Parley

Charisma reaction adjustments, Player's Handbook, p. 13: -5% per point of charisma below 8;
+5% per point of charisma above 12.

The above, for those who do not recognize the passage, originates with the 1979 Dungeon Masters Guide, p. 63.  With the charisma adjustments that I've added in the caption, this represents pretty much all the rules designed to manage character interactions with NPCs ... or "role-play."

When I was a teenager and dumb as a post about the game, I played by these rules.  Or to put it another way, omg, I played by these rules.  These rules are awful.  Just awful.  If your real life interactions were this random, you'd attack strangers first and parley afterwards. It would be the only sane way to act.

This is an example of pothole game design.  A hole exists.  We need some kind of rule for interactions.  Anyone have any ideas?  No?  How about a scale of the worst imaginable reaction to instant acceptance, with a die roll that exactly balances the two?  Hey, awesome!  Good enough!  Well done!  Let's go fix something else ~ dibs on tossing together rules for spell research!

It's completely pointless, but I want to mock the rules a moment.  A group of bandits, bent on robbing from the next people who come up the road, suddenly decide, because the fellow in front seems very jolly and quite handsome, to rush out from behind their trees and shake his hand.  "Well met, well met, we can't rob you!  You're far too charismatic!"

Or a group of pilgrims, bound for a shrine in a distant land, see a group of adventurers step out into the road.  "Arg!" they cry.  "That one's hideous!  Kill them all!"

A random roll simply doesn't work.  What about the number of the enemy, their equipment or their heraldry?  Shouldn't our purposes be the first arbiter of what we'll do when we meet others?  When was the last time you changed your mind about something because a total stranger with charisma wanted you to act in a particular way?  Don't we deal with ALL strangers with distrust and caution, before all else?

Friendly, enthusiastically friendly and immediate acceptance are somewhat vague.  Shouldn't we be concerned with more concrete issues, like asking for directions, getting news, bartering for equipment and food, possibly gaining aid for sickly companions, asking for a ride ... or simply ignoring passersby?  What do four adventurers, decked in armor and weapons, have to say to a peasant if they got directions already, just five minutes ago?  What peasant would be comfortable looking ahead on the road and seeing armed adventurers at a distance, coming along?  They could be anybody; they look dirty and unclean, perhaps they're recruiters for some war, or three armed guards for a tax farmer.  That one isn't wearing armor, after all.

I don't see any possible random table that could be built for parley or NPC reactions, without it being something awful silly.  In many campaigns, no doubt the need to improvise some ridiculous scenario to suit the die roll provides much fun and frivolity.  But it seems ... dumb.

I would like to write some rules for parley & negotiation, but I can't see a random roll.  Nor do I need a negotiation system that will tell me what bandits, or a local patrol, a given monster or most things that are bound to be encountered would do.  Nor do I need something as complicated as an I-mech ... though that is probably where I'll have to go, if I want to nail a system down.

It all seems needlessly complicated for a set up where two groups meet on a road, at a bar or while sitting near each other at an event to just start talking.