Wizzardman
2009-09-05, 09:52 PM
Alright, learned GiantITPforumites, here's my question, and some background to go with it:
So, about a year ago, several of my friends and I were playing a nation-building game, based in a homebrewed setting, and using standard D&D rules as the basic rules for individual characters (the leaders of each player's nation, and said leaders advisors and sidekicks.) Players were encouraged to make "fluff" characters, as national leaders weren't required to personally wage war, negotiate treaties, or anything like that--although, to be fair, those that did would get bonus experience.
My nation, the Primarchy, was a mostly-warforged semi-communist dictatorship revolving around the nation's founder, who also happened to be the guy who created the majority of the people in it. This character, called "the Primarch," was a Warforged Artificer/Juggernaut with permanent Enlarge Person cast upon himself. This build, terrible as it is, meant that he was great for surviving assassination attempts (as he was pretty much immune to most things, and was quite good at making Contingency Spells), awesome for improving the nation's technological edge and military capabilities (via being an artificer), and generally terrible at personal combat or diplomacy (to the point where he had a -1 in Diplomacy despite having four ranks in it).
The problem is, in character, he was one of the few national leaders any good at it.
I'm not saying I was playing him off as the greatest diplomat ever. The Primarch, for all his greatness, was absolutely terrible at jokes, frequently misinterpreted local customs (with hilarious results), failed every diplomacy check he was asked to make, made no attempt to impress people with his wit or intellect, and was quite, quite blunt, as a Warforged Juggernaut should be. However, because he was very much a big, softhearted, nerdforged, and he felt that a good relationship with his neighbors was important for efficiency and growth, he always tried to be very polite to the diplomats and leaders of other nations (to the point of actually addressing self-proclaimed royalty as "your majesty), frequently went out of his way to compromise with them, brought gifts to the leaders of every nation he visited, and things like that. Little things.
And I'm not saying that the leaders and diplomats of the other nations had worse diplomacy scores than he did. Most of them, in fact, had the diplomacy score you'd expect from someone of their level. They just never used them.
Heck, the leader of the local non-evil necromancer state (as odd as that was) was supposedly an incredibly highly skilled diplomat. And yet, at the same time, he rarely compromised, showed little respect for several other national leaders (such as the Empress of the military strong Paladin-based empire directly to my North, whose people were already clammering for the necromancers' destruction), and would frequently engage in what is best described as "tiffs" with other national leaders. The Paladin Empress was little better--in fact, she often provoked or antagonized said Necromancer Leader (whose nation was directly to my south).
Now, I'm not saying they were bad at roleplaying; their actions made a lot of sense, considering. However, it left me wondering:
Is it considered bad roleplaying if a character who has a very low total diplomacy score is good at international diplomacy, but only because he's the only one trying to be friendly and diplomatic?
So, about a year ago, several of my friends and I were playing a nation-building game, based in a homebrewed setting, and using standard D&D rules as the basic rules for individual characters (the leaders of each player's nation, and said leaders advisors and sidekicks.) Players were encouraged to make "fluff" characters, as national leaders weren't required to personally wage war, negotiate treaties, or anything like that--although, to be fair, those that did would get bonus experience.
My nation, the Primarchy, was a mostly-warforged semi-communist dictatorship revolving around the nation's founder, who also happened to be the guy who created the majority of the people in it. This character, called "the Primarch," was a Warforged Artificer/Juggernaut with permanent Enlarge Person cast upon himself. This build, terrible as it is, meant that he was great for surviving assassination attempts (as he was pretty much immune to most things, and was quite good at making Contingency Spells), awesome for improving the nation's technological edge and military capabilities (via being an artificer), and generally terrible at personal combat or diplomacy (to the point where he had a -1 in Diplomacy despite having four ranks in it).
The problem is, in character, he was one of the few national leaders any good at it.
I'm not saying I was playing him off as the greatest diplomat ever. The Primarch, for all his greatness, was absolutely terrible at jokes, frequently misinterpreted local customs (with hilarious results), failed every diplomacy check he was asked to make, made no attempt to impress people with his wit or intellect, and was quite, quite blunt, as a Warforged Juggernaut should be. However, because he was very much a big, softhearted, nerdforged, and he felt that a good relationship with his neighbors was important for efficiency and growth, he always tried to be very polite to the diplomats and leaders of other nations (to the point of actually addressing self-proclaimed royalty as "your majesty), frequently went out of his way to compromise with them, brought gifts to the leaders of every nation he visited, and things like that. Little things.
And I'm not saying that the leaders and diplomats of the other nations had worse diplomacy scores than he did. Most of them, in fact, had the diplomacy score you'd expect from someone of their level. They just never used them.
Heck, the leader of the local non-evil necromancer state (as odd as that was) was supposedly an incredibly highly skilled diplomat. And yet, at the same time, he rarely compromised, showed little respect for several other national leaders (such as the Empress of the military strong Paladin-based empire directly to my North, whose people were already clammering for the necromancers' destruction), and would frequently engage in what is best described as "tiffs" with other national leaders. The Paladin Empress was little better--in fact, she often provoked or antagonized said Necromancer Leader (whose nation was directly to my south).
Now, I'm not saying they were bad at roleplaying; their actions made a lot of sense, considering. However, it left me wondering:
Is it considered bad roleplaying if a character who has a very low total diplomacy score is good at international diplomacy, but only because he's the only one trying to be friendly and diplomatic?