Why NPC-on-PC diplomacy in most TTRPGs shouldn't be allowed.

[Koumei]

And any given game can have limits of what Socialing people does, too

You've apparently found a solution to "Here hold my mystery bag" then?

Not so much a solution as a statement of what happens:
Either it's the kind of world where people give each other bombs all the time, in which case "Here hold my bag for a moment" is something that can't be achieved (by either party), or it isn't that kind of world, in which case that is a "reasonable request of minor inconvenience" up until someone starts giving people bombs and it does actually become vaguely appropriate for that to become an unacceptable request.

And yeah, that means the first time someone sucker-punches someone, they've spoiled it for everyone but they got to do it so it could be seen as an incentive to actually do that. I just accept that when you put some hard limits in, sometimes things will be strange. As opposed to if you don't put any limits in, where things will always be weird and unknown.

[Fuchs]

And any given game can have limits of what Socialing people does, too

You've apparently found a solution to "Here hold my mystery bag" then?

I'd pick DM resp. player discretion for such limits.

[Cyberzombie]

Players respond very strongly to the perceived incentives of encounters. If you set up encounters which have a high risk to reward ratio, the players will avoid them. If you set up encounters with a low risk to reward ratio, the players will seek them out.

If you're gonna make social encounters risky, you have to also dangle rewards for them, or the players will avoid them. That seemed so obvious that I didn't think it had to be said. But in retrospect I guess it wasn't. So I'm saying it now.

The problem is that social encounters don't have equal gains. There's usually simply an aggressor and a defender. If a beggar approaches you on the street, the beggar has everything to gain and the other guy just gains the ability to send the beggar away. Even if the beggar loses, he just moves on to beg off the next poor sap without any actual risk to himself. And that's how the majority of social encounters go. The merchant names a price for his magic armor and you try to haggle him down. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, but you know his offer and he can't suddenly raise that offer.

Also, it heavily favors evil characters. If you're a good-aligned character who
doesn't want to rip people off, then you can't really benefit even if you score very high on your haggling check. The evil con man may get you to trade your magic armor for a ball of string, but as the good guy, you can't do that.

It's just not a very good mechanic to have in an RPG where you actively want to have PCs socialize.

[Fuchs]

The problem is that social encounters don't have equal gains. There's usually simply an aggressor and a defender. If a beggar approaches you on the street, the beggar has everything to gain and the other guy just gains the ability to send the beggar away. Even if the beggar loses, he just moves on to beg off the next poor sap without any actual risk to himself. And that's how the majority of social encounters go. The merchant names a price for his magic armor and you try to haggle him down. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, but you know his offer and he can't suddenly raise that offer.

I'd simply roll for haggling before stating the first offer, and then state what price it ends up as taking the listed price as a base. Whoever rolls better adjusts the price up- or downwards.

Beggars can be beaten or even killed if they approach the wrong people, theoretically. But the problem of no risk for one party can be solved by limiting the rewards proportionally to the risks taken.

[Omegonthesane]

Players respond very strongly to the perceived incentives of encounters. If you set up encounters which have a high risk to reward ratio, the players will avoid them. If you set up encounters with a low risk to reward ratio, the players will seek them out.

If you're gonna make social encounters risky, you have to also dangle rewards for them, or the players will avoid them. That seemed so obvious that I didn't think it had to be said. But in retrospect I guess it wasn't. So I'm saying it now.

The problem is that social encounters don't have equal gains. There's usually simply an aggressor and a defender. If a beggar approaches you on the street, the beggar has everything to gain and the other guy just gains the ability to send the beggar away. Even if the beggar loses, he just moves on to beg off the next poor sap without any actual risk to himself. And that's how the majority of social encounters go. The merchant names a price for his magic armor and you try to haggle him down. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, but you know his offer and he can't suddenly raise that offer.

Also, it heavily favors evil characters. If you're a good-aligned character who
doesn't want to rip people off, then you can't really benefit even if you score very high on your haggling check. The evil con man may get you to trade your magic armor for a ball of string, but as the good guy, you can't do that.

It's just not a very good mechanic to have in an RPG where you actively want to have PCs socialize.

These are not per se unsolvable. In the merchant example, most people - even those willing to take heroic risks for others - are not going to refuse a bargain freely offered, or pay absolutely no heed to their wallet. In the beggar example, altruism is a powerful drug, I could see you getting morale bonuses to saves and shit for having taken it.

[MGuy]

Beggars aren't likely to beg for all the gold a pc has because while they have nothing to lose they WANT to gain something. So beggars will beg the PCs for whatever they perceive they have a good chance of getting because there's no reason that they can't just get nothing by constantly demanding for all of people's stuff and getting nothing continuously hurts them. You can bypass the 'nothing to lose beggar' problem simply by elevating the penalty for asking for ridiculous shit. Merchant asking for a ridiculous price follows the same principles. The merchant can elevate the price tag such that Players can't argue him out of it but that will mean players just fucking leave.

[Username17]

The problem is that social encounters don't have equal gains.

Premise not granted. You're talking about a role playing game where the rewards are wholly arbitrary. You get whatever rewards the game says you get, and those rewards don't have to make real world sense. D&D makes you a better blacksmith for killing goblins with a bow. FATE makes you a better wizard for having a fight with your aunt over how late you stay out.

There's usually simply an aggressor and a defender. If a beggar approaches you on the street, the beggar has everything to gain and the other guy just gains the ability to send the beggar away. Even if the beggar loses, he just moves on to beg off the next poor sap without any actual risk to himself. And that's how the majority of social encounters go. The merchant names a price for his magic armor and you try to haggle him down. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, but you know his offer and he can't suddenly raise that offer.

Also, it heavily favors evil characters. If you're a good-aligned character who
doesn't want to rip people off, then you can't really benefit even if you score very high on your haggling check. The evil con man may get you to trade your magic armor for a ball of string, but as the good guy, you can't do that.

Again: premises not granted. If you can get XPs for killing goblins, why can't you get XPs for maximizing social welfare with charitable giving? Does it make any less sense for a Paladin to become a better holy warrior for achieving a utility maximizing distribution of copper ownership in the town than it does for the same paladin to become a better diplomat by slaying a dragon?

Old versions of D&D gave you XPs for the number of GPs you brought into town, why would it be weirder to give you XPs for the number you gave away?

-Username17

[Username17]

The problem is that social encounters don't have equal gains.

Premise not granted. You're talking about a role playing game where the rewards are wholly arbitrary. You get whatever rewards the game says you get, and those rewards don't have to make real world sense. D&D makes you a better blacksmith for killing goblins with a bow. FATE makes you a better wizard for having a fight with your aunt over how late you stay out.

There's usually simply an aggressor and a defender. If a beggar approaches you on the street, the beggar has everything to gain and the other guy just gains the ability to send the beggar away. Even if the beggar loses, he just moves on to beg off the next poor sap without any actual risk to himself. And that's how the majority of social encounters go. The merchant names a price for his magic armor and you try to haggle him down. Maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, but you know his offer and he can't suddenly raise that offer.

Also, it heavily favors evil characters. If you're a good-aligned character who
doesn't want to rip people off, then you can't really benefit even if you score very high on your haggling check. The evil con man may get you to trade your magic armor for a ball of string, but as the good guy, you can't do that.

Again: premises not granted. If you can get XPs for killing goblins, why can't you get XPs for maximizing social welfare with charitable giving? Does it make any less sense for a Paladin to become a better holy warrior for achieving a utility maximizing distribution of copper ownership in the town than it does for the same paladin to become a better diplomat by slaying a dragon?

Old versions of D&D gave you XPs for the number of GPs you brought into town, why would it be weirder to give you XPs for the number you gave away?

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

Old versions of D&D gave you XPs for the number of GPs you brought into town, why would it be weirder to give you XPs for the number you gave away?

-Username17

This, actually - forgot about the ability to convert GP into XP in earlier editions.

This is problematic if you need both level and networth to be separately at similar amounts across the party for game balance's sake, such as if there is a minimum amount of must-have magic swag which comprises way more than half of the party's expected incoming cashflow. It'd be difficult to bolt onto 3.Tome for sure, but I wouldn't instantly trivially cry foul if a SIFRP GM allowed you to convert gold dragons into XP by donating to beggars / drinking and whoring / commissioning golden dildos statues of yourself.

[Cyberzombie]

Again: premises not granted. If you can get XPs for killing goblins, why can't you get XPs for maximizing social welfare with charitable giving? Does it make any less sense for a Paladin to become a better holy warrior for achieving a utility maximizing distribution of copper ownership in the town than it does for the same paladin to become a better diplomat by slaying a dragon?

I suppose there's no reason why you couldn't hand out XP for fending off beggars, but it'd be a hard system to balance, especially if you want to give ordinary beggars and barmaids a chance to diplomacy/seduce high level characters.

Since you could very well run into the opposite problem of the Vow of Poverty monk repeatedly fending off beggars to power level. It would all somehow have to be based off what you could potentially lose from the encounter, and relative to your level. It'd be rather complicated.

[Ice9]

Even if you have social encounters give XP, that's not a guarantee that PCs will seek them out, and when they do it will be much more like a dungeon crawl style of interaction than what you'd expect for a town.

So do you actually want a visit to town going like this?
* Alex: Ok, Ratsburg is dangerous, but I think we can handle it. If we can defeat the Duke, that's a lot of influence and money for us.
* Bob: So, what's the plan.
* Alex: We're going to rush for the town hall and secure an audience with the Duke. Then we retreat to the woods and rest up before going against him. Everyone put on your robes and pretend to be monks with a vow of silence, we don't want any attrition on the way.
* Cecil: We're not going to grind the beggars for some morale bonuses? You know I get double from that.
* Alex: Not until after we deal with the Duke. Then go wild; the rest of us will go back to the woods to camp.

This is actually the same damn thing as the wish economy. If you don't want the PCs acting like paranoid murder-hobos, then your rules need to not encourage that. If you want towns to be place the PCs actually enjoy staying, as opposed to some sort of above-ground dungeon, then the rules need to back that up.

[Ice9]

Actually, it occurs to me that a lot of the problems could be solved by making the social system opt-in. As in, both sides have to join the social encounter for it to happen. So you can go to the town and walk the streets, and not worry about being under social attack every moment. You can talk to the barmaid instead of ordering your drinks with a note and having them left next to your door, because it isn't an automatic social combat.

So why would you ever decide to opt-in? Because you have to if you want to convince the other party of something. Which yes, means that if you want to enter social kombat, you need something to offer. Not a bad thing.

[RadiantPhoenix]

How is this different from the Shadowrun WiFi problem?

[Username17]

How is this different from the Shadowrun WiFi problem?

In Shadowrun, you have to incentivize the characters to invest in WiFi. For players to engage with social encounters, you only have to incentivize the players to do so. The characters don't need to have their apparent willingness to speak to other people explained, because the characters are social animals for whom a lack of social interaction prevents self actualization and creates a palpable aura of despair. The players need to have their incentives pointed the correct direction, but these incentives can be crafted in wholly metagame currencies like XP, FATE points, Willpower, Karma, or Hero Points.

In Shadowrun, you need to explain why Renraku thinks it is in their interest to have WiFi devices controlling vital security installations and you need to explain why everyone else thinks that is in their interests to have WiFi devices turned on during super spy missions. It's a world building issue in addition to a game balance one.

But for social encounters, it's not a world building issue. The worst prison isn't the ones where you get raped by the other prisoners - it's the one where there no other prisoners to rape you. Everyone from every faction whose brain works in a manner that is even somewhat analogous to human beings gets major depression disorder if they avoid social contacts. It's just biologically true that humans and any animal kind of like humans is simply going to have social encounters on a regular basis. You have to incentivize players to actually do it, but only because a failure to do so is just as absurd a failure of simulation as accidentally incentivizing players to have their characters hammer nails through their nut sacks or go without food and sleep.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Not so much a solution as ...

Sorry, you said you had a way of applying hard limits to social mechanics in what was effectively an infinite lists goal type system.

As it turns out what you have is a vague intention to have an infinite lists goal type system that is built from the ground up to rely utterly on a poorly defined Gentleman's agreement in order to not instantly and completely break.

And it's not even a clearly defined Gentleman's agreement. Which means it's pretty much going to break.

Meanwhile. There seems to be hints of people suggesting elaborate plans to create balanced stakes in social encounters. But without anyone committing to any actual detail on that there isn't really anything to talk about beyond the current "motherhood statement!" vs "nuh ah no motherhood statement!" argument.

Other than to point out that one "Both sides need to opt in! BRILLIANT!" idea is really really dumb.

[RadiantPhoenix]

How is this different from the Shadowrun WiFi problem?

In Shadowrun, you have to incentivize the characters to invest in WiFi. For players to engage with social encounters, you only have to incentivize the players to do so. The characters don't need to have their apparent willingness to speak to other people explained, because the characters are social animals for whom a lack of social interaction prevents self actualization and creates a palpable aura of despair. The players need to have their incentives pointed the correct direction, but these incentives can be crafted in wholly metagame currencies like XP, FATE points, Willpower, Karma, or Hero Points.

In Shadowrun, you need to explain why Renraku thinks it is in their interest to have WiFi devices controlling vital security installations and you need to explain why everyone else thinks that is in their interests to have WiFi devices turned on during super spy missions. It's a world building issue in addition to a game balance one.

But for social encounters, it's not a world building issue. The worst prison isn't the ones where you get raped by the other prisoners - it's the one where there no other prisoners to rape you. Everyone from every faction whose brain works in a manner that is even somewhat analogous to human beings gets major depression disorder if they avoid social contacts. It's just biologically true that humans and any animal kind of like humans is simply going to have social encounters on a regular basis. You have to incentivize players to actually do it, but only because a failure to do so is just as absurd a failure of simulation as accidentally incentivizing players to have their characters hammer nails through their nut sacks or go without food and sleep.

-Username17

Okay, so the first thing that comes to my mind is giving people morale penalties to their rolls for not having talked to people much lately, but there are some problems with that.

Namely, the other PCs in the party.

[Previn]

Beggars aren't likely to beg for all the gold a pc has because while they have nothing to lose they WANT to gain something.

They might not have any material goods to lose as opposed to the PCs, beople seriously kill buggers and homeless people today for asking for money/food, or even just because. Begging was/is actually illegal in a lot of places, some of which imposed the death penalty if a beggar was in the same place for more than 1 night in the middle ages. You could also take beggars into slavery and force them to work for a month.

Begging the PCs may be relatively safe because PCs are typically good, but if you try begging the evil party they're just as likely to run you through for giggles as they are to simply ignore you. Hell simply being hit/beat/run off can cause enough physical harm that begging is dangerous on that alone.


And frankly, if you don't want to allow diplomacy to have a PC hand over all their stuff to a street beggar, don't design a system that does that. If you think the king handing over his entire kingdom to some rube who spoke to him for 6 seconds shouldn't happen, make your social system not produce that outcome. It's not something that you have to have.

[Ice9]

Okay, so the first thing that comes to my mind is giving people morale penalties to their rolls for not having talked to people much lately, but there are some problems with that.

Namely, the other PCs in the party.

This. When you have 3-5 other people around almost all the time, plus followers, plus known friendly NPCs, it's not like you're going to be so starved for human contact that you go searching for anyone, no matter how hazardous, to talk to.

[Fuchs]

If advancement is done by levels when the group agrees to advance, then there's no problem with XP farming since there won't be any xp in the game.