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OOC: Social Attacks and people's preferences. Posted by Segev Stormlord. | Group: 0 |
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Author | Message | [bottom] |
Segev Stormlord GM, 83 posts Wed 9 Feb 2011 at 20:41 |
I intend, from the NPC side, to be using it where appropriate. However, sometimes, PCs want to persuade each other, or even to manipulate each other. Before we get into a situation where this might occur, I want to bring it up for discussion: do people want to avoid having this sort of engagement, and rely on persuading each other OOC as much as IC, or do people want to use the social combat mechanics should a conflict of interest arise in the party? | |||||||
Evangelical Design player, 104 posts Sidereal Serenity Wed 9 Feb 2011 at 22:42 |
On the other hand, it isn't cool to boss around another player's character. Then again, you can always spend Willpower to just negate the social attack, so the danger isn't that high. I think that influencing other PCs in social combat can be okay as long as it isn't used to put a player in a situation that they aren't comfortable with. | |||||||
Merlin player, 39 posts Wed 9 Feb 2011 at 23:51 |
Spending WP is sometimes what it takes. Pushing other people in any way, tends to provoke a fight or flight response. Players of characters that persistently make other PC's use WP to defend against social attacks will wind up getting their PC physically hurt or dead. Winning the battle, but loosing the war. | |||||||
Segev Stormlord GM, 85 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:00 |
It is worth noting that social combat is NOT inherently hostile, IC-wise, anyway. More importantly, reacting with violence to it is near-psychotic behavior, from an IC perspective. It'd be like ending a friendship and punching somebody until they shut up because they try to convince you to quit playing D&D on Thursday nights with your other group of friends and to instead go bowling with the group of friends to which he belongs. | |||||||
Merlin player, 41 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:07 |
Perhaps we have different definitions for 'Persistently'? What is yours? This message was last edited by the player at 00:11, Thu 10 Feb 2011. | |||||||
Evangelical Design player, 107 posts Sidereal Serenity Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:16 |
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Segev Stormlord GM, 86 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:22 |
"Being annoying and not dropping a subject" is rarely acceptable grounds for punching somebody out in civilized society. | |||||||
Evangelical Design player, 109 posts Sidereal Serenity Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:24 |
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Aya player, 105 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:35 |
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Beatrix LeSchaye player, 55 posts Solar Zenith Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:49 |
No, but it *can* make for great entertainment. ;) Although generally, in a debate, the first guy to throw a punch is admitting he's lost. Context can matter, for this. | |||||||
Merlin player, 43 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 00:51 |
Yet we see it all the time in Bars, Class Rooms, India Parliament, etc. There is also the option for 'flight' you know.....I did say Fight or Flight. | |||||||
Amerin player, 13 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 04:43 |
"Natural mental influence is a normal interaction." From Core Page 181: "Unnatural mental influence is magical mental influence. Targets recognize the supernatural force behind the character's actions. If this influence is hostile, inappropriate, or used against targets who value their liberty and independence, [sounds like PC's] unnatural mental influence makes enemies." [bracketed words mine] From this I would derive this guideline: natural is generally okay (as its easier to resist), unnatural is not. (Or, Bad things happen to Bad people) Examples (because data is the plural of anecdote): Punching Bob in the face for telling you to get him a coke (for even the twentieth time today) is not okay. However, your friend Larry is totally not going to fault you for applying the decorative sword you have hanging on the wall to Bob's torso if you both just watched Bob try to cast Dominate Person (or Geas/Sleep/Suggestion/Confusion/etc) on you. Note to potential Bobs out there: Just because Natural is generally okay, (and so people won't kill you for it) it does not mean that they have to like you (ie. have your back when the bad guys come calling) either. | |||||||
Segev Stormlord GM, 88 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 05:12 |
For this reason, unless there is objection, I will be running UMI such that it is only "obvious" to the mind being influenced AFTER they have spent the wp to resist it. Before then, the muddling of their minds means they don't, IC, know it's being done. (OOC, transparency will have the victim's PLAYER know it's UMI, but the CHARACTER likely won't, and thus won't have an automatic reason to spend wp to resist it just on the grounds that it's UMI.) | |||||||
Evangelical Design player, 115 posts Sidereal Serenity Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 05:22 |
And what I think Merlin's player was trying to say was that Join Battle turns off all social combat. Well, it does. But if you Join Battle every time people talk to you, you'll wind up with plenty of problems. | |||||||
Segev Stormlord GM, 89 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 05:31 |
While I would normally agree with you, the presence of effects which explicitly hide their UMI-ness from people makes me wish not to do so, because I don't want to cheapen them further.
Technically, Join Battle only makes social combat very difficult, since long ticks are 60 ticks, and social combat happens across multiple long ticks. This is RAW, however. If people wish to engage in VERY short-burst efforts to social combat each other during physical fighting, I am inclined to allow it...but only of appropriate sorts. No debates or Intimacy-building, just things like "let's stop fighting and talk this out" or "you're on the wrong side, HE's the bad guy!" or possibly witty repartee (though that's likely NOT social combat at all). But I'm rambling because it's late. | |||||||
Evangelical Design player, 117 posts Sidereal Serenity Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 13:37 |
What effects are you talking about exactly? I'm not saying people wouldn't recognize that something happened, but most people wouldn't recognize what. I mean, your average person never gets UMI'd, so why would they know what it feels like?
I usually allow some social combat banter in fighting as well. | |||||||
Segev Stormlord GM, 90 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 13:54 |
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Evangelical Design player, 119 posts Sidereal Serenity Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 20:30 |
I like to think about it like this. If you don't spend Willpower, you feel fine. If you do spend Willpower, you feel kinda funny. You might know what that funny feeling means. With powers that don't let you feel funny, you spend the Willpower but have no idea. But there is no reason in the game that spending Willpower sends a giant "YOU WERE JUST UMI'ed!" alarm up in your brain. That's a very specific feeling that no one could recognize unless they knew what it was. | |||||||
Aya player, 112 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 20:36 |
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Evangelical Design player, 120 posts Sidereal Serenity Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 22:02 |
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Aya player, 115 posts Thu 10 Feb 2011 at 22:11 |
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