[3.X] How do you guys handle diplomacy?

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Post by Seerow »

Kaelik wrote:Is this what fighter threads are like for people who don't like arguing about fighters?

Because this is terrible.
They're basically the same thread.
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Post by Username17 »

Redshirt wrote: Yeah, if if I told my players "you can't interrupt him while he monologues, he succeeded on his intimidate check", I think they'd revolt. Now, flavor that as some sort of supernatural power and they'd be much more willing to go along with it, but even then it's walking on thin ice.
This doesn't make any kind of sense. People get uninteruptable monologues in games all the time. Video games, book games, and yes table top roleplaying games as well.

But regardless, if a diplomacy phase goes off, the actual monologue is just the MC describing the results of the intimidation check. Your character could no more meaningfully "interrupt" that than you could interrupt the MC's description of blood gushing after a critical hit. It's flavor text for an action that has already been game mechanically resolved. You get a social phase, people have social initiative, people declare actions, those actions have effects, those effects are given in-world descriptions. The end.

If your players throw a temper tantrum because they want to act now when they fucking lost social initiative, do they throw a temper tantrum because they want to act when they lost combat initiative? When you're taking formal actions, the actions come in fucking turns, and you don't get to act on other peoples' turns. That's how it fucking works.

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Post by deaddmwalking »

MGuy wrote: At least DeadDM did and even he had to go off of mere conjectures because he realized the answers to the questions I brought up aren't found in Franks original statements.
What? NO!

You tried to apply a meaning to his statements that wasn't supported by textual analysis. For example, you appeared to have had the opinion that social actions directed at the kings minions must of course lead to an automatic end to the diplomacy phase. Nothing in the text you read supported that conclusion.

I've not had to conjecture on what Frank said.

I've simply avoided jumping to erroneous conclusions.

I can't find my quote, but I did indicate some separation with him - I don't think that social actions should compel specific behavior from PCs. If the NPC should be liked, I'll try to make him likable, but I won't tell PCs 'you like this guy'. I definitely won't say 'because you like him, you'll give him your treasure/suck his cock'.

I've also asked Frank on how he thinks a 'social phase' should end, since that really ahsn't been covered.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

FrankTrollman wrote: This doesn't make any kind of sense. People get uninteruptable monologues in games all the time. Video games, book games, and yes table top roleplaying games as well.
Entirely true, but it's going to depend on how abstracted your social action is. If you say "it's just a regular abstract action long, it's a one roll deal, it's like an attack or something and the talking is just fluff like waving a sword" that is going to go down fairly fine.

But if you say, "It's an elaborate MINIMUM 3 minute super speshul Frank Social Round long and all the content of the talking is important for the speshul contextual MTP bonus negotiation that can be bigger than the system!"... players ARE going to ask why they can't "Just stab him now".

Also...
If your players throw a temper tantrum because they want to act now when they fucking lost social initiative
... The thing is you don't HAVE a social initiative system. You have an RR system. And however much you flail they are NOT the same thing.

To the point that "players" currently do not KNOW who actually "acts now" or rather acts first in a social encounter, because you don't have an actual social initiative system to tell us who acts first in social encounters and what order they act in after that.

What you DO have is a mechanic that tells players "This combat encounter will be preceded by a series of Frank's super speshul extra long so he doesn't get Realizmz shock 3 minute social rounds in which 6 second combat rounds are NOT ALLOWED and it's going to run for 30 minutes total and fuck you that's final!"

And again, that is different from "it's not your turn yet!" and is a much bigger issue for game play, your precious suspension of disbelief that is so very conveniently fragile on other occasions, and for players just plain calling bullshit and refusing to participate.
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Post by Username17 »

The opening Reaction Roll should give you an amount and quality of diplomacy phases. If you are in a diplomacy phase and want there to be more or less diplomacy phases, you can press for more or less diplomacy phases. Otherwise, when the time limit ends, so does the diplomacy phase and then people either wander off or roll combat initiative as appropriate.

I don't think ending social phases is terribly difficult. People take actions, and when they are over the social phase is over as well. I really don't see a problem there.

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Post by deaddmwalking »

FrankTrollman wrote: If your players throw a temper tantrum because they want to act now when they fucking lost social initiative, do they throw a temper tantrum because they want to act when they lost combat initiative? When you're taking formal actions, the actions come in fucking turns, and you don't get to act on other peoples' turns. That's how it fucking works.

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Post by DSMatticus »

MGuy wrote:I have told you that either your counter examples doesn't fit, when you're not answering or even engaging my actual points, how there isn't any clarification on various details, etc etc.
No, you fucking haven't! You haven't done a single fucking thing at all except repeat yourself against obvious criticisms because you apparently cannot even understand that the criticisms being levied against you are in fact criticisms that you could address.
MGuy wrote:Earlier you posited that the RR roll made it so that ambushing elves speak to you instead of attacking. In the example being referenced Frank said the king, instead of negotiating, attempts to initiate combat.
DSM wrote:The king is not ordering an attack to skip the socializing. The socializing is not and cannot be skipped by him on an arbitrary whim. That's what the reaction roll is: by either luck or their abilities or both, the PC's have bought a pre-combat social phase for them to diplomacy in (or maybe even avoided combat entirely, whatever). One of the possible things you can do in this pre-combat social phase is try to prevent the king's guards from participating in any following combat. You know, like in Frank's example, where he describes the PC's doing that. Obviously, the king wants his guards to participate and will try to convince them to do so, like in Frank's example, where he describes the king doing exactly that.
You argued variations of the above quote repeatedly. I responded with variations of the above quote repeatedly. That is a point you made. That is my response. That is a response you do not find compelling, because you completely refuse to read the rest of the debated paragraph and the context of the PC's and king opposing eachother in social combat that it creates, but it's a response. You cannot claim it does not exist or does not respond to you, because it fucking does. It's right there, and it's a coherent response. You can disagree (and you would and do), but it's right fucking there. Bonus: deaddm makes an incredibly similar argument to you about how you misinterpreted the debated paragraph. Twice. And has done so again while I was typing this post.
MGuy wrote:The part that you're not getting is that it doesn't fit BECAUSE it doesn't cover the problem of the king STILL pushing for combat DESPITE the fact he should be in banter mode. The fact that he's not seemingly effected by it and he still wants combat means that he's negating the SRCD.
DSM wrote:Another third reminder: it's still stupid and wrong. The reaction roll does not switch the king from stabby to huggy. The example being discussed from square one is an example in which the reaction roll outputs brief social combat followed by stabby unless the PC's convince the king otherwise during the social combat. How is this not obvious? How is this inconsistent with anything? How is it not clear that if the guards catch you breaking into the king's room and they don't immediately stab you in the face, they will still ask you to explain yourself and if you fail to convince them not to stab you they'll fucking stab you for breaking into the king's room?
You argued variations of the above quote repeatedly. I responded with variations of the above quote repeatedly. That is a point you made. That is my response. Again, you cannot pretend it does not exist, or does not respond to you, because it does. Bonus: deaddm makes the exact same argument. In the middle of his fucking explanation, he points out that he is making the exact same argument I am.

I have pretty much no idea how you can claim deaddm is responding to you when his posts are just [my arguments - my assholery + some tangents] (no discredit or offense to deaddm intended). Is it that he has the patience of a saint and is willing to hold your hand through every little stumble, or does your brain turn off because I am a meanie? What's the problem here? God damn.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Tue Jan 14, 2014 8:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

DSMatticus wrote:No, you fucking haven't!
I'm not entirely sure why you are still frothing at the mouth and yelling at MGuy on the "Wait, so the king can end social combat?" thing.

I mean. Frank DID just flat out say on this page that "press" to end a social phase early is a thing characters can suddenly do with their mandated social phase actions.

Or is THAT going to require multiple pages of you spazzing out denying he ever meant to say that too?
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Post by virgil »

PhoneLobster wrote:I mean. Frank DID just flat out say on this page that "press" to end a social phase early is a thing characters can suddenly do with their mandated social phase actions.
Pressing to end a social phase early is a huge difference from a character shouting "bored now!" as they abruptly stab people in the face.

Or is that going to require multiple pages of you spazzing out and ignoring cognate facts?
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Post by Fuchs »

virgil wrote:
PhoneLobster wrote:I mean. Frank DID just flat out say on this page that "press" to end a social phase early is a thing characters can suddenly do with their mandated social phase actions.
Pressing to end a social phase early is a huge difference from a character shouting "bored now!" as they abruptly stab people in the face.

Or is that going to require multiple pages of you spazzing out and ignoring cognate facts?
I would assume that shouting "bored now!" and attacking usually would spell the end of a diplomatic phase.
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Post by virgil »

Fuchs wrote:
virgil wrote:
PhoneLobster wrote:I mean. Frank DID just flat out say on this page that "press" to end a social phase early is a thing characters can suddenly do with their mandated social phase actions.
Pressing to end a social phase early is a huge difference from a character shouting "bored now!" as they abruptly stab people in the face.

Or is that going to require multiple pages of you spazzing out and ignoring cognate facts?
I would assume that shouting "bored now!" and attacking usually would spell the end of a diplomatic phase.
So when a rogue is halfway resolving their sequence of five attacks, is that how you spell the end of their round to go straight to your paladin's charge? Because that is how it sounds and PL is obviously trying to equate the two as if they're the same, which deserves all sorts of mockery atop his mountain of failure.
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Post by DSMatticus »

PhoneLobster wrote:
DSMatticus wrote:No, you fucking haven't!
I'm not entirely sure why you are still frothing at the mouth and yelling at MGuy on the "Wait, so the king can end social combat?" thing.

I mean. Frank DID just flat out say on this page that "press" to end a social phase early is a thing characters can suddenly do with their mandated social phase actions.

Or is THAT going to require multiple pages of you spazzing out denying he ever meant to say that too?
DSM wrote:But note: even if the king had an actual ability that reduced the length of (or terminated) the pre-combat social phase contingent on his ability to beat you in an opposed test of some kind, that's just him resisting your efforts to stop him from stabbing you in the face by reducing your timetable to do so. If the king and every other NPC in the game had the ability "end social phase, no roll, defense, or counter; gg no re", then yeah, the reaction roll doesn't fucking do anything at all. But that doesn't follow from what Frank said at all, and it makes no fucking sense, and you are a dishonest shit for trying to twist it into that.
I covered that base as an off-handed aside on page 17, noting that a statement to the effect of "there are actions you can take which change the length of the diplomacy phase," would not in fact allow you to score on the goal "the king can take an action that unilaterally and completely bypasses the social phase mechanic." And yet here we are, with you claiming that the former is the latter, up is down, and blue is red. Could you have figured that out yourself with a few seconds of actually considering what your opponents are saying? Certainly, it's pretty obvious that that statement has no consequences for the position held by MGuy. Did you actually realize this? ... Probably. Did any of that stop you from making an obviously stupid argument in the hopes that you might win some ground? Of course not.
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Post by Fuchs »

virgil wrote:
Fuchs wrote:
virgil wrote:Pressing to end a social phase early is a huge difference from a character shouting "bored now!" as they abruptly stab people in the face.

Or is that going to require multiple pages of you spazzing out and ignoring cognate facts?
I would assume that shouting "bored now!" and attacking usually would spell the end of a diplomatic phase.
So when a rogue is halfway resolving their sequence of five attacks, is that how you spell the end of their round to go straight to your paladin's charge? Because that is how it sounds and PL is obviously trying to equate the two as if they're the same, which deserves all sorts of mockery atop his mountain of failure.
I don't get how you come to this. As people pointed out there are rounds in this RR social phase. So, when it's your turn, instead of replying with a quip or speech, you shout "Bored now!" and attack the next guy. Possible or not? Or what do characters have to do to switch to combat phase?
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Post by virgil »

Fuchs wrote:
virgil wrote:
Fuchs wrote:I would assume that shouting "bored now!" and attacking usually would spell the end of a diplomatic phase.
So when a rogue is halfway resolving their sequence of five attacks, is that how you spell the end of their round to go straight to your paladin's charge? Because that is how it sounds and PL is obviously trying to equate the two as if they're the same, which deserves all sorts of mockery atop his mountain of failure.
I don't get how you come to this. As people pointed out there are rounds in this RR social phase. So, when it's your turn, instead of replying with a quip or speech, you shout "Bored now!" and attack the next guy. Possible or not? Or what do characters have to do to switch to combat phase?
Read DSMatticus's most recent post, the one immediately preceding yours.
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Post by Fuchs »

virgil wrote:
Fuchs wrote:
virgil wrote:So when a rogue is halfway resolving their sequence of five attacks, is that how you spell the end of their round to go straight to your paladin's charge? Because that is how it sounds and PL is obviously trying to equate the two as if they're the same, which deserves all sorts of mockery atop his mountain of failure.
I don't get how you come to this. As people pointed out there are rounds in this RR social phase. So, when it's your turn, instead of replying with a quip or speech, you shout "Bored now!" and attack the next guy. Possible or not? Or what do characters have to do to switch to combat phase?
Read DSMatticus's most recent post, the one immediately preceding yours.
I am asking you what I need to do to end the social phase and start combat in your system. Also, do the PCs have to do a RR too, or can they simply bypass that if they start an ambush?
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Post by PhoneLobster »

virgil wrote:Pressing to end a social phase early is a huge difference
Actually it's a small difference exactly equal to the rate of failure.

Because when it succeeds it is in fact exactly the same.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

FrankTrollman wrote:Not as ridiculously uncharitable as MGuy and Phonelobster, but bad enough that I almost put you on ignore too.
Really? I've posted in this thread all of 5 times, 6 if this one counts. I don't know whether to be feel good or bad about being almost put on ignore for that amount of effort.
DSMatticus wrote:Dude. You cannot get from anything Frank said to "combat can't have any social actions." It's not even a matter of the sort of deliberate and painful misinterpretations PL ("Frank is talking about giving orders") and MGuy ("Frank is talking about ending social combat") are doing, which involve taking a paragraph and ignoring literally every word in it except SEIZE and THEM. It's just something that was made completely the fuck up by PL that he then went forced meme on. I've asked for a quote that would lead to such a conclusion several times, and the first answer was a heap of stupid and the second answer lead to literally the exact opposite conclusion.
I don't really care if you can't fathom how I could read that into what he wrote, it was an honest personal assessment at the time. I made that claim based on things that Frank had written, the context of 3.x DnD, and the implied meanings of a bunch of terms. Frank wants to call that an uncharitable reading of him, and I don't care if we call it that and move on. It's obvious now that his position is not that (which is good, because it's a stupid position), and that's about all that I cared about getting to.

If you want evidence for why I thought that was the case, too bad. I have other things to do, and it would be a largely pointless exercise at this point.
DSMatticus wrote:PL and MGuy are not bringing up whether or not combat actions can turn a real combat into a social one because they want to talk about it. They are bringing it up because they are fallaciously claiming that it is a position of their opponents that they cannot, and they want to mock that strawmen (instead of defending their efforts to mock other strawmen). It is misdirection right now, even if there are some other theoretical circumstances which would make it relevant.
I don't read much PL these days (particularly not in this thread) despite having taken him off ignore a while ago, and I'm certainly not parroting his (or MGuy's) points intentionally. I'm looking for clarification (and in retrospect, this is a terrible place for that). It can be misdirection when they bring it up and not when others do because context, even if that's hard to see clearly in this muck.
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Because this is terrible.
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Post by MGuy »

PhoneLobster wrote:
DSMatticus wrote:No, you fucking haven't!
I'm not entirely sure why you are still frothing at the mouth and yelling at MGuy on the "Wait, so the king can end social combat?" thing.
Because he has to validate his obstructionist position.Since he boiled down any and everybody who even 'questioned' Frank's statements at all into trying to make attacks against it he has to now validate all the frothing he did. I mean look at Dead. He mentioned he didn't wanted to reimagine what Frank said because he didn't want to jump to conclusions. But that is exactly what I pointed out. He HAD to use his OWN thoughts because the questions I asked were not covered by what Frank actually wrote.

I mean we are this far and DSM is still claiming to have approached the question when he has shit like this:
DSM wrote: One of the possible things you can do in this pre-combat social phase is try to prevent the king's guards from participating in any following combat. You know, like in Frank's example, where he describes the PC's doing that. Obviously, the king wants his guards to participate and will try to convince them to do so, like in Frank's example, where he describes the king doing exactly that.
and this
The reaction roll does not switch the king from stabby to huggy. The example being discussed from square one is an example in which the reaction roll outputs brief social combat followed by stabby unless the PC's convince the king otherwise during the social combat
in his 'counter arguments' which has dick to do with why the fuck the king is even pushing for combat at all. He should be in banter mode but has an action he apparently has to spend ordering troops (who are apparently not going to attack) to attack. Again and again he refuses to believe that telling me that the king is indeed trying to get his guards to stab the players in the middle of what's supposed to be 'banter time' fucking causes a problem not only with the idea that SRCD is supposed to have him socializing AT the PCs since he and his guards are ostensibly one group (except they are not?) but then calls into question about what is pushing the ELVES IN THE AMBUSH to attack at all. He cannot get that the problem isn't if they attack right now but that the king has to try to get them to attack at all! The idea that the King and ALL OF HIS GUARDS are separate entities that can be influenced differently in the same social Combat fucking RAISES QUESTIONS especially since it shows he can bypass becoming more passive (but still aggressive) while his troops cannot. If the king and the guards are not one group how the fuck is that decided? Seriously, WHY THE FUCK IS THE KING STILL DOING ANYTHING THAT'S NOT SOCIALIZING AT THE PCS WHEN THAT'S WHAT YOU SAY THIS SHIT IS ALL ABOUT?!

PL even brings up a reminder that I looked at it charitably because considering Franks words PRIOR, and NOT THE WALK BACK HE DID LATER, he believed that socializing in combat was a failure and all the socializing done in the SRCD NEEDED to be in the SRCD so mentioning that "giving an order to attack" is an SRCD worthy action AT ALL fucks it all up and creates a bunch of errors in the other fucking scenarios among all the other confusing grouping bullshit and errors that not explaining this shit causes.

At some point he has to come clean about how the fuck it all works so we just wait until either the next RR thread or maybe (but not likely) later in this thread where he fucking explains it. No matter how much DSM cries about it it has to happen if the thing is to get off the ground anyway.
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Post by Kaelik »

virgil wrote:Read DSMatticus's most recent post, the one immediately preceding yours.
The point is that if the answer is anything besides yes, your system is stupid and Franks verisimilitude shit jumps right out the mother fucking window.

If a combat round is 12 seconds, and a social round is 2 minutes, then yes, it is completely bullshit that you have to stand there and wait for 2 minutes when you are not in a cage and BBEG doesn't have a hostage while he takes one social action. But that is at least the kind of minor bullshit that most people will put up with. However, if subsequent to that round you have to take an action which has less than a 100% chance of success of resulting in combat, but you actually want to start combat, then you don't really have an action, you have a confusion spell cast on you and you get to roll to see if you get to control your character or if your character just fucking sucks dickholes for a bit while other people do what they want.

That is dumb. It is unrealistic, and unversimilitudenous, and unfun for the players, and it sucks all the dick to be force into multiple fucking rounds of talking that don't fucking do anything but stall for time when they don't want to let the BBEG stall for time and he has no actual in world way to force them to let him.

I had this conversation with some people about the Hobbit movie. Do you remember the conversation in the book? Did you see the one in the movie? One of them fucks with your head and makes you want to shit in someone's eye, and it isn't the book one. And the reason is that in the book there is a very clear reason Smaug waits to attack, he doesn't fucking see him. And in the movie, the beginning makes a bit of sense about him not attacking, because it makes some sense to be curious, but once he figures everything out, and is bored with the conversation and wants to start killing, he still fucking doesn't, and it is fucking dumb as shit.

What you should do is say that yes, of course the PC can stop fucking social encounters at any time by just fucking people the hell up, but like Martial challenges they suffer penalties for doing so. They can engage in diplo and win or lose, or they can just avoid it. And avoiding it doesn't even have to always be better than losing it. For example, if you avoid talking someone out of killing a hostage and charge them, then they just kill the hostage.

Off the top of my head, one penalty that might work is giving real initative to the party who didn't quit the social phase. While that sounds like the opposite of what people normally want to do, it does make a certain kind of sense that if the BBEG is giving his "we are not so different" speech, and you don't respond, he is watching you, so when you charge instead, he is ready. On the other hand, successful social actions to end diplo might be pretending to be considering his points so well that he turns his back, and then you get to fuck him up.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

Hate Frank as much as you want, but his statement was very precise. It could not be interpreted in the manner you claimed without adding more. If you interpret ONLY what was said, you get one interpretation...

It's like instead of reading what was written, you ran it through the PL filter and respondedto that iinstead. You're not making any sense to anyone except PL.
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Post by virgil »

PhoneLobster wrote:
virgil wrote:Pressing to end a social phase early is a huge difference
Actually it's a small difference exactly equal to the rate of failure.

Because when it succeeds it is in fact exactly the same.
Are you retarded? Do you have to hold your breath when reading because your mind can't handle breathing and processing information at the same time? Do you think a DM shouting "15 DAMAGE!" in the middle of the dungeon crawl as the exact same as having them instead roll a Search skill check, Reflex save, and then take 4d6 damage if they failed the first two rolls? Do you honestly have an inability to differentiate how the path to the end result might make a fvcking difference? Do you know what the number 15 means? Do you know that a high level character taking 15 damage generally isn't the same as instantly dying, just as being disarmed is not the same as total surrender? Can you see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
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Post by Kaelik »

virgil wrote:just as being disarmed is not the same as total surrender?
Wait, wasn't your argument that being disarmed is the same as surrender?

Because PL said they can't do anything social in combat in Frank's system, and you would say that causing them to surrender would totally be worth while? I vaguely remember something about making fun of PL for having them drop the weapons then pick them up or something.

I mean don't get me wrong, I definitely just skim you and PL bickering with each other because it is basically irrelevant, but wasn't that your original point? How is the very minor, quite often non existent, distinction between putting down weapons and surrendering something worth yelling at PL about?
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Post by PhoneLobster »

Kaelik wrote:How is the very minor, quite often non existent, distinction between putting down weapons and surrendering something worth yelling at PL about?
See I read Frank's statement that social actions in combat needed to be limited to "simple intimidations or feints" like "Drop your weapons or Look Over There" as Frank saying social actions in combat should be limited and simple feints.

But apparently we have to assume those limited and simple feint actions include winning the combat by making the other side outright surrender. Or else Virgil will butthurt for the next century, again.

When it suits RR fans to have it one way.

And when it suits RR fans to have it the other the whole POINT of RR is that you can't do anything "significant" in combat, most certainly not go and WIN it or anything.
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Post by RadiantPhoenix »

deaddmwalking wrote:Hate Frank as much as you want, but his statement was very precise. It could not be interpreted in the manner you claimed without adding more. If you interpret ONLY what was said, you get one interpretation...

It's like instead of reading what was written, you ran it through the PL filter and respondedto that iinstead. You're not making any sense to anyone except PL.
I think I see what Kaelik's getting at, and I think it's, "Why do we (the PCs) have to sit around listening when we've (the players) decided we want to stab those fools?"

I don't think this is a valid argument against making reaction rolls to decide whether NPCs are willing to talk, but I think it's something that needs to be addressed for both systems where you stop combat for social actions after it's begun, and systems where you put off combat for a while to allow social actions if the PCs can't opt out.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

RadiantPhoenix wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:Hate Frank as much as you want, but his statement was very precise. It could not be interpreted in the manner you claimed without adding more. If you interpret ONLY what was said, you get one interpretation...

It's like instead of reading what was written, you ran it through the PL filter and respondedto that iinstead. You're not making any sense to anyone except PL.
I think I see what Kaelik's getting at, and I think it's, "Why do we (the PCs) have to sit around listening when we've (the players) decided we want to stab those fools?"

I don't think this is a valid argument against making reaction rolls to decide whether NPCs are willing to talk, but I think it's something that needs to be addressed for both systems where you stop combat for social actions after it's begun, and systems where you put off combat for a while to allow social actions if the PCs can't opt out.
1) pretty sure deaddm wasn't talking to me. Probably to Mguy.
2) Yeah, this is not necessarily about RR, it just happens that RR is one way to force a social encounter on PCs, and Frank specifically talked about stabbing people seven times before they finish talking.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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