28 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
28 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
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Previous Section: [[03 🔵 Social Actions|03 🔵 Social Actions]]
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# Resisting Influence Rolls
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The base DV for an influence roll is always the passive Resolve of the character targeted by the roll. On a failed roll, the character is unimpressed or unmoved by whatever argument or offer was made. On a successful roll, the target is persuaded or moved by your words.
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## Spending Willpower
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Even if a character's Resolve is overcome, they may still have an opportunity to deny the influence. If the influence is trying to change how they feel, such as by creating, destroying, or changing their intimacies, they may spend a point of willpower to:
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- Stop a new intimacy from being created. Although the character is moved, they just can't afford to invest themselves in a new person or cause.
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- Stop a major or defining intimacy from being weakened. Even though the influence was convincing, the character just has too much invested in the intimacy to give up now, even if they want to.
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- Reject a successful inspire action. The character uses their force of will to deny their swelling passions.
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## Decision Points
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Refusing successful influence to make the character do something is trickier. When a character fails to resist such influence with their Resolve, they enter into a special state called a Decision Point.
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In the Decision Point, the player must choose an intimacy and explain how it justifies resisting that specific influence. The intimacy they choose must be of equal or greater intensity than the intimacy which supported the influence roll, and it can't be the one that strengthened their Resolve against the roll in the first place -- the influence already overcame that particular source of reluctance when it beat their Resolve.
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If those requirements are met, and if the GM accepts the player's argument for why one of their intimacies would make them reject the influence, then the character may spend one willpower point to resist the influence roll. Otherwise, resistance is impossible.
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## Lengthy Debates
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Sometimes after a character has spent willpower in a decision point in order to reject influence, the initiate will return with a new or stronger argument. When this happens, the initiate is engaging the reset rules for social actions. If the same issue is being argued as a result, the target may not use an intimacy which boosted their resolve against the initial roll. After all, that logic was not enough to stop them from being forced in the decision point in the first place. To boost their resolve against the initiate's second attempt, they must find another intimacy to raise their resolve -- or use the one that allowed them to reject influence in the decision point. Remember that according to the rules of decision points, the intimacy a character uses to raise their resolve cannot be invoked in the decision point. This rule continues to apply throughout the story -- as long as the initiate can find new angles with which to demonstrate the rightness of her persuasion, they can cause their target to use up all of their valid excuses over the course of a story. When a character has no valid intimacies with which to enter a decision point, beating their resolve will finally convince them to agree with the initiate's arguments.
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## Unacceptable Influence
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There are limits on what can be achieved with social influence. No amount of charisma is sufficient to talk someone into suicide, or convince a die-hard patriot to betray their cause. If a request is so antithetical to the nature and personality of its target that it cannot possible succeed, it is said to be unacceptable influence. A character targeted by unacceptable influence may reject it outright without spending willpower, even if their resolve would not normally be high enough to defend against it. A player can still choose to have their character follow the course of action but forward by unacceptable influence, but only because they think it makes sense -- the character cannot be coerced into doing it.
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Unacceptable influence includes:
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- Any instill action to strengthen or weaken an intimacy which doesn't exploit an appropriately strong intimacy to do so.
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- Any persuasion attempt which doesn't exploit an intimacy strong enough to support the proposed task.
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- Any bargain attempt which fails to offer a properly enticing incentive or threaten action which is insufficiently threatening.
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- Any influence that would cause a character to kill themselves, or to do something that they know would result in their certain death.
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- Any influence that would cause a character to completely abandon or end one of their defining intimacies is unacceptable.
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- Any seduction attempt that violates a character's sexual orientation (as defined by the player, or by the GM in the case of NPCs) is unacceptable.
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# Next Section
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[[05 🔵 Social Complications|05 🔵 Social Complications]]
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