Dice Shadows of the Setting Sun (OOC)

[D. Rex]

I mean, I was able to get Affy out of her murder mode.


Like Random said, I could stunt a read intentions action to have Affy see what's going on in her head and apply my good Presence stat to try and convince her otherwise.

Like the dumb yet logical arguement of "well, she said next time she would be enemies. If there is no next time. There is no enemy!"

 

[WlfSamurai]

I mean, I was able to get Affy out of her murder mode.


Like Random said, I could stunt a read intentions action to have Affy see what's going on in her head and apply my good Presence stat to try and convince her otherwise.

Like the dumb yet logical arguement of "well, she said next time she would be enemies. If there is no next time. There is no enemy!"

Do you want to make you attempt before I have Embrace react, then?

 

[D. Rex]

Do you want to make you attempt before I have Embrace react, then?

That depends! Who do you think has a better chance of success? So far Affy has a very poor track record of getting her way.

 

[WlfSamurai]

That depends! Who do you think has a better chance of success? So far Affy has a very poor track record of getting her way.

I don’t know about better. But, anything is worth a shot. Ultimately, I think if it works depends on Random Word . I don’t think your social influence roll can have any effect if he decides that it doesn’t convince Sigrdrifa. He laid it out pretty well, but I still leave it up to him.

 

[Random Word]

Personally, I'm perfectly happy when people use mechanical social influence to persuade/instill my characters, but it's also not mandatory. Sigrdrífa has 1 Guile and like 3 Resolve, so she's hardly an insurmountable social obstacle (Her best defense is just the Willpower veto, but I'm not going to pull that out for an argument that aligns with her values). There are many narratively coherent paths to Embrace not dying, and it sounds like both Rykon and D. Rex would be excited to see one of them happen. If you don't feel like Afureru is the de-escalating sort, there are plenty of characters who could figure out how to de-escalate this situation if they had a mind to. Toun, Embrace, Makuro, Zoya, etc. The latter two have expressed disinterest in intervening, but Toun could save Embrace, or she could save herself.

 

[Esbilon]

Zoya is interested in helping Tuon and Sigrdrifa get what they want out of Embrace. She's happy to help the, de-escalate if that seems like the thing they want to do.

 

[Random Word]

De-escalating is definitely not what Sigrdrífa wants as a character, but I think Toun wants to keep Embrace, uh, alive. Ish. No more dead than she currently is. As a player, I have no issue with de-escalation, and I think D. Rex and Rykon want that, so let's do it.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Personally, I'm perfectly happy when people use mechanical social influence to persuade/instill my characters, but it's also not mandatory. Sigrdrífa has 1 Guile and like 3 Resolve, so she's hardly an insurmountable social obstacle (Her best defense is just the Willpower veto, but I'm not going to pull that out for an argument that aligns with her values). There are many narratively coherent paths to Embrace not dying, and it sounds like both Rykon and D. Rex would be excited to see one of them happen. If you don't feel like Afureru is the de-escalating sort, there are plenty of characters who could figure out how to de-escalate this situation if they had a mind to. Toun, Embrace, Makuro, Zoya, etc. The latter two have expressed disinterest in intervening, but Toun could save Embrace, or she could save herself.

Sorry, I wasn't speaking to my previous comments at the beginning of the game that you guys are in control of your own characters. I was speaking mechanically. I'm pretty sure you can spend willpower to resist any social influence.

 

[Random Word]

You can spend a WP to negate an instill of a new Minor Intimacy (not raising the strength of an existing intimacy - once your foot is in the door you're good, so Embrace could boost Sigrdrífa's intimacy for her from Minor to Major and Sigrdrífa couldn't spend WP to deny it). You can spend a WP to resist a persuade attempt if you have another intimacy of equal or greater strength that opposes the persuade, that has not been used to raise your resolve against that influence, and that you have not used to justify spending WP to negate this influence before. So basically, any time you use an intimacy to boost resolve against a persuade, or use it to justify WP expenditure, you burn it against that persuade and it can't be used again against future attempts to persuade you to do that thing. Over multiple scenes you can burn through all of someone's opposing intimacies until they can find no more good reasons to say no.

In this case, yes, I could update Sigrdrífa's Intimacies with maybe a pair of Majors for 'Enemies Deserve Only Death' and 'If Someone Shows You They're Your Enemy, Believe Them the First Time" and if I were so inclined use those to oppose a persuade that leveraged another one of her Major intimacies. In practice I very rarely use the willpower veto on social influence, and if done well it's not too hard to phrase persuade attempts such that the target has a difficult time finding any of their intimacies that can be used to oppose it, especially if it leverages a Defining.

 

[WlfSamurai]

You can spend a WP to negate an instill of a new Minor Intimacy (not raising the strength of an existing intimacy - once your foot is in the door you're good, so Embrace could boost Sigrdrífa's intimacy for her from Minor to Major and Sigrdrífa couldn't spend WP to deny it). You can spend a WP to resist a persuade attempt if you have another intimacy of equal or greater strength that opposes the persuade, that has not been used to raise your resolve against that influence, and that you have not used to justify spending WP to negate this influence before. So basically, any time you use an intimacy to boost resolve against a persuade, or use it to justify WP expenditure, you burn it against that persuade and it can't be used again against future attempts to persuade you to do that thing. Over multiple scenes you can burn through all of someone's opposing intimacies until they can find no more good reasons to say no.

In this case, yes, I could update Sigrdrífa's Intimacies with maybe a pair of Majors for 'Enemies Deserve Only Death' and 'If Someone Shows You They're Your Enemy, Believe Them the First Time" and if I were so inclined use those to oppose a persuade that leveraged another one of her Major intimacies. In practice I very rarely use the willpower veto on social influence, and if done well it's not too hard to phrase persuade attempts such that the target has a difficult time finding any of their intimacies that can be used to oppose it, especially if it leverages a Defining.

Thank you for that breakdown. It's still confusing as hell and feels clunky to me, which I hate because I want to play the game as RAW as possible.

I think I'll have you guys help me go through social situations piece by piece as we go forward, to make sure I"m not missing anything and to make sure I got it.

So, D. Rex , there IS a chance. Gonna have to be a stunt, I think is what we established.

 

[Random Word]

That's not even getting into social Charms, which can pull all sorts of nonsense out of thin air. Abyssal social Charms tend to be about inspiring hate and murderous rage, rather than quelling it, but I could totally see some good ol'

Charms. Maybe a way to judo throw hate to redirect it elsewhere.

 

[D. Rex]

Thank you for that breakdown. It's still confusing as hell and feels clunky to me, which I hate because I want to play the game as RAW as possible.

I think I'll have you guys help me go through social situations piece by piece as we go forward, to make sure I"m not missing anything and to make sure I got it.

So, D. Rex , there IS a chance. Gonna have to be a stunt, I think is what we established.

I'll stunt the hell out of it! I can stunt eating a bowl of cheerios.


Question is. What exactly am I stunting? I need it spelled out for me.

 

[Random Word]

I think he was referring to the Persuade attempt to convince Sigrdrífa to spare Embrace. We had discussed the stunt in relation to the Read Intentions to understand Sigrdrífa's motivations to inform how to persuade her. There are lots of ways to mechanically achieve the same thing, though. Leveraging her Defining Tie: People She Considers Her Tribe [Loyalty] (Toun kinda did that by trying to remind her Embrace was still one of them), raising her tie towards Afureru to Major and leveraging that, etc. The conceit of the dice is that whatever approach you take was the right one if your roll exceeds her resolve and she doesn't find another Intimacy to resist with WP, my explining Sigrdrífa's mindset is mostly stunt fodder and me explaining the path the character would resist least. This is also serving as an impromptu worked example on Social Influence for WlfSamurai.

It looks like Toun is trying a different angle, though. Persuading Embrace to do something, or Instilling something in her. It sounds like he's trying to persuade her to betray her Defining Intimacy of Infatuation, which seems likely to meet considerable resistance.

 

[WlfSamurai]

I'll stunt the hell out of it! I can stunt eating a bowl of cheerios.


Question is. What exactly am I stunting? I need it spelled out for me.

Wait! Before you do!

Let's see what Rykon 's action gives us.

Embrace has resolve 4.

 

[Rykon]

Wait! Before you do!

Let's see what Rykon 's action gives us.

Embrace has resolve 4.

Roll is done, it may not be exactly right, but we'll see how this resolves.

 

[Random Word]

[I reckon this is an instill to shift intimacies. An attempt to erode attachment to the Blackened One, and build attachments to Toun and Sigrdrifa. Full Excellency and a will. Boosting Appearance to 11 through the excellency to cheese the die pool. 11-4 for 7 dice from Appearance differential. 12 total successes including the will.]

The Appearance Excellency adds dice to a roll, not dots of Appearance for the purposes of computing the difference. Only the permanent Appearance boosters (just like Solars there are three of them for max Appearance 8) count for computing the additional dice from Appearance.

In order to weaken an Intimacy, you must leverage an intimacy of equal or greater strength. Since this one is Defining, you have to leverage a Defining to weaken it. You can absolutely strengthen an existing intimacy, and given she has a Major for you, you could try to boost it to Defining. You'd need to present more compelling evidence than you presented to get yourself to Major, whatever that was.

 

[WlfSamurai]

The Appearance Excellency adds dice to a roll, not dots of Appearance for the purposes of computing the difference. Only the permanent Appearance boosters (just like Solars there are three of them for max Appearance 8) count for computing the additional dice from Appearance.

In order to weaken an Intimacy, you must leverage an intimacy of equal or greater strength. Since this one is Defining, you have to leverage a Defining to weaken it. You can absolutely strengthen an existing intimacy, and given she has a Major for you, you could try to boost it to Defining. You'd need to present more compelling evidence than you presented to get yourself to Major, whatever that was.

Ah yes. I just found the ONE sentence that says the comparison of Resolve vs Appearance is before bonuses. I didn't know that part!

So, she has a Major Intimacy to Sig and Toun. Either or both could be boosted to a Defining. And THEN a new action with a roll (like additional argument) could be made then to weaken her Defining for The Blackened One, right?

 

[Rykon]

Alright, then the instill action is still in play but the last 7 dice are not. So 6 successes before intimacy modifiers.

 

[WlfSamurai]

Wait, Random Word , the way this reads to me is that the intimacy doesn't need to be equal, just that it has to be major or better that you use to leverage:

—Strengthening a Minor Intimacy, or weakening a Major Intimacy, can only be done if the target has a different Minor or better Intimacy that supports the attempted influence.

—Likewise, raising a Major Intimacy, or weakening a De- fining Intimacy, is only possible if the target has a differ- ent Major or better Intimacy that supports the attempted influence.

So, here, you can leverage the Major: Toun or Major: Sigrdrífa intimacy to weaken the Defining: The Blackened One intimacy, right?

Rykon , the way I read it, too, weakening her Defining and Strengthening her Majors would be two different rolls. Which do you want to start with?

 

[Rykon]

Wait, Random Word , the way this reads to me is that the intimacy doesn't need to be equal, just that it has to be major or better that you use to leverage:

So, here, you can leverage the Major: Toun or Major: Sigrdrífa intimacy to weaken the Defining: The Blackened One intimacy, right?

Rykon , the way I read it, too, weakening her Defining and Strengthening her Majors would be two different rolls. Which do you want to start with?

From the content of the post. Strengthening first makes the most sense.

 

[Random Word]

Yup, you're right. I was misremembering how weakening worked. Forgot it was easier to tear down than to build.

 

[Rykon]

Updated the post to show the second roll, so 6 and 5 successes respectively before intimacy modifiers.

 

[WlfSamurai]

This is it, Random Word . It comes down to your choice. And as soon as you make it, I'm going to end the scene and we will move into the Fell itself.

 

[WlfSamurai]

That is the end of that scene for sure. Hold replies until I get the next scene setup.

Excited!

Meanwhile! Have some XP for EVERYONE’S amazing RP and awesome drama! It was so good. Sorry some were more sidelined, but it was worth giving this scene the spotlight. Anyway, XP!

XP for End of Chapter 1:

• 2 Solar/Lunar XP
• 5 Regular XP

Esbilon Rykon Sherwood D. Rex Random Word Teh Frixz jaydude

 

[Sherwood]

Almost halfway to Essence 2. Sweet.