Dragon Warriors

Obviously you are correct - it isn't clear. If it was it wouldn't be causing this confusion. All I'll say to that is that I thought it was clear when I was proofreading the guide and so it does not surprise me if the others who did the editing before me also thought it was clear, and that's why it was never made clearer. It doesn't mean we were right - but I think it's why this has happened.



And I can understand why you say that, and in retrospect I think the rules should have been clear on this point. But, as I say, I wasn't aware they weren't. Now, the thing is, I'm not even 100% sure my interpretation is the correct one, because I did not write this section. It's just the way I interpreted it, and because I interpreted it that way, I didn't see the problems you are seeing. But the fundamental point I would make is that I think you are seeing the Looks and Presence rules as significantly more powerful than I think they were intended to be. The lack of clarity makes that understandable.

As for the variations from the examples, I would say that I think the examples given for Looks checks would work better for Presence checks, and vice versa, but the alternative to that is to say that I've got which one is which backwards. As I say, I didn't write this material, but when I was proofreading it (not editing, although if I had noticed something that seemed unclear to me I would have said so), certain things seemed obvious to me that obviously weren't in retrospect.

The main one is that it never even occurred to me that somebody might think these skills were as powerful as this.



It's clear that things needed to be described better than they wound up being described in the Guide. I think there may need to be some errata produced to clarify this - because I think you're right that things are not as clear as they should be.

This is the type of feedback we need. So thank you very much for it.

_________________
Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

Well, the bloke did just roll a crit.

_________________
co-author Fury of the Deep
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide
co-author Cold Fury
co-author Cadaver Draconis
co-author Ordo Draconis 1 and 2.

Well, the bloke did just roll a ''crit''.

In Hendriks case he's trying to convince an elder god that he's armed with something more powerful than a snuffbox, that is; he's lying about what he's holding not trying to dazzle it with his wit and charm.

The basic remit of the Knave ( as I remember it cos that was 5+ years ago) was that we could not invent any new Attributes and that none of the Knaves powers should put any spells in the shade. So they were all to be low key and needed to be used as a fluid set of tools that were adaptable to each social situation.

Next Post I'm gonna break them down, obviously there could be some work on the expression but Shaun has the right of what was originally intended...though stuff pretty much all that I wrote has
altered somewhat from the original material I scratched down 5 years ago.

_________________
co-author Fury of the Deep
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide
co-author Cold Fury
co-author Cadaver Draconis
co-author Ordo Draconis 1 and 2.

Pretty sure Picklock was originally in there but was dropped as there was a feeling it was stealing too much of the Thief-Variant Assassins mojo, it would not unbalance anything to drop it back in, or swap out another skill for it.

Bodyguard I'm not sure about as that wasn't mine......I don't think ( It was a long time ago)...but I have the feeling the author was aiming for a Medieval version of Minder.

I'm going to go through the Skills below:

Disguise
Pilfer
Second Tongue
Favoured Language
Natural Linguist
Human Intuition
Uncanny Intuition
Infuriate/Pacify
Distract
Magic Hands

Am I correct in thinking none of the above skills are causing any issues ( Also for folks like Kharille that are worried about front-loaded Skills remember a 1st rank Knave only gets to choose 6 and by 8th Rank ( which to be honest I've never seen a character survive all the way to. ) will have 9 Skills.)

As the majority of the issues seem to be with Presence and Hypnotic Suggestion vs Looks rolls I'll first say that Both Jiminy and Shaun have the right of it...or at least its how I was reading the material.

Now any one Knave is unlikely to have both Presence and Hypnotic suggestion but lets say a 10th Rank Knave does have them. I'll do an example that uses the skills in the way that I would use them.

Podrik, a 10th Rank Knave is looking to get into a ball he does not have an invite for hoping to simply blow past the rather bored looking guard at the door.

Invoking his Presence ability he puts on his best strut and " Don't you know who I am?" attitude. He succeeds on his Looks roll to Activate the ability ( this raises his perceived Rank to 13th and the corresponding Status score puts him well out of the guards league to prevent access) and the poor guard does all he can to throw himself out of the way so that Podrik can pass.

Now here are some of the bonuses of using Presence over a Looks roll; its fire and forget and it doesn't rely on initiating conversation its simply based on how the Knave projects themself. Its good for not even getting questioned but its not good for subtle, people will remember the Knave so it does have its downside.

A normal looks roll gives you a chance of talking people around, and most important social interactions will require more than one Looks check with the Knave doing all they can to adjust the modifiers in their favour through location, libation and the like.

Hypnotic suggestion blows through all that. It is, for all intents and purposes, a Looks roll on steroids.

That barmaid will accompany you, unless she has a strong moral or ethical reason not to; fiancee, saving herself for marriage, hoping to become a novice, differing sexual orientation etc.) Though of course she is certainly free to change her mind later on....

That sentry will allow you to pass, unless he has a strong moral or ethical reason not to; there have been a series of murders of late and his family live here, the Baron has threatened to lash anyone breaking curfew and anyone aiding them in doing so etc.








I've probably made it worse haven't I?

_________________
co-author Fury of the Deep
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide
co-author Cold Fury
co-author Cadaver Draconis
co-author Ordo Draconis 1 and 2.

Yes, that is also my recollection.



Worse? No, no, not at all. I think this whole thread is a very productive discussion!



Absolutely correct, and this is an entirely normal cost-benefit conclusion. After all, how many real-world applications of hypnotism do we see in comparison to persuasion (e.g. peer pressure or marketing)?

How about this: if Hypnotic Suggestion were to offer a seperate fringe-benefit in addition to the direct effect then would you feel that this raises the combined value of the talent to a level that makes up for the perceived shortfall?

_________________
Show me the mythic legends, mighty heroes and mysterious faerie creatures!

I'm not sure what the answer is to be honest. But I'm happy to try think of ideas and share them with you for consideration.

Whatever you go with it just needs to be clear what each on does and how they differ from each other. It's ok if Hypnotic suggestion has a lower chance of success than the others if the rewards for success are greater and different than a looks or presence check.

I guessed that may have been the reason. It's not really an issue with them not having it, I just thought it was in character for them.



Yeah I see that and it's not really an out of character thing it that sense. Just as the knave is most likely in a party situation (unless you're running a solo game) they most likely already have bodyguards in the form of their boon companions.



I don't see any real issues with them.



Question; How does the perceived rank bonus actually help here? Does the guard have the appraise enemy skill? If the rules change so that anybody can judge rank it can devalue existing abilities like appraise enemy.




It all sounds reasonable enough but as I said, these sort of concepts need to be better represented in the guide.






Arrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!!

Sorry if this has already been answered, but should checks against the Presence ability or Hypnosis have a difficulty level applied to them?

Another point which I'll just leave here. In GURPS (which I use as an example of another RPG because as I understand it that's what Dave Morris's group uses) interpersonal reactions are graded, so when a skill test is applied you will know exactly what it does. If the GM has determined that your reaction from an NPC was -5 (Very Bad) and you manage to bring it back to 0 (Neutral) using your skills, the GM knows precisely how to play that. Likewise if you badly bodge it and now the reaction is -10 (Disastrous). DW's social rules have no degrees of success or scale of disposition like that.

Cheers,

-Kyle

That's an interesting idea. You can then scale the skills so the higher ranked ones have greater power. So looks may move you two places on the reaction scale, presence five places and hypnotic suggestion ignores it completely for example.

I've actually had a bit of an idea building on this concept. It will take me a little while to flesh it out.

I'll post a draft on here when I can.