Dreadnought wrote:
I'll try and make the way I see this clearer.
The key here, as far as I am concerned, is that the three skills can achieve different results. Presence is able to overcome barriers that a Looks check alone could not get you past. Hypnotic Suggestion can get you past a situation that neither a Looks or Presence check would succeed in.
But if we go back to my original post, the lines between them are not clearly defined within the published rules. Comment has already been made they the lines are deliberately blurred. So where exactly does one succeed where the other doesn’t? It is not clear where one can and can’t be used.
Dreadnought wrote:
All a Looks check can do is make a person better disposed towards you - it can make them like you. It will not make that person do something that they would not do even for somebody they like. So the guard who is normally predisposed to let a friend through the gate might decide to let you through as they would a friend. But the guard who wouldn't even let their best friend through the gate, still isn't going to let you in just because he likes you.
That is not what the players guide says. Optional Rules Looks says “can be applied… 2) talking ones way past a sentry” it does not say success depends on the moral code of the mark and that you may not get past the sentry even if you pass the test. If that’s how you want to use them that’s cool and sounds like a good idea to me. My comments however reflect the rules as written.
Dreadnought wrote:
Presence allows you to fool the guard into thinking you are more than you are, but again, it won't make him do something he wouldn't do for the type of person he now thinks you are. If you are dealing with a guard who is easily intimidated, or who respects the powerful, and would open the gate for an important person, when they wouldn't do it for just anybody, then this is the skill that works.
Again this is a nice interpretation of the rules but this is not what comes across in the guide. The example under the optional looks rules of Hendrik the Half-hand trying to bluff the hellspawn sounds like he is trying to make himself appear to be more than he is but he is but he is using looks rules, not presence. Under the example for presence the young girl clearly knew there was an intruder in the house. She did not think he was more than what he was, she simply succumbed to his charm ie looks. The published examples are the reverse of what you have said.
Dreadnought wrote:
Hypnotic suggestion is the only one of the three skills that has a chance of getting a person to do something that they would not choose to do. Here you are able to make a person do something out of character.
I agree here that the rules do talk about getting somebody to do something they may not normally do but within their moral code. The wording here is a little clearer than, and not quite as blurred as the previous two. However looking again at the example under presence where the knave gets a kiss into the bargain, would Abigail the shrewd niece of an Earl normally kiss an intruder? Presence has been used in a way that matches the Hypnotic suggestion description.
Dreadnought wrote:
I think where there may be an issue is people thinking a successful roll on Looks or Presence means the character succeeds in the final goal. It doesn't. It just makes a person react to them differently, which might lead to a different outcome. Even Hypnotic Presence doesn't necessarily lead to the final goal, but it can cause a person to act out of character.
Again I like the way you interpret the rules but this is not how the rules are written. They talk about success and failure and nothing in-between. At most under the looks rules it says the GM may require a series of rolls, it still doesn’t say you may not succeed even at the end of all your rolls. This means others may interpret them very differently to what you have described.
Jiminy wrote:
Yes, as regards Presence versus Hypnotic Suggestion, the difference is as Shaun suggests. Hypnotic Suggestion provides a temporary amount of invasive control over a victim's mind against their conscious wishes, whereas Presence is all about charismatic persuasion. The weakness of Hypnotic Suggestion was actually deliberate, with a rationale that hypnotism is simply more difficult to employ than charm, and that it should also be weaker than magical spells.
Yes I can see that the difference in the “fluff” of the two rules but the application remains the same. I don’t need to invade the marks mind as I have already persuaded them with my charisma. I agree Hypnotism should be weaker than magic but within any given profession it is not normal to make an 8th rank skill of the mighty weaker than a 1st rank ability. So again, if I can get the job done with the cheaper tool, why buy the more expensive one, especially when it is less likely to work.
I thank you guys for taking the time to describe the intent behind the rules. My issues are not with the intent of what was trying to be done but the way it was done. The lines are blurred, the descriptions are similar, the examples given for one ability match the descriptions of other abilities, the mechanics make lower ranked abilities more useful than skills of the mighty, and the rules can be interpreted by different people in vastly different ways. Clearer, unique descriptions and examples with clear defined boundaries between the different abilities in the published guide would have helped here.
I like the knave, but in this area it still needs a lot of work to get everyone on the same page. Remember we may all role-play in our own ways and interpret things differently. Clearer rules will help reduce the amount of confusion. Sorry guys, but what was published doesn’t really match what you have described here in the forum. I say this in good faith as someone who genuinely cares about the Dragon Warriors game system.