(no subject)

[alexmegami]

So Patrick and I got into a rather heated debate about the relative merit of having skills in RPGs that explicitly allow a character to seduce another. (The skill in question for our argument was Socialize in New World of Darkness, but any skill that allows these sorts of rolls can probably be substituted with ease.)

He falls on the side of the argument that says yes, rolling for just any old seduction attempt is stupid and rather pointless, but that he thinks that the roll itself is acceptable. His specific example was, "if I have an NPC like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, and the player knows that hey, this is a situation they don't want their character going into, I want a way to fairly resolve Black Widow Seductress vs. Hapless PC." He compares it to rolling Interrogation; the player may not want their character to give up important information, but that doesn't mean that the cops/Yakuza/Mafia/government/whoever won't be able to get it out of them.

I personally feel really uncomfortable with that idea. To me, even with nWoD's modifiers, it opens up (for example) the possibility of Casanova seducing a nun, or 'converting' a person from their sexuality through seduction (even if only for a night), or otherwise telling me what my PC feels or wants. ('Your character is in a bar drinking because he just lost his wife... but you failed your roll, so bam! He has sex with a random woman that seduced him!')

Now obviously I don't expect the last situation to happen in any game that I play in - I trust Pat more than that - but the point still remains that I really don't want to be told, "You find X really attractive/you want to get a drink with X/X convinces you to come back to his place/you want to sleep with X."

On the other hand, in Aberrant, Mega-Charisma and Mega-Manipulation literally meant jack shit to the PCs. You could blow a Willpower to just ignore social 'attacks', and it meant that NPCs with massive social stats could be, basically, hated, despite having Mega-Charisma 3+ (*cough*Imago*cough*).

I don't know where to find the equilibrium that I'll be happy with, short of saying that people should react to NPCs in accordance with their relative attributes. Thoughts?

Comments

[harukami]

I think 'seduction' should work to make the person feel an alarming attraction to that person, and leave it up to the Player as to whether or not the character would ICly act on that, and how. If their attraction is something they'd act on, wham, in the sack. If not, they may find themselves more likely to do things for that person, because they're repressing the feelings, or they may try to project, or something. Mind, that takes it out of GM control and black and white fields, but...

[alexmegami]

I think I could feel... okay with that, at least. (As a matter of fact, I think I explicitly brought up a situation you told me about in my argument, so your input is super-plus valued. :D) As others (on roleplayers) have said, sometimes you find yourself attracted to someone that isn't your 'type'... but I still find the prospect of, say, Az [who is Indian] being able to seduce or even ATTRACT Bastian [who is a neo-Nazi] pretty dumb.

Sooooooooo yeah! :O

[harukami]

Where my rigger got date-raped because the GM insisted the seduction succeeded and I really didn't want her to have sex with the guy? YEP. ...and hmm. But even iwth a neo-Nazi character you can work in something like, say, the "It's so revolting it's almost fascinating" thing.

[lindiril.livejournal.com]

Alternatively, you can work in something like the neo-Nazi character begins to respond VERY NEGATIVELY to the successful seducer as their attraction wars with their revulsion for the target. Consider, for instance, a violently reactive homophobic person who might beat especially brutally a person of the same sex that he or she finds themselves attracted to, as a way of distancing themselves from or denying that attraction.

You succeed on your seduction roll. You win a savage beating!

[alexmegami]

Not quite the attention you wanted...

[alexmegami]

Yeah, that one. HA HA uh ew.

D: *mind goes bad places*

[adagioweapon.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem I have with that stems from the system: Shadowrun has no understanding on any social skill that can be used to get someone to sleep with you. Etiquette is used to fit in places, Leadership has no effect on making people do stuff for you, and I guess intimidation does.

Whereas WoD does have these understandings. The vampire's got to get her victims into a lonely room somehow.

[harukami]

Here's the event, in short, summarized form.

Him: So you're guarding this guy [lolz etc description] That night, he calls in all the girls to sleep with him.
Me: ...My character's a professional. She turns him down.
Him: Sorry, you can't do that. He has altered pheremones.
Me: Don't I even get a roll?
Him: No!
Me: I'm not comfortable with this.
Him: Fine! Roll to resist it if you want!
Me: [rolls]
Him: [rolls an assload of dice] He soaks.
Me: ... What?
Him: The three girls end up in a bedroom. You spend a lot of time doing kinky things with whipped cream, sometimes to each other. Etc etc.


It was a scenario that could have taken place with a seduction skill instead; it just didn't.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

I think this makes a lot of sense.

There's also the option of adding modifiers when the character does not want to be attracted to the person.

[trenog.livejournal.com]

I think that the gm needs to weigh carefully the merits of coersive interaction versus character interaction. The first part has more to do with a forced change of attitude or a forced attempt whereas the second one has to do with the change of attitude that comes from playing things the long way.

Although the first way is more streamlined to the situation (reducing an encounter to chance and the character's ability to resist/coerce) there is something lost as a result of the roll (do the stats really make the character is the proper question to ask).

The second approach requires more time but is able to perserve the character's essence. A problem with this is that it requires the players to negotiate with the gm if there isn't a desire for a power struggle as the gm is trying to move the story and the character is trying to advantage themselves.

It's like this, if your character is held at gunpoint against an assaulter that is demanding that you take a course of action then the refusal puts the gm in a hard position. Should your character die because your views conflict with his as in the second example, or should you have to roll against his persuasion at gunpoint, potentially betraying what your character represents, as is found in example one.

For the sake of the game you would need to make a roll, but for the sake of the spirit of the character, you should die. That is what I think. It's a big letdown, but its how real life works. I think that the dice rolls in interaction should be left up to characters putting up a front that is reacted against as a result of their success/failure, but the reaction should be coming from the character, not an opposing roll. And even when they should be rolling, a gm doesn't need to roll because the interactor is a character like yours, and should be able to come off as something without the need for the dice.

Then again, it is a dice-based roleplaying system for a reason *shrug* I'm tired, it's 1:43am and bed time after brushing teeth :D.

Night!

[alexmegami]

On the other hand, what about rolls where the outcome isn't so lethal? Like the Interrogation roll mentioned earlier. The cops want me to spill, I don't want to budge... in which case it basically comes down to a contested roll of how well I hide the truth vs. how well they question me.

[mysticjuicer.livejournal.com]

I think if a PC is arrested and put through rigorous interrogation, it should come down to a roll. If it doesn't resolve itself that way, interrogation, torture and other forceful coercive situations don't come across as threatening to players. The roll of the dice nicely models the situation: if it were up to you, you'd never spill the beans, but the situation is out of you hands and the resolution is abstracted by the dice.

Modifiers should totally come into play. Let's say the Italian is caught by the police and questioned. He's already been seen to have (1) gotten out of prison through his contact with Smoke, (2) threatened a cabal of established mages on their own turf and (3) has access to a personal realm of magical badassness. Bottom line, any interrogation by mundane (especially local) law enforcement is going to result in a shit-ton of bonus dice in his favour.

Part of being a social creature is being open to social pressures. Example: Tom is a high-school student who doesn't smoke, or drink, and he's seen a bunch of public service announcements about the ill effects of that kind of activity. His friend asks him if he'd like to smoke some weed with him, because it's really fun, he's done it before, they'll watch movies or something. Here, I'd leave it completely up to the PC what happens. It's a request, by a friendly NPC, and carries no consequence for refusal.

Compare the above with a scene where Tom is at a massive house party, and he gets momentarily seperated from his friends ("oh hey, yeah, dave left to grab some beers") and some scary looking guy and a bunch of jocks approach him and ask him for his wallet. It's a demand, in an unfamiliar social environment, with implied consequences of violence. I'd let the player decide what to do, and call for a roll if their decision is counter to the bullies' demands. Success means they follow through, failure they cave. *shrug*

[lindiril.livejournal.com]

To me it seems that roleplaying always requires GM discretion anyway; it's just that some individual mechanics or even whole systems may require more finesse than others. Ideally, GM and players are either well enough matched that a seduction roll is never made (because both are heavy on the roleplaying and work it through that way) or it's made but the players and GM are fine with that (possibly they like a system where interaction is based entirely on rolls and stats--and since everyone involved likes it, that's not a problem).

An interaction roll like seduction, bluff, sense motive, etc. gives a GM a game mechanic to deal with the twinking, rules-lawyering player who metagames the heck out of an interaction instead of reacting IC; however, if the GM feels that a player like that needs dealing with, then the player and GM are probably pretty poorly matched in the first place. *shrug*

[alexmegami]

This is all true. :)

[idavale.livejournal.com]

Normally I would say thus: Any roll to effect a PC or NPC should have a resistance roll of some sort. In combat you have dodge, there is spell resistance for magic, and so if a PC or NPC is trying to seduce someone, you better bet they'll get a resistance roll.

I've been reading through Exalted 2nd Ed this week (squee!), and for an example from those rules mechanics you have Virtues that could aid against being seduced, or the skill Integrity. So that nun you used in your example should have some defence in Exalted against Casanova.

Now, that being said, I've always been leery with including sex in a lot of my games. Its not because I'm mildly prudish, its just that when I'm GMing for a bunch of very single male gamers... Yeah. Best to avoid that.

[alexmegami]

And there is a counter-roll (basically, seducer is trying to get seduced's Resolve x2 in successes in an extended Presence + Persuasion/Manipulation + Persuasion roll, whereas the seduced is rolling Wits + Composure vs. target net successes of seducer's Presence x 2, with the goal being to reach your number first).

And with Exalted, it even takes multiple repeated attempts if it contradicts an Intimacy (unless your Conviction is 1) AND you can blow a Willpower to ignore it, so only if you're down to your last dregs of self-will are you going to be convinced.

We've never had a problem with sex in our games, thankfully. :)