So I was looking in the adventure that came with the GM Screen and noticed that Scathing Tirade was an ability of one of the villains. I was thinking about my players and I think they would have a real issue with someone talking them into unconsciousness. Just looking for ideas on how other GMs have handled this talent. In the case of this adventure, since it was a droid I could have it be some sort of subsonic sound that inflicted stun damage. I could see it as the villain talking them into surrendering when they exceed their strain threshold (conscious but out of the fight), but that feels like taking control of their characters which I don't like doing. Just looking for thoughts. I know about the other thread on the possible overpowered build and how as a GM I could rule against it working, but if the villain only used it once at the midpoint of a fight where a few PCs were high in strain I could see the possiblity that a few of them would exceed and be knocked unconscious.

I could see it as the villain talking them into surrendering when they exceed their strain threshold (conscious but out of the fight), but that feels like taking control of their characters which I don't like doing.

If they are going to be out of the fight anyways due to strain loss, no matter the source, I don't see an issue there. Narratively you can play it how you like. Subsonics, tirade, whatever works. I don't see it being anymore "taking control" of their characters than if you blasted them into submission.

Oh, I know and I'm sure if I explain that to them they will probably agree. Just looking for ideas in case someone gets argumentative about it.

There are a bunch of different ways to play this, depending on various factors like the number of PCs impacted, the tone of your game, and the willingness of PCs to roll with it.

If the PCs are in such poor shape that MULTIPLE characters are taken out by Scathing Tirade, it would be very reasonable to imagine the villain telling them all is lost and demanding they surrender... and they do, before they realize "Oh, crap, maybe the battle WASN'T lost!" I understand that your PCs might feel railroaded, but those are the mechanics of the game. Do they feel that control is taken away from them when Would threshold is exceeded and they drop?

Remember also that this is a narrative game, so one character's role don't always necessarily represent JUST that character's actions. For example, maybe the PCs might find it more palatable if rather than outright surrendering, the Scathing Tirade distracts them so one of the droid's allies can stun them, or move in and disarm them. Happens in moves all the time.

If it's only one PC and you can maintain a light tone with your game (or with that player), I might make a show of talking about all the heavy hits that the character took, making him seem invulnerable, then the bad guy yells at him and he topples over. Again, we see stuff like that all the time in action movies.

My theme here? How would it look on-screen?

Classic Star Wars "Scathing Tirades:"

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father... etc."

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete."

Both were during a fight, and the first one even took Luke out of the fight (granted, he was already at high wounds/strain). It's not necessarily about knocking someone unconscious; you can flavor "incapacitated" in a whole lot of ways, some of which are more appropriate to having cutting words thrown your way than others.

Ok, most of these thoughts echo my own. I'll just make sure that I have a discussion with my players prior to facing anyone with Scathing Tirade to let them know how I will be handling exceeding their Strain Threshold. Mechanically there is a difference between being incapacitated and basically losing all will to fight, because in the first case the PC can be captured whereas in the second they are still mobile and I see the PCs so affected as deciding to run away. From a roleplaying point of view, that makes sense, but from the mechanical side of things it is different and can possibly be abused by the players, but I would probably go with the roleplaying side of things, and if they were the only group members still conscious I am sure that when the baddie yells "Stop right there" they would do so. While the outcome of the battle is still in doubt I don't think I could convince them that their character is just going to quiver in the spot they were and not do anything (Luke did get away).

Classic Star Wars "Scathing Tirades:"

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father... etc."

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete."

Both were during a fight, and the first one even took Luke out of the fight (granted, he was already at high wounds/strain). It's not necessarily about knocking someone unconscious; you can flavor "incapacitated" in a whole lot of ways, some of which are more appropriate to having cutting words thrown your way than others.

You, sir, are a genius. Well said.

Classic Star Wars "Scathing Tirades:"

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father... etc."

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete."

Both were during a fight, and the first one even took Luke out of the fight (granted, he was already at high wounds/strain). It's not necessarily about knocking someone unconscious; you can flavor "incapacitated" in a whole lot of ways, some of which are more appropriate to having cutting words thrown your way than others.

To this great list I would also add:

"We would be honoured if you would join us..."

Classic Star Wars "Scathing Tirades:"

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father... etc."

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete."

Both were during a fight, and the first one even took Luke out of the fight (granted, he was already at high wounds/strain). It's not necessarily about knocking someone unconscious; you can flavor "incapacitated" in a whole lot of ways, some of which are more appropriate to having cutting words thrown your way than others.

Interesting... So what you're saying is that Scathing Tirade is perhaps representative of a type of Dun Möch. Or vis versa.

Classic Star Wars "Scathing Tirades:"

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father... etc."

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete."

Both were during a fight, and the first one even took Luke out of the fight (granted, he was already at high wounds/strain). It's not necessarily about knocking someone unconscious; you can flavor "incapacitated" in a whole lot of ways, some of which are more appropriate to having cutting words thrown your way than others.

Interesting... So what you're saying is that Scathing Tirade is perhaps representative of a type of Dun Möch. Or vis versa.

Sure, it could be, and that's how we usually see it - "Scathing Tirade" is classic cinematic verbal sparring, and because it lends itself so well to swordfights, we often see it with Jedi involved. I'm hard-pressed to come up with an example from the movies that doesn't involve Jedi or Sith, although perhaps we saw Motti attempt one and fail ("Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen datatapes. Or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fortre-"), and he was sort've the quintessential politico (at least as far as we saw in the OT).

Classic Star Wars "Scathing Tirades:"

"Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father... etc."

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete."

Both were during a fight, and the first one even took Luke out of the fight (granted, he was already at high wounds/strain). It's not necessarily about knocking someone unconscious; you can flavor "incapacitated" in a whole lot of ways, some of which are more appropriate to having cutting words thrown your way than others.

Interesting... So what you're saying is that Scathing Tirade is perhaps representative of a type of Dun Möch. Or vis versa.

Sure, it could be, and that's how we usually see it - "Scathing Tirade" is classic cinematic verbal sparring, and because it lends itself so well to swordfights, we often see it with Jedi involved. I'm hard-pressed to come up with an example from the movies that doesn't involve Jedi or Sith, although perhaps we saw Motti attempt one and fail ("Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen datatapes. Or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebels' hidden fortre-"), and he was sort've the quintessential politico (at least as far as we saw in the OT).

There's no reason to believe that Motti failed. He may well have dropped several Strain on Vader. Unfortunately, he didn't drop him and Vader's next move was even more successful.

I also look at this that the characters being played by the players aren't THEM. Even among my very experienced players, this reminder has to come out once in a while to explain a mechanic. The fear check is a great example - the character is frightened even when the player may be furiously thinking how to get out of a bad situation. As the GM, I may have called for a check and the dice perhaps made him lose an action or become incapacitated with fear. Sometimes, that feels like railroading and the player protests "come on! I wouldn't run away! Don't I get a shot at least?" No, You are not afraid, but your character in this world right now is. It got the better of him in this moment. It happens to the best of players and the best of players protest.

I see this Scathing Tirade mechanic in the same light. It's something that is getting the best of the character at the moment even though the player may protest that it's unreasonable and "he would never fall for that!" Even the best subconsciously meta-game every once in a while (especially when it's detrimental to their character!)

Pretty much a lot of Palpatine's dialogue to Luke in RotJ could be seen as Scathing Tirade in action, with the Emperor trying to undermine Luke's will and break the lad's spirit.

There's probably a bunch of different ways that a Scathing Tirade action could be reflected in the game. Heck, it could even be crude innuendos about how the person speaking did some very disturbing things with various relatives of the target. Consider John Doe's words at the end of Se7en to Brad Pitt's character; that could be construed as a Scathing Tirade, though with a rather different narrative effect than would be expected... perhaps the GM rolled a Despair on the Coercion check?

Another unusual example of a Scathing Tirade might be Angelus from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. He's not being directly intimidating, but he is trying to severely undercut the self-esteem of his targets. Or perhaps Bester in Babylon 5, who at first seems such a nice and cheerful fellow, but when you consider what he's saying...

I think part of the problem might be that because it's a Coercion check, most folks figure it's acting like R. Lee Ermy (the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket) and literally shouting the other person down into submission.

I don't have an issue with roleplaying the actual Scathing Tirade (whether subtle or full on drill sargent) it was the explaining to the players how that incapacitated them. As suggested I will just explain to them at the beginning of the game that if I tell them that the droid has destroyed their will to fight that I will essentially telling them what they will be doing on their action exactly like if they were stunned by a shock glove or a blaster. If they say they would flee (like Luke jumping) I can see that working if it fits the narrative. All I was concerned with was ideas on explaining to an irate player when I say, sorry your character is out of the fight because of words. I am sure if I give the examples from the movie they might go along with it, but wanted some ideas in case it happens during a climatic fight and emotions are high

Maybe it's not so much as they're knocked unconscious, but are so demoralized or apprehensive that they're not able to act?

Sadly, there are going to be players that are going to get pissy about that sort of thing. There was quite a debate back in the Saga Edition days about whether the GM should give their NPCs certain Noble talents that either forced a surrender or forced the PC to flee on a successful Persuasion check, or even if a Force-using NPC should be able to use the Mind Trick power on a PC, since it "took away" the player's ability to control their character's actions.

If the PC really wants to get back into the fight... let him flip a Destiny Point to make a simple Cool or Discipline check as hsi Action that round to regain his composure, with each success allowing him to recover one Strain, just as though he was taking an after-combat breather. Just make it clear that this is a once-per-encounter deal though, reflecting a sort of "heroic second wind." But at the same time, don't have your NPC immediately target that PC with Scathing Tirade on the next turn, or for at least a few turns; after all, he'd probably feel that you'd scammed the party out of a Destiny Point of he had his "heroic second wind" and then got immediately taken right back out on the NPC's next action.

Yeah, good thoughts. I know that it isn't necessarily that they are unconscious but *mechanically* the state they are in is supposed to be equal to having their Strain threshold exceeded by a stun bolt from a blaster. Thus, I would be imposing on their actions by saying, sure you are still able to move, but you are too demoralized to continue fighting and I am afraid that some players will be upset with that. I hadn't played the SAGA version, but the player(s) I am concerned about would have had the same issue. These are the same guys that I would avoid charming or dominating in D&D because they would get all cranky, and there I can go "It's magic". Hopefully by giving some movie examples of how words can take people out of the fight will help.