My problem with the talent is not that it gives the player narrative control of a "Device" but that it uses the mechanic skill.

Giving the players narrative control is all well and good. Heck the less "story " I need to pull out of my backside the better. But the fact that it is dependent on the skill of the player is distasteful to me.

That it requires a skill role, makes me think it should require the character interact with the "device" in order to cause it to fail.

If it is simply a bad turn of fate that causes the device to fail, then why does it depend on the skill of the mechanic? Should it not be a Destiny point flip?

Mechanics doesn't have to be a "hands-on" skill. It is entirely reasonable that a good mechanic (I know a few) would be able to hear, see, or otherwise perceive something out of whack in a machine. That is what this talent does. It's not a "lemme get my toolkit out" talent; it is a "lemme tell you what's wrong with that piece of equipment there" talent.

Imagine a technician so versed in his trade he walks up to a car halts 5 meters before he gets to it, turns around and says "don't buy that pos."

That is what this talent is.

Mechanics doesn't have to be a "hands-on" skill. It is entirely reasonable that a good mechanic (I know a few) would be able to hear, see, or otherwise perceive something out of whack in a machine. That is what this talent does. It's not a "lemme get my toolkit out" talent; it is a "lemme tell you what's wrong with that piece of equipment there" talent.

Only if that includes the power to make up something that's wrong with it, and have it become retroactively true.

imagine the person with this talent is Scotty: a man so read up on and dedicated to machines and mechanics that he can work veritable magic with them...he knows the flaws and strengths of a thousand starships...he knows that the ion turbine intake of a stock t-16 skyhopper has a weak mesh protecting it and if something of sufficient weight, say a pidgeon, were to impact it it would get sucked in causing the mechanism to jam and blowing out the engine.

cue nutball tech flapping an umbrella at pidgeons to spook them...and one gets sucked in stalling the fighter's forward thrust which slowly looses momentum coming to a halt far above the dunes. no strafing runs today!

Only if that includes the power to make up something that's wrong with it, and have it become retroactively true.

Well, would you look at that - here's a talent that grants the player the ability to make up something wrong with a device and have it become true.

Only if that includes the power to make up something that's wrong with it, and have it become retroactively true.

Well, would you look at that - here's a talent that grants the player the ability to make up something wrong with a device and have it become true.

And that would be the problem -- most of the examples I've seen of "narrating" that power depend either on contrived convenience ( "hey, would you look at that, the door just happened to fail right when it was most "interesting" to the story, huh, who'd have figured" ) or rely on retroactively imposing a past action on another character ( which amounts to "you forgot to tie your shoes this morning, so you trip" ).

Mechanics doesn't have to be a "hands-on" skill. It is entirely reasonable that a good mechanic (I know a few) would be able to hear, see, or otherwise perceive something out of whack in a machine. That is what this talent does. It's not a "lemme get my toolkit out" talent; it is a "lemme tell you what's wrong with that piece of equipment there" talent.

Only if that includes the power to make up something that's wrong with it, and have it become retroactively true.

Yes...this talent gives a *player* the ability to directly influence the narrative, and also have his *character* look cool and knowledgable. It doesn't automatically give the character a "power," but rather puts power into the player's hands, power to own a bigger part of the narrative.

I've got nothing but love for this talent. I love it as a player, and even more as a GM.

And that would be the problem

No, that's YOUR problem with the talent. If I were GMing and someone used Bad Motivator in some of the ways I've used it or as others in the thread have used it, I would love the hell out of it. It's been a pretty goddamed epic ability.

But then, you pretty clearly hate the game engine, so you'll excuse me if I don't give your opinion very much weight.

It puts "narrative power" in the hands of players, to do things that would make me stop playing with a GM who did them even once a session.

"Oh hey, gee, look, our hyperdrive failed right as we were about to escape... again."

"Oh wow, my character conveniently forgot to align his blaster after the last fight, so his first shot misses and we don't get the drop on the antagonist after all... great."

"Awesome, something went wrong at just the right time to keep the GM's story going right where he wanted it to go. I'm shocked, and by shocked, I mean completely not shocked at all."

It puts "narrative power" in the hands of players, to do things that would make me stop playing with a GM who did them even once a session.

"Oh hey, gee, look, our hyperdrive failed right as we were about to escape... again."

"Oh wow, my character conveniently forgot to align his blaster after the last fight, so his first shot misses and we don't get the drop on the antagonist after all... great."

"Awesome, something went wrong at just the right time to keep the GM's story going right where he wanted it to go. I'm shocked, and by shocked, I mean completely not shocked at all."

Well sure, but that's like a GM complaining that the players killed his Nemesis because "I'd be pissed if a GM just killed my character in the first fight he's in." There's a difference in narrative control that means the two situations are not equivalent. The GM has the whole game world at their disposal, so they're expected to roll with it if some small part of it doesn't go according to their plans (especially if it leads to a more interesting encounter). Meanwhile, a player's narrative control normally only extends as far as their character's behavior, so it's a much bigger deal if a Deus ex Machina interferes with their plans.

Here, let me bring you up to speed on a little game mechanic:

You see that purple triangle-ish looking thing on the right? That's called a threat. As a GM, I have no need of a silly little talent to make devices fail. Roll a purple triangle-ish looking thing on your navigation? The hyperdrive breaks because you forgot to give it a tune up. Roll purple triangle-ish looking thing when hiding and you've dropped your gun meaning you get one of these black cube things on the right:

Its on page 13 of the core rules. You might want to brush up on this fundamental game mechanic.

Here, let me bring you up to speed on a little game mechanic:

You see that purple triangle-ish looking thing on the right? That's called a threat. As a GM, I have no need of a silly little talent to make devices fail. Roll a purple triangle-ish looking thing on your navigation? The hyperdrive breaks because you forgot to give it a tune up. Roll purple triangle-ish looking thing when hiding and you've dropped your gun meaning you get one of these black cube things on the right:

Its on page 13 of the core rules. You might want to brush up on this fundamental game mechanic.

So instead of once a game, you can be screw the players over whenever you feel like.

Nice.

You know, for a game that's supposed to be anything but adversarial between the GM and the other players...

The fundamental way the game works: roll dice. Dice show symbols. There are bad ones and good ones. Game master and players narrate what those means. For player rolls, game master narrates bad, players good. For NPC rolls, varies, but GM narrates good, players narrate bad. All work together. Do we need to get a pop-up book?

You know, I have an issue with a particular talent. I'm didn't bring up the basic system, and I'm not getting sucked any further into that debate just so that I can be accused in a few more posts of "bashing the system".

The fundamental way the game works: roll dice. Dice show symbols. There are bad ones and good ones. Game master and players narrate what those means. For player rolls, game master narrates bad, players good. For NPC rolls, varies, but GM narrates good, players narrate bad. All work together. Do we need to get a pop-up book?

Actually by default PCs only interpret their own good results. The GM is in charge of all negative results and positive results for NPCs. They can share the dice interpretation if they choose, but they by RAW have the call on all negative results.

Ah! Now the truth comes out. You are really ErikB and I claim my five pounds.

Imaginary issues for the win!

The fundamental way the game works: roll dice. Dice show symbols. There are bad ones and good ones. Game master and players narrate what those means. For player rolls, game master narrates bad, players good. For NPC rolls, varies, but GM narrates good, players narrate bad. All work together. Do we need to get a pop-up book?

Actually by default PCs only interpret their own good results. The GM is in charge of all negative results and positive results for NPCs. They can share the dice interpretation if they choose, but they by RAW have the call on all negative results.

I don't know how that quite works, because there are several talents and pieces of equipment that rely on an opponent rolling bad.

Ah! Now the truth comes out. You are really ErikB and I claim my five pounds.

????

What truth? Who is ErikB? And what five pounds?

Imaginary issues for the win!

The fundamental way the game works: roll dice. Dice show symbols. There are bad ones and good ones. Game master and players narrate what those means. For player rolls, game master narrates bad, players good. For NPC rolls, varies, but GM narrates good, players narrate bad. All work together. Do we need to get a pop-up book?

Actually by default PCs only interpret their own good results. The GM is in charge of all negative results and positive results for NPCs. They can share the dice interpretation if they choose, but they by RAW have the call on all negative results.

I don't know how that quite works, because there are several talents and pieces of equipment that rely on an opponent rolling bad.

p. 205 EoE CRB second column second paragraph.

In the cases of the Talents and equipment the obvious answer is in those cases they provide a PC the ability to use those bad results. That actually only proves my point in that it takes a specific Talent to allow the PC to use the negative result to do that.

Imaginary issues for the win!

The fundamental way the game works: roll dice. Dice show symbols. There are bad ones and good ones. Game master and players narrate what those means. For player rolls, game master narrates bad, players good. For NPC rolls, varies, but GM narrates good, players narrate bad. All work together. Do we need to get a pop-up book?

Actually by default PCs only interpret their own good results. The GM is in charge of all negative results and positive results for NPCs. They can share the dice interpretation if they choose, but they by RAW have the call on all negative results.

I don't know how that quite works, because there are several talents and pieces of equipment that rely on an opponent rolling bad.

p. 205 EoE CRB second column second paragraph.

In the cases of the Talents and equipment the obvious answer is in those cases they provide a PC the ability to use those bad results. That actually only proves my point in that it takes a specific Talent to allow the PC to use the negative result to do that.

Damnation. I think I have everything squared away, then somebody lays out some house rule as if it's RAW, and I'm like "alright, maybe I misread it."

But hey, no - go ahead and force a combat because that's what the script says. It doesn't matter what the players do, right?

The players shouldn’t stop the whole game just because of a single roll from a single talent.

I’m all for letting the players direct the narrative, based on the rolls. But this has to be a cooperative story telling process, and any BBEG would have backup plans. It is the very height of silliness to suggest otherwise.

Throwing Bad Motivator into the mix means that the game changes. Probably dramatically. But it doesn’t just suddenly stop and everybody goes home with their marbles.

To be honest, if you were put in that situation in the first place, where either the entire party dies or you have to use Bad Motivator to break Warde’s lightsaber, then I’d say that was really bad GMing and story-telling that got you to that point.

As PCs, you should have been able to talk him down earlier. And if you failed, then it should have taken a lot more dice rolls and/or bad roleplaying to get you there.

I just don't see this Talent as OP or a problem. If I can't use it, I'll just throw a pair of F-ing grenades at it. Now it's good and 'failed'......I 'Failed' the Sh*t out of it!

I just don't see this Talent as OP or a problem.

It all depends on how the player(s) use it or try to use it, and how the GM handles situations leading up to the talent use, and what happens after the talent has been used.

If they players and GM are being appropriately cooperative in their story telling, then there is unlikely to be any major problems here.

If they are adversarial, then watch out.

Actually it is a game issue, if the players choice is defined only by the allowance of the gm, in contrast to most talents. You don't need permission for "The Force is my ally". Spending XP on something you need permission to use feels bad. Bad feelings lead to conflict. Conflict leads to bad atmosphere. Bad atmosphere leads to players leaving. All because of a talent.

Oh ffs... If players leave because of that then there is one of three actual reasons why they did, and it is not the talent.

A. The players are immature jackasses.

B. The GM is an immature jackass.

C. The players and the GM are immature jackasses.

wow, what the friggin hell?

I'm sorry, I've been in forums for a really long time, some way more toxic this, and never has somebody snapped so quickly.

I said that there is potential for conflict because this talent explicitly requires GM approval in contrast to most, if not all, and in return, and me and my buddies are now immature jackasses? Please, if you deny the fact that this has the potential to result in an argument at all, then you are clearly more interested in being right than using some of that mushy stuff between your ears. What the heck, seriously?

I'm sorry everyone of you obviously has a degree in psychology and sociology as well as a perfect little group of daisy friends that never argue about anything at all; because your savior word is the absolute law on your table. We have stress, some are currently looking for a job, other friends are on the verge of a divorce, and so on. I'm sorry that I am of the opinion that this has the POTENTIAL to annoy people, which clearly shows I'm a adversial GM as well, because I think about how my players react and try not to stear them into sith some might react badly too.

Please, if you insist on calling me or friends of mine jackasses, at least read my nerfherding posts. I even gave an example of a way I would find it awesome and that it depends on the player.

I know, I will get several posts of people referring to this with one sentence like "get a new hobby" or "get new friends", but, sorry man seriously, what the hell is wrong with this subforum lately...