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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 4205643" data-attributes="member: 16760">You've never seen players try something boneheaded, something completely at odds to their stated goals?  I certainly have.  (Sometimes I've done it myself!)  Whether it's in the name of roleplaying or just plain stupidity, it happens.  Pointing out in the template which maneuvers are just not going to be productive might not be needed by every DM, but it's not useless either.If the characters are capable of intimidating a duke with an army into putting his army at their disposal, then more power to 'em.  That plan clearly would not call for a Negotiation skill challenge, now would it?  A single Intimidate roll should be good enough.Of course, most characters just plain won't be able to do that.  And then this skill challenge becomes relevant.  *If* the party in that position decides *on their own* to solicit the Duke's aid, then the GM could choose to use this template.  Maybe they don't decide to ask the Duke for help;  maybe they decide on a totally different approach to the problem.  This is railroading?You seem to think it's somehow wrong for the GM to design an actual adventure - to say there are two forks in the road instead of three.I mean, I don't have to let someone roll the dice on a skill when it's plainly ludicrous.  If you're in chains, naked, and in an antimagic field, I just don't care, as a GM, how high your Intimidate skill is.  You're not going to browbeat the Evil King into abdicating and giving you his crown.  It will not happen.  I mean, if you insist, I can set a DC of 1500, but it's just easier to say, "You can't do it."That's quite obvious, yes.  And in the sort of situation in which the Negotiation template is going to be a useful tool for the GM, not wanting to earn the NPC's trust is a bad idea.  If it isn't a bad idea, and the party decides to go for Intimdation, the GM would probably use a different template, or make up a custom one.Perhaps this is the nub of the problem?  You appear to be assuming that the GM is committed to using the Negotiation template, come hell or high water, regardless of the PC's position and circumstances?  But why should he be?  Maybe the party won't even decide to talk to the Duke at all!But *if they do*, knowing that they (as, say, 4th level heroes) have no real chance of intimidating the Duke into ordering his army around, he figures that a Negotiation is what will be called for, and preps that template, perhaps tweaking it.  Not because he's a meanie-head who arbitrarily decides it, but because it makes sense in the adventure - sort of like not being able to intimidate the Evil King into abdicating while totally helpless.If the party is 30 level demigods with a penchant of threatening measly mortals with fates far worse than death, probably the GM will decide to use something other than Negotiation, yes?  They'd use that template only with a greater god or something.  Against a mere Duke, they'd say, "Borrowing your army.  Might bring it back later."  Not even worth a skill challenge.No, it isn't railroading to say, "This particular sort of plan just won't work."  That's adventure design.  Now, I grant you, in a given case it might be *bad* adventure design.  But it needn't be.Railroading is where there is only One Right Plan.  Banning Intimidate in the Negotiation template is just saying there are at most N-1 good plans, where N is All The Plans There Are.    Surely not all plans have to be good?  In fact, I'd say of All The Plans There Are, most of them aren't very good, and some of them are very, very bad.I don't accept that as a premise, so the argument fails.</blockquote>

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