Gamesmaster: Coercion Of Adventurers

[alex_greene]

Gamesmaster, when an unscrupulous NPC uses Influence skill, or a spell such as Dominate, and uses it on one of the Adventurers, how do you rule the use of compulsion?

The Adventurer has a choice: refuse, resist with a Persistence or Resilience roll, or comply without resistance. Either way, the Adventurer who is compelled must act according to the direction of the one who successfully applied Influence or Dominate.

If the Adventurer refuses, you as Gamesmaster may rule that the Persistence roll is an automatic success. This option applies if the Adventurer is faced with an attempt to coerce him into doing something that is against his personal moral code, is inappropriately homicidal or clearly self-damaging or suicidal, including self-humiliation. Spend one Hero Point, earn one free Improvement Roll, and move on.

If the Adventurer attempts resistance, and waives the option above, failure on the Persistence roll means that the Adventurer must act according to the compulsion - turn and strike at a friend, divulge a desired secret or just cease fighting and surrender. However, at end-of-session bookkeeping the Adventurer has earned two free Improvement Rolls; one free Improvement Roll if the roll succeeds.

If the Adventurer complies with the action, he performs the required action - and automatically earns one free Improvement Roll.

What do you think? Also, what do you think of party members attempting to use Influence and Dominate on one another, outside of the context of a party leader giving an order to a subordinate party member?

 

[soltakss]

Coercion can be a tricky thing as most players don;t want to lose control of their Adventurers.

The way I play it is that the Sorcerer has to cast Dominate and overcome the Adventurer with Persistence vs Persistence/Resilience or whatever. Then, each round the Adventurer can spend a Hero Point to attempt to resist the Persistence vs Persistence roll with success breaking the spell. If the Adventurer is forced to do something completely against his normal morals then he can make another resistance attempt for free. The Adventurer knows that he is being coerced but might nor know the source. When the spell ends he is likely to be angry.

When I played RQ2 I played a Wind Lord of Orlanth who was also an associate priest of Humakt and Storm Bull, so he was pretty handy at the fighting malarky. He was fighting a Lamia (30 point armour + Shield 4 + Protection 4 + Shimmer 200% defense chaos feature) and some chaos priests. In the same round, the Lamia tried a Love Trance attack and the Chaos Priests cast Reverse Chaos on me, the Lamia succeeded and the Reverse Chaos succeeded with the result of "target joins attacker's side for the duration of the spell", so not only had I joined the Lamia's side but I was in love with her and bound to be her bodyguard! Did I whinge to the GM and say that Soltak Stormspear wouldn't join the chaos side? No, i cast all my magic, teleported over to the Lamia's side and started to attack the PC who was fighting her. I was quite prepared to cut down the rest of the PCs using all my abilities and magic. In the end, I rolled a 100, fumbled, hit nearest friend in the head doing critical damage and chopped the Lamia's head off. But, the point is that I was prepared to go with the results of the spell and play merry hell with the other PCs.

 

[alex_greene]

Once a round is a heavy price to pay on an Adventurer's Hero Points. They're not that abundant. Just give them a chance to make Persistence once. If they resist, they break the spell.

 

[soltakss]

Sure, if they resist they break the spell. If they don't they can try again the next round by spending a Hero Point.

I wasn't suggesting spending a hero point every round to see if they stay free from the compulsion. Instead this gives them multiple chances to break free rather than just one.