Diplomacy should be a combat skill

[V_K]

I mean, let's be real: dialog skills are boring. You're either playing "guess what the designer meant by this dialog option" or not playing at all and just choosing the option tagged with your highest skill. And then, failing to meet an arbitrary or even random threshold, you're either forced into combat you can't win or instakilled immediately.

But it dawned on me recently that it'd actually be very easy to fix dialog skills: just make them combat skills. As in, to be used in actual, regular combat.

It seems so obvious that I'm surprised no RPG - to my knowledge at least - has done that yet. I mean, you even have some precursors in older game, like parlaying with monsters in Magic Candle or language skills in Daggerfall, but they're still very binary and not terribly developed. What I'm thinking of is that it'd be quite easy to give the character a handful of spell-like diplomatic abilities to use on sentient enemies. Something like intimidating them into fleeing, taunting them into losing concentration, manipulating them to turn on each other, persuading to look the other way, or, hell, even bribing and charming them into joining your party, why not. The benefits are manifold: diplomacy gets much meatier gameplay, and at the same time many dialog situations where you have to persuade a hostile entity can now be abstracted to combats, saving the devs the trouble of writing and voicing dialogs. Moreover, many emergent situations are now possible, like e.g. beating someone into submission, which previously required scripting but can be done systemically by e.g. making the difficulty for intimidation lower the more damage you deal to the opponent. Granted, diplomacy only works on sentient beings, but it wouldn't be that hard to develop similar (but different enough) skills for handling animals or robots.

EDIT: I'm not talking about a separate "dialog combat" minigame, but of making diplomacy part of regular combat encounters.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

you mean like D&D has had for years?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Butter]

So attack them for a while to soften them up, then throw your pokeball use your flirt skill for maximum effect? Are you roleplaying Bobby Brown?

 

[V_K]

So attack them for a while to soften them up, then throw your pokeball use your flirt skill for maximum effect? Are you roleplaying Bobby Brown?

Well, you could track different statistics like, say morale and hostility. Successful physical attacks would lower the former and raise the latter, making intimidating actions easier, while peace-making actions harder. Unsuccessful attacks in turn could raise both (i.e. proving to the enemy that you're not only a jerk, but also a wimp). That's up to a particular game's implementation, and I'm not designing one. I'm just throwing this idea of diplomacy as a combat skill out there and wondering why no PC RPG has implemented something like that yet.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

V_K
Diplomacy during combat is the core mechanic of Shin Megami Tensei series, you might want to try it out.
The downside is that it's one of the core option in the combat (like use item, escape, etc.) so it's not a skill per se. There is no way to not be able to do it and ways to boost it are rather limited.
Final Fantasy Tactics also had "Arbiter" job which could be used to recruit hostile creatures, but I never tried it so I can't so anything other than that it exists. You can try it if you're interested.

 

[V_K]

Edit: Although it looks like I have misunderstood your question since I just skimmed it. You are asking about dialog skills being used in combat specifically not separate dialog gameplay systems. Oh well, I will leave my response anyway because I think it is an interesting topic.

Yep, consideration of the complications that arise from having a separate dialog minigame are part of how I came up with this idea of having diplomacy in combat. In a system like this, you could still have dialog checks the way they are, but not worry about designing a dialog solution to every quest or about dialog skills becoming dump skills if you don't.

But I've changed the post title to better reflect my point.

V_K
Diplomacy during combat is the core mechanic of Shin Megami Tensei series, you might want to try it out.
The downside is that it's one of the core option in the combat (like use item, escape, etc.) so it's not a skill per se. There is no way to not be able to do it and ways to boost it are rather limited.
Final Fantasy Tactics also had "Arbiter" job which could be used to recruit hostile creatures, but I never tried it so I can't so anything other than that it exists. You can try it if you're interested.

I mean, in principle, a number of similar mechanics is already implemented in mind control spells - like charm humanoid or calm animal, so in such systems having combat diplomacy could be redundant (but then again, damage-dealing spells don't make weapon attacks redundant, so there's no reason the two systems couldn't be mechanically different enough). But e.g. in a hard sci-fi setting without magic a diplomacy-based "magic" could work really well to extend the range of combat options.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I mean, in principle, a number of similar mechanics is already implemented in mind control spells - like charm humanoid or calm animal, so in such systems having combat diplomacy could be redundant (but then again, damage-dealing spells don't make weapon attacks redundant, so there's no reason the two systems couldn't be mechanically different enough). But e.g. in a hard sci-fi setting without magic a diplomacy-based "magic" could work really well to extend the range of combat options.

Demon negotiation in SMT is not really comparable to charm spells in your usual RPG. The main difference is that it's used to recruiting demons, who are usually the only party members you can rely one besides MC and his partner (if there is any).

 

[Tigranes]

How exactly will tacking on a shittier, shallower combat minigame improve the situation?

"This game has great car races but shitty melee combat. The solution is obviously to turn the melee combat into a really bare-bones version of the car race."

 

[V_K]

How exactly will tacking on a shittier, shallower combat minigame improve the situation?

"This game has great car races but shitty melee combat. The solution is obviously to turn the melee combat into a really bare-bones version of the car race."

Not a version. A part of.
People seem to really be hard on reading comprehension today.

 

[CappenVarra]

yes, but won't rats still be immune to it?

 

[V_K]

yes, but won't rats still be immune to it?

Granted, diplomacy only works on sentient beings, but it wouldn't be that hard to develop similar (but different enough) skills for handling animals or robots.

It's one option, something like "animal training" skill.
Another is to keep dialog checks in addition to combat uses - so that it might not equally useful for all combat encounters, but balances that by letting you bypass some of them.

 

[mondblut]

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

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.

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

 

[Metronome]

How exactly will tacking on a shittier, shallower combat minigame improve the situation?

"This game has great car races but shitty melee combat. The solution is obviously to turn the melee combat into a really bare-bones version of the car race."

You could say the same thing for magic or whatever else we already add in regularly.

 

[Starwars]

The Crisis system in Tides of Numenera was interesting in this regard but of course it ended up being very undercooked.

Everyone's favorite RPG The Outer Worlds has passive effects from the dialogue skills that trigger in combat. It's a nice enough idea for the type of game it is but as with many things in that game, it's just designed in a way that you're not very liable to notice much of an effect of it.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

I mean, let's be real: dialog skills are boring.

They are there for worldbuilding and roleplaying reasons. They are important but not as important as combat, and they will never be.

 

[Delterius]

you mean like D&D has had for years?

yes but i want to speech people to death

like on the internet

 

[V_K]

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.

you even have some precursors in older game, like parlaying with monsters in Magic Candle or language skills in Daggerfall, but they're still very binary and not terribly developed.

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

Because roleplaying? By this logic, non-magic classes should be gone as well, because why waste your turn on whacking one enemy when you can fireball several at a time?
Besides, all the examples I'm citing in the OP are rather major debuffs. Minor debuffs (and buffs) are a cancer whatever their source.

yes but i want to speech people to death

like on the internet

You're wisecracking, but isn't being able to talk the big bad into suicide something that Fallout gets a lot of praise for?

 

[Delterius]

You're wisecracking

I'm not really.

 

[mondblut]

Because roleplaying?

Haha, what?

By this logic, non-magic classes should be gone as well, because why waste your turn on whacking one enemy when you can fireball several at a time?

In the long run, dualclassing all warriors into wizards is indeed the optimal strategy whenever a game does allow that.

Still, enemies immune to a +5 vorpal sword of slay everything to their head are far less numerous than those immune to fire. Even if not immune, against solitaire bosses a fighter is usually more effective than a mage (because those single-target save-or-die spells never work and, as a consquence, never memorized in a vancian system). And against a mob of chaff, a fighter can mow through them on autocombat without so much as a scratch.

And you never run out of sword strikes.

Besides, all the examples I'm citing in the OP are rather major debuffs. Minor debuffs (and buffs) are a cancer whatever their source.

If "LOL ur mom is fat" was a major debuff, the Codex would have been an apocalyptic battleground with hundreds of fatal casualties.

You're wisecracking, but isn't being able to talk the big bad into suicide something that Fallout gets a lot of praise for?

I find it terribly cringeworthy.

If Fallout was made today, the Master would respond "LOL, fake news!" and attack you.

 

[V_K]

If "LOL ur mom is fat" was a major debuff, the Codex would have been an apocalyptic battleground with hundreds of fatal casualties.

Implying that Codex has a high charisma and speech skill. LOL.

If Fallout was made today, the Master would respond "LOL, fake news!" and attack you.

Implying game design has improved since Fallout. ROFL.

 

[mondblut]

Implying game design has improved since Fallout. ROFL.

Implying that people who believe passionately into something would not automatically dismiss any evidences to the contrary as lies and enemy propaganda. LMAO.

Fallout is very naive about human nature.

 

[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. If you aim to convince with actual arguments, then the player should be presented with an actual dialogue tree where he can try to persuade the NPC. Lock different branches of the tree if the player doesn't have all the information or items to unlock it (can't use an argument about how the NPCs friend is actually shittalking him if the PC does not even know the NPC has that friend, for example. Can't threaten the NPC with a magic staff if you don't have one, etc.) and offer alternate solutions (there can be different ways to convince the NPC. If you can convince him, then perhaps you can bribe him, etc.). The diplomacy skill in cRPGs became the equivalent of PnP's "I roll to persuade him" – no decent GM will let that shit stand, yet having it as an actual mechanic in cRPGs is supposed to be fine? Hell no. Throw away the diplomacy skill and put in proper care and effort into the dialogue tree.

 

[†††]

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

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

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.