Social Combat

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

MGuy wrote:It wasn't a random ass roll made by them existing in the same place with other people.
Why do you keep ignoring my and other peoples' attempts to clarify that it's not 'a random ass roll made by them existing in the same place as other people'? We have given you plenty of examples of how reaction rolls have just as much player agency -- if not more -- than just salami-slicing the proposed component skills and patching them together. So why do you keep pretending that we did not say any of that shit?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

hyzmarca wrote:But either way it's a detente based upon readied actions. You don't see the other guys gun and talk. You're literally pointing guns at each-other's faces at point-blank range such that missing is impossible and hoping that the other guy doesn't bet on your finger not twitching.
Great! You've described the setup. But you're only halfway there. Your goal is to now tell us what possible things can or should happen next and what effect should game mechanics (unless you want to MTP it) have on this outcome.

ProTip: A lot of Mexican standoffs never were. That is, sometimes one or more people draw their guns and gets to shooting even though it looks like there could have been some sincere parley. Please explain how your system handles these occasions -- again, unless you want to MTP it.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
RadiantPhoenix
Prince
Posts: 2668
Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2010 10:33 pm
Location: Trudging up the Hill

Post by RadiantPhoenix »

FrankTrollman wrote:If there isn't a roll to determine whether combat starts that you can influence, you can't prevent combat, you worthless dumbass!
Nitpick: you can if you have an ability that determines success or failure through some other method, like automatically succeeding, or, "do we outnumber them? If so, decide whether combat starts."
hyzmarca wrote:I must point out that the Mexican Standoff, in which both parties roll initiative and then fucking talk with cocked guns pointed at each other is common enough in both fiction and reality that it's something that should be emulatable using any diplomacy rules.
2e compilation pdf wrote:[reaction table]
[...]
Flight: Avoidance, panic, terror, or surrender.
Friendly: Kind, helpful, conciliatory, or simply non-aggressive.
Indifferent: Neutral, bored, businesslike, unconcerned, unimpressed, or simply oblivious.
Cautious: Suspicious, wary, dubious, paranoid, guarded, untrusting, or mildly conciliatory.
Threatening: Boastful, bravado, blustering, intimidating, short-tempered, or bluffing.
Hostile: Irritable, hot-tempered, aggressive, or violent.
For those who aren't familiar with the table:
The table goes from 2 to 20, and a result is generated with 2d10 - X, where X normally ranges from -5 to +7
There are four different columns that you compare the result to, based on how the PCs are acting. (Friendly, Indifferent, Threatening, Hostile)
These are the only six results. Flight only happens when the players are hostile, and friendly never does.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

hyzmarca wrote: Actually, the classic Mexican Standoff involves three characters with readied actions such that whomever attacks first is guaranteed to die at the hands of the one who attacks last.
The typical Mexican Standoff just has three people who are good enough shots with deadly weapons. There are no readied actions involved and initiative doesn't even get rolled. If anyone decides to roll initiative and wins, they still only get to shoot one of the other dudes, and then they get shot in return by the third man. So because actually attacking and shooting first is something of a death sentence, no one has a big incentive to end the talking segment.

-Username17
Grek
Prince
Posts: 3114
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:37 pm

Post by Grek »

So, an attempt at actual fucking rules instead of retarded theory-crafting:
Whenever the party is going to an unfamiliar place where there may be unfriendly people, the party has a Posture, either Friendly or Hostile. To establish a Friendly Posture, you make a DC 20 Knowledge check appropriate for the place they are going (generally local, history or geography, but sometimes religion, planes or even dungeoneering for more unusual locals) or a DC 25 Diplomacy check to know what customs and protocols are appropriate to signal your peaceful intentions. If you follow those customs, your Posture will be Friendly, but if you are unable or unwilling to do so, your Posture defaults to Hostile. It may be possible, subject to DM discretion to Bluff your way out of not following certain customs.

When your Posture is Friendly, any intelligent creature(s) that your party encounters with an attitude of unfriendly or better will not immediately attack you. You can stop and engage them in conversation, or pass them by entirely without the encounter turning into a combat encounter. However, if you encounter a hostile creature it will still attack and gains a +4 circumstance bonus to initiative due to the party being unready for combat.

When your Posture is Hostile, all intelligent creatures you encounter with an attitude of indifferent or worse have their attitudes become one degree more hostile towards the party. If this brings their attitude down to unfriendly or lower, each party member makes an Intimidate check with a DC of 15 + the combined CR of the encountered creature(s). If any party member is successful, the encountered creatures will be too frightened to initiate combat themselves and will be shaken for 3 rounds at the start of combat if they are attacked. If no party member is successful, the encountered creatures behave as per their new attitudes, attacking if they are now hostile and leaving the party alone otherwise.

The party's Posture must be either Friendly OR Hostile. If different party members try to adopt different Postures, treat the party's Posture as that of the majority of its members. If there is a tie, treat the party's Posture as Hostile.

These rules are an addition to the default diplomacy and intimidation rules, not a replacement. Everything in the default rules is still allowed.
Last edited by Grek on Fri Nov 02, 2012 7:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by PhoneLobster »

I am in a dungeon. The local customs are to walk around everywhere weapons in hand destroying the weak and taking their stuff and laughing at their corpses.

I follow this custom. So does everyone else in the Dungeon.

I am always friendly in posture as a result. Everyone likes to stop to chat with me when we meet, or just wave as we pass in the narrow corridors.

However this one time a care bear walked into the dungeon. It's lack of knowledge of the native customs and failure at one or more of a NUMBER of rather high knowledge and skill checks made it hostile by default. It attacked everything on sight, couldn't help itself, and it got a +4 bonus to initiative against us all because of our friendly adherence to local customs of slaughtering each other at the drop of a hat.

Worse still because it was hostile our attitudes toward it all shifted to unfriendly. And we always were forced for "free" to roll what for many were difficulty Intimidate checks or we could NOT initiate combat (whatever that meant) against the vicious care bear presumably giving it like a surprise round or something. AND we would suffer shaken penalties against it for the duration of most combats!

I tried recruiting a care bear of my own into my party of orcs and beholders to act as a diplomat and make peace with the outsider. But though we defied the laws of the universe and recruited one the original foriegn care bear still attacked us on sight, both because our diplomat was not the majority of the party, AND because our diplomat was also defined as hostile because he too did not adhere to local friendly murder customs.

However on the plus side our dipomat's hostile posture meant the rival care bear now also had to make the intimidate check thing or get similarly screwed AND our diplomat got a +4 initiative bonus with which to attempt to shiv our enemies.

Sometimes we wonder why reaction mechanics work like this. But mostly we just hide from the care bear.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
User avatar
hogarth
Prince
Posts: 4582
Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 1:00 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by hogarth »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Why can't it be him hating all 100 of them because he has a violent aversion to people in gorilla suits?
That's entirely possible, but NOT RANDOM.
Lago PARANOIA wrote: Or why can't it be him being indifferent to 80 of the people and liking 20 because he's a friendly guy?
Like I said, liking or not liking indistinguishable people before they have a chance to do anything is completely outside the realm of human experience.
MGuy
Prince
Posts: 4774
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
Location: Indiana

Post by MGuy »

hogarth wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote: Or why can't it be him being indifferent to 80 of the people and liking 20 because he's a friendly guy?
Like I said, liking or not liking indistinguishable people before they have a chance to do anything is completely outside the realm of human experience.
Not for Frank apparently. For Lago social interaction happens between you and a sniper when you're sitting alone at a bench eating a sandwich.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Stubbazubba
Knight-Baron
Posts: 737
Joined: Sat May 07, 2011 6:01 pm
Contact:

Post by Stubbazubba »

MGuy wrote:
hogarth wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote: Or why can't it be him being indifferent to 80 of the people and liking 20 because he's a friendly guy?
Like I said, liking or not liking indistinguishable people before they have a chance to do anything is completely outside the realm of human experience.
Not for Frank apparently. For Lago social interaction happens between you and a sniper when you're sitting alone at a bench eating a sandwich.
Obviously. Haven't you heard all those reports of snipers realizing their targets liked the exact same kind of sandwich they did, thereby empathizing with them way too much to kill? Turns out what kind of sandwich you're eating that day is mostly based on your charisma, too, not, y'know, what you like to eat. What's interesting is how that second part invalidates the sniper's response in the first...
DSMatticus
King
Posts: 5271
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:32 am

Post by DSMatticus »

Wow, PL. That post was terrible. Not only did you fail to understand anything Grek said, the idea that the standard customs for an orc populated dungeon is murdering and looting eachother all the time (as opposed to when angry or drunk) is stupid. Lemme help you out, spoilered for length and because I suspect people are just ignoring your crazy anyway.
PhoneLobster wrote:The local customs are to walk around everywhere weapons in hand destroying the weak and taking their stuff and laughing at their corpses.
So if you enter an orc cave, the orcs' local customs are stabbing and looting eachother indiscriminately (and laughing, of course)? When people say D&D is about murderhobos who go around killing people and taking their things, they mean that the PC's are horrific sociopaths, not that the places they go are full of horrific sociopaths that need put down.
I am always friendly in posture as a result. Everyone likes to stop to chat with me when we meet, or just wave as we pass in the narrow corridors.
See above. The orcs do not actually murder and loot eachother. Nevertheless, you accidentally made a point. Grek should clarify that being seen taking combat/hostile actions makes your posture Hostile.
However this one time a care bear walked into the dungeon. It's lack of knowledge of the native customs and failure at one or more of a NUMBER of rather high knowledge and skill checks made it hostile by default. It attacked everything on sight, couldn't help itself, and it got a +4 bonus to initiative against us all because of our friendly adherence to local customs of slaughtering each other at the drop of a hat.
The fuck? Its posture is Hostile. That doesn't mean the bear is forced to attack anything. Read it again. What that actually means is that all the orcs it meets have their attitude downgraded from indifferent -> unfriendly, and unfriendly -> hostile, which means they will take actions to either 'hinder' the bear or 'hurt' the bear because it is a fucking bear in their fucking house and if there was a bear in my house I would call the police to come 'hinder' or 'hurt' it too, I would not be indifferent and let it to continue to do whatever it was doing. Then the bear rolls an intimidate check that will maybe succeed against a lone orc sometimes and fail basically every other time (Grek's intimidate DC is pretty dumb, in all honesty; two people can't intimidate two other people this way without some serious power disparities, so the DC's are a problem).
Worse still because it was hostile our attitudes toward it all shifted to unfriendly. And we always were forced for "free" to roll what for many were difficulty Intimidate checks or we could NOT initiate combat (whatever that meant) against the vicious care bear presumably giving it like a surprise round or something. AND we would suffer shaken penalties against it for the duration of most combats!
The orcs posture is Friendly because they're running around their own damn homes. Their posture is not shifted to Hostile. Their attitude is shifted to unfriendly or hostile, and they don't get shit in the way of rolls. The bear gets the intimidate rolls, not them. And most importantly; there's no penalty for failing the intimidate check. I have no idea what the fuck you did here, but you basically got it backwards, thinking you have to succeed an intimidate check to attack. No, you get to roll an intimidate check to stop the other person from attacking when you are Hostile.
I tried recruiting a care bear of my own into my party of orcs and beholders to act as a diplomat and make peace with the outsider. But though we defied the laws of the universe and recruited one the original foriegn care bear still attacked us on sight, both because our diplomat was not the majority of the party, AND because our diplomat was also defined as hostile because he too did not adhere to local friendly murder customs.
Well, as covered, your understanding of customs is a shining jewel of stupid in a very, very stupid thread. But beyond that, Grek needs to clarify that only one party member needs to make the check, and can then relay the customs such that everyone can follow them. Because the wording tells me that's probably the intent, but it is slightly unclear, so you are kind of sort of genuinely onto something there.

But beyond that, having a posture of Hostile is not the same thing as being forced to attack everyone you see. If the Hostile-posture care bear wants to attack you, he does with +4 init bonus. If not, and if the orcs were indifferent, their attitude goes down to unfriendly, which means the orcs want to 'hinder' the bear. And they're using their care bear diplomat to do so, by talking it into getting the fuck out, presumably.

Nothing here forces people to take suicidal actions, either (nothing about the attitude system does either. Enemies with an attitude of hostile can run from you, even if they want very badly to hurt you).
Last edited by DSMatticus on Fri Nov 02, 2012 12:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

hogarth wrote:That's entirely possible, but NOT RANDOM.
Are you confused as to what random means? Do you know what a random variable is? Do you know what a probability mass/density function is? Do you know that you can condition a random variable on another random variable such that the outcome doesn't cover the original sample spaces even though it looks like it should?
hogarth wrote:Like I said, liking or not liking indistinguishable people before they have a chance to do anything is completely outside the realm of human experience.
1.) Really? I'd say that that is really fucking consistent with human experience. You may have heard of this concept, it's called prejudice.

2.) Even so, the people aren't indistinguishable. They appear to be to you because you and the DM viewing it through the muddled lenses of a player, but your character probably is detecting things that you aren't. A 'generic' orc might be picking his nose or has a really clear and manly voice or has horrific body order or impeccably groomed armor or whatever the fuck, details that happen in-universe but get clobbered by the Law of Conservation of Detail.

3.) If they really are indistinguishable then in order to save time you should just be making one reaction check.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Stubbazubba wrote:Obviously. Haven't you heard all those reports of snipers realizing their targets liked the exact same kind of sandwich they did, thereby empathizing with them way too much to kill? Turns out what kind of sandwich you're eating that day is mostly based on your charisma, too, not, y'know, what you like to eat. What's interesting is how that second part invalidates the sniper's response in the first...
I see you're still flogging that stupid strawman. In case you've forgotten:
Red_Rob wrote:
Stubbazubba wrote:FrankTrollman has also implied, Lago, that the reaction roll has nothing to do with stuff like that. He claims it is an associated mechanic, so when it's pretty much a Charisma check, it's mostly based on the NPCs initial opinion of the PCs alone. The NPC's background never comes into it. Explaining how the NPCs react to your Charisma by changing the NPC background doesn't make sense, and it is not an element of the reaction roll.
:bash:
Are you intentionally being obtuse? I'll break it down real simple for you.

The reaction roll is composed of two parts: a die roll, and a charisma modifier. Okay?

The die roll represents the NPC's current state of mind. This is essentially how he feels today, which up until the die roll has not been modelled in the game. Why he feels this way is up to the DM to ad-lib once the die has fallen. High roll? Maybe it's his daughters wedding today. Low roll? Maybe he's just lost all his wages betting on dice. This is completely associated, in the same way that rolling a random encounter of some bandits means that there were bandits here all along, not they suddenly appeared to fight you. Vast swathes of RPG reality are undefined at any one time until the dice reveal how things were all along.

Now, the second part is the Charisma modifier. This represents how your personal presentation, body language and general "charm" alters his impression of you. High Charisma people are more likely to make friends than low charisma people. This is totally associated.

Now, you can add other modifiers like "Is racist against Elves, -4 to reaction rolls against parties that include elves", however none of this makes reaction rolls dissociated. So can we stop this bullshit that reaction rolls magically involve your characters altering the past?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
PhoneLobster
King
Posts: 6403
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by PhoneLobster »

DSMatticus wrote:When eople say D&D is about murderhobos who go around killing people and taking their things, they mean that the PC's are horrific sociopaths, not that the places they go are full of horrific sociopaths that need put down.
You both fail to understand the basic concept of a parable and also give D&D settings FAR more credit than they deserve. Dungeon of meanies is totally a setting and one that the other side of this stupid argument have been leaning on as a crutch with the murder hobo references. So really. Shut the fuck up you are making a fool of yourself.
Nevertheless, you accidentally made a point. Grek should clarify that being seen taking combat/hostile actions makes your posture Hostile.
No, that was rather deliberate, indeed the greater part of the whole point of the post. Nice to see you picked it up, not so great you are so stupid as not to understand it was deliberate.

Now "clarifying" is questionable since he has already implied with the variety of knowledge checks that local customs could include some rather... questionable... activities, and actually local customs SHOULD include such things. If his system DOESN'T support local cultures where carrying around weapons or taking various threatening is perfectly normal then he has a system that cannot represent many D&D settings.
The fuck? Its posture is Hostile. That doesn't mean the bear is forced to attack anything. Read it again.
Hm...
grek wrote:When your Posture is Friendly, any intelligent creature(s) that your party encounters with an attitude of unfriendly or better will not immediately attack you.
That seems to imply hostile creatures WILL immediately attack you, I wonder if there are any other...
[quote="grek] However, if you encounter a hostile creature it will still attack and gains a +4 circumstance bonus to initiative due to the party being unready for combat. [/quote]
...Oh my so the care bare WILL immediately attack you BECAUSE it is indeed hostile, and indeed will SO immediately attack you as to gain a +4 circumstance bonus unless YOU are ready to immediately attack it back.

Which you won't be if you know adhere to or even accidentally adhere to the local customs.

Because everyone knows that combat readiness is about wearing a fashionable hat and knowing how to politely greet your elders.
What that actually means is that all the orcs it meets have their attitude downgraded from indifferent -> unfriendly, and unfriendly -> hostile.
No. That's just something that ALSO happens. The described reaction system ALSO requires the care bear to attack on sight. AND then it gets the downgrade.

Also there is the whole oversight where starting attitudes are set by local cultural adherence and you only get to pick the two extremes, so basically no one is unfriendly or indifferent except by GM fiat overriding or adding to the written system anyway.
The bear gets the intimidate rolls, not them.
I read the cluster fuck language in his cluster fuck intimidate check wrong. So sue me. It's a minor detail in an all round incredibly bad mechanical example and the "correct" reading isn't precisely better. Might even be worse.

Meanwhile YOU mistakenly read my paragraph right there and told me I was wrong to say their attitude shifted to hostile when the bear attacked them because it was hostile, which is incorrect, because as I noted, and said, it shifted to UNFRIENDLY.
But beyond that, Grek needs to clarify that only one party member needs to make the check, and can then relay the customs such that everyone can follow them.
Ah. More "clarifying" or rather, you making up things he didn't say.

But to be clear. I didn't even intend to outline the whole knowledge check cluster fuck, which it IS a clusterfuck of genuinely diverse bullshit checks, not being shared.

The simple majority rule thing totally undermines the presence of a diplomat as a party face in any shape or form. Bringing a specialist elf diplomat does NOT please elves, your whole team has to pull shenanigans. Or rather... a slim majority does, the remaining 49% of your team can totally wear necklaces of severed elf heads and scream "I WILL EAT YOUR ELF BABIES NOW!" and that does not seem to effect things.
But beyond that, having a posture of Hostile is not the same thing as being forced to attack everyone you see.
Except that is how he wrote it.

Also that is how people will play it. Especially since that is how he wrote it.

Also yes, these are supposedly the same attitudes as from d20. And yeah the FIRST action on the list for hostile is "Attack".

If you are trying for the defense of "the most hostile status achievable in this reaction system is NOT one that makes things attack, and even when you know, the guy specifically said that's what hostile things do twice in his description of it". Then I'm afraid your system is fucking stupider than ever because if the most hostile response it generates is "Ah fuck it do what you like, hug or something, we don't care it's up to your personal bullshit interpretation" then you've fucking failed harder than ever.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Fri Nov 02, 2012 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

PhoneLobster wrote:Because a reaction system that generates sensible results is no better than arbitrary GM fiat generated reactions. But if DOES apparently involve rolling a 100,000 sided dice, applying enough modifiers to accurately simulate Lee Harvy Oswald and elaborate accounting for clustered distributions of results for some sorts of similar contexts within limited specific time frames.

All cost. No benefit. With elaborate randomised reaction mechanics we don't need a defense of how it CAN be almost as good as just not doing it, we need an explanation of how the hell it is BETTER than just not doing it.
You have this almost entirely backwards PL. The pro-fiat crowd are asserting that the GM should have a detailed catalogue of the likes, dislikes and daily routine of every NPC no matter how minor in order to make an informed decision about how they would react to unexpected encounters with random groups. Whereas the reaction roll crowd are saying "roll on the table and make up these facts to fit the roll." You know, like we do with every other aspect of RPG's from attack rolls to knowledge checks to random encounters.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
DSMatticus
King
Posts: 5271
Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:32 am

Post by DSMatticus »

Well, PL, I understand why you are fucking up so much at everything you are trying to say here. The terms Hostile and Friendly (capitalized) Grek used to represent posture are not the same terms described in the hostile and friendly attitude sections of core and do not imply eachother at all. You also seem to think hostile means "violent regardless of circumstance," where it actually means "actively wishes and will take action to harm you," which is largely dependent on circumstance.

There's more, but deciphering the origins of your fuck ups so I can explain them to you is hard work I just don't want to do.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Username17 »

hogarth wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote:Why can't it be him hating all 100 of them because he has a violent aversion to people in gorilla suits?
That's entirely possible, but NOT RANDOM.
Lago PARANOIA wrote: Or why can't it be him being indifferent to 80 of the people and liking 20 because he's a friendly guy?
Like I said, liking or not liking indistinguishable people before they have a chance to do anything is completely outside the realm of human experience.
Wow. If it wasn't completely obvious that you were either being deliberately disingenuous or completely stupid before, it totally is now. First of all: unlike social reactions, ballistics is in fact completely deterministic. Fire an arrow with the same wind intensity, the same angle, and the same force and it will in fact hit the same target every single time. No exceptions. Nevertheless, we roll attack rolls. Even though it is in reality outside of human experience for an object thrown into "indistinguishable" ballistic paths to land in different locations, we know that during combat the paths will be different every time.

Human interactions are way more so. Meeting the same person can indeed lead to different reactions. One time you greet them warmly and talk about Knicks games or something for half an hour, another time you brush them off rudely and run off to put change in your parking meter.

Once you've accepted the use of a random number generator to model ballistic trajectories (which are in fact deterministic in reality), it's pretty fucking insane to get your panties in a bunch about using a random number generator to model interpersonal relations (which are in fact literally statistical in the real world as far as we can tell).

-Username17
sabs
Duke
Posts: 2347
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:01 pm
Location: Delaware

Post by sabs »

Not to mention, just because they're in identical gorilla suits does not mean they are indistinguishable. Some large percentage of our social interaction has to do with body language. This is why online/text based communicaton causes so many issues. Those 100 gorilla people are not going to be standing exactly the same distance from you, in exactly the same physical pose. Not to mention, people are contrary bastards, and you might decide you like gorilla 5, more than gorilla 6 for no obvious reason other than the light shining off the leaves behind him.

There is basically no such thing as 'before they have a chance to do anything' when it comes to interacting with other people. You approached them, they were doing something as you approached, even if that something was just standing still, shifting their weight from foot to foot.
User avatar
hogarth
Prince
Posts: 4582
Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 1:00 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by hogarth »

FrankTrollman wrote: Human interactions are way more so. Meeting the same person can indeed lead to different reactions. One time you greet them warmly and talk about Knicks games or something for half an hour, another time you brush them off rudely and run off to put change in your parking meter.
Frank, stop changing my example. I'm not talking about meeting the same person multiple times, I'm talking about meeting multiple (seemingly) identical people simultaneously. Do you have any comments on that situation other than "that's impossible lol"?
sake wrote:There is basically no such thing as 'before they have a chance to do anything' when it comes to interacting with other people.
I agree 100%, which is why Frank's system (which insists on a "before you can do anything" clause) is impossibly stupid.
Last edited by hogarth on Fri Nov 02, 2012 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Red_Rob
Prince
Posts: 2594
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 pm

Post by Red_Rob »

hogarth wrote:I'm not talking about meeting the same person multiple times, I'm talking about meeting multiple (seemingly) identical people simultaneously. Do you have any comments on that situation other than "that's impossible lol"?
Hogarth, do you really believe that anyone is proposing that when a party of 8 meets a party of 8 that you are supposed to make 64 seperate reaction rolls? What the fuck kind of retarded straw man is that?
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

Try our fantasy card game Clash of Nations! Available via Print on Demand.

“Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” - Voltaire
sabs
Duke
Posts: 2347
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:01 pm
Location: Delaware

Post by sabs »

You're still wrong Hogarth. There's no such thing as seemingly identical people. Fuck, people even react differently to identical twins.

Frank's System of "before you can do anything" clause is to represent the various and assundry random 'things' they might be doing. Scratching their balls, picking their nose, body odor, grooming differences, etc. One guy might have shifty eyes. Or Red Hair, fucking Gingers.

One orc might have darker green skin than another. He might also be having a bad day, because his lady orc left him for a well hung ogre.
Grek
Prince
Posts: 3114
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 10:37 pm

Post by Grek »

The correct customs for not getting into swordfights in an orc cave is going to be something like "Put your weapons away, keep a torch out and regularly have someone yell "We come in peace!" in orcish. I guess there could be some kind of culture where pointing your sword at whoever you meet and insulting them is considered a culturally appropriate begining to a peaceful negotiation which is expected to result in no weapons ever actually getting used, but that's seriously not the norm and you shouldn't use it as the general case.

If some sort of hyper-intelligent bear wanders into a cave decides to be Hostile (or just fails all its skill checks, whatever) that means that it gets to make a difficult intimidate check which, if successful, will keep pissant orcs from bothering it but will make any group of orcs large enough to be unafraid of the bear to it become unfriendly or hostile towards the bear because it's an angry fucking bear up in their cave.

DSM is correct in that I should probably have specified that only ONE party member has to make the check to find out what the customs are. And I should probably put in an "or flee" at the end of the "will immediately attack" bit at the end of the hostile posture section, because apparently people will assume "and flies into a bezerker rage making it incapable of fear or retreat" if I don't.
Last edited by Grek on Fri Nov 02, 2012 4:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Chamomile wrote:Grek is a national treasure.
User avatar
hogarth
Prince
Posts: 4582
Joined: Wed May 27, 2009 1:00 pm
Location: Toronto

Post by hogarth »

sabs wrote:You're still wrong Hogarth. There's no such thing as seemingly identical people.
In real life? Maybe you have bad vision and left your glasses at home, or maybe it's a costume party.

In D&D? Doppelgangers, hats of disguise, Polymorph, Clone, Simulacrum, etc., etc.

At any rate, you're missing the point. The stupid part is that in any group of people you randomly love some of them and hate some of them, regardless of any visual cues (or audio cues or scent cues or whatever).
Red Rob wrote:Hogarth, do you really believe that anyone is proposing that when a party of 8 meets a party of 8 that you are supposed to make 64 seperate reaction rolls?
How the fuck should I know? It's not my system. But if I had to guess, yes, I'd imagine that in any sane system there would be the possibility of a NPC liking one PC and disliking another.
Last edited by hogarth on Fri Nov 02, 2012 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Foxwarrior
Duke
Posts: 1626
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 8:54 am
Location: RPG City, USA

Post by Foxwarrior »

Some people seem to think that rolling initiative is something you do when you want to know what order things happen in for short timeframes, and Frank seems to think that rolling initiative is something you do when the combat music starts.

Stop it, Frank. The "horrible" flaws with mexican standoffs that your interpretation prevents are that the person who chooses to shoot first shoots first (or last, I'm not entirely clear on the order), and none of the people are flat-footed. And all you seem to gain is that people can presciently know when they're in battle?
Last edited by Foxwarrior on Fri Nov 02, 2012 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
sabs
Duke
Posts: 2347
Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2010 8:01 pm
Location: Delaware

Post by sabs »

I have bad vision, and I still respond to visual and other cues. Even blind people respond to different people based on smells/sound.
...You Lost Me
Duke
Posts: 1854
Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:21 am

Post by ...You Lost Me »

I have bad vision, and I have mistaken certain people for other people. Even within 1m.

Yay anecdotes!
DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.
Kaelik wrote:I invented saying mean things about Tussock.
Post Reply