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## Actual Anatomy of Failed Design: Diplomacy

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Fri Oct 07, 2011 1:11 pm

Let's go back to our Lich King scenario. There's a Lich King. He's at war with your kingdom. There are two nearby kingdoms: a Dwarven kingdom with whom you have good relations, and a Drow kingdom with whom you have bad relations. The other kingdoms could do a number of things about this upcoming war:

- Opportunistically invade your kingdom.
- Conduct piracy/banditry on the extra wealth and supplied you'll be shipping in and out.
- Embargo your country.
- Do nothing.
- Sell supplies to your country.
- Give/lend supplies to your country.
- Send troops to defend your country.

Now you'd expect a kingdom you're on bad terms with to do one of the first three, and a kingdom you're on good terms with to do one of the last three. But which? PL's diplomacy "system" is to use magical teaparty to determine an answer whether or not the PCs interact with either kingdom. Clearly an actual diplomacy system, one that allowed you to do diplomacy, you would be able to do something to influence the behavior of the Drow and Dwarf kingdoms.
All PL's stystem does is allow you to have the Lich King's hot daughter fall in love with your character at a dramatically appropriate time. And while I agree that that is an important thing, that has absolutely fuck all to do with diplomacy. Diplomacy is about figuring out how much you have to give to or do for other people to get them to give to or do for you the things you want or need. If you are resorting to magical teaparty for 100% of the answer to those questions, you do not have a diplomacy system.
The question is how much you would have to do to get the Drow to stay out of things rather than go pirate or invade while you're preoccupied with the Lich King. That is the question a diplomacy system is for. If you're using magical teaparty instead of answering that question, you don't have a system.
PL's suggestion is not a diplomacy system, because it does not answer any questions a diplomacy system would answer.
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A Man In Black
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Post by A Man In Black » Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:12 pm

> PhoneLobster wrote:But I mean really "why don't you hit him with the Diplomacy stick?" I dunno, why don't you just hit him with a REGULAR stick. Also, the GM.

Because if you do, you blow your chance to get the support of the kingdom by placing your own candidate on the throne. Murdering him is totally an option once you've got that.
It's a serious fucking question. Under your system, what motivation do you have to work with people who are somewhat sympathetic rather than outright hostile? What's the difference between someone who won't talk to you, someone who will only help you as part of a quid pro quo, and people who will just help you? What does it mean for someone to be a social badass, mechanically?
I don't have a counter proposal to your system, I just want to understand it better.
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Seerow
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Post by Seerow » Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:23 pm

> It's a serious fucking question. Under your system, what motivation do you have to work with people who are somewhat sympathetic rather than outright hostile? What's the difference between someone who won't talk to you, someone who will only help you as part of a quid pro quo, and people who will just help you? What does it mean for someone to be a social badass, mechanically?

Well, in his system, social attacks go against HP, when it hits 0 they do what you want, right?
What if you just make different thresholds based on their starting attitude towards you. Like getting someone who is hostile to the "I'm a good friend" status requires taking them down to 0 HP. Getting someone who's already a friend to do what you want could just be "Take out 10% HP"
So the difference between going to the Drow Queen for help and going to the Dwarf King for help, is the Dwarf King has a much lower threshold before you succeed.
Alternatively you can give defense bonuses or damage resistance to less friendly targets, though this solution makes social attacks in combat much harder to use which goes against PL's premise.
Ideally there should also be something to differentiate what you're trying to get the person to do. For example the Drow Queen trying to dominate the party should have a tougher time than the Drow Queen saying "Fuck off, I don't want to help the human kingdom". And the party trying to wheedle that little extra benefit like access to some minor gear or a little extra pay out of a friendly person should be more likely than trying to get themselves named Duke, or one of the NPCs more powerful magic items.
I think these little modifiers and situations are what Frank is trying to get at and wants represented, but the only way he sees to make it work is make those big modifiers on a single diplomacy roll. Personally I think having these things as modifiers to social combat would work just as well.
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Post by nikita » Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:29 pm

The real world diplomacy (which I do think has relevance to irrational role-playing systems) has number of issues that make its simulation difficult.
Lets suppose there are factions A and B.
First, relations between factions do matter. The better the relations are the better idea A has what B wants and vice versa.
Second, making diplomatic contact to negotiate issues is easier if relations are good. In practice this means that negotiations do not collapse doe perceived diplomatic snubs. In essense the getting to negotiation table is more difficult if relations are bad (but this is balanced with skills of a good diplomat).
Third, the actual diplomatic negotiation is about making a package which both sides can agree. This means that faction A and faction B have a laundry list of things they badly need and given their relative powers and perceived needs they get some/most/all of this laundry list.
For example a superpower wanted to use terrain of third world country. The third would country wanted to have economic progress and suggested superpower to open its markets to its products. Both sides agreed to this and deal was made.
Thus any negotiation system must have some kind of priority list of things A and B want on different areas. Both sides determine independently values in these areas (and they can be quite different). This is called "log rolling" in politics. A system could have point values to certain issues with multipliers depending on priorities. This is also how it is simulated in different political simulations...
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Post by Swordslinger » Fri Oct 07, 2011 9:16 pm

> PhoneLobster wrote: Making the Elf Queen send troops when she decides she doesn't want to is based on your abilities compared to her abilities, just like trying to make her change her mind about anything her player has decided she wants to be stubborn about, and why should it be anything else?

The thing is you need modifiers, because there are things you slightly don't want to do and things that you absolutely don't want to do.
A town beggar may get you to give him over a few coins you otherwise didn't want to give, but he's not going to be able to get you to turn over the entirety of your wealth. So at some point you need to rate diplomatic requests on a scale from easy to impossible.
I don't see any way to differentiate between those without either some kind of strong circumstantial modifiers like Frank is talking about or setting a cap on what your social system can provide.
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Post by Orion » Fri Oct 07, 2011 9:34 pm

What if instead of RNG-breaking modifiers, going up in level increased both what you could get people to do AND how likely it is to work?
Charm Person gives you a certain degree of control over the victim. When a wizard goes up a few levels he learns Dominate, which both provides more control AND is harder to resist. Social attacks behave similarly. So because the beggar is level one he has a lowish Diplomacy bonus AND if he beats you all he can do is make you give him some money. The town constable has a moderate Diplomacy bonus AND if he beats you he can force you to surrender your weapons and come quietly. The vampire queen has a high Diplomacy bonus, and if she beats you she can force you to betray your friends and become a vampire. That lets you have beggars and barmaids making credible social attacks without having to throw out +20 modifiers at any point.
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Post by RadiantPhoenix » Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:29 pm

Suggestion: Because I'm feeling confused, in the future, could people use, "Charm" to refer to what Diplomacy did in 3.5, i.e., "make people like you," and, "Persuade," to refer to, "convince person A that action B benefits them."?
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Sat Oct 08, 2011 12:44 am

> FrankTrollman wrote:Now you'd expect a kingdom you're on bad terms with to do one of the first three, and a kingdom you're on good terms with to do one of the last three. But which? PL's diplomacy "system" is to use magical teaparty to determine an answer

Sure it is. And why not. Because after all that is your system too. My system has very clear methods by which you can switch whatever the target selects in one category, to whatever you select in another. Imperfect sure, but writable as an actual mechanic because there is a VERY clear transition in between magic tea party and the formalized mechanics.
Meanwhile YOUR solution to determine those attitudes, to the VERY limited degree you are prepared to describe it. Is pure fairy tea party. You demand MULTIPLE if not infinite circumstantial modifiers each and every one of which is bigger than the entire rest of the game (including each other!), in order to generate an infinite magical rainbow of very slightly differentiated results.
And that means your system is made out of fairy tea party. You are using the inputs of "any arbitrary crap Frank feels like" in order to get the outputs of "any arbitrary crap Frank feels like". At NO point in your system's process is there an actual formalized and playable game mechanic. And if you have a means of creating one, go ahead and show us, describe even an angle by which you would try this?
If you really want to stick to this Infinite sized List of Infinite sized Modifiers, OK lets see that list. How is it generated that ISN'T fairy tea party? Indeed MORE Fairy Tea Party than my methods of accounting for character motivation and individual agency.

> All PL's stystem does is allow you to have the Lich King's hot daughter fall in love with your character at a dramatically appropriate time.

Alternately you could make the lich king himself fall in love with you (or fear you, or get confused by your lies, or respect your code of honor and friendship or whatever). Then you could ask him for supplies and reinforcements and stuff.
No. My system doesn't happen to have the granularity to have a specific roll with specific modifiers to convince a Lich King with, a bad childhood, a dislike of sex with 1st level barmaids, a history of defeated armies by enemy X but not enemy Y, to give me specifically Z amount of supplies (but no more or no less) on a Friday, just after his Birthday.
But that is a stupid goal to have. It cannot be met, YOUR proposition does not meet it, you just demand it. You NEED to have a work around rather than to try this one head on, and I have a work around and you don't. Sure, give us a solution that WORKS for a head on way of addressing such ludicrously detailed demands as YOU have been making. But seriously, you can't do it can you?

> And while I agree that that is an important thing, that has absolutely fuck all to do with diplomacy. Diplomacy is about...

Oh look. Semantics. Last I noticed they were the resort of a person avoiding the point. Also last I noticed this thread is about diplomacy in a fairly specific context. And in that context, even 3.5 Diplomacy, which is much closer to your demands than the Charm model, is STILL closer to my system than your "Infinite sized list of infinite sized modifiers" demands.
Sure, it's an ass system but there are reasons it isn't an infinite sized list of infinite sized modifiers. Because that is even more ass so ass, you can't even write it clearly. Even there it was clear that it was by far easier to make broad status changes to a character's motivations than to use an infinite sized list of specific individual goals.

> PL's suggestion is not a diplomacy system, because it does not answer any questions a diplomacy system would answer.

It answers the question of "can I use mechanics to make this person my friend?". It answers that question nicely. It also answers the questions of "when do I do that?" and "what does it do?"
Your system. answers no questions at all. You don't even HAVE a proposal to deal with this. How DO you answer those questions you want to answer, and why aren't you asking the question I am, which is should we even be asking those questions, or are they STUPID QUESTIONS?

> Swordslinger wrote:The thing is you need modifiers, because there are things you slightly don't want to do and things that you absolutely don't want to do.
> A town beggar may get you to give him over a few coins

Frank must be glad to find a strong ally agreeing with his demands to be Swordslinger... anyway...
1) You should NOT be using the diplomacy system for the town beggar to get a few coins. You CAN and SHOULD reserve it for actions which DO matter, like him convincing you to let him live in your house and eat all your food or whatever it is you are panicking about. You shouldn't be using mechanics to simulate LITERAL small change bullshit. And warping, indeed breaking, your higher level mechanics to account for small change bullshit that shouldn't be mechanically resolved will only be a bad thing.
2) Your RNG is only so big. You CAN have circumstantial modifiers. But you cannot as Frank demands have an infinite sized list of circumstantial modifiers which each individually could be so big that they are a bigger consideration than anything else, including each other. And if you have a measurable circumstantial modifier for "Spare a Penny Mister?" then the game is going to be breaking somewhere around about or before "That's an awful nice unicorn you are riding there..."

> or setting a cap on what your social system can provide.

You could do that. But it gets pretty confusing pretty fast. One of the big problems being that perceived value and actual value of actions are dramatically different and even if you limit your social system to "Small Change only, no unicorns" it then implodes the second someone has a secret magic unicorn penny. (well actually there are better examples of this, like the "here hold my bag for me" scenario, but... well... I'm keeping this Penny&Unicorn metaphor to the end).
So sure, you can have various different general states a social mechanic can put you in. Like Charm and Dominate, or the various attitudes in the 3.x Diplomacy skill. But you have to realize that actually those attitudes do not actually translate directly to a steady increase in actual effectiveness and power level but more in convenience and flavor. Because no one knows what's in that bag you got them to hold...
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codeGlaze
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Post by codeGlaze » Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:11 am

I don't understand how this has spiraled into a thread as long as this.
Logically you can't account for absolutely everything, and you can't apply modifiers for every little detail... and after all your storyteller is the one crafting the world, and story.
Given that, setting a level and encounter appropriate DC to shift an encounter's attitude in any direction should be rather trivial, and calculable on the spot. Sure, try and sway the Lich King in your favor... set the DC to near the max of what said character can realistically roll, if not just requiring a crit.
Sliding scale could be codified, with example/template modifiers if a DM is having trouble trying to put a realistic DC to something. Like the 'pirate code' any listed modifiers should be 'suggestions' or outlines ... a very DnD outlook on the situation >_>. Diplomacy is a really broad subject to try and create static rules for, and Lobster's arguments in that regard are rather poignant. Diplomacy should probably be reserved for a) ludicrous situations, b) situations where a person is a poor debater but is trying his damnedest to sway an NPC, c) situations that aren't worth roleplaying extensively, d) etc. >_>
Attitude shifts could even be handled in multiple tiers, forcing your character to work at winning the opposed DC over. You have a maximum number of shifts you can make in any single skill contest. If it goes well, the conversation continues and you have a shot at shifting the attitude even further, if it goes poorly... you get a death ray in the face.
With out using mind altering magic, shmoozing shouldn't be an allowed insta-win... in any system.
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Post by hyzmarca » Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:30 am

Attitude Modifier
Ranges from -10 (loves you to death, would happily die for you) to +20 (his hatred for you burns hotter than the fires of hell)
Trust Modifier (Default 0, ranges from +10 to -10 depending on your reputation and past dealings with the target)
Leverage Modifier (what's the chances that the other guy will survive telling you "no" and what's the chances that you'll survive the other guy telling you "no"). Commodore Perry gets a +15 Leverage bonus for negotiating with the Togukawa Shogunate
Then you add in your actual requests
-10 for small request that the target can easily do.
-20 for large requests that requre a bit of effort
-30 for Extraordinary requests that require a large ambount of effort
-100 for Abhorrent requests that fly in the face of the target's values.
and any concessions you're willing to make
+10 for small concessions
+20 for large concessions
+30 for extraordinary concessions
+40 for the thing that the targets wants most in this world on a silver platter
Three possible outcomes: Failure, Success, or Counter Offer (if you fail by less than 5 or succeed by less than 10).
Feel free to change those numbers. I'm just making them up off the top of my head right now and they're probably totally inappropriate. It's just an example.
Thus the hill tribe assaults you. They're attitude gives you a base modifier of -10 (they want to kill you and steal your stuff) and you're completely at their mercy (-20 Leverage modifier). But you're Tyrion Lannister and even primitive hill tribesmen know that a Lannister always pays his debts (+5 Trust Modifier). You offer them a bunch of high quality steel weapons (+10 small concession) and control of the entire vale (+30 extraordinary concession) in exchange for not killing you (-10 small request). Total bonus is +5 And you roll well enough that they agree to escort you home (but will kill you if payment isn't rendered as promised).
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster » Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:49 am

You can write your "system" there hymarca a lot more clearly as follows.
The GM listens to your proposal and based on how it makes him feel in his ass he pulls a number out of it between -120 (or less) and +145 (or more).
Precisely what roll or mechanic this modifier interacts with is unclear, and probably not even important at that point.
You can do that. You really can. It works, sort of. It's the same basic mechanic used by all Rules Lite mechanics and in the bits of more formal RPGs that count as "everything we couldn't be assed writing real rules for". But it's not much of mechanic, it's not a very good mechanic, and you just wasted a great deal of time and text trying to pretend it was anything other than "a very very large and completely arbitrary number out of the GMs ass".
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hyzmarca
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Post by hyzmarca » Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:44 am

> PhoneLobster wrote:You can write your "system" there hymarca a lot more clearly as follows.
> The GM listens to your proposal and based on how it makes him feel in his ass he pulls a number out of it between -120 (or less) and +145 (or more).
> Precisely what roll or mechanic this modifier interacts with is unclear, and probably not even important at that point.
> You can do that. You really can. It works, sort of. It's the same basic mechanic used by all Rules Lite mechanics and in the bits of more formal RPGs that count as "everything we couldn't be assed writing real rules for". But it's not much of mechanic, it's not a very good mechanic, and you just wasted a great deal of time and text trying to pretend it was anything other than "a very very large and completely arbitrary number out of the GMs ass".

Dude, it's not a complete system or even a complete set of tables. I hammered it together in five minutes between levels of Catcus McCoy 2.
I really don't have the skill to balance such tables, anyway. If Someone else would like to try feel free.
The point is that you've got a small set of clearly defined modifiers that the players have some way to influence. And the players should be able to calculate those modifiers themselves fairly easily.
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Post by Username17 » Sat Oct 08, 2011 5:37 am

> Swordslinger wrote: The thing is you need modifiers, because there are things you slightly don't want to do and things that you absolutely don't want to do.
> A town beggar may get you to give him over a few coins you otherwise didn't want to give, but he's not going to be able to get you to turn over the entirety of your wealth. So at some point you need to rate diplomatic requests on a scale from easy to impossible.
> I don't see any way to differentiate between those without either some kind of strong circumstantial modifiers like Frank is talking about or setting a cap on what your social system can provide.

That is actually why I was talking about "Diplomatic Credit" where you literally buy things. You have "Credit" (which is how much you can get from them) and "Trust" (which is how much they are willing to take from you to get more credit). So a wealthy merchant would start off with a high trust and no credit, and you could give him actual stuff like gold bars to get credit that you could then use to buy the stuff he had for sale. You could also save his daughter from a bone dragon or something and get a bunch of credit that way, in which case he'd reward you with a bunch of stuff. The Drow don't give you any credit or any trust, so you have to do stuff and take diplomatic actions to get trust before they'll even trade with you.
PL's rants really aren't worth responding to anymore, because he's repeating himself and he has confirmed that he has no interest in making a diplomacy system that handles anything that anyone would actually call diplomacy.
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Post by Username17 » Sat Oct 08, 2011 5:57 am

> codeGlaze wrote:Given that, setting a level and encounter appropriate DC to shift an encounter's attitude in any direction should be rather trivial, and calculable on the spot. Sure, try and sway the Lich King in your favor... set the DC to near the max of what said character can realistically roll, if not just requiring a crit.

The big issue with D&D DCs is that the bonuses scale too much and too erratically to have sensible DCs. If you set the DC to 25, that's wrong. If you set the DC to 55, that's wrong too. The numbers vary by more than the entire RNG. Which is why you'd want to replace that system with a set of bonuses that was much more compressed like in 2nd edition AD&D and then go to a credit system to buy favors and goods.
The 3e Skill System is borked, and the interaction between titanic DCs and stupidly high skill bonuses is one of the most obvious problems. The other of course is that the inputs and outputs of the diplomacy system are fucked up. People can't be "hostile" to you before you've met, meaning that the entire diplomacy system is only set up to interact with relationships that already exist - a terrible limitation for a game about exploring. And when a character is (or becomes) "helpful", they really need something to determine whether they will help you move a couch or help you move a body.
The system needs a way to set the reaction of new people to your character. And it needs a diplomatic credit system to determine how far you can actually get people to go on your behalf. But it also can't have the kinds of crazy numerics that 3e and 4e give to diplomancy, because low level characters have friends and high level characters have enemies.
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Post by PhoneLobster » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:54 am

Precisely how does your credit system explain your demands about 1st level barmaids controlling the actions of dragon slayers? I'm running with absolutely nothing.
Precisely how does it explain the first level herald? Are credits transferable? Because GOOD GOD that could result in some crazy shit.
How many credits DO you get from saving the merchant's daughter? What if he has 2 daughters? 12 daughters? What if she is his favorite? His least favorite? The one he pretends is his favorite as a decoy to confuse kidnappers? What if she isn't really his daughter, but he doesn't want you to know that, what if he doesn't know she isn't his daughter, what if you do?
So basically the answer to that mess with credit valuation is the SAME answer to your infinite lists of infinite modifiers demands. It's going to be a whopping great totally arbitrary value pulled out of the GMs ass every time.
Combined with your demand that credits be able to give auto-success on a scale/RNG that you demand be very small, for a variety of individual reasons you have never deigned to subject to criticism (you are FUCKING glass skinned for someone who talks like you do Frank, I mean AGAIN with the "not worth responding to the moment he pointed out I was demanding infinite lists of infinite sized modifiers")... put that together and you have a seriously problematic scenario of adventurers running an afternoon of errands to auto-succeed at all the things you think it would be bad if they used the entire character advancement system to do in my scenarios.
Unless you want to create a complex non-linear credit system, and then we start getting into even crazier territory, all for what? Something that ultimately in the end is still more fairy tea party and less usable than my solution.
You have NEVER addressed the fundamental criticisms I have raised and you don't get to dismiss them until you DO.
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Post by Draco_Argentum » Sat Oct 08, 2011 8:43 am

The problem I have with Pl's system is that there seems to be no reason to ask for a diplomatic compromise. ie 'Lets not attack each other's kingdoms.' It seems like its just as easy to go with 'How about you give me your kingdom and also become my personal jizzrag?' Encouraged even, since asking for everything is a single social combat whereas asking for two small things on two occaisions would give you two chances to lose.
Basically it looks like it has the same failures as normal combat. No surrender, no retreat!
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Post by PhoneLobster » Sat Oct 08, 2011 11:00 am

You have some rather strange ideas about kingdom ownership.
Like most people with this desperate concern you have a very shallow and territorial view of the matter, (which I think effectively reveals what you are really arguing about, but that's another matter).
You charmed the king. Great. That gives you some significant influence over him and his kingdom. But a kingdom isn't the same thing as his favourite hat. He CAN'T just give it to you.
But in all honesty how does Franks system deal with this? Level 1 barmaids can seduce the king without a roll! One after noon of errand running will build up enough "credits" to have him "give you the kingdom" without a roll. Because of the subjective nature of social credit a single mission to save his favorite Donkey he thinks is his daughter will make him "give you the kingdom" with no roll because credit values are not objective or realistic and he actually DOES care about the donkey more. Hell you can just find some small finite number of weaklings the king owes the smallest measurable increment of minor favors to, have them transfer their credits to you and he will do whatever you want without laying hands on a dice roll. Hell in general this is a system that motivates you to run around killing people who do good deeds for you. A system in which an GM can simply coerce the PCs to do whatever he want by paying the characters upfront.
In my system at least you have to meet the hurdle of being able to defeat the king in a fair fight based on character attributes. And even then the "and he is your personal jizz rag" is a gross misrepresentation I addressed fucking years ago. I mean really does charm person do that? As it already exists in games you actually play does charm person REALLY do that? Because remember that is what you are claiming here. And I am rather annoyed that I am expected to deal with criticisms like that when Frank appears to get a free pass on the level 1 barmaids auto-seducing the king into doing things apparently no rational man would want to do (according to Frank, aspiring arbiter of your new Infinite Sized Circumstantial modifier to your next social check).
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ModelCitizen
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Post by ModelCitizen » Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:51 pm

I just can't see Charm Person as a good model for diplomacy. Casting Charm Person is violence. People can catch you trying to charm then and then reasonably try to kill you. Regular social persuasion doesn't have that risk.
Scenario 1: Bardy McBardPants casts Charm Monster on the king. This is basically assault and is a big fucking deal to everyone present. If the king makes his save, Bardy has to fight every guard in the room. If the kind fails his save but it wasn't a stilled silenced Charm Monster then Bardy still has to fight every guard in the room. And even if all that goes off without a hitch, if one of the king's associates later makes a Sense Motive check, the king gets hauled in front of a mid-level wizard with Dispel Magic and Bardy gets assassins sent after him.
Scenario 2: Bardy's twin brother Bardtholomew McBardPants uses Diplomacy on the king. This is a normal thing that people do to each other and almost nobody gets murderously angry over it. He is rolling for the exact same results as Charm Monster, but without the risk. That makes for boring gameplay and a weak story.
And I'm even assuming risk is the only problem: the king is some throwaway NPC, and it's OK to force a fight for control of that character using only social abilities he may not even be built for. Do we use this same shit if the king is a PC?
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Koumei
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Post by Koumei » Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:40 pm

> PhoneLobster wrote:Because of the subjective nature of social credit a single mission to save his favorite Donkey he thinks is his daughter will make him "give you the kingdom" with no roll because credit values are not objective or realistic and he actually DOES care about the donkey more.

Are you familiar with every fantasy novel/movie/TV series ever? Kings do that all the time. It is basically expected that when Action Girl Princess gets kidnapped by Lord Evilpants, she will say "It will never work, my father isn't dumb enough to trade the kingdom just for one citizen", and he then proves her wrong by doing just that, but the moral of the story is it's all okay because she busts herself out on her own, or heroes save the day.
Genre emulation actually is relevant in games. Also, even ignoring genre emulation, the reason it happens in all the books is that people in general are irrational and do that shit. If I was told that either my girlfriend or ten strangers would be murdered, then I will admit I am a terrible, selfish person and apologise to the families of the ten. And seriously, most people would make this choice. I'm sure someone (Lago?) has ranted on this before in regards to fiction in general, and I'm certain there's a tvtropes article on it.
(You could maybe argue that a certain part of it is "I can win my kingdom back, but the princessdonkey... people die when they are killed." except A. It's D&D, he can pay for a resurrection and take the cost out of her allowance, and B. People still make that decision irrationally anyway.)
But by the same token, if they borrow a fiver off you every day for ten years, you probably shouldn't be expected to be able to cash it in for a new car one day. And that's something that needs to be pointed out in a Trust & Credit system. It kind of links to "no amount of thatching makes up for one act of cannibalism".
tl;dr people seriously will trade everything, especially a bunch of non-personal things, for something personal. And the game shouldn't pretend this isn't the case.

> Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.

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Username17
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Post by Username17 » Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:57 pm

> ModelCitizen wrote:I just can't see Charm Person as a good model for diplomacy. Casting Charm Person is violence. People can catch you trying to charm then and then reasonably try to kill you. Regular social persuasion doesn't have that risk.

Having spontaneous "non-magical" charm available is something characters should have. It's how you get nymphs to fall in love with you as well as get the daughter of the Lich King to "surprisingly" decide to save you from your impending execution. Characters from James Bond to Flash Gordon to Conan all have this power, so it's clearly in genre. It's just... it has absolutely fucking nothing to do with diplomacy and is no substitute for having diplomacy rules.
Characters have costs as mercenaries and tasks have value based on challenge rating. The value of the Dwarves sending a contingent of hammerhands to defend Kralk Pass is quite calculable, as is the value of killing the purple worm that has been eating Dwarven miners. Modeling diplomacy as economic transactions is something that is in fact completely possible and has the potential to output reasonable things. Unlike hitting people with charm lasers or something, which really can't.
-Username17
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Sat Oct 08, 2011 3:46 pm

> ModelCitizen wrote:Bardy's twin brother Bardtholomew McBardPants uses Diplomacy on the king. This is a normal thing that people do to each other and almost nobody gets murderously angry over it. He is rolling for the exact same results as Charm Monster, but without the risk. That makes for boring gameplay and a weak story.

1.) So? The whole Evil Chancellor/Vizier/Vice President thing is almost entirely contingent on someone making a key Diplomacy check that produces a 'nonsensical' result of the emperor giving undue trust to someone that everyone else sees as a rat.
2.) You've highlighted why a Reaction system would be so important. While people are offended at the idea of a blood-covered beggar with no reputation to speak of bursting into the court and getting everyone fall in love with them, people aren't offended by the idea of Paladin McDooright bursting in and getting everyone to fall in love with him or the king's new foreign queen feeding him brainstorms like declaring war against their only allies.
3.) There's absolutely no reason why diplomacy has to be something that you can just brute force your way through to get what you want. The social credit/trust system works just fine. I personally prefer to make the diplomacy roll pretty random that's highly contingent on circumstantial bonuses. So while the king probably won't just listen to any murderous old hobo busting into the throne room, if the murderous old hobo is a famous general who served the king's father years ago, is suddenly sporting angel wings, and just won the kingdom's fighting tournament against a champion the king really hates there's a much better chance.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Sat Oct 08, 2011 4:51 pm

Sorry, but I no longer understand what people are arguing for beyond "I'm right and your position is absurd".
You guys wanna calm down long enough to clarify and reiterate just exactly what you want a diplomacy system / social credit system / social combat engine / presence attacks to be able do and what you want it to be incapable of doing?
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Sat Oct 08, 2011 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA » Sat Oct 08, 2011 5:01 pm

It's a capital mistake to create a system before you've determined what the system should do. And as every game system in the history of ever has shown us your job is only half-finished if you decide on 'a range' of outputs rather than 'all expected' outputs. If you don't do that you get shitty systems that eventually break like in every edition of D&D ever.
We haven't even settled on an acceptable range of outputs yet Josh, so don't bother asking for/demanding that until that's settled on.

> Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
> In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.

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RadiantPhoenix
  Prince
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  Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2010 10:33 pm
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Post by RadiantPhoenix » Sat Oct 08, 2011 5:20 pm

So, why don't we make some lists of situations where we might expect the Persuade skill to be used, and then start listing some responses we would like the system to generate?[/list]
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Josh_Kablack
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Post by Josh_Kablack » Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:10 pm

> Lago PARANOIA wrote:We haven't even settled on an acceptable range of outputs yet Josh, so don't bother asking for/demanding that until that's settled on.

I did notice the lack of consensus.
Lemme try to clarify my query:
Could [WHOVIEW]* maybe list what [WHOVIEW]* wants a diplomacy / social combat / social credit / magic tea party / non-magical charm system to be able to do and what [WHOVIEW]* wants to make sure it can't do?
*yes I know that tag's disabled, fill in your own name there.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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