The Gaming Den

Chamomile wrote:The same reason I don't randomize every other plot point. Because I can tell a better story than the RNG. If it were possible for a d20 to tell a better story than me, you wouldn't need me, you could program a Python script to run the game for you in an afternoon.

So why roll dice at all? This argument for strict GM determinism doesn't seem to stop at diplomacy, or even make any special case for diplomacy.

hogarth wrote:If diplomacy-guy can't meaningfully affect the game world in any way except by using diplomacy, then that's a shitty character and his player should be ashamed and/or taken outside and shot.

Putting an obstacle of the sort a PC specializes in bypassing then making that obstacle immune to the PC's skill because it doesn't suit the direction you want the story to go is the classic bullshit railroad tactic. Nobody's saying talky guy doesn't have any other abilities; the point is that telling talky guy "lol nope" is lame.

If you don't want people to talk their way past the evil prince, that's fine. Just don't put the talky guy skillset in your game. But if you're going to put a hostile dignitary in your game and talky guy can't try to talk past him, what the fuck can talky guy do?

A Man In Black wrote:

Chamomile wrote:The same reason I don't randomize every other plot point. Because I can tell a better story than the RNG. If it were possible for a d20 to tell a better story than me, you wouldn't need me, you could program a Python script to run the game for you in an afternoon.

So why roll dice at all? This argument for strict GM determinism doesn't seem to stop at diplomacy, or even make any special case for diplomacy.

Because, again, you still roll for Diplomacy. But that roll determines how good your character is at diplomacizing this guy. If it works, it's because you're a really slick diplomat, not because the villain is retconned into having liked you from the start. The reaction roll, which determines the villain's starting mood, is something that shouldn't happen anymore than then villain's starting motivation should be randomly determined.

A Man In Black wrote:

hogarth wrote:If diplomacy-guy can't meaningfully affect the game world in any way except by using diplomacy, then that's a shitty character and his player should be ashamed and/or taken outside and shot.

Putting an obstacle of the sort a PC specializes in bypassing then making that obstacle immune to the PC's skill because it doesn't suit the direction you want the story to go is the classic bullshit railroad tactic. Nobody's saying talky guy doesn't have any other abilities; the point is that telling talky guy "lol nope" is lame.

If you don't want people to talk their way past the evil prince, that's fine. Just don't put the talky guy skillset in your game. But if you're going to put a hostile dignitary in your game and talky guy can't try to talk past him, what the fuck can talky guy do?

You still haven't explained the difference between diplomacy-guy and anti-gnoll-guy. Like, at all. Anti-gnoll-guy still gets "lol nope -- it's a dragon not a gnoll".

Seriously, do you honestly think it's unfair to have any encounters where diplomacy-guy can't use his diplomacy (e.g. unintelligent creatures like skeletons)?

hogarth wrote:You still haven't explained the difference between diplomacy-guy and anti-gnoll-guy. Like, at all.

Because the action anti-gnoll guy takes is "attack with sword". He is still allowed to take that action regardless of whether there are any gnolls around or not.

Anti-gnoll power is a situational bonus, not an action. Now don't get me wrong: favored enemy bonuses are a stupid fucking ability and the gross unfairness of them is a good reason to not include them in your game, but they are not actually the same thing as actions you are not allowed to attempt by DM fiat.

-Username17

No one ever said you would be unable to attempt diplomacy under any circumstances. You can totally try to talk down a skeleton or someone who hates you beyond reason or someone who is freaking out and trying to cut your head off with his axe because you just broke into his castle and he's kind of jumpy about that since every other time it's happened it's been because someone is trying to kill him. It's just not going to work.

Similarly, DMs are already capable of putting characters or monsters in your path which are not good ideas to fight against because you are practically guaranteed to lose, and it's not always railroading when you do. Maybe you are supposed to kill the guy eventually, but he's a recurring villain you won't be able to stand up against until you're seven levels higher, so going after him now is suicide. Or maybe there are guards that are too numerous, well-trained, and well-equipped for your level three party to fight through, but sneaking past or talking your way past them are still options. None of that is expected to be determined randomly, what makes the current mood of plot-important NPCs different?

Chamomile wrote:Because, again, you still roll for Diplomacy. But that roll determines how good your character is at diplomacizing this guy. If it works, it's because you're a really slick diplomat, not because the villain is retconned into having liked you from the start.

Are we still at the point where even if you're a really slick diplomat, evil prince can still decide that he just doesn't like you and still dump you in the dungeon?

Because that's the "lol nope" railroad, blowing its whistle.

hogarth wrote:Seriously, do you honestly think it's unfair to have any encounters where diplomacy-guy can't use his diplomacy (e.g. unintelligent creatures like skeletons)?

An unfriendly dignitary is the diplomacy thing. It's the problem that diplomacy solves. Someone who doesn't like you but who has cause to listen to you is a diplomacy problem and a diplomatic guy is the solution to that problem.

It is not a solution to a locked door, or skeletons, or slavering orcs, or an ambush, or an ocean voyage, or a note scrawled in blood in the ruins of a wrecked stateroom. I am not arguing that it solve any other problem than being able to convince a guy to do a thing he might not do otherwise or to not do a thing he might do otherwise.

FrankTrollman wrote:

hogarth wrote:You still haven't explained the difference between diplomacy-guy and anti-gnoll-guy. Like, at all.

Because the action anti-gnoll guy takes is "attack with sword". He is still allowed to take that action regardless of whether there are any gnolls around or not.

Anti-gnoll power is a situational bonus, not an action.

Nope, this is a class where the PC definitely has a power called "Kill Gnolls". It's from the splatbook Gnolls of Golarion.

So what's the difference?

A Man in Black wrote:An unfriendly dignitary is the diplomacy thing. It's the problem that diplomacy solves. Someone who doesn't like you but who has cause to listen to you is a diplomacy problem and a diplomatic guy is the solution to that problem.

Okay, at least now we're getting somewhere -- you agree that some people may not have cause to listen to you, correct?

A Man In Black wrote:

Chamomile wrote:Because, again, you still roll for Diplomacy. But that roll determines how good your character is at diplomacizing this guy. If it works, it's because you're a really slick diplomat, not because the villain is retconned into having liked you from the start.

Are we still at the point where even if you're a really slick diplomat, evil prince can still decide that he just doesn't like you and still dump you in the dungeon?

Only if he hates you so much that he doesn't even give you a chance to open your mouth before giving the verdict. And a decent GM isn't going to let that happen unless it's already been firmly established that the Black Prince seriously hates your party for a reason that makes the game more fun and not less.

Attempting to make rules against a GM who really just wants to screw the party is never, ever going to work. Trust me, point out any system and I can write an adventure that'll ruin it, and it won't even be hard because sucking at something isn't difficult. All games that have a GM at all really need to start with the assumption that the GM is at least slightly concerned that his players are having fun.

What about a more relevant example like UMD? It lets you wear armor with alignment restrictions. No matter how high UMD is though, you don't even get to roll to wear colossal armor.

That doesnt seem like railroading.

hogarth wrote:Okay, at least now we're getting somewhere -- you admit that some people may not have cause to listen to you, correct?

Lago's/Cham's black knight evil prince is presiding over their trial, so yeah, he has to listen to them, if not sit there and pay them mind. This is the post. The bard gets a chance to speak and gets an exceptionally good result. How do you deal with this? "lol nope" is a crap answer.

Chamomile wrote:Only if he hates you so much that he doesn't even give you a chance to open your mouth before giving the verdict. And a decent GM isn't going to let that happen unless it's already been firmly established that the Black Prince seriously hates your party for a reason that makes the game more fun and not less.

Then your only point is that retconning undefined shit on the fly is badwrongfun?

Note that Lago's explanations all involve a successful Diplomacy check which could just as easily be handled by saying that the Black Prince got taken in by the Orc Bard's incredible sales pitch and an hour after he let the PCs go he realized that it was probably the stupidest decision he ever made. What Lago glosses over at the very start is that there is a reaction roll that gives you 90% odds of the Black Prince being unmovable period because he just doesn't like you at all. In other words, lol nope.

Lago argues that in order to persuade the Black Prince you have to succeed in two unlikely checks, the first one determining whether the Black Prince is in the mood to listen at all and the second one determining whether you're able to persuade him. I'm arguing that the DM should be able to decide the mood of an NPC based on whatever he think will work best for the sake of the story, which in this case would mean giving the Orc Bard his shot at Diplomacy automatically.

Then your only point is that retconning undefined shit on the fly is badwrongfun?

My point is leaving plot points, like what sort of mood the Black Prince is in today, up to the dice is a bad idea, because then you may as well be playing a CRPG.

hogarth wrote:Nope, this is a class where the PC definitely has a power called "Kill Gnolls". It's from the splatbook Gnolls of Golarion.

So what's the difference?

The difference is that "Kill Gnolls" is probably the stupidest thing I have ever heard an there is no reason whatever to include it in your game space. Diplomacy on the other hand, is a real thing and your game will feel incomplete if you don't include it in your game.

See we've been talking past each other for a bit, but I don't think anyone actually believed you were talking about something as obviously completely retarded as what you were in fact actually suggesting.

-Username17

A Man In Black wrote:

hogarth wrote:Okay, at least now we're getting somewhere -- you admit that some people may not have cause to listen to you, correct?

Lago's/Cham's black knight evil prince is presiding over their trial, so yeah, he has to listen to them, if not sit there and pay them mind. This is the post. The bard gets a chance to speak and gets an exceptionally good result. How do you deal with this? "lol nope" is a crap answer.

I would assign a Diplomacy DC beforehand and let the bard's roll apply normally. I would not use Frank's batshit suggestion of rolling for the starting DC (just in case the black knight randomly starts to like everybody) and then letting the bard roll on top of that, which is the context of this thread.

Chamomile wrote:Lago argues that in order to persuade the Black Prince you have to succeed in two unlikely checks, the first one determining whether the Black Prince is in the mood to listen at all and the second one determining whether you're able to persuade him.

It's more likely that Lago is talking about diplomacy (small d) in the context of a system where it's broken down into a set of multiple skills or multiple subskills of other skills that the entire party uses collaboratively in order to meet a group-wide goal, rather than D&D's Shake A Bard At It handling, since Lago has talked about such systems in the past.

My point is leaving plot points, like what sort of mood the Black Prince is in today, up to the dice is a bad idea, because then you may as well be playing a CRPG.

Leaving how he reacts to the party up to the dice isn't a bad idea, since that's something which should reasonably be within the party's agency to influence. I think this reaction roll/diplomacy roll system is not a good way to go about this, though, especially if we're talking about an RNG as wide as D&D's, but diplomatic people both open doors and sell encyclopedias.

I dunno a good way to go about it, though.

hogarth wrote:You still haven't explained the difference between diplomacy-guy and anti-gnoll-guy. Like, at all. Anti-gnoll-guy still gets "lol nope -- it's a dragon not a gnoll".

Seriously, do you honestly think it's unfair to have any encounters where diplomacy-guy can't use his diplomacy (e.g. unintelligent creatures like skeletons)?

I did, last page:

Me wrote:A better example might be how an archer can't use his bow for some reason. Archery and diplomacy are actions. Gnoll killing abilities are modifiers to an action. You're still doing killing; you just do it better against gnolls.

Also, it's not railroading if the archer sometimes runs into short-range combats, or fights guys who cast Wind Wall. It is railroading if the DM just suddenly declares you can't use your bow against a guy 100 feet away for no in-game reason.

A Man In Black wrote: Leaving how he reacts to the party up to the dice isn't a bad idea, since that's something which should reasonably be within the party's agency to influence.

I agree the party should be able to influence the starting DC. I have no idea why dice should enter the picture, though.

hogarth wrote:Nope, this is a class where the PC definitely has a power called "Kill Gnolls". It's from the splatbook Gnolls of Golarion.

So what's the difference?

Presupposition combined with Reductio ad absurdum? As near as I can tell, you're creating a bullshit ability, assuming that it deserves a space in the game, and then arguing that it's identical to diplomacy. At least, I think that's what you're saying.

hogarth wrote:

A Man In Black wrote: Leaving how he reacts to the party up to the dice isn't a bad idea, since that's something which should reasonably be within the party's agency to influence.

I agree the party should be able to influence the starting DC. I have no idea why dice should enter the picture, though.

Wait, what?

You think that the party's actions should potentially change the talking DC and/or whether or not you have a talking session at all. You think that. We're on the same page there.

An then you say that despite the fact that the player's action should have a chance to affect this outcome, that you can't think of a reason that dice should be involved? Dice are how we resolve actions that have a chance of success in a cooperative storytelling game.

-Username17

hogarth wrote:I agree the party should be able to influence the starting DC. I have no idea why dice should enter the picture, though.

Well, it's not unheard of to have a roll to see if your ability is effective in this situation, then a following roll to see what sort of effect using your ability had on the target. I dunno, there are a lot of forms it could take.

FrankTrollman wrote:You think that the party's actions should potentially change the talking DC and/or whether or not you have a talking session at all. You think that. We're on the same page there.

An then you say that despite the fact that the player's action should have a chance to affect this outcome, that you can't think of a reason that dice should be involved? Dice are how we resolve actions that have a chance of success in a cooperative storytelling game.

Personally, I'd be open to for scrapping the reaction roll entirely and rolling its modifiers into a unified diplomacy roll, where failure could mean anything from "They weren't interested in talking to you, period" to "You droned on and on and on and had nothing to say that they cared about". That system isn't perfect (I can already start picking holes in it), but it'd be one reasonable way that we're not rolling separate dice for reaction.

I don't think that there's a need for a separate, specific die roll to empower the players to talk to things, because the bad GMs who are shitting on PCs who attempt to use diplomacy now will just shit on the reaction rolls. It may be useful to have a specific reaction phase of diplomacy, separate from the negotiation phase of diplomacy, but that's a different objective.

FrankTrollman wrote:An then you say that despite the fact that the player's action should have a chance to affect this outcome, that you can't think of a reason that dice should be involved?

Wow, you're slow on the uptake today. I don't see why two die rolls should be involved -- one to set the DC and one for the actual Diplomacy roll (as was perfectly clear from context).

A Man In Black wrote: I don't think that there's a need for a separate, specific die roll to empower the players to talk to things, because the bad GMs who are shitting on PCs who attempt to use diplomacy now will just shit on the reaction rolls.

Good, we're on the same page then.

If the PCs haven't actually taken an action, why are we rolling for the results? I could see a reaction roll as a sort of initiative roll for a social encounter as part of a diplomacy system that's been expanded to be similar to the combat system (i.e. everyone in the party contributes and it doesn't all boil down to just one roll), but stapling it onto the existing D&D Diplomacy skill doesn't serve any real purpose except to take some control of the plot out of the hands of the DM and put it into the hands of fate, which in my experience hates most D&D players.

If the PCs haven't actually taken an action, why are we rolling for the results?

Roll Perception, you might figure it out.

-Username17

"Perceiving" is still a verb that PCs can actually do. What is it that the PCs are doing, before they've even opened their mouths (because that's a Diplomacy check), that would influence the mood of the guy they're talking to? I could see adding the Charisma score to a reaction roll, but if you've had any significant interaction with this guy (like, say, you've robbed him, thwarted his villainous plot, killed his best friend, saved his daughter from bandits, or retrieved a MacGuffin for him) than that should logically dwarf any Charisma modifier and break the RNG to the point where a roll is unnecessary anyway. Seriously, what NPC would forgive the kind of actions PCs tend to perpetrate against people because they're really good looking? Or revile the PCs in spite of their having done the same basic actions for their benefit? The only variable PCs actually have control over, their Charisma modifier, is one that shouldn't make any noticeable difference at all unless this is the very first time the NPC has even heard of the PCs, or they're incredibly shallow. If no PC stats are being taken into account and it's thus the DM controls all the variables anyway, why are we bothering with a die roll? What does this add to the game?

Chamomile wrote:"Perceiving" is still a verb that PCs can actually do. What is it that the PCs are doing, before they've even opened their mouths (because that's a Diplomacy check), that would influence the mood of the guy they're talking to?

Presentation.

Extreme examples: The PCs burst into the room with crossbows drawn. Alternately, the PCs walk into the room nonchalantly with their hands in their pockets.

Which do you think is more likely to have the guy in the room ask "What's going on?" (starting a potential diplomatic encounter) and which do you think it more likely to have the guy in the room draw his blade (starting a potential combat encounter)? Are you denying that player character choice is involved in the difference between them?

Attempting to start a diplomatic encounter is in most cases a conscious choice. And if a conscious choice is made, the player should usually be allowed to roll dice to see if it works.

-Username17

Do you have a table to determine whether the NPC will react better to practical and efficient armor or decadent, expensive robes? Do you roll to see whether the NPC enjoys small talk or finds it banal and irritating? Do you have some way of determining the PCs reputation and what this man thinks of it?

In a perfect world, the answer to all of those questions would be "yes," but assuming we are not making an entire diplomacy mini-game for D&D, what does it add to the game to split the Diplomacy check into two rolls instead of one?