From: | Steve Eley <sfeley@***.NET> |
---|---|
Subject: | Influence (was Re: Dumb things) |
Date: | Sat, 12 Sep 1998 12:46:05 -0400 |
>
> This is unacceptable to the PCs, so the shaman resorts to casting
> Influence on the fixer to get him to pay 20,000 for a cheap watch. He
> resists, and tells her what she can do with her watch.
This caught my curiosity, so I went and looked up the Influence spell in the
Grimoire *and* SR3. The Grimmy specifically says it's "Similar to the Control
Thoughts spell" -- which I'd take to mean the same modifiers for opposed ideas
apply. SR3 doesn't say that; it simply says that the subject can make a
Willpower test *if* someone else points out that the idea is a bad one.
So the question becomes: should control manipulation spells have modifiers on
them to account for ideas the target would agree with vs. ideas the target
would find ludicrous or damaging? In the example you cite above, I think it
should be *extremely* difficult to convince the fixer to give 'em 20,000 =Y=
for a cheap watch "as if it were his own idea," even though nobody would be
physically harmed. I'd give it a +2 or +4 modifier to reflect the NPC's common
sense. (Or just to discourage the PC's from being positively reinforced into
thinking Influence is a solution for everything. This example is completely
against what I think of as the purpose of the spell, which is more of a "These
are not the droids you're looking for" application.)
What do other people think? Is the spell too flatly powerful as it stands? Or
is it good as written, and payback should come in the form of role-playing?
(E.g., if the fixer *had* forked over 20K, he later figures out what happened
and makes enemies of the PC's?)
Have Fun,
- Steve Eley
sfeley@***.net