Ethical question about magic and Diplomacy

[Samael Morgenst]

Mind control is an unquestionably abusive action, although - as for any weapon - it may have its legit or justifiable uses (like self defence).
But what about using magic to bolster your Diplomacy skill?

Technically, diplomacy is about persuasion and should not be able to make people act against their better judgement or moral principles.

Yet, when the Diplomacy check starts exceeding 50, and attitudes start to be changed into Fanatic, the line between persuasion an mind control blurs.

[Curse]

Interesting thought.
I am pondering how that may appear within the world as the characters and NPCs don't know how you rolled. They will recognize that while the spell or magic item is in effect you have a tendency to fascinate people and have otherworldly ways of convincing them so that they will dedicate to your cause.
I think there will probably be these main ways to deal with it:
- societies with a high desire to protect 'weaker' parts of society may try to limit use of these spells as they may cause public disturbance and may be used to spark a rebellion
- some societies will be more of a shark tank and if you are not able to use methods to buff your skills and abilities you are just outmatched and more skilled people will take advantage of you

I am still not sure how much 'free will' you have when dimlomacy is used on you. I tend to view it as far weaker than mind control but I am sure there are people who see it differently ...

[NichG]

This sort of thing is part of why I don't run diplomacy (or negotiations in general) by RAW in 3.5ed.

There should be a space for people whose skills lean towards the 'everybody wins' kinds of interactions that make things like parley and peace negotiations preferable to shooting the messenger before they get to open their mouth. But a skill which acts uni-directionally to 'make the other person X' doesn't model that kind of thing very well. So my version of the Diplomacy skill is more like a combination of information gathering, trust-enforcing, and greasing the wheels - it lets you know what the other person in a negotiation needs or prioritizes, it lets you ensure that people keep their word or at least lets you know what it would take to make them break it when they agree to something with you, and it helps you take back mistakes you might make e.g. accidentally revealing something or accidentally offending someone or even lets you cover for a party member offending someone intentionally.

So magic that boosts someone's Diplomacy (the way I run it) would at worst be like running a Detect Thoughts, except it'd be using things that in principle anyone could infer or discover about a person through gossip and investigation. So the ethical aspects would be similar to things like 'is it ethical to hire a PI to investigate a used car salesman before you go to buy a car from them?'. In certain cases that might be against social norms, mostly based on disparity of power in things where power imbalances are already against norms - e.g. if you used this to seduce someone, you're not treating that relationship as one between equals, so for places where the norm is that those sorts of interactions should be as between equals it'd be against the custom. But for something like a high stakes negotiation between actual diplomats, it'd be as fair as making sure your diplomats have training in how people work and have been provided with the best intel your side has about the situation on the other side.

But that's with how I run it...

If I had to run RAW diplomacy, all negotiations between countries, nobles, etc would be done by written messages rephrased and passed on by intermediaries, because RAW diplomacy basically makes it the smart move (even 'the only sane move' in cases of single-point-of-control organizations and governments) to reject parleys and truces and other 'wait, can we talk about this?' sorts of entreaties.

[redking]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that 3.5e got rid of fanatic status even if it is still in the SRD version.

I don't think it matters and there is no ethical question. It's just very strong persuasion. Also, most DMs will not allow the NPCs to act entirely against their own interest.

[SangoProduction]

The way diplomacy works in real life is to make the other person think their interests align with yours, not to make someone work against their own interests.
This may be through way of convincing them of a new interest, or how it serves their existing interests... or of presenting enough coin, that no matter their original interests, they are better off with your deal.

This is both for competitive and cooperative diplomacy. You want a friend. Make them see how being your friend is good for them. How much fun (or other positive aspects) they could have by being connected with you.
Want them to work for you? Make it worth their while, or call in favors. (Which can be called on, because you did something worth owing a favor for, and thus would likely do it again, if they acted on the call. The same principle as money, but that's more distributed.)
Being a friend can effectively be a favor for this purpose. Their life is positively enriched by you, so a reasonable friend would likewise attempt to do the same for you.
(A good friendship is not quite so "transactional" as is being explained here. But it makes the dynamics easier to explain.)

A character with very good diplomacy is good at convincing people of where their interests ought to align, or where mutual interests are. This is, unfortunately, rather abstracted. And set against a flat number (by RAW).
I personally do not play diplomacy by RAW. But I do use it as basically "flavoring" to social encounters. You roll really well? They take what you said well. Your character makes up for your lack of personal social graces, but won't make up stuff whole cloth.

[Crake]

Yet, when the Diplomacy check starts exceeding 50, and attitudes start to be changed into Fanatic, the line between persuasion an mind control blurs.

Considering that fanaticism is quite literally called out as a mind-affecting effect, i don't think it blurs at all, it's quite explicitly mind control.

That said, I just avoid using the epic skill usages outside of epic games, that solves the silliness of it all.

[MonochromeTiger]

Mind control is an unquestionably abusive action, although - as for any weapon - it may have its legit or justifiable uses (like self defence).
But what about using magic to bolster your Diplomacy skill?

Technically, diplomacy is about persuasion and should not be able to make people act against their better judgement or moral principles.

Yet, when the Diplomacy check starts exceeding 50, and attitudes start to be changed into Fanatic, the line between persuasion an mind control blurs.

You mention the direct counter to the issue in your second line. The stereotypical Diplomancer who can talk Dragons into being their personal servants and leads entire countries like devoted cults is purely a conceit of RAW or the domain of games that are already well beyond the point that anything you do can be considered mundane or reasonable anymore. You've either hit the point that someone is pulling something the DM should, very reasonably, just tell them "no" on or you've hit the point where you're already so powerful the party can casually tell the laws of physics to take the day off and casual mind control is quite possibly one of the least worrying things they have access to.

There is of course the big glaring neon elephant in the room that later systems realized how ridiculous this could be and how contentious it might be if acted on and started throwing in some common sense rules and restrictions like not being able to convince someone if they genuinely aren't willing to listen or bluff someone into believing something they know for a fact is false. Those editions put it back in the realm of "sure, but you'd need magic for it because it makes no sense otherwise" and wash their hands of it.

[Monarch Dodora]

I've always figured that Diplomacy can make someone want to help you, but that's not the same as doing what you ask.

Say an alcoholic tries to beg money for booze off a passerby with a Diplomacy check: he rolls well and adjusts the passerby to "helpful", whereupon the passerby grabs him and manhandles him to the nearest sobriety clinic. :P

[Darg]

Mind control is an unquestionably abusive action, although - as for any weapon - it may have its legit or justifiable uses (like self defence).
But what about using magic to bolster your Diplomacy skill?

Technically, diplomacy is about persuasion and should not be able to make people act against their better judgement or moral principles.

Yet, when the Diplomacy check starts exceeding 50, and attitudes start to be changed into Fanatic, the line between persuasion an mind control blurs.

Not really, the Influencing NPC Attitudes table in the sidebar of the PHB are only basic DCs and "doing whatever you order" isn't any of the possible actions which are still under the control of the DM. Convincing someone to like you is not the same thing as convincing them to be one man against an army. Even dominate monster can't convince someone to do that, but people seem to think turning someone "friendly" means you are their puppet master.

Diplomacy as a skill doesn't make something impossible suddenly possible. You aren't going to convince a power hungry tyrant in 6 seconds to hand you their tyranny to become a simple bean farmer. You might eventually come to that point, but per the DMG the DM has to determine if that is really just 1 roll or 100. That takes time and people get tired of hearing people talk and tune them out or remove themselves or the person.

[AMFV]

Mind control is an unquestionably abusive action, although - as for any weapon - it may have its legit or justifiable uses (like self defence).
But what about using magic to bolster your Diplomacy skill?

Technically, diplomacy is about persuasion and should not be able to make people act against their better judgement or moral principles.

Yet, when the Diplomacy check starts exceeding 50, and attitudes start to be changed into Fanatic, the line between persuasion an mind control blurs.

I think that one of the important things to note, as others have is that "Will Take Risks to Help You" doesn't mean "They do exactly what you want ignoring their own better judgement. Like let's say that you're buttering up a guard captain, and ask them to help you sneak into the king's mansion. He gets you arrested instead, risking potentially your association be discovered, because he thinks that you breaking into the King's mansion is going to lead to your death. He's "Taken a risk to help you" but he has not done what you asked him to.

[RedMage125]

Considering that fanaticism is quite literally called out as a mind-affecting effect, i don't think it blurs at all, it's quite explicitly mind control.

That said, I just avoid using the epic skill usages outside of epic games, that solves the silliness of it all.

This. All of this.

Epic rules shouldn't be used for non-epic characters. The system starts to break down, and skills are absurdly easy to boost.

[Curse]

There might be a very simple test you can always run in case your question comes mainly from player actions:
Let an NPC with similar diplomacy skills use it on any player and determine the outcome the very same way.
There will be a very quick decision about it being ethical or not 🤷

[Biggus]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that 3.5e got rid of fanatic status even if it is still in the SRD version.

I don't think this is true, the 3.5 ELH update doesn't mention it.