Grek wrote:On one hand, your obstinate insistance on reading any rule you see in the most retarded way possible is kinda handy.
That's how you read rules. As they are literally written. You are proposing rules that REPLACE "Oh just make something up and use common sense". So we read them as you write them. Too bad if that then sucks for you.
But on the other hand, your constant wanking to your own 100% hypothetical and unposted ruleset
Er. Last time someone pulled the "oh yeah if my stuff demonstrably sucks then where is yours huh?" shit I actually went and put my rules set in my own invention. No one particularly cared. So... how... does it feel like to be wrong so often?
That said, here's an updated version:
Whenever the party is going to an unfamiliar place where there may be unfriendly people, the party has a Posture, either Friendly or Hostile.
They also really need a posture when at home and hanging around regular haunts.
Also they need to have subjective postures for different encounters and different characters/parties they meet.
Also really a GROUP posture system is... kinda poor we really DO need at least some potential for individual differentiation. You don't have it. That is a VERY bad thing. Because, again, GM Fiat can do that, your system is more complex but can't.
ALSO.... you STILL have it written as
location based reaction requirements. That is STILL stupid. That is STILL "Englishmen in Italy attack each other because they can't speak Italian" territory. That is, like, the most laughably wrong thing you have going here.
Generally speaking
After, repeated, hand holding you've helped fix up your broken majority rules problems somewhat. Huzzah for you. But still only somewhat. NOW it has no penalty for as many people in the party as feel like it breaking all "negotiable" customs. And no benefit for more than one person in the party meeting things like basic language and courtesy requirements.
This is not good. You've knocked off the extremes, but not the problems the extremes were demonstrating. Which is basically that simplified group reaction mechanics sort of suck and that your system is worse at accounting for social reactions to the general politeness or whatever of a group than GM fiat is, but does it in a more complex way involving more rolls.
Only one person needs to succed the check to determine the appropriate customs. They can then tell the other members of the party without them needing to make knowledge or diplomacy checks of their own.
This is probably an improvement to everyone rolling themselves (or not bothering) and getting a wild smattering of randomised hostile/non hostile etc... as a result.
But you DO realize this means that it is a MINIMUM 1 roll per character until someone succeeds right? Maybe 2 per character if you add in one of your "and the local geography is religious!" checks. That's a fair bit of bullshit rolls for what hopefully will eventually be a close to auto success for any reasonable sized party.
You really need to do away with those extraneous rolls as much as possible. This is not good enough.
However, if you encounter a creature with a hostile attitude, it will behave normally (attacking, interfering, berating or fleeing) and gains a +4 circumstance bonus to initiative due to the party being unready for combat.
Oh my so, with that direct lift of part of the Hostile description, Hostile and hostile ARE the same? Whenever WILL DSM apologize for pulling the "they are clearly mechanically distinct!" bullshit.
But anyway. "Behave normally" is not appropriate. The standard hostile description actually states "Will take risks to hurt you". And anyway, what the hell is "normally" especially on the most extreme hostile result generated by your system? I give your description of "Hostile" 2 stars out of 10.
When your Posture is Hostile, all intelligent creatures you encounter with an attitude of indifferent or worse have their attitudes become one degree more hostile towards the party.
You do realise this means your system NEVER generates a scenario where you party does not know the local customs, meets an otherwise friendly or indifferent group. And that group negotiates peace with the PCs.
It's questionable if their hostile posture even permits the PCs to negotiate peace. But the NPCs, basically will DEFINITELY shift to attitudes where they will either attack, or will, at BEST, not wish to make new friends. And it's somewhat implied that PCs would too.
Allowing the default rules really doesn't help. And only confuses issues, especially as your rules DO interact with the default rules, and since PCs cannot actually be effected by Diplomacy as written (an over all bad thing), that means that yeah, either the PCs attempt to negotiate for peace or it NEVER EVER HAPPENS in your system, the PCs can seriously meet an actual party of actual peace loving dedicated high level diplomats and those diplomats WON'T want peace and COULDN'T ask for it if they did.