The Gaming Den

Taken from my Parabellum notes. This is intended for use in a d20 system, as far as Diplomacy bonuses are concerned.

Whenever you first encounter a creature, make a reaction roll of 2d6+ modifiers. Their attitude will be based on this roll:

• Dismissive 1 or less - Permits no social actions; will ignore, fight, or flee as determined by context
  Disinterested 2 to 4 - Minor diplomatic action, such as intimidate or plead, before reversion to team behavior (villagers keep walking, monsters attack, etc)
  Interested 5 to 7 - Enough time for standard diplomatic action before reverting to team behavior
  Attentive 8+ - You are permitted multiple diplomatic actions, which includes being opted into long-term diplomatic scenes (like tomorrow's party)

Security
This covers the scene as a whole, basically deciding how safe the subject feels. Note, it is possible to be worried in an environment normally safe. If an intruder takes the subject by surprise, they are still feeling the environment is safe. If the subject is warned of their coming, be it a note of warning or even breaking down the door downstairs; their mind will adjust their perceived security downward to accommodate.

• -3: Threatened: Safety is actively questioned, such as high stakes drug deal or an invasion site.
  -1: Worried: Dangerous neighborhood, carrying high value items in public, exposed condition.
  +0: Safe: Public, yet non-threatening

Presentation
This covers how the party presents itself to the subject, indicating its desired outcome.

• -4: Assaulting: Direct attacks have been made.
  -2: Threatening: Weapons are drawn, aspersions are cast, and is otherwise making their hostile intent clear.
  +0: Terse: Isn't threatening, but is presenting the bare minimum of social niceties.
  +1: Normal: Engaging in a non-hostile, friendly manner
  +2: Aiding: Is actively improving their condition, offering gifts or aid

Bias
Personal prejudices and assumptions the subject has, including prior history with the specific person.

• -3: Enemy: Active dislike of target; be it prior history of violence, target of heavy racism, or even faction enemy.
  -1: Distrust: Outsider (in an insular community), negative history, and similar negative prejudices.
  +0: Stranger: Unremarkable, passive
  +3: Innocuous: Friendly & familiar history, nonthreatening prejudice such as cute children or frat brothers
  +6: Unguarded: Hold great personal fondness, feels secure with their presence

Social Action Options
Minor Diplomatic Action Occurs in a single combat round.

• Negotiate inconsequential favour
  • Diplomacy DC = 7 + Target's Level - Bias + 10 if in debt with target
• Gain attention - Gain option for standard diplomatic action
  • Diplomacy DC = 7 + Target's Level - Reaction Roll modifier
• Demoralize
• Baseline business transaction
  • As per Haggle, both sides Take 0

Standard Diplomatic Action Approximately one minute or 10 combat rounds for actions to resolve

• Improve Bias - Maximum of one step, cannot exceed innocuous
• Negotiate Minor Favour or less
  • Diplomacy DC = 12 + Target's Level - Bias + 10 if in debt with target
• Basic Haggle
  • Opposed Diplomacy = Higher gains 10% price advantage per 5 points they exceed the other
• Prolong to Attentive
  • Diplomacy DC = 12 + Target's Level - Reaction Roll Modifier
• Antagonize/Fluster

Favour Scale

• Inconsequential Inconvenience, deliver message across town, give directions, 1 day's lifestyle or less
  Minor Misprision of felony or accessory to crime, 1/4 lifestyle in gold
  Moderate Accomplice to crime, risk from imprisonment, lifestyle in gold
  Major Explicitly illegal act on behalf, risk lifestyle and status

Gifts Consented favours, generally equivalent to inversion of a favour (Minor gift is 1/4 their lifestyle in gold, moderate gift is saving them from imprisonment, etc). A gift provides bonus to request favours of equal or lesser value. The bonus is lost after receiving a favour of equal or greater value.
Difficulty Checks
We want beggars to actually want to beg the rich, warlords to be convinced to sleep with local wenches, etc. We don't want the Dark Lord to kneel in defeat nor the king to sell their castle for frayed twine, at least we don't want this while ignoring the whole level system in regards to opposition. One conclusion is that so long as the favor is relatively innocuous or the request comes from someone very close (Dark Lord's little girl is not very high level), the DCs for Diplomacy checks and such should be relatively static and modified by circumstances rather than level. Once it becomes a means of defeat on the combat level, then it needs resistance to scale; level-based Will save loosely tied to the skill check being the easiest approach. Doing this will grant the diplomancer a reliable source of noncombat capabilities that eventually ignore extreme circumstances, but not surpass the enchanter when it comes to convincing them to accept Jesus Christ; especially in light of the difficulty in dispelling and near-infinite resource pool (not that it will lower the effects by a lot, but some).

Old Rules

• 4 or less - Initiate combat
  5 to 8 - Hostile, will threaten/converse first
  9 to 11 - Indifferent
  12+ - Friendly

There are of course modifiers to this roll, based on the following.
Posture Their environment will obviously influence things, whether they're expecting a fight.

• Hostile Territory: -2
• Neutral Ground: +0
• Safe Haven: +2

Entrance How the PCs enter the scene will heavily influence an NPC's reaction, as busting through the door SWAT style gets a different response than arriving with a food cart to hand out free hot dogs

• Attacking: -4
• Weapons Drawn: -2
• Unarmed, Nonthreatening: +0
• Friendly: +2

Alliances Prejudices and perceived allegiance are important factors for someone's response. An ork with a human girlfriend is going to get a far different reaction at the Humanis rally than if he were alone and human. This is where the Disguise skill can come in handy.

• Blood Enemy: -4
• Unfriendly, Hostile: -2
• Unknown, Stranger: +0
• Ally, Safe: +2
• Own Faction: +4

Past Experiences How you treat someone will influence future behavior, for obvious reasons.

• Nemesis: -4
• Violent Past, Asshole Neighbor: -2
• Stranger, Acquaintance: +0
• Friendly Past, Good Neighbor: +2
• Comrade, Boss, Shag Buddy: +4

Intimidate As a means of using threats of violence to actually prevent violence, this has its uses. A successful check made during the reaction roll will turn the negative modifier from Entrance, Alliance, or Past Experience into a bonus. Only one can be inverted with a successful skill check.

Uh, you might want to adjust some of those numbers. Right now attacking a creature that has never seen you before results in them not attacking you back a majority of the time. Unless I'm somehow misinterpreting the "attacking" modifier under the entrance category.

Although "Oh no, those armed murderhobos just stabbed me! But I rolled high on my reaction so I'm friendly towards them," is actually a real stance people can take in D&D Land, due to resurrection effects and the fact that confirmed afterlives based on your deity of worship are verifiably existent. It's still a bit silly though.

Blargh, forgot to include what you roll for the reaction roll; 2d6, not a d20

Does "attacking" mean rushing in weapons drawn or actually dealing damage/inflicting status effects?

Wait, so if I intimidate a stranger while trying to kill them during a home invasion they normally become friendly, while I'm trying to kill them?

OK, so what really happens is they flee or surrender and you just need more columns there for people who are losing the fight (surrender to you), not in a fight at all (will bargain or trade), and winning the fight (accept your surrender).

tussock wrote:Wait, so if I intimidate a stranger while trying to kill them during a home invasion they normally become friendly, while I'm trying to kill them?

Friendly in the D&D sense of the word. They probably don't like you, but they will answer your questions and direct you to the jewelry box so that you won't stab them.

intrusion of territory is a big deal though, maybe that environment modifier should be changed. Like a bear in its den, or an angry shotgun toting old dude with a lawn.

On the other hand, if you're in a place where you don't feel safe you'll be rather skittish.

Grek wrote:

tussock wrote:Wait, so if I intimidate a stranger while trying to kill them during a home invasion they normally become friendly, while I'm trying to kill them?

Friendly in the D&D sense of the word. They probably don't like you, but they will answer your questions and direct you to the jewelry box so that you won't stab them.

One of the many reasons that the official D&D terminology is bad. Friendly has a lot of linguistic connotations that don't match the game mechanics. For one thing, it genuinely sounds more, well, friendly than "helpful" or "fanatic" which are the two higher diplomatic categories.

-Username17

If the PCs are on a safe heaven, walking around unarmed and nonthreatening, there's still a 1/36 chance that meeting some random stranger will turn into a combat.

If the place is a neutral ground instead, a fight will erupt in 1/12 of all interactions with strangers. I get that D&D land is supposed to be a violent place but it's hard to not picture a bazaar as a permanent battle royale.

I like the idea, although it seems hard to get all types of interactions onto a single table like this.

For example, if I'm walking around in a safe haven minding my own business (+2 for location, +0 on everything else), there is a 1/36 chance that any random person I run into (not my own or opposing faction, no history) will outright fight me. There's also a pretty solid chance of threats. Iterative probability and all, if I walk to the grocery store, shop, and walk back, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get into a fight every time, let alone be threatened half a dozen times or more along the way.

Perhaps the issue is with the 2d6, in that the most rare outcome (that isn't 0%) is still 2.78%.

Ideally, if you are in a normal city, your average citizen should be sitting at a 0% for both threats and actual fights. For people that might qualify as gang members, or drunks, or whatever, I can see a non-zero chance for both of those. Of course, that involves the DM deciding ahead of time if any random person is potentially hostile or not. Is the idea that if you randomly generate a combat that you retroactively assume the dude is in a gang or otherwise off his meds, or something?


Edit: Ninja'ed by Nocker.

I should probably better elaborate the Alliance modifier, likely by removing the ambivalent part. This presumes a certain level of racism, in that humans aren't inherently distrusted in a typical village, nor are the safe demihuman races; and thus enjoy a +2 on their side. Races they've never seen before get the +0, as do actual strangers (even of nominally the same species) who enter the more insular villages that hide the children when newcomers arrive.

EDIT: Yes, there is a background assumption that hostile/threatening responses from random villagers will have them retroactively become gang members and/or violent drunks.

That issue seems to fix itself if you increase the Safe Haven bonus to +4 and change the Hostile entry to Unfriendly.

virgil wrote: EDIT: Yes, there is a background assumption that hostile/threatening responses from random villagers will have them retroactively become gang members and/or violent drunks.

That's fine. It does hep with the issue of not forcing the DM to make a fuckton of conscious decisions at every interaction, and also saves the system from some level of DM-bias. If the DM is good at rolling with the results on a whim, it should work out.

virgil wrote:Yes, there is a background assumption that hostile/threatening responses from random villagers will have them retroactively become gang members and/or violent drunks.

It seems you could also get good mileage out of a stricter definition of "encounter". You don't roll reaction for every person you walk past on the street, only people you actually approach and attempt to engage in conversation (or fisticuffs, whatever). Thus, walking to the market, buying a stack of turnips, and bringing them home only triggers one raw random reaction: from the shopkeeper himself. Anyone you pick out of the crowd is likely a friend of yours and thus piles up the +2s.

Of course, in a more sparsely populated area, merely making eye contact might be considered an encounter. If you spot somebody in the woods, you're likely to react to their presence, even if you're both just walking down the same path in opposite directions.

I'd like to point out that "unknown/stranger" in the alliances heading suggests to me a "mysterious cloaked figure"

So, 1/36 groups of townsfolk who encounter a mysterious cloaked stranger (+0, +0) walking around town (+2) being mysterious (+0) will attempt to initiate combat with them. (net +2)

On the other hand, if the stranger's (+0) face is visible and appears to be a member of a friendly race or group (+2), they won't ever initiate combat. (net +4), but 1 in 6 times they will be unfriendly ("hey you, who're you, and what're you doin' round these parts?")
Friendly will happen about 2.5/6 times, and indifferent will also happen 2.5/6 times.

If the stranger is also friendly (+2, net +6), unfriendly will only happen 1/36, indifferent will happen 10/36, and friendly 25/36.

If the stranger is a member of the same faction (+4 instead of +2, net +8), indifferent will happen 1/12 and friendly 11/12.

Mysterious cloaked figure works, as would being a race/faction that the community's never had real encounters with; they never had to interact with a raptoran or a githzerai, and are baffled by whatever the hell a dralasite is.

Radiant's numbers are pretty accurate to my intention; if a PC goes out of his way to be the dark brooding guy in the corner, they'll get into a bar fight about 3% of the time. Even if they aren't dark and brooding, but happens to be a drow (in a non-elf village) or a tiefling, they'll have the same issue. I still need to figure out the modifiers from a successful Diplomacy check.

As for the definition of an encounter, I'll take suggestions for ways to word it so it's clear and isn't just an eloquent way of saying "when you think it's appropriate."

As for retconning motivation with hostile results, it might be a good idea to create a random chart to assist DMs who find themselves at a loss for why some villagers are heckling the party.

I'd prefer a d20 roll

2d6 has twice the d20's granularity at the end of the scale. (3d6 has ten times the end-granularity of the d20, though)

Also, IIRC, 2e Diplomacy used 2d10.

Radiant has the right idea, again. I only have four states, I want the granularity smaller than a d20, and the bell curve is advantageous. If something specific happens from 8 to 12 on a d20, that effect will happen 25% of the time until I get a +7 modifier and have shoved all lower values off the RNG entirely; which doesn't happen with a bell curve.

I know this sounds obvious, and most people would probably use it this way anyway, but shouldn't there be some sort of exception for mitigating a result of "Initiate Combat" down to "Hostile" under the circumstances of "You are obviously way more badass than they are"?

Sigil wrote:I know this sounds obvious, and most people would probably use it this way anyway, but shouldn't there be some sort of exception for mitigating a result of "Initiate Combat" down to "Hostile" under the circumstances of "You are obviously way more badass than they are"?

Theoretically that falls under the partially explained intimidate rules at the end of the OP. You'd need a special modifier for it (or you'd have to shoe horn it under "attacking" even if you aren't attacking yet). That would turn the -4 into a +4 and allow you to mitigate combat.

@Badass, I quite like the idea that some of the Guards! will attack a big old dragon that flies in, it's all of them attacking when he doesn't bother rolling intimidate that might be a problem. Oh, dragons do it for free with the fear aura, so it's only things without that which are at issue.

@Intimidate. It shouldn't really be +8 while attacking but only +4 while threatening to, should it? For that matter, why can a Sgt.Major not intimidate his own troops, but easily intimidate the enemy into surrender? Oh, he's the "nemesis" of his training squad.

Surely just +4 for intimidation if you have any negative modifiers at all. Then actually cutting someone is less effective at stopping a fight than threatening to cut them, and the mean boss can just be an asshole, rather than a mass murderer.

Anyway, odds. Which is the same thing as a d4 with 2-step (-ve combat, 0-1 threat, 2-3 stand, 4+ comply) results and half-size mods. Or at least close enough that you'd never notice.

nockermensch wrote:If the PCs are on a safe heaven, walking around unarmed and nonthreatening, there's still a 1/36 chance that meeting some random stranger will turn into a combat.

Or that your nemesis will randomly turn into your friend, for that matter. I guess that's fine if you like injecting extra randomness into your game.

As noted, the Diplomacy system will be the tricky part.

hogarth wrote:

nockermensch wrote:If the PCs are on a safe heaven, walking around unarmed and nonthreatening, there's still a 1/36 chance that meeting some random stranger will turn into a combat.

Or that your nemesis will randomly turn into your friend, for that matter. I guess that's fine if you like injecting extra randomness into your game.

As noted, the Diplomacy system will be the tricky part.

"Normally I'd blast you, but I've just inherited a castle so I'm feeling nice. Let's see if we can't talk this over. And by 'talk this over' I mean 'you give me a metric ton of gold and I call the debt paid'."

Or:

"I know we've not had a good time but hear me out, Steve the Sorcerer just scorched my party and you're screwed too if he finishes level grinding."

tussock wrote:@Badass, I quite like the idea that some of the Guards! will attack a big old dragon that flies in, it's all of them attacking when he doesn't bother rolling intimidate that might be a problem. Oh, dragons do it for free with the fear aura, so it's only things without that which are at issue.

I haven't quite figured out how to handle morale, which was normally a related mechanic to reaction rolls in older editions of D&D.

Surely just +4 for intimidation if you have any negative modifiers at all. Then actually cutting someone is less effective at stopping a fight than threatening to cut them, and the mean boss can just be an asshole, rather than a mass murderer.

Giving a flat bonus to a negative modifier works well, and I'll incorporate that.

Which is the same thing as a d4 with 2-step (-ve combat, 0-1 threat, 2-3 stand, 4+ comply) results and half-size mods. Or at least close enough that you'd never notice.

The 3 to 8 percent is an outlier that I actually like, which is lost with a d4.