[freeroleplay] Re: Magic and Charisma (long)
- From: Ricardo Gladwell <president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 16:27:08 +0000
Samuel Penn wrote:
> 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".
>
> 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?
The above is easily solvable if you turn around the mechanism for
rolling social skills against players. Rather than rolling to see if the
PC's believe the NPC, roll to see if they disbelieve him. So, if an NPC
fails to make his impress roll clearly explain to the character's that
he is obviously lying.
(Another alternative would be to make the NPC deliberately slip up which
could tip off perceptive players that he is lying.)
On the other hand, if the NPC makes his roll, the GM simply explains
what he says as per normal and leave it up to the character's to see if
they really do believe him or not. If they are still suspicious you
might let them question the NPC further and allow them to make some sort
of Empathy skill roll to see if they can sense he is lying.
Similarly, when a NPC is trying to impress characters let it alter his
description. A NPC who makes his social roll would then be described to
player's in a positive way. If he fails, the GM would play up the
negative aspects of the NPC. It would still be up to the players to
decide whether or not they really like the NPC or not.
> 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").
I think the simplest option here would be to either a) inform the
character that he must play his character as though charmed, or b) the
GM takes over control of the character for the duration of the spell.
In the first case a player could be passed a note informing him that his
character is charmed and that he must play it as such. This depends a
lot on how good a role-player your player is and how trustworthy he is.
If it is successful then you could conceal the fact that any magic had
occurred, at least for duration of the spell and until the character
"wakes up" and realises what has happened to him.
> (and yes, I've totally ignored PC v PC, which is an even bigger can
> of worms).
I don't see why the same sorts of rules couldn't apply for lying between
PC's, although some "on the table" mechanism would be needed to ensure
players could successfully lie to each other - i.e. passing notes to the
GM. Otherwise, I would leave social interactions between PC to purely IC
role-playing.
--
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free Roleplaying Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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