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This is posted on the GM board but will be posted here as well as it affects a bunch of people.

This skill in all of its forms is a plot breaker.

Bring in a murder mystery..np just seer your way to the answer.

Want to know if any PC is going to enguage in PvP heck line everyne up at game on seer them and ask "You promise to never kill a PC eitehr directly or indirectly" This way if he/ she does they cheated and are kicked out of the game. There no more PvP possible.

These are real problems and need addressed. I can understand the need when we did not allow tracking of PC's and other information when PvP occured, but now that we do a skill that just gives the answer is too much.

What are your thoughts?

Where is the rule for "Detect Lie/Truth"? I don't see it in the new rule book. It would likely clear up some of my questions.

Does it affect players OOC or their characters IC?

Asking "Do you promise to never kill a PC either directly or indirectly?" is an out-of-character question to begin with.

Just because a character believes something does not mean that they won't believe something else later on. If you "promise" not to do something, you can be quite truthful in that promise at the time it is asked of you. However future circumstances occur that make you break that promise. At the time that you made it, you did not intend to break it at all. The answer would have been truthful.
I.e., Tom has promised to never harm a person in town directly or indirectly. However he watches as Bill draws a knife and attacks Jane. Tom has promised to never harm someone in town, and yet doing nothing means Jane is killed, and doing something means Bill will likely be injured (assuming he is just a normal person without some sort of magic or way to restrain Bill sans-force.) Therefore Tom is breaking his promise, but not "cheating" the rules because he was being truthful at the time of making his promise.

Just my 2 cents.
A better question of a character to ask other characters would be "Do you have any intents to kill or do harm to any member of town?"
However if the rules have a player ask another player about their character, then I would suggest "Do you have any intents to kill or do harm to any other player characters in town?"

Again, though, this would only stop those characters/players plotting to do harm or kill others at the time of the questioning.

Also, I don't believe PvP would necessarily be considered a "plot" in the rules definition of the word. It usually just comes naturally through players own actions and motives.[/i]

Never liked the skill and never will. Takes out RPing, stops PVP, and kills plots. I think that is just cause in it self to remove the skill from game.

get rid of it, the best advice i was given was "act how you would if the skill never existed"

the two disciplines it effects
-interrogators can still inplant suggestions
-seer....it was an over powered level 2 skill anyway

Probe Mind can only get what the target believes at that time. The Amnesia potion works well against Probe Mind. There are also many ways Probe Mind will reach the wrong conclusion.

Probe Mind: "Did you kill Steve?"
Target: "Yes."

What if Steve attacked the target, who only killed him in self defense? What if the target was charmed or under suggestion to kill Steve? Would the target even know this? What if someone told the target "Kill Steve or we kill your family"?

Amnesia can stop a person from confessing to murder through Probe Mind. Even if the murderer does confess, it's still important to know why the murder took place, and that's nearly impossible to do with Probe Mind.

If people would rather have a skill/coutner skillsystem that is totally cool with me.

FYI, so you know there will not be an NPC who is part of a murder plot who wont have the skill in the future as you can understand this would chode the plot so think on that hard incase you have alternaet ideas.

Correction I guess if we want you to find teh answer out within the first 5 minutes of the plot.

The Amnesia potion works well against Probe Mind

this may have occured IN game...once.....and worked.

NP you have convinced me. As long as I have the tools to counter this skill then I am cool.

I will be putting forth other ways to get the spy resist into savage, and to make some wording changes.

i still dont like it, the amnesia thing is cool, and has been used to great and annoying success
but i believe this whole thing should be an aspect of the game then, its not really brought up that much, but....

there should be a set list of skills
interrogate
probe mind
etc

and a set way to resist those skills

resist mind effects (does this even work?)
resist torture
amnesia potion
etc.
then maybe some skills to counter these, but it should be an actual aspect, and maybe its own discipline, right now most of the wording people get confused and asume stuff works or doesnt, but it should be addressed

i would still prefer to see it go, but if it becomes an aspect, then it should be focused on a bit better, it still relies on the honor system wich can be flawed

There are counters to interrogate and probe mind, but if the intention is to use that counter on every NPC with valid info (or even just MOST NPCs with valid info), then you guys might as well take these skills out of the game. To me, this reasoning is similar to giving most NPCs resistances/immunities to most abilities PCs have, such as sleep.

Might as well take all skills out at that point.

To be fair, the game really ISN'T a murder mystery. If you feel the skills are overpowered, rank them up on the skills list or make them more limited (with seer, you could impose a time limit within which to ask questions). Or stop running "murder mystery" plots.

My opinion on seer is already well known.

Reduce probe mind to a single question. Make it no longer take a life point to use. Make the charge time 1 minute in which you must be in contact with the recipient. Even if you are immune to sleep there is a easy way to get around this. Knock you into the negatives, sleep you, heal you, and then mind probe you. NO skills function in the negatives, passive or otherwise.

Level 2: Probe Mind
The Seer can enter the mind of unconscious, living targets. While there, the seer may charge for 1 full minute and then ask one yes or no question that must be answered truthfully. Due to the instinctive responses of the mind, this skill may not be used twice on the same target during an event.

This skill went through a strange transformation for me during the event. I came in thinking it was not so bad. By the end of Friday I felt serious changes needed to be made to the skill because it was just too much. By the time I was done role playing Slade (my prisoner for those who don't rememebr the name) I was back to thinking it wasn't so bad anymore. I think it needs some limitations and that there needs to be some resistances to it like there is to torture, but I'm not ready to say it needs to go by any stretch of teh imagination. In some ways, it even added to the game experience for me. By the end of the plot, even though it was discovered that yes I killed someone, I'm not sure the players involved knew really what was the best thing to do with my character, which I found interesting.

Anyway, no we won't have every NPC have a resistance to it. There will be some certainly and there will be the potential for it to be there, but yeah, I'm not as down on the skill as I was Friday night.

One thing about Amnesia is it's worded "you will forget the NEXT 15 minutes", I believe. As such, you still remember taking the potion and your intentions for taking it. This can be gotten around with some good preparation and creativity, though.

Dallid wrote:One thing about Amnesia is it's worded "you will forget the NEXT 15 minutes", I believe. As such, you still remember taking the potion and your intentions for taking it. This can be gotten around with some good preparation and creativity, though.

yup

Ovak Stonecrusher wrote:This skill went through a strange transformation for me during the event. I came in thinking it was not so bad. By the end of Friday I felt serious changes needed to be made to the skill because it was just too much. By the time I was done role playing Slade (my prisoner for those who don't rememebr the name) I was back to thinking it wasn't so bad anymore. I think it needs some limitations and that there needs to be some resistances to it like there is to torture, but I'm not ready to say it needs to go by any stretch of teh imagination. In some ways, it even added to the game experience for me. By the end of the plot, even though it was discovered that yes I killed someone, I'm not sure the players involved knew really what was the best thing to do with my character, which I found interesting.

Anyway, no we won't have every NPC have a resistance to it. There will be some certainly and there will be the potential for it to be there, but yeah, I'm not as down on the skill as I was Friday night.

Sorry to quote this whole thing, but I just wanted to comment on it, specifically. I wasn't there for the complete aftermath of said probing of the character, but even AFTER being mind probed with specific questions, the REASONS for the truth were still up for debate. THAT was awesome and realistically is what roleplaying is all about.

I don't like the idea of seeing a plot likened to a "murder mystery." I personally feel it's less about WHO killed someone than their reasons for doing it, which can't be answered by an in-game skill.

Sorry if this didn't make sense. I'm having a fantastic fucking day. Love ya'all.