Topic: Alignment question / Leadership Roll

[DavidKlecker]

Let's say a person rolls leadership and passes. Let's say a player decides to play it out as if he will still not follow this person regardless. Sometimes this comes up and often wonder exactly what one could do from a Rolemaster perspective to determine if, yes your character will not listen or yes your character will listen regardless of what you as a player think.

Would you determine this through alignment? Will Power? If alignment what alignment do you think would be necessary in order to not follow the person. If will power is this rolling your will power against the leadership roll? Should I use both? Should the alignment provide a modifier to the roll?

Thanks!

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

1) first thing to do is to determine how well the leadership roll was. And what the actual effect of it was.

2) Then have the resisting player make a RR for his character. While the player may not want to listen, his character might have been inspired enough to do so.


Alignment isn't even an issue here. What is at issue is how inspiring the one doing the leadership roll was AND whether or not the resisting character was affected  by it or not.

at least that is my opinion...

[Arioch]

Sometimes this comes up and often wonder exactly what one could do from a Rolemaster perspective to determine if, yes your character will not listen or yes your character will listen regardless of what you as a player think.

The second one.
Or, at least, as Rasyr says the PC makes a RR and if he fails he MUST obey the other. Exactly like in any other conflict, if you succeed and another character fails, that character must face the consequences. Would you let a PC avoid being hit by an enemy's blow (after making a normal attack roll) just because the PC's player thinks that his character would evade the blow?


The problem is that RM is unfortunately lacking in rules handling social conflicts...

[markc]

 IMO it would be a very good RMSS/FRP webzine article.
MDC

[Nders]

As with seduction I always prety much figured that pc's were allowded to act as they pleased without forcing them in any way. In case I as the GM found that their actions were unfounded or diciededly strange I would penalise their experience at the end of the session. I would usually ask to the players motives before exacting this penalty, penalising according to how well they could defen their actions. I never figured leadership to be a skill for directing people one on one but rather the ability to lead groups of people i.e. in battle or to avert a riot.

I would, if I were to use it, as a RR skill let it function as a RR against the number of ranks counted as levels with a penaty to the RR equal to (total skill roll - 101)/5 e.g a skillroll of 126 would induce a penalty of 5 (126-101) = 25 , 25/5 = 5. I do the same when applying interogation, seduction and other social skills to npc's.
I would never though let it be a matter of alignment alone.

Slightly off topic I also use this procedure to calculate additional penalties to poison RR's from use remove poison.

[rdanhenry]

So... if I roll well on my Leadership, spies and traitors in the ranks will suddenly start acting loyal to me? I doubt it, otherwise the skill out to be called Mind Control. Some individuals can be won over by good leadership, but some cannot. I would say that a good Leadership roll would, in small units, allow the leader to recognize who was unreliable and possibly why. (Jinkens clearly has a phobia about spiders, I should transfer him to a unit fighting something other than giant spiders. Bulchur's just a malcontent, though. Nothing to do with him but keep an eye on him.) Let the PC do as he pleases, but the leader has seen the "no" in his eyes and can put a couple of loyal followers at the PC's side to make sure orders are carried out. If the PC gets around that, there should still be consequences. Unless, of course, the guy isn't actually the PC's boss, in which case Leadership isn't really the right skill to be using.

[markc]

 I also think there is some info on leadership rolls in War Law for mass combat that might be of help if you have the game to look at.
MDC

[Arioch]

So... if I roll well on my Leadership, spies and traitors in the ranks will suddenly start acting loyal to me?

That would require an appropriate skill, like Seduction or Bribery, or an Unusual Success (natural 100) on your Leadership roll (in this case I would say that the aura of majesty that surround your character convince the spy/traitor that opposing you is foolish and that they'll either flee at the first chance or change their side...).

But the topic here is on what to do when a player want to take advantage of a "gap" in the rules to make his character immune to in-game arguments, at the expenses of other players fun...

[Nders]

But the topic here is on what to do when a player want to take advantage of a "gap" in the rules to make his character immune to in-game arguments, at the expenses of other players fun...

but is there any other way of regulating such behaviour except regulting the experience awarded due to poor or excelent roleplaying?
I can think of a few but what is your take on it?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

There are 2 main ways to resolve this situation.

1) Player tries to talk the other player into it (be it in character or ooc).

2) Player 1 makes a skill roll - in which case all potential targets get to roll a RR. It does not matter if the potential target is a PC or an NPC, when a skill roll is made (or a spell is cast), then the target characters SHOULD ALWAYS roll to see how they react (and should always get to roll -- i.e. a character should not be affected by something without a RR), regardless of whether or not the character is a PC or NPC.

A player doesn't get to say "his spell does not affect me" just because he doesn't want to do what the spell would force him to. The same applies to ALL attempts to influence (when dice rolls are made).

[Arioch]

Something like this:

2) Player 1 makes a skill roll - in which case all potential targets get to roll a RR. It does not matter if the potential target is a PC or an NPC, when a skill roll is made (or a spell is cast), then the target characters SHOULD ALWAYS roll to see how they react (and should always get to roll -- i.e. a character should not be affected by something without a RR), regardless of whether or not the character is a PC or NPC.

At the moment I'm trying to adapt Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits (you can find it here as a free .pdf, if you're interested: http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/index.php?title=Downloads#Duel_of_Wits) to RM, for campaign focusing more on social conflicts rather than on armed conflicts.
It handles influence attempts like combats are normally handled in rpgs, with a round to round structure, special maneuvers, etc...
Unfortunately it's a long task, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to finish it 

A player doesn't get to say "his spell does not affect me" just because he doesn't want to do what the spell would force him to. The same applies to ALL attempts to influence (when dice rolls are made).

I totally agree on this!

[Nders]

A player doesn't get to say "his spell does not affect me" just because he doesn't want to do what the spell would force him to. The same applies to ALL attempts to influence (when dice rolls are made).

True but do you seriously think that skills like seduction or in this case specifically leadership should function under the same parameters as a command spell? True your leadership allows you to enact influence upon others but not direct them that explictily. At least not as explicitly as to call for an RR.

[Arioch]

True but do you seriously think that skills like seduction or in this case specifically leadership should function under the same parameters as a command spell?

Control spells are more effective than normal influence skills, as they work on anyone, in any situation, istantly

True your leadership allows you to enact influence upon others but not direct them that explictily. At least not as explicitly as to call for an RR.

Why not? Aren't players spending DPs to learn their influence skills? Aren't they making rolls to use them, just like a mage casting a "charm" spell?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

A player doesn't get to say "his spell does not affect me" just because he doesn't want to do what the spell would force him to. The same applies to ALL attempts to influence (when dice rolls are made).

True but do you seriously think that skills like seduction or in this case specifically leadership should function under the same parameters as a command spell? True your leadership allows you to enact influence upon others but not direct them that explictily. At least not as explicitly as to call for an RR.

It depends upon the situation. 

Spells magically exert the influence. Skills means that the character has to do it through force of personality.

To me, this would mean that influencing through a skill would be harder than through a spell, but not that it would be impossible.

[rdanhenry]

But you can only lead your followers. No matter how good your seduction skill, you can't seduce someone who isn't interested in what you are offering... a spell can change that. I should be able to say "my character will not sacrifice babies to Zabal" or "my character is not attracted to Trolls, especially male Trolls, not that I'm sure he can tell the difference". That's part of the character's personality, which *is* under the player's control in most games. Maybe that resistance can be overcome, but it should take more than one successful roll. It should take months of gradual attitude adjustment, if allowed at all.

It would be interesting to get a fuller description of the situation.

[Arioch]

As I said above, the advantage of control spells is that they work

on anyone, in any situation, istantly

Influencing someone using skills takes time, has less impact and cannot be used in some situations.
A priest of Zabal cannot istantly convince you to sacrifice kids to his god if you think that it's an evil act, but he can slowly convert you, until you finally agree that sacrifices are necessary to please your new god.
But this process will take months, or even years and multiple difficult attempts by the priest, while a "Suggestion" will have effect immediatly.
Additionally the priest cannot start converting you while you're engaged in a fight with him (he can try, but he'll probably get killed before he can finish his first sentence), but he can use Suggestion.


 

[jolt]

One problem that I see with the whole situation is that often, players don't know their characters as well as they think they do.  I've had many many situations where a player has said, "My character wouldn't do that!" and I've pointed out half a dozen examples where the character did in fact do just that or something similiar and then they say, "Oh, yeah." and sometimes still try to argue about it.

Even in RL people aren't always aware of their weaknesses and people will say things like, "I would have never imagined that so and so would have done that".  People are capable of almost anything if given the right stimulus.

"My character doesn't like women enough to be open to seduction."  Sorry, but no.  Not in my game anyway.  Maybe you think you can't be seduced and maybe your friends think that too and I'm sure they'll be just as surprised as you are if it happens but just saying, "I can't be seduced" doesn't mean squat to me as a GM.  If a player wants his character to be immune to seduction then they can buy a talent.

It depends on the type of game you're running, but to me characters who aren't open to negative influences (of any source) are more caricatures than characters.  YMMV.

jolt

[RandalThor]

Here's a(nother) take on this:

How many people, in RL, have committed horrendous acts that they normally would not have, just because a leader told them to? Humanity - and just about every other civilized races used in RPGs - are social creatures. This means that there are times that we (they) will subsume our (their) own personalities to fit into the social fabric. (Anyone remember high school? Been in the military? Joined a club? Etc.....)

All of that means that, yes, leadership and other skills do have the capability to make people do things they may not have originally attended. So, a really good skill check and failed RR do mean that your character will do what the person said. Later you get to deal with the consequences in character, which could lead to a whole (new?) avenue of role-playing. Perhaps he/she will go on a quest to attone.

That said, in RPGs we like to have more control over our characters and this must be taken into consideration. If the PC really doesn't want to do what the NPC commanded, seduced or whatever, then for the sake of game cohesion they should be allowed to do what they want. But I would enforce a penalty to reflect the fact that they are now internally conflicted. (How much of a penalty would be determined by how well they were influenced/failed the RR, but ultimately up to each GM.)

I believe that this is, arguably, the most undeveloped/problematic aspect of RPing.

[rdanhenry]

Except that such attempts are always only partly successful in spite of having far more powerful tools for influencing behavior than mere "leadership". There are severe punishments for disobedience in the military and only slightly less so in religious orders. Young people do tend to conform, by choice - to a clique of their choosing. Even then, most groups have a back and forth influence, not simply a lead and follow structure.

You can move people, but you can't move them far at any given time. And there are slew of relevant factors that we haven't been given, because the original question was asked in a very abstract way and never clarified. It might have been totally unreasonable for the player to take that stand and it might have been totally unreasonable for the GM to object to that stand. Without more context, it really is not possible to say.

[Arioch]

One problem that I see with the whole situation is that often, players don't know their characters as well as they think they do.  I've had many many situations where a player has said, "My character wouldn't do that!" and I've pointed out half a dozen examples where the character did in fact do just that or something similiar and then they say, "Oh, yeah." and sometimes still try to argue about it.

That's why we need rules to manage these situations, to avoid meanless arguments that bog down the game. If there's a rule that tells you that if you fail to resist influence your character must act in a certain way, there's no space for things like "My character wouldn't do that!". Let me quote a passage that I find interesting from another game:

Why roll at all? Why not just agree on what?s happening? We?re all fair-minded adults, right? Well, social agreement is a fantastic ideal, but it is subject to bullying, blustering, intimidation, manipulation, cajoling, persuasion and lying: all things that are separate from the characters and the game?a social dynamic happening between the players that is not part of play. By relying on the dice, everyone is on an even playing field.

The point here IMHO is not simultaing reality, is the fact that in game terms either you give Influence skills the same "power" of all the other skills, allowing them to have some impact in the game, or there's no sense in having them.