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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackinthegreen" data-source="post: 6196936" data-attributes="member: 6678119">Something to note with regards to diplomacy is that there is often a vast difference between a player's capability and their character's.  Requiring someone to actually be persuasive while roleplaying their character might be too much to expect, especially once we get into superhuman territories of skill past 6th level.  Being able to use those skills simply with the action resolution mechanics and not needing player input beyond determining the character's stats and abilities is, in my eyes, one of the successes of the game because it allows the player to play something that is beyond their own limited scope.Though I definitely agree diplomacy as written has issues since having set DCs against pretty much any target is just begging for abuse.  <a href="http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html" target="_blank">Rich Berlew summed it up quite nicely in my eyes</a>.One of the things the 3.5 DMG says is that PCs stepping beyond their bounds and trying to take over should face consequences.  In the case of the chamberlain to the king, using Charm on him even successfully will bring about consequences if the king is any kind of powerful enough to exert influence and keep himself safe, which one would tend to assume he is since the PCs want to talk with him in the first place.  And as noted, I certainly wouldn't call it unreasonable to say that the chamberlain wouldn't or can't grant the party an audience with the king since he almost certainly has specific orders about who might be allowed to have an audience and when.It might be possible to use <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/charmPerson.htm" target="_blank">Charm Person</a> to make the chamberlain do something he ordinarily wouldn't do, but that requires both a Charisma check and the chamberlain not perceiving the likely consequences of allowing an audience with the king if he has orders not to as "obviously harmful."  If "obviously harmful" is only interpreted in the sense of physically harmful then it might work since one would hope physical harm wouldn't befall the guy for disobeying orders, but there is also the interpretation that harm might befall his livelihood and thus his well-being if not now then at some point in the future.I would probably recommend one not be so quick to judge whether the GM is railroading or otherwise using "force" simply because something doesn't go as planned.  With regards to the chamberlain one does have to think about his motivations.  That's not to say it's a good idea to just say he sticks his fingers in his ears and goes "LALALA I can't hear you!" since if he's so immature I highly doubt he'd be trusted with that position in the first place, but a reasonable response from a reasonable person such as saying "The king cannot see you now, nor today.  I can only tell you that he has urgent matters to take care of that are surely more important than yours if you are looking to me for an appointment.  Come back tomorrow and it might be sorted out." should not be met by anything more than minor annoyance by reasonable players who aren't so focused on their own matters that they can't see something might bigger than their issues might be going on.  It wouldn't exactly be hard to spin those lines into something that intrigues the players too, so something good can come from it even if it's a bit of an obstacle.  Good players will hopefully see that if one door closes, another opens even if it takes a little bit to see that.  And good GMs can segue the party through those opening and closing doors so that it feels smooth.</blockquote>

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