[Emperors of the Fading Suns] [Emperors of the Fading Suns] OOC Thread

[cyl]

The softy was Mirror's ally ?


Damn, between that and the Widow hiding in the Juggernaut... we missed so much information.


Dear Twilight Geniuses.


It has come to my attention that despite our tremendous powers, distances still upsets the harmonious cooperation we are actively trying to elaborate.


Please be so kind as to find a cost effective solution to transmit valuable information with as little delay as possible.


Sincerely yours


Dashing Eclipse.

 

[Arynne]

Aaarrgghh! Once again, no alerts!

 

[xarvh]

@The Eclipse: Learn Wind Carried Words Technique.

 

[cyl]

Could I not just use the Network to pass messages on to Cross and beyond ?

 

[xarvh]

Yes but much slower.

 

[JayTee]

I'll build us some artifact cellphones or something. I'm thinking Artifact 3?

 

[cyl]

Yes but much slower.

Even with the most developped form of network ?

 

[xarvh]

The most advanced network will tell you stuff "within the hour".


That is also the speed you can use to deliver messages to specific people.


AFAIK WCWT is much faster.

 

[cyl]

But WCWT works only one way and you have to know the aproximate location of your target IIRC.


It's a start, but it's not what we need.


With Lookshy down, people are going to be scared and I think we can use that to rapidly expand.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Sorry, been hugely under the weather recently. Posts soon, and musings on stuff.

 

[CrazyIvan]

- Fangs / Mirror can't know unless they probe Malek what has been done to him (even though she can slowly realize how he feels about the Circle)

Fangs can make some pretty good guesses, based on her conversation with him (which was probing) and her own experiences. I've also been careful not to fix anything that's wasn't there before - she's built an intimacy to herself, but that's something she knew didn't exist previously. She made positive nosies about Flicker, because she knows personally that a Solar isn't obligated to care for their mate. She only started tinkering with the Cross stuff once he started making noise about it.

- it feels "cheap" to build an intimacy within a single "act" with NMI just through spamming social attacks... I'd rather have it built over a few scenes, the consented way.

Which is why I asked xarvh first.


She's exploiting Malek in a moment of weakness, because, to be frank, that's what you do in Exalted. You lose when your resources are drained, and you drain your targets resources by spamming attacks.

- Fangs doesn't have what it takes to rewrite Malek within a day, she has is her beauty, but that's it. If she wants to rewrite Malek, she's going to have to do it progressively

She also has Willpower 9 and the highest Compassion score of anyone in the party, IIRC, both of which came into play. She would have been much less effective if she wasn't hammering on those two. And this conflicts a bit with your "Feels cheap" comment - if Fangs *did* have what it took, Charm wise, she could simply rewrite Malek. You got hit with the weakest social attacks possible.

We can even start the next scene considering (whatever type of intimancy) for Fangs has been built through extensive uses of the L'Oreal charm, I have absolutely no problem with that... and I'm even willing to pay the extra xp cost... as long as it is built through "kindness and nurturing" instead of pressure.

As I believe it has been. She's been quite careful to use a delicate hand.

 

[CrazyIvan]

Xarvh, the only reason Fangs would actually need to meet the Elder is if he wants to collect on her offered payment and etch her debt into her tattoos.

 

[xarvh]

Yup. Done that.

 

[cyl]

I believe you did not take that personally, but just wanted to make sure


I took a walk with my dog and searched the reason for that feeling of unease and got to the bottom of it.

She's exploiting Malek in a moment of weakness, because, to be frank, that's what you do in Exalted. You lose when your resources are drained, and you drain your targets resources by spamming attacks.

That is true when you use UMIs, but not when using NMIs and that was precisely this part that was bugging me about this whole thing.


I couldn't put my finger on it and then I read the rules again:


" In a given scene, a character can suffer only two points of Willpower drain from natural persuasion attempts. Once this has happened, the character becomes jaded and suspicious. All further natural persuasion attempts automatically fail unless the attacker uses a stunt to try a new approach."


NMIs are really hard to use, especially applied to intimacies... because it takes as much as the target's Conviction scenes to do the inception... with a limited number of attacks.


So basically 3 different scenes per intimacy, considering you have to fight against someone who can regenerate wp by being his usual awesome self and every 2wp spent you have to change your angle.


It's almost near impossible to go anywhere in these conditions and it would take a huge amount of time to undo Words' work the natural way.


Even if Malek accepted to get hit by every attack... that's still a minimum of 15 scenes if we want to stick to the rules.


So I hope now you understand why I was rather uncomfortable with speeding up the process that fast.


I had completely forgotten about this rule, but knew there was something not quite right with the way we were going.

 

[cyl]

Also... damn I wanted to make a quip about deathknights and toys !

 

[Kacie]

Changing angles on attack isn't that hard to do, but it does require the ST to decide if the new angle is different enough to be considered New.


Other games I've been in, we would regularly break down someone's resistances over a long conversation with several different characters involved. The ST would tell us if we were stale on our angle, and then we had to come up with another approach.

 

[cyl]

It's still easier to regen wp and defend quasi endlessly.


That's why UMIs are so damn powerful.

 

[xarvh]

Using mental influence on PCs is always delicate.


It seems that cyl is letting CI do it, he just wants it to be delayed.


Honestly, as long as we are all in the same boat I don't give a crap about what the manual exactly says.


CI invested in social stuff and he must be able to use it, but we don't have to stick to mechanics.


In short: since this is PvP, I'd very much prefer CI and cyl to talk about it so that both can have fun and keep the drama, avoiding rules lawyering.

 

[cyl]

It's not even pvp


PvP would be letting Malek be what Words turned him into >


I don't want the mental influence to be delayed, I just feel like preserving that consistency thing we have around here and not bend the rules too far because it's convenient.


When Kacie talked about not letting Malek sleep, I went "hmmm... that's not going to work out", but I know this "don't let him rest" reflex is mainly conditioned by the crappy rules social combat relies on.


Anyhoo, if 1 scene = a few hours, Fangs probably has enough time (and certainly the proper talents and the right mindset if not the raw power) to spam a consenting Malek as long as she plays her cards right and use her good looks without pushing the envelope too far.


CI said she would be gentle, and I have no trouble believing that since Fangs has always been rather pedagogical with him despite his Mr Furious Nice Guy opposing her Scary Witch of the Forest and she know the bastard rather well to have at least an idea of what was and what is now.


Normal Malek would never had said such things about Cross, his mate and the people under the Circle's protection... but she may or may not see the little things (like his fondness for outcasts outsiders and underdogs and his devotion to the weak.


And there's absolutely nothing in the rules on detecting intimacies.


I would assume it shall fall under Investigation which Fangs sucks at bur Mirror excels in.


So together they can probably get a good look of what's going on under the hood.


The only question is how ? And how effective their analysis and repairs will be.


@CrazyIvan : here's what changed after Words played his mind games.


- Family (resentment)


- Weak People (hatred)


- The Exalts of Cross (hatred)


- People of the night (loathe)


- Honourable outlaws (loathe)


I think the first 3 are rather easy to detect, the other two.... heeeeeh, I'm not so sure.


Just tell me what Fangs wants changed, how you intend to proceed and I'll let Xarvh decides if the final envelope is reasonable considering the time required (since time in this game is rather a fluctuating value... normally you shouldn't have any problem).

 

[Kacie]

Mirror has Soul Invading Glance, or whichever Investigation charm lets you detect intimacies.


If you're worried about the mechanics being consistent, ask Xarvh, but I'm confident that between Mirror and Fangs they can detect and fix Malek's warped intimacies.

 

[CrazyIvan]

I believe you did not take that personally, but just wanted to make sure

I hadn't

" In a given scene, a character can suffer only two points of Willpower drain from natural persuasion attempts. Once this has happened, the character becomes jaded and suspicious. All further natural persuasion attempts automatically fail unless the attacker uses a stunt to try a new approach."
NMIs are really hard to use, especially applied to intimacies... because it takes as much as the target's Conviction scenes to do the inception... with a limited number of attacks.


So basically 3 different scenes per intimacy, considering you have to fight against someone who can regenerate wp by being his usual awesome self and every 2wp spent you have to change your angle.

The problem being you now have to ask "What's a new approach". For example, Fangs was bouncing back and forth between "Be better", "That's the path of a monster" and faintly maternal disappointment.


This is why I normally don't do social combat. Evisceration is so much cleaner.

So I hope now you understand why I was rather uncomfortable with speeding up the process that fast.
I had completely forgotten about this rule, but knew there was something not quite right with the way we were going.

Part of my confusion is I wasn't suggesting there was a particular pace to the process - nothing had been changed on Malek's character sheet so-to-speak. Fangs was essentially just bandaging psychic wounds. It's part of Project For A Better Malek, but there's no particular suggestion that it's "complete".

@CrazyIvan : here's what changed after Words played his mind games.


- Family (resentment)


- Weak People (hatred)


- The Exalts of Cross (hatred)


- People of the night (loathe)


- Honourable outlaws (loathe)


I think the first 3 are rather easy to detect, the other two.... heeeeeh, I'm not so sure.


Just tell me what Fangs wants changed, how you intend to proceed and I'll let Xarvh decides if the final envelope is reasonable considering the time required (since time in this game is rather a fluctuating value... normally you shouldn't have any problem).

Exalts of the Cross was super-easy to pick up. I'd suggest that if you out and out say "I hate the Circle, they're the worst!" or the like, that's no more investigation than someone handing you a signed confession is a investigation . That one is the primary one she's targeting, along with a specific positive intimacy for herself.


The other ones, we can pick up over time.

 

[Arynne]

Yes, you might want to get that settled, just so Cyl can figure out how horribly mean he's going to be to poor Flicker in this new scene.


(Now I'm wondering what happened to their first incarnations -- not Scarlet Silence and Steel Falcon, but the original ones. Has their luck always been this bad? )

 

[cyl]

Part of my confusion is I wasn't suggesting there was a particular pace to the process - nothing had been changed on Malek's character sheet so-to-speak. Fangs was essentially just bandaging psychic wounds. It's part of Project For A Better Malek, but there's no particular suggestion that it's "complete".

That's exactly the kind of info I need to play my pc accordingly.


He's been really changed by his captivity, so some things may or may not show, and if Fangs patched him up, I need to know what she patched up so I keep the rping consistent with all that's been done to him (the good and the bad).


From what I gather, for now we can consider the following has been updated / installed on his "hard drive":


The Exalts of Cross (loyal friendship)


Cunning Fangs (???)


Self Improvement (desire)

Mirror has Soul Invading Glance, or whichever Investigation charm lets you detect intimacies.

As I pointed out previously, that charm has a palpable effect for the target... so that's something Malek will resist (if he can).


The good part is he won't know it's coming from Mirror, and as a nice side effect, that's definitely something that will push him further in Fangs' arms.

 

[CrazyIvan]

From what I gather, for now we can consider the following has been updated / installed on his "hard drive":


The Exalts of Cross (loyal friendship)


Cunning Fangs (???)


Self Improvement (desire)

Any one of the following strike me as roughly the feel I've been doing for:


CF (Adoration)


CF (Awe)


CF (Ran out of things to try to alliterate)


CF (Mentor)

 

[cyl]

I think I'm going to go with Mentor, because of her past attempts at guiding him and giving him directions.


The rest doesn't strike me as something Malek would really stick to.