Why, yes! You would be able to roll for it in one of my games!
Speaking of… I’m looking to run a oneshot this weekend. A quick 3-4 hour adventure. I’ve run it before and everythings prepared, just gotta find the players for it! So if you’re available to start a session between 5-8PM EST on Saturday or 1-8PM EST on Sunday, then check out my thread below!
I feel this.
I love to play but am horrible at RP or explaining things out.
Let’s say you want to haggle a better price at a shop.
You can start by explaining that to your DM.
They might ask how, and you can just generally describe what you’d like to do.
Not sure how to explain? Ask the DM to better describe the shop or individual.
Then pick something, maybe they have a sweet hat, or a cool earring. Maybe the store looks really clean or maybe all the other patrons are dressed fancy. Maybe you can investigate the craftsmanship of the weapon or shield and compliment the shop owner.
The important thing is you pick something, it doesn’t matter what. Maybe that earring you commented on is a family heirloom. Roll well and the shopkeep is reminded of their family an gives you the family and friends discount. Roll poorly and the shopkeep is reminded of how their family was brutally murdered and they ask you to leave.
That’s not everyones strengths, that’s all! Just play to 'em! Like I do voices for all my characters because I can. Most of the time other people in the group don’t do voices because they feel like they can’t or feel uncomfortable. That’s cool! No ones pressuring them to do a voice just like no ones pressuring me to not do a voice. That’s the great thing about dnd. Everyone gets to have fun!
I seem to only be able to do voices for written text. While GM-ing I have ideas, but finding words takes all the brain power I have and everyone sounds like me. Reading a book to my kid? everyone has a voice, even the one off kid that has a silly voice (and likely stays around so I have to keep doing the voice)
Just channel Johnny Bravo.
Or Austin Powers.
Make it so over the top that they never ask you to elaborate again.
I both really want you in my game and really don’t now. You scare me.
This is why I don’t play the face. I’m cool with being the horc barbarian.
well… you free this weekend? lol
Pretty sure Johnny Bravo is a Barbarian.
EDIT: On second thought, he may be a druid. Just based off who he can and can’t persuade.
Whoa, Momma!
Something that is also helpful in this situation is to ask what their Intent is with their action. The why they want to do it. Often striking up that conversation looses some blocks.
You don’t necessarily need to roleplay, but something like “I would like to play on their guilt by seeming hopeless.” or “I would like to bring up the horrible acts of the orc warlord to stoke their anger.” or “I would like to convince them to help by pointing out how their oaths may apply in this situation.” would really help sell the specifics. If you are just trying a flat check I have no real way to know what you are planning on doing other than just sort of charmingly asking “Please?”
Sure but that’s still a weird situation when you lack charisma in real life. My 20 CHA character with proficiency in persuasion would have ideas and know which of those options would work best in this situation. It’s absolutely demanding on your real life charisma in a way no other check is.
Nobody asks for a real life strength check before the barbarian can push the boulder out of the way
Nobody asks the player running a rogue to demonstrate “how they’d pick the lock” to determine how high the PC needs to roll in the game
The issue is only if the DM penalizes you for it. I think the result should ultimately be up to the dice, but explaining what exactly you’re doing helps the DM move the story in the right direction.
Also, the game will inevitably require irl skills to play. You can’t “roleplay” combat strategy or how much you pay attention irl, so there’s no escaping that. I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to expect players to at least come up with simple descriptions of what they’re trying to achieve during a dialogue.
I agree with everything you said. If the descriptions mostly add flavor and the roll of the dice determines the result, that’s exactly how DnD should be. It is a role playing game, and role playing is half the fun
Unfortunately, it seems like most DMs punish you for roll playing poorly in conversation. In my experience, if you have high charisma it’s often more successful to just say “I want to convince the person of this thing” and roll than to describe your argument to the DM. That discourages roll playing rather than encourages it.
The dice determine success or failure, but your strategy can have different outcomes. If you’re offering a bribe to the guard the DM has to figure out how much it costs you, wheras if you’re telling him a dragon is attacking the south gate, he might be pretty pissed when he comes back.
And if you don’t have “charisma” irl and have no idea either of the above are options…think about charismatic characters in books, movies, tv. What tactics did they use that you can crib?
It’s absolutely demanding on your real life charisma in a way no other check is.
Yes, I have a bard like this. I love her dearly, but she is exhausting. That’s why I consider carefully before I decide if I’m going to use her.
Maybe you just should stick to playing a low charisma character and smash things
Maybe it’s a role playing game and the entire purpose is to role play as something besides yourself
Do you go around comically smashing things in real life?
I’m just saying if you’re struggling to play the game a certain way you can just play a way that better fits you and you might enjoy it more
I just had another idea, you could play like the Puss in boots in Shrek. Where all your charm and persuasion checks are done by just making a cute face at people.
Like, you can play it like if you have the body of a god and everytime the DM tells you “how do you persuade this person?” You just say “I take my shirt off and throw my hair backwards and look at them intently”
Like make it so you just have a signature move that you can use in every check, it might not be as entertaining and RP as making shit up each time but it sure makes it easier to play and practically let’s you meme your way through
I like the middle ground and want a baselin roleplay. So I know what you trying to do, because you appalling to a bandits honor may not work as well as it would with a knight.
The dice result and the passive persuasion compensate for your real life skill or lack.
The question to ask there is “what’s your approach?” The dice will smooth out wrinkles, but I need to know how to narrate the success or fail, otherwise, any persuasion will be you saying “aw, c’mon!” And that gets a bit boring, unless you’re on a hot streak and everyone crumples to your plea
My old DM: Eloberate how your engineering character would build a radio. Me: idk but the roll you asked me to was 20 and my character has knowledge sooo? DM: Well you try to but you fail due to the lack of a plan.
Yeah I don’t like having him as a DM. Especially if he had knowledge about these things like first aid. No I didn’t know how you suture someone exactly by my character is a fucking proffesional doctor.
It was also really fun if he then let some npc do it flawlessly immediately afterwards, really didn’t feel like you could accomplish anything in his world.
Luckily I have stopped playing with him and found others.
Wild that someone would want to run a TTRPG when they clearly don’t understand roleplaying.
Yeah, that sucks. I do the “elaborate” thing as well, but that’s mostly because i want the player to have a chance to roleplay and give creative input. If they’re having trouble coming up with something i’ll just try to fill in the gaps.
That or i’m deciding if what they’re asking is even possible, in which case they shouldn’t roll until after i make the call. ( In general you shouldn’t roll unless prompted by your GM)
Yeah exactly, that is exactly why I specified that he asked me to roll.
His bad DM’ing inspired me to dm myself and I do give a player a advantage or bonus if they specified something, IE
I look for clues around here is just plain investigation But I look for drops of blood cause the person was bleeding I give advantage.
You don’t have to be sherlock holmes to investigate but thinking and elebaroting is more interesting so I do like giving a bonus.
Either way, I became a DM while always thinking what I disliked about the other person.
You have to give something to work with. How are you persuading the guy? Are you leveraging authority, trying to guilt them into following you, offering them something? I need something to work with, I’m not asking you to make the argument yourself
Yeah agreeing with the other comments. I see what you mean but tell me what you want to convey beyond just a charisma check. Or if lieing just tell me what you want them to think instead of describing every word
I don’t know exactly where I fall on this spectrum.
on the one hand obviously you want to be encouraging to your players and create an environment where everyone is having fun.
on the other hand if I wanted to play a game solely based on its mechanics I would play something else. the R in TTRPG is there for a reason.
some of my favorite moments in games I’ve run have been when players improvise something in character and completely derail.
I don’t think I’ve ever run a game where we didn’t have more fun when players act like they are their character rather than act like they are controlling their character.
to be fair though I moved away from 5e and Pathfinder and other crunchy games for that reason, I just have a lot more fun with games that are less heavy on the rules and more involved on the story were telling together.
so could just very well be my gaming groups preference that leads to that experience rather than not.
For me, I’m cool with barebones.
A player once wanted to persuade a government official to basically not do the paperwork, I asked him how he wanted to do that, and he sat for a minute trying to figure it out. What I ended up doing is just asking him how he’d like it to go, and he ended up saying something like “I want my character to just be suave and say something to make the guy swoon a bit”. Called for a roll, he did alright, so I narrated the scene like I would an NPC and that was a success.
My player needed the idea, but that doesn’t mean he needed to act out the idea. Without even knowing the idea it’s “I want to roll persuasion. Does a 19 work?” and that’s boring, but he didn’t need to roleplay to succeed, either.
yeah I feel like that is the minimum I am okay with.
like if a player just wants to roll dice but does not want to be involved in the story itself at all I don’t know why they would be playing a role-playing game.
knowing what they’re trying to get out of the situation or at least how they are sort of going about it is the bare minimum.
I will say though that makes it less fun for me personally. I am just more into the heavier character focused stories and if there is no role-play involved it just feels like basically playing a board game.
I like board games but that’s not why I play TTRPGs.
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