DM: Uh… Hello? Does someone, anyone, help me out here?
Rarity: Just go with it. She’s in the zone. Roleplay!
DM: Wha… But I… This STARE…
Fluttershy: Well??
(beat)
Dragon: …THE RAINBOW PONY STARTED IT.
Rainbow Dash: Yeah! And I’m ready to finish it, too!
Fluttershy: Well, I’m very sorry about that, mister dragon.
Rainbow Dash: Aw, man…
The problem with being a Diplomancer is that it requires all three sides to want to actually listen to what you have to say, and then actually use their brains to parse your words into something agreeable to their goals.
Far easier is it for people to just start swinging weapons. I know, I was a diplomancer in a party of Berzerkers traveling the land of Aggro.
._.
It's usually advisable during diplomancy to appeal to their emotional side as opposed to their logical side, unless you're trying to diplomance with Vulcans.
True, but again all sides have to WANT to listen to you. In my case, both the enemy and my fellow PCs are about as diplomatically skilled as a cow rolling upstairs both ways.
The lowest common denominator is to draw weapons and roll for initiative. :)
The GM says he loves PC diplomancers, but I had to call him out because all the NPCs he's thrown at us haven't bothered to accept my demands to parley. >_>
Ranubis and the Were-rats. He tried to talk his way through, and the party decided that the twitch from the rat meant the he was under attack, so the rat gets a round in the eye. The wizard had been using ghost sound (I think that's what it's called, the one you can project your voice elsewhere) trying to stop the archer. during the fighting, Ranubis is whacking them with the sides of his hammer going "I'm so sorry it came to this."
Just out of curiousity, are knowledge checks ever relevant to your attempts at parley? I find a lot of players never bother with them simply because they assume a "monster knowledge check" requires a minor action. (Worse, I know DMs who insist on it.)
"What do I know about these guys?" can help drag your DM into negotiation. The other players can be trickier, but one option is to ask them, "what do you know about these guys?"
I'm also somewhat fond of the mistaken identity gambit.
"Hey, it's Nanoc the Barbarian Destroyer! Guys, this could solve everything! Did I ever tell you about the time Nanoc fought Tharokke of Balboa? I'd heard NO ONE came back from that one, but hey, here's Nanoc! Dude, you wouldn't believe how much we could use your help right now!"
My view is this: when all else fails, stun your table into silence by taking it as far over the top as you can go. Hook the NPC with flattery, and the PC with curiousity. The reverse can work, but this order tends to be more reliable. Still, the key here is to take the stab-happy out of their comfort zone before you make with the actual sweet talk.
Knowledge checks aren't very relevent with this particular GM. He keeps it so "high-level" that it reads like a Google search entry. :3
However, my character hasn't been "over the top" with her negotiation skills. more level-headed and pushy.
So I'm going to rent a dozer and pull out the stops over by my neighborhood and try your ideas.
I admittedly borrowed the first name from a guy who based his half-orc on a fairly well-known wrestler. It seemed like fair game to use it in turn for the boxer.
And then use the opportunity to be nicer to your new mindslaves than their old employer so that they stay on your side even after the spell wears off. Give new meaning to "Friendship is Magic"
I remember once I stepped forward to play diplomancer with some pretty bad results. We had been teleported into what we quickly discovered was unfriendly territory. My character stepped forward, trying to explain the situation and offered to leave immediately since we didn't know where we were. Our party's barbarian was furious at the insinuation that she might not be able to kill everything this session, and promptly charged the lead baddie.
...Our initial reaction *may* have been to just leave her to die, only stopped when the baddies attacked us (instead of just her) roping us into the fight one way or another.
I have a special massaging shower head you can borrow, but I need it back by Monday. The old nine to five just isn't the same without my little lunch break pick-me-up.
Well, if the dragon wants to start a jazz duo with Fluttershy that plays sleazy jazz, I don't see how that's any worry to anyone except dragon nightclub owners.
Ah, the great wish of many D&D players: being just so darn good at roleplaying that you don't have to roll the dice.
Here's a topic: Think of a time that a DM was so impressed by an idea or conversation, that they allowed it as an automatic success (or so bad they made it an automatic failure).
As a DM, I have implemented "pun damage" in my game. You make a bad pun, your character takes 1 pun damage (nonleathal, no resistance). Your character makes a bad pun, and everyone withing hearing distance makes a save. Succeed, and you grant them combat advantage. Fail, and you make them take 1 pun damage.
Is it possible to get critical puns?
Can pun damage be enchanted into a weapon?
Could an insane wizard invent a spell specifically to deal pun damage?
Are there Pun Elementals?
Is there an elemental plane of pun?
Power word:pun?
Punomancer prestige class?
Wand of puns?
Pun Dragons with their trademark pun breath?
Someone needs to weaponize puns. I'm sure there's a hilarious loophole to exploit.
While I've granted auto-successes at times as the DM (Usually if the idea lends to "Rule of Cool" and isn't plot-breaking), the other GM in the group has never done so. Just not his style I guess.
Dance. Because if we were going to do this, we might as well do it with style 8)
Anyway, this happened during my group's Halloween Extravaganza, something that has become a kind of tradition to do. The week leading up to Halloween, we would hold several game sessions that week (as opposed to just one) with each having another theme going. Examples include the obvious PC + typical (movie) monster template and have an adventure were they are the bad guys. Another is a variant on the drinking game where everyone notes down a famed (fictional) character, passes it to someone else and then they have to role play said character role playing D&D. ROLE PLAY-CEPTION! ^^ (with various effects/bonuses/penalties tied to it)
Of course, these session were also the opportunity to cranck up the silliness/weirdness/humour and everything that happens is considered non-canon (unless the group decides it is canon)
Also Dave, the BARDbarian had joined us for Halloween Extravaganza so awesomeness will follow. Those with a weak constitution are advised to read the following in seperate fragments :)
So one of these sessions start out with the group (just the regular PC's) coming across what's fairly obvious a pastiche of every famous horror movie out there. You got your typical horror movie peasants, swamps, perpetual night with a full moon, fog, castle in the distance with lightning cracking over it, etc.
The group, having got the quest to investigate the murders around the village, walks down a dirt road until they come at a junction where they find a man who's clearly in distress, talking gibberish and shouting random sounds. With some prying and good dice rolls, they finally get the man to form some coherent sentences:
Mike: "Tell us, good man: what's going on here?"
Man: "It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark."
Mike: "What are you trying to say?"
Man: "Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart."
Jim: "What are you blabbering on about?"
Man: "You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it."
Tim: "A vampire? A banshee? what?"
Man: "You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes."
Tim: "A lich?"
Man: "You're paralyzed."
BAM, group becomes stunned and they start combat. Due to them being paralyzed, the man automatically goes first. He summons a bunch of zombies to assist him. Battle goes a bit back and forth until it's Dave's turn.
Dave: "My standard and move action can also be used as minor actions, right?"
Me: "Yeah, but I don't see what you would want to do with 3 minor actions."
Dave: "Okay, first I place my hand on top of my head while looking down."
Me: "Sure..."
Dave: "I then grab my crotch with my other hand."
Me: "Are you going to do what I think you're going to do?"
Dave (with a huge grin): "I start thrusting my pelvis."
And so, Dave held a dance off versus zombie necromancer Micheal Jackson. Billy Jean against Thriller. Billy Jean won, not due to dice rolls or outstanding role playing but because Dave put on the song and started dancing IR. We had to pause the game for 10 minutes to recover from cheering and sides hurting from laughing.
Of course, being Halloween, the group has gone the extra mile and actually dressed up as their characters. Well, nothing major the levels of cosplay but more things like Tim strapping on a cloak, Jim showing up with a sword, helmet and fur rug, etc.
Once, when the rest of my party tried to figure out the best way to negotiate with bar patrons ill-disposed toward "our kind", my low Charisma dwarf threw a sack of gold onto the bar and called out, "A round for everyone, and the rest to the one that can drink me under the table!"
The DM decided that this was exactly the sort of Diplomacy one needed to win over such a rough and wild place. I'd just been hoping for either a bonus to an untrained check or to buy time for someone with better Charisma to work out something.
I remember a great time Chris Perkins did it in the Acquisitions game. The party had found a hellcow (as they called it) that was chewing on a bloodrock boulder. Later on, the hellcow still around, they were chasing a fleeing enemy who had grabbed a treasure chest. He was getting away and then Jim Darkmagic said, "Can I use magic to make him look like one of those rocks that the Hellcow was snacking on earlier?"
Perkins, "You don't even have to roll. That's genius."
Or in the latest PAX live Acquisitions Incorporated where Will Wheaton described what his character does when swinging off a rope. Flying through the ear, doing flips, opening cloak to reveal doves, change into an animal and such. It has to be seen/heard to be believed :p
Sure, being a Diplomancer usually keeps the party alive... but then, sometimes you split the party and the DM apparently kills off the other half of the group when you weren't looking.
C'mon, let Danny dream. It's not like he can smile innocently while DMing the campaign, mostly because we can't see him. Also, because he attacked us with a nightmarish gargoyle.
I personally find it helps to have character equally skilled in the magical schools of diplomancy AND pyromancy. (Yay sorcerers, charisma as a main stat!)
That works pretty well with another character I play: a wild mage sorcerer who's also a bit of a gambler so he favors Bluff/Intimidate instead.
"So either you agree to our terms or I let loose this here little wild magic spell. It might just make it rain or it could burn down the entire city. Wild magic is unpredictable like that. But here's the thing: are you willing to take that chance?"
I mentioned way earlier but one of my favorite and longest lasting D&D characters was a Beguiler, which is like a lot like a sorcerer except mainly only using charm and illusion schools.
So of course I had high diplomacy and bluff. "Do you want to sit down and talk things out? Wait, I don't care what your answers is. You do." =)
You know, I'd always felt a little sympathetic towards the dragon in this episode, but until now it never really hit me exactly what the poor thing went through. (The static images in this comic help.) Now I'm getting those blanket-and-warm-drink urges again...
I'll share a diplomancy story from Pony Team Bravo, over what can be best described as a hostage situation involving one of our players...
We were given a task to go hunt for artifacts by Celestia and were about to board the train to leave Canterlot. Our team doctor, Midnight Moon, suddenly rolls a critical failure perception check. This causes him to fail to notice his pegasus fiancee, rocketing towards him.
At this point, we learn that Midnight Moon comes from a wealthy family. His parents had placed him in an arranged marriage with Platinum Coronet, a crazy, spoiled-rotten, rich pegasus with an obsession for Midnight Moon (one which he does NOT share). He decided to escape this fate by running away, becoming a traveling doctor, eventually winding up with us.
Long story short, Platinum Coronet is hugging (read: holding in a death-grip) our team medic and his status of eligible bachelor is in serious risk, as she's about to drag him away to get married, which would make us miss our train and/or delay the mission, as well as making Midnight Moon's life hell. What's worse, our resident klepto (and general troublemaker) is supporting the marriage idea. A grim situation, indeed.
This is where my character, Night Owl, comes in. He's a gem cutter/polisher by trade and has a partnership over a gem/jewelry shop. So he comes with the brilliant idea of persuading the marriage-crazed pegasus to go visit my partner's shop and buy diamond rings. Two rolls later (one to persuade her that I'm actually a gem cutter/polisher, since apparently I don't look like one), she loves the idea and starts dragging Midnight Moon to the shop. Midnight Moon then manages to convince her to go buy rings for both of them, diffusing the hostage situation and allowing us to board the train, whilst I send my partner a note to sell the most expensive gems we have to her and keep her occupied.
End result: Midnight Moon is still happily un-married, we manage to escape the fiancee and me/my partner make a huge profit from selling two ultra-expensive gems to a spoiled-rich bridezilla.
Everyone is happy, except our resident klepto, who wanted to marry and/or ship them on the spot, for reasons. She later tried to throw Midnight Moon out the window to his fiancee (who was chasing the train, dragging my hapless partner with her).
I think we might have been forced to combat her if we didn't manage to diplomance her. Or perform a rescue of our captive party member. Or a bachelor party.
if she is a pegasus she probably has a way to get where you're going without the train. I doubt this is the last you've seen of her, and if her desperation is high enough, she may cause trouble for you down the road (strike a deal with the villain to get Midnight Moon back).
Well we were worried about her catching up to the train when she started chasing it (she wasn't fast enough, luckily). And yeah, her re-appearing is almost certain to happen. Doubt she'd make alliances with the big bad (considering his very nature): She can probably just use her unlimited funding to achieve better results.
Also, shoutout to Roy and Sam of the Brony Bookclub podcast, along with Lucres of the great fic Ponies Play D&D. You guys are awesome.