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keradim
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Joined: 03 Oct 2006
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 Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 3:22 pm Post subject: Persuade and how to use it... |
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Can persuade at higher lvls be used in such a fasion that you could talk an NPC into doing almost anything... as long as some truth was presented?
How do you use persuade in your adventures.. |
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Gry Sarth
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Joined: 25 May 2004
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Location: Sao Paulo - Brazil
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| Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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The thing with Persuade an other social skills like Con is that it should demand some skillful roleplaying in order to be effective. If a character has 12D Persuade and steps to a Stormtrooper and says "You should let me pass", he shouldn't succeed just because he rolled a 62. Persuade is not Affect Mind, it can't perform impossible tasks.
As a GM you must value your players ideas more than his characters stats. If someone plays a character with absurdly high Persuade but can't come up with a great persuasion line himself, then he should at least provide a decent argumentative approach his character will use, and the character's roll fills in the rest. The better a player can use his own arguments to help his persuasion, the easier his roll should be.
However, the limit to what you can accomplish by persuasion should be set by common sense. No matter how much skill you have, you simply won't persuade a perfectly happy being to kill himself. You might have success on such a task against a dispirited loser, but you'll need a killer roll.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:52 am Post subject: |
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It depends. To me persuasion, has to A) have truth to it, B) have a benefit for both the persuader and persuadee, and C) have some reasoning behind it. Llike in the situation used in the book, where Owen Larrs, uses it on luke, where he persuades him to stay another season...
1) truth - he does need the help, though maybe he overestimated it.
2) benefit - luke still gets to go,
3) reasoning - owen did not wish to see luke blindingly rush off...
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Cool McCool
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| Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| Gry Sarth wrote: | | If a character has 12D Persuade and steps to a Stormtrooper and says "You should let me pass", he shouldn't succeed just because he rolled a 62. |
Why not?
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Gry Sarth
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| Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:19 pm Post subject: |
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Because it makes no sense at all for the trooper to let him pass just because he asked.
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cheshire
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Joined: 04 Jan 2004
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| Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Cool McCool wrote: | | Gry Sarth wrote: | | If a character has 12D Persuade and steps to a Stormtrooper and says "You should let me pass", he shouldn't succeed just because he rolled a 62. |
Why not? |
If you put it in game terms characters do get circumstantial bonuses. I cannot begin to imagine the circumstantial bonus an NPC would get if they were, say, a Stormtrooper commander given direct orders by a Grand Moff not to let anyone but he and the Emperor into a particular highly restricted area. Not to mention the R&E states that it isn't just a roll vs. roll with persuasion and fast-talking. It's a matter of what the character says. You give bonuses and penalties based on how they role play the event.
Now, I can think of an event where this sort of persuasion would work. A friend of mine had a PC subdue a high ranking Stormie officer, stole his uniform, and then escorted the other NPCs as prisoners. He gave an order to other Stormies from another unit to prepare a shuttle, but had to roll to persuade someone of another unit to do the job. He did a good enough job role playing and rolled high enough that they prepared the shuttle so all of the group could make an escape.
Does that make sense? |
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Gry Sarth
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Joined: 25 May 2004
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Location: Sao Paulo - Brazil
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| Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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That's what I mean, you have to come up with a decent argument or plan in order to pull a hard persuasion or con. You can't just roll and expect people to agree with you.
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Jedi Skyler
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| Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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Exactly, fellas. It's a combination of role playing and ROLL playing. If your players are making their best effort to role play the scene, then it's fine to let them rely a little more heavily on the dice.
If they're just ho-hum about it, though, then they either need to be making some Herculean rolls, or just not making it, no matter what they do. They ought to be able to at least present the outline of the argument, case, whatever, that they want to use to try and persuade the target. If they can't even do that, then sorry, Charlie... |
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Cool McCool
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| Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 11:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Gry Sarth wrote: | | Because it makes no sense at all for the trooper to let him pass just because he asked. |
I see where you're coming from.
The way I play it, if you beat the other guy's roll, you're good. Yeah, I would like you to tell me how you did it, what you said, but I don't need you to.
So you rolled a 17 and the stormtrooper rolled a 6? He lets you by.
When you want to get past the stormtrooper who was given orders by the Grand Moff, you're not rolling against the stormie. You're rolling against the Grand Moff. Who's ideas does the stormie follow - yours or the Grand Moff's? Roll to find out.
The Grand Moff might use Command or Intimidation or something other than Persuasion, depending on what is going on. So you lose the roll? "Sorry, I like you, but I'm more afraid of the Grand Moff." or "Sorry, I have to follow my orders."
That's just another way to handle things. No one way is objectively "better" than the other; you have to find out what works best for you.
edit: So to answer the question in the first post... Yes, you can convince NPCs to do pretty much anything. (In my games.) "Tougher" NPCs will be harder to convince, because they have more dice to resist your roll with.
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Gry Sarth
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| Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:09 am Post subject: |
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Alright. I see how you handle things, and I'm cool with it. But here's the thing, you wrote:
| Quote: | | You're rolling against the Grand Moff. Who's ideas does the stormie follow - yours or the Grand Moff's? Roll to find out. |
Yes, you roll to find out whose idea is more persuasive, but in order to do that you need to at least HAVE an idea. You have to at least come up with a shadow of a plan, a general argumentative direction, something. In my book, you don't just walk up to the trooper and say "alright, I wanna persuade him to let me pass. -roll- Yipee, I'm in!", at the very least you have to go "alright, I'm gonna try to convince the trooper that I'm some big-type inspector, say something about the base being investigated of fraud or some such bureaucratic thing, and ask him to let me pass or there'll be some dire consequences for him, some military relocation or something my character comes up with". --Ok, so that's not much of a plan, but at least it's an attempt. I'd give the player an increased difficulty modifier for the shoddy plan, and if he rolled well enough, the trooper would buy the story. If he'd bothered coming up with a better conceived plan, I might grant him a bonus.
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masque
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Joined: 16 Mar 2006
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Location: Houston, TX
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| Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 2:09 am Post subject: |
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Me, I always encourage the player to act out the con or persuasion or whatever to the best of their ability, and if they rock the joint I will give a bonus, but if they make an effort but are simply no good at the particular character's skill, their dice roll will suffice to determine the result. I have players who are simply bad actors. They do their best, but they just plain suck, and I don't penalize them for it.
I'm in a fairly strong role playing group, and we like to get into character, but I never forget that the whole point of rules and character sheets are to model abilities that the players don't have. The ability to have your character do things that are impossible for the player is a major point of RPGs. If their success was determined by their own acting ability, it wouldn't be an RPG, it would be improvisational theater.
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Jedi Skyler
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| Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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Ah, the theater!  |
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Cool McCool
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| Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Gry Sarth wrote: | | --Ok, so that's not much of a plan, but at least it's an attempt. I'd give the player an increased difficulty modifier for the shoddy plan, and if he rolled well enough, the trooper would buy the story. If he'd bothered coming up with a better conceived plan, I might grant him a bonus. |
The reason I don't like to do this (increase the difficulty) is that I find it becomes more about "impressing the GM" than anything else.
I will hand out bonuses, though.
(This suddenly makes me think about allowing other players to spend their PC's CPs on another PC's roll.)
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Gry Sarth
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| Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2006 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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It's not about impressing the GM, it's about comitting to the game. You don't need to be a great actor or incredibly cunning just because your character is meant to be those things, but you have to at least TRY. Make an effort. Don't just roll the dice and expect some magic.
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garhkal
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Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 5:52 am Post subject: |
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| Cool McCool wrote: | | Gry Sarth wrote: | | If a character has 12D Persuade and steps to a Stormtrooper and says "You should let me pass", he shouldn't succeed just because he rolled a 62. |
Why not? |
If the pc said "you should let me pass cause of" and then said something with truth to it. i might consider. The "you should let me pass" sounds more like a request. Persuasion is not a true request, more of a compromise..
| Quote: | | The reason I don't like to do this (increase the difficulty) is that I find it becomes more about "impressing the GM" than anything else. |
Some times i do feel you have a point....
Like in one game i was a fellow player in, a smuggler was trying to (very poorly imo) con his way past some compnor agents, using an ISB badge.. Me knowing htey have anamosity am prepping for combat, but the gm (not even thinking of the ISB/Compnor anamosity or anything else, is just listening to the BS flowing from this guy... heck he did noteven bother looking at the 4 1's he had on his dice...
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