Diplomacy and NPCs

[graeylin]

The diplomacy skill is driving me nuts in a game I DM.

6th level bard with decent diplomacy is sleep walking through NPC encounters with diplomacy checks. It's not hard for him to get a 20, and 30's are routinely rolled.

With a 30 check, he can *RAW* pretty much take an indifferent person and make them helpful, which would include (RAW) giving aid, protecting, aiding, backing them up, etc..

However, that's not my biggest problem. the problem is, he tends to be very bad at Role Playing a bard with a persuasive demeanor. We have worked him past the simple "I make a diplomacy check and get the guard to let us in" to having him at least try to demonstrate a conversation. "So, how about you give an old friend a hand, here, you know, for old times sake? Since I knew your mother, after all, and let us in?"

However, most of his conversations are... poor. Talking to a merchant, let us say, to get a good price on items: "Wow, you charge this much? For that? Okay, I'll give you ten gold instead (diplomacy check, 34)." or "We are looking for information about a thief, and you look like you would know. (diplomacy 29)"

I don't feel right punishing him for having a poor sense of writing charisma (after all, when a fighter tries to kill a monster, I do not require he demonstrate the proper angle of sword play, or actually use a bow without skinning his arm), so how do I advance beyond my problem here, with a really poor writer and really high skills?

And secondly, is there really any good way to stop a diplomat king like this from running through all your low level NPC's like the Pied Piper of Hamlin?

[LTwerewolf]

In our game for all social encounters, we are required to roleplay it. If we are convincing, we don't even roll a check. The roleplay must obviously be in character. The only time we roll a check is to find out how effective it was if it was convincing, or in combat.

[Malak'ai]

Yay for the Diplomancer! They can be really quite annoying sometimes.

In regards to your player not being to RP a decent conversation with an NPC, there's no real advice I can give. Some people are just really good at that aspect of roleplaying, others, myself included, are not the greatest.
As long he IS trying and IS attempting to vary how he does it, do NOT punish him in any way what so ever, it'll just make him revert to the "I bargin with the shopkeeper. *rolls*. I get a 28' style.

If you want to try and help him, get together with him outside of the game (if possible) and do a bit of improve. Sit down and say "Okay, I'll ask you a heap of questions and you have to come up with the most outrageous and convoluted answer you can.
Start off with something easy like, "How does egg beater work?" and have him just rattle off a whole heap of bull. It's just something to get his imagination working.

[theUnearther]

First let me say that you have the right instinct there. The point of there being social skills in the game is to allow players to play as a character that is vastly more sociable than they are. Much like the rules for combat and magic and pretty much every single rule in the game. I am not saying they all work, of course.

That said, diplomacy is one of the worst written skills, it seems. And while it may be a little late for you, may I recommend the fix made by our generous host (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9606632&postcount=2)?
I honestly consider that an actual errata. He's even an official D&D writter! Really! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Burlew#Game_design_credits)

[Karoht]

The diplomacy skill is driving me nuts in a game I DM.

6th level bard with decent diplomacy is sleep walking through NPC encounters with diplomacy checks. It's not hard for him to get a 20, and 30's are routinely rolled.

With a 30 check, he can *RAW* pretty much take an indifferent person and make them helpful, which would include (RAW) giving aid, protecting, aiding, backing them up, etc..

However, that's not my biggest problem. the problem is, he tends to be very bad at Role Playing a bard with a persuasive demeanor. We have worked him past the simple "I make a diplomacy check and get the guard to let us in" to having him at least try to demonstrate a conversation. "So, how about you give an old friend a hand, here, you know, for old times sake? Since I knew your mother, after all, and let us in?"

However, most of his conversations are... poor. Talking to a merchant, let us say, to get a good price on items: "Wow, you charge this much? For that? Okay, I'll give you ten gold instead (diplomacy check, 34)." or "We are looking for information about a thief, and you look like you would know. (diplomacy 29)"

I don't feel right punishing him for having a poor sense of writing charisma (after all, when a fighter tries to kill a monster, I do not require he demonstrate the proper angle of sword play, or actually use a bow without skinning his arm), so how do I advance beyond my problem here, with a really poor writer and really high skills?

And secondly, is there really any good way to stop a diplomat king like this from running through all your low level NPC's like the Pied Piper of Hamlin?

Helpful is described as things the NPC might do, not things they will for certain do in 100% of all cases.
Helpful could also include telling him to go down to the local bueaurocratic office and fill out form 12-C instead of 12-B. Cuts the wait time from 8 weeks to 4.
Sure the guard might let him in. But first he calls over a contingent of armed guards to escort them up to the proper office and asks the party to check their weapons at the front door as per protocol. Again, still helpful.
Helpful could also mean that the guard chooses to NOT cast Detect Evil as per protocol, but still follows all the rest of the proceedures as normal.

Remember. Helpful doesn't mean the NPC becomes a doormat or a slobbering idiot.

Also, Diplomacy only works if the target can hear the player, and understand what they are saying. Three excellent ways to work this.
1-The guards don't speak the language of the Bard. Could be really funny if you have one Guard who is deaf and one who is blind.
2-The guards are too dumb to understand the big words of the Bard, or too distracted to pay attention.
3-The guard is a Golem who has strict programming and doesn't care/is not paying attention to anything the Bard is saying. No shiney magical mcguffin of Identification +5? Golem doesn't react at all. Doesn't move, doesn't change facial expression, nothing. Non-Golem Guards can also have this attitude towards the general public, just play them up as surly and rude and generally not giving a darn.

My other piece of advice in handling a Diplomancer/Bluffomancer?
Have in mind when ever you create an NPC, the exact manner in which this NPC might react if the player rolls any of the positive results on the Diplomacy chart. Keep a similar set of ideas in place for Bluff. Tiny bit more planning might help.

When in doubt, rule of funny. Yes, the Diplo/Bluffomancer won the roll, the minion jumps into action to help.
Ever see that episode of Reboot where Enzo makes everyone in the system really really dumb? If not, just type the following phrase into google or youtube.
"We are helping! We are helping!"
Just don't over do it.

[Ailowynn]

I have the PC in question roll Diplomacy vs. the DC and have the NPCs reaction based off of that. A good roll means the NPC happily accepts the PC, looking to please him; a bad roll and the NPC is initially hostile, even ignoring the PC. The character then RPs the coversation, and I just have the NPC act naturally according to what is said. I love this. It succesfully combines what the player vs what the character can do.

Hope that makes sense, and is helpful.

[killianh]

I've always used the rule that it depends on what situation the NPC is in. If the NPC knows that by telling the group about the thief will get him killed, diplomacy simply won't work (they may take "risks" but not certain death) then intimidate or something similar comes in. A King will care more for his people than the pleading of one bard, and so on.

Being unaffected by diplomacy is no different from golems with spell immunity, or turning down the kind of bribes that high levels characters can offer. If you gave the relevant information to an NPC that has no true risk in sharing the info then let the diplomancer do what they do. If the NPC has trained for the last 20 years to defend the gate, nothing a Diplomancer says will let him by.

[Calimehter]

Eh. I'm going to admit that my ablity to follow up on this discussion after this post will be limited (wedding this weekend!), but this is a point I've often wondered about when Diplomacy conversations come up, so I'm going to have to put it out there and check on it as a can. To put it simply, here's my take on it:

Assuming a high Diplomacy check allows a player to run rampant amongst the NPCs regardless of what he actually says or requests of them . . . is sort of like saying that Leeeeroy Jenkins should defeat all comers just because he has a high to-hit roll.

In grid-based combat that are necessary to master in order to take full advantage of a characters to-hit bonus. There are certain actions a character can take to utterly negate their own statistical advantages. Likewise, in social situations, there are certain things one can say that can add so many negative circumstance modifiers that success is all but impossible. Saying "Hey, bend over b**ch, I rolled a 49 on my Diplomacy check" . . . isn't really any better than saying "Hey, I rolled a 52 to hit, why did I miss the flying dragon with my ground-based charge!". Yes its an extreme example, but I hope it illustrates my point.

I get that some players aren't going to be that great at coming up with charismatic speeches on the fly, but putting *some* effort into plausability and working toward improving on that skill should really be considered on par with telling other players that learning and improving the tactical application of their spells/attacks is important.

Don't get me wrong. The key IMO is effort, and a desire to improve and involve oneself in the game. If someone is trying, I'm all for helping them out, both in combat and in non-combat situations like most Diplomacy checks. I'm not in the OPs group, but it sounds like the problem is that the player in question isn't even making a token effort, and is just abusing RAW . . . without realizing that by RAW the DM could apply enough modifiers by RAW ("DM's best friend" section in the DMG) to expose the sham for what it is.

[hobo386]

I'm personally a fan of a slightly modified version of the Giant's system.

Take the roll, add modifiers based on the the relation, the deal being offered, and how good the argument is, and then let the whole thing play out. You can tweak it to get the desired results, but make sure your player knows the basic rules you are running by (i.e., let him know good roleplaying gets a reward, but don't say the exact number).

You can tweak the modifiers to whatever works best.

Just remember, some people aren't great at roleplaying, or they may not be used to D&D, and that even playing a diplomancer poorly can be more fun than playing a more combat/numbers oriented character sometimes.
Rather than give him harsh penalties, encourage him by giving him a chance to fix checks that he screwed up. So you beefed up the difficulty. He fails his first check? The guard is suspicious, maybe some gold will change his mind. Maybe the guard just needs to know just how important your holy quest is. etc.