A "taunt" ability?

[kdarc]

A player in an upcoming DF-esque have asked if a taunting ability is possible - that, a verbal ability that allows him to (in lack of a better term) draw aggro from nearby enemies. Looking quickly through the rules, I haven't been able to find one this far and I'm thinking that within the GURPS rules, its more about simply role-playing it. But anyway, are there any suggestions on making a statted version of this sort of ability?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Influence rolls seem the appropriate mechanism here, though if you need an advantage, Rapier Wit isn't a bad model. If you're desperate to make it complicated, you could build Affliction (Berserk) or Affliction (Bloodlust) with a limitation that the afflicted attacks the person who causes it. That's probably a substantial limitation.

[RyanW]

The second book of Dungeon Fantasy, Action, and Monster Hunters all offer a rule for that. Short version: a contest of Psychology or Fast Talk versus the higher of the target's IQ or Will.

The problem I have with most mechanical schemes for it, such as Affliction (Obsession: Attack that guy), is that aggro was originally conceived as a work around for specific video game issues (that being, there is no one to watch the monster to decide who it logically should fight, and the AI can't make qualitative decisions like that). IMO, you might as well give all characters Telecommunications to represent the chat channel, or some sort of strange Affliction to allow them to bring an entire dungeon full of slain foes back to life by simply talking again to the guy who told you to go kill them in the first place.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The problem I have with most mechanical schemes for it, such as Affliction (Obsession: Attack that guy), is that aggro was originally conceived as a work around for specific video game issues (that being, there is no one to watch the monster to decide who it logically should fight, and the AI can't make qualitative decisions like that).

I have to disagree with you the Kender Taunt surved this ability in RPG long bfeo MMO and Muds.

it was conceived to work round the fact people who loose their tempters in fights but all their effort into attacking that they ignore defense, and while it put you in bigger danger of getting hurt it incresed your ability to hurt them back.

it is repsrent michcialy people some people are skilled at readying people and getting under their skin, but the level of detail to do it non mechanically is often missing and when not either aount of wor need to come up with th detias to make it non boring is work overload for mooks.

[Jonathan Willis]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The problem I have with most mechanical schemes for it, such as Affliction (Obsession: Attack that guy), is that aggro was originally conceived as a work around for specific video game issues (that being, there is no one to watch the monster to decide who it logically should fight, and the AI can't make qualitative decisions like that).

This is why monsters have an aggro list, sure. So that their behaviour can be determined by a simple algorithm. However player aggro modifying abilities (Taunts and such) are not required for this, they are a separate addition. If no class had any abilities which modified aggro, the AI could still use it to decide who the monster attacked.

Adding Taunts was an active decision, and IMO a good one because it adds an interesting tactical dimension to the game.

[BrockNicholson]

I was actually thinking of creating something similar for a game I am going to run. Oddly, mine is a future tech game full of guys in battle-suits. I wanted a way to reliably draw fire to the guy who chooses to wear the heaviest armor, while his lighter partners do the damage.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The problem I have with most mechanical schemes for it, such as Affliction (Obsession: Attack that guy), is that aggro was originally conceived as a work around for specific video game issues (that being, there is no one to watch the monster to decide who it logically should fight, and the AI can't make qualitative decisions like that).

AI certainly can make qualitative decisions like that. Especially in a video game, where as part of the back end of the game the AI can have full access to information like character class, choice of special abilities, equipment, level, average damage, average hit percentage, and etc., along with a record of the players behavior.

"Aggro mechanics" IS the AI making a qualitative decision on who to attack. Just because the AI is stupid doesn't mean it isn't making decisions :)

Some of those decision making systems are extremely limited - first person to try to attack the monster, or the first person to land damage (even a single hit point on a thousand HP monster) is the kill target, and this can't be changed untill the kill target is dead, at which point the first person to attack after the kill targets death gets to be the new kill target. Upside - very predictable, very fast to evaluate, hard to "train" a monster onto another player to harass them indirectly. Downside - very predictable, very stupid.

More advanced decision making systems that don't "peek" at the PC's character sheet have to rely on observed player behaviour - aggro mechanics are the equation that handles "Well, this guy is doing a ton of damage to me and if I don't kill him I'm toast in 10 seconds, but THAT guy keeps healing that damn damage dealer faster than I can kill him... who do I kill?" questions. It does this by tracking healing done by who to who, and damage done by who to who, weights these numbers appropriately, and uses them to determine the kill target. Non-damaging effects can get a "damage equivalence" number or a "healing equivalence" number (or both) assigned to them in order to feed them into the decision tree appropriately.

"Taunts" hyjack this decision making process with the message "NO ACTUALLY you need to kill me, even though I'm not healing the damage dealers nor doing significant damage." They're mind control of the most blatant variety, even if they're not explained as mind control in context.

D&D 4e basically doesn't have taunts, despite some hyperbole to the contrary. What they do is give "tanking" classes non-damaging abilities that matter, like giving a general hit penalty against everyone but the tank ("well, I could swing at the wizard but I'll probably miss"), and conditional damaging/non-damaging abilities that punish the target for attacking non-tanks ("Well, I could swing at the wizard but then I get knocked over and burn from within with holy fire...") and then the GM or player has to decide if the penalty/damage is worth it. It manages "aggro" by feeding important new variables into the HUMAN PLAYER's decision tree completely honestly, instead of "cheating" with a mind control effect like a taunt does.

I don't know of any MMO that does it quite like D&D does these days, but World of Warcraft has a somewhat related idea that's half between a taunt and half the tank just doing something productive and very annoying/dangerous - attacks and abilities that (along with the usual damage and annoying side effects) get an effective boost to "virtual damage" when fed into the AI's aggro algorithm.

No table top RPG can really use the same sort of complex rule-driven algorithm to even provide advice to players/GMs on who's a good target, because the sheer amount of number crunching from turn to turn would overwhelm gameplay completely. Fortunately humans can learn this sort of behaviour, and can run their own "aggro algorithm" inside their heads fairly quickly - humans throw in extra variables like "I had a bad day at work" and "I hate orcs" and often have a worse grasp of the numbers of a situation, but we still look at the situation and come to a conclusion. Often also a pretty stupid decision in retrospect - I'm certainly not a tactical genius.

Um, I've rambled a bit, but "aggro" IS the AI for making kill-target decisions - and "Taunts" are not some sort of artifact of aggro - it's a "break the system" power, not a system quirk.

The reason why you see it more than you see all-out mind control is that all-out mind control is difficult to program and/or has performance impact - having "friendship" spells in a video game means it needs to track "aggro" against players just in case a monster is forced to switch sides, so that's twice the tracking going on in the background. And full "You possess the monster" powers requires a specialized user interface switch, which is fussy (they pulled it off in Warcraft, but they kept it restricted, and it's sort of messy for player-vs-player combat).

[whswhs]

I'm afraid this will sound repetitious, but you'll just have to buy Social Engineering. The section Provoking and Taunting in Chapter 6 discusses this very issue. Obviously there really has been a need for this kind of GURPS book!

Bill Stoddard

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by kdarc

A player in an upcoming DF-esque have asked if a taunting ability is possible - that, a verbal ability that allows him to (in lack of a better term) draw aggro from nearby enemies. Looking quickly through the rules, I haven't been able to find one this far and I'm thinking that within the GURPS rules, its more about simply role-playing it. But anyway, are there any suggestions on making a statted version of this sort of ability?

I would go with a Rapier Wit variant that doesn't require a roll and that automatically gives the critical failure result. Keep the cost at [5].

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I don't know of any MMO that does it quite like D&D does these days, but World of Warcraft has a somewhat related idea that's half between a taunt and half the tank just doing something productive and very annoying/dangerous - attacks and abilities that (along with the usual damage and annoying side effects) get an effective boost to "virtual damage" when fed into the AI's aggro algorithm.

[ . . . ]

Um, I've rambled a bit, but "aggro" IS the AI for making kill-target decisions - and "Taunts" are not some sort of artifact of aggro - it's a "break the system" power, not a system quirk.

To expand on Bruno's already long post:

Taunts are 'ignore the aggro list for 6 seconds and attack ME, then return to your usual routine of attacking the character with the most aggro (calculated the moment taunt ends)'; the regular tanky effect is a production of aggro points a couple times in excess of the damage done (e.g. Paladin Tanks* get +80% aggro points from all Holy damage they do).

Now, League of Legends has a somewhat different approach to tanking. First, there are the usual taunts. Then, there is Cho'Gath, who, with proper gameplay, grows so large that clicking the flimsy damage-dealers is just not possible. And usually, most tanky characters have some sort of ability that makes keeping them alive highly annoying - some debuff the enemy team, some buff or heal the friendlies, some provide crowd control (stuns, silence, knockup, or at least an interrupt). Finally, many of them have a charge/leap ability of some sort, which commonly provokes the enemy team into using many of their hard-hitting abilities with cooldowns on the tank (who initiates combat!) out pure 'oh sh**!' factor.

* == and silly paladins who forgot to turn off Righteous Fury / think that if there is a buff, it must be enabled.