Every so often, the players in my D&D games do something unexpected: They talk to the enemies!

There are many styles of playing D&D. I came up through the school of dungeon-delving where almost every monster tried to kill you, and the rest of the challenges were traps. I was about ten years old when I started, quite shy and not used to talking to people. So, it was easier to just deal with the combat and the tricks and traps of the dungeon. Other people come to D&D from diverse backgrounds and are happier to role-play than I was.

I think it’s also more difficult when you’re younger. You just don’t have the experience yet.

I’ve also found that one factor that makes it hard to role-play is incomplete knowledge of the game world and your place in it. I notice this most when the conversation isn’t structured, and you’re talking to someone without ground rules. Consider the mission briefing of D&D Adventurers League adventures. It allows the role-players of the group to interact with each other and the DM before the action starts. However, because it’s structured, it makes it easier for the DM and players to do so.

The structure of these briefings is interesting. They typically are presented in three sections:

• Boxed text where the patron introduces themselves and describes the mission
• Dot points that list essential information the patron knows that isn’t in the boxed text
• A sidebar describing the personality of the patron

Together, they provide a baseline for the Dungeon Master to interact with the players as the NPC. In many session, my players just passively listen as I give them the briefing, but on the occasion that they interact with the patron, I’ve got information that helps me roleplay. It gets tricky when the players go beyond the information I have. “So, did you hear about the high-stakes Three-Dragon Ante game down at the docks?” However, if the patron is presented well, then I do at least have guidelines of where to go next.

The genius of these introductions is because the players know their role – to learn what they’re going to do – it frees them up to ask questions and interact. There’s rarely a wrong thing to say.

It’s the situations where there is a wrong thing to say that can cause many players to become paralysed and uncertain to proceed. Can you give the players more information to help them?

As a DM, I tend to utilise humour to help get through those situations. When the NPC the players are talking to is amusing, it helps players relate to it. I don’t suggest mocking the players or their ideas, but instead, try to run with the ideas that the players express. If they’re trying to persuade someone to help them, then if a player suggests that helping them would make the NPC’s daughter proud, despite there being no mention of the daughter before, then it’s worth exploring the idea. This is an excellent idea from the player – an appeal to family ties – and I want to reward it, not shoot it down. Perhaps it needs to be modified; I might do this for laughs, “He’s got long hair, but she’s my son!” or inform them that the relative is the NPC’s niece, but the basic idea is still preserved, and the player has contributed something.

This doesn’t mean that every tactic will always work. If the players get lazy and use the same strategy again and again and again, it’s going to fail. It’s become boring and predictable. That’s not what you want in an RPG. You want to reward innovative thinking that has some chance of succeeding.

When do you use dice?

It’s very easy to get trapped in a situation where there’s no interaction and the players are just saying, “I use Persuasion on the guards to make them let me past”. With particularly shy players, I may let this work. However, I’d far rather have that the players come up with a strategy. It’s not necessary for them to act it out, but I do prefer them to indicate their strategy.

Are they praising the guard? Are they offering him bribes? Are they using the information they gathered earlier in the adventure to persuade him? Something that will allow me to flesh out the interaction and describe what happens.

If the players are good role-players, and they’re saying all the right things, then I will typically abandon the dice. They’ve shown me that they’ve developed a good strategy, and I’d like to reward that rather than it being determined by a single die roll.

However, if they’ve done all of this, but their actual skill modifier is low, I’ll call for the die roll. When the player is better at interacting than the character, then the dice return us to the abilities of the characters. Yes, the player said exactly the right thing, but their character didn’t.

You want the dice to help aid weaker role-players with charismatic characters, and to work against strong role-players whose characters have poor charisma.