NPC Attitude, or Why Social Rolls Bother Me So Much Sometimes
I've been thinking about social rolls recently, and wondering why they bother me so much sometimes. I've arrived at the conclusion that it boils down to NPC Attitude and DMs - myself included - failing to take it into consideration.
I'll give 2 examples from a former Pendragon campaign:
In the first situation, my character was about to talk to Queen Guinevere, most beautiful of all women in the kingdom, and so the DM asked for a Courtesy roll for me to approach her showing the proper etiquette. I failed the roll, and so my character approached it in a particularly blunt way, making Guinevere pissed off at him.
In the second situation, my character was about to talk to his own liege lord, to whom he had pledged his loyalty, and the DM asked for a Courtesy roll because this was in public. I failed this roll and... the liege lord got pissed off at him.
The attitude wasn't taken into consideration. The fact that one was a complete stranger while the other was my own lord - even if we weren't close and he had reason to be angry - had no bearing in the DM's decision.
This is because, to the DM, the roll was a binary affair. A Courtesy roll is made to avoid angering nobles was the rationale, and so it didn't matter if who the noble was.
The consequence of this is that players end up feeling like walking in eggshells throughout all of their interactions with NPCs. It makes the players feel like they have something to prove constantly!
In real life, people very often want to like you, or talking to you. It's an asshole move to put someone on the spot and wait for them to entertain you, and DMs often forget this, which sucks the whole fun out of a possibly interesting social encounter.
So next time your players fail a social roll, ask yourself: what does this NPC want out of the interaction? Even if they're complete strangers, most NPCs want to preserve some semblance of cordiality and will just silently lose a bit of respect for the PCs for saying something dumb. Meanwhile, a simple roll won't change the mind of someone who's just mean and hates the PCs' guts.
And if you're a player, make sure to remind your DM that you feel like this NPC should be a little more or less permissible to their failing.
Either way, don't stay quiet like I did back then and discuss with your players or your DM whenever something like this come up.