Author Topic: Guilt Spell  (Read 813 times)

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Offline OG-GM

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Guilt Spell
« on: April 24, 2022, 09:17:43 PM »
Need a ruling.  Had a PC cast guilt (4th level essence spell) on another PC in order to make him not negotiate in any situation that would be dangerous to the party.  Do you all think this should be allowed?  If so should there be limitations.  Evil party FYI.  Thanks,

Offline Vladimir

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Re: Guilt Spell
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2022, 10:10:08 PM »
  As a GM I'd rather see party members discuss disagreements as I consider exerting that form of control over a party member as an attack that could lead to PvP (and did, in one adventure). I would allow it as long as the players realized that they accept the consequences of such an action.

  My parties usually have one or two designated negotiators as poor or irresponsible spokesmen can be a danger to the party. Forcing a party member on any issue is never warranted but I let the players pick their poison and make mistakes when they choose to.

In this case the player isn't specifically prevented in taking part in discussions and instead of negotiating he could choose to level demands that are non-negotiable.
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Offline jdale

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Re: Guilt Spell
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2022, 09:45:20 AM »
I see the evil Mentalism version:

"Target becomes guilty over some incident in his past. He will not perform such an action again, and must take steps to overcome the guilt (rectifying the past wrong)."

I would focus on the nature of the incident, what aspect does he now believe to have been wrong? E.g. was he negotiating unilaterally to the detriment of the party? If so, is it that he is unwilling to negotiate at all ever (which seems a very broad reading) or for example does he feel a need to involve the other party members in any such negotiation? There's considerable room for interesting roleplay here, it should be something that can be used and not simply something that excludes. And, what amends does he feel are required?

And the Sorcerer version:

"Target becomes guilty over some incident in his past. The GM should choose some significant event in the target's past. He will not perform similar actions again and must take steps to alleviate the guilt."

Good luck with that. With an evil character, the odds of targeting the negotiation are low. The chances are much better that it will target some evil thing the whole party was involved with, and personally I would be inclined to make this PvP mind control something the caster comes to regret so it doesn't recur.

I don't see a purely Essence version but I might be overlooking it. If you are using RM2/RMC, I don't know which one the spell resembles more.

That said, I also would want to examine the party dynamics. If you have an evil party that is using mind control against each other, you are going to have some vicious infighting and loss of agency. Are those things your players will enjoy? If so, great, proceed. But a lot of players will not and you are better off nipping it in the bud.
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Offline Spectre771

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Re: Guilt Spell
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2022, 04:32:42 PM »
We would view that as an "attack" on a party member.  The target is unaware so it's clearly an attack spell.  If the party member is aware, he can actively resist or smack the spell caster to break his concentration.  Either way, there will be in-fighting.  It's up to the party and the GM to deal with the in-fighting at that point.  If two players want to kill off their PCs and roll up new ones... OK.  More power to them.

I agree with Vladimir, the PCs could discuss the issue in game and/or the players discuss the issues in real life.  If one player is actively entering negotiations that harm the party so much that it reaches a point where another PC has to cast a spell to stop it, there's a bigger issue here.
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Offline EltonJ

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Re: Guilt Spell
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2022, 11:11:23 AM »
  As a GM I'd rather see party members discuss disagreements as I consider exerting that form of control over a party member as an attack that could lead to PvP (and did, in one adventure). I would allow it as long as the players realized that they accept the consequences of such an action.

  My parties usually have one or two designated negotiators as poor or irresponsible spokesmen can be a danger to the party. Forcing a party member on any issue is never warranted but I let the players pick their poison and make mistakes when they choose to.

In this case the player isn't specifically prevented in taking part in discussions and instead of negotiating he could choose to level demands that are non-negotiable.

I agree with this.  Players should be able to negotiate with each other.

Offline MisterK

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Re: Guilt Spell
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2022, 12:07:32 PM »
Need a ruling.  Had a PC cast guilt (4th level essence spell) on another PC in order to make him not negotiate in any situation that would be dangerous to the party.  Do you all think this should be allowed?  If so should there be limitations.  Evil party FYI.  Thanks,
In my opinion, if the spell is the 4th level sorcerer spell from Soul Destruction list, then there is no way for the caster to specify what the target feels guilty for. The spell text is explicit - the event over which the target feels guilt is GM's choice.
I would possibly allow spell mastery to focus on a particular event in the target's past, but only if the caster has prior knowledge of said past (either from personal experience or through mental probe - merely hearsay wouldn't work). And I would assign a pretty steep difficulty to that.