The Gaming Den

What a diplomacy character can do has to be heavily limited because diplomacy is a solo activity, and you don't want one character stealing the spotlight.

Frank, the argument that GM is the most OP class ever is a stupid one. Yes, the GM has lots more power than everyone else. That's because he needs it, because his job is different from the players. Arguing that the GM losing power is always a good thing is arguing against the basic premise of a TTRPG in the first place.

Dude, that is the dumbest thing I've read in 18 pages.

There is no divine law decreeing that every TTRPG needs a GM. If the game is always better when the GM has less power, why do we have a GM in the first place? Randomly generated stories are weird and wacky and lend themselves best to comedy, but they're totally possible. I've made crude systems that allow you to run a campaign by yourself with dice as the GM and the only value of the plot and characters is in comedy, but if you don't want consistency, believability, and depth in the first place, it totally works just fine.

A Man In Black wrote:

hogarth wrote:If you follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion, you're saying that the GM shouldn't be allowed to choose anything.

Which is why nobody in the world is following this logic to its ultimate conclusion.

Well, except for the idiots making blanket statements like "a system where the GM has less power is better than a system where the GM has more power".

Hogarth, you are making a bizarre variant of the golden mean fallacy. Th DM is never ever going to be too weak of a position. This is theoretically possible, but it ill never happen in the real world. This is like you warning us that if we keep feeding Somali refugees they will have too much food or that if we fight global warming enough we'll have an ice age. All of this is technically true I suppose, but it would require pushing the pendulum way farther than it is particularly conceivable for it to go.

In the real world the DM has too much power. Not just in that he can, an often does cock slap the players with his DM-schlong, but even more importantly in that DMing is a fuck tonne of work. Anything that we can do to shift the burden of storycraft from the DM's chair to the players or the rules is a good thing. It's a good thing for the DM.

-Username17

hogarth wrote:Well, except for the idiots making blanket statements like "a system where the GM has less power is better than a system where the GM has more power".

Well, when those idiots start proposing an alternate system or rule changes (instead of existing entirely in your mind, near as I can tell), feel free to point out that their extreme position isn't a good one.

In the meantime, meditate on the difference between "Turn the heat up a little, it's freezing in here" and "SET THE WHOLE FUCKING HOUSE ON FIRE".

Frank, I've made a game that you can play without a GM, and I could probably make one that works just as well for D&D and it would take me an afternoon, and I'm pretty sure you could do the same. Roll for villain stats, roll for villain motivations, roll for villain scheme, roll for his henchmen, roll for what kind of adventure we're having today, roll a few more adventure-specific things, etc. etc. It's not hard and if you're not big on consistency or coherency it can actually be fun. If you seriously don't care about narrative coherence so much so that you think that anything which gives the GM less power and less work to do is a good thing, why don't you just do that? You will never have to have another GM ever again.

A Man In Black wrote:

hogarth wrote:Well, except for the idiots making blanket statements like "a system where the GM has less power is better than a system where the GM has more power".

Well, when those idiots start proposing an alternate system or rule changes (instead of existing entirely in your mind, near as I can tell), feel free to point out that their extreme position isn't a good one.

I think I've done so, but I also think it's fair to also point out when a blanket statement is particularly unhelpful or not true in general.

A Man In Black wrote: Well, when those idiots start proposing an alternate system or rule changes (instead of existing entirely in your mind, near as I can tell), feel free to point out that their extreme position isn't a good one

Oh, you mean like bringing back the 2E reaction roll, which this thread is about? The argument being without the reaction roll, the DM has the ability to say 'no' to a player, thus, the game is better off when the DM can never do such, so we need mechanics like the reaction roll to tie his hands?

I understand that it's a slippery slope argument, but because that is the only justification for the reaction roll so far, despite the mechanic being faulty, disassociated, etc., then I don't see why there's not grounds to evaluate alternatives.

Stubbazubba wrote: I understand that it's a slippery slope argument, but because that is the only justification for the reaction roll so far, despite the mechanic being faulty, disassociated, etc., then I don't see why there's not grounds to evaluate alternatives.

Oh for fuck's sake. Dissociated doesn't mean "a mechanic that I am opposed to", it's a fucking word that has a fucking meaning with regards to game design. It means a mechanic that makes something happen for the player that cannot be explained from the POV of the character. Or vice versa.

So an example of a Dissociated Mechanic is Fate Points in FATE. You break up with your girlfriend and now you have more intangible Fate points and you are safer from bullets. There is a demonstrable connection for the player (because that is how Fate point accounting works), and no connection at all for the character (because those are independent events). That is a Dissociated Mechanic. Not everyone agrees that they are even a bad thing.

But you know what's not a fucking dissociated mechanic? Having a reaction roll that has a negative modifier for running around with a drawn sword. That's a completely associated mechanic. You run around with a weapon out and you can leap into the fray faster, but you demonstrably and predictably get into more fights. The player knows that they will get into more fights, and why. The character equally can predict that they will get into more fights and why.

The reality is that the first and last time that Dungeons & Dragons had a functional diplomancy system was 2nd edition AD&D. That game had a lot of faults and people complain about a lot of things, but the diplomacy subgame breaking the game in half was not one of them. And why did it work? Two reasons:

• Having tiny modifiers kept it on the RNG and kept results workable with different levels of character investment.
  and
• There was a god damned reaction roll that meant that you could actually count on your fucking diplomacy skills making a demonstrable difference in the actual game.

It's not "faulty". It fucking worked. It's the only D&D diplomacy system that actually did. It can of course be improved, because it's still a 2e AD&D mechanic and therefore senselessly baroque. But the concept is sound.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Patronizing and unnecessary semantics lesson.

That explanation only works in a limited number of scenarios, though. A significant portion of this thread has been dedicated to explaining that reaction rolls change the scenario, usually by changing an element of the NPC's background, which is not something a character's CHA modifier or any other modifier could ever affect in-game, hence, disassociated. The player understands that his CHA modifier made the difference, but the character did not, in fact, make Captain Bob's boss angry at him this morning, that was completely fabricated from the result of the die roll.

When the BBEG is trying to take over the world and the party is the one thing that has thwarted him thus far and he wants nothing more than to be rid of them as quickly as possible, the idea that he suddenly has a change of heart and wants to hear you out at all is faulty, and if the DM pulls some hackneyed explanation out of the air like "well, now that he has a good look at you, he's reminded of his dead son," then it's disassociative on top of that. Even a better explanation like, "He's genuinely impressed that you've gotten this far and wants to know what drives you to oppose him so much/offer you a position in his new world order," is still disassociative; the PC's charisma did not make the change, but their entire efforts over the course of the whole campaign. The idea is applicable in some conditions, but not in others. I didn't say it never worked, just that it was faulty. The only way to avoid that is to have the DM apply a big enough modifier as to make it meaningless in "appropriate" situations anyway, which is counter to it's design in the first place.

The reaction roll may serve a purpose at times, but it's hit-and-miss at best.

Frank. What games are you playing where you don't getto use Diplomacy often? I've never had a game, even when I first started, where diplomacy wasn't a major factor in the game. The Reaction Roll, once again, just attempts to randomize things. Lago fully accepts this and admits he just likes shit being random. You are trying to pretend like it makes things more consistent, or somehow that diplomacy needs more action space, or that GMs can't effectively run a game without this shit.

FrankTrollman wrote:The reality is that the first and last time that Dungeons & Dragons had a functional diplomancy system was 2nd edition AD&D. That game had a lot of faults and people complain about a lot of things, but the diplomacy subgame breaking the game in half was not one of them. And why did it work? Two reasons:

• Having tiny modifiers kept it on the RNG and kept results workable with different levels of character investment.
  and
• There was a god damned reaction roll that meant that you could actually count on your fucking diplomacy skills making a demonstrable difference in the actual game.

It's not "faulty". It fucking worked. It's the only D&D diplomacy system that actually did. It can of course be improved, because it's still a 2e AD&D mechanic and therefore senselessly baroque. But the concept is sound.

-Username17

I agree with all of this, by the way. But the reaction roll is a poor way to go about "breaking the game in half." I have already listed potential alternatives that rely on skill checks, saves, etc., that function like other things, and depending on what skill used would have a different effect. That would not be disassociative, and it would produce the same or a similar result to the reaction roll.

Stubbazubba wrote:When the BBEG is trying to take over the world and the party is the one thing that has thwarted him thus far and he wants nothing more than to be rid of them as quickly as possible, the idea that he suddenly has a change of heart and wants to hear you out at all is faulty, ...

But that's not per se an argument against the reaction roll. That's an argument against the overall spread of the reaction roll. MOreover it's not even a fair "reaction" roll since the BBEG already knows about the party and vice versa. You shouldn't go from total hatred to keen interest on the result of a reaction roll.

Now I can see if the BBEG thinks he is currently outnumbered but his reinforcements will be arriving in five minutes might be willing to parlay but for the most part the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

(By the way BBEG's who want to take over the world generally have very high and nasty levels of diplomacy skills ... just saying.)

Still the reason for a reaction roll is before anything is known about anyone else. NPC's should be somewhat quantum mechanical, unknown until observed in some way or the other, either directly or indirectly. Once he's known you shouldn't be chaning his story.

I also don't think reaction rolls should be that far of a spread either. If you start out neutral you could be favorable or hostile. If known modifiers brings you to histile you might be neutral or AOS. But clearly you shouldn't go from AOS to I LOVE YOU.

I mean you might also have a kobold have a chance to one shot kill an anchient dragon ... but I don't think so. Doesn't mean that rolling attacks and damage is stupid, only when the spread gets that wide it becomes stupid.

That explanation only works in a limited number of scenarios, though. A significant portion of this thread has been dedicated to explaining that reaction rolls change the scenario, usually by changing an element of the NPC's background, which is not something a character's CHA modifier or any other modifier could ever affect in-game, hence, disassociated.

Oh what the fuck? That's the arrow example. If you're going to talk about the arrow examle, talk about the fucking arrow example. That is in turn an addressment of the determinism argument. It doesn't interact with the associated/dissociated divide at all, since the determinism argument is a question of how the results can be literally random die rolls for the player can represent determined but unknown events for the character. Since we decided attack rolls are not dissociated on the grounds that the player predicts that less of their arrows will hit when there is a negative modifier like long range or strong wind, and so does the character, then the very same logic applies to reaction rolls. Or any other thing which is generated by die rolls for the player and is an event with unknown results to the character.

As for the specific encounter, we're probably at a fair number of penalties in our encounter with the Black Prince, so what exactly needs to be explained? You roll up a reaction result and he's hostile, so he shows up and starts threatening you and making unreasonable demands (social encounter. He does this, because he's the bad guy. Or you roll the dice and he's violent: the combat music starts and you roll initiative (combat encounter). He does that, because he is the bad guy. What exactly do you need to explain?

When you encounter a bandit, he is probably going to either brandish a weapon and shout "Your GP or your HP!" or he's going to skip the intimidation and go right for stabbing people to go through their pockets afterwards. Which choice he makes will be determined by a bewilderingly complex set of inputs that boil down to a split second assessment of whether a character he has never met is likely to back down. And that's going to be based on the bandit's previous experiences as a highwayman and his general level of frustration at the moment. And the game's backstory is not likely to be written up anywhere close to accurately enough to model completely on dead reckoning.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Although even then, there should be distinct outputs for hostile and violent. Because if the bandits brandish weapons and shout "Your GP or your HP!" that's actually still a talking encounter that social abilties could bale you out of.

What about if both sides start out "friendly" or whatever? I understand "hostile" being an output for the bandit scenario, but what about when friendly customers walk into a store with a friendly owner? Assuming there are no weird things like "racist against elves", would it be reasonable to assume that this situation wouldn't generate "hostile", or are you still assuming that "natural 1" scenario where that could happen?

RobbyPants wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:Although even then, there should be distinct outputs for hostile and violent. Because if the bandits brandish weapons and shout "Your GP or your HP!" that's actually still a talking encounter that social abilties could bale you out of.

What about if both sides start out "friendly" or whatever? I understand "hostile" being an output for the bandit scenario, but what about when friendly customers walk into a store with a friendly owner? Assuming there are no weird things like "racist against elves", would it be reasonable to assume that this situation wouldn't generate "hostile", or are you still assuming that "natural 1" scenario where that could happen?

The point is that you don't actually "start" anywhere. But if the PCs are peaceful and the shop keeper is peaceful and it's a shop so it's a safe, public, neutral meeting ground, then the worst output should probably be a hostile (as opposed to violent) response. The PCs might run the risk of the the shopkeeper saying that he "does not want your kind in here" and to GTFO, but they shouldn't be risking a crossbow bolt every time they walk into a store.

But yeah, if you go into the store with weapons drawn, there should be at least a chance that the shop keeper will fire a crossbow or run away.

-Username17

Okay. I think we're saying mostly the same thing. I'm just using different terms.

From what I've seen there are generally two vague models of how to run an RPG:
warning: the following post contains wild speculation and sweeping generalizations

Firstly, you have your "story" model. In this type of game the DM has a pretty clear idea of the story they want to tell and the steps that are likely to lead there. The game is planned as a series of Scenes which the players progress through, leading up to the events of the finale. The players usually have some ability to influence the story, but a broad idea of the likely way the game will go is already in the DM's mind. Because the DM has a clear idea of what direction the game is likely to go in they can spend plenty of time designing interesting encounters and plot twists, however it can lead to accusations of railroading and a lack of player involvement.

Secondly there is the "sandbox" model. In this type of game the DM sets up a Situation and sketches out the organisations and people involved, however he doesn't have particular actions in mind for them. The players are given free reign to progress the plot in whatever direction they so choose. This gives the PC's more freedom to approach the game in whatever manner they desire, however it requires much more on-the-fly game generation and usually involves more work up front detailing the area the game will take place in.

Now, most games take a little from column A and a little from column B but I've noticed GM's tend to lean more one way or the other depending on their personal style.

The point of all this? The arguments against the reaction roll seem to stem mostly from the "Story" crowd, annoyed that the randomness would interfere with the way the BBEG was supposed to act in this Scene. In a more sandboxy game the way the characters enter a scene is less important.

Red_Rob wrote:From what I've seen there are generally two vague models of how to run an RPG:
warning: the following post contains wild speculation and sweeping generalizations

Firstly, you have your "story" model.

[..]

Secondly there is the "sandbox" model.

<cough>narrativistvssimulationist<cough>

Now I'm confused. Both Tzor and FT are saying that in the BBEG scenario, the Black Prince is pretty much not going to listen to Diplomacy. FT admits that there's a chance he'll begin with just berating you, after a few seconds of which, the combat will start anyway. So what, exactly, did the reaction roll do in this case? Nothing. The DM is still telling the players, "No, it doesn't work," the only difference is now there's a die roll to give it the illusion of legitimacy. All attempts of diplomacy are equally likely to fail against the BBEG, both because of the amazing amount of situational modifiers, and because of his high Diplomacy score in the first place. OK, so that example can be thrown out as one where the reaction roll isn't appropriate or useful, because Diplomacy at all is similarly useless.

But even in the Bandit example, why is there a reaction roll? The party is not making any determined actions! Who is trying to Charisma their way into a better situation when you don't even know just what it is you're trying to impress yet? I don't think any PC ever makes a conscious choice specifically going into a reaction roll; you either walk around with your weapons drawn or not, unless the DM is supposed to inform you that there is a bandit around the corner and you might want to put your weapons away or you'll provoke him, and then you decide how you want to approach? Even if you knew that walking around with weapons was a bad idea, frankly, there is no way to determine whether or not doing so will make someone more or less likely to listen to you talk until you've already engaged them and have an idea of who they are.

Case-in-point; the town guards will probably be much less hostile/violent if you are walking around with weapons sheathed/concealed like a good citizen, but the bandits are more likely to take advantage of you, whereas if you had your weapons drawn, the town guard might take you for a threat and attempt to subdue you, but the bandits will probably be less likely to try and pull something on you for the same reason.

But let's just say that weapons drawn is universally going to provoke people more, there are still problems with the reaction roll. We all seem to agree that the range of results for a reaction roll should never be that wide; FT proposed a whole two options for the bandit scenario. What did you say the difference would be between a threat or an attack? The attitude of the bandit that day? Is that what the reaction roll is abstracting? Then why are the PCs adding their Charisma modifier to it? Is the party's aggregate Charisma really making the bandit change the way he thinks about his experience as a highwayman? No.

There are many options for determining whether or not a bandit decides to attack you or just threaten you, the reaction roll is just a particularly lame one because it's not a representation of anything anyone is actively trying to do. If the PCs are aware of him first, then they can try to Intimidate him into surrendering, or Bluff him into believing they're sent from the guild to make sure the job goes right, or what-have-you. Alternatively, if he is aware of them first, he will have his weapon drawn and demand your surrender or attack you in a surprise round based on a check that is dependent on his analysis of the threat you pose to him, i.e., a Spot check or a Wis check or maybe even Sense Motive. These options actually make some in-world sense and account for the motivations of the NPCs. Just give the DM some guidelines as to how different NPCs react depending on the result of that die roll, and such options would be between "attempt to Intimidate," or "attack." This way, a DM will never have his antagonists turned into willing slaves of the PCs, but Diplomancers still have as much a chance to affect the outcome of encounters as a fighter, so long as they both make the first move, or are met with an NPC who has decided to either fight or talk.

FT admits that there's a chance he'll begin with just berating you, after a few seconds of which, the combat will start anyway. So what, exactly, did the reaction roll do in this case?

-Username17

Stubbazubba wrote:Now I'm confused. Both Tzor and FT are saying that in the BBEG scenario, the Black Prince is pretty much not going to listen to Diplomacy. FT admits that there's a chance he'll begin with just berating you, after a few seconds of which, the combat will start anyway. So what, exactly, did the reaction roll do in this case? Nothing. The DM is still telling the players, "No, it doesn't work," the only difference is now there's a die roll to give it the illusion of legitimacy. All attempts of diplomacy are equally likely to fail against the BBEG, both because of the amazing amount of situational modifiers, and because of his high Diplomacy score in the first place. OK, so that example can be thrown out as one where the reaction roll isn't appropriate or useful, because Diplomacy at all is similarly useless.

First and foremost, I've been arguing that you need to have a system where diplomacy is not a outside of combat only option. From a classic perspective diplomacy and combat should be like peanut butter and chocolate; they should go greath together.

Second, aside from premature plot injection, the encounter with the BBEG is sort of the climax to the story arc, it sure as hell has to be climatic. So you have this party, and a chuck of that party is combat related. There is no "I" in team, everyone has to contribute equally in the final scene. This alone demands that there should be a mixed scnenario and that diplomacy and combat must both be included.

So let's see how this is going to work out. You got the diplomat and the other PC's and you have the BBEG and his minions. So what are the PC's going to do? What is the BBEG going to do and what are the minions going to do? I maintain that the diplomat needs the option to perform a diplomatic action in the middle of combat; which in turn could change the attitude of the BBEG. (The BBEG may in turn have the option to decide to perform a diplomatic action against the diplomat instead of a combat action.) This is how cinematic combat should take place. You could even have combat going on while the diplomat and the BBEG go for diplomat silioquy.

Consider the implications of the alternative; if one character can simply one shot the end of the climatic encounter it makes for a sucky encounter. If the caster could just before the start of combat throw a finger of death at the BBEG and he dies in one shot; the rest of the party start to wonder what they are there for. Likewise if the diplomancer one shots the climatic scene by getting a stop the combat card, it makes the combat related characters seem useless.

Now not all examples are as extreeme as the BBEG case and many of them may in fact be handled well before combat begins.

Once again, my view of the reaction roll is to handle the complexities of the "first encounter" between two unknowns, to see where things can go from there. Not everyone starts off life attacking the first thing they see, but some do just that. They shoot first and then ask questions later. That's why it's important to have diplomacy work during combat. Like surprise, reaction determines consitions at the start of the encounter. If the BBEG retreats to a back room and the PC's kick that door down, the BBEG is neither suprized nor is he of any different reaction than his state when he entered the room.

Otherwise there would be a large fatality rate for evil marrages ...
"Your wife has entered the bedroom ... your reaction roll is ..."

Stubbazubba wrote:When the BBEG is trying to take over the world and the party is the one thing that has thwarted him thus far and he wants nothing more than to be rid of them as quickly as possible, the idea that he suddenly has a change of heart and wants to hear you out at all is faulty, and if the DM pulls some hackneyed explanation out of the air like "well, now that he has a good look at you, he's reminded of his dead son," then it's disassociative on top of that.

The mechanics don't require dissociative changes. To use your example, here are some hostile-but-not-murdering-you-right-now responses/motivations for a BBEG who finally has the meddling kids in his grasp.

[*]He wants to gloat
[*]He wants to know why the meddling kids are meddling
[*]"This cannot possibly be this easy, it has to be a trick"
[*]"What a pathetic bunch, killing them isn't even worth it"

And that is 30 seconds of thinking that doesn't require changing anything but the BBEG's whim at the current moment.