Natural mental persuasion and willpower.

[Lord Ben]

Okay, it says you can only lose two willpower from natural persuasion attempts unless the person tries a new approach.  Can you do something like this?:


1. I'd like you to tell me where the girl is please x2


2. I'll give you a talent of silver if you tell me x2


3. Tell me now or I'll cut your face you bitch!!  x2


Or do the approaches need to be significantly different?

 

[Flagg]

IIRC, that's 2 wp per scene.

 

[Lord Ben]

Yeah, it's per scene.  But if the above was a "I need some information" type interrogations would those be significantly different?

 

[Trueblood]

They seem to be a bit too related as in you would be using all 3 statements in the same line of questioning.


For example, "I'd like you to tell me where the girl is, we can do this one of 2 ways, the easy way where I'll give you a talent of silver if you tell me or the hard way, where I cut your face until you do... what's it going to be?", the statement "I'd like you to tell me where the girl is please" doesn't strike me as a completed interrogation effort but rather as more of an opening statement.

 

[Persell]

Okay, it says you can only lose two willpower from natural persuasion attempts unless the person tries a new approach.  Can you do something like this?:
1. I'd like you to tell me where the girl is please x2


2. I'll give you a talent of silver if you tell me x2


3. Tell me now or I'll cut your face you bitch!!  x2


Or do the approaches need to be significantly different?

That's way too similar.


A new approach would be something like: "Quick, the ripper of the alamo is after the girls, we have to save them, let's go."


At the very least. I am rather restrictive with the interpretation of this.

 

[Flagg]

Yeah' date=' it's per scene.[/quote']
That's my point. It doesn't matter whether you change your line of questioning or not. There is a per scene limit, regardless of what is said, no?

 

[The zombie cat]

It dose say the 2 per scene limit can be bypassed with a stunt that changes the line of questioning.


This dose mean that you can force someone to spend all there willpower by asking questions other than the one you really need the answer to, then stunt the subject to what you really need to know.


For example, your trying to find a bandit camp. You capture a bandit but he is loyal.


Where is your camp


Where are the guards stationed *2


What are your pass coads *2


How do you find your targets *2


Who is your fense *2


Where do you hide the loot *2


Tell me how to get to your camp.


Even given that he doesn’t know all of those he will run out of willpower before you ask the question you want. And if he stops resisting other questions to save willpower for the location you at least gain some valuable Intel.


This is also realistic, at 5 or 6 long tics for an interrogation social attack this is over an hour of intense interrogation, there are very few people that can resist a skilled interrogator for over an hour.


There is argument about what constitutes a new line of questioning, and I don’t know where to draw that line but asking for different information defiantly falls into that category.


Edward

 

[Vanman]

I don't know. It seems to me that, if your overall goal is to find the bandit camp, asking different questions to find the same information would constitute the same line of questioning, unless is way off in left field. All the questions you gave there seem, to me, to be leading toward the same goal. I wouldn't treat this as a change of line of questioning. It's just variations on a theme.

 

[Persell]

Question that occured to me...


when is it generally appropiate to have a NPC spend willpower...


for example...


when dealing with stealth charms.


since it COULD seem a bit to arbitrary to have onoe NPC pay a almost Negligible charge, and ruin his stealth charm.


My idea is that Extra's should probaly not be able to spend WP to resist mental effects of any kind...

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Generally extras only spend willpower to protect their Intimacies and Motivation. Others may do so somewhat more liberally, but just spending willpower to resist any social situations is a sign of madness. If your lover tries to get in your pants do you generally spend a willpower to resist? Or when you're just haggling over prices? More likely people spend willpower on important mental compulsions, not on everyday conversation or things that are less important.


However, it should be noted some players tend to spend willpower on nearly ANY social roll made against them...which can tend to lead to a rather low willpower PC very quickly...

 

[Persell]

one suggestion is that Extra's shouldnt use willpower against stealth charms unless its a clear and present danger... like about to stab THEM personally in the back... (e.g., if its just going someplace where it has no business trespassing...

 

[Trueblood]

It dose say the 2 per scene limit can be bypassed with a stunt that changes the line of questioning.
This dose mean that you can force someone to spend all there willpower by asking questions other than the one you really need the answer to, then stunt the subject to what you really need to know.


For example, your trying to find a bandit camp. You capture a bandit but he is loyal.


Where is your camp


Where are the guards stationed *2


What are your pass coads *2


How do you find your targets *2


Who is your fense *2


Where do you hide the loot *2


Tell me how to get to your camp.


Even given that he doesn’t know all of those he will run out of willpower before you ask the question you want. And if he stops resisting other questions to save willpower for the location you at least gain some valuable Intel.


This is also realistic, at 5 or 6 long tics for an interrogation social attack this is over an hour of intense interrogation, there are very few people that can resist a skilled interrogator for over an hour.


There is argument about what constitutes a new line of questioning, and I don’t know where to draw that line but asking for different information defiantly falls into that category.


Edward

In my opinion, all these questions still lead up to basically the same thing, "What do you know about the bandits?".


Mechanically, barring any supernatural or unnatural effects, 2 willpower points should make a target immune to the social attacks for a scene.


Realistically, if you catch me in a dark alley with a baseball bat in your hands and ask me if I slept with your sister, I'd take the beating and swear on my grandmother's grave that it wasn't me even if I did no matter how many ways you asked, if I knew the alternative was death or castration.

 

[Flyck]

one suggestion is that Extra's shouldnt use willpower against stealth charms unless its a clear and present danger... like about to stab THEM personally in the back... (e.g.' date=' if its just going someplace where it has no business trespassing...[/quote']
Nah, my favorite trick, is to have them roll occasionally for things out of the blue.  Like a Perception and Awareness, or some other thing I find of worth (like Int. + Lore to recognize something important about a soldier's uniform).  The catch is, I don't tell them necessarily what they're rolling for, and reserve the answer they get for how many successes they spend.  This sometimes will make for some often laughable uses of Willpower... like to notice that one of the Nexus Council has just decreed that Fish must be purchased by anyone leaving the city for the next hour (when they're obviously not leaving yet).  I've noticed it also keeps players from randomly spending Willpower for everything they do.

 

[Persell]

I think PT was talking about extras, not exalts...

 

[Flyck]

Ahh... nevermind.  I'll shut up then...   :evil:

 

[Persell]

never actualy had it happen but it has too much potential to happen, using a stealth charm


and just ONE extra


spends a point of WP see's through it, warns everyone else...

 

[uteck]

Reminds me of one of the good episodes of Star Trek NG, were Picard is captured by the Cardasians and tortortured.  The interrogator spent most of his time asking Picard how many lights he saw.  I think there were 3, but the interrogator said the correct answer was 5.  Picard was eventually broken as he kept answering 3 and got beaten, but the writers saved him with a cheesy ending.


The moral of the story is, you don't have to ask them questions about what you want, just things that will provoke them into spending willpower.  In game terms Intimacies and Motivations, but you can use a similar tactic and train them to answer you with any answer you want, i.e build up an stronger Intimacy to you.  Then ask them were the Rebel base is.

 

[Lord Ben]

I don't think you'd need earth shattering awesome stunts to change the line of questioning.  From a threat to a seduction to a bribe is different.  You can only lose two willpower normally because otherwise you become jaded.  And extras can't stunt.


Also, by the core book the Fair Folk Diplomat with 7 manipulation and 6 presence can't EVER win a social combat without liberal changing of the debate tactics because they don't have charms, Beguile only works against lower beings and glamour just makes stuff and isn't listed as an unnatural mental influence.


So when the PC got into a debate with a Fair Folk Diplomat the two cataphract guards did intimidating threats and the female diplomat used seduction, bribery, and appealing to his sense of awesomeness  in wanting to be pirate lord and eventually they wore down the PC and he led them on a few bandit raids in a brilliant story for them.  Which broke a pact and allowed them to do it themselves later on.

 

[Flagg]

THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!

 

[Persell]

HA!


My opinionof flagg just improved.


then again Im a star trek buff


AND I"D HAVE SAID I SAW 5 Lights.


WOULD YOU HAVE!?

 

[Gtroc]

damn straight! torture sucks man! and cardasians always kind of weirded me out. what with them deciding unanimously to move from an egalitarian society to full on militaristic fascism. plus they had weird necks, and the spoon head thing was off putting.

 

[Flagg]

There was a recent TV show about a memorabilia auction, and the head makeup guy was explaining the necks. Apparently he did that for the first ever Cardassian character when they were just a throw-away alien race because of something particular to the actor's physique. Of course, it immediately became canon.

 

[Flagg]

Ever notice how all of the "badass" races on Star Trek look like powerfully built black men?


Even the Jem Hadar, while being ostensibly grey-skinned, had dreadlocks.

 

[Lord Ben]

In my opinion, all these questions still lead up to basically the same thing, "What do you know about the bandits?".
Mechanically, barring any supernatural or unnatural effects, 2 willpower points should make a target immune to the social attacks for a scene.


Realistically, if you catch me in a dark alley with a baseball bat in your hands and ask me if I slept with your sister, I'd take the beating and swear on my grandmother's grave that it wasn't me even if I did no matter how many ways you asked, if I knew the alternative was death or castration.

But if two willpower makes you immune nobody would ever give into questioning except from an exalt.  A police captain and a witness in the backwater will be at a standstill forever.


The rules say that it caps after two unless you stunt it to try a new direction.  But how much of a stunt do you actually need is the real question?   Personally I think the rule is just there to avoid the "tell me or I'll crush your face in" and then repeat that line 10 times.  


Playing bad cop/good cop would be two seperate approaches and would probably work out fairly well.

 

[Flagg]

A police captain and a witness in the backwater will be at a standstill forever.

Realistically, they often are. Investigators often have to interview suspects and witnesses multiple times, change interviewers, make threats, lie, acquire new evidence, etc., before they get what they want.


If someone doesn't want to tell you something, they're not going to give in just because you rephrase the question.