[Sorcerer] Do What I Say, Now or Later
Ron Edwards:
JESSE
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I'm little confused. The only reason I had the demon bullying through successful orders was because it was my understanding that one can not willfully choose to abort an action once you've committed to it.
This is going to be a little tricky to answer clearly in text form. I agree that this is something that's not explicit and barely implicit in the rules (i.e., I'm not pulling my usual "it's obvious if you read and think" line), but as I play the game, characters may abort when their turns come up, subject to a point I'm about to make in the following paragraphs. I'm pretty sure I haven't said otherwise in discussions here. But before you leap up like you have a chili up your butt, and land back in your chair already typing furiously, please read all the rest of this post carefully.
I'm talking about once all the dice are on the table and we, the players, are well embarked along the sequence of action-by-action, one-by-one resolution, in order. I have my gun drawn on (um) Barbara, having announced that I'm shooting her; no one has done anything to me by the time my turn comes up; and now the question is whether I can abort the shot right then and there. I'm saying that the answer in this case is indeed no, just as you say. But if I have my gun drawn on Barbara, having announced that I'm shooting her; and something has happened that led me to perceive changing information in the context of other characters' current actions; and that something involved me making a defensive roll to "get it" and failing that roll; then I can abort the shot as my action.
Let me go through that in some detail. I remember in a previous discussion, long ago, we were talking about communication in combat situations, and I said that we'd have to rely on the resolution system for a situation in which, say, I decide not to shoot Barbara because you told me she's actually my sister a second ago in the combat sequence. In that situation, your roll on your action would have been Will vs. my Will mainly to establish whether your effort to communication overcame my determination to shoot (also understandable as inattention to anything else at the moment). Interestingly, my choice about whether to abort + defend vs. defend + proceed still applies, but let's not get distracted by that. The point is that in this situation, we're adding the crucial notion of whether you get a word in edgewise into my understanding of the situation, in the heat of a tangle of committed actions.
So that's a lot like this current situation in which a demon is being told not to do something. The point is that if a defensive roll was involved in "getting the message," and if that defensive roll was failed, then the demon (or in my example above, my character shooting Barbara) may abort as an action. (Conceivably, interestingly, I might choose instead to keep the shot but add the victories against me in the "get the message" roll to her defensive roll. Let's not get distracted by that either.)
This isn't quite the same as "abort on my action because I feel like it." I think that your perception that if I've announced shooting Barbara, and my turn comes up, and nothing at all has changed my character's perceptions of the situation until that moment, then hey, the shot gets rolled for. Arguably this would even apply if Barbara had been evaporated into a haze of red droplets by some other attack; my shot would simply go "bang" into the space she vacated.
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Or are you're drawing a distinction between me merely changing my mind mid-round vs. me having lost a conflict that justifies me stopping?
Exactly. Yay for answering your own question!
RAVEN
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But this only applies to demons, correct? You can try to demand someone else, a human or another sorcerer or whatever, PC or NPC, stop doing something and they don't have to listen, even if you win the roll. You "just" get bonus dice against them for follow-up actions if you win (this is why the police yell "Stop, thief!", so they get bonus dice for the chase, right? Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk).
Yes, but it doesn't apply unilaterally even to demons. As I mentioned briefly, if the demon is on or well-along the path of rebellion, then you (the GM) may play them using the "don't have to listen" rules, albeit opportunistically from the demon's point of view rather than mechanically.
Best, Ron
jburneko:
Ron,
No leaping. Perfectly clear. Also, makes a lot of sense.
Jesse
greyorm:
Quote from: Ron Edwards on September 09, 2009, 06:07:22 AM
Yes, but it doesn't apply unilaterally even to demons. As I mentioned briefly, if the demon is on or well-along the path of rebellion, then you (the GM) may play them using the "don't have to listen" rules, albeit opportunistically from the demon's point of view rather than mechanically.
Yep. Confusion cleared. Thanks!
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