Kessa:
I'm familiar with this and I've used it a fair amount, but I still wind up with (in this instance) a player who wanted to know how many times he had to make ridiculous rolls to get someone to go home with him and how mechanically he should have already reached that point x# rolls ago.
In this case after they'd made a few 'very good' rolls I'd alert them that though the target is becoming more friendly with them, the NPC is sending the "Nope, not ever gonna happen" signals (or just have the NPC out right state it).
In the case of Player vs Player social rolls, I just begin swatting the offensive Player about the head and shoulders with a rolled up newspaper.
NowhereMan:
Kessa:
But, if characters are built with doing that one thing in mind, is that in some way cheating that character out of something?
No. If a character was built around stabbing things with a sword, would it be cheating them out of something should they encounter an enemy they could not stab?
Exactly!
Kessa:
Is it dissimilar from someone stabbing a dragon (something by all rights you should be able to stab) with absurd damage and then being upset that they did no damage, because it's only really vulnerable to spells?
If someone is getting upset that they aren't 'getting their way', they can deal with that themselves. If they become an issue at the table (or OOC Post threads) then they can leave the game and go play elsewhere.
Kessa:
I should clarify, I'm asking how others handle a particular type of situation where NPCs or PCs own desires are theoretically mitigated or diminished by die rolling.
The NPC will simply have their actions or response altered. I'm not sure what you're asking here...
How about an example:
The Dread Pirate Roberts never leaves a victim alive. Their reputation is built upon this! They take the PCs captive somehow (presume the PCs lost the ship-to-ship fight and the subsequent boarding action). One PC makes a desperate social check, summoning up all the character's wit, charm, seduction, cunning, diplomacy, etc skills. They get a phenominal result.
This goes either one of a few ways for me:
1 - The Dread Pirate Roberts never really 'never takes prisoners', it's just that no one ever talks. So TDPR makes them a deal, they like the plucky PC and have decided not to kill them today. The PCs are free to joint the Pirate's crew
or die.
2 - TDPR is going to put them to death, but TDPR crew (or part of the crew) decides to turn on the pirate captian giving the PCs another chance to win their freedom.
3 - TDPR and crew take penalties to their actions based on their emotions being swayed (ie pirate attacks lack oomph or waver, their hearts aren't in it, maybe one looks the other way while a victim flees or hides, etc).
Actually 3 is how I run it when one PC (or NPC) successfully 'social attacks' another PC. The social attack victim will find their actions penalized if those actions don't line up with whatever the attacker was trying to convince them to do.