Dealing with talk monkeys

[Garthanos]

Christopher Walken wins.

Christopher Defines cool, at some level that is for certain.
The other are far too much excrement tossers

 

[Regicide]

Very good. Now notice I did not use the term 'combat encounter' but the word 'encounter.'

As your replay was to mine about combat encounters I addressed that first. Maybe you don't even know what you're replying too? More likely as I addressed skill challenge encounters later in my response, this sentence is merely garbage spewed out to cloud the issue instead of being an actual argument?

As nothing else of what you said was worth addressing either, I won't.

If you want to insist on your games being hack fests where skills are useless and there is no way around combat, go ahead. If you want to require a test of every party member's skills any time one person tries to use a skill, go ahead. It's your game, I'm just glad I'm not in it.

 

[DracoSuave]

If you want to insist on your games being hack fests where skills are useless and there is no way around combat, go ahead. If you want to require a test of every party member's skills any time one person tries to use a skill, go ahead. It's your game, I'm just glad I'm not in it.

-This- is useless rhetoric. You're simultaneously arguing against people suggesting you use skill challenges as ways to avoid or mitigate combat encounters, while arguing that single skill rolls are a terrible way to avoid combat encounters, while accusing others of suggesting that they want to make it so that all players must have combat hackfests, and then topping it off with accusing people of being bad for requiring players to test their skills in encounter situations.

So. Yeah. What -exactly- is your agenda?


Alright. -My- position is that single skill rolls should not avoid encounters. Skill Challenges are a -very- reasonable substitution as they involve players roleplaying, have a conflict resolution, involve ALL the players (not just mr. Diplomonkey), and give you experience points as a reward for your work, while not trivializing encounters to a single die roll for the win.

Oh, and it -also- rewards the Diplomonkey for BEING a Diplomonkey.

And, should you desire to do so, you can even have the Diplomonkey talk down a combat as a skill challenge, WHILE the other players have their fun hacking, slashing, sneaking, whatever.

This is -all- upside.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is -all- upside.

Sounds overpowered and unbalanced.

 

[Tuft]

So, I have this big encounter set up. It's got everything; there's monsters and traps and a big set-piece battle to bust into an enemy fortress! The players are all ready to go, and then the warlock says those dreaded words....

"I'm gonna use Diplomacy."

Sounds like what we here in Sweden would call a "Good day, axe handle" situation. It's from a tale that I think is Norwegian in origin:

There was an old man that sat at a fork in the road, carving himself a new handle to his axe, when he saw a good-looking, well-dressed woman approaching. Now, as many old men, he was getting quite deaf, but he was also slightly vain and did not want to show his deafness to the beautiful stranger. Fortunatly, he had a plan.

"First," he thought, "she will ask me what I'm making. I'll simply tell her that its an axe handle. Then, as she is a stranger around here, she will ask how long it is to the town, and I'll tell her that it is two miles. And finally, she will ask which road to take, and I'll tell her to take the one to the right."

With this plan firm in his mind, he waited until the woman first drew close, and then stopped and adressed him:
"Good day, old man!"
"Axe handle!"
"Um, er, yes... it is an axe handle, yes... very nice and long..."
"Two miles!"
"Are you completely twisted?"
"To the right!"


As can be seen, a "Good day, axe handle" situation is a complete failure to communicate due to too firm pre-conceptions on what's going to happen...


In the City of Heroes MMO, there is a mission where you have to find and destroy a large number of objectives in an enemy-packed house in a ridiculously short time. I remember the first time I actually managed to beat those impossible odds with a team, and triumphatorically we returned to the in-game contact for our debreifing, and got met by the same canned: "Having failed to destroy the portals in time, you now have to..." Talk about a big downer.


One of the big things for me with pen-and-paper RPGs instead of computer games is that you can do things other than the pre-concieved, pre-planned, pre-programmed way...

You can do things that aren't paint-by-number, do more than just fill in areas that somebody else already has drawn for you. You can solve things in other ways than just bashing your way through the monsters MMO style... I really wish 4E stressed that superior aspect over computer games more.

 

[Ryujin]

As your replay was to mine about combat encounters I addressed that first. Maybe you don't even know what you're replying too? More likely as I addressed skill challenge encounters later in my response, this sentence is merely garbage spewed out to cloud the issue instead of being an actual argument?

As nothing else of what you said was worth addressing either, I won't.

If you want to insist on your games being hack fests where skills are useless and there is no way around combat, go ahead. If you want to require a test of every party member's skills any time one person tries to use a skill, go ahead. It's your game, I'm just glad I'm not in it.

DracoSuave had made no use of the term "combat encounter." He was talking about a generic encounter, and yet you used the expression "combat encounter", in a sideways manner recognizing that there can be other types. As I stated previously not all encounters are "combat encounters." Skill challenges are a type of encounter also.

You made a comment about how thousands of pages are devoted to combat, while skill challenges have but a few. The skill descriptions are a common element to every character, while combat options are specific to each class. No repetition is required for skills.

If you take the game down to combat encounters and single die rolls, then you've turned 4e into exactly what its detractors think it is; a role playing game without any role play. It seems a rather foolish position to take.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I agree! But I don't see anything wrong with some fights that you can't talk your way out of, either.

-O

Absolutely. There are situations that demand action first but the setup can stress that. A slavering band of orcs coming over the hill bent on murdering anything in thier path isn't a prime time for parley.

 

[Keenath]

That's interesting!

I like to make these little things matter. I see a difference between casting a spell to get that +5 and, say, having the guard's best friend arguing your case along with you, or by telling a joke about elves. (Do hobgoblins still hate elves?)

There's a flavor text difference, but there shouldn't be a different mechanical effect based on power source. I mean, obviously I'd describe it differently, but I would never allow a spell to do something that a martial ability with the same rules text couldn't do. That would just be kicking the Warlord in the shin for no good reason.

Alright. -My- position is that single skill rolls should not avoid encounters. Skill Challenges are a -very- reasonable substitution as they involve players roleplaying, have a conflict resolution, involve ALL the players (not just mr. Diplomonkey), and give you experience points as a reward for your work, while not trivializing encounters to a single die roll for the win.

I won't bother replying to Reggie, since DracoSuave has stated it better than I could've.

I never have a problem with the PCs getting past an encounter without fighting, but whatever that method is must require as much work as doing it the obvious, violent way. If you want to sneak past, it'll require much more than one simple stealth roll; if you want to talk your way out it'll require a number of successful checks with various skills. That's what skill challenges are all about.

The thread was simply to wonder aloud how I should handle it when I don't want a particular ability to be an appropriate way to finish the encounter, and I got the answer I wanted, really -- that it's fine to just say hey, these guys can't be diplomacized.

Weirdly I find the title of this thread ... insulting ... and its actually about dice monkeys..... hoping one die will do it all.

Hm. Not what I meant at all. "Talk Monkey" is by analogy with "Skill Monkey", a character who sinks a lot of his resources into being awesome at skills in favor of pumping his combat prowess. A talk monkey is a skill monkey who specifically focuses on the interaction skills.

 

[Umbran]

I see some signs that some folks are getting a bit heated. Allow me to remind you all that you're talking about a game. There's no reason to get angry, nasty, or otherwise less than respectful. Thanks!

 

[ExploderWizard]

I never have a problem with the PCs getting past an encounter without fighting, but whatever that method is must require as much work as doing it the obvious, violent way. If you want to sneak past, it'll require much more than one simple stealth roll; if you want to talk your way out it'll require a number of successful checks with various skills. That's what skill challenges are all about.

I don't agree 100% on this. I don't think that clever plans should require as much work as combat to resolve. The whole idea behind "work smarter not harder" is to accomplish goals with less work.

Clever plans need to live up to thier name to enjoy success*. Make skill check X is never such a plan. If players want to roll thier way past an obstacle then I agree the amount of effort should be similar.


* Plans that fail to make the grade are later referred to as " cunning plans".