So what's the difference then? This is how I see it: Using diplomacy the quick and dirty way of rolling dice to back up your words comes natural and gives you an immediate result from which to judge your level of success. However the downside is that sometimes the DM will disregard your roll entirely because he didn't have time to prepare a different way out of the situation. (I.e if you are trying to convince a guard to let you pass, and the DM was planning to tell you something with the encounter, he won't just let you pass until the guard has spoken his piece even if your check result is 98.)If you use diplomacy the slow way (one minute to check) and then only to shift the attitude up a notch or two the DM will see the swich coming which might give him the time to actually take the check into account.
Sometimes, I've noticed that players with no diplomacy score won't even try to interact because they know they will fail any and all checks -making any interaction futile. (This with the quick and dirty variant described above). On the other hand characters with a high diplomacy score will enter any discussion because they can back up there words with checks in the twenties or thirties. These people frequently become disappointed when their high rolls get disregarded by the DM. Or when good arguments fail because of a die roll.
Many of us, I'm sure, just kind of gauge the DC necessary to successfully win over the negotiating partner without even consulting the NPC attitude table.
The good thing about the rules as they are written in the book is that any character regardless of charisma can enter any role-playing encounter because there is no skill for interviewing and interacting with people (that's up to the player). The only limitation being you need to role-play whithin the confines of the NPC's attitude. That is; if the NPC is unfriendly at least you can join in and trade insults without the need for a maxed out diplomacy skill.
Am I making any sense here? I deliberately didn't compare with Shilsen's method as it relies too heavily on the DM (and results may vary).
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