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Old 04-22-2021, 07:53 AM   #41
Axly Suregrip
 
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Durham, NC
Default Re: Glamor

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Originally Posted by Shostak View Post
If a woman wizard with a high voice uses Glamor to make herself seem as though she is a brawny male, does she still speak with the same feminine voice?
Yes she retains her voice. Glamour (ITL p.27) mentions "appear" twice and "see" twice and never does it mention hearing or sound. It is strictly a visual illusion.

She can try to speak deeper or better yet if she has the Mimic talent.

You may allow a Great Glamour as TippetsTX has suggested at a higher IQ. Or have a spell that does something just with sounds, that is, a mimic spell to mimic the mimic ability. (Sorry, could not help myself but it's still a valid idea). You can may someone look like a 1 hex dragon and sound like a chicken by having two separate spells. :-)

Not being able to modify sound by glamour spell allows for some interesting game situations.
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Old 04-22-2021, 08:26 AM   #42
phiwum
 
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Default Re: Glamor

Yes, I'm convinced about sound. So here's my current house clarifications.

(*) Glamor covers up your actual appearance with an imaginary appearance. This can include clothing and other acccoutrements. See below for things carried in hand.

(*) Glamor must have some limits in terms of what kinds of critters you can pose as. I think it will be limited to critters who have roughly the same shape and movement as you. A human can't look like a wolf or even a bear (unless walking upright), but you could make your toy poodle look like a wolf (which would have some uses, though he wouldn't act like a wolf).

(*) You can use Glamor to look like a particular person. No one can see that this isn't your real appearance, but in order to convince that you really are that person, a Disguise roll is required. As usual, a 1d penalty for being unskilled, but this is effectively countered by the 1d bonus for using Glamor and there's no need for an hour preparation.

(*) Glamor only affects visual appearance, not sound, smell or even touch, each of which can be a giveaway. If these perceptions don't match the visual image, the observer may make an IQ roll to notice the discrepancy or it may be automatic in obvious cases.

At present, I'm thinking that things carried in hand is part of the visual presentation, so a wizard carrying a staff may make it look like he is carrying a battleaxe. However, just as illusions can't be split in two, neither can glamors, so a glamored figure cannot set down anything that is part of the glamor. If the wizard sets down his staff, the staff will be visible, since it's no longer hidden by the glamor. The battleaxe would also still be visible, since the glamor is still active and hiding the wizard but not the staff.

Note that Uther would have a hard time impregnating Igraine, since his armor was part of the glamor, but perhaps he worked something out, so to speak.

Last edited by phiwum; 04-22-2021 at 08:31 AM.
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Old 04-22-2021, 08:41 AM   #43
Shostak
 
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Default Re: Glamor

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Originally Posted by Axly Suregrip View Post
Yes she retains her voice. Glamour (ITL p.27) mentions "appear" twice and "see" twice and never does it mention hearing or sound. It is strictly a visual illusion.
"See" is often used interchangeably with "understand."

If that is the case, then the use of the word "illusion" in the spell description is unfortunate, since illusions do make sound appropriate to their form. It is also a remarkably expensive spell to cast, given how easily it should be able to be understood as deception by anything with ears or which uses other senses such as olfactory. I'll grant that this could yield some fun situations, but it is entirely inconsistent with the power of a simple Illusion that costs a mere 2ST and can look and sound EXACTLY like a particular person (or burn down a city). If SJ ever wants to strike the word "illusion" from Glamor's spell description in favor of its just saying, "This is a purely visual magical disguise," it would clarify things immensely.
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Old 04-22-2021, 10:25 AM   #44
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Default Re: Glamor

"Don't shoot! I'm the princess, not a troll."

"Then why do you have a deep gravely voice?"

"There's no harm in smoking in a world with wizards."
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Old 04-22-2021, 12:21 PM   #45
phiwum
 
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Default Re: Glamor

Dammit, Shostak, you make fine points. The use of the word "see" is just in "see through a Glamor" and "see the illusion". The first is commonly idiomatic and the second is also used on ITL 138 when describing full-fledged illusions. The word "appearance" is more suggestive, but on ITL 137, we see:
Quote:
Images are simple. An image has the total appearance
(sight, sound, smell, etc.)
of whatever it simulates. Different
spells create images of different sizes. [Bolding mine, of course]
The literal (visual) reading of appearance in Glamor is not all that obvious. ITL uses both "see" and "appear[ance]" in the broader senses.

So, what prevents a Glamor from producing the effects of Mimic, if it produces sound? One could say the wizard can alter his voice, but without Mimic, he's likely to sound funny, just as I've suggested Glamor can impersonate, but without Disguise, it will be harder to pull it off.

(Aside: Mimicry requires the listener to roll 4/IQ to recognize the subterfuge. An untalented use would be one die less for the victim, I reckon. I think that one with the Mimic talent should give a save roll of 4/IQ mimic an accent or a voice in the mimic's native accent and only 3/IQ if he's mimicking a particular voice in a different accent.)

ETA: Rethinking the above one die penalty for unskilled use of Mimic. That would mean a 3/IQ roll for a listener to realize that the unskilled person is faking a voice or accent, which is probably too hard. I don't reckon I could fool half the population with my British accent and I listened to a lot of Monty Python growing up, so I'm really good. I think unskilled use of Mimic should be a two die penalty (i.e., a two die advantage for the person hearing the mimicry).

Last edited by phiwum; 04-22-2021 at 07:16 PM.
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Old 04-22-2021, 01:10 PM   #46
Axly Suregrip
 
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Default Re: Glamor

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shostak View Post
"See" is often used interchangeably with "understand."

If that is the case, then the use of the word "illusion" in the spell description is unfortunate, since illusions do make sound appropriate to their form. It is also a remarkably expensive spell to cast, given how easily it should be able to be understood as deception by anything with ears or which uses other senses such as olfactory. I'll grant that this could yield some fun situations, but it is entirely inconsistent with the power of a simple Illusion that costs a mere 2ST and can look and sound EXACTLY like a particular person (or burn down a city). If SJ ever wants to strike the word "illusion" from Glamor's spell description in favor of its just saying, "This is a purely visual magical disguise," it would clarify things immensely.
Glamour says it is like an illusion. It did not say it is exactly an illusion. ITL pg 27 "This is a special sort of illusion." Special sort means it is different. And while standard illusions are limited in range from the wizard, the Glamour spell has no such limit. It is a different thing. Nor can Glamour be disbelieved. Again it is a different thing.

Furthermore, under the Disguise talent (ITL pg 44) it says this about Glamour, "If a wizard casts a Glamor or shape-shift to perfect your physical appearance, you roll one fewer dice." It says Glamour enhances "appearance" specifically and nothing else. It goes on about Mimic with regards to sound and no mention of Glamour here.
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Old 04-22-2021, 07:30 PM   #47
timm meyers
 
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Default Re: Glamor

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Originally Posted by phiwum View Post
Hey, Timm, just two things are unclear to me in your description.

(1) What about impersonating someone? Is Glamor enough to pull it off without a Disguise roll? (I think not. For details, see this post.)

Yes and No- Seems to me that no one can even see through the glamor in any way except with Mage Sight and even then it is 4/IQ only tried once! Thats a pretty potent illusion if you ask me. Poke their glamored face and ALL senses (that implies sight, sound, smell, touch...) tells you that is a hairy dude not Galinda the witch.
However.... Glamor does not grant you mannerisms and patterns of speech (yes they are speaking in a glamored hairy dude voice) or any other "tells" that would give away someone. So if glamored as a pop diva you better know 1. her songs 2. how to dance This is where disguise comes in as that talent (along with mimic) implies some "acting" skills to fool people with.


(2) Can you glamor up an figure holding something in its hands different than what you hold, possibly nothing, in yours? (My guess: Perhaps so, but that would cause issues if you then pick something up with your hand. Furthermore, a fictional object would have no effects at all, since Glamor is like illusion in some way but confers no abilities. No free torch, for instance.)

This is where it gets to personal preference imho. The evil queen glamors herself as the old woman, to me this means the blow up dinosaur analogy. She is stooped, stinky, creaky, raspy and wearing support hose, but in reality wears her royal gown, sweeping cape and crown. However the sleeping apple is not a glamor nor is the basket used to carry them etc. The glamor is or must be a single "thing". Any item needed to be "separated" has to be real for the same reasons an illusion of a bow and arrow cannot fire/separate.

One difference I've chosen is that you can't glamor up something that moves too differently from you. There should be some correlation between your movements and that of your appearance, so no mustard jelly or wolf.

DeadParrot mentioned an issue you didn't touch on, namely whether sound corresponds to your glamored image. If you glamor up armor around your disguise, does it make the right sound? I'm leaning to disagree with DeadParrot's and Tippets's reading of appearance as literally visual, which is plausible given the wording but very significantly limiting to the spell's utility. I'm still not sure about all that.
Glamor is IQ-14 cost 10 ST high end spell in my book and surely is worthless with only visual aspects. Again you want to glamor into a horse in order to walk through the stables undetected I say there is nothing wrong with that. Thematically it makes sense to me, but if that's to powerful for others I say play it the way you see it.
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Old 04-22-2021, 07:31 PM   #48
phiwum
 
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Default Re: Glamor

To be fair, Shostak, it goes on to Mimic regarding voice, not sounds generally. Mimics don't fake the sound of clanking armor.

You are right it speaks about physical appearance in Disguise, but the whole interaction there is a little opaque. Glamor should have some advantages over disguise, given that the only opportunity to detect the Glamor given in the text is for those with Mage Sight (and even then, it's a 4/IQ roll). Obviously, it cannot be better than Disguise in every way, since Disguise + Glamor would be pointless.

My house clarification is that Disguise allows impersonation in a way that Glamor does not (except for an unskilled roll).

Your interpretation that it doesn't do sound (which I'm waffling on) is another way to explain why Disguise + Glamor is better than Glamor, but Shostak's not wrong to say a 10 ST spell shouldn't too easy to detect.

If you take this disconnect between visual image and sound to its logical conclusion, any time a goblin is glamored up to human size, a fairly casual observer would have good odds to note that the sound of the real feet hitting the floor does not match the image of the strides of the longer legs.

On the other hand, I don't think Glamor should change one's voice, which is also just a sound, so it's hard to see where to draw the line.
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Old 04-22-2021, 07:55 PM   #49
phiwum
 
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Default Re: Glamor

Thanks for your thorough replies, Timm.

Two things I might disagree on, ignoring my current waffling on sounds generally. I'm not sure I'd let one mimic a voice and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let one mimic a smell, at least not perfectly, because the dog that recognizes the glamored person is a wonderful dramatic device.

But your point (like Shostak's) that an IQ 14, 10 ST spell ought to be pretty darned useful is right.
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Old 04-22-2021, 08:00 PM   #50
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Default Re: Glamor

To be clear, I don't have a problem if GLAMOR does provide auditory and olfactory effects. I'm not convinced that is the intent of the spell as written, but if it makes the game interesting or supports your vision of magic in the world, great!
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