What do you do when your GM constantly adds BBEG that turn out to be 'diplomacy encounters?'

What do you do when your GM constantly adds BBEG that turn out to be 'diplomacy encounters?'

That is to say, creatures or characters that are portrayed as evil, played sinisterly up until that point, often even detect as outright evil, but with a little bit of rethoric from a diplomacy character make it clear that their intentions are not to harm the party in any way, and they might even assist it with no ill consequences if we just ask?

We just had this happen at the end of a long arc, after combat buffing and venturing into the enemy's lair etc. Truth be told it was a little underwhelming, especially since it had a big buildup, though it did lead to a little bit of interesting character development for one of our PCs.

What are your thoughts, Veeky Forums? Have you ever had this happen in one of your games? Are you a GM that has done this in the past because you found it difficult to portray a truly evil character? Do you enjoy it when this happens and can it be done well?

>Diplomacy encounters
Ugh.

Judging by that, it sounds like a resounding "yes this happens, yes we hate it."

In my experience GMs or expect or even worse silently demand villains be defeated or treated a certain way aren't much fun to play with.

>Necromancer reveals that he was the good guy all along
>His skeletons and zombies were simply working in daycares and soup kitchens, when you slayed them
>All those people he killed? Had it coming.
>Paladins and clerics? Stupid religious bigots.
>"Actually, you are the real villains!"

What do, Veeky Forums?

It depends on what's been happening before hand and what characters we've been playing thus far.

Once we'd spent a long campaign tearing apart a inter-kingdom criminal organisation that had kings, warlocks and the entire thieves guild under its thumb.
The BBEG was a diplomacy encounter. We hated every moment of it because the DM spewed half-thought out arguments like they were the truth of God. But then that was the villain, we killed him mid monologue and realised he'd already called for his guards and his monologue was an attempt to stall us.

Another time we talked down a personifcation of evil with cold logic. It was interesting because it was a huge involved debate and not half an hour of monologues.

Learn Necromancy and undo the evil I have sowed into the earth.

The cold logic example seems like it would have been cool.

The stalling guy not so much- it makes sense in retrospect but the biggest part is always the feeling you have of slogging through dialogue, isn't it...

This is a tricky area for a GM. I think it comes down to, as you say, to what's happened before. Sometimes players like to help out their GM and work with them for what they were going for (and GMs generally do this as well) so often silly logic and arguments that don't make sense in context or character are entertained.

You might be right, but revealing a supposed BBEG to actually be open to being persuaded is also demanding players to treat them in a certain way. That is, to not kill them like bloodthirsty murderhobos.

It probably comes down to transparency- I usually enjoy it when, partway into the encounter or dungeon, the GM touches sides with the players on whether the mood he or she has tried to set is right. A big part of how it goes is the players' expectation, because we all try to nudge our characters' behaviour towards what makes sense for the story and theme.

Another thing is, I'm surprised by how often new GMs (I was guilty of this myself once) feel so bad for a player that tries to, against all odds and reason, use diplomacy against an evil entity that they actually end up giving them a sympathetic half-victory that results in an unsatisfactory experience for other players that may have been expecting a full on fight.

I feel like this is deceitful, because a large part of what was going on may have just been the party engaging with what the GM was presenting. As players, it's easy to be shoe-horned into doing something because you're trying to operate within what's presented to you.

It has that same feeling of Bioshock Infinite's infamous scene where you have to press a button to save the girl... and you don't really get a choice because there is no other way to progress.

In seriousness though if I was one of those heroes in that world I would probably dedicate my life to refining the world order that I have chosen to dedicate myself to. Since another was toppled, we'd better make damn sure we make a good one take it's place.

>BBEG
Ugh,

Too much of a buzzword?

Any GM stories where you've done this and it's worked/backfired?

nah he's just too much of a memer

Why do Red Mages always look so fucking cool?

I know right? Beautiful art.

>Why do Red Mages always look so fucking cool?
Magic, swordplay and a pimpin' hat.

What would you stat a red mage as in Pathfinder? Some kind of charisma magus archetype?

That would feel so unfulfilling. I'd prefer something based on a bard.

Although OP's pick is giving me pangs of wanting to switch from PF to a game that uses a robust Final Fantasy class system.

I do it on occasion, but not so often that it becomes played out. Generally the villain is a villain who is trying to kill the party for getting in the way.

You might be able to do it as a skald, actually. That's mostly bard.

Good man.

OK.
>Figure my players are getting bored of the "villain is an all-powerful wizard/God/Demon" shit by now and change things up.
>More political this time, spend a month starting up a setting inside a singular kingdom that's become semi-democratic.
>Can still be a warrior, mage or whatever but rather than becoming stronger to defat the monsters and save the word it's more about increasing your influence withing the political shere.
>Go about it in any way from giving speeches to becoming a folk hero for ending crime/killing monsters.
>Figure a setting like this should have a vilain that fit the theme. Ended up being torn between a politician that wanted to bring back a full facist monarchy and a criminal that was legally untouchable due to political influence.
>Figured I should hold off and plan around what the players decide for themselves what their characters will be.
>After getting the ball rolling and the character sheets in we had:
>Peasant warrior wanting to join the city guard become a martial and rid the city or crime.
>We had a nobleman rogue that stole from other criminals, he was trying to get a certain gem, regaining his fathers collection.
>A cleric trying to become a bishop, wanting to stop the criminal knows as "Witch" from corrupting people with her perverse magic.
>A Mage that was trying to teach just about everybody but the city wouldn't give him funding to open a school.
>They were all various flavors of good but then we never really used alignments. I found them boring.
>From here everybody met, the noble didn't waste any time and already had a small amunt of political pull and used it to get the peasant onto the city guard right away.
>Wizard and the cleric hit it off right away and agreed on an alliance, meeting with the towns newest guard and a noble to begin trying to climb the ranks of the city.
>More than a few sessions went by and they had made great progress via sppeches, deals arrests and simply trying to make a difference.

That depends. Did they actually do evil stuff?

If yes they must make up or be punished.

Cont.
>Begin introducing some mildly villanous flavors in the political sphere here and there.
>Those that hint at assassination targets, a few inconvenient people that a council man would like locked up etc.
>Others would be subtle and try to use the players to gain more popularity themselves, nobles and merchants would try and get the now guard captain to endorse them.
>The wizard had his school up and running and the cleric was rising through the Chruch very quickly. The theif and the warrior had a bit of a rivalry going on due to opposing methods and the whole law vs crime thing.
>I figured it was tome to throw a curve ball and created a minor conspiracy to damage their reputation.
>It was too effective, the cleric was burned as a heretic thanks to "Witch" being far more present than she realised.
>The wizard faced difficulty when some of the students were found playing with necromancy, damaging his reputation as an educator and the reputaion of the school.
>The theif was being blackmailed by another noble who figured out who he was.
>The warrior was trying to pull the corruption out of the council and stepped on the toes of some dangerous individuals and was now on an assassination list.
>They pulled it back by the wizard being a smart fucked and finding the "Witch" who was actually the now exiled prince of the nation and his peers.
>The cleric re-rolled as a returning noble who was proficient with healing magic but was kicked out of the school due to it being considered a "false magic".
>Then I introduced the villain.
>An ambassador from another nation.
>Wanted a coup d'etat.
>Smuggled in assassins and soldiers, all as his personal guard and as trainee city guards.
>All unable to be traced back to him once they started acting.
>Even if they could, he had a treaty for his visit that basically granted him diplomatic immunity to every crime but high-treason.

End.
>Have the villain cause distractions for the city guard.
>Murders and robberies all seemingly at random, all the while he was gathering blackmail material, or marking the ones that wouldn't support him onto a "black list".
>It was quick and very methodical.
>By the time he's ready to enact the coup the PC's have evidence to refute him legally and are willing to fight.
>Every political power in the kingdom is slaughtered when they bring the evidence forward because they thought they could resist.
>After a very difficult fight I start a debate.
No shit it became a nearly five hour debate and everybody participated. Greatly, I tried by best but my players honestly suprised me.
They argued ethics, law, accountability, destroyed the reasons for the coup with simple logic and actually astounding reason.
I ended it with the ambassador killing himself after writing a full confession and having it delivered to the kingdom he came from, in best hopes that it avoids the war that would happen should be be killed.

Would you say your players seemed engaged with diplomatic situations, situations where they had little political pull and little influence leading up to the final battle? For example, was the cleric player okay with the reasons why their character died or did they believe it to be contrived and unavoidable?
Was the final battle one where the party faces off against the villain, or was it a more widespread series of fights between different political / justice related parties?

The final debate you mention is heartening to hear about. It sounds like you had a really awesome group of players, to be able to engage and work with you to that extent.

What does make up mean in this situation?
Apologise?

What if it's a mass murderer who is really sorry for what he did, is that an okay thing to do, as a GM? And if it is okay... is it more fun than a fight with an unrepentant murderer?

>What does make up mean in this situation?
If you stole money, return it with a compensation for the trouble. If you hurt someone, apologize and help that person.

If you killed someone however and there is no way to bring that person back, then you need to lay down your arms and put yourself at justice mercy. Then justice will decide if you will get life in jail, capital penalty or dangerous service (such as suicide squad).

Never mind diplomacy encounters, I hate it when the BBEG goes into a long and often boring tirade and/or monologue before an obvious fight, but my character — often a Lawful Neutral paragon with no sense or care for what the evil asshole has to say in the first place — can't just walk up to them the moment they enter the room and starting beating them in the face with his or her weapon, because that's "interrupting" the GM.

If my character isn't even going to give them a chance for diplomacy, let alone an exchange of words, then what does it matter if what they've done is paved with good intentions? I don't care; my character certainly doesn't care. Just shut up and let me play true to my character and don't tell me that I can't because you, as the GM, want a masturbatory moment that's going to eat up anywhere from twenty to sixty minutes of session time.

And this is coming from a guy that prefers role-playing to roll-playing, as well as social encounters over combat encounters.

>Ugh
Ugh

I agree with this. There should never be a limit like this placed on characters- Engagement of the characters with the bad guy's monologue should be based on genuine curiosity and interest, not feeling bad for interrupting a GM's exposition.

There are limits of course, sometimes it's entirely reasonable to listen and exchange a few words. This gets tricky when some players are passive (and therefore are more likely to take time to listen because it's both the nice and easy thing to do), and others are active and want their character's actions to matter.

It happens a lot in one game I am in where someone shows up, says a whole bunch of things then engages with one player, while at least one or two other players have acted in ways that clearly show their characters would not be engaging with the situation. Or would attack the offending character if it's a bad guy, would leave, etc... and it just gets ignored. Or the GM gets upset...

This is easier to deal with in voice based RP, where many people tend to go for briefer exchanges. And in text it can be dealt with to an extent by pre-typing things. But there's always that random dragging conversation where the GM is showing off how cool his paladin NPC is and you can't extricate yourself from the rethoric.

A lot of GMs need to realise the importance of trusting players to set the tone and flow of a situation or exchange.

Or when there's like... a knowledge the GM keeps hinting you should roll, and when you roll it they just push out a really big piece of history or lore about a monster that has no actual mechanical effect but takes them 15mins to write down.

Or when players are slow to take turns, to the point where it's 1min-2min-1min-13min-3min etc as the initiative scrolls down.

Their incessant alt-tabbing hurts my face.

Well the cleric considerd it her failing for not noticing certain hits that the "Witch" was inside the Chruch, or atleast her agents.
I was dropping hints whenever she entered the librabry but she didn't manage to connect the dots.

Overall they liked it more when they didn't have the upper hand politically, especially since they had four individuals that had an array of talents that could be used efectively.
Around the time I started having people milk them for favors or using them to advance their own careers they started being annoyed or otherwise acted around the abstruction.

As for the final battle I put it into five phases.
The first phase was the gathering and presentation of criminal evidecne. Basically gathering eveidence, testemony and witnesses where they could and presenting it to the entire council (all twent five members), this incuded those that were blacklisted or being blackmailed.
Second phase was the accusation, convincing the councilmen to take a stand agains the ambassador.
The third phase was the slaughter of the councilors, and a fight against the ambassadors minions.
Then the fourth phase was the persuit of the ambassador, happened in the old throne room.
The fith phase was the debate. Since the ambassador was everywhere he'd found the secrets of the players. The theif player kept that he was the guy going around stealing gems a secret, the warrior kept some details about the "vanishings" to himself to protect a political power.
Things like that, the reasons for the coup, proposals and potential bribes, using the slaughter as leverage and finally his position as the King's ward of his homeland and the war that ould follow if they killed him.

My players were incredible.

That sounds awesome. How long did the final battle take?

Overall it took around seven hours.
The first and second phase only took around an hour, the fight was around fourty minutes or so.
The persuit and debate went on the longest.

That's cool. I hope you guys all stick together and make magic as a group again.

Well, you need to tell your GM about how you're invested in the adventure-as-story and would like a satisfying climax, which these encounters fail to provide even though they may be believable.

Your GM may be interested in wanking it... I mean, in painting a complex and rich picture of his game world, and may consider friendly antagonists with innocent motives a form of "complexity", but most players, including you guys, clearly have different priorities and he needs to stop.

Knowing my players, I personally wouldn't do this without leading towards an appropriately flashy conclusion, and I'd stick to boss battles.

If your GM agrees to give your group a high stakes finale next time, but would like to avoid boss battles, there are other ways. He could have you preparing a kingdom or people against an incoming natural disaster, for example, or talking down a suicidal ruler whose death would plunge the country into chaos.

I've got a problem a lot like that, in a game I'm playing in. Mostly, the GM isn't ready for us to actively go out and fight the BBEG yet. So they come up with a second-in-command, bring them to our attention, and then I start prepping to go out and take care of this second-in-command...

Which is when the GM has an NPC warn me that I'm totally not ready to take care of the second-in-command yet. So then we're just kind of sitting in one place, the BBEG shows up to mock us, and then we're not allowed to actually just blast the hell out of them or attack them. We just have to sit there and wait until the GM's ready.

This. This happens a lot in my game as well.

Usually it's not ... so direct. But it happens. There's a lot of mockery, but when the fight finally happens I almost always two or three shot the boss with a two handed power attack. I get that balance is hard, but it would be cool if they didn't mock us so much if they really aren't... strong.

I'm not the GM this time but we're starting a all martial campaign, no magic.
I look forward to what's going to happen.

There was also the time my players accedentally led a werewolf army and genocided all humans.
The time before that they erased magic and magical races from the world.

They are an interesting bunch.

I'd imagine some Fighter/Mystic Theurge gestalt...thing ability-wise.

I know the feeling. I made a Blue Mage homebrew for Pathfinder so I'd have something, but it just didn't feel the same.

Yeah, I agree. It finally got to the point where I raged, called the fuck out of the second-in-command and challenged them to a straight-up duel.

They were a paladin, and I was a Lawful Good warblade.

Since we're both honorable, lawful characters who believed ourselves to be good, then one of us had to be wrong, I argued. And the obvious way to solve that problem is a fight to the death. The gods would support the one who is in the right, and that person would win.

The GM ended up warning me that they're seven levels above me, and asked if I was sure. I figured that, well, even if my character dies, at least that would move the fucking plot.

I won in the end, through bullshit with White Raven Hammer and Iron Heart Endurance. The paladin scampered, ordered their minions to fire on me while I was still in the arena, and apparently Fell offscreen

That doesn't seem like something that's very paladin-ly to do.

Both those options sound cool and climactic. I've attempted to gain more traction for our group in the political sphere, but the GM insists we need to perform some side quests on a small-town scale first before we can head to the capital. Which is fair, we try and work with him and all, but I am becoming less trusting of his idea of what's cool and what isn't.

He is also a little touchy...
We're a relatively new group so I hope we can sort out such things as we learn more about each other and how we play.

One of the more passive players always chooses these diplomacy encounters to be their character's time to pipe up, which has the odd effect of placing the rest of the party in a place where they don't want to discourage the player from participating... but also can't actually enjoy a situation their characters would not just let unfold.

It wasn't. That's why they're not a paladin anymore. So even if I wasn't actually able to kill them, at least they can't do stupid-ass hit-and-runs with her stupid enchanted sword on her stupid mount anymore

Arguably, using the sword she had that was covered in a poison that would prevent magical healing should have made her Fall a long, long time ago, but the GM's new. and lets other players run/play antagonists. That's probably why I can't fucking kill any of them, since the GM doesn't want to hurt player's feelings.

Haha, epic.

Admittedly, I did pull a lot of bullshit. I would tumble past them in my light armor, use acrobatic strike to white raven hammer the shit out of them, and then they're stunned and dropping their weapons. Then I would stab the shit out of them with an Enlongated Chainblade the next round, and back off to regain maneuvers.

Clearly you were the better fighter.

I actually really enjoy having tricks like these up my sleeve. I know it's actually a little cheesy to do them, but when it's time to absolutely definitely wreck a fight, or your back's against the wall, it's amazing to just...

Describe your character taking a deep breath, centering themselves as they realise that their finest hour has come, and that they cannot afford to hold back. And then using arguably OP mechanics and fluffing it as your character going into swan song.

>wanking it...

You made me smile.

Honestly, there was no way at all for me to do anything else. A single full-attack from her knocked me down to 2/3rds health, and I could only hit her AC on a 17 or higher. Even with all of my skill points in concentration, I couldn't make the skill checks to hit her with any other maneuver. I had to run away as much as possible, abuse attacks of opportunities every time they had to pick their weapons back up, and once, I had to run the fuck away to keep using Iron Heart Endurance to pick my health back up.

Thankfully, Iron Heart Endurance isn't considered 'magical' healing, since maneuvers are extraordinary actions.

Though I definitely know the feel of that 'swan song' feeling. A different character I was playing- tiefling archmage- has had a long-standing feud with the archdevil that cursed her human parents to have a tiefling kid. When they met, she finally started abusing the Celerity mechanics (Complete with a magic item to remove dazing 3/day), a rod of quickening, Assay Spell Resistance, and all of that shit to get off three or four spells in a round. He was a drooling mess, half of his minions were polymorphed into rats, and he had a once-pebble-now-stone golem in his face.

That's when I started throwing vials of fiendish, buffed, invisible colossal tyrannosauruses at him. Summon Monster is good, but Summon Monster with a buff period done days before, and then the Smoky Confinement spell is even better.

Is this really a big issue people have? I normally just have my diplomacy villains have a big guard or be the big guy or something and then if my players don't want to hear them out or have the debate they start shit and the bad guy gets hit.

>Ugh
GRUKW-OW!

You sound like an amazing DM with an amazing group. Have you considered actually storytiming this?

>BBEG
Ugh.

When people come into roleplaying games from other media there's a couple of hang-ups that come with them from adjusting book/movie/vidya logic to the tabletop. In a book or movie, a villain having a dramatic monologue is par for the course and many people dig it, so that gets shoved into games without taking into account the autonomy of PCs.

It's also why we get shit like newer players trying to play lone wolves or thieves that steal from the party. They're endearing character traits in other media, but when Dave sulks menacingly in the corner or Bill steals the gold you needed to buy a sword things start to break down.

Ah, so it's more of a new player/people not getting the medium issue, I follow.

What, are your GMs not competent enough to have a conversation occur while locked in mortal struggles?

The best time to talk your way through something is from a position of power, and not many people are going to find themselves in a position of power against a demon lord with his wizard lackey slinging gigantic fireballs every turn forever.

Most games let talking be a free action. Take advantage of that.

Just tell GM you demand each BBEG boss fight take place in an arena from now on. Each side gets a chance to cut a promo before the match, but once you're in the ring, it's on, brutha.

Here's the thing: undead are animated by negative energy. Either you're playing with fire and evil forces just by using undead for anything, or you're not and energy is just energy. Now in the latter you seem like a dick, but bear in mind that energy radiates by its nature, so with every action, that undead is irradiating everything around it with loose negative energy. We don't have established standards for how much negative energy causes cancer, but it stands to reason exposure isn't a net positive.

If it's part of an arc that leads to something that would be even more awesome, then sure! If it's just making a deal with the devil, so to speak, then ugh.

Once, when I was young and dumb, I tried this as a DM. The character in question got stabbed in the throat before he could finish talking. I talked with the players afterwards, and realized that they wanted a climax to the story, a resolution. I realized something: gaming is a shared story and I can put together the environment, but the players drive the action of the story.

You're basically acting as a USDA inspector.