Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Tempus665 12-20-04, 01:33 AM	:rant: I realize this is a daring post, but time and again I am reminded of how powergaming is killing the game. I know it's generally accepted that powergaming is 'just one way to play the game', but I disagree. It may be an enjoyable way to play for some (or most?) people, but as a roleplayer, whenever I talk (be it through the internet or face to face) to powergamers I get frustrated by the lack of creativity and insight they show. WotC allows their game, or rather our game, to be destroyed by not speaking out against this, by not explaining to players that powergaming is in fact not the right way to play. (Do I get hit for saying that?) They even encourage powergaming by having the Character Optimization boards - which I believe is the most visited sub-forum of the WotC boards, which probably means that many of the current D&D players are powergamers, which is probably why WotC (or Hasbro, whatever) encourages powergaming anyway. I know I am just one voice, and that I cannot expect WotC to remove this thorn out of my side (because, frankly, I know I'm a minority). I don't even mind, I just wanted to spill my guts on this one.
The_Dark_One 12-20-04, 02:14 AM	I was going to answer this in a completely different way; I then realized that by quoting your post and picking it apart piece by piece that I would be acting like a pompous jackass. So, I decided to just say that powergaming is not killing the game, because the game is clearly not dying. It may be evolving in a direction that you don't like, but that is hardly the same thing as dying. The game has different elements and needs all facets of its existance to remain the game we know and (presumably) love. Some element of min-maxing is a necessary part of a D&D game. We play the game to play HEROES . If our desire was to play scholars that fainted at the sight of one goblin, we'd be playing Call of Cthulu. So, to get the capabilities that a hero needs, we must wade into the realm of the powergamer. This does not mean that we are playing cardboard cuttout characters with no name or personality. Powerful characters are not boring. Neutering your character in the name of roleplaying does not make for an interesting in-game persona. I suppose my point is that I believe that balance between the elements of a good game is vitally important. A game with all rules and no story is just Monopoly with killing. On the other hand, without the rules that make it a game, its just you sitting around and listening to the DM tell a story. Either is good (Player One : "You landed on Boardwalk and I have a hotel. Pay me" Player Two: [Drawing his greatax] "Taste cold steel"). To be the best at this game, you must learn from both the role-player and the power gamer. They both have much to teach us. Those of us who truly enjoy role-playing (I am one of those), must not neglect our ability to create a character that can survive the game (the most interesting character is pretty boring after his entrails are pulled out by kobolds and wrapped around a tree :shocked: ). Oh, the Optimization Boards also keep the character tweaking isolated to a specific place. That way, if you like that sort of thing, you can find it. If there wasn't a forum for that sort of thing, it would be everywhere . I don't think you want that. ;) Note that I haven't said any of this with the desire to offend. It probably came out that way. If so, I appologize. Also note that you aren't allowed to get mad, because I threw in this smiley ;)
Pinch 12-20-04, 03:02 AM	The natural rebuttal to your argument is the depiction of a game where a player's acting ability replaces his charisma score, stats become meaningless, and everyone plays a blind, deaf, suicidal parapalegic kobold that hobbles around in its three-wheeled cart because it will be a 'roleplaying challenge.' The players become a pack of mewling kittens being lead through the DM's agonizingly boring story, then quit at 5th level because things are 'getting out of hand' after they get ahold of the amazing artifact +1 Sword. But I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is not the type of game you play, and thus ask that you do the same and not label players who are different from you with pejoratives. I write some of the most complex, story-intensive scenarios of any DM i've ever met, and yet you would still no doubt call me a Powergamer because I enjoy thrilling, intensive combats as well. Fundamentally D&D is about fighting monsters, collecting treasure, and leveling up. Sorry, but its the truth. Initially any story that was developed was purely to facilitate this; to stipulate that these elements must be pushed aside or excluded in order to play 'true' D&D is ludicrous as well as ignorant. I think every player out there has been in a game filled with lackluster characters, boring stories, and token villians; in such a game the mechanics are all we have to turn to. No matter how average a game may be, I can always derive some enjoyment from building another alter ego and watching him/her attain ever increasing heights. Even the best storyteller-DM can't deliver a Tolkien-level story in every session. And no matter how much you and other 'roleplayers' may say otherwise, character building IS roleplaying. Powergamers base their character's actions on their stats and skills, and thus play someone different from themselves. 'Roleplayers' ignore stats and instead base the character's actions on the player's abilities; and thats not actually roleplaying at all. 'Powergaming' and 'Roleplaying' are not polar opposites, they are two sides of the same coin. Both are an integral part of the game, and to reject one in favor of the other is a rejection of the game itself.
Tempus665 12-20-04, 03:04 AM	Note that I haven't said any of this with the desire to offend. It probably came out that way. If so, I appologize. Also note that you aren't aloowed to get mad, because I threw in this smiley ;) I'm not easily offended - I expect other people not to get offended when I say something they don't like, and I don't get offended when others say things I don't like. But your answer makes perfect sense, it was the last thing I'd expected. :)
allenchan 12-20-04, 03:05 AM	Im a firm believer you can min/max a character and still have wonderful roleplay, cause I consider myself both. After all, since when did roleplaying mean playing crappy under-achieving weaklings? The two find perfect harmony in customization, which is what I think the game is all about. And why would WotC care? In fact, I believe they have admitted Character Optimization boards to check to see if things need to be errated or are broken. In any case, if you dont mind, why are you ranting? :P
e-z0r 12-20-04, 03:07 AM	Another view: How is it destroying your game if some people are enjoying their game differently than you are? The way I see it, why would any of the min/maxing of other players get to your gaming table if you don't like min/maxing? I sometimes hate the way people seem to feel that if other people are having fun in a way that the others feel differently about, it's somehow completely terrible. Even if it doesn't affect you at all.
Tempus665 12-20-04, 03:15 AM	The thing is, in many cases that I know of, powergaming (although they don't call it that) is considered more important than roleplaying. While I do agree that some optimization is called for, I don't feel it's more important than the roleplaying aspect of the game. If you have a really mechanically great character that you cannot justify in-game, what's the use?
Mister Mayhem 12-20-04, 03:36 AM	So, what you are saying is that anyone who enjoys a different aspect of D&D than the one you happen to enjoy most is doing it wrong?
Razoreface 12-20-04, 03:47 AM	Powerful characters are not boring. They can actually get to be boring. With my highest level games, I tended to get bored with the characters, and the not really being in any specific danger. Neutering your character in the name of roleplaying does not make for an interesting in-game persona. If you do it right.. but not because one follows from the other. You can have a wang-less character who's completely fun, or one that's just as boring as one that's nothing further than an ultra-optimized ball of numbers. Or you can have an ultra-optimized ball of numbers attached to a really fun character... like Pinch said, though I disagree with what he said about roleplaying, powergaming and roleplaying aren't mutually exclusive. I think that's why there's a character optimization forum and a character development forum. A game with all rules and no story is just Monopoly with killing. Doesn't Monopoly always have killing? :confused: If you have a really mechanically great character that you cannot justify in-game, what's the use? If you're good enough at minmaxing and powergaming, there's almost nothing you can't justify to yourself. :D
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-20-04, 04:51 AM	If you go into the game saying "Build me an effective archer, with the following concept..." that's ok. Building a good mechanical representation of your character is fine. And it's ok to try to make your character the best he can be. If however start with the mechanics, and then try to design a character concept to justify it... well that sucks, and that is what's killing the game. The character is lost in this regard, and all that is important is the set of numbers. In this case, you aren't looking to optimize a concept, but rather to create mechanics that are the concept. You have no concept when you walk in and are simply looking to twink something out. Basically someone could hand you the weirdest and nonfunctional character for the game world and you'd play him as long as the pluses are bigger than everyone elses. And if the DM is dumb enough to allow it, you'll also probably ruin the campaign too, just with the silliness and stupidity of the character. And that's problematic, because you end up with purely stupid crap, like a guy with PrCs from three differetn campaign settings, or an anthromorphic whale or some other garbage that has no place at the gaming table. That's the point where min/maxing is an insult to the game.
Asche 12-20-04, 05:15 AM	Hmm, not an easy question... I dont think powergaming and character optimization are mutually exclusive with roleplaying. We run a somewhat high level of powergaming in my group, yet I make sure its a story driven environment, and theres little exp to be had through fighting. However, my players love coming up with a character concept and then try to use 20 levels of various classes and PrCs to build a completely legal, yet powerful version of said character. Concepts such as a Witchhunter, who consisted of 5 classes total, to have the ability to fire pistols, a repeating crossbow, bless weapons and smite the infidels were very roleplaying, yet also powerful in game terms. Important is whether the players have fun, and around CR 7 and up, often you really do need some power behind the chars to beat an even encounter
Lord_Anthrax 12-20-04, 05:46 AM	WotC allows their game, or rather our game, to be destroyed by not speaking out against this, by not explaining to players that powergaming is in fact not the right way to play. It is if that's how you choose to play. If I want to do a game where everyone's character is a 1st-Level Commoner, I can. If I want to do a game where everyone has maximum stats and 5 character classes jammed together into a single class, I can. There is no right or wrong way to play. It's part of what makes the game so wonderful. As long as everyone is having fun, it doesn't matter. And it's on this philosophy that D&D has grown and will continue to grow, not this "my way or no way" philosophy certain snooty gamers seem to espouse...
mhacdebhandia 12-20-04, 05:49 AM	It's absolutely hilarious that people still think there is any such thing as the wrong non-criminal way to have fun! Wizards shouldn't tell their player base that powergaming is wrong because there's nothing wrong with it. If it's not how you like to play, and if you get too frustrated talking to powergamers/character optimisers/people who have wrongfun, don't play that way or talk to them. Pretty simple.
mhacdebhandia 12-20-04, 06:11 AM	Originally Posted by Archtyrant Terevoth If however start with the mechanics, and then try to design a character concept to justify it... well that sucks, and that is what's killing the game.The mating cry of the grognard? No-one is killing the game. These are Brand Manager Charles Ryan's thoughts. The salient points: 2004 was the best year ever for D&D. There were 2 million regular players per month in 1999, when Wizards commissioned the big survey. Since Third Edition's release that number has doubled to 4 million players per month. This means that new players are entering the hobby faster than old ones are leaving.Oh, I guess you meant that the kind of game you like to play is dying? Aww. Well, let me ask you: how is crying that the sky is falling instead of opening other kinds of players' eyes to the wonders of your playstyle helping?
angryman 12-20-04, 06:25 AM	I agree with Tempus665, at least partially. However, the tend has always been towards minmaxing. The internet just makes this easier. 3rd edition also makes it easier. The vast amount of options and 3rd party publications allows for almost any combination, no matter how broken. This is where the skill and firm hand of the DM comes in. Regardless of how munchy a character is, you can still say NO. No hulking hurlers, AC 70 monks, sword of true strike silliness. If the problem persists, kick 'em out of your game. I actually admire your saying that, Tempus. Most people would just let it lie, or accept it.
eclipticavatar 12-20-04, 06:29 AM	This is a pretty funny thread. "If you don't play my way, your wrong!"
Orochi_Furor 12-20-04, 07:37 AM	I think you're looking at things the wrong way, not just in the "Right" or "Wrong" playing style way, but also in what you think players fall into for catagories. Instead of just two sides, you either Roleplay or Rollplay, think about it like this. Roleplayer: someone who makes a character to play out that characters feelings, to have dramatic stories and confrontasions both combat and noncombat. Min/Maxer: someone who wants to get the best out of the character they make, for what ever reason. Hack&Slasher: Someone who just wants to kill, kill, kill. That guy looks at me wrong, I kill him. I'm stronger then that guy, kill him. I'm evil, kill everything. Both Roleplayers and Min/Maxers can have fun together, someone can even be of both affiliations. Its when you get a hack&slash Min/Maxer that you need to worry, they don't care about story or reasons for a character to have what they have, just that its more powerfull. Unfortunetly Hack&Slashers will often be Min/Maxers just because they Need to be as strong as posible to kill everything and fit their ego. You could just as easily have a Roleplayer who just plays for playing his characters emotions as one who plays his character while making him as strong as he can for his concept. You could have a Min/Maxer who just wants to play his character how he created him, without being Hack&slash kill everything or dramatic Roleplayer. You could have a Hack&Slash who Min/Maxes his character to kill everything, or one who doesn't have a clue about creating a character, though these people often get themselves killed fast ingame. No matter if you play online or in person, you should sit down with your DM and set a Roleplay:Hack&Slash level. While you could easily fit into both catagories, most of the time a pure Hack&Slash person can only have fun rolling dice and hearing the DM say "You killed it". While on the other hand a pure Roleplaying person can have just as much fun if not more interacting with other PCs and NPCs and being social. I think you just need to look out for the bad roleplayers, Min/Maxer or Hack&Slasher. The "I just hit #lvl so now I need to go and get this PRC to give my character *ability because he needs to be the best $charater type" is bad but not nearly as bad as "I'm going full barbarian because they get mad and break stuff." So long as people play with like-minded people then everything is ok, its when you mix drasticly different playing styles that things can go bad. On a side note, I'd just like to say in reply to some of the responses here I've DMed almost every game I've been in with two entirely different groups and have almost never gotten over 10th level even after over a year or so of playing(mostly 2ed though). Also no matter how good your Bluff/Diplomacy skills are, if you say stupid things to NPCs or have a hard time making sense in critical moments, my NPCs will show it. Even a roll of 20+15 for such skills won't sugarcoat a "You're an idiot" to a paladin/king. I also give bonus XP to good roleplayers/thinkers, this is a game of imagination, people who are good at that sort of thing get rewards. No one I've played with has ever had a problem with this, and I assure you none of them save maybe two were all that great at good roleplay. Just makes them strive harder to be creative, and I think thats a good thing. I've also had my share of dealing with Hack&Slash players, one in nearly half the games I've ran, just make sure you're party puts them into the "Shut up unless spoken to and do your job in combat role," since these people don't usualy like social situations you just train them into an attack dog and things work out fine, heh.
Vaelan 12-20-04, 07:48 AM	So everyone that visists the Character Optimization boards is a "powergamer" and lacks creativity and insight? Blanket statements and generalizations are often quite foolish. Sure, you'll find a lot of "powergamers" that don't care about roleplaying at all. That doesn't mean that everyone who wants to play a capable character is the same. That is called "stereotyping" and is generally frowned upon by rational beings. They even encourage powergaming by having the Character Optimization boards... The original intent behind the CO boards was to provide a place for people to get advice on how to optimize their character. Roleplaying and optimization are not mutually exclusive. It is actually possible to make a character that is mechanically powerful and an interesting person in and of themselves. In my opinion, the best players embrace both aspects of the game. If however start with the mechanics, and then try to design a character concept to justify it... well that sucks, and that is what's killing the game. Substituting mechanics for roleplaying is the problem. The order in which one approaches the creative process is wholly irrelevant. I, for one, don't care which part of the character was thought up first as long as the character is interesting in and of itself(beyond the mechanics) and has some sort of internal consistency. Personally, I think narrow-minded people will do more damage to this game than those who approach the creation of their characters in a different, but equally viable, manner. Of course, the whole approach this thread takes is fairly ridiculous. If you don't like how some people play, don't play with them. Find a group of people that play the way you prefer and play with them. No one is going to change their mind about how they play just because you spout nonsense like "You're killing my game! :weep:" so just leave them to their game and stick to yours.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-20-04, 08:23 AM	The only thing that's encouraging min-maxing is clear rules. Seriously. Back in the old days (2E, 1E, OD&D, etc), the rules were in incomprehensible gordian knot that few, if any, could make sense out of. So, back then, the rules simply worked how the DM told you they did, since they were so vague, you needed a frame of reference, and the DM was perhaps the best frame. However, things are clearer, things work together better, and so forth. Now, anyone can look at what does what, and min-max, in most cases without a DM's whim turning it down, because there is less room for interpretation. Now, ther is good an bad with that. I have a much easier time DMing 3E than I did earlier editions. The fights go a bit quicker, becaue I don't have to look at a chart every attack that is rolled, I can easily tinker with monsters if I want to give my players a unique challenge, and so forth. The only real min-max problems I can see are simply mechanical things that work oddly. (for example: How skil points are calculated when multiclassing, saves while multiclassing, putting all the good abilities in the first 5-10 levels of base classes, prestige classes not balanced with the fact that if you take 10 levels of the class, you're giving up the last 10 levels of something else, prestige classes being too easy to qualify for, etc.) I don't think min-maxing is "killing" D&D, if it did, D&D would be dead. Plain and simple. But the side effect of clearer rules is more min-maxing. (and the side effect of vague rules is out and out cheating. )
Lord_Anthrax 12-20-04, 09:26 AM	On a sidenote, why not petition for a Roleplaying board to share tips for portraying a character or creating interesting N/PC's?
ORC_Paradox 12-20-04, 09:44 AM	Already got one. The companion is the "Character Development" board. I seriously doubt people look at D&D and think "Oh good! My desire for improvised acting will be fufilled!" No, almost everyone starts D&D with "Bash the monster, win the treasure, save the day". There was a product (Diablo 2...) that had in the forward (Paraphrasing) "... I finally got it. D&D is about accumulation."
Zherog 12-20-04, 10:00 AM	On a sidenote, why not petition for a Roleplaying board to share tips for portraying a character or creating interesting N/PC's? There's already one, called Character Development. It's right next to Character Op on the list. Tempus: One thing that to consider... not everybody who makes up builds like the Hulking Hurler who can do millions of damage a round actually plays those characters. Sometimes, the fun is simply in making the character. A fix for a loophole can't be devised until the loophole is discovered. Oftentimes, the best way to demonstrate the brokenness of a loophole is to exploit it to ridiculous lengths. And as others have pointed out, there's nothing mutually exclusive between optimization and roleplay. In fact, one of the best roleplayers I've ever gamed with is also pretty damn good at min/maxing his character.
Thorak 12-20-04, 10:11 AM	Character optimization is an important part of the game. Because, frankly, people optimize themselves. You don't see people who take the first 2 years of an MD program, then a couple years of law, then a couple more years of astrophysics, followed up by some nice relaxing anthropology to round themselves out. Because at the end of that, they've wasted tons of time and money and quite possibly don't have a degree to show for it. No, people choose what they want to be and do what they can to get there. People are self-optimizing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with optimizing your character. That said, if you've got more than one "thing" going on with your character racially, you're probably a horrible little munchkin. By "thing" I mean template, monstrous race, or subrace. I say this because, while it's possibly to figure out a Feral human, or a Drow, it's almost impossible to figure out and reasonably play a Feral Insectile Half-dragon Drow. There's just too much going on. Not to mention, the character is hideously boring. Nobody will see the deeper emotional problems your character has, even if you're up to the RP challenge, because they're too busy noticing that you're a bug-dragon monster.
Cantankerous 12-20-04, 10:56 AM	Look, I'm one of those DM's who's ALL about Role Playing. I utterly dispise power gaming and roll playing, but My way is not the only or the best way to play this game. It is simply my way. Optimizers are not ruining the game. They are not hurting the game. They are not bringing great new things to the game and they are not saving the game either. But, the same can be as honestly and easily said of Role Players. The crowd that wants optmization is well within their rights. Their way is not worse than mine. It is not better either. It is only alternate to my own. So what? Isshia
Lady Danyon Dehlmari 12-20-04, 11:36 AM	:rant: I realize this is a daring post, but time and again I am reminded of how powergaming is killing the game. I know it's generally accepted that powergaming is 'just one way to play the game', but I disagree. It may be an enjoyable way to play for some (or most?) people, but as a roleplayer, whenever I talk (be it through the internet or face to face) to powergamers I get frustrated by the lack of creativity and insight they show. I get frusturated sometimes with the same thing. OTOH, I've met some who powergame that have really gotten creative story wise. I prefer High Level campaigns, and the RP is very important to me. I've also met Roleplayers who don't care enough about the numbers. I prefer both the numbers and the RP. Some powergamers will put the numbers first and fit the RP in last. I tend to come up with a basic concept and fit the numbers to it. WotC allows their game, or rather our game, to be destroyed by not speaking out against this, by not explaining to players that powergaming is in fact not the right way to play. (Do I get hit for saying that?) They even encourage powergaming by having the Character Optimization boards - which I believe is the most visited sub-forum of the WotC boards, which probably means that many of the current D&D players are powergamers, which is probably why WotC (or Hasbro, whatever) encourages powergaming anyway. Problem with this, is that if Wizards starts to tell people how they should or must play, it becomes a little too dogmatic. The game in its very nature is designed to be flexible to accomadate individual styles. Most gamers I know fall into the middle category as compared to the fanatics of Powergaming and RP. ~Danyon
R-man 12-20-04, 11:55 AM	I agree with many of the above posts, though I especially agree that I don't care for a player to come up with a good build and then make his concept fit the build I prefer to see a concept first followed by a good build that allows the player to realize his vision. Having said that D&D isn't perfect, it is better then anything else out there in my opinion but not perfect. I would like to see experience further divorced from just killing monsters. Yes I realize that D&D has already done so to some extent. But I would like to see more concrete practical rules for this. I will be using a house-rule in my own campaign shortly to try to do this...don't know if it will work, but hey if it doesn't I will lose the rule. :D All skill checks earn experience equal to the DC of the skill check. Basic concept that will allow a Bard or Rogue to really supplement their XP. In some campaigns probably this would be an absurd rule. In my very anti-Bard and Rogue group it is incentive for the classes to see more play. More importantly to see more use of Social skill use, something that is sadly lacking in the group due to some extremely good roleplayers (one of whom is working in the movie industry here in BC) using their real world good social skills to make up for their PC's not so good social skills. As others have said however if your group is having fun then you are doing it right, if you are not having fun then you need to change the rules or possibly the game system to one that will allow you to enjoy yourself. That is the point afterall. :D
was_fired 12-20-04, 12:31 PM	"I expect players to think.* Tactics are a good idea.* Min/maxing is often a good thing.* It doesn't matter how perfect a character is for role-playing if he can't survive the first roll in a combat.", expectation five found on my campaigns information site for new players. I am a powergamer and a min/maxer. Thankfully I DM most of the time so this means that I tend to just know the rules better than most of my players. Without a nearly complete knowledge about the lines of balance in the game there is no way to safely allow new content. If you do know where these lines stand then you are free to expand the game however you desire since you know what limits these expansions. For instance recently a half-dragon battle sorcerer (the class looks a little too good, but I picked these guys up from another DM so I have to deal with it) in my game died and was reincarnated. The result was a silver dragon wyrming without the hitdice and without acid immunity. I am fairly sure this will prove balanced, but even if it is slightly too good I trust that it won't be too good. If a player wanted to write a new feat or spell odds are I could spot a broken one. It would also get checked out on the boards since I know that I am far from the best min/maxer out there. However I tend to have enough faith in my abilities to make monsters on the fly while giving them their correct CR. Min/Maxing is the art of understanding a creations strengths and weaknesses, and then evaluating if the final result is too strong, too weak, or just right.
Roxlimn 12-20-04, 01:04 PM	There are many ways to show insight and creativity, Tempus665 than to develop an interesting character, and many ways to enjoy the game. So Mr. Greatsword Barbarian is enjoying the game by maxxing out his damage? So what? I believe that powergamers do the game a service by actually discovering the strangest ways you can "twink out" a character and in thus doing, reveal what the game system is really about. It's one thing if manipulating the game in esoteric ways yields you a powerful monstrosity. If they like playing with that, I've got nothing against it, and neither should you. They don't complain about "roleplayers" after all, so fair's, fair. On the other hand, manipulating the game in fairly obvious ways to maximize something is something everyone can do and I'm rather glad that we have enough people with mechanics on the brain who care enough about the RP aspect of it to match game mechanics with game concepts. Let's take THF and TWF, for example. Currently, the balance swings greatly in favor of THF, but that's OK with me. Having a great deal of large sword wielders is something that I think jibes with generic S&S flavors. If it were the other way around, I would have a big problem with it. To say it another way, powergamers improve the underlying mechanics for the rest of us who aren't as fanatical by exposing both the obvious (to them) and the weirdest possible combinations you can think of. On another tangent, powergaming is really a mix of people and styles. There's that guy who maxxes his Half Dragon Half Celestial, Half Fiend Half Elf, but there are also people who "powergame" to match the mechanics with the concept. It's one thing to want a character who's great with words and to roleplay him, but it's quite another to have a PC who actually has a great Diplomacy check modifier, which is the only way to make it work in-game and still be fair. Powergaming isn't just about exaggerating rule constructs to make ridiculous characters, it's also about using the current rules to get you the concept you want. In that sense, these people are just as much about the character concept as you are, except they express this partially through rule expression, and that's only natural and healthy for the game. The CO boards are, in a way, a representation of people's desire to understand the gaming mechanics to create a character that meets their ideas. How can that not be a good thing?
tehlwf 12-20-04, 01:42 PM	self censorship.
Ourph the Mingol 12-20-04, 01:44 PM	"I expect players to think.* Tactics are a good idea.* Min/maxing is often a good thing.* It doesn't matter how perfect a character is for role-playing if he can't survive the first roll in a combat.", expectation five found on my campaigns information site for new players. I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment. The problem, I have found, with SOME powergamers is when they focus their intellect solely on the out-of-game character building aspect of the game and fail to use their intellect for the in-game strategy and tactics that are part of the challenge of RPG combat. I love having smart players who know the rules and make interesting and smart choices during character creation. It's disappointing to see a creative and clever player use those talents ONLY in building a character with good numbers. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the poor quality amateur theatrics most people are talking about when they call for more "roleplay" in the game (IMO, roleplaying is more about thinking LIKE your character, rather than thinking AS or talking AS your character). So I couldn't care less whether that aspect of the hobby dies out or not. What I do care about is the loss of focus on player skill and player thinking when it comes to addressing in-game situations. Too many powergamers, I have found, wrack their brains building a very effective character, then leave those same brains at home when they come to the gaming table, depending on their great numbers to provide success rather than on creativity and thinking during the game. The only other problem I have noticed with powergaming is that often, not everyone in a group is equally dedicated to character optimization. Too often, this leads to imbalances in play that disrupt the campaign and sometimes the whole gaming group. The casual weekend gamer who doesn't want to spend hours going over every rulebook looking for the best feat/class/PrC combos should be able to play in a game with a dedicated powergamer without the disparity in power either leading to a campaign that's unchallenging for the powergamer or universally deadly for the casual gamer. Cooperation and compromise can easily make the two gamers compatible, but it does require that the powergamer be willing to forego always making the MOST powerful choice or taking the absolute BEST combos. I have been unfortunate enough to meet several gamers who were absolutely unwilling to do so in order to make a game that was fun for everyone, claiming that building anything other than the optimum character was not only completely unenjoyable for them, but stupid as well. :rolleyes: Powergamers need to realize that, while their preferred method of play is completely valid, not every campaign or every group is prepared to handle the full spectrum of powergaming and that compromises on both sides are sometimes necessary.
IceFractal 12-20-04, 02:23 PM	Don't want to get off-topic, but this thread brings up a rant I have: :rant: Ignoring the character's Diplomacy roll entirely in favor of roleplaying it out is like ignoring the character's strength of 8 because the player can bench press a lot of weight. That's not to say its not fun, or that a game played that way can't work, but its not the same as standard D&D and in some ways has more in common with LARPs. The only time it causes problems, generally, is when someone takes advantage of this by having high physical/low mental stats, because they know that its their own bluffing and diplomatic skills that will matter. It doesn't seem fair when the raging barbarian with a charisma of 4 can out bluff the charisma 20 bard. You might say this is number crunching but the fact remains that the bard sacrificed combat ability to be good at these skills and should thus be better at them than the afformentioned barbarian. The system I use is that the player's effort at roleplaying out the check is "multiplied" by the Diplomacy roll result. Playing it out to the best of your ability gets you the full result, doing exceptionally well gets you the result + a bonus, not really trying gets you a penalty, and saying something incredible dumb gets you a really big penalty. If you can beat that penalty though, you might indeed sugarcoat saying "You're stupid" to the king. He might assume you're joking, or say "Wait, you're right! I've been taking a foolish course of action, and my yes-men advisors were too timid to say anything!" And how is this unrealistic? People, IRL, who've really got charisma can get away with saying a lot of stuff that most people can't. I find that this helps because while someone can roleplay a normal charisma and a really low one, its really hard to simulate a really high charisma (or wisdom, or intelligence). That's why I also have the "Stupid Check". When a player is about to do something really stupid I secretly roll an Intelligence (stupidity, remembering something wrong), Wisdom (foolishness, failing to notice obvious clues), or Charisma (about to make a huge social blunder) check, and if it succeeds (DC varies by how stupid action is, the stupider the lower) then the player gets a warning that he's got a bad feeling about this, or whatever makes sense in the situation. My logic is that since you don't have to dodge a thrown die to make a reflex save, a Druid who's so in tune with everything he can tell what kind of food you've eaten for breakfast based on listening to your walk shouldn't make an obviously foolish mistake just because the player is busy eating pizza and not fully paying attention. I'm not saying its necessary to use this system, but if people are cheating the system by playing a tough, stupid character for combat purposes and roleplaying them as a smooth talker for social ones, then you might want to try it.
Korhal IV 12-20-04, 02:46 PM	There's already one, called Character Development. It's right next to Character Op on the list. Tempus: One thing that to consider... not everybody who makes up builds like the Hulking Hurler who can do millions of damage a round actually plays those characters. Sometimes, the fun is simply in making the character. Zherog has some great points here. WotC set up a min/max board and an RP board. Most days, the RP board has 3 visitors, and the min/max board has 53. :eek: I'm going to digress briefly - RP is individualized. Most people use homebrew game worlds, and therefore don't have a solid base of reference - in your world, gnomes may be jolly little fellows, in my world they may be the vile offspring of succubi and dwarves, existing for the sole purpose of corrupting mortal souls. It's really hard to get advice from you on how to play my gnome if you aren't starting from the same point. However, the mechanics are usually universal. Everyone (nearly) has the same reference point for AC, HP, fighter, cleric, ranger - etc. So when gamers congregate, as they do here, they start with whatever has the simplest reference point - "I once had a gnome with 21 AC at level 2!" "My monk made his Reflex against a frost wyrm's death throes - while it swallowed him!" And secondly, don't judge the actual games by the min/maxxed characters. I don't think a Hulking Hurler's ever been played, or a Feral Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale, except in the most deliberately silly campaigns. While some min/maxxers do have problems roleplaying (I know one who won't even come up with a new name for his characters! :mad: ), it's usually not representative of the whole.
Tempus665 12-20-04, 03:00 PM	I admit that I've been a little too black/white here, and most people have replied in a way that I appreciate. Thanks so far. The problem I have, and this is what made me create this thread, is that I've had experiences with more than a few people who don't give a rat's ass for roleplaying. They only care for min/maxing - not the story. I have taken great pains to create a campaign that was pretty close to perfect. The atmosphere was there, the story was there, the sub-plots were there, and it all took place in a rather low on magic items setting. (The players knew this in advance.) I had told the players this wouldn't be the hack 'n slash stuff we'd done in the past, this would be a campaign where the main thing done was roleplaying and everything had a reason. (Mind you, I don't mind a good battle, IMO it's an essential part of the game.) We had a good time, up till the point when one of the players started asking me when he would finally get a magic sword after every battle. I told him there would be none - at least not the standard +# weapons, and he got quite grumpy about it and stopped taking part in the story. This broke up that campaign in the end. This player decided to quit (just before I decided to tell him maybe this group wasn't the D&D group for him). No big deal, if it wasn't for his friend quiting also :( Anyway, now you may see where I'm coming from. I do realize that I should have said playing in a min/max only, story-less campaign would drive me crazy.
crazysamaritan 12-20-04, 03:27 PM	I'll be happy with the company! :D
Kursk 12-20-04, 11:49 PM	The only thing I see happening to the game is that it is changing from a P&P RPG to a "P&P computer game". Most people who play it don't have the faintest idea of what an RPG is. It's a shame. So many new chatacters die in my game because the player doesn't understand how to RP...
Ma'ElKoth 12-21-04, 12:01 AM	stupid double posts
Ma'ElKoth 12-21-04, 12:04 AM	Tempus: It really does sound like you just got hit by a bad player. It happens. Doesn't make the rest of us number-crunchers nasty people or bad RPers though. One question: did you tell him about the lack of magical weapons before hand? If he was playing a melee type in a group of spell-slingers he may have felt cheated, since the progressions assume that the PCs will possess magical items, and the spellcasting classes even further outshine the mundane ones. Either way he sounds like a whiner and you're better off without him.
Pinch 12-21-04, 12:04 AM	Okay, so here's my question: when you decided to lower the magic item content of your world, did you plan ahead accordingly, leaving out monsters with DR, assuming the PCs to be a lower CR than their level, etc? Most DMs who try to run low magic games don't seem to realize that magic items are integrated with the increase in CR; i.e. higher level players are assumed to have magic items, period. If I were playing in such a game, and we were advancing in levels with nary a magic item in sight, and the DM was still throwing CR-equivilent, DR-loaded monters at us, I would quit too, since the DM is clearly incompetent. There is a reason why 'low-magic' games rarely go beyond level 8 or so, because from that point on, if the PCs are lacking sufficient magic items the combats are almost guaranteed to be lethal. And yet again I must ask, why did you feel that in order to have a 'roleplaying' story-driven campaign, you needed to lower the amount of magic? This action never ceases to confound me no matter how many times I see it. Time and time again, the decision to lower/nerf magic is hidden behind an innocent veil of 'fostering good RP' when in fact it is simply the DM's way of avoiding having to actually learn how to play the game, as well as to prevent any sort of player intervention in his precious, precious story.
Ma'ElKoth 12-21-04, 12:08 AM	Time and time again, the decision to lower/nerf magic is hidden behind an innocent veil of 'fostering good RP' when in fact it is simply the DM's way of avoiding having to actually learn how to play the game, as well as to prevent any sort of player intervention in his precious, precious story. Or he may wish to simulate a grittier, (relatively) more realistic world ala Robert E. Howard and David Gemmel. The real question is: could the player be reasonably expected to make informed decisions during character creation. If you allow players to have access to spellcasting classes they will outshine non-spellcasters in a low magic enviornment from about level five on. His constant pining for a magic sword makes him sound like a fighter-type. Was he aware of the disadvantage that he was at? Even RP intensive campaigns have some combat, and due to the intnse RP and the relative scarcity of violence they are that much more emotional and intense. Even an excellent RPer might get pissy if his character was consistently getting sidelined by the other PCs when it comes to blows. He still sounds annoying though.
Roxlimn 12-21-04, 12:48 AM	I'm certainly sorry that you had to go through that sort of an experience, but you know, many of us here have had similar experiences. I don't know of any single experienced DM who hasn't once hosted a "bad" player. On the other hand, the game is a social one, so trying to hard line your own views on a common game is potentially just as disruptive to it as a player trying to hard line his. I've found that as a rule, you should try to compromise and give the player even a little bit of what he wants, just to cater to his own fun. You're the DM so you should already be looking to yours, but being considerate to your players goes a surprisingly long way.
Cantankerous 12-21-04, 06:49 AM	I admit that I've been a little too black/white here, and most people have replied in a way that I appreciate. Thanks so far. The problem I have, and this is what made me create this thread, is that I've had experiences with more than a few people who don't give a rat's ass for roleplaying. They only care for min/maxing - not the story. I have taken great pains to create a campaign that was pretty close to perfect. The atmosphere was there, the story was there, the sub-plots were there, and it all took place in a rather low on magic items setting. (The players knew this in advance.) I had told the players this wouldn't be the hack 'n slash stuff we'd done in the past, this would be a campaign where the main thing done was roleplaying and everything had a reason. (Mind you, I don't mind a good battle, IMO it's an essential part of the game.) We had a good time, up till the point when one of the players started asking me when he would finally get a magic sword after every battle. I told him there would be none - at least not the standard +# weapons, and he got quite grumpy about it and stopped taking part in the story. This broke up that campaign in the end. This player decided to quit (just before I decided to tell him maybe this group wasn't the D&D group for him). No big deal, if it wasn't for his friend quiting also :( Anyway, now you may see where I'm coming from. I do realize that I should have said playing in a min/max only, story-less campaign would drive me crazy. Hi Tempus, It MAY be entirely as advertised. You certainly sound sincere, but I've got to tell you as a "role player" DM with more than a quarter century of doing this that if the players were quiting either A, they were NOT enjoying role playing (many don't after all) or B, you weren't providing enough of a mix and enough of a feeling to the players that their input was as important as yours is in the game. If the game went on for more than four or five sessions then it was VERY probably choice B. No matter how much effort and time you put forth, you have to give the players the feel that THEY are the stars, not the campaign itself, or the campaign world. The story HAS TO revolve around the player characters. They are the driving force. Your job is to present them a chance to be that central pivot upon which the world as a whole COULD one day revolve. This also means presenting them with the type of challenges that shape true heroes, the kind that could mean that characters die. It doesn't mean you treat them with kid gloves. Their characters MUST be pushed to their limits and beyond, but THEY must know that their characters actions are the IMPORTANT, that without them (their characters) the story is meaningless. Otherwise, no matter how good a story teller you are, no matter how wonderfully detailed the backdrop is, no matter how well the atmosphere has been nailed or how well the sub plots are going, if the players don't feel that they are equal partners in the campaign, you will ALWAYS have discontented players and players quitting. Isshia
Radagast 12-21-04, 12:27 PM	I wouldn't consider character optimization an insult to roleplaying since a well roleplayed character should logically be optimized in some fashion. I mean, one would have a hard time accepting the "roleplaying" logic of a: Commoner 2 / Warrior 1 / Rogue 2 armed only with a rusty sword going out to slay a bunch of Trolls. I mean, it might be cute, but really - such a character is more of a delusional sidekick than a real character. By the same token, there is no reason a powerful character is somehow barred from having a good story, personality, background, etc. Realistically, adventurers are going to be optimized to some level. They are effectively mercenaries, SWAT team members, special ops types, and so on - people going into very dangerous situations often with very little backup, if any. You HAVE to be "optimized" to survive in such environment. Weak, poorly built characters trying to last in such a job would fail, and such a thing would be pretty unrealistic anyway, unless the GM is intentionally running a "Commoners thrust into the role of heroes" style game, which is fine, though it does tend to through off the CR ratings in the books badly. Now, if you're frustrated with characters who's personality is their weapon, who's names equals the amount of damage they can deal per round, and who have more classes than they have fingers, that is perfectly understandable. I, too, dislike characters with a host of templates that ultimately create bizzare freaks that are almost impossible to relate to or care about. I also don't like characters who have lots of classes, particularly those that dip into multiple Prestige Classes for a few levels each - Prestige Classes, to me, represent great devotion to a particular idea, cause, or organization, so to mix and match them makes no sense to me. And, like many players, I get frustrated by characters who have no personality, or who's personality is simply, "Uhhhh... he likes to fight and get more powerful..." But the existance, or lack thereof, of the Character Optimization Board has nothing to do with these things. Just because somebody wants to build a devastating archer doesn't mean that archer doesn't have a backstory 10 pages long - maybe that is why he wanted to build an archer to begin with, not just to "deal lots of damage without getting hit." Similarly, just becomes somebody builds a Barbarian 20 with subpar stats and poorly chosen feats doesn't mean that the Barbarian has any more personality than a damp towel. Powerful characters and interesting characters are not mutually exclusive. Just my thoughts on the matter.
Rodak_the_Dim 12-21-04, 12:44 PM	The mating cry of the grognard? No-one is killing the game. These are Brand Manager Charles Ryan's thoughts. The salient points: 2004 was the best year ever for D&D. There were 2 million regular players per month in 1999, when Wizards commissioned the big survey. Since Third Edition's release that number has doubled to 4 million players per month. This means that new players are entering the hobby faster than old ones are leaving.Oh, I guess you meant that the kind of game you like to play is dying? Aww. Well, let me ask you: how is crying that the sky is falling instead of opening other kinds of players' eyes to the wonders of your playstyle helping? Right on. I don't like powergaming myself but remember that WOTC are making a product. They are a business that have offered a wonderful game that can be played many different ways. They are under no obligation (legally or morally) to tell their customers how to play it.
EvilDuck 12-21-04, 01:15 PM	The whole thing about D&D is that it runs on the players, not programmers and designers. WotC provides rules and guidelines, but its up to us to use them how we want to. Some groups may want to play D&D like a hack-n-slash videogame, some may want to use the rules sparingly and play D&D like an advanced interactive storytelling thing. Most people play somewhere in between however. I guess what I'm saying is, you can play the game how you want, but you can't really tell others how to play. Just play it your way and have fun.
Stuntman 12-21-04, 02:23 PM	My experience with D&D and other RPG's is that the style of game that is being played depends heavily on the style that the participants (players and DM) is most comfortable with. As a DM, I try to present opportunities for and sometime encourage players to explore as many aspects of D&D as possible and this includes the role play/character development side. The rest is up to the players. If they are just into hack and slash, then the RP is just wasted effort on my part to make the game boring for the players. I found that trying to force role playing down players' throats just causes them to go away and play video games until the fight starts. In any play group, there must be some compromise in order to satisfy everyone and in some cases it may be impossible to satisfy everyone. Different players like different styles. It would be ideal for everyone to want to play a similar style whether it is RP, hack and slash or otherwise. It is unfortunate that you had a bad experience with a player. The reason is likely that the style of game you are running is not one that the player in question enjoys. It is not easy to force players to play a style they are not accustomed to. This leads to players or the DM being unsatisfied with the game and leaving or at worse the campaign dies. There is also the political aspect of gaming. Often a group of friends want to get together and do something together. This is a situation where it is difficult to satisfy everyone and yet keep everyone together. Often, kicking someone out has some polical cost outside of D&D that is more significant to what happens in the game. There just has to be some balance in these situations. In gaming groups where the players don't necessarily hang out outside of the D&D game, it is easier to alter the mix of participants. If you want to have a game that is heavily into RP, there is little or no out of game, political cost of screening or expelling participants. You still have to deal with some differences in style, but those differences may be small and a compromise can be more easily found. I've played for almost 20 years and my gaming style has evolved from a pure hack and slasher to a more RP oriented player who cannot totally leave his min/maxing roots behind. From my experience, role playing and character optimisation is not mutually exclusive. Then are for the most part, but not totally, independent. You can have a good role player who min/maxes and one that doesn't min/max. D&D is enjoyed by many types of players. Some of those players play a style that I do not enjoy. However, they are in no way killing the game for me as long as they play in their group and I play in mine. It is not my place to go into some other play group and rant about the error of their ways. The great thing about D&D is that it can appeal to a variety of different players and play styles. It just that not all players like the same style or are willing to explore the same aspects of the game sometimes.
Gilean 12-21-04, 02:36 PM	People who like roleplaying should generally not pay D&D. It is usually played because it is the most known and popular one. D&D is, after all, very combat-oriented game. Try White Wolf games, they have sound mechanical side that does not encourage powergaming too much.
Zherog 12-21-04, 02:41 PM	I think that was very well said, Stuntman.
NehpetsTtocs 12-21-04, 02:45 PM	I don't think powergamers or in immersion roleplayers are destroying the game, but I can see how certain people might not get along at the gaming table if they have different philosophies. Nobody wants to play in a campaign where his or her character is useless, and I've seen this happen with some powergamers who created characters so powerful that the other characters were simply not needed. On the other hand, I've seen people get frustrated with immersion roleplayers to the point that their pcs actually killed off the "actor's" character. That said, I don't think everybody falls into the category of powergamer or roleplayer. I like to play with one roleplayer and one min-maxer myself. This way I am assured that a powerful character resides in the group while an entertaining one resides their as well. I don't think I'd like to play with a group of all min-maxers or heavy roleplayers. However, I know such groups exist and I don't begrudge them their fun.
Ourph the Mingol 12-21-04, 08:08 PM	Nobody wants to play in a campaign where his or her character is useless, and I've seen this happen with some powergamers who created characters so powerful that the other characters were simply not needed. Exactly! :clap: On the other hand, I've seen people get frustrated with immersion roleplayers to the point that their pcs actually killed off the "actor's" character. I've seen people get so frustrated with immersion roleplayers to the point that they almost killed the player themselves. IMO it would have been justifiable homicide. :evillaugh
Count Arioch the 28th 12-21-04, 08:12 PM	People who like roleplaying should generally not pay D&D. It is usually played because it is the most known and popular one. D&D is, after all, very combat-oriented game. Try White Wolf games, they have sound mechanical side that does not encourage powergaming too much. No offence, but have you been smoking crack? White Wolf games are a munchkin's wet dream! White wolf games aren't for roleplaying. They're for people who think they're roleplaying while their werewolf/vampire/demon/whatever is slaughtering hundreds of poorly armed and equipped people. If you disagree with that, you are wrong.
The White Sorcerer 12-21-04, 08:26 PM	White wolf games aren't for roleplaying. They're for people who think they're roleplaying while their werewolf/vampire/demon/whatever is slaughtering hundreds of poorly armed and equipped people. Heh. True dat. While there can be a lot of roleplaying in WoD games, I play them for the same reason I play D&D: Cool powers.
Asmodeous 12-22-04, 01:38 AM	You know what is an insult to true role playing? Rules. If you where a true role player, you would realise that rules are just something that get in the way of role playing. The best system for role playing with is a system with only 1 page of rules, where everybody has 1 hit point, flips a coin to see if you hit/miss your opponent and a not pad to record your money and items. True role players can role play with any system. By declaring that the optimization boards, or the internet, or a system or your little sisters pet gold fish are an insult to role playing is only demonstrating that you know very little about role playing. And besides, why can't somebody min/max or powergame a characters powers/items etc etc, and not role play with that character? even a super human gold like spell casting behind kicker is still going to have a life in between his research which can all be role played. Role players just do what they want. Just because a certain board exists in a certain web site forum, doesn't mean that they have to use it or even admit that it even exists. You use what you want and when you want it. All the rules do is give a uniformity to decide what happens. For example, if you engage in combat. You have a fighter, plus this sword, this and that feat. You add up all the modifiers and roll the dice. The dice decides the end result of what happens next, if you hit or miss and how much damage you do. If the monster has 200 hit points, and you do 6 points then its pretty obvious how to role play that part of combat. "you swing your sword at the vicious beast and manage to scratch its vile hide just under its left arm. Or, if the monster had 200 hit points, is down to 40 and you roll a crit doing 55 points of damage. "You scream with anguish and rage as you grip the hilt of your sword and with all your might drive the blade hilt deep into the beasts dark heart. It scream's an blood curdling death cry while twitching uncontrollably as it crashes to the ground." Thats all the rules do. Decide what the final outcome is and then you role play in the details any way you see fit. One day, you might discover what role playing is. Whether you embrace it or not is up to you because the only reason that power gaiming is "killing" the game for you, is because you are letting it.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-22-04, 09:15 AM	:rant: Ignoring the character's Diplomacy roll entirely in favor of roleplaying it out is like ignoring the character's strength of 8 because the player can bench press a lot of weight. That's not to say its not fun, or that a game played that way can't work, but its not the same as standard D&D and in some ways has more in common with LARPs. The only time it causes problems, generally, is when someone takes advantage of this by having high physical/low mental stats, because they know that its their own bluffing and diplomatic skills that will matter. It doesn't seem fair when the raging barbarian with a charisma of 4 can out bluff the charisma 20 bard. You might say this is number crunching but the fact remains that the bard sacrificed combat ability to be good at these skills and should thus be better at them than the afformentioned barbarian. I hate social skills. They're just as bad as the half-dragon werewolf baleen whale PC when it comes to destroying the game. Any skill (or lack thereof) that forces PCs in an RPG not to talk is stupid, and that's exactly what diplomacy does. It tells everyone else who doesn't have max diplomacy to keep their mouth shut and let the diplomacy character handle everything. It encourages people not to roleplay, because anything they say can only hurt the party's chances of getting anything done. Because if the DM "plays it right" (that is, by the rules), all he's supposed to look at is your -2 penalty to diplomacy checks. Thus if you're not the diplomacy character, you might as well just be mute the entire time, as that's the best thing you can do for the party. Then there's that odd concept that it's ok for the bard to suck in combat because while he's sitting on his hands doing nothing every combat, whenever a social scene comes up, everyone else is doing the same. Anyone see a problem with this? The goal should be to minimize the time PCs spend sitting on their hands during the game, not maximize it. Both those concepts: social skills and noncombat characters, need to be burned at the stake like the vile abominations that they are. Having skills that encourage people not to talk is inane. Having PC characters that can't fight in a game of heroic fantasy is equally stupid.
angryman 12-22-04, 09:19 AM	Try White Wolf games, they have sound mechanical side that does not encourage powergaming too much. No, I have to agree with Arioch et al, White Wolf allows one to minmax with a poorly designed system thinly veiled as roleplaying. i.e. a "good" roleplayer would not necessarily take the most effective benefits. But mostly it's mages thinking of ways to get the most cheeeeeze out of their powers (I mean they should call their abilities "Rort system"), werewolves maxing all sorts of munchkinny nonsense and vampires strutting about like wankers. Gaah! Give me a vorpal greatsword any day!
Roxlimn 12-22-04, 10:19 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: Of course not! There is such a thing as trying to help the character with max Diplomacy by injecting or otherwise providing a suitable background, all of which are excellent roleplaying scenarios. It's DMs who needlessly penalize such characters by insisting that they're making their own Diplomacy rolls rather than an aid-another Diplomacy role who gets his players to shut up. Especially as talking in game isn't necessarily an attempt at using the Diplomacy skill. When you talk to your comrade are you using the Diplomcay skill? How about when schmoozing at the tavern? Asking the bartender for a drink? Asking about the weather? None of these are heroic activities and none of these involve using the Diplomacy skill whatsoever, unless your DM is such a jerk that he invariably makes -2 Diplomacy people such outcasts of society it's a wonder they ever lived to adult age, much less be cast as heroes. The Diplomacy skill never killed a game. Your DM did! The focus on combat is irritating as well. Not every game is so focused on smashing skulls that you can offhandedly classify every encounter as either noncombat or combat. What is this, 2e? With the Noncombat Proficeincies and stuff? There are nature skill encounters, knowledge problems, investigation, survival encounters, puzzles, professional problems, artistic competitions, performance shows, and social encounters, just to name the few that come to mind most easily. The game supports this sort of activity. Why does everything have to come down to combat anyway? If there's anything that's killing the game, it's this proclivity to classify anything and everything as a combat entity. I'm certainly not much of a combat entity, and I like to think that I live an interesting life. There are any number of characters in heroic fantasy and literature who can't fight their way out of a sack. What of them? If the game is to evolve further, and it follows the current trend, then I see it as evolving into more and more of an adventure game, with more robust mechanics for things like skill contests (check out the new rules for illusion performance contests!), personal and social skills, and various constructive capabilities. So no, I don't think that Diplomacy is inane, and I don't think that PCs who can't fight are inane. I think what's inane is this obsession with killing anything that moves.
e-z0r 12-22-04, 10:58 AM	I'll have to defend White Wolf here. If only for a bit. I play both Vampire: The Masquerade and the newer Vampire: The Requiem and I've tried Demon: The Fallen. I've played with lots of different people as well. I'll tell you any day that Demon: The Fallen seemed like munchkinish cr4p. The characters are über-demons who go around and kill stuff. Poorly. I'll tell you any day that Vampire: The Masquerade has immense opportunity to build things that'll rip the world in half in half a turn. (How does Gangrel with Protean 2, Celerity 3 and Potence 2 and generation 8 sound? It's doable in a starting character if you spend all your merits to generation and all your freebies to disciplines plus max out flaws and spend those on disciplines.) Masquerade allowing what it may, I've only twice ever played in a munchkinish Masquerade game. Both were one-nighter quickiegames after the finishing of a bigger storyline where we still had good game-time but no real storyline to start. Every other game has had very little bashing and instantly more RPing in ever our D&D campaigns. Alright, Masquerade offers a fairly poor system to disencourage powerplay, and powerplay might be what you get if you only read the rules-part of the game (or at least, if the DM only reads the rules-part of the game). So much of it is supposed to be content, mood, atmosphere and immersion, yet of course rules can't cover that. My point, every game is as hack and slash as the players/DM is. IMO, though, the setting of D&D makes it harder for me to roleplay. It just seems a tad ridiculous at times. Not all the time, of course. btw: New WoD and The Requiem has been seriously nerfed when talking about powers and such. All the previous powers of vamps that could give you immense power have been toned down, and quite a lot. Social and mental aspects have been kept mostly the same. Yet most importantly, the new game has taken a much more serious and "personal horror"ish approach. Plus, the Sabbat is no longer playable. Every vampire must go with the Humanity path. This tones down the mindless killing as well.
Death Unlimited 12-22-04, 12:57 PM	Character optimization is an important part of the game. Because, frankly, people optimize themselves. You don't see people who take the first 2 years of an MD program, then a couple years of law, then a couple more years of astrophysics, followed up by some nice relaxing anthropology to round themselves out. Because at the end of that, they've wasted tons of time and money and quite possibly don't have a degree to show for it. No, people choose what they want to be and do what they can to get there. People are self-optimizing I agree with this. I indeed am someone who went with a lot of diferent majors in colleges, effectively 'multiclassing' too much and all I have to show for it are a bunch of student loans when I lived in the states. But, I am fixing that. :D This aside, I also like a combination of both. I believe sure, it's totally cool to optimize your character. Make them good at what you want them to. I think its more out of hand if you are trying to make the character perfect at EVERYTHING. One of my character concepts is a brutish unarmed combatant, and has two classes and a PRC to help him with that. But, in the process, I am sacrificing plenty of other stuff. But I actually developed his background first. The person that tweaks his THF specialist is sacrificng other stuff. The person who optimizes his specialist wizard to get the most bang for his buck is sacrificng other things. It just goes with the concept. And I HAVE seen people purposely make 'weak' characters in the name of roleplaying...then just roleplayed them very poorly. And i too have seen pretty powerful, optimized characters who are VERY memorable. One DM i know wanted to actually begin writing stories about one campaign, who did have some buttkickers(at whatever they did, be it magic, combat, the 'face', etc), but personalities shined so much he thought it warranted it. But again, to each their own how they play. If a table wants to play with a party full of half drow-dragon-goliath-ogre-fiendish hulking hurlers, then go for it. Not my style but hey, if they have fun, they have fun. Again, I think, for me, a balanced approach on both issues is the key. :)
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-22-04, 01:03 PM	The focus on combat is irritating as well. Not every game is so focused on smashing skulls that you can offhandedly classify every encounter as either noncombat or combat. What is this, 2e? With the Noncombat Proficeincies and stuff? Combat and noncombat stuff should be divided, of this there is no doubt. Because combat, like it or not, is a main feature of D&D. You are expected to spend a good amount of time in battle, or preparing for battle. It's no surprise that the majority of spells and magic items are combat based. Considering the time spent in combat, it's just not feasable to have people sitting doing nothing for no good reason. It's not ok to have some people suck in all combats. It quickly bores players and leads people to more min/maxing. How many PCs overreact when their original character gets taken out in battle and come back with some super min/maxed build the next time? People don't like to be a hero that can't fight. Look at any hero you want from the tough Conan to Aragorn to the charismatic James Bond. They can all fight and fight well. I would say that combat skill is a necessary requisite to any action hero. There are nature skill encounters, knowledge problems, investigation, survival encounters, puzzles, professional problems, artistic competitions, performance shows, and social encounters, just to name the few that come to mind most easily. The game supports this sort of activity. Why does everything have to come down to combat anyway? If there's anything that's killing the game, it's this proclivity to classify anything and everything as a combat entity. I'm certainly not much of a combat entity, and I like to think that I live an interesting life. And there shouldn't be pure combat characters either. It's not ok to have the fighter who can do nothing other than fight. Everyone should have some kind of out of combat abilities too. There are any number of characters in heroic fantasy and literature who can't fight their way out of a sack. What of them? Not every character from a book is good for a game. Sure, if you've got some PC who wants to play an expressly noncombat character, then he can, but he should know what he's getting into. If you want NPC classes for noncombat guys, you can have them, but the PC shouldn't choose a bard expecting to be competetive only to find the game shafts him because he's a "roleplaying class". Most people do not want to play Frodo and sit around while the Aragorn and Legolas of the group is killing everything. Some people do, but the majority of people do not. Most people like to be effective at something. The fact is that the majority of the game is either a combat or a social encounter of some kind. PCs should be capable of contributing in both of these arenas. In combat you can have a complex and balanced combat system to let players do interesting dynamics. Assuming you balance this well, you have a fun, strategic combat game, which can be a game unto itself such as D&D miniatures. Social encounters however have to be handled without dice, because any rules abstractions you make for them do not do them justice, and only creates certain party members who are good at diplomacy and others who suck at it. All social rules do is serve to shut up some people and convince others to talk. Or at their worst, shut up everyone and reduce what could be a great encounter down to a single die roll. People should never feel like what they say doesn't matter and it's all just a die roll. That isn't a good social encounter, that's just depressingly dull. The game should inspire you to want to roleplay, not mindlessly crush out any attempt at playing your character with the cruel hammer of the rules. Games should be about choices, and whether it's offering someone a choice of 6 different combat actions, or a choice of what to have thier character say next, that's what makes a game, and that's where the fun comes from. The fact is that players need to feel like they have control over their destiny in some way, that the choices they make can help make or break them. Most of the emphasis nowadays seems to be protecting the PCs from some railroading DM, but in this case it's protecting the PCs from the dice. It's a lot more of a puzzle to say "If you present the duke with evidence X and Y and mention point Z to him, then he will side with the party." as opposed to "getting the aid of the duke requires a DC 25 diplomacy check." One requires player choice and allows the PCs to pass or fail by their own decisions, the other is merely putting them at the mercy of the dice and taking away any meaningful choices the party has. One gets the players involved in the game, and the other detaches them from the action. One promotes thought, the other might as well just be done by a computer game. One is the mark of a fun game, the other is simply rolling dice. Social skills will never be able to have a strategic system like combat. Better not to have them at all, and let social stuff be handled by humans.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-22-04, 08:24 PM	Yeaqh, well, Archtyraqnt, you're arguing for the right to negate a high charisma stat when the player has a speech inpediment. Every pre-3E DM I had did that to my characters. I stutter in real life, the DMs made my character stutter too, and negated any chance I had for social interaction. For that, we must be opposed on this matter, and I for one can't understand your logic at all, it sounds mean-spirited, and makes me not want to play with you as a DM. Ever.
Zherog 12-22-04, 09:17 PM	Yeaqh, well, Archtyraqnt, you're arguing for the right to negate a high charisma stat when the player has a speech inpediment. Every pre-3E DM I had did that to my characters. I stutter in real life, the DMs made my character stutter too, and negated any chance I had for social interaction. You too? Doesn't it suck? I personally like to think my brain moves too fast for my mouth. ;) It also has the opposite effect. It encourages everybody to dump their charisma stat as low as possible, because in the end it doesn't matter that they have a -3 in charisma - as long as they themselves are at least average.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-23-04, 07:07 AM	Yeaqh, well, Archtyraqnt, you're arguing for the right to negate a high charisma stat when the player has a speech inpediment. Every pre-3E DM I had did that to my characters. I stutter in real life, the DMs made my character stutter too, and negated any chance I had for social interaction. For that, we must be opposed on this matter, and I for one can't understand your logic at all, it sounds mean-spirited, and makes me not want to play with you as a DM. Ever. A good DM should be able to picture the character doing something and not the player. You should be able to picture the scrawy guy playing the barbarian as a big tough half orc holding a sword to someone's face and threatening them. Similarly, the words should probably be more important than a PCs given acting skill. Even if a player stutters, his character doesn't necessarily do that. And good DMs can make this distinction all the time. But This is nonetheless a game of roleplaying, and this requires talking in character. Diplomacy rolls are a mechanic designed to eliminate any kind of real roleplaying. No point in talking in character if you can just throw a die and get on to the combat part of the story right? After all, who wants to spend their time talking to NPCs. It's not like this game is supposed to involve any roleplaying. If all people want is strategic dice rolling, then miniature wargaming is probably a better alternative. In my games, roleplaying is required, nobody simply gets by with a diplomacy check to avoid social encounters and nobody is forced to say nothing because they don't happen to have diplomacy on their class skill list. Sure, if you do have diplomacy it might give you a little help in the conversation and people are more apt to believe you, but in no way are you able to skip by the roleplaying scene with a dice roll, and in no way are you guaranteed victory simply because you've got a big bonus. And that's a hell of a lot more exciting than just reducing a scene to a die roll that's a guaranteed success because someone min/maxed diplomacy. Declaring social skills as nothing more than a die roll is an insult to the game. At this point it's no longer an actual RPG, but a tabletop version of final fantasy where players keep hitting X until all the chat boxes go away. The game inevitably requires player skill. If you want to play a wizard you've got to know what spells to pick, if you want to play a social character, you better know what to say. This is no more "mean-spirited" than requiring a wizard to know what his spells do.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-23-04, 07:58 AM	Diplomacy rolls are a mechanic designed to eliminate any kind of real roleplaying. No point in talking in character if you can just throw a die and get on to the combat part of the story right? After all, who wants to spend their time talking to NPCs. It's not like this game is supposed to involve any roleplaying. Alright, I'm confused. you're not talking about Diplomacy at all here, you're referring to the 3.0E skill innuendo. I hope you mean that 3.0E innuendo allows you to do that, because that is what you just said. You can't use diplomacy if you're not saying anything.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-23-04, 10:42 AM	You can't use diplomacy if you're not saying anything. Technically, but what you say doesn't matter when you use diplomacy, so you might as well not be saying anything at all. Yeah you have to say something in game, but this is just flavor text. As far as the skill is concerned, you could be just reading random passages from Lord of the Rings or constantly repeating "I like swords"... you could also be giving a strong oratory containing several important points to sway the NPC to your cause. But the rules don't care which of these you do. Spending 1 minute repeating "I like swords" is just as effective mechanically as making a perfectly worded display of oratory. So you might as well not say anything, or rather just say "I use diplomacy on the NPC.". It becomes similar to just disarming a trap, only you're disarming an NPC. Yeah, flavor says you use thieves tools and all, but you dont' have to actually say how you're disarming it, and for the most part you don't really care. When you do this with social encounters, it ceases to be a roleplaying scene and just becomes a mindless die roll.
Zherog 12-23-04, 10:57 AM	Declaring social skills as nothing more than a die roll is an insult to the game. At this point it's no longer an actual RPG, but a tabletop version of final fantasy where players keep hitting X until all the chat boxes go away. Declaring physical skills like climb and swim is a travesty, too! I think players should have to jump into my swimming pool and swim a few laps to determine if their character is going to drown or not. :bored:
Count Arioch the 28th 12-23-04, 11:00 AM	Yeah you have to say something in game, but this is just flavor text. Roleplaying IS flavor text. Period. end of discussion.
boschdevil 12-23-04, 11:26 AM	Declaring physical skills like climb and swim is a travesty, too! I think players should have to jump into my swimming pool and swim a few laps to determine if their character is going to drown or not. :bored: Actually, I insist that my players in my group read the Bible for two hours straight before using Knowledge Religion and roll a newspaper into a cone, pour a gallon of milk into the cone, and collapse it over my D&D books if they want to Use Magic Device . Otherwise, it would be just like having the players press the "X" button on a video game ...
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-23-04, 11:40 AM	Roleplaying IS flavor text. Period. end of discussion. Glad to see where everyone's priorities are. It you think that roleplay is purely irrelevant then why are you playing an RPG in the first place. There are plenty of great strategy games that skip all that boring and unneccesary roleplaying stuff. Interacting with NPCs is dull anyway, you're better off just sticking your sword in em.
Lady Danyon Dehlmari 12-23-04, 11:56 AM	I think the role-playing and the numbers go hand in hand unless it's LARP. Roleplaying should be thinking like your character and making decisions based on that. In addition, I don't think a player who "acts" out their character (say a diplomatic situation) should be doing that without the ranks to back it up. The numbers and rules are supposed to be a system of checks and balances. A good example would be a player I know. Ken IRL, is quite shy, and not an actor by any means. He puts ranks in diplomacy. He states the nature of what his character wishes to get accross. Hence, the diplomacy ranks lets him as a player "role-play" his character without doing shakespeare. I really don't care how good a player "acts" out their character. If the numbers don't back it, then you are not role-playing. The numbers themselves are a role-play tool. The character optimization board is a way to get advice on building a character. There are some aspects about any character that someone is going to want to put more emphasis on. That's optimizing. As to a low magic campaign for better Role-Play. Deciding on those matters should be an issue of story line. Some storylines have High Magic, some low. To say that low magic creates more role-play is inaccurate though. I love Oathbound by Bastion Press many people would call it a powergamers heaven. Truth is, the campaign story itself is really good. The Magic level in the game is fitting to the story. That's what matters. ~Danyon
crazysamaritan 12-23-04, 12:45 PM	It you think that roleplay is purely irrelevant then why are you playing an RPG in the first place. There are plenty of great strategy games that skip all that boring and unneccesary roleplaying stuff. Interacting with NPCs is dull anyway, you're better off just sticking your sword in em. He didn't say it was irrelevent, he said it was fluff. The player of the wizard saying his character is "summoning up his most powerful spell, the one from which he took from the baalor in the mountain of Falinore to end his destructive plans to destroy the dwarves' ancestral home, the one that he used to stop the flood in Waterdeep. As the ball of magic forms, it turns a deep purple, with strands of neon green in it, and he throws it at this most heinous enemy, sending a cloud of dirt up, and shocking everyone within a mile with the sonic boom it produces." What did he cast? Fireball. Is it important? No. Do you wat to hear it all the time... I doubt it. But is it fun to do every once in awhile, like say, when they beat the BBEG? H3LL, YEAH! Diplomacy is the same. If you say nothing, it's like if the wizard says, "I cast my spell." okay.... what spell? "The spell that deals damage." Okaay, you ray of frost him, he takes 1d3 damage.... It deserves a negative. IF the player outlines what he's trying to do, accept the roll. If the Character says "I like swords" then he probably deserves a minus to the roll. (unless he's talking to someone like Fighter, then he gets +20). If he actually does make a very good speech, then he deserves a bonus.
boschdevil 12-23-04, 01:11 PM	I think that there are levels of difference. For example, if a player says, "Well, I want to find out if the bartender knows if there are any vampires in town - thus my bard diplomatically asks him if he knows of any vampires" and then roll the dice. The DM may respond in tone and answer and I may respond in kind depending how the discussion goes. If a DM demands that the character roleplay out every whole situation and that the way the players rolplays the situation influences the results, they might as well: - Have their character read the Bible for two hours straight prior to using Knowledge Religion. - Roll a newspaper into a cone, pour a gallon of milk into the cone, and collapse it over their D&D books if they want to Use Magic Device. - Make their players eat berrries off of a juniper bush out in their yard if they want to use Survival. - Make their players swim across the St. Joseph river and climb up the banks if they want to use Swim or Climb. - Make their players do 5 straight cartwheels and pummel vault off the gaming table if they want to use Tumble. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I don't think that anyone is saying that if a rogue walks through he city gate and yells out "I use Open Lock" that doesn't mean that every lock in the city in automatically unlocked ...
Ourph the Mingol 12-23-04, 01:20 PM	A good example would be a player I know. Ken IRL, is quite shy, and not an actor by any means. He puts ranks in diplomacy. He states the nature of what his character wishes to get accross. Hence, the diplomacy ranks lets him as a player "role-play" his character without doing shakespeare. Funny, we were handling things in similar fashion for the "Ken's" of our group long before Diplomacy skills were a twinkle in Monte Cook's eye. :) Requiring a player to think and actively participate in the game in order to succeed in diplomatic situations is different than requiring someone to be a master orator. IMC, I don't care how well "Ken" communicates, but whether what he communicates (in whatever way he can manage to do so) is a good response to the situation at hand. There has to be a balance between requiring the players to possess Svengali-like charisma and having diplomatic discussions come down to nothing more than a dice roll. As you say, the first completely ignores the fact that good players may not always have the same strengths as their characters. The latter, on the other hand, completely ignores player participation and skill (at least, any skill other than building a twinked out uber-character). Both extremes lead to a game where the players are missing out on a significant amount of challenge and fun. Unfortunately, many of the amateur thespians who have leaked into our hobby over the years can't seem to understand that there's a difference between being a good actor and having skill at playing an RPG.
Mister Mayhem 12-23-04, 01:31 PM	The essence of role-playing is pretending to be somebody you are not. Not being allowed to use CHA or CHA based skills hinders this, rather than helping it. If you force a player to use his own skills rather than referenceing the skills of his character, you are forcing him to be himself. **** There is no difference between using Diplomacy and using BAB. BAB has not, as far as I know, resulted in players rolling a single dice and winning/losing the battle on the result. They have to tell you what weapon they are using, whether they are charging, defending, using special manoevers, the works. So too, with Diplomacy. The player should, at least, attempt to give a general idea of how he is using his diplomacy, and to what end. **** Now, if you want to give circumstance bonuses to encourage role-playing, go ahead. But role-playing is not limited to "PCs talking to NPCs". You can swing a sword in character just as much as you can have a conversation in character. *** So if you give a player a bonus to his diplomacy roll - or even forgo the roll completely - because he get gets down on one knee, looks you straight in the eye, and says "Fair maiden, accept this token of my appreciation, for you are the fairest maiden I have seen in this land." Then you should equally give him a bonus - or forgo the attack roll, when he stands up, puts one foot on the chair, and pretends to lunge at you, crying "Have at thee, foul orc, my cold steel will taste your liver before this bout is over!" Both are roleplaying, after all. **** Assuming the action is in chaarcter, of course. An incredibly charismatic player who uses his own wits and silver tongue to woo an NPC when his actual character is an illbred drunkard with a negative CHA modifer is just as bad a role-player as one who simply says "I use my diplomacy skill." Which can lead to some rather skewed results. If this player does roleplay his character perfectly - "Belch! Hello darlin! Nice breasts, fancy given me a feel?" then he has rolplayed every bit as much as the high diplomacy character with his "fair maiden" schpiel. Will you now give the rather disgusting lecher a bonus to his diplomacy attempt (or forgoe the roll!) for his good roleplaying? ******* At the end of the day, the actual Roleplaying - by which I mean, getting into character, "improvised acting" if you will - is (and should be) its own reward. A group of players who enjoy, for example, adopting stage voices and unusual mannerisms will do so because its fun, not because doing so gets them a bonus. And they will do so even if the mechanics don't require it.
rusdrake77 12-23-04, 02:01 PM	The issue is not about powergaming, but about the complexity of the game, which slowly turns into rocket science. I suppose DnD should be devided into simple DnD (DnD) and advanced science's DnD (AS'sDnD). The simple one will in roleplaying games and everybody will remember its rules like 2x2=4. And if everybody knowns practically everything there will be almost no ground for powergaming in DnD. And AS'sDnD will be left for people who wants to spend hours and years on useless studies of massive 1000+ pages rules tomes with erratas and faqs abundant, and 35 steps in grapple, and unique monks attack that are treated like all other attack and none of them with vaguest descriptions ever and millions of excerptions to additions to prestige classes. After these studies they will have just enough energy left to say "I HACK" and DM after checking all these stuff and participating in 4 hours long rule discussion will gladly answer them "AND I SLASH!"
crazysamaritan 12-23-04, 02:19 PM	2x2=4. In DnD 2x2=3.... :D
Ourph the Mingol 12-23-04, 02:32 PM	The essence of role-playing is pretending to be somebody you are not. Not being allowed to use CHA or CHA based skills hinders this, rather than helping it. If you force a player to use his own skills rather than referenceing the skills of his character, you are forcing him to be himself. My point would be, you should be taking both into account (in differing amounts and depending upon the situation). If you take all player skill out of the equation, then there's really no need for the player to be involved in the game at all. The player becomes dispensable as soon as his character sheet is filled out. You also have to know which player skills to take into account. Thinking is a player skill that the numbers on the character sheet shouldn't be used to replace. Being creative is another. Whether the message is delivered in an effective manner is something the numbers on the sheet should be used to determine (in most cases, there are exceptions). The numbers should never determine the content of the message, just the delivery. There is no difference between using Diplomacy and using BAB. BAB has not, as far as I know, resulted in players rolling a single dice and winning/losing the battle on the result. They have to tell you what weapon they are using, whether they are charging, defending, using special manoevers, the works. So too, with Diplomacy. The player should, at least, attempt to give a general idea of how he is using his diplomacy, and to what end. Exactly! This is an excellent analogy. To expand the analogy further, there are some cases with Diplomacy, as with combat, where the player's stated actions are either so useless or so sure of success that a roll becomes unnecessary. In combat, someone cannot hit a target with a ranged weapon when the target is further away than the weapon's maximum allowable distance (ex: five range increments for a thrown weapon). In the same way, a PC who attempts to pursuade an NPC with reasons or offers that simply wouldn't appeal to that NPC in any way, might be denied a Diplomacy roll. On the other end of the spectrum, there might be times when success is automatic because of the circumstances. An attacker does not have to roll to hit when making a coup de grace attempt vs. a helpless defender. A player trying to bribe an NPC might similarly be entitled to an automatic success if the player offers something which the NPC would find irresistible. In RP situations, as with combat, it's often just as important for a good DM to know when to roll and when not to roll as it is to know what to roll.
EvilDuck 12-23-04, 02:46 PM	Diplomacy rolls are a mechanic designed to eliminate any kind of real roleplaying. No point in talking in character if you can just throw a die and get on to the combat part of the story right? After all, who wants to spend their time talking to NPCs. It's not like this game is supposed to involve any roleplaying. Not really. I use Diplomacy rolls where a good diplomatic talkie-thing from the player grants a bonus to the roll and a bad argument gives a mod or sometimes causes an auto-failure.
Dradjeel 12-23-04, 03:51 PM	Oh get a freaking clue. There is no "D&D roleplaying" tradition to kill via powergaming. The game has always been mostly about who's got the biggest sword and who's got the shiniest magic item. That's what D&D is, if you can't take it, tough. There are a million games out there for you that do things differently, there is no sense in trying to force D&D into a mould it is ill-suited to. It is for a reason most "real roleplayers" I've met in cons around here treat D&D with reactions most accurately described as "patronizing". They see it as a one-dimensional game only suitable for "training" noobies before they graduate to REAL role-playing games. YAnd they are mostly right, although I tend to disagree with their elitist snobbery. You can't be what you're not, and D&D should not attempt to be so. It's a game about fighting, exploring dungeons and looting stuff. That's why every battle is played on a damn grid. Sure, D&D can be a lot more, too, but fundamentally, it always boils down to fighting, exploring dungeons and looting stuff. If you want tough-as-nails, gritty roleplaying, there's better options. If you want light-hearted comical, diplomacy-driven games, there's better options. If you want to explore the Tomb of Azerak and loot its secrets, D&D is the game for you.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-23-04, 06:56 PM	If the Character says "I like swords" then he probably deserves a minus to the roll. (unless he's talking to someone like Fighter, then he gets +20). If he actually does make a very good speech, then he deserves a bonus. But once you start handing out bonuses, really the question now becomes "why use dice at all?" I mean the original goal of social skills was to take actual player skill out of the equation, which by your response, I can see that we both agree is a bad idea. So once we accept that player skill (deciding what to say) is going to factor into the situation, now our only other concern is wondering how much we want luck to factor in. Do we want people to make all the right decisions in a conversation and have a chance of failing anyway, and do we want people to be able to make all the wrong decisions and succeed anyway? Also, when you have skills like diplomacy as skills, this leads to the problem that some characters will have them and some characters won't. Meaning characters without them may very well have no chance at higher levels of succeeding at a given social encoutner. Lets say in a high level game you place the DC of a social encounter at 41. Some guy with a +30 bonus has a 50% flat chance of succeeding. Someone who didn't take diplomacy at all is effectively phased out of the encounter. Now the question is whether this improves or hurts the gameplay experience. Do we really want to phase certain players out of conversations? I don't really see anything gained by this and I think it's fair to have everyone have close social ability. I don't really want a single party "face", I find that hurts the game in the long run. Different people should be more prominent in different situations. The barbarian should be the prominent talker in situations dealing with savages like orcs and such. The paladin should be good at addressing royalty. The cleric is obviously the best choice to speak with fellow members of his church, and so on. And that's fun because it lets different people have the spotlight and doesn't numerically totally shut people out. As a person who has played 2nd edition, and plenty of games without social skills, I really don't see the need to have them. I never thought they especially improved the game. I mean as of yet, I've really seen no reason why we need social skills in an RPG. The only people who seem to support them heavily are people who want to skip by NPC interaction scenes. And really, anyone can do that without having social skills. You just get a DM who runs pure dungeon crawls. If a given group doesn't want to interact with NPCs, then just don't have any non-monster NPCs in the game. But I really see no reason to make the party rogue worse at disarming traps so that he can talk to people, and at the same time declaring that the party fighter is useless in all social encounters, even one's dealing with other fighter types.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-23-04, 08:24 PM	Glad to see where everyone's priorities are. It you think that roleplay is purely irrelevant then why are you playing an RPG in the first place. There are plenty of great strategy games that skip all that boring and unneccesary roleplaying stuff. Interacting with NPCs is dull anyway, you're better off just sticking your sword in em. Yeah, nice straw man. Please quote me where I said that it was irrelevant. I'll save you the trouble, I never said that. You however, are trying to make it sound as if I did.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-23-04, 08:41 PM	Please quote me where I said that it was irrelevant. I'll save you the trouble, I never said that. You however, are trying to make it sound as if I did. You said it indirectly. If you resolve all your social encounters with a single die roll and don't want players to actually talk in character because they might stutter or something, then you're just speeding past the conversations to something else, which I'm assuming is combat. And in that case, you still dont' need social skills, you just don't bother with social encounters at all. If you want a hack and slash game, you can easily run a Gygaxian tournament style dungeon crawl where you've got a bunch of rooms, a bunch of monsters and no social encounters at all. If that's your playstyle, and there's nothing wrong with that if it is, then you still don't need diplomacy as a skill. My point is that I don't see how diplomacy adds to any playstyle. If you consider roleplaying just pointless flavor text and want to skip past it, then you don't need social skills to do that. You can just say "Then the king says a bunch of stuff, and then you're back in a new dungeon on another quest which involves you killing stuff for some undescribed greater good." If you consider social situations as important points in your campaign then you certainly don't want PCs skipping past them with a die roll or putting everything in the hands of random chance. What play style actually improves when played with social skills?
Zucrous 12-23-04, 08:48 PM	I have to say that most all of this has been done very civily. I applaude you all. I am one of few who are probably annoyed at the "powergamers" in alot of ways they seem to ruin the game for those of us that dont focus on combat. HOWEVER, that does not mean that they are ruining th game. In fact it makes me feel better when I find that they cant talk their way out of a broom closet when in it with the big bad guy they cant defeat with their massive attack mod. I have no problem with a powergamer as long as they put just as much energy and love for the game into the roleplaying aspect of D&D. A good DM will not punish either kind of person if you cannot take from both sides. He will make a player progress in the side in which he is weakest. A good balance is all that is needed for D&D to work. But also on another note, a character that cannot do anything in combat is not a burdon, as long as they are trying.
vipergtsmk 12-23-04, 09:16 PM	I have a very similiar concern. Personnaly I love the online games because you can roleplay alot in them very easily. But for my paper and pencil group can't find people who want to roleplay. Dnd isn't supposed to be all about combat and having the best stats possible. I also agree that it will kill the game, because powergamers gets hard to please adventure wise. My player get tired of the same combat scenerios, yet when I tryed to convince them to go into the city to try to find some one they wouldn't even give the hook a chance. They right away assumed city+talking=less fighting so there for they decided to wait outside for random encouters. (luckily I had another adventure planned) When I say in character comments only they look at me as if I just stole thier fun and ruined the game!(if I have to talk in character I'm not fighting! Wizards of the coast doesn't help either. Character optimisation is one of the only boards my character even read because the rest don't matter. On another note all the books the've made recently are combat based the complete warrior the complete arcane libritis mortis make your char undead. (how do you roleplay that inntelligence level) In my oppinion if roleplaying dies so does dungeons and dragons. I'll never quit playing the way I do if they don't like it too bad. Oviously someone agrees with me!!! Roleplaying forever!!!!!!!!!
Zucrous 12-23-04, 09:37 PM	I hate social skills. They're just as bad as the half-dragon werewolf baleen whale PC when it comes to destroying the game. Any skill (or lack thereof) that forces PCs in an RPG not to talk is stupid, and that's exactly what diplomacy does. It tells everyone else who doesn't have max diplomacy to keep their mouth shut and let the diplomacy character handle everything. It encourages people not to roleplay, because anything they say can only hurt the party's chances of getting anything done. Because if the DM "plays it right" (that is, by the rules), all he's supposed to look at is your -2 penalty to diplomacy checks. Thus if you're not the diplomacy character, you might as well just be mute the entire time, as that's the best thing you can do for the party. Then there's that odd concept that it's ok for the bard to suck in combat because while he's sitting on his hands doing nothing every combat, whenever a social scene comes up, everyone else is doing the same. Anyone see a problem with this? The goal should be to minimize the time PCs spend sitting on their hands during the game, not maximize it. Both those concepts: social skills and noncombat characters, need to be burned at the stake like the vile abominations that they are. Having skills that encourage people not to talk is inane. Having PC characters that can't fight in a game of heroic fantasy is equally stupid. I usually play social skills like so, you have to roll the dice and you have to role the character as well. If I am saying to an ogre holding a club to the brow of my bard's head, "have you heard of the story of the ogre that got a terrible infection and died after clubbing the head of a bard in?" and I roll a 2 and get a 40, that is still something to consider. Some people are just naturally more believable than others that way, either by practice or by their way with people (yes charisma is an actual aspect of people). I personally wouldnt let a person get away with convincing you that you should kill yourself just because he rolled a total of a 50 on his bluff check. It bugs the heck out of me when people say that charisma is a worthless stat unless given to a bard paladin or sorceror. you have to talk as well as roll. A barbarian with 8 charismd could just as well do it they just have to get luckier. See if you dont like that you are basially playing with a bunch of versions of the players themselves. (which by the way is not pretty at all).
crazysamaritan 12-23-04, 11:46 PM	But once you start handing out bonuses, really the question now becomes "why use dice at all?" So let's take away the bonus for Charging, flanking, the minuses for fighting non-proficient... Oh, and we should eliminate the bonus to sense motive when the character tries to bluff someone to do something they normally wouldn't. After all, it doesn't really matter what the player says? I like the DM's friend, +2/-2 depending on the circumstances.
Kail 12-24-04, 02:28 AM	If a player in the game wishes to play an atheletic character, and is a roleplayer, they should be required to take skill ranks in things such as jump, tumble, balance, climb, etc. The character should also posses at least average, and hopefully slightly better, physical attributes. To do other wise is bad roleplaying. No one suggests that the players be capable of the physical feats which their characters are preforming. Only that they have the mechanical backing to support the role they have chosen. Roleplaying a character as a silver tongued genius when the character has an Int 10 and a Cha 12, especially without high ranks or skill focus in the appropriate skills, is bad roleplaying. Flattly stated, if a character does not posses the appropriate skills and abilities mechanically to show what a player is attempting to play, and the DM allows the play as such, it is the equivalent of allowing a cheat to happen. Archtyrant; A character with a lower diplomacy skill is no more excluded from a high DC social situation than a character with a low jump skill is excluded from a situation requiring a high DC jump check. Characters will not have the skills the players choice not to give them dependant on the role they decide to fill and the way in which they have developed their character. In a social situation requiring a DC 41 Diplomacy check, the subtle uses of language and proper proceedings are going to be excessively hard to grasp, and all but the most socially adept individuals are going to be out of their league. While certain social positions may lend themselves better to a particular situation (and thus recieve a situational bonus or penalty to a roll), they should not over ride completely character skill? And while dice do play a part in skill checks, and luck can ruin a well roleplayed encounter, it is no different than the random nature of combat and the dice rolls involved there in. In both cases, as a character becomes more skilled, the dice matters less. A character with Cha 8 and 5 ranks in diplomacy is very dependant on luck for success as they are not terribly skilled. A character with Cha 16 and 12 ranks in diplomacy is far less dependant on luck in most situations that would press the previous character's abilities to the max. And sometimes, a character will inadvertantly slip up on a social check. Example(non-DnD I know) Han Solo: "We're fine, everything's fine. We're alright how are you?" Followed by a wince. Han knew, or should have by later writings, known Imperial protocal, is a smooth talking and confindent con man, glib as can be. But, he screwed up in that one, high pressure instance. In DnD terms, despite a good Cha, bluff/diplomacy skill, and the his player clearly stating he wanted to bluff off the Imperial officer on the com that everything was normal, he blew the roll baddly and roleplayed it appropriately. Roleplaying is great fun, but when a character doesn't mechanically have the teeth to do what is being done in roleplay, the rules have no meaning. If I want a character who is a great archer and one of the most promising young bowyers in the province, I have to take particular skills to show this and be able to actually have the character preform up to those expectations. If I want a character who is sauve, intelligent and has a bright future as a courtier, I should have to take certain skills to allow the character to preform as expected. Mechanics and roleplay, they go hand in hand for optimal fun in many cases. Not all, and perhaps not most, because we all have preferances for the game, and no body should turn their nose up at the choices we make. It's our fun after all, not theirs. Kail
allenchan 12-24-04, 02:48 AM	Kail, beautifully put. Couldnt say it better myself. :cheer: :bow: <3
Thanatos02 12-24-04, 03:17 AM	It took me a while to read the full of this thread, but I finally managed... D&D is a well-structured game that allows for a variety of things. The combat system is mostly simple, and the skill system is mostly straight-foward, and despite its flaws, it allows for RP and combat in equal measure. The aspect about skills, which seems to be in debait, is that it allows players who might not be at their best socially play that suave, clever conversationalist that opens social doors (and favors) for the party. Combat allows players who've never swung a sword in their life become expert swordmasters. In a well-run game, there might easily be room for both of these characters at - gasp - the same time. And you know what? That's ok. What's min-maxing depends on your game, and if your DM applies both social and combat aspects in your game, your characters would do well to either specialize in one thing, or be good at many things. In my games, social situations are as dangerous and as frequent as duels, treasure-expeditions, and outright fights. If the PC's wish to accomplish their goals, then they have to work with, or against the structure, and that involves dealing with people. Applying a roll to social skills is easy - as easy as fighting. If you want to keep it interesting, then you role-play your fight, your conversations, your witty jokes. If you want to keep social RP interesting, you role-play your back and forth jabs, conversation points, ect. If your DM knows what's what, depending on your roll, he may tell you what you'd be expected to say. Kail made a very good points, btw. Moving on. If you're roleplaying, and you apply social skills, roleplaying denotes how your players discuss dealing with gaurds. Everything from the bard telling the rest of the party to "Be cool, the gaurds are coming - I'll talk - you stay quiet. No sense in repeating the last incident. Magyar, Slayer of Worlds I'm looking at you!" - "Magyar sorry, no want to land us in jail..." to a low-Wisdom fighter who insists on having the last word in a debate. Roleplaying means sometimes doing foolish things if ones character would do so, though. If your character is not apt to do something foolish, then that's fine - but some characters have flaws, and those flaws should be roleplayed. A slightly flawed character can be a lot of fun - and powerful too. If you want to play slaughter-em-all games where social skills are moot, or if you play games where your characters talk all the time, or you play games where all your characters are the pinnicle of fighting skill and that's all they do, and that's not unusual, that's ok. But you can do most anything within these rules - it's up to the DM and players to set the scope of the game.
Keoki 12-24-04, 07:57 AM	How about playing the way you want and allowing others the same courtesy? Posting about "how the game should be played" makes you seem close-minded and pompous. I hope that's not the case.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-24-04, 08:04 AM	If you consider roleplaying just pointless flavor text and want to skip past it, then you don't need social skills to do that. Alright, you here are calling flavor text pointless, and yet you accuse me of indirectly saying that roleplaying is pointless? Please start making sense, before my head explodes, and my wife has to figure out what gets brains out of carpet.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-24-04, 10:37 AM	A character with a lower diplomacy skill is no more excluded from a high DC social situation than a character with a low jump skill is excluded from a situation requiring a high DC jump check. Characters will not have the skills the players choice not to give them dependant on the role they decide to fill and the way in which they have developed their character. True. However, here's where we differ. I don't want one character to be the "face" of the party and do all the talking. A scene requiring a jump check requires at most a few seconds and a dice roll. Players are very rarely sitting around doing nothing because they failed to take jump. However, in the case of a social encounter which could take a half hour or longer to play out, anyone without social skills is effectively doing nothing. And while dice do play a part in skill checks, and luck can ruin a well roleplayed encounter, it is no different than the random nature of combat and the dice rolls involved there in. Actually it's quite different. Combat is a strategic exercise. That is, it's very rigidly structured and you take certain actions, and use different spells to try to achieve an effect. Random chance is a factor to add excitement, since it wouldnt' be any fun if your attack rolls automatically hit or automatically missed. In combat, the player choice element is what action to take. That's where you get the game part of it. Combat is absolutely about playing the numbers, but there are a lot of numbers to play, so it's a fun self contained game within a game. Now in diplomatic situations, you're dealing more in a puzzle type situation as opposed to a straight out tactical strategy matter. Unlike in combat, there are no rigidly defined options of what you can do, and you don't have lots of numbers detailing what you can do. Now, while you can add random change to this, why bother? Does it add fun to the game to have a contest of riddles, have a player guess the answer correctly, then roll a die and tell him he failed because he was unlucky? Does that improve the game at all? Not especially. A character with Cha 16 and 12 ranks in diplomacy is far less dependant on luck in most situations that would press the previous character's abilities to the max. Right and eventually we get to a point where the guy without diplomacy as a class skill might as well not even both talking, ever. The diplomacy character is flat out better addressing everyone in the game than the other guy could ever be, so the other guy is forced to take one for the team and shut the hell up for the entire session. Not a very fun game being that guy. Also, on a side note, diplomacy actually kills the effects of the charisma stat. If you're a fighter, no matter how charismatic you may be, you're nothing compared to someone who has diplomacy on thier class skill list. A rogue wtih 8 cha is going to be a better diplomat than a fighter with 18, except at very low levels. Social skills do not make charisma valuable, they actually devalue it. If for whatever reason we did want random chance in social situations, perhaps to simulate a legal trial or other situation with two speakers arguing two sides, then we would be better off still not having a skill and just using charisma. Mainly because a charisma check allows small modifiers for good arguments to matter, and makes a -20 for saying nothing but "I like swords" to be absolutely damning. It also allows anyone to have a chance at swaying someone, regardless of their 8 charisma. It's a bit harder, but not impossible. When you have a figther and a rogue at high levels. It's no contest. The rogue can use diplomacy, the fighter just might as well not bother. Every level the fighter falls farther and farther behind to the point that he could be under a permanent silence spell and nobody would care. Mechanics and roleplay, they go hand in hand for optimal fun in many cases. Not all, and perhaps not most, because we all have preferances for the game, and no body should turn their nose up at the choices we make. It's our fun after all, not theirs. Right, optimal fun. I stil have yet to see any arguments why social skills are fun for the game in general. As a person who has played 2nd edition and 3rd, I can say that I have seen no improvement to roleplaying from the social skill system. I have yet to see it once make the game more fun, nor have I ever heard any stories of how it makes the game more fun. About all I've heard is crap like "I can convince people to kill themselves cause I have a +60 on my bluff check" and "I can convince the king to give me his crown with my +80 diplomacy roll". How this is fun or good for the game beyond a pure munchkin fest is beyond me.
Lord Stigius 12-24-04, 10:53 AM	Concerning social skills: I do not like a roll, or even a whole series of rolls, replacing actual role-playing. But replacing the PC's abilities and skills with those of the player's is not the way to go IMHO. Following this path we could completly discard not only such a stat as CHA, but all mental stats altogether. "Your character is just as charismatic, smart etc. as you are, no more, no less'? Noooo... It takes away probably as good a part of the whole roleplaying as solving everything with a single die roll does. I try to steer clear from both the dangers above. How? I simply expect my players to actually roleplay social interactions, but also have this roleplaying supported with the appropiate skills/stats. An example from my table: Player creates a gnome illusionist, CHA being his dump stat, no social skills. In his backgrond he wrote the following ocupations: geeseherd, goathers, sea fisherman (fishergnone?), generally low-born and brought up. No problem. However, during the session, the character behaves like a member of nobility at least, feelig and talking like an equal with a noble lord, commanding folks around... all of these done within reason, mind you, and well-roleplayed. I do not call for rolls. I do not rule an automatic failure. But after the session I take the player aside, explain the problem, and ask the player 'What are you going to do about this?'. Before next session he hands me out his character sheet for supervision. 'Is that OK now?' His CHA score is now 14 (having completly dumped STR), he also has taken some cross-class ranks in Diplomacy, Sense Motive and Bluff. Eventually he ends taking a few levels in bard too. But my players know that these skills, even with a few ranks only, are going to be useful. I do not require rolls with DCs beatable only with maxed out skills. In fact, I hardly ever require rolls at all. Simply this gnome, with his 14 Cha and 5 ranks in Diplomacy is going to fare better than the druid with his Cha 8 and no ranks at all. But the pure bard with his Cha 20 and 15+ ranks is going to do even things none of the former two can dream of... That's how the things go IMC.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-24-04, 11:41 AM	I have yet to have one DM slam me for stuttering, and make a mockery of my character despite the fact that I've yet to play a character with les than 15 charisma at any point in my gaming career since 3E made social skills. Not getting hosed due to a speech impediment = more fun. now, if you have a problem with Diplomacy because it's to easy to influence people, we'd be on the same side. But the skills need to be there to protect people like me. And your whining isn't going to change any minds.
Mister Mayhem 12-24-04, 12:25 PM	Right and eventually we get to a point where the guy without diplomacy as a class skill might as well not even both talking, ever. S'funny, I've never seen a player not describe his actions in a combat , on the grounds that "Hey, my chance of hitting is so high I'll win no matter what I do."
Roxlimn 12-24-04, 12:44 PM	Archtyrant Terevoth: I think you're implementing the mechanics in a skewed way, Archtyrant Terevoth, which is why you're getting skewed results. You say that Diplomacy requires player skill in roleplaying. I disagree. I think everything requires equal skill and provides equal enjoyment in roleplaying. You play combats like they were wargaming tactical games, as well you might, and the game does have precedent and is good for that. But just as you think Diplomacy is killing the roleplaying in social encounters because it's a mechanic, so too I think that good combat rules has killed roleplaying in your combats because you don't roleplay the combat anymore. It's just a rules construct now, something to min and max the heck out of like an Xbox or PC game. Doesn't your way kill the roleplaying in "RPG" equally well, if not more? Why is roleplaying in combat less important than roleplaying in other encounter types? Because it runs faster? Surely not. When a fighter in my campaign gets into the annoying habit of declaring "I attack" round after round, I institute the rather heavy handed rule of imposing a -2 penalty to hit attack roll every time he accounces an attack with the word "attack" unembellished. Though I also provide him with tools to encourage his roleplaying, usually that alone does the trick. Even in complicated combats saying "I press my advantage!" is a whole heck of a lot more fun than hearing "attack" after "attack" round after round for hours on end. Is this not roleplaying, too? Is this less fun or less important for some obscure reason? More importantly, is the roleplaying killed because the rules are sensible and good? Of course not. The only things that do the killing here are people who can't be persuaded to roleplay combat. While I disagree with them, I can still accept that they can have fun in other ways. Diplomacy works the same way. There is no reason you should not roleplay an encounter just because rules exist to determine the result beforehand. When you pretend you're the knight in a simplistic roleplay involving dragons princesses and warriors, you know you're going to succeed against the dragon. That's not the point. The fun is in acting out the fantasy. Just as in D&D, having a high Diplomacy skill does not invalidate roleplaying the encounter for the sake of fun. While some people might play it that way, these people aren't going to roleplay the Diplomacy skill anyway, whether it was there or not. The difference is, they can now adjudicate social encounters in a manner that they like, and get to the parts that they're really interested in, without cutting out diplomatic encounters from their games altogether. The notion that a player will have more fun when you force him to roleplay is ludicrous. If he wants to do it, he'll roleplay whenever he gets the chance, whether or not you prompt him. Players will care about how their swords look. They will care about which kind of traps they understand, and they will care about what they're saying in negotiations, if that's the thing they're into. Now you assert that what you say does not matter when you play Diplomacy. That's a load of nonsense. When a Fighter character of mine chooses to "negligently swat his enemy with his sword while picking his nose", I am definitely going to be giving him massive penalties. His character is only good in combat when he focuses on the matter at hand. Unless, of course, he is of such legendary stature that he can afford to do so. Likewise, not saying anything of importance is just the same as saying "I'm not using the Diplomacy skill". The skill requires that you present yourself as best you can and use your skill to best effect. If you are not doing so, then you are not using the skill, just as you won't be using the Climb skill when you say you'll Climb up the wall using only your tongue. Now let's say that in a high level game you place the DC of a social encounter at DC 41. In the first place, why the heck would you ever want to place a DC that high in a skill system like 3e's current skill system? Obviously that high a DC puts all but one or two out of the running. This is true for all skills, whether it's a nature series of encounters involving Survival, Swimming through a maze of tunnels, Climbing a mountainside, or passing the Lord's impromptu Origami contest. It is not true of Diplomacy alone but for all skills. Now pardon me for being impertinent, but again, is it your case that roleplaying a Swimming encounter is unfun and unimportant? Does your Ranger saying "I Survival them out of there!" suit you? If so, then I respect that, but then you have no case for saying that the Diplomacy skill is a problem, since you are doing the exact same thing, only with another skill. When adjudicating high level games, I find it advisable to place a lot of individual challenges of a lower difficulty, or lower difficulty encounters at all. This does not gain the PCs experience. It's still fun. These people are legendary people, practically mythical; they can't be meeting people who are their match every step of the way or they'll start questioning the validity of their power. Are they truly so special when every foot soldier the enemy fields in makes them sweat? Just as in cinema, you need to have a beat-em-up encounter to tell people that these heroes are something else, so too in RPGs, you need to constantly remind the PCs that their characters are extraordinary. As well, when all skill checks call for maxxed out skills to even stand a reasonable chance of success, then maxxing out skills becomes less special. It becomes the norm, when what a maxxed out skill character really represents is a character who specializes in that particular skill to the exclusion of many many others. How many characters in your campaigns have multiple nonmaxxed out skills? If you answer few or none, then that's reflective of a problem in skill system handling right there. Thus, it should be possible for a high level Bard to have to face a DC 15 Diplomacy check, or for the entire party to individually face and have pass such a check in order to proceed. Not only does this make the Bard feel more special, but it also reinforces the notion that skills are useful no matter what ranks you possess in them, which is reflective of my real life beliefs. Turn about is fair, in case you're wondering. In beat-em-ups, even the weakest combat character gets to play with the combat rules while the high level warriors get to have some gratuitous fun. This brings me to my second point. Why aren't you asking everyone else to make skill checks, just because this one person's "got it covered?" It's always better to ask everyone to pass individual skill checks just as getting everyone as combat savvy as possible is also a good thing. This can be as simple as a guard individually interviewing PCs for entry into a restricted area, or PCs mingling at a gala while infiltrating or gather information, or as elaborate as a multi-stage crafting or profession contest in which the finalists get to be invited to the place the PCs need to get invited to. Asking everyone for skill checks keeps them in the game and makes things interesting. Different PCs don't even need to have the same DCs to meet. Mr. Weapon Master's probably happy just to get invited to the finals (so he can stay in the adventure), but Mr. Rogue who happens to be a Draught afficionado will accept nothing less than the top prize... Your phasing people out of encounters as a necessary corollary for "noncombat" characters in combat encounters is not true either. Matched combats can take place in any of a number of ways, in any of a number of situations. Your inabilty to get people involved in the game is really less dependent on the Diplomacy skill adjudicating social encounters and more do to with how you're playing the game to being with. Even when you only need one succesful skill check, not being involved in the skill check does not mean being excluded for hours of play. That's about as fair as running a master/apprentice duel encounter while everyone else is waiting patiently on the sidelines as seconds. Just as you should speed up or resched solo combat encounters for when you're not dealing with a lot of players, so should you do the same for single high DC skill checks when everyone's around. You can always roleplay the encounter later, when you and the skilled roleplayer are alone. If he wanted to roleplay it, he'll do it even if it's a done deal, and if he doesn't, you aren't doing him any favors by forcing it on him. And again, not being involved in the skill check likewise doesn't mean no roleplay. I mean, what exactly does everyone else do while your main negotiator stands negotiating for hours on end? Surely they don't just disappear into thin air? I know I get uncomfortable fairly quickly when I'm not involved in a conversation and there's just 3 of us. I wander away to do something more interesting or I get involved in the conversation. This doesn't necessarily mean that I'm the main mover of a particular interest or an arbiter. I could just be interjecting my opinions and representing my own interests, helping out my side, or just being politely included without actually saying much of anything. I'm still in the conversation, though. I think it's fair for everyone to play a part in social encounters but I don't think it's fair that social characters like the Bard and the Rogue should be phased out of play just because everyone can cut in on their abilities without actual mechanical basis. I agree that different people should be prominent in different encounters. I don't think the Half-Orc Barbarian over there should be prominent factor in talks when dealing with Orc tribes and such unless he actually got a decent Cha score and spent cross-class skills on Diplomacy. The Half-elf Bard may have a higher Diplomacy score, but if the Orcs don't want to talk to him in the first place, his Diplomacy is worthless. There are limits to what you can convince people of. If they don't want to believe that the sun rises in the east despite physical evidence, then you don't really stand much in the way of a chance. I played 2e as well and I sorely felt the lack of a decent skill system, and especially a system for dealing with social interactions sensibly. A person skilled in Diplomacy should far outdo what's possible just with raw ability (unless that raw talent is also reflected by Diplomacy ranks or massive bonuses). I see what a great help they are in the game, and I'm happy they're around. I support them strongly, and yet, I don't skip by NPC interaction scenes at all. In short, I think the core of your problems is how you're running your games, not the way the Diplomacy skill and the skill system in general, works.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-24-04, 01:08 PM	I have yet to have one DM slam me for stuttering, and make a mockery of my character despite the fact that I've yet to play a character with les than 15 charisma at any point in my gaming career since 3E made social skills. How do you know you're not getting hosed? Because all social encounters are just a roll of the dice that require no thought at all beyond moving your hand to roll the dice? But the skills need to be there to protect people like me. Protect you from what exactly? Having to decide on something to say during a game? Should we also have rules which protect wizards who aren't smart enough to have good spell selection. Rules to protect people who aren't creative enough to play combat tactically enough? That's part of the fun part of the game you're getting rid of to protect yourself. Do you also play poker with your cards face up so everyone can see em? After all, you gotta protect the people who have no poker face too. Might as well just make it totally about random chance. Why give people choices at all because some people are better at decision making... Nope, you just roll your dice or draw your cards when it's your turn and that's it because god forbid we allow anyone to be better than anyone else. You're losing what makes the game fun in your efforts to "protect" people. Some people will be better than others at some things, that's the nature of games. I find your desire to remove player skill from the game puzzling... is thoughtlessly tossing dice your idea of fun or what? All because you're afraid that some other player might be able to outplay you at some aspect of the game and you need to be protected from it? I'm not the best basketball player in the world, but I don't walk into the court expecting everyone to widen the hoop for me so that I can shoot baskets as well as they can. I don't ban running on the basketball court because some people might be faster than I am. I honestly can't understand why you'd want to totally destroy the game because you're afraid some people are better at it than you are. Some people are faster than you, some people are better strategists than you, some people are better roleplayers than you. In any game, some people will be able to outplay you, you just have to accept that. That's life.
Mister Mayhem 12-24-04, 01:38 PM	I'm mystified. You won't allow people with no social skills to play characters who have social skills. But you will allow weakling desk-jockeys to play STR 20 half-orcs?
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-24-04, 02:21 PM	You say that Diplomacy requires player skill in roleplaying. I disagree. I think everything requires equal skill and provides equal enjoyment in roleplaying. You play combats like they were wargaming tactical games, as well you might, and the game does have precedent and is good for that. But just as you think Diplomacy is killing the roleplaying in social encounters because it's a mechanic, so too I think that good combat rules has killed roleplaying in your combats because you don't roleplay the combat anymore. Well, the fun in combats in D&D isn't the roleplaying aspect, but rather the strategic aspect. Having evolved from a wargame, I think this is just something natural for D&D. It's combats require a certain degree of strategy and options. And the more balanced options you have, things like disarms, bull rushes and so on, the better the game gets from a tactical point of view. D&D combat is as I've said before, a game in a game. You can run the combat system without ever worrying about roleplaying or anything. The D&D miniatures game is based around just that. And that can be a very fun and rewarding experience. It's got a mix of luck and strategy, which makes things fun. While you can add descriptions to D&D combat, which is certainly cool for adding to the mood, the combat system isn't really designed for that. Some people who prefer more roleplay based combat can say this is "killing the roleplaying" and somewhat it might be. However the D&D combat system is nonetheless fun to play, despite being somewhat flavor sterile. And while one can also dislike the luck in combat, I think the majority can agree it makes combat more fun and exciting to add dice to it. Diplomacy works the same way. There is no reason you should not roleplay an encounter just because rules exist to determine the result beforehand. But, ultimately your roleplay in the encounter is totally futile, and not fun. In combat you have choices. Attack, full defense, charge, cast defensively, disarm, etc. And the result of that combat is based on your choices. Yes, you can get screwed by luck, but the luck element adds a degree of fun to the game. The difference is, they can now adjudicate social encounters in a manner that they like, and get to the parts that they're really interested in, without cutting out diplomatic encounters from their games altogether. But if they're not realyl interested in them, then you don't even need a way to adjudicate them. That is you can just have the results predetermined because they don't particularly care. In social encounters there's really no need to have any randomness becaues they tend to be plot points anyway in simple combat based campaigns. It's like a final fantasy game with a scripted dialogue and plot. People are black and white. The king is allied wtih the evil forces, and you can't convince him otherwise unless the plot says he's going to turn. And nobody really cares because they're more interested in getting to the next combat. Your conversation wtih the kind may well simply be backstory read from boxed text as you start the adventure at the door to the latest "dungeon of doom" . The notion that a player will have more fun when you force him to roleplay is ludicrous. If he wants to do it, he'll roleplay whenever he gets the chance, whether or not you prompt him. Players will care about how their swords look. They will care about which kind of traps they understand, and they will care about what they're saying in negotiations, if that's the thing they're into. Yes, but there's a matter of effort. If you offer someone the choice to do a bunch of stuff you might as well have those choices mean something. If you can select A, B or C. Those should have possibly different results. If they don't then PCs eventually just get discouraged. Sure, some players are really enthusiastic about strategy and just love tactical combat. But what happens if every single action they take is no better than the attack action? Well they won't bother to think much about it anymore and probably get bored. Part of the fun isnt' just doing it, but also gaining some kind of reward for doing it well. Once you realize you could be reading random newspaper clippings or giving an Oscar worthy performance and it wouldn't matter, people will stop trying very hard. Your players see the emphasis you put on stuff, and I honestly wouldn't bother roleplaying out a scene that the DM seems determined to skip over wtih a die roll. It seems so pointless. Now let's say that in a high level game you place the DC of a social encounter at DC 41. In the first place, why the heck would you ever want to place a DC that high in a skill system like 3e's current skill system? Because it's a lose lose situation. On one end, you've got to make it challenging for the guys with high diplomacy skill, on the other hand, you want the guys with low skill to still feel like they matter. And you cant' do both. No matter which one you pick, you still lose. Conclusion: Diplomacy shouldn't be a skill. Obviously that high a DC puts all but one or two out of the running. This is true for all skills, whether it's a nature series of encounters involving Survival, Swimming through a maze of tunnels, Climbing a mountainside, or passing the Lord's impromptu Origami contest. It is not true of Diplomacy alone but for all skills. Now pardon me for being impertinent, but again, is it your case that roleplaying a Swimming encounter is unfun and unimportant? Well, generally yes. It's not very important. On occasion you can add drama by requiring various swimming checks as the PCs are dropped into deep water in their armor and struggle to avoid drowning. This is similar to a combat scene, and often requires multiple checks as they struggle to remain afloat. There isnt' really much "roleplaying" to it as the PCs are basically assumed to be struggling but it can be a tense cliffhanger moment in the campaign where the PCs struggle for life. If the guy is just taking 10 to swim across a river, then you could care less. He knows how to swim, great... ok use your ability. There's no sense putting excessive roleplaying into a guy doing a routine task. Does your Ranger saying "I Survival them out of there!" suit you? If so, then I respect that, but then you have no case for saying that the Diplomacy skill is a problem, since you are doing the exact same thing, only with another skill. I don't force a ranger to roleplaying going hunting no. I assume he finds the food and that's it. Mostly because I don't consider it all that important to the plot. If my players had a real desire to know if they were eating rabbit or deer, then I might add in a scene where the ranger finds tracks of a deer and then run a combat. But this is an extreme indepth roleplay game with a rather unusual set of players. For the average game, simply assuming he can get by in the wilds is generally enough. And nobody really wastes any time while the ranger hunts so nobody cares. It's dealt with off camera and that's fine. The real question is the importance of the scene. Think of it like a movie. If something wouldn't take up much camera time in a movie, then it's ok to resolve it with a skill check and be done wtih it. In some cases you dont' even need the die roll. How many characters in your campaigns have multiple nonmaxxed out skills? If you answer few or none, then that's reflective of a problem in skill system handling right there. Well this is actualyl symptom of min/maxing. Min/maxed characters tend to be all or nothing as far as skills go, because the skill system is linear and encourages this sort of thing. Thus, it should be possible for a high level Bard to have to face a DC 15 Diplomacy check, or for the entire party to individually face and have pass such a check in order to proceed. Not only does this make the Bard feel more special, but it also reinforces the notion that skills are useful no matter what ranks you possess in them, which is reflective of my real life beliefs. But, this only becomes a factor if the group splits up. Otherwise you still only need one diplomacy character, who acts as the party "face". That's how the current skill system is set up. One guy does the talking, one guy disarms the traps, one guy has knowledge of nature and so on. You're always better with one exceptional tracker than 5 guys who can do a mediocre job at tracking. Spot and listen are about the only skills that you benefit from everyone having. Turn about is fair, in case you're wondering. In beat-em-ups, even the weakest combat character gets to play with the combat rules while the high level warriors get to have some gratuitous fun. This is my point. I dont' think that super weak characters should exist either. Nobody should be forced to utterly sit out during common important scenes. Diplomacy and Combat are the two most prevalent scenes there are. This brings me to my second point. Why aren't you asking everyone else to make skill checks, just because this one person's "got it covered?" Because it seldom works that way. Most of the time the group is talking to someone as a whole. Very rarely are they split up. While it can happen, usually it's always ensured that the people who are good at something get the jobs involving that. Your phasing people out of encounters as a necessary corollary for "noncombat" characters in combat encounters is not true either. Matched combats can take place in any of a number of ways, in any of a number of situations. Your inabilty to get people involved in the game is really less dependent on the Diplomacy skill adjudicating social encounters and more do to with how you're playing the game to being with. Matched encounters work in a gladiatorial fight, but pretty much nowhere else. In a game with area effect spells and such, unless you play monsters who tactically try not to involve the other PCs, then the attempt to split the group in this fashion doesn't work. When the great read wyrm breathes, everyone gets hit, whether they're a min/maxed paladin or a halfling bard. Only one guy is dead at the end of it. Just as you should speed up or resched solo combat encounters for when you're not dealing with a lot of players, so should you do the same for single high DC skill checks when everyone's around. You can always roleplay the encounter later, when you and the skilled roleplayer are alone. If he wanted to roleplay it, he'll do it even if it's a done deal, and if he doesn't, you aren't doing him any favors by forcing it on him. So you're saying skip the roleplaying. That's exactly what I don't want to do. If the scene was pointless and could be skipped, then you might as well resolve it without a roll. You don't need mechanics to resolve trivial social stuff, like buying a drink at the tavern. If you consider all social stuff trivial, you don't need mechanics for that either. If whatever happened during that scene doesn't really matter you probably don't need to pick up a single dice. I think it's fair for everyone to play a part in social encounters but I don't think it's fair that social characters like the Bard and the Rogue should be phased out of play just because everyone can cut in on their abilities without actual mechanical basis. Why should there be mechanical basis though? That's my question. It's the very same "mechanical basis" that leads so many to say the bard should suck in combat. I disagree wtih that too. Why should you have to trade combat ability for the ability to negotiate with people? In essence the bard is being phased out of combat just so that he can phase everyone else out of diplomacy. While this might be somewhat "fair", it isn't particularly fun game design. There are limits to what you can convince people of. If they don't want to believe that the sun rises in the east despite physical evidence, then you don't really stand much in the way of a chance. Have you read the D&D diplomacy and bluff rules? You can bluff someone of pretty much anything if your score is high enough. You can make any hostile your friend if your diplomacy is high enough. Sure, most good DMs apply common sense to it, but then it gets back to my primary principle... "why roll at all?" Should people suck in combat because they can talk well, or could being a good speaker just be something flavor based like having red hair instead of black hair? I played 2e as well and I sorely felt the lack of a decent skill system, and especially a system for dealing with social interactions sensibly. A person skilled in Diplomacy should far outdo what's possible just with raw ability (unless that raw talent is also reflected by Diplomacy ranks or massive bonuses). I see what a great help they are in the game, and I'm happy they're around. I support them strongly, and yet, I don't skip by NPC interaction scenes at all. Really, well you're the first to actually say something like this. I'm curious as to how they help with dealing with social encounters. I always though the second edition "make a charisma check" pretty much covered most diplomatic stuff if you really felt the need to roll. Most of the time I never really felt the need to roll. You don't roll to find out how your PC reacts to an NPC, why should they roll to see how they react to you? Doesn't make much sense to me. In short, I think the core of your problems is how you're running your games, not the way the Diplomacy skill and the skill system in general, works. How the diplomacy and social system works is abysmal, I don't know how you could ever say that the current system actually works. As it is now you can have a diplomacy score to make any god, even one who absolutely hates you, into a fanatical follower. You can bluff people into pretty much believing they have to kill themselves if your check is high enough. I'm not even bothering to debate if the current system works, because I think it's clear that it absolutely doesn't. What I am debating is something bigger, the question of if social skills actually help the game as a whole. this has a few parts. -Should characters be penalized in other areas because they can talk well? Is it ok for a skilled social PC to suck in combat? -Does the insertion of random chance add anything to social encounters to make them more fun? -Are we ok with certain PCs being totally ineffectual in social situations and being forced to sit out those encounters? After all if some people are good at them, some people also have to be bad. Do we want to be forced to purchase social skills (and therefore give up something else) in exchange for the ability to talk to NPCs? -Is it fun to abstract conversations into a die roll or a set of die rolls and take the emphasis away from what is said and instead place it on a number written on the character sheet? -Are we ok with NPCs being able to do the same to PCs to change their actions? That is, are we ok with the DM telling us that the succubus seduced our paladin because she rolled high on a social check? Is this fun? Those are the questions I'm asking everyone to consider...
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-24-04, 02:34 PM	I'm mystified. You won't allow people with no social skills to play characters who have social skills. But you will allow weakling desk-jockeys to play STR 20 half-orcs? I don't see why you'd be mystified. First, I'm not denying anyone the ability to try to play a certain type of character. You want to try to be a social character, go ahead... I'm not saying you can't try. As for allowing weaklings to play str 20 half orcs I fail to see what that has to do with anything. yeah, we allow poor mathematicians to play basketball, and people with no social skills to engage in boxing matches too. So what? Having physical strength isn't a part of the game. The game doesn't require you to lift things, so it's as irrelevant as worrying about if a guy who can play chess can run fast or not. Talking is however part of a role playing game. Trying to make the distinction between real strength and game strength is a poor strawman argument. You yourself would allow a poor tactician player to play a combat based character. You would allow a poor min/maxer to create a character at your games. It is no different from allowing a player with poor social skills to play a social character. Yes, he may be suboptimal, but such is life. Nobody is the best at everything. Maybe Arnold Schwartzenagger might not be the best choice to play the part of Hamlet. Doesn't mean he can't try, it just means that he porbably won't be as good as most actors. Everyone has thier strengths and their weaknesses. If you want to try a character that doesn't quite fit you, nobody says you can't. They're just saying that it's going to be challenging. If you don't want a challenge then you have the option of playing a different character. You do have choices at character creation not to be a social character.
Mister Mayhem 12-24-04, 03:02 PM	But, ultimately your roleplay in the encounter is totally futile, and not fun. ... Indeed? Something that is futile is not fun? This is hardly a pro-roleplaying argument. A player who is genuinely roleplaying his ill-bred dwarven mendicant will never, ever, be able to seduce the highborn princess. No point in roleplaying the encounter, then, because his attempts will be futile, and therefore, apparently, no fun. Have you read the D&D diplomacy and bluff rules? You can bluff someone of pretty much anything if your score is high enough. You can make any hostile your friend if your diplomacy is high enough. ... In D&D, a tiny human can kill a 50 tonne fire-breathing genius lizard with a short pointy peice of metal, if his attack and damage rolls are high enough. Thats just silly, best that we abolish the combat rules and force players to beat each other with sticks in the back yard. ******* -Should characters be penalized in other areas because they can talk well? Is it ok for a skilled social PC to suck in combat? Substitute "Talk Well" for any other skill. Should a fighter, who chooses to specialise in training to fight, be as skilled at picking locks as a rogue? Should that rogue, who has never been out of a city in his life, be as good at hunting in the wild as a ranger? Shoudl either be as good as charming the ladies as the Bard, a professional performer who has devoted his entire life to learning what to say and when to say it? Is it OK for a skilled trapfinder/lockpicker to suck in combat compared to an all out Fighter? No? Then give rogues the same BAB and feats as a fighter. But that would that be unfair to the fighter, surely. Then why is it silly that some characters choose social interaction as their area of expertise? -Does the insertion of random chance add anything to social encounters to make them more fun? " As much as random chance makes anything more fun. We roll dice for *every other action in the game*, does that somehow make the game less fun than if we judged the entire game on the basis of the *players* ability to carry out that action? -Are we ok with certain PCs being totally ineffectual in social situations and being forced to sit out those encounters? After all if some people are good at them, some people also have to be bad. Do we want to be forced to purchase social skills (and therefore give up something else) in exchange for the ability to talk to NPCs? Again, this applies accross the board. A first level wizard is pretty naff in combat - should we give him a high BAB and decent hit points, or are we willing to accept that he must make sacrifices in order to weild magic? A fighter is likely appalling at deciphering script - is it fair, or should we rule all characters capable of reading whatever they like - or perhaps resolve such situations by giving our players comprehension tests, so that an illiterate barbarian whose player is a linguist has a better chance of deciphering the mystic runes than the learned wizard whose player happens to be dyslexic? -Is it fun to abstract conversations into a die roll or a set of die rolls and take the emphasis away from what is said and instead place it on a number written on the character sheet? No. But nothing, absolutely nothing, about using the diplomacy skill forces you to do this. -Are we ok with NPCs being able to do the same to PCs to change their actions? That is, are we ok with the DM telling us that the succubus seduced our paladin because she rolled high on a social check? Is this fun? So the seductiveness of an super-humanly beautiful and enchanting magical being should be represented purely by how well Bob the DM can seduce his best friend Joe? You think Bob, who might well be not the most attractive and charismatic guy in the world, can do that justice, even if Joe is OK with the guy-guy thing in the first place? Or should Bob be forced to populate his entire world with male NPCs and monsters who have exactly the same social skills as he does? **************** Roleplaying isn't something you do because you have to. Roleplaying is something you do because it's fun. Roleplaying your character is fun, whether he has the grace and charm of adonis or is 4 foot tall, ugly as sin and an unfortunate need to insult all women taller than he is. You should roleplay your character when you are in a combat. You should roleplay your character when he is attempting to charm the princess - whether the character is any good at it, or not - and you should roleplay your character when the party is on the road, talking around the campfire, dividing the loot or relaxing in teh tavern. We do not roleplay because the DM makes us. We do not roleplay for situational advantage. We roleplay beause we enjoy it. The rules can never, ever change that, and those who don't enjoy roleplaying will refuse to do it whether or not the game makes provison for social skills, or not.
Thanatos02 12-24-04, 03:11 PM	Terevoth, your argument isn't very compelling, and I will explain why in a very short manner. You consider social skills to kill that game - You say this is because it destroys role-playing. Social skill rolls kill role-playing, and encourages non-Diplomacy characters from talking. However, your policy of doing away with social rolls encourages only naturally talented or practiced players to speak - so players who are actually bad at speaking are told to, well, shut up. It's foolish, nay, stupid. If you like all of your characters to be able to talk, well, I've got an idea! Have them take social skills! Not to be insulting, but, well, that's what they're there for. Your problem is, you want your cake and to eat it too. You want your twinked out killing machine who has learned nothing but killing ever to be able to hold his own in a discussion with a diplomat. Let me clue you in - it'd never happen. It doesn't make sense. That's why there's a Bard. And a Diplomacy skill, and a Bluff skill. So that those epic-diplomats and tale-tellers, and clever rogues get to use them. Next time you want the fighter to be able to speak socially, take a few points from Str. and put them into Chr. and but a few ranks in Diplomacy or invest in a Feat that gives a bonus to those skills. That'll solve your problems.
WizO_Catoblepas 12-24-04, 03:29 PM	Basically, in a gaming situation, I make my players tell me what type of information that they're wanting to get from the NPC, ask the manner at which they're asking the NPC fo information, and ask for their character's skill rank. Then I roll the dice to find the outcome. Why? In order to be fair to all of the players at the board, I'd have to make the player playing a fighter lift weights and adjust his character's score accordingly and make the player playing the wizard show me his SAT scores and adjust his character's score accordingly. In essense, I'd have to adjust all of the character's scores to match the player playing them if I'm going to insist that the social-based character have to have the social skills in real life. Also, yeah it may result in a social character to interact better than other characters, but that is a part of the game as well. It's not fair that my fighter can't climb wall, open locks, and remove traps like a rogue, but it is the rules. It isn't fair that my wizard can hit a high armor class/ high spell resistance creature but my fighter can, but that is the rules. It isn't far that the cleric can turn a handful of zombies and cure wounds, but my fighter can, but that is the rules. In fact, I'd say that D&D is based on specialization and having a well-balanced party that covers the specializations. Social skills are no different.
Thanatos02 12-24-04, 03:34 PM	Also, and in Continuation: I consider a few other things I feel are important. I feel social skills are along the lines of combat skills. First: Yes, we all know that D&D evolved out of a war game. I'd like to add that the game has changed in a big way. The social engine for this game isn't any worse then any other game, so I figure it's a bum argument. However, what about combat? Would you argue that a character with no combat skill can go ahead and wipe out skilled opponents just because he describes it well? That Level 2 Wizard might talk a good game, but a Fighter would wipe him out in a swordfight. Well, you wouldn't. You'd argue that because it stemmed from a wargame, combat is the basic aspect of the game, and must be followed in accordance with the rules. However, there are fine rules for adjucating skill checks. Taken to a logical extreme, you could say that there's no point to be role-playing at all, then. Well, there's no point in playing a game with rules. Moreover, there's no point in playing a game at all. Roleplaying is fun, and some characters arn't optimally social. Why do you have a problem that some characters are going to be better at something then others? I know you don't have a problem hosing less eloquent players, though. In social encounters there's really no need to have any randomness becaues they tend to be plot points anyway in simple combat based campaigns. It's like a final fantasy game with a scripted dialogue and plot. People are black and white. The king is allied wtih the evil forces, and you can't convince him otherwise unless the plot says he's going to turn. And nobody really cares because they're more interested in getting to the next combat. Your conversation wtih the kind may well simply be backstory read from boxed text as you start the adventure at the door to the latest "dungeon of doom" . Nonsense - my games never go down like that. You're obviously playing a different kind of game. That's fine, but there is a place for social skills. Go ahead and build your monster-killing, anti-social warrior outfitted for super-eXtreme combat and have him out-talk the diplomat bard. You're complaining about munchkin-skill diplomats, and that's the silliest thing I can imagine, but you only argue in favor of munchkin-killing machines. Have your cake, and eat it too. :P
Roxlimn 12-24-04, 04:11 PM	And yet I've offered my take on those issues quite demonstrably. To wit: -Should characters be penalized in other areas because they can talk well? Is it ok for a skilled social PC to suck in combat? Yes. Talking well is as valuable as fighting well and sometimes moreso. It's likewise OK for a skill based PC to suck in combat, as the Rogue does every so often. -Does the insertion of random chance add anything to social encounters to make them more fun? Yes. Just as different results in a combat scenario can bring about differing choices, success or failure in social skill encounters can also affect later choices and opportunities. -Are we ok with certain PCs being totally ineffectual in social situations and being forced to sit out those encounters? After all if some people are good at them, some people also have to be bad. Do we want to be forced to purchase social skills (and therefore give up something else) in exchange for the ability to talk to NPCs? Yes. Some PCs are socially inept as a PC concept. I have no problems with that. They do not, however, sit out social encounters. They will just have to handle the suckage just as poor combat characters have to weather combat. -Is it fun to abstract conversations into a die roll or a set of die rolls and take the emphasis away from what is said and instead place it on a number written on the character sheet? The Diplomacy skill does not take the emphasis away from what's being said. For people who like to roleplay, what's being said is always fun, no matter the outcome. In fact, it's probably just as fun to roleplay a bad result as it is to roleplay a good one. -Are we ok with NPCs being able to do the same to PCs to change their actions? That is, are we ok with the DM telling us that the succubus seduced our paladin because she rolled high on a social check? Is this fun? You don't understand the game concept. The Diplomacy skill isn't always usable. When it's usable it's great, but there are times when it's unusable or only marginally usable. It's great to have, but it ain't Dominate Person. You've touched on some points I'd like to clarify: Well, the fun in combats in D&D isn't the roleplaying aspect, but rather the strategic aspect. Really? I suppose you could say that that was the fun aspect for you, but surely you can't be speaking for me? Many people who play D&D with me don't like playing strategy games, or cannot tolerate overly complicated tactical rules. However, they like to roleplay combat. Who wouldn't want to pull off a stunt like Tom Cruise does in MI 2? Is locking swords with an opponent not fun (yet currently purely "flavor?")? What about halting a lethal strike to the neck in order to discuss terms? These are mechanically impossible without some heavy on the spot adjudication, but the more important aspect of them is that they are roleplaying, not tactical aspects of D&D combat. And they're fun, despite what you say. The good rules surrounding combat does not kill this fun. Why should good rules for Diplomacy kill the fun of roleplaying a Diplomacy encounter? But, ultimately your roleplay in the encounter is totally futile, and not fun. In combat you have choices. Attack, full defense, charge, cast defensively, disarm, etc. And the result of that combat is based on your choices. Yes, you can get screwed by luck, but the luck element adds a degree of fun to the game. You're confused. You aren't really complaining about the removal of roleplaying in Diplomacy encounters, which is not the point of the Diplomacy skill; what you're complaining about is the removal of a real interpersonal personality game in the determination of success in the D&D game. Which is again, about as sensible and as fair as demanding that only players who can swim can swim in-game, or players who can actually fight well fight well in-game. This is by no means a stretch. You are apparently skilled in interpersonal discourse and oration and like to display your talent. Great. You can play it that way in your games. Some of my friends actually know martial arts. They could actually simulate fights in a D&D campaign, but that would be pointless. Better to just get into real martial arts contests and leave D&D as D&D. Likewise, if you like to convince people of things and orate at length, then you are free to do so outside the game, and would probably be best served excercising your skill in better pursuits. Of course, you can always "roleplay" your encounters if you feel like it. But if they're not realyl interested in them, then you don't even need a way to adjudicate them. That is you can just have the results predetermined because they don't particularly care. You're mistaken. They care about the results. If the results are extreme enough, almost anyone can care about the results. They care that they might fail or they might succeed. They about which options open or close. It's a game just as combat is a game. In social encounters there's really no need to have any randomness becaues they tend to be plot points anyway in simple combat based campaigns. It's like a final fantasy game with a scripted dialogue and plot. People are black and white. The king is allied wtih the evil forces, and you can't convince him otherwise unless the plot says he's going to turn. And nobody really cares because they're more interested in getting to the next combat. Your conversation wtih the kind may well simply be backstory read from boxed text as you start the adventure at the door to the latest "dungeon of doom". I agree that it could be that way, but I argue that it should not be. Even in "simple" combat based campaigns, you can game the social encounter as another series of die rolls that the player must succeed on else have consequences or rewards. There are campaigns I've DMed that could be described as "simple" combat based campaign in which I successfully introduced the concept of an actual malleable plot (and coaxed more roleplay than I could otherwise) because I introduced the concept of social interaction as a die mediated roll. Part of the fun isnt' just doing it, but also gaining some kind of reward for doing it well. Once you realize you could be reading random newspaper clippings or giving an Oscar worthy performance and it wouldn't matter, people will stop trying very hard. Your players see the emphasis you put on stuff, and I honestly wouldn't bother roleplaying out a scene that the DM seems determined to skip over wtih a die roll. It seems so pointless. And again that would be because you are interested in an interactive social contest, not roleplaying at all. You call it "roleplaying" but it isn't, precisely because you want rewards, you want a real-life social challenge to net you an in-game reward. When you roleplay because you want to roleplay, it becomes its own reward and you do it the way you like because it's fun to do so, not because you would reap some sort of reward at the end. The fact that you think this is pointless tells me that you don't actually like roleplaying these scenarios. You just like the social challenge. No one who liked roleplaying social scenarios would ever think of such an exercise as pointless, regardless of whether the outcome is good or bad. Because it's a lose lose situation. On one end, you've got to make it challenging for the guys with high diplomacy skill, on the other hand, you want the guys with low skill to still feel like they matter. And you cant' do both. No matter which one you pick, you still lose. You either need to read better or you need to read the entire post before you make a reply. I suggested no less than three instances in which you can posit a less than maxxed challenge DC and it would be great for the game. 1. To build legendary atmosphere. Your Master Diplomat won't feel like a Master Diplomat if every social situation he encounters is just as much of a challenge now as it was at level 1. Whatever happened to the easy everyday challenges? 2. It doesn't have to be at the same time. You can posit high and low challenges at different parts in the campaign to value both high and low skill ranks. 3. It doesn't have to be the same DC for each character. You can pose lesser challenges for the less adept to maneuver through, while also managing the "highlight" event, the major DC that needs to get through. I'll even give you more suggestions this time. The lesser challenges can affect the final DC modifier, making every check count, but highlighting the importance of the final check none the less, or each check can have a minor reward to earn, with the major reward coming from the major check. There are more ways to value both high ranks and low ranks in skills. You just have to pay attention. Well, generally yes. It's not very important. On occasion you can add drama by requiring various swimming checks as the PCs are dropped into deep water in their armor and struggle to avoid drowning. This is similar to a combat scene, and often requires multiple checks as they struggle to remain afloat. There isnt' really much "roleplaying" to it as the PCs are basically assumed to be struggling but it can be a tense cliffhanger moment in the campaign where the PCs struggle for life. What about a chase scene in which the PCs have to make comparable Swim checks with the desperately swimming villain or else he might get away? What about a rescue in treacherous waters in a high storm? These are not combat scenes. They are straight skill contests with drama and flair. Just because a scene in the game has drama and flair, doesn't mean it's a "combat-like" scene, though I can appreciate how you might think that way if you haven't been playing up skills like they can be. I don't force a ranger to roleplaying going hunting no. I assume he finds the food and that's it. Mostly because I don't consider it all that important to the plot. Not even if the plot were "trying to survive in the wilderness together after surviving a vehicle mishap with no gear?" Not an interesting enough situation there, I suppose. What about if the plot were "trying to get through a hopelessly misleading tangle of forest in time to prevent a disaster?" Too boring as well? A Ranger in dire straits might even ask modestly skilled individuals to help forage as the large party of innocents tax even his skills to provide, or ask that such individuals offer their opinion on directions and weather. These are important "in-camera" dramatic skill check moments that I encourage you to use more of to make skills, all skills, more exciting in the game for you. The real question is the importance of the scene. Think of it like a movie. If something wouldn't take up much camera time in a movie, then it's ok to resolve it with a skill check and be done wtih it. In some cases you dont' even need the die roll. Oh. So having the Survival skill and multiple checks isn't appropriate for the movie "Alive"? What of "Pirates of the Carribean"? "Robinson Crusoe" perhaps? Those checks can't be that exciting, I suppose. Well this is actualyl symptom of min/maxing. Min/maxed characters tend to be all or nothing as far as skills go, because the skill system is linear and encourages this sort of thing. Untrue. Min/maxxed characters min/max whatever the DM indicates is most appropriate in his campaign. If you call for a wide variety of low challenge checks, then PCs will min/max by selecting a wide variety of skills at less than maxxed ranks. That's so obvious I'm embarrassed to even have to mention it. But, this only becomes a factor if the group splits up. Otherwise you still only need one diplomacy character, who acts as the party "face". That's how the current skill system is set up. One guy does the talking, one guy disarms the traps, one guy has knowledge of nature and so on. You're always better with one exceptional tracker than 5 guys who can do a mediocre job at tracking. Spot and listen are about the only skills that you benefit from everyone having. Incorrect. 1) Diplomacy encounters don't necessarily call for only one check per party, whether they're seperated or not. 2) Having guys who are also skilled in the skill you are most skilled at allows them to aid you, adding +2 to your roll for each party member. A character with maxxed ranks who also has 3 other characters to aid him is superior to one person working alone, by +6. In addition, being able to overlap skills means that even without the maxxed person, the other people can still aid each other and end up with a less maxxed person with a +4 modifier. He's not as good, but he's certainly better than what you'd have otherwise. 3) Spot and Listen are only useful as you say they are because you apparently use Aid Another and separate skill checks for those skills. By the DMG, you don't really have to. Group spotting and hiding is dependent on the most capable spotter and the least capable hider. A group can completely get by with just one really good Spotter and Listener. They won't be as good, but it can work. This is my point. I dont' think that super weak characters should exist either. Nobody should be forced to utterly sit out during common important scenes. Diplomacy and Combat are the two most prevalent scenes there are. "in my games." You forgot the "in my games" clause. This is certainly untrue in my games. Diplomacy can be important, but as the Rogue would say, "There's more than one way to rob a tower." Because it seldom works that way. Most of the time the group is talking to someone as a whole. Very rarely are they split up. While it can happen, usually it's always ensured that the people who are good at something get the jobs involving that. It isn't "usually that way." Your DM is making it "usually that way." That's not only unfair, it's also plain unrealistic. A person who's socially challenged is at a huge disadvantage in real life exactly because he can't avoid social interactions all the time. As long as social interaction is present in the game, there should always be instances in which you'll have to make checks individually. Matched encounters work in a gladiatorial fight, but pretty much nowhere else. In a game with area effect spells and such, unless you play monsters who tactically try not to involve the other PCs, then the attempt to split the group in this fashion doesn't work. When the great read wyrm breathes, everyone gets hit, whether they're a min/maxed paladin or a halfling bard. Only one guy is dead at the end of it. Unless, of course, the halfling bard is sensible enough to find cover and stay in it. While the Dragon is too busy fighting everyone else to deal with what it perceives to be a combat nonthreat, its also-hiding cohort is not, and it's glad to find a foe it thinks it can finally beat the snot out of. Entirely possible within the same battle area. Honestly, you just have to use the ol' imagination. So you're saying skip the roleplaying. That's exactly what I don't want to do. If the scene was pointless and could be skipped, then you might as well resolve it without a roll. You don't need mechanics to resolve trivial social stuff, like buying a drink at the tavern. If you consider all social stuff trivial, you don't need mechanics for that either. Again, it's obvious that you're speaking from the viewpoint of wanting to have a real-life social contest/game. First of all, just because you can fast-forward a scene doesn't mean that it's pointless. A lot of things can hinge on that one die roll. Secondly, I didn't say skip the roleplaying. I said do it later, when everything's done with. What you got was "skip the real-life contest/game," which is exactly what I meant since I never use real social ability to determine in-game social ability. When I say "roleplay", I mean to acts parts in a scenario, which may or may not be predetermined. When I ask for a Diplomacy skill roll, it's never for a trivial thing. Have you read the D&D diplomacy and bluff rules? You can bluff someone of pretty much anything if your score is high enough. You can make any hostile your friend if your diplomacy is high enough. Yes. And no. You can't bluff most gods out of godhood because many of them don't need Sense Motive to know what you're about. When you know the facts, you don't really need Sense Motive. Secondly, the bluff rules only work if the NPC is "bluffable" to begin with. You can't bluff a deaf guard with words. You can't bluff very effectively without a common language. In like manner, you can't bluff someone into believing something he or she cannot believe in for deep psychological reasons. For example, a person may be incapable of believing that her father is dead and acts like he was alive even though everything around her says he's not. You can't bluff her into believing what you know to be true, because she can't accept it on any terms. Likewise, you can't bluff someone into believing something you know to be false if that person cannot accept it on any terms. The rules don't say you can't bluff without using langauge of any sort, yet we know this to be self-evident. This is likewise self-evident. Likewise, Diplomacy is similarly limited. In the DMG, the DM is encouraged to "run the NPC just as a player would run a PC." Moreover, the table only lists basic DCs. In certain situations, it is entirely appropriate to rule that a check cannot be made, made at higher or lower DCs, or can only modify the NPC's attitude to a particular level, or will affect the NPC to at least a particular level. The rules you are familiar with are only the most basic of rules and need to be fleshed out with variable DCs just so that it can work at all in most situations. So no, your ability to influence people is dependent on the circumstance, as per the rules, and is by no means a sure thing. It goes beyond common sense. The rules demand that the DM adjudicate each Diplomacy check on a case to case basis, much as he is asked to do for most social skills, and skills in general. Really, well you're the first to actually say something like this. I'm curious as to how they help with dealing with social encounters. I always though the second edition "make a charisma check" pretty much covered most diplomatic stuff if you really felt the need to roll. Most of the time I never really felt the need to roll. You don't roll to find out how your PC reacts to an NPC, why should they roll to see how they react to you? Doesn't make much sense to me. Sort of. Diplomacy rolls reflect the ability to present yourself well and converse verbally and nonverbally. The 2e "charisma check" was a travesty because the well-oiled and professional diplomat can frequently be shown up by anyone with a sufficiently high charisma score. It's as if there was no actual skill involved, just brute ability. The new Diplomacy skill allows me to judge how well a character presents himself and his case before an NPC, to affect him favorably. While I could just take the check modifier and rule it from there, the introduction of chance plays a role also. This reflects the off chance than an Orc Barbarian might find some incredible common rapport with another person just by chance. Now while I don't roll to see how the PCs react to my NPCs, I also roleply, as a DM. If the NPC is inept in Diplomacy, I have him either be shy and unable to communicate effectively, or else I have him actually ruin his case while he's presenting it, even as the case actually benefits the PCs. Or perhaps he's just rude, or committed an unintentional faux pas. If he makes a good roll, I present his case well, make him sound reliable and confident, or outright narrate that he sounds convincing or tell the PCs directly that he sounds like he's arguing for their own good (even when he's not). So even though the PCs ultimately make their own decisions, NPC Diplomacy also affects PC decision making to a certain extent, as it naturally should. How the diplomacy and social system works is abysmal, I don't know how you could ever say that the current system actually works. As it is now you can have a diplomacy score to make any god, even one who absolutely hates you, into a fanatical follower. You can bluff people into pretty much believing they have to kill themselves if your check is high enough. I'm not even bothering to debate if the current system works, because I think it's clear that it absolutely doesn't. Technically speaking, there isn't a system in place, as there is nothing more than the vaguest hint of a system. You'll need to expand it to make it usable, but in that case, it is eminently usable. You cannot find out what DC it takes to make a god your follower as that skill DC is not listed, nor reasonably among the basic DCs listed. Your DM must adjudicate. Also, it is impossible to make people believe that they must kill themselves, and the Bluff skill implies this by suggesting the spell suggestion as always being the superior power, and that spell can't cause you to kill yourself. "At most it can make the innkeeper glance down at his shoes," doesn't seem to be the kind of skill you can brainwash people into committing suicide with. You don't seem to be familiar with what the rules in place entail or more directly, what they don't entail.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-24-04, 04:48 PM	However, your policy of doing away with social rolls encourages only naturally talented or practiced players to speak - so players who are actually bad at speaking are told to, well, shut up. No, the DM doesn't tell them to shut up, nor does he disregard what they say. They always feel like they are being treated fairly. If they have a good social scene then they get credit for it. They get practice by actually talking and hopefully they get better at it. I fail to see how that's stupid in any way. If you like all of your characters to be able to talk, well, I've got an idea! Have them take social skills! Not to be insulting, but, well, that's what they're there for. Your problem is, you want your cake and to eat it too. Not all classes get them as class skills and even if they did, you don't have the skill points to get all of them. Yeah, I can spend my 2 skill points per level on crossclass diplomacy, and then STILL take a backseat to a rogue or bard. The only way I'd contribute that way is if nobody took any social skills. Cross class skills are a losing proposition. The higher in level you get, the farther behind you get. Do the math. You want your twinked out killing machine who has learned nothing but killing ever to be able to hold his own in a discussion with a diplomat. Everyone should be a killing machine at high levels. Making one guy a diplomat and another guy a pure fighter with no other skills is dumb. OK, your bard sits on his ass while my fighter wins at combat, and then my fighter sits on his ass during any diplomatic scene. How is this fun? Wouldn't it be better if your bard contributed at combat and my fighter contributed socially too? Are people abhorrent to have socially adept people who can actually fight too? I don't get it. How does your social ability in any way make it so you're obligated to suck in combat? Why are we linking the two? Next time you want the fighter to be able to speak socially, take a few points from Str. and put them into Chr. and but a few ranks in Diplomacy or invest in a Feat that gives a bonus to those skills. That'll solve your problems. Basically you think it's fine to screw over PCs by charging them out the ass because they want to talk in your game. And in the same breath saying how diplomacy doesn't prevent people from talking. Think about that. "Well listen man, if you don't have diplomacy and bluff, whatever you say to NPCs doesn't even matter. I'll let you have those skills only, you'll need to give up half your combat feats and your cavalier won't be able to stay on his horse for longer than 1 round. Oh wait, I'm sorry, technically you can't even mount the horse." In fact, I'd say that D&D is based on specialization and having a well-balanced party that covers the specializations. Social skills are no different. And certain specializations are ok. Some things however like combat have to be doable by everyone. Everyone may not have the same role in combat, but everyone helps out. You may have a healer, a wizard and a swordsman, but everyone is competent in combat. Social encounters are the same way. They're so numerous, like combats, that everyone should be able to help out and contribute to them. To shut someone out of combat or a social encounter could potentially put them out of game for an entire game session or longer. Imagine being in a dungeon crawl session with a purely social bard? Certainly not a good idea to even allow that as a PC. Nobody wants to sit doing nothing for the entire session. And I'd argue that you shouldn't be having PCs that are banned from contributing to social areas either. Social encounters can take a very long time in some games, some DMs will have sessions with nothing but social interactions. To tell a PC he might as well sit in a corner for the whole session isn't a very fun prospect. And especially considering D&D is mostly a game of specialists, we have to worry about problems like this. Sitting in a corner isn't fun. Is it OK for a skilled trapfinder/lockpicker to suck in combat compared to an all out Fighter? No? Then give rogues the same BAB and feats as a fighter. But that would that be unfair to the fighter, surely. Then why is it silly that some characters choose social interaction as their area of expertise? No PC class should suck in combat. Nobody. No noncombat ability is worth being awful at fighting. Fighting is just too integral to the game. Social skills are just as integral. Being able to talk shouldn't be a choice that you have to make when you're making your character. That just sucks. We do not roleplay because the DM makes us. We do not roleplay for situational advantage. We roleplay beause we enjoy it. The rules can never, ever change that, and those who don't enjoy roleplaying will refuse to do it whether or not the game makes provison for social skills, or not. You can discourage roleplaying. You can discourage players from thinking. When you think of a clever combat strategy or something clever to say you want it to matter, you want to feel like you've made a difference. If thinking is irrelevant and equivalent to just hitting the 'X' button several times in final fantasy, then people are just going to stop thinking and just keep hitting the button. Why bother thinking of the answer to a riddle yourself in game when your int check is all that matters? Why bother thinking of what to say to someone in game when your diplomacy check is all that matters? The game should encourage people to think, it's a lot better than saying "I don't care what the hell you say, I'm just looking at this dice!" because that's what social skills do now. Disregard the player, disregard the roleplaying... just look at the dice. You know what else would be cool, if you had a computerized chessboard that lit up the squares where it wanted you to move, and you didn't have to think about your move at all, and all you did was move your peice where it told you to. That way you could have a retarded kid play chess as well as a pro. All he's gotta do is keep hitting the button and getting the latest move. The chessboard itself could randomly determine the winner so that it totally eliminated any degree of player skill. But all the players, they can kinda look like they're thinking and give the thinkers pose and everything, and it'll be the same because it's fun pretending you're playing a real game. Yeah... that sounds like a blast. :rolleyes:
WizO_Catoblepas 12-24-04, 05:31 PM	And certain specializations are ok. Some things however like combat have to be doable by everyone. Everyone may not have the same role in combat, but everyone helps out. You may have a healer, a wizard and a swordsman, but everyone is competent in combat. Social encounters are the same way. They're so numerous, like combats, that everyone should be able to help out and contribute to them. To shut someone out of combat or a social encounter could potentially put them out of game for an entire game session or longer. Imagine being in a dungeon crawl session with a purely social bard? Certainly not a good idea to even allow that as a PC. Nobody wants to sit doing nothing for the entire session. And I'd argue that you shouldn't be having PCs that are banned from contributing to social areas either. Social encounters can take a very long time in some games, some DMs will have sessions with nothing but social interactions. To tell a PC he might as well sit in a corner for the whole session isn't a very fun prospect. And especially considering D&D is mostly a game of specialists, we have to worry about problems like this. Sitting in a corner isn't fun. However, there are battles that certain classes shine and other don't. The rogues are not great for the undead/plant/constructs campaign and the mage isn' that great in the high SR campaigns. All classes have their strengths and weaknesses depending on the encounter. Social interactions isn't any different. Also, I don't think that anyone is saying that the low charisma/social chaacters and sitting on their hands. What is being said is that they're not the "negotiator" of the group. Basically, the high social skills character is the one that is the mouth of the group and thus is funneling this information back to the group. The low social interaction caracters can interact with the high social interaction character, who in turn interacts with the NPC. No PC class should suck in combat. Nobody. No noncombat ability is worth being awful at fighting. Fighting is just too integral to the game. Social skills are just as integral. Being able to talk shouldn't be a choice that you have to make when you're making your character. That just sucks. The precept here is that if a character focuses their skills and feats on social skills that they will automatically suck in combat. Honestly, I'm not sure if I subscribe to this theory. After all, if a fighter decided to focus the majority of their skill points and feats to their social skills, they would still have their advanced hit die, high fort save, high BAB, as well as all sorts of fun magical goodies. However, in the end, the game is based on trade-offs. I know as a rogue that I try to make intelligence my highest ability so that I can get as many skill points as possible. However, I usually find that I don't have all of what I would like to cover all of the abilities that I desire. Thus usually what happens is that my combat abilities (tumble) and social skills (gather information, innuendo, etc.) usually suffer. However, I able to spend them on the ones that I want (move silently, hide, disarm device, etc.) The game is based on choices and spending your resources so you can tailor your character to your desires.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-24-04, 05:59 PM	Yes. Talking well is as valuable as fighting well and sometimes moreso. It's likewise OK for a skill based PC to suck in combat, as the Rogue does every so often. Sucking in one combat is different from sucking at all combats. Certain guys can be immune to magic or have high DR or be immune to sneak attacks. That's ok, that's part of the tactical aspect to combat. But all classes should be generally competent at combat. Are you saying you want some classes to be utterly inept at combat as some PC classes are inept at social abiliies? Such that they might as well not even show up to the session if it involves a dungeon crawl? And you're ok with that? Yes. Just as different results in a combat scenario can bring about differing choices, success or failure in social skill encounters can also affect later choices and opportunities. But is random chance more fun than just relying on player choice and problem solving. Is it better treated as a simple check, whcih detaches the players from the scene, or as a puzzle which involves the players? Yes. Some PCs are socially inept as a PC concept. I have no problems with that. They do not, however, sit out social encounters. They will just have to handle the suckage just as poor combat characters have to weather combat. Why have poor combat characters in the first place? I mean like combat you'll always have certain social situations that do not favor certain PCs. The barbarian for instance should be like a fish out of water in the King's court, as should the druid and the ranger. They should however be a lot better when talking to Fey or other creatures of nature. Social encounters can certainly hold certain advantages and disadvantages just like combats can. The Diplomacy skill does not take the emphasis away from what's being said. For people who like to roleplay, what's being said is always fun, no matter the outcome. In fact, it's probably just as fun to roleplay a bad result as it is to roleplay a good one. If what you say means nothing, I'd say that's taking away the emphasis. Lets look at it this way. If your moves in a chess game didn't actually help you win the game, and the result of the game was entirely predetermined, would you be more or less likely to try to think of good moves? You don't understand the game concept. The Diplomacy skill isn't always usable. When it's usable it's great, but there are times when it's unusable or only marginally usable. It's great to have, but it ain't Dominate Person. Who says it's not useable all the time. It can be used at a -10 penalty as a 1 action use. There is nothing in the rules about bieng able to actively ignore the use of the skill. If you could do that, it'd be useless. And they're fun, despite what you say. The good rules surrounding combat does not kill this fun. Why should good rules for Diplomacy kill the fun of roleplaying a Diplomacy encounter? well it kills it to a degree, however it also opens up other fun, that of tactical combat. Some people may not like it and others might like it a lot. And of course you can always throw in a little house rules as well. But as was said earlier, mainly the fun of combat comes from making choices, as the fun comes from any game. These choices are not necessarily descriptive but rather tactical in D&D combat. But a choice is a choice and nonetheless it gives PCs control. Diplomatic systems tend to be expressly designed to take away any control the PC would have over the system. One side of the skill loses complete control over his character's effectiveness and the other loses control over his character's actions. The combat system gives control, while the diplomacy system takes it away. That's the difference. One involves the player mentally, the other detaches him from the game. Which is again, about as sensible and as fair as demanding that only players who can swim can swim in-game, or players who can actually fight well fight well in-game. There's that 'fair' word again... And another strawman. Every game requires skills of some kind. This can be physical skills, like basketball. Mental skills, like chess. Social skills, like a debate contest, or a mix of them. Is it fair that some people are better basketball players, better chess players or better debaters than others? When you have a game you have to accept that some people are better at it than others, or at least better at certain aspects. Asking that somehow things are supposed to be 'fair' for everyone is a bit of a stretch. You're mistaken. They care about the results. If the results are extreme enough, almost anyone can care about the results. They care that they might fail or they might succeed. They about which options open or close. It's a game just as combat is a game. Well it depends on the emphasis. If your game is Gygaxian dungeon crawls, generally you could care less what happens at town. You go back, you sell your loot, you buy new gear and then you go to the latest dungeon. The king might commend you or whatever, but that's just flavor. If your campaign is social oriented where players have to make complex choices such as who to trust, what to say, and so forth. Then now it becomes more of a social game. Perhaps the PCs are working for someone known to be a traitor against the crown and are meeting with a king. If they accidentally mention who they're working for, they could get sentenced to be executed. Now you could just handle this with a die roll, but that's not all that itneresting. If the roll fails, then the PCs feel helpless. Luck killed them, and there was nothing they could do. If the roll succeeds, they're equally detached. But if their choice of what to say determines what the king learns, well that's a lot more interesting and involving. Rather than being pushed into your grave as thouh you were helpless you're given the option of jumping in or not. And if you fail, well at least you acknowledge that you screwed up. As for purely random social stuff, there isn't too much of a point. If nothing the players say actually matters, then the conversation can go one preordained way. It doesn't matter that there's 3 different roll results because you're only playing that encounter once. All that matters is the one way the campaign goes, and the rest of the preparations for the other plot branches tend to be pointless. You could have rolled for the result before you started running the quest and just used that prerolled result. To have meaning in social encounters, the PCs actions must somehow determine the result. And again that would be because you are interested in an interactive social contest, not roleplaying at all. You call it "roleplaying" but it isn't, precisely because you want rewards, you want a real-life social challenge to net you an in-game reward. Well it's the "game" part of roleplaying. We can run straight roleplaying, it would be like acting. Yeah your actions don't affect the plot, and you're acting purely for the fun of it. But the game aspect means that what you take for actions should have some effect. You have choices, that's part of it being a game. The fact that you think this is pointless tells me that you don't actually like roleplaying these scenarios. You just like the social challenge. No one who liked roleplaying social scenarios would ever think of such an exercise as pointless, regardless of whether the outcome is good or bad. I actually love roleplaying social scenarios. I do however get extremely depressed that my words mean nothing ultimately. It detaches me from the game, and just makes me feel like "ahh what the hell's the difference". Bad rules can actually make an enjoyable activity less fun. Nothing is more fun in my opinion than being thrown into some social situation in the game where your life or death hangs on what you say next. Having a die roll determine that instead takes away most of the excitement and replaces it with pure fatalism. 3. It doesn't have to be the same DC for each character. You can pose lesser challenges for the less adept to maneuver through, while also managing the "highlight" event, the major DC that needs to get through. I'll even give you more suggestions this time. The lesser challenges can affect the final DC modifier, making every check count, but highlighting the importance of the final check none the less, or each check can have a minor reward to earn, with the major reward coming from the major check. Right, so basically you end up just giving everyone flat X% chance. Why bother rolling dice at all though. What about a chase scene in which the PCs have to make comparable Swim checks with the desperately swimming villain or else he might get away? What about a rescue in treacherous waters in a high storm? These are not combat scenes. They are straight skill contests with drama and flair. Just because a scene in the game has drama and flair, doesn't mean it's a "combat-like" scene, though I can appreciate how you might think that way if you haven't been playing up skills like they can be. Yeah, there are uses like this... sure. But this is mostly a suspense tool with no real decisions and all dice rolls. Not even if the plot were "trying to survive in the wilderness together after surviving a vehicle mishap with no gear?" Not an interesting enough situation there, I suppose. What about if the plot were "trying to get through a hopelessly misleading tangle of forest in time to prevent a disaster?" Too boring as well? well if the main theme is man against nature, then your wilderness skills become a lot more prominent in the plot. And you may have some examples where they seek shelter and so on. Though this is admittedly not very standard as far as D&D plots go and generally it's ok if you have to come up with special case rules for it. And in this case, the goal of the situation is ultimately to make the PCs feel a bit at the mercy of nature. So it's generally ok to place the fighter in a bit of a disadvantage. I wouldn't say you can't use the skills as on camera stuff, it's just that most of the time they're not. Most of the time it's Lord of the Rings style rangering. Aragorn finds food, though you don't see him hunting. He doesn't get lost in the wilds and so on. And most of the time this is how skills tend to be used. You dont' roleplay out the construction of a suit of full plate mail using a craft skill, you just fast forward and say "ok it's done in 2 weeks" or whatever. Untrue. Min/maxxed characters min/max whatever the DM indicates is most appropriate in his campaign. If you call for a wide variety of low challenge checks, then PCs will min/max by selecting a wide variety of skills at less than maxxed ranks. That's so obvious I'm embarrassed to even have to mention it. Well, I've checked out the character optimization boards occasionally and I can't recall seeing any characters with a hodgepodge of skills. Almost all of them max out every skill they get, with a few exceptions like tumble (which is used only for a specific DC check). Incorrect. As long as social interaction is present in the game, there should always be instances in which you'll have to make checks individually. Why? You can avoid social situations in game by just not talking and letting the others talk for you. Maybe there are some trivial social stuff like ordering an inn room and such, but I think you'd be being excessively cruel as a DM to constnatly deny the PC any degree of lodging or shelter without social help. Unless, of course, the halfling bard is sensible enough to find cover and stay in it. While the Dragon is too busy fighting everyone else to deal with what it perceives to be a combat nonthreat, its also-hiding cohort is not, and it's glad to find a foe it thinks it can finally beat the snot out of. Entirely possible within the same battle area. Honestly, you just have to use the ol' imagination. So you'd be ok with a fighter PC just getting a cohort with leadreship and having him do all the diplomatic stuff? Would you roleplay the scene where you are essnetially just talking to yourself or what? Again, it's obvious that you're speaking from the viewpoint of wanting to have a real-life social contest/game. First of all, just because you can fast-forward a scene doesn't mean that it's pointless. A lot of things can hinge on that one die roll. Secondly, I didn't say skip the roleplaying. I said do it later, when everything's done with. What you got was "skip the real-life contest/game," which is exactly what I meant since I never use real social ability to determine in-game social ability. When I say "roleplay", I mean to acts parts in a scenario, which may or may not be predetermined. Perhaps it's just me, but I don't enjoy much just roleplaying knowing the result. It takes all the fun away from it. It makes the whole scene just appear ultimately futile. Why bother choosing different things to say when all those choices ultimately lead to the same place? In like manner, you can't bluff someone into believing something he or she cannot believe in for deep psychological reasons. For example, a person may be incapable of believing that her father is dead and acts like he was alive even though everything around her says he's not. You can't bluff her into believing what you know to be true, because she can't accept it on any terms. Sadly there is no modifiers for psychology in diplomatic systems. Not the current one anyway. And really it's part of the reason that I don't think diplomatic systems work. Psychology is such a complex thing that it is best handled by the DM and not by some system. Any system will be painfully incomplete. Likewise, you can't bluff someone into believing something you know to be false if that person cannot accept it on any terms. The rules don't say you can't bluff without using langauge of any sort, yet we know this to be self-evident. This is likewise self-evident. Actually bluffing without language is fairly common. Playing dead, pretending to be sick, bluffing in poker, and so on. All of these don't have to involve any words or common language. Sort of. Diplomacy rolls reflect the ability to present yourself well and converse verbally and nonverbally. The 2e "charisma check" was a travesty because the well-oiled and professional diplomat can frequently be shown up by anyone with a sufficiently high charisma score. It's as if there was no actual skill involved, just brute ability. Well the well oiled diplomat should know what to say better. The high charisma character just says it better. The diplomat's advantages should actually be knowledge skills and a talent for figuring out what to say, not so much how to say it. He would know for instance that you don't wear purple around the king, as only the king himself is supposed to wear that color. A person with charisma only probably wouldn't know that and might make a bad impression. A legendary diplomat would have both the knowledge and the charisma to achieve his ends. This reflects the off chance than an Orc Barbarian might find some incredible common rapport with another person just by chance. And this is fine if you're dealing with random NPCs, but often the NPCs are not random, and you've got specific notes that the duke hates orcs and barbarians, then that orc should be screwed, and rightfully so. And again, a charisma check is fine to see if you were likeable or not, though this should affect only your basic starting situation. Now while I don't roll to see how the PCs react to my NPCs, Why not? After all as a firm believer in social skills shouldn't they apply both ways? After all, shouldn't your PCs feel content to roleplaying out how their characters are told to feel under the rules? It's not a requirement for PC players to have social skills but it becomes a 'social contest' as you say for the DM? Apparently you haven't gotten rid of social contests, you just only allow the DM to do that... I'm guessing you don't do that because it's no fun to take away the freedom of choice. Though by making diplomacy rolls in the first place for them, you're taking away part of thier freedom of choice to affect the encounter and placing it in the cruel hands of random chance. So even though the PCs ultimately make their own decisions, NPC Diplomacy also affects PC decision making to a certain extent, as it naturally should. Why can't NPC decision making work the same way? You cannot find out what DC it takes to make a god your follower as that skill DC is not listed, nor reasonably among the basic DCs listed. Epic level handbook, fanatic catagory under epic uses of diplomacy... that makes someone your fanatical follower. Anybody, so long as you make the check at a certain DC. Well min/maxed social characters can do that. ANd when you can make that DC against one person you can make it against anyone, because diplomacy DCs don't scale based on the difficulty of the guy you're dealing with.
Seeker95 12-24-04, 06:00 PM	Folks, lay off Archtyrant at this point. He painted himself into a corner by making blanket statements early in the conversation. Lacking the Diplomacy skill to extrciate himself by admitting he painted his stroke too broadly, and not being able to roll a die to determine the in-game outcome of his attempt, he is forced to continue digging a deeper hole than he can climb out of. His heart and intent started in the right place. His words took him elsewhere.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-24-04, 06:37 PM	However, there are battles that certain classes shine and other don't. The rogues are not great for the undead/plant/constructs campaign and the mage isn' that great in the high SR campaigns. All classes have their strengths and weaknesses depending on the encounter. Social interactions isn't any different. But certain classes dont' shine in all combats, and social encoutners are different in that regard. Certain classes always suck socially, like the fighter. And why? I think it'd be nice if the cleric could be the main shining character when addressing a duke who worships his god or the rogue could be the best when addressing underworld elements. Let the barbarian or fighter have his moment addressing orcs. With social stuff one guy is superior becuase there just aren't enough variables, there's only one number. You don't have the diverse amount of abilities you have in combat. It's hard to say who the superior combat characer is because people can fill so many different roles. Is the healing cleric better than the sneak attacking rogue for instance? WIth diplomacy there's no question. You have one number. Who is bigger, that's all you need to know. Also, I don't think that anyone is saying that the low charisma/social chaacters and sitting on their hands. What is being said is that they're not the "negotiator" of the group. Basically, the high social skills character is the one that is the mouth of the group and thus is funneling this information back to the group. The low social interaction caracters can interact with the high social interaction character, who in turn interacts with the NPC. Sure, you can do this... but do you really want your social encounters to involve people just gathering around one guy and whispering in his ear. Why not juist let everyone speak? Does the game suffer if you do that? It would look pretty silly to see the party huddle around one guy and start whispering to him. And if the bonus simply becomes the "group bonus" then you might as well just give it to everyone. Instead of forcing the group to talk through the one guy. The precept here is that if a character focuses their skills and feats on social skills that they will automatically suck in combat. Honestly, I'm not sure if I subscribe to this theory. After all, if a fighter decided to focus the majority of their skill points and feats to their social skills, they would still have their advanced hit die, high fort save, high BAB, as well as all sorts of fun magical goodies. Fighters really need their feats, they're in trouble as it is right now combat wise. A druid can already beat him out in combat with the right spells, and a druid gets diplomacy as a class skill and 4 skill points. However, in the end, the game is based on trade-offs. I know as a rogue that I try to make intelligence my highest ability so that I can get as many skill points as possible. However, I usually find that I don't have all of what I would like to cover all of the abilities that I desire. Thus usually what happens is that my combat abilities (tumble) and social skills (gather information, innuendo, etc.) usually suffer. However, I able to spend them on the ones that I want (move silently, hide, disarm device, etc.) The game is based on choices and spending your resources so you can tailor your character to your desires. True, there are choices, and some choices are ok, others are not. Trading away the ability to fight at all for other stuff is generally not a choice that should be allowed for PCs. Combat is such a major part of the game everyone should be able to do somethig there. I think social encounters are another major part of the game as well, that should also be an arena everyone is capable in.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-24-04, 08:23 PM	Protect you from what exactly? This: Me: "I a-a-a-a-m the g-g-great b-bard . . . ." DM: "The king laughs at you, and says "Can you have someone who isn't a jabbering moron talk to me?" But I have a feeling I could be posting cookie recipes for all it matters, you seem to have it in your head that diplomcay makes it so you don't have to talk, and refuse to see anything to the contrary, so I don't even know why I'm talking to you, you're taking bits and pieces of what I am saying, twisting them to the point of being hateful, and then trying to make it sound like I'm something that I'm not. To put it another way, you are taking straw man to dizzying new heights, to the point that your arguments are shrines to poor logic, thinly veiled personal attacks, and using emotions to get people on your side tather than hard facts. Go ahead and kep talking, you've actually lost the debate a long time ago with your rapant fallacious thinking. Edited in after thinking about it: I got ten bucks that Archtyrant quotes an odd sentence in my post, takes that one sentence out of proportion, then tries to make it sound like I don't roleplay at all, since that seems to be his style. Such as him adding in "worthless" somewhere when I said roleplaying was flavor text. That seems to be his style, put in a personal attack when he's losing a debate.
Lady Danyon Dehlmari 12-24-04, 08:51 PM	. Unfortunately, many of the amateur thespians who have leaked into our hobby over the years can't seem to understand that there's a difference between being a good actor and having skill at playing an RPG. That sums it up rather nicely. As do we have the flip side of people who play and skip the whole role-play bit. As long as a DM is trying their best to be fair to everyone in the game, I'm happy. For me, that involves numbers and role-play. :)
catharz 12-24-04, 08:55 PM	:rant: I realize this is a daring post, but time and again I am reminded of how powergaming is killing the game. I know it's generally accepted that powergaming is 'just one way to play the game', but I disagree. It may be an enjoyable way to play for some (or most?) people, but as a roleplayer, whenever I talk (be it through the internet or face to face) to powergamers I get frustrated by the lack of creativity and insight they show. WotC allows their game, or rather our game, to be destroyed by not speaking out against this, by not explaining to players that powergaming is in fact not the right way to play. (Do I get hit for saying that?) They even encourage powergaming by having the Character Optimization boards - which I believe is the most visited sub-forum of the WotC boards, which probably means that many of the current D&D players are powergamers, which is probably why WotC (or Hasbro, whatever) encourages powergaming anyway. I know I am just one voice, and that I cannot expect WotC to remove this thorn out of my side (because, frankly, I know I'm a minority). I don't even mind, I just wanted to spill my guts on this one. :rofl:
Ramius_Mordale 12-24-04, 09:29 PM	*Rolls diplomacy check get's a natural one and fails* :doh: Damn, well I botched this argument. Only thing I can do now is just join the brawl. :fight!: *Throws swing critically fails falls behind bar* Okay, only thing now I can do is get drunk. *Opens a bottle of whiskey critically fails on his fortitude check for consuming large amount of alchole in one gulp. Falls unconcious thankfully.* :pint: :zzz: :D
Zherog 12-24-04, 09:45 PM	*Rolls diplomacy check get's a natural one and fails* :doh: Damn, well I botched this argument. Only thing I can do now is just join the brawl. :fight!: *Throws swing critically fails falls behind bar* Okay, only thing now I can do is get drunk. *Opens a bottle of whiskey critically fails on his fortitude check for consuming large amount of alchole in one gulp. Falls unconcious thankfully.* :pint: :zzz: :D * Critically fails his "spelling" check and gets razzed on the boards * :angel:
Ramius_Mordale 12-24-04, 10:02 PM	Honestly, I'm a not drunk officer I just smell like one. :P Haha, yup caught me. Serves me right. I guess I shouldn't have wrote under the influence. :D BTW, really off topic, Happy Holidays everyone!
crazysamaritan 12-24-04, 10:23 PM	That seems to be [Archtyrant's] style, put in a personal attack when he's losing a debate. Now that's unfair, CA... At usually not that antagonistic. I think this is probably just a sore spot for him. I doubt he really means to insult us, he just seems to find dice rolls to be less important than acting. Nothing wrong with that and there's no reason why he can't play DnD that way. btw, for his campaign, I strongly suggest you just keep the the body statrs, instead of the mental ones, as he seems to want to challange the mental abilities of his players. Amoung most nerds, that is fun. :D As long as you're having fun, you're playing DnD the right way.
Roxlimn 12-25-04, 04:47 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: You know what? Seeker95's right. You're just digging yourself further and further down with this thing. So I'll do you a favor and not respond to your last response to my posts. You don't like the Diplomacy skill. That's cool. I like and a lot of other people do, too. I hope you can be cool with that.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-25-04, 06:35 AM	I got ten bucks that Archtyrant quotes an odd sentence in my post, takes that one sentence out of proportion, then tries to make it sound like I don't roleplay at all Just because it's Christmas... go right ahead and open your present. I could be posting cookie recipes for all it matters, An interesting attitude toward social skills. These are without dispute the words of a min/maxer and not a true roleplayer.
Count Arioch the 28th 12-25-04, 12:42 PM	:P I'm taking that as a light hearted jab, so I'll be a bit friendlier. A bit only, if I'm too nice my fans won't recognize me.
crazysamaritan 12-25-04, 12:58 PM	:P I'm taking that as a light hearted jab, so I'll be a bit friendlier. A bit only, if I'm too nice my fans won't recognize me. :rofl: Who do you are now? EatFlan?
Count Arioch the 28th 12-25-04, 03:32 PM	Pssht, I was posting here when Eatflan was . . . well . . . not posting here. I think anyway, I don't remember his name from way back when.
Encard 12-25-04, 06:49 PM	A bit of a latecomer to this discussion, but... Y'know, I'm really quite shocked at the assumption much of this dicussion seems to be based on, that socially-incompetent PCs must sit out in social encounters. Where did this absurd idea come from? Honestly, where? It's certainly not based on any analysis of real social interaction. Yes, some people know they're bad at getting their ideas across and are shy because of it. Others know they're bad at it and talk anyway, because life's more fun that way. Still others just don't realize it, and think they're really brilliant speakers. If you're forcing PCs in your campaign to play the first type, that's strictly your problem, not a problem with the rules. Of course, it's possible that the party will decide to appoint one character as the face. See, though, that's a question of party dynamics. Other parties will decide that they care less about having one guy present their ideas excellently than they care about everyone getting a chance to talk. Also, that's similar to appointing the best sword-swinger in the party to handle all the melee combat by itself; it doesn't always work well. There should logically be encounters where having one person speak for the entire party just doesn't cut it - having players questioned individually, having them speak to different people at large social events, having different characters know different parts of the story (or want to rpesent it differently), having different characters with different goals in a given encounter, having the party not look suspicious ("That one guy's been talking for a wghile now without anyone else saying anything... This is getting strange. Why isn't anyone else saying a word? I think I'll call the big guy out and see what he'll say!"), or a host of other options. Also, poor social skill ratings have don't make a character socially inept. Having a character concept that includes being socially inept does that, and social skills merely quantify exactly how inept he is. Cutting social skill won't change that in the slightest, except for making the exact level of ineptitude a little bit less clear. Honestly, is there a difference between a socially-inept Cha 6 half-orc with 0 ranks in Diplomacy, and the same half-orc with the Cha and Diplomacy removed from the system? If the character is roleplayed properly, no. There should be NO difference between the character with the stat/skill there and without it there. If there is a difference, then the character's probably exploiting that lack to ignore an inherent weakness of the character. Also... Where did the idea that the fun in combat comes solely or even mostly from its tactical aspects come from? Sure, this is the case for some people. However, for others (at least as many, I'd guess, as get their kicks from lengthy social interaction) much of the fun of combat is based on the description/flavor text/etc around it. I'd quit any game where combat consisted of "I hit it with my sword" over and over again in a heartbeat, and I'm guessing that feeling is shared by many others. The tactical aspect is a major part of the fun, but there are many games that're far, far better than D&D if that's all you're interested in. And... As has been said already, basing a character's social interaction mainly on the player's skill isn't good roleplaying. It's very, very poor roleplaying. The character is the character; the player is the player. They are not the same entity, and their traits should not be treated as belonging to the same entity. For the same reason that a character with Int 4 and no Knowledge skills shouldn't be giving long, involved, accurate lectures on the history of the world, the character with a Cha 4 and no Diplomacy skill shouldn't be running around charming all the ladies. On the flip side, the character with an Int 23 and a rating of 30 in all the Knowledge skills should be quite capable of doing that, and the Cha 23 and Diplomacy 30 character should be quite good at charming people around him. Whether the player personally knows enough to give such a lecture (highly unlikely, since most campaign settings don't have nearly enough published information to encompass everything a character a Knowledge skill at 30 would know) or personally knows how to work his way through most any social situation (also highly unlikely, considering that most of the D&D player base isn't composed of professional charmers) isn't relevant to what the character is like. Furthermore, the contention that a player's grasp (or lack of) tactics is the same as his grasp (or lack of) social adeptness, and thus should not be regulated by social skills, is severely flawed. A character's attack bonus, damage, and so on are the combat equivalent of the social skills in social situations. A player's grasp of tactics is the equivalent of how that player approaches social situations - that is to say, how he prepares his information (damaging facts, rumors, useful information, etc) for the sitations, what or who he brings with him to the situations, how he exits the situations, and so on. This is far more similar to the planning that goes into tactics (positioning, choosing the location of the fight, ambushes, proper mundane and magical preparations, etc) than it is to the raw die rolls that determine the outcome of the players' actions during combat. In turn the tactics are far more similar to planning during, before, and after social encounters than they are to the raw die rolls that determine the outcomes of the players' actions during social interaction. In both cases, the rolls determine the outcome of a given situation, but the planning determines what situation will actually be encountered by the players. Ideally, there'd also be some concrete way of working this out based on the character as written, but as it is it mainly depends on the player properly taking the character's abilities into account when determining how they act.
Gadodel 12-25-04, 07:00 PM	:rant: I realize this is a daring post, but time and again I am reminded of how powergaming is killing the game. I know it's generally accepted that powergaming is 'just one way to play the game', but I disagree. It may be an enjoyable way to play for some (or most?) people, but as a roleplayer, whenever I talk (be it through the internet or face to face) to powergamers I get frustrated by the lack of creativity and insight they show. WotC allows their game, or rather our game, to be destroyed by not speaking out against this, by not explaining to players that powergaming is in fact not the right way to play. (Do I get hit for saying that?) They even encourage powergaming by having the Character Optimization boards - which I believe is the most visited sub-forum of the WotC boards, which probably means that many of the current D&D players are powergamers, which is probably why WotC (or Hasbro, whatever) encourages powergaming anyway. I know I am just one voice, and that I cannot expect WotC to remove this thorn out of my side (because, frankly, I know I'm a minority). I don't even mind, I just wanted to spill my guts on this one. Choice. It's a beautiful thing. You can choose to play one way, I another and others yet other ways. It is rarely a problem with the game or rules, but rathe the player. Take a peek into a mirror sometime.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-25-04, 08:52 PM	Cutting social skill won't change that in the slightest, except for making the exact level of ineptitude a little bit less clear. Honestly, is there a difference between a socially-inept Cha 6 half-orc with 0 ranks in Diplomacy, and the same half-orc with the Cha and Diplomacy removed from the system? If the character is roleplayed properly, no. There should be NO difference between the character with the stat/skill there and without it there. Actually, there is a difference. Because things are a lot more well defined when things are described instead of numerically plotted. Social interaction isn't a single "better or worse" kind of deal. It's very varied. Some people are great at fact based debates, but aren't very likeable people. Some people are very likeable but poor when trying to appeal to reason. One number to contain all of that is well, a bit silly. And the person you're talking to is a big factor as well. Maybe he hates the suave pretty boy type and your bard, who is normally well liked, reminds the guy of someone he hated from his past. The half orc barbarian, known for his poorly thought out statements, may come off as bluntly honest in a positive way as opposed to the bard who could be viewed as a glib tounged liar. You could have a woman who makes an awful diplomat, but is an expert at seduction. A barbarian chieftan may respect someone simple and brutish instead of the peaceloving smooth talking paladin. And the charisma stat itself is pretty vague. It represents a lot of things in one. Leadership, Personal magnetism, physical appearance and so on. So again, one stat doesn't even begin to cover all social interaction. And nobody is likeable to everyone. In some cases negative traits can end up being positive. To an ugly NPC, a good looking person may create envy and produce a negative reaction, where an ugly person seems easier to relate to. And this isn't the ugly person getting "lucky". In such an encounter he could very well be the favorite. To some people, a meek shy person can be more likeable than a "Mr. personality, life of the party" type of character. And again, this isn't bad luck, this is the person's personal preferences. That's just the way things go. Social interactions are incredibly complex. Trying to compound all of these complexities to a single number and a single die roll is quite inconcievable to me. You are better off letting people just choose their character's roleplaying type and let them go with it. And let them appeal to certain people more than others. Some may appeal best to the dimwitted masses of commoners. Others may find their place among the courts of the nobles. And some may find that warriors and soldiers respect them. Diplomatic stats are better left descriptive and not numeric.
Ramius_Mordale 12-25-04, 09:32 PM	Okay now that I've sobered up a bit, you do know you just described three skills there. Bluff, diplomacy and just plain good old roleplaying. The aweful diplomat lady but the seductress would be having a high charisma but focuses more on the bluff skill than diplomacy. And no body said charisma is a magic wand that allows you to charm everyone. That's why you roleplay. What you use the diplomacy check for is not just personal reactions all the time. Granted with NPCs you're trying to improve someone's reaction towards you. Let's say that person you describe hates pretty people or whatever you said. Then that person makes a diplomacy check to improve his standing with the person but the check merely is that you succeed at improving their attitude not whether they are going to just hand out favors automatically. A good DM wouldn't just be like, 'hey you got a superior check on diplomacy the King hands over his throne to you because of your masterful use of words.' So what you got a high roll, you got the people's attention that's it and for them to look on you with a positive outlook, but then you have to roleplay out what you want. It doesn't matter if you are the best diplomat and you get everyone to like you in the room with a roll, but if you go in their insulting representatives of states and government you aren't going to win them over any and probably a DM would just increase the DC or penalize your roll depending on how good you rped it out. Plus diplomacy is a way to know how to greese the wheels of things in order to gain special papers or such from the government by cutting through red tape faster. It can represent how adept you are at actually being good at diplomacy with people. Now lets say you just want to be good at seducing people, well then put ranks in bluff to show you are good at seducing people. It shows mechanically how masterful you are at it, and technically you don't even have to make a roll maybe its a way to show how masterful you are at such a thing. If you don't want to roll and your DM allows you to roleplay out the skill without making a roll then by all means do it. But the skill is there to show how masterful you are at it. For instance, a fighter that has an 18 charisma is still good at talking with people or having a strong commanding presence. He would probably catch a fair amount of the ladies eyes as well be admired by many people if he is kind and likable, or you could have the really chrismatic orc barbarian that has a super commanding presence but looks better than most orcs but is still somewhat of an eye sore. And then lets say you have that super attractive sorceress lady in the room, fine as ever with the grace and beauty of a nymph, and she just seduces a man with a mere whisper in his ear and a wink of her eye (representing bluff skill). But something that is absolutely totally against a PCs or NPCs nature will have a nearly impossible check and then to roleplay it out probably even harder still. A DM should always keep that in mind. If it is impossible to seduce the paladin then it should be unless magically influenced against his will. There is a reason why the charm spell exists, and skills are not a for sure way to win people over socially. Again it merely shows how masterful you are at the given task not if you will always succeed at it. Well I could say more into this but I need to be getting off here. -Ramius-
Encard 12-25-04, 10:23 PM	To a degree you're right, Archtyrant. However, I see a couple problems with what you said. A character with a high Diplomacy score isn't simply a smooth talker. He's someone who knows the right way to say the right things in the right situation. In other words, if being gruff is the best way to go in a situation, a character with a high Diplomacy score will realize that and be gruff. If being smooth and subtle is the best way, he'll realize that and be smoothy and subtle. It shows that much in the skill description. Now, you're right, certain traits might put a character at a disadvantage in a given situation. These traits do not, however, include having a high Diplomacy score (for the reason I stated above). When they do play a part, I'd say the simplest way to deal with the situation is simply to modify the DC appropriately. After all, the DCs listed under the Diplomacy skill description are specifically given as "basic" DCs. Although you're certainly free to interpret that as you like, this seems to indicate to me that the DCs should be tweaked as appropriate for the given encounter. After all, people have more than five states of being. What you say about different ways of argument is true, I'll admit. However, again, I think that this can perhaps most easily be remedied through setting an appropriate DC. Also, I tend to see the Diplomacy skill as something that covers more than one tactic, particularly when characters have it at a high rating. The system for social skills is certainly not perfect. However, it does allow players to have characters that are (positively) unlike themselves in terms of social adeptness, and for making sure that a player actually plays out his character's weaknesses if the character is socially inept. I see no reason that a player should be limited to his own inherent charisma and social skills, and thus I see this system as a good thing, even though it does have flaws.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-25-04, 10:45 PM	OK let me put it another way... There is an innate problem with trying to mix psychology and mechanics. Mechanical systems have problems understanding psychology because there's so many subtle complexities to the human mind that just cannot be quantified. It's the reason that it's easier to program a computer to play chess than it is to program it to play poker. One is analyzing only a board and rules, the other is forced to analyze its opponent's psychology. In a chess game, there is a best move, regardless of who you are playing and you can write a system to find that best move. In poker, there is no universal best move that works on every opponent you'll come across. The cards can be the same, yet your best play changes with your opponent and his current mindset. And a game of poker is simple compared to the entirety of human social interaction. Imagine trying to create a computer program to try to quantify and predict how a given person will respond to a certain social situation. Sounds impossible doesn't it? Yet this is what we're doing when we try to write mechanics for social encounters. We are designing a system which is ultimately doomed to failure and cannot possibly adequately live up to its goal. Systems are based upon ranking things from best to worst. But in social situations there may be no true best or worst, it all depends on context. There is no best or worst. There are some things that are unquantifiable, and this is one of them. Ultimately to try to set an accurate DC to a social action, it must be an entirely personal and situational number which takes into account the uniqueness of every social situation. The end result is that the DC is nothing more than a DM assigned percentage chance, which assesses the effects of unforseen factors on the encounter. And because it is DM assigned and not system generated, quantitative value becomes irrelevant and descriptive value becomes the only thing of any importance.
crazysamaritan 12-25-04, 10:56 PM	And a game of poker is simple compared to the entirety of human social interaction. Imagine trying to create a computer program to try to quantify and predict how a given person will respond to a certain social situation. Sounds impossible doesn't it? Poker has been programmed, already. bluffing hasn't, but the game itself has. It has been theorized that we can analyze people's actions and figure out how they'll react. The current problem is having computers able to analyze the movements of humans. Right now, comp can't tell a rock from a ball. Also, I doubt anyone in the world is over third level. So when you start complaining that it's not possible for someone to actually swim up a waterfall... that gravity makes such effort impossible... I can't really take you seriously on that point.
Encard 12-25-04, 11:02 PM	Actually, the best move in a game of chess does to a degree depend on the players... After all, people tend to be better or worse at playing with certain pieces on or off the board, in certain types of games, with certain openings, etc. In the same way, everything in D&D has that kind of personal, psychological component - in a given situation, any given character (or any given player, for that matter) is likely to be better or worse than in a situation that is theoretically of equal challenge but has different details attached. This applies not only to social interaction, but to all other skill checks and combat actions. In many cases, this is fixed (at least to a degree) by having variable DCs or circumstantial bonuses. Yes, real social interaction is very complex, more so than a mechanical system can accurately portray. The same goes, however, for real combat (it'd be a joke to say that the D&D combat system is more than vaguely, slightly similar to a real fight) or for real skill use. None of them are things we can quantify with total accuracy. However, the mechanics behind these give those playing the game a way to more-or-less quantify their characters' adeptness or ineptitude in a given area. They also give them a way to have the character's abilities be different from the players' abilities, and this is just as important in social interaction as in other parts of the game, if not more so. It's not (in my opinion, at least) possible to fully describe the actions of a character with higher charisma and social skills than your own; the mechanics give a way to approximate the effect of the character's skills based on what you actually are able to, as the player, describe the character doing. EDIT: Crazysamaritan, I'm pretty sure there do have to be people around who're above 3rd level. Otherwise many things we have now (advances in technology, athletics, etc) would probably be impossible. Where did you draw your statement from?
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-25-04, 11:07 PM	Poker has been programmed, already. bluffing hasn't, but the game itself has. Yes, the mechanics of the game can be programmed. However, the actual psychology of the game cannot be programmed well. Programming a computer to analyze its opponent's play is very difficult. Deciding when to call, when to fold or when to raise on a bluff is something a computer simply cannot be programmed to do well as a human. The game simply isn't a question of odds and probabilities, but requires an analysis of your opponent's thought process. And as I stated, this is a simple application of human psychology. If you extend it to psychology in a social situation, well you've got so many other factors to consider. And if a complex computer program with tens of thousands of lines has difficulty doing something, how can we expect a few pages of rules to adequately deal with it?
crazysamaritan 12-25-04, 11:36 PM	That stuff comes from the results of aid another checks, several well-placed ranks, and a few high rolls (possibly an action point, but I doubt it) as well as research done by people before, generating circumstance bonuses that assist in improving the situation. I doubt any stat higher than 16 is usually needed. AT, if someone hates you, does it matter why they hate you? Are you gonna change? Is there something you can do to win them over? What about your friends? Does it matter why they're your friends if they care about you? If they're your friends would they really mind if you started showing up in something completely different? Like a KFC uniform? A kilt? In order to be able to read people's reactions and react the right way, you would need hundreds of lines of code (once you got past the point of pattern recognition) in norder to tell what to do. But that's what ranks represent. It represents a knack or trained ability to be very good at reading folk's reactions. It technically involves a lot of wisdom. Not my personal best stat. Amoung my friends my preferance for clerics is amusing. Wise and charismatic is not how I am described, just my characters. They may be attractive or unattractive, but that sets the NPC's initail feelings about me. For me to change that, I have to make an effort one way or the other. That is represented by the difficulty class of the encounter. It doens't matter if the queen hates me cause I wore red to her ball, or becuase she's a lesbian, or she thinks ugly people are horrible. It's a mark of my personal magnitism and ability to charm that I manage to convince her I'm her cousin from the country on the other side of the mountain twice removed. Whereas in real life, I've successfully managed to... well, get a smile instead of beinging ignored...
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-26-04, 12:06 AM	Actually, the best move in a game of chess does to a degree depend on the players... After all, people tend to be better or worse at playing with certain pieces on or off the board, in certain types of games, with certain openings, etc. Well, true... but assuming you play a perfect game, which a computer could be programmed to do, it wouldn't actually matter what your opponent did. This applies not only to social interaction, but to all other skill checks and combat actions. In many cases, this is fixed (at least to a degree) by having variable DCs or circumstantial bonuses. Slightly, but not nearly to the same degree. It is for instance easy to assign a static DC to the check to craft a bastard sword. That's some fixed task which someone of a given skill level should be able to accomplish. There isn't any major psychological factors there. Perhaps the character may have small situational modifiers, such as he's familiar with bastard swords and so on, but overall, we benefit from having a system, because the static DC gives us a reasonable starting point. Similarly while there is perhaps some psychology to sneaking past a guard with hide, his basic perceptive abilities are where you'd want to start with. If he's bored or not particularly attentive then his perceptive abilities would be diminished, but they are still the starting point. With diplomacy there is no way to determine the starting DC, at least not with any accuracy. I can be using factual debate to try to prove to preschoolers why homework is evil or I could be using factual debate to try to prove to Martin Luther King why slavery was a beneficial thing. One is going to be very easy, the other is going to be nearly impossible, yet it would seem I'm taking a very similar action from a mechanical point of view. Yet the audience's own bias determines how they will recieve my arguments. There isn't one standalone main factor, like there is with a craft skill. In fact every social situation is unique. I cannot simply point out that I'm making a bastard sword and modify the base DC. In social encounters there is a different and unique base DC for every argument brought before a certain audience. Yes, real social interaction is very complex, more so than a mechanical system can accurately portray. The same goes, however, for real combat (it'd be a joke to say that the D&D combat system is more than vaguely, slightly similar to a real fight) or for real skill use. None of them are things we can quantify with total accuracy. True. And I suppose it comes down to how realistic you'd like things to be. WIth combat we generally can accept that things dont' have to be perfectly realistic. And while the combat system isn't perfect, it does work reasonably well and deals with most of the factors that can come up in combat and uses a dice to handle the rest. With social encounters since this is a game of roleplaying, we expect a lot of detail about our characters and NPCs. As was stated earlier, systems have trouble with psychology. Since social encounters are almost entirely psychology, mechanics simply cannot do personalities any degree of justice. Numbers don't capture a person's dedication to a certain cause or their hidden desires or anything else that makes someone an individual. In an RPG, those character elements are essential to roleplaying. To brush them off as "flavor", is a dangerous oversight. As far as describing the character from a social standpoint, it is those character traits, not the individual numbers, that determine how someone will react socially. They are the core of what a character actually is. An integral part of roleplaying is that we can relate to our characters and the NPCs we meet. The roleplaying experience is about acknowledging your character and those he talks to as unique individuals. Individuals are beings of psychology and beings of free will. Mechanical systems simply cannot give us that.
Encard 12-26-04, 01:00 AM	With diplomacy there is no way to determine the starting DC, at least not with any accuracy. I can be using factual debate to try to prove to preschoolers why homework is evil or I could be using factual debate to try to prove to Martin Luther King why slavery was a beneficial thing. One is going to be very easy, the other is going to be nearly impossible, yet it would seem I'm taking a very similar action from a mechanical point of view. Yet the audience's own bias determines how they will recieve my arguments. Actually, the audience's own bias is the basic DC for a use of the Diplomacy skill, based off of the starting attitude of the NPC you're trying to influence. Then the DC can be modified to reflect the specifics of the situation. Though each social situation is unique, you do have this base to go from. And I suppose it comes down to how realistic you'd like things to be. WIth combat we generally can accept that things dont' have to be perfectly realistic. And while the combat system isn't perfect, it does work reasonably well and deals with most of the factors that can come up in combat and uses a dice to handle the rest. Well... Yes, I'll agree that many people see it this way. However, combat is (at least in my view) an integral aspects of the character's experience. Ideally, it should be captured perfectly by the system used, with no vagueness or inaccurate elements and taking into account all the influences of the characters and environment involved, and create a flawless framework for the descriptions given to it. D&D combat, although it can present an approximation of real combat that's more-or-less workable, certainly doesn't come close to being perfect in that sense. In another sense, though, the existing combat mechanics have a benefit: they allow for a model of combat that is, if not as accurate as some of us would like, at least usable. They give us a framework that can be used for interesting and heroic descriptions of events in combat, which are a major part of the action. They prevent unscrupulous players from simply stating that their characters performs actions they're incapable of, without preventing the characters from having fun at least trying those actions. And, also importantly, they allow for us to resolve these events without getting bogged down for hours trying to determine probabilities and environmental influences and wind speeds and all the other things that could potentially be important. With social encounters since this is a game of roleplaying, we expect a lot of detail about our characters and NPCs. As was stated earlier, systems have trouble with psychology. Since social encounters are almost entirely psychology, mechanics simply cannot do personalities any degree of justice. Numbers don't capture a person's dedication to a certain cause or their hidden desires or anything else that makes someone an individual. In an RPG, those character elements are essential to roleplaying. To brush them off as "flavor", is a dangerous oversight. As far as describing the character from a social standpoint, it is those character traits, not the individual numbers, that determine how someone will react socially. They are the core of what a character actually is. An integral part of roleplaying is that we can relate to our characters and the NPCs we meet. The roleplaying experience is about acknowledging your character and those he talks to as unique individuals. Individuals are beings of psychology and beings of free will. Mechanical systems simply cannot give us that. First, it's important that remember that the term "flavor" is often used in the context of "flavor vs. mechanics." Flavor simply means anything not expressly handled my mechanics. It's not a negative term, but simply a line drawn between the things that're purely dice and numbers, and the things that aren't. Now... All rolepaying, whether done with or without dice, is a series of approximations. Unless a player is the god of method actors (or at least, personality analysts) they probably won't be able to perfectly portray the character they intended without spending quite a lot of time in-game thinking through dialogue. If they are able to capture the character perfectly, there's a good chance that it's because the character is in many ways similar to the player, and they're going off their own reactions to events, as the player. In the same way, the DM can't perfectly portray (or even perfectly understand) the many, many NPCs he has to control. I doubt there's anyone who can flawlessly take on the roles of hundreds of complex, living, breathing people. Even a trained psychologist won't be able to perfectly understand how a real person's mind works, and most (probably all) people can't understannd exactly how even their own mind works; by the same token, there's no way that we'll be able to perfectly understand how any given character would work. Does that stop us from playing? Of course not. When we play, as player or DM, we approximate; we make judgements on how we think the character in question would react in the given situation based on our limited understanding of what that goes on, conciously and unconciously, in their mind. In our own minds, we hold the characters' beliefs, feelings, fears and drives on a mostly intellectual level - yes, we can get emotionally attached to them, but in general we don't actually incorporate them into ourselves. We relate to the characters, but we don't become the characters. How, then, can we truly capture their motivations? We can try to do it with their speach and their actions, and we can do it quite well, but we'll never do it perfectly because on a fundamental level we can't feel and understand them exactly the way that they do. Mechanics can't fully capture a character either. However, what mechanics can do is provide a framework for the important details and descriptions and flavor we want to give the character, the things that keep many of us playing. They can prevent unscrupulous players from ignoring their characters' weaknesses. They give us a way to resolve the details of social events without spending hours going over the many psychological and environmental factors that could affect how a person would react. In other words, they give us another way to make those approximations about character interaction. Ideally, the mechanics would give us a perfect, flawlessly-accurate way of determining what happens in a social situation, but that's not possible any more than it is for combat, or for us to do it ourselves through our own judgement. However, in general, they give us a workable way of resolving the outcome of social interaction. You figure out the initial attitude of the NPC, determine any situational DC or check modifiers that might apply (to use your example, MLK might not be actively hostile to the character, but an appropriate situational modifer to the DC would probably put it at least as high as it would be if he were), and then make the check based on the character's skill in Diplomacy. By themselves the numbers can't capture all the subtle maneuverings and motivations and whatnot of the characters, but they do a good enough job of getting the result to be a workable method, and the player and DM are the ones who determine the all-important details and dialogue of the event.
Roxlimn 12-26-04, 01:50 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: So now, your case against the Diplomacy skill is that it's abstracted? Dude, everything in the game is abstracted! So the Diplomacy model doesn't have built-in rules for situational biases. So what? That's why you have to establish an actual skill DC based off of the basic skill DCs in the PHB chart. It's not like you're not instructed to do so. In contrast, not only does the combat model have horrid problems with simultaneity, it also models combat on a strictly abstracted basis - so abstracted it's almost impossible to tell what's happening. In fact, all actual combat events are really flavor events. When you take 8 points of damage, you get a bit less adept at avoiding death. This can be a sprained ankle, a little nick on the shoulder, a broken finger, or simply a metaphysical drain on your fate. Combat does not differentiate between the practitioner of soft style martial arts and hard style martial arts, nor does it represent the intricate interaction of their chi energies when hard style meets hard style or when soft style meets hard style. There is no mechanical difference in the way a Zweihander wielding Knight uses Combat Expertise and a Rapier wiedling duelist uses Combat Expertise, though because of the different focuses in the fighting styles, there should be. Many types of weapons were built to specifically defeat particular armor types. Using a longsword against full plate should be well nigh worthless compared to using a lance, or even better, a warhammer or a battleaxe. A group of well trained Pikemen of relatively low level should demolish a full on Knight squad charging head on. Certain types of armed fighting naturally lent themselves well to specific types of unarmed combat and vice versa. Aikido is more closely related to kendo, for example, than Muay Thai is. There are literally hundreds of combat intricacies and interactions that the D&D combat model does not take into account. So what was that again about DIplomacy being abstracted?
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-26-04, 09:36 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: So now, your case against the Diplomacy skill is that it's abstracted? Dude, everything in the game is abstracted! So the Diplomacy model doesn't have built-in rules for situational biases. So what? That's why you have to establish an actual skill DC based off of the basic skill DCs in the PHB chart. It's not like you're not instructed to do so. My case for diplomacy hasn't changed, it's just another aspect of it. Half of the problem I believe is that all the cases against it require separate arguments. And the question isn't that it's abstracted, but rather how much is lost because you've steamrolled a colorful personality into three numbers that fit in a small box. That's the question. Can you write an effective system to do that? My point is that no you can't. But I'm saying you simply cannot have a basic skill DC chart for diplomacy. The situations are far too complex to have broad range DCs. And many diplomatic tasks don't have DCs at all because they are truly impossible. Some are effectively automatic successes as well. Sometimes it doesn't matter how well you say something or how "skilled" a speaker you are, it's impossible. You'll never simply be able to bluff a modern day man of science that magic is real. Until he actually sees it, he just won't believe you. At best, a successful bluff convinces him that you're truly insane and not just screwing with him. Your bluff is so "out there" that you shouldn't have any chance of success of actually convincing him. Similarly, convincing a proud Jewish person that Adolf Hitler was right and that he might as well commit suicide is also going to be impossible. No DC is going to do that, no matter how good you are. The thing with social endeavors is that you have to allow yourself to be convinced. Some people are weak willed, others are fanatical to a cause that they believe. And this can vary from topic to topic. Now you can try to stat out every NPC by ranking his convinctions and then their relative strengths. You can then go about trying to break down the many forms of argument and how good each PC is at them. You'll end up with huge amounts of information and your system will still be awful. In the end it may be simply more accurate for the DM or PC to create a percentage, given your character, given your argument and given the person you're trying to convince. In this case yes, as a PC you can declare that your paladin is so devoted to the cause as to be unseduceable. If everyone stays honest to the game then this way is more fun and makes characters seem a lot more real and easier to roleplay. It also gets PCs and DMs more thinking about what their PC or NPC would do in a given situation. In some situations of course, you're free to declare that you automatically do something or decide against it automatically. Now, diplomacy can still be a skill, but instead of being something you roll to convince people, it becomes a knowledge skill. A knowledge of social customs and various important people and bargaining with them. It can tell you commonly known values: "the dwarf king is known for his love of gold above all else." or customs: "it is considered a grave insult to not bow before the king". And while this can be useful to your negotiations it alone does not determine whether you succeed. People will still undouabtly find it useful in negotiations and it better represents the talent of a skilled negotiator. There are literally hundreds of combat intricacies and interactions that the D&D combat model does not take into account. True, but they are mostly things we simply cannot know, and we use the dice to determine it. For instance, we don't know if there's a small pothole in the ground of the cavern the PCs are fighting in, we don't know exactly what part of the 5'x5' square a PC is in and so on. So we have no way of telling if he stepped or tripped on that pothole, even if we wanted to get intricate, this would require a much more detailed battlemap. Usually with a well detailed NPC, we have most of the important social details. We know the king hates dwarves or that the primary concern of the commander is gaining the approval of his general. Now, sometimes we may want a dice roll to deal with things that we don't know. The obvious being a random undefined street person. The DM has no clue what his likes or dislikes are and so on, so it's best to consult the dice to see how he reacts.
Seeker95 12-26-04, 10:32 AM	Imagine trying to create a computer program to try to quantify and predict how a given person will respond to a certain social situation. Sounds impossible doesn't it?You mean, like The Sims? AT, you've dug a really deep hole. You have treated the social skills as if they are an all-or-nothing mechanic. Rather narrow and ridiculous view of the game. If it works in your house, that's fine. But you are unlikely to convince anyone that having a number in the Diplomacy skill is going to destroy their game.
crazysamaritan 12-26-04, 10:47 AM	And the question isn't that it's abstracted, but rather how much is lost because you've steamrolled a colorful personality into three numbers that fit in a small box. I just don't agree that I've done this. The colorful personality is something that I create, and it's going to be there whether or not there is a stat that tells me how much I have. THat said, Now we're going into something else I feel strongly about. (btw Know(Nobility)? +2, and a smart player will make that roll before their attempt) You don't like how the diplomacy modifier is static? GOOD! I don't like it either. When possible, I try to get the DM to change that particular rule. The author of Order of the Stick has a good idea for taking care of it, But I find it too complex, and not exactly what diplomacy is about. (his skill is more like bargining) My personal fix to Dip is to use the static DCs as a modifyer to the oipposed charisma roll. Why? b/c it should be represented as a battle of charisma, with one person possibly falling for the other's. In the case of the paladin, it's been shown that he did not have the willpower he thought he had. But using the completely static DCs presented is, yes, a poor idea, imo.
Roxlimn 12-26-04, 11:22 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: My case for diplomacy hasn't changed, it's just another aspect of it. Half of the problem I believe is that all the cases against it require separate arguments. Maybe half the problem is because you simply don't agree with abstracting the social contest to begin with? And the question isn't that it's abstracted, but rather how much is lost because you've steamrolled a colorful personality into three numbers that fit in a small box. That's the question. Can you write an effective system to do that? My point is that no you can't. The system doesn't. Just as your combat modifiers are not the end all and be all of your character's combat expertise and fighting style, neither is Diplomacy the end all and be all of his personality. In fact, all it tells you is how well he presents himself, which is simply a skill, a small part of his personality. You aren't steamrolled into anything. The problem you're having is that you seem to think that the point of fleshing out a personality and roleplaying it is to gain some sort of in-game advantage. While I can't argue whether that is best for you or not, it's evidently unfair to me and to a lot of people. We flesh out personalities and quirks for roleplaying reasons (not the social contest you think it is, but rather roleplaying as itself), and we roleplay out the encounter based on what the numbers have told us has happened. No steamrolling occurs, no limitation of personality occurs. All this is simply your perspective because you believe that actual real-life social interaction should replace in-game interpersonal skill and ability as broadly represented by skills. But I'm saying you simply cannot have a basic skill DC chart for diplomacy. The situations are far too complex to have broad range DCs. And many diplomatic tasks don't have DCs at all because they are truly impossible. Some are effectively automatic successes as well. Absolutely, but basic skill DCs and range DCs are still applicable. All skills are like this. For example, the situations and applicability for skill like tracking is not only dependent on location but also time, weather, and the nature of your quarry, and possibly personal mood at the time. A person skilled in tracking through the desert isn't necessarily skilled in tracking through snow or rocky mountains. Climbing is similarly complicated, success being dictated by mood, fatigue, aggressiveness, heat, wind factor, sweating, humidty, among many other factors. That is why, as with most skills, the actual skill DC you need to beat to acheive a Diplomatic success is dependent on the DM. Using the basic skill DC chart to determine success is like using a flat DC for tracking. It doesn't make sense and shouldn't be done that way. Indeed, whatever gave you the idea that they should? The "basic" label on the DCs or the many examples of how skills (such as Dimplomacy and Bluff!) are supposed to be adjudicated? All this tells me is that either your DM is handling skill DC adjudication ineptly, or that you are. Now you can try to stat out every NPC by ranking his convinctions and then their relative strengths. You can then go about trying to break down the many forms of argument and how good each PC is at them. You'll end up with huge amounts of information and your system will still be awful... In the end it may be simply more accurate for the DM or PC to create a percentage, given your character, given your argument and given the person you're trying to convince. That's called assigning a skill DC to beat by the DM. Congratulations, welcome to 3e skills management. Now, diplomacy can still be a skill, but instead of being something you roll to convince people, it becomes a knowledge skill. A knowledge of social customs and various important people and bargaining with them. It can tell you commonly known values: "the dwarf king is known for his love of gold above all else." or customs: "it is considered a grave insult to not bow before the king". And while this can be useful to your negotiations it alone does not determine whether you succeed. 1. That's really already covered by Knowledge (royalty and nobility) and Knowledge (local). 2. Knowing what to do is only related to presenting yourself well not the skill to actually do so, hence the synergy bonus. True, but they are mostly things we simply cannot know, and we use the dice to determine it. For instance, we don't know if there's a small pothole in the ground of the cavern the PCs are fighting in, we don't know exactly what part of the 5'x5' square a PC is in and so on. So we have no way of telling if he stepped or tripped on that pothole, even if we wanted to get intricate, this would require a much more detailed battlemap. Au contraire. We know that a battleaxe performs better against full plate than a cross hilted sword. As does a warhammer. We know that soft forms of martial arts interacts differently with hard forms than other hard forms. We know that some unarmed forms of combat flow more naturally from particular forms of armed combat. We know that a formation of trained pikemen will defeat a more expensive squadron of knights, almost no matter how skilled those knights are. We know that a stilleto is more deadly against chain mail than a Viking sword. We know that some forms of metal perform better against blows than against slices and vice versa. We know that a dart is much more accurate than a handaxe. We know that the range of thrown projectiles is dependent on your strength. There are any number of combat things that we are absolutely certain is related in particular quantifiable ways, and yet these are not represented in combat at all. Take Seeker95's advice, Archtyrant Terevoth. You can't win this argument because you don't have enough insight to actually realize why you're disagreeing with us. You're digging yourself deeper with every word and there's no indication that you know where to hit hardest or that you're using a strategy at all. You aren't ahead in the argument in any sense of the word, but I have a feeling that you should quit while your cause isn't yet completely lost. Of course, at this point, it may be too late for that.
Encard 12-26-04, 03:34 PM	I don't have long, so this is going to be a bit short... The Diplomacy skill is a task-resolution mechanic. It's not a mechanic for determining a character's personality. That's left up to the player. The Diplomacy skill is simply an approximation of how good they are at convincing others to see their side of things. Also, it's very questionable whether convincing someone of something is ever really impossible. Do you actually have something significant to back that statement up? Something might be absurdly hard, to a degree that the skill required would make it nearly impossible... But whether it's truly impossible or not is debatable. And, as has been said, the abstraction in combat goes far beyond a bit of random chance here and there. In the same vein, the DM usually only knows the major social details of an NPC; that leaves out a huge segment of their personality that I expect would have a significant effect if it were all added together, and makes how they react at best an approximation with or without the Diplomacy skill.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-27-04, 08:38 AM	Ultimately, I don't see people agreeing with me here. Because as much as I do point out as arguments, the most obvious argument is right before you... just sitting there in plain sight. You've known about it, I've known about it, and if you can ignore that, I suppose you can ignore any of the other arguments I make. The DMG tells you that social skills don't work on PCs. The GURPS system treats its social skills the same way. PCs get to make up their own minds. We all know that social skills aren't fun, because the DM doesn't subject his PCs to them. Nor are they allowed for PC versus PC roleplaying. And if they are so essential as you claim them to be, then there's no reason they wouldn't be. So why then are they? It's because they turn people into robots. Yes everything I"ve been saying about social skills is true, and the DMG basically admits it. Let me explain. Imagine, the party thief steals from your paladin and you can't even so much as turn him in because he uses a super high bluff to convince you that you never owned the item in the first place. In fact he takes all your treasure that way. Once he even used his diplomacy check into forcing you to sell yourself into slavery and you had to make a new character. You have no way of defending yourself. You can't hate his guts because he's got a huge diplomacy bonus. It isn't a charm person that will go away in a few days. This is a permanent character screw. And he can keep doing that all the time, and you can't do a thing to stop him, short of grabbing a baseball bat and beating the crap out of him out of game. Nobody comes to a game session to have their actions dictated. Yet that's what social skills are all about, dictating actions. As much as we hate railroading DMs, social skills are the biggest railroad in all of RPGs. You aren't even free to have your own thoughts and beliefs. That's the ugly side of social skills. And it's plainly obvious before us. You want to assign a DC to convince people of things, sooner or later someone will break that DC and henceforth people turn into robots. The DMG authors knew about it, the authors of GURPS knew about it, and ultimately I think all of us knew about that as well. And where are the arguments about protecting poor actors when it comes to the DM or another social PC dictating your PC's actions because he has a +50 diplomacy? It's apparently ok for the other PCs to blatantly ignore a player with poor real life social skills and treat him like a fool, even if his character does have a +50 diplomacy. Why? Because we know the ultimate consequence: Loss of free will. Find me a social skills system that works evenly on PCs and NPCs and then I might consider using it. Until then, I'm going to keep saying social skills aren't feasable. So long as they have a double standard, it's plainly clear they aren't feasable. And you've already accepted that. the moment you've said to your PCs "Oh don't worry you dont' have to be subject to the completely unfair social skill system." Whatever your reasoning, it should work both ways, and it doesn't. It's ok for the DM to stutter and the PCs to laugh at his NPCs. It's ok for the DM to have to do social puzzles to convince PCs of anything. It's ok if the DM doesn't have a system to resolve social encounters with PCs or that you dont' have a system for PC versus PC disputes in game. You'd really think that PC vs PC disputes would be the ones you want to settle most with dice... since PC vs PC is where you want rules to be the most neutral and unbiased. Where is our "task resolution mechanic" now? We all damn well know where it is and why it's going to stay in the closet until the PC vs PC dispute is over. We know why we don't have snake oil salesmen NPCs automatically trick the PCs out of all their hard earned gold with a die roll. And everytime one of these situations arises, our majestic and all powerful "task resolution mechanic" suddenly goes up in smoke. Welcome to the wonderful world of hypocrisy. You keep claiming I've dug myself into a hole, but you're the ones who are buried in a hole... a hole a mile deep.
Seeker95 12-27-04, 09:00 AM	The DMG tells you that social skills don't work on PCs. The GURPS system treats its social skills the same way. PCs get to make up their own minds. We all know that social skills aren't fun, because the DM doesn't subject his PCs to them. Your premises are true: 1. Social skills don't work on PCs 2. PCs get to make up their own minds. Your conclusion is hogwash: Social skills aren't fun. The conclusion has nothing to do with the premises. The rest of your argument is a load of crap designed to give you a greater opportunity to hear yourself speak. You've dug a hole and climbed into it willingly. The hole is full of crap.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-27-04, 10:04 AM	Your conclusion is hogwash: Social skills aren't fun. So you're saying a game where PCs actions are dictated by social skills would be fun?
Vaval 12-27-04, 11:04 AM	Also, I doubt anyone in the world is over third level. So when you start complaining that it's not possible for someone to actually swim up a waterfall... that gravity makes such effort impossible... I can't really take you seriously on that point. Comparing the real world to D&D is retarted as it should be compared to d20 Modern. In d20 modern most people are 3rd level by the time they are 20 becuase our world has more 'challenges' that come up, they may not be 'fight the people to get XP' challenges but there are more.
The Shaman 12-27-04, 11:12 AM	Comparing the real world to D&D is retarted as it should be compared to d20 Modern. One could argue that neither D&D nor d20 Modern should be compared to the real world since each game system is intended to be an abstract mechanic for resolving key storytelling cruxes, not a simulation of real life. Then again, that's MHO - I may just be a retart. ;)
Mister Mayhem 12-27-04, 11:18 AM	I guess AT would rather have people forced to sit on the sidelines during an IC diplomacy incident because of their own deficiencies - which they can't control and would rather forget during the game - rather than those of their characters. To me, that makes as much sense as telling a guy with no arms that he can't play because their character wouldn't be able to hold a sword.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-27-04, 12:22 PM	I guess AT would rather have people forced to sit on the sidelines during an IC diplomacy incident because of their own deficiencies - which they can't control and would rather forget during the game - rather than those of their characters. You talk of fairness, trying to paint yourself as the good guy and me as the bad guy, but you're views are nothing but pro-PC hypocrisy. Under your view, The DM very well better have the acting skills of Robert Di Niro, be as intimidating as Hannibal Lecter and possess the lying talents of a used car salesman... He needs that to talk the PCs into anything and you're okay with that. but the PCs to bring absolutely zero to the table and still expect to have all those advantages. So please, lets cease the crap where you try to paint yourself as a noble crusader for socially deficient players. After we take away your innane hypocrisy this is what we have left... If you are willing to accept that social deficient players can play the game, then a social deficient DM has to be able to play too, meaning that he can make social checks to tell you exactly what your PC thinks and believes, just like you're supposed to be able to do with his NPCs. So it comes down to if you want the DM to be capable of railroading your PCs thought through the use of diplomacy capable NPCs. Do you want deafness to be a benefit for PCs and NPCs? Is that really what you want your game to be like?
Mister Mayhem 12-27-04, 12:39 PM	The DM very well better have the acting skills of Robert Di Niro, be as intimidating as Hannibal Lecter and possess the lying talents of a used car salesman... If you are willing to accept that social deficient players can play the game, then a social deficient DM has to be able to play too, meaning that he can make social checks to tell you exactly what your PC thinks and believes, just like you're supposed to be able to do with his NPCs. Actually, I simply use the NPCs Diplomacy (or whatever) stat as a baseline, make my schpiel, and then tell the players something along the line of "You feel he is being honest" or "He makes a very good case." It's up to the players to roleplay their reactions accordingly. Thats not railroading, thats expecting the PCs to roleplay. Wheras by your method, the DMs ability is used against the PCs ability, and vice versa. As this is based entirely on the ability of the player, not the character, no roleplaying is involved. I like my roleplay to have Role, as well as play.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-27-04, 12:45 PM	Actually, I simply use the NPCs Diplomacy (or whatever) stat as a baseline, make my schpiel, and then tell the players something along the line of "You feel he is being honest" or "He makes a very good case." It's up to the players to roleplay their reactions accordingly. And yet for NPCs you can't just leave it up to the DM to "roleplay their reactions accordingly"? What's good for one side of the table should be good for the other. What you're claiming that the DM should do with his players is exactly how I think the game should work for both sides of the table, yet you disagree with me. Take a step back and look at the double standard you're arguing here.
Mister Mayhem 12-27-04, 02:41 PM	There is no double standard here. I as DM roleplay the reactions of NPCs based on (eg) their sense motive roll vs the PCs Bluff role. If the PC wins, the NPC believes them, and I roleplay accordingly. If the PC loses, I roleplay disbelief, and possibly anger, as appropriate. But how do I know how convincing a *character* is, as opposed to the player? How do I know how gullible an NPC is, compared to myself? Simple. By using the social skill mechanics as written in the PHB. **** In the other direction, I do exactly the same, and expect the PCs to roleplay the results of their roll. After all, sometimes a player also has out of character knowledge that an NPC is lying, and so to rely on the DM convincingly lying to the player is ludicrous. Which is what you are left with, without some mechanical measure of how gullible a PC is, and how convincing the NPC is. Of course, a player may always choose to ignore the result of the rule, and act as if their character failed to believe something that, as far as he was concerned, should have been utterly convincing. But that would be poor roleplaying, and since I usually look for players who enjoy roleplaying, they tend to do it well. **** I don't see how else it can be done, frankly. After all, I, as DM, know a heck of a lot more than the NPC does. I may know for an absolute fact that the PC is lying to the NPC. With Meta-information, how can I objectively decide, that the NPC does or doesn't believe, without mechanics? How can a player, knowing that his character is being lied to, make an objective decision to believe or disbelieve, without mechanics?
Lord Stigius 12-27-04, 03:06 PM	Archtyrant: I understand you well (at least hope so). Your style of gaming seems quite close to mine. In my current campaign I remember a single Diplomacy check actually rolled (a paladin tried to convince some peasants into building a desensive palisade around the village. I decided that he convinced some villagers, but not all. Then I called for a roll to determine how many are willing to actually participate. Really, I had no will to deeply ponder upon what each one of the sixty peasant thinks about the palisade idea. My players roleplay social situations, I decide the outcome based both upon their actions and the NPCs' attitude. But, as in the story I described above, I expect them to have actual skills to support it. Otherwise, when an eloquent player, well aware of the medieval customs, roleplays so eloquently his Cha 5, -3 to Diplomacy half-orc, I consider it an example of BAD ROLEPLAING. The character may consider himself a great diplomat, but then he's just plain delusional (maybe wis 5 too). 'Where is the problem here', you may ask. 'If he likes it, let him go'. Well, the problem is here: Bob and Tom come to play a game known as D&D with me. Both like melee types, but Bob wants to make his character a smooth-talker and creates a 18 Cha half-elf paladin with high ranks in Diplomacy, Sense motive, and good Int score to cover hic skill needs. Tom creates a half-orc fighter/barbarian with 20 Str, 18 Con, good Dex, and dump mental stats. He maxes out, say, Tumble... and that's all he can do with his awesome number of skills. Assume both players are equally capable on social field, though their characters obviously are not. I admit do see a problem here. If you consider this example flawed (Bob's paladins benefits from Charisma outside social skills too), replace him with a fighter wit good Cha, good Int and all possible social skills (cross-class, but still taken). Now, I do not have a problem with Tom's character itself. But if Tom plays him as a master diplomat, it's unfair towards Bob, who sacrificed much of his combat capability for the sake of being adept in social field. As a DM, I feel obliged to prevent it. Now, we could potentially remove all mental scores altogether. I've done it before in a homebrew system of mine. The only mental score there was 'will strength', used mostly to resist spells. Other than that, characters were just as smart, charismatic and wise as the players themselves wanted them to (or actually were). But it would obviously not work for D&D, for the reasons above. We cannot remove Cha score without shattering the game mechanics, neither can we say: 'paladins, sorcs and bards receive a Cha score, other characters are roleplayed as the players see fit'. Maybe you could (generic 'you', I'm not referring here to anyone in particular) replace Cha score with 'bard and sorc spellcasting score', doing similar things with other mental abilities and classes respectively... but I will stay with the old system, thank you. If I feel a need to change pace, I can still grab my old copybook with this homebrew of mine instead of twisting and warping good old D&D. ;)
The Shaman 12-27-04, 03:16 PM	I do realize that I should have said playing in a min/max only, story-less campaign would drive me crazy. A few observations - One of the blessed bovines, the genre conventions of D&D, is that player characters are part of a team, the "party" - the game is an ensemble production rather than a story with a primary protagonist. Each character generally fills a role on the team: martial artist, magic user, sneak/con artist. In order for the team to function efficiently, each character must be adept at this role, which means maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses - a certain amount of character optimization must take place, or the adventurer risks being unable to perform her role in creating a successful team. It is a consequence of the class-based character system, and as such, power-gaming is both desirable and expected – to a point. That some gamers put more emphasis into stats than characterization is nothing new. I've been gaming since received the little tan books in the small white box, and from that time on I've heard complaints about overpowered, underdeveloped characters, “roll-players,” and "Monte Haul" gamers – much of the content in the 1e AD&D DMG reflects this experience, IMHO. This is not a phenomenon specific to 3.xe, IMX. There is a new dimension to it, however. From 1e to 3e the rules for multi-classing changed dramatically, from a fairly rigid system in which dual-classing was limited to demi-humans and multi-classing offered neither the benefits nor the almost seamless integration available in the wide-open multi-classing of the current editions. (BTW, this is one of the features I really like about 3.x, along with the skill-resolution system – more on this in a moment.) In fact, this progressed to the point that the Modern class system presumes that all characters will multi-class – there are no 20-level class progressions at all. Wide-open multi-classing has made cherry-picking skills, feats, and class abilities easier, a process encouraged by the trend in product development to include new feats and new base or prestige classes in almost every book, supplement, and accessory published. This has created an unprecedented opportunity to dial-in a character concept, but it has also opened up a new avenue for statistical jury-rigging that simply didn’t exist in the earliest editions of the game. It also requires that a character commit to a certain progression from the very beginning, rather than allowing the character to evolve in response to the events of the campaign. My own experience with this…(feel free to skip ahead if you’re not interested)……suggests a couple of changes have occurred in how players think of their characters. In the last D&D game in which I was a player, I was criticized by another player for, in his mind, “wasting” feats and levels. My character was a barbarian who wanted to become a chief in his tribe, and he was very observant of his tribe’s traditions and taboos. I carefully optimized the character as a mounted warrior – I wanted him to be hell-on-horseback, as this would be expected of a chief – and armed him with the traditional weapons of his tribe, a spear and a shield. According to another player, this was a “poor” character build, as I could do more damage with THIS feat chain and THAT weapon than with what I selected, and in a sense he was correct, particularly given that we didn’t spend a lot of time on wilderness adventures – however, he appeared totally indifferent to the fact that I was building my character around a role-playing concept instead of a statistical engine. This came up again when I decided to take a level of bard – I wanted to add a leadership dimension to the character, improve his social skills, and give him an added dimension as a keeper of the traditional knowledge of his tribe. The character, Chases-the-Wind, would enter battle chanting tribal stories to encourage his friends and allies to additional feats of valor and he invested in social skills that would be important to the great ruler he hoped to become. Again, the same player voiced his displeasure at the “wasted” bard levels – this would penalize my BAB at higher levels, and in his mind I should have taken more levels in Barbarian or some PrC that would give me additional class abilities useful for killing stuff in one blow. The other player’s point was that my character development could hurt the party – if I didn’t maximize my role as the primary meatshield and melee combatant, other characters could be left vulnerable, making it my responsibility to create a character that would be beneficial to the rest of the party. It’s not a bad argument when you think about it, but it does present a rather extreme view – follow this line of reasoning to its conclusion, and you end up with archetypes representing only a handful of character builds, which to many is the antithesis of roleplaying. Instead I chose not to create a character concept around optimized mechanics, and instead opted to make the mechanics fit the concept, and rely on other means to make up for any mechanical deficiencies that could appear over time – for example, if he could indeed become a chief, he would be able to call on aid from his tribe or their allies, in the form of cohorts or other non-player characters. This was a concept the other player, running an optimized elf evoker, couldn’t get his mind around – I was, in his mind, a “poor gamer.” As I said, it was my intention from the outset of the campaign to build my character around a particular concept, optimized as a mounted warrior and with a selection of social skills and class abilities that deviated from the “traditional” or archetypal barbarian. However, this meant I was limiting my roleplaying options pretty dramatically – from the outset I was saying that no matter what events transpired in the campaign, this was the direction that my character was going to go. That’s not automatically poor roleplaying, IMHO, but it did mean that I wouldn’t create another character like Khazm, my 1e dwarf fighter from many, many years ago. Khazm and the rest of our party found themselves exploring a pyramid in the desert, and Khazm discovered a magic scimitar in the course of the adventure. He abandoned his battle axe as his main weapon and started using the scimitar – eventually he adopted the garb of the desert-dwellers as well, wearing flowing robes and a turban over his chainmail and helmet. It was a spontaneous roleplaying decision, and one that I think is less likely in a gaming environment in which building a character along rigid lines established at character creation is the norm. So, what’s a GM to do? IMHO there are a number of ways to encourage players to develop characters along role-playing lines rather than statistical parameters. I try to use both the carrot and the stick with my players. I use story awards for experience, so that combat isn’t closely tied to character advancement, and I give a bonus percentage for good roleplay – the bonus is given to the whole party based on the group’s performance, to encourage everyone to participate. I create adventures that feature many opportunities for skills to play a significant role, from travel skills like Climb and Swim and Survival to social skills like Diplomacy and Bluff and Intimidate. I also make extensive use of skill synergies to encourage investing in Knowledge skills. As an aside regarding the use of social skills like Diplomacy (again, skip over this if you’re not interested)……first, I have no problem with this and I don’t see it as an impediment to roleplaying – it does a good job of representing the character’s ability rather than the player’s ability. Second, if a character like a fighter wants to be better at something like Diplomacy or Bluff, then the character can multi-class into rogue or bard to pick up the class skills and skill points – this would be perfect for the knight-courtier for example. Third, fighter-types have their class skill for social interactions: Intimidate. Fourth and last, while it represents a bold decision, a fighter can invest her skill points in cross-class skills like Diplomacy if the player is so inclined. This of course flies in the face of optimization… During adventures I look for opportunities to put characters into situations in which they have to use their “sub-optimal” skills – for example, perhaps the fighter is asked to attend a meeting with a local noble, rather than the rogue who is the usual “mouthpiece” for the party. This puts the players and their characters into circumstances they might not encounter if following the usual “division of labor” among the adventurers. As the GM, I am the creator of the campaign-world, and as such I have more-or-less absolute control* over what races, classes, feats, and spells are available to the players. This can allow me to strongly influence optimization options – for example, for the campaign I’m working on I have added some variant base classes from Unearthed Arcana and the Complete… books but drastically reduced the number of prestige classes while making the requirements for entry such that they require a significant investment on the part of the player’s character development. My goal is to encourage class combos rather than prestige classes, in the hopes that perhaps the characters will use the experiences of the campaign to make choices about their character, like Khazm above, rather than following a script from levels 1-20. Tempus665, I don’t know if any of this helps you or not – either way I apologize for rambling on so long. (I also hope the growing acrimony in this thread can be put to rest – please disagree without being disagreeable.) Good luck to you! *(Some GMs are not comfortable with limiting player options this way – some take the point of view that the players should be able to choose whatever they want, or that it takes away from the collaborative nature of world-building between players and GM. I’m careful to let the players know up front “how the world works,” and anyone who isn’t happy with that is certainly welcome to find someone else with whom to game – we are unlikely to be a good fit in other areas of the game as well.)
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-27-04, 05:06 PM	Of course, a player may always choose to ignore the result of the rule, and act as if their character failed to believe something that, as far as he was concerned, should have been utterly convincing. Right, that's the double standard. The DM doesn't do that. With Meta-information, how can I objectively decide, that the NPC does or doesn't believe, without mechanics? I don't really find this that much of a problem. Part of being a DM is separating your knowledge from the NPCs knowledge. I usually have a lot of notes about what each NPC knows, and what he doesn't know. Then I just go from there. Usually I'll have thought of a few things that a PC can tell an NPC to convince him of something, based on his own interests. Sometimes the PCs can present evidence too as well. Basically the same things that convince people of things in the real world are used to convince NPCs. You put yourself into the shoes of the NPC, and based on what he knows and what kind of person he is, you make a decision. How can a player, knowing that his character is being lied to, make an objective decision to believe or disbelieve, without mechanics? The player's side is a bit more difficult and I believe best handled by controlling out of game information. So long as a Player knows about as much as his character does about the current plotline, then he will only know he's been lied to if his character would as well. There isn't really an easy answer for this one though, mainly because neither solution is perfect. Using social skills takes away the player's ability to make an objective decision, however not using them requires difficult exercises in information control. If a player is a good player, he can do what the DM does and simply compartmentalize his knowledge and character motivations, however it takes a good player to do this. In my current campaign I remember a single Diplomacy check actually rolled (a paladin tried to convince some peasants into building a desensive palisade around the village. I decided that he convinced some villagers, but not all. Then I called for a roll to determine how many are willing to actually participate. Really, I had no will to deeply ponder upon what each one of the sixty peasant thinks about the palisade idea. This is one of the few instances where social skills can help the game IMO. Sometimes you've just got a bunch of random NPCs and you want to see how well they were affected by some reasonable request. In this case you really don't tend to care about each of their motivations and would prefer to have them behave similarly to a crowd. In this case, yeah a check is probably the easiest and best way to handle things. Now, I do not have a problem with Tom's character itself. But if Tom plays him as a master diplomat, it's unfair towards Bob, who sacrificed much of his combat capability for the sake of being adept in social field. As a DM, I feel obliged to prevent it. This is true. This is also why I have stated that I don't think you should ever have to pay combat ability so your character can be social. I prefer social character stuff to be descriptive traits than anything else and each actually has some advantages and disadvantages. For instance, if your character happens to be a 'bad liar', this also means that people who know him believe him more when he's telling the truth. Where as there is likely to be more doubt when dealing with the guy who can tell convincing lies, only because you know he could just as easily be telling the truth as he could a lie. Being attractive can easily bring in as much negative attention as it can positive. Now I really have no desire to ditch the charisma stat entirely, or otherwise completely remove mental stats, since they are rather integral to the game. Primarily I'd just like to get rid of most of the social skills, at least for personal interactions. Having skills like gather information, or some skill to address masses of people could still be useful.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-27-04, 05:14 PM	It also requires that a character commit to a certain progression from the very beginning, rather than allowing the character to evolve in response to the events of the campaign. This is perhaps my only real problem with min/maxing as a broad concept. Though mostly this is a problem with the game system and not the players. I don't really blame people for not wanting to waste levels, and that's truly what they are sometimes... wasted levels. I'd like some kind of mechanic to allow microcustomization without forcing players to screw themselves. Perhaps an added mechanic of spending XP to pick up minor skills or abilties that don't really help the character that much. That way you never waste an entire level, but rather pay 500-2000 XP and pick up some minor ability like bardic music, or some ranks in perform. But since your level is still slightly behind, you'll eventually make up the lost XP because lower level characters gain more XP from encounters. You don't have to worry much about the numerics of the issue, because main abilities like base attack bonus or saves aren't gained. Only abilities which won't have much effect on the campaign and are mostly flavor. That's the best solution IMO, without an intense rewriting of the classes.
rutrow424 12-27-04, 05:17 PM	And yet for NPCs you can't just leave it up to the DM to "roleplay their reactions accordingly"? What's good for one side of the table should be good for the other. What you're claiming that the DM should do with his players is exactly how I think the game should work for both sides of the table, yet you disagree with me. Take a step back and look at the double standard you're arguing here. I should just let this die, but... First of all, whatever you (AT) want to do in your game is ok if you (and your players) enjoy it. However, you have been quite stubborn to the point of ignoring the counter-arguments. The main gist is that this is a role-playing game. In no RPG does anyone like to feel that what their PCs do does not matter. This is true in a hack-n-slash game where there is no diplomacy to an intrigue heavy game where there are few combats. You have been arguing that DnD is better off without the social skills mechanics, and that instead the player interaction should decide the results. You portray the current system as a mind-numbing number crunch that eliminates the need for players to talk, and predetermines the social outcomes based upon the PC's known abilities. You follow this up by essentially dismissing the abilities of DMs and/or players to use common sense or independent judgement as to how to make social encounters interesting or to depend on interaction from all players and/or their PCs; ie to not be just a die roll for one person. Several folks here have given examples of ways to make sure everyone can be involved and to how they use the mechanics as the basis for more, or how the mechanics work for them. The dirty little secret that you pointed out a while back (that we won't let these mechanics "control" our PCs) is no secret at all. The real secret has yet to be explicitly stated in this thread - THE DM ULTIMATELY DECIDES THE RESULT OF ANY SOCIAL INTERACTION. How that plays out depends on the DM and likely on the scenario. The DM can set a DC and then a roll can be made to determine success. Setting a DC can be as intricate as the DM would like, and can be adjusted for countless situational factors. Or the DM can determine in advance whether the PCs succeed or fail, and never roll a die (or ignore it), but allow the conversation to occur. Or the DM can just decide and move everyone along. For most of us, we would like to feel that what the party of PCs as a team did (whether it was 1 or all of them) influenced the outcome, whether it did or not, and that is best modeled in the current system. That system allows the broadest spectrum of PC concepts and allows for the PC-diplomat and can help to balance it against the combat monster PC. It appears that you would rather let the most socially proficient PLAYERS "win" the social side of the RPG, which for most PLAYERS would seem to remove the fun of playing CHARACTERS. If you would not expect a PLAYER to swing a sword, tumble, climb, resist a poison, know the detail of all the outer planes, or cast spells, then it is not reasonable to expect them to be glib or diplomatic. It is reasonable to expect them to describe what they say and how they say it, or to actually do it to the best of their abilities (the only difference to the other actions I described) to increase the fun. As for the role of the DM, I would recommend reading the current issue of Dungeon, where Monte Cook discusses the 2 basic types of DM styles (arbiter/judge vs. storyteller). His key point, at least to me, was that it doesn't matter which way a DM is as long as the players enjoy it, but that the players will generally get the most enjoyment when they feel their PCs actions will affect the outcome (I keep repeating this for a reason) AND that the outcomes tell a good story. BTW Shaman - great post!
Mister Mayhem 12-27-04, 05:25 PM	Of course, a player may always choose to ignore the result of the rule, and act as if their character failed to believe something that, as far as he was concerned, should have been utterly convincing. But that would be poor roleplaying, and since I usually look for players who enjoy roleplaying, they tend to do it well. Right, that's the double standard. The DM doesn't do that. :confused: You are now saying that the problem with the diplomacy skill (and other social skills) is that a poor roleplayer might choose to ignore the outcome of checks based on his characters skills. When your original complaint was that skills were bad because they made roleplaying irrelevant. These seem to be somewhat mutually exclusive. To put it as politely as I can, your argument is not very coherent.
The Shaman 12-27-04, 05:47 PM	BTW Shaman - great post! Thank you!
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-27-04, 06:22 PM	:confused: You are now saying that the problem with the diplomacy skill (and other social skills) is that a poor roleplayer might choose to ignore the outcome of checks based on his characters skills. When your original complaint was that skills were bad because they made roleplaying irrelevant. These seem to be somewhat mutually exclusive. They are. There's two ways one can approach social skills, this assumes you don't embrace the double standard. 1) The die roll determines how the diplomacy skill target acts. This eliminates much of the roleplaying. This is default and by the book, and it can be assumed that social skill supporters do this. 2) The target of the skill may choose to ignore the result of the skill check. This doesn't destroy free will, but rather creates a relatively useless skill. They are two distinctive things, and my point is that neither of them work right. So, since social systems cannot be made to truly work, they must be eliminated. Now, this isn't to say that you have no problems once you've eliminated them, but the problems here now fall upon the DM and players to rightfully deal with, as they're roleplaying and imagination issues as opposed to rules issues. That system allows the broadest spectrum of PC concepts and allows for the PC-diplomat and can help to balance it against the combat monster PC. See here's your problem. You keep wanting to find ways to "balance" the diplomat against the combat monster. I say the diplomat and the combat monster shouldn't exist. Everyone should be competent at combat. You shouldn't have one guy who is pure combat and another guy who can't do anything in combat. Lets get this idea that "social PCs" should suck in combat out of our heads because it's just poor game design. This is D&D, a game primarily about killing the bad guys, every PC should be able to fight in his own way. That can be tossing fireballs, fighting with a rapier or chopping someone in half with a greatsword, but they should all be effective ways to play the game. PCs who suck in combat just aren't acceptable at all. The answer isn't trying to find some way to let sucky combat PCs compete in other non-combat ways. The answer is to have everyone be competent at combat. If the bard didn't suck in combat you wouldn't care as much that he needs to be the one and only player in every social encounter. The best way to make the bard feel useful is not to make him suck in the first place.
The Shaman 12-27-04, 07:27 PM	There's two ways one can approach social skills, this assumes you don't embrace the double standard. 1) The die roll determines how the diplomacy skill target acts. This eliminates much of the roleplaying. This is default and by the book, and it can be assumed that social skill supporters do this. 2) The target of the skill may choose to ignore the result of the skill check. This doesn't destroy free will, but rather creates a relatively useless skill. They are two distinctive things, and my point is that neither of them work right. So, since social systems cannot be made to truly work, they must be eliminated. There's an old saw about putting a monkey in a cage and giving him two ways out - the monkey will of course find a third way that the designer didn't think of. I don't agree that there are only two ways of looking at this, and I'll give you an example from my d20 Modern campaign. One of the player characters wanted to requistion some video equipment from the university where he worked. An attempt to requisition requires a Diplomacy check with the DC based on the price of the item, and I gave the player hefty circumstance bonuses (total of +4) to reflect that the request was reasonable and the person asked would most likely support the requisition. However, the player missed the mark by a wide margin with a bad roll. Based on what you wrote, I had two options here: allow the roll to stand and not give them the equipment, or ignore the roll and provide the character with the equipment. I took a third option. Instead of telling the players, "No," the NPC said that the equipment wasn't available for a couple of days, and that they could pick it up later after it was returned. Instead of making it a do-or-die roll, I made it a degree-of-success roll. The game has a GM specifically to make this sort of call - the rule mechanics are there to introduce an element of chance into the storytelling, IMHO. This is D&D, a game primarily about killing the bad guys, every PC should be able to fight in his own way. That can be tossing fireballs, fighting with a rapier or chopping someone in half with a greatsword, but they should all be effective ways to play the game. PCs who suck in combat just aren't acceptable at all. The answer isn't trying to find some way to let sucky combat PCs compete in other non-combat ways. The answer is to have everyone be competent at combat. If the bard didn't suck in combat you wouldn't care as much that he needs to be the one and only player in every social encounter. The best way to make the bard feel useful is not to make him suck in the first place. I was thinking about this recently when I started playing around with a character concept. I wanted to create a diviner player character, which I haven't seen too often - I think divination is considered a "weak sister" to evocation and necromancy among player character wizards. The diviner would have few offensive spells, if any - the concept floating around in my mind was off this sort of gentle, often distracted character who would rather abruptly give warnings when danger or mystery lurked. So what would this character do in combat without the usual plethora of offensive magic? Obviously a few choice defensive spells would be in order, and should the character be engaged in melee, the total defense option was his most likely response. While I doubt that this would qualify in Archtyrant Terevoth's definition of "not sucking in combat," it certainly provided a viable character option that could give the adventurers a significant edge going into a combat encounter and one that wouldn't place too great a burden on the other players once battle was joined. There are different ways to be "good at combat," IMHO.
Lord Stigius 12-27-04, 09:13 PM	There are obviously more than two ways of approach to social skills - the one I'm using being one. As already said, I expect my players to roleplay social encounters, but I expect them to have appropiate skills too. Basically, you need either good Cha score, or ranks in Diplomacy (preferably both) to roleplay a covincing character. For most part, I do not call for any rolls. I just know approximately what my PCs can and what cannot, and judge accordingly. You could probably call is 'taking 10 with HUGE circumstance bonuses/penalties' (far exceeding the standard +2/-2) The same rule of avoiding dozens of unnecessary rolls applies to other skills IMC (excluding UMD and some others that are random by their very nature). I also tend not to set all DCs at the level 'challenging to the appropiate level PC with maxed out the appropiate skill'. Yes, I know that by the RAW you need to roll pretty the same at level 1 and level 19 to succeed, but IMC things are different. My players know that even non-maxed skills are useful. Awesome Spellcraft of Master Cromwell the Archmage is not always going to save the hide of Pious & Chivalrous Brother Folken, who had better realize a spell is being cast at him, even if he does not recognize the spell by name. And the other way - maxed out Diplomacy and awesome Charisma of Brother Folken are not going to help Master Cromwell when it's Master Cromwell who's standing before the Council of Archmages.
rutrow424 12-27-04, 10:01 PM	See here's your problem. You keep wanting to find ways to "balance" the diplomat against the combat monster. I say the diplomat and the combat monster shouldn't exist. Everyone should be competent at combat. You shouldn't have one guy who is pure combat and another guy who can't do anything in combat. Lets get this idea that "social PCs" should suck in combat out of our heads because it's just poor game design. This is D&D, a game primarily about killing the bad guys, every PC should be able to fight in his own way. That can be tossing fireballs, fighting with a rapier or chopping someone in half with a greatsword, but they should all be effective ways to play the game. PCs who suck in combat just aren't acceptable at all. The answer isn't trying to find some way to let sucky combat PCs compete in other non-combat ways. The answer is to have everyone be competent at combat. If the bard didn't suck in combat you wouldn't care as much that he needs to be the one and only player in every social encounter. The best way to make the bard feel useful is not to make him suck in the first place. You obviously read too much into my statements, allowing your bias to shine. I never made any mention of having a PC who "sucks" in combat. I did mention that PCs who focus on social skills (Diplomats as I called them) are/can be balanced against combat focused PCs. Is there some reason that a bard or a rogue with several social skills is automatically crippled in combat? According to the rules and depending on player choice, they still have numerous abilities that can be very useful in a fight. Heck, a human fighter or paladin with a decent charisma has plenty of resources available to be a reasonably good diplomat (the fighter has feats to spend, the paladin gets diplomacy as a class skill) with little or no loss in combat effectiveness. It is ironic that in a thread bemoaning the use of CO to min/max or powergame that you seem to have gone the opposite way, declaring all PCs who take/focus on social skills to be useless in combat. AT you appear to want everything - make every PC a full combat machine, and eliminate social skills, substituting the player's social abilities for the PC's. Again, that may be fine for your game, but is not something for a game system to rely upon. You failed to comment on my assertion that in almost all cases, under whatever system, the DM will determine (whether in advance or not) whether any social interaction can be successful, and how successful it may be. The randomness of the dice and/or the player's words/actions may influence the outcome. But if the DM "needs" the PCs to succeed, they will. If he does not, he will be prepared for the consequences. It all depends on the DM. As an example, a recent adventure had the party helping to negotiate a treaty. Lacking a diplomat PC, the entire party assisted in the negotiations, and achieved the desired result. The mechanics worked as such: the DM had set a DC (fairly high) - for every thing our side offered, such as trade concessions, mutual defense, land, we received a circumstance bonus/the DC was lowered. Only having a PC with a total +7 modifier (and a 3-4 assists), we had to offer the whole farm, plus pull some other back story items out as leverage, to get the treaty done (within the 3 roll limit set by the DM). Having a dedicated diplomat, we may have been able to offer very little, earning much greater favor with our patron. A bad die roll would have resulted in a failure, which would have likely continued the war and cost our side for months to come. Alternatively, we could have chosen to go with a hard line negotiation and failed miserably before ever rolling. The DM would have been prepared no matter the outcome of our choices or die rolls. If the DM needed a certain result, he certainly could have gotten it while still maintaining the illusion that what we were doing impacted the outcome.
Roxlimn 12-28-04, 01:39 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: I believe I can crystallize the point of your discussions by taking a few sentences from some posts: You talk of fairness, trying to paint yourself as the good guy and me as the bad guy, but you're views are nothing but pro-PC hypocrisy. Take a step back and look at the double standard you're arguing here. So long as they have a double standard, it's plainly clear they aren't feasable. My dear boy, allow me to share with you what seems to be a secret as far as you’re concerned. Everything in the game is designed to let the PCs win. Yup. You know how the PCs seem to survive encounter after hostile encounter with NPCs whereas NPCs fall by the wayside like flies? Not a fluke. You know about how ECL and LA aren’t valued the same? Same thing. Despite what appears to the contrary, everything in the game is designed such that PCs are much more likely to win than to fail, and every single NPC exists for the benefit of the PCs, despite the illusion that the DM (that’s us) creates that they’re not. Without any PC, the game world loses its purpose. You have to understand this basic dichotomy between PCs and NPCs before you can understand why both D&D and apparently GURPS make this distinction. So it comes down to if you want the DM to be capable of railroading your PCs thought through the use of diplomacy capable NPCs. Do you want deafness to be a benefit for PCs and NPCs? Having said that, it’s not true that I don’t allow high Diplomacy NPCs to be portrayed as basically the same as low Diplomacy NPCs. When a high Diplomacy NPC talks to the PCs, his words flow like silk and he’s quite smooth. A great charmer, really. I might even enlist the aid of a good suave talker to enhance the portrayal. Even when all else fails, I as the DM tell the players straight out that this guy seems very convincing and that following his advice sounds like a good plan. Same thing for high Bluff NPCs. When a high Bluff NPC makes a proposal or a claim, his words will certainly sound quite true, especially for PCs who have low Sense Motive scores. The players will still ultimately have to make up their own minds on what to do, but it will probably be strongly influenced by how the NPCs say it, despite the players. Of course, just as a PC wouldn’t be credibly bluffed by an NPC twice, so the same PC can’t possibly expect to be facing the same Bluff skill DC against an NPC he successfully Bluffed in the past. The DC to beat is bound to be higher, because he’s been proven to be untrustworthy, if the NPC is liable to believe or listen to anything the PC says at all. As in the DMG, the DM decides how the NPCs react and sets the skill DC, if he allows the skill to be used in that circumstance. I don’t really tell the PCs what’s true or what’s false, or who’s believeable or who’s not, though they can probably tell who presents himself better and who’s the smooth talker through their own experiences. When I tell them the character is utterly convincing and even inspiring, I don’t tell them whether what the NPC is saying is true or not. That’s up to them to decide. On a particularly good Bluff roll, I might even suggest some outrightly false things that they sense, since the human mind is all too apt to make up details about things it believes. “It does begin to seem that way,” I would tell them, and they would have no clue as what was true and what was false. After all, that’s was Sense Motive and truth spells are for. Metagaming in this sense is really completely hokey. I could be telling them the truth, the truth as far as that NPC is concerned, or an out and out lie. In fact, I might present to them a campaign fact that seems unbelievable just because the person saying it is untrustworthy or didn’t know how to say it right. NPCs are apt to react to them in similar fashion. It's because they turn people into robots. Yes everything I’ve been saying about social skills is true, and the DMG basically admits it. It’s very difficult to roleplay someone who’s socially inept. You how painful it is to watch Tenchi and Keitaro of Love Hina flounder? Well that’s how it is to have bad social skills. You flub even the most elementary social encounters. It’s a lot more difficult to roleplay a socially inept character than it is to roleplay an complete idiot because you automatically and instinctively fill in the gaps. Whereas a smart person might know what’s smart or not, we often can’t consciously tell what makes us likeable to other people in general. Even a smart person often thinks that some esoteric bit of trivia or specialized bit of information is common knowledge, even when it isn’t. Needless to say, what amounts to small talk among very intelligent people can be quite daunting, as they laugh at some small trivial bit you can’t even begin to understand. Even more difficult is to try to take the role of someone who’s more likeable than you are. I mean, can you really create a speech liable to turn a stubborn Dragon into a neutral party? Methinks not, and only the greatest of hubris can make you think you can be as inspiring as Adolf Hitler, one of the most charismatic leaders the world has ever known. Now, add unto this daunting pair of tasks the duty of having to roleplay every single townsfolk the PCs have a mind to stop and chat with and it quickly becomes quite unworkable. I don’t want to have to roleplay a whole evening’s worth of small talk slipping in small slips of information for the party Bard to deduce into useful facts. I don’t want to have to detail groups of tavern folk’s key words for spilling particular bits of their guts out to complete strangers. And I most certainly don’t want to have to spend days working out a speech any majorly charismatic leader of the world can work up spontaneously off the cuff. However, even if you use the Diplomacy skill to replace social skill, it does not turn anyone into robots. That’s just your inexperience speaking. Let’s say you roll a high enough Diplomacy score to turn an Adult Red Dragon helpful. What should he do then? Why, he could up and cage the lot of you and try to use you as pawns in his schemes. As far as he’s concerned, he’s the absolute most important thing in the entire world, and nothing can benefit you more than being his trusted servants. A Red Dragon who presses you into his service is being honest and helpful. A Red Dragon who’s helping you out as a partner, well, that’s someone who’s undoubtedly plotting your eventual demise. A Diplomacy roll isn’t Dominate Monster. It can’t turn the Red Dragon into something it’s not – that is an unselfish trusting being. Even when you’re its servants, it will undoubtedly expect you to try to turn the tables at the first available opportunity, and why not? That’s what it would do if it were in your shoes. The thought that it could try to help you out in your own goals is such an alien thought that it probably can’t entertain such a thing, even if you were to suggest it. Suggestion would probably be your best recourse at that point, but Diplomacy is not suggestion and it should not supplant the spell’s function in the game. Diplomacy doesn’t turn anyone into robots, Archtyrant Terevoth. That’s just your misinformed notion of what it can do. For instance, if your character happens to be a 'bad liar', this also means that people who know him believe him more when he's telling the truth. Where as there is likely to be more doubt when dealing with the guy who can tell convincing lies, only because you know he could just as easily be telling the truth as he could a lie. And that sounds like a good basis for a feat or a flaw. I can easily imagine a PC taking a hit to Bluff (he’s not good at lying) while taking a hefty bonus to Diplomacy (because he’s good at presenting facts favorably). At the same time, I can also imagine a PC who’s just plain bad at saying anything. No one believes what he says because he just looks suspicious whatever he’s saying. The die roll determines how the diplomacy skill target acts. This eliminates much of the roleplaying. This is default and by the book, and it can be assumed that social skill supporters do this. I’m a supporter of the skill and I don’t do this. First of all, the diplomacy roll does not determine how the NPC acts. The DM does. The Diplomacy roll determines how well the PC presents himself, or how convincing he sounds. This roll can be modified by any number of situational modifiers, but whatever the result, the end point is simply an effect on the NPCs reaction, it does not control how he acts. It can make him act more favorably to you, but really, how he acts at all will be determined by his natural make up and beliefs. A Silver Flame Zealot who was most favorably inclined to you would not stop badgering you until he was convinced you were “saved”. On the other hand, if he couldn’t care less, he’d probably leave you mostly alone. What you’re doing isn’t “by the book,” either. The DMG instructs the DM to determine how each NPC reacts to the PCs and also instructs him to set skill DCs according to what he sees fit. Just because the rules tell him that it’s possible to swim up a waterfall does not mean that he has to tolerate this kind of thing. He could simply rule it impossible and it would stand, and it would still be by the book. Any and all DCs placed inside the core books and beyond are simply guidelines for the DM to use to help him come up with a skill DC for routine rolls. The DMG still places it squarely on the DM’s lap to determine final DCs for any particular roll in any particular situation and to interpret the result. It’s not Oberoni’s Statement (ironically fallaciously known as a fallacy), either, if that’s what you’re thinking. As with Magic Item Creation, the skill rules place all final rolls and interpretation specifically to DM fiat, and he’s specifically instructed that if he finds any particular skill feat improbable, he’s free to label such undoable with any roll. What you’re doing with “straight Diplomacy rolls” doesn’t work, and no one in this thread has ever claimed that it did. Perhaps if you tried to do it by the book, things would work better. Finally, even if we determine the results of any specific interaction with a DM mediated roll, the roleplaying is still quite intact. Again, what you’re saying here is that real-life social games are ruled out of the picture, not roleplaying. You can roleplay a scenario that you know the final result of. In fact, it’s probably more challenging to roleplay out a failure by a smooth talking person than it is to try to use your own social skills to work out the scenario. You see, in the first situation, you still have to come out as suave and savvy. You haven’t lost your touch. The charisma is still there. The modifiers all applied. And yet you still failed. Roleplaying a believable failure in that circumstance is thus doubly hard. Of course, you can simply say that he just came off a little less suave this time, but that’s a cop out. Roleplaying something is surely and specifically not the same as using real-life social skill to work out the situation, so for the sake of clarity, please refrain from confusing the two. So “We roleplay the scenario,” is and should be different from “We work out the scenario for real.” When we choose to roleplay a fight, we work out the fight based on who’s doing what and who won based on the numbers. When we’re working out a fight using each individual’s real and inherent talents, that’s different, though you can probably also call that “roleplaying” if you apply “roleplaying” to real social skill use. Now, for the sake of discussion, I want to find out how this “removal” of social skill works out in your imagination. How can you quantify how socially inept a character is, if you happen to want to play one? Would playing a socially inept character not be fun? Why or why not?
WizO_Catoblepas 12-28-04, 01:56 AM	My main premise is still that just because a character decides to maximize their social skills it doesn't mean that they are completely useless in combat. It just means that they are not as proficient in combat as the character that decides to maximize the combat abilities. The same goes to the character that decides to maximize their combat abilities - they're still going to be able to socially interact but the results of the social interaction are not going to be as beneficial as a character that decide to max out their social skills. The game is based on making decisions in order to customize my character to what I believe will benefit them in their campaign world. It sure would be fun to have a character that has d12 hit points, casts arcane spells as effectively as a wizard, cast divine spells as effectively as a cleric, and fing trap/disable locks like a rogue, but the game is just not set up that way. It all involves teamwork and what you feel is important for the team. In the last campaign that I took part in, the cleric had a charisma of 8. Let's just say that we weren't going to turn that many undead. However, the character concept that he wanted dictated the character that he desired, and hence was the result. Yes combat is important, but so are the social interactions of their character. That's why it is important to have a well rounded character, not just a well-rounded player. The development of that character needs to show this social interaction development. YMMV.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-28-04, 10:10 AM	Everything in the game is designed to let the PCs win. No, not really. There's no innate reason why the PCs must win. CRs are set up with the idea that they will win, but the combat system itself does not place any distincting between PC and NPC. LA is actually a PC hoser. If you were to pit a PC against a similar monster counterpart of the same CR = PC ECL, the monster is actually more likely to win, because the monster gets more class levels for his CR, than the PC loses for his LA and monster hit dice. Skill tests are the very same for the most part, no bias is given toward PCs. Monsters and NPCs use tumble, hide, spot and listen exactly the same as PCs do. There is no provision that PCs can ignore an enemy's tumble or hide check. There is nothing about the skill system that says that the PCs have the advantage either. While you could claim the magic system seems to favor medium sized creatures, and thus PCs, it in no way makes an NPC wizard different from a PC wizard. In fact, social skills are the only element of the game that is biased. A group of PCs against a great red wyrm has exactly the same chance of success as a group of NPCs with the same levels and abilities. Stating that the rules are set up so the PCs win is pretty much entirely false. The rules are neutral. Yes, it's expected that the PCs will win but this is dealt with by tinkering with the opposition, not with the rules. And social skills are not innately different from attack bonuses in the numeric regard. If you can set a monster's attack bonus at something you like, you can do the same to his bluff or diplomacy roll. So that's not even an issue. When a high Diplomacy NPC talks to the PCs, his words flow like silk and he’s quite smooth. A great charmer, really. I might even enlist the aid of a good suave talker to enhance the portrayal. Again, double standard. If you don't want your games to be 'social puzzles' as you call them, then why does the DM have to do that but the PCs don't. It's a clear sign something is wrong. Why don't you have PCs enlist a suave talker to enhance their portrayal? They can just roll a dice, but the DM better damn well be Robert Di Niro if he wants to convince his PCs of anything. At this point I can just stare at you and say, "Huh?" If your entire claim is being fair to people and not punishing them for bad social skills, it has to work both ways, otherwise your reasoning has no validity at all. Even more difficult is to try to take the role of someone who’s more likeable than you are. I mean, can you really create a speech liable to turn a stubborn Dragon into a neutral party? Methinks not, and only the greatest of hubris can make you think you can be as inspiring as Adolf Hitler, one of the most charismatic leaders the world has ever known. Yeah sure... why not. You just need some good reason why he should ally with you. Perhaps the promise of treasure, the threat of a greater enemy and so on. It's not like nobody has ever befriended a dragon before, so I can't believe it's all that hard. He just has to like you. Chances are though if you're a paladin, and he's chaotic evil, he won't like you very much. Now, add unto this daunting pair of tasks the duty of having to roleplay every single townsfolk the PCs have a mind to stop and chat with and it quickly becomes quite unworkable. I don't have a problem with skills made to skip minor scenes. If you want the rogue to be able to talk to a bunch of people and don't want to roleplay out all that, it's fine to have a skill to do it. In fact, it's probably a good idea to do so. As I said before, I'm alright with having skills to address the masses. They're effectively random NPCs and generally should behave more closer to average. Let’s say you roll a high enough Diplomacy score to turn an Adult Red Dragon helpful. What should he do then? Why, he could up and cage the lot of you and try to use you as pawns in his schemes. As far as he’s concerned, he’s the absolute most important thing in the entire world, and nothing can benefit you more than being his trusted servants. A Red Dragon who presses you into his service is being honest and helpful. This is just colorful rules interpretation with no backing. Under helpful in the PHB it says "Will take risks to help you" and possible actions "protect, back up, heal, aid" Imprison clearly doesn't belong on that list. And yes, this is getting into the Oberoni fallacy. You're basically making up rules which aren't there to try to justify that it's balanced. The thought that it could try to help you out in your own goals is such an alien thought that it probably can’t entertain such a thing, even if you were to suggest it. Suggestion would probably be your best recourse at that point, but Diplomacy is not suggestion and it should not supplant the spell’s function in the game. Huh? Even evil creatures can have friends and help them out. Just because they think selfishly doesn't mean they never do something for another. Likely part of your diplomacy roll should entail convincing the dragon that helping your group is in its best interests, and since you succeeded, the dragon agrees and turns to friendly, which means he should help you. Trying to say that "will take risks to help you", becomes "will manipulate you for his own gain" is a stretch that is completely unsupported by the rules. He likely thinks that helping you will help him in the long run, but he's still willing to help you on your goals according to the PHB. You can roleplay a scenario that you know the final result of. Yes, you can... and your system can very well work that way. But it still doesnt' excuse the fact that it doesnt' work both ways. Personally I don't find it fun to roleplay a scenario doomed to failure, but there's no reason you couldn't. However, it should apply to both ends of the table either way. Why is the DM's real life social skills the determining factor for one instance and the PC's real life social skills a total non-factor? Doesn't take a huge leap of deduction to figure out this is unfair. You expect an Oscar winning performance out of the DM, but the PCs can just sit there and droll on about how they like swords. Again, find me a social system that works both ways equally, then we can talk. Until then you've just got pro-PC bias that you're disguising as fairness. If it were truly fair, PCs would play by the same rules the DM is playing by. If you want the dice to dictate your roleplaying and you enjoy that, then that's fine... just make it work for both sides of the table. Roleplaying something is surely and specifically not the same as using real-life social skill to work out the situation, It is when it's the DM doing it apparently, or when two PCs are talking to each other. Any argument you may have about poor social skills should apply equally in those two situations. If you have a system for resolving social encounters, then you should be able to use it, every time. It shouldn't go away to the closet everytime two PCs start talking or when an NPC is trying to convince a PC of something. so for the sake of clarity, please refrain from confusing the two. There's a lot of confusion here, but it's not on my end. In my games at least I run something consistent for both sides. You may not like the style, but at least it's fair to all parties involved. Now, for the sake of discussion, I want to find out how this “removal” of social skill works out in your imagination. How can you quantify how socially inept a character is, if you happen to want to play one? Would playing a socially inept character not be fun? Why or why not? Basically, it's like a description. Describing your character as attractive, well spoken or whatever is like saying "my cloak is red". Now all these traits can have advantages and disadvantages. Like in real life, people respond differently based on their own experience. Your character may be able to give good speeches like a modern day politician, but some people in the game world aren't likely to trust people like that. Maybe your character is a rather socially inept barbarian. Coarse and bluntly honest. Nobles and such would turn their nose up at his style, yet others who share his approach and view high society as a bunch of liars will very well take to him easily. Everyone makes some kinds of friends in life, which leads me to believe that every personality type has some types of people which they get along with. So being "socially inept" isn't necessarily a disadvantage. It depends on who you're dealing with, and what their background is. Socially inept people tend to be more honest than social people in general, mostly because they can't get away with lying as easily. And some NPCs in your world should see things the same way. There are a vast variety of roleplaying opportunities, from talking to the dwarf king, to addressing the elven princess to talking to a dragon. Different groups and different NPCs should have different types of people and approaches they find more persuasive. A guy stuttering before an egotistical king could actually create a beneficial response. The king could mistake his stuttering for nervousness at being before such a majestic and powerful persona. Therefore he could view it as a sign of respect as the one talking to him is at a loss for words at being face to face with "the great king". In fact against some, this approach could be best. The coarse barbarian would be seen as disrespectful, and the rogue who acts more like a nobleman would seem dishonest (after all the king is used to manipulative nobles). As for NPCs, well your campaign already deals with NPC to PC interaction in the way I propose, as well as PC vs PC interaction. If the guy is an eloquent speaker, you can tell them that and so on. And yes, this does make things somewhat of a social puzzle mixed in with roleplaying, but I think that's unavoidable if you want a fair social system and don't want everything dice determined. But it doesn't mean you can eliminate the dice altogether. In fact people should sometimes be encouraged to declare a percentage of some kind to reflect thier response mixed with their personality. But that percentage should be fairly minor and not the sole determining factor of the encounter. Individual personality and the speaker's demeanor should be the main factors. Though there's always a chance that the speaker happens to remind the king of his dead son or something similar and earns favor that way. But this is more a matter of luck than being socially skilled. Now if you want very specific social skills, which are designed to simplify conversations with large groups of people, such as gather information, you still can. If anything, gather information is more like the rogue's divination spell than a true social skill. The people he's associating with are generally random people you don't want to flesh out much, and therefore you can just make a roll and have him pick up the local rumors.
Seeker95 12-28-04, 11:40 AM	Wow. :rolleyes:
Lady Danyon Dehlmari 12-28-04, 12:51 PM	This is perhaps my only real problem with min/maxing as a broad concept. Though mostly this is a problem with the game system and not the players. I don't really blame people for not wanting to waste levels, and that's truly what they are sometimes... wasted levels. I agree with AT on this as far as my own dislike of Min/Maxing. Everything is planned out from day one. I personally think planning the beginning is fine, but then you should let the Campaign take over. Just my 2 cents on that. Moving on.... I like the diplomacy skill a lot. I think it adds a bit of realism to the game. I think with NPCs it gives the DM more flexibility in being objective. I think it's a benefit not a hinderance. However, just like anything else, it can be abused. If the DM uses it to railroad a character, that's just wrong. I hate railroading. If a PC uses it, it should go hand in hand with what he trying to get accross. It needs to make sense. Not only that, I would hope and think that common sense applies on both sides of the fence.
Seeker95 12-28-04, 01:24 PM	Not only that, I would hope and think that common sense applies on both sides of the fence.And this, dear Lady, is the spanner in the machinery. Common sense is almost never present when the predicate of an argument is absolute. Archtyrant has based his entire argument on an either-or / all-or-nothing approach.
zodiki 12-28-04, 02:12 PM	Sorry, powergaming is not a player issue, it's a DM issue. If the DM doesn't cater to the overly specialized builds or perfect combos, the min/maxed PC won't be any more effective in the aggregate than the less specialized, more rounded, character. In fact he or she might be weaker. If the game has both non-combat roleplaying and combat roleplaying, the build becomes only a part of the game, not the focus. As a DM, I never provide special circumstances for any particular PC to shine. It does a disservice to the more well-rounded classes who have traded in specialized power for versatility. Consequently, I don't care if the players powergame or min/max or plan builds. If they don't engage themselves in the game from the roleplaying side,all their intricate plans will never see fruition anyway.
WizO_Catoblepas 12-28-04, 03:20 PM	Personally I don't find it fun to roleplay a scenario doomed to failure, but there's no reason you couldn't. However, it should apply to both ends of the table either way. Why is the DM's real life social skills the determining factor for one instance and the PC's real life social skills a total non-factor? Doesn't take a huge leap of deduction to figure out this is unfair. You expect an Oscar winning performance out of the DM, but the PCs can just sit there and droll on about how they like swords. Again, find me a social system that works both ways equally, then we can talk. Until then you've just got pro-PC bias that you're disguising as fairness. If it were truly fair, PCs would play by the same rules the DM is playing by. If you want the dice to dictate your roleplaying and you enjoy that, then that's fine... just make it work for both sides of the table. Well, there's social scenarios that the player interacts in all the time where they're chances of success are nil. For example, if they are having a discussion with the BBEG or one of his minions in town, they're not going to break down and say, "Normally I don't say this, but since you're social skills are so strong, I've just got to tell you that I'm the bad guy." As for real-life DM skills being a determining factor, really it's the NPC's social skills that are a factor, at least when I DM. For example, if a low level rogue tries to bluff the party cleric with a high sense motive, I describe it as ,"The gentleman explains that the captain of the guard is behind all of this, but something in what he says doesn't sound accurate to you." An NPC's social skills are just as important as the characters. It's just that on average since they have dedicated their entire life to these skills that they're usually better than the party sine they devote their resources to both adventuring and social skills. In essense, I really don't expect an oscar-winning performance from a DM: I expect a narrator/moderator performance from the DM.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-28-04, 04:11 PM	Archtyrant has based his entire argument on an either-or / all-or-nothing approach. Not quite. Everything doesn't have to be all or nothing but it does have to have some basis. There's four choices for social skills. Each of these broad varieties has a bunch of small variants, but ultimately you choose one, and you will be able to figure out which of these you play by. Here are the social systems- A) Mechanical - Dice determines result: You roll versus some DC and the dice tell you how the social skill is resolved. There is a DC to do almost anything though it might be very high. Here social skills are just another check. It doesn't really matter what you say or how you say, it you just roll a die. DCs here are by the book, and standard with little deviance based on individual situations. Under this system you can stutter, you can say "I like swords" over and over again, and it won't hurt your chances. However, characters without social skills are essentially shut out of the conversation. In addition, being deaf can be a big benefit at high and epic levels. B) Free Will - Guided roleplaying:Here the character has some stat, whether its a number or simply a descriptive quality, that tells you how well of a negotiator he is. This quality is taken into consideration as well as the PCs roleplaying to form a result. This may also be combined with a roll, but the dice are only guidelines. The end result is that the DM pretty much chooses what happens based on how he believes the NPC will react and is free to disregard the dice. This most often ends up being the "social puzzle" scenario, where what you say is usually more important than how you say it. You can generally get away with stuttering in this variant if you say your character doesn't do that, however you still have to say the right things. You won't be able to succeed just by repeating "I like swords" over and over again. C) Mechanical - Dice determines result with modifiers: This is like A, only you expect to get a great deal of modifiers based on DM situation. The DC is much more flexible. Here, you have some of the aspects of B too, in that saying things the right way may get you bonuses, but ultimately like A, your skill is the most important thing. If you min/max properly you can still get away with just saying "I like swords", assuming you can still make the check with a -20 penalty. In extreme cases, the DM may declare your action an automatic failure. However as with A, your ranks in diplomacy are more important than anything else, even though other factors are allowed in. D)Free will - Player acting skill: All aspects of the conversation are as if the player did them, regardless of the character's abilities. The success or failure of the encounter depends on the DM's opinion of the player's acting in the scene. Here, you can't get away with anything. The acting is real time. If you stutter or you say stupid stuff, you're stuck with it, and you will get penalized for it. Now if you want something relatively consistent, you have to pick one of those and stick with it. And it should apply to both ends of the table. Keep in mind that all these systems are 'fair', so long as they apply to both sides of the table. The only time a system is unfair is if it applies differently to different players. The question is... which is the most fun for everybody? Now personally, I don't think System A or C is all that fun because it takes away your PC's ability to make his own choices. When you run into an NPC bard with diplomacy +50, your PCs are virtually at his mercy. Similarly when you cast a glibness spell as a bard, the NPCs (and the other PCs) are at your mercy. System D can be fun, but if you're like Arioch and stutter, or otherwise don't speak well, then it can really suck too, and you could be pushed out of all the roleplaying encounters. System B is the one I advocate because it has the maximum degree of fun and free will with the minimum chance of having someone sit in a corner. But everyone is free to their own opinion. If you choose A or C as the system you like and you have no problem with it being applied to both sides of the table, I think that's just an opinion issue, and probably not worth arguing, since it's purely a matter of taste. If that's the case, then I've misread a lot of people here, and should have ended this discussion long ago. However, as far as I can tell people are somehow arguing that the most fair thing to do is to have a biased system that applies differently to DMs and PCs, and well... that's the very definition of something not being fair. Regardless of what your system is, you cannot call it fair if it doesn't apply to both sides of the table. The DM is a person too, and any real life social requirements you waive on the part of the PCs must also be waived for the DM as well.
WizO_Catoblepas 12-28-04, 05:02 PM	Now personally, I don't think System A or C is all that fun because it takes away your PC's ability to make his own choices. When you run into an NPC bard with diplomacy +50, your PCs are virtually at his mercy. Similarly when you cast a glibness spell as a bard, the NPCs (and the other PCs) are at your mercy. System D can be fun, but if you're like Arioch and stutter, or otherwise don't speak well, then it can really suck too, and you could be pushed out of all the roleplaying encounters. System B is the one I advocate because it has the maximum degree of fun and free will with the minimum chance of having someone sit in a corner. However, you do have a choice as a player. If you wish to master social skills, then you can spend skill points and feats on doing so. It's the player's decision on what they wish to make their character. Also, even if a character doesn't have high social skills doesn't mean that they can't participate. It just means that their chances of success are less. Hey, the character that has high social skills can roll a "1" while the character with less impressive skills can roll a "20". I've seen it happen before. It's just like when I had a 1st level rogue and I was hitting more often than the 1st level fighter and causing more damage. I was just rolling higher die rolls during the encounter than the fighter. Now it is agreed that siccing a bard with a +50 diplomacy on a 1st level party is overkill. However, so is siccing a Beholder on a 1st level party bend on its destruction. As the DM, you've got to create scenarios that provide an appropriate challenge. But everyone is free to their own opinion. If you choose A or C as the system you like and you have no problem with it being applied to both sides of the table, I think that's just an opinion issue, and probably not worth arguing, since it's purely a matter of taste. If that's the case, then I've misread a lot of people here, and should have ended this discussion long ago. I've always insisted that the same standard is applied to both sides of the table. Just like I don't demand that players need to be amateur thespians, I don't demand that DMs be amateur thespians as well. The roll of the DM is to be the narrator and moderator. As long as everything is organized (no "You're fighting giant rats - no it's centipedes - no it's Orcus") and fair (no "I'm letting the monsters kill off the party because I'm bored with you guys"), then I'm happy.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-28-04, 05:40 PM	Now it is agreed that siccing a bard with a +50 diplomacy on a 1st level party is overkill. However, so is siccing a Beholder on a 1st level party bend on its destruction. As the DM, you've got to create scenarios that provide an appropriate challenge. The problem is that a bard with +50 diplomacy isn't overkill on just a 1st level party, it's overkill on any party, regardless of level. Lets remember that level never factors into the calculations for diplomacy, as it does with intimidate. Diplomacy is an unopposed roll, meaning that sooner or later you are going to be able to convince people of almost anything, regardless of who they are, because it doens't scale up with the person your'e trying to convince. It's the same DC to prevent a great red wyrm from eating you alive as it is to stop a raging farmer. Even something like bluff, which is opposed by sense motive, is a losing proposition at high levels because not everyone gets sense motive as a class skill. Even if a fighter maxed his ranks on sense motive, he's still going to end up with a crappy skill roll agaisnt a rogue or bard with max bluff. Factor in something like glibness which gives a +30, and the fighter has no chance at all, even if he is equal level. Now, there's nothing innately wrong with this, assuming you want to build your world around it, but you've got to be prepared to do some unusual things. The first is to consider words to be like magic. That is, counters are going to be set up to stop people from using diplomacy just like counters will exist for people using teleportation or scrying. First, rulers and their main servants will almost always be deaf people, because being deaf is the only immunity you have from someone bluffing you out of your kingdom or turning you against your king. If you can't hear someone, they can't use diplomacy or bluff on you. So likely all the pleas and prayers of people will fall on deaf ears, literally. All arguments will have to be hand written on scrolls which are then passed around and read individually. Basically important people will walk around all the time with rings of silence, as such is necessary for stability. Common peasants might wear earplugs or perhaps just hope that thier total lack of world importance keeps them safe. Then you can have "talking cities", bastions of anarchy, where the Lawful good high priest may be convinced to render the churches aid to the local blackguard, or the captain of the guards could be bluffed into thinking he's a member of the thieves guild. So in actuality your high and epic level play is going to discourage roleplaying, since the main order of the day will be "shoot first, and use speak with dead later", as giving someone the chance to talk, even 1 action to speak to you, is enough time for them to completely brainwash you into helping them. And keep in mind that unlike magic, you just can't dispel it, which makes it all the more terrifying. In such a world, silence is your only refuge from the terror of the spoken word. Now I suppose you can run a world like that, and if you applied it to both sides of the table, it would be fair, different and conceptually interesting. In fact, you'd probably get some early interest out of people just because the world itself is so exotic. However, when it's all said and done, I'm not sure how much fun it would be to actually play in.
rutrow424 12-28-04, 05:58 PM	But everyone is free to their own opinion. If you choose A or C as the system you like and you have no problem with it being applied to both sides of the table, I think that's just an opinion issue, and probably not worth arguing, since it's purely a matter of taste. If that's the case, then I've misread a lot of people here, and should have ended this discussion long ago. However, as far as I can tell people are somehow arguing that the most fair thing to do is to have a biased system that applies differently to DMs and PCs, and well... that's the very definition of something not being fair. Regardless of what your system is, you cannot call it fair if it doesn't apply to both sides of the table. The DM is a person too, and any real life social requirements you waive on the part of the PCs must also be waived for the DM as well. Your assertion that somehow A and C are only "fair" if applied to both the DM and the PCs is false. The game is not meant to be "fair" to the DM - it is meant to be "fair" to the players/PCs. The DM is the ultimate ruler of the universe - whatever he says goes; he is not "competing" against the players. The skill system (including social skills) is designed to assist a DM to arbitrate if PCs can be successful at a task, and if so how difficult that task may be. The DM decides how difficult he wants a task to be - THIS INCLUDES SOCIAL ENCOUNTERS. This can range from automatic (no roll), easy (maybe DC 5-10), hard (DC 15-20), Difficult (DC 25+), to impossible (no roll). If the dragon catches you stealing his hoard, the DM can decide the dragon does not accept the glibness-enhanced bard's explanation - though fun may well be had in hearing it. Just like the PCs do not have to believe anyone or anything. Consider a basic encounter - 4 1st level PCs against 2 orcs. Is that a fair fight? No - the orcs might win if they are lucky, but under equal terms the PCs will almost always win. Was that fair to the DM? Would you even consider it that way? Few I know would.
Roxlimn 12-28-04, 08:43 PM	Archtyrant Terevoth: No, not really. There's no innate reason why the PCs must win. CRs are set up with the idea that they will win, but the combat system itself does not place any distincting between PC and NPC. LA is actually a PC hoser. If you were to pit a PC against a similar monster counterpart of the same CR = PC ECL, the monster is actually more likely to win, because the monster gets more class levels for his CR, than the PC loses for his LA and monster hit dice. The combat system is set up such that numbers match numbers equally and is made with the express purpose of being used within the CR system. Thus, while the combat rules present the illusion of equality, DMs all over the world know that every combat is tilted quite heavily on the PCs side, with few exceptions. Level Adjustment shows this clearly. A monster with at at will ability is ranked less because it is assumed that it won't survive a PC-NPC encounter. The same ability on a PC is ranked much higher because it is assumed that he will survive all the encounters or at least most of them. The entire system is biased towards the PCs, Archtyrant Terevoth. Skill tests are the very same for the most part, no bias is given toward PCs. Monsters and NPCs use tumble, hide, spot and listen exactly the same as PCs do. There is no provision that PCs can ignore an enemy's tumble or hide check. There is nothing about the skill system that says that the PCs have the advantage either. Apart from the fact that the monster will either be of lower level (and thus have a lower skill modifier) or be one against many (and thus have one + aid another vs. lone skill)? A group of PCs against a great red wyrm has exactly the same chance of success as a group of NPCs with the same levels and abilities. Stating that the rules are set up so the PCs win is pretty much entirely false. The rules are neutral. Yes, it's expected that the PCs will win but this is dealt with by tinkering with the opposition, not with the rules. That's preposterous. Encounters and encounter rules are one in the same. Postulating a dichotomy where there is none is the product of a weak grasp of the rules system. Where a system globally tilts the balance in favor of the PCs, the entire system is presumed to be doing so. Any further tilt in the system is thus consistent with the intent of the system as a whole. Again, double standard. If you don't want your games to be 'social puzzles' as you call them, then why does the DM have to do that but the PCs don't. It's a clear sign something is wrong. Why don't you have PCs enlist a suave talker to enhance their portrayal? They can just roll a dice, but the DM better damn well be Robert Di Niro if he wants to convince his PCs of anything. At this point I can just stare at you and say, "Huh?" If your entire claim is being fair to people and not punishing them for bad social skills, it has to work both ways, otherwise your reasoning has no validity at all. No double standard. We help each other portray particular scenes. If a suave player is asked for help on wording or innuendo by a less adept player portraying a suave character, he may do so, but ultimately, it doesn't affect the outcome. It just helps the roleplaying. As it does on my side on the screen as well. Yeah sure... why not. You just need some good reason why he should ally with you. Perhaps the promise of treasure, the threat of a greater enemy and so on. It's not like nobody has ever befriended a dragon before, so I can't believe it's all that hard. He just has to like you. Chances are though if you're a paladin, and he's chaotic evil, he won't like you very much. You can't even convince a few people on a message board that you're right. How can you possibly imagine that you can convince a predator that's convinced it's only natural to eat not to do so? People have befriended Dragons in literature before, but I like to think that they're more charismatic. This is just colorful rules interpretation with no backing. Under helpful in the PHB it says "Will take risks to help you" and possible actions "protect, back up, heal, aid" Imprison clearly doesn't belong on that list. And yes, this is getting into the Oberoni fallacy. You're basically making up rules which aren't there to try to justify that it's balanced. No. It isn't. Read up the MM entry on Red Dragons and then tell me how they would view a puny little human coming into their lair. Possible actions include protect, back, up, heal, and aid, and the Red Dragon taking you into his service is doing just these things, only, he's doing it his way, not yours. In fact, nothing in the Diplomacy entry suggests that anyone willing to help you becomes your slave. They're only willing to help, not mind controlled. In the case of particularly strong minded individuals, they may even insist that you do things their way as they would believe that their way is better than yours, and ultimately benefits you. You are the one who's making snap judgements and broad generalizations at this point. Where do you get "mind control" from the chart or the description of Diplomacy? What in the DMG tells you that PCs can convince a person to be their faithful slave using this skill? Huh? Even evil creatures can have friends and help them out. Just because they think selfishly doesn't mean they never do something for another. Likely part of your diplomacy roll should entail convincing the dragon that helping your group is in its best interests, and since you succeeded, the dragon agrees and turns to friendly, which means he should help you. True. Just because they think selfishly doesn't mean they never do something for another. However, that is fallacious reasoning. Just because some evil creatures are capable of unselfish action has no bearing on what the rest of them can or should do. In fact, it's probably more the rule than the exception that a Red Dragon will not even consider humans to be people or things it should help to attain their own goals. You're saying that a Red Dragon can have friends and help its friends out. I'm saying that's true, but it's not true all the time, at least, and there's no saying how often it's true, though I would heavily lean on "almost never" in the case of Red Dragon vs. Human. When part of the Diplomacy roll involves convincing the Dragon of changing its world view, this becomes more difficult than just trying to convince it not to eat you. You can't easily (or even at all by core) change creature's natures and alignments with a Diplomacy roll, and "helpful" in one alignment isn't necessarily the same as "helpful" from another point of view. The Dragon is helping you out by imprisoning you. That way, other Reds can't get at you and eat you, too. Nondragons don't really register on a Dragon's radar, and Reds are more egocentric than most. Quite possibly, it might be surprised to find that you have goals of your own. You can't roleplay the Dragon like it was mind controlled or had its nature fundamentally changed. It's just "helpful." Heck, I can imagine a King imprisoning a bunch of adventurers "for their own good." Trying to say that "will take risks to help you", becomes "will manipulate you for his own gain" is a stretch that is completely unsupported by the rules. He likely thinks that helping you will help him in the long run, but he's still willing to help you on your goals according to the PHB. Of course not. "Will manipulate you for his own gain" is a basic trait and nature of Red Dragons. Diplomacy does not remove or change this nature. It only changes his attitude from hostile to helpful. How he takes his own risks in helping you is his own concern, not the PCs. Yes, you can... and your system can very well work that way. But it still doesnt' excuse the fact that it doesnt' work both ways. Personally I don't find it fun to roleplay a scenario doomed to failure, but there's no reason you couldn't. However, it should apply to both ends of the table either way. Why is the DM's real life social skills the determining factor for one instance and the PC's real life social skills a total non-factor? Doesn't take a huge leap of deduction to figure out this is unfair. You expect an Oscar winning performance out of the DM, but the PCs can just sit there and droll on about how they like swords. If that's the best they can do, I suppose... This is really more tackled above. If you don't know why the PCs are favored in the game, then please refer to above. It is when it's the DM doing it apparently, or when two PCs are talking to each other. Any argument you may have about poor social skills should apply equally in those two situations. If you have a system for resolving social encounters, then you should be able to use it, every time. It shouldn't go away to the closet everytime two PCs start talking or when an NPC is trying to convince a PC of something. Oh no. Roleplaying when the DMs doing it is still roleplaying. The fact that his social skill matters is part of the NPC/PC dichotomy, which apparently is not very evident. Social skill in D&D is expressly made only for PC-NPC interaction, and NPC-NPC interaction. This is for convenience, but also because it's necessary. You see, no one really cares about NPC feelings. NPCs (and the DM) don't get a sense of disenfranchisement when the roll tells them what has happened. The game is about the PCs and about the players. It's their show. That is the basis for all this pro-PC tilt. In fact, the PC are the heroes of the action. Everything that matters revolves around them. As such, a system for representing convenience rolls or for quantifying social skill only really works for NPC-NPC and PC-NPC interactions. Those interactions, you see, because they involve mainly NPCs on the "receiving" end, are fundamentally different from ones in which the PCs are involved, precisely and solely because the PCs are involved. Without citing this dichotomy, which exists in everything, is there any reason why NPC-NPC social interactions, for instance, or PC-mass NPC interactions should not be mediated by die rolls? And yes, this does make things somewhat of a social puzzle mixed in with roleplaying, but I think that's unavoidable if you want a fair social system and don't want everything dice determined. I don't suppose we roleplay and determine encounters very differently after all, though I still hold that I'm using a fleshed out practical version of the Diplomacy skill, just as I also use a fleshed out practical version of Perform skills, Craft skills, Tracking, and so on. A die roll really is no use for real character. If you're going to roleplay the entire evening between a courtier and your party, the die roll isn't going to tell you much of anything except what kind of impact the party will be having on the courtier on the whole. Things like the King mistaking a stutter for respect or people of a particular nation not liking a particular flavor of diplomat we attribute to chance. If you roll a 20, the King's found favor with something you do. Of course, actually having a +20 means that you exude properties and cues that people like as a baseline. It's a skill, not a personality profile. A true Diplomat is a chameleon, he's smooth when people want him to be smooth and rough when people expect him to be rough. Part of the skill is knowing what people expect and giving it to them. That's why Sense Motive and Knowledge (nobility and royalty) offer synergy bonuses. A socially inept Barbarian isn't simply coarse and bluntly honest. Those are character traits, not a measure of diplomatic skill. Even a smooth and skilled courtier can be coarse and bluntly honest if he's skilled enough to pull it off in an environment hostile to those traits. And honestly, as you already put out, being coarse and bluntly honest isn't exactly a bad thing. No, a socially inept Barbarian is not only coarse and bluntly honest, but he also rubs people the wrong way. Most people, almost all the time, and even people from his own tribe. That 0 rank in Diplomacy and -2 in Charisma aren't situational only, you know. They're universal. Likewise, a truly diplomatically skilled courtier from a kingdom will adopt local customs and truisms locally, if that's what's necessary to acquire local favor. He's more than just a functionary, after all, and his high rank in Diplomacy reflects a fundamental understanding of how universal interpersonal relationships work. I will have no problems saying that this foriegner can get further in negotiations than a local socially boorish Barbarian ever could. I don't see ranks in Diplomacy as reflecting a certain personality type at all as opposed to being malleable in terms of personality type. You're the person who always blends in with the crowd or inspires the crowd to blend in with you. Everyone makes some kinds of friends in life, which leads me to believe that every personality type has some types of people which they get along with. So being "socially inept" isn't necessarily a disadvantage. It depends on who you're dealing with, and what their background is. Socially inept people tend to be more honest than social people in general, mostly because they can't get away with lying as easily. And some NPCs in your world should see things the same way. I personally am familiar with people who have no friends at all, and you might be aware of a few such persons yourself. While friends tend to congregate in terms of interest groups and personality type, the truly diplomatically skilled crosses personality type boundaries and even national and class boundaries with ease. A person with high ranks in Diplomacy is the kind of person who can sit in with the jocks and the geeks, and the automotive guys, and the goths, and the overacheivers and be accepted into each group. Some people can do this seamlessly, being the "leader" of multiple such social groups. When you accompany them, they seem to change their skin as they transition between groups - they seamlessly slide into each group as if a natural part of that group, which they are. Among the most skilled, they can handle multiple groups simultaneously, displaying favorable traits for each group at the same time. They have even been known to unite such groups in temporary or permanent alliance. This is how a warlike tribe can get assimilated into a great kingdom without bloodshed or conflict. This is how kingdoms form deals, truces, and alliances. They're coarse when that's a good thing, and indirect when that's a good thing. These people aren't necessarily "oily" or "smooth-talking", either. Adolf Hitler certainly wasn't known to always be a smooth talker, though he was smooth enough when the situation demanded it. He was a fiery speaker and related more to the common man than anyone else in his day. I have nothing against personality types, and I encourage my players to come up with personality quirks that can net them some Diplomacy modifiers in special circumstances. Having said that, I do not run Diplomacy as if it were a personality type. It is a skill. Different groups of people and different NPCs do have different types of people and different approaches that they would find more persuasive, and often respond to approaches they don't even know they would respond to. The skilled Diplomat knows this and more, and he does whatever he needs to do to get the job done.
Seeker95 12-28-04, 09:54 PM	Here are the social systems- A) Mechanical - Dice determines result: B) Free Will - Guided roleplaying: C) Mechanical - Dice determines result with modifiers: D) Free will - Player acting skill:Although I will disagree that these are the only four approaches, you have hinged your entire argument on the only two approaches being A or D. We have, individually and collectively, refuted, dismissed, and countered your claim that social skills are either A or D. We have, individually and collectively, described the game as using a combination of B and C. A good DM will allow roleplay to modify dice rolles, and dice rolls to modify roleplaying -- both usually in the player's favor. You painted a black and white world, in which you defined one as good and another as evil. We rejected such a depiction of the game, and have labeled the grey as good enough. And most assuredly, fun.
Roxlimn 12-29-04, 03:52 AM	Seeker95: Actually, I've been arguing from a pretty much hardcore position - DM decides the skill DC, roll determines result - you roleplay the result. No modifications at all based on individual player social skill. It can be argued that I'm playing B type as Archtyrant Terevoth defines it, but A type is really a twisted misunderstanding of how the rules work. The DM always decides how the NPC is going to act or react and changing the NPCs attitude may or may not affect what he's going to do. For example, let's take the case of a LN Fighter who's honor bound to kill you. He's LN so his nature tells him that he can't renege on the contract, and on top of that, he knows that his employers can and will kill his wife if he ever does such a dishonorable thing. So you use Diplomacy and turn him Helpful. So what? Turning him helpful in this case is probably going to make him set up a "fair" combat (which he was inclined to do anyway), or give you some "fair" chance of escaping a death trap he's set up or is leading you to. You're not going to convince him to give up his personal goals just because you're a nice guy or because you make sense. He's been turned "helpful", not psychotic. He'll probably regret having to kill you and he might express his sorrow and regret at every instance, but he won't change his goals just because he likes you now. He'll aid you in any other way that he can, but you can't change his nature and you can't change his alignment. Heck, he'll probably even pay for your funeral rites and send your bodies home. How's that for a helpful gesture? This is not B type at all, which suggests that you're doing something that's beyond the rules. This is precisely how the skill operates as per core rules, and we can even find numerous examples of the sort in published adventures, and most recently, in Sharn, City of Towers entries.
KashGarinn 12-29-04, 05:23 AM	..wow.. did this thread really have to go to 6 pages? Wasn't the retort to the statement "character optimization boards - an insult to roleplaying" answered on the first page? you're just going in circles btw. K.
fractal 12-29-04, 06:40 AM	You don't like how the diplomacy modifier is static? GOOD! I don't like it either. When possible, I try to get the DM to change that particular rule. The author of Order of the Stick has a good idea for taking care of it, I do like his alternative approach. It generates a varying DC for Diplomacy more in line with the checks for other social and opposed skills. http://www.giantitp.com/Func0010.html Otherwise, Archtyrant, if you're going to use player rather than character skill for everything that can be done at the gaming table (or at least give players the option of doing so - they could deliberately handicap themselves in the name of roleplaying), then you really ought to get rid of the mental stats and skills. Your new attributes can be the foursome of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Magical Power. Use Magical Power for Will Saves (assuming you even want those - alternatively players might decide for themselves when they're Charmed, and illusions only work if the DM can trick the players). Magical Power also serves as the casting stat for all spellcasters, as well as for Spellcraft and UMD. Players just roleplay whatever degree of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma they want their characters to have, up to an upper limit of whatever they themselves have (since that's the most they're capable of rp'ing). Knowledge skills and social skills are removed completely. Come to think of it, this system is not without merit. It allows riddles and puzzles to fit seamlessly into the campaign, instead of wondering why the 8 Wis/6 Int Half-Orc keeps figuring everything out, while the 18 Wis/16 Int Druid is continually stumped. It doesn't even necessarily cripple a stutterer (which I am, btw), so long as the DM is patient enough to listen to what the person is actually saying, rather than how it is being said. However, this modification should not be mistaken for anything other than what it is - a drastic change to the game. Please note, Archtyrant, that this is largely what you're proposing - you're just disguising the nerf to the mental stats by not presenting it clearly.
Mister Mayhem 12-29-04, 07:27 AM	Otherwise, Archtyrant, if you're going to use player rather than character skill for everything that can be done at the gaming table (or at least give players the option of doing so - they could deliberately handicap themselves in the name of roleplaying), then you really ought to get rid of the mental stats and skills. Why stop there? I've played (and enjoyed) games in which if you wanted to play a literate character, it was up to The Player to learn how to read and write the runes used for IC writing (fortunately, the language was still english, but even so...) Why not require the player to become good at picking simple locks and disarming simple traps?
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-29-04, 10:51 AM	The combat system is set up such that numbers match numbers equally and is made with the express purpose of being used within the CR system. Thus, while the combat rules present the illusion of equality, DMs all over the world know that every combat is tilted quite heavily on the PCs side, with few exceptions. Level Adjustment shows this clearly. A monster with at at will ability is ranked less because it is assumed that it won't survive a PC-NPC encounter. The same ability on a PC is ranked much higher because it is assumed that he will survive all the encounters or at least most of them. Your reasoning is flawed. Yes, it's assumed monsters won't survive long, it's assumed that PCs will win. Why? Because if the PCs lose nobody cares what happens next. You roll credits and the story ends. So there's no point worrying about what happens when the PCs all die. That's a question of game flow. It's like saying "Monopoly is designed such that players never run out of money, because there aren't many rules for having no money." You just lose, that's the rule, and that's all there needs to be. The same is true of D&D. The combat system is unbiased. The adventure likely will be biased, but the system itself is unbiased. You don't get any special bonus for being a PC, and you can be at a disadvantage as a PC. The combat system not once has a manuever that works only on PCs, or works only on NPCs. Everything is fair on both sides of the table. That's preposterous. Encounters and encounter rules are one in the same. Postulating a dichotomy where there is none is the product of a weak grasp of the rules system. Where a system globally tilts the balance in favor of the PCs, the entire system is presumed to be doing so. Any further tilt in the system is thus consistent with the intent of the system as a whole. The system doesn't tilt anything in favor of the PCs. It recommends that you give CRs within a certain range, but this is the domain of the story. Yes, the recommendations for adventure design are made with the intent that the PCs will survive. But adventure design and mechanics are not the same thing. There's no rule that says you can't put a great wyrm against a 1st level character, it's recommended that you don't, but it doesn't require a rule 0 to do so. No double standard. We help each other portray particular scenes. If a suave player is asked for help on wording or innuendo by a less adept player portraying a suave character, he may do so, but ultimately, it doesn't affect the outcome. It just helps the roleplaying. As it does on my side on the screen as well. If this is true, then both the DM and the PCs must be able to disregard the die roll, or the PCs and the DM must both be forced to abide by it regardless. So is this true? You can't even convince a few people on a message board that you're right. How can you possibly imagine that you can convince a predator that's convinced it's only natural to eat not to do so? People have befriended Dragons in literature before, but I like to think that they're more charismatic. You obviously need something to offer the dragon. A red dragon doesn't care how charming you are... it's a dragon after all. However if you're offering to increase its hoard, it may listen to your plan. No. It isn't. Read up the MM entry on Red Dragons and then tell me how they would view a puny little human coming into their lair. Possible actions include protect, back, up, heal, and aid, and the Red Dragon taking you into his service is doing just these things, only, he's doing it his way, not yours. In fact, nothing in the Diplomacy entry suggests that anyone willing to help you becomes your slave. They're only willing to help, not mind controlled. In the case of particularly strong minded individuals, they may even insist that you do things their way as they would believe that their way is better than yours, and ultimately benefits you. While it's possible that a strong minded individual could want to do things his way, imprisoning someone in a cage and using them as your pawns is not being helpful by any means. And while he doesn't become mindless, he does have to help you in some way. He gets his choice how he's going to help you, but he can't just say "My personality is that I'm an ass, and I don't help people", the diplomacy rules just don't allow that. Helpful has to be helpful. And it's what the dragon views as being helpful, not what the dragon can do to trick the PCs into think he's being helpful. And it's also possible to make someone a fanatical follower of you using epic diplomacy, and that's when you simply. In fact, it's probably more the rule than the exception that a Red Dragon will not even consider humans to be people or things it should help to attain their own goals. This is where you're trying to throw personality onto a rules system and that part before where I talked about rules systems totally flattening all personality. The rules system doesn't care that he's a red dragon. It doesn't care that he usually doesn't help people. You rolled the right DC, and now he's helping you, it's that simple. You're saying that a Red Dragon can have friends and help its friends out. I'm saying that's true, but it's not true all the time, at least, and there's no saying how often it's true, though I would heavily lean on "almost never" in the case of Red Dragon vs. Human. In a game based on diplomacy, I can say exactly how often its true. It's true whenever someone rolls a diplomacy check to make it friendly. The Dragon is helping you out by imprisoning you. That way, other Reds can't get at you and eat you, too. Nondragons don't really register on a Dragon's radar, and Reds are more egocentric than most. Quite possibly, it might be surprised to find that you have goals of your own. You can't roleplay the Dragon like it was mind controlled or had its nature fundamentally changed. It's just "helpful." Heck, I can imagine a King imprisoning a bunch of adventurers "for their own good." Red dragons aren't stupid, or completely oblivious to the outside world. If it offers to let you stay at its lair, it certainly won't be as a prisoner. There's no need it has to lock you up in a cage "for your own good". There's nothing in a red dragon's nature that says it can't help people. Evil people do things for their friends all the time, do things to impress women and so on. You can still like people and be evil at the same time. Of course not. "Will manipulate you for his own gain" is a basic trait and nature of Red Dragons. Diplomacy does not remove or change this nature. It only changes his attitude from hostile to helpful. How he takes his own risks in helping you is his own concern, not the PCs. Well the whole aspect of diplomacy is that you've convinced him that helping the party is in his own interests. Diplomacy is about making arguments and convincing people to help you. Remember that the actual roleplaying is abstracted and lost, which is where you're getting confused. If you convinced a red dragon to be helpful, it's likely because he thinks the party can help him out in some way. Perhaps the diplomat pretended to be more powerful than he actually was, and the dragon thinks he's gaining a valuable ally. Or something similar. The point is that the dragon actually believes helping you is in his best interest. Social skill in D&D is expressly made only for PC-NPC interaction, and NPC-NPC interaction. This is for convenience, but also because it's necessary. You claim not to argue a double standard. Here's your double standard in black and white. You see, no one really cares about NPC feelings. Apparently you don't play heavy roleplay games then. In my games, I and my PCs do care about the feelings of the NPCs. Because they're portrayed as real people and not just some graphic in a video game with words attached and a preprogrammed script. As such, a system for representing convenience rolls or for quantifying social skill only really works for NPC-NPC and PC-NPC interactions. And yet you claim "No double standard." How can you expect to have any validity when you make the claim that there is no double standard and then go ahead and claim one has to exist. I don't even think you know what you're even arguing. Those interactions, you see, because they involve mainly NPCs on the "receiving" end, are fundamentally different from ones in which the PCs are involved, precisely and solely because the PCs are involved. Without citing this dichotomy, which exists in everything, is there any reason why NPC-NPC social interactions, for instance, or PC-mass NPC interactions should not be mediated by die rolls? NPC to NPC actions, don't need to be determined with die rolls, and often times they're not. They're plot points. You dont' roll because you want the evil cleric of Bane to ally with the drow, that's your adventure, and you just say he did. PC making mass speeches tend to be dealt with using rules simply because they're random people and you just don't care that much. You dont' know the backstory, alignment and personality to every shopkeeper and peasant in the area. So you can either handle it one of two ways. Either you use a few well defined community leaders and swaying them sways everyone else. Or you make a die roll addressing the crowd. Things like the King mistaking a stutter for respect or people of a particular nation not liking a particular flavor of diplomat we attribute to chance. And you can do that, if you apply it to both sides of the table. I don't really have a problem with people using chance, as long as it's fair. It's a skill, not a personality profile. A true Diplomat is a chameleon, he's smooth when people want him to be smooth and rough when people expect him to be rough. Part of the skill is knowing what people expect and giving it to them. That's why Sense Motive and Knowledge (nobility and royalty) offer synergy bonuses. To a degree, but it's difficult to totally disguise your nature. If you're a paladin with diplomacy, you're still a diplomatic paladin. You don't suddenly become a barbarian when talking to a barbarian cheiftan. While you're familiar with certain customs, you're innately at a disadvantage in a place of unfamiliar diplomacy. I don't see ranks in Diplomacy as reflecting a certain personality type at all as opposed to being malleable in terms of personality type. You're the person who always blends in with the crowd or inspires the crowd to blend in with you. See here's where I disagree by game philosophy. I don't think it's a good idea to have characters who just plain suck at talking to people, regardless of situation. Once you say "you always rub people the wrong way, you're never useful", then you're just telling that guy to sit in a corner everytime the party gets to talking to people. And it gives far too much of an advantage to people who have the skill, making them effectively the only ones able to talk. While, yes, this is how the D&D game system describes the skill, I disagree that this is the best way to do it. In current D&D, characters who have diplomacy are just socially better all the time than characters who don't. It doesn't matter if the barbarian is addressing his own father, the paladin makes a better case, every time. And the paladin evokes a better response, every time. When you have someone who is "better, period", then the other people are "worse, period" and that's just not fun in my opinion. In combat you don't have this because you have one guy who heals, one guy who throws fireballs, one guy who swings a sword and so on. And all those guys can at one point or another be superior or inferior to the other depending on the combat. But this is the risk wtih having a single number determine everything. A person with high ranks in Diplomacy is the kind of person who can sit in with the jocks and the geeks, and the automotive guys, and the goths, and the overacheivers and be accepted into each group. Some people can do this seamlessly, being the "leader" of multiple such social groups. When you accompany them, they seem to change their skin as they transition between groups - they seamlessly slide into each group as if a natural part of that group, which they are. Right, but changing their skin can ultimatley lead to people to see them as being fake. They have no identity, therefore many will see whatever they say as nothing but acting (and in many cases, it is). As opposed to a full time arrogant noble or a full time coarse barbarian. These guys come off as being much more honest because they aren't trying to blend with everybody. And they become the politicians, lawyers or used car salesmen in life. And a person like this should be great at influencing the masses. He'd definitely be a skilled politician, but in individual conversation against a major individual (major NPC), he may actually be at a disadvantage, because the NPC knows that he could say potentially anything, so long as it gets him what he wants. It's why in general when you deal with such people you're more interested in facts. Judges who hear lawyers argue all day simply just interpret the law as best they can instead of dealing with non-legal diplomatic arguments. When you go into a used car lot, you're hopefully more interested in the history and condition of the car as opposed to anything that comes out of the salesman's mouth. Diplomatic politics unforutnately is dominated entirely by the weak willed, which states that the guy with the highest diplomacy skill should win. These people are great for getting the weak willed masses and average people, earning trust and such. But a great king didn't get there by being a pawn of the nobles, and he's used to double talking backstabbers like that. I mean we all know people like this, who will say absolutely anything to get you to do what they want, most of it pure lies. They're the nicest people in the world to everyone, up until the point they stab you in the back. These are the "diplomats" of the world. They'll get you all fired up to fight their war in some foreign hellhole while they sit home comfortably with their family. And while Hitler was diplomatic and all, there were many people who were smart enough to see through his rhetoric and realize it was the wrong thing to do, no matter how well he said it. ------------------------------------- In closing, I don't think you're really even arguing about diplomatic systems much anymore. Right now it's turned into an issue about giving PCs additional benefits, not about creating a coherent diplomatic system. You admitted yourself that PCs are not subject to social skills, which embraces the double standard. This is not about fairness or protecting people who stutter, it's not even about requiring a system to determine social outcomes. Because you don't really care about all that. Basically your entire argument is that PCs should be able to resolve with a die roll what the DM has to resolve with an Oscar winning performance. I came into this argument expecting everyone wanted to create and have fair rules. But I can see that you are not looking to create fair rules, and at this point we aren't even capable of arguing because we aren't even on the same page. You're looking to give PCs a special benefit, and I'm looking for a level playing field. There's no way I can convince you of anything because you seem opposed to a fair system on principle.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-29-04, 11:10 AM	Otherwise, Archtyrant, if you're going to use player rather than character skill for everything that can be done at the gaming table (or at least give players the option of doing so - they could deliberately handicap themselves in the name of roleplaying), then you really ought to get rid of the mental stats and skills. Well there are more than enough place for mental skills. PCs for instance don't actually live in the world. So it helps to allow them certain knowledges, like what kinds of inns are in the town, or how to read magic and so on. Now you can take over with descriptions, but this is a lot of work. Instead of spellcraft being a roll for instnace, you could create an entirely detailed system of gestures and verbal words which come with each spell. And the player could have to remember what left hand, counterclockwise spin and chanting of the word "Thaele" means. But this is a lot of work as stated earlier, and something most people, myself included really dont' want to get into. Also intelligence serves to grant more skill points, and wisdom increases will saves. Really the only stat being somewhat screwed over is charisma, but after all, that small bonus to social skills it granted in the first place didn't make all that much of a difference anyway. If I were to make my own rules set, I probably would eliminate most mental stats, as I don't really see what good they do most of the time, but working under d20, doing such would be far too much work.
Lord Stigius 12-29-04, 04:56 PM	Archtyrant - B) Free Will - Guided roleplaying:Here the character has some stat, whether its a number or simply a descriptive quality, that tells you how well of a negotiator he is. This quality is taken into consideration as well as the PCs roleplaying to form a result. This may also be combined with a roll, but the dice are only guidelines. The end result is that the DM pretty much chooses what happens based on how he believes the NPC will react and is free to disregard the dice. This most often ends up being the "social puzzle" scenario, where what you say is usually more important than how you say it. You can generally get away with stuttering in this variant if you say your character doesn't do that, however you still have to say the right things. You won't be able to succeed just by repeating "I like swords" over and over again. System B is the one I advocate because it has the maximum degree of fun and free will with the minimum chance of having someone sit in a corner It seems that we are in the same camp then. What I was objecting to was ignoring mental stats of the character altogether, and making the characte act purely according to player's social and intelectual abilities, disregarding what the character can and cannot in the favour of what the player can and cannot.. For me it's something like anti-roleplaying. Actual roleplaying at it's basis assumes exploring another peresonality. When every character of the same player, no matter the class, type and even game system, presents the same player's personality clad in ever new rainment of race, physical stats and equipment, it is IMHO even worse than pure munchkinism of Cha, Int & Wis 4 super-diplomats. Munchkins are at least dealt with easily, while 'deep roleplayers' of the aforementioned kind used to give me nightmares.
Roxlimn 12-29-04, 08:14 PM	Archtyrant Terevoth: You came into this argument expecting everyone to create and have fair rules in the manner you see it, but how much sense does that make? You came into the argument expecting no dissent? What argument could there ever be? If you want to create an alternative social skill system, create a thread for it. This thread discusses whether or not character optimization, and now, social skills, is the bane of the game. A lot of people think that they're not, and I certainly don't. When it comes to PCs, fairness is only relevant as far as they relate to each other. As far as the NPCs go, D&D is completely and totally unfair, and I've made no pretense of saying otherwise. When I said "no double standard", I was referring to "roleplaying" in my own sense, not yours. That means that I do not hog the suave guy's skills just for NPC use. If the PCs want to ask him for help in portraying a suave PC, they can do so. This does not affect the die roll or the result. Indeed, since I was discussing the thing on my own terms, whatever made you think I was using your sense of the word? On the other hand, the DM doesn't need to give an Oscar-winning performace to tell the PCs the NPC is incredibly likeable. He just says, "Oscar is incredibly likeable," and may even relate him to particular popular people for the players to get a good sense of how likeable this fellow is. You could just ignore this, I suppose, but that's just CO as the original poster tells it - you're ignoring what the DM is telling you the world is. That's worse than just saying "I like swords" over and over again as a diplomatic message. It's worse because it undermines the flavor and basis of the game's roleplaying aspect. That's exactly equivalent to yawning in the face of a huge draconic beast your PC has never seen before. It's a roleplaying game, bro. Get with the program. I don't suppose it's impossible to play this way, and some groups do so out of weariness or unconsciously, but it still undermines the fabric of the roleplaying side of the game. I'd like to continue, but just to get some things out of the way: Your reasoning is flawed. Yes, it's assumed monsters won't survive long, it's assumed that PCs will win. Why?... ...You just lose, that's the rule, and that's all there needs to be. The same is true of D&D. Exactly. Nobody cares what happens next when the PCs die, whereas people care what happens no matter how many NPCs lay by the wayside. That's the basic dichotomy right there. The game is unfair that way, but then again, it can't help being that. The combat system is unbiased. The adventure likely will be biased, but the system itself is unbiased. You don't get any special bonus for being a PC, and you can be at a disadvantage as a PC. The combat system not once has a manuever that works only on PCs, or works only on NPCs. Everything is fair on both sides of the table. The system doesn't tilt anything in favor of the PCs. It recommends that you give CRs within a certain range, but this is the domain of the story. Yes, the recommendations for adventure design are made with the intent that the PCs will survive. But adventure design and mechanics are not the same thing. There's no rule that says you can't put a great wyrm against a 1st level character, it's recommended that you don't, but it doesn't require a rule 0 to do so. I disagree. "The system" is at its base, adventure design. Without the adventure and the PCs, all the rules are meaningless. The combat scheme, the skill encounters, the puzzles, are all components of the overall system of adventure design. This is not at all the domain of "the story." You could have a group of encounters that make no sense whatsoever. Creating a plot and a story are nonsystemic parts of adventure design. Assigning CRs and estimating encounter strength based on combat mechanics is. Seriously, does anyone even use CRs as a hardline basis anymore? Aside from neophytes, anyway. I certainly don't. I estimate the encounter strength by CR, but I always check all the stats, powers, weaknesses and so forth on a monster by monster level to make sure the monster doesn't have a deadly weakness that'll make the encounter too easy, or a stupendously useful power that makes the encounter TPK. Combat tactics are part and parcel of this as well. Arguing that the combat system stands alone is foolish. It's worthless on its own. You have to have actual opponents using the system in order to make sense of it. And opposing forces means characters and monsters in conflict using a particular balance to make sure the PCs come out on top. You obviously need something to offer the dragon. A red dragon doesn't care how charming you are... it's a dragon after all. However if you're offering to increase its hoard, it may listen to your plan. You're assuming it believes you in the first place. A daunting feat in itself. This is where you're trying to throw personality onto a rules system and that part before where I talked about rules systems totally flattening all personality. The rules system doesn't care that he's a red dragon. It doesn't care that he usually doesn't help people. You rolled the right DC, and now he's helping you, it's that simple. Incorrect. It isn't that simple, and I can only presume that you think it is because you haven't read the DMG. It says, and I quote: "In general, you run an NPC just as a player would run a PC: You take whatever actions the character would take, assuming the action is possible. That's why it's important to determine an NPC's general outlook and characteristics ahead of time if possible, so you know how to play the character properly." The Diplomacy skill system is a system that helps the DM to determine current attitude of the NPC to the PCs, but it does not, can not, and should not overreach "general outlook and characteristics" and nothing in the core books tells you to do so. The Red Dragon is being helpful, but whether it's helping you or not from your point of view is irrelevant. What matters is that it's helping you out from it's point of view bearing in mind it's general outlook and characteristics. This basic method of handling attitude and behavior is illustrated in some published adventures, and in particular in Sharn: City of Towers supplement. In that supplement, Gath the lich Cleric responds thus: Hostile: Attacks Unfriendly: Attacks Indifferent: Attacks unless party is too strong. Tries to fool them into their deaths anyway. Friendly: Offers to turn PCs into undead minions, tries to convert. Helpful: Offers to turn PCs into undead minions, offers information. So you see, "helpful" does not mean the PCs get to decide how the NPC is going to act, or even that he's going to be helpful in the way the PCs like, in any case. His general outlook and sensibilities will still be the main factor in deciding how helpful he actually is. Red dragons aren't stupid, or completely oblivious to the outside world. If it offers to let you stay at its lair, it certainly won't be as a prisoner. There's no need it has to lock you up in a cage "for your own good". There's nothing in a red dragon's nature that says it can't help people. Evil people do things for their friends all the time, do things to impress women and so on. You can still like people and be evil at the same time. "Can" is the operative word here. While you "can" be evil and still like people, you also "can" be evil and not like anyone at all. Both are possible. It's not what's possible that's the question, it's what's probable. "Red Dragons are the most covetous of all dragons, always seeking to increase their treasure hoards... ...They are exceptionally vain... ...they seldom pause to appraise an adversary..." "they are all evil and extremely fierce... ...they are fearsome predators... ...and can eat almost anything... ...they are aggressive, greedy, vain, and nasty." There's more material in past D&D sources, Dragon, and various sources, but I think you get the picture. These guys are not normal, decent folk. They probably are conditioned to think of Humans as nothing more than food. While it isn't oblivious to the outside world, it's almost certainly oblivious to most human events and interests, considering these beneath its notice. I mean, do you care what yonder cow's goals are? Probably not. While a Red Dragon may do things to impress a potential mate at some point in its life, it most certainly can't think that a Human is anywhere on the same level at it is, and not imprisoning a Human is just counter-intuitive. I mean, the Human probably doesn't know what's good for it. The Dragon could accidentally trample it underfoot, it could get lost, get eaten by various pests. These Humans are very fragile things. Best to cage them for their own safety, no? We do as much for our own pets. I would say that roleplaying the Dragon as if it were just a Human in Dragon's skin is an injustice to what a Dragon should be. In a game based on diplomacy, I can say exactly how often its true. It's true whenever someone rolls a diplomacy check to make it friendly. Assuming the roll was even in the picture, correct? A Red Dragon can interact with Humans even if it has no intention of ever helping them out, ruling out any result of a Diplomacy check. Well the whole aspect of diplomacy is that you've convinced him that helping the party is in his own interests. Diplomacy is about making arguments and convincing people to help you. Remember that the actual roleplaying is abstracted and lost, which is where you're getting confused. If you convinced a red dragon to be helpful, it's likely because he thinks the party can help him out in some way. Perhaps the diplomat pretended to be more powerful than he actually was, and the dragon thinks he's gaining a valuable ally. Or something similar. The point is that the dragon actually believes helping you is in his best interest. You're confused. I'm not saying the Dragon won't be helping you out as far as it's concerned. I'm saying that getting the Dragon to view you favorably may not be a good thing from your point of view. You're assuming that the Diplomacy roll gets the Dragon to view the world from your perspective, that you can change it's basic nature from the roll. Nothing in the skill tells you you can do that. Please access your PHB. Look under Diplomacy. It says you change the NPC's "attitude", correct? "Helpful" means "will take risks to help you", correct? Where does it state that you can dictate this kind of help or that the NPC changes its nature or views you as its equal? Nowhere, because that is not a function of the Diplomacy skill, as far as core is concerned. The creature will take risks to "help" you and these actions will depend on its "general outlook and characteristics" (as per DMG). Period. Finito. Anything more than that is just completely made up. We don't know how the Diplomat convinced the Dragon to be helpful, but however he did it, it does not include changing the Dragon's basic outlook. The Dragon's still a Dragon, and it still views the world in Dragony ways. Pretending that you're as powerful or more powerful than the Dragon is a Bluff check. Showing that you're as powerful as the Dragon is not outlined in core rules, but I would say that it's a Diplomacy check. Again, this is not necessarily a good thing as Dragons are known to be territorial. Getting yourself on "Dragon radar" may just get you attacked. You are mismanaging the Diplomacy skill, IMO from what you're telling me, and I guess that's why you think it doesn't work. Apparently you don't play heavy roleplay games then. In my games, I and my PCs do care about the feelings of the NPCs. Because they're portrayed as real people and not just some graphic in a video game with words attached and a preprogrammed script. Sure, the PCs care about the NPCs feelings in my games, but the system doesn't, nor should it. Even if the NPCs die, the show goes on. That's the nature of the game. Portraying them as real people has to do with giving them real outlooks and characteristics, you know, things that tell you what they do when they turn "helpful." I don't even think you know what you're even arguing. I do. You don't understand what I'm talking about. NPC to NPC actions, don't need to be determined with die rolls, and often times they're not. They're plot points. You dont' roll because you want the evil cleric of Bane to ally with the drow, that's your adventure, and you just say he did. Untrue. If an NPC allies with the PCs and tries to smooth talk a guard into letting them in, that's a Diplomacy or Bluff check. I don't just rule one way or another. To a degree, but it's difficult to totally disguise your nature. If you're a paladin with diplomacy, you're still a diplomatic paladin. You don't suddenly become a barbarian when talking to a barbarian cheiftan. While you're familiar with certain customs, you're innately at a disadvantage in a place of unfamiliar diplomacy. Disadvantage, yes. Fish out of water? No. A true diplomat adapts. If a "diplomatic" character consistently fails to adapt, then he doesn't have the skill to any reasonable extent at all. See here's where I disagree by game philosophy. I don't think it's a good idea to have characters who just plain suck at talking to people, regardless of situation. Once you say "you always rub people the wrong way, you're never useful", then you're just telling that guy to sit in a corner everytime the party gets to talking to people. Why? Why does my saying that someone just sucks at talking to people the same as just telling that guy to just sit in the corner? And it gives far too much of an advantage to people who have the skill, making them effectively the only ones able to talk. While, yes, this is how the D&D game system describes the skill, I disagree that this is the best way to do it. This goes back to your inability to set DCs lower than ones which challenge Maxxed Out Skills. You don't have to do it that way, and you can ask for individual checks. In fact, it's unrealistic not to ask for individual checks. In current D&D, characters who have diplomacy are just socially better all the time than characters who don't. It doesn't matter if the barbarian is addressing his own father, the paladin makes a better case, every time. And the paladin evokes a better response, every time. Of course not. It will depend on the skill DC check set by the DM. If the DM sets the same DC check for the Barbarian addressing his own father as the stranger addressing that person, then I would say he's making a big mistake, but then that's his game. I wouldn't adjudicate it the same way. And no, the it is not that way in "current D&D." It's just that way in games where the DM doesn't know how to set skill DCs to where it's sensible. All that aside, I don't see where a sufficiently skilled person can't always be getting a better response from other people's parents. It happens in real life. Right, but changing their skin can ultimatley lead to people to see them as being fake. They have no identity, therefore many will see whatever they say as nothing but acting (and in many cases, it is). As opposed to a full time arrogant noble or a full time coarse barbarian. These guys come off as being much more honest because they aren't trying to blend with everybody. And they become the politicians, lawyers or used car salesmen in life. No. Apparently, you don't know real people who have real diplomatic skill. No one sees them as fake because that's part of the skill. They don't advertise themselves as being a jock, or a preppy, or something of the sort. Their identity is beyond that. Therefore, if they adopt mannerisms appropriate for another group, they are not seen as fake, so much as "communicative." They're seen as mediators, not liars. A person who pretends that he's one of the jocks may get this label, but a person who genuinely belongs, and to everyone, does not. It's possible, I assure you. Politicians, lawyers, and car salesmen are almost always related to lying. It's a hackneyed joke that one of these three professions eventually gets the top spot for having the most dishonesty in it. These people Bluff, they don't use Diplomacy. People who get along that way, yes, there's a risk that they get viewed as liars. I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about people like Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Shaka of the Zulu, Babur of India, Gengis Khan. These people are conquerors, but before that, they were uniters. They united traditionally warring tribes, clans, and factions in order to form a power unlike any the world had seen before and used that to conquer the world with. They were not viewed as liars, but rather as men who honestly belonged, and that's why they were able to unite people who otherwise couldn't tolerate each other being in the same room. And a person like this should be great at influencing the masses. He'd definitely be a skilled politician, but in individual conversation against a major individual (major NPC), he may actually be at a disadvantage, because the NPC knows that he could say potentially anything, so long as it gets him what he wants. And that is a person who uses Bluff. Again, I'm not talking about those people. You can get a person to go the way you want without necessarily telling him what he wants to hear. In fact, you can get him to do what you want by telling him exactly what other people aren't telling him. A true Diplomat may stretch the truth a bit, he may not mention certain things, gloss things over, or focus your attention on what he likes, but as long as he's using just Diplomacy, he will not lie. Diplomacy is about persenting yourself favorably. Getting people to believe falsehoods is Bluff. A true Diplomat does not say one thing to a group of people and another thing to another group. In fact, he often gets groups talking to each other by defending his own views within opposing groups. His skill with words, subtlety, social grace, and tact break through years of prejudice, falsehood, and hate. He doesn't just say things that people want to hear, but rather, he says things he believes in such that other people want to hear them, too. It's why in general when you deal with such people you're more interested in facts. Judges who hear lawyers argue all day simply just interpret the law as best they can instead of dealing with non-legal diplomatic arguments. When you go into a used car lot, you're hopefully more interested in the history and condition of the car as opposed to anything that comes out of the salesman's mouth. Diplomatic politics unforutnately is dominated entirely by the weak willed, which states that the guy with the highest diplomacy skill should win. You are thoroughly mistaken. People using Diplomacy don't deny facts. They don't even necessarily hide them. Arguing a case isn't necessarily a case for the Diplomacy skill. When you go into a used car lot, you're probably facing down a lot of Bluff checks, not Diplomacy checks. When you deal with people who fast talk, you want to deal with the facts. A person skilled in diplomacy will hand you the facts, and then convince you to look at them favorably. These people are great for getting the weak willed masses and average people, earning trust and such. But a great king didn't get there by being a pawn of the nobles, and he's used to double talking backstabbers like that. A great king probably has lots of Sense Motive and Diplomacy himself just to get to where he is. Your disdain for people who are supposedly good at Diplomacy leads me to suspect that you don't really know one. By definition, a person who is skilled at Diplomacy possesses etiqutte, social grace, tact, subtlety, and a way with words. He knows the formal and informal rules of conduct, social expectations, proper forms of address (not just "King" or "Your Highness", but also "Dude!" and "Brutha," where appropriate and where not), and so on. It involves giving people the right impression of yourself, negotiate effectively, and influence others. So you see, a person who uses Diplomacy to get well liked doesn't present a false impression of himself. He presents himself exactly as he is and gets you to like him anyway. They don't lie, and even when they do something nasty to you, you can't help but like them anyway. That's how the Diplomacy skill works, and there are real people I know who are like that. If the person who supposedly has a high Diplomacy skill has people who hate his guts, chances are, he used Bluff or Intimdate with them, not Diplomacy. I mean we all know people like this, who will say absolutely anything to get you to do what they want, most of it pure lies. They're the nicest people in the world to everyone, up until the point they stab you in the back. These are the "diplomats" of the world. They'll get you all fired up to fight their war in some foreign hellhole while they sit home comfortably with their family. And again, you must be mistaken. A person using Diplomacy presents the right impression of himself. If he tells you he's itching to fight, then he is, not otherwise. Alexander and Philip were examples of people who use Diplomacy, and they were itching to fight. A person using Diplomacy doesn't always come across as "nice", but he always impresses you with his tact and good graces. A leader who uses Diplomacy to get his people to fight will likely also be honestly itching to fight himself, and you'll have his generals asking him to moderate his fervor so as not to get his person in danger, not the other way around. If a person uses Bluff instead to perpetuate falsehoods designed to incite the people's wrath, then chances are he's not that gung-ho himself, and will invariably present such a view in his actions. He'll likely lose international support for his war, because of his inability to get other nations and peoples to see the war favorably, he can't really present himself that well, and in the absence of things to Bluff behind... ...traditional allies are all too likely to leave him in droves. In contrast, a person good at Diplomacy can get other nations and people to fight for him even when his own country wasn't fighting at all, and then get to be thanked for allowing such nations the honor of fighting in his behalf. Almost by definition, a person good at Diplomacy is a universally well-liked guy. If you don't like a particular person, then that person probably isn't good at Diplomacy, or you're an aberration. Either has to be true. ........................................ ........................................ ............................... The Diplomacy system has to be judged on its own merits, and going strictly by the core books, there is nothing I can find unworkable or questionable. It can't change the nature of NPCs nor can it convince them to act against their natures. It only makes their attitudes Helpful, and it's instructive to think of it this way. Their attitudes are "Helpful." Whether they're actually helpful in the PCs point of view is another thing altogether.
Seeker95 12-29-04, 10:58 PM	To Roxlimn: :tiphat: :cheer: :clap: :bow: :pint: :mage: :thumbsup: :cookie:
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-30-04, 10:49 AM	Whether you use dice or DM/PC judgmenet to determine how your characters act and react is irrelevant as far as fairness goes. You could run a dice system or a more RP dependant system and both could be fair. Personally I think the latter is more fun, but you disagree, and there's no way I'll convince you of what is more fun. If you don't think it's boring to sit in a corner for every social encounter, then I doubt I can change your mind, unless I actually make you sit in a corner during one of your game sessions. So I'm not even going to bother debating that anymore. We each have our personal tastes as far as fun. And arguing that is a waste of time at this point. However, on the grounds of fairness, your point of view is very hypocritical and I will debate you on that. When it comes to PCs, fairness is only relevant as far as they relate to each other. As far as the NPCs go, D&D is completely and totally unfair, and I've made no pretense of saying otherwise. When I said "no double standard", I was referring to "roleplaying" in my own sense, not yours. ... On the other hand, the DM doesn't need to give an Oscar-winning performace to tell the PCs the NPC is incredibly likeable. He just says, "Oscar is incredibly likeable," and may even relate him to particular popular people for the players to get a good sense of how likeable this fellow is. Yes, while each individual NPC isn't as important as any one PC, the DM as a whole is the world, and if his NPCs cannot adequately get off their personality traits, then your world loses a lot. More so than it would lose if one PC was simply undiplomatic. Therefore if your goal of social skills is to enable people to play characters that they themselves cannot act out, then it must work both ways. If you believe for instance that people who stutter need to be protected in some way by the rules, then that has to apply to a stuttering DM too. If it does not, then your rules are unfair and frankly your reasoning is bunk too. If you argue stuff like "Do you really think you the player can possibly influence a great red wyrm with your own ability?" then it must also be argued how difficult it is for the DM to play his roles. Can your DM seduce as well as a succubus or intimidate as well as a red dragon or a giant? Obviously not... but yet, it's ok to screw him over if he's unwilling to go for the Oscar. If you admit that a description is not enough for PCs to get a fair social encounter, then you must concede that it is also not enough for DMs. If Arioch for instance thinks he needs more than just telling the DM his character is a persuasive speaker, then his DM is well in his rights to demand the very same thing when it's his turn to play NPCs. In fact, if anything, the DM's job is much more difficult in terms of acting than the PCs. The PCs play mostly human or humanlike characters, whose emotions and mannerisms are very similar to a humans. The DM on the other hand plays majestic dragons, alien mind flayers and terrifying undead. And yet, amidst all these difficult roles, not a single system exists to help him out. But yet, you continually repeat this false statement that a DM doesn't have to give an Oscar winning performance to get across all these ideas, yet then go to say that players are free to disregard descriptions and do what they want. PCs are free to make their own decisions based on the DM's ability to lie, or use diplomacy or what not, yet the DM doesn't need to give an Oscar winning performance? Some flavor text is supposed to make it all better? But on the other side you're arguing that flavor text is not enough for PCs. PCs need a roll. Your talent for contradicting yourself is astounding. It's worse because it undermines the flavor and basis of the game's roleplaying aspect. That's exactly equivalent to yawning in the face of a huge draconic beast your PC has never seen before. It's a roleplaying game, bro. Get with the program. I don't suppose it's impossible to play this way, and some groups do so out of weariness or unconsciously, but it still undermines the fabric of the roleplaying side of the game. Look, if you trust PCs to roleplay correctly then why can't you trust the DM to do the same. If you don't trust the DM to do it, why can you trust the PCs? Hello, double standard. You can't have it both ways. If your argument is that people who stutter need to be protected, then they need to be protected on both sides of the screen. If your argument is that no human can roleplay a diplomacy +23 adequately enough with roleplaying alone then the DM's succubi and Solars needs to be able to do that too. As the DM has the more difficult roles anyway. Regardless of what your reasoning is, it has to work both ways or your reasoning is pure bunk. Talking about how the PCs are central to the story is irrelevant. If a DM stutters, he should be protected just like a PC is. If a DM lacks the social ability to play out a diplomatic character, he too should recieve the same protection you're giving to everyone else. If you don't like "social puzzles" then the DM should have the very same immunity to them that the PCs have. If you think that verbal descriptions like "Krusk is very intimidating" isn't good enough, then NPCs as well as PCs need to use something other than verbal descriptions. If a PC is so convincing that he can convince NPCs of anything, that abiltiy should work on PCs too. If all these aren't true, then your argument is hypocritical, and thus valueless. And it's plainly obvious because you do not care about the DM, we can see that you really do not care about people who stutter. We can see that you aren't interested in eliminating "social puzzles". We can see that you're not interested in giving non-social people the ability to roleplay social entities. You are interested in giving PCs a cheap game system advantage, that's it. This isn't a search for fairness at all. You could care less when the DM is subject to these atrocities which you preach against. It's ok for him to toss the PCs some flavor text and that's it, and if he stutters or is otherwise unconvincing, then hey, so are his NPCs. Guess his world is full of poor conversationalists. And you could care less. Hey, just let him go hire Robert Di Niro to act out his NPCs, then maybe they'll convince the PCs of something. But you're ok with leaving the DM out in the middle of the ocean without a life preserver... why should we care about him anyway? He's just the most important person in the game. If the DM doesn't need social skills, then clearly they are not essential things and the players don't need them either. If they are essential then the DM needs them too. You cannot have it both ways. If you preach at the top of your lungs about an injustice and then not care when that injustice is placed on another, then your argument is full of crap. --------------------- I've stored most of the minor arguments below, as I don't think they're all that relevant to the main topic, and don't want to clutter up the post. You could just ignore this, I suppose, but that's just CO as the original poster tells it - you're ignoring what the DM is telling you the world is. That's worse than just saying "I like swords" over and over again as a diplomatic message. Do you then hand out XP penalties if PCs ignore the descriptions you give them? If it's that bad I would think you should. But I'm guessing you don't. Exactly. Nobody cares what happens next when the PCs die, whereas people care what happens no matter how many NPCs lay by the wayside. That's the basic dichotomy right there. The game is unfair that way, but then again, it can't help being that. Actually NPCs dying can be a major factor in the game. While the PCs are the center of the story, the villains and allies they have are also important characters. That's much like saying "who cares if Darth Vader died in the first scene of Star Wars, Luke is still alive." Vader may not have been the main character, but he was still central to the plot and we care what happens to him. The only place you don't care about NPCs is in hack and slash games. Otherwise they should be guiding forces in your campaign. "The system" is at its base, adventure design. The system is game world simulation. Adventure design is a collection of data which the system simulates, much like a given map in a computer game. You can write new levels for doom or half-life, but the game you're playing is still the same regardless and the game itself isn't the levels but rather the game engine itself. Arguing that the combat system stands alone is foolish. It's worthless on its own. Tell that to the guys that play D&D miniatures. This basic method of handling attitude and behavior is illustrated in some published adventures, and in particular in Sharn: City of Towers supplement. In that supplement, Gath the lich Cleric responds thus: Hostile: Attacks Unfriendly: Attacks Indifferent: Attacks unless party is too strong. Tries to fool them into their deaths anyway. Friendly: Offers to turn PCs into undead minions, tries to convert. Helpful: Offers to turn PCs into undead minions, offers information. I understand why this was written in the module, but frankly this is stretching the rules. Indifferent should not involve attacking. That's just stupid. Indifferent should really be indifferent. I'm not going to let one module dictate and override what's clearly written in the core rules. Indifferent doesn't mean attack, and while he could offer to turn the PCs into undead, he's certainly not going to force that upon them. There's more material in past D&D sources, Dragon, and various sources, but I think you get the picture. These guys are not normal, decent folk. They probably are conditioned to think of Humans as nothing more than food. While it isn't oblivious to the outside world, it's almost certainly oblivious to most human events and interests, considering these beneath its notice. I mean, do you care what yonder cow's goals are? Probably not. Even dragons are smart enough to realize they live in a humanocentric world. I'd care what cows goals were if they organized into cities and started building weapons. When they became a force greater than I was, then I think cows motivations become something a bit more important. Assuming the roll was even in the picture, correct? A Red Dragon can interact with Humans even if it has no intention of ever helping them out, ruling out any result of a Diplomacy check. Huh? If you're going to have a roll it should actually mean something. And being able to interact with people with "no intention of ever helping them out" to nullify a diplomacy roll is pretty stupid. The whole point of diplomacy is changing someone's attitude. If it can't do that, then the skill is useless. Please access your PHB. Look under Diplomacy. It says you change the NPC's "attitude", correct? "Helpful" means "will take risks to help you", correct? Where does it state that you can dictate this kind of help or that the NPC changes its nature or views you as its equal? Nowhere, because that is not a function of the Diplomacy skill, as far as core is concerned. The creature will take risks to "help" you and these actions will depend on its "general outlook and characteristics" (as per DMG). Period. Finito. Anything more than that is just completely made up. Right, take risks to help you. Not lock you in a cage and ignore your pleas to be released. There's a difference. Showing that you're as powerful as the Dragon is not outlined in core rules, but I would say that it's a Diplomacy check. Again, this is not necessarily a good thing as Dragons are known to be territorial. Getting yourself on "Dragon radar" may just get you attacked. The whole point of diplomacy is to say it nicely so you dont' get attacked. We are leaving off the "friendly" part of the result again. I do. You don't understand what I'm talking about. [QUOTE] Why? Why does my saying that someone just sucks at talking to people the same as just telling that guy to just sit in the corner? I'd think this would be obvious... Whenever you tell someone they're useless, you'll tend to see a lot of apathy on their part. Considering talking to NPCs takes up a good portion of the game, he's sitting in a corner for that portion of the game. No. Apparently, you don't know real people who have real diplomatic skill. No one sees them as fake because that's part of the skill. They don't advertise themselves as being a jock, or a preppy, or something of the sort. Actually, I do know some people with so called diplomatic skill, both from real life and seeing them on TV. I think we can all say that Bill Clinton is diplomatic. He's a great speaker. However, he's also a good liar and very crafty. He's not somebody I would trust. Not because he's a bad liar, but because I know he's a good liar. Politicians, lawyers, and car salesmen are almost always related to lying. It's a hackneyed joke that one of these three professions eventually gets the top spot for having the most dishonesty in it. These people Bluff, they don't use Diplomacy. People who get along that way, yes, there's a risk that they get viewed as liars. I'm not talking about those people. Actually diplomacy most correctly qualifies with a politician in a debate or giivng political speeches, or a lawyer giving an argument. Many lawyers don't directly lie, they just present their cases well. Used car salesmen on the other hand do a mix of diplomacy and bluff to make their sales pitches. I'm talking about people like Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Shaka of the Zulu, Babur of India, Gengis Khan. These people are conquerors, but before that, they were uniters. Well, for someone who is universally likeable, I really didn't see Hitler making too many friends among the Jewish community, or the other nations of Europe for that matter. And if Hitler were to for whatever reason plead for the Jews, then he would be seen as a phony, exactly what I'm saying. These guys were unifiers because they unified people under a universal concept, not because they tried to be part of 10 groups at once. Hitler appealed to the Germans and that was it. If he tried to appeal to others at the same time, like he would have failed. And that is a person who uses Bluff. Again, I'm not talking about those people. You can get a person to go the way you want without necessarily telling him what he wants to hear. In fact, you can get him to do what you want by telling him exactly what other people aren't telling him. A true Diplomat may stretch the truth a bit, he may not mention certain things, gloss things over, or focus your attention on what he likes, but as long as he's using just Diplomacy, he will not lie. Right, but that's still rather dishonest, and manipulative. Even if you can't outright accuse the guy of being a liar, you're certainly wary because you know how manipulative he is. If you know someone can put up a smokescreen case where he hides the bad and totally promotes the good, then you will be untrustworthy of such a person, simply because you never know when you're being misled. You have to respect his ability, but it doesn't mean you like him or trust him. By definition, a person who is skilled at Diplomacy possesses etiqutte, social grace, tact, subtlety, and a way with words. He knows the formal and informal rules of conduct, social expectations, proper forms of address (not just "King" or "Your Highness", but also "Dude!" and "Brutha," where appropriate and where not), and so on. It involves giving people the right impression of yourself, negotiate effectively, and influence others. Right he knows all the social graces, but kings deal with people like that all the time, and are betrayed and mislead by people like that all the time. So largely this kind of stuff probably doesn't phase them anymore. Judges hear the same kind of well phrased arguments from lawyers all the time too. And they learn to just cut through it and get to the facts. They know the lawyer will say anything to get his client off, so they aren't buying the whole diplomatic sway anymore. So you see, a person who uses Diplomacy to get well liked doesn't present a false impression of himself. He presents himself exactly as he is and gets you to like him anyway. If you are a diplomatic druid using social graces of the king's court to impress nobles, then you are portraying a false impression. You are wilderness boy, the tree hugger. You don't go around calling everyone proper names and sir. When you're not in the kings court, your walking around in the form of a dire bear chewing people up. I'd call that a false impression. They don't lie, and even when they do something nasty to you, you can't help but like them anyway. This is more the case of seduction and love than diplomacy. Because honestly that's the only place where I can see someone doing something nasty to someone and still getting away with it. When someone double crosses you, unless you're a total wimp, you're going to want to get revenge. If you can't get revenge, you're at the very least going to hate that person. Simple chat isn't going to put him back in your good graces. Maybe if he does something exceptionally nice to you, then you may forgive, but otherwise... you've seen through his act, and you aren't buying it anymore. If you don't like a particular person, then that person probably isn't good at Diplomacy, or you're an aberration. Either has to be true. I guess I'm an aberration then :P Though I would argue that major people in the campaign world should be aberrations too. If I can see through the phony act of these so called "diplomats" then powerful kings should be able to do it, red dragons should be able to do it, and so on.
Seeker95 12-30-04, 11:53 AM	If you preach at the top of your lungs about an injustice and then not care when that injustice is placed on another, then your argument is full of crap.And if someone cries wolf at the top of their lungs enough times, seeing danger and injustice where there is none, they will eventually find themselves ignored when they might do have something legitimate to say.
Vaval 12-30-04, 12:14 PM	@ Seeker95: I see what Archtyrant Terevoth is trying to say very clearly and agree with him 100%. "seeing danger and injustice where there is none" if I see it to then its not just some delusion of Archtyrant Terevoth's.
Mister Mayhem 12-30-04, 12:48 PM	So. we have a percieved injustive because the Player can play a character that is more charismatic than himself, but the DM can't? And yet I see no reason why the DM cannot. I've already explained how I do it, without any change to the rules - by relying on my players ability and desire to roleplay. Not "act", but "roleplay". The ability to see take actions based on the perspective of the PC, rather than the players. The two ARE NOT synonymous. You can act without roleplaying, and you can roleplay without acting. Other posters who DM regularly have declared no difficulty in getting their players to accept their NPCs for who they NPCs are supposed to be, not how the DM can portray them ***** And even if it were true, AT's response to this injustice isn't to find a way to help out the DM, but to screw over the player to the same extent. Unless I'm misunderstanding completely, his proposed solution to this alleged imbalance is basically: "If the DM isn't allowed to play an NPC with a CHA greater than his own, then neither should the player be!" Personally, even if I acknowledged that there was a problem (which I don't), that wouldn't strike me as much of a solution. ***** And finally, this bizarre perception that when using the diplomacy system, a character with no Diplomacy is forced to sit in the corner and not participate. What utter hogwash! Roleplaying a *lack* of diplomatic skill can be at least as entertaining, for all concerned, as roleplaying a mastery of social intricacies. As anyone who has read any scene from a Pratchett book that involves Nanny Ogg at a high society party will agree!
Seeker95 12-30-04, 01:27 PM	@ Seeker95: I see what Archtyrant Terevoth is trying to say very clearly and agree with him 100%.I do not deny that it is possible for two people to cry wolf at the same time. The reputation and credibility of two people can be eroded simultaneously with very little extra effort whatsoever. Many people scream "foul" at the top of their lungs with every single whistle blown (or not blown) by a referee at a sporting event. Is it not ironic that nobody ever cries in protest of a call that is in favor of their own team? That someone believes a cry of wolf, and joins in the cry after it is observed to be baseless doesn't make the cry of wolf any less baseless nor any more true and credible. Hell, there are still some people willing to claim we have never been to the moon. They are amusing at times, but irritating after the third or fourth re-hashing of their conspiracy theories at the same cocktail party.
Ramius_Mordale 12-30-04, 01:50 PM	Good grief this thread is still going on!? Okay apparantly somebody has got to take the common sense approach here and say, "Agree to disagree"! I think Seeker95 (as well as some others) pretty much has said that for the most part. Your complaints have become an annoyance and an eye-sore, Archtyrant Terevoth. Let the thread die and take its natural grave deep within the tomes of the forum. I think the subject has been throughly beaten to death long ago so I say spare the rest of us the effort of looking at it's title on the first page. Okay I'm done and probably going to get ripped for saying it, but somebody had to say it. -Ramius-
Lady Danyon Dehlmari 12-30-04, 01:55 PM	Whether you use dice or DM/PC judgmenet to determine how your characters act and react is irrelevant as far as fairness goes. You could run a dice system or a more RP dependant system and both could be fair. Personally I think the latter is more fun, but you disagree, and there's no way I'll convince you of what is more fun. If you don't think it's boring to sit in a corner for every social encounter, then I doubt I can change your mind, unless I actually make you sit in a corner during one of your game sessions. So I'm not even going to bother debating that anymore. We each have our personal tastes as far as fun. And arguing that is a waste of time at this point. I think the statement that you'd have to sit out every social encounter is a bit extreme. I don't think that was even implied. What has been implied is that you get the best of both worlds. 2e didn't have anything like it as far as NWP go. Which, was a hinderance. What if one player who's been a gamer for 6 years RP's and acts out his character well, while a newer player of 6 months is still getting used to the rules, and is shy about acting? Perhaps the newer player is really great at thinking like his character and states in an appropriate matter what he is doing or saying? Should the player who "acts" get more leway and credit than the other player who is thinking like his character and giving enough detail and information about what his character is doing? That's where a skill like diplomacy treats everyone fairly IMO. Yes, while each individual NPC isn't as important as any one PC, the DM as a whole is the world, and if his NPCs cannot adequately get off their personality traits, then your world loses a lot. More so than it would lose if one PC was simply undiplomatic. Therefore if your goal of social skills is to enable people to play characters that they themselves cannot act out, then it must work both ways. I don't expect a DM to "act". If it's an integral NPC, then basic conversations should get accross the basic personality premise. The DM can always use descriptive terms. Example being, if the NPC wishes to convince me of something, he may very well say thing like "He smiles, "In a sincere manner he states..." I don't expect the DM to screw himself, but the skills work both ways. For players and DM. If you argue stuff like "Do you really think you the player can possibly influence a great red wyrm with your own ability?" then it must also be argued how difficult it is for the DM to play his roles. Can your DM seduce as well as a succubus or intimidate as well as a red dragon or a giant? Obviously not... but yet, it's ok to screw him over if he's unwilling to go for the Oscar. Of course not, and I wouldn't expect the DM to give me an award winning performance. Again though, the DM can stutter and still use descriptive terms: "The Majestic Great Wyrm, rises up..." After all, creativity regarding RP has to come from DM and Players alike. I consider myself a good role-player. However, my acting skill leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not at the table to act. I'm at the table to RP my character accordingly to the world and the people in it. If you admit that a description is not enough for PCs to get a fair social encounter, then you must concede that it is also not enough for DMs. If Arioch for instance thinks he needs more than just telling the DM his character is a persuasive speaker, then his DM is well in his rights to demand the very same thing when it's his turn to play NPCs. Considering the type of description in reference is important. If I'm addressing a King, and I say: "My character is persuasive to the King" That really doesn't cut it. If however, I say something like: "I smile, I give a formal bow, in the most persuasive tone of voice I say:" But yet, you continually repeat this false statement that a DM doesn't have to give an Oscar winning performance to get across all these ideas, yet then go to say that players are free to disregard descriptions and do what they want. But this in fact is true. If the DM says: "the Majestic Dragon Rises up, his eyes narrow and glare at you..." If you "decide" to attack, that's the choice then. The DM's description is either going to make you stand and fight, or run like hell. Depending on the Dragon and circumstance, communication may be possible. These boil down to player choices. PCs are free to make their own decisions based on the DM's ability to lie, or use diplomacy or what not, yet the DM doesn't need to give an Oscar winning performance? Some flavor text is supposed to make it all better? But on the other side you're arguing that flavor text is not enough for PCs. PCs need a roll. If an NPC is trying to convince me to take a course of action that my character normally wouldn't take, and he rolls for that NPC and gets a low roll, he can adjust accordingly. He could say: "In an irritable and gruff manner, he tells you that he thinks blank, blank is the best course of action." In comparison to if the DM rolled high, he could say: "He approaches your character, and his expression is sincere, and honest, he says, that maybe the party should take course B, because of {insert reasons/thinking}"
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-30-04, 02:03 PM	"If the DM isn't allowed to play an NPC with a CHA greater than his own, then neither should the player be!" Personally, even if I acknowledged that there was a problem (which I don't), that wouldn't strike me as much of a solution. If you want social skills, then you acknowledge there's a problem. As for the solution. You can choose to either let the dice handle it, thus enabling people (PCs and DMs) to play people with higher social ability than that possess but limiting free will. Or you can choose to not have social skills and limit everyone (PCs and DMs) to roleplaying things out. In some cases, depending on how much acting you require, some people may get screwed. Other posters who DM regularly have declared no difficulty in getting their players to accept their NPCs for who they NPCs are supposed to be, not how the DM can portray them I don't find any problem with this. On the same token, I dont' find it much trouble for PCs to portray their characters as they're supposed to be not, not how they can portray them. Some people, like Arioch, feel that their stuttering is shortchanging their ability to play their character. And that's their opinion, and who knows, it might be right. We can either agree with that part or not agree. If we don't agree with Arioch, then we simply don't need social skills, we run things through roleplaying on both sides, since we can accept that your group can see the character as you describe them and not as you as a person do the acting. If we do agree with Arioch, then we say "Ok, we need to bring dice and skills into this." and thus now, you rely on dice to tell you how your character reacts because you no longer see yourself and your group as being capable of seeing through a person's poor acting to the character he represents. Now, we can disagree or agree with Arioch on his opinion. However, either way, our solution should treat all people equally. But if you admit there's a problem (and thus social skills are needed), then you must admit the problem exists on both sides of the table. The DM is still a person like anyone else with probably mundane acting talent. If we accept that someone who stutters can be a PC, then we have to account for them DMing as well. Thus any social skills should apply to both ends of the table equally. Everyone is free to decide if they agree with Arioch's belief or not. However, once you've made up your mind if he's right or not, you've got to be willing to accept the consequences. One of which may very well be having your character influenced by NPC social checks. You have to accept that PC vs. PC argument may well be settled with social checks. But that's the way things go. You cannot both agree that social skills are necessary and disagree that the DM should have them at the same time. I find it laughable that some people are making the claim that a PC can't adequately roleplay a human bard, and in the same breath state that there's absolutely no problem from the DM's end when it comes to capturing the total essence of a nymph, a dragon or a lich. To this, I can only respond with a blank stare of disbelief as to how anyone could say something so ridiculous.
Seeker95 12-30-04, 02:57 PM	You cannot both agree that social skills are necessary and disagree that the DM should have them at the same time.Sure you can. And this is where your argument from the very beginning falls apart. You keep presenting bogus dichtomies.
rutrow424 12-30-04, 05:15 PM	The DM is still a person like anyone else with probably mundane acting talent. If we accept that someone who stutters can be a PC, then we have to account for them DMing as well. Thus any social skills should apply to both ends of the table equally. You cannot both agree that social skills are necessary and disagree that the DM should have them at the same time. I find it laughable that some people are making the claim that a PC can't adequately roleplay a human bard, and in the same breath state that there's absolutely no problem from the DM's end when it comes to capturing the total essence of a nymph, a dragon or a lich. To this, I can only respond with a blank stare of disbelief as to how anyone could say something so ridiculous. Much as how I stare at the blinders you appear to reading with. NO ONE besides you has claimed that the DM or NPCs are being treated unfairly under the skill system. NO ONE has claimed that a DM must be Laurence Olivier as an actor. Diplomacy and the other social skills exist to show how talented characters are in those areas. The player does not need to have any skill in these areas at all. Neither does the DM. Players and DMs ideally will have some ability to "act" what the PCs or NPCs they are portraying are attempting to do; this can be acted out completely, stated simply, or something in-between. You keep speaking of fairness for players and DMs, NPCs and PCs, and of a double standard between those groups in the social skill area. You miss the point completely of those of us discussing this from the other view. The RPG is not designed, nor should it be, to be "fair" to the DM or the NPCs in the social skill area. The whole point is that the players decide what their PCs will do, while the DM decides what all the NPCs will do. Taking away the free will of the the players (via how they PLAY their PCs) is the biggest no-no in the whole game - barring enchantment magic. The skill mechanic exists to give credence to how the DM will portray the NPCs, since the DM presumably knows everything and as such can't be bluffed and the like - the system protects the players/PCs from the DM's omniscience. The DM still controls the NPCs and can decide their actions appropriately. And just like the PCs, no NPC is required to believe something they know to be untrue, regardless of the bluff check. A friendly NPC is not under PC control, and the diplomacy check to make them friendly requires time that may not always be available or given by the NPC. The skill mechanic does lend itself to a 1 PC per group talks mentality. It falls upon the players and the DM to avoid that if they do not like it; many ideas have already been presented to prevent that scenario, the easiest being that a non-skilled PC/player still wants to talk. On the other side, it is possible to not use the social skill mechanic and rely simply on player skill in those areas. I argue that that too easily leads to PCs that are unbalanced towards combat - since the DM's style begs for it. Hello Mr. 3 CHA 3 INT half-orc, party spokesman.
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-30-04, 06:05 PM	Much as how I stare at the blinders you appear to reading with. NO ONE besides you has claimed that the DM or NPCs are being treated unfairly under the skill system. NO ONE has claimed that a DM must be Laurence Olivier as an actor. Look, everytime you say "The PCs can ignore the die roll, but the DM can't" or "The PCs arne't affected by diplomacy rolls", then you are treating one side unfairly. Somebody has to be a skilled actor and someone else doesn't. Also as for talk about fairness, lets see what you said later in your post... The RPG is not designed, nor should it be, to be "fair" to the DM or the NPCs in the social skill area. So you're saying it's unfair then. Good, now we're getting somewhere. Taking away the free will of the the players (via how they PLAY their PCs) is the biggest no-no in the whole game - barring enchantment magic. It's the consequence of having a social system, the loss of free will. If you have someone playing a high charisma bard good at diplomacy, that benefit should apply everywhere. PC versus PC, PC versus NPC, NPC versus PC and NPC versus NPC. If you, like me, think that's not a good idea because of the loss of free will, then you don't have a social system at all. You do what people did prior to 3rd edition and just let the DM run his NPCs and the PCs run their characters. Here let me quote you... The whole point is that the players decide what their PCs will do, while the DM decides what all the NPCs will do. So lets do that. The skill mechanic exists to give credence to how the DM will portray the NPCs, since the DM presumably knows everything and as such can't be bluffed and the like - the system protects the players/PCs from the DM's omniscience. DMs have to learn to separate themselves from omniscience anyway. In combat, in choosing NPC strategies and so on. I don't see why we need a social system for this. And of course players can have metagame knowledge too, yet you don't find any fault in them using it apparently and trust them to separate themselves from it, as you specifically target the DM. The skill mechanic exists to give credence to how the DM will portray the NPCs, since the DM presumably knows everything and as such can't be bluffed and the like - the system protects the players/PCs from the DM's omniscience. The DM still controls the NPCs and can decide their actions appropriately. OK, so why can't the PCs abide by the same rules? You call it a loss of free will on the player side, but apparently no loss of control on the DM side. Either social skills cost free will or they don't. Make up your mind. A lot of contradictions here.
Mister Mayhem 12-30-04, 06:59 PM	If you want social skills, then you acknowledge there's a problem. . What on earth are you on about? I want social skills. The game has social skills. Where is the problem? The only person determined to find a problem with the existing system is you, since you are determined to abolish social skills but havn't been able to suggest a suitable system for replacing them. Aside form stunning peices of oration from the DM and players alike - which makes no sense at all, since even if the player is capable of such a thing, he may well be playign a character who isn't - something you continuously gloss over in your curious belief that in order for the player to have fun during a social enocunter, a *character* must be good at diplomacy.
Ourph the Mingol 12-30-04, 09:47 PM	The only person determined to find a problem with the existing system is you, since you are determined to abolish social skills but havn't been able to suggest a suitable system for replacing them. You're missing the point here. The "problem" is the existence of a social skill system in the rules. Suggesting a replacement just substitutes one bad situation for another. The solution is not a "better" system to replace the current one, but the elimination of social interaction rules altogether.
Seeker95 12-30-04, 10:26 PM	You're missing the point here. The "problem" is the existence of a social skill system in the rules. Suggesting a replacement just substitutes one bad situation for another. The solution is not a "better" system to replace the current one, but the elimination of social interaction rules altogether.If one is obsessed enough to think there is a problem, that is. Under the proposed abolish-the-social-skills "solution": Player (with a stutter, playing a 15th level Bard with 18 charisma): I w-w-w-w-would like to ssssss-see the m-m-m-mmm-mm-mana--manager.. DM (as guard at reception desk): Yeah, right. Get the hell out of here. The manager is, umm... busy.
ORC_Paradox 12-31-04, 12:28 AM	Personally, I don't think the boards are an insult. Everyone wants to create the best characater they can. We have two forums for characters, one for getting the most out of them mechanically, and one for the story/roleplaying side. If you don't like the board, don't read it. It really is that simple. In other words, the board is staying.
WizO_Catoblepas 12-31-04, 12:45 AM	From what I understand, I argument isn't that the boards should come down - it's that due to the board's existance the players are more encouraged to max/min more than try to roleplay. Hence, the overall quality of the game has gone down since the emphasis is on roll-playing, not role-playing. Now I'm not a big subscriber to this (I had maxed out elven fighter/magic-users character playing ridiculous 1E AD&D adventures (I think we were hunting down Asmodeus at the time) back in 1980), but I believe that this is the main argument.
Ourph the Mingol 12-31-04, 01:45 AM	If one is obsessed enough to think there is a problem, that is. Under the proposed abolish-the-social-skills "solution": Player (with a stutter, playing a 15th level Bard with 18 charisma): I w-w-w-w-would like to ssssss-see the k-k-k-k-kk-kkkk-king. DM (as guard at reception desk): Yeah, right. Get the hell out of here. The king is, umm... busy. Well, I'd actually say the DM gave the right response in that case. Not because the player stutters, but because kings don't usually allow walk-in appointments. ;) Personally, I believe the whole idea of social interaction mechanics evolved as a response to poor DMing; and I'm not a fan of changing the game to compensate for poor players. The problem has also evolved because speaking "in-character" has become the raison d'etre of an entire subset of misguided gamers. In my (never to be humble) opinion, speaking "in-character" is something that should only be done for the sake of convenience, when speaking in 3rd person would take longer or make something unclear. When I'm DMing I'd much rather have my players tell me what and how their characters are doing/saying something rather than talking in a funny voice with a wierd accent and attempting to act out what they are trying to get across (here's a little nugget of info for all of you deep immersion amateur thespian type roleplayers out there, your acting ability stinks and sitting through four straight hours of your performances is enough to turn even the mildest DM into a dice-fudging, TPK-planning homicidal maniac :P ). Not only is 3rd person conversation faster, clearer and more efficient in most cases, it also eliminates the whole issue of "I'm not as charismatic as my character". In your example, I don't care how personally charismatic the player is. I don't particularly care how charismatic his character is either. Persuasion isn't going to work on a guard whose job it is to guard the king. The PC will either offer some reason they should see the king which is compelling enough to get through ("I bear the signet ring of Count Trocero, who has sent me with a message warning the king of an impending invasion. I must see him at once!) or he will fail to give a compelling reason and his petition will fail. If there is some question as to whether the reason is compelling enough, the charisma of the character might be considered, but since it is the DM's province to determine the actions of NPCs, I see no reason to decide the issue with a dice roll when common sense and fairness not only provide a more than adequate means of resolution, but also eliminate the possibilities (which come with any task resolution system that depends upon the rolling of dice) that a good dice roll will allow a player doing a poor job to succeed or that a bad dice roll will allow a player doing a good job to fail. The negative aspects of either of those possibilities, IMO, far outweigh any positive aspects the social skill system might provide in dealing with DMs who are unable to adjudicate social situations fairly.
Roxlimn 12-31-04, 02:16 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: Apparently your ability to miss the point is more astounding than my ability to contradict myself. My entire post is meant to be read in its entirety. While I may have, on occasion, off handedly commented on a minor argument, ultimately, the entire series of answers were coordinated such that they flowed in a particular way to make a particular point. Answering the way you do, it doesn't seem like you got it. I recommend reading my entire post like I didn't contradict myself, because I haven't. That may make a difference. As far as I can tell, you don't really have a major thesis on the issue in your last response and your major points were: However, on the grounds of fairness, your point of view is very hypocritical and I will debate you on that. I don't see where it is. You elaborate further, but the elaboration suggests that you simply haven't read my responses on the whole as a unified point. They make sense, I assure you, and are not contradictory. PCs are free to make their own decisions based on the DM's ability to lie, or use diplomacy or what not, yet the DM doesn't need to give an Oscar winning performance? Some flavor text is supposed to make it all better? But on the other side you're arguing that flavor text is not enough for PCs. PCs need a roll. The PCs are free to make their own responses to "The man seems to be saying the truth and is very convincing," yes. The DM may rely on his own performance skill, or narrate factually as he deems fit and within his ability. These are related to the NPCs roll, just as the PCs roleplaying should also be related to his own roll. I have never said that no difference exists. PC can influence NPC reactions. NPCs cannot influence PC reactions. I never said otherwise. I don't believe that this is "unfair", or rather, if you prefer, I don't believe it's unworkable. If you argue stuff like "Do you really think you the player can possibly influence a great red wyrm with your own ability?" then it must also be argued how difficult it is for the DM to play his roles. Can your DM seduce as well as a succubus or intimidate as well as a red dragon or a giant? Obviously not... but yet, it's ok to screw him over if he's unwilling to go for the Oscar. 1. The DM is not a player. The NPC is not a PC. 2. I did not say that a player cannot affect a Red Dragon's attitude using his PCs skills. I voiced my opinion that judging your (Archtyrant Terevoth) personal store of persuasion as evidence by this thread, that I do not consider your real life personal skills adequate to persuade a few people to change their views on a game, let alone a Dragon to change his mind about eating you, whatever you happen to be offering. I only commented on this because you seem to be insisting on using real life skills to substitute for in-game ones. You believe you have the skill to talk down a Dragon. I find that difficult to believe given you can't even talk me down, and I'm nowhere near as stubborn as what I expect a Red Dragon to be. Now this is related to your follow up statement: If your argument is that no human can roleplay a diplomacy +23 adequately enough with roleplaying alone then the DM's succubi and Solars needs to be able to do that too. As the DM has the more difficult roles anyway. True. I did say that, occasionally, a DM would be over his head and he would then probably have to reference other famous people who were more charismatic in order to give the players some idea of how the NPC was presenting himself. Regardless of what your reasoning is, it has to work both ways or your reasoning is pure bunk... ...If all these aren't true, then your argument is hypocritical, and thus valueless. Why? Why does a system have to work the same way both ways to have value? In fact, NPCs are basically not portrayed the same way PCs are because only one person portrays them all and he's expected to use them in ways not expected of PCs. Given this very basic difference in PC and NPC portrayal, why should a social system be mirroring to make sense? In fact, I would say that a system that worked the same way both ways would invariably be flawed. Talking about how the PCs are central to the story is irrelevant. If a DM stutters, he should be protected just like a PC is. If a DM lacks the social ability to play out a diplomatic character, he too should recieve the same protection you're giving to everyone else. If you don't like "social puzzles" then the DM should have the very same immunity to them that the PCs have. If you think that verbal descriptions like "Krusk is very intimidating" isn't good enough, then NPCs as well as PCs need to use something other than verbal descriptions. If a PC is so convincing that he can convince NPCs of anything, that abiltiy should work on PCs too. Sure. The DM can ask another to portray the NPC in order to preserve believability, just like I told you earlier, or he can describe his NPC's actions and level of presence, just like PCs can. While the DM is "protected" as you put it from the effects of having to portray astounding personality, this is not the same as the one players use, because he is not a player and cannot be assumed to be the same. We can see that you're not interested in giving non-social people the ability to roleplay social entities. You are interested in giving PCs a cheap game system advantage, that's it. I'm sorry. I do not see it. Please elaborate. You could care less when the DM is subject to these atrocities which you preach against. It's ok for him to toss the PCs some flavor text and that's it, and if he stutters or is otherwise unconvincing, then hey, so are his NPCs. Guess his world is full of poor conversationalists. And you could care less. Hey, just let him go hire Robert Di Niro to act out his NPCs, then maybe they'll convince the PCs of something. But you're ok with leaving the DM out in the middle of the ocean without a life preserver... why should we care about him anyway? He's just the most important person in the game. Allow me to take some time out to answer these points. They are now admittedly far off topic so I can't elaborate very much. 1. No one's being subjected to atrocities. Getting your privates electrocuted is an atrocity. Being cheated in a game for fun is not, even if it were actually happening. Please refrain from using such hyperboles as they are borderline fallacious in the manner of "appeal to emotion." 2. If the DM cannot convey the proper effect, then that's really a problem the system cannot handle. This goes beyond the social system as it affects the entire game world. If the PCs let the stuttering affect them, then a relation of the intro to a Raveloft scene is going to lose much of its impact. Players have to understand that when the DM says it factually, it is true and must strive to uphold their portion of the suspension of disbelief. You cannot believe a magic trick you are hell bent on disbelieving. You probably cannot even believe a point of view you don't want to. 3. The DM is not the most important person in the game. He makes the game world and deserves a certain form of respect so that he can perform his role, but he's playing the game just like the rest of the players. His position is fundamentally different so there are things he both can do that players cannot and that players can do that he cannot. You have to accept that the DM is not simply a more important player. He's "more important" in that part of his job is to push the game forward, but he can't play the game by himself. He's fundamentally different as a position, but this does not make him the most important person in the game. I would argue that ignoring DM input and forestalling the personality and presence of an NPC just because the DM isn't playing him well is something that's akin and in the minds of many gamers, related to Character Optimization. It's unfortunately true that I'm personally familiar with a few people who are all to apt to "get to the fighting." However, I believe that players who like the roleplaying aspect and who enjoy roleplaying (not the real life social game, but in itself) will pay attention to the DM's elaboration of NPC personalities and will react appropriately to a given situation, even when it's blatantly obvious from a metagaming standpoint that it's bogus. Thus we have on one hand "social" metagaming in which you don't want to go one way even though the NPC is portrayed as being convincing, as against "combat" metagaming in which your character inexplicably is familiar with the intricacies of all sorts of monsters. Neither situation is really truly controllable in a sense that I can fathom. Having good players is a way to control each situation, and showing players the fun of doing it "your way" often convinces hardcore metagamers to mend their ways. Ultimately, however, metagaming is something which cannot be prevented and which has to be given an answer on a group by group basis. Whereas "social" metagaming" nor "combat metagaming" may or may not be an insult to combat or social roleplay, this is ultimately beyond the scope of either character optimization or the rules of play.
fractal 12-31-04, 04:13 AM	Premise: The rules need a social system, so that DMs can decide whether or not a player's description of his character's social aptitude is reasonable. Premise: The old approach, of simply observing the player's social aptitude, is unfair to some players. These people, despite possible creativity and roleplaying interest, simply do not have the personal Charisma and verbal communication skills to convincingly represent a highly skilled social PC. Premise: Social interaction between PCs and NPCs is an important part of many D&D campaigns, and should not be eliminated in favor of a simple roll. Whatever you may think of the second and third premises (I think they're important), Archtyrant should definitely look closely at the first premise, as that is the justification for the "inequity" between the players and the DM. Players need a rule to tell them how competent their PC can be at social skills, just like everything else. For the same reason that the DM can't trust players to tell him "My PC runs up to the Dragon and stabs it in the heart. It dies.", the DM needs a mechanical system for representing how diplomatic PCs may be. The DM may listen to the player rp his character's actions, but the ultimate recourse, for both sides, is to roll it out. The reverse, however, is not true. The DM gets to choose how good NPCs are at everything anyway, and so the players can trust him when he tells them, "the sheriff seems like a reliable guy, you feel inclined to take his word for it." The DM got to set the Diplomacy bonus to whatever he wanted. Since the players can trust the DM to rp in accordance with the diplomacy bonus, there's never any need to "call his bluff" by asking for a roll, and so the (awkward and clunky) rules for the Diplomacy skill can be avoided. Do you see the difference?
Ourph the Mingol 12-31-04, 08:07 AM	Premise: The rules need a social system, so that DMs can decide whether or not a player's description of his character's social aptitude is reasonable. Premise: The old approach, of simply observing the player's social aptitude, is unfair to some players. These people, despite possible creativity and roleplaying interest, simply do not have the personal Charisma and verbal communication skills to convincingly represent a highly skilled social PC. I'm sorry, I just don't buy either of these premises. First, players shouldn't be "describing their character's social aptitude". Players should be describing their actions. The DM gets to use his own judgement to decide the outcome of those described actions (unless the rules override DM judgement with a random dice roll). Reason is the only good basis for deciding what is reasonable. Dice are unreasoning randomizers. Dice aren't qualified to judge reasonability. Second, I object to the assumption that equating a player's charisma with his character's charisma is "the old approach". The rules in older editions of the game included no social skill system, but they also included no exhortation to equate a player's personal magnetism with that ability in their character. In 23 years of gaming, I've never come across any DM who has employed that standard. I've certainly never heard of it being recommended by any of the original designers of the game. It sounds like some of the responders on this thread have been unfortunate enough to encounter very poor DMs who have employed such a standard, but that hardly means the practice is commonplace and it DEFINITELY doesn't mean that it was a practice encouraged by the rules.
Seeker95 12-31-04, 09:26 AM	I'm sorry, I just don't buy either of these premises. You were supposed to disagree with them. They are immaterial to the initial argument AT is making, although he consistently strays into vague and irrelevant aspects of these bogus premises.
Mister Mayhem 12-31-04, 09:59 AM	First, players shouldn't be "describing their character's social aptitude". . Actually, I think they should. When you write "Charisma = X" on your character sheet, and when you right in your ranks of Bluff, Diplomacy etc, "describing your character's social aptitude". is exactly what you are doing. In the same way as writing down your hit modifiers AC et al is a description of your characters combat aptitude. **** Even if you abolish the mechanics, you are, presumably, at some point going to think to yourself "My character has a silver tongue" or "My character is blunt-speaking." or " Both of these, are a "description of social aptitude." **** And if you make no such notations, not even metally, you are saying "My character has exactly the same social aptitude as myself", which, even if not publicised, is still a "description of social aptitude." Its a bit of a dull one, since it means the social interaciton abilitly of every character you ever play will be exactly the same, but that appears to be what some people are arguing in favour of. *shrug*
Archtyrant Terevoth 12-31-04, 02:33 PM	The PCs are free to make their own responses to "The man seems to be saying the truth and is very convincing," yes. The DM may rely on his own performance skill, or narrate factually as he deems fit and within his ability. These are related to the NPCs roll, just as the PCs roleplaying should also be related to his own roll. But they're not. The NPCs reaction is dictated by the roll, the PCs perceptions are affected by the roll. If you allow one side to have the luxury of saying "Even though he seems believable, I can't read people at all, so I can't be sure if I'm being lied to or not, therefore I'll be cautious anyway" and the other side doesn't get that luxury, that's not fair. I have never said that no difference exists. PC can influence NPC reactions. NPCs cannot influence PC reactions. I never said otherwise. I don't believe that this is "unfair", or rather, if you prefer, I don't believe it's unworkable. It is clearly unfair, as is any system which hoses a specific person. If it is unfair to hose Arioch as a PC because he can't act, it's also unfair to hose him as a DM. True. I did say that, occasionally, a DM would be over his head and he would then probably have to reference other famous people who were more charismatic in order to give the players some idea of how the NPC was presenting himself. Then why can't a PC do this too? My entire point that you seem to think is a contradiction is in fact a logical demonstration. I've encased it in a block if you choose to read it. If you dont' understand logic very well, you may just want to skip over it. If however, you can understand the following logical argument, you can very well skip over the rest of my post and just read the boxed argument. First we start with two basic premises. First, that our social system assumes we are dealing with people in all cases. Thus the PCs are people and the DM is a person. Second, that the DM's chair isn't magical in any way, nor is any other game position. That is the person who occupies any given game position is the same person as he is when he's a player. Sitting in the DM's chair does not alter his social ability as a person in any way. Third, The possible addition of social skills is being done solely for fairness, that is, if social skills are needed, they are needed because one or more people are being treated unfairly. Based on those, we can state that whenever we talk about a "person" in the context of the game, we are talking equally about a DM and a PC. Thus any statement that can be made about a person in the general case can also be made about a DM or PC. Now we introduce P: P in this case is the statement: "a person can adequately roleplay a high diplomacy score." There are two choices here. P, or not P. Now, I can't definitively prove whether P is true or if not P is true, in fact it's heavily situational depending on the person and your realm of experience. However, for any given situation P or its negation, not P, must be true. Thus I present arguments for both. Here's the argument if you assume P is true. Essentially the way I play my games, and the way I think is most fun. A person can simply back up thier normal roleplaying wtih description to adequately describe any given character. So a person who stutters simply needs to say that his character isn't stuttering and it's up to the people playing the game to imagine him not stuttering. No hard system is needed to fix a problem because the problem itself isn't major enough. While there may be slight disadvantages for stuttering, overall it is believed the individual people at the game can use their imagination to get over it without requiring any special system to force action. Thus a person requires no mechanic to dictate his character's reactions. For this to be equal, no person must have their reactions dictated by mechanics. And here's the argument for if you assume P is false, and thus that not P is true. This is if you buy into what Arioch is saying. A person cannot adequately roleplay a creature socially different from themselves. A socially adept person roleplaying a dumb boorish orc gains a huge advantage, and a person who stutters is simply unable to roleplay a diplomatic character of any kind. To fix this imbalance, a system of dice rolls and social statistics will be applied to each character. The people hearing the argument from the character, instead of relying on thier own judgment as far as what the character they play will do, will instead rely on a mechanically generated result, based upon the previously mentioned social stats, which will in turn force some kind of mandatory reaction out of them. This ensures that the person's lack of social skill in real life does not impact his character's ability to perform social tasks. Thus, A person must have his character's reactions dictated by a set mechanic. For that mechanic to apply equally to all people, that mechanic must be the same to all people. And from that we derive the following: Now you take DM and substitute it for person in both those cases, which we can do as explained above. So in the case of not P we get: A DM must have his character's reactions dictated by a set mechanic. For that mechanic to apply equally to all people, that mechanic must be the same to all people. And we can do the same for a player, and then we get... A PC must have his character's reactions dictated by a set mechanic. For that mechanic to apply equally to all people, that mechanic must be the same to all people. Since a DM is a person and a PC is a person and the mechanics must be the same to all people to be equal, then we can conclude that both need to play by the same rules. Thus any social system you create for a PC must also apply to the DM and vice versa. Now maybe P is true of your group and maybe it's not. But you can go ahead and pick either and it wouldn't matter. Your system is still contradictory and unfair. Your system in fact contradicts itself because you assume P is true when dealing with a DM, but assume P is false when dealing with a player. Which I've already shown are both people, and thus any conclusion reached about the ability of people and fairness must apply to both of them. Since the DM and player could be exactly the same person, we can see that your logic leads to a fallacy. The same logic that applies to Arioch as a PC should apply to Arioch as a DM. Otherwise you are being unfair to one person. Regardless of if you run your games assuming P or you run your games assuming not P, your system is inherently unfair. Why? Why does a system have to work the same way both ways to have value? Because if your goal is not to hose people like Arioch, you have failed if you still hose him when he DMs. You've just created injustice, but haven't really fixed anything. If social systems are about covering up a person's social flaws, then we have to accept that people can DM or be PCs, and thus we have to cover them both. So long as the DM is a person, he must be protected by all protections we decide are relevant to protect people. In fact, I would say that a system that worked the same way both ways would invariably be flawed. Why is it ok for Arioch's stuttering to hurt his NPCs but not his PC? Sure. The DM can ask another to portray the NPC in order to preserve believability, just like I told you earlier, or he can describe his NPC's actions and level of presence, just like PCs can. While the DM is "protected" as you put it from the effects of having to portray astounding personality, this is not the same as the one players use, because he is not a player and cannot be assumed to be the same. Huh? So the DM isn't a person? The concept of social skills don't protect "players" they protect people. People are the ones with poor acting skills, not players. If you stutter thats a flaw you possess as a person. The only time the DM is different from a PC in this regard is if you're claiming he's not a person. --------- Some Minor Points which I've boxed to better organize the post. 1. The DM is not a player. The NPC is not a PC. A DM and a player are both people, with the same weaknesses and strengths. Arioch will still stutter as a DM. He doesn't magically become an award winning actor simply because he sits in the DM's chair. As for the NPC not being a PC? That's actually totally dependant on who controls him. The stats are exactly the same. I could show you the stat block for a PC or an NPC, and you wouldn't know the difference at all until I showed you who was playing him. From a system point of view, they are the same. Anything a PC can do, an NPC can do, and vice versa. I'm sorry. I do not see it. Please elaborate. If you are worried about protecting stuttering people, then you'd insist the system works both ways. However, you don't. You have no problem with the DM relying entirely on flavor text and description, but then claim a PC doing it is somehow getting hosed. Are we to believe that Arioch's flavor and description gets better when he sits in the DM's chair? It wasn't sufficient to get him by as a PC but is sufficient to get him by as a DM? Are we to believe that if he glued said chair to himself and walked around all day with it that he'd be somehow a better speaker? I really hope you're not saying that. Thus, what you're doing is giving PCs a special "secret attack" to influence the NPCs, something the DM can't use. And this isn't to protect people like Arioch, this is simply a desire from a player who feels that his DM's NPCs are too difficult to influence. There's no nobility or fairness in that. You simply are trying to get more power for yourself as a player and nothing more. If the DM cannot convey the proper effect, then that's really a problem the system cannot handle. This goes beyond the social system as it affects the entire game world. The same could be said about roleplaying PCs too. If your manipulative bard PC doesnt' present the proper effect from your roleplaying, isn't much of the mood and atmosphere lost? This leads to the question, do systems even do us any good when it comes to roleplaying? In fact, NPCs are basically not portrayed the same way PCs are because only one person portrays them all and he's expected to use them in ways not expected of PCs. Given this very basic difference in PC and NPC portrayal, why should a social system be mirroring to make sense? Huh? How is the portrayal different? You're telling me that I cannot play my own PC in a previous campaign as an NPC when I DM? The stats could be the exact same and his personality could be the same... yet somehow there's some difference in the portrayal because I'm sitting at a different seat at the table? Now part of what you're talking about is offscene stuff, but that's largely irrelevant. Offscene combats take place all the time too, should our combat system be different because of that fact too? And lets face it, DMs are expected to use NPCs in combat in different ways than PCs too. Spectres can phase through walls, It's ok for NPCs to leave their companions behind and so on. 3. The DM is not the most important person in the game. The players however, no matter how many you have, cannot play without a DM. The DM requires only one player. The DM's success at portraying scenes makes or breaks your game. You can get players who enhance or detract from it, but with a guy who can't DM for crap, your game will suck no matter how good the PCs are. I would argue that ignoring DM input and forestalling the personality and presence of an NPC just because the DM isn't playing him well is something that's akin and in the minds of many gamers, related to Character Optimization. It's unfortunately true that I'm personally familiar with a few people who are all to apt to "get to the fighting." Right... so apparently Arioch's problem works on both sides of the screen. And if you want to truly fix Arioch's problem you've got to make social skills work both ways. Of course doing that is going to come with a large price tag attached as far as fun you derive from the game. Whether you think it's a worthwhile trade is solely a matter of opinion. I see the problem here. It's that you're reluctant as a PC to have your reactions dictated, but you feel like you're being shortchanged as far as influencing NPCs. You want to influence NPCs, but you dont' want them to influence you. You want to have free will, but you don't want the NPCs to have any. You want the best of both worlds, and fairness be damned. Because this sounds completely unfair, you create all sorts of contradictory double think to back up your beliefs. Regardless how you attempt to disguise it, it is nothing more than a PC power grab. It's no different from a PC coming to his DM with his new no save charm spell and writing in the description "This spell has no effect on PCs." so it can't be used against him. Your system isnt' designed to help Arioch, it's designed to help the PCs win. That's it. That's inherently unfair.
HomebrewedMonster 12-31-04, 03:10 PM	When powergaming is a problem is when the player has the inability to create a story for their twinked character. If you make an uber fighter of spike chain doom that is deathly afraid of snakes you've got a decent character. Sure he's gonna annoy the DM tripping and disarming from 10 feet, but the BBEG can just send some Yuan-ti after him. So I think the real problem is that too many players don't give their characters weaknesses.
Seeker95 12-31-04, 04:08 PM	[...]that's not fair. It is clearly unfair, it's also unfair Your system is still contradictory and unfair. you are being unfair this sounds completely unfair That's inherently unfair. :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep: :weep:
Seeker95 12-31-04, 04:12 PM	First we start with two basic premises. Third, The possible addition of social skills is being done solely for fairness, that is, if social skills are needed, they are needed because one or more people are being treated unfairly. As usual, you build a house of cards upon the presumption that your premises are legitimate. We reject your premises. That is why we consistently reject your conclusion. Not even mentioning the math error of two basic premises being quite irrelevant without your third premise[/i]
Seeker95 12-31-04, 04:29 PM	To be "fair" (a status that seems to be AT's driving argument), we should note that much of the AT "it's so unfair" lamet hinges upon our accepting a very complex string of statements as true. This post is an attempt to demonstrate why AT's conclusion is so easily rejected.The NPCs reaction is dictated by the rollNot true. It is dictated by the DM who uses a die in shaping his determination. Third, The possible addition of social skills is being done solely for fairnessNot in the least. Thus a person requires no mechanic to dictate his character's reactions. For this to be equal, no person must have their reactions dictated by mechanics.Rejected because you are setting up a non-existent dichotomy. Just because no person requires a mechanic to dictate his character's reactions does not mean the opposite canot be true. You do not require a law to know that committing murder is wrong. This does not mean that no person should have a law against murder. A person cannot adequately roleplay a creature socially different from themselves.Your counter argument premise is also rejected. This may be true of a given individual. It is not universally true. A person must have his character's reactions dictated by a set mechanic. For that mechanic to apply equally to all people, that mechanic must be the same to all people.Again rejected. The mechanic is not a straightjacket. It is a tool. And that is the concept you appear to be incapable or unwilling to accept. A DM must have his character's reactions dictated by a set mechanic. For that mechanic to apply equally to all people, that mechanic must be the same to all people. Rejected. A PC must have his character's reactions dictated by a set mechanic. For that mechanic to apply equally to all people, that mechanic must be the same to all people.rejected The rest of the arguments follow the same pattern: Set up a premise we reject as utterly bogus. Then act amazed that we reject the flimsy conclusion. As such, you will, throughout this discussion, continue to remain amazed.
rutrow424 12-31-04, 04:47 PM	Look, everytime you say "The PCs can ignore the die roll, but the DM can't" or "The PCs arne't affected by diplomacy rolls", then you are treating one side unfairly. Somebody has to be a skilled actor and someone else doesn't. -The RPG is not designed, nor should it be, to be "fair" to the DM or the NPCs in the social skill area. - Also as for talk about fairness, lets see what you said later in your post... -The RPG is not designed, nor should it be, to be "fair" to the DM or the NPCs in the social skill area. - So you're saying it's unfair then. Good, now we're getting somewhere. -Taking away the free will of the the players (via how they PLAY their PCs) is the biggest no-no in the whole game - barring enchantment magic.- It's the consequence of having a social system, the loss of free will. If you have someone playing a high charisma bard good at diplomacy, that benefit should apply everywhere. PC versus PC, PC versus NPC, NPC versus PC and NPC versus NPC. If you, like me, think that's not a good idea because of the loss of free will, then you don't have a social system at all. You do what people did prior to 3rd edition and just let the DM run his NPCs and the PCs run their characters. DMs have to learn to separate themselves from omniscience anyway. In combat, in choosing NPC strategies and so on. I don't see why we need a social system for this. OK, so why can't the PCs abide by the same rules? You call it a loss of free will on the player side, but apparently no loss of control on the DM side. Either social skills cost free will or they don't. Make up your mind. A lot of contradictions here. AT I will try again, as I have not contradicted myself: DnD is a role-playing game. Players portray made-up characters in any fashion they desire, within the confines of the rules, generally in a heroic manner. They do this to have fun. The game requires a person to create the scenarios, adjudicate the rules, and control the other participants (NPCs). That person is called a DM. The DM does this presumably to have fun also, but the DM's fun comes differently than the players' fun - the world/scenario building, challenging the players/PCs, and portraying a vibrant world and the NPCs that populate it. The players fun revolves around playing their individual PC and following their successes and failures as they become more powerful. DnD is not a competitive game. The DM is not trying to "beat" the players, but instead tries to deliver interesting plots, challenges, and foes to enhance (or even create) the fun the players will extract from the game. The rules exist to provide a framework from all to draw upon, and the game designers seek to balance the various aspects of the game so that all players have an equal chance at having fun. The concept of "fairness" in DnD is limited to: 1) equal opportunity for PCs/players within the rules - races, classes, and such are balanced so that a half-orc barbarian combat monster at 6th level is equivalent to a gnome bard-diplomat at 6th level. We all know that this is not always true but that is the goal. Much will depend on campaign/DM style (hack'n slash, heavy role-play, swashbuckling, etc) and on individual player choice (a wizard 10/sorcerer 10 will not be equal to a wiz 20). The abilities, skills choices, skill points, feats, spells and everthing else have been assigned a value by the designers and are interrelated to form the desired balance. 2) equal treatment of players/PCs by the DM - players have the right to believe that the DM will adjudicate the rules fairly, without bias towards any particular player/PC. It also falls upon the DM to create scenarios that support the balance inherent in the game design, molded to his group of players/PCs, in an attempt to maximize the fun had by all. It is an often difficult and thankless job the DM has, but he must provide adventures where both the barbarian tank and the bard diplomat have their chance for their skills to be used. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE BARD MUST STINK IN COMBAT! But I think we can all agree that in most combat encounters the barbarian will be better. The balance to that is that the bard will be better out of combat. Those are the choices made by the respective players, and the game system supports it, with the DM as the one who oversees the process in his world. 3) Note that FAIRNESS does NOT apply to the DM or the NPCs - this is where your whole argument about the skill mechanic loses me. The DM is the individual in the game whose job it is to see that the game is fair for the PLAYERS/PCs. The skill mechanic gives a simple way for players to demonstrate the abilities of the PC. Joe wants a PC that is a good diplomat, he assigns ranks to diplomacy (at least) and takes a CHA of 12+. Jane wants a socially inept PC, she takes a low CHA and no social skill ranks. The DM can then use the skill mechanic to assess the success of the two PCs in a social situation. As part of the DMs job, he will ensure both PCs get an opportunity to "use" their social skills (a benefit to Joe's PC, a hindrance to Jane's) to "reward" their choices. The players in turn will role-play their PCs appropriately to the best of their ability. This may include acting as they imagine the PC would or simply relaying the PC taking the appropriate actions. No player is forced to sit out a social encounter, a problem which is independent of the mechanic; though a party with a diplomat PC may let that PC do the talking, it is up to the DM to avoid that as much as possible. Therefore, I see the skill system (and social skill subsystem) as an integrated part of the whole. Some PCs will sacrifice combat prowess for skills - this is the general basis for rogues and bards in the game. It is the DM's job to at various times reward those PCs who made that choice, and to also penalize in a sense the PCs who made the opposite choice. It is certainly possible that the game can be played without the social skills of diplomacy, bluff, intimidate and such. 1st and 2nd edition did not have such mechanics. Instead, either the player's skill, or the pre-decided PC skill, was used by the DM to determine success. This is ok in a world where diplomacy and such is only a pass-thru for getting to the next combat or dungeon, which is what 1st edition was designed for mostly (and 2nd edition did little to change). It can work with highly skilled RP'ers, and an unbiased DM. But too often it will devolve into whichever players are better at it getting to be the speakers, or all PCs being suave smooth talkers despite what the stats say, or the DM being perceived as playing favorites or "competing" against the players. In 3rd edition, to remove the mechanics also hurts some classes and PC concepts, while helping those classes that would not have taken the skills anyway. AT, you continue to decry how the die roll turns the NPCs into automatons who will do whatever the PCs want, screwing the DM in the process and ruining his fun. I contend that the assertion is untrue, and the rules support me. The fact that the players can decide what their PCs will do is the main point of the game, allowing the skill mechanic to affect PCs directly (as opposed to suggesting an NPC is believable or whatever) would turn the Role-Playing game into a life simulation and removes the need for the players. The current system is not perfect, but to remove it forces revisions to every other aspect of the game system that is too much hassle when the RAW work IMO.
11d7 12-31-04, 05:10 PM	I think the point AT is trying to make but from your posts you seem to be missing becuase the way he words it is: The PCs can use Diplomacy on a NPC to change the way they veiw them, the Lv. 5 Bard has 18 Cha, 8 ranks in Diplomacy and Skill Focus Diplomacy. He rolls a 15 for a total of 30. The NPC was indiffernt to the PCs and is now Helpful, now this doesnt mean he has to help them, but he might since it states he is willing to take risks for them so even if he would get in trouble from say his employer he still might do it, he will definatly help them if nothing is stopping him. However no matter how charismatic, how many ranks and what feats an NPC has they will never be able to affect the PCs attitude towards them if they dont want it to change their mind about them however an NPC cant do this, for not reason that it. The PCs can just say "I don't want to like them" and always treat them rudly however an NPC cant do this, they have to follow the rules, if the PC has enouph ransk to make a hostile NPC Indiffernt or even freindly they have to be, they cant just say "I dont want to like them". Thats why its unfair. I know players who metagame everything they do or say with NPCs becuase they have the ability to abatraily hate anyone they want and there is nothing that can be done to change there characters mind. This has ruined alot of good stories so our DM kicked them out but the fact remains becuase nothing can change a characters mind unless they want it to but NPCs are slaves to the rules, even with modified DCs.
11d7 12-31-04, 06:33 PM	Not to mention that its unfair becuase all arguments would are based on Cha. My 18 Int wizard or 18 Wis cleric can explain something using full logic, easy to understand words and use undisputable proof to try and get our points across but it counts for nothing when we roll becuase we dont have high charisma or ranks in diplomacy. The King: "My appoligies master wizard Torin Edmon, alought I see your point, all of your logic and why I must follow your plan to make a prenmtive strike ageist the Mad Wizard Devalith and his army but I am going to have to side with Jain the Sexy Bard (10 Int, 4 Wis, 20 Cha) and use her plan of leaving Devalith alone and just worrying about defending our boards becuase she talks pritty and has a nice rack." Since the PHB says trying to win across your side of an argument or debate is opposed diplomacy rolls.
ThoughtfulOwl 12-31-04, 07:27 PM	Not to mention that its unfair becuase all arguments would are based on Cha. My 18 Int wizard or 18 Wis cleric can explain something using full logic, easy to understand words and use undisputable proof to try and get our points across but it counts for nothing when we roll becuase we dont have high charisma or ranks in diplomacy. The King: "My appoligies master wizard Torin Edmon, alought I see your point, all of your logic and why I must follow your plan to make a prenmtive strike ageist the Mad Wizard Devalith and his army but I am going to have to side with Jain the Sexy Bard (10 Int, 4 Wis, 20 Cha) and use her plan of leaving Devalith alone and just worrying about defending our boards becuase she talks pritty and has a nice rack." Since the PHB says trying to win across your side of an argument or debate is opposed diplomacy rolls. I guess you never met one of these people who can whip up all the proof and wrap it with flawless logic, but are so pedantic and long-winded that your attention drops halfway through the speech. Having proof and logic on your side amounts to a good circumstance (and a big circumstance modifier, if you do use the skills), but knowing the contents and knowing how to best convey them are quite different things; smartness doesn't make up for social aptitude.
rusdrake77 12-31-04, 08:21 PM	I see that the defenders of optimization ae faking the topic. Return back to the line. We are not comparing game mechanics to roleplay. - It is pointless. We are speaking only that the optimization is bad, because first of all the energy of a real-life person is limited. If somebody spent 99 hours on game lawing and optimization he has only 1 hour left for plot and roleplaying. It is simple enough. Do you understand this?
11d7 12-31-04, 09:03 PM	I guess you never met one of these people who can whip up all the proof and wrap it with flawless logic, but are so pedantic and long-winded that your attention drops halfway through the speech. Having proof and logic on your side amounts to a good circumstance (and a big circumstance modifier, if you do use the skills), but knowing the contents and knowing how to best convey them are quite different things; smartness doesn't make up for social aptitude. I have met quite a few but I never drop attention, I have an unlimited attention span.
Roxlimn 12-31-04, 09:25 PM	rusdrake77: We are speaking only that the optimization is bad, because first of all the energy of a real-life person is limited. If somebody spent 99 hours on game lawing and optimization he has only 1 hour left for plot and roleplaying. I don't see what's so bad about that. It doesn't insult or downplay roleplaying. It only allows a person to concentrate on things that they like the most. In fact, by facilitating Character Optimization, the CO boards allows people who like RP to concentrate on that more. Archtyrant Terevoth: If you allow one side to have the luxury of saying "Even though he seems believable, I can't read people at all, so I can't be sure if I'm being lied to or not, therefore I'll be cautious anyway" and the other side doesn't get that luxury, that's not fair. This is social metagaming. Metagaming happens at all levels of play in all forms. There is social metagaming and combat metagaming. I told you about this already. And I never said the system was mirror-image. It is clearly unfair, as is any system which hoses a specific person. If it is unfair to hose Arioch as a PC because he can't act, it's also unfair to hose him as a DM. Sure. Then why can't a PC do this too? referring to: "True. I did say that, occasionally, a DM would be over his head and he would then probably have to reference other famous people who were more charismatic in order to give the players some idea of how the NPC was presenting himself." They CAN. I've posted this over three times now. Please read. Your logical progression: First, that our social system assumes we are dealing with people in all cases. Thus the PCs are people and the DM is a person. Second, that the DM's chair isn't magical in any way, nor is any other game position. That is the person who occupies any given game position is the same person as he is when he's a player. Sitting in the DM's chair does not alter his social ability as a person in any way. Third, The possible addition of social skills is being done solely for fairness, that is, if social skills are needed, they are needed because one or more people are being treated unfairly. You are assuming that we share these premises. I do not. While it is entirely acceptable that everyone is a person, the DM and the PC are not similar positions and cannot be. Being the DM does not alter his social capability in any way, but it does carry with it the weight of being DM. What he says is factually true and ignoring what he says is no longer a problem of the system but an interpersonal problem. The addition of social skills is not done for fairness. You can take up Arioch on that one if you like. We do not share views, you know. Please ascribe views to the correct person. Social skills in my view are a quantifiable measure that everyone can understand as to how convincing or personable a person is. It allows people to see in a quantifiable way something which is essentially nebulous. Since your premises are bogus, your entire logical progression is worthless. Frankly I can't understand why you would go to such trouble without clearing your premises first. Many of your premises apply only to yourself and it would help you to understand what I'm saying to try to discard them. Huh? So the DM isn't a person? The concept of social skills don't protect "players" they protect people. People are the ones with poor acting skills, not players. If you stutter thats a flaw you possess as a person. The only time the DM is different from a PC in this regard is if you're claiming he's not a person. That's a nice baby step. I don't deny that the DM is a person, but he is not the same as the players. I should think that this was only obvious, but apparently, it is not. A DM and a player are both people, with the same weaknesses and strengths. Arioch will still stutter as a DM. He doesn't magically become an award winning actor simply because he sits in the DM's chair. As for the NPC not being a PC? That's actually totally dependant on who controls him. The stats are exactly the same. I could show you the stat block for a PC or an NPC, and you wouldn't know the difference at all until I showed you who was playing him. From a system point of view, they are the same. Anything a PC can do, an NPC can do, and vice versa. PCs and NPCs aren't stat blocks. Those are descriptive text. What determines whether any given character is a PC or an NPC is whether this character is in the hands of the DM or in the hands of the player. From a system point of view, a character cannot be determined to be a PC or an NPC until they are placed in their respective places by the DM. At that point, the system does differentiate between them. An NPC is a background person, people the DM uses to people his world. A PC is the centerpiece, the character around whom the game revolves. Seriously, dude, you need to read more of the DMG if you're having trouble differentiating between the two. In fact, you also seem to need to read more of the DMG to understand what the DM is. If you are worried about protecting stuttering people... Sorry, Im not. The system I use forgives people who are not as charismatic whether they are the DM or not. Barring social metagaming, which practically nothing can get through. The same could be said about roleplaying PCs too. If your manipulative bard PC doesnt' present the proper effect from your roleplaying, isn't much of the mood and atmosphere lost? This leads to the question, do systems even do us any good when it comes to roleplaying? True. Even so, given the numerical value and possible examples, we can still envision what the PC's influence could be or should be and it helps our groups to place the mood in the ballpark to where it should be. In any other case, you wouldn't have a clue. Huh? How is the portrayal different? You're telling me that I cannot play my own PC in a previous campaign as an NPC when I DM? The stats could be the exact same and his personality could be the same... yet somehow there's some difference in the portrayal because I'm sitting at a different seat at the table? Precisely. Your former PC can no longer be center stage in a campaign in which you DM and he must be kept firmly out of the spotlight or you risk the DM-PC syndrome, which is a real problem. In a very real way, the way he's portrayed has been changed. He's no longer the central protagonist. Is the DM the "most important person in the game?" The players however, no matter how many you have, cannot play without a DM. The DM requires only one player. The DM's success at portraying scenes makes or breaks your game. You can get players who enhance or detract from it, but with a guy who can't DM for crap, your game will suck no matter how good the PCs are. You need at least one DM to play. Likewise, you need at least one player to play. Just as the DM requires only one player, the player requires only one DM. In fact, players are so important that you should get more than one if you can, whereas you really only need one DM. The DM's success at portrayal may or may not make the game depending on what kind of game it is. The player's actions all too often dictate the pace and the type of campaign you can actually play. In fact, it has been my experience that players can frequently help the DM in setting mood with great roleplaying pieces and character hooks. So no, the game won't "suck" even if your DM lacks certain skills. Your game can go down the sink if your DM is bad, but the same is true for any player. Any one player can wreck a campaign all by himself. Sure you can eject him, but you can eject the DM, too, and just get another one, or use your spare if you have 2. I'm sorry, Archtyrant Terevoth. The DMs role is difficult and often thankless, but he isn't more central to play than players are. It's a social game. That means everyone matters and it's not something you can quantify. I see the problem here. It's that you're reluctant as a PC to have your reactions dictated, but you feel like you're being shortchanged as far as influencing NPCs. You want to influence NPCs, but you dont' want them to influence you. You want to have free will, but you don't want the NPCs to have any. You want the best of both worlds, and fairness be damned. Because this sounds completely unfair, you create all sorts of contradictory double think to back up your beliefs. Again, I urge you to look at my points as if I don't contradict myself, because I haven't. I haven't played a PC in 4 months, and I really want to. The sad truth of the matter is, no one wants to DM because it takes time and few people have the skill to DM without it consuming large chunks of their life. Fortunately, I can wing encounters better than most, being adept at complex numerical comparisons and portrayal, so I'm chosen to DM. It's not unrewarding, but you certainly do want to play as a player every now and again. I don't like dictating actions to players regarding their PCs because as a hard lesson learned, I've found that you tend to alienate players very quickly that way. At the same time, social metagaming is frowned upon in some of my groups, so peer pressure sometimes aids realistic reactions. Because I have to roleplay tens of hundreds of NPCs, having a chart and set "lines" to follow greatly simplifies my task. I like it when I get "friendly", or "indifferent", or "hostile" on the attitude table so that I don't have to think about how this guy or that guy will react, when I'm also calculating his current combat power simultaneously. It gets complicated. At this point, I'm not really thinking about whether it's unfair or not. I'm thinking about whether we're having fun or not, and I ceratinly get to do a lot more when part of my job portraying the NPC is done for me. Why are there tables for random NPC mannerisms and none for PCs? Why do NPCs get recommended set items per level depending on level? It's all tools for the DM, and I'm right glad that they're there. Am I helping the PCs to win? Of course I am!!!! I do that when I calculate CRs based on their levels. I do that when I set DC charts. I do that virtually the entire time I'm DMing. The adventure is set so that PCs who avoid doing mindlessly stupid things survive and do incredible heroic feats. You're telling me the social system is a PC power grab? Hah! Everything is a PC power grab, Archtyrant Terevoth, and it numbs my mind how you haven't got this by now. Is it "inherently unfair"? Well, duh. The game is designed so that the PCs win. That's how the game works. That's how things are set up. Your players can't enjoy the fruits of your dungeon delve when their PCs are dead. Please forgive this little emotional outburst, but I think it hits the crux of what differentiates your views from mine.
rutrow424 12-31-04, 09:32 PM	I think the point AT is trying to make but from your posts you seem to be missing becuase the way he words it is: The PCs can use Diplomacy on a NPC to change the way they veiw them, the Lv. 5 Bard has 18 Cha, 8 ranks in Diplomacy and Skill Focus Diplomacy. He rolls a 15 for a total of 30. The NPC was indiffernt to the PCs and is now Helpful, now this doesnt mean he has to help them, but he might since it states he is willing to take risks for them so even if he would get in trouble from say his employer he still might do it, he will definatly help them if nothing is stopping him. However no matter how charismatic, how many ranks and what feats an NPC has they will never be able to affect the PCs attitude towards them if they dont want it to change their mind about them however an NPC cant do this, for not reason that it. The PCs can just say "I don't want to like them" and always treat them rudly however an NPC cant do this, they have to follow the rules, if the PC has enouph ransk to make a hostile NPC Indiffernt or even freindly they have to be, they cant just say "I dont want to like them". Thats why its unfair. I know players who metagame everything they do or say with NPCs becuase they have the ability to abatraily hate anyone they want and there is nothing that can be done to change there characters mind. This has ruined alot of good stories so our DM kicked them out but the fact remains becuase nothing can change a characters mind unless they want it to but NPCs are slaves to the rules, even with modified DCs. I have understood this point quite clearly, and disagree completely with the idea that it is unfair or a problem. If a player meta-games and it is a distraction or ruins the game for the others, then the player is the problem, not the system. There are numerous ways to correct that problem, including kicking the player out if he does not improve. Eliminating the system does not eliminate the meta-game problem. Applying the system both ways removes the role-playing from the game from the PLAYERS, a far bigger injustice than a DM's feelings being hurt because his NPC had to be helpful. Of course, I still feel any DM who feels slighted in this manner does not understand his role. As you pointed out yourself, the DM is not hard coded into using the diplomacy result in the manner the PCs/players desire. I believe getting a diplomacy roll against any NPC is not a given. The dragon may listen to your reason for invading its lair, or it may just roast you. If it does listen, the PCs may not want it's "help."
11d7 12-31-04, 10:00 PM	If a player meta-games and it is a distraction or ruins the game for the others, then the player is the problem, not the system. There are numerous ways to correct that problem, including kicking the player out if he does not improve. Eliminating the system does not eliminate the meta-game problem. ." If its not in the system how can be be meta-gamed though? I know its not fair to remove it becuase things would be even worse but there has to be a better way, maybe changing the law so it legal to kick metagaming players in the head and not allowing them to leave the game for it?
fractal 01-01-05, 10:05 PM	I'm sorry, I just don't buy either of these premises. First, players shouldn't be "describing their character's social aptitude". Players should be describing their actions. The DM gets to use his own judgement to decide the outcome of those described actions (unless the rules override DM judgement with a random dice roll). Reason is the only good basis for deciding what is reasonable. Dice are unreasoning randomizers. Dice aren't qualified to judge reasonability. Fine, players describe their actions, and the DM needs a system to decide whether or not the player succeeds, and what the outcome is. One such system could be the Diplomacy skill. Another could be to imagine that the player is speaking for the character, and decide whether a real king would be convinced by the player's words. If that player has a stutter, or other communication difficulty, they're probably unlikely to convince the king. These are the two primary methods discussed on this thread, although of course there could be others. Regardless, however, some method of arbitration is needed. Second, I object to the assumption that equating a player's charisma with his character's charisma is "the old approach". The rules in older editions of the game included no social skill system, but they also included no exhortation to equate a player's personal magnetism with that ability in their character. In 23 years of gaming, I've never come across any DM who has employed that standard. I've certainly never heard of it being recommended by any of the original designers of the game. Okay, if that isn't the approach you used, would you mind explaining what, exactly, your approach was? This is a critical point of contention in the current discussion, so if you have a good alternative, it might help a lot to hear it.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-02-05, 11:53 AM	You are assuming that we share these premises. I do not. While it is entirely acceptable that everyone is a person, the DM and the PC are not similar positions and cannot be. Being the DM does not alter his social capability in any way, but it does carry with it the weight of being DM. What he says is factually true and ignoring what he says is no longer a problem of the system but an interpersonal problem. I merely said that the DM is a person. This is independent of their "roles", it's just a broad description. You can say both a car and a train are vehicles, even though their purposes are different. Thus I can say that the DM and the PCs are both people. The addition of social skills is not done for fairness. You can take up Arioch on that one if you like. We do not share views, you know. Please ascribe views to the correct person. Social skills in my view are a quantifiable measure that everyone can understand as to how convincing or personable a person is. It allows people to see in a quantifiable way something which is essentially nebulous. Ok, lets just stop here for a minute. FIrst, it's a quantifiable measure of a character and third, this really doesn't state why we need them. What kinds of injustices would occur if they were taken out? Is it merely a fun issue, or is someone getting hosed or what? Your argument sounds a lot like a fairness argument targetted for the general. If it's not, then elaborate, because I thought the whole time your argument was that because a person cannot roleplay a high diplomacy score that we needed social skills to make sure everyone reacts fairly. Perhaps it's not, but if so, elaborate. Because you sound like you're preaching for fairness. From a system point of view, a character cannot be determined to be a PC or an NPC until they are placed in their respective places by the DM. At that point, the system does differentiate between them. An NPC is a background person, people the DM uses to people his world. A PC is the centerpiece, the character around whom the game revolves. There's no reason that an NPC can't travel with the PC party all the time and perform the same roles as a PC. This distinction is entirely yours. An NPC can do anything a PC can do. Sorry, Im not. The system I use forgives people who are not as charismatic whether they are the DM or not. If your goal is forgiving people with less social ability, then your system should work both ways. Because the DM is a person and the PCs are people. So whatever system you use should apply equally to all people for it to be fair. Otherwise some people are getting screwed (in this case, the DM). Stating that one solution is good enough for the DM and yet inadequate for PCs is puzzling. If you agree that a person *needs* certain things to adequately represent the social ability of his character or characters, then you have to agree that all people need it. Precisely. Your former PC can no longer be center stage in a campaign in which you DM and he must be kept firmly out of the spotlight or you risk the DM-PC syndrome, which is a real problem. In a very real way, the way he's portrayed has been changed. He's no longer the central protagonist. But his personality is the same. The character thinks, acts and does exactly what he did before. Just because he's doing that mostly offcamera doesn't mean a thing. Giving someone less camera time does not in any way change their character's personality. So no, the game won't "suck" even if your DM lacks certain skills. Whenever you hear a story about a really bad game, it's almost always about a bad DM. Go figure. I'm sorry, Archtyrant Terevoth. The DMs role is difficult and often thankless, but he isn't more central to play than players are. Actually the DM is the world, he is the story in many regards, you can't take a single action without him saying it's ok. And yes while he does require people taking actions to have the story go anywhere, he can continue the same campaign with different players if need be. If the DM quits, then the campaign effectively dies, because he takes all his secrets with him. I don't like dictating actions to players regarding their PCs because as a hard lesson learned, I've found that you tend to alienate players very quickly that way. Right, I don't find this is very fun, it's why I don't like social skills in general. But yet we keep in charm person and dominate person... Odd that nobody has a problem with those. Maybe social systems just weren't supposed to exist? At this point, I'm not really thinking about whether it's unfair or not. I'm thinking about whether we're having fun or not, and I ceratinly get to do a lot more when part of my job portraying the NPC is done for me. Why are there tables for random NPC mannerisms and none for PCs? Why do NPCs get recommended set items per level depending on level? It's all tools for the DM, and I'm right glad that they're there. There's a difference. One is DM optional, the other is designed to dictate to the DM how his NPCs act, effectively taking away his free will, and ultimately destroying the reasoning ability of the NPCs. I think Ourph says this well, "Reason is the only good basis for deciding what is reasonable." I do that when I calculate CRs based on their levels. I do that when I set DC charts. I do that virtually the entire time I'm DMing. The adventure is set so that PCs who avoid doing mindlessly stupid things survive and do incredible heroic feats. You're telling me the social system is a PC power grab? Hah! Everything is a PC power grab, Archtyrant Terevoth, and it numbs my mind how you haven't got this by now. Yes, but why can't you simply balance the numerics of the social system like you do the combat system? Your social system makes PCs totally immune to NPC social ability. Are you suggesting that we change the combat system attack rules to: "A PC can at any time declare that an attack against him misses, or that his saving throw succeeds, as they are not bound by the result of the die roll." I mean seriously... why don't we do that if we want the PCs to always win. Because that's what you're leading to. A game where the PCs simply ignore the dice. If you decide something is diceworthy in the first place, then the PCs should abide by the result just like anyone else. Is it "inherently unfair"? Well, duh. The game is designed so that the PCs win. That's how the game works. That's how things are set up. Your players can't enjoy the fruits of your dungeon delve when their PCs are dead. The system is fair. Sure, you can set it up so the PCs have a numerical advantage, but you don't have to do that by the system. Nothing in the combat system says you can't have them fight a great wyrm at level 1. However, your social system says that the PCs never lose and can blatantly ignore the results even against an NPC with a +500 diplomacy. Essentially you cannot socially defeat a character so long as his controller is a PC, where as you can defeat any character in combat equally regardless of his controller. Setting up an adventure so that the PCs win and setting up a system so the PCs win are two entirely different things. Do you see the difference? Bottom line: if you think you have a great social system that works, then you should be able to apply it both ways and it should work too. Nobody is saying you can't balance the numerics and create reasonable social challenges for PCs. But if it's possible to balance a combat system by playing around with numbers, it should also be possible to balance a social system. We already have mechanics that dictate PC action. They're called charm and dominate. So clearly dictating PC action is within the realm of the game. And if any place needs an "auto win" for the PCs, it would be combat. Social encounters don't even TPK the party. You can get owned by diplomacy and your adventures continue. If you die in combat, your game ends. This would seem to suggest that combat is where you need the absolute "you can't die" clause. In fact, out of all situations in the game, from a climb check, to a disable device check or a saving throw, social rolls are the least deadly. If PCs can agree to a fair combat system where they might die, then surely they can agree to fair social situations, where the worst result is that they might be forced to like somebody or believe a lie. So why can't you balance social systems like you balance the combat system?
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-02-05, 12:26 PM	Applying the system both ways removes the role-playing from the game from the PLAYERS, a far bigger injustice than a DM's feelings being hurt because his NPC had to be helpful. Actually, no it doesn't. If anything, taking away the ability to argue a case yourself and resorting to a roll is what takes away roleplaying. If you're ok with PCs not having to roleplay out their conversation wtih the king, or just having them do it and having it not count for anything, then there's nothing wrong either with you telling them how they've got to react to an NPC. If you think roleplaying out predefined results is fun, then people should think it's fun both ways. People say "I'm ok roleplaying out this scene even though I know regardless of what I say, I'll lose." ok, fine. Then what's the problem with roleplaying out your character's new attitude towards an NPC? That doesn't discourage roleplaying in the least, yet you're against it. I have a feeling we all know deep down that social skills just aren't fun and are wrong. And as for the DM's side, it inhibits his ability to tell a story. If you get your diplomacy high enough, every NPC has to be helpful. Everyone. Your chaotic evil blackguard, sworn enemy to the PC paladin and all he serves suddenly becomes 'helpful' with a wave of his hand. "Here my good friend the paladin, take my sword so you can run me through with it." This pretty much destroys all suspension of disbelief. You can use bluff skill to convince someone of anything. You just convince every evil NPC that you've placed a curse on them so that they'll irrevocably die the next time they perform an act you deem as evil. You can convince a god that the world will end unless he transfers all his power to you. This is stuff that can destroy your story and perhaps your entire campaign world.
Seeker95 01-02-05, 12:42 PM	I have a feeling we all know deep down that social skills just aren't fun and are wrong. This sounds like a call to vote. Those in agreement say Aye. Those opposed, say Nay. As for my vote, I disagree with Archtyrant. I vote Nay. (We are now officially down to something less than "we all" as AT proposed.)
The Shaman 01-02-05, 02:40 PM	I have a feeling we all know deep down that social skills just aren't fun and are wrong. I'm sorry, Archtyrant Terevoth, but I disagree with that statement. I like social skills and the d20 mechanic for resolving checks that were once either GM fiat or a 2d6 roll compared to a reaction chart. I don't feel that they take anything away from roleplaying, nor do I feel that they limit my options as a GM to determine NPC reactions. I use all the rules to insure that player characters don't abuse the mechanic. If a character doesn't have a full minute to attempt a Diplomacy check, then they get a -10 on their skill check, per the RAW. I treat an attempt to influence certain types of interactions as a negotiation, and make an opposed skill check in response - for example, a guard's orders are to allow no one to pass, so an attempt by an adventurer to get the guard to look the other way becomes an opposed skill check with the guard-captain's Diplomacy skill, Charisma modifier, and appropriate skill synergies. And finally, as GM I get to decide how the dice rolls are interpreted, so as I mentioned in an earlier post, I can make social skill checks a degree-of-success ratio rather than an outright pass-fail if I think the circumstances warrant it. That's one of my roles in the game, straight from the RAW. The rules provide a mechanic for resolving elements of chance in our collaborative storytelling - they are not the story themselves. Archtyrant Terevoth, you of course can play the game any way you please - as long as you and your players are happy, that's the ultimate bottom line. That said, please don't put words in the mouths of other gamers - not everyone shares your distaste for the social skills. Good luck to you!
Ourph the Mingol 01-02-05, 04:18 PM	Okay, if that isn't the approach you used, would you mind explaining what, exactly, your approach was? This is a critical point of contention in the current discussion, so if you have a good alternative, it might help a lot to hear it. http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=5144538&postcount=199 The Cliff's Notes version: Players describe their actions in 3rd person and the DM decides whether those actions are persuasive/relevant/successful. If a player were to say to me, as DM, "I'm attempting to charm my way into the king's audience chamber." without offering any solid reason why he should be allowed in, he would fail, period. The player isn't putting forth any creative effort and he shouldn't be rewarded. On the other hand, if the player is trying to charm his way into a brothel without a specific compelling reason (other than the obvious ;) ), there's probably a good chance at success. At that point, I think the DM's control over NPC actions kicks in and we get.....<gasp>.....the DM making a judgement call based on what's best for the game at that point and what's most entertaining for himself and the players. The only reason that won't work out best for everyone is if the group has a poor DM. As I said, I'm really not thrilled about the idea of changing the rules to compensate for poor DMing. I'd rather see the rulebooks help poor DMs become better at what they do. That's the "old way" of doing things.
Seeker95 01-02-05, 06:38 PM	The Cliff's Notes version: Players describe their actions in 3rd person and the DM decides whether those actions are persuasive/relevant/successful. If a player were to say to me, as DM, "I'm attempting to charm my way into the king's audience chamber." without offering any solid reason why he should be allowed in, he would fail, period. So a relatively uncreative person better stay the hell away from playing a bard, but the 98-pound weakling is still free to play the hulking barbarian. The former gets penalized because the *player* lacks creativity, but the latter gets rewarded as long as he rolls well.
Ourph the Mingol 01-02-05, 09:14 PM	So a relatively uncreative person better stay the hell away from playing a bard An uncreative person who's not willing to change or try to improve would most likely not find playing in one of my games all that rewarding, period; no matter what class they chose to play. but the 98-pound weakling is still free to play the hulking barbarian. If we , as DMs, aren't expecting our players to show some skill, do we really need players at all? If the numbers on the character sheet are the only determinants of success or failure, the players really become superfluous. There's a difference between expecting player skill to have a bearing on success in the game and requiring that a character and player match in every respect (even physical). The former gets penalized because the *player* lacks creativity, but the latter gets rewarded as long as he rolls well. Again, you're assuming a poor DM with that scenario. Good DMs reward player skill. Players of Barbarian characters at my table need creative thinking and player skill just as much as players of any other character class. You know, we're not talking about rocket science here. Asking someone to come up with reasonable actions based on their knowledge of the game world isn't any more difficult than, for example, making reasonable decisions based upon situational factors in real life. If you can find your way to the FLGS without getting lost or run over in the street, you've basically got what it takes to be at least average as a roleplayer. The question here is not one of capability, but of involvement and desire for excellence. I cannot think of another game where ANYONE would argue that an apathetic and unskilled player should have just as much success as a committed skillful player. Even in games of chance like poker, success depends to some extent on player skill (and to a very great extent on paying attention to what's going on in the game). Are D&D players so lazy and apathetic that asking them to pay attention to the game and exert some intellectual effort on choosing actions appropriate to the situation has become "too much"? Is this really what D&D has come to? :blink: If so, our hobby really is doomed to fade into obscurity.
Seeker95 01-02-05, 09:49 PM	An uncreative person who's not willing to change or try to improve would most likely not find playing in one of my games all that rewarding, period; no matter what class they chose to play.Do you make the 98-pound weakling work out with weights to demonstrate that he is willing to try? If we , as DMs, aren't expecting our players to show some skill, do we really need players at all?But the only skill you are requiring they show is "social creativity". If one of your players really can swing a two handed sword, do you give his Barbarian extra rewards? If the numbers on the character sheet are the only determinants of success or failure, the players really become superfluous.To say that I find social skill stats useful is not the same thing as saying the numbers on the character sheet are the only determinants of success or failure. You pooh-pooh any extension of your methods to combat as "ridiculous". At the same time, you base your objection to social skills on an equally ridiculous hyperbole of "social skills are based entirely on numbers". You require players to demonstrate social skills, but do not require they demonstrate the same combat skills. You then suggest ignoring social skill stats, but cast aside any suggestion that this is akin to ignoring combat skills. With your approach, combat should be resolved by whichever player can describe the killing blow the best. Otherwise, for combat the numbers on the character sheet are the only determinants of success or failure, the players really become superfluous. Why do we need players at all? :P
Zherog 01-02-05, 10:25 PM	for example, a guard's orders are to allow no one to pass, so an attempt by an adventurer to get the guard to look the other way becomes an opposed skill check with the guard-captain's Diplomacy skill, Charisma modifier, and appropriate skill synergies. You know, I see this situation bandied about all the time as something that is inherently broken about Diplomacy. And I just don't see it. All Diplomacy does (when influencing a person) is change their attitude about you. So let's look at real life (yeah, I know - those two words should rarely come up on these boards). I have signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) as part of my job. It basically boils down to the fact that I agreed not to discuss any products currently in the R&D phase, and government actions against the company (I work for a pharmaceutical company) nor any pending litigation. If I'm found to have violated my NDA, the best I can hope for is to get fired. More likely, I'll get fired and sued for breech of contract. Given the above NDA, there are things about my job that I don't tell me wife, or my two other best friends in the world. I'd say those three people have just about as high a "social" rating for me as possible. If I'm not gonna tell them, I'm sure not gonna tell somebody else. Now take that example into the game. There are going to be instances where - no matter how high the PCs roll on their Diplomacy check - they just aren't going to be able to influence an NPC into doing what they want. If the king has given orders "not to let anyone into my throne room, or you and your family will be put to death" and the king has demonstrated in the past that he will carry out this sort of threat, I have to think the PC with the +938 to his Diplomacy isn't getting in - at least, not by talking his way in.
crazysamaritan 01-02-05, 11:21 PM	Hey, seeker? If you don't want to be creative, what are you playing a Role-Playing game for? ;)
Ourph the Mingol 01-02-05, 11:54 PM	But the only skill you are requiring they show is "social creativity". If one of your players really can swing a two handed sword, do you give his Barbarian extra rewards? No, but I certainly reward players with combat oriented characters for making smart tactical maneuvers in combat (and I'm not talking about just flanking or avoiding attacks of opportunity, I also mean doing things outside the perview of the rules to maximize their advantage). To say that I find social skill stats useful is not the same thing as saying the numbers on the character sheet are the only determinants of success or failure. You pooh-pooh any extension of your methods to combat as "ridiculous". That's simply not true and had you read my previous post more closely, you'd know it. I reward my player's skill in regards to combat in the same way I reward my player's skill in regards to social situations. Bringing in the physical characteristics of the player is ridiculous, because it doesn't have anything to do with the purpose of the game, which is to meet and overcome challenges through intellectual effort and creativity. RPGs are all about using your imagination and intellect. Doing so gets rewarded at my table. You require players to demonstrate social skills No, I don't. All of my posts have indicated exactly the opposite. I require my players to put forth effort (both intellectual and creative) in order to be successful. I specifically DON'T require them to demonstrate the same level of social skill that their character might be capable of. but do not require they demonstrate the same combat skills. I reward players who develop and demonstrate intellectual combat skills. The physical characteristics of the player are irrelevant, because D&D isn't a physical game. It IS an intellectual game (or at least it is for some of us :rolleyes: ). Saying that a player's intellectual capabilities shouldn't matter in a game of D&D is like saying that the rules should render a player's size, strength and running ability moot in a game of football. You could do so, but what's the point of playing the game at that point? You then suggest ignoring social skill stats, but cast aside any suggestion that this is akin to ignoring combat skills. Of course I cast it aside, because it's not "akin". D&D isn't a physical game. All the action takes place in the minds of the players and DM. As long as you've got the strength to pick up a plastic polyhedron and set it in motion, your physical skills are adequate to succeed. The things that set good players apart from poor ones in D&D are dedication and mental ability. Social skills level the playing field, rewarding inattentive poor players and penalizing attentive skillful players. Combat skills don't do that, because the outcome of a combat is very rarely decided on the basis of a single die roll (or a single set of opposed die rolls) with little to no player input. Combats are divided into rounds, granularized by hit points vs. weapon/spell damage, modified by AC and damage reduction, etc. Most combats take between 15 minutes and several hours to resolve. If social skills had the same number of variable factors and modifiers and required the same amount of time and variety of choices to resolve as combat, then I'd be willing to concede that social skills don't interfere with rewarding skillful play. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to play a game of D&D where determining if you get an audience with the king requires the same volume of rules, number of dice rolls and time as combat does; especially when an equally feasible and vastly more appealing choice (in terms of time, entertainment value and convenience) exists - namely player input evaluated and interpreted by a reasonable DM. With your approach, combat should be resolved by whichever player can describe the killing blow the best. No. Again, you're mistaking the way of the poor DM for my way. A DM who decides the outcome of social situations based on the personal Charisma of the player might also judge the outcome of combat based on the descriptive ability of that player. I wouldn't do either. Combat is resolved through a combination of intense player input (where player skill matters) and numerous random dice rolls. Social skills could be handled in the same way, but that would require that in a mostly combat oriented game, a single social interaction would take up as much time and require as many pages of rules as combat does now. What you're not realizing is, the two systems are nowhere near equivalent, so the comparison you're making is ludicrous.
Seeker95 01-03-05, 07:48 AM	Nevermind. It is just too easy.
WizO_Catoblepas 01-03-05, 09:09 AM	Ok everyone this is just a reminder to keep the posts on the subject matter of the thread, not other guests. Otherwise, it is considered baiting which is against the Code of Conduct. Now taking the old moderator hat off for a second, basically I agree with what Zherog is saying. Basically, I don't see the social skills broken for the following reasons: 1) The DCs can be easily modified to handle the scenario. For example, let's get back to the guard scenario. Now, a reasonable DC 50 may be for the guard to tell the captain of the guard himself your story and tells the party to wait with the other guards while he does this. If pressed, the guard would explain that there have been assassination attempts against the king and, as Zherog noted, if he allowed people to see the king then the king would put his family to death. If the party still wanted to attempt to see the king, I'd say fine and note to myself that it is DC 5000. (I guess if there was a 1000 level bard he could possibly bluff his way into a scenario, but I don't play too many campaigns with 1000 level bards ...) 2) Social skills and creative playing can play hand in hand. For example, it would be DC 50 to the above, but I would give the following bonuses if noted by the player: +5 if they tell them of the wars in the north, since this has been laying on the king's mind of recently. +40 if they give the guard the note from the Earl from the north, signed by the Earl noting of the plight. etc., etc. Thus, if some guys have a bard and just like saying "I like swords", then they're going to be balanced against players that are trying to creatively play the game and in fact may be playing as a slight disadvantage than those that are creatively playing their character. Also note from the above scenario that even if "I like swords" charms the socks off the guard with his social skills, the guard is still going to have to tell the Captain of the Guard the character's story. A report of "Hey, I've got this really charming guy out at the entrance to see the king" is going to only result in the Captain of the Guard saying, "Get back to your post!" 3) As noted in item 1, just because a player makes a social skills check doesn't mean that the creature or human is bowing to the player's every whim. A dragon isn't going to give the character all of his treasure and help him haul all of his treasure back to town with a successful social skills check. More likely, from a successful social skills check, he's just going to allow the party to turn around and go back to town if he gets 100 gp from the party. In all actuality, the best time to play social skills check is while in a bar where background information can be gathered and won't result in the NPC's death. Social skills only tells a character how much the NPCs and monsters are willing to deal with the character given the fact that the character is a complete stranger to them.
Xeraph 01-03-05, 10:42 AM	You too? Doesn't it suck? I personally like to think my brain moves too fast for my mouth. ;) It also has the opposite effect. It encourages everybody to dump their charisma stat as low as possible, because in the end it doesn't matter that they have a -3 in charisma - as long as they themselves are at least average. Which is exactly the same problem that Never Winter Nights experienced. Players chose no charisma ... cause it affected nothing when they interacted with other players. EXCEPT! When a DM interveened(sp) and that is the same in boardgame DND. If your DM make your characters stutter just because you do... well they surely suck as DMs. Uhm.. i know this was a bit of topic. Just hate DMs who suck at it. And wantet to rant a little bit my self now that everybody else is ranting. :confused: :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:
Krelios 01-03-05, 10:54 AM	Not that the original poster is probably still reading after 8 long pages of people mostly disagreeing with him, but... Most people who consider themselves "roleplayers" (like myself) tend to dislike the video-game-like style of "powergamers" but really it is just a different style of play. If the people in your group don't do it, then why do you care? If the people that are doing it are having fun and WotC is making money, then you can expect more products to be created for the game you love. That doesn't seem like a losing proposition. As for the CO boards, if you don't like them, don't go there. I very rarely visit them because many of the "builds" put forward rely on Dragon/Dungeon magazine issues and/or 3rd party splatbooks (neither of which are used in my games), and finding something to fit a roleplaying concept is not going to be the goal of those boards. However, if you do stumble upon a well constructed character on the CO boards, you can occassionally see some great roleplaying potential for them and some of my NPCs have been built either similarly to or exactly as they're shown there. I guess what I'm trying to say in response to your original post is... "So what?"
Krelios 01-03-05, 11:02 AM	Ok everyone this is just a reminder to keep the posts on the subject matter of the thread, not other guests. Otherwise, it is considered baiting which is against the Code of Conduct. Now taking the old moderator hat off for a second, basically I agree with what Zherog is saying. Basically, I don't see the social skills broken for the following reasons: 1) The DCs can be easily modified to handle the scenario. For example, let's get back to the guard scenario. Now, a reasonable DC 50 may be for the guard to tell the captain of the guard himself your story and tells the party to wait with the other guards while he does this. If pressed, the guard would explain that there have been assassination attempts against the king and, as Zherog noted, if he allowed people to see the king then the king would put his family to death. If the party still wanted to attempt to see the king, I'd say fine and note to myself that it is DC 5000. (I guess if there was a 1000 level bard he could possibly bluff his way into a scenario, but I don't play too many campaigns with 1000 level bards ...) 2) Social skills and creative playing can play hand in hand. For example, it would be DC 50 to the above, but I would give the following bonuses if noted by the player: +5 if they tell them of the wars in the north, since this has been laying on the king's mind of recently. +40 if they give the guard the note from the Earl from the north, signed by the Earl noting of the plight. etc., etc. Thus, if some guys have a bard and just like saying "I like swords", then they're going to be balanced against players that are trying to creatively play the game and in fact may be playing as a slight disadvantage than those that are creatively playing their character. Also note from the above scenario that even if "I like swords" charms the socks off the guard with his social skills, the guard is still going to have to tell the Captain of the Guard the character's story. A report of "Hey, I've got this really charming guy out at the entrance to see the king" is going to only result in the Captain of the Guard saying, "Get back to your post!" 3) As noted in item 1, just because a player makes a social skills check doesn't mean that the creature or human is bowing to the player's every whim. A dragon isn't going to give the character all of his treasure and help him haul all of his treasure back to town with a successful social skills check. More likely, from a successful social skills check, he's just going to allow the party to turn around and go back to town if he gets 100 gp from the party. In all actuality, the best time to play social skills check is while in a bar where background information can be gathered and won't result in the NPC's death. Social skills only tells a character how much the NPCs and monsters are willing to deal with the character given the fact that the character is a complete stranger to them.This could be good advice, if the rules supported it. Unfortunately, a DC 5000 check doesn't exist. (I suppose it could theoretically in Epic, but that's a nightmare I try to forget when I can.) If the player wants to convince a guard to see the king when the king will put his family to death for doing so, I'd give the maximum penalty the PHB/DMG suggests...a -20. That means that yes, a mid to high level bard or rogue with maximum diplomacy can convince a guard to put his family at risk fairly routinely (the 10th level bard in my group gets into the 30s and 40s all the time). It is then up to that player to use that power responsibly. If he does it just to get the guard's family killed, then it is an evil act. If he does it and then doesn't ask the king to spare the guard's family, it's probably neutral. But with a diplomat who can make those sorts of checks on the guard, convincing the king to spare the guard's family shouldn't be all that difficult. I just don't see why anyone's surprised that a character can convince people to do incredible things when you've got characters that can hear a whispered conversation through a stone door at 50 feet away, and characters that can withstand being bitten by dragons, and characters that can cast magic spells. Obviously D&D is NOT based on reality--it's a game, so just have fun.
morgosdarkknight 01-03-05, 11:29 AM	Having high ranks in a skill is as vital to the RPing experience as feat trees to the combat oriented character. An example in the past was a Cha 18 fighter versus a Cha 8 rogue with lots of ranks in Diplomacy. Why penalize the rogue, who, trying to compensate for his low personal magnetism (Cha 8) studies and maximizes logical and persuading arguments to get his point across (Diplomacy ranks)? And for that point, if the Cha 18 fighter wanted to be eloquent, why not take a feat like Cosmopolitan: Diplomacy to further improve his interaction skill? And even as a DM, I have imagined certain social scenarios going a particular way (especially in 2E) and driven characters in that direction unintentially. The social skills helps to balance that IMO. And as one poster put it, no matter how high one's Diplomacy skill ends up, certain things will never happen in social situations. Such as the Non Disclosure Agreement with his company and his interactions with friends and family. Playing in a game that totally nerfs social (and for that matter intellectual)skills would render the Mental Attributes useless. I think I would play a; Rogue (not a standard 32 point buy, but, hey, this is a point) Str: 18 Dex: 18 Con: 18 Int: 8 (I'm fairly intelligent, easy to solve puzzles) Wis: 10 (Somewhat wise, just don't want a penalty to my Will save) Cha: 8 (Social creature, no need for Diplomacy or such, I'll just talk my way out of social situations)
Zherog 01-03-05, 11:37 AM	I disagree, partly, with what you're saying Krelios. What I'm saying (at what catoblahblah is agreeing with) is that there are just some things nobody is going to do, no matter how much you influence them. I'll come back to my RL example again. No matter how much my best friend asks me for info on new products my company has in development so he can make a fortune on our stock, I'm not going to break my NDA. My attitude toward him is still "helpful" and there are still plenty of things I would do for him that would qualify as, "will take risks to help" him. But that has it's limits in the real world, and it should in the D&D world too. So, basically, in some situations I don't care that a 10 or 12th level bard can get a Diplomacy total high enough to change the guard's attitude from "indifferent" to "helpful." That alone still won't get the PC in to see the King, due to other circumstances.
Kingside_Bishop 01-03-05, 12:47 PM	First of all, I think this should have been posted to the Character Optimization boards. If you're going to attack someone's style of play, you should at least let them know about it. Thankfully, someone posted to the CharOp boards about this thread, and even provided a link, so I came running to join the fray. So I arrive here, 8 pages deep. Disclaimer: I only read the 8th page, so forgive me if I say anything that's already been said. ---------------------- First of all, I'm an ardent roleplayer. It's where all my characters start -- with a cool picture, a bit of poetry, an interesting idea, etc. But, once I have this roleplaying structure set up, I optimize to the max. Once you've got a great roleplaying character, why not min/max it? Here's a choice to make: a great roleplaying character, or a great roleplaying character that has been min/maxed? Unless you're looking for a weaker character (which is perfectly valid, I've done it myself on several occasions and enjoyed it to great ends), I think the choice to make is clear. Therefore, I don't think it's a matter of roleplaying or optimization, because they don't conflict; I think it's a matter of roleplaying and optimization. If a player isn't roleplaying, it's not because he's min/maxing, it's because he's just not roleplaying (either because he doesn't want to, or he doesn't know how). This, I think, creates a false sense that optimization degrades roleplaying -- because if someone can't roleplay (or doesn't want to) they are liable to min/max. So people look at the pattern and see that those who don't roleplay are most often min/maxers. But that's ignoring the other, larger part of the optimization community that puts roleplaying and optimization hand in hand. This is the community that I belong to on the Character Optimization Boards (for the most part). ---------------------- Having said all of this, I think it's absolutely important to respect everyone's style of play. I think we all understand this inherently, so let's keep the comments civil?
neilthrun 01-03-05, 10:06 PM	I'd just like to comment on some of the bashing against the CO board. People say that its only powergamers over there, number crunchers, munchkins, etc. This is false. All to often do people post with a character concept, others post with ideas, and then the original poster says that the builds do not fit with his concept. Not all powergamers will take the biggest numbers over the original concept. Sure a psionic grappler will be way better than a non psionic one,but then why is it that there are more non psionic grappling builds than psionics floating around the CO board?
Roxlimn 01-04-05, 05:10 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth (and everyone, really): This is addressed to Archtyrant Terevoth, but others may find it interesting. You must permit me to refer you to Zherog's post, which relates things to real life, something which I was not brave enough to do, given how real life items tend to get threads locked. In a very real sense, getting someone to be "helpful" isn't necessarily going to get you to where you want, and I'm pretty sure that Zherog here is a pretty accomodating guy in real life to his friends (peace, bro!). Taking it in-game, Gath the lich cleric is not the only situation in which Diplomacy skill is shown to function, but also in the 3e DMG. Sharn:City of Towers is an official WotC accesory, by the way, not a module, and Diplomacy really is a core skill. When I see a combat maneuver or a fundamental rule being used a particular way in an official WotC module, without any comment as to its being campaign or location or module specific (as Knowledge: local is in Faerun), then it must be how the skill works normally and universally. This is borne out in multiple locations. In the original 3e DMG, a Bard gets a crowd of dwarves friendly using a Perform check (yes it can do that), but only succeeds on their leader using a Diplomacy check later. This leader is implied to provide the PCs with answers, but not much more than that. More than being wholistic, applying "helpfulness" from the NPC's point of view only makes sense. You play PCs from the PCs point of view, so as the DMG instructs, you must also play NPCs from the NPCs point of view, and what he views as being helpful may not be what the PCs had in mind, and is heavily dependent on his general outlook (as mentioned in the DMG). A miser who turns helpful is still a miser, you know, except when it's his nature not to be so when he's helpful. And a Red Dragon who turns helpful is still a Red Dragon. I merely said that the DM is a person. This is independent of their "roles", it's just a broad description. You can say both a car and a train are vehicles, even though their purposes are different. Thus I can say that the DM and the PCs are both people. Sure. I'm not contesting that premise. It's the other premises that don't hold water. Your argument sounds a lot like a fairness argument targetted for the general. If it's not, then elaborate, because I thought the whole time your argument was that because a person cannot roleplay a high diplomacy score that we needed social skills to make sure everyone reacts fairly. Perhaps it's not, but if so, elaborate. Because you sound like you're preaching for fairness. The score is necessary, just like with every other skill, so that players and DMs have a reference point for how socially capable the characters are, and just as this is important in-game, and may be more important than combat skills, so it should involve a requisite amount of investment from the PC. So in a way, yes, it's about fairness. However, it's not about fairness in the manner you're saying. While the DM should play the NPC based on his attitude, the players can adapt their attitudes freely. Indeed, PCs have alignments, but you notice that they don't have attitudes, correct? This is done both for the player's pleasure and the DMs sanity. A player whose attitudes were dictated in game may not enjoy it as much, and the fun from being DM isn't necessarily tied to an NPCs glory in the spotlight. Indeed, if you have NPCs that regularly steal the spotlight from the players, then you have more than just a fairness issue there. The basic dichotomy between players and the DM reflects on PCs and NPCs very strongly. There's no reason that an NPC can't travel with the PC party all the time and perform the same roles as a PC. This distinction is entirely yours. An NPC can do anything a PC can do. NO. An NPC cannot be the basis from which the adventure runs. He cannot be the main protagonist and he cannot be the driving force behind every move. In such a situation, you are allowing the NPC to drive the PC actions much worse than if you had instituted PC attitude rules and that's quite a treacherous ground to be treading on. I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not sure it will reliably lead to an enjoyable campaign. In fact, the DMG warns against this very danger quite explicitly. Stating that one solution is good enough for the DM and yet inadequate for PCs is puzzling. If you agree that a person *needs* certain things to adequately represent the social ability of his character or characters, then you have to agree that all people need it. You're getting confused. We're talking about NPCs and PCs and DMs and players, not DMs and players as people in the cosmic sense. The fact that there's a special book just for the DM's use should maybe clue you in that the DM's role is not the same as the players' role. But his personality is the same. The character thinks, acts and does exactly what he did before. Just because he's doing that mostly offcamera doesn't mean a thing. Giving someone less camera time does not in any way change their character's personality. No. He doesn't, and he shouldn't. In particular, if your PC had been a driving force and the leader in a previous group, he should very carefully not be as an NPC in the new group or the players are in great danger of feeling disenfranchised, and you risk the danger of railroading. You are stuck in the point of view of the player. While you should play NPCs as if they were PCs, you should not lose sight of the fact that you are the DM and not a player. Whenever you hear a story about a really bad game, it's almost always about a bad DM. Go figure. Absolutely not. I hear a lot of really bad problems in the "What's a DM to do?" boards and those problems are frequently more thorny than players who have DM problems. A player who causes a problem in-game makes that game a bad game just as much as a DM who does so. The difference lies in that when a DM is a problem, the "game" is frequently related to him and it becomes referred to as "a bad game", whereas when a player messes a game, the game is often perceived as fine. It's just that that player is a "bad player." The dichotomy is misleading on that point. While there is certainly a difference between a DM and a player, a D&D game is ultimately a social game. Once it's being played, it's everyone's game, and a bad player can and does wreck that game just as surely and probably as frequently as a bad DM can. Actually the DM is the world, he is the story in many regards, you can't take a single action without him saying it's ok. And yes while he does require people taking actions to have the story go anywhere, he can continue the same campaign with different players if need be. If the DM quits, then the campaign effectively dies, because he takes all his secrets with him. The DM is not the world. He's the rest of the world. The PCs are made by the players and they are the creation of those players, not the DM. While you cannot take an action without his OK, the DM himself cannot make PC actions at all. Any actions he makes PCs do instantly makes that PC an NPC, or at least NPC-controlled. Even if the DM quits, the players can institute another DM, and if it's a different setting, what matters if fun is had anyway? In fact, if you're playing a module strictly by the book, the DM is often perceived to be "disposable." While I do not agree with this view, there is certainly a great deal of continuity that is saved by following a published module when changing DMs. A secret is a secret. However, a new DM can make new secrets and possibly even cooler ones if you tell him the clues you've been handed so far. Having a replacement DM is not really as great a disaster as you're making it out to be. Right, I don't find this is very fun, it's why I don't like social skills in general. That's is incorrect. Social skills never affect PC actions and therefore not dictating actions to PCs being not fun is not related to social skills at all, as social skills don't dictate PC actions. Rather, you dislike the manner in which you think Diplomacy is supposed to be adjudicated in order for it to be "fair". Please note that I was not referring to NPCs at all. There's a difference. One is DM optional, the other is designed to dictate to the DM how his NPCs act, effectively taking away his free will, and ultimately destroying the reasoning ability of the NPCs. I think Ourph says this well, "Reason is the only good basis for deciding what is reasonable." Archtyrant Terevoth:. If the NPC wealth per level recommendations and the PC wealth per level recommendations and the NPC roleplaying recommendations are all optional, then everything in the game is equally optional by extension. All and equally. NPCs do not have as much wealth as PCs do. They aren't grouped in challenges that they're meant to win. Individual people don't play individual NPCs. They're not the stars of the adventure. NPCs are not PCs. This is a basic point that you must learn or accept before we can go further. Again, Diplomacy skills do not dictate NPC actions beyond what the DM has decided is appropriate for their natures and I challenge you to mention and quote specifics that contradict what the DMG has to say about NPC actions. NPCs have free will, Archtyrant Terevoth, as much as the DM allows them to have, and the Diplomacy scheme takes none of this away. Neither does the Diplomacy skill destroy NPC reasoning, and again, I challenge you to offer specific text that contradicts DMG instructions. "Reason is the only good basis for deciding what is reasonable," and I agree. If it's not reasonable to expect the NPC to act in a specific way even if he thinks the PCs are friends, then the DMG instructs you not to do so. Indeed, many worshippers of the Blood of Vol may very well believe that they are helping the PCs by turning them into vampires. It may not what the PCs want, but the NPCs sure honestly believe it and they may do it with or without the PCs consent, depending on their natures. They may even fully expect to be thanked and rewarded for such a privilege and honor. Yes, but why can't you simply balance the numerics of the social system like you do the combat system? Because we don't know jack about the human psyche. It's useful to establish vague criteria as to what is charismatic and who's how much charismatic, but ultimately, no quantifiable measure exists by which to judge a person's personal presence. The quantified measure of the Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence, and all such related skills are no more than rough estimates and cannot truly be translated into a wholistic and detailed system. I mean seriously... why don't we do that if we want the PCs to always win. Because that's what you're leading to. A game where the PCs simply ignore the dice. If you decide something is diceworthy in the first place, then the PCs should abide by the result just like anyone else. I suppose we could devise a system by which we can objectively define how much presence a person has. It would be extremely complicated and ultimately is only doable once we actually can quantify what charisma is, assuming we can agree on what that ability score represents. The Diplomacy skill system is a compromise based on the dichotomy between the DM and the player, the PC and the NPC. It is not the same as the combat system, or even the same as matched skills system. Because attitude, personality, and style are very much individualized as part of the game, we can only really quantify that the PCs affect the NPCs favorably, not the other way around. Having said that, bear in mind what I said about social metagaming. What prevents the player from saying "you're the DM playing a shady character and thus I don't believe you," no matter how convincing you actually sound? What prevents the player from simply closing his ears and demanding his own reaction no matter how smooth you play the NPC? On the other hand, is it fair to play the same game against the player when he does the same to an NPC he's never met before, even if he's smooth as silk, and you know it? The same social metagaming exists, Archtyrant Terevoth, whether you use actual social skill or rolled results. If the player playing the character has enough integrity to actually believe what your relatively bland NPC is saying, because he's playing a gullible bumpkin, then he should have enough integrity to also roleplay the result of a die roll made on the part of the NPC, even if the DMG states that you shouldn't dictate player attitudes. It thus returns to your fallacious points about roleplaying not mattering when you roll results (not true as you can roleplay a rolled result just fine), or that doing so is not fun (only true if you're after a real-life social contest, but not really actual roleplaying). The system is fair. Sure, you can set it up so the PCs have a numerical advantage, but you don't have to do that by the system. Nothing in the combat system says you can't have them fight a great wyrm at level 1. Nothing in the Diplomacy skill says that it can't be used on PCs. The skill says that you can use it to change the attitude of others (NPCs) but not that you can't use it on PCs. The lack of comment implies that you don't have the ability to use the skill on PCs just as the general lack of comment in the combat section says nothing about which opponents are appropriate for what level PCs. Quoting an absence proves nothing and you know it. Setting up an adventure so that the PCs win and setting up a system so the PCs win are two entirely different things. Do you see the difference? There is no difference, Archtyrant Terevoth. It's all illusory. This illusion is meant to create a feeling of versimilitude in players and to present them with the altogether fake sentiment that they are acheiving things that by odds they should not be. Anyone who's read the DMG knows that this feeling is completely constructed and absolutely false. Encounters are set up so that the PCs are more likely to win than to lose, and by a great margin, even. The problem you're having is that you think the combat system means anything on its own. It does not. Without opponents to fight in it, without a conflict of some sort, the system is absolutely and completely meaningless. And it does not say anything about which opponents the PCs are supposed to be fighting, because that is not a concern for players, and destroys the feeling of the game from the player's POV if placed in the PHB. No. The key to understanding what the combat system means is truly in the DMG, and very simply, the Encounter Design system of which the combat system is but a small portion, tells us that the PCs are supposed to win. There is no impartiality or fairness there. Bottom line: if you think you have a great social system that works, then you should be able to apply it both ways and it should work too. Yeah. We got that. We disagree. Why should it be applicable both ways? For fairness? I believe I have an absolutely great Encounter Table and Experience Point system in the DMG. Is that fair? Does it apply both ways? Why should a social system necessarily be different? Why should a social system emulate the isolated combat portion of the system more than it emulates the entirety of the Encounter Design system? I do not believe that fairness is an issue between NPCs and PCs. NPCs should not be the stars of an adventure, and they should not provide the motive force behind PC decisions. They should not have similar treasure levels, nor even the same chance of defeating PCs as the PCs of defeating them. Nowhere can I find this concept of NPCs being stars of adventures in the same manner than PCs are. We already have mechanics that dictate PC action. They're called charm and dominate. So clearly dictating PC action is within the realm of the game. Sure. PC deaths and TPKs are also within the realm of the game. That doesn't make them fun. Generally speaking, charm doesn't even dictate PC actions. They only restrict them. As do many barrier spells and special effect spells. Dominate certainly takes over PC actions, but generally speaking, being Dominated is about as fun as being dead, and some players consider being Dominated a worse fate. While you can argue for Diplomacy also being allowed to affect and restrict PC actions, generally speaking, I don't find a plethora of such spells in the same manner as I find, say, damaging spells. Clearly, dictating or restricting PC action in a very broad sense is not something the game emphasizes. This ultimately makes sense, as the point of RPgaming is to be able to do things you normally can't do, and in a broader sense, to vicariously experience through imagination a form of freedom of choice you normally don't have. Restricting freedom of choice is OK as an attack, but very probably not as a constact RP item, and I don't see this as ever being the case. You don't need to TPK the entire party to TPK the D&D experience. I suspect that even if the adventure were to continue past constant out of combat NPC manipulation, that a substantial number of players won't want to stick around to play it. Why can't we create a social system that's like the combat system? Well, I already answered why. More importantly, should we? Why?
Lord IronBrow 01-04-05, 05:14 PM	A good DM who does not agree with either style of game would not allow their players to write characters out of that boundary. The way I tend to DM is choose a specific race and class for my players then i roll their stat numbers and tell them to do their backgrounds and assign thier stats and so forth.(This is usually at the start of the campaign. At the moment my players are embarked on a massive quest, they have been playing for around 9 months at 5-6 hours once a week and are now only level 5) Some of my group enjoy the fights, others enjoy the roleplaying, and the minority enjoy the both. But i can assure you they all enjoy themselves, and turn up ready and willing the following week. Characters are meant to be HEROES, which are a little more special than the norm. It then goes to reason that they will be slightly stronger, more dextrous or take advantage of situations to benefit themselves, to enable them to survive the hostile conditions us DM's constantly throw at them. The fatigue; the increment weather conditions; the lack of food and water; the crypts and mazes; the constant bombardment of monster after monster. This does not mean that someone that min/maxes cannot or does not roleplay. Characters can only get as powerful as the DM allows, if it does not fit in with your campaign then do not allow it.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-04-05, 08:50 PM	You must permit me to refer you to Zherog's post, which relates things to real life, something which I was not brave enough to do, given how real life items tend to get threads locked. In a very real sense, getting someone to be "helpful" isn't necessarily going to get you to where you want, and I'm pretty sure that Zherog here is a pretty accomodating guy in real life to his friends (peace, bro!). There's no reason that you have to give someone everything they want, but you do have to be helpful under the rules. When I see a combat maneuver or a fundamental rule being used a particular way in an official WotC module, without any comment as to its being campaign or location or module specific (as Knowledge: local is in Faerun), then it must be how the skill works normally and universally. Or it could just be a misinterpretation on the part of the writers, who didn't understand the rules. Or it could be a deliberate attempt to make the adventure more difficult. But there's no point to second guess them. Clearly, the results in that reaction block do not match what the DMG says. They wanted the NPC to attack when his attitude was supposed to be "indifferent". Nowhere in the DMG does it support that, at all. More than being wholistic, applying "helpfulness" from the NPC's point of view only makes sense. Sure, helpfulness doesn't always mean they'll give you everything you want, but that doesn't give you some precedent to have a red dragon cage someone. "Imprison" isn't being very helpful at all, especialy when the PCs explicitly say they don't want that to happen. A player whose attitudes were dictated in game may not enjoy it as much, and the fun from being DM isn't necessarily tied to an NPCs glory in the spotlight. Indeed, if you have NPCs that regularly steal the spotlight from the players, then you have more than just a fairness issue there. The basic dichotomy between players and the DM reflects on PCs and NPCs very strongly. It has nothing to do with glory in the spotlight... I mean seriously, what in the hell does free will have to do with glory? Does a farmer being able to choose his friends make him any more powerful? Why he's just going to take his free will and go slay a dragon with it. NPCs making reasonable reaction choices is part of world consistency. It makes the NPCs who populate your world more believable and thus helps to maintain suspension of disbelief. That's a good thing. Now when you say that PCs don't want their actions dicated, essentially you're saying that the rules don't do their job well, and they can't adequately model a personality. Yes, I've been saying that from the beginning of this thread. NO. An NPC cannot be the basis from which the adventure runs. He cannot be the main protagonist and he cannot be the driving force behind every move. In such a situation, you are allowing the NPC to drive the PC actions much worse than if you had instituted PC attitude rules and that's quite a treacherous ground to be treading on. I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not sure it will reliably lead to an enjoyable campaign. What are you talking about? Seriously. Did I ever say I wanted the NPC to be the main protagonist, how does sharing the PCs immunity to social skills make you the main protagonist and the driving force behind every move? Say what? There isn't any basis whatsoever for this odd belief you seem to have. If the NPC wealth per level recommendations and the PC wealth per level recommendations and the NPC roleplaying recommendations are all optional, then everything in the game is equally optional by extension. All and equally. Notice the word, "recommendations" versus rules. Recommendations are just guidelines. You're still playing D&D if you create an NPC with twice the normal recommended wealth. Really if you can't see the difference between a recommendation and a rule, then we have big problems. NPCs do not have as much wealth as PCs do. They aren't grouped in challenges that they're meant to win. Individual people don't play individual NPCs. They're not the stars of the adventure. NPCs are not PCs. This is a basic point that you must learn or accept before we can go further. There's nothing prohibiting or limitng NPC wealth. Hell, if your land has kings, with big strongholds, they already exceed the normal NPC wealth guidelines as well as the wealth of a like powered PC. You have any idea how muhc a kingdom is worth in gold? Do your NPC clerics have temples? Well, those are worth quite a bit too. As for them not being grouped in challenges they're supposed to win, haven't you ever run a capture scenario where the PCs are supposed to get captured, so you put them against an overwhelming force of NPCs? Again, another generalization. As for NPCs not being the stars of the adventure, there's nothing that explicitly prevents this either. It's recommended you don't do it, and it's not very fun for PCs, but DMs can and do do this, and there's nothing in the rules saying you can't. It's generally considered bad DMing, but being an NPC does not preclude a character from being one of the main stars of the adventure. The onyl difference between an NPC and a PC mechanically is who controls them, and who gets affected by social skills. Yes, it's recomended they be weaker, but that's not an actual rule. NPCs have free will, Archtyrant Terevoth, as much as the DM allows them to have, and the Diplomacy scheme takes none of this away. You state earlier that PCs don't like their actions being dictated then say here that no infringement of free will exists due to diplomacy? So apparnetly someone dictating your actions doesn't impair your free will. Interesting viewpoint. Neither does the Diplomacy skill destroy NPC reasoning, and again, I challenge you to offer specific text that contradicts DMG instructions. It changes their reaction, and we both agree to that. That destroys NPC reasoning. The PC bard could have just raped your wife, murdred your family and torched your home, but one diplomacy check later at the proper DC and he's forced to be helpful or friendly to you, or maybe even indifferent. But he's not your friend, he's your damn arch-enemy, the guy who ruined your life, but now hes your friend. If that isn't a destruction of reason, I don't know what is. Because we don't know jack about the human psyche. It's useful to establish vague criteria as to what is charismatic and who's how much charismatic, but ultimately, no quantifiable measure exists by which to judge a person's personal presence. The quantified measure of the Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence, and all such related skills are no more than rough estimates and cannot truly be translated into a wholistic and detailed system. I've been saying this all along. And if your claim is that "social skills can't be numerically balanced because we can't design an adequate system" then I totally agree. And if you are claiming that, then the next step is that social skills can't exist becuase they're unworkable. The Diplomacy skill system is a compromise based on the dichotomy between the DM and the player, the PC and the NPC. It is not the same as the combat system, or even the same as matched skills system. Because attitude, personality, and style are very much individualized as part of the game, we can only really quantify that the PCs affect the NPCs favorably, not the other way around. Why? NPCs are individuals too... anything that applies to them should apply to PCs as well. I think you're having trouble separating people from the characters they play. Having said that, bear in mind what I said about social metagaming. What prevents the player from saying "you're the DM playing a shady character and thus I don't believe you," no matter how convincing you actually sound? What prevents the player from simply closing his ears and demanding his own reaction no matter how smooth you play the NPC? On the other hand, is it fair to play the same game against the player when he does the same to an NPC he's never met before, even if he's smooth as silk, and you know it? Nothing, besides being a bad player or a bad DM, but lets look at this way... if you identify a particular person as "shady" are you likely to trust them? I mean, the very notion of someone being shady pretty much means they're untrustworthy. So is there anything wrong with a character to be untrustworthy of someone who appears shady? Am I metagaming when I'm automatically distrusting of a used car salesman? It thus returns to your fallacious points about roleplaying not mattering when you roll results (not true as you can roleplay a rolled result just fine), or that doing so is not fun (only true if you're after a real-life social contest, but not really actual roleplaying). Personally I don't think it's fun to be forced to roleplay out a rolled result. Different people can have different ideas about that of course. But if you don't have problems roleplaying out rolled results, then you shouldn't have a problem having the social system work both ways either. Since in both cases you're just roleplaying out rolled results. Nothing in the Diplomacy skill says that it can't be used on PCs. The skill says that you can use it to change the attitude of others (NPCs) but not that you can't use it on PCs. Actually the DMG does say specifically that it doesn't. DMG p.128 "NPCs can never influence PC attitudes. The players always make their characters' decisions" You're really reaching on that one. The problem you're having is that you think the combat system means anything on its own. It does not. Without opponents to fight in it, without a conflict of some sort, the system is absolutely and completely meaningless. And it does not say anything about which opponents the PCs are supposed to be fighting, because that is not a concern for players, and destroys the feeling of the game from the player's POV if placed in the PHB. No. The key to understanding what the combat system means is truly in the DMG, and very simply, the Encounter Design system of which the combat system is but a small portion, tells us that the PCs are supposed to win. Again, I point you towards the miniatures game. That uses the same combat system, but miraculously without PCs or NPCs, just with two even sides of players. Your claim that the combat system cannot stand on its own is outright false. It already does... check out the D&D miniatures boards sometime. Yeah. We got that. We disagree. Why should it be applicable both ways? For fairness? I believe I have an absolutely great Encounter Table and Experience Point system in the DMG. Is that fair? Does it apply both ways? Why should a social system necessarily be different? Why should a social system emulate the isolated combat portion of the system more than it emulates the entirety of the Encounter Design system? Encounter design can't work both ways, because the PCs don't design encounters. Encounter design is entirely a DM duty. Social systems apply to individual characters. Since both the DM and the PCs both control characters, then the rules apply to both of them equally (or should anyway). I do not believe that fairness is an issue between NPCs and PCs. NPCs should not be the stars of an adventure, and they should not provide the motive force behind PC decisions. They should not have similar treasure levels, nor even the same chance of defeating PCs as the PCs of defeating them. Nowhere can I find this concept of NPCs being stars of adventures in the same manner than PCs are. Again.. this has nothing to do with diplomacy. Why does being diplomacy immune, or being able to use diplomacy on PCs, automatically make you a star? I don't get it. You don't need to TPK the entire party to TPK the D&D experience. I suspect that even if the adventure were to continue past constant out of combat NPC manipulation, that a substantial number of players won't want to stick around to play it. Right, pointless illogical manipulations just aren't fun. They strain suspension of disbelief of your character and ultimately make the game seem stupid. The same occurs when the PC bard is using diplomacy on every single encounter to prevent all combat. "You're friendly... you're friendly, you too... and you.. and yes, you too, even though we just robbed your magic shop... Nope you can't call the guards on us, you're helpful." And that's the kind of stupid garbage the existing diplomacy system allows... and I dont' even want to talk about bluff... you combine glibness and a ton of bluff bonuses, and you can bluff a god off of his godhood. Buff is remarkably worse than diplomacy, because there's no way to reduce it's power. The NPC believes whatever the hell you say, no matter how ridiculous it is, so long as your check is high enough. So yes, a god could be made to believe that if he didn't pledge his service to you that he would be subject to all sorts of imagined horrors. And glibness grants a +30 (yes a +30) to bluff checks. So yeah, go figure. Want to talk about TPKing the D&D experience... there you go.
Seeker95 01-04-05, 09:03 PM	Suffice it to say, after all of this, that Archtyrant will not be happy in most of our campaigns, and very few of us would be content in his. He'll play his way, we'll play our way, and if we get to the gaming tables together at a convention, he'll play our way too.
Zherog 01-04-05, 09:37 PM	Sure, helpfulness doesn't always mean they'll give you everything you want, but that doesn't give you some precedent to have a red dragon cage someone. "Imprison" isn't being very helpful at all, especialy when the PCs explicitly say they don't want that to happen. I personally would consider being placed in a cage 1000% better than being dunked in ranch dressing and consumed as a snack. Rather than becoming a meal for the red dragon, you have no positioned yourself so you can escape. I'd say you've successfully used your Diplomacy skill to save the party in that situation. Suffice it to say, after all of this, that Archtyrant will not be happy in most of our campaigns, and very few of us would be content in his. He'll play his way, we'll play our way, Indeed. And if he has fun, and we all have fun there's really no problems at all. and if we get to the gaming tables together at a convention, he'll play our way too. Not necessarily. I'd give his way a try if he was going to be the DM. :)
Roxlimn 01-05-05, 11:58 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: Or it could just be a misinterpretation on the part of the writers, who didn't understand the rules. Or it could be a deliberate attempt to make the adventure more difficult. But there's no point to second guess them. Clearly, the results in that reaction block do not match what the DMG says. They wanted the NPC to attack when his attitude was supposed to be "indifferent". Nowhere in the DMG does it support that, at all. I tire of repeating myself. Quite literally, too. It's from Sharn: City of Towers. It is an official D&D supplement, not an adventure or a module. The authors are Keith Baker and James Wyatt and this being an official WotC supplement, their inputs are checked for rules accuracy. The Diplomacy entries have not been changed or edited or mentioned as needing errata. They are absolutely correct. I'll post the paragraph twice just in case it's missed again: It's from Sharn: City of Towers. It is an official D&D supplement, not an adventure or a module. The authors are Keith Baker and James Wyatt and this being an official WotC supplement, their inputs are checked for rules accuracy. The Diplomacy entries have not been changed or edited or mentioned as needing errata. They are absolutely correct. Sure, helpfulness doesn't always mean they'll give you everything you want, but that doesn't give you some precedent to have a red dragon cage someone. "Imprison" isn't being very helpful at all, especialy when the PCs explicitly say they don't want that to happen. Why not? I told you how imprisoning the PCs can be interpreted as a "Helpful" attitude. So why is this interpretation wrong somehow? Where is this "Helpful" attitude defined? Isn't it on the PHB, like when I last looked? NPCs making reasonable reaction choices is part of world consistency. It makes the NPCs who populate your world more believable and thus helps to maintain suspension of disbelief. That's a good thing. I agree completely. Now when you say that PCs don't want their actions dicated, essentially you're saying that the rules don't do their job well, and they can't adequately model a personality. Yes, I've been saying that from the beginning of this thread. You're 100% wrong. I don't say anything of the sort and never did. My saying that PCs don't want their actions dictated doesn't imply anything more than exactly that. Anything more is just you. And yes, you're again using premises I don't agree with. What are you talking about? Seriously. Did I ever say I wanted the NPC to be the main protagonist, how does sharing the PCs immunity to social skills make you the main protagonist and the driving force behind every move? Say what? There isn't any basis whatsoever for this odd belief you seem to have. You were asking about what differentiates an NPC from a PC. This is part of that: NO. An NPC cannot be the basis from which the adventure runs. He cannot be the main protagonist and he cannot be the driving force behind every move. In such a situation, you are allowing the NPC to drive the PC actions much worse than if you had instituted PC attitude rules and that's quite a treacherous ground to be treading on. I'm sure it can be done, but I'm not sure it will reliably lead to an enjoyable campaign. I've already said this. Please take what I'm saying in context. They won't make sense if you insist on reading every sentence on its own. Notice the word, "recommendations" versus rules. Recommendations are just guidelines. You're still playing D&D if you create an NPC with twice the normal recommended wealth. Really if you can't see the difference between a recommendation and a rule, then we have big problems. I can see the difference. The question is, can you see the similarities? There's nothing prohibiting or limitng NPC wealth. Hell, if your land has kings, with big strongholds, they already exceed the normal NPC wealth guidelines as well as the wealth of a like powered PC. You have any idea how muhc a kingdom is worth in gold? Do your NPC clerics have temples? Well, those are worth quite a bit too. You're losing track of the discussion. The point is that the NPC wealth per level recommendations are different from PC wealth per level recommendations. Neither exceptions nor the fact that these are recommendations are pertinent to the point. As for them not being grouped in challenges they're supposed to win, haven't you ever run a capture scenario where the PCs are supposed to get captured, so you put them against an overwhelming force of NPCs? Sometimes, yes. Again you're losing track of the discussion. Exceptions are beside the point. The point is that most encounters end up with the PCs winning and are planned as such. It is yet another difference between PCs and NPCs. Whether there are exceptions or not is not the issue nor does it matter. As for NPCs not being the stars of the adventure, there's nothing that explicitly prevents this either. It's recommended you don't do it, and it's not very fun for PCs, but DMs can and do do this, and there's nothing in the rules saying you can't. It's generally considered bad DMing, but being an NPC does not preclude a character from being one of the main stars of the adventure. The DMG recommends that you don't and that's that. This is not really a question about rules. It's about running the game and recommendations. It's a place for DMs, not players, so having a player sensibility isn't really helpful. Just because the rules don't say you can't doesn't mean you should, and just because the rules say you shouldn't doesnt' mean you always don't. Pause. Don't reply to that paragraph immediately after the latest quote. It's not important. Move along. Stay on track. NPCs are not recommended as mainstay protagonists of adventures while PCs are de facto stars. Whether NPCs can be stars or not is beside the point. The onyl difference between an NPC and a PC mechanically is who controls them, and who gets affected by social skills. Yes, it's recomended they be weaker, but that's not an actual rule. So what? A difference is a difference and your inability to grasp this difference seems to be the core of your difficulty in managing the Diplomacy skill correctly. You state earlier that PCs don't like their actions being dictated then say here that no infringement of free will exists due to diplomacy? So apparnetly someone dictating your actions doesn't impair your free will. Interesting viewpoint. Keep eyes on ball. I never agreed with you that PCs can dictate NPC actions using Diplomacy. That is entirely your opinion. Therefore, when I say, "the Diplomacy scheme does not take away NPC free will," doesn't it seem to follow that I'm talking about my points rather than yours? The fact that it doesn't make sense the way you interpret it and that I'm the one making the statement seem to be dead giveaways. It changes their reaction, and we both agree to that. No, we don't. It changes their attitude. Whether it actually changes their reactions is an entirely different thing. Have you actually been conversing with me all this time? I don't see why I need to repeat myself so often, verbatim, more likely than not. The PC bard could have just raped your wife, murdred your family and torched your home, but one diplomacy check later at the proper DC and he's forced to be helpful or friendly to you, or maybe even indifferent. But he's not your friend, he's your damn arch-enemy, the guy who ruined your life, but now hes your friend. That isn't reasonable. I refer you to skills management. The DM sets the skill DC target, if he deems the feat doable at all. DCs in the PHB chart are BASIC DCs and are presumed to be the basis for what DC the DM sets, if any. According to normal human nature and general normal human outlook, a PC bard who torches your home, murders your family and rapes you wife will be your mortal archenemy. No matter how high you roll or what your modifier is, it isn't reasonable or within normal human nature for that person to treat you as his friend. Playing it that way goes against what the DMG says about playing the NPC as if he were a PC and according to his general outlook and nature. I'll repeat that again so I can save posts. Please read. According to normal human nature and general normal human outlook, a PC bard who torches your home, murders your family and rapes you wife will be your mortal archenemy. No matter how high you roll or what your modifier is, it isn't reasonable or within normal human nature for that person to treat you as his friend. Playing it that way goes against what the DMG says about playing the NPC as if he were a PC and according to his general outlook and nature. That's a textbook ruling based on DMG recommendations. And if your claim is that "social skills can't be numerically balanced because we can't design an adequate system" then I totally agree. Absolutely not. Social skills can be generally represented numerically, but, as per DMG, it requires the DM to intervene quite liberally. Nothing, besides being a bad player or a bad DM, but lets look at this way... if you identify a particular person as "shady" are you likely to trust them? I mean, the very notion of someone being shady pretty much means they're untrustworthy. So is there anything wrong with a character to be untrustworthy of someone who appears shady? Am I metagaming when I'm automatically distrusting of a used car salesman? No, but you are if you completely discount anything and everything he says based on what you know about the DM and the game. Despite themselves, people are fooled, cajoled, persuaded, and lied to. Especially unsuspecting countryside bumpkins. Playing your country bumpkin like he was a savvy diplomat is poor roleplaying, and it's particularly jarring and problematic if you have no basis on which to base reactions. More than that, it's equally applicable whether or not you use the Diplomacy social skill system as I see it (NOT AS YOU SEE IT). But if you don't have problems roleplaying out rolled results, then you shouldn't have a problem having the social system work both ways either. Since in both cases you're just roleplaying out rolled results. Didn't I just answer this two or three times now? Actually the DMG does say specifically that it doesn't. DMG p.128 "NPCs can never influence PC attitudes. The players always make their characters' decisions" You're really reaching on that one. *sigh* Well, at least you got to the part to where the statement was reaching. It's supposed to be taken in context with the next paragraph, like most people usually write. This is it: The lack of comment implies that you don't have the ability to use the skill on PCs just as the general lack of comment in the combat section says nothing about which opponents are appropriate for what level PCs. Quoting an absence proves nothing and you know it. Hopefully, you see how that works out. Again, I point you towards the miniatures game. That uses the same combat system, but miraculously without PCs or NPCs, just with two even sides of players. Your claim that the combat system cannot stand on its own is outright false. It already does... check out the D&D miniatures boards sometime. 1. You've never mentioned miniatures to me prior to this in this context, as far as I can tell. 2. The D&D miniatures game is entirely different from tabletop D&D. Encounter design can't work both ways, because the PCs don't design encounters. Encounter design is entirely a DM duty. Social systems apply to individual characters. Since both the DM and the PCs both control characters, then the rules apply to both of them equally (or should anyway). So what? Just because PCs don't design encounters is no reason for the encounter design paradigm to so favorably shift most encounters in the PCs favor. Just as social systems apply to individual characters, encounters do so also. By the same reasoning, there is no reason why base encounter recommendations should pit a level 8 relatively poorly equipped NPC Fighter against 4 well equipped level 8 PCs. And yet it does. Should we change that as well? Again.. this has nothing to do with diplomacy. Why does being diplomacy immune, or being able to use diplomacy on PCs, automatically make you a star? I don't get it. The pargraph was about "fairness." You seem to think that it's important. Why just Diplomacy, then? Why not be "fair" in everything? Indeed, if you really want to be "fair," it seems that Diplomacy is one of the worst places to start fixing things. Right, pointless illogical manipulations just aren't fun. They strain suspension of disbelief of your character and ultimately make the game seem stupid. The same occurs when the PC bard is using diplomacy on every single encounter to prevent all combat. When a given skill seems illogical in a bad way, it's almost always entirely the fault of the DM adjudicating said skill. More than in combat, the DM is the required engine that makes the skill system go. When your PC tracks a goblin through the woods, you, as the player, don't "calculate" the DC as you would weapon damage. That's just wrong. The DM sets the skill DC and only he can tell you what that skill DC is. He tells you if the skill is usable in the first place, and it isn't always. You can't always use Diplomacy and it's purely a misguided player notion to think so. Nothing in the Diplomacy skill tells you when you can use Diplomacy because that is not a player concern, and not within the purview of the player. To some extent, skills are active. You can tell the DM you're Searching, for example, but you can't tell the DM you're using Spot. He decides when you can and cannot use it, and what the target DC is. To that extent, skills are mostly passive. "You're friendly... you're friendly, you too... and you.. and yes, you too, even though we just robbed your magic shop... Nope you can't call the guards on us, you're helpful." Bad call. Bad call. Bad call, too. And yes, horrendously bad call. Just as you can't claim that the magic item creation system is broken on the basis of a bad DM call, you can't argue that the Diplomacy skill system is bad when the examples you cite are bad DM calls. By the same argument, I can claim that grappling is totally broken because my DM allows me to get a +200 when I do an actual suplex in the game room. And that's the kind of stupid garbage the existing diplomacy system allows... and I dont' even want to talk about bluff... you combine glibness and a ton of bluff bonuses, and you can bluff a god off of his godhood. Buff is remarkably worse than diplomacy, because there's no way to reduce it's power. I don't suppose the DM telling you that the Bluff DC is 200 000 matters any? The NPC believes whatever the hell you say, no matter how ridiculous it is, so long as your check is high enough. Well, to some extent, yes. As long as your check is high enough. To some extent, no. There will be circumstances in which Bluff is just comepletely unusable. For example, a Rogue trying to convince me that it's dark when it's blatantly obvious that the sun is shining in my face isn't trying to convince me of something that's almost too incredible to consider. He's trying to convince me of something that is too incredible to consider. In fact, it's downright contradictory in a direct fashion. Far from believing him, it's altogether reasonable to rule that based on the NPC's nature and general outlook (see, those words again), the Rogue might just convince the NPC that he (the Rogue) was completely insane, if his roll was high enough. So yes, a god could be made to believe that if he didn't pledge his service to you that he would be subject to all sorts of imagined horrors. Personally, I believe that that's a DM call right there. Firstly, I think that a god possibly believing what a mortal is saying along those lines is a bad call to begin with. Being able to use Bluff for this at all is an unbelievably bad DM call, perhaps on the level of allowing a PC to use Craft to make magic armor. The Bluff skill says, and I quote: "Use a bluff to sow temporary confusion, get someone to turn and look where you point, or simply to look innocuous." This is direct clarification of the sentence "You can make the outrageous or the untrue seem plausible..." "Favorable and unfavorable circumstances weigh heavily on the outcome of a bluff..." Presuming the DM calls that you can make one, no? "Two circumstances can weigh against you: The bluff is hard to believe, or the action that the target is asked to take goes against its self-interest, nature, personality, orders, or the like." A successful Bluff means that the targets reacts as you wish, at least for a short time (usually 1 round or less) or believes something you want it to believe." The last is obviously a reference to: "Use a bluff to sow temporary confusion, get someone to turn and look where you point, or simply to look innocuous." meaning that the target doesn't simply do whatever you ask, but will do any of the limited things the Bluff skill is meant to accomplish. So "reacts as you wish" is really a reference to "get someone to turn and look where you point," as opposed to "mind control someone," especially when viewed in the context that the skill is really effective for only one round or less. Obviously, conning someone into believing something is more lenient and can last longer, but as it is less direct, can be more risky, and is similarly constrained. Getting a god to believe that he might be better off pledging his service to you really only is anyway believable if you can make the god believe that you're a god yourself. The limitations are really quite telling: "Bluff, however, is not a suggestion spell..." with the example clearly saying that Bluff is the inferior effect. If suggestion can't do it, then Bluff most certainly can't. (and convincing a god to pledge to you is far from what a suggestion can do, even if the god was under the effect). All this leads me to believe that you know even less about how to manage the Bluff skill than how to manage the Diplomacy skill. Indeed, your assertions seem to call into question whether you know how to adjudicate skills at all.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-05-05, 03:25 PM	It's from Sharn: City of Towers. It is an official D&D supplement, not an adventure or a module. The authors are Keith Baker and James Wyatt and this being an official WotC supplement, their inputs are checked for rules accuracy. The Diplomacy entries have not been changed or edited or mentioned as needing errata. They are absolutely correct. Yeah, this assumes they find all their mistakes. Remember miasma, the spell that was supposed to have a save from the beginning, and didn't get it in Masters of the wild, didn't get it in any MotW errata, didn't get it in the complete divine, and finally got it in the complete divine errata? That's what we're dealing with here. They aren't even able to errata their hard rules well, who is to say when they'll get around to doing errata for a rules interpretation. I told you how imprisoning the PCs can be interpreted as a "Helpful" attitude. So why is this interpretation wrong somehow? Where is this "Helpful" attitude defined? Isn't it on the PHB, like when I last looked? Yup, and it doens't in any way say "imprison" is one of those. "Protect, backup, heal, aid" that's what helpful says. Now you want to add imprison to that list. Imprison should be under unfriendly or hostile, not helpful. The point is that the NPC wealth per level recommendations are different from PC wealth per level recommendations. Neither exceptions nor the fact that these are recommendations are pertinent to the point. And I say "So what?" Seriously... who cares... what does that have to do with anything? You're trying to say that NPCs are on average mechanically weaker than PCs, but so what? That doesnt' justify immunity to a mechanic, that just says that NPCs should be mechanically weaker at diplomacy too, just like they're mechanically weaker at combat. I have no idea what point you're making with the NPC versus PC thing. Different recommendations are made for each so it's ok for hard rules to ignore one side? I don't get it. NPCs are not recommended as mainstay protagonists of adventures while PCs are de facto stars. Whether NPCs can be stars or not is beside the point. The entire thing is beside the point. I never agreed with you that PCs can dictate NPC actions using Diplomacy. That is entirely your opinion. Therefore, when I say, "the Diplomacy scheme does not take away NPC free will," doesn't it seem to follow that I'm talking about my points rather than yours? The fact that it doesn't make sense the way you interpret it and that I'm the one making the statement seem to be dead giveaways. Bluff will dictate NPC actions. You can't get away from that one. If you roleplay your NPCs right, then you can get them to take whatever actions you want, just by making them believe whatever you want. Diplomacy is still bad, but it can still win every battle in the game with no save, by making everything indifferent. No, we don't. It changes their attitude. Whether it actually changes their reactions is an entirely different thing. Their attitude is a reflection of what their actions can be. Note the heading under the table of reactions. It says "Possible actions", and for helpful it lists "backup, protect, heal, aid" So while it doesn't purely dictate action, it does limit it to helpful actions. According to normal human nature and general normal human outlook, a PC bard who torches your home, murders your family and rapes you wife will be your mortal archenemy. No matter how high you roll or what your modifier is, it isn't reasonable or within normal human nature for that person to treat you as his friend. Playing it that way goes against what the DMG says about playing the NPC as if he were a PC and according to his general outlook and nature. That's a textbook ruling based on DMG recommendations. But if you don't play him that way you're going against the actual rules of diplomacy. Remember: Rule trumps Recommendation. Every time. And as for setting the DC, he's hostile, and we have rules for that, and while you can throw on some big modifier, like a -20 (which is about as high as modifiers go in the core), some min/maxed diplomacy guy can still do it. Even this is stretching it. You cannot declare it impossible by the rules. Because the rules have DCs for turning hostile people (which he clearly is) to indifferent or friendly. No, but you are if you completely discount anything and everything he says based on what you know about the DM and the game. Despite themselves, people are fooled, cajoled, persuaded, and lied to. Especially unsuspecting countryside bumpkins. Playing your country bumpkin like he was a savvy diplomat is poor roleplaying, and it's particularly jarring and problematic if you have no basis on which to base reactions. But you don't want PCs to have to abide by any basis. Look, you can't have it both ways. If you think it helps the game to have basis for making social decisions then all people should live with them. 2. The D&D miniatures game is entirely different from tabletop D&D. It still uses the same combat system, doesn't it? And it's without the rest of the game. Yeah, it's a different experience, it's supposed to be. But the combat system stands alone here, and oddly enough the game isn't as meaningless as you might think. So what? Just because PCs don't design encounters is no reason for the encounter design paradigm to so favorably shift most encounters in the PCs favor. Just as social systems apply to individual characters, encounters do so also. By the same reasoning, there is no reason why base encounter recommendations should pit a level 8 relatively poorly equipped NPC Fighter against 4 well equipped level 8 PCs. And yet it does. Should we change that as well? Why? The adventures are designed so that the PCs win. So what? We don't really want PCs to die, but that's beside the point. We really don't care much if they're lied to, misled, charmed or whatever, because the story still goes on. So you're not making any points here, besides totally derailing the topic with irrelevant things. The pargraph was about "fairness." You seem to think that it's important. Why just Diplomacy, then? Why not be "fair" in everything? Indeed, if you really want to be "fair," it seems that Diplomacy is one of the worst places to start fixing things. I think you're missing my point. The idea isn't to be fair to PCs and NPCs. They're characters. We aren't trying to be fair to characters. Who we are trying to be fair to is people, namely players and DMs. That is, if we want to say that the game is supposed to differentiate between personal social ability and character social ability, we should do so in the same manner for everyone. That is anywhere the two roles, DM or PC mix together, we need to apply a fair standard. Both for instance engage in combat, therefore we have a fair standard combat system. Both also engage in roleplaying, so any roleplaying system or guidelines we have, should apply both ways. You can't always use Diplomacy and it's purely a misguided player notion to think so. Nothing in the Diplomacy skill tells you when you can use Diplomacy because that is not a player concern, and not within the purview of the player. To that extent, skills are mostly passive. Ok, now you're just getting crazy. Rules are rules. There's nothing saying you can't try to use a skill in some place, and if the rules cover the situation, then it has a DC given to you by the rules. Anything short of that and you're doing the worst kind of DMing, the kind where you say "It doesn't work because I don't want it to." That's exactly the reason we have rules, so we don't run into abilities that only work when the DM wants them to. If you want social abilities to only work when you want them to, then you shouldn't have rules for them. It says in the DMG you can do a rushed diplomacy action as a full action at a -10. You can change reactions from hostile to indifferent. It says that in the DMG. Presumably, the full action is exactly what this is for, given that taking a full minute to explain your position while somoene is trying to chop your head off is probably a bit much. Skills are not passive, except for a select few. A player can't say "I'm using tumble" and you tell him it automatically doesn't work, because you feel like it. If he's using a perfectly defined use of a skill in the core, then you should let him do that. If you don't like the results of him doing that, then perhaps your basic rule is broken. The argument I've been making all along. Just as you can't claim that the magic item creation system is broken on the basis of a bad DM call, you can't argue that the Diplomacy skill system is bad when the examples you cite are bad DM calls. Do you know the difference between guidelines and rules? Seriously... what the hell? The magic item creation is guidelines, not a system, unless you're talking about creating a scroll or a wand, which is a true system. And second, this isn't a bad call, it's following the rules. Diplomacy skill isn't guidelines, it's a rule. It's a skill that people can actually use as a skill, just like tumbling, jumping or swimming. I'm turning a hostile creature to indifferent as a full round action with a -10 penalty. The rules totally support that, and you have no right to hose someone who is following the rules which you claim are balanced. I don't suppose the DM telling you that the Bluff DC is 200 000 matters any? Not if he's following the rules he can't. Note that a +20 to the sense motive modifier is "The bluff is way out there, almost too incredible to consider." How you can jump to a 200,000 DC is beyond me, and lets remember that bluff dosn't even have DCs, it has opposed rolls. Clearly your solution to broken mechanics is just by making in game rulings to hose people out of not being able to use their skills. Well, to some extent, yes. As long as your check is high enough. To some extent, no. There will be circumstances in which Bluff is just comepletely unusable. So long as you're trying to get someone to believe something, you can try bluffing them. It does say that you require interaction between you and the target, and that unaware creatures can't be bluffed, so that's it. So if you are interacting with a god, you can bluff him. I realize you don't like that, but that's what the rules say. You can continue to defiantly defend them, or you can just hop over to my side, and admit they don't work and maybe help come up wtih something that does. Or you can continue to preach your odd doublethink full of contradictory statements and odd "rules interpretations" which boil down to nothing more than your utter unwilling to accept the rules as being broken. For example, a Rogue trying to convince me that it's dark when it's blatantly obvious that the sun is shining in my face isn't trying to convince me of something that's almost too incredible to consider. He's trying to convince me of something that is too incredible to consider. Maybe it's an illusion. Maybe you're really in some kind of psionically generated hallucination. A good bluffer will provide some crazy reason like this. ANd that's "almost too incredible to consider" but it's still possible. In a world of fantasy where your memories can be erased and rewritten, you can be charmed to think anyone is your friend and your best friend may be a polymorphed pit fiend, almost anything nothing is "too incredible to consider". Personally, I believe that that's a DM call right there. Firstly, I think that a god possibly believing what a mortal is saying along those lines is a bad call to begin with. Being able to use Bluff for this at all is an unbelievably bad DM call, perhaps on the level of allowing a PC to use Craft to make magic armor. That's what the bluff versus sense motive check is for. ANd it doesn't matter that you're a god. Being a god doesn't make you immune to getting bluffed. First you say you need a system to make impartial NPC reactions, then when the system produces something you don't like you toss it. Why have a system at all? "Use a bluff to sow temporary confusion, get someone to turn and look where you point, or simply to look innocuous." This is direct clarification of the sentence "You can make the outrageous or the untrue seem plausible..." "Favorable and unfavorable circumstances weigh heavily on the outcome of a bluff..." Presuming the DM calls that you can make one, no? The DM can only call that you can't make one if the target is unaware, because bluff requires awareness by the rules. He can't declare you can't mkae the check because he doens't like your bluff and thinks it's not very believable, that's for the dice to decide. "Two circumstances can weigh against you: The bluff is hard to believe, or the action that the target is asked to take goes against its self-interest, nature, personality, orders, or the like." These mods are already factored into the table. Target at significant risk is a +10, and the believabiltiy we already know. A successful Bluff means that the targets reacts as you wish, at least for a short time (usually 1 round or less) or believes something you want it to believe." No, I'm not saying you get them to do something, I'm using the second part and getting them to believe something you want them to believe, and there's no time limit set for that. That's an entirely separate use, and presumably he believes that until he finds evidence otherwise, or someone else bluffs him. Obviously, conning someone into believing something is more lenient and can last longer, but as it is less direct, can be more risky, and is similarly constrained. Getting a god to believe that he might be better off pledging his service to you really only is anyway believable if you can make the god believe that you're a god yourself. Which you can easily do with a bluff check. You can convince him of anything, there's no proof requirement. Saying you're some new god is almost definitely "way out there, almost too incredible to consider" but that's only a +20 modifier. Hell, you could convince him you're an overgod too, since that's all possible. Since getting the god to pledge allegiance to you may be a risk to him, you can throw a +10 mod on top of that, but so what? Glibness alone cancels out those modifiers. "Bluff, however, is not a suggestion spell..." with the example clearly saying that Bluff is the inferior effect. If suggestion can't do it, then Bluff most certainly can't. (and convincing a god to pledge to you is far from what a suggestion can do, even if the god was under the effect). Riiight... how bout reading the text after that. It talks about getting a shopkeeper offguard by telling him his shoes are untied. This is a distraction bluff not a lying bluff. And yes, bluff doesn't make you mindless, but it can make you believe something, and that's all you need. And what they believe can be incredible or whatever, at a +20 modifier. I'm changing someone's beliefs and therefore changing what they'll do indirectly. It isn't suggestion, because it's not working like suggestion. They aren't being mentally compelled to act, they're being forced to believe something then making a "free will" decision from false knowledge. The false knowledge however virtually ensures they'll do what I want them to do, but it's certianly not working like suggestion. You obviously don't like the rules, because you're constantly defending them with all sorts of weird interpretation and classic "That doesn't work because I don't like the possible result" thinking. Now you can go handing out locks with infinite open DCs and creatures that you can't tumble past and all that other crap, but then you're off in your own little world and are no long actually following the rules. And that's what you're doing wtih social skills. You blatantly ignore the rules (not guidelines, but rules) and then go ahead and try to claim that the rules agreed with you. If you need to do stuff like that to make your quests work, then you are showing that the rules don't work as written. You dont' have a right to deny people rolls they should have by the rules. If the rules give you an attack roll, then it's bad DMing to deny them that attack roll simply because you don't like it. The same is true of diplomacy.
crazysamaritan 01-05-05, 03:40 PM	Yup, and it doens't in any way say "imprison" is one of those. "Protect, backup, heal, aid" that's what helpful says. Now you want to add imprison to that list. ummm, protect?
Roxlimn 01-05-05, 06:04 PM	Archtyrant Terevoth: Rules always trump recommendations? Like perhaps the recommendation to compare Magic Item Prices to like items before using the Magic Item Table Pricing rules to price a magic item correctly? Perhaps the recommendation to limit the Prestige Classes available in your game world is trumped by the game mechanic rules surrounding each class? What of this recommendation: "...you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superceding something in a rulebook." I don't suppose that trumps any rule, either? Howsoever you look at it, the DMG is the master key of D&D rules. Its recommendations are part of what makes sense of the rules. Otherwise, the rules crumble, as you have already discovered. Particularly there are a lot of ambiguities in the social skill adjudication section. Allow me to proceed further by answering your relevant reponses. Yeah, this assumes they find all their mistakes. Remember miasma, the spell that was supposed to have a save from the beginning, and didn't get it in Masters of the wild, didn't get it in any MotW errata, didn't get it in the complete divine, and finally got it in the complete divine errata? That's what we're dealing with here. That's weak. I'm ashamed to have to be saying this. Just because there is an occasional mistake does not prove that a particular section is also a mistake. That's a textbook fallacy if I ever saw one. Fact: the supplement is official and no mention has been made of mistakes. Fact: for the most part, WotC 3r rules are consistent, especially when it comes to important cores rules like which die to roll and whether higher is better. Yup, and it doens't in any way say "imprison" is one of those. "Protect, backup, heal, aid" that's what helpful says. Now you want to add imprison to that list. Imprison should be under unfriendly or hostile, not helpful. Because "imprisoning" your pet bird means you're hostile to it. Maybe. I have no idea what point you're making with the NPC versus PC thing. Different recommendations are made for each so it's ok for hard rules to ignore one side? I don't get it. They're not the same thing. That's the point. They're not the same. There's more to the difference than just who's controlling who. Bluff will dictate NPC actions. You can't get away from that one. If you roleplay your NPCs right, then you can get them to take whatever actions you want, just by making them believe whatever you want. Diplomacy is still bad, but it can still win every battle in the game with no save, by making everything indifferent. Can't agree with that. Their attitude is a reflection of what their actions can be. Note the heading under the table of reactions. It says "Possible actions", and for helpful it lists "backup, protect, heal, aid" So while it doesn't purely dictate action, it does limit it to helpful actions. To the contrary. The table only lists basic DCs and only "possible" actions. The table does not limit actions in any way I can see. When you list actions that are "possible" you only list examples, not limitations or exhaustive options. An NPC who was "helpful" in attitude could very well do something that you thought was very unhelpful indeed. That NPC would believe he was helping you, though. But if you don't play him that way you're going against the actual rules of diplomacy. Completely wrong. This is the third time I am quoting this. "In general, you run an NPC just as a player would run a PC: You take whatever actions the character would take, assuming the action is possible. That's why it's important to determine an NPC's general outlook and characteristics ahead of time if possible, so you know how to play the character properly." This is the more general rule. Below this is the manner in which you account for Diplomacy. To wit: "When a PC is dealing with an NPCs, you determine the NPCs attitude., and a character may try to use Diplomacy to influence this attitude..." Moreover, even though it isn't necessary, the PHB also references the general rule: "The Dungeon Master's Guide has more information on NPC attitudes." So you see, not playing it the way I have told you actually violates the rules of the Diplomacy skill and the NPC attitude rules in the DMG. You're the one going against the rules for Diplomacy and I've been telling you this for well nigh on pages now. And as for setting the DC, he's hostile, and we have rules for that, and while you can throw on some big modifier, like a -20 (which is about as high as modifiers go in the core), some min/maxed diplomacy guy can still do it. Even this is stretching it. Of course not. First of all, the DCs in the PHB chart are strictly basic. You're not meant to use those unless in strictly ideal situations for which those were designed. Chatting up an indifferent person on the street should be as much. Secondly, there are no real limits on how big a modifier the DM can place on the DC. The DM's Best Friend rule of thumb goes and says about -2 or +2 for virtually everything, and Going beyond the Rule suggests going as high as -20 for a practically impossible task. Well, actually, that amounts to about -40. You can start off with a hard DC for Hostile, add 20 to the DC to reflect a hard target and -20 to the roll to represent a hard situation. So turning a Hostile Indifferent is 25 base +20 to the DC, -10 to the roll for a full round check and another -20 situational modifier for a 45 DC target with a -30 to the roll. You'll need to hit a DC of 70 with a -30 to the roll (or a natural 20 with a +80 Diplomacy mod) to turn an NPC from Hostile to Helpful as a full round check. So you'd need a +55 on your Diplomacy mod and a natural 20 for a "virtually impossible" feat of turning a Hostile into Indifferent as a full round action, strictly running by recommendations in the DMG. I could ask a PC with a +17 mod to roll, but aside from wasting my time, what does that do? The feat can't be done by him and he should be able to tell so. You cannot declare it impossible by the rules. Because the rules have DCs for turning hostile people (which he clearly is) to indifferent or friendly. And that would be because? I can rule that a Villian has a Coldball instead of a Fireball. I can rule that he has an Anti-Magic chamber. I can rule that he's undamagable at this time because his heart's not in his body. The DM decides which rules to use for what. If he decides that an action is not doable, then no rules are necessary. It simply isn't. This is basic DMing, really. But you don't want PCs to have to abide by any basis. Look, you can't have it both ways. If you think it helps the game to have basis for making social decisions then all people should live with them. Actually, I can and I do have it both ways. The point I'm making here is that you say the PC can disregard what the DM tells her, like "the NPC is unnaturally convincing" based on the results of the NPCs Diplomacy roll. Well, she can disregard what he tells her anyway, even without using the Diplomacy skill and whether he describes it or acts it. She will metagamge if she has a mind to whatever you do. It still uses the same combat system, doesn't it? And it's without the rest of the game. Yeah, it's a different experience, it's supposed to be. But the combat system stands alone here, and oddly enough the game isn't as meaningless as you might think. It's a different game, Archtyrant. Quoting similarities doesn't erase that fact. We don't really want PCs to die, but that's beside the point. We really don't care much if they're lied to, misled, charmed or whatever, because the story still goes on. So you're not making any points here, besides totally derailing the topic with irrelevant things. Well, we care whether the PCs are misled, charmed, lied to, or whatever. Most of my players deeply care when they perceive a limitation of options. Also, as I recall, the topic was how character optimization was killing the game, not how social skill mechanics were. I'm still, however vaguely, trying to tie this derail into that topic. Who we are trying to be fair to is people, namely players and DMs. That is, if we want to say that the game is supposed to differentiate between personal social ability and character social ability, we should do so in the same manner for everyone. Because doing so is fair? I'm sorry, but that's just completely off the handle. The DM already is free to describe the NPCs reactions in the manner I described and even get a good player doing it for added atmosphere. Having done that, a greater issue is at work. PCs and players are altogether a different mechanic from DMs and NPCs. The difference in the management of social adjudication is precisely in this difference and you cannot find it if you insist on stressing the DM and the players as people outside the game. This is not about them, or rather, it is about them, but not in the manner you think it is. I'm afraid you're beginning to confuse DMs for NPCs and players for PCs. Ok, now you're just getting crazy. Rules are rules. There's nothing saying you can't try to use a skill in some place, and if the rules cover the situation, then it has a DC given to you by the rules. Anything short of that and you're doing the worst kind of DMing, the kind where you say "It doesn't work because I don't want it to." You'll have to forgive me for disagreeing here. Rules aren't rules. That's the first thing the DMG says. The notion that rules are indisputable and unmalleable mechanics is a player notion, and an incorrect and bad one at that. Good players will always recognize that you have the ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superceding something in a rulebook. This is not bad DMing. It's the only DMing. A DM who doesn't exercise his authority to bring sense and logic into his game is doing his players a great disservice. Games of that sort will tend to run wild and directionless without a strong group identity that keeps the group in control. Therefore, even if a given rule seems applicable for a scenario, it's still the DM who decides which rule to use for what, when, and how, if any. The DM who says "It doesn't work because I don't want it to," is exercising a prerogative that he possesses. A prerogative that's necessary to make the game and the rules make sense. So. You say that the Diplomacy skill becomes ridiculous because you can use it to convince each and every monster not to attack you. Aside from the rather obvious fact that monsters don't necessarily have to be hostile to want to attack you, the DM is obligated to try to make sense of this by restricting the use of said skill. Applying rules without rhyme, reason, or sense is what gives DMs and rule systems a bad name. That's exactly the reason we have rules, so we don't run into abilities that only work when the DM wants them to. If you want social abilities to only work when you want them to, then you shouldn't have rules for them. That's again incorrect. Rules exist for the convenience of the DM. It provides a framework for his adjudication. Without the DM to tell you which rules to use for what, the D&D rules system collapses, and this is no more apparent than in the skills section. It says in the DMG you can do a rushed diplomacy action as a full action at a -10. You can change reactions from hostile to indifferent. It says that in the DMG. Presumably, the full action is exactly what this is for, given that taking a full minute to explain your position while somoene is trying to chop your head off is probably a bit much. No, it doesn't. It says in the PHB that you can do a rushed Diplomacy check as a full round action at -10. You can change attittudes. These rules are in place for situations in which the DM says that are applicable for. In the rules, Skills and Ability Checks are handled as one, with such rules as delienating tasks, modifying DCs and rolls, and other related such things. Obviously, it is the DM's task to decide which things can be done and which cannot and then to delinate those doable things into tasks which may or may not require a roll. A PC can ask if he can use a skill in a particular situation, but there is no guarantee that he can, and he should not presume it. Good players will always recognize that you have the ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superceding something in a rulebook. Even if it says explicitly in the PHB that you can and should be able to do such things (and it isn't), the DM still has the final say on whether or not you can do it. This is not bad DMing, especially if it makes an otherwise wonky rule sensible. A player can't say "I'm using tumble" and you tell him it automatically doesn't work, because you feel like it. If he's using a perfectly defined use of a skill in the core, then you should let him do that. If you don't like the results of him doing that, then perhaps your basic rule is broken. The argument I've been making all along. Well, no. You shouldn't tell him it automatically doesn't work just because you feel like it. However, you should tell him it automatically doesn't work because you have a logical and justifiable explanation for it. Even if he has what seems like an applicable ruleset, you should always bear in mind what is sensible and logical, especially for very obvious cases. You should apply rules consistently and fairly, but other than that, you are actually obligated to rule otherwise. Now, just because a rule requires DM intervention does not mean it's broken. Combat itself frequently requires DM intervention in tabletop D&D, but I don't consider it broken. A situationally applicable and usable rule is still a useful rule. And second, this isn't a bad call, it's following the rules. Diplomacy skill isn't guidelines, it's a rule. It's a skill that people can actually use as a skill, just like tumbling, jumping or swimming. I'm turning a hostile creature to indifferent as a full round action with a -10 penalty. The rules totally support that, and you have no right to hose someone who is following the rules which you claim are balanced. On the contrary. Good DMs know not to change or overturn a published rule without a good, logical justification. So even if the DM weren't somehow required to first delienate the task before you can even roll anything, it still doesn't apply. The DM in the first place has to say that the task is doable and what the skill related is, but even if he weren't and it was illogical and ridiculous, you as the DM should still overrule it. Not if he's following the rules he can't. Note that a +20 to the sense motive modifier is "The bluff is way out there, almost too incredible to consider." True. However, some things are even more incredible than that. Like convincing a god to serve you, for example. How you can jump to a 200,000 DC is beyond me, and lets remember that bluff dosn't even have DCs, it has opposed rolls. Clearly your solution to broken mechanics is just by making in game rulings to hose people out of not being able to use their skills. The God has +199 990 on his Sense Motive Check and he's taking 10. I can do that because I'm the DM. See how that works out? You seem to think that both the Diplomacy and the Bluff rules are "broken" but this is only because you keep applying them to situations to which they should not be applied. The mechanics aren't broken, you're just not using them right. Let's say you have a hammer. You use it to split a wood panel in two. Obviously, it's going to do a fairly lousy job. The hammer isn't broken. You're just using the wrong tool. I'm not proposing rocket science here or "my" solution. The mechanics work provided you use them for occasions in which they're usable. If you use a toothpick to try to hammer in a nail, you are obviously going to have a lot of problems. The toothpick isn't the problem and the solution isn't to make a toothpick that also works as a hammer. You use the toothpick to pick your teeth and set it aside for a hammer when that's necessary. Just because a rule isn't universally usable doesn't make that rule broken. You can continue to defiantly defend them, or you can just hop over to my side, and admit they don't work and maybe help come up wtih something that does. They work fine for me, man. If you come up with a better, give me a ring. Better yet, publish it and make some money. Maybe it's an illusion. Maybe you're really in some kind of psionically generated hallucination. A good bluffer will provide some crazy reason like this. ANd that's "almost too incredible to consider" but it's still possible. In a world of fantasy where your memories can be erased and rewritten, you can be charmed to think anyone is your friend and your best friend may be a polymorphed pit fiend, almost anything nothing is "too incredible to consider". You're getting hung up on the wording. The sad thing is is that it's only example circumstances, and guess what? Yep, it's bad old DM again using sense and logic to make sense of a rule. He can rule that a bluff is too incredible to consider and that would be the end of it. What matters here isn't what's possible but what the target is willing to consider. If the target isn't willing to admit that her father is dead, even when he actually is, then no amount of Bluffing will convince her otherwise. That's what the bluff versus sense motive check is for. ANd it doesn't matter that you're a god. Being a god doesn't make you immune to getting bluffed. Sure. For some things. But there are certain things that are just impossible for some people to believe. Literally impossible. Like you and the Diplomacy skill, apparently. First you say you need a system to make impartial NPC reactions, then when the system produces something you don't like you toss it. Why have a system at all? So I can use it on occasions when I deem it usable. I don't "install" it and "toss it out" when I don't like it. I only call on it when I need to. Obviously. The DM can only call that you can't make one if the target is unaware, because bluff requires awareness by the rules. He can't declare you can't mkae the check because he doens't like your bluff and thinks it's not very believable, that's for the dice to decide. He can, however, decide that your bluff is something the NPCs nature won't allow him to believe and rule out the check. Which you can easily do with a bluff check. You can convince him of anything, there's no proof requirement. There is. The target has to be willing to believe you in the first place. If the target isn't willing to consider anything you say as truth, then a Bluff check is out of the question. Saying you're some new god is almost definitely "way out there, almost too incredible to consider" but that's only a +20 modifier. Hell, you could convince him you're an overgod too, since that's all possible. Since getting the god to pledge allegiance to you may be a risk to him, you can throw a +10 mod on top of that, but so what? Glibness alone cancels out those modifiers. That's a player talking. Saying you're a new god who's more powerful than the god you're Bluffing and a secret one (because he doesn't know about it) and (god knows what else to justify your mortal limitations), is not only too incredible to consider, it's downright laughable. If the god is at all bound to honor his pledges, he certainly isn't about to hand over just because you say so. It isn't in his nature. Even if he did believe you, he'd most likely want to check just to see or wait awhile. Aside from being incredibly hard to fool, gods are also cautious and wise. A god has incredible spell power at his disposal. He can almost certainly detect magic and find that you have Glibness on you. He can subject you to any number of spells. If a god were to be convinced to pledge to you, it would take more than a simple Bluff check to do it. Bluff checks might be a part of the process, however. I can use the Bluff check rules to allow the PC to uphold his lies for as long as it takes, plus some very judicial actions, perhaps. In any case, this is not a simple Bluff check and no decent DM I know will ever say that it is. Riiight... how bout reading the text after that. It talks about getting a shopkeeper offguard by telling him his shoes are untied. This is a distraction bluff not a lying bluff. The point was that Bluff is less strong than suggestion. I don't see where the distinction is made between types of bluff, or even that seperate rules and recommendations are made for each kind. You obviously don't like the rules, because you're constantly defending them with all sorts of weird interpretation and classic "That doesn't work because I don't like the possible result" thinking. Now you can go handing out locks with infinite open DCs and creatures that you can't tumble past and all that other crap, but then you're off in your own little world and are no long actually following the rules. And that's what you're doing wtih social skills. That would be wrong. What I'm doing is making a call on which tasks are doable and which are not. This little world I'm in is called D&D. Perhaps you'd like to try it out sometime. In this system, the gamesmaster (called the DM) decides which rules to use for what situation. He also decides what modifiers to place, if any, on a d20 roll against a set number. So he uses rules to help him adjudicate situations. These rules are usually generally usable, but they're not hard and fast. The DM always gets the final say on which rules to use, how, and when. I like the rules as they're written Archtyrant Terevoth, and the difference between you and me is that I'm using the rules and I'm happy with how they're working. Since my interpretation of the rules happen to work and yours don't, perhaps I'm using them the right way, no?
Mad M. 01-05-05, 06:13 PM	I honestly don't see what is so crazy about some of the diplomacy options given. Lets take the Lich for example. He's a friggen lich. He's a Malovelent, immortal villan of probably immense magical might. He probably kills puppies just for kicks. He'd kill somebody without a second thought. Secondly, where is this guy? Strolling down 1st Avenue and slapping high-Fives? I think not. Dollars to Doughnuts, this guy is in some kind of evil lair most of the time, doing unimaginably evil stuff, when you encounter him. So here he is, secure in his crypt of Horors, plotting to take over Sharn, and some bozo barges in uninvited. His first impulse is that the PC is here to slay him, or grab some of his loot or some nonsense. Not wasting any times, he breaks out a spell and frags the loser. Normal response, walk in on a bad guy, get wasted. Lets say for whatever reason, the imbecille quickly tries to chat you up and spare his life. Reaction 1: He accidently makes some comment about your taste in interior decorating, sending you right into hostile mode. You kill him--painfully, and perhaps spend the next few years torturing his soul, or speaking to his corpse and killing some friends and family in retribution. Reaction 2: He comes up with some reasonably plausible explanation of how he got here completely by accident, loves what you've done with the place, but really has to be going now. Now you're indifferent, he's just some mortal boob after all. So what does your lichness do with him? Kill him, probably. Granted, you aren't too worked up about him one way or the other, so you might kill him quickly instead of using him in some sort of insidius experiment (Or maybe you will, how many research subjects do you have at hand?). Why wouldn't you kill him? He means nothing to you one or the other, and quickly vaporizing the poor sap is as good a solution as any. But since he doesn't mean that much to you, you probably won't chase him too far if he tries to get away, or spend the rest of your life plotting his downfall, like you would if you really hated his guts. Now, if you decide you really like the chap, thats a different story. Time to kick back and invite him in for an extended conversation of the pleasures of lichhood and what not. You may even decide you like him so much that you decide to keep him...he'll come around eventually, right? Honestly, it all makes perfect sense to me. Under no normal circumstances would I believe that changing someones attitude (Helpful, indifferent, hostile) Alters their very nature. Certainly not in mere moments. So in the Dragon example, maybe he keeps you prisoner at first, but eventually you convince him to let you go, given time, persuasive arguements, and more difficult diplomacy checks.
Ricky 01-06-05, 10:01 AM	I must say that Archtyrant has convinced me to a point. Roxlimn, I think you're using Oberoni's Fallacy: "The rules for Diplomacy work if we don't always follow them." Archtyrant, although I agree that Diplomacy has issues with it, I think discarding it entirely is throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. There should be some way to encapsulate the intent of the Diplomacy skill, but with better rules. I haven't quite figured out how yet, but I'm mulling over some possibilities.
crazysamaritan 01-06-05, 02:34 PM	http://www.giantitp.com/Func0010.html ^ one alternative method My fav is to turn diplomacy into a full round action, and use the numbers as a bonus to the opposed diplomacy check.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-06-05, 04:08 PM	Archtyrant, although I agree that Diplomacy has issues with it, I think discarding it entirely is throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak. There should be some way to encapsulate the intent of the Diplomacy skill, but with better rules. I haven't quite figured out how yet, but I'm mulling over some possibilities. Yeah, the next problem becomes how one would create a social system. Now this is definitely difficult because you want to eliminate ridiculousness like bluffing gods and turning everyone from hostile to indifferent, but you also want to be able to stop fights with it and tell some pretty incredible lies. Whatever it is though, I think we can agree the system needs to accomodate some free will on both sides of the table, because it's no fun if PCs actions get dictated entirely, and it's also bad for the system as a whole to have NPCs who can be effectively mind controlled using social skills. Also, we have to acknowledge that whenever we set a DC for something, no matter how high, eventually someone will beat it. Therefore the result of the roll cannot be earthshattering, however it still has to matter in a game scenario. And it's also got to be fun. It should get players involved, not push them away from the game. Which is tough to do when a character may well be pushed away from an encounter because his social skills are low. If there's a way to do all that, I really don't know how to do it. I've tried looking at social systems before, and the best I could come up with is to just toss out the whole thing and let the DM handle it.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-06-05, 04:14 PM	http://www.giantitp.com/Func0010.html ^ one alternative method That system is actually potentially worse. It's good because the DCs scale, however it doesn't take into account bonus items and feats and it allows you to make outright awful trades with people. In other words, a diplomacy min/maxer who gets huge bonuses for his level would have an absolute field day under that system. He could own the entire world in a few sessions just by trading dirt for castles and land. And as soon as you get a +30 total from feats/items/whatever, you get to pretty much convince anyone of anything.
crazysamaritan 01-06-05, 04:59 PM	I think it's too confusing. My solution is simple, and fits within the standard of skills.
Zherog 01-06-05, 05:37 PM	That system (referring to the link posted by crazysamaritan) is actually potentially worse. It's good because the DCs scale, however it doesn't take into account bonus items and feats and it allows you to make outright awful trades with people. In other words, a diplomacy min/maxer who gets huge bonuses for his level would have an absolute field day under that system. He could own the entire world in a few sessions just by trading dirt for castles and land. And as soon as you get a +30 total from feats/items/whatever, you get to pretty much convince anyone of anything. I'm not sure I agree. I will admit right up front that I'm almost certainly biased, as Rich is a friend of mine. Let's take your "trading dirt for a castle scenario," and assume we're trying to rip off the king. So what's a good number of hit dice for a king? 12-ish? I like 10 - it's a nice round number, though probably a bit low. So under Rich's system, the DC starts at 25 (15 + level). Note that if the King has any advisors that are higher in level (a wizard, a priest, etc) the DC goes up. For now, we'll say that all the King's advisors are his level or lower. Next, we need to add the highest wisdom modifier of the target group. Well, let's say the king has a +2, and that his Priest of Pelor isn't around to help him out right now. So we add that to the DC, bringing it up to 27. Again, I think it's unlikely the king has no advisors around - but we'll move on. Now, we have to apply two different modifiers. The first is for the "relationship" and the second is for "risk vs reward." The relationship modifier can reduce the DC by 10 if the two are intimate - lovers, spouses, etc; it can raise the DC by 10 if they are hated enemies. There's also some middle ground. Let's be generous, and we'll say the PC and the King are acquantences on the "positive" side. This'll reduce the DC by 2, bringing our DC down back down to 25. That leaves the "risk/reward" modifier. An obvious "good" deal for the target reduces the DC by 10; an obvious bad deal raises the DC by 10. And, of course, there's a bunch of middle ground. Well, it just so happens that the description of a "bad deal" in the article is: "A offer to trade a bit of dirty string for a castle." I think we can safely say that offering dirt for the same castle is also a bad deal, so we'll add 10 to our DC, bringing the total up to 35. So - putting things as good as possible for the PCs results in a DC 35 check for swapping dirt for a castle. Doesn't sound great - but remember a few things. We assumed the King and all his advisors were 10th level or lower; we assumed that among the king and all his advisors, none had a wisdom mod above 2; we assumed the PC and king had a slightly positive relationship. That's quite a few assumptions. Let's compare that to the current rules, then. We've already established that the PC and King have a slghtly positive relationship - the question is whether to call that "indifferent" or "friendly." Here's the definitions of both, as they relate to the Diplomacy skill: Indifferent: Doesn't care much. Socially expected interaction Friendly: Wishes you well. Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate Well, we could still really be either of those - so we'll take both. If we presume the King is Indifferent to the PC, the DC to make him "Helpful" is 30. If we presume the king is Friendly, the DC is 20. In either case, the proposed fix gives a higher DC - and again, remember that we were very generous to the PC's when setting up the scenario for using Rich's rules. I think the best thing about Rich's rules is the scalability - as the PCs face higher and higher levels of NPCs, the DC for getting stuff out of them goes up. Is it perfect? Nope, of course not. Take a 8th level Rogue with an 22 charisma (including stat boosts and items) and max ranks and we have 17. Add in Skill Focus (Diplomacy) and we have a 20. So yeah, with a good roll, that rogue is going to swindle the King out of his Castle. Get a Diplomacy monkey and I'm sure we can crank that check quite a bit higher - just off the top of my head, a level in Marshal with the appropriate minor aura would allow us to add our charisma mod twice, bringing the total up to 26. Now we need to roll a 9 or better. So? Now your 8th level rogue has swindled a king out of his castle, and probably proceeded to make a whole bunch o' people really, really angry with him! So the player has a castle for a while, and the DM has some cool adventure seed ideas. How is that a bad trade? ;)
Roxlimn 01-06-05, 08:35 PM	Oberoni's Fallacy is itself a misleading concept. The statement (it's not really a fallacy) states that you can't say that a rule is broken by using DM's fiat to not use it. Obviously, if you're not using a rule at all, it doesn't make sense to say that it isn't broken. On the other hand, that's not what at issue here. What's at issue here is that the Diplomacy rules are being used perforce by a DM who doesn't know any better. You have to realize that the D&D rules system does not presume that the Diplomacy skill and the accompanying ruleset are useful or applicable every time. In fact, as I outlined, it pretty much says that you can only use it when the DM asks you to. So much is clear from Skills and Ability Checks, the section in the DMG that deals with such. Contrary to what many players believe, the ruleset does not exist without the DM. It is not at all like the Miniatures game wherein only a referee exists, if even that much. In D&D, the rules are the exclusive purview of the DM. He doesn't decide when to forgo certain rules. He decides which rules to use and when. If the rules are the tools, then the DM is the carpenter. The tools don't get to use themselves, nor does the wood get to use them. No. The DM picks which tools are best to use for particular situations, and sometimes, what appears to be a good tool from the point of view of a relatively inexperienced player is not a good tool at all. Oberoni's Fallacy is itself mistaken in that it operates on the presumption that the D&D ruleset is usable without a DM - that the DM only vetoes certain parts for flavor or logic reasons. This is not true. The ruleset is wholly dependent on DM management to even make sense. It's the strength of the rules that oftentimes, players can use them with minimal DM effort. This makes DMing a lot less strenuous than if you had to rule everything on the seat of your pants. On the other hand, as is shown here, rules taken out of context often create bizarre situations that aren't meant to exist in the game world. They don't mean that the rule is broken, they just mean that the rule isn't being used right. When you say "Diplomacy has issues with it," meaning that you can't use it to adjudicate every social situation, I agree completely. I even said as much quite explicitly. However, if you're saying "It's completely unusable," then I have to disagree there, because I'm using it quite well, thank you very much, and my players are OK. A very similar situation arose about the Magic Item Pricing Guidelines, when one person promulgated the once popular fancy that it was broken. In point of fact, it was not. It was limited and you can't use it all the time, but it certainly wasn't broken, and it was certainly better, at least for me, than having to deal with a Magic Item Formula featuring differentials and calculus. I can use differentials and calculus, but I prefer to game when I'm gaming. It is the same thing here. Diplomacy can't be used to mediate every social encounter, and more than that, the Diplomacy attitude chart is only part of a greater whole that is NPC Attitudes, which is more fully explained in the DMG. You can't expect a Dragon to treat you as an equal. You can make him helpful, but you can't un-Dragon him. I have vast reservations that a better system can be made because we don't really know enough about human emotions and interactions to quantify anything, let alone figure out how they generally work. In fact, there are at least 3 or 4 different psychological schemas that try to do such a thing, and they are not only unquantified, but also fairly limited. If real psychologists who make a living out of the thing can't find a system to reliably model normal human interaction, then the chances of us developing a sensible system to handle all sorts of fantastical interactions appear to be nonexistent. You and Archtyrant Terevoth can try if you like, but in the meantime, I'll be using the Diplomacy skill in the core rules, because they appear to be working for me. Zherog: I don't really subscribe to Rich's system because it's both too limited and too powerful. It's not really the Diplomacy skill anymore, but a Negotiator skill, which includes elements of Bluff and outright lies. Trading dirt for a castle strikes me as more of a Bluff check than a Diplomacy check. No amount of presentation is going to make dirt more desirable than a castle. At the same time, it limits NPC will and negotiating power in a very real and palpable way. No longer can a low level NPC be difficult to present yourself to, or negotiate with, because his HD and levels matter too much. In the current setup, I can at least place a rather hefty penalty on any check I deem too unusual to accept, even for a country bumpkin. The detail and rigidity is the noose that hangs the ruleset in that case.
Lady Danyon Dehlmari 01-07-05, 11:47 AM	Archtyrant is someone that on many subjects concerning gaming, I agree with. And, truth be known, I *would* try gaming his way because after reading enough of his posts on these boards I think the game would be fun, and that he is probably a good DM. However, I must also say that Roxlimn and I share the same thoughts on the diplomacy skill. I think Roxlimn has an excellent grasp on the skill and it's uses. (Hats off to you, on some excellent posts regarding the skill thus far in the thread.) Seems to me that Archetyrant just plays a little differently when it comes to this issue. He probably runs a good game and his judgement calls are probably fair in accordance with the way he runs the game. Which makes it just fine.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-07-05, 04:47 PM	I think the best thing about Rich's rules is the scalability - as the PCs face higher and higher levels of NPCs, the DC for getting stuff out of them goes up. Is it perfect? Nope, of course not. Take a 8th level Rogue with an 22 charisma (including stat boosts and items) and max ranks and we have 17. Add in Skill Focus (Diplomacy) and we have a 20. So yeah, with a good roll, that rogue is going to swindle the King out of his Castle. Yeah, the scalability is better than the current rules, however, the fact that makes it worse is that it forces NPCs to make trades, even disasterous ones. And this is a lot more game damaging than a simple reaction adjustment, because it has potential to actually skyrocket a PCs wealth. Sure, a castle isn't all that great for a PC to have, however what about magic items? Artifacts? Remember these are trades too. So you can walk into ye olde magic item shop and basically buy whatever you want with a handful of copper. So you buy a +10 or +20 skill item, you load up on a bunch of diplomacy enhancing feats, plus any other skill enhancers your DM allows, then you head over to Ye olde magic shop, and the book prices for items go right out the window. There are some things that just shouldn't have DCs, because eventually someone beats that DC, and the game ends. Trading nothing for something is something you don't want happening at all, especially in a game based around an average character wealth. As much as some people may want to have epic diplomats, they really just shouldn't exist, because they're game breaking. Trading castles or artifacts for string is something that can't happen if you want a coherent game. The normal diplomacy skill is indirectly game breaking, this diplomacy variant is directly game breaking. Roxlimn: You say stuff like: The God has +199 990 on his Sense Motive Check and he's taking 10. I can do that because I'm the DM. See how that works out? And then go claim that the social system works well. This would place the god at well over level 10,000. And certainly it would not be a standard D&D god. Take a standard setting, like Forgotten realms and check out the god's sense motive scores. They're not too great. They tend to be in the 40s-50s and some gods, like Mystra, don't have the skill at all. In either case, that's a DC of about 70-80 and a good bluff build can beat those DCs. And that's by the book. Sure, in your homebrew world, your gods might be level 10,000+, but that's not the standard game, and thus ultimately pointless to discuss. Taking a standard setting like Forgotten Realms, I can show how bluff is broken. You cannot show it works without resorting to house rules. Yet you still claim the rules are balanced. Oberoni Fallacy. Your claim is that the DM is supposed to declare that certain social skills can't be used in certain circumstances, but that oddly, this is supported by the core, even though there's no rule saying the DM has a right to do this. If the skill doesn't have conditions for its use such as hide requiring cover or concealment, then the skill can be used anytime. Since diplomacy involves talking, then one can conclude that the only requirement is that the other parties can hear you. And that isn't even explicitly stated in the book. There is nothing about NPCs being able to ignore diplomacy whenever they feel like it and the DM being able to deny people rolls. Diplomacy specifically says you can use it on people who are hostile, as a 1 round action. To deny that is specifically going against the rules and is a use of rule 0. Again, Oberoni fallacy.
Zherog 01-07-05, 10:18 PM	Yeah, the scalability is better than the current rules, however, the fact that makes it worse is that it forces NPCs to make trades, even disasterous ones. And this is a lot more game damaging than a simple reaction adjustment, because it has potential to actually skyrocket a PCs wealth. Sure, a castle isn't all that great for a PC to have, however what about magic items? Artifacts? Remember these are trades too. So you can walk into ye olde magic item shop and basically buy whatever you want with a handful of copper. So you buy a +10 or +20 skill item, you load up on a bunch of diplomacy enhancing feats, plus any other skill enhancers your DM allows, then you head over to Ye olde magic shop, and the book prices for items go right out the window. Very fair assessment, AT. I'm lucky in that I don't have players that abuse things, so these rules work perfectly fine for me. However... if you think the foundation here is stronger than the foundation in the core rules, than even with that Rich has saved you a ton of work. All you really need to do is define, "impossible" and move along. The system does handle non-trades, it's just not particularly intuitive. Basically, you treat the acquisition of the "friendship" as the bartered item. You determine the target's current attitude towards you, and figure out the risk/reward of being your friend. Now you have a DC for converting an NPC from "indifferent" to "friendly." As I said - even if you only take half of the stuff Rich wrote, you're still ahead of the game, because you've improved Diplomacy that much more for your game.
Roxlimn 01-08-05, 11:36 AM	Archtyrant Terevoth: This would place the god at well over level 10,000. And certainly it would not be a standard D&D god. Take a standard setting, like Forgotten realms and check out the god's sense motive scores. They're not too great. They tend to be in the 40s-50s and some gods, like Mystra, don't have the skill at all. In either case, that's a DC of about 70-80 and a good bluff build can beat those DCs. And that's by the book. You're assuming that I'm subscribing to the ridiculous notion that gods can be statted at all. I don't, and that's why I neither bought nor read Deities and Demigods, nor do I put any value in god stats in D&D, generally speaking. These are not core, and cannot be said to be derivative from anything core. God stats and the notion of statting gods are wholly extra-core. Sure, in your homebrew world, your gods might be level 10,000+, but that's not the standard game, and thus ultimately pointless to discuss. Taking a standard setting like Forgotten Realms, I can show how bluff is broken. You cannot show it works without resorting to house rules. Yet you still claim the rules are balanced. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there. I did not say the Diplomacy skill ruleset was generally usable. Generally usable as in requires no DM management. In fact, I did go so far to say that practically all skills require DM intervention to a greater or lesser extent, even relatively straightforward seeming skills like Climb, Jump, and Hide. There is no "Oberoni Fallacy" here and I already explained why. Your claim is that the DM is supposed to declare that certain social skills can't be used in certain circumstances, but that oddly, this is supported by the core, even though there's no rule saying the DM has a right to do this. If the skill doesn't have conditions for its use such as hide requiring cover or concealment, then the skill can be used anytime. And it says this where, exactly? I quoted the Skills and Abilites Checks section of the DMG for my part, where does this "use skill anytime" thing come from? Since diplomacy involves talking, then one can conclude that the only requirement is that the other parties can hear you. And that isn't even explicitly stated in the book. Actually, you can use the skills without talking. There is nothing about NPCs being able to ignore diplomacy whenever they feel like it and the DM being able to deny people rolls. Diplomacy specifically says you can use it on people who are hostile, as a 1 round action. To deny that is specifically going against the rules and is a use of rule 0. Again, Oberoni fallacy. Sorry, but no. Have you been reading anything I've been posting? Before the skill can be rolled, the DM has to delieanate the task, and whether it is doable or not, and what skill, ability check, or other is involved. Without the DM delienating the task, you can't use anything, even Hide, and even with Concelament. For example, it's entirely possible that a person's ranks in Hide skill becomes irrelevant. Like when you're completely hidden from view. In this case, no Spot check will ever succeed because there's nothing to see. No shadow, no exposed coattails, no vague outline, nothing. Even if the PC or NPC isn't hiding, no roll is necessary. Whether he likes it or not, he's hidden and no Spot will spot him. In this case, no roll is necessary, and it's entirely within the DM's purview to overrule a Spot check. There is no Rule 0 here in that you change a rule. You're assuming something that the game directly and explicitly countermands, and thus you believe that when I quote game recommendations, that I'm going against some rule. I'm not. You assumed it was a rule. It doesn't exist.
Archtyrant Terevoth 01-08-05, 03:33 PM	For example, it's entirely possible that a person's ranks in Hide skill becomes irrelevant. Like when you're completely hidden from view. In this case, no Spot check will ever succeed because there's nothing to see. Yes, this is actually part of the rules under total cover or total concealment however, not some house rule. You can use hide so long as you meet the conditions. That is, that you have cover or concealment. Now, you can try to hide without them, but your attempt won't work because you fail to meet the requirements. If you have total cover to someone, you can still hide, it's just unneccessary because he can't see you regardless. But you can still make a check if you want to, because you might be able to hide against others to whom you only have partial concealment or cover. And that check works for everyone. Sorry, but no. Have you been reading anything I've been posting? Before the skill can be rolled, the DM has to delieanate the task, and whether it is doable or not, and what skill, ability check, or other is involved. Without the DM delienating the task, you can't use anything, even Hide, and even with Concelament. The DM should not be vetoing skill uses, so long as they cover what the skill is supposed to do. Using jump to jump over something is exactly what jump does, and assuming the ceiling is high enough, the DM has no right to limit your jumping ability. Using tumble to roll by something in combat is what the tumble skill does, and assuming the ground isn't a thick bog, or something your DM decides is the equivalent, you can tumble. The DM can't arbitrarily decide you can't tumble, not without rule 0. Diplomacy is the same way. So long as someone can hear you in some manner, you're able to use diplomacy. Their mental state has nothing to do with it, and if you deny someone a diplomacy check because of that then that's a rule 0. THeir mental state is already taken into consideration based on their attitude. ou're assuming that I'm subscribing to the ridiculous notion that gods can be statted at all. I don't, and that's why I neither bought nor read Deities and Demigods, nor do I put any value in god stats in D&D, generally speaking. These are not core, and cannot be said to be derivative from anything core. God stats and the notion of statting gods are wholly extra-core. As part of official campaign settings, those rules do in fact apply. And note, I'm not trying to show diplomacy is broken in your campaign world, because nobody here cares about that. I'm trying to show that diplomacy is broken in a generic campaign world. And you're totally avoiding the topic. Can we also not have kings, dragons or archmagi either? Because you can bluff them just the same. Take god and replace it with any powerful figure or monster. Whatever I don't care, it's equally game breaking. However... if you think the foundation here is stronger than the foundation in the core rules, than even with that Rich has saved you a ton of work. All you really need to do is define, "impossible" and move along. The system does handle non-trades, it's just not particularly intuitive. Basically, you treat the acquisition of the "friendship" as the bartered item. You determine the target's current attitude towards you, and figure out the risk/reward of being your friend. Now you have a DC for converting an NPC from "indifferent" to "friendly." As I said - even if you only take half of the stuff Rich wrote, you're still ahead of the game, because you've improved Diplomacy that much more for your game. Well, it's rather difficult, because a lot of the problem actually lies in the D&D skill system. The more I think about it, the more that I think diplomacy can't be a skill, it has to be something else. Mainly because skills go up far too fast, and the bonus progression deviates far too quickly. When you've got items or spells granting +10 and greater bonuses, then you're basically one item or spell away from a guaranteed success at any skill. Normally this isn't a problem, because most skills just aren't that powerful. We can hand out a +30 to jump, and it'll still be weaker than a fly spell. A +10 to open locks similarly isn't all that good. But social skills are a bit different, because they're supposed to be somehow based on modifiers. For those modifiers that Rich wrote to actually mean something, the modifiers for magical items and spell bonuses need to go way down. The system has to be logical in the sense that you don't come into the game and wonder why someone didn't use it to take over the world long ago. And it has to represent some degree of free will. And I'm not sure any system can do that well enough to actually work without constant DM adjudication. And really, I don't want to force PCs to spend skill points, feats, or whatever on something that's really just a fancy way of saying "The DM decides". And ultimately that's what you end up doing when adjudicating diplomacy. Important conversations are generally about advancing the plot. Either you get information out of them, they give you quests or something else happens. And basically you don't want plot NPCs being able to be targetted with social skills at all, at least not unless the plot allows that possibility. If the necromancer is supposed to be irredeemably evil, he's not going to stop his undead hordes simply because you asked him nicely. Now you pretty much end up having to create a personal chart for each major NPC, assuming you want a system at all. Which dictates how he reacts. And for some guys it may go "NPC attacks" throughout the entire chart. Assuming you have a simple system wtih three reaction catagories: A failure, a success and a success by 10 or more for instance. You could use Rich's system to do something like that, and it might not work too bad, though ultimately its usage becomes so uncertain that you're not sure if you want the PCs spending skill points to do it. Because you're spending points to shift an opponents reaction to "result #3" but that may not even mean anytihng in the case of some people. And I feel a little bit shaky about charging PCs points to do that. My belief has always been that if you're spending points for a skill or a feat or whatever, it should have a defined use.
Seeker95 01-08-05, 05:47 PM	Just coming in to extend the invitation here as well. Anyone who wants to exit this thread is invited to my place for a houserule party. Bring your own houserules, but you're not allowed to slam others for sticking to core.
Roxlimn 01-08-05, 10:50 PM	Archtyrant Terevoth: Yes, this is actually part of the rules under total cover or total concealment however, not some house rule. 1. I'm not using house rules on this argument. 2. The way total cover and concealment obviates the need for a Hide check doesn't always apply. This just as core as what I'm espousing. For example, you can use a Tower Shield to provide yourself with Total Cover. By the rules, you can then attempt a Hide check to hide yourself behind your own shield, and then sneak away. Very obvious reasons exist for why this doesn't work, but according to the rules, it should. So you see, even what you think is a straightforward rule requires DM intervention and adjudication. The DM should not be vetoing skill uses, so long as they cover what the skill is supposed to do. Using jump to jump over something is exactly what jump does, and assuming the ceiling is high enough, the DM has no right to limit your jumping ability. Nuh uh. The Jump skill does not qualify height as a limitation for Jump checks. According to the Jump skill: A long jump is a horizontal jump jump made across a gap like a chasm or a stream. At the midpoint of the jump, you attain a height equal to one quarter of the horizontal distance. Those are the rules for a long jump. According to these rules, you can only make this jump across a chasm. If you don't have a chasm, you can't make a long jump. Furthermore, you only require a one quarter distance height of the long jump at the midpoint of the jump. There is no mention of a parabolic trajectory, nor is it required. You can make a long jump on a low ceiling height as long as there's a one quarter height clearance at the midpoint of your jump. This is obviously ridiculous, but it proves the point. You need to use the Skills and Ability Checks rules in the DMG to make sense of something even as elementary as a Jump skill check. The DM doesn't "veto" skill checks, he asks for whatever check he feels is appropriate for the situation, if he even feels that a check is appropriate. There is no vetoing here, because the DM calls the check in the first place. You are assuming the presence of this rule: The Player decides which situaition is appropriate for the use of the skill and asks the DM for a skill check DC target sometimes. Often, this won't be necessary as the skill DC setups are usually straightforward. which does not exist. You need to acknowledge that you're assuming the presence of this rule before we can continue meaningfully. Using tumble to roll by something in combat is what the tumble skill does, and assuming the ground isn't a thick bog, or something your DM decides is the equivalent, you can tumble. The DM can't arbitrarily decide you can't tumble, not without rule 0. The DM decides to call the check. If you can Tumble, he'll ask you for a Tumble check. If for some reason, it isn't doable, he won't and he is under no duress to explain himself. It probably has some sort of good logical explanation behind it if he's a good DM, but whether this is explained at the outset to the player is a matter of style and preference. Sometimes, finding out why you can't Track what should be a well-laid trail is part of the adventure. Diplomacy is the same way. So long as someone can hear you in some manner, you're able to use diplomacy. Their mental state has nothing to do with it, and if you deny someone a diplomacy check because of that then that's a rule 0. THeir mental state is already taken into consideration based on their attitude. Really? And this mental state thing is mentioned where again? It seems to me that you're making use of whole lot of house rules to make Diplomacy unusable. Why you'd ever want to do so is beyond me. Normally, you use house rules to make existing rules usable, not the other way around. As part of official campaign settings, those rules do in fact apply. And note, I'm not trying to show diplomacy is broken in your campaign world, because nobody here cares about that. I'm trying to show that diplomacy is broken in a generic campaign world. And you're totally avoiding the topic. Well, if we're talking about set campaign worlds anyway, I choose Eberron. No god has stats there, and it's unlikely that they will ever have any. How do you like them apples? Can we also not have kings, dragons or archmagi either? Because you can bluff them just the same. Take god and replace it with any powerful figure or monster. Whatever I don't care, it's equally game breaking. Even if you can fool these people, it won't be game breaking because there's a limit on what you can pull off with the skill. It's less powerful than suggestion and that's that. No ifs, buts, and maybes.
WizO_Catoblepas 01-08-05, 10:55 PM	Ok, it's starting to get personal again. Besides, this thread has really drifted off topic (with no help from myself I may add). At any rate, I do agree that the social skills discussion is very valid. However, it belongs on the Skills and Feats board. As for the original question, it's been answered for a while. Time to close the thread.