Roleplaying Stats
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Just a friendly reminder that you are expected to roleplay the stats or lack of, that your PC has. If you dont have sufficient stats, or investment in skills to play a covert agent, or master manipulator, or spy, then you are essentially cheating by playing a character in that fashion without the stats or skills to back it up. There is nothing wrong with ignoring these aspects of character creation or building, and focusing on more "tangible" benefits, but you are also expected to portray the stats and character you do end up with.
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On Bluff, and "Not outright lying" as a justification for having no points in it.
Bluff is not just the words you say. Non verbal communication. Body language. Eye contact. Being able to control these as you decieve are just as linked to bluff as outright lying. If you are misleading or decieving others conciously, then you need bluff to avoid making others suspicious.
A man with no bluff will come home from cheating on the wife, and while he may say nothing at all hinting at having done anything wrong, his body language and overall nervousness will give it away.
Part of why charisma boosts bluff is not because it makes you more creative and able to come up with better stories (though being more inteligent will give you skill points to invest in social skills, and that will make you a better liar because your more creative and able to come up with better stories), but because it makes you more grounded, more natural and confident when you act, so people dont see deception in your actions.
Nerf Train conductor
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Some extra tips on roleplaying your stats are below.
Please give them a once over, and have a chat with a DM if you've done something silly with your character, not realising how this works.
Social Skills and their use on CoA:
City of Arabel is a roleplaying server primarily, and as such, statistics, and skills are expected to be roleplayed accordingly.
Regarding social skills specifically -
Bluff, persuade, and intimidate -
Rolling these skills in front of another player, is NEVER enforceable. You should never expect another player to follow along with such a roll. They are NOT required to do so. The reason for this, is that it is impossible for you to both arbitrate this fairly, and arguments over the specifics are probable.
A DM is always required for such rolls, and in such cases, the rolls will be made secretly, with the DM in question using tells and other means to apply the effects.
If two players want to use such rolls, and play along with them, this is obviously fine, we won't penalise you for it. Just NEVER expect another player to play along.
Addendum - Rolling bluff in front of another player, is really REALLY stupid, you are literally telling someone you are trying to trick (yes you have to roleplay it effectively enough as well as have the stats) that you are tricking them! DONT DO THIS !!! .
I have asked Strife to detect this and automatically remove 2 points of intelligence from your character automatically whenever this is performed (this is a joke, just in case you thought I was serious about the intelligence part. The other bit is REAL)
It's entirely impossible to exaustively list every possible situation, and acceptable reactions/behaviours, but here are a few simple guidelines to follow, along with some possible consequences of failing to follow them.
Persuade -
IS NOT BLUFF
You CANNOT use persuade to lie to people. Ever.
It does not work like this.
Persuasion is co-ercing people into doing something, by appealing to their own thoughts and feelings, or using an argument in such a way as to change their mind about something.
you CANNOT persuade someone you are a dragon, or that you once ate a goblin whole.You CAN persuade people to follow you, to change their mind about a god, their dogma, or that someone should be tried for treason when all they did was throw a tomatoe at a criminal (I mean it'd be tough, but you could)
Intimidate -
Intimidation is using threats, body language, and other co-ercive means to get your way in a situation. It is not persuade, but it does act in a similar manner, results wise. You can't intimidate someone into believing you didnt just kill someone in front of them, you CAN intimidate them into promising not to talk about it (or they will get the same treatment)
Bluff -
This is the big one guys. As previously stated. PERSUADE IS NOT BLUFF!!!!!!!!
Bluff is the ability to make things which to most, would seem obviously false, seem true. The ability to smoothly, without giving anything away in the process, convince someone you are actually the kings bastard son, (however, from that point, you'd need to persuade/intimidate them into following you to reclaim your rightful throne!)You can use bluff for amazing things. You can convince people you are, in fact, a follower of Lathander, when you secretly collude with cyricists each night and sacrifice people to empower his glory. you CANNOT persuade people that this is true.
If you try to do so, you will give it away, because you are not skilled in the art of the bluff, the con, the trickster. You'll stutter perhaps, you might even have a nervous tick in your left eye when telling a big fat one to someones face. Perhaps you never look someone in the eye when telling a lie.
However, if you have skill focus bluff, 14 charisma, the amulet of the scamp (+6 to bluff) and a total of 20 bluff, you could probably convince most adventurers that you actually were at the battle for castle crag, and once handed the staff of ilmater directly to Lord Lhal, and the fact you aren't wearing the medal right now is simply because it's being cleaned by your butler, at your seven story wizards tower, (despite not having a spell book, it's your day off of course!)
If you try to use these social skills, without the requisite skill points invested, and a DM spots this. They ARE going to start sending nearby players tells to help them understand the situation.
Example Intimidate
"Give me more of the gold from this job, or I'll send your finger tips to your mother over the next two months you pathetic worm" - Would be fine from someone with a half decent intimidate, 10 or so, possibly more, but from someone with 3-4, purely from charisma alone?
well, if I saw that happening, I would send a tell to the player being threatened, along the lines of
"The man gulps a little as he talks, his eyes flicking from person to person, seemingly hoping someone else will stand on his side if this gets heated. He sounds a little pathetic, frankly."
Example persuade - "My god will watch over us on this quest, follow me, and great riches are sure to follow, stay behind, and wallow in your cowardice" - Again, fine from someone with a decent bit of charisma, and some points invested into persuade. Although, you do have to realise, if they were talking to a group of NPC warriors, sworn, loyal, or paid by, another leader, ther's less chance of success here.
Example Bluff - "I follow the greatest god of them all, Tymora of course! For this is her city, and we must act now, don't worry yourself or over think it, I can lead you to a great treasure trove!" - Says the follower of tymora, who actually knows, or has an idea of where one might be, or just believes enough that Tymora will grant them one if they adventure enough. All good.
But what if this guy is actually a demon worshipper? and has no intention of finding gold, merely wants to lead people into a trap, steal the paladins sword of pure good, and force them on a morally questionable quest, along the road to corruption?
Well, at that point, unless you have a considerable investment in bluff here, if a DM sees this, people are going to be getting tells about your eye twitch (yeah, we'll literally make up a nervous tick at this point, sorry, we MAY even make you emote it, if there are too many people to send individual tells to, because your supposed to be roleplaying this!) we're going to be having other NPCs coming over and literally saying you sound full of cow dung, and that you probably use the same lines to pick up women in the cheapest bars in town.
Don't do it guys. You'll either end up looking stupid, or get quite literally killed by NPCs.
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This post is a bump of the ones above. This is a brief version of the things in the above posts. They are just as true today as there were when they were written.
A friendly reminder on this. Play your stats. If you want to lie effectively, or at any real scale, you need to have invested points in bluff. If you are trying to be a leader, you need to have invested in charisma. If you are trying to be big and scary, you should have invested points in intimidate.
If you do not have the investment, DMs are at liberty to ask for rolls or give people you are trying to lie to/lead/intimidate a hint that your character is not living up to the words that the player is typing.
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Players are encouraged to have a hard look at their social scores.
If you wish to be a savvy infiltrator wearing disguises and tell convincing lies, Invest in Bluff.
I am inclined to be a lot more forgiving if you purposefully give indications of your deception and lies, such as nervous ticks, glancing away, or straight up emote 'sounds unconvincing' than I am to someone who has 1 bluff and tries to disguise himself in the Crown Guard flawlessly.
Puffy's bumbling Scum-goblin minion.
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Another reminder about stats and social scores, especially since we are getting a fresh wave of new concepts. Your story and RP reflects the character you are playing, which has to be backed up by the stats as well. If you don't invest in the proper stats, and skills, your character will struggle and a DM may have a word with you if the RP does not correspond with the stats.
