Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7733884" data-attributes="member: 42582">None of the systems that are being promoted in this thread permits this, except perhaps DUel of Wits from BW (and even that is much more complex than what you are descriibing here).No one in this thread has promoted 3E's Diplomacy mechanic.Only if they're bad. What you describe can't happen in any of the systems that I GM.Mechanics are how we represent the state of the fiction.D&D combat produces outcomes like the orc has lost 3 of its 5 hit points. Marvel Herioc RP produces outcomes like Diamondback is subject to a d8 He's Not To Bad After All complication. In D&D, if a NPC is plying a PC with drink, how do we determine if the PC gets drunk? Presumably by way of a Poison saving throw or similar. In MHRP we do it via the mechanics for inflicting complications.The rating of the complication is a mechanical state of affairs (analogous to a damage roll in D&D). The descriptor of the complication is determined by the player (if it is a PC inflicting the complication) or the GM (if it is a NPC) - of course the fictional positioning must support the description (James Rhodes can become subject to a Drunk complication becuse he's drinking in a bar), and the complication affects the suffering character's resolution when the fictional positioning makes it relevant (so James Rhodes's Drunk complication will affect his attempts to pull of tight aerial manoeuvres, but not his attempts to avoid being enraged or scared).And yes, we roll the dice to see what happens (does James Rhodes get drunk? does Bobby successfully woo any of the women? etc). That's generally how a roleplaying game works. The alternative is for the GM to just let the player get what s/he wants - that's find for peripheral things but boring for the main action; or for the GM to just block what the player wants - but that sounds a bit railroad-y to me.Suppose the GM decides that the official is Greedy. How much bribe money do the PCs have to offer?Suppose the GM decides that the official is scrupulous? How extremely do the PCs have to threaten his/her loved ones before s/he gives in?Etc. This is one purpose of dice rolls in a social resolution system.What is persuasive to one person is probably not persuasive to another. To go back to the bar scene - a person at a bar might try to befriend, or to pick, up another patron and 9 times in 10 be rebuffed - but that tenth patron enjoys the joke, or likes the twinkle in the person's eye, or whatever.The same is true for reaching consensus on a committee - the compromises and approaches required, and what counts as persuasive, differ from person to person and context to context.The idea that there is such a thing as being persuasive, which the referee will know when s/he sees it, strikes me as leading to unverisimilitudinous outcomes.That pretty much says it all, I guess.</blockquote>

Verification