Social Encounters Part II: From Clay to Bricks (Personality Traits)

What follows is a brief attempt to elaborate on the previous post, laying out a generic but somewhat comprehensive set of personality traits to lay the groundwork for more bespoke, character and setting dependent traits. These traits are loosely grouped based on other traits of a similar type, which vary only in intensity, so that GMs can adjust how impactful they want each trait to be. Typically, traits that are grouped together are mutually exclusive, and must be paired with traits from other sections. The specific mechanics from the last post are reproduced here:

Disposition. NPCs begin at a neutral disposition with PCs. A PC has advantage on Ability checks made in social encounters with friendly NPCs, and hostile NPCs have advantage on Ability checks made in social interactions with PCs (effectively raising their Passive DCs by 5). These rules can be modified by Personality Traits or by the Reputation system (coming soon).

Social Encounters. These rules apply to ability checks made during social encounters:

When a player rolls Deception, Intimidation, or Performance they roll against either Passive Insight or Passive Investigation, dependent on whether their lies, threats, or acting is appealing to emotion or logic. This makes wise or intelligence NPCs resistant to these approaches. 

When a player rolls Persuasion they roll against Passive Persuasion, making charismatic characters harder to convince through raw charm or force of will. 

When a player rolls another relevant skill (usually Intelligence based) to make a case based on their expertise, they roll against either Investigation (if the NPC is a non expert) or the same skill (if the NPC is also proficient). This assumes that the player is speaking truthfully, otherwise the relevant skill would be deception, regardless of whether they were incorporating their knowledge of other subjects.

Personality Traits

Traits that Change Starting Disposition

Friendly. This NPC always starts out at a friendly disposition with player characters.

Hostile. This NPC always starts out at a hostile disposition with player characters.

Traits that Improve an NPCs Social Defense

Willful. All ability checks made during a social encounter targeting Persuasion have disadvantage.

Sagacious. All ability checks made during a social encounter targeting Insight have disadvantage.

Logical. All ability checks made during a social encounter targeting Investigation have disadvantage.

Traits that Modify a Skill's Efficacy

Compliant. All ability checks made during a social encounter targeting Persuasion have advantage.

Foolish. All ability checks made during a social encounter targeting Insight have advantage.

Illogical. All ability checks made during a social encounter targeting Investigation have advantage.

Traits that Modify Dispositions

Disagreeable. NPC has advantage on ability checks made during social encounters against both hostile and neutral creatures.

Antagonistic. NPC has advantage on ability checks made during social encounters regardless of their disposition.

Traits that Modify an NPCs Reaction to Social Encounters

Patronizing. NPC is negatively disposed to ability checks made during social encounters but will increase their disposition against a character by one level when an attempt against them fails.

Grudging. NPC is negatively disposed to ability checks made during social encounters but will increase their disposition against a character by one level when an attempt against them succeeds.

Disagreeable. NPC is negatively disposed to ability checks made during social encounters and will decrease their disposition against a character by one level when it is used against them.

Prickly. NPC negatively disposed to ability checks made during social encounters and will decrease their disposition against a character by one level when an attempt against them fails.

Resentful. NPC is negatively disposed to ability checks made during social encounters and will decrease their disposition against a character by one level when an attempt against them succeeds.

Vengeful. When an ability check targeting this NPC fails during a social encounter, their disposition lowers by one level, and player characters can no longer increase their disposition with this NPC.

Bitter. When an ability check targeting this NPC fails during a social encounter, the player character can no longer increase their disposition with this NPC.