The Topic title actually says it all. I think scathing tirade is a powerfull skill but as said somewhere else it needs to well played. You have to act out the tirade and the GM could grant the roll. I don't think the roll should be granted without any spoken word by the PC.

It can't be just the dice it needs a story and the PC needs to bring it convincingly.

My question here is....What would you say to convince the GM to grant the roll?

"Are you not entertained?"

"I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in with ME."

"I'm batman."

"This ain't cheese and pickle."

EDIT: "I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."

Just the other day someone posted that they had used Scathing Tirade (or a similar skill) to get Mara Jade to drop her lightsaber by telling her that her outfit didn't match. From the sound of it, I'd say this is a talent ripe for abuse and/or hilarity.

I guess I wouldn't force a player to act out the tirade if they weren't comfortable doing it... but I would still probably press them for specific details about what they're saying.

You are correct. Acting it out is a bit heavy. but keywords are needed.

I haven't played a politico yet, but I plan on playing a Chiss politco soon. I'm not a huge RPer so a real tirade is not something I can see myself playing out most of the time. But I could see myself playing to the party's strength to "dial up" the target's fear.

"See that Wookiee there? Yeah the one with the muscles and the Vibro-ax dripping with blood. He's not very happy you shot his droid. Do you realize how long it took him to build that thing? I suggest you run. He's getting fat and could use the exercise."

It's not so much a "scathing tirade" and more an example of what coercion would look like, but it's all flavor text.

I think the most important thing is to realize the mechanics are in the roll, not in the speech. Let a player say what they want to say, and then give them the role. If it's especially interesting maybe throw in a Boost die, but I wouldn't penalize someone for not coming up with something on the spot.

My politico mostly uses Scathing Tirade just like kaosoe said. It's not so much my character being intimidating, it's that he's pointing out the rest of the party is about to kick some ass. "Don't you see the big Trandoshan with the big gun behind me?"

If our first fight we were skulking around a warehouse. When the searchlights came on, the rest of the party passed their stealth checks to hide, but my politico was spotted. When the bad guys (worse guys?) started shooting I Scathing Tiraded them things like "You're attacking an unarmed citizen, throw down your weapons and I won't call the Imperials." Too bad I didn't get a triumph to make it work.

I also shout out random insults. I see adding the black die as throwing the bad guy off his game. Something to distract them enough. An example of this would be Mal's conversation when he hired on Jayne in Firefly. "They are paying you how much? I would pay you double and give you your own room."

I gave it to an npc droid and used it to simulate a sonic attack.

Watch any episode of The Thick of It; Malcolm Tucker makes his living delivering Scathing Tirades. Have to tone down the level of profanity for a Star Wars game, though.

"Your clone batch went very wrong didn't it?"

"Oh look - Stormtroopers, but with a with a two-drink minimum!"

"Now, I'm certain we can resolve this like the mature, rational adults we all are. Isn't that right, Mister Poopie Pants?"

"I've been shot at by a great many people, and I don't rank you very highly at all!"

"I apologize that your behavior has so exhausted my patience that I'm goaded into this transgression!"

"You're a retarded hutt. Wait - no, I'm sorry for that. You're a really REALLY smelly retarded hutt!"

"Your methods of attack demonstrates a level of ineptitude that borders on the imbecilic. And I mean that in a very caring way."

"Planetary regulations require me to warn you that we're about to kick your ass"

"You look really great, by the way. Very healthy."

"You obviously have a wonderful grasp of tactics. I look forward to your next move with great eagerness."

"I'm being shot at by interns! Where did my life go so wrong?"

"Please do that again. We need a good laugh."

"But give you guys some credit. . . . um, you did an adequate job polishing that armor this morning."

"Look! A singularity of incompetence. They're so bad that light bends around them."

"Please just stop. You're just validating your birth mother's decision to abandon you."

"Would you just go boil your head!"

"Any feelings of hostility you have are simply byproducts of your sad, empty life."

"I really expected better of you. I guess I'm a idiot for that."

"I just got a message from your commander. He says you are a terrible person. And I didn't even ask him about that!"

"You people are not just morons. You are the products of a breeding program designed for the express purpose of creating the most moronic moron in the galaxy."

"Remember before when I was talking about a big smelly useless hutt? That was a metaphor. I was actually talking about you - but since you didn't react, I was worried you didnt get it. That's why I had to call you big smelly useless hutt a second time just now."

"You are a classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain."

Princess Leia is very good at the Scathing Tirade I think.

I honestly don't see this talent as being open for abuse. Yes, Triumph results on Coercion checks can be used to "break an opponent's will", essentially netting you a new ally/follower. However, in the description for Coercion on page 106 of the Core Rulebook, right at the bottom of the page it notes; "Intimidation and strong-arm tactics are only as successful as the strength and thought put behind them."

Thus, I don't see how a Triumph could abused into making Mara Jade drop her lightsaber over a comment about her outfit. Sith aspirants aren't like that; it'd take a whole lot of strength and thought to intimidate someone who chills with Darth Sidious on a nigh-daily basis.

For RL examples, we can look to Mel Gibson, Alec Baldwin, and others.

I honestly don't see this talent as being open for abuse. Yes, Triumph results on Coercion checks can be used to "break an opponent's will", essentially netting you a new ally/follower. However, in the description for Coercion on page 106 of the Core Rulebook, right at the bottom of the page it notes; "Intimidation and strong-arm tactics are only as successful as the strength and thought put behind them."

Thus, I don't see how a Triumph could abused into making Mara Jade drop her lightsaber over a comment about her outfit. Sith aspirants aren't like that; it'd take a whole lot of strength and thought to intimidate someone who chills with Darth Sidious on a nigh-daily basis.

The mechanics are in the roll, not the statement. The type of statement made was in character, not mechanics. These are different things, and should not be confused.

The mechanics are in the roll, not the statement. The type of statement made was in character, not mechanics. These are different things, and should not be confused.

Not sure I see your point, could you be a bit more specific...?

Scathing Tirade has its effects pretty clearly spelled out. It has little do with this conversation as far as I'm concerned; what this comes down to is creative interpretation of the Coercion skill.

As far as that goes, beyond what's described on page 106 - 107, I'd check the "Effects of Fear" header on page 299, swapping out Failure, Threat and Despair for Success, Advantage, and Triumph with Coercion. This is precisely what I do when NPCs use Coercion and other social skills on PCs; NPCs might not be able to directly control PC actions, but they can sow the seeds of doubt.

The mechanics are in the roll, not the statement. The type of statement made was in character, not mechanics. These are different things, and should not be confused.

Not sure I see your point, could you be a bit more specific...?

Every game is it's own separate entity, which means that canon goes out the window and players should be able to interact with the galaxy as they see fit. Just because one player's concept of their character and it's capacity doesn't necessarily jive with tradition, does not make it wrong, if it's supported by mechanics.

Mechanics represent completely unforseeable variables that we may not be aware of, but occur any way.

People know that jumping through the vaccum of spaces is tantamount to instant death, but if your character rolls a couple of triumphs on Athletics and Resilience checks, it's entirely possible that they survive. The mechanics make otherwise irrational things completely plausible because they represent something we didn't see.

In the example of jumping ship to ship, maybe said player was somehow buffeted by air escaping the hatch, and they have had exposure to a vaccum before and understood how to manage their air and body to last just long enough to get to the other ship.

So if we go back to the Scathing Tirade ability, nail a few Triumphs and things that are otherwise implausible, such as convinving a seasoned Sith to drop her lightsaber, are relatively realistic because the role allows for their to deep something deeper in the characterization than we were previously aware of, if we want to explore it.

Heck, role 3 Triumph and maybe you convince her to eat the lightsaber, because reasons...

I guess my players have different expectations. Fully half my group are females, and they'd be pretty disappointed if a Sith aspirant like Mara Jade suddenly revealed herself as caring about her outfit so much she'd drop her lightsaber over ONE Triumph. However I see your point, Triumphs are a great opportunity to contribute to the narrative up to and including NPC quirks. (Hence why I prefer to keep established characters out of the narrative.)

Let's pretend this was some other trainee of Palpatine's, of which he had plenty. Maybe this guy was Dathomiri Nightbrother with two black lightsabers the GM expected the party to leap into battle against, but the Politico wins Initiative and uses Scathing Tirade, telling the Nightbrother; "Those robes are ugly and they make your tattoos look stupid." Success with a Triumph is rolled.

Exactly how scary would the Emperor's minions be -- Darth Maul-esque Nightbrothers, at that -- if this guy just dropped his lightsabers and started fretting about fashion? The context just isn't there.

Sure, there could be some humorous quirk about his past that would make him care about such a thing, but what really just happened is that an exciting, intimidating aspect of the Star Wars mythos has been reduced to a joke... and that sets a really bad precedent. When the sight of a dude in dark robes with a red lightsaber no longer scares your players, you've definitely messed up somewhere along the line.

I'm all about allowing humor into my games, but my group makes efforts to keep it out-of-character or in-context.

I hear what you're getting at, but I think you have to allow for the fact that NPCs have off days too. Maybe I'm in a one-on-one duel to the death with Vader, and he got something in his eye, or the Emperor tripped on his robe and accidently Force Lightnings his own troops, or the guy flying that Superstar Destroyer has a really bad case of the runs...

I think Scathing Tirade is about taking a characterization shot in the dark, and rolling to see if you're right. Make a comment about someone's mother and it might be true, or it might not. If the mechanics support it, it turned out to be. If I bombed that roll against Mara Jade, maybe she gets to angry at something thinking she gave two nits about her appearance that she snags a Boost die and comes charging at me, lightsaber drawn.

So for players running Scathing Tirade builds, take a shot at someone with a well-known quip and maybe you get lucky.

"Allowing" for NPCs to have off days takes away from the spirit of adventure unless you're going for a much more light-hearted atmosphere than the larger-than-life Star Wars universe implies. Remember that part of Return of the Jedi where the Star Destroyer captain ran away because he really had to take a poop, or when Palpatine botched... well, ANYTHING (other than that one thing)??? Of course not.

The solution for me in this case is not to disallow players from making these sorts of checks, nor loading them with tons of Setback dice (although that'd certainly be the case for more ridiculous attempts), but instead to have it stick to dialog.

In the Mara Jade example, perhaps she didn't drop her lightsaber, but instead the inflicted self-doubt causes her to upgrade the difficulty of all checks by one for the remainder of the scene (similar to rolling a Despair on a fear check). The GM can say something like; "She snaps, 'Shut your mouth! I serve a greater power!' but you can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes as they flicker for an instant over her outfit; your words stung deep."

The players idea worked, but the effects weren't overpowered, nor did they disrupt the mood of confronting such a powerful dark sider.

"Allowing" for NPCs to have off days takes away from the spirit of adventure unless you're going for a much more light-hearted atmosphere than the larger-than-life Star Wars universe implies. Remember that part of Return of the Jedi where the Star Destroyer captain ran away because he really had to take a poop, or when Palpatine botched... well, ANYTHING (other than that one thing)??? Of course not.

The solution for me in this case is not to disallow players from making these sorts of checks, nor loading them with tons of Setback dice (although that'd certainly be the case for more ridiculous attempts), but instead to have it stick to dialog.

In the Mara Jade example, perhaps she didn't drop her lightsaber, but instead the inflicted self-doubt causes her to upgrade the difficulty of all checks by one for the remainder of the scene (similar to rolling a Despair on a fear check). The GM can say something like; "She snaps, 'Shut your mouth! I serve a greater power!' but you can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes as they flicker for an instant over her outfit; your words stung deep."

The players idea worked, but the effects weren't overpowered, nor did they disrupt the mood of confronting such a powerful dark sider.

That's certainly a fair way of doing it, but I don't like the idea of not allowing solely because it doesn't jive with cannon.

That's certainly a fair way of doing it, but I don't like the idea of not allowing solely because it doesn't jive with cannon.

Again, hence why I typically don't use established characters as anything but background garnish for rumors and holo-news broadcasts. But this is less about canon and more about preserving flavor. Star Wars villains are scary and ruthless, and if you undermine that you run the risk of the game becoming stale and dissolving before it can reach an epic, satisfying conclusion.

Every game is it's own separate entity, which means that canon goes out the window and players should be able to interact with the galaxy as they see fit. Just because one player's concept of their character and it's capacity doesn't necessarily jive with tradition, does not make it wrong, if it's supported by mechanics.

Completely disagree, it's not a free-for-all. The type of game is up to the GM in conjuction with the players to establish these boundaries and the types of games we want to play. My players (who I've gamed with for decades) don't really know that much about SW, and don't care. They want darker, grittier stories ... that these stories are taking place in the SW universe is merely a curiousity. I know my players would be irritated, and quickly bored, if I allowed the kind of usage you're talking about, or had these canonic characters show up.

Now if you want to do that, fine. It's not a matter of "wrong" or right, it's about the flavour you want.

As for Triumphs...it's a little bit the fault of the way FFG has presented them, and the fact that most people are still dealing with characters where a Triumph doesn't come up that often. But once you get 2 or 3 skill ranks, it's going to happen a lot more often. I would quickly find it boring if every couple of shots or skill attempts that nets Triumphs have to be described in scenario-breaking detail. If you have 2 skill ranks, almost 1 in 6 attempts will give you a Triumph...that's over 3 times more than the 1 in 20 for a critical in D20. So let's not overstate the effect of them in the game. They should encourage narrative innovation, but shouldn't be able to automatically incapacitate a nemesis.

That's certainly a fair way of doing it, but I don't like the idea of not allowing solely because it doesn't jive with cannon.

Well, the canon that exists is what provides the mood and the setting. If Mara Jade is suddenly a self-concious fashionista, what else about the SW universe can we throw out the window?