Have you ever taken a fall?

[Jinx999]

Re: Have you ever taken a fall?

 

I don't think you need to require a 3 page contract... the above example is perfect...

 

"Attack your teammates"

the player attacks them but the character doesn't have to like it and this was a perfect example of role playing the way a smart character might resist (or do something half-hearted) I would have similarly allowed this character to attack with is weakest attacks (although not with partial strength). I even would have allowed him to use an NND attack on a character he knew to be resistant (at least until the mentalist realized what was happening and changed the command). I'd also like to point out that the mentalist's command reinforced the notion that they were teammates and so was internally inconsistent to some degree...

 

Or, as an extreme example, attacking the brick . . . using the mentalist as a club.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Have you ever taken a fall?

 

Trying to address some of your points. I think we are much more similar than it first appears in how we interpret.

 

KIND OF what I do! But it's not as bad as you say. First, I don't think most people can possibly know what a little-known opponent (as that's often the target) would think about a command like (for a simple, crude example) "Attack your teammate!" Don't get me wrong, usually a person would be opposed or violently opposed, but among some psycho villains I might find the target is noncommittal on the notion. So I don't even want to give that information, I think it inadvertantly gives clues.

 

For one thing, I was thinking "Mental Illusions" more than "Mind Control" when I wrote my bit... my bad there. MI is clearly about declaring the level you are shooting for up front, and then seeing if you can hit it. MC is different. I agree that there are things that players and PCs would NOT know... but I will ask the player up front, "What level do you THINK you are aiming for? And why?" Just to understand their intent, etc. I then say, "Ok, roll it," and interpret the results once they are added up and compared to the target.

 

And I don't do quite a you say - what I do is this, let's use the same example:

 

Player: "I command him to attack his teammate!" Rolls dice.

 

GM: Noting Player made it by +20 even though NORMALLY +30 would be required, at least one would expect. However, this villain doesn't much care for his teammate. So the GM says "You made it, and the funny thing is you have a feeling you didn't quite get him that deeply, but he just responded as well anyway."

 

Absolutely. I love mental powers as ways to give hints and insights into the psyche's of villains, so that players get that "reader/audience" sense of knowing what is going on... maybe more than their character's do, but I've not found it to be a problem. It makes the villain's more interesting and memorable to the players to do this.

 

Alternately for the GM:

 

GM: Noting Player only hit with +20 but +30 was required. "The villain freezes. He eyes his teammate suspiciously and moves behind him, taking a half move, before he launches a passive, low-END attack at you."

 

The point with the latter example and what I clearly screwed up in saying earlier is that I give partial effect according to how close you come. I don't believe you have to hit the level all-or-nothing. I dislike that. The command should have an effect proportional to the +x amount, you shouldn't have 0 effect because you didn't hit the level but still got, as in this example, +20.

 

I've never tried this, but I wouldn't be adverse to it. I will give the villain SOME kind of reaction to a failed attempt... like I will describe a villain reacting to an attack, even if it bounced. The interaction... the effect on the drama of th moment, can be just as important as whether you actually did Stun, or made him run away.

 

Example: Just last night, a mental illusions character who had just successfully put an agent type into a catatonic stance with ease, tried to do the same to a major villain, and failed. I still had the villain have to blink away the illusion, and look around to find where it came from, and this affected his attack plan, etc. The attack may have failed, but it did change the course of the battle.

 

I've never had a problem except I think on an occassion have had to say later, "You were pressing against a psych lim, I know you had a good roll but this villain really had a problem so the level was +10 deeper than you would have thought."

 

Absolutely. A GM should try and remember to explain some of the hidden stuff after the fact, so players understand that it wasn't an arbitrary "screw me" call. I've found that if you do that early in the gaming relationship, you don't have to do it much, later, because they've come to trust your calls.

 

50-50 here. I would not tell a mentalist that a target he doesn't know has a steel will UNLESS the mentalist had attempted something earlier, and usually I heavily imply rather than state if the target is resistant. But if the mentalist doesn't know the target at all, I don't think it's realistic to say. However, when his attack fails or succeeds, I usually say (and the times I don't, frankly it's because I just forget) something to heavily imply whether he hit by a little or a lot, if the roll was just barely or by a lot, or whether he missed by a little or a lot, similarly.

 

You are right. If they have no way of knowing, I won't give it away... but I will take into account the fact that, say, I have a new player who isn't as familiar with the system who wants to try a maneuver that has a slim chance of succeeding. I will take it upon myself to say, "Just FYI... while it might work, you'll find pulling that off really difficult." Case in point as I described above... the rest of the players understood that mind controlling a major villain is almost always a task much harder than taking out his agents or liutenants... but the new player doesn't know that. She's new to the genre and the system. I had no problem warning her that it had a low chance of success. She did it anyway, just to see how it played out (yay! good player!) but I wasn't going to disappoint her by just saying, "Ok roll it. Nope... didn't work." That would only discourage forthright play in the future.

[zornwil]

Re: Have you ever taken a fall?

 

I realized later that you were saying that "if there was a reason". Good points, as you say we're more similar than different even if not identical.