The Gaming Den

Ice9 wrote:The only reason it "breaks the game" is that you buy into the whole "social kombat must be able to do anything or it's worthless" attitude

OK so right now right here you want to commit to saying "I want a social combat system that can never get you things of value to characters beyond 1st level".

Because that's the requirement to dismiss the backwards objective difficulty for reward issue.

There are fucking limits.

Really. So say, 3E diplomacy, bluff and Charm Person. Their limits. The limits on them. Those limits, THOSE still potentially fall prey to the backwards difficulty/reward issue if you do what you advocate with them.

Worse those quite practical limits have been dismissed by you ALREADY as "too much my brain hurts!" Because YOU very specifically and repeatedly despite being called out and having had it explained to you, slowly, on numerous occasions, you STILL call Charm Person the ability to make people stab themselves in the face.

So talking about limitations with you at the moment is worthless. You are incapable of defining limits OR listening to people when they explain them to you.

So yeah. Limits hey, fine. DEFINE THEM. Tell me what limits you just added to your system that makes the backwards reward/difficulty thing work? Then tell me why your system matters and remains interesting with those limits in place.

Should be doable, if you could actually commit to an idea for two seconds instead of just methodically moving along and screaming your head off about the next thing in the queue of ideas you didn't understand the last THREE TIMES you had them explained to you.

PhoneLobster wrote:Really. So say, 3E diplomacy, bluff and Charm Person. Their limits. The limits on them. Those limits, THOSE still potentially fall prey to the backwards difficulty/reward issue if you do what you advocate with them.

When the fuck did I say that the 3E system works? I agree with the title of this thread - 3E diplomacy is, as written, a failed design. Now people have managed to sometimes make it work, via the application of explicit or implicit modifiers, but that's not an overall solution.

Effects like Charm Person? Yeah, that'd be unnatural mental influence. Not stabbing yourself in the face, but somebody has the ability to talk to you for a few seconds and you're suddenly his faithful friend? That's an ability people are going to talk about and fear, and no chance they'll listen to him if they can help it.

Because that's the requirement to dismiss the backwards objective difficulty for reward issue.

You keep talking about this issue. I'm not sure exactly how you're defining it, but let me say the following things:
1) If your wealth system is so fragile that the game breaks when a low-level PC manages to pick-pocket a rich merchant, then your game is crap and I don't care about supporting it.
2) High level characters using their mad diplomacy skills to get starving peoples' last turnips is a dumb-ass way of getting turnips, and I don't care that it isn't a good reward for the difficulty.
3) The manner in which you use your social skills should have a large impact on the outcome. If the PCs manage to pose as exiled nobility, work their way into a guildmaster's confidence, and then scam him out of significant funds, it will be more rewarding than if they asked random people on the street to give them money. This is not an exploit, it is the fucking design intent.

I would rather have an imperfect system that produces reasonable results than a mechanically solid system that produces crap results. Most of your results so far have been crap. In light of that, continuing to explain how your system is better because of difficulty/reward balance is meaningless. I'm not ignoring your explanations, I just don't agree with them at all.

Ice9 wrote:Effects like Charm Person? ...That's an ability people are going to talk about and fear, and no chance they'll listen to him if they can help it.

So then your in game in character response to every potential 3e wizard that comes over for afternoon tea is to stab him in the face? Really?

You are SUCH a great person to listen to about RPG design!

1) If your wealth system

Don't care, you have A wealth system, no matter how resistant to whatever MAXIMUM degree it can be screwed up you are DEMANDING the right to screw it. And at level 1 as the minimum possible difficulty no less.

Also even more don't care because you also get air dropped god like characters and their abilities on your enemies. And other crazy crazy out leveled shit beyond basic wealth.

2) High level characters using their mad diplomacy skills to get starving peoples' last turnips is a dumb-ass way of getting turnips, and I don't care that it isn't a good reward for the difficulty.

So you are in fact now what? three posts late? In actually reading ANYTHING I said. ANYTHING you total fucking moron. How embarrassing can it be to still be rambling about something I undermined THAT long ago.

3) The manner in which you use your social skills should have a large impact on the outcome. If the PCs manage to pose as exiled nobility, work their way into a guildmaster's confidence, and then scam him out of significant funds, it will be more rewarding than if they asked random people on the street to give them money. This is not an exploit, it is the fucking design intent.

That scenario is a new scenario. Again. in the Exhaustive scenario situation, this does not in anyway negate the major issues this system has with OTHER scenarios. You don't seem to understand AT ALL what the most BASIC implications of "the complete contextual list" means. It means it is fucking complete you do NOT get to defend it with selective scenarios you need to defend it AGAINST selective scenarios. Because ALL the scenarios happen. Thats THE feature of the system.

I would rather have an imperfect system that produces reasonable results

Like say. Giving out pretty much the most powerful rewards, characters, items and resources of the game to the lowest difficulty check the game recognizes. that sort of minor "Imperfection".

In light of that, continuing to explain how your system is better because of difficulty/reward balance is meaningless. I'm not ignoring your explanations, I just don't agree with them at all.

You haven't actually said ANYTHING that indicates you actually understand what I'm saying, or even what YOU are saying. You have repeatedly missed large chunks of relevant text as if you haven't read them and largely embarrassed yourself, surrendered your "every context is a context convenient to me!" argument, then re-adopted it without a second thought when "Game breaking is awesome!" turned out not to be a profitable avenue to pursue.

I mean SURE continuing to talk to you is meaningless, it was from the first time you failed to even read my exhaustive discussions AGES before your most recent outburst of "whine whine I KILL ALL WIZARDS WHO TRY TO TALK TO ME IN 3E whine whine". But frankly there are few dopey looking punching bags better for me to score points on than the likes of you.

PhoneLobster wrote:

Ice9 wrote:Effects like Charm Person? ...That's an ability people are going to talk about and fear, and no chance they'll listen to him if they can help it.

So then your in game in character response to every potential 3e wizard that comes over for afternoon tea is to stab him in the face? Really?

If he starts chanting and waving his hands and I can make a DC 16 Spellcraft check? Yeah, I do. Every time.

How does that work with your diplomacy system?

PoliteNewb wrote:If he starts chanting and waving his hands

There are feats for that.

And anyway. If you waited that long. It's too late.

And what about that guy a friend of yours introduces as his "Friend Dumbledore the Wizard", old friend, new friend, whatever, he is a wizard better kill him!

Actually yes, in a D&D setting I would expect that a wizard off the street does not get to see the king in person at all, and even a semi-trusted one probably has guards watching them with readied actions. Not everyone can afford that level of security, obviously, but yeah, you take precautions.

Protip: If having your setting make any sense requires the NPCs take actions that are objectively stupid, then you need to rethink your rules.

PhoneLobster wrote:You haven't actually said ANYTHING that indicates you actually understand what I'm saying, or even what YOU are saying. You have repeatedly missed large chunks of relevant text as if you haven't read them

I haven't responded to every single line in your posts because you're spewing text on nearly a shadzar level. And speaking of not responding ...

Ice9 wrote:I mean seriously, is this your idea of a good social system?
* Getting a starving peasant to give you all their possessions and food - Easy, because it isn't worth very much.
* Getting a rich noble to give you a single gold piece - Much harder, because its total value is higher.

I notice you haven't confirmed or denied this, perhaps because it would reveal how fucking bizarro-world your proposed system is.

You're saying contextual modifiers are crap because there are situations where they might produce bad results, but your damn system produces almost nothing but bad results. The fact that they are consistent bad results does not make them better!

Ice9 wrote:I notice you haven't confirmed or denied this

Then your noticing skills are poor since had you followed ANY of the ENTIRE discussion about the problem with disproportionate rewards for trivial difficulties you should have known the answer before you asked the question.

And that really is where you prove how much of an ignorant idiot you are. You can seriously have a discussion with a guy spending the whole thing telling you flat out that it is BAD for it to be EASIER to get BETTER things and at the end of that you think you are pulling off some sort of unanswerable coupe by asking "so then is it bad for it to be easier to get better things?"

What a colossal failure.

Ice9 wrote:
3) The manner in which you use your social skills should have a large impact on the outcome. If the PCs manage to pose as exiled nobility, work their way into a guildmaster's confidence, and then scam him out of significant funds, it will be more rewarding than if they asked random people on the street to give them money. This is not an exploit, it is the fucking design intent.

I would prefer it if social systems mechanically required more time to operate, with some caveats, rather than the default of wedging everything into combat time. Though, the highest goal I think would be making the social system not a low risk/high reward mechanic that is also largely a single-person affair that often works at odds with what the rest of the PCs may want to do.

I mean, how often has this situation cropped up in your games? One player has the idea that getting everything you want while never getting into a fight is the best thing ever. Plus, since the failure state of a social encounter is (often) at worst a fight, there's no harm in trying at every opportunity. The other players at the table, on the other hand, get tired of going though the social guy's ritual every encounter, get annoyed that he can potentially fast-talk things way out of line with the CR system, and didn't sign up for a game where the story is about Bob talking the Necromancer out of his evil ways.

PhoneLobster wrote:

PoliteNewb wrote:If he starts chanting and waving his hands

There are feats for that.

What, you mean Still/Silent? If my DM ever said, "hey, you just got charmed and you never had a chance to do jack shit about it, because he cast it without doing anything at all to make you suspicious and his DC is high enough that you auto-fail your save", I would stab my DM in the face.

And anyway. If you waited that long. It's too late.

Fucking initiative, how does that work?

Again: a game which has mind control that interacts with the combat mini-game needs to interact with the combat mini-game. Meaning, one guy cannot say "I cast charm!" and when the other guy responds, "well, I fucking stab him", the DM cannot say, "nope, too late, he's already cast it".

I mean, you may as well ask, "do you stab everyone you see who is carrying a sword?". Because with something as dumb as Quick Draw, those guys can totally kill you too, and I guess they get to say "by the time you notice him pulling his sword and stabbing your lungs, it's too late.

And what about that guy a friend of yours introduces as his "Friend Dumbledore the Wizard", old friend, new friend, whatever, he is a wizard better kill him!

It means I fucking watch him, because wizards are dangerous, and because of the existence of mind-controlling magic, they can have anyone say they're an old friend. If he drinks tea and tells funny jokes, that's cool. If he says alakazam and makes hoodoo motions, I stab him.

The problem is that you are arguing for a system where drinking tea and telling funny jokes IS casting a charm spell. Which means that any innocent social encounter can turn into "give me your pants, right now, because I want them."

PhoneLobster wrote:a guy spending the whole thing telling you flat out that it is BAD for it to be EASIER to get BETTER things

I guess you did say that, I just assumed there was some nuance because of how bizarre the results of that are. Ok, so you actually do want a social system where the only thing that matters is the end reward, so scamming a noble out of relatively small change is harder than talking an entire poor village into committing suicide so you can have their stuff.

In that case, I don't think there's anything more to discuss. I'd never use it, I don't know who would, but I wish you luck with your bizarro-world social kombat system.

violence in the media wrote: Though, the highest goal I think would be making the social system not a low risk/high reward mechanic that is also largely a single-person affair that often works at odds with what the rest of the PCs may want to do.

My ideal goal would be to make Diplomacy a low risk/low reward skill, just like 75% of skills in D&D (e.g. nobody gives a shit if your character can automatically pass Knowledge (the planes) checks or Balance checks or Use Rope checks or Handle Animal checks or...).

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Skills should not be super-powers.

Ice9 wrote:

PhoneLobster wrote:a guy spending the whole thing telling you flat out that it is BAD for it to be EASIER to get BETTER things

I guess you did say that, I just assumed there was some nuance because of how bizarre the results of that are. Ok, so you actually do want a social system where the only thing that matters is the end reward, so scamming a noble out of relatively small change is harder than talking an entire poor village into committing suicide so you can have their stuff.

In that case, I don't think there's anything more to discuss. I'd never use it, I don't know who would, but I wish you luck with your bizarro-world social kombat system.

Actually, it's really easy to have that in a way that makes sense.

All you need is for the modifers for level to be larger than for subjective value.

So the level 1 Commoner DC is 15+his level, and the Rich Noble is DC 10+level, but because you have to be level 6 or higher to have enough money for 1gp to be that worthless, the DC for more stuff is still higher.

Obviously if you don't have to be level 6 to be that rich, then it's level appropriate to get as many gold pieces as you want, so who gives a fuck.

Still not producing any result I'd want. I seriously do want "find a rich guy, scam him into giving you a few coins" to be an easier money-making method than "find a hundred peasants, convince them all to commit suicide, collect their meager possessions". I think I'm not alone in this.

I don't see a balance issue here, any more than I see a balance issue with the fact that plundering the recently discovered ruins of a great city gives you more of a reward than going to the swamp and fighting hundreds of giant insects - even if the insects are actually more deadly than whatever you face in the ruins. You get loot by doing effective shit, not by doing any random shit.

But if you award XP for grinding giant bugs, feel free to also grant XP for starting random peasant suicide cults. There, now it has a purpose.

I think that getting people to do shit shouldn't be tied to things like their levels or the objective value or difficulty of the request at all.

I seriously think that it should be harder to convince Scrooge McDuck to loan you twenty dollars than it is for Launchpad even though it objectively 'hurts' Launchpad more than Scrooge.. This cannot be replicated by anything like social credit or worth DCs or any of that crap.

A diplomacy system that does not take into account the person's personality, their perceived relationship with you, and how much they do or do not want to do the task is doomed to failure. And yes, this does mean that Captain Jack Sparrow will sometimes turn down 10,000 gold pieces for his pistol but will give it to you for free if you ask for it after he shoots Captain Barbossa. This also means that sometimes you can convince Jasmine's father to give you Agrabah with a parade and a song. So fucking what?

Lago PARANOIA wrote:A diplomacy system that does not take into account the person's personality, their perceived relationship with you, and how much they do or do not want to do the task is doomed to failure. And yes, this does mean that Captain Jack Sparrow will sometimes turn down 10,000 gold pieces for his pistol but will give it to you for free if you ask for it after he shoots Captain Barbossa. This also means that sometimes you can convince Jasmine's father to give you Agrabah with a parade and a song. So fucking what?

How would you even begin to do this without a list of "modifiers" that filled a book on their own?

Archmage wrote:How would you even begin to do this without a list of "modifiers" that filled a book on their own?

Tie it to other subsystems, incorporate the rules in statblocks for creatures ('greedy' people are harder to part their money from), and the like. That will do wonders. It won't be the size of the Climb skill from 3E, likely about five to ten pages, but it's not this hyperbolic thickness everyone claims it to be. And really, for something as important as the social system, I am OK with this.

Ice9 wrote:Still not producing any result I'd want. I seriously do want "find a rich guy, scam him into giving you a few coins" to be an easier money-making method than "find a hundred peasants, convince them all to commit suicide, collect their meager possessions". I think I'm not alone in this.

Do you mean harder instead of easier?

Or perhaps do not want instead of do?

Either way, it's not actually easier, because to do that, you still have to find 100 peasants, win 100 checks, and then sell all their shit.

That sounds like a lot of fucking work for a slightly easier DC, and it takes more IC time, and more work by the player.

Course, you whined about how it didn't make sense earlier, not how it produces results you don't want, so I addressed the complaint you made.

No one doubts you can keep coming up with complaints no matter what kind of diplomacy system people suggest. My favorite is the "everyone has these subclasses, and you can change them to other subclasses, and they all have noticeable effects" where greedy and fearful are subclasses, but fucking helpful (to you) is not. We talked about it berfore.

But some dumbass posting above just decided that because a diplomacy system that doesn't suck would take up to much space in the book, and therefore must be terrible.

Kaelik wrote:Do you mean harder instead of easier?

Or perhaps do not want instead of do?

Either way, it's not actually easier, because to do that, you still have to find 100 peasants, win 100 checks, and then sell all their shit.

That sounds like a lot of fucking work for a slightly easier DC, and it takes more IC time, and more work by the player.

Course, you whined about how it didn't make sense earlier, not how it produces results you don't want, so I addressed the complaint you made.

Yes, the DC for the rich guy should be lower. Why is that even a question?

I'm not questioning whether you could make a system where it's harder, I'm saying I don't want to play with that system. I mean, you could make a system where slapping people with a glove is more deadly than stabbing them, and have it be internally consistent, but it would still be stupid.

No one doubts you can keep coming up with complaints no matter what kind of diplomacy system people suggest. My favorite is the "everyone has these subclasses, and you can change them to other subclasses, and they all have noticeable effects" where greedy and fearful are subclasses, but fucking helpful (to you) is not. We talked about it berfore.

That's not something I've said. I think Lago has a point with Scrooge, but I admit it could be yet more modifiers to keep track of.

However, I don't think it necessarily has to be. You simply have to define the effect categories in terms of how much the target is disinclined to do the thing, rather than how much it objectively hurts them. So for a generic rich guy to give you a few coins, it might fall into the "minor inconvenience" category. For Scrooge, it falls into the "violate a deeply held belief" category, and is thus a lot harder.

Yeah, this means that - *gasp* *horror* the MC gets to modify the difficulty by picking what kind of personality the target has. I know that to some people here, such a system is akin to bathing in sulfuric acid. But I've found that with non-asshole MCs it isn't an issue, and asshole MCs will find other ways to ruin a game.

virgil wrote:

Archmage wrote:How would you even begin to do this without a list of "modifiers" that filled a book on their own?

Tie it to other subsystems, incorporate the rules in statblocks for creatures ('greedy' people are harder to part their money from), and the like. That will do wonders. It won't be the size of the Climb skill from 3E, likely about five to ten pages, but it's not this hyperbolic thickness everyone claims it to be. And really, for something as important as the social system, I am OK with this.

I like the idea of having personality traits be part of the statblock and have some sort of mechanical interaction with the rest of the system. Monsters could have a default set, but with an explicit statement that the MC can change them. Or maybe you could just let PCs/NPCs have a few things listed as "off the table" for anything other than long-term dedicated efforts of diplomacy?

PoliteNewb wrote:If my DM ever said

So Oberoni with a face stabbing and also the convenient forgetfulness that you get a saving throw to pretend the DM was being a total dick to you rather than using some rather expensive sub optimal rules options to put your character in a defeat state far less terrible than most.

All so you don't have to address the basic point. Any wizard might be a charming wizard and if you don't kill all wizards that get within charm range of you your "I kill all wizards to preemptively prevent charm!" line is in fact either a LIE or you are just really bad at figuring out when and how to do that.

Nice. You are arguing honestly aren't you.

Fucking initiative, how does that work?

... in such a way as enable any wizard within charm range of you to potentially cast charm on you before you even have an action?

I mean whut?

Again: a game which has mind control that interacts with the combat mini-game needs to interact with the combat mini-game. Meaning, one guy cannot say "I cast charm!" and when the other guy responds, "well, I fucking stab him", the DM cannot say, "nope, too late, he's already cast it".

Er. No. The thing about "the combat mini game" and actions in it, is you don't ALWAYS get to interrupt ALL OF THEM with "I STAB HIM FIRST HUR HUR HUR". I mean yes if charm happens in combat time... er... which it does... and uses combat mechanics... which um, it does... you CAN respond to it with other combat actions ... which you CAN... but you do NOT get to say "I fucking stab him first". SOMETIMES you win your initiative and do so. But really. What sort of acid trip are you even going on here.

I mean, you may as well ask, "do you stab everyone you see who is carrying a sword?".

Well actually I'd ask why you don't kill anyone who tries to make friends with you IN REAL LIFE a world with both precedent and MUCH more punishing mechanics for how VERY easy it is for friends to leverage your trust into murder and theft.

But the sword thing is good too. I mean if someone walked toward me with a sword in hand I'd be pretty leery. Much more so than if they walked towards me saying "Yay, lets be friends!"

If he drinks tea and tells funny jokes, that's cool. If he says alakazam and makes hoodoo motions, I stab him.

Hate to say it. Sounds like you just fell for the non-magical charm mechanic you were using the magical charm mechanic as an example of why you would murder everyone who tries to make non magical friends with you with. I mean that's even basically diplomacy you described there. You just got diplomacy charmed. And you seem to NOT be stabbing him in the face for trying it.

Keep your argument straight, now your using it carelessly and contridicting your basic goals.

any innocent social encounter can turn into "give me your pants, right now, because I want them."

Again a misrepresentation. Without better explanation THAT precise result will require the seduction flavored charm defeat. Got a problem with that?

So here's a question: In an E6 environment (DnD 3e/3.5/Tome, levels 1-6, etc etc), how would you rewrite the Diplomacy skill from the ground up so that it's a skill you want to put ranks in if talking is your thing, but not make it so good that you have to have ranks in it or you're a sucker.

I'm tinkering about with an E6 SRD thing, and so this is relevant to my project.

I've already presented my hotpatch, although it's also tempting to just jetison Diplomacy entirely and use solely Bluff, Intimidate and Gather Info as the social skills.

Lokathor wrote:So here's a question: In an E6 environment (DnD 3e/3.5/Tome, levels 1-6, etc etc), how would you rewrite the Diplomacy skill from the ground up so that it's a skill you want to put ranks in if talking is your thing, but not make it so good that you have to have ranks in it or you're a sucker.

I'm tinkering about with an E6 SRD thing, and so this is relevant to my project.

Here's the problem with fixing Diplomacy for E6:

• 9 ranks
  +6 synergy from Bluff, Sense Motive, Knowledge Nobility
  +2 Half Elf
  +3 Circlet of Persuasion
  ---
  +20 bonus

If you decide to specialize in Diplomacy, then you can literally have a 20 point bonus to your roll over another character with the same charisma that did not similarly specialize. You could have it be much much more than that even, I hadn't spent a single feat or used any buff spells. There is no DC you could theoretically set that would be possible for one of those characters to beat that would be possible for the other character to fail. Therefore, no conceivable Diplomacy test that could possibly output positive results could ever fail to give those positive results for the diplomancer. The numbers are just too big.

The only way you're going to get anything to function at all through the lens of 3e's skill system (even with the E6 limiter) is to pass it through the filter of Aid Another. We're talking about having actions with DCs of 15, 20, 25, 30, etc. that simply add +2, +3, +4, etc. to the actual NPC response roll. It's more rolls than an actually elegant system would need, but without the bonus difference smoothing of the two tiered roll, the diplomancers are going to walk all over everything unless you decide that people with mortal levels of diplomacy are unable to avoid combat with innkeepers.

-Username17

So, the skill might be something like...

New Diplomacy wrote:Check: After 1d10 minutes of speaking with your target, you roll a Diplomacy check (see table for DC) and the MC rolls a new NPC Reaction Roll for the target. If you make your diplomacy roll you get a +2 on the Reaction Roll, with an additional +1 for every 5 points that you beat your DC by. If you fail your diplomacy check you take a -2 on the Reaction roll, with an additional -1 for every 5 points that you failed by.

Current Attitude	DC
Hostile	25
Unfriendly	20
Indifferent	15
Friendly	10
Helpful	5

Then, of course, we'd just need rules for actual Reaction Rolls, which don't appear to be in the SRD >_>

FrankTrollman wrote:Here's the problem with fixing Diplomacy for E6:

I'm not saying anything other than e6 sucks here. So no need for anyone to read any further point into this...

...but isn't basically that same thing the problem with EVERYTHING in E6.