Diplomacy on PC's | EN World Tabletop RPG News & Reviews

High diplomacy skills should not be ignored by two interacting PCs, but conversation should not be reduced to die rolls either.

The problem that we run into is that some *players* have ... very ... low ... charisma scores. Their characters may be very charismatic, but the players tend to act awkwardly, rudely or meanly. If the player doesn't know how to act nice, it is hard for them to roleplay a nice character.

When the uncharismatic player tries to have their charismatic character do something rude or inappropriate, you have to rely upon the dice a bit to figure out how other characters would see it.

I'd figure out what relationship the PCs share. Is it unfriendly, indifferent, friendly or helpful? Then I would modify this relationship negatively if the requested action is offensive, rude or extremely awkward. Generally, if the request would tick me off, I apply this penalty. In the current example, I'd probably move the starting block for the diplomacy check down one level towards hostile.

Then, I'd have the 'princess' character roll a diplomacy check and check it against the 'Influencing NPC Attitudes' table.

If the result was 'friendly' or 'helpful', I'd tell the target player something along the lines of "The Princess does look very tired. Even though her request is a bit rude, you're surprised to find yourself feeling sorry for her. Can you think of anything that will help her tired feet?"

If the result was 'indifferent', I'd probably tell the target player, 'The princess is making more of her demands, but you're not particularly moved by them.'

If the result was 'unfriendly', I'd probably tell the target player, 'The princess is making demands of you. It is really getting under your skin.'

If the result was 'hostile', I'd probably tell the target player, 'That whiny princess had the audacity to demand that you carry her around. That demand was the straw that broke the camel's back. You've lost your cool. Do you storm off angrily, yell at her or attack her?'

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