A disput has formed in my group and one of the memebers says hat he can make charm test or fellowship test to conevice peoples characters to agree with him.

i personally disagree with this but I want know what players world wide think.

I think your player is correct. Roleplaying is important, but some people are just better at convincing people in real life than others. If he is playing a super charming, deceiver of Slaanesh and has huge skills, he should be able to convince the players as well. Realistically, they should already be roleplaying liking and trusting his PC.

It's one of those things the GM should decide - you should definitely be able to do it, but the scope of effect is not unlimited.

It's not just a case of "I think we should do this" [pass a fellowship test] "I agree. Would you like your shoes buffing?" - these are nascent Abbadons and Hurons with willpower you could wrap a steel bar around - they don't just 'like' anyone, but some people are able to be more convincing; if two players are putting forwards alternate courses of action to the Annointed*, you might get them to make an opposed fellowship test - the winner sounding more rational**.

The key thing is not to overuse the ability - taking away a player's ability to decide what his character would do is the worst thing you can do in an RPG. Equally, be honest about relative demeanours - if your silver-tongued slaaneshi is trying to sway some khornate bezerker, who knows he's a servant of the dark prince, then remember there's always a little voice in the bezerker's head going "don'ttrusthimcutoffhisheadmurderhimbloodskullsslaughter...sorry, you were saying?"

Making a deceive check to hide pursuing a tertiary objective from another player is fine. Expecting another heretic to do want you want simply because your fellowship is high isn't.

* provided they aren't blatantly obvious about their course of action being to their benefit.

** By the standards of chaos-worshipping loonies.

Magnus Grendel said:

unless you are ok with the berzerker cutting you down where you stand, should you fail your manipulative roll.

I agree that this is something the group should discuss and reach a conclusion about determined by how they want to play. Personally, I'd say yeah, you can make fellowship tests etc to see if you're convincing or if you hide your lie etc, however I'd not allow a success to remove player control. Rather, players should keep in mind that a high fellowship character who just kicked your ass in a charm test made one hell of a persuasive and swaying point, and play to that.

Now, if said point was "Go jump off a cliff, but first give me your stuff" then, well, it's not unreasonable for that player to go "F U" and go on with his life, sans cliff jumping, regardless.

When I'm running games, I judge it more or less like this:

If the PCs discuss the course of action their warband will take, I will discourage them from using Social Skills in the process, as I believe it's something the group should decide through a consensus. Technically, that Slaaneshi Apostate could probably wrap them all around his fingers, but if he actually does so, he becomes a terrorist who tries to hijack the campaign for himself, and that's not cool.

On the other hand, if the PCs are plotting against each other, someone tries to hide something from the rest of the group, or somesuch, I'll be adamant that everything will be handled by rolling the dice, because if they want some backstabbing, I'm not showing any bias.

IMO, this is something the whole group should decide (or just the GM, depending on how your group resolves such issues). Morangias' approach seems to be the most practical - let them roleplay the whole thing while reminding them that characters x, y and z should be considered a little more persuasive than their players. Only once it gets to direct player-versus-player action (meaning either outright lies or bolter fire) should the dice come out.

Also, yes, you can fellowship a PC - provided he has previously lost a magic ring.

I wholeheartedly agree that this is something that the players and GM need to sit down and sort out once and for all in each game they play. Ideally this should be done before the game starts, though it's hard to tell with some systems. In something like D&D where the RP is lite and there are saving throws for everything it's easy enough to do. In more cerebral games like WoD it's more likely to come down to each players RP choices.

To each their own though, and as long as your group can come to a consensus they stick to they will be fine.

While I agree with all points made, I feel compelled to reply to this.

Being allowed to fellowship another player is a dangerous thing, particularly on how easy it is to abuse. I personally think it is perfectly fine to challenge deception versus scrutiny, for every character has a right to his or her secrets. However, using fellowship to dictate another characters actions? That takes away from the fun of that player being allowed to roleplay. I understand the concept of charisma based characters realistically being able to persuade other characters, but what fun is it for the other player when the charisma based character dictates all of their actions.

While I haven't witnessed this in the 40k RPG as of yet, I see it plenty in my DnD group. Particularly, one player almost always creates a high intelligance/charisma character that comes from elite or highborn background and treats the rest of the characters as uncouth simpletons. Because he has abhorrantly high diplomacy skills, he believes he should be able to force any disagreement to go his way just because his characters are so single-focused in forcing people to do what he wants. Furthermore, since his characters are generally incapible of doing anything besides social skills, he thinks it is his right to control the descion making process. Naturally, this has led to this dispute around my gaming table many times.

This leads to many questions. Does playing a social character who cannot control other party memebers make the game not fun for him? Does allowing it outweigh the detraction of fun factor for those players who are not allowed to make their own descions? What about the personal opinions of ones character against the social character? Why would a khorne berzerker care or even consider the opinion of a decadent, lazy, slaneeshi noble? If a character devotes himself to a social character, does he deserve to decide for the party? If you decide to limit the ability to prevent overuse, how much is too much?

We had a rule regarding it at my table. If the character suceeds a fellowship check, especially if they succeed it by a great deal, then the targetted player is 'strongly encouraged' to consider and yield to the other player's suggestion. While this is flawed solution, it is a decent middle ground to give the social character to have some ability to influence his party.

ALL THAT ASIDE, as someone who almost always plays butt-kicking, giant weapon-carrying, takes-names-and-leaves-no-prisoners super warriors, I personally despise having another player who thinks the 'diplomacy skill' is an at-will mind control power. To me, social skills are meant for NPCs. Roleplaying games are cooperative, not competitive, and people should respect others enough to find a common descion rather than forcing people to agree with them. However, maybe that is just me.

Thats my 10 cents.

When I play, if I'm at a disagreement with another player I invite them to an opposed check, and if they win then I do it their way. I don't do it all the time, mostly when I myself am waffling on what to do and this is more fun than a simple coin flip.

Also our group does it when a debate goes on far too long and we need to get back to the game.

If the players all agree to such a solution, there's no problem at all.

The trick is in calling it as a GM when the PCs aren't all too fond. Sometimes, it may work, but if you have to make that call too often, something's probably wrong.

Let it come down to Roleplaying, if the opposing players is still in doubt you might consider making a charm test.
Player characters are not NPC's, they have a free will.

That said, if a player has huge social skills and roleplay's them well the other players should act on this...

Can you use your Weapon Skill against another Players character? Certainly! The player may not like it, the GM may not like, it but your character can hurt another players character (although I'd advice against Players hurting each other).

So why should the characters not be able to use their Charm skills?

Remember that such a Charm test will be Opposed by the other characters Willpower or other appropriate skill, and modifiers will be given depending on how hard the GM determines the "convincing" will be. To convince someone to go against his beliefs, morals and/or better judgement is not easy. The person with the most people skill will not get to "call all the shots", but he will probably be able to sway arguments and differences of opinion his way more often than not.

But in the end, if you have a all-brawn-weak-willed character, expect to be manipulated. And not just by other Player Characters, but by NPCs as well. You can Charm NPCs to do or say things that they might not want to, but NPCs can do the same to you.

@Darth Smeg

To take your argument and turn it around: If you have an all-brain-and-no-brawn character who tries to manipulate the Khornate berserker, expect to be reduced to a stain on the floor, because he's allowed to use his WS on you when he's bored.

RP is often a series of compromises, of not playing your character to the hilt because it would the game less fun for other players. Forcing your will upon others by roll of the dice is generally about as unfun as forcing your will upon other by threatening to wipe the floor with their remains.

Morangias said:

This is generally how I do it, mainly because the 1st revolves around what the players/characters think, and the 2nd revolves around the difference between in-character ("I don't know if he's trying to lie to me") and out-of-character ("I know he's to lying to me") knowledge.

I'd never, ever use it to allow a high Fellowship person to just tell people what to do, or to force them to do things, however. I'd just use it in the way described, for more passive actions (lying/detecting lies, trying to hide/discover motivations through body language, etc).

If it ever comes to actual PvP - and I've informed my players that though I won't be looking favorably at them stabbing each other for ***** and giggles, I'm not going to stop them PvPing if they have good story-related reasons for it - I will probably have them roll for everything, just so that nobody feels cheated out of his fortes. Plus, I don't want accusations of GM favoritism.

Luckily, my players are a reasonable lot, mostly just content to express their scumbag side through taking innocent jabs at each other and keeping minor secrets, so all this using dice to resolve inter-party conflict mostly boils down to Deveive vs Scrutiny.

Santiago said:

Players might have free will (to the extent that free will exists, but that's another discussion), but characters, whether PC or NPC, most certainly do not. All characters can influence one another, and any character can be convinced of something even if the player/gamemaster controlling the character is not himself convinced.

Aye, personally i would say that any skill, attribute or talent can be used on other PCs unless it specifically states it cannot (such as some of the command talents that only affect NPCs). I use this method because of the differences between the player and the character... sure, most players will never be as hench and intimidating as their techno-viking space warrior, but conversely few players will ever be as persuasive or charming as some of the silver-tongued rakes of the 41st millenium.

As such if players are at loggerheads about something i try to make sure it's using as much in character knowledge and skill as possible and not just about the players wanting to screw each other over. I mean, how many players of Demagogues do you know that can actually persuade the entire table of players to do things their way just using their human interaction skills? Well ruling out weak willed, socially inept or even those with disabilities, i'm wiling to bet that not many of those players would respond well to such machinations... conversely if one of the players threatens to eviscerate any who stand in the way of his character's rise to glory.... you get the picture.

@Kasatka

I mean, how many players of Demagogues do you know that can actually persuade the entire table of players to do things their way just using their human interaction skills?

Funny you should say that because that's what I'm getting away with in two gaming groups right now.

The first is an oWoD Orpheus group. Right in the first mission, I started making notes and thinking about what would have to be done during the briefing and gave out tasks immediately afterwards in a friendly "Why don't you do X?" fashion. One PC objected to me taking the lead, so I offered to let him handle the organizing, but insisted that someone would have to do it - after all, the WoD is not a place to go prancing around clueless. Since he declined (not wanting the work involved), I continued. By now (in tv series terms, we're in the second season), I'm pretty much the official group leader. The others still act on their own, but usually run their actions by me first and respect a "I really don't think we should do that...".
In one instance, I turned a mission pretty much on its head - we were more or less asked to murder an untouchable crime lord. This was fine by the rather unscrupulous other PCs, but my upstanding journalist preferred to expose his crimes so the DA couldn't honour his deal with him without opening himself up to media outrage. After some discussion, the others did indeed come round to my point of view. I'm still not quite sure how I did that...

The second is an oWoD Werewolf group, consisting of all kinds of werecreatures. I entered the group relatively late, with the others already mostly going with the orders of a self-proclaimed alpha lion. Since he was never officially recognized by the others and often spent some time pouting when a few of them debated every word he said, I had a relatively easy time seizing the initiative by suggesting a reasonable course of action that usually resulted in success and played to the strengths of the characters. Further, I got along very well with everyone because I never alienated them, criticized their methods or made them feel bad about themselves.
By the time the alpha lion noticed what was going on, I had the trust of most group members - which, in hindsight, is pretty funny considering I'm playing a Ratkin Plague Lord who would probably make a Nurgle Champion green with envy. Well, greener.

During both games, I don't think I ever rolled a social test against another PC, although I had the stats to back it up. In both cases, I'm mostly acting for the good of the group, but advancing my personal goals (pushing the group towards altruism in Orpheus, amassing power in Werewolf) at the same time.

Cifer said:

Well that is sort of my point - you are acting in a manner entirely befitting your character, and are capable of the same sorts of feats he/she/it is.

What i was trying to get across is that you can't really penalize socially inept or handicapped people who want to play a more machiavellian character and not just 'hurr-durr!' warriors. That's why it's important to get a consensus from the start of a game as to what players and GM are expecting and wanting to do.

These sorts of things come as second nature but for those newer to pen and paper roleplay it can be hard to get into when presented with a table full of munchkin number-crunchers and seasoned method-actors. A unifying and ultimately balancing set of table etiquette is key to any roleplaying game.