UMI is not brainwashing.
Dice Quest [Dice/Exalted]
- Thread starter Anondylar
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- exalted (white wolf)
Oh come on, you're exaggerating the terribleness here. All he tried to do was create a positive intimacy to us and it failed since we're a stubborn bitch. That's not really mind control, just a bit of emotional manipulation. If we raise our appearance it won't be nearly as much of an issue. All it gives them is a bit of a dice advantage against us in social combat, two or so extra dice if it'd been successful.
Still, it seems that these guys, while kind of stupid, do have a point. We need to deal with the growing gangs of dicers before they get to big for anyone to deal with. Launching an attack when they least expect it is a decent idea for dealing with them now.
EDIT: Not the best, but this'll do for now
[x] Remain silent and listen to whatever harebrained scheme Michael's hatched while watching what other people say. We'll decide what our next move is after he's made his.
Still, it seems that these guys, while kind of stupid, do have a point. We need to deal with the growing gangs of dicers before they get to big for anyone to deal with. Launching an attack when they least expect it is a decent idea for dealing with them now.
EDIT: Not the best, but this'll do for now
[x] Remain silent and listen to whatever harebrained scheme Michael's hatched while watching what other people say. We'll decide what our next move is after he's made his.
Ardion Prosili
An (im)Perfect Cell
What a problem. We play along, we get mind whammied. We don't, we get singled out due to fighting style/skill as the Masked Dicer and get gang whammied. Pick your poison.
Ardion Prosili
An (im)Perfect Cell
Oh come on guy. I'm trying to create some discussion and you just poohf all over it. Now I'm sad. :[ <color style="transparent"]Its not like that's exactly what the GM is planning anyways. Gotta be MAX PARANOID around GMs or they'll getcha! >.> [.< .</color]bloodshifter said:
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
I'm pretty sure that there are a couple serious misconceptions here, so I'd like to step back and go over the situation.
The currently present list of characters is:
In mechanical terms, remember that PMDV is (Charisma/Manipulation+Ability+Specialty)/2 rounded up. This means our base PMDV is 6. DMDV is (Willpower+Integrity+Specialty+Essence)/2, rounded down. This means our base DMDV is 4. A 2-success attack blows past our DMDV as noted if Michael has an appearance of 4+. Our Appearance for our social attack is effectively 3 since we're attempting to intimidate others, but since he wasn't trying for an intimidation play we're back to our actual score of 1, meaning that we'd suffer the full -3 possible penalty and have our DMDV reduced to just 1. Our PMDV falls to 3, which was more than his successes- but it's a close thing.
Given that we didn't socially parry Jeremy's attack either but still seem to have defeated it, and he's almost certainly got an Appearance of at least 3 and was able to affect Lilith, either we hit a clause of his charm that let us ignore its effect or spent willpower to beat the charm. I suspect the latter.
Anyway, the issue with attacking anyway on the basis of UMI is that hitting Jeremy will inspire Michael, Nagase, and Clare to attack us for not playing along with them and is unlikely to garner support from the other independents (in fact, Lilith might promptly go hostile), while attacking the Michael/Nagase/Clare group (who haven't pulled out the social charms) will probably just make everything devolve into a fight that will leave all of us injured and weakened when whoever else he invited shows up. It's not a good play to hit either one of them.
Fortunately, we currently have no reasonable expectation that further social charms will be deployed against us. Jeremy goes down in my books as someone trigger-happy with the social charms who should be Join Battle'd into submission at the earliest available opportunity, but he's not the one talking here, just someone petty enough to deploy mind whammy because he got interrupted. It's Michael that's laying out a plan, and his social die pool is right up there- just 5 dice. We should let him say what he has to say, then make our choice as to whether it's better to try tearing him apart verbally or let things run their course and take some kind of action to maximize our own benefit- like joining up with these "Legacy of the Seven Dragons and Phoenixes" people.
[x] Remain silent and listen to whatever harebrained scheme Michael's hatched while watching what other people say. We'll decide what our next move is after he's made his.
The currently present list of characters is:
- Us, of course.
- Michael, "berserker", who we had previously fought here. He has claimed to be the one who attacked us here, and thus far has displayed high combat ability but relatively low social ability (which makes me wonder why he's serving as the face, honestly). Investment in Appearance, Martial Arts and Athletics.
- Nagase, who we had previously fought here. Michael has claimed association with her and she has not disputed it, but hasn't otherwise talked yet. Investment in Appearance and Melee, including charms.
- Clare, "Bishoujo", who we had previously fought here. Michael has claimed association with her and she has not disputed it, but has only talked to chastise Gabriel for lack of manners. Investment in Appearance and Awareness.
- Jeremy, "an incredibly tiny boy", who appears to have deployed a social charm against at minimum us and Lilith but possibly the whole room after Raphael interrupted him. Investment in Performance, including at least one charm, and possibly also in Intelligence, Wits, and/or War given his rapid analysis.
- Raphael, "a relatively normal boy", who has been quiet but quickly analyzed Michael's reasons for attacking us while in the guise of the Masked Dicer, interrupting Jeremy. Investments in Intelligence, Wits, and/or War?
- Gabriel, "a broad shouldered boy", who seems somewhat abrasive; he mocked us for our appearance and lateness, has verbally shown hostility to Michael, and supported us- if wordlessly- in our social parry against Michael. Investment in Strength and Stamina?
- Lilith, "an absolutely stunning girl", who immediately attacked Michael upon his admission that he's been going around attacking people as the Masked Dicer. She was defeated easily but still seems pretty scrappy; investment in Appearance, Martial Arts, probably Resistance.
- There may also be at least one other person present, since as we entered someone appeared to use Stealth charms to get past us, and that person hasn't been properly identified as any of the people present. We haven't recognized any of their voices, at least, though that could just be a failure to properly recognize a normal spoken voice as the same as that in a whisper, or a use of Larceny on their part to alter their voice's sound.
I believe this is our social attack, which presumably got a die pool of 12 from Manipulation 3+Presence 6+Selfish 3. No stunt, alas. Based on the description of how it bounced ("He stands there and takes your words. He doesn't even look ashamed or anything."), it hit an effective DMDV of 8 or higher. Then he socially attacked with the "my methods were unorthodox" bit, which we shut down with our PMDV, a social parry in the form of "spit it the fuck out".2014-04-20 15:58:13Anondylar: Anondylar has joined the room.
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In mechanical terms, remember that PMDV is (Charisma/Manipulation+Ability+Specialty)/2 rounded up. This means our base PMDV is 6. DMDV is (Willpower+Integrity+Specialty+Essence)/2, rounded down. This means our base DMDV is 4. A 2-success attack blows past our DMDV as noted if Michael has an appearance of 4+. Our Appearance for our social attack is effectively 3 since we're attempting to intimidate others, but since he wasn't trying for an intimidation play we're back to our actual score of 1, meaning that we'd suffer the full -3 possible penalty and have our DMDV reduced to just 1. Our PMDV falls to 3, which was more than his successes- but it's a close thing.
Given that we didn't socially parry Jeremy's attack either but still seem to have defeated it, and he's almost certainly got an Appearance of at least 3 and was able to affect Lilith, either we hit a clause of his charm that let us ignore its effect or spent willpower to beat the charm. I suspect the latter.
Anyway, the issue with attacking anyway on the basis of UMI is that hitting Jeremy will inspire Michael, Nagase, and Clare to attack us for not playing along with them and is unlikely to garner support from the other independents (in fact, Lilith might promptly go hostile), while attacking the Michael/Nagase/Clare group (who haven't pulled out the social charms) will probably just make everything devolve into a fight that will leave all of us injured and weakened when whoever else he invited shows up. It's not a good play to hit either one of them.
Fortunately, we currently have no reasonable expectation that further social charms will be deployed against us. Jeremy goes down in my books as someone trigger-happy with the social charms who should be Join Battle'd into submission at the earliest available opportunity, but he's not the one talking here, just someone petty enough to deploy mind whammy because he got interrupted. It's Michael that's laying out a plan, and his social die pool is right up there- just 5 dice. We should let him say what he has to say, then make our choice as to whether it's better to try tearing him apart verbally or let things run their course and take some kind of action to maximize our own benefit- like joining up with these "Legacy of the Seven Dragons and Phoenixes" people.
[x] Remain silent and listen to whatever harebrained scheme Michael's hatched while watching what other people say. We'll decide what our next move is after he's made his.
Anondylar
Lazy Tortoise
- Location
- Procrastinationville
Yay, lag's over! Somewhat.
So yeah, Michael and Jeremy are two different people. Jeremy actually didn't use a charm, just arbitrarily high social stats (and I wasn't really in the mood to do any more number crunching) that it had an effect on you. I didn't have you spend wp on it though, since that would unfair since I didn't roll for it.
(Also, correcting a misconception that might have arisen: Michael's saying that he made arrangements - and paved the way - for people from Legacy to transfer over to your course, so they can sink their fangs into the student body here as well. They're not actually coming up to the rooftop.
Essentially, remember that Mafia guy in canon Dice? What's Michael's done is help him expand his influence to other 'classes', or in the case of your school, courses.)
So yeah, Michael and Jeremy are two different people. Jeremy actually didn't use a charm, just arbitrarily high social stats (and I wasn't really in the mood to do any more number crunching) that it had an effect on you. I didn't have you spend wp on it though, since that would unfair since I didn't roll for it.
(Also, correcting a misconception that might have arisen: Michael's saying that he made arrangements - and paved the way - for people from Legacy to transfer over to your course, so they can sink their fangs into the student body here as well. They're not actually coming up to the rooftop.
Essentially, remember that Mafia guy in canon Dice? What's Michael's done is help him expand his influence to other 'classes', or in the case of your school, courses.)
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Darklight140
Gonna say it right now If your plan wins and everything goes to the crapper, I Called It, because functionally, if we are not planning on betraying him then your vote means we essencially join him, the story will lean towards it and then SB being SB will likely vote for it (It's like a trend), Does anybody here even want to join the f***er?DarkLight140 said:
mastigos2 said:
Anondylar
Lazy Tortoise
- Location
- Procrastinationville
His plan for getting a new identity for you actually has the potential to work perfectly.Sol Zagato said:
Sol Zagato said:
Given we rolled 8 successes on a social attack and failed, I don't really think more investment short of Appearance upgrade would have helped too much. That's an absurd MDV. It's a trade-off, but as stated, rapid Appearance upgrade is still a good panic-button probably worth the disadvantage, though I would have saved the 9 xp for doing it at any time as per my original xp plan.At any rate, they seem to be going for a 'let's catch the Masked Dicer' plan we've already infiltrated. And you're worried he's going to become a leader or something? Okay. Of course, now that he's been stupid enough to wear a mask and attack people he's a plausible candidate and the majority of the school thinks there's no way we could be the Masked Dicer. It's a decent position we're in.
I'm fine with waiting a bit to see how things fall out right now. We were playing a ruthless character that decided to go for as much dice as possible, and that was a very plausible character to play. So that's how I strategized. I always expected something to complicate things and make us reflect on our reactions, and now we've got it. Fine, fine.
So here we are. I'm gonna have to see WAY scarier social charms than have been displayed before the whole 'He's TALKING! Crap, kick his ass!' feels plausible, though, and it reflects the worst aspects of said douchiness Anondylar was irritated about. I suggest we actually find out what their plan is and simply do what we need to do to keep things under wraps rather than going FULL PARANOIA and VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY OPTION immediately.
Anondylar
Lazy Tortoise
- Location
- Procrastinationville
Lag was kind of terrible yesterday, so I'll give some more time for people to vote (unless they've all gone to SV, urgh) but I'll be around if anyone wants some more information.
EDIT:
Like I said, I don't have a problem with writing about a villain (at least for this quest), but you'll have to go about it intelligently if you want to survive. Gather allies, subordinates, etc, if you want to not take the hero route.
EDIT:
It's more that numbers are very important. Sure, the rabble may not be a threat, but TMArtists are. And if you go around pissing everyone else off, they'll eventually band together to take you out.drake_azathoth said:
Like I said, I don't have a problem with writing about a villain (at least for this quest), but you'll have to go about it intelligently if you want to survive. Gather allies, subordinates, etc, if you want to not take the hero route.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
Thanks for the correction here; I had interpreted "I invited them here" to mean "their representatives will be arriving shortly" rather than "I have encouraged them to expand their influence into our area of the school". Though, "so they can't sink their fangs into the student body here"? Wouldn't what he's done be helping them to take control of our courses, or to use your phrasing, sink their fangs into our student body?Anondylar said:
In any case, with any major shift in the power structure comes opportunity. Whether it's inserting ourselves at the top of the pyramid scheme, rampantly stealing dice from the people in the pyramid scheme (who, since they need to give tribute up the chain, won't be able to roll all their dice immediately like people in our course), impersonating the people at the top of the scheme and stealing all their dice that way, or something else, there's definitely a lot of opportunity here.
I just don't see what you're expecting to reasonably accomplish with it. You appear to be attacking Jeremy (who apparently didn't even properly use a charm on us, just stunted a social attack) rather than Michael (who is running the meeting), which is particularly unproductive.bloodshifter said:
Let's say we Join Battle and attack Jeremy. The following parties immediately go hostile:
- Jeremy (because we punched him)
- Michael (because we're ruining his meeting plan, whatever it is)
- Nagase (supporting Michael)
- Clare (supporting Michael)
- Lilith (inclined to hug Jeremy and thus likely to join battle on his side)
But let's say we win, anyway. We display utterly ridiculous combat prowess and are left standing with everyone else disabled. Then what? What can we do that will be constructive in the medium to long term, and assist us in acquiring more dice?
I should be clear that I am not completely opposed to joining battle here, but I do need to be convinced that it's more useful to actually achieving our goals than waiting, watching, and if necessary spending a temporary willpower or two in order to bounce a social attack.
Anondylar
Lazy Tortoise
- Location
- Procrastinationville
Cripes, misspelling.DarkLight140 said:
Anondylar
Lazy Tortoise
- Location
- Procrastinationville
Okay, now I'm bewildered over people's hatred of Jeremy. I mean, all he did was act cute to get people to like him. It's not UMI, and I even outright stated you didn't burn wp to resist.
Is this the famed 'punch people whenever someone talks to me' reaction of Exalted players?
Is this the famed 'punch people whenever someone talks to me' reaction of Exalted players?
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
Why wouldn't she? She's so charmed by him right now that she's shoving his face in her breasts, and she's shown herself willing to Join Battle at the drop of a hat. She seems mercurial and impulsive, quick to strike and quick to abandon what she was doing and move on to other things.bloodshifter said:
Look at what the GM has said regarding this:
Claiming brainwashing is going to make us look like a paranoid, irrational idiot, because there is no brainwashing involved at any level. No charm use means no UMI; Jeremy has simply pumped so many dice into his Charisma+Performance pool that he can strike a pose (which is to say, stunt) and make girls squee over him. Attacking him on that basis will get us no support whatsoever from others.Anondylar said:
Michael would definitely engage; he's not a defensive fighter at all. We described him as a "berserker", remember? Ruining his meeting with extra violence will draw his ire and prompt him to attack us. It doesn't help that he's convinced he's a hero (we know he's channeled that before) and has enough Willpower+Integrity to lolnope any attempts to convince him that he isn't acting for the greater good, no matter how dumb he gets. And the other two are his associates, meaning that they'll try to act as a team for reasons of solidarity if nothing else.
Edit: And you still haven't made a decent argument for the long-term utility of your proposed course of action. If it won't actually benefit us, it doesn't even matter whether it's horribly implausible or not because we shouldn't be doing it.
Wait, I thought he channeled Family? Do I have him confused or did he channel Hero in a combat I didn't bother to look at the logs for?DarkLight140 said:
In any case, just because the guy thinks he's a hero and working for the greater good doesn't mean he can't get up to some serious villainy. I mean, look at him now, he's trying to create a team made up of what would probably be supervillains. And I could definitely see someone starting a mafia for the greater good.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
He has both. From the logs:pressea said:
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2014-04-17 07:00:48
That was basically my reaction above, yeah. Note that my social attack earlier was essentially devoted to pointing out that hypocrisy (I was hoping to hit his Principle and get a bonus), and it bounced even with 8 successes. He's not going to stop thinking of himself as a hero and his actions as heroic no matter how black they get, because he's got the stats to pull off that kind of mental self-deception even in the face of serious evidence. Classic Exalted protagonist, really.
Bloodshifter mistakenly thinking we were being targeted by UMI basically scaremongered a bunch of people who don't bother reading the update carefully into voting for the violent response.
It'd be funny if it weren't so stupid.
It'd be funny if it weren't so stupid.
ryuan
From Zero to Hero!
Basically. X is tired of selfish dice grabbers, and helping the 'heroes' is a nice change of pace for him.pressea said:
pressea said:
We are getting dice. We've been investing pretty heavily in combat build, and we beat several of this group at the same time earlier. That said, yeah, other people get dice too. They probably get dice just a bit more easily than us right now because X is looking to corrupt/test them. That will probably level off.As far as Michael getting enough dice to give away... Well, it was, what, seven dice tops? A serious investment, but nothing critical, and X apparently does like 'idiotic stubborn hero' archetype enough to give him another task quickly.
That said, we could still probably stomp anyone here one-to-one. Probably.