Allies - Am I doing something wrong?

[Ego Archive]

Originally Posted by bcd

When you buy an Ally you are paying points to make him exactly that: your ally. While he may have motivations that conflict with your own from time to time, for the GM to make him a mole whose actual and overall aim is to undermine you is just not on the table as far as I am concerned.

You and I will have to disagree then. I was specifically thinking of characters like like spy's if you had an ally who was a spy for a different organization, who would help you with dangerous, and difficult tasks, but who still reported back to his superiors with whatever information he felt he could use.

He would have his motivations, and one of the disadvantages he would have is a duty to his organization. You would be a friend he helped out because you have a long relationship working together, but that doesn't mean that at some point his organization wouldn't order him to kill someone in your organization. He'd never kill you, and if the order came down to kill you he would tip you off, and help get you to safety, but he still has to play to his disadvantages.

I would say even a lifelong friend could turn on you, say if your enemy captures his family and uses them to manipulate him or her. At that point it would be up to the GM make it right (bring in another ally to save the day, or have his ally "turn back" at the last minute), but it doesn't mean that the GM can't use an Ally to drive the story, that would be silly.

[mlangsdorf]

The revised Mr. Handy looks like a reasonable investment for 20 points, but it isn't powerful. It has a 3 shot ranged attack that does less damage than a 9mm pistol, with less range. He's not even a particularly good shoot.

The buzzsaw is a more impressive weapon, but it can be completely ignored by anyone with DR12 or more and anyone with DR8 or more can generally ignore it.

The robot is pathetically armored, vulnerable to shrapnel, small arms fire, and even people hitting it with clubs a bunch.

I can't see how this will imbalance your game.

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by Ego Archive

You and I will have to disagree then. I was specifically thinking of characters like like spy's if you had an ally who was a spy for a different organization, who would help you with dangerous, and difficult tasks, but who still reported back to his superiors with whatever information he felt he could use.

He would have his motivations, and one of the disadvantages he would have is a duty to his organization. You would be a friend he helped out because you have a long relationship working together, but that doesn't mean that at some point his organization wouldn't order him to kill someone in your organization. He'd never kill you, and if the order came down to kill you he would tip you off, and help get you to safety, but he still has to play to his disadvantages.

I would say even a lifelong friend could turn on you, say if your enemy captures his family and uses them to manipulate him or her. At that point it would be up to the GM make it right (bring in another ally to save the day, or have his ally "turn back" at the last minute), but it doesn't mean that the GM can't use an Ally to drive the story, that would be silly.

They should also be an Enemy if they're secretly your enemy though. Otherwise you're just ripping the player off for their investment. It's no different from saying "Yes, you spent that twenty points to put your IQ up by one, but I'll make you mentally retarded when it suits me"

If nothing else, this kind of "Ally" should have Unwilling. They are LESS useful than an actually loyal ally, so they should cost less.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Maz

Yes allie kan be extremely powerfull. For 150 pts. you could build him a robot wit an innate attack (lasergun) that does 10d dam, Acc:6, never runs out of ammo and a skill of 14, and still have points left to give the robot DR and typical robot stuff... You could also build a psionic virus that lives i nthe charcter body and has the ability, through afflictions, to grant the player abilities such as precognition and telekinesis.


But, this is why it is the GM that creates the Ally, not the players. This is also why, unless they have the minion modifier on Ally, the ally has a will of it's own, it's loyal, but the player can't just take control over it. He has to ask, be nice and so on, and it is that players ally, the ally might not even like the other characters.
Without this, allies can quickly become overpowerful.

Or go the Buck Godot route and buy your gun as an ally.

[tg_ambro]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

The revised Mr. Handy looks like a reasonable investment for 20 points, but it isn't powerful. It has a 3 shot ranged attack that does less damage than a 9mm pistol, with less range. He's not even a particularly good shoot.

The buzzsaw is a more impressive weapon, but it can be completely ignored by anyone with DR12 or more and anyone with DR8 or more can generally ignore it.

The robot is pathetically armored, vulnerable to shrapnel, small arms fire, and even people hitting it with clubs a bunch.

I can't see how this will imbalance your game.

You are very right, about midway through the design process I realized a couple things. That he would need more points because all the advantages of being a robot are pretty damned expensive, and the other thing I realized is that if the OP wanted less power, It'd be pretty ticky-tack for me to make an ally with much more power, even though in my game the robot really wouldn't be that much of a problem when it comes to designing challenges for the party.

Also, I'm not really sure how much armor these things would have, considering that in Fall Out 3 you could destroy them with just an old duct-taped-together rifle that was a couple hundred years old. Granted, that rifle would still deal at least 5d6 dice of damage.

[lachimba]

Originally Posted by The Benj

They should also be an Enemy if they're secretly your enemy though. Otherwise you're just ripping the player off for their investment. It's no different from saying "Yes, you spent that twenty points to put your IQ up by one, but I'll make you mentally retarded when it suits me"

If nothing else, this kind of "Ally" should have Unwilling. They are LESS useful than an actually loyal ally, so they should cost less.

I don't think so. Ally is one of those advantages that isn't as straigthtforward as +1 IQ. You allies have disadvantages as well and the player should expect them to come up as a problem (from time to time). Sure if you buy a flawless ally that is fine, but if your ally has dependents then sure enough they are going to get in trouble and your ally can be blackmailed as much as the player can. Now whether or not your ally decides to come to you for help or betray you; that is a relation between other disadvantages and roleplaying.

There is an abundance of fiction where friends are turned against each other for a short period of time and then make up by then end of the plot. Equally there is plenty of fiction where an ally gets their ally into trouble. That is why the player and GM need to talk about the ally before the player spends the points and the player should use minion if they want more control over their ally

[bcd]

Originally Posted by lachimba

I don't think so. Ally is one of those advantages that isn't as straigthtforward as +1 IQ. You allies have disadvantages as well and the player should expect them to come up as a problem (from time to time). Sure if you buy a flawless ally that is fine, but if your ally has dependents then sure enough they are going to get in trouble and your ally can be blackmailed as much as the player can. Now whether or not your ally decides to come to you for help or betray you; that is a relation between other disadvantages and roleplaying.

I feel that this view is directly contradicted by the first three paragraphs in the "Ally" description on p. B36: It starts by saying that an Ally is a loyal comrade, faithful sidekick and the like, goes on to say that the other PCs are not Allies because they have motivations of their own and might even betray you, and finishes by stating that an Ally does not have such undesirable traits: "An NPC Ally, on the other hand, is wholly reliable."

In my view, an Ally you bought for points is entirely loyal to you unless you've added appropriate Limitations to him to change this. He may not be entirely obedient, but he is perfectly loyal. There are only two ways, off the top of my head, in which an Ally would betray you: either if he is under mind control so that he is not in fact himself, or if you betray him first (and even then I would have him inform you in no uncertain terms that he no longer considers you a friend before be begins his campaign of villainy against you).

[Ego Archive]

Originally Posted by bcd

I feel that this view is directly contradicted by the first three paragraphs in the "Ally" description on p. B36: It starts by saying that an Ally is a loyal comrade, faithful sidekick and the like, goes on to say that the other PCs are not Allies because they have motivations of their own and might even betray you, and finishes by stating that an Ally does not have such undesirable traits: "An NPC Ally, on the other hand, is wholly reliable."

In my view, an Ally you bought for points is entirely loyal to you unless you've added appropriate Limitations to him to change this. He may not be entirely obedient, but he is perfectly loyal. There are only two ways, off the top of my head, in which an Ally would betray you: either if he is under mind control so that he is not in fact himself, or if you betray him first (and even then I would have him inform you in no uncertain terms that he no longer considers you a friend before be begins his campaign of villainy against you).

Yes, the first three paragraphs do say that, but then you completely ignore the third paragraph:
"Your Ally is usually agreeable to your suggestions, but he is not your
puppet. He will disagree with you from time to time. An Ally may try to
dissuade you from a plan that seems foolish to him – and if he can’t talk you
out of the plan, he may refuse to cooperate. An Ally may even cause problems for you: picking fights, landing in jail, insulting a high noble . . . Of course, the Ally will also try to bail you out when you make mistakes.

And you have to keep in mind that an ally still has disadvantages and a background that it has to play to, and that can be used against it.

This is all of course completely ignoring the unwilling ally limitation of course.

[bcd]

Originally Posted by Ego Archive

Yes, the first three paragraphs do say that, but then you completely ignore the third paragraph:
"Your Ally is usually agreeable to your suggestions, but he is not your
puppet. He will disagree with you from time to time. An Ally may try to
dissuade you from a plan that seems foolish to him – and if he can’t talk you
out of the plan, he may refuse to cooperate. An Ally may even cause problems for you: picking fights, landing in jail, insulting a high noble . . . Of course, the Ally will also try to bail you out when you make mistakes.

This is why I said that an Ally will be loyal (the first three paragraphs, which I referred to) but not necessarily obedient (the paragraph you refer to). He may not want to join you in the scuba attack on the enemy because he's aquaphobic but he's not going to toss hand grenades after you once you dive in. Obedience and loyalty are two very different aspects here and it's important that we manage to keep them apart.

Originally Posted by Ego Archive

And you have to keep in mind that an ally still has disadvantages and a background that it has to play to, and that can be used against it.

Yes, but if these disads are such that they actually make him your enemy then this should have to be reflected also in the Limitations on the Ally, or even in the GM refusing to let him be an Ally at all because he just isn't one.

Originally Posted by Ego Archive

This is all of course completely ignoring the unwilling ally limitation of course.

This is the sort of Limitation you would need to add if the Ally is to be disloyal.

[Kalzazz]

Well, it is possible for the ally to get mind controlled or blackmailed by having his kids kidnapped or such, thats a staple of fiction

Or possibly even be convinced you are doing Wrong and as a friend try to stop you (especially if its a grey area game)

But definitely not actually being against you