[3.X] How do you guys handle diplomacy?

[PhoneLobster]

The percentage of encounters that have undead in them is neither 0% nor 100%.

... so... you admit that a deterministic form of content generation can generate resulting content that occurs at a rate in between 0% and %100?

...suddenly...

You pro RR guys need to get your fucking heads on straight on this whole GM gets to decide 0%/100% thing. You call it bad then turn around and write it right into your own systems as the highest priority mechanic time and again. You deride it, demand it, attack it, defend it.

[shadzar]

or maybe people just need to stop fetishisizing over rolling dice and understand that dice ONLY have a use when the DM is unable to come to an unbiased decision or when they have nothing prepared as a response to a player action.

Gary had the same problem, he liked the dice too much. dice work in situations of environmental elements such as wandering monsters because you have ALREADY chosen as a DM what would be hear fairly for the game to make sense, and the dice are only there to give a chance at getting anything from it, rather than being purposefully too hard for the players or purposefully too easy.

dice simply create an illusion of unbias form the DM, and they are enough, in some case, to allow the players to continue playing where their action matter without being stomped down by a bad DM. but dice are NOT a replacement for a good DM, and never will be because they are too lifeless.

[hogarth]

Saying that things can only move from 100% fail to 100% success is extremely bizarre

Well, except when it isn't. As noted, almost all encounters have a 0% or 100% chance of being susceptible to Turn Undead, for instance, since either a particular encounter has undead or it doesn't. It would be bizarre to say that a typical encounter should have a 50% chance of being susceptible to Turn Undead (because everyone in the world is a half-vampire? or because everyone is in a living/undead quantum superposition? the mind boggles).

The percentage of encounters that have undead in them is neither 0% nor 100%. Your analogy has failed.

Wait -- so you're arguing against a strawman GM who makes 100% of encounters into diplomatic encounters?

That's the lamest argument I've ever heard.

[virgil]

The percentage of encounters that have undead in them is neither 0% nor 100%.

... so... you admit that a deterministic form of content generation can generate resulting content that occurs at a rate in between 0% and %100?

...suddenly...

Damn, I'm starting to properly realize that you're just stupid.

[MGuy]

The percentage of encounters that have undead in them is neither 0% nor 100%.

... so... you admit that a deterministic form of content generation can generate resulting content that occurs at a rate in between 0% and %100?

...suddenly...

You pro RR guys need to get your fucking heads on straight on this whole GM gets to decide 0%/100% thing. You call it bad then turn around and write it right into your own systems as the highest priority mechanic time and again. You deride it, demand it, attack it, defend it.

Ummm I'm not sure if that is what he's saying. Here's how I read it.

Hog: The ability to turn undead will either be 0% or 100% usable based on whether or not undead exist in a encounter at all.

Frank: The percentage of encounters at all where you'll ever face undead is somewhere between 0 and 100%.

It seems as though Frank's response is divorced from what the point he's supposed to be responding to. Read into that how you will but I think it is important to remember that Frank is arguing, and in fact the foundation of his argument is, that Diplomacy 'cannot' happen without RRs. He has stated:

The MC determining whether the NPCs start the combat music or not before dice are rolled robs the players of agency and in many cases prevents the diplomancer's abilities from even existing in the game.

So he believes that all MCs that can prevent a diplomancer from being effective (like say the use of mindless creatures at all) prohibits player agency and prevents Diplomacy from existing (in many cases).

Ending a combat encounter is not the same thing as starting a social encounter. You might as well say that speak with dead is just as good as Diplomacy at that point.

He believes that turning a hostile situation into one where people talk is pointedly 'not' starting a social encounter, implied that once you start fighting someone they are equivalent to being dead, and that speaking with the dead cannot be a Social encounter. Keep in mind that this is his position. GMs cannot be trusted and any ability that prevents or reverses the very scenario he's worried about (IE hostile encounters that erupt before Diplomacy can happen) are not ok, but hostile attack only encounters themselves are ok if it is rolled up at random instead.

[virgil]

He believes that turning a hostile situation into one where people talk is pointedly 'not' starting a social encounter, implied that once you start fighting someone they are equivalent to being dead

Learn to read. He's implying that ending a combat encounter is largely through killing your opponent, and few would consider the subsequent speak with dead spell to be a standard diplomatic venue.

GMs cannot be trusted and any ability that prevents or reverses the very scenario he's worried about (IE hostile encounters that erupt before Diplomacy can happen) are not ok, but hostile attack only encounters themselves are ok if it is rolled up at random instead.

Once again; arbitrarily deciding that the elves attack through personal cognitive biases is what is being railed against, while discrete inputs/modifiers (battle-ready, dangerous people, etc) and outputs (50% ambush, 25% parlay, 25% ignore; whatever) are what's advocated. This is directly equivalent to the comparison of whether the ogre warband or the hobgoblin ninja squad gets the drop on the party; the DM has control/influence over whether the players see the enemy whether he uses Stealth rules or pure fiat, but surely you can see why one is superior to the other.

[Cyberzombie]

This whole thing seems pretty pointless. Even if you have a random percentage system, a DM still has to arbitrarily assign modifiers for circumstances like walking in the forest under a flag of truce or using illusions to make yourself look like elves. So no extra player agency is actually gained here, given that players have no control over the dice regardless. You've made the results of your NPCs more random, sure, but that's about it.

And really, all I tend to see from randomness is that it frustrates players. It's fine if you have the elves attack and the players ask why and you tell them other things they could have done. It's a lot more frustrating when PCs do everything right, the elves attack and all you can tell them is that they got lucky. It seems like this sort of encounter should be designed more as a puzzle rather than a traditional dice based challenge hinging on a single roll.

[MGuy]

He believes that turning a hostile situation into one where people talk is pointedly 'not' starting a social encounter, implied that once you start fighting someone they are equivalent to being dead

Learn to read. He's implying that ending a combat encounter is largely through killing your opponent, and few would consider the subsequent speak with dead spell to be a standard diplomatic venue.

Are you seriously equating having a social encounter instead of a combat encounter effectively 'killing' someone? Kind of doesn't make sense considering your targets would still be up, moving, and still capable of hostilities should diplomacy fail. Does this mean that if you start off with socializing then the targets are all effectively deceased?

GMs cannot be trusted and any ability that prevents or reverses the very scenario he's worried about (IE hostile encounters that erupt before Diplomacy can happen) are not ok, but hostile attack only encounters themselves are ok if it is rolled up at random instead.

Once again; arbitrarily deciding that the elves attack through personal cognitive biases is what is being railed against, while discrete inputs/modifiers (battle-ready, dangerous people, etc) and outputs (50% ambush, 25% parlay, 25% ignore; whatever) are what's advocated. This is directly equivalent to the comparison of whether the ogre warband or the hobgoblin ninja squad gets the drop on the party; the DM has control/influence over whether the players see the enemy whether he uses Stealth rules or pure fiat, but surely you can see why one is superior to the other.

You realize that that this whole argument can be boiled down like this:

Virg: People are against the GM arbitrarily setting the elves to attack mode. Instead what people want is for, when the GM sets the elves to attack mode for their to be modifiers that support that arbitrary decision. That is all.

Anti-RR: If a GM is going to set X to attack Y then he will just do that. Adding modifiers to support the decision won't change dick.

Virg: The PCs can do things to have the GM then apply whatever arbitrary numbers he deems appropriate to change the results.

Anti-RR: You realize though that the GM can just 'do' that without the need of extra numbers or a roll.

Virg: He cannot because 'reasons'.

[virgil]

He believes that turning a hostile situation into one where people talk is pointedly 'not' starting a social encounter, implied that once you start fighting someone they are equivalent to being dead

Learn to read. He's implying that ending a combat encounter is largely through killing your opponent, and few would consider the subsequent speak with dead spell to be a standard diplomatic venue.

Are you seriously equating having a social encounter instead of a combat encounter effectively 'killing' someone?

I am not.

You realize that that this whole argument can be boiled down like this:

Yeah, you're being obtuse here. The pro-RR crowd are not "rulings" people, which means that the potential modifiers are in place before the game starts and aren't changing in value or quantity. The elves attack because of a finite set of reasons that can understood by the party and the DM; which can be both planned for and responded to. I'm almost certain that you're not going to simultaneously argue against skill ranks in Move Silently, cloaks of elvenkind, and being 50' away; because those are unequivocally the same damn thing.

[John Magnum]

It seems like boiling social interactions down to a finite, enumerated collection of discrete traits that slide you along a single linear scale from "Hostile" to "Friendly" (what does the rest of the scale even look like?) is not super conducive to roleplaying. Arguments that it works for combat and crafting and stuff so why not conversation seem specious.

[MGuy]

Learn to read. He's implying that ending a combat encounter is largely through killing your opponent, and few would consider the subsequent speak with dead spell to be a standard diplomatic venue.

Are you seriously equating having a social encounter instead of a combat encounter effectively 'killing' someone?

I am not.

You realize that that this whole argument can be boiled down like this:

Yeah, you're being obtuse here. The pro-RR crowd are not "rulings" people, which means that the potential modifiers are in place before the game starts and aren't changing in value or quantity. The elves attack because of a finite set of reasons that can understood by the party and the DM; which can be both planned for and responded to. I'm almost certain that you're not going to simultaneously argue against skill ranks in Move Silently, cloaks of elvenkind, and being 50' away; because those are unequivocally the same damn thing.

You are wrong. Diplomacy cannot be separated from MTP at all. You can set values for social shit before the game starts with or without RR rolls because as long as Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate are things you will have values for them. Your side continuously argues as if RR and these skills are the same thing. They aren't. What's more even considering that RR have values in place the GM is the one who arbitrarily assigns them. And this happens in a completely different fashion than 'isSkeleton' or 'isElf' creature assignment. What is considered reasonable, offensive, passive, a good gift, a social faux pas are all arbitrarily decided upon by the GM. The GM not only sets 'isElf' for the creature assignment he also sets them to be aggressive towards Orcs, Hostile setting, whether the environment is considered dangerous, what customs the elves are willing to accept, whether or not they were given orders to discourage intruders or kill all intruders. The GM decides how effective PC precautions are and whether or not the PCs even have access to info necessary to attempt to get a bonus, etc etc etc. Thus the GM gets prime pick as to WHAT arbitrary bonuses/penalties will apply to the situation, to all situations, because the GM HAS to arbitrate this. It isn't just generating a monster and then distributing stats it is literally having say over every inputs value.

[Username17]

It seems like boiling social interactions down to a finite, enumerated collection of discrete traits that slide you along a single linear scale from "Hostile" to "Friendly" (what does the rest of the scale even look like?) is not super conducive to roleplaying. Arguments that it works for combat and crafting and stuff so why not conversation seem specious.

Well, hostile to helpful is actually the outputs of the diplomacy minigame subsystem after you already decide whether you get a diplomacy phase at all. The reaction test is more akin to your surprise roll - a test to determine whether or not you get to act in a diplomacy round. So the results would run from "dismissive" (where you don't get a diplomacy phase) to "attentive" (where you get to have multiple diplomacy rounds if you want).

Dismissive people would either attack or wander off or ignore you as befits their assessment of your team and threat level, while attentive people would listen to what you had to say. Disinterested people would give you a few seconds to explain yourself before stabbing you/tuning you out/leaving (long enough to make a simple intimidation, bluff, or bribe). Interested people would give your group a full diplomacy phase. Attentive people would allow multiple diplomacy phases, for possible counter offers and haggling.

That's really all there is to it. The idea that people should be able to do things that concretely affect the amount of time they have to explain themselves before guards start shooting arrows.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

What about the option of everybody going for cover while the Diplomancer starts working the negotiating angle from his own hiding spot? Happens all the time in media, and it seems like a trivial situation to recreate.

[Username17]

What about the option of everybody going for cover while the Diplomancer starts working the negotiating angle from his own hiding spot? Happens all the time in media, and it seems like a trivial situation to recreate.

Well, that would be an example of failing to get a diplomacy phase and then attempting to stall combat long enough to get a diplomacy phase happening in combat time. Utterly impossible in 3rd or 4th edition D&D with their 6 second combat rounds and essential lack of meaningful stalling tactics. But you could imagine such a thing working in another system.

Still not a replacement for being able to quantitatively influence your ability to have a diplomacy phase in the first place. The standard cause for the "we have to stall battle long enough to explain the situation" is that someone who is at least potentially on your side mistook you for an enemy. Having there be nothing players could theoretically do to reduce the chance of that happening is both insulting and unrealistic.

-Username17

[Dean]

The reaction roll is important because if the social encounter can be lost without a single roll then you cannot support social characters.

Imagine a game called Escapology where the PC's escape from prisons and traps. Imagine a character wanted to be a combat specialist who's method of helping the team was to sometimes totally prevent capture. If the rules want to support this character the minimum they would require is to allow at least one roll to occur before the party is captured. In an Escapology game if the DM says "Henchmen show up! They knock you out and handcuff you and put you in a holding cell" without a single dice roll occurring then the combat specialist is not really an option because his ability to impact the game was hand waived away.

The PL's/Mguy's of this world would be saying that is fine because sometimes you just get captured. And that adding in HP values and Initiative rolls and attack rolls to make a viable combat minigame is a waste of time and impossible because if a DM wants you to be beaten he can just send a thousand guards so it doesn't matter if you give them stats or not.

We know this is wrong for many reasons and the same lessons apply. An acceptable social character needs a reaction roll in our combat focused game for the same reason an acceptable combat character needs a combat roll in an escape focused game.

If people can hand waive combat you can't support combat characters, if people can hand waive socializing you can't support social characters. Yes the DM can make every group of orcs you meet a bunch of racist ex-cons in unfamiliar territory and swing the RNG for the social minigame so far to one side it's virtually impossible to win. But a DM can also send 50 Balors against the group every fight. The reaction roll allows the option of social characters or abilities at all by not allowing that portion of the game to be passed without ever interacting with them.

[PhoneLobster]

It seems as though Frank's response is divorced from what the point he's supposed to be responding to.

That's pretty much what I'm saying.

When it suits him, to defend turn undead or his own uses of 0% or 100% subversion of his "random" mechanic, he looks at the aggregate outcomes over a series of encounters and pretends it's different to something he was attacking five seconds ago. And when it doesn't he points at an individual outcome that is 0% or 100% chance and calls it satan.

[hogarth]

The reaction roll is important because if the social encounter can be lost without a single roll then you cannot support social characters.

Either:
(a) you're fine with the idea that some portion of all encounters are not "social encounters", in which case you shouldn't have a problem with the occasional "the orcs attack on sight" encounter, or
(b) you think that 100% of all encounters should be "social encounters", in which case you're arguing that D&D shouldn't have mindless skeletons, traps, etc. even though those have been part of D&D since its inception.

[PhoneLobster]

The reaction roll is important because if the social encounter can be lost without a single roll then you cannot support social characters.

Which is why we advocate having a functional diplomacy system instead of a failed RR system. An RR system that actually if you fucking look at them DOES let you fucking lose regardless of your roll if the GM decides it.

Seriously. We have Frank, Virgil, and deaddmwalking ALL having proposed RR mechanics which DO involve you losing the fucking social game on the RR event with the roll being IRRELEVANT if the GM wants it to be. That is a thing in ALL their fucking systems. It is in fact the highest priority mechanic in their systems, sometimes the ONLY mechanic aside from the roll is "GM gets to apply plus or minus infinity to roll!".

My diplomacy mechanics are well known. It is pretty fucking clear that whatever else you might think of them that the social encounter does NOT end with an auto loss based on the commencement of combat, what with one of the primary goals of my proposals being that social actions are designed to potentially happen in combat and are designed primarily to accommodate that. One of the primary things that my mechanics have been attacked over, by RR proponents and others has in fact been that the social encounter can continue in a combat encounter.

It seems like boiling social interactions down to a finite, enumerated collection of discrete traits that slide you along a single linear scale from "Hostile" to "Friendly" (what does the rest of the scale even look like?) is not super conducive to roleplaying. Arguments that it works for combat and crafting and stuff so why not conversation seem specious.

If you want social mechanics to work like combat you have to make similar assumptions and set similar goals to those made by combat mechanics.

You can just as easily argue for massive infinite lists of infinite modifiers to apply to the act of sticking a sword into an enemy. But we keep our contextual modifiers to highly limited "higher ground" or "flanking" bonuses that are finite in size and number, and largely dwarfed by character based abilities tied into character level, class abilities, attributes etc...

You CAN do the same thing with social actions. But certain people (RR crowd among them) continue to demand the infinite lists of infinite modifiers. RR is in part Frank's baby to attempt to create a formalized mechanic that RETAINS infinite lists of infinite modifiers and DEFIES the idea of limiting and formalizing the social mechanics to something at all resembling combat.

And it falls flat on it's face before he finishes his supposed equivalent to "social initiative" (if we pretend initiative rolls have rather different results/functions than they do). And the primary failure point IS the continued clinging to the infinite lists of infinite modifiers that continue to subvert and render irrelevant any supposedly "random" mechanic he is pretending to add here.

[Dean]

Either:
(a) you're fine with the idea that some portion of all encounters are not "social encounters", in which case you shouldn't have a problem with the occasional "the orcs attack on sight" encounter, or
(b) you think that 100% of all encounters should be "social encounters", in which case you're arguing that D&D shouldn't have mindless skeletons, traps, etc. even though those have been part of D&D since its inception.

I accept that not all events have a social element. Crafting a sword or avoiding a trap are both elements of a fantasy RPG experience that have no real social element. Making things like Undead or Constructs immune to social abilities is acceptable for the same reason having golems be immune to spells or undead be immune to sneak attack is acceptable. It is ok game design to on occasion tell players "Your thing doesn't work here" but there needs to be rules for it, they need to be quantifiable, and they need to be repeatable. If all Undead are always immune to sneak attack and social abilities that is fine as written exceptions to the normal rules. If some Orcs are immune to sneak attack and social abilities because "the DM felt like it" and others aren't that is not fine. I need to know how and why the abilities I invested in will function for me to be able to interact with the world.

It's also beneficial to have there be rules for Undead or Constructs being largely immune to social abilities because it also for exceptions to those exceptions in turn. Making "Deathspeaker" a purchaseable ability to counteract that immunity is good for everyone.

[MGuy]

Either:
(a) you're fine with the idea that some portion of all encounters are not "social encounters", in which case you shouldn't have a problem with the occasional "the orcs attack on sight" encounter, or
(b) you think that 100% of all encounters should be "social encounters", in which case you're arguing that D&D shouldn't have mindless skeletons, traps, etc. even though those have been part of D&D since its inception.

I accept that not all events have a social element. Crafting a sword or avoiding a trap are both elements of a fantasy RPG experience that have no real social element. Making things like Undead or Constructs or immune to social abilities is acceptable for the same reason having golems be immune to spells or undead be immune to sneak attack is acceptable. It is ok game design to on occasion tell players "Your thing doesn't work here" but there needs to be rules for it, they need to be quantifiable, and they need to be repeatable. If all Undead are always immune to sneak attack and social abilities that is fine as written exceptions to the normal rules. If some Orcs are immune to sneak attack and social abilities because "the DM felt like it" and others aren't that is not fine. I need to know how and why the abilities I invested in will function for me to be able to interact with the world.

You should be able to accept that some Orcs start off as hostile while other Orcs might start off as friendly just as easily as you should be able to accept that some orcs are wielding axes while others are wielding javelins. Just like you can accept that sometimes there are no orcs and sometimes there are some orcs or sometimes there are many orcs. Sometimes there are red orcs sometimes there are blue orcs. All of these because the GM 'felt like it'. If you're willing to accept that not all orcs are 'always' evil you should be able to accept being told 'These orcs were hired to kill you'.

[virgil]

Seriously. We have Frank, Virgil, and deaddmwalking ALL having proposed RR mechanics which DO involve you losing the fucking social game on the RR event with the roll being IRRELEVANT if the GM wants it to be.

And level 1 fighters can't hit ghosts, rogues don't sneak attack oozes, fire ball doesn't hurt golems, and archers miss invisible stalkers after a few thunderstones are dropped; news at 11.

My diplomacy mechanics are well known.

Ah yes, your 20 page rape mechanics. Truly, the golden standard by which all others must measure up to.

You CAN do the same thing with social actions. But certain people (RR crowd among them) continue to demand the infinite lists of infinite modifiers.

Dude, learn to fvcking read. Go watch some Sesame Street while you're at it...

[PhoneLobster]

deanruel87, you seem to have missed this so I will bring it to your attention again in some vain hope that the pro-RR crowd will ever actually engage on this issue...

The reaction roll is important because if the social encounter can be lost without a single roll then you cannot support social characters.

Which is why we advocate having a functional diplomacy system instead of a failed RR system. An RR system that actually if you fucking look at them DOES let you fucking lose regardless of your roll if the GM decides it.

Seriously. We have Frank, Virgil, and deaddmwalking ALL having proposed RR mechanics which DO involve you losing the fucking social game on the RR event with the roll being IRRELEVANT if the GM wants it to be. That is a thing in ALL their fucking systems. It is in fact the highest priority mechanic in their systems, sometimes the ONLY mechanic aside from the roll is "GM gets to apply plus or minus infinity to roll!".

So again. We have three major RR proponents who have produced RR systems in which it IS possible to lose the social encounter without a single relevant roll.

This fails your goal regarding no-roll failures. This means that RR systems CAN be a failure by that metric, and in fact that all the ones currently presented are notable failures by that metric.

Does this in ANY way change your position?

[PhoneLobster]

And level 1 fighters can't hit ghosts, fire ball doesn't hurt golems, and archers miss invisible stalkers after a few thunderstones are dropped; news at 11.

And the news is RR fans are defending RR with bullshit.

Seriously. "But RR is required because you MUST NOT lose social encounters without a roll!". The response is "Er... but you CAN lose social encounters without a roll in RR systems presented".

You don't get to then just turn around and say "well duh!". Because fucking hell it was a defense of your system which criticized something your system does.

IF that's the test RR fans want... they just failed it. YOU just failed it.

And don't pretend deanruel was the only one to present this argument it has appeared in differing forms at the hands of a rather lot of RR proponents usually under the disguise of "player agency" and other obfuscation to cover the basic flawed line of defense.

And no, your own fucking thread STILL has "GM picks SEVERAL vague modifiers of large enough size to go off the RNG out of his ass" as it's fucking thing. You do NOT get to claim you aren't pulling infinite lists of infinite modifiers you idiot.

Ah yes, your 20 page rape mechanics.

Aside from you clearly being a total fucking twat using a rather vile bit of insult in place of argument (and some sort of really strange ideas about page count of a rules sub system) I'm going to take the time to especially note that particular insult was one used to attack the idea of social actions occurring in and being compatible (even with penalties!) in a combat encounter.

Which was the whole point I was making if you had I don't know quoted, read, or were at all able to comprehend ANY more of the paragraph in question.

Someone said "But you need RR so things don't end with 100% combat 0% social encounter without a roll! WHICH IS WHAT YOU WANT!" and my response was "Well clearly it isn't, since my own system's thing is social stuff continuing in combat, but notably RR fans attacked my system for doing exactly that!"

So thank you for attacking my system for doing exactly that. Thus handily demonstrating an RR fan attacking a system for simply allowing any recourse to social actions in combat after/other than RR. WELL DONE.

[virgil]

Seriously. "But RR is required because you MUST NOT lose social encounters without a roll!". The response is "Er... but you CAN lose social encounters without a roll in RR systems presented".

Because reaction rolls are not rolls? Now you can't identify when A=A? That's some grade A ineptitude there.

And no, your own fucking thread STILL has "GM picks SEVERAL vague modifiers of large enough size to go off the RNG out of his ass" as it's fucking thing.

I have some recommended material for you if you're going to keep referring to my thread, how it relates to its own RNG, and the difference between 'several' and 'infinite'.

Thus handily demonstrating an RR fan attacking a system for simply allowing any recourse to social actions in combat after/other than RR. WELL DONE.

I'm not attacking the system for allowing a recourse to social actions in combat, I'm attacking it because your answer was distasteful and IMO, worthy of occasional ridicule.

[hogarth]

Seriously. "But RR is required because you MUST NOT lose social encounters without a roll!". The response is "Er... but you CAN lose social encounters without a roll in RR systems presented".

Because reaction rolls are not rolls? Now you can't identify when A=A? That's some grade A ineptitude there.

In your system, the modifiers "Threatened" + "Assaulting" + "Enemy" add up to a -10 penalty on a roll of 2 dice. So if you're a GM who really wants your players to almost never get a chance at Diplomacy (and I don't really think more than a handful of those GMs exist in the universe, but let's use Frank's weak-ass strawman for the sake of argument), all you have to do is claim that those three modifiers always apply in every situation. Of course, a GM who did that would be a huge douche, but he would presumably be a huge douche whether the system involved rolling dice or not.