Hi,

Had a quick question. Yesterday during the game one of the players decided to intimidate me and used coercion to achieve that. He used 'overwhelm emotions' to reinforce that. We decided that I will use WP and discipline to resist and he managed to succeed. So I acted intimidated ;-)

Questions:

1) Who is force immune as per description of the overwhelm emotions - is it a person who is force sensitive? ( I am )

2) How does one role play this kind of situations? I mean when I use charm will he have to finance my gambling addiction? If I use deception on a different player will he have to give up his money as well?

[ Some background info, he is the darksider in out party, I'm a lightside leaning pilot. He bought some slaves on the planet we're currently on and I've voiced my concern that we shouldn't do that. That's where he decided to intimidate me 'don't get involved in my business' - In consequence I didn't and he sold the poor chaps with profit ]

A target that is immune to Force Powers will have that noted, for example Droids are immune to mind affecting Force powers.

Depending on the group, this may end badly. After all, you know that the force use and the intimidation was used on you to enable him to harm others. If it was me, I'd be plotting his downfall already. Some players do not take that well.

A target that is immune to Force Powers will have that noted, for example Droids are immune to mind affecting Force powers.

Depending on the group, this may end badly. After all, you know that the force use and the intimidation was used on you to enable him to harm others. If it was me, I'd be plotting his downfall already. Some players do not take that well.

Would I really know his intimidation was reinforced by force?

And yeah, I didn't like how this was resolved either, hence this post..

part 1 has already been answered by Darzil.

As for part 2. This kins of play leaves a bad taste for me TBH. I have had a few "player x uses mechanics on Player y" situations over the years, and they almost always lead to resentment. This is due to the fact they take away player choice with their own character. This has lead to me house ruling that Players need to RP anything like this in my games WITHOUT ROLLS! This is apart from any kind of magical coercion, ie influence. In those cases players are free to RP the results when they find out they have been mind controlled.

I would've just used Coercion's description and the best they'd be able to do is inflict Strain on you mechanically. The narrative aspects I'd leave open ended, and I'd be the judge of how effective the roll was, not the PCs.

I would've just used Coercion's description and the best they'd be able to do is inflict Strain on you mechanically. The narrative aspects I'd leave open ended, and I'd be the judge of how effective the roll was, not the PCs.

OK so to follow up on this, say you would inflict 3 strain on me out of 14 that I had - that's pretty much on par with influence power that he does not have. What do you mean you would be the judge of how is that effective? As in you would tell me how scared I am etc?

I mean I would be the judge. I wouldn't let the PC rolling against you dictate your actions or decisions to make you do something silly and act against your own interests in an over the top fashion. I also wouldn't allow you to simply ignore the results or minimize them in a way where there was little point to the roll (unless of course it just didn't work).

Any time a GM allows PCs to take actions against one another they are setting themselves up for failure. Combat is fairly straightforward and mechanics are mechanics, but even PC fights are a bad idea. However when it comes to narrative actions and such, to prevent abuse, or evisceration of the effort, I feel as though as GM I should make the impartial decision on that.

That makes sense I suppose. As a PC I don't know where to go with this on our next session. I can't say I'm free from vindictive thoughts but at the same time I know it will escalate into full blown PVP.

Which inevitably spills over into real life, and why I say it's a mistake for a GM to even allow it at the table.

2P51 makes great points as does everyone else. I would like to add that your GM missed a chance to play this narratively and mechanically a la Social Combat. Granted this would take extra time but it also would give you and the player a chance to extend the scene with roleplay and mechanics.

Rather than just have a binary result from an opposed check, the results of the Coercion check he made against you only causes 3 Strain. Then you would respond in kind with an opposed Charm, or even use Coercion yourself, check against the opposing skill. Present an argument or use intimidating dialogue, then make the corresponding roll. Repeat until someone reaches max Strain and loses the Social Combat.

I'm not saying this would be how you feel but speaking for myself, I would prefer to lose in Social Combat against another PC rather than that PC make a roll against me and have a binary result. I would get a chance to respond and rebut and hopefully sway him away from his dark actions.

As a GM, I probably would not allow this kind of thing between players to happen very often(once every other or every few sessions). It would bog the game down and probably cause players to not have much fun. But you opposing the other player when he wanted to buy slaves creates an interesting moment that could be played out.

Oh and there is the possibillity to use your (not commited) force rating with your dicepool to resist.

Every pip your willing to use would cancel out one of his.

That said, I have always to deal with this kind of s**t with my players ... and every time it leads to missery... sometimes fatal missery.

I told them over and over: "Guys you have to work together or you won't survive it"

Well one player espacially seem he doesn't want to understand... so he ended up to be imprisoned several times when he thought he can handle things better alone, and the last time he already was on the executioners' block before he was rescued by the rest of the crew... I think one more fail well be fatality...

so your GM should display some consequenzes for team disrupting play... because that's no feature... that's a bug (in the players brain)

Myself, I'll only allow PC vs. PC social skill checks, if both sides consent. And, I'll let the target interpret the result; there might be a few extra XP in it for them, if they do it well.

When a group has to be split up because of irreconcilable differences, I'll always have the offensive party depart; they are well aware of that.

That makes sense I suppose. As a PC I don't know where to go with this on our next session. I can't say I'm free from vindictive thoughts but at the same time I know it will escalate into full blown PVP.

This sounds like it's time you and the GM and this player all sat down and had a deep and thorough discussion on the merits of running a party with a light sider and a dark sider. Because this won't end pretty unless there are some ground rules set up before things get out of hand, which from the description it sounds like it's close to (though I'm curious why the rest of the party was ok with the slavery business).

Light side and dark side characters can work in the same party but it typically requires a few sacrifices and a great deal of restraint on the part of both players to reach an compromise that allows both to behave in a fashion that they find acceptable without violating the character's ideal. Sounds like selling slaves may be where the line needs to be drawn in order to keep people happy.

Oh and there is the possibillity to use your (not commited) force rating with your dicepool to resist.

Every pip your willing to use would cancel out one of his.

No, it doesn't work this way unless you have the Suppress power in use.

I would never allow this sort of thing and would be very disappointed in any player who tried it.

There are two kinds of in-party conflict.

The first kind is bickering. You have people with different personalities and opinions. They argue, they prank each other, they dig at each other. Yet they still work as a team. Think of the Fantastic Four. This can be a great party dynamic as it gives lots of RP opportunities and can be super fun, yet they still support each other and when the poodoo hits the turbine they will fight and die for each other. It's a dysfunctional family, but still a family. Those are my favorite kinds of parties to be in, our current EotE crew is like this.

The other kind is actual conflict. Where the PCs' goals are not in alignment. They may be allied for mutual gain but don't really care for each other and may even hate each other. They will not go out of their way to help one another and will even betray each other if it was to their benefit. This isn't a real party, just a contrived alliance and it's not sustainable. Enemies who aren't actively trying to kill each other are still enemies. I've played in a few games with this kind of dynamic (most often D&D games that have evil-aligned characters) and in my experience it leads to stress for the players and eventually falls apart.

I think the OP's game has veered from the first scenario to the second one. It may not be too late to salvage the game, you can work out some dynamic where the light side character wants to "redeem" the dark one, and the dark side character wants to convince the light one to throw off his self-imposed shackles and embrace his full potential with the Force. Yet they are in their own way trying to help each other and the rest of the group. That could work. Right now it sounds like each one is in the other's way and if that doesn't improve then the group will be fractured. Usually with the darker character being exiled from the group and becoming a nemesis if he isn't killed off in the process, and the player may or may not stick around to play a more compatible character. (It's possible that the group will side with the dark one but in my experience that's rare, people usually want to play the heroes.)

I think with NPC's its fine to narritively determine that strain damage convinces them to do something or other. With PC's its absolutely not okay.

To be invested in the game you have to have control over your character. The GM controlls the world and everyone else in it. The other PC's control their characters..

Even mind control takes the player out of the game because they have no further connection to the game. We'll all been stunned for a round or knocked out even killed. But who wants to play for multiple sessions mind controlled or a slave to another player. They even discuss this in the book with respect to PC droids.

Players need autonomy, allowing this type of bullying at the table is not okay.

Your solutions are limited.

The best is to retcon the situation and have the GM make it clear such antics will not be permitted in the future.

Secondly determine that the offending player has fallen to the darkside and left the group (have the player make a new character)

Third determine that the offending player has fallen to the darkside and give them a chance at redemption.

Any time a GM allows PCs to take actions against one another they are setting themselves up for failure. Combat is fairly straightforward and mechanics are mechanics, but even PC fights are a bad idea. However when it comes to narrative actions and such, to prevent abuse, or evisceration of the effort, I feel as though as GM I should make the impartial decision on that.

Tread VERY carefully in the matter of PVP. It takes a mature group that has really bought into their characters and the telling of a story to pull that off. My group, we have no issue - the group's Jedi once held the angry-as-hell Heavy with TK to keep him from storming off and getting himself killed - and even then there were repercussions and fall out between the two characters as the trust was slowly built back up between them. It was nothing that the players had issue with and it served the story, taking them to a logical place, but in a more cutthroat group, it could have caused problems.