How do you deal with charm, mind control and other abilities which remove player agency being directed at PCs? Do you just avoid these in your games?
>>98105872Back in 3.5 i just had the enemies do whatever made the most sense and didn't care for the players enjoy it or not. I only had one player that ever cared, he was more of a role player than a game mechanics guy at took it personally when he failed saves against effects like charmed or turned to stone. When 4th edition came out it stopped being a problem. Then we switch to playing Deathwatch from FFG and the player characters became so buffed that it never came up often enough to be a problem.
>>98105872I think its much more interesting to put players under a geas or in some sort of pact that means that have to do shit they don't like, but they can still try to legalese there way out of it/follow the letter but not the spirit/etc. "You lose control of your character, sorry," is just kind of boring.
>>98105872The times I use it typically just involve passing the player a notecard with any new 'rules' their character has to follow while under mind control, and otherwise still letting them play the character.The most recent example I can think of was when a dwarf PC got charmed by a fey, with the instructions to defend them rather than attack them, and that came across as the player trying to give the fey some of their iron weapons and armor, or starting to break apart furniture in an effort to make fortifications. It ends up as a way to still include those effects while still ensuring everyone can have a good time.
>>98105872Mind control is a boring power, because it simply requires some arbitrary "anti mind control" device or power to defeat, the availability of which is either down to character build, or pure GM fiat.Because reasonably, a bunch of knuckleheads running into a being that can remotely mind control them is a TPK, unless punches are severely pulled or ass-pulls are made.
>>98105978As GM I never pull punches. Half my party are power gamers and if I don't build encounters that are potentially lethal there is no challenge at all. It got better when we quit D&D and switched to FFG rpgs.
>>98105872It has never come up for Me yet, but if it did, I'd just play it straight. I don't play with pussies.
>>98105872Powers like memory control, emotional control, telepathic suggestion or mental blockage that can indirectly influence actions are more creative and less existentially terrifying than throwing command seals around
What's a Save?What's rolling a Save?
>>98105872I only have them as battle-only temporary status effects like in video games and only used by boss enemies, and make it so that you can disable it by hitting the boss
>>98105872I just avoid these.These probably skirt the line of causing player table conflict and kind of takes away the randomness of dice throwing one’s plans off in a good or funny way.Also sauce of that comic?Looks pretty 2000s.
>>98105872If PC-on-PC: generally a reason to talk to them about shit we don't do to other player's characters. PVP is generally undesirable, and keeping the players invested as agents of their character's destiny is desirable.If GM-on-PC: ideally do something like >>98105934 where they have specific instructions, but can bend the wording and rationalize actions outside the spirit of the instructions. So the player still has some agency, even if their overall control has been limited.
>>98105872This attitude that 'players don't do shit to each other' has always seemed weird to me. It seems hard to justify in a game. I mean, a bunch of randos that met in a pub yesterday, that have actual political, racial, faction and secret rivalries, are somehow completely loyal to each other unto death and are banned from stealing from, betraying, or attacking each other, no matter what their natural tendency is or opportunites present themselves? This used to be the cornerstone of RPGs, a disparate group CHOOSING (or not) to put aside their differences temporarily to achieve a common goal. If someone turns against a group member (the thief pickpocketing another, a wizard charming another, the fighter threatening or attacking another, etc), the players roleplayed it and came to a resolution themselves. They don't lose agency when shit happens to them, they are challenged and then attempt to resolve it themselves. There is no need for the DM to say they all have to get on with each other just because they are 'player characters' - this takes away their agency more and seems more like the mind control you object to.
>>98108119I think it's more that, as discussed in this thread, "I fully control your character" tends to be very unenjoyable to play in a way that "your character is compelled to do certain things" is not. One still gives the player agency in interpreting commands, the other removes them from the game and hands their presumably-beloved char to someone else.
>>98105872You tell the DM to knock it the fuck off and quite reading trash comics
>>98105872What precisely is the full context here?
>>98108214a group of superheroes get mind controlled by a villain and she got sold to a rich guy. Also Warren Ellis
>>98107577It's The Authority, but no idea what volume/issue. Definitely not the Warren Ellis written issues, and probably not the Mark Millar ones either.
>>98105872>not sucking his dickunrealistic
>>98108390Scratch that, it was Millar, I guess I stopped reading his run before this point, but I should have recognised his edginess. Volume 1, Issue 27. But the only online copies I can find are completely redrawn to remove the raciest stuff from that page
>>98108424God you're stupid.
>>98108168But that is where the teamwork comes in - if someone is mind controled or charmed, the others then try to avoid, subdue, trick, comprimise or free the charmed victim. How is it any different than being stunned, poisoned, turned to stone or killed? Doesnt that 'remove the agency' of the player as well? The entire game is about characters fighting against opposing force and 'agency theft'. At least charm or mind control has degrees of control and options for the character and party. Also, if you have players who can roleplay, in can be interesting to tell, say, the group fighter that they their loyalty is now to another and then let them roleplay it themselves. It's just one more challenge to overcome.It does depend on your players though, some don't like to be challenged, hence the games about setting up a bakery in a diverse multicultural city. For those who do like to fight for their agency though, it can make for an interesting game.
>>98108436Your safe edgy comic is shit
>>98108433Yeah it's interesting that even for the Authority they censored what is essentially explicit fetish content in the weekly issue. I believe it was restored for the volumes. You can really see where Millar's later career - superhero humiliation, edgy deaths with no build up, extremely evil but extremely shallow villains - would go in this arc.
>>98108446Her sucking a dick is both implicit in the oral focus on-page and would be less shocking than the cigar ash. It's not "safe", you're just a dumb fuck with no imagination.
>>98105872I just tell the players what they need to do, and they do it. It's that simple.
>>98105872Slip a secret note to the controlled PC on their instructions so they can still play their character while technically under control. This opens up a plot hook or problem for the party to solve. Have a clue there is some control happening for the party to discover and a way to break it.
Running B/X adjacent D&D, I've solved this problem by players having multiple PCs at all times. In fact, it has solved many issues. Combat is fast and deadly.
>>98108433I think this is actually worse than the original
>>98108390There was an arc where the Authority got depowered and replaced by a megacorp sponsored superteam. The girl there, Swift, got brainwashed into an obedient Asian wife.
sorry I don't include most things that would give me an erection in games
>>98105872I generally let the players decide their actions knowing what they need to do. When I tell the players "You're mind controlled, kill your friends" they fight fairly efficiently without doing retarded shit like "I dash around the room to use my action" or "I switch from my greatsword to my dagger and attack the barbarian." If they tried that I'd warn them once to actually try to kill their allies and then take control directly.In my experience a lot of players revel in the chance to hack apart the rest of their party. "Okay, the wizard is near me, attack, extra attack, action surge, attack, he's down, use my extra attack to coup de grace him."
>>98105872I have two girls at my table and one has getting mind controlled aong her kinks, the other has mind controlling others for a kink. The only issue between them is the subby one is almost exclusively into guys and the other is a lesbian, so I do include both male enemies with mind control and female enemies with bad resistances to mind control, whatever that means in a given system. Subby girl gets charmed/dominated/hypnotized/whatever and dragged off by evil magicians, snakemen or eldritch brain suckers fairly often; dommy girl gets to make playthings out of enemy women when the party wins.
>>98105872Women have issues
>>98105872If a player has a particular horror of it then maybe don't do it, but otherwise its no different than a character dying or being knocked unconscious. I think a player can survive sitting out a combat or the back end of a session if they get wrecked by something. If it goes on too long then they'll need another character to play until it ends. It's really not much different than death in a game that often has resurrection. Any condition removes some player agency.>>98108433I think the censored version is more impactful. There's something commonplace about the sexualised slavery. Whereas forcing someone through that specific emotional torment by making them feel and then ruin a pride in a service that would itself disgust them normally. It also implies this has gone on long enough that he's gotten bored of the obvious and has moved on to very depraved niche shit you would not immediately imagine.Censorship is still bad, I don't know the story it may be that a vapid lack of imagination is fitting for the villain, it often is.
>>98109466Things that never happened for 500 Alex.
>>98105872One of the most fun times my players ever had was one where I let the player continue to act normally, but they had been infected by eldritch knowledge, so I would secretly pass notes to the other players of what they were really doing/doing in addition to that.It was basically portrayed as a mystery, with the player in question slowly learning that they were insane/discovering the evidence.This requires players that aren't bitches, however, as the player in question here, upon realizing they had been driven insane, started playing along and was immediately on board.
>>98105872>How do you deal with charm, mind control and other abilities which remove player agency being directed at PCs?Since I mainly play Risus with other people for most games, such things are treated as full "combats/contest". In that game the winner already decides what happens (in context) to the one who loses so it fits decently well with game mechanics and feels relatively fair most of the time. Since I mainly play with friends and people I know in real life there is a certain social expectation not to be fucking weird or a swore winner when someone has a temporary upper-hand because if you are too much of a creep or jerk then no one will want to play with you. Plus turnabouts of fortune are constant so it's best not to tempt fate and the other players to humble you when your luck inevitably turns. Since it takes a full fight scene for such effects to happen rather than it being some instant thing where a single roll decides if you even get to play anymore that session, it again feels way more fair. There is a a lot more that can be done to resist. There are more opportunities for the other players to assist to improve your odds. More opportunities creative improvisations to bail you out. And if you still fail it isn't the end of the world or the game most of the time. Plus the back and forth can get really really funny at times. That said I occasionally play D&D and in the long past played VtM where such things occasionally come up and at least with the people I played with it just wasn't a big deal or issue. Oh no, you failed your roll and now are running in fear from the dragon for a few turns. Deal with it. Oh, that Venture is using Dominate again on the weak willed PC to try and get their way, better swoop in and save their ass before they sign something important. It's just part of the game. As long as it's not a instant game over it's usually fine.
>>98108119>I mean, a bunch of randos that met in a pub yesterday, that have actual political, racial, faction and secret rivalriesI get that some people run games like this, but I want to game, not spend any amount of time getting the group together, so this shit all gets figured out before we start. "How do you know each other, and why are you working together."Likewise, I get that interparty conflict might be fun for some people, but it's a massive fucking trap for a lot of other groups, so I can understand why some just ban it outright. Most of our games end up mostly with the group working together, and even the one game we had that involved some level of interparty fuckery, it was very subtle and played with a delicate hand, and we're all adults who can separate the game dynamic from out actually social dynamic. Not all groups can do that.
>>98109466Please share more of your wonderful escapades, if would be so kind.
>>98105872Oh hey, is the authority
>>98111285Seeing as so far my wonderful escapades are just having two perverts in the group who enjoy different aspects of the thread question, sure I can offer a story or two.>previous campaignUsed AD&D 2e to run a Thundarr style campaign, a technobarbarian post-apocalypse with high tech 'magic' items and various warlords or evil 'wizards' ruling over disparate villages, and hordes of mutants inbetween. Over the course of the campaign one sweet but foolish thief managed to get mind controlled by: mutant bug-man (thri-kreen), cult leader with an imminent sex ritual, and one evil biomancer wanting a vessel to birth his experimental offspring.Meanwhile the other girl of the party put together a psionicist from Complete Psionics and had her way with a barmaid or two, a pair of bandit sisters who tried to hijack a caravan, a 'star princess' they found when her 'sky chariot' crashed (she was into it), and a warlord gish lady who tried to invade the town they were building at the end.>current campaignPF1e, a magical disaster has rearranged the world, time to explore and make new maps and alliances. We have an alchemist and witch this time (and others who don't matter to the story) who have had encounters with a satyr, enemy sorceror and an imported mindflayer, while fodder for the witch have included one rogue girl who tried unsuccesfully to pickpocket her, a bossy dhampir trying to chase the party off her turf and a catfolk monk who proved less iron willed than she thought herself.
>>98105872It was kind of a planned event, the actual player pc bit off more than they could handle, they were doing fine, they just didn't know what they were up against. But the rival npc does so i gave the player control of that guy to beat the tar out of the 'villain' and get the actual pc back.
>>98105872One thing I think is important to remember about these sorts of effects, as both a player and a GM, is that there is a spectrum and variance to them.>GeasThese punish the afflicted if they do something or do not do something. It doesn't directly take away free will. Some variations will actually reward the afflicted if they follow the Geas' conditions.>SuggestionThis puts an idea or compulsion into the afflicted's head. How the afflicted goes about following or resisting the idea/compulsion is up to them.>CharmThis makes the afflicted have positive feelings towards or be friendly to the caster/afflictor. This doesn't actually control the afflicted's actions. They will just act in a friendly manner towards one individual.>Emotion Control This causes the afflicted to act in the specified emotional state. Like Charm it doesn't control actions. The afflicted just acts with that emotion.>DominateThis actually takes control of the afflicted. This should feel like a violation as the afflicted is under the direct control of another.
