Your opinion on diplomatic path in RPGs

As some you may know, I had a discussion with Role-Player regarding diplomacy in RPGs. My opinion is that a diplomatic character should be able to beat a game using nothing but his diplomatic skills. Role-Player's position was that...

Role-Player said:

The point is still the same as in the previous posts - there should be some ways to solve possible confrontations without violence, but this isn't necessary to exist in all situations possibly involving combat, because gamewise, there are things which likely can only be solved in one way, or are beyond are possibilities. Violence is a common, almost universal means to an end

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This is not an attempt to involve more people into our discussion, it's over now, but I was surprised how stronly he felt on that issue, and I'd like to know what other people think.

So, should there be a 100% diplomatic way to go through an entire game?

Aside from collecting things and battling to get them, Ultima often didn't have a "big bad boss guy". That was one of the main appealing points of the game. In the same vein, it should be possible to do the same, but with diplomatic roots.

The Master was a good example in being able to diplomatically handle a situation.

I would suggest, however, that no skill is an uber-skill, not even combat. The combat character could find themselves in deep shit if they really messed things up, whereas a thief could sneak around, and a diplomat could charm their way out. Along these lines, there should be 2-3 solutions for a quest and how to go about them, but NO skill should be uber nor able to solve everything, as should NO stat be uber, and preferably for greater rewards a combination of skills should be available to solve a situation.

It's all about the balancing!

(Then I could also mention branching and variable condition quests, but David Gaider's mind would explode. The poor boy is still hung up on the usual BioWare Fed-Ex and anything else would be "exponentially" more work.)

I think it's all about logic. I think Role-Player brought up one very good point in the other discussion - that there is simply no way one could persuade a demon on a quest to take over the world who has already killed hundreds, thousands, etc. of people. Thus, including a diplomatic option there in the dialog with the demon would be a bit silly. On the other hand there's no reason why you can't persuade someone else to kill the demon instead, and depending on who it is it would make the level of difficulty of persuading that particular person easier (the captain of the town's militia would not do it unless your character is an absolute master persuader, whereas someone like a servant who's treated unfairly by the demon would be a much easier target). That's why I wouldn't fault, for example, ToB's ending, a diplomatic solution would just not be logical there.

Please don't make it like Bg though... even though bard's are supposed to have 17 charisma and there's plenty of room for diplomacy (heck some dialogs are written in diplomatic fashion), and yet you still can't persuade shit out of nobody and you end up with an exotic fighter build

If it's all about logic, I doubt that you can kill a demon who has already killed thousands all by himself either, so it's all about design. Like I said I don't limit diplomacy to asking nicely. There are other ways. I have about 4-6 solutions per quest, and so far 4 skill-based paths through the game.

The game should be solvable by pure diplomacy, like Fallout and, no kidding, ToEE (seriously, Jinxed finished the game without killing a single thing), but that doesn't mean everything in the game should be solvable by diplomacy. Not every quest or situation needs to have a chatty solution.

Doesn't have to be "chatty". Someone's blocking your way, get somebody else to remove him/them for you.

Program it? Not my job. But it is my money.

I'd have to agree with expanding diplomacy and reducing combat. There should be those situations where combat just won't work, and players who can only think in that mode will end up scrapping the game because certain quests or scenarios result in automatic failure, if not outright defeat, if played like a hack-n-slash.

I would also like to see diplomacy options and diplomat characters go beyond lying and having or hiring a posse so you don't get your hands dirty. Kinda ruins the RPing if your pacifist surrounds himself with a bunch of brutal thugs.

Some problems couldn't be solved certains ways but good design would include not making those elements required. If you are ambushed by battle cats you couldn't talk your way out but game shouldn't end if you can't kill them.

First, you don't have to be a pacifist, you may simply lack fighting skills. Second, I agree on the posse thingy. When I said get somebody else to do that for you, I meant some other people, gang, faction, etc. Like I said before, diplomacy is better known for scheming, plotting, and making alliances then for straight forward negotiations.

Edit: Human Shield, I agree, that's the thing I'd like to see the most in games. You are allowed to fail and shouldn't be encouraged to reload.

I agree that sometimes a diplomatic solutions does not work. I think that giving the player the option to solve quests or problems in various ways is the key. Even a great diplomat has to use force on occasion. What if it was reported that that big demon had Weapons of Mass Destruction and could possible use them sometime in the future. I think that everyone would agree that force would be necessary at that point. There would just be no other way to solve the problem. It would be the only logical choice.

It depends on what characters you play and what sort of world they inhabit. Violence and diplomacy should be viable methods of survival in the game (i.e. not having to reload,) but neither option should guarantee a win state.

Rosh said:

NO skill should be uber nor able to solve everything.

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Spazmo said:

Not every quest or situation needs to have a chatty solution.

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This is spot on. Although a diplomatic skill might not allow you to convince a demon to stop terrorizing a town, it should allow you to cajole him into not ripping your head off (avoiding a reload.) Alternately, a particularly stubborn bandit might not give you information on a person kidnapped, no matter how much punishment you dole out.

I faced a similar diplomacy dilemna while in a very real design phase for my very imaginary game. I started thinking about what actually makes a character and in the end I simplified it down to two fields - mental, physical - both equal in importance and usefullness, which can be (sort of) resolved into diplomatic/violent game archetypes. (For example it'd be feasible to have a physical character that used his imposing appearance to persuade enemies to give up loot, or mentalists that cause direct physical damage, as well as mentalist/physicalists that work the way you'd think.)

I mention this because before asking yourself the questions - should I talk, should I fight? - you need to resolve why should I talk, why should I fight?

Civ I Diplo blockade

Vault Dweller said:

First, you don't have to be a pacifist, you may simply lack fighting skills. Second, I agree on the posse thingy. When I said get somebody else to do that for you, I meant some other people, gang, faction, etc. Like I said before, diplomacy is better known for scheming, plotting, and making alliances then for straight forward negotiations.

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Yes, but my point is if you want to play a pacifist it should be possible. A diplomat who gets others to do the fighting is simply using others to do what he cannot or will do himself. That ends up eing pretty limiting and ultimately devolves back to using brute force to solve the problem. Good game design involving diplomacy should transcend this. Though to be sure those options should also be included - the diplo who successfully pits two enemies against each other making his own way easier, etc.

Dipl cahracters should probably be offerd deve trees as robust as combat oreineted characters - deceit, flattery/smooth-talker, persuasion, bullying, debate, etc. This would allow different approaches and different consequences.

Country_Gravy said:

I agree that sometimes a diplomatic solutions does not work. I think that giving the player the option to solve quests or problems in various ways is the key. Even a great diplomat has to use force on occasion. What if it was reported that that big demon had Weapons of Mass Destruction and could possible use them sometime in the future. I think that everyone would agree that force would be necessary at that point. There would just be no other way to solve the problem. It would be the only logical choice.

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*chuckle*

Re: Civ I Diplo blockade

Oyarsa said:

Dipl cahracters should probably be offerd deve trees as robust as combat oreineted characters - deceit, flattery/smooth-talker, persuasion, bullying, debate, etc. This would allow different approaches and different consequences.

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Imo, the most important diplomatic trait is being able to figure out a situation, consequences, and the most beneficial course of actions. Let's say you have a problem, fighter would deal with the problem quickly and efficiently and move on. A diplomat has to seek different ways, and often there are (or should be) more then one, otherwise it get boring just picking the best line in conversations. If you have more then one options, each would come with its own set of consequences and price tags, making you think of your options as much as you think of tactical options in combat.

What do you mean by diplomatic, exactly? Simply a non-violent way to solve a problem, or specificially talking your way through things? If the latter, then where are the stealth, magic, mechanics, science, survival/outdoorsman etc paths?

My opinion is that every problem should have at least two different ways to solve it (two ways that involve the usage of two different skills/abilities, not just "Do you kill group A or group B?"), but all problems in a single game don't necessarily need to be able to be solved with a single skill (whatever that skill is).

As for whether a pacifist option is needed, I think it depends on the style of the game.

There should multiple solutions to most (if not every) quest but not every situation needs a diplomatic solution. That said, combat shouldn't always work either -- which is something basically every RPG gets wrong.

100% diplomatic way to go through an entire game?

Hmmm . If you mean by just talking no.

If you mean by deceit , trickery , bribing , intimidation , dividing and concuering and persuading others to do stuff for you then yes.

I'm a big fan of having multiple solutions to pretty much every problem in a game, but I also think that there's not really any need for one of the solutions to always be diplomacy (nor combat for that matter). To use diplomacy requires a certain knowledge of the situation and the agents involved as well as requiring the second party (or a third party in some cases) that are willing to reason, or open to other suggestions, and I just don't think that's always the case, nor should it be. Like Rosh said, I'm not keen on any super skill that works in every situation and I also believe that there are some situations that can only be solved through use of force (although it doesn't have to be you using the force). In certain situations, stealth and guile could be a "better" way of dealing with the situation, in yet another magic/science and of course by smooth talking in some. Just as I don't expect my mechanical skills to be useful all the time, I don't really see why diplomacy should be any different.

It also depends heavily on the gameworld, in a world populated mostly by human(oid)s you can probably expect more use of diplomacy, bluffing, etc., but in a world with other creatures that might not be open for discussion. To use an Earth example, try reasoning with a crocodile who pops up for a quick bite when you're trying to get a drink of water. In a situation like that, you pretty much only have to options; kill the "beast" or get the hell away from it (fleeing should be an alternative most of the time, no beasts chasing me to the end of the world, except in special cases). An example from a magical world might be an ancient ruin guarded by mindless undead with a singular purpose, kill anything living that enters. While you might be able to hire other people to kill the undead, this requires you to know that they are there in the first place. Travelling with an entourage seems like a prudent thing for a diplomat to do, just in case a situation comes up that can't be solved by silver tongue.,

Azael said:

. To use an Earth example, try reasoning with a crocodile who pops up for a quick bite when you're trying to get a drink of water.

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Carry with you some meat and throw it to him to eat it instead of you ?

But you cannot realise that you can do that unless your diplomatic skill is high ?

MrBrown said:

What do you mean by diplomatic, exactly? Simply a non-violent way to solve a problem, or specificially talking your way through things?

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chrisbeddoes said:

If you mean by deceit , trickery , bribing , intimidation , dividing and concuering and persuading others to do stuff for you then yes.

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The way I see it, It's a speech-related path, but it's not limited to persuasion of a person in question. It's also bribery, intimidation, misdirection, manipulation, framing, alliance-making, impersonating, etc.

If the latter, then where are the stealth, magic, mechanics, science, survival/outdoorsman etc paths?

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Good point. Like I said, I have 4-skill based paths so far: fighter, thief, assassin, diplomat, and con artist.

all problems in a single game don't necessarily need to be able to be solved with a single skill (whatever that skill is).

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No single skills. Even combat usually requires more then one: Specialization, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, etc. Diplomacy should also have many different skills, like bluff, diplomacy, gather info, intimidate, etc. I'm going with diplomacy, streetwise, etiquette, disquise, and spot. Different combinations give different results, naturally.

Azael said:

An example from a magical world might be an ancient ruin guarded by mindless undead with a singular purpose, kill anything living that enters. While you might be able to hire other people to kill the undead, this requires you to know that they are there in the first place.

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You can sneak, you can outrun, you can convince some fools that this area is loaded with loot and while the undead are busy killing the fools, you can go in in style; you can convince a cleric of a local church that the deity ofthe church came to you in a dream requesting cleansing of a once holy area; you can come, investigate, return, and purchase some undead repellent or holy water; if you are cool enough, you can meditate and communicate with a demonic deity and ask it to call off the undead guardians in return for some service, etc.

If there is a will, there is a way.

the thing is that combat, in a decent tactical rpg, can fail despite your skills. In order to maintain parallelism, Diplomacy should as well, but there's no way to do it. Once people realize this, diplo would become a way to allenge the player, and the game becomes a graphical adventure

Vault Dweller said:

This is not an attempt to involve more people into our discussion, it's over now, but I was surprised how stronly he felt on that issue, and I'd like to know what other people think.

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I didn't felt strongly about it, at least no more than i would regarding any other opinion i'd have, if the opinion was being contested in dubious ways.

Anyway, to me diplomacy is a path like any other. And like any path, its only valueable if two conditions are met. One, that the game justifies using it in a credible fashion. Two, that there is opportunity given to the player to use it. What in my view is a mistake is considering that a single, definite path (often nothing more than a skill or a single way of playing) should be ultimate. To me, Fallout, in spite of being a great CRPG, failed in the aspect of considering it viable that i could be diplomatic troughout the entire game. [Note: That is, if you're lenient and decide to ignore that combat situations arised and were unsolvable diplomatically (namely, non-predefined, random combat situations).]

But like any other path, i don't believe it should be possible in under every single situation, and therein lies the problem. Fallout created situations which were possible of being handled in diplomatic means, but it cheapend the experience. The Master was not the type that would strike me as being convinced easilly, and that would go haywire because his plan wasn't exactly a major success. In fact, i even doubt he would not realize the flaws in his own plan.

And unlike what certain past attempts would make it seem, this isn't supporting violence as the only means of character advancement in CRPGs. Its about pointing out that some situations are beyond a character's grasp, and can either be unsolvable (something which seems some people don't accept), or solvable by means unavailable to the characters (which is already used in many CRPGs). Obviously, if a potentially violent situation is unsolvable by other means, than its only solvable trough violence. That doesn't mean violence would be the way to go. In fact, Dhruin put it nicely, by saying "combat shouldn't always work either -- which is something basically every RPG gets wrong" (i already had said something similar if i recall correctly, but what i say tends to be lost in interpretation and subsequent translation). I don't particularly have a preference towards combat or diplomacy, or any other element; i just like it when said elements are well designed. Combat and diplomacy are each a valid mean to playing trough a game; but neither should ever be an ultimate way. One can succeed where the other cannot.

However, whenever someone implies or states element X is badly designed because there isn't a diplomatic mean to solve it, they're forgetting that designing a game, and good game design, goes beyond just adding diplomacy at every turn.

Or so i daresay and think, in a site dedicated to thinkers and sayers.

Greyhawk said:

That's why I wouldn't fault, for example, ToB's ending, a diplomatic solution would just not be logical there.

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I don't agree, actually. It would have required some redesign (like changing, e.g., the fact that the rest of the game is 100% about combat), but it could have worked quite nicely as one possible ending. The LG monk (Balthasar?) is persuadable in Gaider's "Ascension" mod, which is as it should have been in the first damn place, and it wouldn't have been impossible for another Child of Bhaal to have also been persuadable. It would probably have required an additional good- or neutral-aligned Child of Bhaal, but evil-aligned might have been even more interesting - crafting an alliance between Balthasar and an evil Child of Bhaal to prevent the rise of a new evil god. This simply would have had to be a goal in the game design.

Broadly speaking, I see a few problems. Game handling of dialogue and social interactions is still painfully rudimentary relative to the best combat engines (ToEE, e.g.) - and game designers aren't nearly as good at designing social interactions as they are at designing combat interactions. Not only are RPG designers not generally oriented toward social interactions, but designing a social-interactive game requires a game system capable of dealing with much more emergent behavior than any combat challenges can ever provoke. And then, of course, there's the problem of writing: I find most of the writing in computer games, including RPGs, vacillates between inelegance and abject stupidity, and social-interactive games will probably need to prioritize good writing before they'll ever be effective. (For the record, I think PS:T had some examples of great writing and was fairly consistent, which may have something to do with it being one of the few effective "diplomatic" RPGs. I also think that Fallout, for all of its messiness, had a brilliance of plotting that was practically Pynchonesque.)

On the other hand, I think we're fairly forgiving as human beings. We structure our experience through symbolic systems - language, math, music, etc. - and a good game system doesn't need to reproduce human language in order to be a convincing symbolic system for the player. The Sims series, for example, employs a rudimentary emotional language which millions of players seem to find enormously satisfying. I'd be very interested in seeing an RPG attempt at something similar. It might be disastrous, but it could also be intriguing and highly effective in the right sort of game.

suibhne said:

I don't agree, actually. It would have required some redesign (like changing, e.g., the fact that the rest of the game is 100% about combat), but it could have worked quite nicely as one possible ending. The LG monk (Balthasar?) is persuadable in Gaider's "Ascension" mod, which is as it should have been in the first damn place, and it wouldn't have been impossible for another Child of Bhaal to have also been persuadable.

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That was a board suggestion which Gaider apparently agreed with and made; I don't recall it being a design aspect later scrapped.

As for others in the Five being persuaded... In a logical way, Balthasar would have been the only one who could not have been persuaded because of his goal. He was not in it for the same reasons as the others. Yaga-Shura, Gromnir, Sendai, Illasera and Abazigal did it for power and greed, and had no problem working together (no doubt waiting to make a move on each other to topple the power structure of the group). It could be just me, but they all seemed far more prone to diplomatic negotiation than the monk. The Ascension mod in my opinion handles Balthazar poorly, because its one of those "wouldn't it be cool if?..." situations which undo the previous presentation of the character. In a related example, Aribeth in NWN, that was a character which made total sense to be able to be handled diplomatically before she turned onto skimpy outfits and bitchy attitudes.

It would probably have required an additional good- or neutral-aligned Child of Bhaal, but evil-aligned might have been even more interesting - crafting an alliance between Balthasar and an evil Child of Bhaal to prevent the rise of a new evil god. This simply would have had to be a goal in the game design.

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Considering it would work well. Being neutral or evil would likely cause him to doubt your character, specially if you were evil.

Not every situation in a game should be handled by multiple strategies. Sometimes you willl encounter a situation that can be only resolved in one way. Considering that the appeal of most games is combat, I could see that combat will always be a necessary skill. But maybe it shouldn't be necessary to have uber-combat skills to defeat the enemy in this situation. I guess the basic thing to consider is that every creature in a game should have at least a few weaknesses that can be exploited with the proper skills.