Handling interpersonal skills

[The Monster]

Re: Handling interpersonal skills

 

Exactly!!

 

The player should be interpreting what the character would do, not just do what is most strategically sound. Some times it makes more sense to pull a Foxbat and glide around the room, just because it is cool, or have the wool pulled over your eyes by the obvious (to the player) con artist.

 

Last session, in my Champs game, a situation came up that the player decided that the character would just give up, and take a nap. He hadn't exhausted all of his options, but just felt that since the character felt comfortable in the situation, there was really no reason for him to try and free himself.

 

I agree.

 

A couple of thoughts occured to me as I browsed this thread.

 

One is that the questions shouldn't be formulated in a binary format - either you can force people to do "x" or not. Darth Sidious almost certainly shouldn't be able to simply use PRE or a PRE skill to make Mother Teresa a murderer. But, as others have touched on, there are other ways to address the situation. Not only more subtle, long-ranged influences and manipulations on the part of Sidious (and Teresa), but more subtle results.

For example, in the obviously absurd Sidious-Teresa scenario, as GM I'd accept (or even rule) that Teresa would, in fact, simply not hack the kid down - an action that probably goes against two or three "Total" psychlims. But she might be tempted to use violence to solve her problem, which would only violate one psychlim, and take a swing at Sidious (about which, even if it worked, she would feel terrible about afterwards). Alternatively, she might *threaten* the victim, or damage some item of theirs. There are several things that might happen that don't quite meet either side's expectations.

 

(An example from one of my campaigns: a character was getting married - to another PC, actually - and the other PCs threw him a bachelor party, complete with strippers. This PC is a pretty moral guy, who wasn't really pleased with the situation. So, when the others sicced a stripper on him, I had him make an EGO roll. The roll failed. Now, I could have said he totally loses control, makes out (or more) with the stripper, etc., etc. - but, given the attitude of that character (and the player, BTW), that would be way out of line. Instead, I simply said he "dances" with her a little and that's it - enough to embarrass the PC in front of his friends (a primary goal of many bachelor parties) without doing violence to the character.)

 

Of course, part of the problem is that Teresa has a pretty high PRE and EGO of her own...

 

Which brings me to the other thought I wanted to mention: the use of stats and skills. My impression is that PRE is an amalgam of charisma and bravery - the ability to act as if one was in command or control. EGO is about force of will and discipline. Almost as if one was internal and one external.

 

So, PRE helps you stand up to, as well as execute, PRE attacks. EGO helps you overcome psychlims and control your own actions. Sure there's overlap, but there's a difference. I've known a number of people who fit the low-PRE-high-EGO profile, people who aren't at all commanding or particularly brave, but who have the ability to keep themselves on task, or on the straight-and-narrow despite influences otherwise (there's too many examples of high-PRE-low-EGO people; certain politicians and most actors come to mind). These are people who I could probably literally scare pee out of if I tried, but getting them to kill an innocent or worship the devil would be almost certainly beyond anything short of full-fledged Mind Control (which I don't have IRL, dangit!).

 

In general, I prefer to default to direct stat-vs-same-stat for most purposes. It depends on the specific circumstances, the character, and the intended result. There's also a place for a momentary lapse (e.g., my example above), where a character might lapse or commit a minor violation, but recover almost immediately - so you might PRE-attack a person, maybe even a PC, into laying down their weapon, but she might get second thoughts a few seconds later when your minion bends over to retrieve said weapon (of course, then you have to check about codes of honor and such in relation to staying surrendered). The "momentary lapse" scenario has stood me well as a GM in a couple circumstances where a PC should by game rules have a certain reaction, but the player doesn't like it.

 

Blah, blah...dinner was ready an hour ago, and I obviously need to feed to regain mental focus:nonp: