagination from clunky dice mechanics. There's some truth to that. But what those liberating moments in the history of gaming fail to point out is that things can easily fall into "good performers" pulling focus (to use a dramatic term) in the game or even worse the game master unduly privileging the performances of those the GM is most entertained by (this is why the best pure storytelling oriented games actually were arbitrated by the whole table rather than exclusively the GM or whatever they called them) ... and the game becomes a cult of personality.
Role playing is interesting, it's sort of a low dose gateway drug to the acting bug. Mostly innocuous but some people really get the rush on either side of the screen; and they don't have the method or training to balance their dramatic energy in service of the production (like a trained actor or director). Within an actual dramatic production, both actors and directors will sometimes engage in the process of "notes." Basically there's an idea of how the character or story should be, and the note provides input on how that should be achieve and invites dialogue so the parties can at least meet each other halfway, A lot of players just aren't going to perform to what the DM wants ... eventually the game will go entropic or become an exercise in DM pleasing. I don't think anyone wants that, so maybe the DM needs some pointers over how to especially at story/game critical moments (witness interviews) etc. encourage the role-playing but also let the mechanics that say the PC is a master detective or interviewer to take place.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I treat it the way I would combat. Not every player is a great tactical thinker, but they’ve got to do their best anyway and see how it plays out. I would never require a player to speak their lines totally in-character; describing an abstract argument is enough for me. But if you really can’t think of anything, then... sorry, but I don’t believe in letting the dice play the game for you.
Not to be a pain, but I assume you don’t take your players out into the yard and have everyone try to hit stuff (nevermind hit you) with sticks, right?
That’s not really relevant to my stated position. Hitting stuff with sticks is not playing the game. Deciding what your character says and does is.
It's entirely relevant. In the same way that playing a Monk shouldn't be limited to people who are actually good at martial arts, playing a high-charisma character shouldn't be limited to people who actually have high charisma themselves. Yes, it's better for the experience if they player offers up more than "I try to deceive the shopkeeper", but the player shouldn't be penalized for not being as gifted a liar as their character who's proficient in Deception.
Again, no. You’re conflating two different things and putting words in my mouth at the same time. “I try to deceive the shopkeeper” is absolutely not comparable to “I make an attack with my quarterstaff and then spend a ki to follow up with flurry of blows as a bonus action.”
”I try to deceive the shopkeeper” is on the level of “I engage in combat with the enemy.” If you want to start comparing things to “I attack the enemy with [specific weapon]” you need to start thinking “I tell the shopkeeper someone outside needs their help so I can look through the store unsupervised.”
Just as I would never play out a combat for you, I’m not going to make up what your character says for you. I will never expect a player to actually sell me their lie, but if they can’t even tell me what the lie is, they’re not going to be able to deceive anyone.
I don’t think the two situations are that comparable. Armed combat is essentially choosing from a fairly limited set of options: “quarterstaff attack with my action + flurry of blows with my bonus action” requires no real creativity. You *can* get more creative than that (kicking sand towards an opponent as a diversion, luring someone up the stairs to try and make them fall, etc), but if the player isn’t any good at that or a little shy about trying something a little out of the box there are always some simple basics to fall back on. Social situations typically don’t have that, unless “I lie” without any detail whatsoever counts - which it shouldn’t.
Engaging an enemy in combat can be (and often is) straightforward. Engaging someone socially often isn’t. That’s the difference. Not speaking for anyone else here, but I certainly am not suggesting you (or anyone else) should let social encounters be handled purely through dice, without roleplay. You definitely shouldn’t. What I’m saying is that this makes it different from combat.
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Just because a player isn't that great at coming up with a super convincing reason / argument / seduction on the spot doesn't mean that their character wouldn't be able to. Has anyone else run into this scenario and what did you do?
It can be hard for the DM to keep track of what everyone is good at. In such cases, it's best if the player says something like "I'd like to phrase my last statement even more eloquently, since I have a high Persuasion skill; can I roll it?"
Just because a player isn't that great at coming up with a super convincing reason / argument / seduction on the spot doesn't mean that their character wouldn't be able to. Has anyone else run into this scenario and what did you do?
It can be hard for the DM to keep track of what everyone is good at. In such cases, it's best if the player says something like "I'd like to phrase my last statement even more eloquently, since I have a high Persuasion skill; can I roll it?"
Well, yes, no one's saying the DM needs to remember the characters' sheets. I think what's being said in the OP seems to be that the DM's style of adjudicating or responding to player's role playing performance does not make room for such mechanical intervention.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
There are rules for social interactions. They're extremely basic, but they're part of the game. It sounds like this DM is houseruling different social rules. So... The best answer to anything like this is to sit down and tell them how you feel about the way they play. Honest conversation is important.
I think what's being said in the OP seems to be that the DM's style of adjudicating or responding to player's role playing performance does not make room for such mechanical intervention.
Correct, that's why I recommend players prompt such a DM for mechanical intervention when desired. Example: "My own wording probably sounded lame, but I have a pretty high Deception skill. Can we roll, or at least assume that I sounded more plausible?"
I do this all the time as player and it seems well received. Indeed, I'll sometimes entirely skip in-character scenes by out-right telling immersion-DM's my goal and methodology for a social encounter (thus subtly implying that I'd like my role-play part to be summarized).
I think what's being said in the OP seems to be that the DM's style of adjudicating or responding to player's role playing performance does not make room for such mechanical intervention.
Correct, that's why I recommend players prompt such a DM for mechanical intervention when desired. Example: "My own wording probably sounded lame, but I have a pretty high Deception skill. Can we roll, or at least assume that I sounded more plausible?"
I do this all the time as player and it seems well received. Indeed, I'll sometimes entirely skip in-character scenes by out-right telling immersion-DM's my goal and methodology for a social encounter (thus subtly implying that I'd like my role-play part to be summarized).
I think you're right, in that that's how the game is supposed to be played. But again, it sounds like the table is being overrun, so to speak, by scenery chewing (possibly inflected by the ideas of other "storytelling" and "diceless" systems) prompting the OP (also a DM) to come to the forum to seeking advice to intervene on behalf of other players who seem to be having a less of a grand time on account of the role playing insistence. To that end, I think the OP has enough food for thought to present to the DM to improve their game.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I have seen a few variants of this so far, but I thought I could clarify what I have seen (and done) in specifically, social interactive encounters. While playing my Bard, I was obviously the one who had to do much of the speaking. As a side effect of reading a TON, working as a customer service rep for a time, them a manager there for a longer time, and other life experiences, I can be very well spoken and convincing. It was explained to me that most NPC's had a base DC for Persuasion or Deception checks. If I presented my lies or arguments as eloquently as I often do, that DC would drop (a DC of 15 Persuasion might drop to 13 because when I presented my argument to the NPC< I brought up the work we'd done already in the city and cited a goal that matched her own for the city) meaning I still had to roll a check, but I was being given "bonus points" to the roll for RPing well.
In line with that, I love the idea of the not as well spoken players asking the DM for a check, so their character can phrase it prettily. That, to me is very inclusive and as a DM, I'd knock one off the DC for the thoughtfulness of it. As several have pointed out, not everyone is a gifted of gab as others and those folks who bumble and mumble their way through RL stuff should be allowed a fair change to play the role of the gifted linguist, dazzling all with their verbal agility.
Making it all about how well your RP sounds like it might take a lot of fun out of the game, if you weren't warned of that early. If warned, make sure the clown of the group picks the Bard or some such, not the quiet one.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
This is a fascinating discussion. I can see lots of good points from all angles, and don't think there is any one right way to do this. The balance between player and character can be tricky: The players should be challenged, should be expected to play the game and "control" their character, but they are not their character. We try to stop players meta-gaming, from using knowledge that their character would not know, but surely that also means we need to accept that there are things the character knows which the player would not.
I'll stay away from combat for now, as that's a different enough situation that it can muddy the waters. If a character wanted to sneak through a village undetected to a merchant's house, we would not necessarily ask them to find the most "stealthy" route, or describe the actions throughout. I think most DMs would accept "I sneak to the merchants house". The character's skills would determine their likelihood of success, not those of the player. The player just needs to know they need to be careful, the character knows how to do so.
So, why should the player need to decide which particular lie to tell the guard to let them past? "I try to trick the guard into letting us past" should be acceptable. The character, charismatic and skilled in deception, would know how best to trick the guard, even if the player doesn't.
The player needs to decide what action their character takes. The level of detail they need to provide will vary from player to player, character to character, and table to table. A good DM will try to challenge their players, of course, but that doesn't mean requiring them to be able to do what the character does. Expecting a player to know everything their character would is no different to a player expecting to use information their character would not know.
Where is it written that there has to be a challenge for the players ?
OK, I phrased that wrong. I guess it should have been "Many DMs will try to challenge the players to make it interesting for them", or something like that. This doesn't mean they must do so, or that all groups or players will want to.
Many DMs will try to challenge the players to make it interesting for them
That's because for most players, the game is most fun and interesting when it is challenging.
Matt Colville once said (and I have his quote in my signature because I like it so much) that "D&D is the most fun you can have with your brain." That implies that it takes some brain-work to play. Without that, how are you having fun with your brain?
You are right in the above post that there are tons of things the characters would know that the player doesn't. Usually I handle that with rolls -- "Would my character know anything about these serpent statues that seem to be representing gods? Has he heard of these gods before?" is a typical question. My response: Make a religion check. After the roll, I will say, "No, your character has never..." or "yes your character has heard..." etc.
But of course that gets back to the point of the OP, which is that this DM seems not to be having them do rolls for this sort of thing, but just narrating success or failure based on straight RP. That is a choice. It is not a choice I'd make, and maybe that DM's players are not enjoying the choice, but it's not objectively wrong. I don't *have* to allow a religion check to answer that question. I could just base my answer on what the player has RPed about the character up to this point.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Actually I think the OP should chat with the other players first. If the other players are OK with it then the OP needs to seriously think about what to do, since changing it might please the OP at the expense of the other players.
This is a cooperative enterprise. DM doesn't necessarily get to just "have their way" but the OP doesn't either.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
That's reasonable enough. Personally, I'd always start by raising something like this with the DM, but specifically saying I hadn't checked with anyone else and it was just me. This would be to ensure that the DM was informed before raising with the rest of the table, to make sure they didn't feel attacked or that we'd gone behind their back. It would also allow them to respond if, for instance, they had already discussed it with others.
That said, I hate any form of confrontation, and the idea of raising an issue in front of the entire group... Eurgh! Speaking one-on-one with the DM (depending on the group dynamic) is still mildly terrifying, but better, and we could (hopefully) work together to check with the rest of the group.
I treat it the way I would combat. Not every player is a great tactical thinker, but they’ve got to do their best anyway and see how it plays out. I would never require a player to speak their lines totally in-character; describing an abstract argument is enough for me. But if you really can’t think of anything, then... sorry, but I don’t believe in letting the dice play the game for you.
This. 100%.
If you want to talk your way past a guard, you don't have to be elegant in how you use your words or roleplay a world class leading acting performance, but there is a difference between...
I want to talk my way past the guards - persuasion check?
And...
I want to tell the guards that someone is being robbed around the corner and they need to go and check, in an effort to distract them.
The latter, no matter how much someone stutters over their words, can or can't do an accent, etc, would most likely result in me saying 'roll persuasion.'
The former would most likely make me say 'and how do you intend to talk your way past' in an effort to eek more info from them.
I understand what you mean here, and that is the crux of my party's frustration with SOME of how our DM is requiring the role play. A player will make an argument in character - i.e. role playing - and the DM does not call for a 'roll persuasion' afterwards. If it is an argument that he doesn't think is well addressed or well spoken enough, he just continues the NPC's unwillingness to comply / be persuaded.
I also understand and agree that sometimes an argument just isn't going to be good enough because it is really just an absurd argument. But as an example - when the party has been hired by the town guard to solve a mystery, and has town guard credentials to prove it, when they show up an an NPC's estate and declarethat they want to talk about a matter of great importance with the owner, would the butler just argue with the party because the PLAYER didn't role play it well enough to be convincing? In other words, no dice roll to determine how convincing the character is to the butler.
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First of all, the core idea of what a character says is not functionally equivalent to swinging a quarterstaff. It’s functionally equivalent to deciding to attack with a quarterstaff instead of a different weapon, or instead of running away, or instead of anything else they may do. The functional equivalent of actually swinging the quarterstaff is word choice, inflection, body language, the pleading look on the character’s face that begs to be believed, none of which I’ve even hinted at requiring from a player. Saying “I deceive the shopkeeper” is like saying “I use athletics.” How are you deceiving? How are you using athletics? Are you jumping? Are you wall-running? Are you telling them you’re the police? Literally all I am asking is that players play the game instead of making me do it for them.
Secondly, though for the third time, nothing I’ve said suggests punishing a player for being socially unskilled. If you’re only going to respond to strawman arguments I haven’t actually raised, I’m not going to engage with you further.
Yeah, as a DM if one of my players says “I attempt to deceive ‘NPC X.’” My first question will be “How?”
If the players says “I tell ‘NPC X’ that [insert lie here].” My response will likely be “Roll Deception.”
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Perhaps I wasn't clear, it isn't that the players can't think of an argument, or do not enjoy role playing. The road blocks that we run into are more that we are role playing, but what we say as players isn't "good enough" on its own to merit the result that we are trying to achieve - and the DM is not calling for a dice roll throughout the entire encounter/interaction for our characters to shine in what they can do as charismatic characters.
99.9% of all DM style vs. player style problems are solved when you do the following:
Take what's being said/asked/expressed on a forum (or anywhere that exists outside of that group) and discuss that at your table, with your actual DM.
No matter what we tell you, if the DM doesn't know your thoughts (and resolution ideas), it won't matter. Bring it up in person. Hash it out. Move on (continue the game or leave the group).
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I think I'm with you, it sounds like the DM is demanding/commanding performances, which presumes a lot of their players.
I'm also with Jacked_Goblin, this is something to return to the table with or have a side conversation over.
A lot of the "serious role player" DMs bring a lot of other game philosophies to the table that they may or may not be aware of. Yes, yes "Critical Role" and whatever else Geeks and Sundry or whoever puts out there. But there's also Storyteller systems and other "diceless" forms for role playing gaming, which in their origins came with claims of "freeing up" play and the imagination from clunky dice mechanics. There's some truth to that. But what those liberating moments in the history of gaming fail to point out is that things can easily fall into "good performers" pulling focus (to use a dramatic term) in the game or even worse the game master unduly privileging the performances of those the GM is most entertained by (this is why the best pure storytelling oriented games actually were arbitrated by the whole table rather than exclusively the GM or whatever they called them) ... and the game becomes a cult of personality.
Role playing is interesting, it's sort of a low dose gateway drug to the acting bug. Mostly innocuous but some people really get the rush on either side of the screen; and they don't have the method or training to balance their dramatic energy in service of the production (like a trained actor or director). Within an actual dramatic production, both actors and directors will sometimes engage in the process of "notes." Basically there's an idea of how the character or story should be, and the note provides input on how that should be achieve and invites dialogue so the parties can at least meet each other halfway, A lot of players just aren't going to perform to what the DM wants ... eventually the game will go entropic or become an exercise in DM pleasing. I don't think anyone wants that, so maybe the DM needs some pointers over how to especially at story/game critical moments (witness interviews) etc. encourage the role-playing but also let the mechanics that say the PC is a master detective or interviewer to take place.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don’t think the two situations are that comparable. Armed combat is essentially choosing from a fairly limited set of options: “quarterstaff attack with my action + flurry of blows with my bonus action” requires no real creativity. You *can* get more creative than that (kicking sand towards an opponent as a diversion, luring someone up the stairs to try and make them fall, etc), but if the player isn’t any good at that or a little shy about trying something a little out of the box there are always some simple basics to fall back on. Social situations typically don’t have that, unless “I lie” without any detail whatsoever counts - which it shouldn’t.
Engaging an enemy in combat can be (and often is) straightforward. Engaging someone socially often isn’t. That’s the difference. Not speaking for anyone else here, but I certainly am not suggesting you (or anyone else) should let social encounters be handled purely through dice, without roleplay. You definitely shouldn’t. What I’m saying is that this makes it different from combat.
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It can be hard for the DM to keep track of what everyone is good at. In such cases, it's best if the player says something like "I'd like to phrase my last statement even more eloquently, since I have a high Persuasion skill; can I roll it?"
Well, yes, no one's saying the DM needs to remember the characters' sheets. I think what's being said in the OP seems to be that the DM's style of adjudicating or responding to player's role playing performance does not make room for such mechanical intervention.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
In my opinion....
There are rules for social interactions. They're extremely basic, but they're part of the game. It sounds like this DM is houseruling different social rules. So... The best answer to anything like this is to sit down and tell them how you feel about the way they play. Honest conversation is important.
Correct, that's why I recommend players prompt such a DM for mechanical intervention when desired. Example: "My own wording probably sounded lame, but I have a pretty high Deception skill. Can we roll, or at least assume that I sounded more plausible?"
I do this all the time as player and it seems well received. Indeed, I'll sometimes entirely skip in-character scenes by out-right telling immersion-DM's my goal and methodology for a social encounter (thus subtly implying that I'd like my role-play part to be summarized).
I
I think you're right, in that that's how the game is supposed to be played. But again, it sounds like the table is being overrun, so to speak, by scenery chewing (possibly inflected by the ideas of other "storytelling" and "diceless" systems) prompting the OP (also a DM) to come to the forum to seeking advice to intervene on behalf of other players who seem to be having a less of a grand time on account of the role playing insistence. To that end, I think the OP has enough food for thought to present to the DM to improve their game.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I have seen a few variants of this so far, but I thought I could clarify what I have seen (and done) in specifically, social interactive encounters. While playing my Bard, I was obviously the one who had to do much of the speaking. As a side effect of reading a TON, working as a customer service rep for a time, them a manager there for a longer time, and other life experiences, I can be very well spoken and convincing. It was explained to me that most NPC's had a base DC for Persuasion or Deception checks. If I presented my lies or arguments as eloquently as I often do, that DC would drop (a DC of 15 Persuasion might drop to 13 because when I presented my argument to the NPC< I brought up the work we'd done already in the city and cited a goal that matched her own for the city) meaning I still had to roll a check, but I was being given "bonus points" to the roll for RPing well.
In line with that, I love the idea of the not as well spoken players asking the DM for a check, so their character can phrase it prettily. That, to me is very inclusive and as a DM, I'd knock one off the DC for the thoughtfulness of it. As several have pointed out, not everyone is a gifted of gab as others and those folks who bumble and mumble their way through RL stuff should be allowed a fair change to play the role of the gifted linguist, dazzling all with their verbal agility.
Making it all about how well your RP sounds like it might take a lot of fun out of the game, if you weren't warned of that early. If warned, make sure the clown of the group picks the Bard or some such, not the quiet one.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
Let checks be checks, independent of how well a player acts them out.
If you want to reward good acting/role play, that is what giving inspiration is for.
This is a fascinating discussion. I can see lots of good points from all angles, and don't think there is any one right way to do this. The balance between player and character can be tricky: The players should be challenged, should be expected to play the game and "control" their character, but they are not their character. We try to stop players meta-gaming, from using knowledge that their character would not know, but surely that also means we need to accept that there are things the character knows which the player would not.
I'll stay away from combat for now, as that's a different enough situation that it can muddy the waters. If a character wanted to sneak through a village undetected to a merchant's house, we would not necessarily ask them to find the most "stealthy" route, or describe the actions throughout. I think most DMs would accept "I sneak to the merchants house". The character's skills would determine their likelihood of success, not those of the player. The player just needs to know they need to be careful, the character knows how to do so.
So, why should the player need to decide which particular lie to tell the guard to let them past? "I try to trick the guard into letting us past" should be acceptable. The character, charismatic and skilled in deception, would know how best to trick the guard, even if the player doesn't.
The player needs to decide what action their character takes. The level of detail they need to provide will vary from player to player, character to character, and table to table. A good DM will try to challenge their players, of course, but that doesn't mean requiring them to be able to do what the character does. Expecting a player to know everything their character would is no different to a player expecting to use information their character would not know.
Your points are all well made, and I agree.
OK, I phrased that wrong. I guess it should have been "Many DMs will try to challenge the players to make it interesting for them", or something like that. This doesn't mean they must do so, or that all groups or players will want to.
That's because for most players, the game is most fun and interesting when it is challenging.
Matt Colville once said (and I have his quote in my signature because I like it so much) that "D&D is the most fun you can have with your brain." That implies that it takes some brain-work to play. Without that, how are you having fun with your brain?
You are right in the above post that there are tons of things the characters would know that the player doesn't. Usually I handle that with rolls -- "Would my character know anything about these serpent statues that seem to be representing gods? Has he heard of these gods before?" is a typical question. My response: Make a religion check. After the roll, I will say, "No, your character has never..." or "yes your character has heard..." etc.
But of course that gets back to the point of the OP, which is that this DM seems not to be having them do rolls for this sort of thing, but just narrating success or failure based on straight RP. That is a choice. It is not a choice I'd make, and maybe that DM's players are not enjoying the choice, but it's not objectively wrong. I don't *have* to allow a religion check to answer that question. I could just base my answer on what the player has RPed about the character up to this point.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Agreed. But then, we get back to the start: It's a game, and it's supposed to be fun. If the OP is not enjoying it, they should speak to their DM.
Actually I think the OP should chat with the other players first. If the other players are OK with it then the OP needs to seriously think about what to do, since changing it might please the OP at the expense of the other players.
This is a cooperative enterprise. DM doesn't necessarily get to just "have their way" but the OP doesn't either.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
That's reasonable enough. Personally, I'd always start by raising something like this with the DM, but specifically saying I hadn't checked with anyone else and it was just me. This would be to ensure that the DM was informed before raising with the rest of the table, to make sure they didn't feel attacked or that we'd gone behind their back. It would also allow them to respond if, for instance, they had already discussed it with others.
That said, I hate any form of confrontation, and the idea of raising an issue in front of the entire group... Eurgh! Speaking one-on-one with the DM (depending on the group dynamic) is still mildly terrifying, but better, and we could (hopefully) work together to check with the rest of the group.
I understand what you mean here, and that is the crux of my party's frustration with SOME of how our DM is requiring the role play. A player will make an argument in character - i.e. role playing - and the DM does not call for a 'roll persuasion' afterwards. If it is an argument that he doesn't think is well addressed or well spoken enough, he just continues the NPC's unwillingness to comply / be persuaded.
I also understand and agree that sometimes an argument just isn't going to be good enough because it is really just an absurd argument. But as an example - when the party has been hired by the town guard to solve a mystery, and has town guard credentials to prove it, when they show up an an NPC's estate and declarethat they want to talk about a matter of great importance with the owner, would the butler just argue with the party because the PLAYER didn't role play it well enough to be convincing? In other words, no dice roll to determine how convincing the character is to the butler.