Example: You envision your character as being a skilled, veteran demon hunter. In your character’s backstory, he faces off against the fiends of the Abyss and wins; he is reknowned for his demon-hunting prowess. The game’s plot and action also incorporates this assumption of competence.
Ok, so what if you envision your character as a consummate diplomat, secretive yet suave… and all you have on your character sheet are stats like “stabbing people” and “being really strong, in order to stab people better” ? Would you say that such a character sheet “does not support the vision” of the player ? Note that the player’s diplomatic skills would be absolutely useless in combat; and that, depending on the plot, it may be highly unlikely that diplomacy will play any significant role during the course of the game. In fact, in D&D specifically, combat is overwhelmingly more likely to occur than negotiations.
Are you saying that the player should never choose to play a suave diplomat with lots of points in diplomatic-type stats, because “bad feelings would result” ? I have anecdotal evidence to the contrary; though, to be fair, as a GM I do acknowledge that incorporating such characters into the overall campaign can be challenging.
...enduring defeat after defeat in a longer-running campaign is less fun.
Are you saying that the player should never choose to play a suave diplomat with lots of points in diplomatic-type stats, because “bad feelings would result” ?
Upon rereading your comment, I think I understand you here to be asking whether I think people should play suave diplomats with points in diplomatic-type stats but no competence in combat. Is that correct?
If that’s your question, then I do indeed antirecommend such an approach. For one thing, as you say, it’s difficult to incorporate such characters into the campaign (if the campaign features a good deal of combat, and the other player characters are built to be good at combat). In such a scenario, where the suave diplomat is ineffective in combat, bad feelings may indeed result. (Although they don’t necessarily have to. It depends on the balance between combat and non-combat encounters; and on just how effective, or ineffective, the character in question is in combat encounters.)
For another thing, it’s not actually necessary. One of the players in my long-term campaign plays a suave diplomat (he’s the one who recently surprised me by (successfully) taking the diplomatic route out of what I expected to be a combat encounter). However, he is very effective in combat. There isn’t actually any tradeoff here. I have indeed met people who’ve convinced themselves that there is such a tradeoff, and use this as an excuse for their combat ineffectiveness; but it’s just that — an excuse; the tradeoff is not real.
Upon rereading your comment, I think I understand you here to be asking whether I think people should play suave diplomats with points in diplomatic-type stats but no competence in combat. Is that correct? … …but it’s just that — an excuse; the tradeoff is not real.
I don’t know which system specifically you are employing, but in most games, D&D included, there’s indeed a tradeoff between diplomacy and combat (indeed, between most things). For example, if you want to kill the most things with a sword, then Str is your main stat, and Cha is your dump stat. If you choose to put points into Cha, you can still be effective in combat, but you will never be as effective as someone who put all his points into Str.
Even if you roll a Sorcerer or something, who is a Cha-based class, you still have a limited selection of Skills and Feats. Every point that you put into Diplomacy means one less point that you could’ve put into UMD, Spellcraft, or Knowledge: Arcana. And every point you put into Cha still means one less point toward Int or Wis, both of which are useful for a spy. Every time you memorize “Detect Thoughts”, you are losing another spell slot that you could’ve used for “Summon Monster II”.
If your gaming system allows you to be effective at everything at the same time, then I withdraw my objection, but IMO such a system removes too much challenge from the game, thus making it boring. Of course, that’s just my opinion, it’s not my place to tell you what to play or how to play it.
I don’t know which system specifically you are employing
D&D. (3.5 for the games I usually run, Pathfinder as a secondary diversion, which I also refer to as “D&D”; it’s close enough for the moniker to be accurate.)
[stuff about tradeoffs]
Sure, that’s all true. What I meant was not that there are no tradeoffs to make if you want your character to be effective at both combat and things that aren’t combat. Rather, as I said, there is no tradeoff, in the sense that you do not have make a single choice between being effective in combat and being effective at other things. You can do both. You can do both very effectively, in fact, more than effectively enough to succeed at nearly every challenge you face, and negligibly different in overall effectiveness in either domain from your party mates. You might be a little less effective at combat than the purely-combat-focused character, and a little less effective at (that sort of) non-combat stuff than the purely-non-combat-focused character, but just a little.
Of course, the more you try to do, the less effective you get. But the fact is, there is so much low-hanging fruit in both domains (especially the non-combat domain) that you can sacrifice very little combat effectiveness for large gains in other domains. In fact, you might sacrifice nothing in practice; a lot of what you lose is potential combat effectiveness, which may or may not ever translate into actual combat effectiveness.
Anyway, that’s getting a little far afield. The point is, if someone builds a character who is just really bad at combat, and justifies this by saying “but I’m a suave diplomat!”, my question will be: how hard did you try to make this character combat-effective? Did you even try? Most of the time, it will be the case that a skilled player will be able to build a character that is at least as diplomatically effective, and still good in combat!
Because the even larger question (the one that started this subthread, three posts up) is whether someone should deliberately build a suave, diplomatic character who is bad at combat. My answer is no, they should not, unless being bad at combat is a specific goal. Otherwise, it’s grossly unnecessary. Even if you’re suave, diplomatic, and… acceptably competent in combat, that’s still better. And it’s so easy to make that improvement. So, so easy. There’s no reason not to — again, unless you are specifically and deliberately make a combat-ineffective character. (In which case, as I said before, by all means go forth and play how you like.)
What I meant was not that there are no tradeoffs to make if you want your character to be effective at both combat and things that aren’t combat. Rather, as I said, there is no tradeoff, in the sense that you do not have make a single choice between being effective in combat and being effective at other things.
I don’t understand how this can be true. Clearly, you’ve got to make a choice at some point. You could move that “effectiveness” slider toward combat, or toward non-combat, but you can’t have it both ways, given that you have a limited number of points. I would understand if you said something like, “a 10% loss in combat efficiency is acceptable, given a 50% gain in non-combat efficiency”; is that what you’re saying ?
The point is, if someone builds a character who is just really bad at combat, and justifies this by saying “but I’m a suave diplomat!”, my question will be: how hard did you try to make this character combat-effective? Did you even try? … There’s no reason not to — again, unless you are specifically and deliberately make a combat-ineffective character.
That depends entirely on how you perceive the tradeoffs. Is a 10% drop in diplomatic efficiency worth a 50% gain in combat efficiency to you ?
I don’t understand how this can be true. Clearly, you’ve got to make a choice at some point. You could move that “effectiveness” slider toward combat, or toward non-combat, but you can’t have it both ways, given that you have a limited number of points.
Well, one way it can be true is if there isn’t just a single slider. There could be multiple sliders. (In D&D, for instance, there’s the Skills “slider”, and the Feats “slider”, and the class “slider”, and the spell selection “slider”, and a number of others.) Not every slider trades off between combat and something else. Of those that do, not every one of those trades off at the same exchange rate.
For another thing, “non-combat” is not a monolithic thing (I somewhat regret using the term myself). Neither is combat, of course, but it’s closer to being monolithic; non-combat is just literally “everything that isn’t combat”. Social interactions are non-combat. Travel is non-combat. Information-gathering is non-combat. Exploration is non-combat. Trap detection/disabling is non-combat. And so forth.
I would understand if you said something like, “a 10% loss in combat efficiency is acceptable, given a 50% gain in non-combat efficiency”; is that what you’re saying ?
I don’t think that’s exactly what I was saying, but I would assent to a statement like that one (if not necessarily that specific statement).
That depends entirely on how you perceive the tradeoffs. Is a 10% drop in diplomatic efficiency worth a 50% gain in combat efficiency to you ?
Ok, let me try to concretize.
Consider some hypothetical D&D player, call him Bob, who is quite competent at character-building and knows the game system very well. Bob sets out to build a character who is well-nigh godlike in the diplomatic sphere; this character is to be so good at social skills that he could solve the Arab-Israeli conflict forever with naught but smile and a wink.
In pursuit of this goal, Bob pulls out all the stops, making use of every class feature, skill, feat, spell, in short, every last character-building resource he has, to make the character good at Diplomacy and such things. And he succeeds. Unfortunately...
He has nothing left with which to build in any combat effectiveness. Understandable. And any attempt to add combat effectiveness would subtract some diplomatic effectiveness, because every last ounce of character-building stuff has been used up in the social-prowess optimization.
My contention is that in almost all cases, the player who builds the suave diplomat, but turns out to be useless in combat, is not like Bob. He hasn’t scoured the game system for every ounce of optimization power. He hasn’t used up all available character-building resources in the most efficient possible way. Rather, he’s just gone ahead and picked some social-interaction-boosting skills/feats/whatever, not given much consideration to combat ability (or tried, but poorly and incompetently), and called it a day.
Unlike Bob, who would have to sacrifice some power in his character’s chosen domain for combat effectiveness, the average “I’m going to play a suave diplomat” player could sacrifice nothing, and be much more effective in combat, by just being better at building characters. He just has to recognize which of the options he’s picked are “worse than worthless” — and usually, there are quite a few.
Even in those cases where a tradeoff legitimately needs to be made, it’s generally small. It’s not as large as 10%; it’s often smaller. And the gains are often larger than 50%. If you’re making a 5% sacrifice in one domain for a 100% gain in another, calling this a tradeoff may be technically correct (which we all know is the best kind of correct), but it’s misleading. If both domains in question are useful, then for the purposes of maximizing your overall effectiveness, such a “trade-off” is a no-brainer.
Ok, so what if you envision your character as a consummate diplomat, secretive yet suave… and all you have on your character sheet are stats like “stabbing people” and “being really strong, in order to stab people better” ? Would you say that such a character sheet “does not support the vision” of the player ?
Obviously I would say exactly that.
Said by me:
game-mechanical challenges — whether these be combat, social interaction, assorted noncombat challenges (“we need to cross this chasm”; “we need to infiltrate this castle”; “we need to figure out whodunit”), or anything else that is handled by game mechanics in any way
Also said by me:
[Game-mechanical challenges] is not necessarily combat. It could also involve various non-combat skills, among other things.
So, I’m not really sure what you’re objecting to. Are you under the impression that I was advocating just being good at combat, and being bad at everything else? Regardless, even, of how much of the game consists of combat? I’m not sure what I said that gave you that impression.
Some minor notes, don’t take these as anything but tangents:
Note that the player’s diplomatic skills would be absolutely useless in combat
You’d be surprised… there are some builds out there that do crazy things with “non-combat” skills.
depending on the plot, it may be highly unlikely that diplomacy will play any significant role during the course of the game. In fact, in D&D specifically, combat is overwhelmingly more likely to occur than negotiations.
Depends on the players and the DM. For example, just recently, in my aforementioned campaign, I was all set to run a combat encounter, but one of the PCs instead negotiated his way out of it. It happens.
Ok, so what if you envision your character as a consummate diplomat, secretive yet suave… and all you have on your character sheet are stats like “stabbing people” and “being really strong, in order to stab people better” ? Would you say that such a character sheet “does not support the vision” of the player ? Note that the player’s diplomatic skills would be absolutely useless in combat; and that, depending on the plot, it may be highly unlikely that diplomacy will play any significant role during the course of the game. In fact, in D&D specifically, combat is overwhelmingly more likely to occur than negotiations.
Are you saying that the player should never choose to play a suave diplomat with lots of points in diplomatic-type stats, because “bad feelings would result” ? I have anecdotal evidence to the contrary; though, to be fair, as a GM I do acknowledge that incorporating such characters into the overall campaign can be challenging.
I sure hope you never play Call of Cthulhu…
Upon rereading your comment, I think I understand you here to be asking whether I think people should play suave diplomats with points in diplomatic-type stats but no competence in combat. Is that correct?
If that’s your question, then I do indeed antirecommend such an approach. For one thing, as you say, it’s difficult to incorporate such characters into the campaign (if the campaign features a good deal of combat, and the other player characters are built to be good at combat). In such a scenario, where the suave diplomat is ineffective in combat, bad feelings may indeed result. (Although they don’t necessarily have to. It depends on the balance between combat and non-combat encounters; and on just how effective, or ineffective, the character in question is in combat encounters.)
For another thing, it’s not actually necessary. One of the players in my long-term campaign plays a suave diplomat (he’s the one who recently surprised me by (successfully) taking the diplomatic route out of what I expected to be a combat encounter). However, he is very effective in combat. There isn’t actually any tradeoff here. I have indeed met people who’ve convinced themselves that there is such a tradeoff, and use this as an excuse for their combat ineffectiveness; but it’s just that — an excuse; the tradeoff is not real.
I don’t know which system specifically you are employing, but in most games, D&D included, there’s indeed a tradeoff between diplomacy and combat (indeed, between most things). For example, if you want to kill the most things with a sword, then Str is your main stat, and Cha is your dump stat. If you choose to put points into Cha, you can still be effective in combat, but you will never be as effective as someone who put all his points into Str.
Even if you roll a Sorcerer or something, who is a Cha-based class, you still have a limited selection of Skills and Feats. Every point that you put into Diplomacy means one less point that you could’ve put into UMD, Spellcraft, or Knowledge: Arcana. And every point you put into Cha still means one less point toward Int or Wis, both of which are useful for a spy. Every time you memorize “Detect Thoughts”, you are losing another spell slot that you could’ve used for “Summon Monster II”.
If your gaming system allows you to be effective at everything at the same time, then I withdraw my objection, but IMO such a system removes too much challenge from the game, thus making it boring. Of course, that’s just my opinion, it’s not my place to tell you what to play or how to play it.
D&D. (3.5 for the games I usually run, Pathfinder as a secondary diversion, which I also refer to as “D&D”; it’s close enough for the moniker to be accurate.)
Sure, that’s all true. What I meant was not that there are no tradeoffs to make if you want your character to be effective at both combat and things that aren’t combat. Rather, as I said, there is no tradeoff, in the sense that you do not have make a single choice between being effective in combat and being effective at other things. You can do both. You can do both very effectively, in fact, more than effectively enough to succeed at nearly every challenge you face, and negligibly different in overall effectiveness in either domain from your party mates. You might be a little less effective at combat than the purely-combat-focused character, and a little less effective at (that sort of) non-combat stuff than the purely-non-combat-focused character, but just a little.
Of course, the more you try to do, the less effective you get. But the fact is, there is so much low-hanging fruit in both domains (especially the non-combat domain) that you can sacrifice very little combat effectiveness for large gains in other domains. In fact, you might sacrifice nothing in practice; a lot of what you lose is potential combat effectiveness, which may or may not ever translate into actual combat effectiveness.
Anyway, that’s getting a little far afield. The point is, if someone builds a character who is just really bad at combat, and justifies this by saying “but I’m a suave diplomat!”, my question will be: how hard did you try to make this character combat-effective? Did you even try? Most of the time, it will be the case that a skilled player will be able to build a character that is at least as diplomatically effective, and still good in combat!
Because the even larger question (the one that started this subthread, three posts up) is whether someone should deliberately build a suave, diplomatic character who is bad at combat. My answer is no, they should not, unless being bad at combat is a specific goal. Otherwise, it’s grossly unnecessary. Even if you’re suave, diplomatic, and… acceptably competent in combat, that’s still better. And it’s so easy to make that improvement. So, so easy. There’s no reason not to — again, unless you are specifically and deliberately make a combat-ineffective character. (In which case, as I said before, by all means go forth and play how you like.)
I don’t understand how this can be true. Clearly, you’ve got to make a choice at some point. You could move that “effectiveness” slider toward combat, or toward non-combat, but you can’t have it both ways, given that you have a limited number of points. I would understand if you said something like, “a 10% loss in combat efficiency is acceptable, given a 50% gain in non-combat efficiency”; is that what you’re saying ?
That depends entirely on how you perceive the tradeoffs. Is a 10% drop in diplomatic efficiency worth a 50% gain in combat efficiency to you ?
Well, one way it can be true is if there isn’t just a single slider. There could be multiple sliders. (In D&D, for instance, there’s the Skills “slider”, and the Feats “slider”, and the class “slider”, and the spell selection “slider”, and a number of others.) Not every slider trades off between combat and something else. Of those that do, not every one of those trades off at the same exchange rate.
For another thing, “non-combat” is not a monolithic thing (I somewhat regret using the term myself). Neither is combat, of course, but it’s closer to being monolithic; non-combat is just literally “everything that isn’t combat”. Social interactions are non-combat. Travel is non-combat. Information-gathering is non-combat. Exploration is non-combat. Trap detection/disabling is non-combat. And so forth.
I don’t think that’s exactly what I was saying, but I would assent to a statement like that one (if not necessarily that specific statement).
Ok, let me try to concretize.
Consider some hypothetical D&D player, call him Bob, who is quite competent at character-building and knows the game system very well. Bob sets out to build a character who is well-nigh godlike in the diplomatic sphere; this character is to be so good at social skills that he could solve the Arab-Israeli conflict forever with naught but smile and a wink.
In pursuit of this goal, Bob pulls out all the stops, making use of every class feature, skill, feat, spell, in short, every last character-building resource he has, to make the character good at Diplomacy and such things. And he succeeds. Unfortunately...
He has nothing left with which to build in any combat effectiveness. Understandable. And any attempt to add combat effectiveness would subtract some diplomatic effectiveness, because every last ounce of character-building stuff has been used up in the social-prowess optimization.
My contention is that in almost all cases, the player who builds the suave diplomat, but turns out to be useless in combat, is not like Bob. He hasn’t scoured the game system for every ounce of optimization power. He hasn’t used up all available character-building resources in the most efficient possible way. Rather, he’s just gone ahead and picked some social-interaction-boosting skills/feats/whatever, not given much consideration to combat ability (or tried, but poorly and incompetently), and called it a day.
Unlike Bob, who would have to sacrifice some power in his character’s chosen domain for combat effectiveness, the average “I’m going to play a suave diplomat” player could sacrifice nothing, and be much more effective in combat, by just being better at building characters. He just has to recognize which of the options he’s picked are “worse than worthless” — and usually, there are quite a few.
Even in those cases where a tradeoff legitimately needs to be made, it’s generally small. It’s not as large as 10%; it’s often smaller. And the gains are often larger than 50%. If you’re making a 5% sacrifice in one domain for a 100% gain in another, calling this a tradeoff may be technically correct (which we all know is the best kind of correct), but it’s misleading. If both domains in question are useful, then for the purposes of maximizing your overall effectiveness, such a “trade-off” is a no-brainer.
Obviously I would say exactly that.
Said by me:
Also said by me:
So, I’m not really sure what you’re objecting to. Are you under the impression that I was advocating just being good at combat, and being bad at everything else? Regardless, even, of how much of the game consists of combat? I’m not sure what I said that gave you that impression.
Some minor notes, don’t take these as anything but tangents:
You’d be surprised… there are some builds out there that do crazy things with “non-combat” skills.
Depends on the players and the DM. For example, just recently, in my aforementioned campaign, I was all set to run a combat encounter, but one of the PCs instead negotiated his way out of it. It happens.