[freeroleplay] Magic and Charisma (long)
- From: Samuel Penn <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 20:35:23 +0000
Okay people, time for another one of those rules questions, this
time with a bit of GMing style thrown in for good measure.
If a PC wants to impress an NPC, they make a charisma roll of
some sort (game system is irrelavent here, as is the comment
about not roll playing social interactions as you shall see
later) and possibly the NPC tries to resist with, say, a
will power check.
Replace 'impress' with any form of social skill such as fast talking,
seduction, bargain etc.
If we reverse the situation, an NPC impressing a PC, then things
get more complicated, since a lot of players don't like the idea
of their character's actions being determined by a die roll and
the GM saying "you believe this guy is telling the truth".
That's fine to an extent, and the GM can always try to roleplay
a character in a deliberately less impressive way if the NPC isn't
a good liar, and try hard to be impressive when the NPC is skilled,
but often there may be a big difference between the GM's skill at
this and the NPC's skill.
How should an NPC skill affect a PC's reaction? Is it okay for the
GM to say 'you believe him', or 'you want to pay attention to her
rather than guard the door'? Roleplaying should always be involved
in such situations of course, but if the player/GM interaction turns
out to be the complete opposite of the PC/NPC interaction, how much
influence should one have on the other?
Now we complicate things. Imagine a Saruman like character - highly
charismatic who also has magic to help influence people. I'm toying
with a form of magic which works by enhancing charisma based skills.
Rather than a 'charm person' like spell which either works or doesn't,
a spell which enhances the wizard's ability to be charming. Effects
such as 'suggestion' or 'dominate' become charisma checks at very
high difficulty, made possible by a big bonus provided by the magic.
At this point, it's almost necessary for the GM to enforce a PC's
reactions to a charming wizard - if not, then a PC becomes immune to
a whole section of magic just because they are a PC. But then,
logically, normal non-magical charming should work the same way, if
only for the reason that players will then automatically know whether
someone has used magic or not ("I'm being forced to believe this guy,
therefore he's using magic").
It is possible to just consider the times when the NPC's charisma
(through magic or otherwise) is way beyond the PC's will, but then
that makes moderate amounts of magic no better than no magic.
So, what are people's ideas on how to deal with NPC v PC social skills.
Does using magic change how they should be played out? Is it better
to just have a simple "He's cast 'charm person' on you" which everyone
can understand and know how to react to because it's magic?
(and yes, I've totally ignored PC v PC, which is an even bigger can
of worms).
--
Be seeing you, http://www.glendale.org.uk/
Sam. jabber: samuel.penn@xxxxxxxxxx
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