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Old 04-27-2012, 08:57 AM   #11
Archangel Beth
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

IIRC, the Seraphim of the Wind have a bonus to Fast-Talk skill, so Janus not only doesn't mind, he approves.
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Old 04-29-2012, 07:18 PM   #12
Phoenix42
 
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

Suave Seraphim can also imply something untrue without saying it - this is pretty borderline, but can be fun - interesting for those who like the Aes Sedai of The Wheel of Time, or philosophical logic. The idea is, don't use actual elocutionary sentences, but questions, commands or similar sentences that don't actually have a truth-value, and thus can't be false (and thereby, a lie).

Example:
Seraph walks in in casual wear and a toolbox in hand
Seraph: "Hey, are you the guys with the boiler problem?"

Receptionist: "-er, what?"

Seraph: "Oh, please don't tell me I came all the way here on my day off just to play the old grapevine-routine..."

Receptionist: "I'm sorry, but I haven't been informed of any maintenance - could you just wait a minute while I..."

Seraph: "Right, if you think your boss won't mind paying for my double shift wages while you phone around..."

Receptionist holding phone, pauses irritaby

Seraph: "I mean, with the problem I heard about, I'd just get at it if it were up to me. I hear a gas boiler leakage in a cellar can be preeetty yucky when it blows up in yer face, but hey, you go right ahead..." [note that sentence 1 and 2 are perfectly true, separated from each other and the context of the conversation]

Receptionist: "Gas leakage...?!"

Seraph: glances at mobile phone "Well if you got a text saying 'go to [insert firm here] asap and bring gas venting equip, hurry', what exactly would you do? Okay, on second thoughts don't answer that."

Receptionist: "But really, I have to verify..."

Seraph: "Of course, go right ahead, and there's a good chance your boss is much more human than mine when it comes to people calling him about menial stuff, costing money, wasting time, that kind of thing..."

Receptionist: "Well, if it's urgent..."

Seraph: "Urgent? Ya think? Do you think the chances of this whole building going up like a firecracker are better or worse if I get to work, like, now?"

Of course, a Seraph who takes too much fun in this is very likely to be gaining dissonance pretty soon (like a certain character in A Feast of Blades I could mention), and it also requires an insight into human linguistics that most Seraphim don't have or want. But for those few who do, like Janus' or Eli's guys, it can be fun :)

*edit typos*

Last edited by Phoenix42; 04-29-2012 at 07:25 PM.
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Old 04-29-2012, 09:09 PM   #13
naraht
 
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix42 View Post
Seraph: "Of course, go right ahead, and there's a good chance your boss is much more human than mine when it comes to people calling him about menial stuff, costing money, wasting time, that kind of thing..."
This only works if the Seraph doesn't know that the Receptionist's boss is the Tether Senescal, but other than that....
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Old 04-29-2012, 09:15 PM   #14
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

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Originally Posted by naraht View Post
This only works if the Seraph doesn't know that the Receptionist's boss is the Tether Senescal, but other than that....
But the Seneschal might not be the receptionist's boss. In the campaign that I co-GM, the keeper of the Tether isn't always the "official" authority figure of the earthly location. At the YWCA women's shelter (Protection Tether), the Seneschal is the head custodian, who can come and go more easily among the tenants than the executive director could. At a bank that doubles as a Trade Tether, the Seneschal is a security guard.

If the infernal Tether is set up along similar lines, there really is a good chance that the secretary's boss is "much more human than mine."
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Old 04-30-2012, 04:28 AM   #15
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

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But the Seneschal might not be the receptionist's boss. In the campaign that I co-GM, the keeper of the Tether isn't always the "official" authority figure of the earthly location. At the YWCA women's shelter (Protection Tether), the Seneschal is the head custodian, who can come and go more easily among the tenants than the executive director could. At a bank that doubles as a Trade Tether, the Seneschal is a security guard.

If the infernal Tether is set up along similar lines, there really is a good chance that the secretary's boss is "much more human than mine."
Point taken...
OK, so let me slightly reword...
This doesn't work if the Seraph knows that the Receptionist's boss is the Senechal...
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Old 04-30-2012, 10:21 AM   #16
fwcain
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

Love the long, detailed example of how a Seraph could bluff his way inside. I had a similar idea. >;-)

As soon as you meet the receptionist, advise her of the time you arrived, and then inform her of the rates ($$$!) charged by the company whose uniform you are wearing. Then politely ask her, while you will be waiting for her to get the OK from her boss, will you have enough time to take a smoke break (or other respite of your choosing)? Then ask if we are talking about a quick break, or a nice, leisurely one? Smile nicely while asking. And keep glancing at your watch; every other sentence or so should be often enough. And keep smiling.
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Old 04-30-2012, 11:53 AM   #17
Matthias Wasser
 
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

This obviously plays into the assumptions thing Beth and I were talking about earlier, but I feel like these solutions really seem like people are thinking of Seraphim as humans who have the arbitrary restriction of not telling lies, rather than the Living Truth, the Attendants of the Throne of God, Holiest of Created Beings.

We haven't been discussing whether Mercurians would suggest killing the guards, and we haven't suggested that a Mercurian would plant a bomb in the building and kill everyone in it and not get dissonance because, hey, doctrine of double effect, go read some Aquinas scrub. And I'm guessing that's because we're humans and humans have much stronger inbuilt aversions to killing people than to lying, so when we place ourselves empathetically in a situation like the one described, and try to modify our mindset with "okay, and don't lie," we naturally come up with clever solutions like talking in questions and so on. This works okay for Mercurians because they're supposed to be basically like us, and unless we've received specialized psychological training in a gang or military we know what it's like to have an instinctive break on violence. This doesn't work for Seraphim because we're just not by our nature creatures that get sadder thinking that people sometimes believe in astrology than that they sometimes get horrible diseases and die screaming in agony.

There are plenty of ways to get past a receptionist without tricking her. Walk past and ignore her protests. Shoot her in the face. Ask her some awkward questions, Resonate, proceed to blackmail. Break into her house, slash her tires, steal her keys, visit her in a dream and ask for lock combinations. Et cetera. Seraphim of Flowers are great at just, like, walking past armed guards and explaining that they're entering without permission if asked.

Obviously by canon I'm wrong about this and Seraphim use Fast-Talk all the time, but you can only consistently keep about half of canon anyway, so.
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Old 04-30-2012, 12:33 PM   #18
Rocket Man
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthias Wasser View Post
We haven't been discussing whether Mercurians would suggest killing the guards...
Which would be extremely distasteful to the point of discomfort, but not impossible in canon as written.

This doesn’t mean they
don’t advocate violence; they just don’t indulge in it
themselves. When negotiations break down, a Mercurian
has to know when to step aside and wave in the sharp
knives of the Malakim.

--Core rules, pg. 104
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Old 04-30-2012, 03:05 PM   #19
Archangel Beth
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthias Wasser View Post
This obviously plays into the assumptions thing Beth and I were talking about earlier, but I feel like these solutions really seem like people are thinking of Seraphim as humans who have the arbitrary restriction of not telling lies, rather than the Living Truth, the Attendants of the Throne of God, Holiest of Created Beings. [...]
Obviously by canon I'm wrong about this and Seraphim use Fast-Talk all the time, but you can only consistently keep about half of canon anyway, so.
Reconciling the need to play games with the Truth -- and being Living Truth -- is one of the things that Seraph players (and NPCs) should be concerned about, I think. Wind-Seraphim are Living Truth With Twists, and do use Fast-Talk. Other Seraphim... It's gonna depend.

A Seraph of Marc might make the most interesting contracts. A Seraph of Litheroy would only use Fast-Talk as, y'know, a way to really speed up what they're saying, which is all totally true in all respects the Seraph can manage. A Seraph of Dominic could be a tight-lipped, twisty, authorized-to-deal-with-Gamesters, tricky snake -- or a poker-spined "the truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God."

Some Seraphim might use Fast-Talk to tell the truth convincingly! "I'm an angel of God -- I know, I know, you don't have to believe me -- but this location is infested with evil and you're in danger if you stay here. I know you're a basically good person, I know you don't want to help evil, I know that you're worried about what you've been hearing about this place. Please, you need to let me in -- and start running."
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Old 04-30-2012, 08:01 PM   #20
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Default Re: Seraphim and "what lies will work"

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Originally Posted by Rocket Man View Post
And Acolyte, in keeping with what Beth said about skating on the thin edge, there's the obvious response to "Are you the heating repair guys?" Namely:

"You wouldn't believe how many of these things we've fixed."
I am (I think unusually, though no offense is intended) going to side with Matthias Wasser on this front. The above isn't a lie, but it is a deception, and plenty of book references make it clear that Seraphim are uncomfortable with deception. Which is why I said that Seraphim would not turn to such plans unless they had already looked into other areas.

Obviously, Seraphim of the Wind are outliers, but I think there's a very important difference between Fast-Talk and Lying (they are two different skills, after all, in a game without that many skills). The point of Lying is to deceive someone, and even Seraphim of the Wind don't use it (unless they are making a dash to become Balseraphs of Theft). The point of Fast-Talk is to bypass something, be it a drunk-driving checkpoint, an awkward question about the bloodstained sword, the bored security guard at the fence, etc.

Seraphim are very emphatically beings of Truth, to the point of recognizing simple deception in others (their resonance picks up non-lie deceptions--there's a quote about a woman dying her hair to look younger being resonanceable). They can be complicit in deception but never directly lie, and they, as the least human Choir, are very uncomfortable with even the small deceptions that comprise human existence. Again, this doesn't mean a Seraph will never get into a Tether under false pretenses--but it does mean he won't want to, even a Windie. Other options look much better to him.

This is, idly, why Elohim are so important to Heaven. The party leader Seraph keeps vetoing "plan deception" and trying other options, but the party knows that their best chance of success involves deception. If that's objectively true, the Seraph can at least quiet his displeased conscience when the Elohite avers that deception is the best way, something a stuffy Seraph (like, you know, so many of them) might never otherwise acknowledge.
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