Diplomacy, the replacement for roleplaying.

[Stalker0]

With Rich's rules, you might try instead of the level based DC just do an opposed sense motive. So it can scale with levels, but doesn't necessarily have to.

Although then you still get the problem of the no sense motive vs uber high diplomacy guy.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

High levels characters are larger than life and, usually, bound by personal goals, oaths, duty, religion, philosophy.

If we were playing an Arthurian campaign, it would hardly be bizarre for a character's oath to force him to fight his own best friend. Typical villains are no different, at least the more colorful ones.

Important NPCs do not stop being who they are just because they like you. They may want to help your PC, but may not do so due to other obligations. You must still roleplay helping the NPC figure out a way that he feels allowed to help you.

Goblin King speaking to a Paladin: "You do to understand goblin politics. If I stop the attacks, it will be seen as weakness on my part. If I let you go free, that will be interpreted as weakness as well. My death will be certain. Furthermore the winner of the power struggle will need to demonstrate his prowess as a leader, and will surely increase the raids on the human cities. I cannot simply accede to your requests without a way of making it look like a victory for my tribe. Do you have any ideas?"

 

[Grogtar]

All of the problems regarding diplomacy stem from one thing I think - the word "Helpful"

I have a lot of friends I consider myself "Helpfull" towards. I recently helped on of them move. Note I did not move his stuff for him. Treat a NPC the same way and I think you will do fine.

And remember, the time it takes *starts* at one minute. But "this time requirement may greatly increase". It may takes weeks to convince the King to send hit troops, *if* he will anyway.

So one way around this. Give steep modifiers based on time, but don't tell the player (since the character would never know)

So to talk the waif out of the bread may take a base of 10 minutes of a 'pitch', and a DC of 35 for the closing sale. So if he spends 10 minutes, or more, trying, then needs to roll a 35. But if he only spends one round trying, then it may be a DC of 55.

The King you decide starts off with a base of one month, and a DC of 30. If he only spends two weeks, he would need a DC of 45. If only three days, a DC of 75.

If you spend TOO long 'softening' them up, it gets annoying, and may also raise the DC.
So if you spend 2 months talking with the king before the final 'sales pitch', then it is a DC 40.

I cant help but think this goes against everything D&D is about. D&D is not free-form story telling and I feel that it is important to mention that. If we want to just assign random, arbitrary numbers to things and then not tell your players. Thats like asking characters to not read the skill section of the players handbook. If you want to do that sort of free form story telling there are systems that allow you to do that and I suggest you go play one of them.

But this isnt one of them. This is a system where the players and GM work together to tell a story of an adventure. This is not the DM telling his players about their lives. That would be sort of one way, and in my opinion - retarded.

 

[Quickleaf]

It sounds like the "problem of degree": Just how much is the now-friendly NPC willing to do to help the PCs? How much will they compromise to meet the PC's request?

Answer #1 -- Create a new Diplomacy system that accounts for long periods of time. Imagine a vizier whittling away at the resolve of a king regarding marriage of his daughter. This (without the time aspect) is essentially what Atlas did in Dynasties & Demagogues.

Answer #2 -- For each major NPC, write out what they are likely to do when Indiffieret, Friendly, Helpful, etc. Go beyond the description under Diplomacy and be specific. For example, for the Helpful king, you might write: Consider marriage to a son or daughter. Support you and your family during a council meeting. Consider the case of your ally who was wrongly imprisoned. Provide you with an honor guard traveling through dangerous lands. Provide you with a writ of trade to explore distant lands (or at least hear your pitch). Consider a request to requisition troops in the name of the kingdom.

Answer #3 -- Tweak the Diplomacy skill, adding degress of success. In other words succeeding by 0-4, or by 5-9, or 10+ each has varying responses from the NPC being spoken with. Think of 0-4 as a good compromise, 5-9 as , and 10+ as.
In addition, these degrees of success could determine how much time it takes. So that, 0-4 might be weeks, 5-9 days, and 10+ minutes.
For example: Succeeding by 2 when attempting to requisition troops from the king might mean that the king offers you a compromise after 3 weeks, offering you 1/2 the contingent of soldiers you asked for, with reinforcements to arrive in another 3 weeks, provided you stay in contact with the king about what his troops are doing.

Answer #4 -- Introduce a reputation/allegiance/social status system that dictates what the limits of a character's Diplomacy skill are. For example, a landed knight has the ability to requisition troops from the king, while a peasant does not.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Time limitations..

Currenlty the RAW sets diplomancy at the exacting verbage of 'in some circumstances, it may take longer'.

Defining how much longer it takes along with penalties for misjudging the correct amount of time is, IMHO, a very good idea.

The player could indeed learn how long it would be appropriate to attempt but adding this rule and then telling the player "Oh, your best chance is if you take 14 minutes talking to the guy before you roll" completely negates the reason for the rule in the first place.
Perhaps a sense motive check to determine the characters concept of the best amount of time, someway for the player to ask {with a degree of uncertainty} what the best amount of time to spend on the check.
Normalized time periods would need to be set.
For instance, Bribing a Guard, 1D4 minute.
Getting anything from a King, base of one hour {to get through all the political fru-fru and start working your real issue}
Bargaining with any merchant from a culture similar to Mexico, 1d6 + 9 minutes.
Etc, etc, etc.

That way a player can know about how long he should butter up the barmaid before asking for a free meal.

And a second of Grogtar's opinion of the word 'Helpful'.

 

[Grogtar]

An example of making a King "Helpfull"

Paladin of Dimplomacy adjusts the King to be a helpfull king. King agree's to allow the Paladin to meet with his council of lords.

Even a mid size kingdom is going to have a Diplomat that is good at what he does. We will say he has a base of 20 diplomacy. The council of lords all have to have a few ranks in order to get where they are.

So thats one diplomat with his +20 and 12 people aiding him for a total of +24. Now thats a +44 diplomacy. Circumstances favor the diplomat so I'd give him a +5 additional. Thats +49. The diplomat is going to want concessions, reimbursment, advisory council oversight and many other things. If the negotiator were adjusted to "Helpfull" he would probably tell the PC's which demands were negotiable and which were requirements from the kings council. That is afterall what friends do.

I think that is a PERFECT example of how that would play out. And as a player, thats what I would expect.

 

[Rystil Arden]

An example of making a King "Helpfull"

Paladin of Dimplomacy adjusts the King to be a helpfull king. King agree's to allow the Paladin to meet with his council of lords.

Even a mid size kingdom is going to have a Diplomat that is good at what he does. We will say he has a base of 20 diplomacy. The council of lords all have to have a few ranks in order to get where they are.

So thats one diplomat with his +20 and 12 people aiding him for a total of +24. Now thats a +44 diplomacy. Circumstances favor the diplomat so I'd give him a +5 additional. Thats +49. The diplomat is going to want concessions, reimbursment, advisory council oversight and many other things. If the negotiator were adjusted to "Helpfull" he would probably tell the PC's which demands were negotiable and which were requirements from the kings council. That is afterall what friends do.

I think that is a PERFECT example of how that would play out. And as a player, thats what I would expect.

I'm not sure I like how you let so many people use Aid Another on the diplomacy check. Does that mean if I get together 200 random peasants, and 100 of them make the check to aid me, I get +200 to Diplomacy?

 

[Grogtar]

I'm not sure I like how you let so many people use Aid Another on the diplomacy check. Does that mean if I get together 200 random peasants, and 100 of them make the check to aid me, I get +200 to Diplomacy?

As per Aid Another

You can help another character achieve success on his or her skill
check by making the same kind of skill check in a cooperative effort.
If you roll a 10 or higher on your check, the character you are
helping gets a +2 bonus to his or her check, as per the rule for
favorable conditions. (You can’t take 10 on a skill check to aid
another.) In many cases, a character’s help won’t be beneficial,
or only a limited number of characters can help at once. The DM limits
cooperation as he or she sees fit for the given conditions.
For instance, if Krusk has been badly wounded and is dying,
Jozan can try a Heal check to keep him from losing more hit points.
One other character can help Jozan. If the other character makes a
Heal check against DC 10, then Jozan gets a +2 circumstance bonus
on the Heal check he makes to help Krusk. The DM rules that two
characters couldn’t help Jozan at the same time because a third
person would just get in the way.​

In cases where the skill restricts who can achieve certain results
(such as with Disable Device, Search, and Survival), you can’t aid
another to grant a bonus to a task that your character couldn’t
achieve alone. For instance, a character who doesn’t have the
trapfinding class feature can’t use Search to help a rogue find a
magic trap, since the helper couldn’t attempt to find the magic trap
on his own.
​

​

If you can round up peasents with the Diplomacy Skill. Im pretty sure that this is the basis of Congress....
​

 

[CyberSpyder]

I'm not sure I like how you let so many people use Aid Another on the diplomacy check. Does that mean if I get together 200 random peasants, and 100 of them make the check to aid me, I get +200 to Diplomacy?

I think I just found another use for Leadership.

 

[Rystil Arden]

As per Aid Another




If you can round up peasents with the Diplomacy Skill. Im pretty sure that this is the basis of Congress....
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But they don't need Diplomacy--they can make that check untrained 50% of the time. Anyway, the key point is "In many cases, a character’s help won’t be beneficial, or only a limited number of characters can help at once. The DM limits cooperation as he or she sees fit for the given conditions." Frankly, I don't think having a humongous group of people would help you on this. By these rules, a king is forced to become Helpful to any group of a few hundred nonviolent protestors. As a ruling of my own based on the above clause, I typically say (to prevent abuses like this) that you can only have one person Aid Another on a check unless I see a special reason why more than 1 should be allowed. Of course, this ruling is not official, but then neither is allowing an unlimited number, since the rules do say "in many cases." Anyways, draw the line where you like, but be careful if you allow those cool results for really high skill checks from the epic SRD.