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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6243578" data-attributes="member: 6681948">The Chamberlain was also supposed to be quite difficult to persuade.  This seems to presuppose he does not share the PC’s goals, does not approve of their methods, does not trust them or is in some other way predisposed to NOT assist the PC’s in their goals.  How would we determine whether the Chamberlain is easy or difficult to persuade if we know nothing of his personality, goals, objectives, etc.?Just make it 50% likely PC’s can succeed at anything they attempt, even if it was 50% likely when they were L1, is still 50% likely at L11 and will still fail half the time at L21 does not appeal to me.So who decided he is hard to persuade in the first place, and how did that decision get made?  Purely at random?  The GM just decides he’s arbitrarily hard to persuade and we’ll figure out why later?  How is that remarkably different from “He’s hard to persuade because the GM wants the players to experience a difficult or impossible time getting to see the King”?Fair enough.While I agree with this, I also disagree with the “any skill can be shoehorned into any challenge” model I see in many of these discussions.Looking at the [huge] thread referenced by Lostsoul (I like to game, not read other peoples’ games, so that’s likely why I don’t remember this thread).  At the bottom of p 6, we start negotiating with the Chamberlain.  The first skill used is Diplomacy, followed by combat with a dog (intimidation and endurance), the discovery of a war troll who is ensorcled to attack the person we were trying to negotiate with and slaughters him.This doesn’t have the feel of a diplomatic negotiation with the Chamberlain from where I sit.  OK.  Similarly, if the Half orc rolls a ‘20’ on “Perform: Belching”, does that make the Chamberlain a belching fan?  If not, what determines whether he likes or dislikes dancing, etc.?Yes, Perform:  Belching is an extreme (and a nonexistent skill), but what determines if the Chamberlain is impressed or offended by Comedy slipping in a joke to lighten the mood, detests or delights in dancing, etc.  And who decides that Comedy and Dance have a shot, and a demonstration of archery skill or even belching does not?And I believe that there are countries where belching is a compliment to the chef, and cleaning your plate is offensive (it suggests you did not receive enough to eat).  Yet the posters on this thread have not allowed for the possibility that this might be the background of the Chamberlain, or that he might be familiar with, and impressed by, someone with that culture.</blockquote>

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