Roleplaying "Charm person" (realizing the trick)

[Madeiner]

I was thinking how should the "charm person" (or similar) spells be roleplayed.
As the spell is cast, you become "friendly" to the caster and you want to help him.

Does this spell suppress all logical reasoning?
What if you have seen the caster cast "charm person" on you, and you are a caster yourself/pass the arcana check?
Do you recognize you have been charmed and can you shift your perceptions?
What if someone else (that you believe) tells you you have been charmed? Do you even consider the possibility that it is true?
What if someone tells you (and maybe shows proof, like a videotape) of you hating someone just a moment ago, but now you like him? Do you rationalize it or can you see through the trick?
I mean, it's a new friend, but friends sometimes lie or betray you, don't they?

Are you "locked" into being friendly with the caster for the duration of the spell, or does it just shift your perception of him at the moment of casting?

[Eisenheim]

try this for an idea of how realizing you've been charmed could look, while the spell still keeps you charmed.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2011-10-29

[CNagy]

It's mostly fluff. The key points about the Charmed condition are that you cannot attack or take hostile action against the Charmer, and the Charmer gets advantage on all social rolls against you. Because various things can inflict the Charmed conditions, various things will or won't break it.

The thing is that you may full realize that you are charmed, but you can't get around the restrictions of the condition so you need to roleplay the magic affecting your thought processes. The reason I say you may be aware that you are charmed is because otherwise, the Monk's ability to take an action to end a charm effect would be useless.

So you are now predisposed to help the person who charmed you, but that only goes so far. They don't become your best or only friend, and you weigh their requests against your own self interest, duty, and friendship to others. That's why it is important for the Charmer to couch his requests as inoffensively as possible. Natural suspicion of the Charmer's activities might be magically suppressed, but things like "abandon your post" or "set fire to the granary" are going to be met with outright refusal, though not the hostility that should probably accompany it.

This is, of course, just my interpretation of it, but Charming someone basically makes them easier to trick if that's your end goal. It also makes it easier for them to like you, if you have a means of doing it without them knowing you've used magic on them (the Swashbucker's panache, for example, is more like having a personality that inflicts charm on people and would be received differently than a Charm Person, where at the end the creature knows you were the one who charmed it.)

It goes without saying charmed people treat you better, and as long as you don't impose too much your requests might not sit bitterly with them after the fact. Example: you wouldn't normally ask someone you just met if you could sleep at their house, and such a person might not normally agree. But if over the course of drinks and a little charm assistance, you insinuate that you don't have any lodging for the evening, the charmed person might invite you to stay with them. Assuming you can keep them from realizing that they were under magical influence, and assuming you don't take too many liberties, the formerly-charmed person might accept their action as unusual but rationalize it as you being the trustworthy sort. I briefly played a Swashbuckler/Enchanter and let me tell you, if you've got a DM who is willing to recognize the implications of the Swashbuckler's ability to inflict charm at will and the Enchanter's various abilities, you come to the conclusion that such a character can pretty much coast through life.

[Addaran]

You can't shift your perception or go against the charm, even if you know about it or if your teamates tell you. I'd argue that you can't even cast a dispell magic on yourself cause atm he's your friend and you know that if you do cast dispell magic, it's to be able to attack/kill him.
And you shouldn't just step back and let your friends murder him while you watch but "didn't do anything against him".

One way to help think how you should react, is if two of your teamates start to fight and are intenting on killing one another. Since both are your friends, you won't side with one to kill the other and you won't let one of them kill the others. The only way you could realistically side with one of them is if one aggree to stop fighting and the other doesn't. Then you'd try to stop the one who can't accept peace, hopefully without killing him.



It goes without saying charmed people treat you better, and as long as you don't impose too much your requests might not sit bitterly with them after the fact.
Even if they do know you charmed them, they might not be bitter if they understand why and you weren't too evil. ex: Charming the guard so he doesn't raise the alarm on your party and you tell him that if you hadn't charmed him, the scary half-orc in the party would have probably killed him... plus, he got the excuse for his captain the next day: "Sorry boss, they had a powerfull spellcaster and i couldn't act."