The Gaming Den

I'm going to point out that I think the "do it or penalty!" mechanic is stupid.

1) It solves no real problems of it's own. Being sometimes required to to something anything is only a problem with drama queens like Ice9 who as you can see specifically draw the line on ANY binding result, and will therefore do so with "binding result or... other binding result".

2) It is nigh impossible to balance. These penalties WILL be either too onerous or too weak. Just right will be a rarity.

3) OK so I dislike "Infinite list of modifiers" and I dislike "infinite list of individualized goals". You think adding "infinite list of specific penalties for specific failed responses" is going to help that situation?

4) It creates additional problems and major exploits you just didn't need to have. I mean how are you going to deal with crazy demands? Clearly if they succeed they need BIG numeric penalties, but if your goal is a big numeric penalty then you make a crazier demand to ensure the selection of the penalty AND inflate the size of the penalty. But if you make a SMALL demand clearly the value of the numeric penalty for ignoring it should be small right? But then everyone always ignores small demands because WTF? -1 who cares? And etc... etc... etc...

5) Victim selected outcomes for coercive attacks entirely undermines the point of their very existence. You just applied some complex social mechanic in order to gain influence and some level of control of a character, them copping out with a -2 morale penalty they won't even deign to allow to apply to them makes the ENTIRE encounter and rules set governing it into something objectively of LESSER value than using a god damn minor curse debuff so lame most players wouldn't give it the time of day.

Bonus edit point!: 6) Oh and people complaining about systems that "motivate" you to attack people instead of talk? Well you just defeated the king with socialness, you made a big demand, he said "no, penalty!"... a big penalty, a COMBAT penalty, that you the victor can now ONLY exploit by trying to kill him.

Even if you WANT (despite the undermining of the entire premise of social mechanics) to do social outcomes with victim selected results then give them a selection of different ACTIONS. If you are defeated by Friendship you must now select at least one ACTION from the "Acts of Friendship" list. And if one of those actions is "apply small numeric penalties equivalent to single action combat debuffs which is also in this case easily exploitatively ignored" then your list has failed hard.

And even with a list of actual actions that aren't utterly second rate in comparison to cheaper (in character cost, rules complexity and game time) combat debuffs, you have STILL got a system where you do not have a mechanic that allows you to EVER meaningfully influence the actions of another character.

All in all I say "just say no to letting characters "Just say no, Penalty" to binding social results". Because it's a bad idea.

Well as long as your disagreement is just with the penalties I like the rest of it. Beyond that why is there a "thing" against forcing players to go through with stuff that someone who socializes them into doing? The player's expect the targets to comply with their demands when they win at it why is it bad that the players have to interact with the system in the same fashion?

Because there is no such system in RAW?

PhoneLobster wrote:2) It is nigh impossible to balance. These penalties WILL be either too onerous or too weak. Just right will be a rarity.

Because... you say so? Is there an actual basis for that assertion?

4) It creates additional problems and major exploits you just didn't need to have. I mean how are you going to deal with crazy demands? Clearly if they succeed they need BIG numeric penalties, but if your goal is a big numeric penalty then you make a crazier demand to ensure the selection of the penalty AND inflate the size of the penalty. But if you make a SMALL demand clearly the value of the numeric penalty for ignoring it should be small right? But then everyone always ignores small demands because WTF? -1 who cares? And etc... etc... etc...

Sure, sure, or we could proceed from different assumptions than yours, which are frankly ludicrous. If the penalty is flat, then people are more likely to give in to minor demands and less likely to give in to crazy demands - and that can replace modifiers based on crazyness of the demand. If the penalty is based on margin of success, then the modifiers for crazyness can be figured into the success roll - and people are more likely to give in to minor demands and less likely to give in to crazy demands.

Bonus edit point!: 6) Oh and people complaining about systems that "motivate" you to attack people instead of talk? Well you just defeated the king with socialness, you made a big demand, he said "no, penalty!"... a big penalty, a COMBAT penalty, that you the victor can now ONLY exploit by trying to kill him.

Why on earth would the penalty only apply in combat? Extended persuasion is totally a thing, and people really do have a limited ability to say no. If a successful persuasion starts setting up more successful persuasions unless they give in on something, that's actually pretty representative.

Even if it were a combat-only penalty, there are more than two people in the world than the persuader and the persuadee. A king who might have to go to war or fend off assassins as part of his general kingly business is going to have an actual decision to make before blithely accepting a debuff.

fectin wrote:Because there is no such system in RAW?

This response is woefully unhelpful. I do not even know why you wasted time giving.

Also, why should ignoring a large demand result in a large penalty?

If you ask me to give you everything I own, I'm hardly going to feel bad for saying no even if you plead your case admirably well. OTOH, if I say "fuck you" when you ask me to pass the salt... well. I might apologize.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

PhoneLobster wrote:2) It is nigh impossible to balance. These penalties WILL be either too onerous or too weak. Just right will be a rarity.

Because... you say so? Is there an actual basis for that assertion?

... If the penalty is flat...

If the penalty is flat then you have created pretty much THE definitive "the penalty will not be just right most of the time" Goldilocks scenario.

How can you POSSIBLY imagine a Flat penalty is going to be "just right" for reasonable motivation as an equal option for all possible coerced actions?

Also, why should ignoring a large demand result in a large penalty?

Because the penalty only applies if you already succeeded in convincing the target to do what you say. Remember this is a post success mechanic. It is actually MEANT to motivate you to DO the big thing. The bit that was meant to make doing a big thing unlikely was the bit BEFORE hand which you just WON.

You just beat the odds which presumably were stacked against you with the infinite list of infinite modifiers, or something, because you made big demands. But You WON.

So they are now SUPPOSED to be motivated to agree to your big demand so the means of motivation, the penalty, needs to be similarly large so as to make it a reasonably equally unattractive option compared to doing what you say.

Same goes for the easy requests which presumably were very easy to succeed at winning.

Why on earth would the penalty only apply in combat?

... ask the people who have specifically proposed this as a combat penalty. But to remove the motivation to stab the king WHEN he DOES say "no I'll take the penalty" the penalty has to be more than just "not only combat" it has to be "not combat" because you really do NOT give a shit if the king has a -9 penalty to his Climb and Diplomacy checks for a week. In fact about the only time you care is if you were trying to get him to side WITH YOU against "the elves" or something then him picking a -9 penalty to diplomacy (and combat and climb checks) and going off to talk to them means you are even MORE motivated to kill him NOW.

Meanwhile, If you limit it to a social only penalty you create a black hole of stupid that your entire social mechanic is swallowed by. As everyone always takes the penalty never performs the action and doesn't give a crap because the penalty they get only means that they will be more likely to choose the same penalty they don't care about again in future.

If you have a BETTER "numeric penalty" scenario than Combat Penalties, than Big penalties for Big Things, Small for Small OR your own Flat penalties, I suggest you describe it. Because ALL of those things are very clearly flawed and if "No, I'll take penalties thanks!" can work you need to demonstrate how.

If a successful persuasion starts setting up more successful persuasions unless they give in on something, that's actually pretty representative.

Er. No you need to actually define and have a trap door out of the mechanic or it will NEVER result in ANY successful persuasion ever, just an infinite line of "no, I'll take the penalty, again". Also you imply a stacking penalty here, which also clearly needs some definition so I can point out how exploitable it is as well.

Even if it were a combat-only penalty, there are more than two people in the world than the persuader and the persuadee. A king who might have to go to war or fend off assassins as part of his general kingly business is going to have an actual decision to make before blithely accepting a debuff.

But the persuaders are right there when the king got a big combat debuff by spitting in their faces and refusing to accept the effects of their major time and effort investment. So they kill him NOW. The war and the assassins are "maybe later" which includes the many times over scenarios of "not a motivating factor at all".

Indeed the fact that a combat penalty does NOTHING to compel characters with no expectation or no capability for combat is stupid because it means you can NEVER seduce the cloistered guarded princess or the level 1 dirt farming peasant. Because the first doesn't DO combat and the second knows he would lose ANYWAY so they both ALWAYS take the penalty.

MGuy wrote:

fectin wrote:Because there is no such system in RAW?

This response is woefully unhelpful. I do not even know why you wasted time giving.

That's fair. Sorry.
Once you've house-ruled diplomacy, then it works however you decide it works. Talking about RAW is not really relevant, as you point out.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately avoiding my actual question so let me repost the same question I asked in a different manner.

Why is it that when discussing how Diplomacy should work is the suggestion that PCs, once they have lost a social encounter, be forced to comply with the wishes/demands of the winner (assuming there were demands) always dismissed? Especially when your average player expects that NPCs should comply with demands they make when they are successful at Diplomacy.

MGuy wrote:
Why is it that when discussing how Diplomacy should work is the suggestion that PCs, once they have lost a social encounter, be forced to comply with the wishes/demands of the winner (assuming there were demands) always dismissed? Especially when your average player expects that NPCs should comply with demands they make when they are successful at Diplomacy.

Although I wasn't the one this was asked towards clearly, and that I've entered this thread rather late. However, it's been to my understanding, it's generally bad practice to have general rules where the PC's are forced by the game to do something. The PC's are the main characters, and generally are immune to the other side of being outside influenced, albeit exists in some cases, such as believing a lie via NPC's Bluff (and/or failed Sense motive). Also goes similar vein I suppose, that if PC's did Diplomacy checks on one another, wouldn't really like the idea of being forced to go with their whims, control of their character being taken out of their hands. Also sounds like a situation for abuse, where PC's being tugged along an NPC's whims to take on a quest, due to being successfully hit with Diplomacy. Seems like this connotation would perhaps be more accepted if it was a system like Mouseguard? Where there's usually compromise in negotiations, or otherwise social combat? (think PhoneLobster had a system along these lines I'm thinking of...) Perhaps under such system could have it based on percentages, like if were haggling, and wanted 50% off, only got up to 30%, and merchant got 10% by the end of the negotiation, thus settling moreso on 20% off on Haggle Price? (eh, just rough example, of something I was told about awhile back)

I'd imagine comes up with idea, that people fine with "charm person" like spells controlling PC's, but not common, non-magical diplomacy? Thus harkens to the idea of people not accepting non-magical people doing awesome things or something. However, I'd think it's moreso that those kind of spells don't come up as often, as say Diplomacy skill would. No doubt there are occasion a PC is charmed in non-combat encounter falling into some monsters trap for whatever reason. However such, still unlikely to be as recurring as a PC making a Diplomacy check. Lastly, I suppose we players are selfish? expect our skills to do stuff in the game world, controlling it so, but not the world controlling us, it is called Player Agency after all.

So in short, your entire post is... "Because they might not wanna!". With a side helping of "well this one time 3E wrote PC immunity in so...".

That's a poor explanation. And the "might" makes it even worse. Just because they mightnot like it you are scared to implement a mechanic with ANY teeth? Really?

On the OTHER hand having enforced social results effecting PCs has real objective benefits as a solid solution for the required risk for the risk vs reward of social encounters.

And it produces real potential for cool, yet fair and randomized, plot developments with PCs making friends and allies and enemies and so on. Why did PC 3 let his opponent the Dark Princess go AGAIN this combat? Oh he tried to trick her back in band camp and she won and seduced him instead so he always lets her escape! Etc...

Coping out because they "might not like it!" means you have NO symmetrical risk in your social system, making attempts to control NPCs effectively free. And gives you no means outside of MUCH worse MTP and Gygaxian bullshit to influence PC behavior in interesting ways.

I would LIKE to see some excuse for not enforcing social results on PCs that either accounts for risk and reward or at least puts it in terms of equal value. "Players might not always like it!" is a VERY lame excuse. After all Players are even less likely to like the results of being defeated by normal combat.

As for the 3E PC immunity to social skills... that was baddy mc bad pants. Sometimes you want NPCs to lie to PCs, etc... If using the PC immunity to the bluff skill you just removed ALL mechanical means of doing so with ANY remote chance of any kind of fairness. It now falls down to the GMs skill at personally lying to the players. Which generally means they are screwed, because even if he is really really bad at it he will either declare they believe anyway or manage to pull of the lie through sheer failure to even present it accurately.