A Fresh Perspective on Charisma Checks

There may come a time when the party will have to use their words instead of their weapons.

There are several different reasons as to why the charisma based skills should be treated differently to an Acrobatics or Performance check and so I think there are a few things that we need to consider when making them.

First off the difference between deception and persuasion can become blurred in some situations depending on how the player role-plays the statement. When trying to talk someone into a course of action you are obviously going to play up the positives while downplaying the negatives, however, this could become deception by omission based on the size of the omission. Consider this when you are choosing the skill check because the charisma based classes tend to be better at either Deception or Persuasion especially Lore Bards when they get Expertise.

You then have to decide if the situation calls for a didactic outcome. The DC is set and if the player beats it then they succeed in getting what they want or they fail. This really falls into the ‘asking for a discount’ Charisma check, it’s low stakes and does little to no damage to the party going forward other than maybe the shopkeeper might be harder to talk around in the future. It is important to keep notes on which players have successfully and unsuccessfully negotiated with NPCs if they are going to be in regular negotiations during the campaign. Keeping a log of people’s feelings towards the PCs breeds familiarity and makes the world feel lived in not just a bunch of mathematics.

If a situation doesn’t result in a didactic outcome it might fall on to a sliding scale of numerous outcomes both positive and negative. You can set a range of DCs ranging from failure, partial failure, mixed success and total success. This is like a complicated History Check where you get some of the information you need but not the complete picture, the PC can get a little way to their goal and the NPC will make a counter offer in the middle ground between the deal you were originally offered and the outcome the PC asked for.

An interesting exercise could be to consider what would appeal to the NPC that you have created and what would turn them away from helping out the character. I make about a page of A4 for each of my NPCs with bullet points about their past, how they got to the place they are in but also their likes and dislikes. If you give your shopkeepers keywords, demeanour or prejudices that will affect any persuasion or deception checks against them. Say this humble pie seller dislikes nobles and the character mentions that they are friends with a local noble or starts throwing their name around then the DC will now increase by 2. However, if the shopkeeper is a devout follower of Tymora and the player is wearing their holy symbol then the DC could decrease by 2. This can lead to the players taking an interest in you NPCs which lets be honest you’ve spent and awful lot of time crafting and your PCs will just treat like vending machines! (I’m not bitter, I’m just disappointed!!)

The final option is a little bit of a maverick move and that is to roll first and then role-play. It feels odd to me that you would role-play a very convincing argument for it to only fall on deaf ears because of a poor roll of the dice. If you roll then role-play your players will be able to tailor their role-playing to their success rate. I got this idea from The Adventure Zone where Duck Newton can’t lie well and whenever he rolls and fails he stumbles and splutters through his attempts to convince people of his obvious lie. I thought it would be funny to hear that at a table I played or DM’d at. This method does have some drawbacks, chiefly you need a group of players that lean towards role-playing (this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea). Also, you’ll need to declare that this is the way you’ll be treating Deception/Persuasion Checks in this way in your session zero or get your players to test this out for a session and see if it works well at the table.

If you do test the Roll then Role method please let me know how it works out for you in the comments section below.

May you roll well!