Wow. Lots of flambé here.
Here’s my take on things. I’m thinking back to a 3.5 campaign I played in—one with a very good DM. Social situations did in fact come up with some regularity. (Meeting with the mayor, talking our way out of a dragon’s lair, etc.)
My character was imagined as being quite charismatic, with a diplomatic focus. She was, in essence, a representative of a monastic order who had been involved in acting as an arbitrator in various diplomatic disputes. Her reason, sense of justice, and peace-making background were just as important to me as her martial training. In fact, they tied in to her fighting in a way: the whole point was to have a character who fights excellently, but reluctantly, and could inspire people to better themselves in whatever way they can.
The trouble was, 3E rules for Diplomacy are... really vague. And when they’re not vague, they get kind of ridiculous. We were getting close to the mid teens in levels. I forget exactly what my Diplomacy skill was, but I think it was getting pretty close to +30. (Level 14 or so, so 17 ranks, let’s say +4 Cha modifier, that takes it to +21. +3 from a Circlet of Persuasion, that’s +24. Synergy from Bluff, Sense Motive, and Knowledge (Royalty), that’s +30. So +30 is in the realm of possibility.)
So let’s say it was +30. The example still applies if it was a bit lower. With a +30 modifier, the Rules As Written say that if I roll a 20 on my skill check, I can turn make a Hostile character Helpful. I can take a *1* on my skill check and make an unfriendly character friendly. If somebody is already friendly, I have a 1 in 20 chance of invoking the epic rules for Diplomacy and making them a fanatic for me.
But how does any of that translate into game situations. Well, clearly there needs to be some in-character work done for any use of Diplomacy. Otherwise it’s just not interesting. But no matter what argument I make, how can it possibly translate into the kind of change described above? It can’t, really.
And that made the DM extremely uncomfortable. Translating my character’s social focus into game interactions was not something either of us could do.
Without a reasonable way to interpret what the character could accomplish with this skill, we ended up neglecting it almost completely, because we just couldn’t make it work.
What was missing? Well, first, there wasn’t really any granularity to it. You spend ten minutes talking to adjust the attitude of the person talking to you. (Or perhaps you roll at the start of an interaction to establish how someone will treat you.) Based on that, the vast majority of people in the world (those who don’t care about my character one way or the other) end up willing to risk their lives or livelihoods for me. I don’t even have to roll any dice to make a random man on the street who knows nothing about me ready to take a risk to help me.
On the one hand, that’s about right. With a similar level of Bluff, I’d be an amazing confidence artist.
But what kinds of risks, exactly? How often? What countervailing circumstances would change things? How do you factor in the fact that this guy has a family, and doesn’t intend to leave them to carry a torch for me while I investigate the Lich King’s Lair™?
There just wasn’t any give and take to things. The give and take was all left to the DM’s discretion, and he (even though he was a very good DM) just couldn’t wrap his mind around what it this level of competence means.
Kind of like how we can’t really comprehend how a character with 30 Intelligence might think about the world. Physical stats are easy, but mental stats are hard. Likewise, physical skills are easy, mental skills are hard.
So, I’m favorably impressed with this potential change to the system. If you don’t like it, ignore it. Don’t put social situations into your games. Whatever. But if somebody wants to play a character who, among other abilities, has social graces, it might be nice to know how to deal with that when the time comes.
I’d much rather have been in a situation where my character couldn’t talk people around to such an absurdly high degree (hostile to friendly). In which it would be interesting to have a diplomatic interaction even with someone friendly—just so long as it was possible to think clearly about what the characters *would* be willing to do.
I think the short form is this: When your character needs to interact with a world that does not conform to his will, you need rules. You need rules for how to break down doors. You need rules for how to kick somebody’s ass. You need rules for how to learn facts lost in the mists of time. Likewise, you need rules for how to convince people to see things your way. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that rules are most necessary when you are interacting between characters.
Some final thoughts:
First, somebody said something about using Diplomacy to impact the behavior of other PCs. Clearly, with a good set of rules you could do this. But a DM ought to discourage talking Grog The Stupid Orc out of his loot just as much as he discourages stabbing Petey The Weak Wizard to take his stuff. And a good player wouldn’t consider doing either without a very good reason.
Second, I can’t imagine a good game that contains meaningful social interaction of any sort that doesn’t allow all of the characters to enjoy the interaciton. I know that in the campaign I mentioned above, Gronk, our half-orc monk, would certainly not stay behind if I’m going to go talk to the mayor. (Gronk was actually well-beloved by the local citizenry, though his charisma was nothing to write home about. His reputation was what mattered there.) And if he had been participating, he no doubt might attempt to help me, and instead open his mouth and insert his foot. That’s not a bad thing, it makes the whole event more interesting.
And finally, just because it’s in the core rules doesn’t mean it needs to come up all of the time. If nobody in your group cares to use these rules, you should obviously discard them. If one person wants to use them a lot, you may need to brush up on how they work, but you’re not going to be throwing a lot of big social encounters at people—just little things. (Equivalent to little bits where a ranger’s natural knowledge might have an impact.) If lots of people want to do it, you might make it a centerpiece. But nobody is telling you "adventures must have a 50/50 split between social and combat encounters". And nobody is telling you that you can't just tell your one player who wants tons of Diplomacy "Just so you know, you’re not going to get to use that much."
Damn, that was long. And fragmented. I should avoid posting in the wee hours of the morning.
