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Old 09-28-2017, 05:41 PM   #11
Anthony
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Slave Mentality is definitely the disadvantage of being so easily influenced everyone can influence you.

Mindless obedience to one person is a Constant Duty (probably Involuntary, possibly Extremely Hazardous).
Alternately, it's Reprogrammable, though the pricing of that disad implies that being reprogrammed to do things you don't want to do is a rare occurrence.
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Old 09-28-2017, 06:03 PM   #12
Scolop
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

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Originally Posted by Ghostdancer View Post
I (and others) toyed with some ideas in this thread.

One thing you may be overlooking here is that done this way it requires you to make a Concentrate maneuver to give new commands. This is similiar to how you can use Greater Control Matter to TK a car - but you need to spend an action to move it about. You'd need to add another Greater Control effect to "hand it off."
Well, I ended up liking the approach that I built with the help of Shostak and Andreas. It is the cheapest way to get someone under full mind control, surely a mage could add some effects and details if he wanted. Thanks for the input, Ghostdancer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Slave Mentality is definitely the disadvantage of being so easily influenced everyone can influence you.

Mindless obedience to one person is a Constant Duty (probably Involuntary, possibly Extremely Hazardous).
Would you swap Sense of Duty with Duty in my example?

Typical Casting: Greater Control Mind (5) + Altered Traits, Reprogrammable, Sense of Duty (Caster) and Slave Mentality (11) + Duration, 10 minutes (1) + Range, 2 yards (0). 51 energy (17×3).
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Old 09-28-2017, 06:35 PM   #13
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

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Originally Posted by Scolop View Post

Would you swap Sense of Duty with Duty in my example?
I would be cautious of using Sense of Duty instead of Duty in this sort of mind control build. For starters, it feels like a bit of a point crock, since Sense of Duty (one other person) is only -2, whereas Duty with all of the Involuntary, Frequency of Appearance: Constantly, and other modifiers will be much higher.

To justify that big of a difference, the limitations of Sense of Duty compared to Duty need to be strongly enforced. The biggest one is that Sense of Duty doesn't compel the person with it to obey the person they've devoted to. Instead, they want what's best for that person, which may very well not correspond to what the person who inflicted it wants. For example, a mind-control wizard who hits a fighter in the opposing side with Sense of Duty (Me) might very well find the fighter suddenly grabbing them and dragging them away from the fight, on the grounds that the fighter now wants to keep them safe, and the best place to be safe is far away from such a fight.
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Old 09-29-2017, 12:43 PM   #14
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

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Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
I would be cautious of using Sense of Duty instead of Duty in this sort of mind control build. For starters, it feels like a bit of a point crock, since Sense of Duty (one other person) is only -2, whereas Duty with all of the Involuntary, Frequency of Appearance: Constantly, and other modifiers will be much higher.

To justify that big of a difference, the limitations of Sense of Duty compared to Duty need to be strongly enforced. The biggest one is that Sense of Duty doesn't compel the person with it to obey the person they've devoted to. Instead, they want what's best for that person, which may very well not correspond to what the person who inflicted it wants. For example, a mind-control wizard who hits a fighter in the opposing side with Sense of Duty (Me) might very well find the fighter suddenly grabbing them and dragging them away from the fight, on the grounds that the fighter now wants to keep them safe, and the best place to be safe is far away from such a fight.
Solid argument, but I'd think Reprogrammable and Slave Mentality would take care of the obedience part. Sense of Duty would just direct that obedience towards the caster. Anyway, swapping the advantages would make the ritual look like this (I guess):

Typical Casting: Greater Control Mind (5) + Altered Traits, Duty (To the caster, almost all the time, Extremely Hazardous, Involuntary), Reprogrammable and Slave Mentality (15) + Duration, 10 minutes (1) + Range, 2 yards (0). 63 energy (21×3).

I'm, of course, supposing that what you call "Constantly" is Duty with a frequency of "almost all the time".
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Old 09-29-2017, 01:19 PM   #15
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

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Originally Posted by Scolop View Post
Solid argument, but I'd think Reprogrammable and Slave Mentality would take care of the obedience part.
Actually, Reprogrammable and Slave Mentality do that already - there's no need for Sense of Duty on top of that. It's perfectly reasonable, in my opinion, to have someone with Reprogrammable imposed on them to start out devoted to the person who hit them with it, no need for additional traits.

I had just skimmed your initial build, and didn't realize you were putting Sense of Duty in there along with the other traits - apologies. Reprogrammable + Slave Mentality is enough to do mind control.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scolop
I'm, of course, supposing that what you call "Constantly" is Duty with a frequency of "almost all the time".
Yeah, sorry again - I forgot Duty uses its own levels, instead of a Frequency of Appearance multiplier.
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Old 09-29-2017, 03:06 PM   #16
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

One thing that would extremely useful to people who like making their own RPM rituals is a list of examples of what each of the Verb - Noun combinations can get you on their own, as opposed to what requires Altered Traits or Bestows a Bonus/Penalty to accomplish.

You can sort of extrapolate from the descriptions of the Paths on pp. 7-12, where it explains the difference between Greater and Lesser effects, and from the Grimoire chapter. Still, doing this leads to some counter-intuitive results. For example, a spell which "instantly opens any mechanical lock" is simply a Lesser Control Matter effect for 5 energy (p. 46). If you instead built this as a spell which temporarily alters a lock to make it easier to pick (Bestows a bonus, next attempt to pick this lock), it would end up being more expensive despite accomplishing less than the spell which made success automatic.

Of course, at the table, the real limitation is what the GM thinks it would be safe to say "Okay, sure, that Just Works", as opposed to "That sounds complicated/powerful/expensive/potentially game breaking. Show your work". But while Rule Zero is great for marginal cases, it would still be helpful to have a reference for more central ones.

Last edited by RaRaRasputin; 09-29-2017 at 03:33 PM.
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Old 09-29-2017, 05:02 PM   #17
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

You don't get protected from the effects of Slave Mentality by taking more disadvantages.

Sense of Duty and/or Reprogramable doesn't stop people from casually walking up to you and telling you to clean their shoes with your tongue. The best you can get is when someone abuses your Slave Mentality to order you to do something that contradicts Reprogrammable or SoD is being forced to do it, and feeling terrible about it afterwards (like if you have a conflict between a SoD and a Vow - one way or another you don't get CP for the session, and you feel bad).

If that doesn't fit how you envision the net effect to be, then it's not that combination of traits.
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Old 09-29-2017, 05:04 PM   #18
Anthony
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
You don't get protected from the effects of Slave Mentality by taking more disadvantages.

Sense of Duty and/or Reprogramable doesn't stop people from casually walking up to you and telling you to clean their shoes with your tongue.
It's not clear how else you build 'slavishly obeys X and ignores everyone else'.
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Old 09-29-2017, 06:56 PM   #19
Scolop
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

Quote:
Originally Posted by RaRaRasputin View Post
One thing that would extremely useful to people who like making their own RPM rituals is a list of examples of what each of the Verb - Noun combinations can get you on their own, as opposed to what requires Altered Traits or Bestows a Bonus/Penalty to accomplish.
I totally second this.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
You don't get protected from the effects of Slave Mentality by taking more disadvantages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
It's not clear how else you build 'slavishly obeys X and ignores everyone else'.
I'm with Anthony here. By what's written in the book, you'd need a mere 18 energy ritual (Greater Control Mind with Duration, 10 minutes) to dominate someone's mind. You could then ask them for the truth about a subject, which is what the Truthteller ritual intends to do. But Truthteller costs 54 energy...

Anyway, the build that I presented here is the closest I could get to total mind control with a sense of balance. I threw Sense of Duty in there because I thought it should do the trick of pointing out who's the boss. I don't know a lot about limitations, but I guess something like Only to the caster, -X% could be applied to Slave Mentality instead.

To be frank, I really don't know... RPM can get really complicated when you're trying to balance things out.
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Old 09-29-2017, 09:14 PM   #20
Scolop
 
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Default Re: [RPM] Mind Control

Well, I don't even know anymore!
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