The Gaming Den

Let me break this down for you, because you seem confused.

"Using diplomacy ..." is a general type of action, like "fighting somebody".
"... on the king ..." is the target.
"... to make him get rid of the elves ..." is your objective.
"... because they are destabilizing his reign." is your method. In a fight, this would be things like where you stand, what maneuver you use, and so forth.
"I rolled a 30" is your roll to accomplish the task.
"+/- X based on what you're asking." is a step that you could do or not do. I would do it, but that's not even what this thread is about.
"And so the king orders the elven leaders beheaded, and the rest driven off. His spymaster, who he orders to counteract the (nonexistant) elven treachery, wonders if the king is becoming senile." is the result.

And to repeat myself, since you missed it before:

Ice9 wrote:Now if you're claiming that "results" are part of "modifiers", and therefore opening the chest of bees should have the same result as opening the chest of gold, then fuck off, that's not even how D&D works. D&D is a fucking task resolution game. Rolling high does not mean "you win", it means you succeeded on a task. The actual results are going to depend on what that task was.

Your latest post fails on the basic principle of not actually making a point.

You described a bunch of largely irrelevant stuff... then forgot to attempt to roll that up into ANY meaningful conclusion.

Do you even KNOW what you are TRYING to say here?

...and since you failed to notice I had made a post at all I'll help you out again with the bit where your argument you forgot to make is falling flat on it's face...

here is a hint, it's all about timing.

I'm talking about this:

PhoneLobster wrote:You cannot leave determining the result of the action until after the roll because at some point after the result of the roll the result may have differing outcomes!

Nobody (except you) said that. I said that you cannot leave the METHOD that you convince someone until after the roll. The method is not the same as the result - why is this hard for you to grasp?


Look, D&D is task based. That means that - in every case - rolling a high number only means you succeeded at a given task, not that you got your ultimate objective. That applies no matter how abstract you make things. Even if you abstract "sneaking into a mansion and stealing the signet ring" to a single roll, that roll will still get you nothing if the signet ring was in a different building. No matter how high you roll, the chest that has angry bees will still have angry bees, not gold. That means that you can't just "diplomacy to make the most ideal argument" any more than you can "spellcraft to scry on the most ideal person".

Ice9 wrote:Nobody (except you) said that. I said that you cannot leave the METHOD that you convince someone until after the roll.

And everyone said "thats just a modifier" then you said "NO I am not talking about modifiers! I am talking about entirely differing results"
we all rolled our eyes and somehow skipped mentioning that degree of success mechanics basically cause your entire argument to fall on it's ass and just point out that success or failure is a differing result that effects future events that is left to be decided and filled in with fluff until after the roll. And you told us we should not do that.

Which means, AGAIN because you don't notice that you have NOT in fact argued yourself into a new and unique definition of "roll" or "after" or "result" you are in fact once again, arguing against rolling at all.

I mean seriously you have individually at least implicitly attempted to redefine "method", "select", "result", "goal", "making friends", "the actual diplomacy rules" and "after".

When you find yourself trying to rewrite the English language a word at a time, perhaps you are a bit far down the rabbit hole up your own ass.

No, PL, you are wrong. When I attack an orc I don't say "I'm hitting the goblin on the left, so I get +2 on my combat effectiveness roll this turn". When I shoot an arrow, I don't say "I'm aiming at the BBEG, so I get a +3 to hit and -3 damage".

Do you know why? Because that's not how D&D works. That's now how most RPGs work. Claiming that Ice9 is dumb because he knows how D&D works and you don't.... well, it makes you look dumb. And you can go ahead and scream about it and call us all dumb, but the point will remain that you still don't actually have a grasp on what this discussion is about, so we'll probably just treat you like swordslinger or shadzball and ignore you.

I understand what PL's core argument is here (I think). At least, what it was from his first few posts in the thread. I may be very wrong.

He's saying that there are situations where you really don't have any modifiers that can be applied. Maybe the PCs are arguing against a perfectly legitimate vizier while in court. The PCs should roll diplomacy and the vizier should roll diplomacy, whoever wins that shit should be the one the king believes. If both sides are valid then it should be how well each side is presented, and that is something diplomacy does. You shouldn't MTP it because the mechanics are there to prevent MTP from determining results. You can act it out, but that's just a front for the mechanics. The acting doesn't actually matter.

When two combatants are going toe-to-toe player skill really doesn't matter at all, so it gets settled by the mechanics, not by IC speeches.

He's also said that there are situations where modifiers make sense, such as presenting evidence to the king as proof that the elves are going to attack.



Anyways, bluff is not a good example for diplomacy arguments, because the only mechanic bluff has is "they believe your lie." Saying different lies have different results is like saying "Diplomacy to start a war" is different from "Diplomacy to broker peace." No shit those have different outcomes, the player wanted different things. Bluff doesn't say "you achieve <result>" it says "NPC believes <lie>."

If you "Diplomacy to start a war with the elves" then does the reason seriously matter? I guess you could say it doesn't specify how long the war will last, but the player could say "Diplomacy to genocide the elves" and you'd know the exact duration of the war (forever, elves are killed on sight). Is there a difference between "genocide the elves because they won't stop singing" and "genocide the elves because they're an eye sore?" If the player wants to be more specific then they will, but they probably don't care how long the war lasts (and wars tend to be a self-fulfilling prophecy anyways, you get a bit more angry at the other side when they're killing you).

I can see the reasoning behind "Diplomacy to go to war with the elves? You need to say why." I just wouldn't be surprised if you got players saying "Because they're evil," or "because I want him to" when they're at a loss for why. I don't know, I see that as more immersion-breaking than just imaging that the character said something that actually sounded reasonable (unless the elves are legit evil or the king and that guy go way back and/or are fucking, in which case those were reasonable).

The "perform after you roll or you're making my WSoD go away" is my own personal thing. Don't make a speech until after you know if it will be good or not. It's so incredibly simple. Why play the damn game when you're going to give descriptions of what's happening a bonus? I can't describe a decapitating blow when I miss my attack because that makes no fucking sense at all. I wait for my roll to describe how my swing goes/where my finger-laser pew pews because it doesn't make sense to say "I lop off his head. <rolls a 1> He takes no damage."

...You Lost Me wrote:No, PL, you are wrong. When I attack an orc I don't say "I'm hitting the goblin on the left, so I get +2 on my combat effectiveness roll this turn". When I shoot an arrow, I don't say "I'm aiming at the BBEG, so I get a +3 to hit and -3 damage".

Do you know why? Because that's not how D&D works. That's now how most RPGs work. Claiming that Ice9 is dumb because he knows how D&D works and you don't.... well, it makes you look dumb. And you can go ahead and scream about it and call us all dumb, but the point will remain that you still don't actually have a grasp on what this discussion is about, so we'll probably just treat you like swordslinger or shadzball and ignore you.

I thought Ice9 was the one arguing that the method had to be decided before the roll...

This argument has me confused.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:He's saying that there are situations where you really don't have any modifiers that can be applied. Maybe the PCs are arguing against a perfectly legitimate vizier while in court. The PCs should roll diplomacy and the vizier should roll diplomacy, whoever wins that shit should be the one the king believes. If both sides are valid then it should be how well each side is presented, and that is something diplomacy does. You shouldn't MTP it because the mechanics are there to prevent MTP from determining results. You can act it out, but that's just a front for the mechanics. The acting doesn't actually matter.

Everything you said here is true, except for it being PL's point. Everyone arguing against him has already explicitly said that they don't think acting out the speech is required (except Swordslinger, who hasn't said either way).
The vizier example has the same issue as the war on elves example: you need more detail than just "arguing against him," because proving that he's a buffoon is different than proving pedophilia, is different from proving treason. In all cases, the vizier ends up gone, but the detailed outcomes are different, and may differ in important ways.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Anyways, bluff is not a good example for diplomacy arguments, because the only mechanic bluff has is "they believe your lie." Saying different lies have different results is like saying "Diplomacy to start a war" is different from "Diplomacy to broker peace." No shit those have different outcomes, the player wanted different things. Bluff doesn't say "you achieve <result>" it says "NPC believes <lie>."

But "Diplomacy to start a war" doesn't parse. That's not one of the things that diplomacy can do, in the same way that bluff doesn't have "get through a gate". Certainly, you can use diplomacy to start a war, but not directly; you have to make up the framework around it. Now, like bluff, that's not real difficult, but also like bluff, different inputs have different results from success.

fectin wrote:Everything you said here is true, except for it being PL's point. Everyone arguing against him has already explicitly said that they don't think acting out the speech is required (except Swordslinger, who hasn't said either way).

Oh really? Because your claim does NOT jive with anything Ice_9 has been saying. He has been VERY insistent about defining every possible detail of the action BEFORE rolling and has used various terms and examples to demand this.

He has EXPLICITLY STATED that he does NOT permit "make friends with guard" as an action because he does not understand or permit "make whatever default/result scaled argument to do that" as a means of doing so.

Your "but no one said it!" argument is on thin fucking ice because if they AREN'T saying this what the fuck are they even talking about?.

What's Ice_9's obsession with what he is (as of the latest posts) defining as "Method"? Why is he demanding it as a requirement of ALL social effects? Why is he using it to argue against all uses of "I use my god damn friendliness skill to make a god damn friend like it says I'm supposed to be able to do in the book, do I REALLY have to add more I mean you always give me negative modifiers and this time its a REALLY simple target..."?

If he ISN'T making an argument demanding "known results/fluff/details before rolling!" disproved by commonly successful mechanics like degree of success and critical hits and indeed success/failure rolls what IS he trying to say?

No really because YOU are telling us he is violently agreeing with the "well just make an abstracted social roll!" crowd. I don't think he will agree with you on that.

RobG wrote: At Libertad: Is there some sort of 'fastest to 100 posts' prize I dont know about? Im not ragging on you, Im just curious. You sure dived in with both feet here.

I've got a lot of free time on my hands, and I like to start topics that get people talking. I often like to find issues that people are passionate about (be they related to RPGs or politics or some other area of interest), so I create a conversation to hear all the different views.

I have to admit that the thread spiraled into an entirely different direction than what I intended.

RadiantPhoenix wrote:

...You Lost Me wrote:No, PL, you are wrong. When I attack an orc I don't say "I'm hitting the goblin on the left, so I get +2 on my combat effectiveness roll this turn". When I shoot an arrow, I don't say "I'm aiming at the BBEG, so I get a +3 to hit and -3 damage"...

I thought Ice9 was the one arguing that the method had to be decided before the roll...

This argument has me confused.

If that weren't enough he is also confused further over Ice_9's latest claims, because you lost me is talking about modifiers AGAIN, and while Ice_9 at various points HAS been talking about modifiers he IS now talking about what he has decided to redefine as "methods" which are actually variant outcomes, which cannot according to him be determined after or by rolling. Because rolling cannot be allowed to change outcomes... for some still as yet unstated reason.

I mean bringing up modifiers again is SO several posts ago when Ice_9 abandoned them and denied all knowledge of having talked about them, since after all he MIGHT have had to admit that in most systems modifiers are optional had he admitted what they even were or that they exist.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I understand what PL's core argument is here (I think). At least, what it was from his first few posts in the thread. I may be very wrong.

He's saying that there are situations where you really don't have any modifiers that can be applied. Maybe the PCs are arguing against a perfectly legitimate vizier while in court. The PCs should roll diplomacy and the vizier should roll diplomacy, whoever wins that shit should be the one the king believes. If both sides are valid then it should be how well each side is presented, and that is something diplomacy does. You shouldn't MTP it because the mechanics are there to prevent MTP from determining results. You can act it out, but that's just a front for the mechanics. The acting doesn't actually matter.

I can't make heads or tails of Lobsters semi-incoherent babble, so I'm gonna take your word for what he's saying.

As for the Vizier/King situation, you're certainly going to have modifiers, even if those modifiers are +0.
How well does the king know the PCs? Probably not very. Modifier.
The Vizier? Is he a trusted advisor, a backstabbing bastard or some random nobleman? Modifier.
And absolutely what proposal you're presenting to the king should be a modifier too. If you're proposing something harmful for his nation or against his beliefs, that too should be a modifier.

Maybe you'd have some situation where the modifiers are evenly matched. Where PCs that are moderately trusted heroes come against a moderately trusted vizier and both are making proposals the king has no real interest in. But you're still considering modifiers, they just end up equaling out.

And I disagree with the whole opposed checks to convince a major NPC anyway. The king isn't some puppet with no mind of his own. He should have his own agenda and have the option of siding with neither group. Otherwise the proper response is to throw two ridiculous proposals at him and forcing a winner.

PC1: "I convince the king to surrender his kingdom to me."
PC2: "I'll try to get him to give his kingdom to me instead."
DM: "Opposed diplomacy checks... okay PC2 wins by 3, the kingdom goes to him."

All right, PL, let's do this again for you.

Imagine you're fighting an orc. You are wielding a sword, and you say "I hit the orc with my sword". You have an action (hit), target (orc), and method (with my sword). If you were wielding a sword and said "I hit the orc with my eye lazors", people would call you stupid and make you do something else.

Imagine you're talking to a king. This is a time when the orcs are performing raids on the kingdom, and you want the kingdom to send an army and kill the orcs. You have an action (send an army to kill the orcs), target (the king), and a method (tell him that the orcs are stealing his shit). If the orcs were raiding and you said "I tell the king to kill the orcs because his momma is fat", people would call you stupid and make you do something else.

That is the point here. You need a method, because that's how things work. An abstract "I diplomacy the king for 30" is just like saying (as Ice9 pointed out), "I clear out the dungeon for 27". It's nonsensical, and it's not something we want in the game.

BONUS PHONELOBSTER CONTENT
I see where you going with the "MODIFIERS WABARGL" thing, as in "I tell the king that the orcs are taking his shit" nets +2 circumstance bonus, and "I tell the king that his momma is fat" nets -6 circumstance penalty. Combat does that too, with shaken being -2 and high ground being +1, etc. But you're saying that no method is necessary, because they can be translated into modifiers, and that's wrong. Saying "I use my lazors to kill the orc" doesn't impose a penalty if you don't have lazors, you're just not allowed to do it. If say you attempted to talk to the king by storming his palace, sleeping with his daughters, and then yelling at him as his guards tossed you off the roof. In such a case, you wouldn't "not get a bonus", and you wouldn't take a penalty. you just would not get a roll.

So sure, you have some correctness. Methods can produce modifiers. But that doesn't mean that you can just ignore methods completely. In every circumstance, they are necessities.

...You Lost Me wrote: An abstract "I diplomacy the king for 30" is just like saying (as Ice9 pointed out), "I clear out the dungeon for 27". It's nonsensical, and it's not something we want in the game.

You know what.

JUST THAT QUOTE. I don't need to do anything else to point out the MASSIVE stupidity and intellectual dishonesty of my opponents in this argument. JUST LOOK AT THAT GIGANTIC BURNING STRAW MAN. The false equivalency just POURS out of it's screaming orifices. ANY abstraction even the exact same abstraction as the standard generic attack roll abstraction is THE SAME as just rolling abstracted "I clear the dungeon" rolls.

Hm. You know what I don't HAVE to present anything else. You lost me just lost the fucking argument on his own.

The attack roll abstraction? You mean the one where you have to pick which weapon you use, what maneuver you use, and what optional effects you use? That's not really supporting your point.

And for that matter, combat would be pretty damn boring if it came down to single attack roll. Even a random encounter with some bears in the woods has more options and tactics than that. Who the fuck wants starting a war with the elves to be less interesting than a random encounter?

I see Ice_9 you aren't actually interested in trying to have a real conversation about anything at all. You are happy to continue to spew such total drivel as the actual "I clear a dungeon" bullshit and "but but I use a SWORD a mother fucking SWORD!".

How can you even IMAGINE you make ANY sense?

Phone: How abstracted are you wanting Diplomacy to be? Are you seriously wanting a Diplomacy where you don't have to, at the very least, point out what your character is 'trying' to say? It seems pretty reasonable to at least require the player to tell me what his character is "trying" to convince a given NPC to do. If you are arguing against this then please remind me (and anyone else as confused as I am) about what you are actually arguing in favor of.

MGuy wrote:Phone: Are you seriously wanting a Diplomacy where you don't have to, at the very least, point out what your character is 'trying' to say?

Pointing out what you are trying to say is highly questionable, do perhaps, say, pretty much pure fluff that should not be incorporated into the roll. No more than an extended discussion on footing and grip and non-mechanical stylistic swordsmanship is relegated to post roll fluff fill ins.

It seems pretty reasonable to at least require the player to tell me what his character is "trying" to convince a given NPC to do.

The problem is the people having this discussion are NOT being reasonable.

Having an objective and a modifier for that objective in an action is an acceptable mechanic. We do that all the time. Having several options such as variable special attacks with variable special objectives and relevant modifiers is fine.

But those are small and finite lists of predictable well defined and finite sized modifiers.

The IDIOTS on this thread are pointing at things like the finite, predictable and small sized effect of selecting a weapon from a small finite list of weapons and using it to draw TWO insane conclusions with NO CONNECTING ARGUMENT.

1) If small finite modifiers and optional goals exist you CAN and MUST therefore have utterly infinite sized lists of modifiers of potentially infinite size and with infinite variable goals. And as an aside every scenario will always be an overly elaborate one that favors whatever argument I am making this week and all the other infinite scenarios that don't never ever occur just because I say so.

2) If you can use a sword... Charm Person and Diplomacy as written cannot exist and if it did that would be the same as rolling a single abstract roll to defeat a dungeon.

These are fundamentally insane positions. There are no lines connecting the dots. The fact is that abstraction to explain how someone achieves something is STILL built into "I convince the king to give me a sandwich and try to do so with a grand story about dragons" pretty much JUST as much as "I convince the king to give me a sandwich".

Indeed "I declare I am convincing the king to give me a sandwich with a story about dragons then roll high and succeed... somehow..." and "I declare I convince the king to give me a sandwich ... somehow... and I roll high and declare I did it with a story about dragons" are barely different on any sort of level that matters.

But we are having people on this thread flat out declaring that if the dragon story fluff is generated from the roll and not the other way around they are going to explode and rant for pages of thread about it. Admittedly they are STUPID people who say STUPID things about how the sandwich story is so terrible it is the equivalent of "Clear entire dungeon checks".

Even though arguable the story selection on roll result is basically a PROVEN POSSIBLE AND SUCCESSFUL MECHANIC thanks to ANY number of examples including the inclusion of fluff on sword attacks after the roll, the existence of success/failure on rolls, critical hit mechanics, degree of success mechanics, variable damage on hit, and the actual diplomacy and charm person mechanics from the actual RPG system half this thread spent time discussing.

The morons who have been following me around arguing against not just my own but ANY form of actual social mechanic have come into this thread and basically spent their time telling us that EXISTING social mechanics CANNOT HAPPEN. And that if they did it would be as game destroying as just turning entire dungeons into one abstracted roll with no fluff. And that all this is supposedly the case because you might have to pick a target and might use a sword.

It is pure fucking insanity and these people need to get a fucking grip.

Because you know what. You wanna tell me you hate charm person, or you want to have infinite sized modifier lists in your diplomacy "mechanic" fine, you are stupid for wanting that and we can have an argument about THAT, again, but if you tell me those things "... because Swords and Targets! And the universe will explode in Clear Dungeon Checks!" then fuck you you are fucking insane.

If everyone seems to understand what the people disagreeing with you are saying, and also finds it more sensible than you do, it may be time to re-evaluate. That's true whether or not you are correct.

Other than that , I'm done arguing this point. I understand your position, and think it's dumb. Several days and several pages have failed to bring us to any kind of meeting of the minds though, and I don't see that changing.

fectin wrote:If everyone seems to understand what the people disagreeing with you are saying, and also finds it more sensible than you do, it may be time to re-evaluate. That's true whether or not you are correct.

Other than that , I'm done arguing this point. I understand your position, and think it's dumb. Several days and several pages have failed to bring us to any kind of meeting of the minds though, and I don't see that changing.

Hey, I'm only just starting to understand what PL is saying here. Ice9 and Swordslinger still don't make enough sense to me to let me determine whether I even disagree with them.

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Hey, I'm only just starting to understand what PL is saying here.

In all fairness I AM laboring under the yolk of trying to explain/interact with things said by Ice9 and Swordslinger. Much of what I say WILL be hard to follow and often leave you thinking "what? impossible, it couldn't be THAT insane!". But that's hardly my fault.

Having found Phone to be somewhat reasonable (or at least on my side) about diplomacy before I will try my hand at having this conversation again. I think it is important to have Diplomacy somewhat but not completely abstracted. I believe that Ice is saying that "uses a story about dragons" is an important part that needs to be mentioned before you roll because you could have tried to get the sandwich by "threatening to kill the king's daughter" which would be an Intimidate check. You could have also said you get it by convincing him he had promised to do so which would be Bluff. You could have, using Diplomacy still, said that you promise to give him another sandwich in return or some other reward for feeding you which would then mean you have to at some point do the thing you mentioned you would do (assuming you were being sincere since you used Diplomacy instead of Bluff). Also offering a gift would then net you a positive modifier off of the finite list of bonuses you prepared for Diplomatic sections of the game.

I'm with you on the idea that there should be a finite list of bonuses and penalties that are there before you even attempt a Diplomacy. That the "zero state" in this situation would be you just asking for the sandwich. However if you're in a real situation with real players you're going to want to know all the inputs before the roll is made, even if its just to make sure they are making the right roll. In the last case I pointed out the player using diplomacy would attempt to get a bonus by offering a "reward" which would net you a bonus off of the "reward" list of modifiers.

I really have no idea what PL is talking about. I see him blabbing some crap about infinite modifiers, and harping on about the "Clear a dungeon" analogy for several paragraphs, while not responding to the important stuff like what You lost Me said about target, action and method.

MGuy wrote:which would be an Intimidate check.... which would be Bluff... could have, using Diplomacy

I'm pretty sure especially in it's latest shifting goal post form, his argument isn't about the broad skill used and is instead about your specific outputed goals within a single skill/whatever category.

Certainly he seems to talk about it in those terms complaining about the different implications of different potential diplomacy outputs as his examples.

MGuy wrote:... you're going to want to know all the inputs before the roll is made, even if its just to make sure they are making the right roll.

Well sure you want to know all the inputs but as of the "it's not a modifier! It's a different result/goal!" argument he isn't demanding to know just inputs anymore he is demanding very specifically to know all outputs.

Point in case

Ice9 wrote:If you have two chests, they both take a DC 20 check to open, but one of them has gold and the other has a swarm of angry bees, that isn't different modifiers. It's different results.

He goes on to then draw a rather ludicrous equivalency between his lame chest example and two rather unremarkably varied bluff a guard scenarios, then goes on further to build arguable one of the more eccentric strawman of the thread where by disagreement with his argument is tantamount to treating surprise bee sex and gold as the same thing.

He has put this together several ways backwards with a number of poorly rigged scenarios and examples and it's pretty clear, he wants to know the full consequences of the action in advance and refuses to consider any scenario where by you might have or desire some variation, broad effect, or unpredictable element left to the roll and results. And how the actual success/failure of the roll itself survives these demands is anyone's guess since we've never been told.

This is actually a fairly important feature for him. As if you read between the lines from here and elsewhere for his, ahem, preferences, he NEEDS you to decide and spell out your full consequences in advance to him because he is then going to go further and ensure that the circumstantial modifiers for the context magically turn out to fully balance the actual consequences of the action in a form of draconian Gygaxian at the table "balancing".

I'm sorry MGuy but I suspect in an attempt to draw a reasonable argument from these guys you are making an entirely different argument. And I should really point out the "inputs, yeah you can have inputs" position has long since been laid out on this thread before I even joined it by the people Ice9 and Swordslinger and tag alongs are disagreeing with.

edit: Oh and

Also offering a gift would then net you a positive modifier off of the finite list of bonuses you prepared for Diplomatic sections of the game.

If you can get Ice9 alone to agree to a finite list of bonuses OR goals, let alone BOTH, for social actions I will be MOST impressed.

Only counts if he doesn't then promptly attempt to redefine "finite" as "infinite".

Well, PL has sufficiently jumped ship on the argument scheme, failing to go back and read the original posts and relate them to what's at hand, and pulling singular, non-related points from only a few examples (while outright calling the other ones dumb because "OMG YOU ARE SO STUPID THIS IS DUMB YOU ARE DUMB")

But just keep doing your thing, man. It doesn't matter that your argument is flawed and that you can't hold a point to save your life. Fire away, take all my internets.