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I'm struggling. I'm starting a new campaign that encourages roleplay dialogue to pursuade NPCs. A few of the players expect the courtesy of using the gamist mechanics for charisma i.e. a sorcerer with a CHA of 20 would like to make a check.
I've gone back and forth in my mind between AD&D and Pathfinder RPG and fully intend to use the 'spirit' of roleplay and narrative style during diplomatic encounters. Charisma is definately good for mundane checks, and the function of spells, intimidate, and many other facets of the game. However, I won't allow a major villain hating the party to suddenly be pursuaded by a simple roll. I expect roleplay from the characters.
I struggle because I don't force players to pick up 400lb items to prove their strength, nor do I expect players to demonstrate their dexterity. Yet, charisma is central to roleplay, specifically the act of pursuading others through negotiation and dialogue in matters of diplomacy. Allowing 1 character's statistic in CHA seems to promote the over-ruling of good roleplay with a simple dice roll, modified by a +5. And this isn't the kind of game I wish to run.
For example, the dwarven king's disposition toward warring elves is so great that the best an elf can hope for when entering his throne room is to be put in shackles, rather than slayn on sight. No dice roll from the level 3 party member would change that more than one step closer to neutral, and even then, neutral results in shackles rather than death.
With regard to "rules", how can I stay true to RAW/RAI while still running the type of game I wish to run?
I think you can use both. It seems like a character with a high cha would speak more ellequently than the player. They also might have some intangibles ( a winning smile, a charming disposition). So have them role play the situation, and then apply a cha check, or a diplomacy check.
Not letti g them take advantage of their high cha makes high charisma characters difficult to play, I can be pretty charming- but I am not super humanly charming.
Allowing 1 character's statistic in CHA seems to promote the over-ruling of good roleplay with a simple dice roll, modified by a +5. And this isn't the kind of game I wish to run.
I actually see this a different way. When a low-Charisma character makes an attempt to persuade someone their natural intonation, demeanor, and other factors make them less likely to succeed. A high-Charisma character (or one with many ranks in Diplomacy) can make the same request, but subtle aspects of their presentation make it more persuasive. I feel that removing Diplomacy and Charisma checks just rewards players who are naturally persuasive rather than characters who are, which is not something I find desirable in a roleplaying game.
However, there are situations where the low-Charisma character might have an advantage for roleplaying reasons. Personally, I will allow an improvement in initial attitude for characters who belong to a certain group, or who mention something that makes the NPC respond better to them (like a mutual enemy). I'll also consider what characters say when determining if something counts as "simple" or "complicated" advice or aid. Between these one can allow for a bit of advantage from roleplaying without making Charisma even weaker than it already is.
With regard to "rules", how can I stay true to RAW/RAI while still running the type of game I wish to run?
I think the most important thing is noting the little disclaimers in the Diplomacy skill. Most importantly for you:
Some requests automatically fail if the request goes against the creature’s values or its nature, subject to GM discretion.
In this case, allowing an Elf to run about freely in the Dwarf King's city would simply be out of the question, even if the party managed to make the King helpful with a check. While overuse of this can frustrate players, especially those that invest in Diplomacy, it is vital for keeping things on track. It also prevents some of the more abusive (if awesome) "Diplomancer" shenanigans people come up with.
It doesn't have to be "one or the other". You can expect good RP dialogue out of your players, rather than just bland die-rolls, AND you can allow them to gain the benefits/penalties of their charisma scores.
There is a danger in using the "RP dialogue only" option. If my DM told me that's what he was doing, I would immediately tank my CHA score. Forget Sorcerer, Bard, Paladin, Cleric. It'll be a party of Fighters and Wizards, all with 3 CHA.
Ask for Diplomacy rolls up front, make a note of the result, then roleplay the scene. Add and subtract from the score dependent on the "good" and "bad" points that arrive as a result of the discussion (make the amount of the modifications any range you like, but +/-2 to +/-5 works). Keep in mind the NPC's personal feelings throughout (for example, he might dislike elves, so every time the elf even speaks, that's an automatic penalty). At the end of the discussion, take a second to tally up the final score, and base the NPC's ultimate response on the final total.
This requires a little more bookkeeping (though a simple tally chart of "good" and "bad" does the job), but allows effective roleplaying to directly impact the outcome, while still letting someone who has cranked points into Cha and Diplomacy to be useful, too.
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I have begun to use roleplaying capability to reduce the DC for social checks. Players know that I do this but not when or by how much. It provides a known incentive without having to worry about various "but you gave George a +5 and my role playing was a lot better but I only got a +3!" kinds of arguments.
Since it is a reduction of the DC, it is entirely invisible to the player. It also allows you to do things in a subjective manner. George got a +5 for kind of crappy RP because he rarely does it and is actually giving it a shot for once while Amy did an ok job but it wasn't up to her normal level of RP.
It is also entirely optional. A player can just roll the check with minimal-to-no RP and I wont penalize them over it. If they don't want to, it is really there choice. They just should know they are missing out on bonuses.
I also reward good RP with automatic sense motive successes or, if it is a really enjoyable time, an automatic diplomacy success. I find this speeds up the game and makes it flow much better.
At the end of the session, it is worth praising the players and saying that the RP did help so they don't feel it was wasted.
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This drives to the heart of some of the disagreements among RPGers on what "role play" means.
I am fine with giving circumstance bonuses for "good role play" to encourage role playing from players. However, I don't like the idea of rewarding "role play" which is in direct contradiction of the player character's actual mechanical abilities.
In other words, if the party face has a cha of 20 and does some awesome role playing, I'm fine with giving them a +2 circumstance bonus to their diplomacy roll, but if the dwarven party fighter with a cha of 5 attempts the same thing, even with a circumstance bonus from "great role play" They would likely be unsuccessful in their diplomacy roll because of their severe mechanical limitations in that area.
Encouraging success on social interaction based solely on the player's role playing ability leads to players dumping charisma and making up for it with real world acting skills.
This deviates from your parameters, but if this is such a significant element of your campaign, the rules do support you (as Mort's second quotation states), but to drive the point home, why not codify written houserules and have your players ratify them? Sometimes the game isn't appropriate out of the box and you need to adjust it.
Making rules up inconsistently as you go along is obviously not good, but if any rules adjustments are published and approved before the campaign begins, your group still has a common base of understanding of how the game is run, which is the point of rules in the first place. The writer of the rules doesn't need to be WotC/Paizo. Though too many drastic changes can be bad, so just make them nice, short, and clean.
Here's a good example of revising the Diplomacy skill. It was written with 3.5e in mind, and skills are more abusable in that edition from what I understand, but it is still a good read: This Old Rule: The Diplomacy Skill, by Rich Burlew. (Edit: and yes, it makes the skill more rigidly defined, but the analysis itself is the focus, not the results, in my view)
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"good role playing" should mean that players whose characters have low diplomacy and poor charisma don't make eloquent speeches. Though how does a player who is bad at public speaking role play a character with an extensive background and talent in public speaking?
I think we should use them same method we roleplay the fighter using a longsword. We roll dice and interpret the results in game terms.
"good role playing" should mean that players whose characters have low diplomacy and poor charisma don't make eloquent speeches.I agree. But low charisma does not make Pcs social useless, people tend to overeact about that.
I suppose "socially useless" is a bit of hyperbole. But "socially inept" or "socially awkward" or "socially embarrassing" is all quite reasonable.
I keep hearing players say "Oh, so my low-charisma dwarf can NEVER suprise everyone by coming up with an inspired speech? That's not fair!"
My response is "That's what the dice are for. Role play it out, roll the dice, and if you roll high enough to pull it off, congratulations! But you're gonna need a mighty good roll with your cha 5 dwarf who has never put one rank in diplomacy."
Not socially useless, but certainly a fellow with a 6 CHA is going to be more abrasive in a social setting in much the same way a melee combatant is going to be less useful in combat with 6 STR. Not useless.... But maybe you could do other things. If the 1/2 Orc with low cha is out talking the halfling bars I start to have issues
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Another option is to "half-and-half" social interactions. Make the skill roll count for half it's normal result, and allow the other half to be "obtainable at GM's discretion as a result of roleplaying the encounter".
This means that the eventual Diplomacy result cannot be more than the amount rolled, but "good roleplaying", whether that be persuasive arguments, playing in character, actively saying the right (or wrong, depending on the characters involved) thing can grant up to the other half.
This can be played either way round (roleplaying first, dice second, or vice versa), and allows good roleplayers an equal impact to skilled characters.
The trick is to balance it with the skills of the individual players - if you have one wallflower in the group, give them the benefit of the doubt, but a particularly active actor might need to pull something special out of the hat to get the full whack result.
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Another option is to "half-and-half" social interactions. Make the skill roll count for half it's normal result, and allow the other half to be "obtainable at GM's discretion as a result of roleplaying the encounter".
This means that the eventual Diplomacy result cannot be more than the amount rolled, but "good roleplaying", whether that be persuasive arguments, playing in character, actively saying the right (or wrong, depending on the characters involved) thing can grant up to the other half.
This can be played either way round (roleplaying first, dice second, or vice versa), and allows good roleplayers an equal impact to skilled characters.
The trick is to balance it with the skills of the individual players - if you have one wallflower in the group, give them the benefit of the doubt, but a particularly active actor might need to pull something special out of the hat to get the full whack result.
So if I'm a practiced and skillful actor, I can dump charisma and make up for it with "role play" efforts.
COOL!
Hey, if I'm a weightlifter, can I have half of my strength roll checks based on if I can bench press 400 pounds too?
"good role playing" should mean that players whose characters have low diplomacy and poor charisma don't make eloquent speeches.I agree. But low charisma does not make Pcs social useless, people tend to overeact about that.I suppose "socially useless" is a bit of hyperbole. But "socially inept" or "socially awkward" or "socially embarrassing" is all quite reasonable.
I keep hearing players say "Oh, so my low-charisma dwarf can NEVER suprise everyone by coming up with an inspired speech? That's not fair!"
My response is "That's what the dice are for. Role play it out, roll the dice, and if you roll high enough to pull it off, congratulations! But you're gonna need a mighty good roll with your cha 5 dwarf who has never put one rank in diplomacy."
Turn it on its head. "Oh, so my 6 STR halfling can NEVER surprise everyone by smashing through a heavy wooden door in full-plate with a greatsword? That's not fair!"
Charisma defines a certain skill set, just like every other attribute does. Players should reflect that in determining attribute scores (for point buy), in background, in skill selection, and in role play. Low-strength = physically weak, low-wisdom = impulsive and/or slow to grasp the situation, low-charisma = lack of charm and tact. Completely ignoring that in favor of "Good RP" sounds to me like very, very "Bad RP".
"Socially useless" is definitely the wrong term, though. Players should never feel "useless" in any situation. But, the 20 STR, 5 CHA dwarf fighter should do his "talking" in the correct forum, i.e. primarily combat.
I guess it all depends on what you call role playing. If role playing to you is trying to emulate the character you have as best you can then Diplomacy and cha matter a lot. Because those define your character as much as smithing or stealth.
If role playing means talking in a funny voice where you get to play an idealized version of yourself, or using your personal skills in a game setting then cha and diplomacy matter less.
Heh...the charisma argument again.
My take used to be that that all important interactions and negotiations should be played out and if you couldn't convince me the NPC, then you couldn't. However, a player pointed out that they would like to play the silver tongued rogue archetype, but they inevitably got flustered and to make the success or failure of his character depend on this was no more fair than insisting that the eight-stone soaking wet teenager be able to kick down doors and bite the heads off vultures in order to play the barbarian archetype. And I found this very convincing. So I now do allow players with high diplomacy skills or high bluff skills to be good at diplomacy and bluff, and the converse is that even if you're incredibly eloquent in RL, you still have to make a die roll for diplomacy.
Having said that, neither diplomacy nor bluff are enchantment. You may make a great diplomacy skill roll to influence the orcish war chief. But he's going to have you tortured and eaten anyway because that's what he does. You might bluff him into delaying the torture because of (insert plausible reason why he shouldn't), and you might diplome him into a merciful beheading instead. But he's still an orcish war chief.
Imagine, 1945, the allies are at the gates of Berlin. Ribbentrop turns up at Zhukhov's headquarters, he's a high level bard, high charisma, maxed out diplomacy skill with skill focus and persuasive for a score of about +22. Can he convince Zhukhov to attack the Americans instead?
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Me personally I make people play it out. Then have them roll for it, I may or may not assign mods based on how well they RPed. But then I give random mods for lots of stuff in the game. A fighter's player ask "Didn't you say there was a chair on it's side in this room, I reply yes. Then the player tells me he will fight stepping to the side till the bad guys back is to the chair and then give him a shove." Trying something like that I would give a bonus to a trip move or even if they just make them back up. give the bad guy a - mod to defense for a turn as they get entangled up with the chair.
So you can do both rolls and role playing for charisma stuff. Just make sure the good acting mod isn't to big to make up for a low score and never give a penalty to poor playing out of a scene unless they do something epicly stupid. Like telling the Queen she reminds them of their favorite cow growing up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKPbrLyOMo
70% how you look
20% how you say it
10% what you say
I say charisma/diplo reflect this well
But let see this example. The dwarf warrior just have killed a entire clna of goblins, but when interrogating the last survivor the goblins lugh because the dwarf have -4 to his intimidate check. But no matter what the bard says the goblins stat to shaking in fear. Horrible situation, but entirely Raw.
So don't use the Intimidate skill. Intimidate forces someone to act friendly. The goblin can still choose to give information so that you don't kill him. Just like an unfriendly King you failed to use Diplomacy on might still offer you a job because he has no other choice, the goblin you don't intimidate can choose to give you information so that you don't chop him into goblin-bits like his entire clan. They just aren't being made to through the use of a skill.
But let see this example. The dwarf warrior just have killed a entire clna of goblins, but when interrogating the last survivor the goblins lugh because the dwarf have -4 to his intimidate check. But no matter what the bard says the goblins stat to shaking in fear. Horrible situation, but entirely Raw.
This is why "circumstance bonuses" exist. In this situation I'd give that dwarf warrior one heck of a circumstance bonus to his intimidate check.
I agree that some NPC's should be "social-proof" in a sense. No, you're never going to convince the Orc War-Chief to stop doing Orc-type things with a few minutes of conversation.
But if you are familiar with the frame story behind Sheherezade and 1001 Arabian Nights, that is a good example of diplomacy eventually winning someone over to an uncharacteristic action. Granted, that was 1001 successful diplomacy/perform (oratory) checks. =)
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It is about style. You (and i gues your group) like your style, that is ok. I like more rolplay in my rolplay games.
Yep, and your style encourages socially adept people who enjoy talking in funny voices to dump unnecessary stats and skills so they can gain an advantage in other mechanical areas where they can't influence the dice with their real-life skills.
Kinda sucks for those wallflower players though...
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True story... Once I was playing in a group where the GM encouraged these sorts of role play situations where he literally ignored social skills and abilities and ruled entirely on whether he approved of the "role playing" skill of the player.
On one of my turns I had to make a reflex save. The GM said "Nope, you missed it by 1." So I said "But look! I can juggle!!!" And I did.
But somehow my real life physical dexterity didn't matter to him, although my real life role playing skills did.
Just fwiw I tend to be a pretty involved role player. I don't do "funny voices" much, but I do attempt to channel my character's personalities, quirks and mannerisms, and I am generally regarded as a pretty solid role player. So I am one of those who benefits from GMs who ignore or downplay a character's actual social mechanical abilities in favor of the player's actual social skills.
But I still don't like it. On principle. Not only does it encourage stat dumping of the de-emphasized attributes and skills, it has been my experience that it actually ends up punishing those players who need the most encouragement to role play. The same players gain the same advantage game after game while the wallflowers eventually tend to just give up and accept that they will never be able to play the party "face" or negotiate a great solution to a tricky problem.
I used a mixed system based mostly on my FEEL of the situation, The gist of the system is to let the players RP as they chose but let them roll the occasional Int, Wis or Char check to get hints on their chosen course of action
If for example the players walk into a local bar and try to threat or browbeat the bar keep into giving them information on a patron I would say something like "roll a charisma check" and if they roll BELOW their score I will say something like "something about the atmosphere tells you its probably not the most diplomatic thing to threaten the owner of an establishment full of long term patrons of questionable moral standing."
Usually that gets the players to second guess their choices but in the cases where they don't they get stuck with the consequences. At this point even saying "roll a {stat} check" tends to make my players re-evaluate what they are doing"
Having said all that I think I like Chemlak's method of roll the check and then RP to add or subtract to that score.
Having said all that I think I like Chemlak's method of roll the check and then RP to add or subtract to that score.
Yes, this is what I do too. I apply "circumstance modifiers" to the roll based on the player's role playing. That rewards role playing without negating the importance of the actual mechanical abilities.
I also use this as a way to encourage my wallflowers to come out of their shells. I am in no way "fair" about how I apply those circumstance modifiers. For my most accomplished role players who are very comfortable in the skins of their characters, I require something really special from them, while I would reward even the tiniest spark of role playing from one of my players who normally just rolls the dice and says "what happens?"
"good role playing" should mean that players whose characters have low diplomacy and poor charisma don't make eloquent speeches. Though how does a player who is bad at public speaking role play a character with an extensive background and talent in public speaking?
I think we should use them same method we roleplay the fighter using a longsword. We roll dice and interpret the results in game terms.
Exactly true: players with low charisma characters should act it, if they are high CHA in real life, they should hopefully be decent 'actors'. A person with low real life CHA does his/her best and everyone pretends it was moving because there isn't much else to do about it unless people are fine with "Good people of Golarion! Insert inspirational oratory here! Thank you for your consideration!"
What was strange but interesting for me was roleplaying a character with 8 charisma (basically just introverted/quiet/caustic/detached rather than socially gimped) who had learned to compensate with diplomatic skill because he had to. Speak well but don't be that charismatic...
Another option is to "half-and-half" social interactions. Make the skill roll count for half it's normal result, and allow the other half to be "obtainable at GM's discretion as a result of roleplaying the encounter".
This means that the eventual Diplomacy result cannot be more than the amount rolled, but "good roleplaying", whether that be persuasive arguments, playing in character, actively saying the right (or wrong, depending on the characters involved) thing can grant up to the other half.
This can be played either way round (roleplaying first, dice second, or vice versa), and allows good roleplayers an equal impact to skilled characters.
The trick is to balance it with the skills of the individual players - if you have one wallflower in the group, give them the benefit of the doubt, but a particularly active actor might need to pull something special out of the hat to get the full whack result.
So if I'm a practiced and skillful actor, I can dump charisma and make up for it with "role play" efforts.
COOL!
Hey, if I'm a weightlifter, can I have half of my strength roll checks based on if I can bench press 400 pounds too?
Ah, sarcasm. How I love thee.
So, you dumped Cha to 5 and rolled a 13, no skill points, you get a max result of 10. I don't CARE how skilled an actor you are, you still get 5 from the roll, and up to 5 from your roleplaying, max. Good luck persuading me that you're somehow getting an advantage from this.
Gignere, that's how one of my GMs does it. Because of that I was leveling up faster than everyone else in the group because I was getting that extra XP regularly. Like every session.
Because I like to role play.
So I asked him to stop giving me extra XP so I didn't keep leveling up before anyone else.
I like ingenuity more than eloquence.
I had a game where the players were convincing a guy to forgive the polymorphic station for killing the guys father. I did not expect this to happen but I liked it, so I gave them a slight edge on diplomacy becaus it fit the situation and completed a short story arch nicely.
It was creative, that's what I try and reward rather than straight roleplay.
* edit*Read polymorphic station as "polymorphed Ettin". But polymorphic station is funny sounding so I'm leaving it up there
IRL, if you point a "finger-gun" at my dog and say "bang", he will roll over on his back and play dead. May I roll play my handle animal check?
I once picked the lock to a cabinet door with a paper clip. May I roll play my disable device check?
What about swim checks? or knowledge checks?
If I know, IRL, that the DM is lying, can I ignore the need to make a sense motive check?
Hey, if I'm a weightlifter, can I have half of my strength roll checks based on if I can bench press 400 pounds too?
Ah, sarcasm. How I love thee.
So, you dumped Cha to 5 and rolled a 13, no skill points, you get a max result of 10. I don't CARE how skilled an actor you are, you still get 5 from the roll, and up to 5 from your roleplaying, max. Good luck persuading me that you're somehow getting an advantage from this.
There was no sarcasm there. I was simply using an expositive analogy to demonstrate how you were favoring one sort of game mechanic over another. There is no logical difference in rewarding my character's social skills with my real life social skills and rewarding my character's physical skills with my real life physical skills.
All you are doing is giving people with more real life social skills more of an advantage.
I'm not clear on your example anyway. You say by dumping cha to 5 and rolling a 13 you get a max result of 10. What if you rolled a 19? That would be a max of 16 with 8 coming from the roll and 8 coming from the role play?
If you are doing this then it seems the BEST you could do would be to have your role play be perfect and then you would equal your actual mechanical roll of the die. So if I am reading this right, in your system role playing can only HURT you, not help you.
I'm sure that can't be right, and that you are somehow using role play as an incentive to improve a situation, not as a requirement just to reach your actual mechanical result.
If that is what you are doing.... wow. That would drive me crazy.
Perhaps you can explain your system again so that I am sure I understand it?
Try doing it as a group vote instead of just having the GM having final say. It becomes more balanced.Gignere, that's how one of my GMs does it. Because of that I was leveling up faster than everyone else in the group because I was getting that extra XP regularly. Like every session.
Because I like to role play.
So I asked him to stop giving me extra XP so I didn't keep leveling up before anyone else.
As I said, that's how he does it. My group agrees with him that I am an excellent role player. In fact I get a little tired of hearing about it. I just like to do it. I do it because it's fun, not because I get an advantage for it.
I don't think it's fair that my character gains mechanical advantages and levels up faster in the game just because I like to pretend I'm a cajun voodoo witch while our sorcerer player just prefers to watch, listen and roll the dice.
I struggle because I don't force players to pick up 400lb items to prove their strength, nor do I expect players to demonstrate their dexterity.
Is there some reason why you do not make a distinction between physical attributes and mental attributes, in a 'mental' game, being played by actual living, breathing players who are making all the decisions and not non-existent/fictional "characters"?
I struggle because I don't force players to pick up 400lb items to prove their strength, nor do I expect players to demonstrate their dexterity.Is there some reason why you do not make a distinction between physical attributes and mental attributes, in a 'mental' game, being played by actual living, breathing players who are making all the decisions and not non-existent/fictional "characters"?
Is there some reason you do? However "mental" the game is, why should the execution of the game favor people who simply happen to be more skilled and comfortable acting out scenes? There are plenty of other "mental" aspects of the game that you DON'T reward with this approach. For example, let's say I'm a genius. I should be able to improve my intelligence based skill checks with a simple differential equation derivation. Or I can complete the NY Times crossword puzzle to gain advantage on knowledge checks.
I mean those are "mental" aspects. By your logic I should be able to do that.
I struggle because I don't force players to pick up 400lb items to prove their strength, nor do I expect players to demonstrate their dexterity.Is there some reason why you do not make a distinction between physical attributes and mental attributes, in a 'mental' game, being played by actual living, breathing players who are making all the decisions and not non-existent/fictional "characters"?Is there some reason you do? However "mental" the game is, why should the execution of the game favor people who simply happen to be more skilled and comfortable acting out scenes? There are plenty of other "mental" aspects of the game that you DON'T reward with this approach. For example, let's say I'm a genius. I should be able to improve my intelligence based skill checks with a simple differential equation derivation. Or I can complete the NY Times crossword puzzle to gain advantage on knowledge checks.
I mean those are "mental" aspects. By your logic I should be able to do that.
Does a DM ask for an Intelligence check to see if the Dwarf with a 7 Int could come up with the awesome idea his player suggested?
No. That would be asinine.
So a player who makes a great speech to the king about how he needs to help the party shouldn't be shafted because his character can't make a diplomacy roll for crap.
I struggle because I don't force players to pick up 400lb items to prove their strength, nor do I expect players to demonstrate their dexterity.Is there some reason why you do not make a distinction between physical attributes and mental attributes, in a 'mental' game, being played by actual living, breathing players who are making all the decisions and not non-existent/fictional "characters"?Is there some reason you do? However "mental" the game is, why should the execution of the game favor people who simply happen to be more skilled and comfortable acting out scenes? There are plenty of other "mental" aspects of the game that you DON'T reward with this approach. For example, let's say I'm a genius. I should be able to improve my intelligence based skill checks with a simple differential equation derivation. Or I can complete the NY Times crossword puzzle to gain advantage on knowledge checks.
I mean those are "mental" aspects. By your logic I should be able to do that.
Does a DM ask for an Intelligence check to see if the Dwarf with a 7 Int could come up with the awesome idea his player suggested?
No. That would be asinine.
So a player who makes a great speech to the king about how he needs to help the party shouldn't be shafted because his character can't make a diplomacy roll for crap.
Yeah they should get shafted, at least a little.
That dwarf probably farted while he was talking. The speech was great but the dwarfs lack of understanding of social situations prevented that king from taking him serriously.
Or whatever reason. I think you are actually punishing the poor social players because they have to make up for their lack of actual skills with stat points. While the socially adept essentially get more skills and stats in combat related skills because they can skimp on the other.
Role play the character correctly, if that dwarf screws up ita the same as if this trained combat pro accidentally missed "but he's a fighter all he does is fight!". Sometimes that's how it goes.