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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 1106399" data-attributes="member: 259">You could hardly be further off-base, Mistwell. First, in the game I run, diplomacy is crucial.  The game tends to be based in large cities, and if you act out of bounds, you'll find the full force of a magically-augmented government coming down on your head.  If you want to accomplish anything in this highly political environment, making friends and allegiances is absolutely necessary. Very, very often, killing an opponent is a surefire way to sign your own death warrant.  Indeed, in the last session, the PCs were ambushed by a pair of demonic Foo dogs (hee hee) which they had to escape from without killing, lest the dogs' deaths pulled down the wrath of their owners -- elite forces from the kingdom's army. Second, if the rules suggest that you can get someone to do whatever you want with a high enough diplomacy check, then the rules are so freakin' stupid in this regard that a house-rule is absolutely necessary.  If a player knows the rules well enough to know they have this feature, AND THE PLAYER DOESN'T ALERT ME TO THIS PROBLEM, then I have no problem houseruling away the loophole the player thinks he's found.  If the player isn't aware of this stupidity, then I have no problem houseruling it away before the player becomes aware of it. It's possible there's a rule in the player's handbook somewhere stating that a nonmagical pebble dropped on a castle from a sufficient height will explode, destroying the castle and any inhabitants.  Such a rule could not destroy my suspension of disbelief any more than this version of the diplomacy rule does; if a player showed it to me mid-battle and expected it to work, they'd discover the power of house-rules. I run a political game in which character, spectacle, and story take precedence over rules.  Diplomacy is so vital to the game that using an absurd rule for it would destroy the game entirely. Daniel</blockquote>

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