Actual Anatomy of Failed Design: Diplomacy

[Desdan_Mervolam]

So, it sounds like what we need is a way to measure how reluctant the target is to give up what the PC wants and how much the PC is willing to offer the target in return in addition to how smooth an operator the PC is, instead of just measuring how smooth the PC is.

I think one thing that is definatly stopping diplomacy systems from working is the fact that the system goes ever upwards and no matter what arbitrary DC you set for something, a PC will eventually be able to meet it. Perhaps we need to pick a point on the scale and say that when you have ranks (Or bonuses or whatever) that are this high, your results with that skill become magical. I know that might annoy people who want to play entirely nonmagical characters keeping step with wizards and such, but really, those people can go screw. That already doesn't work

[Swordslinger]

And yes: people do want Aladdin to get half the kingdom upon winning the adventure and defeating the evil sorcerer.

It should be noted that Aladdin doesn't have any adventures after winning the kingdom. Given D&D has no rules for running kingdoms and it's also no fun to listen to one PC manage his kingdom while everyone else sits around doing nothing, leave PC rulership for something that happens as a possible retirement for a mid level character.

That indicates to me the desire for some sort of diplomatic credit that people earn for various stuff that they can spend for various things. The Countess is higher level and has a diplomancy specialty so she gets free diplomatic cred that she can spend to seduce minor characters whenever she wants. But she still has to invest effort into actually getting enough cred with the king to get the kingdom.

Treating social links as SR style contacts is fine. You can pay points for the Duke of Suzail to be one of your contacts, and you pay more depending on how loyal or influential he is.

What shouldn't happen is for diplomacy to become some free use charm person that you can spam on everyone without repercussions. Otherwise it looks more like Shadowrun botnets where it's totally out of control and breaks the game.

If people condemn modifier-influenced random results of actions in a role playing game, they are simply not making any sense and you should ignore them completely.

Asking if it's a good idea to consult an RNG to answer a question is not some trivial question. It's an important design point. Just because some things are resolved by dice roll doesn't mean everything in game should be.

Certain things in RPGs are best not decided by dice. For instance we found out from 2nd edition that rolling for ability scores randomly was a terrible system, because it left some players doomed for life. Rollmaster actually had an RNG table for movement. Meaning you could go ahead and take a run action, critical fail it and end up cracking your skull open. We also declare some things outright impossible and for good reason. We don't consult an RNG to see if a 1st level wizard can cast Wish, we just say, "you can't do that."

Rolling dice does not automatically make the game better. It's fine to have stuff that autofails or autosucceeds.

[TheFlatline]

While the thing where people get upset that diplomancers have a chance of getting their tricks to work (which is random), but also get upset if diplomancers can always get their tricks to work (because it's too good) is stupid - there really are lists of non-crazy demands that people actually have.

If you have a character who has diplomancy as a thing, people are actually offended if you can't simply seduce minor characters whenever you want. If you have a character named "The Black Widow" or something, people expect them to be able to seduce guards and bank tellers and shit in order to advance the plot. However, if said character seduces major characters, that is potentially destabilizing. Which is not to say that it should not happen: evil temptresses getting the king to allow them to run the kingdom through sexy time and poison words is totally part of the genre. The issue is that any time you take a major plot-changing action that there should be some sort of cost or risk to it, or players are just going to repeat it for credit. That's just a law of RPGs in general. If you can expand your empire for free just by saying so, as a player you're going to do that.

And yes: people do want Aladdin to get half the kingdom upon winning the adventure and defeating the evil sorcerer. And they want the Countess Belvane to seduce her way to controlling the kingdom through wiles. They want both of those things. They just don't want the player of Belvane to go out and announce that she's taking over five more kingdoms while there is a bit of downtime.

That indicates to me the desire for some sort of diplomatic credit that people earn for various stuff that they can spend for various things. The Countess is higher level and has a diplomancy specialty so she gets free diplomatic cred that she can spend to seduce minor characters whenever she wants. But she still has to invest effort into actually getting enough cred with the king to get the kingdom.

But yeah, shit like this:

A bigger question would be the one where you ask why you have an RNG for Diplomacy in the first place. Are the PCs also going to be bound by this RNG that's going to restrict their characters actions when a succubus tries to seduce them?

I don't see how having characters act randomly is helping the game.

Is not worth even worrying about. If people condemn modifier-influenced random results of actions in a role playing game, they are simply not making any sense and you should ignore them completely.

-Username17

My problems with diplomancers are twofold. First, they get automatic win off of a single die roll. Imagine if a fighter only had to worry about his to-hit difficulty, because on a successful hit he automatically subdues/kills his target. Then combine that with lots of ways to break the RNG, spells that give you seriously like +10 through +30 depending on what system you're playing, and you have diplomancers. It seems fucking broken.

Second, I hate that the diplomancer either gets what he wants in 8 seconds real-time with a flip of the D20, or he hogs the entire game and drags it to a halt for 30 minutes. Nobody else usually can contribute so the game goes from cooperative storytelling to "the bard is talking... want to play a game of Crazy Eights? We got time..."

Some influence is fine. Bullshit levels of influence really tend to make the game flat. I'm all for talking down an angry man with a diplomacy check. However, I think it's insane that you could kick a door down in a dungeon, see a party of orcs, and diplomacy them into not being hostile.

[PhoneLobster]

So, it sounds like what we need is a way to measure how reluctant the target is to give up what the PC wants

This is basically not doable.

And anyway. Your RNGs are only so big. If you are going to do diplomancy mechanics as a thing you have higher priorities on using up the RNG on character abilities rather than bullshit the GM just pulls out of his ass.

Subjective circumstantial out the GMs ass modifiers can have their place. But as with stabbing some fool with a sword, they should have a relatively tiny place.

I think one thing that is definatly stopping diplomacy systems from working is the fact that the system goes ever upwards and no matter what arbitrary DC you set for something, a PC will eventually be able to meet it.

Oh Noes!

You know, I think a lot of the problem with the "but they might seduce the king!" panic mongers is that they are of the draconian old school railroader variety who would seriously "rocks fall you all die" or pull a "the king is level NINE MILLION, which is only one level higher than ALL SHOPKEEPERS EVER!" if the PCs tried to merely conventionally kill the king.

They just don't want to open another angle by which troublesome players might dare to attempt to in anyway tamper with their pure and precious perfect creation of non-interactive fiction. They see social interactions as a field in which they as GM have absolute power and want to wield it as a blunt and ugly crowbar to shoe-horn everyone into their latest railroad wankfest.

Your statement about the impertinence of those pesky PCs and their tenancy to try and meet achievable DCs for things they want to do suggest to me you are leaning a little too close to asshole GM for my liking. Maybe you should rethink your position there. Setting achievable DCs and having PCs progress and meet them at appropriate points in their career is the entire POINT of having level based/points based advancement and RPG mechanics in general.

[Username17]

I think one thing that is definatly stopping diplomacy systems from working is the fact that the system goes ever upwards and no matter what arbitrary DC you set for something, a PC will eventually be able to meet it.

Oh Noes!

Admittedly, as stated, you could basically make the same statement about to-hit bonuses or saving throws. It doesn't mean anything. But I think what he's getting at is a real problem.

• Everything we want to happen out of the diplomacy minigame is something that theoretically a 1st level character could get if they asked under the right circumstances. A 1st level merchant can get the cyclops to hand over the Eye of Stone if he's offering the Feather of Fire in exchange. A 1st level herald can get the whole kingdom of Orcs to surrender to him if he is representing a titanic empire that just kicked the Orcs up and down the river for two seasons. Dragon slaying adventurers do in fact go to bed with saucy - 1st level - serving maids on a regular basis. And so on.
• The D&D bonus system causes the entire RNG to get lapped several times between 1st level heralds and 20th level diplomancers.

That's a very real problem. It's like the "how do I make an encounter where the Will Saves of the player characters differ by 15?" problem, except that you're being asked to make challenges that can actually be accomplished by characters that are not only possessed of different specializations, but actually wildly different levels. The D&D system, in short, is ass for even designing a diplomacy minigame in.

The 2nd edition secondary skills system, where diplomacy rolls only changed a little as characters went up in level, and most things were accomplished by collecting circumstantial modifiers was a more fixable system. That would be a better place to start than 3e's system. And a much better place to start than 4e's.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Frank, all of your example scenarios there are wrong.

Because all of them are scenarios where the social attacker is trying to convince the targets to do something they rationally want to do anyway. And not just "oh it's a modifier" but genuinely, they would just want to do that outright.

It's like trying to use regular combat against someone who desperately wants to commit suicide.

And it's that pointless. You don't NEED your social combat system to be the reason that high level adventurers sleep with level 1 barmaids. That is something high level adventurers can just decide to do. And if there is social combat involved then it's the high level adventurers socially stomping the weak opposition for some free bar maid bed warmers.

Because your example scenarios really are bad enough that if the high level adventurers win the social combat they take the barmaids to bed anyway, if the Cyclops wins against the merchant he swaps for the Feather of Fire anyway and even if the Orcs WON the social encounter against the herald... they would probably still ask him to take back their surrender to his superiors.

I'm pretty sure you can put together a less stupendously bad argument based around whatever it is you are TRYING to get at about 1st level diplomancers, I'm fairly sure there is a slightly less questionable "street rats trick the big dumb ogre" scenario you could be pulling out here. But really, try it again, get some new examples, because right now it looks a lot like you are saying something really very stupid.

[Username17]

Frank, all of your example scenarios there are wrong.

Because all of them are scenarios where the social attacker is trying to convince the targets to do something they rationally want to do anyway. And not just "oh it's a modifier" but genuinely, they would just want to do that outright.

The player characters are going to win, so rationally, the Orcs should join up instead of fighting. What's your fucking point?

Now as for being seduced by 1st level saucy wenches - no. Rationally you should probably avoid that because you might get sexually transmitted diseases like bastards or other dependents. So even within the realm of your incredibly weird objection, it isn't true. We want low level characters to be able to convince high level characters to do dangerous things (like take off all their magic armor and stick their penises into a creature they know very little about), and we want Orcs to very frequently do things that are wildly against their rational self interest (like pick a fight with a strike team of adventurers).

If a diplomacy minigame does not output that kind of violation of rational expectations and simple maximizing behavior, it has failed utterly.

-Username17

[hogarth]

My problems with diplomancers are twofold. First, they get automatic win off of a single die roll.

Specifically, I think the problem is with diplomacy experts who ask an enormous favour from a complete stranger (e.g. "give me your kingdom") and resolving it with a single die roll. That's boring and counterintuitive and lame. Building up to an enormous favour as a series of small favours is okay, though (e.g. "hi King, we should get to know each other better" => "let's do the nasty" => "you're in love with me" => "why don't you get rid of your wife?" => "let's get married" => "you should let me be in charge"). Because that's a whole adventure, rather than roll-one-die-I-win.

Of course, it still leaves the problem that many diplomacy situations lean towards being one person jobs rather than tasks for the whole party.

[A Man In Black]

Specifically, I think the problem is with diplomacy experts who ask an enormous favour from a complete stranger (e.g. "give me your kingdom") and resolving it with a single die roll. That's boring and counterintuitive and lame. Building up to an enormous favour as a series of small favours is okay, though (e.g. "hi King, we should get to know each other better" => "let's do the nasty" => "you're in love with me" => "why don't you get rid of your wife?" => "let's get married" => "you should let me be in charge"). Because that's a whole adventure, rather than roll-one-die-I-win.

Then how do you work shameless hucksters who trade snake oil for the entire kingdom? Because that's in-genre, too.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Then how do you work shameless hucksters who trade snake oil for the entire kingdom? Because that's in-genre, too.

Some kingdoms aren't level appropriate. If a high level character actually cares about a low-level kingdom, I don't see the problem with them just doing that with a single roll.

[Lago PARANOIA]

My solution was to still give out flat cynical bonuses to diplomacy checks but make them very small. As in a character totally built up for diplomacy should at the 2/3rds mark of the game have no more than a +4 or +5 (compared to a peasant average of -1 to +1). The real benefit of gaining levels is that it increases the cap where you can add situational modifiers. So while Black Widow still has a better chance of getting the king to part with the kingdom in lieu of any modifiers than Aladdin if Aladdin woos the princess first and disposes of the vizier and spends a week throwing a huge citywide party he'll have a better chance than her. However Aladdin can't do any more impressing than that; while he wouldn't benefit further from asking the king while he's high or beating the Captain of the Guard in personal combat or having a torrid threesome with the sultan and his daughter Black Widow could. While Black Widow can pretty much seduce any mook guard without even caring and might have to scare up a modifier to get the Captain of the Guard to pull down his pants, Aladdin has to go out of his way to accomplish the same thing and stacking enough modifiers to seduce the Captain of the Guard would be an adventure in of itself (rather than it just requiring a twinge of thought as in Black Widow's case). Taking 10 would be very important.

The other thing is that since there's no limit to how much you can stack negative modifiers, just that you can only increase the total bonus so much. So if Aladdin approached the sultan as a blinged-out prince he would still be stuck at a +8 modifier total bonus, but if he approached the sultan in rags or belligerently or picking his nose that would add a penalty which he'd have to make up with some other feats. He's still capped at +8.

As far as the 'retry diplomacy until you get the result you want' problem goes you're going to need to put some kind of retry limit on it. I think you might want to have any (or all) of the following:

• You can retry once you improve your modifiers enough so that your original result is higher than the last result. To prevent the whole 'begging the king continually while you go and do more tasks' salami slicing you might want to make it so that repeated failures boost the DC.
• Put some kind of time limit on retries. The higher the diplomacy DC the longer the time interval that a retry would take. So while Sir Sleazy the Mid-Level Assassin can attempt to get a bar-wench to go for a roll in the hay like seriously once a day, Sir Sleazy can only try it on the princess like once every six months and on Pelor like once a century.
• Make retries completely MTP'd. That is even though the princess reacted very negatively to Aladdin's attempt to woo her the first time around, the DM can decide to give him another shot because he had a pep talk with his buddies and had the audacity to approach her at her bedchambers.

I personally prefer a combination of the second and third myself.

[PhoneLobster]

The player characters are going to win, so rationally, the Orcs should join up instead of fighting. What's your fucking point?

The point is you said the orcs were going to be defeated by a level 1 herald. Now you bring in "player characters" (who aren't the orcs?) don't even say who they are and hand wave a "join up" instead of "surrender" like it's any different.

Now as for being seduced by 1st level saucy wenches - no.

Sorry. But it's often as not a "yes". The whole level 1 saucy wench interactions thing is a long standing observed behavior[/b] of PCs in Taverns. Some players choose to go on and on about how their characters sleep with the barmaids, while others don't. This means that completely without social attacks PLAYERS are deciding that it is a rational, or if not rational then at least voluntary (or "cool") action on their part to have their PC sleep with the barmaids.

And when you introduce social attacks all that happens is that the PCs that were going to sleep with the bar maids anyway, use those to do so. Your scenarios were ass. You didn't think them through, and they are still ass now, and they just plain do not play out the way you say they do in already widely observed game play situations.

You have given NO SPECIFIC SCENARIO where level 1 seductresses actually need to be as good at winning social encounters as level 20 assholes. You just said so, gave some examples completely counter to your claims and then stuck your head firmly up your own ass.

we want Orcs to very frequently do things that are wildly against their rational self interest (like pick a fight with a strike team of adventurers).

Similarly that is both a questionable claim in the first place, and also completely irrelevant to the function of diplomacy and social mechanics.

Put some thought into this before running your mouth of about it.

[Swordslinger]

So even within the realm of your incredibly weird objection, it isn't true. We want low level characters to be able to convince high level characters to do dangerous things (like take off all their magic armor and stick their penises into a creature they know very little about), and we want Orcs to very frequently do things that are wildly against their rational self interest (like pick a fight with a strike team of adventurers).

The point of social encounters shouldn't be to get people to act against their self-interest, but to convince them that it's in their self-interest. It should be about skewing the weight of the pros versus the cons, not about getting people to do outrageously stupid stuff for no describeable reason.

[hogarth]

Specifically, I think the problem is with diplomacy experts who ask an enormous favour from a complete stranger (e.g. "give me your kingdom") and resolving it with a single die roll. That's boring and counterintuitive and lame. Building up to an enormous favour as a series of small favours is okay, though (e.g. "hi King, we should get to know each other better" => "let's do the nasty" => "you're in love with me" => "why don't you get rid of your wife?" => "let's get married" => "you should let me be in charge"). Because that's a whole adventure, rather than roll-one-die-I-win.

Then how do you work shameless hucksters who trade snake oil for the entire kingdom? Because that's in-genre, too.

What continuing series of fantasy stories (i.e. not a one-off episode) has the protagonist doing that? Name three examples.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Let's see, off the top of my head I can think of The Emperor's New Clothes and Puss-n-boots. Pardon me as I'm not really all the way up on contemporary fantasy literature, but these are both entirely valid sources to draw from.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What difference does it make whether it's one-off or not?

Well, while not a fantasy story (being historical fiction instead), Richard III is pretty infamous for the protagonist--a weaselly prince way down the line of succession--convincing everyone to backstab each other. And even getting the wife of the man he murdered to agree to become his bride right in front of the corpse of her husband.

In Henry VI some douchebag whose name I forgot convinces the King to marry some French lowly noble so that she can manipulate her and thus the king by proxy.

In Jesper Who Herded The Hares the protagonist pretty much debates the king into giving him the kingdom.

The Brave Tailor pretty much boasts his way into being the king. You might have seen the Mickey Mouse cartoon loosely based on that.

Puss And Boots pretty much bluffs his way into letting his hapless owner getting a huge chunk of the kingdom.

Final Fantasy VIII may or may not be an example; Laguna pretty much bluffs everyone into making him the President of Esthar on the condition that he presents some Scooby Doo plan to take the emperor sorceress out. Of course since the game hates us we don't get to see the exact process, just a jump cut back to the 'real' protagonists after he leads a riot in one of the factories.

Aladdin (in the movie) comes pretty close to getting the Sultan to just marrying his daughter off to him then and there.

But my personal opinion is that the Richard III one is the one that's really important. If a self-described ugly hunchback with no superpowers can convince the wife of the man he murdered to boff him using nothing but sheer for of words AND convince his brother to murder his other brother on nothing but a pretext and no one calls bullshit on that then complaining about 'unrealistic' diplomacy results is just a waste of everyone's time.

[TheFlatline]

My problems with diplomancers are twofold. First, they get automatic win off of a single die roll.

Specifically, I think the problem is with diplomacy experts who ask an enormous favour from a complete stranger (e.g. "give me your kingdom") and resolving it with a single die roll. That's boring and counterintuitive and lame. Building up to an enormous favour as a series of small favours is okay, though (e.g. "hi King, we should get to know each other better" => "let's do the nasty" => "you're in love with me" => "why don't you get rid of your wife?" => "let's get married" => "you should let me be in charge"). Because that's a whole adventure, rather than roll-one-die-I-win.

Of course, it still leaves the problem that many diplomacy situations lean towards being one person jobs rather than tasks for the whole party.

Exactly.

I hate to say it, but diplomacy and convincing people of shit in the real world is magic tea party, and I'm not really sure that pure social shit should be resolved purely mechanically. Mechanically you end up very quickly leaving behind the limits of human capability for bullshit and diplomacy. I mean, if diplomacy worked in the real world the way it worked in D&D, the whole Palestine/Israel thing would have been done with decades ago. History is chock full of gifted, amazing diplomats who have a career of almost nothing but failures.

I dunno. Diplomacy specifically seems like it *should* be where you go to MTP. Otherwise, if there's mechanics for every single social interaction, then there's literally no reason *to* role play. I've *always* ruled that a diplomacy/social check modifies your roleplay, not the other way around. Plus, it's optional. If you don't think you're doing as good of a job as your PC might, you can ask for a roll. But roleplay will always need to be there.

[hogarth]

What difference does it make whether it's one-off or not?

Because a short story that lasts 5 minutes is more interesting than a D&D campaign that lasts 5 minutes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Flatline, your statement doesn't make any goddamn sense. Magic Tea Party does not stop diplomatic results that we see as weird or ridiculous. And a rolled diplomacy system needn't do the same thing as long as you construct the RNG correctly. Talk about a failure of imagination.

Because a short story that lasts 5 minutes is more interesting than a D&D campaign that lasts 5 minutes.

This is a limitation of the format. Fairy Tales are meant to be read in one sitting since they're for kids, plays wrap up in a matter of hours. So unlike a TTRPG or video game where people can spend 4 hours diddling around with a puzzle, that shit doesn't fly in formats that need to get to the point. And the fact that some stories end after the protagonist gets the kingdom doesn't mean that the author is completely unable to think of any more stories after the fact. Henry VIII is a direct sequel to Richard III which is a direct sequel to Henry VI despite the latter two plays being pretty much 'protagonist slimes his way into getting the kingdom/is duped into letting someone pull his strings'.

In fact that Aladdin example Swordslinger gave? You do know that they made an animated series that expounded on his dozens of adventures after wooing the Princess, right? It's not hard to imagine the same being done for Puss and Boots or the Brave Little Tailor; it's just now the adventures revolve around the cat trying to expand the empire or trick even more powerful monsters to killing themselves. Or the Tailor bragging about ever-more impossible feats as a king and having to unwittingly back his talk up.

[hogarth]

In fact that Aladdin example Swordslinger gave? You do know that they made an animated series that expounded on his dozens of adventures after wooing the Princess, right?

Do any of those dozens of adventures involve him walking up to a stranger and convincing him to do him an enormous favour?

And, more importantly, how many of your D&D campaigns have been based on the Aladdin cartoon (as a percentage)?

[Lago PARANOIA]

What the hell does that matter? My point was that it doesn't have to spell the end of the character's story if they charm/bluff/bumble their way into getting vast amounts of political power. The game doesn't collapse into some kind of literary singularly if this so-called improbable event happens. A lot of the time stories just continue on smartly. Sometimes this vastly changes the scope of the hero's future adventures (like Conan) other times the character just does the same old shit as before (like Aladdin). Big furry deal.

For the other question, again, what the kind of question is that? No, I don't have many campaigns based on the Aladdin cartoon. I also don't have any based on any of the Dark Age Final Fantasies, I don't have any based on any of the Greek Mythology legends, I don't have any based on the Robin Hood stories, I don't have any based on the King Arthur legends. It's called an example, hogarth. It's not going to be a literal comparison.

[Chamomile]

You really can't just MTP anything in an ideal game. A huge part of the appeal of a role playing game is being able to play a role you aren't actually capable of in real life. For some people, this means "what if instead of being smart meant I could shoot lasers from my eyes instead of setting up my teacher's projector for a powerpoint presentation?" But you also have Aspie Annie as Charismatic Catherine, and Aspie Annie needs to be able to actually play Charismatic Catherine even though she couldn't diplomacize her way out of a paper bag in MTP.

[Username17]

The whole level 1 saucy wench interactions thing is a long standing observed behavior of PCs in Taverns. Some players choose to go on and on about how their characters sleep with the barmaids, while others don't. This means that completely without social attacks PLAYERS are deciding that it is a rational, or if not rational then at least voluntary (or "cool") action on their part to have their PC sleep with the barmaids.

Right there you have highlighted the core problem: people act based on motivations and those motivations are very seldom rational in any meaningful sense. Convincing someone to do something that is in their objective rational self-interest is one of the major things diplomacy is for.

You want people to pitch in to fight the demon lord, because he's going to destroy the entire fucking world. Rationally, everyone would contribute their share and the demon lord would get his head kicked in and we'd all go on to an adventure with lower stakes and thus less rational incentives for every power base from here to Kara-Tur to throw in with your grand alliance. In reality as well as stories, you know it isn't going to be that easy.

You want the randomly encounted bugbears to join up with you instead of fighting. Because hey, bugbear skirmishers are awesome to have and the treasure you'd get from beating up random not-in-lair brigands is probably bullshit anyway. Rationally they'd want to do that - because adventurer strike teams are going to kick their ass and have a very good chance of uncovering a treasure hoard that is more than they can even carry within a few days. But of course, structurally that shit rarely happens and most random encounters are a half hour of combat to make the players feel strong while the DM thinks of plot elements now that the PCs decided to go harrowing off through the Bane Mires instead of staying in town.

"You should do this because it is rational" is a pretty good diplomatic stance. But to say that it would "work" even if you didn't make that appeal is pure horse shit. Your enemies and prospective allies very rarely do rational things. If they behaved rationally, they wouldn't even be dark lords, because that's kind of stupid.

The point is that your diplomatic minigame is getting people to give out things like "Surrender their kingdom", "remove all their magic equipment", "hand over a powerful artifact", and "attack a vastly more powerful foe" - and to give those kinds of concessions to first level characters - provided that there are sufficient positive modifiers in the form of stick and carrot motivators. If your diplomatic minigame isn't producing results like that under the proper circumstances, it has failed.

-Username17

[fectin]

But my personal opinion is that the Richard III one is the one that's really important. If a self-described ugly hunchback with no superpowers can convince the wife of the man he murdered to boff him using nothing but sheer for of words AND convince his brother to murder his other brother on nothing but a pretext and no one calls bullshit on that then complaining about 'unrealistic' diplomacy results is just a waste of everyone's time.

Also Iago in Othello, both twins in Twelfth Night, etc.

A few others:
- Lyra from His Dark Materials
- Odysseus
- Doctor Who
- Orpheus
- Faffhrd & Mouser
- Bards:
- Taliesin
- Aneirin
- Morgan Le Fay
- Mordred
- The Yankee from Twain's Book
- Picard
- Arawn (from actual myth, not from Lloyd Alexander)
- Pwyll
- Odin
- Demosthenes
- Daniel Webster (the fictionalized one, though the real one was pretty impressive)
- William Jennings Bryan (Cross of Gold speech)
- the Blarney Stone
etc.

[fectin]

You want people to pitch in to fight the demon lord, because he's going to destroy the entire fucking world. Rationally, everyone would contribute their share and the demon lord would get his head kicked in and we'd all go on to an adventure with lower stakes and thus less rational incentives for every power base from here to Kara-Tur to throw in with your grand alliance. In reality as well as stories, you know it isn't going to be that easy.

It's a tangent, but that isn't necessarily true. It's in people's interest to see the demon lord defeated, but not to actually spend resources on it. See "free rider problem".

That quickly goes down the rabbit hole of whether Pareto improvements are the only real improvements though.