They never really went into detail, their whole argument was that if you wanted to use Diplomacy, you did so by default at a -10 penalty (for doing it 'rushed'), or it would guaranteed fail, for the above reason. :(
Changing others’ attitudes with Diplomacy generally takes at least 1 full minute (10 consecutive full-round actions). In some situations, this time requirement may greatly increase. A rushed Diplomacy check can be made as a full-round action, but you take a -10 penalty on the check.
They never really went into detail, their whole argument was that if you wanted to use Diplomacy, you did so by default at a -10 penalty (for doing it 'rushed'), or it would guaranteed fail, for the above reason. :(
Why a -10? That seems arbitrary in 5e that almost does nothing with incremental modifiers.
This was pre-5e; we were playing 3.5e, where that's actually an official thing you can do:
So they were arguing:
"come with me if you want to live" ~a successful diplomat, or something.
Exactly that. I wish I was kidding.