Diplomacy should be a combat skill

[Deleted Member 22431]

Taunting has been around forever. Kenders in Dragonlance goldbox games, for instance. Or the parlay skill in Celtic Tales that was supposedly useful both in diplomatic missions and for taunting enemies in combat.

But it was never done right. Imagine how awesome it would be with proper voice acting. I would waste a few APs to talk shit in the middle of a fight.

 

[mondblut]

Imagine how awesome it would be with proper voice acting.

No.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Imagine how awesome it would be with proper voice acting.

No.

You say that because you are thinking in some effeminate soy boy with purple hair.

 

[mondblut]

Imagine how awesome it would be with proper voice acting.

No.

You say that because you are thinking in some effeminate soy boy with purple hair.

I say that because voice acting is crap and bloats the development and localization costs for next to no gain beyond getting mouthbreathing 'tards excited... the first couple of times.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I say that because voice acting is crap and bloats the development and localization costs for next to no gain beyond getting mouthbreathing 'tards excited... the first couple of times.

But we are not actual developers. We are armchair developers. In an ideal world with money to burn and good execution, it would be a cool feature.

 

[thesecret1]

Diplomacy shouldn't even be a skill, it's just nonsense that abstracts the whole matter. If how convincing you are depends on some of your aspects (like being buff if you want to intimidate someone) then it should be derived from your other stats.

Maybe one could make a case for the specialization of speech skills. Think about it. People are not persuasive in general, they are persuasive in their own domains. You don't have generic persuasion skills because they are dependent on actual experience or knowledge. Diplomacy is not different from lawyering, to mention one of many possible examples. In this sense, diplomacy is not an abstraction, but persuasion is. You may not like it, but in this case, the problem is the lack of abstraction.

People use different angles to try to persuade someone – some may try to placate the person, others may try intimidating him, some may try to confuse or impress him and so on. All of which can be handled by the appropriate stats. After all, it's how people generally act in real life too – a skinny wimp is not likely to try intimidating a stranger. A clever person will try to twist logic to frame the situation differently rather than going for seduction and so on. The exception of course is when you think you have a key piece of information that should convince the person on its own, ie you don't need to bullshit your way past him, you actually have a solid argument. Now, why have a generic persuasion skill to abstract this all away? For what purpose? You already have the stats you need to cover the different angles, and getting a solid argument should be a reward gained during your exploration of the game, as you actually learn new facts. Why have an ugly guy with no charisma pass a seduction check just because he has a lot of points in persuasion – what is the abstraction even meant to portray in that situation? That the line "Let's get it on, hot stuff" uttered by Grinch's uglier brother was said so eloquently that it actually worked?

 

[mondblut]

In an ideal world with money to burn and good execution, it would be a cool feature.

In an ideal world with money to burn, there are still better venues to burn that money on. Pretty much all of them are, in fact.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Imagine how awesome it would be with proper voice acting.

No.

You say that because you are thinking in some effeminate soy boy with purple hair.

I say that because voice acting is crap and bloats the development and localization costs for next to no gain beyond getting mouthbreathing 'tards excited... the first couple of times.

non-SAG voice acting is cheap and there's no reason to speak anything other than american

 

[mondblut]

non-SAG voice acting is cheap

Why would you want to hear some moron mumbling?

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

People use different angles to try to persuade someone – some may try to placate the person, others may try intimidating him, some may try to confuse or impress him and so on. All of which can be handled by the appropriate stats.

The only relevant stats that affect persuasion in the real world are intelligence, charisma and appearance. On top of that, you need to actually understand the subject at hand in order to convince people. of course, there are dudes like Frédéric Bourdin, but they are the exception to the norm, and their bullshit skills only work among laymen.

Now, why have a generic persuasion skill to abstract this all away? For what purpose? You already have the stats you need to cover the different angles, and getting a solid argument should be a reward gained during your exploration of the game, as you actually learn new facts.

Some cRPGs already involve a synergy between the appropriate stats and the skills.

Why have an ugly guy with no charisma pass a seduction check just because he has a lot of points in persuasion – what is the abstraction even meant to portray in that situation?

That a person can be well liked even though she is not convincing at all.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

non-SAG voice acting is cheap

Why would you want to hear some moron mumbling?

Skyrim is an example of SAG voice acting.

 

[Butter]

Diplomacy shouldn't even be a skill, it's just nonsense that abstracts the whole matter. If how convincing you are depends on some of your aspects (like being buff if you want to intimidate someone) then it should be derived from your other stats.

Maybe one could make a case for the specialization of speech skills. Think about it. People are not persuasive in general, they are persuasive in their own domains. You don't have generic persuasion skills because they are dependent on actual experience or knowledge. Diplomacy is not different from lawyering, to mention one of many possible examples. In this sense, diplomacy is not an abstraction, but persuasion is. You may not like it, but in this case, the problem is the lack of abstraction.

People use different angles to try to persuade someone – some may try to placate the person, others may try intimidating him, some may try to confuse or impress him and so on. All of which can be handled by the appropriate stats. After all, it's how people generally act in real life too – a skinny wimp is not likely to try intimidating a stranger. A clever person will try to twist logic to frame the situation differently rather than going for seduction and so on. The exception of course is when you think you have a key piece of information that should convince the person on its own, ie you don't need to bullshit your way past him, you actually have a solid argument. Now, why have a generic persuasion skill to abstract this all away? For what purpose? You already have the stats you need to cover the different angles, and getting a solid argument should be a reward gained during your exploration of the game, as you actually learn new facts. Why have an ugly guy with no charisma pass a seduction check just because he has a lot of points in persuasion – what is the abstraction even meant to portray in that situation? That the line "Let's get it on, hot stuff" uttered by Grinch's uglier brother was said so eloquently that it actually worked?

So what you're actually talking about is just having multiple speech skills. I'm pretty sure everyone can get behind that.

 

[mondblut]

non-SAG voice acting is cheap

Why would you want to hear some moron mumbling?

Skyrim is an example of SAG voice acting.

And you expect it to be improved if random hobos and schoolgirls were hired instead?

 

[Funposter]

a "call the enemy a faggot" button is an awesome idea tbh

the entire appeal of Skyrim was that you got to shout memes and even then Bethesda didn't tie dragon shouts to the Speech skill

 

[Yosharian]

It seems so obvious that I'm surprised no RPG - to my knowledge at least - has done that yet.

Weeeelll technically Pathfinder has always had an in-game use for the Intimidate skill (called Demoralize, it can potentially inflict a status effect on the enemy). And you can actually use Diplomacy in combat, too, though it only changes enemies from Hostile to Unfriendly, so it's not a guaranteed win or anything.

The Kingmaker CRPG packages these skills together and includes the Demoralize ability. And actually the Demoralize mechanic is part of one of the strongest feats in the game.

So yeah. We already got a game that does that.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It seems so obvious that I'm surprised no RPG - to my knowledge at least - has done that yet.

Weeeelll technically Pathfinder has always had an in-game use for the Intimidate skill (called Demoralize, it can potentially inflict a status effect on the enemy). And you can actually use Diplomacy in combat, too, though it only changes enemies from Hostile to Unfriendly, so it's not a guaranteed win or anything.

The Kingmaker CRPG packages these skills together and includes the Demoralize ability. And actually the Demoralize mechanic is part of one of the strongest feats in the game.

So yeah. We already got a game that does that.

ah very original ideas from this "Pathfinder" game, who knows where they could have possibly gotten these ideas from

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

ARACHNIDS WILL NOT BE SWEET TALKED INTO GIVING UP THE TREASURES.

 

[Yosharian]

It seems so obvious that I'm surprised no RPG - to my knowledge at least - has done that yet.

Weeeelll technically Pathfinder has always had an in-game use for the Intimidate skill (called Demoralize, it can potentially inflict a status effect on the enemy). And you can actually use Diplomacy in combat, too, though it only changes enemies from Hostile to Unfriendly, so it's not a guaranteed win or anything.

The Kingmaker CRPG packages these skills together and includes the Demoralize ability. And actually the Demoralize mechanic is part of one of the strongest feats in the game.

So yeah. We already got a game that does that.

ah very original ideas from this "Pathfinder" game, who knows where they could have possibly gotten these ideas from

I never said they were original, obviously they are copied from D&D that's the entire point of Pathfinder

I am merely pointing out that Kingmaker has this functionality built into it

 

[V_K]

It seems so obvious that I'm surprised no RPG - to my knowledge at least - has done that yet.

Weeeelll technically Pathfinder has always had an in-game use for the Intimidate skill (called Demoralize, it can potentially inflict a status effect on the enemy). And you can actually use Diplomacy in combat, too, though it only changes enemies from Hostile to Unfriendly, so it's not a guaranteed win or anything.

The Kingmaker CRPG packages these skills together and includes the Demoralize ability. And actually the Demoralize mechanic is part of one of the strongest feats in the game.

So yeah. We already got a game that does that.

We've already discussed that - there are a few games that have one or two diplomacy-related combat abilities, but while it is a step in the right direction, it's all still very binary and tacked upon. You can rarely win a combat by diplomacy alone, and it rarely makes sense to use the skill more than once in a battle. I'm talking about something more robust, with at least a handful of diplomatic abilities with different effects.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Icewater]

The distinction between "combat skills" and "non-combat skills" is entirely artificial and shouldn't exist. Ideally, every skill would be both usable and useful, both inside and outside of combat. Think using Intimidate as a Taunt ability, Diplomacy to a fake a surrender or convince someone that the fight started by accident and that you should both put away your weapons and talk things over, etc.

 

[V_K]

It seems so obvious that I'm surprised no RPG - to my knowledge at least - has done that yet.

Weeeelll technically Pathfinder has always had an in-game use for the Intimidate skill (called Demoralize, it can potentially inflict a status effect on the enemy). And you can actually use Diplomacy in combat, too, though it only changes enemies from Hostile to Unfriendly, so it's not a guaranteed win or anything.

The Kingmaker CRPG packages these skills together and includes the Demoralize ability. And actually the Demoralize mechanic is part of one of the strongest feats in the game.

So yeah. We already got a game that does that.

We've already discussed that - there are a few games that have one or two diplomacy-related combat abilities, but while it is a step in the right direction, it's all still very binary and tacked upon. You can rarely win a combat by diplomacy alone, and it rarely makes sense to use the skill more than once in a battle. I'm talking about something more robust, with at least a handful of diplomatic abilities with different effects.

not sure what you want actually.

pfk had proper feats to enhance your social utilities in combat. Add thug levels and your intimidate strike fear in enemies. Add 1 feat and you can make intimidate aoe ability centered at you. Add another and you can make it automatic each time you kill enemy.
It does win fights alone.

bluff and diplomacy are extremely potent on rogue in dnd games as they allow sneak attacks and to shake off aggro. Not sure about extra feats around them in pfk as I didnt play with them there.

Well I haven't played PFK long enough to experience those skills myself. They way Yosharian described it, I understood that it has two diplomatic abilities - demoralize and diplomacy - and the effect of those is somewhat limited. If it does more than that, kudos tot the devs.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

a "call the enemy a faggot" button is an awesome idea tbh

He said it should be a combat skill, not Bioware romance trigger.

 

[Wunderbar]

The Outer Worlds has "cower" mechanic that allows you to scare your enemies during combat (only affects humans).
Too bad it's pretty shallow and useless since it is easier to just shoot your enemies rather than trying to intimidate them.

I think a lot of games has these "yell and scare your enemies" skill, sometimes it even tied to charisma or other talky character stat.
Underrail has it.

 

[infidel]

Thing is, why waste your turn on a minor debuff when you can whack your enemy over the head instead?

What if you can't? Imagine the following encounter - your character, a single LV1 bard versus three LV3 thugs guarding the bridge that you need to pass through. A talker character cannot kill them all but (assuming there is a robust skill- and ability-based talking system) he can:

a) bluff them into letting him pass
b) entertain them with his fart jokes for the same effect
c) make them believe he's down on his luck and "one of them" and let him pass with some pity money they throw his way
d) intimidate them to make them scarce
e) deceive them to make them attack each other (reminds me of that Discworld 1 gate guards scene)
f) leadership their asses to make them follow him as henchmen with the hopes of getting richer this way
etc

And all of that will be systemic and replicable for all of the encounters with intelligent creatures.

The problem, I imagine, is the widespread dogma that combat has to end with a single victory state, that is, with all of your opponents lying dead in a puddle of blood. Now, you could say that all of this is already solved by the dialogue trees, but my counter to that would be that a) dialogue trees are not gameplay, they're boring to "play"; and b) you cannot replicate them cheaply, each dialogue has to be uniquely written by the writers and you cannot hope to make every thug have a fully-fledged one.