AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Then let the roleplay get you all the way there. Fuck the dice.

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Edit: What's the DC for a successful persuasion? The skill modifier doesn't matter for that reason.

Applies to NPCs only, which ar eunde the purview of DMs only, invalid argument, try again

"Why should I care about how high his stealth skill is, if he's hiding behind that tree? I ignore it and just use the dice to detemrien if I can see him."

"Why should I care about his attack modifier? I just look at the dice to see if he grapples me."

"Why should I care what his will save is? I just use the die roll to see if I Dominate him."

Hell yeah, fuck the dice and spend time deeply considering your character's choices, rather than letting them be influenced by some arbitrary number.

You're using straw man arguments, Tormak.

You just said that Persuade is for NPCs only. I can arbitrarily set my own DC for whatever I want. What I choose is 10+their skill modifier. 10 or more means they win me over. 10 or less means they don't.

LetumLux wrote:

You guys really need to actually look at the Diplomacy chart, because it seems like a lot of people misunderstand what Persuade actually does. It changes the shades of attitude; it's not Dominate. Just because someone goes from Neutral to Friendly or Helpful doesn't mean they become your social slave. It means they are inclined to hear you out, where they might not have given you the time of day, otherwise.

Answers are in the link, including how Diplomacy (i.e., Persuade) is meant to to be used on NPCs, not PCs, so the DCs don't matter if you're rolling to show another PC how persuasive your character is. It is just RP hints, like the taste rating on the food in Djedet.

Exactly, Letum. So why is my method inherently worse than anyone else's? I could just simply ignore it and take my character in whatever direction -I- want them to go in. Instead, I'm being blasted for allowing other PCs to influence my characters.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Exactly, Letum. So why is my method inherently worse than anyone else's? I could just simply ignore it and take my character in whatever direction -I- want them to go in. Instead, I'm being blasted for allowing other PCs to influence my characters.

But you're not allowing the PC to affect your character. You're allowing a die roll to affect your character. The PC exists in the +modifier, not the die roll.

No. The PC exists in the roleplay that led up to the dice roll.

I believe the proof is in the pudding.

Uh, my earlier point is that it's becoming increasingly obvious that you like to just play this game however you feel like, so I was just curious why not play WoW instead?

Well, maybe not WoW... but I'm sure there are plenty of other games that don't restrict you so badly that you would have much more fun playing.

I understood your point. I ignored it because you lacked the proper persuade skill for it to have any effect on me.

But he rolled a 14!

I guess I have no choice but to quit. Farewell, everyone!

No, you're right, because Persuade doesn't work on players. I tried my damnedest to help you buy some crossclass Lore, but I don't think you have the skillpoints to spare.

In all seriousness, I wish I had the opportunity to run a tabletop game for you and the other people here who have such serious issues with how D&D actually works, to help alleviate obvious concerns you all have with the game. I think it would be a real eye opener.

Oh good. We've resorted to calling each other stupid. This is new and exciting!

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Oh good. We've resorted to calling each other stupid. This is new and exciting!

I meant the rest of what I said. You can completely enjoy D&D while still observing the statistics involved. I don't know why you have a penchant for blowing them off and touting that this somehow makes you a better roleplayer (it doesn't!). It's about consistency. It's about comparison. It's about extrapolation of events that can be interpreted across the board in the same way, by everybody. It's about having a baseline of objectivity that subjective PC experience is built on.

You say stuff like "I just ignore my stats entirely" and it just makes me wonder why you bother playing this game when you could be doing something far more freeform instead. Would you like to know how it works?

Last edited by alamut on Fri, Mar 29 2013, 6:21 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Please, folks, if you're going to argue something outside my post, do your own post. This is not helping me or the others, sorry to say that.

And finally by saying you can't be using your points you're investing on your Persuade skills to add more flavor on your RP wise to reflect your character affecting another one with a good argument, then why bother to be a RP server instead ? Well that makes me a sad panda and to wish to go for a rebuild and put those skill points over discipline or something else because people will just ignore my rolls and probably the RP within it.

After all your discipline will affect my RP with your toon indirectly as well if I attempt to knockdown you.

To say the last, I think a check will is more appropriate, since it's rather difficult, at least for me, to measure the proper DC over a situation.

Here's an honest question for you, Council. How many times have you roleplayed with me?

Now:
1) I never once said I ignore stats. I actually follow stats quite diligently.
2) I have never said I am a better roleplayer for doing things the way I do.
3) I know exactly how this game works.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

No. The PC exists in the roleplay that led up to the dice roll.

Sounds like the dice roll is inherently useless then!

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Here's an honest question for you, Council. How many times have you roleplayed with me?

irrelevant question, he doesn't need to roleplay w/ you any amount to tellyou what you're doing is dumb

you can do it, but it's dumb and not how you should be doing it if you want to argue listening to the roll

the 'he rolled a 14' comment is EXACTLY WHAT YOU DO and when presented with it you threw a hissy fit. Maybe that should be an indicator that you should re-evaulate what you're doing in game.

my ridiculous argument reductors had their intended point: you called them ridiculous and facetious, which should show you that what you're doing is EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

PS if you follow stats diligently you should be asking them for their base ranks in the skill + stat modifier instead of ignoring it entirely

how do you know it's always mythalled

do you see their inventory

Like do you not understand how INSULTING it is to the person who is roleplaying with you, that you ignore every bit of effort thta their character is putting in to their roleplay, tailoring arguments to their knowledge of your PC, learning, trying to swya you over

and you tell them "fuck it, roll a die, 50/50 odds"

That is INSULTING.

Oh Tormak. Someday you might understand a joke. Nothing I've said here has been remotely close to a hissy fit.

TormakSaber wrote:

Like do you not understand how INSULTING it is to the person who is roleplaying with you, that you ignore every bit of effort thta their character is putting in to their roleplay, tailoring arguments to their knowledge of your PC, learning, trying to swya you over

I like you, Tormak. Really, I do. But learn to fucking read, please?

So Derk if two PCs present the exact same argument and one rolls a die and the other doesn't

how do you respond to the one that didn't roll a die, since we've established that the die roll is 100% chance that doesn't have any bearing on yours or their effort, roleplay, personalities or anything else

by considering how your character would react and RPing it accordingly?

maybe you should just do that in BOTH CASES THEN.

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Oh Tormak. Someday you might understand a joke. Nothing I've said here has been remotely close to a hissy fit.

stop deflecting and answer the criticism

defend your thesis

Like out of 3 posts of completely legitimate argument you pick two words

hissy fit

and ignore the rest

seriously?

DerkDerkistan wrote:

I like you, Tormak. Really, I do. But learn to fucking read, please?

Maybe you need to learn how to read

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I can arbitrarily set my own DC for whatever I want. What I choose is 10+their skill modifier. 10 or more means they win me over. 10 or less means they don't.

does effort matter or not

b/c you said it yourself, all that matters is the 50/50 die roll

I've already told you. Three times now, or something. The roleplay is what matters. What is happening in my scenario is that my character may go one way or another. Either choice fits my character equally. I let the person's roll (after the roleplay that has already convinced my character of -SOMETHING-!) dictate which way my character goes. How hard is that to understand?

TormakSaber wrote:

So Derk if two PCs present the exact same argument and one rolls a die and the other doesn't

how do you respond to the one that didn't roll a die, since we've established that the die roll is 100% chance that doesn't have any bearing on yours or their effort, roleplay, personalities or anything else

by considering how your character would react and RPing it accordingly?

maybe you should just do that in BOTH CASES THEN.

Quote:

Oh Tormak. Someday you might understand a joke. Nothing I've said here has been remotely close to a hissy fit.

stop deflecting and answer the criticism

defend your thesis

Is this argument at the same time? If they're working together, I'd obviously use the context to determine what my character could do. If, by chance, there are multiple things my character would do, I would look at the dice roll and apply the result to both of them.

If these are two separate situations happening completely independent of each other, as in only happening once in the game world (alternate universe sort of thing), then in the case of the one that doesn't roll dice, I'd make the choice myself about how my character reacts and responds.

See, Tormak. My whole point relies on the fact that this other PC has already swayed me with their roleplay, but there are multiple ways that my character would potentially react. Instead of choosing one myself, I'm letting the other player choose it.

Last edited by TormakSaber on Fri, Mar 29 2013, 6:54 AM, edited 1 time in total.

I refuse to roll the die.

Deprived of your 50/50 chance how does your character reatc to the argument

Now just do that every time and get rid of the die.

Like seriously, it isn't hard. Of course there's multiple ways for characters to react. Pick the most appropriate and Ic based on your most intimate knowledge of the character.

You don't need dice.

You jut need a developed character.

If your character is so on the fence that you use dice to decide it every time then just have you rPC roll a die i ncharacter and take it IC. Done. Now your PC has a new hook: He's incredibly unreliable.

The point is, in the situation you describe, your inclination should be towards learning how persuasive the other character is. How much effort and investment they've put into making themselves skilled at something. Looking at the unmodified die roll doesn't really involve the other PC at all, or even the other player. A character's modifier is reflective of something about the character; a player's die roll is not.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Instead of choosing one myself, I'm letting the other player choose it.

But you're not. What "choice" is there in a 50/50 die roll? The other player's *choice* was made in the decision to either invest character resources in Persuade, or to invest them somewhere else. That's the choice you should be acknowledging, not the meaningless die roll.

You're not seeing the point.

It has nothing to do with the dice roll, modifier or no. It has everything to do with the in character roleplay that person has presented to me. I use the dice roll for myself, to determine which option I pick for my character when there are multiple ways to deal with it. The dice roll doesn't matter. The roleplay does. Apparently none of you have been able to understand when I say that my character has (and I'll all caps for emphasis so you don't overlook it again) ALREADY BEEN CONVINCED OF SOMETHING. That means the persuade check was ALREADY SUCCESSFUL.

I could just as easily make the decision on my own without looking at the dice roll.

>_>

<_<

Everyone. Group hug. Nao.

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I could just as easily make the decision on my own without looking at the dice roll.

DO THIS

PROBLEM SOLVED

NO MORE ARBITRARY DICE

Why does it matter to you so much how I do it, Tormak?

Simmer down, people.

Triple posts! Where dat edit function.

Palin489 wrote:

Triple posts! Where dat edit function.

Yeah, sorry, I'd been posting heavily on another forum where there's no edit function and common discourse is to just rapidfire posts.

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Why does it matter to you so much how I do it, Tormak?

Because your roleplay ripples out and affects other around you. You owe it to the community to not throw your character's important decisions on a die, instead of the development and the personality of your character, unless your character's roleplay is literally deciding decisions on the roll of a die.

If you're at the point where the only way you can decide how your character would react to an argument is to roll a die, then maybe you need to evaluate your character's personality a bit more to where you know how they're going to react.

P.S. your arguments are uttelry inconsistent, at one point you claim the situation is that he's already ocnvinced, and in another moment you say things like

Quote:

I can arbitrarily set my own DC for whatever I want. What I choose is 10+their skill modifier. 10 or more means they win me over. 10 or less means they don't.

So you'll just have to pardon all us idiots for not being able to comprehend you when you can't keep your explanations straight.

It was brought to my attention that perhaps it's difficult to tell where my humor and snarkiness end and my seriousness begins. That's my fault, and I'm sorry.

That particular passage was snark, Tormak. To point out that figuring out what should succeed and what should fail is completely arbitrary and silly to argue over. It was my way of saying that there is no wrong way to decide how a dice roll like that (read: social roll where there is no proper NWN counter) is taken since there is no counterweight to it other than the other player's ideas.

I was going to post something here earlier, but then i got dragged to a cinema and stuff. And now you are close to making the Korean peninsula look like a place of harmony and mutual understanding.

Anyway, as a player with a few chars who have invested in social skills I'll say this: Diplomacy (persuade in nwn) is designed to be used against NPC's and not PC's, so in theory it is quite allright to ignore persuasion rolls. However, I find it poor courtesy to do so. And I find it even poorer courtesy for players who have not invested any ranks in persuade RP very persuasive characters. You char with high int or high wisdom may present excellent and sound arguments, but they should not be inherently persuasive people unless they have purchased ranks in that skill. Or taken the Diplomat job. But worse than all those things are Roll Play. Persuade is not a win button, it is a skill that influences NPC perception of your character, as has been mentioned before. Bluff should not exist in nwn as it is a combat skill used with the feint manouver rather than a social skill.

What I think could be helpful would be to consider how many ranks a character has purchased in a skill, as that represent the actual investment. Anyone can get gear and mythal it to insane heights, but ranks + base stat I think provides a much better assesment of the characters skill in any profession.

I guess my point is this: It is quite unfair to not -take into consideration- the investment a character has made in social skills. It does not mean that it should be treated as a win button, but a significant factor in how this character is able to influence your characters attitude towards it.

If someone rolls persuade the score simply signals the manner in which it was delivered and nothing about the content. Did your character's voice tremble? Is it monotone and difficult to listen to or like an orgasm for your ear? Does the body language cause me to distrust your character as he fidgeted at an important part? Regardless of how high you roll without convincing arguments you won't persuade my character to change his position on issues he has a firm stance on.

That is my take on it.

Have you never become more sympathetic to something when it was delivered by a really nice and impressive person? Or been biased against something because you identify it with a really unpleasant person? By focusing on the arguments themselves, people are downplaying the person making the argument. Some characters are just the type you want to believe and get along with. Even if the player's portrayal of the PC is mediocre, an investment in Persuade should make you as a player recognize this quality of the PC and react accordingly. This is not a competition of who role-plays best, it's a shared story and we should strive to respect what players are trying to portray - even when they're not among our personal Amian All-Stars Role-Players.

A person with high persuade making a suggestion you just can't agree to would probably translate into you dismissing it as a joke (if it's ridiculous) or maybe feeling bad and apologetic for having to decline. The way I see it, a high Persuade makes you go "it's not you, it's me" whereas the same unacceptable suggestion from an uncharismatic person would make you think of them as the jerk. It doesn't guarantee success, but it gives you a lot more leeway with blunders.

It's a little cheesy that we can mythal so many skill points onto our gear. But on the other hand, it's pretty clever RP for uncertain characters to boost their confidence and skill with magic items. I've been trying to acquire fitting gear for Joon for just that reason; he needs the magical help to be impressive.

But Devs: would it be possible to get a "Report unmodified Persuade/Bluff/Intimidate" (or why not any skill) added to the Dice Bag? No roll, just the ability to show that you have invested into a skill (maybe allowing for ability modifier)? That would alleviate many common issues.

I don't really see how magic items are supposed to get discounted in this regard. If there's a problem with how insane skills can get because the magic items are cheesy, then reduce the effect of the magic items/mythals instead. Then you don't have to disregard magic out of hand. It's supposed to have an effect.

I rolled a natural 20 to convince you this debate is invalid.

gravitas wrote:

I rolled a natural 20 to convince you this debate is invalid.

Skills don't crit.

I'm still waiting for Ride to be added to the dicebag so I can use it every time someone rolls Charisma.

(Yes, that is a joke.)

Last edited by IronAngel on Fri, Mar 29 2013, 9:37 AM, edited 1 time in total.

CouncilofAutumn wrote:

I don't really see how magic items are supposed to get discounted in this regard. If there's a problem with how insane skills can get because the magic items are cheesy, then reduce the effect of the magic items/mythals instead. Then you don't have to disregard magic out of hand. It's supposed to have an effect.

Well, it's become clear that some people feel they shouldn't have such an affect.

We have no reason to decide either way. I don't suggest the current roll be removed. An additional report function gives the power to the people in those situations to do as they please. If they want to disregard magic items and show their investment is genuine, why should we stop them? These aren't the kind of decisions a centralized bureaucracy should settle.

Xaviera can be very persuasive with her ride skill.

Pony in my Kraut wrote:

Xaviera can be very persuasive with her ride skill.

Let's have a little class here.
She's like eighty.

Persuade skill

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