Actual Anatomy of Failed Design: Diplomacy

[Username17]

The other thread failed hard before it even got going, so let's talk about what's actually wrong with Diplomacy. We can talk 3e, 3.5, PF, and 4e - since all of them fail in similar yet slightly different ways. First of all, Diplomacy is a skill that you use to get people o respond to you and your ideas better. That's what it is. But we also know that it fails pretty hard, but for a moment let's talk about 2nd Edition Diplomacy - which we will discuss because it actually worked OK.

Here's the skinny: back in the dark ages, social interactions were pretty much all magical teaparty, with the addition of a "reaction die" at the beginning of the encounter to determine whether the encountered creatures were hostile or not. Most MCs handwaved even that roll, because there was a general Monty Haul feeling, where you were "supposed" to kill all the goblins, so having them be friendly encounters periodically made MCs fume in rage. Thus, people thought Charisma was a terrible stat, because pretty much the only thing it did was adjust a die roll that the MC wouldn't even use in most campaigns. When 2nd edition came around, you had the ability to select a Diplomacy Skill that would let you roll against your Charisma to adjust the reaction of an encountered group of enemies. That was something that MCs would let you use, because it was a character ability instead of an optional stage on the other side of the DM Screen.

So anyway, when we went to 3e and later editions, and Diplomacy has always been a plate full of shit. It's poorly defined, but where it is defined it hands out results that pretty much everyone regards as ridiculous. And the core reason is because bonuses have become large. And the result is that the d20 simply isn't big enough to have all possible results of an encounter with a new creature appear for every character. There are only 20 numbers on the die, so if your bonuses to that die roll can vary by 20 or more, your system is either incapable of generating hostile results or incapable of generating friendly results for some characters (or both, in the case of 3e diplomancy rules).

So what 3e did was to have some fixed DCs to convert creatures from one attitude to another. First of all, this is bad because it assumes an initial attitude is present at all. Why would it be? Until you get through the hails and hallos there really isn't a reason for the creatures to be friend or foe. Neither one of you has said anything to identify the other as such! But when we look at the specific DCs involved, it's even worse. The DCs for different results are literally fifty points apart. And you're still rolling a d20 to generate a result. So you know that the system is broke before we even get to the player character side. And when we do look at the PC end, we find that their diplomacy bonuses vary by at least that much - meaning that players would be well into the "always/never gets X result" pile even if the DCs were close enough to get meaningful results out of the die roll itself. To add to that, the DCs just sit there and bonuses only go up as players advance in level. So while a diplomancer pretty much "always converts everything to friendlies" at low level, by the time he gets to high level he literally does have that talent literally all the time. And that's not much of a game.

So now lets talk about variable DCs for a moment, because both Pathfailure and (to an even greater extent) 4e went down that path. By tying the DCs to the level of the people you're talking to, you've just made higher level people into unreasonable psychopaths, which is hugely counterimmersive. Why should the angel be more inherently hostile than the goblin? That's nonsense. Even if it solved the problem of characters having bonuses that varied by more than the entire random number generator (which they do not), it would still fail the sniff test of "is this fucking retarded?" 4e makes it even worse by not even having guidelines as to how hard it should be to get a friendly encounter out of an Ogre under any circumstances.

Your party of adventurers is running around in the woods and they encounter a Harpy or a Rusalka. It's not one of the Dark Lord's minions, it's just some magical thing that lives here in the woods, so what kind of encounter do you have? One option of course is to have the MC of the game arbitrarily decide whether the encounter is one of fighting or fucking (and if both, in which order). That kind of magical teaparty system works, but it of course deprives any social abilities any characters have of having the capability to mean anything. The other way is to have some sort of "fair" system in which a die is rolled with situational modifiers to determine the other creature's disposition. And that can be made to work - but only if the situational modifiers are small enough to actually fit into the random number generator you are using. Otherwise your system isn't "fair" at all, you're just doing MC Fiat with a pretend die roll to waste time.

So how could you make an NPC Attitude roll for any edition of D&D after 2nd? The bonuses players get are titanic. And more importantly, they are titanically different one player to another. The answer is that if you are wedded to using 3e or 4e skill bonus numbers, then the NPC attitude roll has to be different from the skill roll. Your skill roll would be to "make an excellent introduction (+2 to attitude roll), DC 20" or whatever.

The 3e skill bonuses and DCs broke the Diplomacy Secondary Skill. Fixing it requires you to dissociate the attitude roll from the 3e skill bonuses. It's that simple.

-Username17

[mean_liar]

The 3e skill bonuses and DCs broke the Diplomacy Secondary Skill. Fixing it requires you to dissociate the attitude roll from the 3e skill bonuses. It's that simple.

Or capping the number of Attitude shifts.

[Kaelik]

First of all, this is bad because it assumes an initial attitude is present at all. Why would it be? Until you get through the hails and hallos there really isn't a reason for the creatures to be friend or foe. Neither one of you has said anything to identify the other as such!

I quote this part because it's the only problem that you mention that isn't the same thing I already said. Well, that and stuff relating to variable DCs based on level, because of other games.

I mean aside from you are an asshole to everyone who knows less than you about anything (and yes, we do all love you for it), I have no idea why you think you needed a new thread instead of just saying this in the other one, since you had no problem with my list of problems, only with my solution.

So how could you make an NPC Attitude roll for any edition of D&D after 2nd? The bonuses players get are titanic. And more importantly, they are titanically different one player to another. The answer is that if you are wedded to using 3e or 4e skill bonus numbers, then the NPC attitude roll has to be different from the skill roll. Your skill roll would be to "make an excellent introduction (+2 to attitude roll), DC 20" or whatever.

Or, and here is where I blow your mind. You could just not make it a skill. You could have attitude just be like Initiative, only it goes before that in order. That way, Diplomacy could be used for actual applications of Diplomacy, and attitude could be a separate roll on the RNG with itself that is effected by things that have to do with it, basically Charisma, a synergy bonus from Diplomacy probably, and then circumstance/class features/ect. I mean, you want to make a big deal about how people are better or worse at making friends, but I see no part of "making friends with someone" that isn't covered by Charisma (which is just as learned as "making friends") and circumstance.

[shadzar]

Technically there was no such thing as a "diplomacy" skill or even NWP in 2nd edition until player's option Spells and Magic as a new one for priests. then you still pretty much rolled against each other to see if you succeeded.

Most things WERE based on reaction adjustment which was a function of charisma...and the die roll was used only when needed to try make someone agreeable and see if an attempt succeeded. for the most part it was the character brown-nosing the NPC in the right was to make them agreeable...bribes, etc that would change the attitude of the NPC...pretty much the same as haggling over the price of goods when you went shopping.

you would really be better off rolling dice against each other going best 2 out of 3 and use the charisma modifier for the parties in question and have just as good a system for ANY edition.

[hogarth]

The 3e skill bonuses and DCs broke the Diplomacy Secondary Skill. Fixing it requires you to dissociate the attitude roll from the 3e skill bonuses. It's that simple.

Or capping the number of Attitude shifts.

Yes, the main problem is the ability to get "too much" from Diplomacy; whether you have to stack a lot of bonuses to get "too much" is beside the point.

[Kaelik]

The 3e skill bonuses and DCs broke the Diplomacy Secondary Skill. Fixing it requires you to dissociate the attitude roll from the 3e skill bonuses. It's that simple.

Or capping the number of Attitude shifts.

Yes, the main problem is the ability to get "too much" from Diplomacy; whether you have to stack a lot of bonuses to get "too much" is beside the point.

I don't think so. It's also a problem that some people can get too much, and other people can never get enough. It's a variation between PCs problem as much as it is that Mr Diplo can go all the way in one go.

[hogarth]

Yes, the main problem is the ability to get "too much" from Diplomacy; whether you have to stack a lot of bonuses to get "too much" is beside the point.

I don't think so. It's also a problem that some people can get too much, and other people can never get enough. It's a variation between PCs problem as much as it is that Mr Diplo can go all the way in one go.

If the difference between what you can get with a successful Diplomacy check and without one is not too large, then you don't have to worry about "never get enough". Diplomacy becomes Nice But Not Necessary.

[RobbyPants]

By tying the DCs to the level of the people you're talking to, you've just made higher level people into unreasonable psychopaths, which is hugely counterimmersive. Why should the angel be more inherently hostile than the goblin? That's nonsense.

That just means that the angel is more resilient, not hostile. If the goblin starts out as hostile and the angel starts out as indifferent, then the goblin is, by definition, more hostile. It just takes more effort to shift the angel's attitude.

Of course, it takes more shifts to get the goblin friendly, and that's a different issue.

[hogarth]

So now lets talk about variable DCs for a moment, because both Pathfailure and (to an even greater extent) 4e went down that path. By tying the DCs to the level of the people you're talking to, you've just made higher level people into unreasonable psychopaths, which is hugely counterimmersive.

Actually, Pathfinder's Diplomacy system depends on the target creature's Charisma, not level.

[sabs]

Diplomacy only takes you so far.

Dwarves vs Drow Elves. If you're a Dwarf character with diplomacy you have a /very/ slim chance of shifting the Drow Elves from Hostile to Neutral, much less friendly.

A good diplomacy system would have:
1) internal attitude
2) external attitude
3) skill test to change attitude.

Internal attitude: I'm a Human merchant who hates demi-humans. Filthy little things that they are. So I jack the rates, and I don't give them the best quality stuff, etc.
External Attitude: What I show. I'm a merchant who wants to take the filthy little things's gold. So while internally I'd like nothing more than to attack, externally I pretend to be the very soul of charm, and snobbishness.

The elven mage trying to buy a robe from me, uses his diplomacy skill, to try and get better service.

You could include things like Level in the external attitude test, because a Merchant might be too afraid of a level 12 Wizard to be rude to him. it makes a certain amount of sense.. if.. in your world, people can tell whose high level and who isn't.

[Caedrus]

I always wished that Diplomacy wasn't an attitude roll at all. "Hey, let's determine whether this random harpy hates you" doesn't seem to fit the bill. While I can't speak for the playstyle of other DMs, I don't use random encounter tables and I know exactly why the harpy is in that clearing and what its motivation is right when the players arrive on the scene.

I imagine Diplomacy as being the skill that allows you to tip negotiations in your favor, allowing you to trade and curry favors in ways that favor you. Not exactly sure off the top of my head how I'd implement that, though.

[souran]

Look a lot of this just needs for diplomacy to have a big disclaimer that says

"WARNING: Diplomacy only works on creatures willing to consider new ideas and alternatives."

Granted that adds a bit of MTP back into the mix but it fixes a great deal of problems.

The king is NEVER going to hand over the kingdom to you becuase you rolled high on a diplomacy roll.

The fanatical assassin doesn't give a crap is going to try and kill you.

However, if the evil wizard hired some ogre flunkies because they look big and tough and the party of adventures comes in and looks like they might really make a fight they are probably at least willing to discuss the idea of just walking out of the fight instead.

It shouldn't be mind control, it should only be possible to really effect creatures that are not dedicated to their current coruse of action.

[BearsAreBrown]

@souran, it's still stupid as fuck. Now instead of everyone becoming your fanatical slave only people willing to consider new ideas and alternatives are your fanatical slaves. The end result is still a no-save non-scalar system of Mind Control.

[MGuy]

Why is it bad that initial disposition be MC fiat? The MC can and, by god, should know the initial dispositions of stuff he introduces you to even if it simply doesn't care about you IE indifference.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Why is it bad that initial disposition be MC fiat? The MC can and, by god, should know the initial dispositions of stuff he introduces you to even if it simply doesn't care about you IE indifference.

The important thing is that the GM have good guidelines for what initial dispositions should be.

You could have a system where more powerful creatures are more difficult to sway in favor of or against you, and provided that you have reasonable starting reactions (possibly generated by creatures' abilities to sense motives) you'll have good end results. Creatures that you aren't a threat to probably won't care much about you one way or another. On the other hand, a woodcutter that you encounter is more likely be aggressive or fearful because she's facing a heavily armed group alone in the woods, and she can't well gauge your intentions. Once you've convinced her that you're friendly, though, she's a lot more likely to be helpful than a dragon or angel which has more important things to do.

[MGuy]

I'm talking about Initial Disposition. not the guidelines to change it. Frank rants about initial attitudes not being made on a roll. Why can't the DM legitimately say this creature, when you run into it, is probably going to be ~this~ pissed off at you/love you ~this~ much/ doesn't give a shit that you are there. What it slides to and how it slides I do agree is important but why is it stupid for something to have an initial attitude ranging from hostile to helpful initially without a roll being made?

This:

First of all, this is bad because it assumes an initial attitude is present at all. Why would it be? Until you get through the hails and hallos there really isn't a reason for the creatures to be friend or foe. Neither one of you has said anything to identify the other as such!

Reads to me like having theMC determine the starting attitude is bad and I don't know why that is bad. Why would a roll be necessary to determine the initial attitude of something that is already pissed/loves you. Why Cannot a wild cockroach have an attitude of Indifferent. Why is a roll needed the instant you meet something?

[Zinegata]

Mouse Guard does actually have an initial disposition roll to determine the "hitpoints" of somebody you're trying to fast-talk to. Higher disposition, harder it is to convince said person.

[Grek]

So, how's this look?

All of the NPCs have an additude towards the players, either positive or negative.

Attitude	Will...
-10	...try to kill you dead.
-9 to -7	...threaten you.
-6 to -4	...refuse to help you.
-3 to -1	...tell you to go away.
0	...ignore you.
+1 to +3	...give you directions.
+4 to +6	...give you a free meal.
+7 to +9	...risk themselves to help you.
+10	...blow you.

Attitude defaults to 0 +/- CHA mod. and is modified by the circumstances as follows:

Circumstance	Modifier	Diplomacy DC to Remove
You have a weapon out	-3	20
They cannot see you	-3	15
They do not know your name	-1	10
They dislike your race	-3	20
They dislike your culture	-2	15
They dislike your religion	-3	25
They dislike your social class	-2	15
You are here with people they dislike	-1	20
You have personally offended them	-4	30
You do not speak the same language	-1	20
You are here with people they like	+3	20
You have personally helped then	+5	30
It would be dishonorable to hurt you	+2	20
It would be impolite not to help you	+3	10
You have helped them indirectly	+3	25
Same culture, race, religion and class	+1 per	20

And when you're using diplomacy to sway someone for or against a person, you make diplomacy checks using those DCs to add or remove modifers to their attitude, or you use other skills, bluff, disguise, etc. to change the modifers by pretending to be someone else, hiding your tusks or whatever.

[shadzar]

You have a weapon out -3

what if the society you are dealing with views weakness as inferior and one NOT talking while brandishing a weapon is showing signs of weaknes or disrespect?

these sorts of tables work only for the most current social accepted societies, but those outside of the norm would require a new table...again where diplomacy falls apart and a dice roll cant just handle things for you.

They cannot see you -3

the person you are talking to/trying to persuade is blind?

it is a good approach, just some things dont always work.

how would you work the table as a DM if the weapon not being out was something that offended them?

i know this may sound dumb to some, but think of how different societies view different actions, and that NO hostility table ever really worked based on those "unforeseen" occurrences and you still have to wing it, so oft times the table would just get thrown out anyway or all societies and peoples would have to view things the same way.

likewise i could bring up alignment as a factor in behavior towards others.

[Grek]

I don't think there has ever been a society like that. I can see one where not owning a weapon is considered bad on some level, but not one where you are expected to wave your weapon around whenever you talk.

As for the blind thing, yeah, that's a goof on my part. A more reasonable one would be "Does not know where you are."

I didn't include alignment, since it is a really shitty system. Feel free to houserule some alignment modifiers into these houserules in if you want, though.

[Archmage]

So, how's this look?

All of the NPCs have an additude towards the players, either positive or negative.

(See table)

I have personally helped a lot of my friends (+5) and they all like each other (+3) and we are all the same culture (+1). Some of them are the same race (caucasian, unless we want to go with human, in which case they all are, +1). I'm pretty sure I have at least CHA 12 (+1).

So it looks like if I show up at a party with half my friends to meet the rest of them that almost everyone there is ready to get down on their knees.

Perhaps we have a situation where only the largest modifier, positive or negative, should apply?

[shadzar]

I don't think there has ever been a society like that. I can see one where not owning a weapon is considered bad on some level, but not one where you are expected to wave your weapon around whenever you talk.

As for the blind thing, yeah, that's a goof on my part. A more reasonable one would be "Does not know where you are."

I didn't include alignment, since it is a really shitty system. Feel free to houserule some alignment modifiers into these houserules in if you want, though.

alignment can play big part in such thing if people know how to ue it and the system even properly includes it, but yeah probably something each group will have to figure on their own.

i recall a good example of what i am saying at to a STTNG episode where Wesley Crusher goes to the academy and this sort of thing comes up showing how different societies could have different social rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CdOX9VkyLA#t=3m05

hell just think of how you would/should interact with other species/races in TNG...klingons, ferrengi, romulans.....the nuances of a different society's social graces can play the MOST important part of diplomacy.

[Josh_Kablack]

So, how's this look?

Way too many modifiers to track.

[CatharzGodfoot]

So, how's this look?

It looks like a lot of non-scaling DCs.

[Username17]

I'm talking about Initial Disposition. not the guidelines to change it. Frank rants about initial attitudes not being made on a roll. Why can't the DM legitimately say this creature, when you run into it, is probably going to be ~this~ pissed off at you/love you ~this~ much/ doesn't give a shit that you are there.

Because unless it's a fucking wild animal, the circumstances of you running into it aren't determined until the players actually meet up. Especially if you write the creatures up ahead of time, there is a fundamental difference in how I would expect the witch to respond to the players if they showed up at her candy house:

• Talking amongst themselves like Monty Python characters, and then stopped in the clearing to have an argument about whether anyone could live inside a pile of candy or not.
• Snuck up on the house and broke in special forces style.
• Jovially stopped at the fence and shouted "Hello the candy house!"
• Walked up to the house and said the password of the dark one's agents.
• Shouted "As agents of the crown, we demand hospitality!"

Because when you write down the presence of the witch and the house, you have no idea which of these the PCs are going to do. Essentially what you said is that the MC is supposed to decide ahead of time how successful every possible set of introductions could be. While they're at it, why don't they decide ahead of time how successful every possible set of social interaction is after the introduction? Or decide ahead of time how successful every possible type of attack will be? We could just not roll dice at all and play the game like a giant game of Mastermind, where you just guess what actions the MC has decided will work and/or kill your character - like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Everything that has player interaction needs a form of adjudication. "The MC totally makes up responses and rules with an iron fist" is a form of adjudication, but it's certainly not the most fair. When the players try something (like helloing the candy house), it is extremely frustrating to have the MC announce that it doesn't work without rolling dice.

I mean aside from you are an asshole to everyone who knows less than you about anything (and yes, we do all love you for it), I have no idea why you think you needed a new thread instead of just saying this in the other one, since you had no problem with my list of problems, only with my solution.

Because your thread took an aggressive stance against the thing that Diplomacy is in the very first post. So it wasn't a discussion of how the mechanics didn't support the thing it was trying to accomplish, it was an argument about whether it should even try. Your thread was never going to get anywhere because it became a heated argument immediately. So I made a different thread rather than simply grow your thread to eight pages of "Yes it is/Not it isn't".

-Username17