Social Encounters: Does it Matter What and How PCs Speak to NPCs?

[Jd Smith1]

I get the gist of what the player wants to say, how open he is, and the skill being used*, inform them that a conversation went back and forth, and the roll(s) are made. My players seldom

I'm not an actor, so I prefer a non-IC interaction for all but the most critical scenes.

*= Charm, guile, intimidation.

 

[Lanefan]

I thought of another one.

If you want to keep a secret, you must keep it from yourself. I have had several instances of PCs who were investigating something do everything they could to avoid being direct with NPCs about what they were looking for. The PC might roll into town looking for a Miner George and sit around in a saloon all day hoping to hear rumors about the dude instead of asking anyone if they know about his whereabouts. I'm sympathetic to players who engage in this kind of behavior because it often means a GM hurt them in the past. But, man, if you want to talk to people you've got to give them a reason to talk to you.

If the PCs have any reason to think Miner George doesn't want them to find him, or that people here might get hostile to anyone asking about ol' George and-or tip him off so he can flee, then their approach is 100% the right one: say nothing and hear everything. Don't give anyone a chance to tell George you're here before you find him and tell him in person.

 

[Lanefan]

I sometimes get the "I didn't actually say that in character." backtrack which is annoying when the context was more in character and it disrupts the flow of the game to straighten out whether to retcon a bunch of stuff or not. I enjoy a joking feel in my games but pacing and actual interactions in the game are also important to me and I really dislike retconning.

Let it happen once.

If it happens a second time, bring the hammer down: "Henceforth, when not in combat every word you say at the table is said by your character in the game unless you preface it by saying 'player-to-player' or 'player-to-DM'; and if that means your characters are walking around talking about some faction called the New York Yankees then so be it." And then stick to your guns on it, no matter what.

Works wonders for cutting down table chatter, and also does away with the "my character never said that" BS.

 

[tetrasodium]

I thought of another one.

If you want to keep a secret, you must keep it from yourself. I have had several instances of PCs who were investigating something do everything they could to avoid being direct with NPCs about what they were looking for. The PC might roll into town looking for a Miner George and sit around in a saloon all day hoping to hear rumors about the dude instead of asking anyone if they know about his whereabouts. I'm sympathetic to players who engage in this kind of behavior because it often means a GM hurt them in the past. But, man, if you want to talk to people you've got to give them a reason to talk to you.

This kind of thing has consequences for everyone though. At some point I had a player flatly lie when I wasn't sure what they were even trying to accomplish and asked what their goals were . When I shrugged and gave them an ok the player immediately proceeded to skip to their actual goal and begin torturing a prisoner in service to anunststed red Herring of that player's own imagination in a way that would be pretty much impossible to fail at causing terrible harm. After thinking about that for a while I just told everyone that if I asked where are you going with this/what are you trying or hoping to accomplish and get a how rather than what they should very much expect things to go very wrong based on the severity of the deception.

Pretty quickly that kind of adversarial plotting you describe started going away and we were able to go back to a more collaborative two way style of interaction. There were a couple times where I made good on my threat before that point and each time another player pretty much told the player responsible for it that they deserved it for hiding their goal when asked or whatever

 

[Meech17]

Let it happen once.

If it happens a second time, bring the hammer down: "Henceforth, when not in combat every word you say at the table is said by your character in the game unless you preface it by saying 'player-to-player' or 'player-to-DM'; and if that means your characters are walking around talking about some faction called the New York Yankees then so be it." And then stick to your guns on it, no matter what.

Works wonders for cutting down table chatter, and also does away with the "my character never said that" BS.

When I was younger I played in a group where we all role-played pretty heavily. We were pretty strict on "If you say it, your character says it". We ended up coming up with a system where you made the "Okay" sign touching your index finger and thumb together and holding it to your chest to represent "OOC" or Out of Character speech, for whenever someone wanted to ask a clarifying questions, make a quip/joke, whatever. It worked really well.

In my current game I'm running not everyone is really comfortable speaking in character yet, and we often have some situations where a player may say something their character wouldn't. I haven't really had to run anything back at retcon it though. Typically I just ask "Is that what your character says to this person?" and usually they answer yes or no.. Or often they rephrase what they said into how their character really would have said it. It's proven to be fine so far but we'll see how it goes moving forward.

 

[MGibster]

If the PCs have any reason to think Miner George doesn't want them to find him, or that people here might get hostile to anyone asking about ol' George and-or tip him off so he can flee, then their approach is 100% the right one: say nothing and hear everything. Don't give anyone a chance to tell George you're here before you find him and tell him in person.

The player characters are protagonists, and as a protagonist they drive the action. Sitting in a saloon hoping to hear a rumor isn't driving any action. It's just boring. And as a GM, I absolutely despise extreme risk aversion because it usually ends up making the game less fun for everyone. Like I said earlier, I'm usually sympathetic to the player because this is a good sign they've been hurt by the GM in the past. But if you're in a game where you're expected to investigate, you've got to talk to NPCs even if it means tipping your hand. To do otherwise means you're missing a big part of the game.

 

[MGibster]

After thinking about that for a while I just told everyone that if I asked where are you going with this/what are you trying or hoping to accomplish and get a how rather than what they should very much expect things to go very wrong based on the severity of the deception.

This is another sign for me that the player had an abusive GM in the past. I hate it when a player tries to lead me somewhere without just telling me what they're doing. You don't have to fool me. Just tell me what you're trying to do and let's figure out how you can do it.

 

[payn]

This is another sign for me that the player had an abusive GM in the past. I hate it when a player tries to lead me somewhere without just telling me what they're doing. You don't have to fool me. Just tell me what you're trying to do and let's figure out how you can do it.

Yeap, I know the type. Usually, they came from the skill play era where the GM was always trying to screw you. I had such an old school GM who would sit back and listen intently as the party formed a well thought out plan for 10+ min and then always and conveniently attacked it at the precise moment to make it fail. Eventually, the players decided to leave the room and talk it out and then deliver piece by piece action when they returned to prevent the GM from going jack in the box on everyone. Still didnt prevent.

 

[tetrasodium]

This is another sign for me that the player had an abusive GM in the past. I hate it when a player tries to lead me somewhere without just telling me what they're doing. You don't have to fool me. Just tell me what you're trying to do and let's figure out how you can do it.

While I agree that there might be some truth to that in some cases, there is a second equally if not more plausible explanation. Players who come from video games where playing to win & playing to dominate the game are often considered to be a completely reasonable mindset to approach the video game with because the AI is incapable of having an opinion on it. When that carries over to TTRPGs it has a very real impact on everyone else at the table.

That reason alone is a good reason why it's not justified for the ttrpg community to be regularly making an effort to excuse it as just the result of some past GM being "abusive" just because The Alexandrian coined a particular phrase to summarize a set of rather unpleasant player traits that are often hard for the GM to call out early enough to avoid fallout without looking bad.

 

[Bedrockgames]

For me what the players say usually matters more than anything. Though other factors like reputation, general charisma of the character and a relevant skill roll might help tilt things