D&D Persuasion | Can Players Convince NPCs to Do Anything on a Natural 20? | Ask a DM #1

hey today on ask a DM we're gonna be looking at whether player characters can convince NPCs to do anything if they roll in actual 20 hey Luke art here so it might ask a DM series I answer questions from Dungeon Master's to help them run awesome games so if you got a question let me know down in the comments now this question came from Glen over on Facebook and what I'm gonna do is just read it to you verbatim because I think Glen put this extremely well persuasion check here's a DM question playing in an adventure League game a player wanted to persuade an NPC to give him a healing potion player rolls a twenty I felt uncomfortable with it as another player I just didn't think it's good for the game to walk around persuading people to give you healing potions per se the DM was put in a very precarious position you don't just hand these things out in my humble opinion but the player continued to roleplay his character that way I mean where does it stop go to a supply store persuade them to give you their supplies for free instead of walking to the next Caravan persuade the driver is to walk while you drive I mean it's madness and everyone has the opportunity to persuade I know it's not in their character to do so I guess they wouldn't but even a bard can't or shouldn't just walk around doing persuasion checks on people to get something from them how do you shy away from succumbing to this if you're a DM playing the NPC or am I completely off on this and you just go by the roll of the dice alright this is actually an awesome question the fact of the matter is that rolling a natural 20 is only a critical success on attack rolls that is saving throws also use a d20 that is not a critical success when you roll it natural 20 also for ability checks now ability checks could be initiative and ability check could be a persuasion check or a deception check or an athletics check or an acrobatics check rolling a 20 on the die is not a critical success it does not mean you automatically succeed no matter what you're trying to do let's say that your player says hmm I want to jump to the moon now I'm exaggerating a little bit to make a point and the DM says let's see jumping to the moon is an athletics check didn't need to do there goes the roll it's a natural 20 does that mean your player just jumped to the moon because you rolled a natural 20 I don't think so at least I hope not what I want to do now is I want to take a look at the player handbook I'm a read little section to you directly about attack roles and critical successes page 194 of the player handbook sometimes fate blesses or curses a combatant causing the novice to hit in the veteran to miss if the d20 for an attack is a 20 the attack hits regardless of any modifiers or the targets ac this is called a critical hit which is explained later in this chapter in 5024 a roll is a 1 the attack misses regardless of any modifiers or the targets AC here's the thing the player handbook is specifically addressing attack roles in combat it does not mention saves it does not mention ability checks at all and anybody who I mean you're welcome to house rule this and say that if you roll a 20 on a on a saving throw that it's automatic success or are you're welcome to house rule it and say that if you roll a 20 on a persuasion check that it's an automatic success but I am strictly addressing the rules as written in the book and nowhere in the player handbook or the dungeon master guide or any reference that I am aware of does it say that rolling a 20 a natural 20 on an attack on any rule it's an automatic success if you can actually cite me a page out of one of them though the actual rule books that say that rolling the natural 20 is an automatic success on a ability check such as persuasion hit me up in the comments and let me know what page that's actually on oh by the way I've been a dungeon master since high school and I make videos every week to help Dungeon Master's run awesome games so if that interests you and you want to level up your D&D game consider subscribing all right now let's just kind of think about this question little bit more you walk up to a shopkeeper and he shows you 10 potions and you're like gee um you should just give these to me and then the player tells the DM I make some sort of convincing argument for it and the DM was like hmm ok roll it roll a d20 roll of persuasion check and the play rules at 20 does that mean the shopkeeper would just give that PC all those potions for free I mean let's think about this in real or situations let's say you walk into a store let's say Walmart okay you walk into Walmart and you put a bunch of stuff in your cart and then you're you're going out and you're the checkout lane and you give the most convincing argument possible for why that cashier should give you everything for free let's say the cashier is moved by your story and calls her manager and her manager comes down and you give another convincing argument to get everything for free I guarantee you if the manager is gonna look at you like you're crazy and say no I'm sorry sir you're gonna have to pay for all of that I mean that's how things work you can't just no matter how good of a persuasion check you roll people aren't just gonna give things for free when it's not in their nature to do so and that's the key part here if if you're trying to do something that is just impossible then the dungeon master doesn't even have to ask for a roll in that case the digital magic I mean an example of my jumping to the moon thing the ninja master just look at you and say you know I'm sorry but it's quite impossible to jump to the moon okay real quick let me know down in the comments what you would do if one of your players tries to convince an NPC to do something that's absolutely implausible and happens to roll a natural 20 and if you're if you're trying to run a game that's realistic that has some likes you know some realistic elements and all that good stuff where you can actually believe in the world that you're in and it feels real and it's immersive and all that cool stuff then just having NPCs be so weak willed and weak-minded that a 20 on the die there's a 5% chance that an NPC will give you anything you want that doesn't contribute to a realistic game world in my opinion so if in your game world rolling a natural 20 on a persuasion check automatically results in success then that principle is true not just for the player characters not just for the players but it's also true for all the NPC's in the game so I am imagining a scenario here where NPCs like scammers on the streets are running this scam so if I were a scammer operating under these rules that ruling a natural 20 automatically grants success then I'm going to have a veritable army of street urchins and I'm gonna have these street urchins one by one go up to the player characters and give them a sob story trying to convince them oh you sure you should give me your sword I rushed my arm when I was a lad and I I'm starving I'm gaunt and then roll a die and it might not be a natural 20 and the player character says no I'm not giving you anything and then I have street urchin after street urchin coming up to the player characters one after another convinced trying to convince them to give them things and I'm rolling dice every single time and you know what odds are that some of them are going to be 20s and so the first natural 20 I take they're the fighters sort away the next one I take the fighters armor away and then I take his backpack and then I take his boots and his shirt and his pants you can see where I'm going with this NPC is operate by the same rules that the player character is operated by and if rolling the natural 20 is an automatic success on persuasion then my army of street urchins can take every last dime or gold piece or copper piece in this case from the player characters and from the players and they would have nothing left so you see my point here you see how ridiculous it sounds when we reverse it right if the players can do something then the same thing also applies for the dungeon master and the NPC's and we reverse things and we think about how this would play out if I had an army of Street merchants trying to persuade the player characters to give them everything how absolutely insane and silly it sounds right I mean I hope that sounds insane I think one of the points I'm trying to make here is that we need to get off our knees in front of the altar of the dice Lord and use some common sense from time to time if it's not realistic that something would happen in our world then there's a good chance that it's not realistic for it to happen in this fantasy world now it's a fantasy world it's not our world there is magic and stuff like that so I get that but there's also real principles at work people are real people and you should portray in my opinion you should portray them as such they shouldn't just be like I said slobbering idiots that a natural 20 yes sir I will give you everything my own I don't think that will make for an immersive believable game alright as I want you to do if you think that rolling a natural 20 should not being automatic success for any old type of persuasion I want you to get that thumbs up button down below however if you think that I'm totally wrong and rolling an actual 20 no matter what it is should always be a success and I want you to hit that thumbs down button up above or down below or whatever happens to be and let's try to get a little gauge here of what people think this sort of thing sets precedents in your game as well if at natural 20 is always a success no matter what you're doing and you set a precedent of that the players will take that precedent and they will make decisions based upon that and they will enable them they will have expectations right any natural xx is automatically a success and I don't know that that is a reasonable expectation to set for your players so just bear in mind that when you make a ruling and you do things like that um if you if you are making a one-off ruling and you're saying you know what guys ordinarily this would not be a success because this is just absolutely insane however this story that we're creating this situation is so awesome and this is I'm all dying here laughing I love this this was such a great idea and you ruled it was a great idea completely implausible but you ruled a 20 I'm gonna give it to you I would make it very clear to your players that you are making a one-off exception to the standard rule just so they're aware that you're not setting a precedent for future time precedents are powerful and players will have expectations for you to follow them unless you're clear with them otherwise okay another little quick point here it is okay to say no I usually don't a lot of times I don't say no outright what I'll do is I'll turn it back on the player a little bit I'll ask them if the player wants to do something that I think my initial reaction is this is totally impossible what I'll do is I'll turn that back on the player a little bit and I'll ask the player explain to me how your character would do that right so if you want to jump to the moon and explain to me how you would actually do that now in that situation I don't know what he would say but let's say that the player wants to somehow block a door off or something and you're like I don't really understand how you would possibly do that there's no furniture in the room there's none of this that or the other and the player and then you ask the player right how would you do that how would you like block that door off the player comes back and says well you know what I want to do I want to go to the hinges and I want to kind of tinker with the hinges and try to break the hinge mechanism and then I want to go to the doorknob and I want to see if I can somehow you know tinker around with that a little bit to kind of jam the doorknob and so that will kind of like you know block this door a little bit doing all that stuff and that explanation from the player might just be enough for you be like oh well I think of that you know the DM didn't think of that so I that probably is possible to do that all right go ahead and give me a thieves tools check or something like that and so turning it back on the players and asking that when you think something is impossible turn her back on them ask them okay explain to me how you would do that a lot of times you're gonna be surprised a lot of times your players are going to have a way to accomplish it and it'll explain it to you and you believe oh okay make them make a rule for that other times they'll they'll realize that oh this kind of is a a really impossible task I have no idea how I would possibly do that and that kind of settles the issue there without you having to outright say no to them but again back in my point it's okay to say no oh real quick one remind you guys that I ain't my giveaway from morning cans to mofos is still open so if you want to get in on that you can click that link down in the description or in the pinned comment but there are different ways you can get like entries in it and the more entries you have the greater your chances of winning so if you guys are interested in that that is still open as of this video right now so feel free to sign up for that bad boy remember I make videos every week to help Dungeon Master's run awesome games so if you want to level up your D&D game consider subscribing as always if you have any questions about dungeon mastering or have a problem in your game please hit me up down in the comments below I am always happy to help out a fellow DM and until next time let's play D&D

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Keywords: d&d persuasion, dnd persuasion, d&d persuasion skill, natural 20 d&d, can PCs convince NPCs to do anything?, d&d persuasion check, dnd persuasion check, nat 20, d&d, d&d 5e, dnd, dnd 5e, dnd 5th edition, dungeons and dragons, dungeons & dragons, rpg, role-playing game, roleplaying game, how to be a great DM, how to be a great dungeon master, how to be a great GM, dungeon master tips, DM tips, dungeon master advice, DM advice, the dm lair, luke hart, ask a dm, dm q&a

Id: gfg70WxXtJM

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018