The Gaming Den

hogarth wrote:

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

hogarth wrote:Frank has made it clear in this thread (and others) that he likes the idea of using Diplomacy/reaction rolls to make up plot points on the fly. Not my cup of tea, personally.

I think it's pretty sad to get upset if the plot deviates from what you originally had in mind if a key negotiation works or fails unexpectedly.

I don't know what to tell you. I like watching regular plays (for instance) over improvised shows because when improv isn't done well, it sucks. I understand if you feel differently.

I think the point that you are not acknowledging is that you, me, and most every other gamer on the planet are, more often than not, terrible playwrights. You're denying the reality that scripted stories can be pieces of shit as well.

To be fair, being a playwright is way, way harder than running a good railroad game. The real comparison is to a storyteller, because that's what those kinds of game amount to: sitting down and asking your MC to tell you a story.

Now, being a storyteller people will listen to is way easier than being a writer people will read, because you can use voice and emotion to sell it, because the act of gathering together creates an investment in the shared experience which increases buy-in, and because you can see how your story is going over and make adjustments in real time.

violence in the media wrote: I think the point that you are not acknowledging is that you, me, and most every other gamer on the planet are, more often than not, terrible playwrights. You're denying the reality that scripted stories can be pieces of shit as well.

...which is why I'm fairly picky about which tabletop RPG modules and/or computer RPGs I play.

Indeed Franks example of "a level 1 herald" is fairly ideal here, because even though it would be perfectly "rational" for there to be situations so circumstantially beneficial that a level 1 herald would totally murderize the entire high level Orc Warband leadership... our stabbing rules make that very very very very very hard indeed, if not impossible.

The specific situation proposed was that the herald represented some group that had already done a whole bunch of literal stabbination to the Orcs, and that the herald was just delivering the diplomatic equivalent of the coup de grace, because he has the skill that gives him the biggest bonus to social coup de grace attempts.


Also, I think I figured out the answer to my question on my own: the RNG should be as big as the disagreements between players, and that appears to mean very big indeed. It should also be bell-shaped, so you can put a lot of +1s on it without falling off, but you don't need to put most of them on just to have a reasonable chance of success.

Previn wrote: Wouldn't it be easier to set a DC based on the current Attitude Category, and say "for every 5 that you beat the DC by you shift them 1 additional category" rather than have the above chart? You could then use 'for every 5 you fail by...' for screw ups.

Easier, yes, but not equivalent - and that lack of equivalency would end up with a system that does not come as close to meeting the contradictory goals laid out in this thread.

Firstly, you'll note that I included an absolute cap at 50+. By like 12th level, it's not impossible for characters to be rolling 55 or 60 results, and as you near 20th, those results can become easy and common for specialized PCs to achieve. If you let it scale infinitely with a divisor then it's still linear and eventually the bonus is worth more than all circumstance modifiers and the entire RNG. It's theoretically possible to work out some sort of quadratic or exponential or factorial scaling to keep things on the RNG - but adjudicating that sort of thing is an unfair amount of math to ask players and MCs to perform.

You should also note that the categories I listed included multiple numeric rankings and that they were vaguely bell curve shaped, with a random roll most likely to produce a neutral result and the extreme ends being the least likely. So to shift someone from the mildly negative (7) result all the way through the neutral result into the mildly positive result (13) requires a 6 point shift (or beating the DC by 30) but shifting someone from the most negative result (0) through the next most negative result and up to merely open hostility (3) only requires a three point shift (or beating the DC by 15)

Orion wrote:PL's position has been pretty consistent to me for multiple years now.

Probably the only major change from that since has been that I think the mini game should be rolled into standard mechanics so it is fully compatible to run within standard combat.

Effectively I increasingly find the basic philosphy worth working from in 3E terms is... Charm Person. Opponent is doing something you don't like (because they are not your friend) you can change that (by making them your friend) you have a mechanic that does that based on your character attributes to generate it's potency, and the opponent has their own level based character attributes with which to resist it. And it all happens using combat mechanics in a combat time frame and could be done while other people are swording stuff.

Charm Person works on a great deal of levels as a model of game based charming of stuff. Of course, it's 3E so it's full of somewhat divergent saving throws, the whole unpopular save or die thing and so on, but it's got the general spirit of the thing right and is BY FAR the better "diplomacy" mechanic when compared to actual 3E Diplomacy.

Frank meanwhile... refuses to produce a firm outline of something that meets his demands. But it appears that within the context of 3E models, he prefers the Diplomacy skill. Only he would also like to throw in +/-50 or more circumstantial modifiers to the rolls.

And very importantly he won't tell us where those modifiers come from. In the past he has INSISTED until he is blue in the face that they WON'T be coming from the GMs ass. They will be OBJECTIVE and come from like... TABLES and LISTS and stuff that cannot be misinterpreted or misused... He hasn't presented such a list, such a table with it's magical magical properties. He just whines and whines about "rational behavior". Which is, lets remember the exact same very bad "realism" argument used by very bad people for any NUMBER of very bad reasons in any number of fields of very bad RPG mechanics.

I don't WANT to pull the "well show us then" argument, but I've given a lot of details of my social mechanics models over the years. And I have stable workable sources of examples of my preferred abstracted mechanics in the form of actual combat mechanics and actual social attacks that exist within them successfully. Frank has NOT put together a sample solution, he has not discussed details, and his existing sources are things like 3E diplomacy with a gigantic GM cock sucking session thrown on top.

I think at this stage it is not unreasonable to say OK then, show us. Lets see some more detail. This "rationality" modifier. Where the fuck does it come from? How does it generate these seemingly conflicting results Frank demands and how does it do it while avoiding the massive pitfalls every system remotely like it has always suffered from?

Chamomile wrote:You really can't just MTP anything in an ideal game. A huge part of the appeal of a role playing game is being able to play a role you aren't actually capable of in real life. For some people, this means "what if instead of being smart meant I could shoot lasers from my eyes instead of setting up my teacher's projector for a powerpoint presentation?" But you also have Aspie Annie as Charismatic Catherine, and Aspie Annie needs to be able to actually play Charismatic Catherine even though she couldn't diplomacize her way out of a paper bag in MTP.

I can use this argument to literally take every decision and role play out of the game.

My character has an intelligence in the 30's. Which is super-human. We have to stop the evil wizard. How the fuck am I supposed to come up with a plan to stop the wizard? Here... let me roll a D20. Yeah, 27 on an intelligence check to figure out a master plan to defeat the seemingly unstoppable wizard. You figure out what happens.

My character is super wise *rolls dice* tell me what to do DM. It's your fault if it ends up screwing up, because my mechanical stats are so bullshit high.

My character is so charismatic that I don't want to have this conversation because I'm a basement troll that plays D&D. *rolls d20* Yeah I got in the 30's. Something good happens.

Your argument reduces RPGs down to World of Warcraft, or it requires mechanics to cover literally every single possible interaction that you could possibly imagine because someone, somewhere, will not be capable of role-playing that interaction.

At some point, you gotta stop relying on the dice and just go with it. Even if Bob isn't a gifted orator in real life, sometimes you just gotta pretend he is when he makes his big speech. It's more fun than rolling a D20 and consulting a DC table.

I mean fuck. Might as well play http://progressquest.com/ at that point.

TheFlatline wrote:At some point, you gotta stop relying on the dice and just go with it. Even if Bob isn't a gifted orator in real life, sometimes you just gotta pretend he is when he makes his big speech. It's more fun than rolling a D20 and consulting a DC table.

Why can't you do both?

TheFlatline wrote:At some point, you gotta stop relying on the dice and just go with it.

The perfect example of why you are drawing the line in massively the wrong place is Seduction.

My Barbarian is Casanova Sunshine Warfist. Seducer of princesses. My GM is Hairy Bob, infamous nose picker.

By your reasoning I my macho manly hairy self should set out to actually seduce macho manly Hairy Bob with actual seductive chatting up, at the table. Me and Hairy Bob pretending to be coy. But we all know he isn't...

How far do I "just go with it" do I look into Hairy Bob's limpid princess eyes? Perhaps gently stroke Hairy Bob's hairy princess cheek. Lay a gentle yet firm kiss on his mustachioed princess lips? Should we retire to his room to further determine the exact outcome of the encounter and the full implications for further role play?

Sometimes we are ALL better off with "My seduction attack got a 27 vs the princess!", "You succeed!". Except for Hairy Bob, who totally wants me.

And if we are better off doing that for seduction, precisely why CAN'T we get away with doing that with say, intimidation (lets avoid some of those squicky torture is fun! moments), friendliness (lets face it, many RPG players are as uncomfortable with the concept and theory of making friends as they are with seducing Hairy Bob) and telling cunning lies.

You don't HAVE to eliminate fluffy role play. Me and hairy bob can squick everyone at the table right out with whatever portion of details about that successful seduction roll that we might want to expound upon, just like you can squick everyone out with expounded details about swords and eye sockets and brain chunks on a stabby attack roll. The important thing is that the fluffy expounding is optional, about player empowerment, and not about GM cock sucking.

TheFlatline wrote:
I can use this argument to literally take every decision and role play out of the game.

And you theoretically want to be able to do that. In an ideal RPG, you should be able to MTP the things you want and use rules for the things you want, and if you want to play tabletop Progress Quest, more power to you. Of course, this isn't a realistic real world goal because every day you spend working out rules for making an INT roll into a battle plan is a day you aren't spending making the actual battles more entertaining.

TheFlatline wrote: At some point, you gotta stop relying on the dice and just go with it. Even if Bob isn't a gifted orator in real life, sometimes you just gotta pretend he is when he makes his big speech. It's more fun than rolling a D20 and consulting a DC table.

I mean fuck. Might as well play http://progressquest.com/ at that point.

Well said.

It really sounds like PL would have more fun playing a computer game, since he's just so paranoid about DM tyranny.

hogarth wrote:...which is why I'm fairly picky about which tabletop RPG modules and/or computer RPGs I play.

Yes, and if you're so picky that you'll only trust a story if it's been reviewed and primped and focus grouped then you should stick to those kinds of games rather than sticking your dick into improvisational cooperative storytelling. There's nothing wrong with that, literature and theater and even video games have a rich history of storytelling, but if you don't accept the premise that stories should veer off in a direction that no one anticipated then tabletop roleplaying is just not for you.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:but if you don't accept the premise that stories should can veer off in a direction that no one anticipated then tabletop roleplaying is just not for you.

fixed.

echo

I really did mean should. It's a natural human tendency to go with the flow and generically prioritize non-action over action. So 'can', either unintentionally or by design, often turns into 'won't'.

Any worthwhile tabletop roleplaying system can, and should, allow for both options, although I personally believe that the system should encourage unforseen outcomes as a way to keep things interesting. But there's an important difference between giving things the opportunity to develop, and forcing them to.

echo

What PL is saying seems totally reasonable. You don't make a social attack against a target that's already doing what you want them to do. The DM is going to be deciding what the target is doing at a given moment when you meet the target. You only make a social attack against a target if they aren't doing what you want them to do when you are interacting with them.

What part is there to disagree with?

MGuy wrote:What PL is saying seems totally reasonable. You don't make a social attack against a target that's already doing what you want them to do. The DM is going to be deciding what the target is doing at a given moment when you meet the target. You only make a social attack against a target if they aren't doing what you want them to do when you are interacting with them.

What part is there to disagree with?

You don't cast charm monster on people you are on vaguely good terms with. You cast it on creatures that are trying to kill you. If diplomacy worked the same way, you'd use it in the same way: saving it for people who were trying to kill you. When you're looking for allies to fight the Lich King, you should go diplomacize people you are on vaguely good terms with like the local Dwarven king. Under PL's plan, that would be a waste of time, because you would have the same chance of getting troops committed to your war by going to talk to the nearest Drow priestess, and doing so would cause one of the groups that would have been raiding you to disappear instead of causing one of the groups that was selling you supplies to disappear.

Under PL's "plan", there is no reason to ever go talk to your kingdom's historical allies if you need help. You should always go ask help from people who hate you. And that's retarded.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Under PL's "plan", there is no reason to ever go talk to your kingdom's historical allies if you need help.

Hm. So you don't use a combat level minigame mechanic on characters that have already decided to help you.

Which is really rather unsurprising. Since they already decided to help you.

And here was me thinking you were going to go with some sort of grand "Rational Determinism" angle. Instead you come up with something even more stupid.

That's sort of impressive.

Edit: but lets go over this in detail for a second.
Franks Scenario:
1) You go to your allies for help.
2a) They decide to give it to you, because they are your allies.
or
2b) They decide not to because, I dunno.
3) If they went with 2b you bust out the charming mechanic. Which gets a bonus the GM pulls out of his ass based on how "ancient ally" flavoured the targets are. Frank explicitly wants this bonus to potentially be bigger than the entire mini-game PLUS character advancement system combined.

Scenario where the only way to change peoples minds is by cutting their heads off.
1) You go to your allies for help.
2a) They decide to give it to you, because they are your allies.
or
2b) They decide not to because, I dunno.
3) If they went with 2b you bust out the swords and cut heads off. No really this DOES happen, have you SEEN how RPG players act?

Scenario, my way.
1) You go to your allies for help.
2a) They decide to give it to you, because they are your allies.
or
2b) They decide not to because, I dunno.
3) If they went with 2b you bust out the charm mechanic. It explicitly does NOT have modifiers from the GMs ass that Frank explicitly demands be bigger than the mini game and advancement system combined.

There is no appreciable difference here... except a modifier that makes the entire existence of the mini game and character advancement basically obsolete.

PhoneLobster, I think the key word was "ancient allies." Maybe if they were currently actively their allies, you could count on their support, but they aren't. I don't know why this is difficult since igoing round to all your traditional allies and being told to fuck off, forced to expel a corrupting influence, or required to do a fetch quest is a bog standard elements of every fantasy cRPG and most secondary creation fantasy series.

Orion wrote:PhoneLobster, I think the key word was "ancient allies." Maybe if they were currently actively their allies, you could count on their support, but they aren't.

Phonelobster wrote:2b) They decide not to because, I dunno. What have you done for me lately?
3) If they went with 2b you bust out the charm mechanic. It explicitly does NOT have modifiers from the GMs ass that Frank explicitly demands be bigger than the mini game and advancement system combined.

It is simple. There was a disagreement. The charm mechanic get's broken out.

The only appreciable difference between this and Frank's preferences is that there is NOT a circumstantial modifier bigger than godzilla.

And that circumstantial modifier he wants is completely unpredictable and not even a mechanic you can actually WRITE, because seriously, there is an "Ancient Allies" bonus. This stacks with a "Defeated Armies Bonus" and a "Likes to Fuck Level 1 Horny Barmaids" bonus and a... these are awfully obscure bonuses what sort of insane king kong like list do they come from again? And according to Frank's examples any ONE of these bonuses could be big enough to trump the entire character advancement system.

My system is simple and internally consistent and actually writable. Players disagree on character actions. Social mechanics kick in based on character abilities. Losers change their actions based on winners preferences. It's predictable, playable, and writable.

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? Does she CARE that you are "ancient allies" what if she dislikes tradition? What if she has a personal history of not liking you? What if she is sleeping with the Orc King? Are THOSE on the Godzilla sized King Kong deep circumstantial modifier list too?

The fact is when you are talking about using character motivation as a modifier it could mean ANYTHING. The Elf Queen COULD be MASSIVELY more adverse to wearing purple than to giving you your elf army. We don't have to model that. We SHOULDN'T model that. We CAN'T model that.

I'm more than eager to hear any explanation as to how we can and how it would be good for the game.

I think I see Frank's point.

PL, let's talk about one of the climactic encounters of Dragon Age, at the Landsmeet or whatever it was called. The late king's advisor turned king regent has decided that nationalism trumps not getting slaughtered by the darkspawn hordes, and is planning to usurp the throne. The player has to either co-opt the king's widow or get the king's long lost son to man up, and place one of them on the throne. In order to do so, you need to go to each of the voting lords of the council (who range from unfriendly to sympathetic) and convince them to vote for you either with diplomacy or a quid pro quo, and also convince your particular candidate for the throne to make a bid and also promise to support you in your fight against the darkspawn. If you fail at this, then you're going to be in a lot of trouble for the final battle against the Archdemon.

This is an entirely diplomatic encounter. Under your system, where is the motivation to go to all the trouble of building up an alternate candidate for the throne and support to put him there, when you can just hit the treacherous advisor with the Diplomacy stick?

A Man In Black wrote:Dragon Age

Stopped reading.

Well actually I didn't. That's just dumb. But I predicted what would come next and was unsurprised when it turned out to be stupidity Dragon Age is ass. Your example is ass. Your argument is ass.

What is your counter proposal to my system? You seriously want to try "infinite sized list of infinite sized circumstantial modifiers"?

Why do you NEED the motivation you suddenly demand? Is "the kings advisor is a social bad ass, the heir is a weak puppet" not ENOUGH for you? Precisely how is it that you think "infinite sized modifier pulled from GMs ass" will be MORE acceptable to players as a means of railroading them into your precious groom the heir story line compared to using character abilities and the character advancement system[/b] to make the advisor a hard social target (but not impossible since you are presenting him as an enemy and that is serious BAD GMING to make him impossible) just like you do when determining him as a combat target.

Indeed. Your example is SO ass that one asks... why isn't you know, just killing this guy an option?... oh yeah... Dragon Age... should have stopped reading...

Seriously. Never ever use Dragon Age as an example of anything other than Bad. You only discredit your, admittedly kinda stupid, argument.

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.

Let's use a better game than Dragon Age: Disgaea

So you go to the Dark Assembly and say "I want the store to sell some fucking shoes, I mean fuck, how hard is it to get a pair of goddamn SHOES here?"

And some of them like shoes, so are inclined to agree. (randomly determined to be okay with it)
Some of them like you (based on your history with them)
Some of them don't like you (based on your history with them)
Some of them are drunk or asleep
Some of them are just assholes
Some are indecisive about the whole thing and ultimately don't give a shit

You could:
Wake someone up with a bomb, but guess which way they'll vote
Sober someone up
Bribe someone who likes you - a small bribe (or a small diplomacy DC) is needed to guarantee their vote
Bribe someone who hates you - you will need to give them Fort Knox
Phone people up beforehand and lie about what the topic is to fool them into voting on it
Dissolve the senate. Well, less dissolve, more pulverise.
Have tits, so get the Orc vote (no really)
Have a large criminal record, to impress/scare them into voting your way

So you want to secure the votes of people who take the least effort first (or maybe go out on a limb and spend a lot of stuff bribing and convincing a high-powered enemy, but this is kind of risky). You also want to mix in some general deceit as well as your actual reputation, and a few of these things actually rely on your past actions - which need to count for something. And if all else fails, you murder everyone and claim it a victory based on nobody arguing.

I think I was also summing up American politics there.

MGuy wrote:What PL is saying seems totally reasonable. You don't make a social attack against a target that's already doing what you want them to do. The DM is going to be deciding what the target is doing at a given moment when you meet the target. You only make a social attack against a target if they aren't doing what you want them to do when you are interacting with them.

What part is there to disagree with?

I disagree somewhat. I've seen more attempts to wheedle extra stuff out of a helpful person ("The Elf Queen will loan us her army! Let's see if she'll give us all +5 swords too!") than attempts to persuade an unfriendly or unhelpful person.

Part of the problem with this is that the system treats all requests equally and there doesn't appear to be a way to badger someone into rescinding aid. You can rack up +50 modifiers to the DC through multiple requests, but that won't result in the person getting irritated with you and dropping any prior agreements made or even change their attitude.

Frank's counter to PL's suggestion is very much a problem. It makes no discretion between the reticent yet friendly and the disdainfully hostile yet not outright attacking.