Are things like Intimidate/Bluff/Diplomacy too easy?

[pemerton]

In this approach, still using jameson's example setup, would the guard let the PC in or escalate? Is making the real Diplomat get there before them part of the hijinks (as a complication to what the PCs were trying to do)? Or would that have been left out?

I think it will depend on what the shared understanding at the table is as to genre/tolerance, and also how much complication the GM is wanting to introduce into the situation prior to the players engaging it via their PCs.

So the real diplomat could be introduced from the get go, to raise the stakes and ratchet up the tension, or it could be introduced as a response to a failed Bluff check ("Although you speak very sweetly and plausibly, it turns out that . . .").

But I think, on this approach, provided that it is genre credible that the PCs can get in, then the GM has to ultimately permit success.

When playing in this fashion, I find that one of the big challenges for a GM is deciding how much to introduce as complication/stakes from the get-go, and how much to leave as a response to players failing rolls. And there are at least two considerations in play here: if you introduce too many complications into the starting scenario, you run the risk of having no good material left when it comes to actually adjudicating the action resolution mechanics; and if your judgement of the complications that will work is out of synch with your players', then you can create anticlimaxes ("That was easier than we thought it would be!") or bogging down ("Can't we just get to the king already!") where you didn't intended to.

Personally, I would normally rather risk anticlimax than bogging down, and so would only introduce the diplomat as an initial complication if the players already knew that their was a diplomat in the offing, and were thinking about how to handle the issue, and hence already had some personal investment in a situation involving the diplomat.

 

[Elf Witch]

Yeah, shadowrun has that effect on people. Probably because all the adventures are structured so that they suggest a legwork phase to the DM, so he asks the players "what legwork do you do?".

That said, I often found that shadowrun legwork and planning would tend to drag way out beyond what was necessary. It's hard to hit that nice medium between shadowrun and traditional D&D "kick in the door and see what the monster lotto gives us".

It can bog down any game if goes on to long even a Shadowrun game.

But I have found that usually it can make the game more fun if you are not the type that really enjoys kicking the door down and killing monsters.

My players prefer a more role playing style game even killing monsters needs to have a good ingame character reason other then hey look a monster kill it.

Part of the fun for them is using other skills like gather info, disguise , bluff and coming up with a plan. Now sometimes I will admit that they can take it to far and really bog the game down when trying to cover every contingency.

 

[Elf Witch]

Me too. I believe the GM should hide all rolls for which failure may not be inherently obvious to the player. Finding traps, appraising for example are all things that you may think you got right, but didn't.



Just guessing at Hussar's reasoning, but I think it's really a conflict between what players want to try to do, and the GM's assumption of what's plausible and how that impacts his decision.

If people can get past the Secret Service (who are highly motivated individuals interested in stopping that kind of nonsense) and into a White House dinner, I have faith that a good Bluff check can get you past a guard who's family was threatened. It's all in the approach and timing.

For one thing, I might not come in as a Diplomat. How about the caterer?

PC: hey, uh, where do you want these cakes?
Guard: What?
PC: yeah, these cakes. The frosting's gonna melt if you make us wait around out here. The queen's gonna be pissed if her desert is ruined for the banguet.
Guard: Queen? Oh here, let me give you a hand with that. Just go in that way, and turn left...

Best times to enter a facility, is when it is busy and people are distracted. And there are more strangers about setting up and bringing in stuff.



Which is actually an important thing in planning any of these places. Do NOT make them impregnable and perfectly defended. That kind of defeats the purpose. It is far easier for you to put some holes in, than it is to relay information to the players so they can allegedly detect holes in your perfect palace. The information gap is so stupendously wide, your might as well put some chinks in the armor, so the players can actually find them.

I understand what he is saying and I agree that most of the time you can bluff your way in with the right bluff to be honest I don't think it has every come up in my game that you couldn't with the right con get in someplace.

But we were also talking other skills like intimidate and diplomacy. And those are the two skills I have run into problems with.

I don't buy that you can intimidate everyone with a high enough roll and diplomacy may not always work.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It can bog down any game if goes on to long even a Shadowrun game.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. I like the shadowrun legwork phase, I think it would make a nice addition to games of D&D, but I'd also like some sort of way to regulate it to avoid it going on too long. One way of making sure that only the necessary legwork is done is to allow reasonable backdating of actions: it lets you have that legwork phase without people being paranoid that they've forgotten something which might be obvious to their characters.

 

[LostSoul]

With this approach, the GM has only a general idea of the situation, and is ready for the players to try hijinks that the GM has not foreseen, and is prepared to roll with those hijinks based on a combination of (i) using mechanical means to determine whether or not PC actions succeed or fail in their goal, (ii) using the players' descriptions of what their PCs are doing to determine the actual consequences of successes and failures, and (iii) using understandings of genre/table verisimilitude tolerance that are shared between the players and the GM to work out what sorts of hijinks are entitled to a roll, and what sorts of hijinks are excluded on absurdity grounds.

I was running a Shadow of Yesterday game - actually the Solar System - recently, and that's what I was trying to do. It's been a while since I've played a game like that, though, and it was hard for me to switch from my D&D style to the TSOY style.

Though it worked well once I got into it.

As far as bogging down vs. too much being resolved, I'm with you that bogging down is worse. The PCs tend to mix things up so much that you get new material to work with after everything that they do.

 

[Elf Witch]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. I like the shadowrun legwork phase, I think it would make a nice addition to games of D&D, but I'd also like some sort of way to regulate it to avoid it going on too long. One way of making sure that only the necessary legwork is done is to allow reasonable backdating of actions: it lets you have that legwork phase without people being paranoid that they've forgotten something which might be obvious to their characters.

Exactly. I don't penalize players on something their characters would have done just because they forgot. So I am pretty reasonable about things like that.

I was once in a game and we were ninth level characters now we had been playing for two years almost every Sunday the DM just did slow progression. But our PCs had been adventuring for three years. We had overcome a lot of odds and experienced a lot so we knew what to bring on a quest. We got stuck because according to the DM no one said we brought a grappling hook. We the players for got but I couldn't see our characters forgetting.

If I had been DM I would have hand waved it away because it makes sense that seasoned adventures know what to pack.

 

[pemerton]

I was running a Shadow of Yesterday game - actually the Solar System - recently, and that's what I was trying to do. It's been a while since I've played a game like that, though, and it was hard for me to switch from my D&D style to the TSOY style.

This is interesting - that you self-consciously make the switch, and also that you find it takes work.

I'm in a different situation as a GM, because I tend to GM only the one long-running campaign for the same established group of players. So my GMing experience has been a gradual transition to self-realisation - reading Lewis Pulsipher and Gygax and Dragon Magazine as a kid made me think that exploration-heavy play was good roleplaying, and so this is what I tried to do, although I wasn't that good at it and it tended to make for boring games. For me the change came (oddly enough, given its simulationist leanings) with AD&D's Oriental Adventures - the change in flavour and context, the suggestions on family relationship charts and political rivalries, etc, all helped me run a game that was a lot more free-flowing and responsive to the players in the framing and resolution of ingame situations.

Since then, it's mostly been an ongoing effort to dial down the simulationist mechanics that get in the way of what I want (The Forge has helped me a lot in thinking clearly about this), while still running a pretty traditional fantasy RPG that has the sort of mechanical crunch that I and my players enjoy. Which is why, I think, 4e suits me so well. (I think that Burning Wheel probably would suit my group too, and perhaps The Riddle of Steel, although both perhaps lack that gonzo element that D&D, Rolemaster etc are so good at!)

EDIT TO ADD: I sometimes read posts on these forums that suggest that exploration-heavy play, and/or play in which the GM exercise very strong control over theme and story, should be the starting default for RPGing, and that more free-flowing play, in which the GM responds to the players as much as vice versa in shaping gameworld situations, is "trickier" or for more advanced/sophisticated players. The most reductionist version of this thesis (and one which WotC seems to endorse, given some of its introductory scenarios) is that new players should begin with "kick-in-the-door-and-kill-and-loot-the-monsters" play, before graduating to "real" roleplaying.

Because I have a very long-running core play group, I haven't introduced all that many players to the hobby, but where I have (either as GM or as a more experienced player helping out a new player) I haven't myself seen much evidence in favour of this notion. At least in my experience, new players can be very keen to get involved in shaping the fiction of the campaign world and the unfolding ingame situation, and to the extent that they hold back it is because they feel resistance from GMs who want to assert sole authority over backstory (shutting down the new player's PC background), and/or authority not only over framing situations but over the resolution of them (ie plot authority, in Forge jargon).

I think that this relates, in part at least, to [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s remarks upthread about trusting the players. For me, it also makes Tomb of Horrors suspect as the apotheosis of the game - that's one way to do it, sure, but by no means the only way.

 

[Hussar]

/snip


Just guessing at Hussar's reasoning, but I think it's really a conflict between what players want to try to do, and the GM's assumption of what's plausible and how that impacts his decision.

/snip

Which is actually an important thing in planning any of these places. Do NOT make them impregnable and perfectly defended. That kind of defeats the purpose. It is far easier for you to put some holes in, than it is to relay information to the players so they can allegedly detect holes in your perfect palace. The information gap is so stupendously wide, your might as well put some chinks in the armor, so the players can actually find them.

Janx got it right off, but, I cannot xp you for this. Basically my point is the players are trying something that is plausible in their view (since they probably wouldn't try otherwise) and the DM is ruling that no, it isn't plausible based solely on the DM's judgement.

If I say something is X, and you say it's Y and I refuse to be swayed by your views, aren't I, in effect, showing that I do not trust your judgement?

Maybe it's the trust word that's causing problems here. I dunno. To me, if the DM has decided that X will not work, regardless of the views of the players, that shows a lack of trust in the players.

This, again, is judgment, not trust. I answered this.

You didn't answer me. Do you think I don't trust my players? Because the answer determines whether or not we can have a civil discussion.

/snip

I disagree, obviously. I think it does come down to trust.

Do you trust your players? I honestly have no idea. I don't know you or your players. But, your arguments here have stated that you will not allow the player's views to change your ruling. If you find X implausible, the player's views on the matter will not change your position.

To me, that shows a lack of trust in the judgement of your players. So, I'll ask again, how does over ruling the judgement of your players show trust in their judgement?

 

[S'mon]

One last time to Hussar.

"Maybe it's the trust word that's causing problems here. I dunno. To me, if the DM has decided that X will not work, regardless of the views of the players, that shows a lack of trust in the players.2

And if the player decides it should work, regardless of the view of the DM, that shows a lack of trust in the DM?

In reality, player & DM can trust each other just fine, and still disagree. However the player has a vested interest in the question whether the Bluff will work, they are not a neutral arbiter, because a success contributes to their own success at the game. Whereas the DM should have no investment in whether it works or not, and should be able to be a neutral arbiter, which the player can never be.

And this is one reason why you are completely wrong.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Because I have a very long-running core play group, I haven't introduced all that many players to the hobby, but where I have (either as GM or as a more experienced player helping out a new player) I haven't myself seen much evidence in favour of this notion. At least in my experience, new players can be very keen to get involved in shaping the fiction of the campaign world and the unfolding ingame situation, and to the extent that they hold back it is because they feel resistance from GMs who want to assert sole authority over backstory (shutting down the new player's PC background), and/or authority not only over framing situations but over the resolution of them (ie plot authority, in Forge jargon).

I have introduced a lot of players to roleplaying games, and my experience supports your skepticism on this point. Almost universally, the new players are not interested in the tactical, operational, or stategic concerns involved in kicking doors or killing monsters. A significant minority show strong interest out of the gate in the exploration of the world, often prompted by tropes from popular fictions. And while certainly a lot of them ultimately want to confront the monster and emerge victorious, they want to feel that it was a close run thing. Note, "feel" instead of "know". But mainly they want to go into something like Moria because it is creepy/exciting/evocative/etc.

This is over 150 people. Probably closer to 250. Although, most of these were before video games became ubiquitious. So I'm not sure how a generation of kicking down the door and slaying the monsters in video games might have changed things, if at all. It hasn't for the handful of younger people that I've introduced to gaming recently, but they might be atypical.

Interestingly, I catered to this instinct very early, because of something Gygax wrote about introducing new players. I forget if it was in a book or Dragon. But the thing that stuck with me was his injunction to be very careful and selective about mixing experienced players with beginners, because if the experienced players were jaded, this would tend to ruin the sense of wonder too fast for the beginners. You want people to get jaded at their own speed.

I didn't let this stop me from including experienced players, of course. There are some advantages to bringing out wall flowers if you have help. But I did make sure the experienced players in that situation knew that their job was to prompt and help, not direct.