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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Don Durito" data-source="post: 8159460" data-attributes="member: 6687260">I always thought the Diplomacy rules were a good idea in principle.  Part of the problem is that a simple dice roll allows you to move too many steps at once.  This led to diplomacy cheese.  You should generally only be able to improve by one step at a time by rolling the dice unless something extraordinary is taking place.  Of course there may be additional things you could do.  Buying a round of drinks* may be enough to bring those mercenaries in the pub from Neutral to Friendly - then you can roll to make them helpful.I ruled that it took increasingly long stretches of time to move someone each progression step by just using diplomacy.Part of why this is not a bad system is it provides a concrete way of measuring how someone reacts to any event - so if Diplomacy is insufficient they may be able to do something in the game world to shift the characters attitude.Robert Schwalb in A Song of Ice and Fire rpg built a whole intrigue system off this principle (a simplified version of which is in the Forbidden Rules supplement for Shadow of a Demon Lord).  Although I have mixed feelings about that system because it ends up treading social encounters too much like combat.</blockquote>