Resistance to Sex Appeal

[cosmicfish]

Just as a quick issue, I have always looked at influence skills as either accomplishing a specific act or allowing modifiers to other influence skills. In this regard, I would normally allow a successful (suitably modified) Sex Appeal roll to get someone into bed, or provide a bonus to other skill rolls which would still have to be made. A seductress trying to use her Sex Appeal to distract a guard would need only the single roll (as the action does not really go outside the bounds of sex) but if she wanted to use it to convince that merchant to knock 50% off the price she would still need to make a Merchant roll, with a modifier appropriate to her level of Sex Appeal success. Making Steve the Salesman attracted to you does not automatically mean he is going to sell you that car for half price.

For that matter, prostitution would always come down to a combination of Sex Appeal and Merchant rolls - one to establish desire, the other to establish price based on that desire.

As to the issue of resistance, I think Kromm spelled out a perfectly reasonable solution early on. If it is going to come up often in a campaign then it might be useful to spell out a table of quirks and perks covering player sexuality in a particular gameworld, but I suspect in most worlds this would be played by ear. I think Intolerance (non-heterosexuals) is actually pretty common today, and in other worlds Social Stigma (homosexual) would be a significant problem.

[gjc8]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Just as a quick issue, I have always looked at influence skills as either accomplishing a specific act or allowing modifiers to other influence skills. In this regard, I would normally allow a successful (suitably modified) Sex Appeal roll to get someone into bed, or provide a bonus to other skill rolls which would still have to be made.

I suppose I could get behind that, provided Sex Appeal covers everything that could be part of flirting, too.

If Charles the conscript catches Samantha the seductress sneaking onto the base, Sex Appeal alone won't make him let her go, but it would provide a large bonus to her Fast-Talk when she tells him "I was just looking for my lost cat. I had no idea this was a restricted area." But, if Samantha is chatting him up at a bar, things like "Wow, you're in the army? That's so interesting. What's it like?" etc. can get him to reveal secrets as part of the process of flirting, using only the Sex Appeal skill.

[Edges]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Depends what you mean by "heterosexual." The basic rule is "if they're not even potentially interested in you, don't bother to roll." That applies if they're asexual, or exclusively interested in the sex that you are not, or in a species that you are not, or if they have a relevant Vow or Code of Honor (a seriously meant marriage vow is equivalent to a vow of chastity—in fact, it is a vow of chastity, by the exact technical definition of the word).

Bill Stoddard

In my campaigns, disadvantages like Vow and Code of Honor don't come with free resistances. A Vow of Chastity, for instance, is worth the points because it not only limits your options (you can't have sex with that person w/o suffering a form of Guilt Complex even though it would really help further campaign goals) but it also saddles you with a form of vulnerability. Now, in addition to whatever other "normal" effects of seduction there may be, you are also afflicted with some form of Guilt Complex. Players know this up front and often buy Resistant to protect themselves (mitigating the disadvantage).

Having said that, I have been know to occasionally offer small, conditional bonuses to people with certain disadvantages.

YMMV

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Depends what you mean by "heterosexual." The basic rule is "if they're not even potentially interested in you, don't bother to roll." That applies if they're asexual, or exclusively interested in the sex that you are not, or in a species that you are not, or if they have a relevant Vow or Code of Honor (a seriously meant marriage vow is equivalent to a vow of chastity—in fact, it is a vow of chastity, by the exact technical definition of the word).

Not rolling because people have Vows or Code of Honor models neither reality nor much of fiction. I can't see how it could possibly be good game design.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Edges

In my campaigns, disadvantages like Vow and Code of Honor don't come with free resistances. A Vow of Chastity, for instance, is worth the points because it not only limits your options (you can't have sex with that person w/o suffering a form of Guilt Complex even though it would really help further campaign goals) but it also saddles you with a form of vulnerability. Now, in addition to whatever other "normal" effects of seduction there may be, you are also afflicted with some form of Guilt Complex. Players know this up front and often buy Resistant to protect themselves (mitigating the disadvantage).

I would not do that, because it's tantamount to "Influence roll = Mind Control." I can tell you that it is the official RaW that a PC is never forced to take an action by an Influence roll. Nothing spoils a game for many players like being told "you lost the Quick Contest? OK, take off your pants/turn and run away from the foe/reveal the secret plans." And so GURPS doesn't make you do that.

The GM always has the option of predetermining a reaction: If you ask the police to let you go after you've been arrested, they'll automatically refuse, and Influence folls won't work. And the player has the same option. In both cases, it should be exercised with caution. But it's reasonable for the GM to use it if it's inherent in the way the world works or in the preestablished motives of the characters; it's reasonable for the PC to do it if the character sheet has a mental disad that commands it.

There are other ways a successful Influence roll can affect you, if you aren't going to do what you're asked for. They sum up to "penalties equal to your margin of failure." The GM certainly ought to enforce those. And buying Indomitable or Resistant is worth while as a way to avoid those penalties.

But if you want to dictate another person's actions, buy Mind Control. Or buy Terror, to frighten them. They'll cost a lot of points, but that's precisely why you shouldn't get the same benefit for putting a handful of points into Sex Appeal or Intimidation or Diplomacy.

This is, as I say, the RaW. GURPS Social Engineering will spell it out in detail. But it's all implied by things Kromm has said long since; it's not a radical innovation of mine.

Bill Stoddard

PS. That was one of the things that annoyed the players in my Godlike campaign: Two of the PCs had Command 10, which meant that they could make Command rolls and the crusaders they were fighting against would turn Turk in a heartbeat. It was really inconvenient when it was done to Anna Comnena, who was on the scene as the Byzantine ambassador.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I would not do that, because it's tantamount to "Influence roll = Mind Control." I can tell you that it is the official RaW that a PC is never forced to take an action by an Influence roll. Nothing spoils a game for many players like being told "you lost the Quick Contest? OK, take off your pants/turn and run away from the foe/reveal the secret plans." And so GURPS doesn't make you do that.

Which, however, feels really strange from a realism point of view.

If a character bought ST 5, few people would be inclined to sympathise if he lost an opposed Quick Contest of ST was forced to do X [kneel, turn around, whatever].

Just because using Intimidate, Fast-Talk or other Influence skills tends to be slower and look more 'natural' to most people, it doesn't mean that there is some magical divide between them. In the real world, Will allows you to resist certain things up to a certain point, but every human being has a breaking point. So just as inflicting HPx6 points of damage will automatically kill a character, no ifs, buts or roleplaying caveats allowed, a certain amount of psychological stress, possibly inflicted by means of Influence skills, will overcome any amount of 'I don't wanna'.

In a realistic campaign, I would certainly never allow a player to arbitrarily decide that his character would rather die than betray secrets entrusted to him and have this hold true regardless of his Will and the skill and ruthlessness of interrogator.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Not rolling because people have Vows or Code of Honor models neither reality nor much of fiction. I can't see how it could possibly be good game design.

Letting someone who has Sex Appeal-16 step up and make a blatant pass at a character who takes their marriage vows seriously, or at a priest or nun vowed to celibacy, and succeed 64.5% of the time, models neither reality nor much of fiction. And that's the odds with that level of Influence skill and with average Will.

I'm not saying there aren't ways you could get such a person to break their vows. But I'm saying that a set of rules that just lets you say, "I rolled a 6! Dude I pwned your Vow of Chastity!" is not what social interaction rules are for. It would be like having a combat where a single Quick Contest could let the other guy kill you, no questions asked. If you want to get cooperation, you need to do some roleplaying and some tactics. Offer to let the woman's husband out of prison, or to pay for a doctor for her dying child; offer to convert your kingdom to Christianity if the nun will give up her vows. That's the kind of thing you see in classic dramatic treatments of this kind of conflict.

Or make it a long drawn out story. Those classic stories of seduction? Don Juan doesn't get every woman; some yield only after a long pursuit, some not even then. The guy in Les Liaisons Dangéreuse finds his victims a challenge; he gets one only after first sexually harassing her and then raping her, and defying her to destroy her reputation by complaining. Juliet is head over heels for Romeo but she's not giving him more than a kiss without marriage vows.

If they're not going to do what you ask, of course they get the penalty; they're in internal conflict between their desire to comply and their commitment to their disad, and they don't function properly. They may have almost no resistance to giving you anything else you ask for. But letting a face character just walk in, make one Influence roll, and get something that another character has a deep ethical commitment not to give them is not going to produce good roleplaying, and it's not going to be fun for anyone but the face character's player.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In a realistic campaign, I would certainly never allow a player to arbitrarily decide that his character would rather die than betray secrets entrusted to him and have this hold true regardless of his Will and the skill and ruthlessness of interrogator.

That's why Interrogation isn't an Influence skill, doesn't involve Influence rolls, is explicitly presupposed to take place under duress (which Influence rolls are not), and can be enhanced by "showing the instruments" and similar moves. There are quite separate rules in Social Engineering elaborating on Interrogation and Brainwashing.

Or let me put it this way. Brainwashing is another "always under duress" skill. So could you apply Brainwashing to sex? Of course. Get the person you want, confine them, put them under constant pressure, start by breaking them down on a small refusal and build up, and you can play out the Story of O; you can give them whatever mental disads you want, or just train them that they have to obey you. Something very like that reportedly is how many brothel workers have been trained. But that's not "seduction" or "flirtation."

Bill Stoddard

[gjc8]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Not rolling because people have Vows or Code of Honor models neither reality nor much of fiction. I can't see how it could possibly be good game design.

How often, in fiction, does it happen that someone goes to a bar, gets chatted up, and is seduced into a breaking their holy vow of chastity in the course of a few hours? That's more than enough time for Sex Appeal to work.

If they can be talked out of it in a few hours, it's not a Vow. Nor is it good drama to be talked out of something you're deeply committed to in a single conversation; it's not a particularly good reflection of reality, either. And if they then feel GUILTY about breaking something they clearly weren't that committed to in the first place, it's gratuitous angst; they should just take Guilt Complex in the first place. If there's drama in that scenario, it's because they publicly proclaim to be following the vow, but don't have the GURPS Vow and are breaking it in private (Secret).

It may be appropriate and dramatic after a prolonged period of seduction, but that's quite different from the normal use of influence skills.

[Edges]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I would not do that, because it's tantamount to "Influence roll = Mind Control." I can tell you that it is the official RaW that a PC is never forced to take an action by an Influence roll. Nothing spoils a game for many players like being told "you lost the Quick Contest? OK, take off your pants/turn and run away from the foe/reveal the secret plans." And so GURPS doesn't make you do that. [snip]

I have no idea how you got that from my post. I must have been wildly unclear. Are you sure you were responding to the right post? Frankly, I see no connection to what I was saying. No offense.

My treatment of self-imposed mental disadvantages do not force PC actions.

What I was saying is this: While you seem (from your earlier post) to grant certain types of free resistance to people who take certain disadvantages (e.g. free Resistance to Sex Appeal for those with Vow of Chastity), I do not. So in my games, someone with Vow of Chastity is just as susceptible to Sex Appeal as someone who is not. I do encourage them to buy the appropriate Resistance to protect themselves however.

The actual mechanics of how influence skills effect PCs I have not changed. "Penalties equal to your margin of failure", etc.

What I have done is actually give the players more degrees of freedom. Now PCs can break their Vows or Codes of Honor but at a price beyond losing CPs for the session (in fact, I don't dock CPs for this). I have used a mechanic similar to Cannot Kill. If you do have sex and you have a Vow of Chastity, you get a temporary Guilt Complex. A player has the freedom to choose to do this at no other penalty. It could be good for the party and even for the plot. This also means that someone with VoC is particularly vulnerable to Sex Appeal. They are not more vulnerable because they have a lower chance of resisting or because I, as the GM, will dictate player actions. They're more vulnerable because a failure, if it actually led to sex, would have more severe consequences (hence the encouraged purchase of Resistance).

Someone with a Vow who occasionally breaks it and feels bad about it is a valid character concept to me. And if a player is willing to have the PC suffer enough for breaking the Vow, they can take the full disadvantage.

And of course, I'm not saying you're way is wrong or anything. I just like mine better. YMMV