Reverse Diplomacy

[The Rugi]

I know how Diplomacy works. You make a Diplomacy check and it changes a creature's attitude towards you, depending on how you rolled. I also read Rich's article on a better Diplomacy, which I do like over the how Diplomacy works right now (or in 3.5e, whatever).

But what about the opposite?

If an NPC offers something tangible to a player in exchange for something, they will more likely than not go for it even if the character might think it's a bad idea. Oh please, Mr. Chaotic Evil person, please save my wife from a horde of oddly well organized orcs, and I'll give you a bunch of exp for it. Sure, random stranger who I've never met before nor care about! I could sure use some more exp!

And say an NPC offers something intangible to a player in exchange for something. If an NPC tries to seduce a PC for information or some item, it's very easy for the player to simply refuse, even if it might not be that easy for the character. The player loses something in exchange for a service that offers no tangible benefits other than briefly turning the campaign into depraved fanfiction (is that a benefit?). Or I could just dryly state that the two of you have sex, now make a fortitude save vs. disease. (See Shamus Young)

How would a DM handle a situation like this? And I don't want it to be up to the DM. I'd much rather have the result determined by a roll of some sort. Any solution to this would also better handle Charm Person cases too, when it's used on the player.

[Oracle_Hunter]

How is this "Reverse Diplomacy?"

How would a DM handle a situation like this? And I don't want it to be up to the DM. I'd much rather have the result determined by a roll of some sort. Any solution to this would also better handle Charm Person cases too, when it's used on the player.

In general, Players dislike their autonomy being overridden by the DM. Rolling to see whether your Players take a quest or not is unlikely to go over well with your Players. So, if you are asking about using Diplomacy Checks on PCs I'd advise against it.

If the question is how to motivate your Players to do things their Characters should want to do, then that's just a question of roleplaying. Getting your Players to play their Characters is an Art that mostly centers around getting them interested in playing their characters, followed by making that sort of RP relevant for the game experience.

Which is it?

[valadil]

In general, Players dislike their autonomy being overridden by the DM. Rolling to see whether your Players take a quest or not is unlikely to go over well with your Players.

Word. I think the most you can do is tell them the offer is tempting, but leave the decision up to them. And I wouldn't even go that far. I'd make the offer, give in to some of their haggling, and let them come to the conclusion that it's tempting.

[The Rugi]

Hmm...Alright...BUT! How about if the player him/herself doesn't want to make a decision, and wants to roll to see if his/her character agrees with a deal or not?

[valadil]

Hmm...Alright...BUT! How about if the player him/herself doesn't want to make a decision, and wants to roll to see if his/her character agrees with a deal or not?

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. By which I mean, yes it's valid for the player to submit to the diplomacy skill of an NPC.

Personally though, I think that if you reach that point the player isn't really interested in what you've offered and you should try harder. You want the players to think that a quest or option sounds like a lot of fun. So much so that they will find an in character justification to take the option. Letting the dice decide communicates to you that they aren't interested and are just going with the flow.

[The Rugi]

Well, okay, the main reason I'm asking for this is not because of diplomacy in general, like come with me if you want to live, or sell your soul to save your family from a black dragon, but more like diplomacy attempts where you obviously lose something without much benefit but you go with them anyway. Like in the seduction example, it's clearly a trap and the player can see that it is, but shouldn't there be a way to see if your character really falls for it or not? Nonmagically, of course. It's too easy to say you don't, and it'll be incredibly awkward to try to get the player to arbitrarily reconsider to randomly decide if he still wants to go through with his decision.

[randomhero00]

Well you should only roll if you need to. Is there some reason why an NPC should "roll"? Usually its part of the story.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Well, okay, the main reason I'm asking for this is not because of diplomacy in general, like come with me if you want to live, or sell your soul to save your family from a black dragon, but more like diplomacy attempts where you obviously lose something without much benefit but you go with them anyway. Like in the seduction example, it's clearly a trap and the player can see that it is, but shouldn't there be a way to see if your character really falls for it or not? Nonmagically, of course. It's too easy to say you don't, and it'll be incredibly awkward to try to get the player to arbitrarily reconsider to randomly decide if he still wants to go through with his decision.

Like I said - you have to get the Player to play his Character. Dice aren't going to help here.

If the Player doesn't want to make a decision for his Character, tell him to roll whatever he likes to make that decision and do it. A coin-flip will do.

[NichG]

This is why I generally think that RP-determining skills are problematic. Bluff is fine as long as it stays in the regime of 'do you think he's lying or not?', but when it strays into the 'I force you to believe that what I'm saying is fundamentally true!' it gets weird. Same with Diplomacy and determining whether someone is convinced.

The way I generally run it is, Diplomacy is a tool that helps you negotiate, but it isn't the negotiation itself. So for example, a Diplomacy check might tell you 'this NPC will respond more favorably to you if you play some sort of board game while you chat, and he really really wants to get an ivory trade route and is willing to give more for that'. Similarly, if I had an NPC use diplomacy against a PC, I'd say 'okay, the NPC got such and such a diplomacy roll against you, so tell me what your PC really wants right now and what would be an immediate deal-breaker, and the NPC gets to use that information'.

At the end of the day, its up to the PC or NPC whether they take the deal, but the skill helps pave the way. Similarly with Bluff: its a tool that you can use to make the NPC believe that you believe what you're saying, but if you go too far too fast with it it just makes the NPC think you're insane.

Useful bluff: "I've been a double-agent working for your boss this entire time, and I have vital information for you that I'm willing to break cover to get to you."

Useless bluff: "This castle is actually made out of graham crackers. Your strategy should be to use a battalion equipped with decanters of endless water and it'll just melt away. Don't use real weapons though, its protected by a karmic backlash field and you'll just get hurt."

Tricky bluff, could go either way: "Your king is actually a doppelganger." Regardless of whether you succeed this initial check, the NPC will ask 'how do you know?' and whether this works depends on what you say next.

[woodenbandman]

If the diplomacy rules didn't suck it'd be valid to use them against PCs. After all, I can't just decide not to get hit by that sword.

[Pigkappa]

The DM should treat this problem on a case-by-case basis. The PCs don't want to lose the control of their PCs, but they shouldn't be immune to social skills.

If they roleplay their characters with no metagaming, everything would be fine. "That guy asks you to save his family, he rolled high on his Diplomacy check and you find this quest really reasonable"; unless they have good reasons to act in a different way, they should consider that Diplomacy check.

Anyway, players often metagame to save their characters, and the DM needs to find a different solution every time. For example, if a PC is attending an important ceremony and a beatiful woman sits nearby trying to seduce him, and he fails his roll (I'm not even sure what this should be in D&D; Diplomacy vs character level maybe), there should be some consequences even if the player doesn't want the seduction to work. Maybe the PC can tell her to go away, but he would so yelling at her in a really inappropriate manner. Maybe he walks away as soon as possible, but can't stop thinking about her even at night (fatigued for several days).
Each time, the DM should find an interesting way to let the player have control of his character and still make use of the roll result.

[Fiery Diamond]

This is why I generally think that RP-determining skills are problematic. Bluff is fine as long as it stays in the regime of 'do you think he's lying or not?', but when it strays into the 'I force you to believe that what I'm saying is fundamentally true!' it gets weird. Same with Diplomacy and determining whether someone is convinced.

The way I generally run it is, Diplomacy is a tool that helps you negotiate, but it isn't the negotiation itself. So for example, a Diplomacy check might tell you 'this NPC will respond more favorably to you if you play some sort of board game while you chat, and he really really wants to get an ivory trade route and is willing to give more for that'. Similarly, if I had an NPC use diplomacy against a PC, I'd say 'okay, the NPC got such and such a diplomacy roll against you, so tell me what your PC really wants right now and what would be an immediate deal-breaker, and the NPC gets to use that information'.

At the end of the day, its up to the PC or NPC whether they take the deal, but the skill helps pave the way. Similarly with Bluff: its a tool that you can use to make the NPC believe that you believe what you're saying, but if you go too far too fast with it it just makes the NPC think you're insane.

Useful bluff: "I've been a double-agent working for your boss this entire time, and I have vital information for you that I'm willing to break cover to get to you."

Useless bluff: "This castle is actually made out of graham crackers. Your strategy should be to use a battalion equipped with decanters of endless water and it'll just melt away. Don't use real weapons though, its protected by a karmic backlash field and you'll just get hurt."

Tricky bluff, could go either way: "Your king is actually a doppelganger." Regardless of whether you succeed this initial check, the NPC will ask 'how do you know?' and whether this works depends on what you say next.

I wish I'd encountered your way of handling Diplomacy before starting my most recent campaign and establishing how Diplomacy works in it. I like yours better than mine. I also like your interpretation of Bluff.

[Ranos]

Using social abilities on the players works in some systems that let the players set their stakes, where it all depends on how much they're willing to sacrifice and compromise.

Doing this in D&D is a pretty bad idea though.

[PersonMan]

Anyway, players often metagame to save their characters, and the DM needs to find a different solution every time. For example, if a PC is attending an important ceremony and a beatiful woman sits nearby trying to seduce him, and he fails his roll (I'm not even sure what this should be in D&D; Diplomacy vs character level maybe), there should be some consequences even if the player doesn't want the seduction to work. Maybe the PC can tell her to go away, but he would so yelling at her in a really inappropriate manner. Maybe he walks away as soon as possible, but can't stop thinking about her even at night (fatigued for several days).
Each time, the DM should find an interesting way to let the player have control of his character and still make use of the roll result.

Although you still have problems with something like that-it assumes that the character is someone who gets so enraptured by this woman that they barely(or don't) sleep for days. It also gives the player annoying(without magic to get rid of it, but then it's just a slot tax for the spellcaster...) penalties to deal with, especially during combat, for what's essentially a fluff/roleplaying decision. In my opinion, mechanical penalties for that sort of thing are completely absurd I personally wouldn't like that, say, my character Pure McCelibateMonk would be so crazy over a random woman that he couldn't sleep well for days, especially if it's just because she rolled well on some sort of seduction check.

[FelixG]

Question. Do you play with action points?

You could adopt a similar system to exalted. Where the NPCs can use the social skills on the players but it only takes the spending of a single action point to negate it.

This is them just using their immense PC/Heo/Whatever willpower to throw off the non magical compulsion

[Pigkappa]

Although you still have problems with something like that-it assumes that the character is someone who gets so enraptured by this woman that they barely(or don't) sleep for days [...]my character Pure McCelibateMonk would be so crazy over a random woman that he couldn't sleep well for days, especially if it's just because she rolled well on some sort of seduction check.

He could have a bonus for being "Pure McCelibateMonk". In the nWoD system, there are some decent rules for seduction and the defender has some bonuses if he's already engaged, if he has an headache, if the seducer has bad personal hygiene and so on. In D&D 3.5 social interactions are oversimplified.

It also gives the player annoying(without magic to get rid of it, but then it's just a slot tax for the spellcaster...) penalties to deal with, especially during combat, for what's essentially a fluff/roleplaying decision.

Fluff/roleplaying? That woman could be there for some very good reason just to weaken your mental state. It's not easy to be mr Pure McCelibateMonk and you should sometimes feel how difficult it is.

[Severus]

I think in seduction scenarios, it might better to play it as the seducer comes on to them. Don't tell them they're asking anything. If they agree, then roll the seducer's diplomacy check. If they make it, then the character has divulged too much in pillow talk...

Once they've been burned this way, they'll likely be much more cagey in the future, which is exactly what 'experience' is all about.

[Friv]

In a game with a robust social system with checks and balances, using social skills on PCs is okay. In D&D, it would be not entirely unlike having a system where a single die roll decides who wins a fight and who dies. Players who discover that winning or losing comes down to a single die roll with few modifiers could be reasonably upset about it.

D&D's system isn't really in-depth enough to adjudicate PC reactions this way. As a DM, you can easily decide what the already-vague results of a Diplomacy check mean. If you really trust your PCs, you can just present the results of the roll and let them decide how far they're going to take that - this is what I used to do back in Old World of Darkness. I'd tell players "This person seems trustworthy, and she rolled five successes to be persuasive. Decide whether that seems sufficient."

I prefer using robust systems. Even with good players, this system leads to problems - either they metagame to protect themselves, or worse, they metagame to be fooled too much because they're afraid of metagaming to protect themselves.

[PersonMan]

He could have a bonus for being "Pure McCelibateMonk". In the nWoD system, there are some decent rules for seduction and the defender has some bonuses if he's already engaged, if he has an headache, if the seducer has bad personal hygiene and so on. In D&D 3.5 social interactions are oversimplified.

It depends on the system you're using, yes, but unless the system has some sort of thing(like Exalted) to allow you to shrug off these sort of things it's probably going to lead to problems, just because, well, as far as I know, nobody likes to be told "yeah, you want to do it so badly that you can't sleep for days". It's one thing if, say, we're talking about a supernatural being of pure seduction, or magic/spells and the like, because then it's less of "my character wouldn't get seduced like that!" and more of on an unusual situation.

Fluff/roleplaying? That woman could be there for some very good reason just to weaken your mental state. It's not easy to be mr Pure McCelibateMonk and you should sometimes feel how difficult it is.

Well, if they are capable of making someone go without sleep for days because they are so great at seduction, I'd expect them to be using some sort of magic. Unless it's an accepted part of the setting that people can do crazy things even without magic, I'd expect to be told(or given a note that) I'm under some sort of supernatural compulsion, not just that "oh, you don't want to give in? Ok, you're very tired for the next few days".

Personally, I think that one should avoid giving mechanical penalties as consequences for wanting to play specific character types that have no mechanical advantages. It's like making an athlete roll to determine if he works out or binges on sweets instead.

EDIT2: And that decision is just roleplaying, the player is just getting mechanical consequences anyways. If the player was playing a character who would say "oh, yeah, sure", that decision would have(presumably) gotten them out of penalties.

[Telonius]

Here's how I generally handle diplomacy checks for NPCs versus Players.

First off, for the initial interaction, plot determines how I roleplay the NPC. If the Prince is supposed to be their friend, or their enemy, that's how I'll play it. For a random NPC, I roll a check. Roll low, and he acts like a jerk; roll high and he acts like a nice person. Roll medium, and he's probably going to be one of the forgettable masses.

If we're in a situation where an NPC is offering a trade to the characters - that is, when the exchange is NPC-initiated - I'll call for an opposed Diplomacy check. Depending on the results, I'll tell the players one of three things:

"Based on what you know, you think that this is a fairly even deal."
"Based on what you know, you think he's offering you a great deal."
"Based on what you know, you think he's offering you a terrible deal."

Or something along those lines. The players are still free to accept a terrible deal if they want. They're free to ask for even more, even if the deal seems great. "Based on what you know" serves a similar function as "You don't find any traps" - it lets them know it's not absolute truth, just what their characters are perceiving. It gives them another piece of information on which to make their judgment.

[Roderick_BR]

Yeah, I guess the only valid way of a NPC using skills on a PC, is that the DM need to adjust the description of what the PC understands.
Bluff is easier, because the DM needs to "just" lie to the PC (even if the player knows it's not true, it's something he'll have to roleplay). ("He offers you a magical flaming sword for only 1000 GP, it's pretty much a given"/"he offers you a sword he claims to shot magical flames, although he doesn't seens convincent for you").
Diplomacy, on the other hand, is harder. It depends all about DM and player working together for the sake of story. ("He offers you an alliance against a common enemy. It makes sense to join forces at this point, even if you want to rip him open, but he makes a good point of surviving first"/"He tries to convince you to stop fighting and go after something else, but you can't find any good argument to not continue hitting him until he stops moving") After that, it's up to player to interpret what his character is more likely to do.

[NichG]

Personally, I think that one should avoid giving mechanical penalties as consequences for wanting to play specific character types that have no mechanical advantages. It's like making an athlete roll to determine if he works out or binges on sweets instead.

The idea in the scenario is that not being seduced means you keep some sort of plot-important information or whatever out of the hands of the enemy. I don't see a problem with having a mechanical penalty associated with what comes down to a strategic decision.

By choosing to be a particular character type (celibate monk) you actually get to not be seduced which is a gameplay advantage springing entirely from the fluff for your character, whereas the party's lothario bard that gets in bed with every female NPC isn't going to have that option (or at least, not nearly as easily).

[PersonMan]

The idea in the scenario is that not being seduced means you keep some sort of plot-important information or whatever out of the hands of the enemy. I don't see a problem with having a mechanical penalty associated with what comes down to a strategic decision.

By choosing to be a particular character type (celibate monk) you actually get to not be seduced which is a gameplay advantage springing entirely from the fluff for your character, whereas the party's lothario bard that gets in bed with every female NPC isn't going to have that option (or at least, not nearly as easily).

I don't see why being seduced but not giving the information away isn't an option. However, even assuming that it's an all-or-nothing situation, I still think that days worth of exhaustion is a bit much. At best I'd give a smallish penalty for the rest of the night.

In my opinion, benefits or disadvantages gained from playing specific character types should be balanced out by the same type of benefit or disadvantage. In the case of the celibate monk, he may be unable to gain information later(same type of bonus/penalty) or the like, as opposed to take significant combat penalties for several days or draining the resources of the party's casters.

In the same vein, a bard that never turns down a good-looking female will end up in situations where this is a problem, but every now and then he may be able to glean more information from someone or find a new lead.

[NichG]

I don't see why being seduced but not giving the information away isn't an option. However, even assuming that it's an all-or-nothing situation, I still think that days worth of exhaustion is a bit much. At best I'd give a smallish penalty for the rest of the night.

That would be handled using a bluff check in this paradigm, and would be a valid option. As far as the penalty/etc goes, I think thats a matter of taste as to how important one wants to make that particular sequence. If this sort of thing was going to be a part of my games, I'd probably make the mechanics a little different, and use some sort of bidding mechanic for it.

For example, people might have a pool of Social Points that they can bid towards achieving some social success over someone else, and you can try to escape that situation in various ways, either by using social points of your own, sacrificing something else (the exhaustion outcome in this case) to use a character virtue to overcome the situation, or raise the stakes and hope they back out. That way, if you take a mechanical penalty, its because you lost a certain kind of fight (or at least took the equivalent of damage) rather than just being arbitrary.

In my opinion, benefits or disadvantages gained from playing specific character types should be balanced out by the same type of benefit or disadvantage. In the case of the celibate monk, he may be unable to gain information later(same type of bonus/penalty) or the like, as opposed to take significant combat penalties for several days or draining the resources of the party's casters.

In the same vein, a bard that never turns down a good-looking female will end up in situations where this is a problem, but every now and then he may be able to glean more information from someone or find a new lead.

I personally think its uninteresting to block off everything into separate compartments. It tends to increase the feeling of separation between the story of the game and the actual process of play. YMMV of course.

[PersonMan]

That would be handled using a bluff check in this paradigm, and would be a valid option. As far as the penalty/etc goes, I think thats a matter of taste as to how important one wants to make that particular sequence. If this sort of thing was going to be a part of my games, I'd probably make the mechanics a little different, and use some sort of bidding mechanic for it.

For example, people might have a pool of Social Points that they can bid towards achieving some social success over someone else, and you can try to escape that situation in various ways, either by using social points of your own, sacrificing something else (the exhaustion outcome in this case) to use a character virtue to overcome the situation, or raise the stakes and hope they back out. That way, if you take a mechanical penalty, its because you lost a certain kind of fight (or at least took the equivalent of damage) rather than just being arbitrary.

Yeah, essentially the main problem with the proposed situation is that everything comes down to one die roll.

I personally think its uninteresting to block off everything into separate compartments. It tends to increase the feeling of separation between the story of the game and the actual process of play. YMMV of course.

It's less that everything is completely blocked off and more that it's very difficult to balance roleplaying vs mechanical benefits/drawbacks. In my opinion, the only thing making that sort of thing boring is a lack of imagination-simply think up of the consequences of a certain thing(celibate monk), separating them into benefits(no seduction) and drawbacks(out of place in some cultures, for example), using those to make the concept more interesting, rather than just saying "yeah, you don't get seduced so you get mechanical penalties".

Personally, I think that the story of the game and actual play are essentially the same-it's the fluff and crunch that are separated*, for the most part. It's "actual play" that the monk says "no, thanks", but it's also part of the story that he does so. If one wants to intertwine them, they'll have to be careful and really hammer out the details of the fluff(in this case, the "distraction penalty" for days) and see if it works with the fluff of the characters(celibate monk vs promiscuous bard). In this case, the celibate monk would able to say "no thanks" fairly easily, but the bard would find himself really considering the fun he missed later(although I still wouldn't give such a large penalty in this case).

*Could be an issue stemming from our usage of the terms.

[ideasmith]

A GM could offer the players something they want for going along with the NPC's die roll. Experience points, or hero points, or storypath cards, or something else along those lines.

[NichG]

Personally, I think that the story of the game and actual play are essentially the same-it's the fluff and crunch that are separated*, for the most part. It's "actual play" that the monk says "no, thanks", but it's also part of the story that he does so.

*Could be an issue stemming from our usage of the terms.

Well, I think that is the ideal situation, that the story and play are the same. There are tables and entire game systems where it isn't the case though.

4ed skill challenges, for example, wrap the effects of solving an extended problem in many different ways (I search my memory for a way out of the city through the ancient architecture with Knowledge: History! I climb over the wall with Athletics! I trick a guard to let me through with Bluff!) into simple numerical bonuses and a linear track of successes and failures. A good DM of course would make it so the way you solved the problem continues to be integrated into what happens later on (those sewers still exist, that guard remembers being tricked and is annoyed at you, etc) but the system sort of lightly discourages it by compartmentalizing the situation into a discrete 'skill challenge' encounter, with a definite concluding point after which it has either been passed or failed.

[FMArthur]

Diplomacy should never have been a level-scalable effect, or at least should not be exclusively according to level-based stats. It means every peasant is equally easy to convince, and that any adventurer can get whatever he wants from them with ease.

One thing I've been wanting to do, in addition to using Rich's Diplomacy-as-a-transaction idea, is use a "Cooperativeness" stat ranging from -5 to +5, to be applied to Diplomacy rolls made by and made against the person. You can choose any number you like at character creation and the average among NPCs should still be 0, but certain levels of Cooperativeness in a person are more likely to be in certain jobs than others (ie highly-Cooperative prison guards are not exactly sought-after). A person should be able to change, but not instantly; you can change by 1 per month normally, and 1 any time you level-up (people who struggle in adversity and danger are more likely to undergo rapid personal growth).

An adventurer can "optimize" his cooperativeness to be low if he doesn't want to be swayed by others, but he is less likely to be able to get what he wants out of NPCs and will be unable to abuse Diplomacy rules, which as a DM is a desirable outcome anyway. Likewise, someone looking to be a Diplomacy man might find some people less tractable than others, and his own willingness to make an agreement makes him more susceptible to Diplomacy bargaining himself.

I'm probably just going to add this to Rich's Diplomacy rules in my games, because it's easier and less different for my players, but it would make perfect sense to just use this statistic + Charisma for Diplomacy and remove its status as a level-scaling skill in other games.