I'm curious how people handle PC's making Persuasion rolls. I currently roll off against them using the NPC's charisma. It's quick and simple. However they can be too persuasive and I want to be able to hide somethings. 

So I'm just curious how you guys handle the rolls 

Same as every other roll.

Typical Difficulty Classes

Let's assume we have an Evil Usurper Queen on the throne, a Good Disposed King in exile, and the party wants to help put the King back on the throne but don't know his location. The Good Royal Vizier knows the location but doesn't know if she can trust the party. It should be Nearly Impossible (DC 30) for anyone, especially an unfamiliar adventuring party, to persuade the Royal Vizier to reveal the King's location. 

However, it might simply be Hard (DC 20) to convince the Vizier to let the party prove their loyalty to the King. In this case, the Vizier may send them on some sort of task, whether to sabotage the Queen's plans or to acquire a lost legendary item that would aid the King and in doing so they earn their trust.

If the PCs are allowed to roll against the Vizier's Charisma score, then that implies both of the above tasks carry equal weight, which is definitely not the case. Then, what if the Vizier has a Charisma of 17? Not bad if she was built using a standard array, but still only slightly above average difficulty for information as important as the whereabouts of a King in exile.

More importantly, I would look at Chapter 8: Running The Game of the DMG under the section The Role of Dice. The short version is you may decide that a certain task is indeed impossible. Using the above example, I would actually rule that the players cannot persuade the Royal Vizier to reveal the King's location without first proving themselves loyal, and if the party (from the Royal Vizier's perspective) are complete strangers to the point where the PCs aren't even a rumor then it would be nearly impossible to persuade the Vizier to even allow them the chance to earn their trust.

The more familiarity and trust the Royal Vizier has for the party, the easier it becomes for the party to convince her to tell them where the King is, thereby lowering the DC for any related Persuasion check. You can even get to the point where the party has garnered so much trust that the task moves to the other extreme of being an automatic success.

I just use the social interaction rules in DMG chapter 8. They work well and don't produce absurd results if the bard rolls a 30 somehow.

I find that pure DCs tend to be a bit "seat of the pants" guesstimates from the DM. I've seen very few people show consistency in how they select social DCs in this manner.

Rolling against Charisma - which amongst other things is a measure of "strength of will", in my interpretation - isn't a bad technique, as it's less purely subjective. This is how we handle things like Hiding ( Stealth vs. Perception, passive or otherwise ), after all. However  - as Korbin_Orion points out, this doesn't allow the target roll to scale with the difficulty of the task. If you introduce modifiers to the Charisma target roll based on difficulty , you're really back to "seat of the pants" selection, just this time of modifiers.

Instead of modifiers, one could decide on Advantage/Disadvantage for the roll - but this is really only the equivalent of shifting DCs up or down by 5 - which isn't as flexible as DCs. Perhaps this isn't a drawback - after all, we don't do highly nuanced modifiers for Hiding. It may come down to how nuanced you want your social interactions to be: perhaps Advantage/Disadvantage is sufficient for your game.

In the example of the Vizier above, a little thought as to the kind of person who would be in that role (it's unlikely that weak willed - i.e. low Charisma - individual would rise to that role ) helps keep things somewhat plausible. In the case of a professional person who lives by their Charisma - like the Vizier - I might add a proficiency bonus equivalent to their score - although overthink this, and you're back to "seat of the pants", so maybe adopt a flat +2 professional bonus to such targets - regardless of what stat you're targeting; professionals get +2.

I agree 100% however, that rolls should only occur is there is a possibility of success, or failure, and an associated cost ( either in resources or time ) which prevents the PCs from just hammering away at the problem until they get a favorable roll.

I find that DC selection, the nebulous selection criteria provided for them, and the inconsistencies that many (I'd even say most) DMs exhibit in selecting them, even within the same session, is one of the major weak points of the 5e system.

Quote from OboeCrazy >>

I also use the DCs that Korbin posted above, but I always try to keep in mind if there are things that could NEVER be persuaded to happen.

This is basically what the DMG rules do. What's possible depends on the NPC's attitude towards you, which you may or may not be able to influence through clever roleplay. DC 10 gets you an outcome one step better than the NPC's default behavior and a DC 20 gets you an outcome two steps better.

For example, a hostile NPC will normally try to hurt you. If you make a case for your request, a roll of 10 means they won't help nor hurt you, and a roll of 20 means they'll go along with your request as long as there's no risks involved. That's the best you can hope for without improving the NPC's attitude towards you first, and you still need to provide a reason for why they'd want to help you.

Meanwhile a friendly NPC defaults to that last outcome and can be convinced to accept a small or large amount of risk with a 10 or 20.

I start with a base DC, in the case of the guard leaving his post we'll say it's very difficult so a 25, from there I will adjust the DC based on how they interact with the guard.

I also figure out 3 motivations for the npc. One is personal goal, one is professional goal, and one is their taboo. We'll say the guard's personal goal is to end their shift and go attend a show at a near by tavern. Their professional goal is to recover from a bad situation where their commander decided to punish them by making them take guard duty. Lastly the taboo is that they will take great offense if someone starts saying anything negative about their ability to perform their job.

As the players interact with the captain I'll adjust the dc three times, making it more difficult if they do anything that might be a taboo, and decreasing the difficulty if they can incorporate a goal into their attempts. It's a +/- 2 for each. 

If the players don't try to do anything more than "I want to roll persuasion" I'll prompt them with a "How". If they RP it then I'll do the adjustments, if they simply stick to "I just want to try to persuade them" I'll keep the DC the same. 

I have a switch to the question. What if I have an NPC persuade the PC's into give up something. How can you persuade them to give up items besides paying vas amounts or trading items? Persuasion vs Persuasion or maybe fine out how much the PC's treasure an item and then have them assign it a DC maybe?

You want to avoid taking away agency from your players as much as possible, and when you do try to make it exclusively magical means so that it becomes a mystery to solve and/or can be overcome/counterspelled/dispelled. Let the players decide for themselves whether or not they want to give up an item, information, or perform a task. Any time which you take away a player's agency needs to be done carefully, and if it is nonmagical or "for the story" it needs to be in incredibly rare, niche, and non-universal circumstances.

If an NPC wants an item that the players don't want to give up, then you decide if the NPC is evil and desperate enough for the item to either try to steal it themselves or hire someone to steal/ambush the party and take it that way, and now you have a whole new adventure right there. This would be done either through an NPC sleight of hand vs. the party's perception checks or a group of bandits jumping them in an alley or whatever other appropriate scenarios you come up with.

Thank you for the quick response I really do appreciate the information. I believe some context is needed for a my scenario I have coming up in my game.

I have an NPC who had an incredible helpful item for the players but it cost them 1,000 Gold. The next time the players see the NPC if all goes according to plan they will present the item to the NPC, now it has no purpose for them other than selling it to this NPC which can shed some light on the target they are tracking (They have everything they need to track the target this information if just a plus for them to have). Now if the players don't present the item to this NPC then it will play no further part in the game.

I hope this context helps with my question.

Original Question: I have a switch to the question. What if I have an NPC persuade the PC's into give up something. How can you persuade them to give up items besides paying vas amounts or trading items? Persuasion vs Persuasion or maybe fine out how much the PC's treasure an item and then have them assign it a DC maybe?

If the characters don't need the item and don't care about it then they could give it to the NPC when he asks. He could ask in a convincing manner and perhaps offer some gold in exchange for the item but if it isn't essential to the plot that the NPC receive the item back then don't worry about it. Roleplay the NPC being nice and asking for it and pointing out to the PCs that it isn't useful for them anymore.

However, in general, you can't use skills like persuasion or intimidation on PCs. The PCs always choose what to do. You can say that the NPC makes a very persuasive case, tell the player that the character thinks the NPC comments really make sense. But unless the PC is under the effect of a spell that makes them more likely to be persuaded (charm for example ... or dominate, it which case they don't have any choice) then the decision is always made by the PC.

Never, never, never tell your players "You have been persuaded" or anything similar.  They are likely to hand you their character sheets and tell you "Have fun playing my character for me."

Don't have dice rolls mandate player actions.  It is not fun to have the DM tell you what your character is going to do.  I would suggest you tell the players that the NPC is very persuasive and presents an extremely compelling argument, then ask them how they respond.  Your players may be willing to roleplay that they have been persuaded.

Quote from OboeLauren >>

 

On the other side, if a PC gives a super compelling argument that would actually work I won't make them roll, I'll just have the NPC be persuaded. Because if the PC has put together something super convincing then I would rather reward them outright then risk a Nat 1 failure when they're making a lot of sense.

 I still usually give my players a roll in that case, but I let them roll with advantage and set the DC fairly low. For one thing, players like to roll dice and they feel accomplished when they pull off something that gives them advantage. And the chance of failure is less that their argument is bad, and more like the NPC thinks that the player is just saying what they think the NPC wants to hear, so it's more about convincing them that they're being genuine about all the things they're saying.

I almost never have contested rolls for persuasion, but I do it sometimes for deception or intimidation. Usually it's an intelligence check for Deception or a wisdom check for intimidation. I still mostly use DCs to determine those things, but if they're pulling this on an underdeveloped character I wasn't expecting them to interact with, and thus I don't have a lot of planned ideas for how they should react, I sometimes rely on the dice to decide for me to keep from hemming and hawing to myself and slowing things down while I decide on a DC.

Quote from BoBoGaming16 >>

I have a switch to the question. What if I have an NPC persuade the PC's into give up something. How can you persuade them to give up items besides paying vas amounts or trading items? Persuasion vs Persuasion or maybe fine out how much the PC's treasure an item and then have them assign it a DC maybe?

Persuasion is not mind control. It's about phrasing what you say correctly for the social situation, making the right request at the right time, using the correct language. The person doing the persuading must be acting in good faith - i.e. not lying, that's covered by deception. Someone with a high persuasion is one of those irritating (at least to social muppets like me) people at a party that always knows the right way into a conversation, always looks interested even when they're bored titless and changes the way they speak depending on who they think they're talking to. They're the people that can flirt outrageously and get away with it while everyone else just sounds creepy or desperate. Persuasion is the skill you use when the player wants his character to be polite, use the correct etiquette and be charming even when the player isn't charming or doesn't know or doesn't care what the correct etiquette is. 

If an NPC wants something the Adventurer has he can use persuasion to make sure his request is tuned correctly for the Adventurer. He's never going to get the Adventurer to go against their best interests but he's going to be able to point out exactly what the Adventurer's best interests are. If the player of that Adventurer doesn't want to go along there's not a lot you can do as a DM apart from shrug and carry on.

Generally I'd say only make a persuasion check for an NPC if you think that it'd be fun for it to mess up and throw a grain of sand into the situation by saying the wrong thing. Otherwise don't bother. Let the warrior with CHA 8 and no proficiency in persuasion call everyone "Captain Dicksplash" in conversation and the bard with CHA 20 and proficiency in persuasion call the correct people "Sir", "Dude" or "Mate" as appropriate.

This might be unusual, but I only ask players to make Persuasion or Deception rolls if I'm on the fence about whether their in-character dialogue would suffice. If they RP a good enough excuse to an NPC I'll often omit the roll entirely or at least give them advantage.

Same with combat. In certain situations it's not worth rolling damage when an action would clearly kill an NPC.

a contest of skills might work, basically persuasion versus will (probably best would be persuasion versus either persuasion or plain wisdom check)