overmentalizing

[Maccabe]

Re: overmentalizing

 

I have to ask what happens if you "turn things around"? What if a villian uses his telepathy and mind control to do similiar things? He Mind Controls people to commit crimes or "bear false witness" against a certain hero. What if this villian uses Telepathy on someone to get information concerning say security systems of a location. Could you imagine;"I have no idea how they got past our security"

Lets see your players stop this guy, it will give you great ideas on how to stop them!

Legally speaking is use of telepathy "Illegal search and seizure?"?

[bigbywolfe]

Re: overmentalizing

 

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?

Legitimate points that have absolutely nothing to do with my main point, that your claim that IPE for Mental effects "only affects how hard they are to detect in a fight" is false.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Legitimate points that have absolutely nothing to do with my main point' date=' that your claim that IPE for Mental effects "only affects how hard they are to detect in a fight" is false.[/quote']

Then I rephrase that to "there is no absolute way to make a power undetectable and there is no absolute way to detect a powers use".

[Clonus]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Yeah whatever.

 

In any case "knowing" someone is guilty is far from enough to actually take him off the street. You can use telepathy to find out where people have their drugs, illegal weapons and stolen merchandise, and possibly what their operation plans next. To combat this, the operation has got to be prepared. It needs to control access to information, feed people false information leading to traps, be ready to change plans, and suddenly move things and destroy what can't be moved. This won't totally stop a telepathic sleuth but will slow things down enough to make it interesting which is all you should really want to do.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

You can use telepathy to find out where people have their drugs' date=' illegal weapons and stolen merchandise, and possibly what their operation plans next. To combat this, the operation has got to be prepared. It needs to control access to information, feed people false information leading to traps, be ready to change plans, and suddenly move things and destroy what can't be moved. This won't totally stop a telepathic sleuth but will slow things down enough to make it interesting which is all you should really want to do.[/quote']

Actually such preparations aren't limited to organisations that have to deal with telepaths. They are absolutely normal precautions any organised crime should take! After all, a single traitor can do the same damage with those informations that a telepath can do. The only difference is the time invested (months instead of minutes) and the personal risk while getting the informations.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: overmentalizing

 

1. Equip thugs with a device: IIF (ring) Mental Defense, only vs. telepathy.

2. Hire a telepath to implant false memories.

3. Don't tell thugs everything. Or tell him things that aren't true. Good way to set up ambushes.

4. Counter-telepathy: have a telepath linked to the thug, when good guy telepath tries to read thugs mind, he can encounter bad guy telepath in psychic duel.

5. Sniper. Have a thug not in the combat standing by in a convenient location. Attempts to read minds of people in the open will result in sniper bullet ending the conversation.

6. Teleportation device: one charge, only to one location, trigger 'only when unconcious'. Pulls him out of range automatically. Or trigger, only when telepathically probed.

 

All ideas are on the fly, first draft solutions. The trick is to have the villians react. If every time the bad guys rob a bank, the telepath tracks down thier hideout, the villians need to do things differently. Compartmentalization. Counter-telepath. Talk to the local weapons dealer about anti-telepath devices. Ambushes. Lawsuits. Clever defense attorneys.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Here's an idea. You said he takes hours to scan, right? In your setting do the heroes have any actual police powers? If not, he is illegally detaining them and could be arrested for wrongful imprisonment. Even if a simpathetic District Attorney wouldn't press charges the thugs could take it to civil court. Have a mob boss intentionally throw his mooks in the mentalists path and 6 months later a mob lawyer sets up a class action law suit for millions of dollars for the dozens of guys he's mind raped. Bad press for him, bad press for the DA and police (now they have to do something about his illegal behavior) and he now owes millions of dollars to the petty criminals he violated.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

The idea of having a mental deadlock (applying an Vulnerability BODY: Every Phase while Mindscanned) on some of your people means any hero with CvK has to be reluctant to use (or allow the use) of such powers on any of them - since it can kill them.

In this chase I would consider it an advantage/power (even if it uses complication mechanics), as there are very few situations where being mind scanned is in your best interest.

Transform can allow an enemy mentalist to apply it, as well as the good guys to let it vanish. But either should be reserved for very powerfull mentalists (more Menton than "guy with some small mental tricks").

[casualplayer]

Re: overmentalizing

 

The main reason your player has time to read your criminals' minds like a book is that you are giving him uninterrupted reading time. Interrupt him! Knock the book out of his hands and make him have to find his place again. Set the book on fire. Have the book written by Joyce or Burroughs, or even Bunyon where everything is allegory. Don't give him a table of contents or the ability to bookmark or the ability to factcheck. Our heads are filled with nonsense and tedium, days and days that were distinctive because nothing happened.

 

Were I the mastermind behind these mind-stripped mooks each would be equipped with viral memes that would accumulate until the mentalist would be unable to focus at all. Probably just a miniscule INT and EGO Drain, with the recovery measured in months, Cumulative. Earworms of the hamster dance or Gaga or Henry VIII or commercial jingles.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Although the workarounds and legal issues are good points (and important) I think the root of the problem is how Telepathy is handled; casualplayer makes excellent points on this. The amount of info in the brain is enormous and you can't simply Google it. It isn't like going to a library to look up a reference book. It is like going to a library after a tornado hit it to find a particular page of a particular reference book. The GM is well within his rights to deny some information simply because the telepath couldn't find it.

 

For games I've run, Telepathy is done like this: Player asks questions he wants answered and gets to make the Telepathy roll. As GM I determine what information is available at different Telepathy levels and give the player info depending on the questions asked (the better the question is framed the better the info). They can try again for higher rolls or with different questions, but the mook only knows so much, if for no other reason than it suits the plot. For rationalization, look at the above posts. Also consider that a trained mind can just focus on a single thought to keep the telepath at bay. An untrained mind might end up with a similar effect, especially after a long interrogation, with an overriding fear loop (i.e. I'm going to die! I'm going to die! I'm going to die!). When my players start getting the thought loop, they know that the mook doesn't have much else to offer them, so it is time to get on with the game.

[Orion]

Re: overmentalizing

 

My god, the player is actually using the powers like they should be used. Can't have that - let's figure out how to neutralize him immediately! And while we're at it, let's make sure the energy projectors can't use their blasts any more. No different from firing guns in public, and that's illegal, so they can't do it either. We'll tell the martial artists and bricks that hitting people is assault, so that takes care of them. Pretty soon we'll have that Housewives and Officeworker campaign I've always wanted.

 

Seriously though, why penalize the player for using the power correctly? If they can read minds, I would fully expect them to read the minds of the bad guys. So it can't be used in court - no matter - it can be used to stop more of the bad guy's actions, and that's the important point. If you play it as illegal or immoral (and most of us do), then either the player wants the character to act like that, or the power should not have been allowed in the first place. If the power is going to be limited because of genre conventions, that needs to be stated up front. No different really than stating no casual killers at the start of a campaign. If I was the player mentioned by the OP, I would either request a completely new character, or leave the campaign, if a change of this magnitude was required in the character.

 

In my campaign, I just state that psionics are rare, of very low power, mostly pacifists, and will not be a concern in the campaign for this very reason. I'm even happy to state psionics do not exist for the campaign world. Telepathy and mind control can screw up a well-planned scenario in no time, and I think it's generally not worth dealing with it as a GM. If the players really want psionics, then that will be a major part of the campaign, and at some point the villains will get the drop on them and force them to do various and sundry illegal and/or humiliating things in public.

[casualplayer]

Re: overmentalizing

 

My god, the player is actually using the powers like they should be used. Can't have that - let's figure out how to neutralize him immediately! And while we're at it, let's make sure the energy projectors can't use their blasts any more. No different from firing guns in public, and that's illegal, so they can't do it either. We'll tell the martial artists and bricks that hitting people is assault, so that takes care of them. Pretty soon we'll have that Housewives and Officeworker campaign I've always wanted.

 

I think the main complaint is that the extent the Psi is delving is bogging down the game. I had this problem once with a fearmonger Psi who wanted to know the greatest fear of Every Single Person They Encountered. I eventually had to take the player aside and tell them to chill out because they were hogging the limelight and jamming up the game.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

My god, the player is actually using the powers like they should be used. Can't have that - let's figure out how to neutralize him immediately! And while we're at it, let's make sure the energy projectors can't use their blasts any more. No different from firing guns in public, and that's illegal, so they can't do it either. We'll tell the martial artists and bricks that hitting people is assault, so that takes care of them. Pretty soon we'll have that Housewives and Officeworker campaign I've always wanted.

[...]

In my campaign, I just state that psionics are rare, of very low power, mostly pacifists, and will not be a concern in the campaign for this very reason. I'm even happy to state psionics do not exist for the campaign world. Telepathy and mind control can screw up a well-planned scenario in no time, and I think it's generally not worth dealing with it as a GM. If the players really want psionics, then that will be a major part of the campaign, and at some point the villains will get the drop on them and force them to do various and sundry illegal and/or humiliating things in public.

In my few tries as a GM in Games with Mind Control/Charm concepts, I usually had a very hard time with them. But this is in part to the fact that I'm a very linear GM.

So it's not a sign of weakness to say that you can't handle a fully used Mind Scan as a GM. Just make clear how it works to beginn with. Or give him the chance to retcon his character (or take another one with the same XP) when you find it out mid-game and change the rules.

[Orion]

Re: overmentalizing

 

I think the main complaint is that the extent the Psi is delving is bogging down the game. I had this problem once with a fearmonger Psi who wanted to know the greatest fear of Every Single Person They Encountered. I eventually had to take the player aside and tell them to chill out because they were hogging the limelight and jamming up the game.

 

Okay, this I can understand, and fully appreciate. It's not what I got from the original post, but a valid problem.

[Houston GM]

Re: overmentalizing

 

everytime the group captures a mid to high range mook' date=' the mentalist spends [b']hours[/b] 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.

If I were an evil mastermind ...

 

... wait a minute, I am one.

 

I played in a campaign where one of the major nasty bad guys managed to successfully impersonate one of our allies, so we told him (more specifically, I told him) our entire plan for taking down the bad guys. Shortly thereafter, we discovered that our ally had been eliminated prior to the meeting.

 

The following in-character discussion ensued:

 

Brother Vincent: "We're screwed! The enemy knows the entire plan!"

 

Nero: (grinning ear-to-ear) "This is perfect. We finally have an advantage."

 

Brother Vincent: "What are you talking about? YOU told him the plan."

 

Nero: (laughing) "Yes, I did."

 

Brother Vincent: "The REAL plan."

 

Nero: (laughing harder) "That's right. It's perfect."

 

Brother Vincent: "You're insane. There's no way this helps us."

 

Nero: "Think about it. This entire time we've been hampered because we didn't know what our enemy knew. For the first time, we know exactly what information they have."

 

Brother Vincent: (nearly hysterical) "They have the WHOLE plan!"

 

Nero: (suddenly calm, quiet and completely serious) "And now we change the whole plan, and then they won't know any of it."

 

----------------

 

Following the same line of thought, if I were a mob boss who just had an important mook captured, I'd figure out what the three most incriminating pieces of information that he knew were.

 

1. The incriminating evidence would get moved.

2. The location would be booby-trapped.

3. Private investigators would be hired to surreptitiously watch each location and call in if/when the PCs showed.

 

The people in the organization who were known to the mook would be instructed to drop off the radar and stay in locations that the mook didn't know about. Whatever upcoming heist the mook knew about would be immediately rescheduled. The team doing it would be put on standby, and they would hit the target when the private investigator called to say the PCs were at the booby-trap.

 

This doesn't require any planning in advance. It's completely reactionary. Any bright enemy could make the plan and execute it while the mentalist investigator was going through the mook's brain.

 

And unlike the other suggestions, you're not penalizing him for using his powers. You're penalizing him for being slow and obvious about how he uses his powers.

[dmjalund]

Re: overmentalizing

 

of course the way to avoid this, is to hide the fact that the mook was captured.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

of course the way to avoid this' date=' is to hide the fact that the mook was captured.[/quote']

Wich can be an action requiring the help of the entire group (blocking all radio tranmission, not letting anyone escape,...) and thus we are at the point where everyone has fun again.

After all, an important mook (short of the boss) has some shedule to keep, at lot of lesser mooks around that could inform boss (maybe even the first one to tell about it get's promoted a litle bit), if he is in an important meeting he has to call back in X-Minutes, or he is persumed caputred/dead an the contigency plans are triggered (including the above).

There are a lot more mundane reasons to be prepared for the capture of one important guy. Even the police busting the scene could get their hands on incriminating informations (totally without a telepath).

 

And when he keep's driving all the non Mental-Proof groups out of town, perhaps the next time psi fills their place.

Or the other groups hire telepaths to protect themself (some times you need more guns, sometimes you need an antipath). Or we have a story a-la Batman Dark Knight (the Movie), just replace batman with your problem player and the joker with a powerfull counter-telepath.

[Martin2]

Re: overmentalizing

 

If I were an evil mastermind ...

 

Following the same line of thought, if I were a mob boss who just had an important mook captured, I'd figure out what the three most incriminating pieces of information that he knew were.

 

1. The incriminating evidence would get moved.

2. The location would be booby-trapped.

3. Private investigators would be hired to surreptitiously watch each location and call in if/when the PCs showed.

 

The people in the organization who were known to the mook would be instructed to drop off the radar and stay in locations that the mook didn't know about. Whatever upcoming heist the mook knew about would be immediately rescheduled. The team doing it would be put on standby, and they would hit the target when the private investigator called to say the PCs were at the booby-trap.

 

This doesn't require any planning in advance. It's completely reactionary. Any bright enemy could make the plan and execute it while the mentalist investigator was going through the mook's brain.

 

And unlike the other suggestions, you're not penalizing him for using his powers. You're penalizing him for being slow and obvious about how he uses his powers.

 

I must remember this. Do not follow the Star Trek theme of loosing the captain / first officer and not changing the pass word to the self destruct / shield down.

 

Also keep well “misinformed” mooks behind to be captured and your mentalist will be faster and more specific with his mind scans and not wait 3 hours to get his life story and then find that the important information has changed (or was false in the first place).

 

 

In fact in future all agents will be give three pieces of important information. Only one will be accurate the rest will be a trap and they will be told which one is correct if they need to know (just kidding ).

[Ice9]

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.

No offense, but this sounds like a pretty big waste of Telepathy. "Look, I have the powers and abilities of some headset walkie-talkies, and I can find out information that we would have discovered anyway!" Fine as a "side power", but not something I would base a character around. It seems like this new player is just using mental powers to their actual potential. Now if that potential is screwing up all your plots, and you're not having success in adapting to it, then you may just want to level with the player and ask them to make a different character. Better that then a bunch of stealth-nerfs that will probably just create bad feelings in the group.

 

 

My god, the player is actually using the powers like they should be used. Can't have that - let's figure out how to neutralize him immediately! And while we're at it, let's make sure the energy projectors can't use their blasts any more. No different from firing guns in public, and that's illegal, so they can't do it either. We'll tell the martial artists and bricks that hitting people is assault, so that takes care of them. Pretty soon we'll have that Housewives and Officeworker campaign I've always wanted.

This. I mean, I know that mental powers are hard to deal with, and I would not think less of a GM for disallowing them in a particular campaign. And of course, a lot of the suggestions are fair game - compartmentalize information, give out false details to minions, have a villain mentalist plant false memories - go for it!

 

But some of the ideas seem like ham-handed GM-fiat, along the lines of "Oh, you have long-distance flight? Um, all the villains have permanent windstorms in a 50 mile radius around their castles, and also people will think you're a demon if they see you using it." And that's just not cool.

[casualplayer]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Having NPCs that can reasonably expect to encounter this hero take steps to counteract his known abilities is not a nerf. It's tactics and strategy and it's what seperates the criminal masterminds from the hobgoblin hordes. I'm stunned that every one of The Kingpin's men doesn't carry a dog whistle, for example.

 

Telepathy is not open license to peek at the GM's notes. People are dumb, misinformed or misremember. It's not a nuclear power in a game of rock-paper-scissors. Taking steps to maintain the drama of uncertainty can only improve the game. But I would say the biggest concern is that the Telepath is grinding the game to a halt while he goes cerebellum surfing. The other PCs are left sitting around with their thumbs up their butts. It's the Hacker dilemma of CyberPunk gaming, where the Decker dives into the virtual world and the rest of the players can go on a munchy run. For hours.

[Greywind]

Re: overmentalizing

 

The problem being, while people misremember the brain actually doesn't. It just holds the data. The person, the conscious mind is what interprets that data.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

The problem being' date=' while people misremember the brain actually doesn't. It just holds the data. The person, the conscious mind is what interprets that data.[/quote']

And telepathy reads the interpretation? Or does it read the data, it is your mind that interprets them?

In either chase, the system is flawed: Eitehr the interpretation of the targets mind is wrong, or your's because you don't have acces to cross refferences needed.

[Christopher]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Having NPCs that can reasonably expect to encounter this hero take steps to counteract his known abilities is not a nerf. It's tactics and strategy and it's what seperates the criminal masterminds from the hobgoblin hordes. I'm stunned that every one of The Kingpin's men doesn't carry a dog whistle' date=' for example.[/quote']

Oor how about the mooks running around without armor? Robocops enemys not buying armor piercing bullets and never investing into a plasma gun (or one of the other 100 weapons that can hurt him)?

Do you think buying a power that can hurt superman, is a "stealth nerf" of his defenses? Or KITT having an anti-laser car paint a steahlt nerf for every laser wielding supervillian?

I say each of that is common sense and good tactic.

[Greywind]

Re: overmentalizing

 

And telepathy reads the interpretation? Or does it read the data, it is your mind that interprets them?

In either chase, the system is flawed: Eitehr the interpretation of the targets mind is wrong, or your's because you don't have acces to cross refferences needed.

That doesn't make the system flawed. It makes the interpreter (mindreader) flawed.

[Ice9]

Re: overmentalizing

 

Having NPCs that can reasonably expect to encounter this hero take steps to counteract his known abilities is not a nerf. It's tactics and strategy and it's what seperates the criminal masterminds from the hobgoblin hordes. I'm stunned that every one of The Kingpin's men doesn't carry a dog whistle' date=' for example.[/quote']True to an extent. However, a dog whistle is something you can buy in a store for a few dollars. What a lot of people are talking about here are things like widespread mind-bombs, special anti-psi training, custom scanners to detect invisible telepathy use ... not stuff you can just buy at the corner store. You'd need not only your own mentalist/psi-inventor, but specifically one with some unusual powers. Some organizations may be powerful enough to have all that - but not the majority.

 

That said, easier to implement measures, like compartmentalizing information, spreading false plans along with the real one, having high-ranking members take precautions against mind scan - that's all reasonable.