FrankTrollman wrote:
One thing I don't understand is how butthurt and inconsistent people get when it comes to diplomantic effects on player characters. We all agree that there are powers like Majesty, Sanctuary, Repulsion, and Frightful Presence which can force a character to not attack. Right? Those physically exist, and have for forty years. There should be no argument on that point. Further, those abilities can exist on either side of the DM's screen. Again, there should be no argument there, because it's simply demonstrably true. No one to my knowledge has flipped their shit over the fact that it was physically possible for an NPC cleric to cast Sanctuary or an NPC vampire lord to have Majesty or whatever.
Here's why.
[*] Having NPCs diplomatize PCs opens up a brand new frontier in laying down shiny railroad tracks. We've had a couple of DMs on these boards who openly salivate at the thought of being able to diplomatize PCs *coughRandomCasualty2Swordslinger* and I see nothing good coming from this.
[*] Even if every DM was reasonable about it, if your diplomacy system generates a plausible but unusual result like pissing on yourself in public pranknet-style or having your militant lesbian/straightjacket/bear character seduced by someone of their non-preferred gender you'll have some players throw a bitch fit anyway. It doesn't matter if the result is realistic or plausible or even likely; once your character trades their loyal warhouse mount they've had for several years for a sack of magic beans, people will demonize the system as 'bullshit randomness telling people how to roleplay their character'.
The reason why people are okay with charm/dominate but not mundane diplomacy is threefold.
[*] The first is, well, mundane diplomacy is mundane. People have odd conceptions about dualism or how they'd defy the implications of the Milgram experiment and they just won't accept mundane diplomacy making them do what they see as 'extreme' things.
[*] Secondly, charm/dominate have a build-in escape hatch as far as characterization is confirmed. The way they're fluffed is that whatever results were generated by these game effects they're not really 'you' and don't reflect anything about your character. No one really thinks that Mindbender King Howard compelling your character to lynch a retarded teenage boy in public with his evil eye means that you're a bad person.
However, if Smooth-Talking Bastard Hannibal Minderbinder convinces your character to lynch a retarded teenage boy in public with his diplomacy, it casts your character in an entirely new light. Your character development from now on is 'willingly murders children if whipped up enough'.
[*] Charm/dominate are exceptional methods of character control. Like once-a-session, if that, methods of an NPC dictating player behavior. If you make it more common than that, trust me, people will start to complain.
I'd like to reiterate. The first time people share a story on the public message boards about a DM who got a paladin PC to participate in a lynch mob or the wizard PC to trade his secret research for some magic beans or for a militant lesbian to sleep with a male chauvinist pig, that's it for your system. It doesn't matter how plausible or well-designed or genre-emulating or how good at generating stories your system is; this becomes ammunition for any competitors or saboteurs or critics to attack your system with until the cows come home. You think the bitching about skill challenges or MMORPG-style advancement is bad? You ain't seen nothing yet, trust me.
If you absolutely want people not to rebel on NPC-on-PC diplomacy, you need to do these things at a minimum.
[*] You need to enable PC-on-PC diplomacy. Not because the game will be any better (it'll make it worse), but because if you allow this special pleading example it'll make your game look like a hypocritical DM-penis waving fest.
[*] Magical diplomacy needs to become the default mode of diplomacy from the very start or at least. It doesn't need to be anything super-flashy or will crushing. A diplomacy engine like Ace Attorney where people use interdimensional chess matches or magically charged jewels to interrogate people would be acceptable.
[*] You need to seed the diplomacy engine in favor of the PCs. And I mean heavily seed. A merchant who gets the PCs to trade their heirloom sword for a worthless treasure map is about worth as much Player Rage Points as convincing an unpopular king to publicly commit suicide.