Just a vibe check of the Lemmy community with a deliberately exaggerated meme.
A reddit post would get flooded with argumentative mini-essays from folks who can’t string together 5 words in-character.
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
108 points (86.5% liked)
RPGMemes
10414 readers
784 users here now
Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
A character performing a persuasion check should attempt to describe and act out their persuasion.
Once complete, the GM should evaluate the description, and use that as a modifier to the persuasion roll.
A character that says "ummm, IDK, I guess I just try to influence them using my high charisma" should get no modifiers to the roll. A character who tries but entirely flubs the conversation should get a -1 (when appropriate), a great performance with an entertaining flourish to the description should get at least a couple ++ to the roll.
Yes, but if you don’t offer the same accommodations for the person who goes into excruciating detail about how they lift up an iron grate, there’s a bit of an unfair imbalance there. Same goes for someone who can’t necessarily verbalize an entire conversation on the subject, but can say, “I’d like to try and persuade the Governor that we’re perfectly capable individuals, and specifically bring up how we took care of the rats in the tavern cellar, as well as how we turned away the bandits attempting to burgle Mrs. Henderson’s store.”
If you don’t allow for either of those types of situations, you’re just promoting people who have a real-life charisma over those that don’t.
But you would do that. Someone that just says "I force the iron gate open with strength" gets no bonus, just a straight roll. Someone that says "I look for a weak spot in the gate and use a pry bar that I found earlier to force that spot open" maybe gets a +2 to their roll for extra thinking.
Also, it depends on the group, you don't need a one size fits all for this. If you have one or two people who are uncomfortable with going into detail, then you have to adjust your GMing to match the situation. But if there's just someone who needs a little encouragement, then you start throwing bonuses for extra roleplaying left and right.
The whole point is to make it fun for everyone (including the GM) so you're going to give bennies for out of the box thinking and extra effort, appropriately scaled to the group you are in.