Chamomile wrote:Lago, when you get over your tantrum, tell me what the GM is supposed to actually do if the actions of NPCs aren't actually under his control.
I'm ready to give up on trying to explain this to you myself. I don't think you understand the difference between ceding some agency to the players or randomness, and ceding all agency to same, and I don't think anyone here is up to the task of explaining it to you.
Either that, or you're willfully equating the two, but that'd only be worse.
Chamomile wrote:What makes this element so special that the game is better off for having it randomized?
Because it's the part of the game that determines which minigame you enter, which means it should be something players can influence.
Exactly the same reason that stealth checks should be rolled rather than having the DM decide whether or not important NPCs see your characters based on available light.
Chamomile wrote:What does the reaction roll do? What is its function?
Here is a reaction roll is a nutshell. Note that the problem is not the reaction roll per se, it's the lack of the equivalent roll in the combat arena and most people generally don't see that as a problem anyway.
You encounter someone - either for the purposes of diplomacy or combat.
Let's take combat first. You encounter someone. He's completely rested, with full hit points and all his abilities / spells in full force. You're his only encounter for the day. Nevermind you are in the middle of a dungeon where you can't move into the next room without some shit happening; he's perfectly fine at 100% of combat ability.
Now you take diplomacy. It's a bit harder to just use a constant notion here, especially if we go with the assumptions we just made for combat. I mean, it's a fine day, he's totally rested and most importantly, you're his only encounter for the day. Why hell, he be more than willing to talk to you. It's not like he's talked to anyone that day.
So the former is fine, the later is so so at best. Thus the roll. Not starting the enemy in a combat at 100% seems unfair, but having a mixed emotional day for him before a diplomacy is somehow more acceptable.
A Man In Black wrote:A system where the players are allowed to use [a given ability] X% of the time, where X is modified by their skill/situational modifiers/the phase of the moon is better than a system where players are allowed to use [that ability] only with GM permission [..]
If you follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion, you're saying that the GM shouldn't be allowed to choose anything. If the party opens a dungeon door and the GM says there's skeleton behind it, they can't use diplomacy. If they open the door and the GM says there isn't a skeleton behind it, they can't use command undead. If the GM says the walls are made out of wood, they can't use transmute rock to mud. If the GM says the walls are made out of rock, they can't use warp wood.
Now there's something to be said for a game where everything is generated randomly (or mostly randomly) a laMonsters' Den. But there's also something to be said for games where a human being decides what the world looks like rather than the roll of a die.
A Man In Black wrote:A system where the players are allowed to use [a given ability] X% of the time, where X is modified by their skill/situational modifiers/the phase of the moon is better than a system where players are allowed to use [that ability] only with GM permission [..]
If you follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion, you're saying that the GM shouldn't be allowed to choose anything. If the party opens a dungeon door and the GM says there's skeleton behind it, they can't use diplomacy. If they open the door and the GM says there isn't a skeleton behind it, they can't use command undead. If the GM says the walls are made out of wood, they can't use transmute rock to mud. If the GM says the walls are made out of rock, they can't use warp wood.
Now there's something to be said for a game where everything is generated randomly (or mostly randomly) a laMonsters' Den. But there's also something to be said for games where a human being decides what the world looks like rather than the roll of a die.
This.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
This argument doesn't really matter anyway. Its "supposed" to keep the GM from railroading. This is bullshit because if the GM is going to railroad you (s)he's going to railroad you. (S)He can even do it "legally" in the suggested system and it doesn't effectively stop a given GM from doing the thing its supposed to stop AT ALL. At best it makes the GM have to write a little bit more about each and every tom dick and hairy you ever meet ever because they may~ be angry or they may be really angry~ and then roll for how quickly they are going to decide to attack you anyway because they all hate "your kind" with such a passion that you can't effectively roll a reaction that doesn't come up hostile. If you're going to make an assumption that "GM = bad" then take it to its natural conclusion don't just stop thinking they are a douche the instant they have to roll some shit.
Further this suggested randomized bullshit doesn't add JACK SHIT to the game at all except MAYBE some randomness. You could seriously go through the game and slap some general attitudes on every fucking mook while giving the important people something interesting to think about. The entire suggestion rests on the assertion that GMs don't know how to craft a plot and can't set initial attitudes without it being railroady. It also suggests that unless cow towed to that players can't get creative enough to create situations where it would be more reasonable to play diplomats. And seriously if someone does want to be random and assign random attributes to people that don't matter , there is already precedent for that. Your Major NPCs all have major things they are doing and there is an overarching plot underway that already has to suffer through the random, completely unbound, actions of the PCs, there is no need for another, useless, random element to be added to it.
Allegations that people who don't like player agency are ALSO stupid because this in no way supports player's agency. If you want player agency you should make it so they could seriously use any array of skills and abilities to foster situations that would vary the way enemies in hostile situations face them. I've already mentioned waving the white flag, disguises, etc. Communicating at a distance, stealth, having diplomatic clout, any number of things the PLAYERS can do in order to effect initial attitude. And the ability to do this shit already exists. Various skills abilities (from info gathering to intimidation, to bluffing, to disguise) all support this style of play. The suggestion here is not about player agency and is just about randomness. The extra fucking roll doesn't give the player's more options it simply randomizes the situation the players run into. That is not player agency. That's stripping agency from the GM for NO REASON and leaving the players to the whim of the dice instead of the GM. If you're just a fan of randomness then by all means whatever but it isn't better in any fashion than allowing the GM to set an initial disposition and roll with it. If you really want GMs to be better have a section in the Dungeon Master's Guide about appropriate ways to shift Initial disposition based on what's going on.
Randomly deciding "This is sleepy orc, this is grumpy orc, and this is frowny orc" by dice roll is not effectively different then the GM doing the same thing.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Could we drop the reaction roll if the diplomacy roll could be made after the opponents became hostile? This way, even if MC said "he's pissed and draws his sword.", the diplomancer could still make a check and see if he can get him to back down.
Maybe there's a penalty to the roll once violence starts, and the penalty escalates as violence continues, but this way, the MC can't just declare someone immune to diplomacy by making him not listen.
Slippery Slope arguments are stupid. DM's aren't powerful enough arguments are even more stupid. I'm just not even going to bother responding to those arguments as if they were English sentences. But here's a good question:
RobbyPants wrote:
Could we drop the reaction roll if the diplomacy roll could be made after the opponents became hostile? This way, even if MC said "he's pissed and draws his sword.", the diplomancer could still make a check and see if he can get him to back down.
We could, but that would still be a shitty thing to do. The diplomancer's job is to talk to people. Having the MC declare that combat has begun before the diplomancer has a chance to do anything or roll any dice is pretty shitty, even if you give him the opportunity to stop the fight after it has begun. If the fight begins at all, then the diplomancer has by definition already failed. If this happens before the diplomancer player has rolled dice, then the MC has declared the diplomancer's player to have failed at their job without giving them the opportunity to roll dice. QED.
Consider how people would feel about this conversation:
Player: I shoot an arrow at the ogre. MC: You miss. Player: But I haven't rolled a die yet... MC: Yeah, but the Ogre is important to the plot and having considered the Ogre's overall position and thickness of armor and everything, I think the plot really calls for you to miss right now. Player: Fine. I use me reroll to get a first roll to try to hit the fucking Ogre. MC: Fair enough, roll a d20...
Be honest here. Would that piss you the fuck off? I know it would infuriate me. Now, by offering the player the ability to use his reroll ability to get a die roll at all, this is less dickish than telling the player that he has failed and there is nothing that he can do about it. But it's still dickish.
Player characters need to have a chance to succeed on any action that could possibly succeed. Which means that they need to be able to roll some fucking dice. You can structure things as "You fail, but you could roll some dice to undo that failure" but only if you're a total cock.
The issue is that the reaction roll is mandatory to make the game not be stupid. The diplomacy roll is not. You could have the system be 100% MTP once you actually started talking, but the diplomancer still needs to be able to have a chance of starting a diplomatic encounter in the first place or your system is railroading bullshit whether or not you actually let them have diplomatic encounters in practice.
Frank. You brought up the GM being a dick bag in order to support your argument. Yet you will not accept the GM being a dickbag as a counter argument. That is being intentionally dishonest. As for Diplomacy having a chance I don't believe anyone here has said Diplomacy shouldn't have a chance. And I for one am wondering why you keep acting as if people are saying just that.
I cannot fathom why in this particular thread you are ignoring a good chunk of my posts though. Beyond "slippery slope" I also pointed out that you lose GM agency for no reason not that the GM needs more agency just that you are suggesting it be taken away for absolutely no gain whatsoever. You are arguing "it making sense" but then denying the chance for the GM to construct a consistent behavior pattern for a character(s) that they made.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
MGuy wrote:
I cannot fathom why in this particular thread you are ignoring a good chunk of my posts though. Beyond "slippery slope" I also pointed out that you lose GM agency for no reason not that the GM needs more agency just that you are suggesting it be taken away for absolutely no gain whatsoever.
That is both a slippery slope argument and a GM's don't have enough nice things argument. Both. Having the GM lose agency over when the player is allowed to use his character's abilities is an end in and of itself.
But that's just it. There's nothing saying the players can't use their abilities. Nothing at all. A fight starting doesn't mean diplomacy cannot exist. You can convince the other side to give up/run away. You can convince both parties to stop. You can do things BEFORE the battle even begins to make it so when you come into contact with X that you don't have to fucking fight it! You don't NEED a reaction roll to give player's the chance to use their skills as long as the GM is purposefully preventing them from even giving it a shot. Your counter to that is GM=d-bag. That's the counter you've used this ENTIRE argument. IF you can say that GM = douche bag in one situation there is no reason to say he's not going to be a d-bag in the same situation because you make him fudge a die roll.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Frank, where are you getting this? I specifically listed alternative ways of determining what reactions NPCs have to PC actions before the PCs engage in Diplomacy that aren't disassociative and arbitrary. The reaction roll is a weak, unnecessary mechanic that adds nothing to a collaborative narrative, but don't be an imbecile and take that to mean that reactions themselves are unnecessary. No one has seriously suggested that the GM just arbitrates whether or not actions are successful, that's a strawman at best. On the other side, proponents of the reaction roll can't seem to agree whether or not the reaction roll is representative of a character's force of personality (as evidenced by the CHA modifier) or is actually determining the nature/background of the NPC in question on the spot. I agree with you, Frank, that the diplomancer needs an opportunity to begin a social interaction before swords are drawn, but the reaction roll is the worst way to do it.
The doors burst open, and the guards make a Reflex save to draw their swords, but fail, so they're surprised and caught unarmed. You can use this opportunity either to begin a combat with the guards flat-footed, or make a Diplomacy roll, demanding their surrender, with a lowered DC to reflect that they are shocked and not ready to do anything but surrender. No reaction roll necessary.
Or maybe they do make their Reflex saves, now their swords are drawn and the NPCs can demand to know what is going on, depending on their actual background. City guards aren't going to slaughter everyone who comes through a door, they'll at least ask questions first, but the office of the master of the Thieves' Guild is probably guarded by guys who yes, will kill you without asking anything.
There's just a few examples. What I've been saying for two pages now, is that Diplomacy, barring a more fleshed out mini-game (which seems justified considering how many different social skills there are) should work just like Listen/Spot checks to determine combatants' awareness in a surprise round.
What I don't understand is why Frank keeps posting saying that PC action somehow determines a reaction roll; it doesn't. Whether the PCs enter with swords drawn or hands in their pockets is their decision, and should never be retroactively determined from the result of a reaction roll. Assuming the PCs did choose one or the other, the reaction roll is completely blind to that action, and rolls 1d20+CHA to determine the reaction regardless. You might get a surprise modifier or a disarming appearance modifier on that roll, as per DM fiat, but either way the modifier works just the same, so player choice is meaningless.
Replace the reaction roll with a roll that actually represents what the PCs are doing. If they're pulling a reverse Bavarian Fire Drill, that's a Bluff check, if they're demanding surrender, it's Intimidate, and if they're going in hacking off limbs, it's Initiative. If they're just sauntering along doing nothing, then consult a table which shows you how various NPCs typically react to being walked in on in various situations. That way the DM can't "railroad" the result. Make most enemies, unless they already have a desire to kill the PCs (a bounty hunter after them, or the Black Prince who's waiting for them to enter his throne room to be ambushed by his dark magic), be less likely to just draw swords and attack, giving the players a chance for Diplomacy in scenarios where it makes sense. However, if the Human nation is at war with the Orc nation, and your party of humans and elves is snooping around an Orc warcamp and gets caught, Diplomacy probably isn't an option for an initial, and no, PCs shouldn't be able to force unnatural initial reactions just because. If the Orc guards see you and move up to attack you, and you're aware of it, then make a Diplomacy check to placate them, or Intimidate or Bluff or whatever you want, but not a vanilla reaction roll just to see if they don't feel like doing their duty today.
What the reaction roll must represent, as best as I can tell, is that you are convincing the universe to be on your side with your CHA, and things are just working out for you for some hackneyed reason. Other than that, it does not represent any actual action taken by the PCs, thus, there's really nothing to roll about to determine "success." Frank keeps indicating that the reaction roll is supposed to represent supposed PC actions that explain the die result, apparently with no input from the PCs besides a CHA modifier. This is purposefully stripping PCs of the ability to make a meaningful contribution to an encounter for some vague, undefined reason that I haven't figured out beyond, "Lago likes to retcon a lot."
Last edited by Stubbazubba on Thu Jul 21, 2011 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
FrankTrollman wrote:We could, but that would still be a shitty thing to do...
That makes sense. Given the reaction roll, what are the actual inputs before you roll the dice? Do you worry about the diplomancer's skill at this point?
I was thinking something along the lines of comparing the starting attitude of the PCs and NPCs and having that give you acceptable outputs. For simplicity, this could be as simple as D&D's five: helpful, friendly, neutral, threatening, hostile. Then, you could either have some annoying 5x5 lookup table, or perhaps two modifiers to the die roll. Either way, the output would be one of those five results.
Assuming that approach makes any sense, are there any outputs that are ever off limits? For example, if the PCs and NPCs both approach as "friendly", should "hostile" even be a possible output? For that matter, if both sides approach with the same attitude, is a reaction roll necessary? To me, the reaction roll seems most necessary if the PCs and NPCs have different starting attitudes, assuming the PCs are trying to control the situation with how they approach it in the first place (hands in pockets, weapons drawn, etc).
FrankTrollman wrote:We could, but that would still be a shitty thing to do...
That makes sense. Given the reaction roll, what are the actual inputs before you roll the dice? Do you worry about the diplomancer's skill at this point?
I was thinking something along the lines of comparing the starting attitude of the PCs and NPCs and having that give you acceptable outputs. For simplicity, this could be as simple as D&D's five: helpful, friendly, neutral, threatening, hostile. Then, you could either have some annoying 5x5 lookup table, or perhaps two modifiers to the die roll. Either way, the output would be one of those five results.
It doesn't make any sense to have hostility be a thing that factors into reaction tests. Hostility to what? They haven't met you yet.
A minimal system would have everyone set a "stance" of Aggressive (reaction penalty, initiative bonus), Cautious (no bonuses or penalties), or Peaceful (reaction bonus, initiative penalty). Then you'd have modifiers for being a diplomancer or wearing orc disguises that would adjust your reaction roll. And the reaction roll would set whether combat started or not.
Although even then, there should be distinct outputs for hostile and violent. Because if the bandits brandish weapons and shout "Your GP or your HP!" that's actually still a talking encounter that social abilties could bale you out of.
The thing where on top of that the actual numeric inputs of 3e Diplomancers are unacceptable and cannot give coherent outputs for any system is another problem. And a serious one. And the reason we are talking in theoreticals rather than submitting a specific 3e Diplomacy subsystem replacement.
Frank, you are no longer starting to make sense. “The diplomancer's job is to talk to people.” You didn’t say, his job is always to get surprise initiative and first opportunity for action. But that is what your text is implying; that if the diplomancer doesn’t get first opportunity for action he is useless.
I must have watched too many westerns. Someone in a building will always try to shoot first and then be willing to talk. If diplomacy is to be really effective (heck if anything is to be really effective) it has to seamlessly meld into the combat model. One can say that initiative gives benefits, but one should not say that “combat has begun so talking automatically fails.” In fact, that is how it should work; the diplomancer should not be stuck with preventing all combat or else fail; he should be equally effective at “we outnumber you; surrender and you won’t die” right in the middle of combat. Needlessly creating a “no combat buffer zone” so the diplomancer can work before combat because he can’t work during combat is mind numbingly shitty.
But I’ll go back to the notion of the “reaction roll.” Reaction is passive and doesn’t give a shit about anyone’s shtick. Ideally the PC’s should have a “reaction roll” as well, but being PC’s that not … well PC. (The PC’s see a group of wrights, disgustingly ugly and smelly; is their first thought to talk or fight?)
FrankTrollman wrote:
It doesn't make any sense to have hostility be a thing that factors into reaction tests. Hostility to what? They haven't met you yet.
Sure, but if you walk up on a bunch of thieves on a job, they don't care how nice you are, you're a witness and a potential liability. If you walk into some guy's house and find him in bed with his employer's wife, he'll have a pretty animated reaction, and unless you are the employer in question, said reaction will be the same regardless of what you do. What would make sense would be to make the situation factor into a reaction roll, if there must be one.
tzor wrote: (The PC’s see a group of wrights, disgustingly ugly and smelly; is their first thought to talk or fight?)
Well, according to Frank, we haven't met the wrights yet, so we should probably roll a die to see how that goes. (rolls) Ah, looks like we find them ugly and smelly, and thus worthy of death. Proceed.
FrankTrollman wrote:It doesn't make any sense to have hostility be a thing that factors into reaction tests. Hostility to what? They haven't met you yet.
So, rather than hostile, you could have more broad terms. Cautious is probably a good one, then. Things that aren't targeted at a group.
FrankTrollman wrote:Although even then, there should be distinct outputs for hostile and violent. Because if the bandits brandish weapons and shout "Your GP or your HP!" that's actually still a talking encounter that social abilties could bale you out of.
What about if both sides start out "friendly" or whatever. I understand "hostile" being an output for the bandit scenario, but what about when friendly customers walk into a store with a friendly owner? Assuming there are no weird things like "racist against elves", would it be reasonable to assume that this situation wouldn't generate "hostile", or are you still assuming that "natural 1" scenario where that could happen?
hogarth wrote:If you follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion, you're saying that the GM shouldn't be allowed to choose anything.
Which is why nobody in the world is following this logic to its ultimate conclusion. The goal is to give the party more agency, not all of the agency. Yes, if you give the party all of the agency, the GM has none left. There's no real risk of that happening, though.
What about if both sides start out "friendly" or whatever. I understand "hostile" being an output for the bandit scenario, but what about when friendly customers walk into a store with a friendly owner? Assuming there are no weird things like "racist against elves", would it be reasonable to assume that this situation wouldn't generate "hostile", or are you still assuming that "natural 1" scenario where that could happen?
If you're really dying to roll dice there, then on a really terrible roll they knock over a display or track mud in from outside or didn't notice that they should've taken their boots off or otherwise made some faux pas and the shopkeeper tells them to get the hell out. People who would otherwise be friendly to each other make bad impressions all the time.
Last edited by A Man In Black on Thu Jul 21, 2011 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
