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.
>>98108119>the players roleplayed it and came to a resolution themselvesThis has literally never happened. It will be immediately obvious from relative character stats who will be killing who, so there will be one player who has the opportunity to bully another.
>>98105872>Do you just avoid these in your games?Yes because as you said it takes away agency from my players and also I don't like inserting my fetish into my game.
>>98105872>>98108433Ignoring the actual content for the most part-Why did they change him into a ginger in the censored version?
>>98105872Here’s a thought, anyone remember that episode of Gargoyles where Goliath is put under a mind control spell, and how they get him out of it?
>>98117147Yes that is really funny.>>98120425Yeah although I think it's kind of ambiguous whether they just overload the capacity of the spell or if there's some kind of exploitable logic loop there.
>>98105872The plate thing is kinda gross
>>98105872>new fetish acquired
>>98108214Garth Ennis is a hack.
>>98113346Up till dominate its a player skill check, if it ain't fun that's on them.Dominate is playing with fire tho
>>98105872What about ways such powers can be used heroically besides telling criminals to confess truthfully to their crimes?
>>98105872Pretty simple, I don't use them against players.
>>98108119The players are playing heroes who want to do what is right, for no reason and no reward than because it is right.
>>98108433wow, this almost as amateurish as the writing my community college students produce.
>>98108439Of course it's different from being poisoned. You can still do stuff while being poisoned. I don't use petrification or stuns against the players either.
>>98108460It's safe, you lose
>>98109131Attacking the barbarian with a dagger is trying to kill them.
>>98111285Why are you replying to yourself?
>>98105872Pretty much. Player has to sit around doing nothing while their character is under GM control? Player is bored/mad. Player is given control and successfully robs, hurts, or misdirects the rest of the party? Other players are mad.
>>98105872As a player on the receiving end? Pull up LoL and zone out
>>98105872Why does Mark Twain keep a winged woman slave?
>>98110868>It's just part of the game. As long as it's not a instant game over it's usually fine.I feel like this is being glossed over by many a bit too often.Mind control and the like can have interesting consequences, even if the player loses agency, but it shouldn't lead to a complete and unavoidable lossInstead of >You are mind controlled, immediately kill your wizard and double tap him in one turnGo with>You are mind controlled, you throw down your arms and allow yourself to be taken prisonerIn the former the TPK is pretty much guaranteed, while in the latter the party has to now overcome some serious challenges, but they still have options
>>98126869>What about ways such powers can be used heroically besides telling criminals to confess truthfully to their crimes?"Go, and sin no more"or the space jesus equivalent"You want to go home and rethink your life"
>>98127007It's Mark Millar, a man who only has a career because Editors keep thinking he's Frank, and because Garth Ennis makes him look good by comparison.
>>98122863That's actually Mark Millar in this particular instance... but yes.
>>98128496Because it was that or learn to play golf, and he'll be hanged before he has to do that.
>>98128842Exactly. It's about a sense of fair play when it comes down to it.
>>98126869Instead of jail or corporal punishment offenders are placed under a geas to perform community service.
>>98105872It's one of those things that make me personally uncomfortable, so I just avoid them, both as GM and player.
>>98127027It's clearly doing so in an inefficient way that they wouldn't normally. If the barbarian was your enemy and you had the goal to kill him what would you attack him with? The weapon that does more damage or the weapon that does less damage?
>>98108808Right?
>>98130003you don't know what they would normally do and it doesn't matter anyway. if the command is kill the barbarian and no method or weapon is specified, then the player is free to choose any method and weapon. cry about it.
>>98130003you lose.
>>98127000This may not be what all players are playing, and that's okay because there are all kinds of campaigns and systems that allow you to do other things.
>>98134134Don't argue.
>>98105872If it's something that fully turns the PC violently against the party, it's fine, though it should only really last until the end of combat because it will obviously end in the PC immobilized or dead otherwise. Magically compelling the PC to secretly against the party could be fun, though you have to make sure the player you're giving it to isn't a retard, so they can keep it secret and play it well.
>>98122605Yeah. Just imagine if he has a guest over and they eat off that plate...
>>98105872I have this one player, who completely refuses to be mind controlled or influenced any circumstances. Any time he's put under something like a vampire's charm, he's trying to completely weasel out of it. I have to remind him>No, Bob, you can't fill the room with daylight because "you want your vampire friend to see the room better", your character knows it would kill him, stop being fucking retardedOne day, I'll just begin to take turns for him, I swear.
>>98105978>Mind 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.It's a boring power in the same way that the power to conjure fire is boring, because reasonable someone who can conjure fire will just explode your brains directly and that's an instant TPK.However, fireballs are cool.Basically you need limits on abilities to make them not boring. If something is just the ability with every trait of it taken to a logical extreme and operating without difficulty or describable means of transmission then it's boring and sucks from a game design standpoint even if it's stronger the less limits it has from a 'would my character use this' point of view.Someone shouting 'CHARM' and flashing bright pink and you're suddenly on their side is cooler if stopping up your ears could have stopped the effect. The GM/villain taking outright control of your character is cooler if they did it because the bad guy just shoved a brainworm in through your ear, especially if it can be stopped if someone sees it's tail wriggling and pulls it out. D&D is just really bad about having a lot of invisible status effects come out of nowhere without visible transmission.
>>98105942This I think is one of the best setups, to be honest.Players are ultimately special compared to NPCs, so giving them the chance to be monkey paws when forced to act a certain way is the best situation.
>>98105872I usually make it into an RP challenge. I send them a private message (if we're on R20) or similar, and tell them they're being controlled and what the goal of the one controlling them is. If they do this RP well, the group gets bonus xp.
>>98142135What are some specific scenarios that you’ve done this way?
>>98105872What do the rules of the game of your choise say op?
>>98105978Or a willpower roll. Or Psi Screen. Or Dispel. Or Nullify. Or Immunity : Mental States. Or Inanimate, Mindless. Or Force Field, Ward. Or Instant Recovery. Retard.
>>98147311I've had enemy spell casters cast something akin to charm person, then told the Player that if they could convince the other Players the caster is a friend, they'd all get bonus XP.I've had malignant entities taking up residence in a PC's body, and then instructed the Player that the entity will increase some personality traits, and lessen the rest, and that them successfully roleplaying that without me intervening would grant group XP (but if they can't, then I'll take over).In my current campaign, an oneiromancer sent a living nightmare to a PC. To make this vivid, I told the other two PCs what happened, and that they should try to lure the PC away from his room at the Inn, and then murder him. The Player whose character had the dream suspected nothing, not even when the other two Players murdered him, until he woke up and everyone was given XP for their involvement.In general, I make anything that removes, changes or limits player agency connect to some kind of reward.
>>98134146Are you speaking from experience? I’d love to hear more about whatever happened please.
>>98156039In my current D&D game we have a player who uses a sword that has a demon inside. Recently the sword briefly took him over during combat and attacking friend and foe indiscriminately. The condition ended when there were no further enemies. Having it persist would have just had his character taken out of commission by the party. I also play in Vampire games where influence through blood and magic is very common, and all of our characters are beginning to take blood from a vampire, which obviously influences our perception and loyalty to them.
>>98105872Save against the effect at the start of the player's turn for the duration it affects the PC. A fail on this first save means the GM controls for that turn till half of the PC's turn has been expended. Success means the player controls for that turn entirely. This makes it dangerous to be affected by such things, but doesn't completely take the player out of the game while affected.
>>98110293>I 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.I fully disagreeThe dialogue talks about how her chipper spunky personality is gone and how she's no longer human inside. The censored version literally shows her happy and full of pride at a job well done, hopeful her master will love it. And then she cries.The original shows her completely robotic. All trace of personality is indeed gone. She doesn't even have basic animal impulses anymore like disgust and aversion to pain.
>>98105872It can be pretty fun to RP, but I don't approach it lightly. What I've found works best is explaining to the group that the character is under an effect, giving the player a note that describes the effect that their character is under, and letting the group play out the result.There was a time when I would be very impressed by a GM being bold enough to actually present a scenario where these effects were a real threat. Now I'm generally wary, since the times where I have encountered it, it has felt very out of place, like it's the effect that's being forced with the scenario contrived around it, and that's not good.
>>98117015Good on you, anon
Bump
>>98105978>boringIt just needs to actually treat it like a mechanic rather than>POOF okay now you're not playing indefinitely until the encounter's over thanks for playingand you wanna play a system where it's a first class mechanic rather than just "you no longer get to choose your roleplay, OR your combat stuff lmao"like, in a world where it exists and is being taken seriously, characters would be accounting for it in depth, including>characters would be engaging with hierarchies of preventative controleg "if only one character can control each other at a time", pretty much any party would have "mind buddies" where they're charming/controlling each other with>just ignore controlstuff>characters would have snap-out-of-it preparationseg if a character feels it's losing control, they'd prep shit like an autocast of some kind of protective-in-place brambling ready to prevent motion and exterior access to temporarily self remove from the fight>in general characters would be maintaining anti-control sentinel cantripseg for weak mind control charms or counterspells that would demand more control than the spell would grant, in fights with mind controllers, people would prep a cantrip that if they're not keeping it up because they're controlled and operating at lesser capacity, would trigger more aggressive emergency procedures>characters would be training mental protections against such spells which would develop over time, and more so with repeat controllersyou train strength to overpower enemies physically, you train mental to protect against control and the more attempts one person uses control the shitter they'd get>resistence strategies would be explicitly trainedso lots more subversion of requests or active resistance of control.Most actual gripes about charm and mind control are that either you're doing bad magical realm, or are turning the game off, just don't do bad magical realm and don't turn the game off. It's that easy bro.
>>98108119In the attitude's defense, PCs are way, way too willing to PVP, kill each other, and otherwise turn what's meant to be a collaborative gaming experience into a slugfest.Particularly in systems where rolling new characters means throwing out time-invested lore and is gonna take 20-90 minutes of shopping items/skills/busywork, having a soft rule>Unless there's a REALLY good reason to do so, you don't fight each other, even for RP reasonsis mostly to steer players away from ruining each other's time, because if you don't gate that shit off, eventually people try shit like>suggestion: seggs with my character :DDDDDDand you have to have a chat like>her character wouldn't be okay with that afterwards, that would basically force PVP which is overwhelmingly likely going to result in the death of your character and gonna ruin the table vibe because now we all gotta RP around Mr. Rapey's rapeand even if no one at the table's actually ever been raped or SA'd in a way that's gonna make them salty about that being the RP, it's still a bad vibes moment it's usually just better to respond to with>We don't do that kind of stuff to other PCs at this table out of the blue, if you insist on that, this table might not be right for you
>>98106074more like Kuro
>>98108433Wow, they censored it? Good to know, I was seriously going to look into that comic. Now I’ll pass.
>>98110293>being a censorship apologist.
