Intrigue for Dummies (Baelon/Daveth OOC Chatter)

[Daveth Coldbrook]

I've just basically completed [url=my first intrigue][/url], and there was lots of little things to pick up on, and it all got intermingled with the IC stuff, so I'm making this thread here, and making a record of all the OOC stuff, partly so everyone who was falling over themselves to help me figure out WTF was going on (Thank you all ) can clear the thread a bit without any of the stuff being lost, and partly so I have a nice little record of what I need to bear in mind the next time I decide to play a peashooter-wielding minnow against a great while shark armed with a bazooka.

With any luck, other newbies to the system might pick up a thing or two, as well.

Hope nobody minds. I decided to keep the stuff that was disagreed with, just so it was part of the historical record (and credit was given where due for trying to help).

OOC:

Disposition: Had to think about this, but I think your answers, combined with your offering to help, mean I'm going to start with 'Amiable': (+1 Per, +0 Dec, DR 3). Unless this is supposed to be my disposition when we first started talking? In which case it'd be 'Indifferent': (+0 Per, +0 Dec, DR 4).

Remember, each particpant can evolve their Disposition by one step temporarily at the start of each turn. Your permanent Disposition may currently be indifferent, but you can evolve it to amiable at the start of the first exchange. You can always evolve up, but you may not evolve down if you were influenced in the previous exchange.

Once the Intrigue is over... your disposition returns to it's permanent level... then is modified by any results of the intrigue.

OOC:Remember, each particpant can evolve their Disposition by one step temporarily at the start of each turn. Your permanent Disposition may currently be indifferent, but you can evolve it to amiable at the start of the first exchange. You can always evolve up, but you may not evolve down if you were influenced in the previous exchange.

Once the Intrigue is over... your disposition returns to it's permanent level... then is modified by any results of the intrigue.

I'd missed that, thanks. That's very helpful, and very clear. So, my permanent disposition will be 'Indifferent', but I've evolved it to 'Amiable' at the start of the first exchange.

OOC:

I'd missed that, thanks. That's very helpful, and very clear. So, my permanent disposition will be 'Indifferent', but I've evolved it to 'Amiable' at the start of the first exchange.

Exactly. If you were to lose this friendship intrigue (with a Charm Influence defeat) your Disposition would drop back to Indifferent at the end of the Intrigue from wherever it had evolved to and then shift permanently up by one (or more if the person had something like Magnetic)

The distinction between permanent disposition and temporary disposition is important. For example, if you were to lose to a Seduce Influence defeat, your temporary disposition may go straight to Affectionate, but you would shift down a step each day until you hit your permanent disposition which is, in fact, one step lower than it was before the Intrigue. Your permanent disposition would also have an effect on the outcome of the Intrigue if you did not start with at least Amiable or higher.

OOC:

OOC:

I'd missed that, thanks. That's very helpful, and very clear. So, my permanent disposition will be 'Indifferent', but I've evolved it to 'Amiable' at the start of the first exchange.

Exactly. If you were to lose this friendship intrigue (with a Charm Influence defeat) your Disposition would drop back to Indifferent at the end of the Intrigue from wherever it had evolved to and then shift permanently up by one (or more if the person had something like Magnetic)

The distinction between permanent disposition and temporary disposition is important. For example, if you were to lose to a Seduce Influence defeat, your temporary disposition may go straight to Affectionate, but you would shift down a step each day until you hit your permanent disposition which is, in fact, one step lower than it was before the Intrigue. Your permanent disposition would also have an effect on the outcome of the Intrigue if you did not start with at least Amiable or higher.

Whoa there! What "
permanent disposition"
? That is not a term used anywhere in the Intrigue chapter. Your Seduction example only talks about disposition and starting disposition. The latter is set at the beginning of every intrigue and, in the case of Seduction, is only important for the long term consequences. The immediate consequences depend on the disposition you had when the intrigue ended. (though perhaps this is just a case of your terminology confusing me)

Your example about winning by Charm is wrong - starting disposition is not mentioned in the consequences of defeat, so the improvement to the loser's disposition would be from whatever it was when the intrigue ended. There is no "
reset"
involved before applying the consequences.

My advice to Daveth is to read each technique carefully, especially the consequences of defeat section, since the effect of losing is unique for each one.

OOC:

Your example about winning by Charm is wrong - starting disposition is not mentioned in the consequences of defeat, so the improvement to the loser's disposition would be from whatever it was when the intrigue ended. There is no "
reset"
involved before applying the consequences.

My advice to Daveth is to read each technique carefully, especially the consequences of defeat section, since the effect of losing is unique for each one.

In our game have always considered effects of the Evolving Disposition rule was confined to the Intrigue, as Carriker said in the old forums that it was intended to represent the current view of the opponent. (I am Affectionate to my wife but sometimes I Dislike her a lot.)

I was just trying to be helpful. I'd be happy to debate the rule with you, but we should probably do so outside of this thread.

OOC: I agree that it needs discussing, so I'll set up a thread for that.

Daveth's note: the thread is [url=here][/url]

OOC: You may know this already, if so, forgive me for assuming otherwise. I'd rather be helpful when it's not needed than not be helpful when it is.
You do not have to concede defeat at this point;
instead you may take frustration to lower the influence done, at the cost of -1D per frustration on persuasion/deception checks for the remainder of the intrigue. From your 9 Composure I am presuming that you have Will 3;
so you can take 2 points of frustration to lower the influence to 7 and have 2 Composure remaining. Of course, being at -2D and 2 DoS away from defeat, there may not be much you can do other than yield and offer terms.

(OOC: Don't worry about being too helpful, even if I was fairly sure that was how it works, it's always nice to have confirmation.

Still, one thing I'm not following: I'm guessing you have 'Attractive', which is what those additional 1d6 rolls were for? If so, why did you only roll 2 dice, doesn't it give 1 reroll per 2 Persuasion, and since you're rolling 6d6, wouldn't that mean you could reroll 3 dice? Not that you'd use it, I'm just trying to get my head around the mechanics involved.

Also: wow. rank 6, with attractive and charismatic (I'm assuming) means better than base rank 7, which is talent that gets you into legends. I never really stood a chance.

So, yes. I am going to take 2 frustration and yield, offering a 1-step raise in disposition (to friendly, I believe? Don't have my books handy.) Just in case you have Magnetic to complete the trifecta. Seems a bit implausible I'd go further than that for a first meeting, regardless of how charming you are.)

(OOC: Don't worry about being too helpful, even if I was fairly sure that was how it works, it's always nice to have confirmation.

Still, one thing I'm not following: I'm guessing you have 'Attractive', which is what those additional 1d6 rolls were for? If so, why did you only roll 2 dice, doesn't it give 1 reroll per 2 Persuasion, and since you're rolling 6d6, wouldn't that mean you could reroll 3 dice? Not that you'd use it, I'm just trying to get my head around the mechanics involved.

Also: wow. rank 6, with attractive and charismatic (I'm assuming) means better than base rank 7, which is talent that gets you into legends. I never really stood a chance.

So, yes. I am going to take 2 frustration and yield, offering a 1-step raise in disposition (to friendly, I believe? Don't have my books handy.) Just in case you have Magnetic to complete the trifecta. Seems a bit implausible I'd go further than that for a first meeting, regardless of how charming you are.)

OOC: He doesn't have Persuasion 6, he's stacking Famous, Attractive and (probably) Blood of Valyria. Famous lets you use your bonus dice in Charm and Seduction as test dice. So his Persuasion is 4.

With just 6d6+2 the average roll is about 23, so even with an average roll he would almost hit you for 4 DoS (9+15 = 24). Not that much luck involved at all, really. :;
):

So unless you have major intrigue offense built in to your character, going first was never going to do much for you and you really didn't stand a chance.

OOC: A piece of advice: with Eloquent, Withdraw is an excellent opening move, though depending on your Will(dedication) you may sometimes end up lowering your ID. Most of the time it will increase, though. As for my mechanics, all I will say is that I didn't make an error - though I did assume that Daveth's status was <
4, though with that roll I the -1D from Bastard Born would not have made a difference (dropping the lowest die would have only dropped it to 27, still 4 DoS).

May request that we keep speculative mechanics discussions in IC threads to a minimum? It makes it hard to follow the IC narrative.
Feel free to hold such conversations in an OOC thread though. :;
):

I *think* that's all of the meta-chatter. Thanks again to all involved, really helped me.

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

Ceiling-Gwyn is watching you intrigue.

...

...nah, but really, this is relevant to my interests as Gwyn is all about the intrigues, and I've never done that in this system.

[Nathaniel Mason]

I noticed that:

You may know this already, if so, forgive me for assuming otherwise. I'd rather be helpful when it's not needed than not be helpful when it is.
You do not have to concede defeat at this point;
instead you may take frustration to lower the influence done, at the cost of -1D per frustration on persuasion/deception checks for the remainder of the intrigue. From your 9 Composure I am presuming that you have Will 3;
so you can take 2 points of frustration to lower the influence to 7 and have 2 Composure remaining. Of course, being at -2D and 2 DoS away from defeat, there may not be much you can do other than yield and offer terms.

The Frustraition rule is:

The other way to reduce outside Influence upon you is to accept a measure of frustration. Each point of frustration gained removes an amount of Influence equal to your Will rank. However, each point of frustration gained imposes –1D on all Deception and Persuasion tests for the duration of the intrigue. If your accumulated frustration exceeds your Will rank, you are defeated because you lose your Composure. At the end of the intrigue, win or lose, all accumulated frustration is removed.

My understanding is that, unlike Combat where that last point of endurance kills you, having your frustration equal your Will rank still means you are in the game (although probably not feeling that great). Daveth would be able to take three points of Frustration and still act within the Intrigue as long as he still had any composure left.

[Jon Cobb]

I'll toss in a link to a useful thread on the Green Ronin forums: [url=Expected Values of Test plus Bonus Dice][/url].

I can't claim any higher knowledge of maths, but practical experience has shown me that coldwind's numbers seem to work out. Since winning is all about how many DoS you can scrape together, being able to check what your average roll is likely to be can be a useful aid in determining your chances in either a combat or an intrigue.

[Theomore Tullison]

Intrigue for dummies sounds to me like a guide more than a collection of input (some of it rather debatable) to be quite honest.

[Daveth Coldbrook]

Personally, I use [url=this one][/url].

Just to give people options.

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