Recently defeated a big bad in a capital city. And now as hero’s we are meeting with big wigs at a celebration dinner/ball ceremony.
my character is 20 INT by 18 WIS but as a player I don’t know jack about how to speak. As my DM put it,
“A political situation can be as dangerous if not more so than a big bad. It’s one thing to fight or evade a dragon, it’s another when a whole nation is out to get you.”
Thus far, I’ve revealed a good bit of our exploits as a party as well as items we’ve found that only after the fact did certain individuals take a much greater and uncomfortable interest in them than anticipated.
My DM told me that you cannot get out of political moments unaffected, only deciding what bad outcome you wanna commit to and lessen it the best way you can.
What can I do as a player to not screw over my party as the designated speaker on behalf of the party? One would think when in doubt just be quite. But even silence can convey the wrong message.
How should I speak? What can I say to find out a big wig has our best interest in mind? How to tell someone’s fishing a little too much for information? How can we speak, but carefully?
Its all new to me and I enjoy it a lot. Reminds me of Dragon Age Inquisition ballroom chapter. I just don’t want to indirectly screw our party. Thanks for any advice.
I'm not sure that your average D&D player is going to be able to offer good advice on how to deal with politicians. I would suggest that you develop your "talking points", that is, a few pre-prepared responses to the most important questions that you are likely to get, or messages that you want to deliver, and stick to them, never making it up as you go along.
I think also that this points to a weakness in how social encounters can be played. Your character can be more capable at these sorts of things than you are, and the game has mechanics to try to deal with it. If, for example, you are trying to hide the fact that the party has interesting items, it should depend more on a successful CHR (Deception) than on your ability as a player to talk around it at the table. You could be discussing with your DM about what it is that you are trying to achieve in the encounter, agree on what check or checks are required to make that happen, and then role play around that. I think that's fair, no DM makes players playing Bards sing at the table, or Rogues hide.
Thanks for the advice and yes, for the most part he allows certain moments to be bypassed when he considers the passive status of the characters. Things like “he/she would know this”
I’m just new at a political dnd moment, but the pre staged questions was a good suggestion
It is true that a high Int/Wis PC should be totally screwed over by politics - the best he should do is pick how he gets screwed. High Int and high Wisdom have nothing to do with how to talk to the big wigs. That is High Charisma.
A reasonable player should put a high Charisma person in charge of talking to people. A high charisma PC should have a chance of coming out ahead, at least once he has information his opponent does NOT have.
In other words, the secret to winning politics is to know secrets.
Do not reveal secrets, keep them. Base your goals and dealings on those secrets and you should win negotiations. Trade the castle you own for the royal forest where you just discovered an Adamantine mine and have NOT told the king about. Trade the jewels for the artifact that does not detect as magic. Get paid for rescuing the stolen slaves without informing the king you also recovered the secret messages from his competitor found among them, then asking for a second payment for obtaining that.
Sweet examples toward the end. Yea unfortunately I botched a lot so far. Told the ambassadors of different countries there’s a cataclysmic entity in the astral plane *to be fair I found that vital for them to know*, a weapon that can bypass a nations strongest metal and freaking SHOWED it to them all, asked about Graz’zt business in the world and were to follow up on it, and finally told them we defeated a freaking Aboleth.
I still withheld the last two secrets, one being that one of our players patrons is a usurper god bent on the utter destruction of all creation, and we hold the essence of one of the 7 legendary hero’s who’s body has been in a cryogenic sleep for the last 1000 years, now we face her half sister with the news that we recovered it. Oh yea she’s also the leader of a nation.
we are scheduled to meet with her privately to reveal it but as you can tell I’m more worried about damage control rather than what to say now, currently my plan is to have the party collectively decide
You don't have to speak all the words to roleplay this kind of situation.
It is fine to say: "I want to have a conversation with Lord Boobie where I try to identify what his motivations are. I won't let on about anything dangerous, and obviously not the cryo sleep thing. My goal is to get him to reveal what he wants, and then if he does, I'd like to play into that. I'll try to tell him a bit about arcane physics as well to impress him."
The DM should then call for a social check of some kind, but more like a combination of several. First up, I'd ask for a Persuasion check against Lord Boobie's rolled check (Deception if he's hiding something, otherwise flat Charisma), and then Deception to see how well you withhold everything important (no DC set - just based on the strength of the check made, so a 22 would mean all withheld, a 7 might mean he thinks you're holding back, a 1 means you accidentally blurted. Then I'd want an Arcana check to see if you describe the physics well, after which I'd adjudicate how the conversation went.
You are not your PC and your PC is not you, the GM should take into account this and adjust your words into what your PC would say and how your PC says it. Also remember that GM's have a tough job running the game in general and they are not perfect or often not professional authors, writers, actors and or hold doctorates in all of the fields they express in their games.
Another issue I have seen frequently in GM's and players often express things and view things in terms of the present and not through the setting's info, which again is normal since they are not professionals in the game material and or acting or reenacting. So again (IMHO) the GM should adjust what the player is saying to what the PC would say and or do. This is a hard skill for GM's (and players) to learn and how or how much the skill is used can vary greatly in an individual game.
So in general I when I GM try and take into account all of the varies factors of a PC, what the player is trying to say and or do and what other things may modify the action(s). In general most games use rolls and or some type of passive number (like passive perception in 5e) to give the PC an average result of what they would expect to do in a give situation when they use a specific skill.
How should I speak? What can I say to find out a big wig has our best interest in mind? How to tell someone’s fishing a little too much for information? How can we speak, but carefully?
Its all new to me and I enjoy it a lot. Reminds me of Dragon Age Inquisition ballroom chapter. I just don’t want to indirectly screw our party. Thanks for any advice.
You know how I think a very intelligent character approaches a social situation? Research. The Intelligence skills are mostly about knowledge, but being good at Investigation means you are good at finding things out as well. Do as much research as you can before the event. Find out who is going to be there, what their political affiliation is, what their public agendas are and, if possible, their personal and secret agendas. Find out where the event is taking place, where the exit routes are in case things go badly, what kind of security is going to be staffing it, what kind of food is going to be served, who is preparing the dishes. Your character is a genius and should be able to create a simulation of the even before it happens. You probably won't know literally everything, but that's okay, that's where your Wisdom comes into play.
You know how I think a high Wisdom character approaches a social situation? By saying only what is necessary and paying very careful attention to everything. With a high Wisdom score, you should have a decent Insight which will let you read the room and ferret out how people think and feel about things. This is the ability which will let you react to things that you didn't anticipate in your big brain plan. Smart and observant people tend to keep their mouths closed and their eyes and ears open, looking for opportunities to leverage what they can. Remind your DM that a passive Insight score is there as a minimum and that your character should always be catching stuff above that minimum.
High Charisma people might be able to go into a social situation and wing it based on charm alone, but high Int and Wis people are no slouches themselves, but it takes some prep. You should also look at this as an opportunity. Think of all the resources of the city: money, hirelings, knowledge about possible new adventures, magical artifacts, etc. You just saved the city, surely you can leverage that to either get stuff that your party needs or to steer the course of the next part of your adventure. If you have time, consult with your party and see if there is something they want as well. One of the surest ways to prevent having your agenda being steered around by another party is to set your own course. So do what high Int people are good at and prep and plan and research and then use your high Wis to stay on your toes during the encounter so you can apply all that research you did beforehand.
You might not be the Charismatic politician, but you can definitely be the quiet intelligent one who has just the right words to say in just the right ears to make moves. If you have to make a big speech and you don't know exactly what to say just keep it light and pleasant and neutral and save all your energy for the mingling of the movers and shakers. Unless in the course of consulting with your party you happen to come up with a certain agenda and want to risk using your big speech to pressure the big wigs, then maybe you should make an outright request. Sometimes it pays to simply ask outright for what you want.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Thanks everyone, I got some good core ideas to implement. Getting them to spill there own secrets with prodding questions, and research/observation before hand can only help in that same endeavor
After giving this some more thought, I think if I were you I would say to the GM "here is what I want to say, is this what my PC would say in the situation and how would I best say that to not offend (unless you are trying to) the person and or party?" That way your PC is using the proper language the GM expects in the situation/encounter if your PC has the skills and or experience to do so.
Another option is for a GM to provide a number of options for the player to pick from in the encounter like is done in video games but this can take a lot of the GM's time and planning the Question/Comment and Answer/Reply map of all possibilities can take a lot of time that few GM's have to spare.
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Recently defeated a big bad in a capital city. And now as hero’s we are meeting with big wigs at a celebration dinner/ball ceremony.
my character is 20 INT by 18 WIS but as a player I don’t know jack about how to speak. As my DM put it,
“A political situation can be as dangerous if not more so than a big bad. It’s one thing to fight or evade a dragon, it’s another when a whole nation is out to get you.”
Thus far, I’ve revealed a good bit of our exploits as a party as well as items we’ve found that only after the fact did certain individuals take a much greater and uncomfortable interest in them than anticipated.
My DM told me that you cannot get out of political moments unaffected, only deciding what bad outcome you wanna commit to and lessen it the best way you can.
What can I do as a player to not screw over my party as the designated speaker on behalf of the party? One would think when in doubt just be quite. But even silence can convey the wrong message.
How should I speak? What can I say to find out a big wig has our best interest in mind? How to tell someone’s fishing a little too much for information? How can we speak, but carefully?
Its all new to me and I enjoy it a lot. Reminds me of Dragon Age Inquisition ballroom chapter. I just don’t want to indirectly screw our party. Thanks for any advice.
I'm not sure that your average D&D player is going to be able to offer good advice on how to deal with politicians. I would suggest that you develop your "talking points", that is, a few pre-prepared responses to the most important questions that you are likely to get, or messages that you want to deliver, and stick to them, never making it up as you go along.
I think also that this points to a weakness in how social encounters can be played. Your character can be more capable at these sorts of things than you are, and the game has mechanics to try to deal with it. If, for example, you are trying to hide the fact that the party has interesting items, it should depend more on a successful CHR (Deception) than on your ability as a player to talk around it at the table. You could be discussing with your DM about what it is that you are trying to achieve in the encounter, agree on what check or checks are required to make that happen, and then role play around that. I think that's fair, no DM makes players playing Bards sing at the table, or Rogues hide.
Thanks for the advice and yes, for the most part he allows certain moments to be bypassed when he considers the passive status of the characters. Things like “he/she would know this”
I’m just new at a political dnd moment, but the pre staged questions was a good suggestion
It is true that a high Int/Wis PC should be totally screwed over by politics - the best he should do is pick how he gets screwed. High Int and high Wisdom have nothing to do with how to talk to the big wigs. That is High Charisma.
A reasonable player should put a high Charisma person in charge of talking to people. A high charisma PC should have a chance of coming out ahead, at least once he has information his opponent does NOT have.
In other words, the secret to winning politics is to know secrets.
Do not reveal secrets, keep them. Base your goals and dealings on those secrets and you should win negotiations. Trade the castle you own for the royal forest where you just discovered an Adamantine mine and have NOT told the king about. Trade the jewels for the artifact that does not detect as magic. Get paid for rescuing the stolen slaves without informing the king you also recovered the secret messages from his competitor found among them, then asking for a second payment for obtaining that.
Sweet examples toward the end. Yea unfortunately I botched a lot so far. Told the ambassadors of different countries there’s a cataclysmic entity in the astral plane *to be fair I found that vital for them to know*, a weapon that can bypass a nations strongest metal and freaking SHOWED it to them all, asked about Graz’zt business in the world and were to follow up on it, and finally told them we defeated a freaking Aboleth.
I still withheld the last two secrets, one being that one of our players patrons is a usurper god bent on the utter destruction of all creation, and we hold the essence of one of the 7 legendary hero’s who’s body has been in a cryogenic sleep for the last 1000 years, now we face her half sister with the news that we recovered it. Oh yea she’s also the leader of a nation.
we are scheduled to meet with her privately to reveal it but as you can tell I’m more worried about damage control rather than what to say now, currently my plan is to have the party collectively decide
You don't have to speak all the words to roleplay this kind of situation.
It is fine to say: "I want to have a conversation with Lord Boobie where I try to identify what his motivations are. I won't let on about anything dangerous, and obviously not the cryo sleep thing. My goal is to get him to reveal what he wants, and then if he does, I'd like to play into that. I'll try to tell him a bit about arcane physics as well to impress him."
The DM should then call for a social check of some kind, but more like a combination of several. First up, I'd ask for a Persuasion check against Lord Boobie's rolled check (Deception if he's hiding something, otherwise flat Charisma), and then Deception to see how well you withhold everything important (no DC set - just based on the strength of the check made, so a 22 would mean all withheld, a 7 might mean he thinks you're holding back, a 1 means you accidentally blurted. Then I'd want an Arcana check to see if you describe the physics well, after which I'd adjudicate how the conversation went.
You are not your PC and your PC is not you, the GM should take into account this and adjust your words into what your PC would say and how your PC says it. Also remember that GM's have a tough job running the game in general and they are not perfect or often not professional authors, writers, actors and or hold doctorates in all of the fields they express in their games.
Another issue I have seen frequently in GM's and players often express things and view things in terms of the present and not through the setting's info, which again is normal since they are not professionals in the game material and or acting or reenacting. So again (IMHO) the GM should adjust what the player is saying to what the PC would say and or do. This is a hard skill for GM's (and players) to learn and how or how much the skill is used can vary greatly in an individual game.
So in general I when I GM try and take into account all of the varies factors of a PC, what the player is trying to say and or do and what other things may modify the action(s). In general most games use rolls and or some type of passive number (like passive perception in 5e) to give the PC an average result of what they would expect to do in a give situation when they use a specific skill.
You know how I think a very intelligent character approaches a social situation? Research. The Intelligence skills are mostly about knowledge, but being good at Investigation means you are good at finding things out as well. Do as much research as you can before the event. Find out who is going to be there, what their political affiliation is, what their public agendas are and, if possible, their personal and secret agendas. Find out where the event is taking place, where the exit routes are in case things go badly, what kind of security is going to be staffing it, what kind of food is going to be served, who is preparing the dishes. Your character is a genius and should be able to create a simulation of the even before it happens. You probably won't know literally everything, but that's okay, that's where your Wisdom comes into play.
You know how I think a high Wisdom character approaches a social situation? By saying only what is necessary and paying very careful attention to everything. With a high Wisdom score, you should have a decent Insight which will let you read the room and ferret out how people think and feel about things. This is the ability which will let you react to things that you didn't anticipate in your big brain plan. Smart and observant people tend to keep their mouths closed and their eyes and ears open, looking for opportunities to leverage what they can. Remind your DM that a passive Insight score is there as a minimum and that your character should always be catching stuff above that minimum.
High Charisma people might be able to go into a social situation and wing it based on charm alone, but high Int and Wis people are no slouches themselves, but it takes some prep. You should also look at this as an opportunity. Think of all the resources of the city: money, hirelings, knowledge about possible new adventures, magical artifacts, etc. You just saved the city, surely you can leverage that to either get stuff that your party needs or to steer the course of the next part of your adventure. If you have time, consult with your party and see if there is something they want as well. One of the surest ways to prevent having your agenda being steered around by another party is to set your own course. So do what high Int people are good at and prep and plan and research and then use your high Wis to stay on your toes during the encounter so you can apply all that research you did beforehand.
You might not be the Charismatic politician, but you can definitely be the quiet intelligent one who has just the right words to say in just the right ears to make moves. If you have to make a big speech and you don't know exactly what to say just keep it light and pleasant and neutral and save all your energy for the mingling of the movers and shakers. Unless in the course of consulting with your party you happen to come up with a certain agenda and want to risk using your big speech to pressure the big wigs, then maybe you should make an outright request. Sometimes it pays to simply ask outright for what you want.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Thanks everyone, I got some good core ideas to implement. Getting them to spill there own secrets with prodding questions, and research/observation before hand can only help in that same endeavor
Having a high wisdom doesn't help you know what to say, but it theoretically ought to help your character know when to keep their mouth closed.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
After giving this some more thought, I think if I were you I would say to the GM "here is what I want to say, is this what my PC would say in the situation and how would I best say that to not offend (unless you are trying to) the person and or party?" That way your PC is using the proper language the GM expects in the situation/encounter if your PC has the skills and or experience to do so.
Another option is for a GM to provide a number of options for the player to pick from in the encounter like is done in video games but this can take a lot of the GM's time and planning the Question/Comment and Answer/Reply map of all possibilities can take a lot of time that few GM's have to spare.