overmentalizing

[Nothere]

In a game there have been various mentalist charecters. They all have fit a general patern using thier telepathy to be living group communicators and occasionally probe some villians mind to discover something about the plot. All pretty straight forward.

But trouble has arrived with a new player in the group.

The charecter is a mentalist investigator type. And everytime the group captures a mid to high range mook, the mentalist spends hours going through their brains. Getting a list of every crime they ever commited, every accomplice they ever had, when all the illigeal materials are stored etc.

So far they've rendered six groups pretty much unusable. It's getting to the point where the only type of orginized crime that can occur is one where every member is disguised, has a codename, and never meets in the same place, they never meet and only communicate through disposable cell phones,or everyone suddenly gets some mental defence. There is a feeling among the group that we need to discuss with the player to reduce the amount of mental probing their doing. But before we do I thought I'd see if anyone had an idea to fix it in game.

[Greywind]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Mindbomb. A high level mook is a one-trick mentalist of a killing damage shield variety whenever his mind is raped.

[ghost-angel]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Mooks don't get the whole story, have them operate in small cells - never get in "on the plan" only on "their part of it" (Guard the door, take the cash, get my cut, go home). . .

 

Make some time sensitive adventures, they can't possibly have time to sort through this guys whole set of memories, the bomb goes off in 30 minutes, or "they're getting away" ... the first meeting spot was just that, instructions are where to go next weren't provided to the low level (or even mid level) mook. Too bad they got away - AGAIN.

 

I like Greywind's Mindbomb. That'll learn 'em

[Clonus]

Re: overmentalizing

 

In a game there have been various mentalist charecters. They all have fit a general patern using thier telepathy to be living group communicators and occasionally probe some villians mind to discover something about the plot. All pretty straight forward.

But trouble has arrived with a new player in the group.

The charecter is a mentalist investigator type. And everytime the group captures a mid to high range mook, the mentalist spends hours going through their brains. Getting a list of every crime they ever commited, every accomplice they ever had, when all the illigeal materials are stored etc.

So far they've rendered six groups pretty much unusable. It's getting to the point where the only type of orginized crime that can occur is one where every member is disguised, has a codename, and never meets in the same place, they never meet and only communicate through disposable cell phones,or everyone suddenly gets some mental defence. There is a feeling among the group that we need to discuss with the player to reduce the amount of mental probing their doing. But before we do I thought I'd see if anyone had an idea to fix it in game.

 

So he has a list of all the crimes the captured mook committed, and all their accomplices. So what? That information is hardly admissible in a court of law. Knowing is one thing. Being able to convict is another.

[mattingly]

Re: overmentalizing

 

A mindbomb that kills the mook also works. 1d6 BODY Susceptibility to Telepathy.

[Greywind]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Using the Head hit location?

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: overmentalizing

 

I agree with the statement that a)that information isn't going to be nearly as useful as the mentalist things and b)grunts shouldn't know any more about the plan than they absolutely need to to complete their part of it. B especially makes it more useful, as that's your way to guide the PCs to the next stage of the plotline.

 

I personally would not recommend the 'mindbomb' concept unless it fits a particular villain you're using. It stings too much of 'gotcha!'

[Lucius]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Using the Head hit location?

 

No, using the "Every Segment" frequency.

 

An opposing Mentalist can protect their minions. This Power assumes the Master Mind has Mental Defense already.

 

Protect Mind: Naked Advantage on up to 5 pts Mental Defense: Usable By Other (+1/2), Grantor can take back power at any time for up to 5 Active Points of Mental Defense, Persistent (+1/4), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Difficult To Dispel (x16 Active Points; +1) (6 Active Points); Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Side Effect only affects the recipient of the benefits of the Power; If Defense is breached, take 3d6/segment until unconscious, then continue rolling damage and take BOD as well as STUN (as per Susceptibility); -1 1/2), Extra Time (20 Minutes, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1 1/2), Perceivable (Obvious to Mental Awareness; Telepathy will percieve mental "signature" allowing Mind Scan to locate the mentalist, or to recognize the mentalist upon mental contact.; -1/4) Real Cost 1

 

If the heroic mentalis has Mind Scan, give the villain a Mental Defense Shield. Or adjust the Power to take out the Obvious aspect.

 

Here's another version, harder to undo:

 

Hardened Protect Mind: Naked Advantage on up to 5 pts Mental Defense: Usable By Other (+1/2), Grantor can take back power at any time, Hardened (x2; +1/2) for up to 5 Active Points of Mental Defense, Persistent (+1/4), Personal Immunity (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Difficult To Dispel (x16 Active Points; +1) (15 Active Points); Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Side Effect only affects the recipient of the benefits of the Power; If Defense is breached, take 3d6/segment until unconscious, then continue rolling damage and take BOD as well as STUN (as per Susceptibility); -1 1/2), Extra Time (20 Minutes, Only to Activate, Character May Take No Other Actions, -1 1/2), Perceivable (Obvious to Mental Awareness; Telepathy will percieve mental "signature" allowing Mind Scan to locate the mentalist, or to recognize the mentalist upon mental contact.; -1/4) Real Cost: 3

 

 

One other idea that hasn't been mentioned yet - the minion that's been lied to. If it's known the group have a powerful Telepath, Mister Big may make a practice of not only not telling the minions everything, but telling them things that are wrong and misleading. "This is the address I delivered the loot to" but the minion doesn't know the loot is always moved immediately after delivery, and the location is watched (via closed circuit TV perhaps) and booby trapped.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Palindromedary Enterprises: we sell more than just palindromedaries

[Matt Holck]

Re: overmentalizing

 

emotional stress on the mentalist having recalled the crimes of another and to that point have to relive the memories

perhaps knowing anothers secrets carries emotional baggage

does the mentalist know his parents secrets ?

[BNakagawa]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Criminalize it. By all rights that sort of thing ought to be illegal anyway. I don't see how a mook forfeits his 5th ammendment rights just because he's unconscious.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

One other idea that hasn't been mentioned yet - the minion that's been lied to. If it's known the group have a powerful Telepath' date=' Mister Big may make a practice of not only not telling the minions everything, but telling them things that are wrong and misleading. "This is the address I delivered the loot to" but the minion doesn't know the loot is always moved[i'] immediately [/i]after delivery, and the location is watched (via closed circuit TV perhaps) and booby trapped.

Tsun Tsu said: It's sometimes a good idea to give a spy wrong informations and then let him be captured, so the enemy learns of the falsehoods and is convinced they are true.

And as usual, people will always believe what the learned with their own senses or own deduction, and hardly ever think this has all been set up so he makes the false conclusions.

 

Criminalize it. By all rights that sort of thing ought to be illegal anyway. I don't see how a mook forfeits his 5th ammendment rights just because he's unconscious.

That's a good point. Unless this is Dark Champions, the Mentalist should show some restraint. Code vs Killing also means you can't Mindprobe anybody as deep as you want, after all such a thing can has serious effects of the psyche of someone. There was this one Thanagerian in JL, that the Manhunter scanned despite of his mental defenses. That one was a vegetable afterwards (especially in his reoccurence during JLU).

That said, how about a perk: "License to Mindread" or "License to Mindbend", 10 pt each (Like the License to Kill; and can be taken away like that if used without restraint).

[Matt Holck]

Re: overmentalizing

 

in my world

Nightmare is a telepath that used to work for the CIA

He read minds with eye contact but then couldn't look away.

He became extremely paranoid and lives in a house of grimtooth traps

[Martin2]

Re: overmentalizing

 

In a game there have been various mentalist charecters. They all have fit a general patern using thier telepathy to be living group communicators and occasionally probe some villians mind to discover something about the plot. All pretty straight forward.

But trouble has arrived with a new player in the group.

The charecter is a mentalist investigator type. And everytime the group captures a mid to high range mook, the mentalist spends hours going through their brains. Getting a list of every crime they ever commited, every accomplice they ever had, when all the illigeal materials are stored etc.

So far they've rendered six groups pretty much unusable. It's getting to the point where the only type of orginized crime that can occur is one where every member is disguised, has a codename, and never meets in the same place, they never meet and only communicate through disposable cell phones,or everyone suddenly gets some mental defence. There is a feeling among the group that we need to discuss with the player to reduce the amount of mental probing their doing. But before we do I thought I'd see if anyone had an idea to fix it in game.

 

In my campaign I have a mentalist and she has not gone that far yet. I have also explained that it is against the law, not admissible as evidence in court etc so is not as useful. It is mostly used to get relevant plot information and not the back history of the person involved.

 

How is this information stored? All "supposed" useful information taken down on tape recorder, written down etc. Lots of information transferred and it is lost in translation? Photographic memory (most probably)???

 

The brain is a big storage device holding more information than a lot of hard drive space. So finding information will take lots of time. What is relevant? What is out of date? What is guessed by the mook? What was a lie? With time things change and so will memories. So I would say a lot of information, a lot of it wrong. Time taken to sort the good from the bad will take time.

 

Even if the mentalist has a photographic memory it does not give exact copies of what he sees, reads, hears, smells etc (not enough hard drive space). And to get a full picture it would be a lot longer than a few hours.

 

Also with lots of peoples memories floating around in your head this will lead to a lot of psychological complications (schizophrenia, manic depression, paranoia, etc).

 

I am a scientist and my wife is a psychiatric nurse so between us we know a bit (she is the mentalist in the game I am running ).

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

The brain is a big storage device holding more information than a lot of hard drive space. So finding information will take lots of time. What is relevant? What is out of date? What is guessed by the mook? What was a lie? With time things change and so will memories. So I would say a lot of information' date=' a lot of it wrong. Time taken to sort the good from the bad will take time.[/font']

And while you are in there, going through all the archives you could hit some deeply repressed memory (it was good protected, so you were sure it is important). This could overwhelm you and it might certainly mentally incapacitate your target.

 

And Mind Controlling to let them confess? "That wasn't the truth, he/she forced me to say that." And before you can say "damn" your MC target is free and you have a civil rights lawsuit at your heels (from an known, powerfull "anti-mentalist" lawyer) - in addition to the one for unallowed Mind Controll/Mind Reading.

 

About the IPE for mental effects: That only affects how hard they are to detect in a fight. There are certanly scanners that can detect Mindread in Progress or a way to find evidence of it's use in the past, like you could find evidence from an invisible, unhearable energy blast.

 

When you want more guides:

Shadowrun has to deal with similar problems (mind reading, mind controll, magic in general) in a modern world and has some more ideas how to deal with it (it also deals with Clairsentience and other Hero-Yield/Stop-Sign Powers).

[bigbywolfe]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Tsun Tsu said: It's sometimes a good idea to give a spy wrong informations and then let him be captured, so the enemy learns of the falsehoods and is convinced they are true.

And as usual, people will always believe what the learned with their own senses or own deduction, and hardly ever think this has all been set up so he makes the false conclusions.

 

 

That's a good point. Unless this is Dark Champions, the Mentalist should show some restraint. Code vs Killing also means you can't Mindprobe anybody as deep as you want, after all such a thing can has serious effects of the psyche of someone. There was this one Thanagerian in JL, that the Manhunter scanned despite of his mental defenses. That one was a vegetable afterwards (especially in his reoccurence during JLU).

That said, how about a perk: "License to Mindread" or "License to Mindbend", 10 pt each (Like the License to Kill; and can be taken away like that if used without restraint).

Code vs Killing has absolutely nothing to do with the use of Mental Powers unless they can kill, maim, et cetera. Nothing in the mechanics for Telepathy indicates side effects like affecting the psyche or making someone a vegetable. The power would have to be built to have those effects, they don't as a default.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: overmentalizing

 

And while you are in there' date=' going through all the archives you could hit some deeply repressed memory (it was good protected, so you were [u']sure[/u] it is important). This could overwhelm you and it might certainly mentally incapacitate your target.

 

And Mind Controlling to let them confess? "That wasn't the truth, he/she forced me to say that." And before you can say "damn" your MC target is free and you have a civil rights lawsuit at your heels (from an known, powerfull "anti-mentalist" lawyer) - in addition to the one for unallowed Mind Controll/Mind Reading.

 

About the IPE for mental effects: That only affects how hard they are to detect in a fight. There are certanly scanners that can detect Mindread in Progress or a way to find evidence of it's use in the past, like you could find evidence from an invisible, unhearable energy blast.

 

When you want more guides:

Shadowrun has to deal with similar problems (mind reading, mind controll, magic in general) in a modern world and has some more ideas how to deal with it (it also deals with Clairsentience and other Hero-Yield/Stop-Sign Powers).

Bold added by me. Can you give a reference from the rules that says Invisibilty to the Mental Sense group only applies in combat?

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Bold added by me. Can you give a reference from the rules that says Invisibilty to the Mental Sense group only applies in combat?

I know, you want to have your superpersuasion guy whose actions can't be detected.

This discussion is exactly the opostive way, we want to give a GM tools that allow him to better controll an overly excessive mind reader. Also, there is no rule that says I can't build a detect (previous uses of mental powers on person; perhaps combined with clairsentiece[past]). So when the gm want's it, he just can rule that such things exist (if it is an "Forensic Mentalist" in Police Employment or a "Mental Manipulation Detector 2005" having said detect, is up to him).

[Guest steamteck]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Use breakout rolls. I don't let unconscious people be probed myself. Nowhere in the rules but we've always done it that way, Sleeping people obviously have deams as surface thoughts. Use EN rules religiously and say each fact takes at least a phase or more depending on what they're looking for. Rmember they can't be normally alert while probing.

 

If its well known he does this, have a mentalist villain put a deathblock on minor minions so they take killing damage if deep probed.

 

Also going deep into the mind of a harden killer is not always a great ideal. If it a serial killed or mentally disturbed person they may get nightmares or other side effects for really really knowing how they think. Maybe even a dark quikening thing where they get confused about who they are.

 

Maybe after they deep probe the 100the victim or so for all his knowledge the mentalist mind begins to overload and breakdown and some way need to be foound to get ris of the memories

 

Public pressure may be an issue as this will get out eventually as it is so overdone. Mentalist always walk a fine line with public opinion anyway. Many civilans don't trust thenm or think its a villainous powerset.

 

Mindprobing might even be violating his civil rights and void any legal action.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: overmentalizing

 

From a campaign perspective, I had a hard look at this the last time I ran Champions. Mine was a 'high-realism' game which took a hard look at how supers and their powers would interact with normals in the real world. And it looks to me like your problem-player is approaching your campaign from that angle, at odds with you and the rest of your group.

 

What I did was assume that organized crime (and crime in general) had already been subject to the kind of treatment from mentalists that you're describing -- after all, the supers had been been around for a few decades. The end result was that the surviving criminal organizations had recruited their own villainous mentalists, or were run by mentalists. The biggest, baddest organization recruited lots of mentalists (and other supers), who promptly took over the whole thing for themselves.

 

I'd suggest a solution like this for your campaign -- have one of the criminal organizations recruit a mentalist (or several) to help protect their people from mental intrusion. Later, the mentalist villains might even take over the organization, and give the PC's some real trouble. It worked pretty well in my campaign.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Ethics for mentalists

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/41050-Ethics-for-mentalists

 

The Ultimate Mentalist 4e and 5e discusses the difficulties of GM Mentalist in detail and does an excellent job.

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/63194-The-Ultimate-Mentalist

 

RPG Review of The Ultimate Mentalist

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12777.phtml

 

RPG Review of The Ultimate Mentalist

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12670.phtml

 

 

"Your mind is a terrible thing to lay waste" - Quote Mind Master fallen superhero of San Angelo: City of Heroes.

 

 

QM

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: overmentalizing

 

I'd recommend the movie "Push" as a way to sow disinformation. The hero is being traced by his memories - so he gets his recall of the last week or so erased, and leaves himself written notes to be opened at the appropriate time. The bad guys find he 'drops off the radar'.

 

And besides - "I saw it inside his head!!" isn't going to stand up in a court of law unless you have physical evidence to back it up!

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

And besides - "I saw it inside his head!!" isn't going to stand up in a court of law unless you have physical evidence to back it up!

And even then, the way you obtained the information that lead to finding this evidence may make it invalid in court.

[Greywind]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Depends on the status within the campaign of PsiCops.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: overmentalizing

 

I know' date=' you want to have your superpersuasion guy whose actions can't be detected.[/b']

No I don't and nothing in my posts suggest I do. That type of character would not be appropriate in every game and I would be unlikely to play one even in a campaign where it was fitting, but thanks for putting words in my mouth.

 

This discussion is exactly the opostive way' date=' we want to give a GM tools that allow him to better controll an overly excessive mind reader. Also, there is no rule that says I can't build a detect (previous uses of mental powers on person; perhaps combined with clairsentiece[past']).

I never said there was a rule preventing you from doing that. You said “About the IPE for mental effects: That only affects how hard they are to detect in a fight.” This is false. Whether or not the GM allows a detect that completely disregards the fact that the player paid more to have his powers be IPE does not change the fact that IPE for mental effects applies in or out of combat. The same detect you mention to get around IPE (which I would be hesitant to allow in a game) could also be used in combat. So IPE applies in or out of combat and your questionable Detect works in and out of combat. The point remains that what you said was false.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Whether or not the GM allows a detect that completely disregards the fact that the player paid more to have his powers be IPE does not change the fact that IPE for mental effects applies in or out of combat. The same detect you mention to get around IPE (which I would be hesitant to allow in a game) could also be used in combat. So IPE applies in or out of combat and your questionable Detect works in and out of combat. The point remains that what you said was false.

You paid for IPE. He paid for a Detect that works despite of IPE. I think you both invested a lot of points into a very special kind of duel.

 

And is using a detect to circuvent an inivisble effect so much different from using alternate targetting sense to circumvent the invisibility of a person?