Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Seeking Cinematic Social abilities *short of* mind control / reading / supernatural

~~Peter Knutsen~~ · 07-05-2015, 10:35 PM

One of mine, that might be relevant to Vicky's project:

Manipulating the mental disads of other characters so that they are made less likely or more likely to trigger. One use is generally friendly, the other hostile - I tend to see it as two different abilities, although some character concepts will want to have both.

In a milder form, it's just extreme skill, whereas more stronger forms can be outright magical. Usage also takes some time, several seconds (in GURPS you might make the Sense-Based Limitation mandatory for non-supernatural versions of the ability) of interacting with the target, but can of course be sped up for supernatural versions (which can also get Limitations such as Touch Only, or Only On Co-Religionists).

Only some of GURPS' mental disads have Self Control Rolls, which is what you'd be manipulating, so the effect might be somewhat strange compared to in a system where "Self Control Rolls" are very widely used on almost all disads of a mental nature.

Also I think the default usage should be that the active user of such an ability should have some idea of what it is he's trying to affect, that is what family of mental disads it is he's exerting influence over to make it more - or less - likely to trigger. Not just "I goad Count Olfert to make all his mental disads, whichever one she has, more volatile" but rather something that's at least directional in nature, defined by a theme. One can then use something like Cosmic to allow for the scattershot "attack", or additional levels of the advantage with a Limitation saying that those levels only work of the mental disad is defined precisely, e.g. the character has to guess correctly that the target has a particular mental disad.

There's no precedent in GURPS for what such an ability should cost, but my thinking is that +/-1 to SC rolls is too trivial an effect to be worth all the search-and-handling, so perhaps something like 5 points/level each for Calm Flaw and Goad Flaw, each level either subtracting or adding 2 points to the SC, with some cap for non-magical use of the ability, a -40% Limitation for "User must specify a particular disad upon use", -20% for Aspected (e.g. "Only Pride/Vanity/Bad Temper and related"), and +100% Cosmic for the "scattershot" version ("I'll Goad his disads. I don't now which ones he has, and I don't care, I'll just Goad him...").

Or perhaps even +/-3 to SC Rolls per level?

07-05-2015, 10:35 PM	#19
~~Peter Knutsen~~ Banned Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Europe	*Re: Seeking Cinematic Social abilities short of* mind control / reading / supernatur** One of mine, that might be relevant to Vicky's project: Manipulating the mental disads of other characters so that they are made less likely or more likely to trigger. One use is generally friendly, the other hostile - I tend to see it as two different abilities, although some character concepts will want to have both. In a milder form, it's just extreme skill, whereas more stronger forms can be outright magical. Usage also takes some time, several seconds (in GURPS you might make the Sense-Based Limitation mandatory for non-supernatural versions of the ability) of interacting with the target, but can of course be sped up for supernatural versions (which can also get Limitations such as Touch Only, or Only On Co-Religionists). Only some of GURPS' mental disads have Self Control Rolls, which is what you'd be manipulating, so the effect might be somewhat strange compared to in a system where "Self Control Rolls" are very widely used on almost all disads of a mental nature. Also I think the default usage should be that the active user of such an ability should have some idea of what it is he's trying to affect, that is what family of mental disads it is he's exerting influence over to make it more - or less - likely to trigger. Not just "I goad Count Olfert to make all his mental disads, whichever one she has, more volatile" but rather something that's at least directional in nature, defined by a theme. One can then use something like Cosmic to allow for the scattershot "attack", or additional levels of the advantage with a Limitation saying that those levels only work of the mental disad is defined precisely, e.g. the character has to guess correctly that the target has a particular mental disad. There's no precedent in GURPS for what such an ability should cost, but my thinking is that +/-1 to SC rolls is too trivial an effect to be worth all the search-and-handling, so perhaps something like 5 points/level each for Calm Flaw and Goad Flaw, each level either subtracting or adding 2 points to the SC, with some cap for non-magical use of the ability, a -40% Limitation for "User must specify a particular disad upon use", -20% for Aspected (e.g. "Only Pride/Vanity/Bad Temper and related"), and +100% Cosmic for the "scattershot" version ("I'll Goad his disads. I don't now which ones he has, and I don't care, I'll just Goad him..."). Or perhaps even +/-3 to SC Rolls per level?