The Gaming Den

RadiantPhoenix wrote:That presumes several things including:
* You get to re-roll first impressions every time you meet someone
* You can leave and return an arbitrarily large number of times without the BBEG killing you or completing his evil plan or whatever
* Your probability of getting a result of 'love' on the reaction roll is higher than your probability of instagibbing him on an attack

Only the last might be true in a real implementation of this system.

So far no one has said anything about the rule being for "first" impressions.
I'd indeed assume the system allowed for escaping to be a solid strategy.
Attack on sight is specifically being looked down upon, apparently, in this thread so then I'd guess that the PCs must care enough to not want to kill the BBEG because that would be not fun or roleplaying.

If the whole notion of this randomness is to make NPCs that would kill you not do so then I'd of course assume it allows for you to get all of these things in order to make it so.

That's hilarious Mguy, you still can't read.

Yes, reaction rolls are specifically for first impressions, that's been explicitly stated multiple times, and implicitly stated in every single example presented so far.

I find your last post to be very ironic Kaelik. Thank you for clarifying things.

Holy shit are you guys seriously arguing that having an world that's actually been designed is magical tea party? If the DM has characters already designed then their disposition is as known as their class, age and any other stats or personal information. Random disposition charts are a tool for DMs who don't have the character already generated.

Novembermike wrote:Random disposition charts are a tool for DMs who don't have the character already generated.

And also a tool to help DMs keep things unpredictable and keep longer campaigns from getting stale.

Novembermike wrote:Holy shit are you guys seriously arguing that having an world that's actually been designed is magical tea party?

No, quite the opposite. NOT having the world that's "actually been designed" (meaning exhaustive detail like tiny villages, room furnishing, contents of trashbins and npc reactions) makes for a better "magical tea party" (meaning improv acting).

Novembermike wrote:If the DM has characters already designed then their disposition is as known as their class, age and any other stats or personal information.

You're fundamentally wrong here. It is physically impossible to exhaustively design a world, and using broad strokes robs the game of depth. The only way to have a detailed setting is to procedurally generate it (with constraints) in the course of the game. It is in fact the strength of a tabletop RPG as compared to videogames, one that you should exploit.

As far as I can tell this is about different things to different people:

Frank is accusing me of saying that NPCs should care about you before they know you exist. Which isn't what I'm saying at all.

Lago straight up wants random story elements to be created via die roll.

Kaelik is Kaelik and he likes to be an ass.

I don't think that attitude/disposition should be decided at random. Also I don't agree with Lago (a matter of taste as far as I can tell).

Edit: Starmaker, are you saying you can't design a campaign setting without going into minute detail?

You could also have a really tiny setting, like "the hamlet of Seedfall"

MGuy wrote:Edit: Starmaker, are you saying you can't design a campaign setting without going into minute detail?

I'm saying no one can, and shouldn't try to, design a campaign with going into every minute detail. But details are awesome, so they should be generated in the course of play -
E.g. a warrior lady tries to buy a sword from a generic blacksmith and rolls really low. So I decide the blacksmith really hates women warriors. Or there's a noble with a generic "dad was killed by orcs" backstory, but the orc bard rolls a twenty, so I come up with a reason for that.

- and those you come up with while worldbuilding should be assigned in the course of play. If I come up with a cool character trait for a recurring villain, I'll wait until there's a villain who actually manages the recurring part, not (1) scrap everything and mourn the wasted effort or (2) steal a victory from the players by MC fiat.

In the case of the blacksmith, he isn't the kind of guy you'd figure out in advance anyway. It's just implicit that any sizable town will have a blacksmith in it. In the case of the noble, how about the reason is "because the Orc Bard is really good at persuading people?" Unless the noble is so prejudiced against Orcs that he automatically hates every single one of them unyieldingly...In which case, the modifier on a reaction roll should've been well over -20 to begin with. When the players roll a critical on a heavily armored knight, do you rewrite his backstory so that the armorer from his village had only really bad metal to work with, or do you just say the player got lucky and slipped a blade in between the chinks?

Starmaker, it seems like you've just made a magical tea party with dice. You aren't going to create characters that are more organic or believable, just more random.

Lago: is it wrong for MC to create a fleshed out NPC with a backstory and set his base disposition (the modifier to future Diplomacy rolls)?

RobbyPants wrote:is it wrong for MC to create a fleshed out NPC with a backstory and set his base disposition (the modifier to future Diplomacy rolls)?

It's a loaded question. But as written, yes. It would be wrong to create an NPC and give them a single non-contingent modifier for future diplomacy rolls. If a character has a "fleshed out" backstory, there should be a number of modifiers that could potentially come into play based on what the PCs actually do.

All that backstory means nothing if you're just going to set a single modifier and ignore situational changes and PC presentation.

-Username17

He said base Disposition. That would suggest that things are able to modify it. Such as being something he hates/loves, odd situations like if you're busting down his joint or giving him a gift, along with any number of other things that could modify the base.

MGuy wrote:He said base Disposition. That would suggest that things are able to modify it. Such as being something he hates/loves, odd situations like if you're busting down his joint or giving him a gift, along with any number of other things that could modify the base.

Yeah, that's what I meant. I meant MC setting a base number, then the PCs being able to have their own modifier based on actions before and during the initial reaction. You'd still have a die roll to randomly determine the result, but MC would have some base level set.

RobbyPants wrote:

MGuy wrote:He said base Disposition. That would suggest that things are able to modify it. Such as being something he hates/loves, odd situations like if you're busting down his joint or giving him a gift, along with any number of other things that could modify the base.

Yeah, that's what I meant. I meant MC setting a base number, then the PCs being able to have their own modifier based on actions before and during the initial reaction. You'd still have a die roll to randomly determine the result, but MC would have some base level set.

What the fuck does that even mean?

If a character is running around in an aggressive stance or strolling around amiably, that is going to be a generic modifier that would affect anyone he happened to encounter at that time. But it's still a transient modifier. If the PCs delay for a while or cause some surprising event to happen before they meet that shocks them into a new stance, then the character's modifiers would be different.

There is no "base number". Nor can there be. There are a series of situational modifiers that apply. Period. Some of those potential situational modifiers might be very likely to come up (such as "is suspicious" for a guard who takes their job seriously), but even then the PCs could potentially figure out a way around those (like waiting until the guard is off duty and bumping into them "at random" at a kebab stand).

Again and still: your conceit of "base modifiers" violates simple cause and effect. You can't have a modifier that is un-caused. That doesn't even make sense as a concept.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote: Again and still: your conceit of "base modifiers" violates simple cause and effect. You can't have a modifier that is un-caused. That doesn't even make sense as a concept.

-Username17

Huh? How does cause and effect somehow asplode if you say "The DC is 10 plus modifiers" vs. rolling a 10 on a d20 and saying "The DC is 10 plus modifiers"? In both cases, the "base attitude" is 10.

hogarth wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: Again and still: your conceit of "base modifiers" violates simple cause and effect. You can't have a modifier that is un-caused. That doesn't even make sense as a concept.

-Username17

Huh? How does cause and effect somehow asplode if you say "The DC is 10 plus modifiers" vs. rolling a 10 on a d20 and saying "The DC is 10 plus modifiers"? In both cases, the "base attitude" is 10.

Because Robby is suggesting going backwards in time and setting the DC to 10 before you know what the task is.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

hogarth wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: Again and still: your conceit of "base modifiers" violates simple cause and effect. You can't have a modifier that is un-caused. That doesn't even make sense as a concept.

-Username17

Huh? How does cause and effect somehow asplode if you say "The DC is 10 plus modifiers" vs. rolling a 10 on a d20 and saying "The DC is 10 plus modifiers"? In both cases, the "base attitude" is 10.

Because Robby is suggesting going backwards in time and setting the DC to 10 before you know what the task is.

-Username17

How is setting a DC of 10 (before knowing what the task is) + modifiers (after knowing what the task is) different from rolling a 10 (before or after knowing what the task is, it doesn't matter -- dice aren't sentient) and adding modifiers (after knowing what the task is)?

According to frank a slippery floor cannot be slippery until the PCs meet it.

Edit: I'm sorry I mean it can't be slippery until the PCs meet it and you roll for it to be slippery.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the initial roll even works. I thought we were talking about the same thing...

RobbyPants wrote:Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the initial roll even works. I thought we were talking about the same thing...

Actually, rereading your initial post I'll agree with Frank: What the fuck does that even mean?

Can you give us an example of how a "base" disposition is supposed to work?

I was going along the lines with MC picking things like "suspicious" and what-not. The PCs could modify this based on how they approached the situation (weapons drawn or not, whatever).

Perhaps I'm using a different definition of disposition than everyone else.

hogarth wrote:

RobbyPants wrote:Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the initial roll even works. I thought we were talking about the same thing...

Actually, rereading your initial post I'll agree with Frank: What the fuck does that even mean?

Can you give us an example of how a "base" disposition is supposed to work?

Say you have three NPCs. One's a mafia boss, one's an honest priest and one's a captain in the army.

The mafia boss isn't going to trust the players without some proof that they're on his side. Even if they get on his good side professionalism will generally keep him from doing anything in business mode until they're officially on his side. Disposition: Cautious

The priest is going to help them as long as he believes they're good people. He'll provide material aid (food, healing etc) on very little evidence. If you say the wrong thing about his religion though he can become less helpful. Disposition: Charitable

The captain probably doesn't care about the players in a personal sense, but he has a duty towards them if they're from his nation and he has to fight them if they're hailing from his enemies. Disposition: Professional

Any diplomacy system that can't model this reasonably well is woefully inadequate.

EDIT: Wtf is with this forum software.

Revisiting because this was left in the air and I think that this is an important question to answer.

But in the case of named NPCs whose background and personality I'll already have worked out in advance? Changing that on a die roll could have huge effects if he's important. Like, if the Black Prince was not originally planned to be greedy but now he is because the dice say so, I have to figure out why that wealthy merchant port he sacked couldn't just bribe him off, which could cascade into other nonsensical situations, requiring some absurd retcons as to why it seemed like the port was thriving when the players were there, but it was really destitute.

A) Well, for one thing the Murderous Black Prince was a really unsketched NPC when I gave that example. It's pretty useless to retroactively add motivations or backstory after an explanation was made and then say that it doesn't make sense. If you gave them beforehand and then said my explanation didn't make sense you'd be on to something, but then the likelihood of my offering that as an explanation would've gone way down. Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy and all.

B) I didn't give 'is greedy' as the only motivation. It's one of several. Probably the most important thing of roleplaying is deciding what explanation for something is the most sensible and fun. It's not like you were railroaded into making the prince greedy.

C) Sometimes even when you're careful you'll do something dumb like declare that the king is a priest of Bane that hates elves yet made most of his trusted advisors elves and is famed for a commitment to pacifism. While I could think of a way to weasel out of that one sometimes it's okay to just admit that you did something nonsensical or out of character; in these cases you need to either declare a mulligan or just acknowledge the contradiction and carry on smartly anyway. Mistakes, even unfixable mistakes, happen and it's okay. It's also unavoidable by fiat systems, too.