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I'm curious as to what opinions would be on NPCs using social skills on PCs should be handled in PFS OP. I don't think anyone questions that a player is expected to roleplay a character who fails his sense-motive to believe an NPC's lie told with a bluff check- you set your metagame info aside, set your personal gut feelings aside, and find another tack if you're dead set on what you want to do.. but you 'man up' and accept that your character doesn't detect the lie and you game on. Just as if you roll to hit and miss, you don't endlessly recalculate and argue the modifiers.. you accept the miss and press on.
I'll say that I believe that if one can accept bluff being used on characters to force a player to deal with his character doing something he doesn't want to (believe a lie), I think diplomacy and intimidate (as in, not the in-combat demoralize action) should as well.
First of all, I'm aware that many players (on either side of the GM screen) don't feel players should lose control of their characters on the basis of a skill check.
I'm on the other side, saying that if a spell can cause a player's character to do something not in jive with a player's wishes, there's no difference if a skill check does the same. I don't bring this up to make it the argument of the thread- I only intend to demonstrate that I'm aware that my position before posing the rules question isn't going to even be shared by all from the get go.
So that controversy aside, what are the pitfalls particular to PFS OP in subjecting the players to the same medicine they give to the NPCs?
As a new PFS GM, one of my primary concerns is that there's some ruling somewhere that I don't know about that renders the way I want to run a table moot. I know to check the OP resources as well as the FAQ but I don't know what I don't know... I guess I'm looking for assurance that there's nothing saying a GM CAN'T have a NPC use social skills on a party member.
However the 'no pvp in PFS excepting....' clause makes this a PFS OP question rather than a rules forum question. Obviously choices about whether/who to attack in a combat situation is going to need magic compulsion.. let's be clear that noone is suggesting that if BBEG uses intimidate on the party fighter and makes him 'friendly', that the fighter will be compelled to attack the rest of the party. THAT sort of pvp clearly needs magic to force it.
However if NPC A is the target of a faction mission (say to steal something of hers or force her to agree to extortion). As soon as she gets a bad feeling from Pathfinders of that faction she uses diplomacy on a not-so-threatening PC (one who is not on the same mission) to 'protect her' from the dark intentions of his partymates- now we're talking about that character's player being compelled to stand in the way of the others' faction mission- which counts as PvP in PFS OP.
I'm looking for opinions as to whether that is kosher at an OP table. My instinct is yes, but I'm more used to home games than the OP play and value the perspective of those who've seen and done more than I have in this venue.
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I had simular issues running PFS. I had a post simular to this that got derailed, but here is what little I gleened from it.
Typically, you are expected to use the actions specified in the scenario for a NPC, but there is nothing saying you cannot use a skill/feat ect if the NPC has it and the improvisation does not modify the scenario to an extreme.
As far as the PVP thing, PFS really looks down on that, but it is also up to the players to not PVP. In your situation, the player basicly failed his faction mission at that point, and should try to play it off"Oh, I was just kidding, I am sorry no harm intended...ect". To press it further would be where you would have to step in and give him simular guidance. It is hard though, I had a simular situation. I did understand from a role playing point of view where the player was coming from, but in the big picture they are all part of the same orginization, and remaining in the orginization out wieghs any one faction mission. I hope this helps.
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Main thing is to remember that there are limitations, going both ways, on the use of skills.
You can smooze me all you want, but I am unlikely to get in the way of a known associate, as long as he isn't trying to do somethign obviously evil. Especiaslly if you have been, obviously, involved in something evil yourself.
Remember that one of the primary responsibilities for Pathfinder Society members is Cooperate. It will be difficult for an outsider to override that tenet.
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I tend to reflect this type of stuff in how I describe the NPC. If he's got a decent score in diplomacy I'll describe him/her as being particularly persuasive or convincing. If he's got a monster intimidate I'll say the NPC is commanding or straight up intimidating.
I agree it's a double standard but PCs hate being affected in the way you described.
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Remember that one of the primary responsibilities for Pathfinder Society members is Cooperate. It will be difficult for an outsider to override that tenet.
I'm not so sure I agree with you here, in the case of faction missions. Cooperate to complete the official Pathfinder objective, definately. But how many times does a scenario's secret faction mission require a character to perfom a sleight of hand in order to prevent the other PCs from seeing? I'm a noob to PFS and I've already seen it multiple times. As written, these sorts of scenarios are forcing the players into borderline PvP. I mean, is it being a Prick to remind the GM of all your modifiers to perception so as to increase your chances of screwing over your table-mate's mission? Probably, but is it PvP?
Anyway, neither here nor there. My point is that while I believe players are certainly free to say their characters go all wink-wink-nudge-nudge while they're doing faction missions, with the understanding that they'll in turn get willful ignorance (if not active assistance) when it comes time to perform their own faction missions... the apparent paizo stance is that they by default do not.
But as for the rest of what was said, yeah I'm on the same page with you :) I think it's an exceptional point (for either side) to remember that just because diplomacy or intimidate may be forcing the (N)PC to consider their new 'friend' in a favorable way, it doesn't mean they are forced to chose their new 'instant friend' over older, proven ones if put to the choice.
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I'm not so sure I agree with you here, in the case of faction missions. Cooperate to complete the official Pathfinder objective, definately. But how many times does a scenario's secret faction mission require a character to perfom a sleight of hand in order to prevent the other PCs from seeing? I'm a noob to PFS and I've already seen it multiple times. As written, these sorts of scenarios are forcing the players into borderline PvP. I mean, is it being a Prick to remind the GM of all your modifiers to perception so as to increase your chances of screwing over your table-mate's mission? Probably, but is it PvP?I agree, the faction missions thing I find a bit silly. You are not supposed to willingly assist another faction, nor activly sabotage another faction, though if players feel that this has happened they have no recorse other then to just suck it up. It leaves Players and GMs frustrated in the end. I am glad they lessened the faction missions role a bit in session 3 with most of them only giveing 1pp and the pathfinder mission itself giving 1.