The Return of the Scarlet Empress OOC

[industrious]

Chimes is gone.

[Maugan Ra]

I might be missing something here. Who is Child speaking to in that post? I'd have guessed Orchid and Zhou, but shucking the destiny and the mention of 'no sense in getting involved' seems to indicate otherwise.

Sorry if I am missing something very obvious. It's about six thirty in the morning here, and I am suffering from an apparent inability to sleep.

[Ifni]

Originally Posted by Maugan Ra

I might be missing something here. Who is Child speaking to in that post? I'd have guessed Orchid and Zhou, but shucking the destiny and the mention of 'no sense in getting involved' seems to indicate otherwise.

Sorry if I am missing something very obvious. It's about six thirty in the morning here, and I am suffering from an apparent inability to sleep.

No, I had the same question. Have a post mostly written replying to Zhou, but I'll hold it for a bit.

Also, I think Zhou and Orchid were talking quietly; while I'm sure Child could hear if he has good Awareness or came a little closer, for most of what Orchid said, she was not including him in the conversation.

[Tavar]

Ah, that part is meant to be after I enter Emerald's house. The involved comment was more that he didn't want to have the discussion potentially alone, not when he has some back up nearby.

[Ifni]

Originally Posted by Tavar

Ah, that part is meant to be after I enter Emerald's house. The involved comment was more that he didn't want to have the discussion potentially alone, not when he has some back up nearby.

Reasonable! I will post then. But you're not recognizable (to us) after shucking your Destiny, right? So to us it'll look like the guardsman just vanished? (Or someone looking quite different came out of the house?) Or is the disguise similar in appearance to you?

EDIT: Also, just to clarify, Orchid is heading down to the street by the route they came up, not going through Emerald's house.

[Ifni]

In case I can roll something to notice that the raiton is following us in a somewhat un-raiton-like manner...

Perception: (2d10)[6][4](10)
If it's Perception+Awareness, that's all she wrote - if it's Perception+Investigation, add
(4d10)[3][9][3][9](24)
EDIT: Heh. So that would be a NO and a maybe (depending on which Ability is involved).

As mentioned earlier, Orchid does keep an eye on raitons, just because raitons and wolves were the favored vessels for the Mask's nemissaries tracking down escapees (I'm not making this up, it's in the Scavenger Lands book). Just wondering - it's no big deal if she can't, I'm just asking because it might lead to either amusing misunderstandings or a reason for her to try talking to raiton-Skandi.

Also, I rolled 5 successes on a mundane Perception+Investigation roll earlier, to notice if Child reacted at all to her mention of Skandi's name (right after Symphony left). If I took a -3 internal penalty due to the Destiny (not sure if it would apply, since I'm not trying to see through it, but I can't remember if the cover identity knows Skandi), make it 3 successes. This usually opposes (Manipulation+Socialize)/2 - Tavar, think she could pick up anything from that?

[Tavar]

That's a good question. The Guard likely knows of Skandi, given all of the stories about him, but that identity doesn't actually know him, as they never would have met. He might know that the Lunar Anima visible last night was Skandi's, though.

So I'm not sure what your roll would reveal.

[Ifni]

Hmm, okay. I suspect I'm getting confusing mixed signals - from the Destiny, which I beat by miles (and I can discern Intimacies if I double the required successes), I'd probably pick up perhaps familiarity but no particular concern. If he knew the anima was Skandi's, he might have nodded slightly or something.

If your character sheet at the start of the thread is accurate, your Manip+Socialize is 2, right? Or effectively 5 if you get the bonus from the Destiny. So then my 3 sux exactly hit the difficulty 3 - which is enough to discern lies, but not anywhere enough to pick up Intimacies, much less more casual knowledge. So maybe I get a strange double-vision sense that something more is going on (which I already have from JET and all the 'partial truth' results), but not more than that. Does that seem reasonable?

More importantly, and asking again because I don't know how this works: is Child recognizable (to us) after shucking the Destiny? Does he look anything like the guardsman? Or from our perspective, does it just look like he went into the house and then someone entirely different emerged onto the street? (or didn't emerge, if he doesn't actually leave, or leaves sneakily)

The answer to this kinda determines whether Orchid will talk to him immediately on arriving in the street, if he doesn't initiate the conversation. If he does initiate the conversation, that works fine too.

[Tavar]

It's someone entirely new.

As for your investigation, well, I could also spend some motes to improve that defense drastically, thought I'm still not sure as to what you're currently getting. ST, any thoughts?

[industrious]

You get a sort of vague sense something's off, but you can't put your finger on it.

[Ifni]

Originally Posted by Tavar

It's someone entirely new.

As for your investigation, well, I could also spend some motes to improve that defense drastically, thought I'm still not sure as to what you're currently getting. ST, any thoughts?

Of course, if you like, but if my current interpretation's in the right ballpark I'm not sure why you'd bother - IC, she's just glancing at you to see if you react to the name, and OOC, my interpretation at present is that I'm not getting anything JET doesn't give (well, except that "the Guard has probably heard Skandi's name before", since you said that was likely in-character for the Destiny). I already knew Child wasn't telling the whole truth. But sure, I can wait to see what industrious thinks, I doubt it will make any significant difference to Orchid's actions. (I mean, I think the most information she could possibly get is that you know Skandi personally, which she already suspects - which is why she was dropping the name and looking for your reaction in the first place.)

And ok, entirely new person just walked out of house? Heh. That works. I'll probably wait for you to post describing what that new person is doing? If he just walks off down the street Orchid will probably ask for a moment of his time.

EDIT: Sidereal'ed, appropriately And thanks industrious, yep, that's about what I was expecting.

[Maugan Ra]

Yup. Would appear to be Child's prerogative on starting the conversation. And we'll try not to be too confused and/or freaked out by the sudden change.

Should be interesting. And I really need to invest points in more social skills beyond Socialise and Presence. Investigation looks very useful...

[Ifni]

Originally Posted by Maugan Ra

Yup. Would appear to be Child's prerogative on starting the conversation. And we'll try not to be too confused and/or freaked out by the sudden change.

Should be interesting. And I really need to invest points in more social skills beyond Socialise and Presence. Investigation looks very useful...

You can actually use Perception+Socialize to read motivation / detect lies as well, I'm just using Investigation because I'm slightly better at it.

This is the first time I've played a character doing the Investigation/Socialize/Linguistics side of things; in my main Exalted campaign my character is a Zenith with allll the Presence and Performance. She's fun, but takes a totally different (and way more unsubtle) approach than Orchid - half the East knows what her anima banner looks like at this point. All the social abilities seem to have good uses, they just push you in somewhat different directions.

[The_Snark]

Originally Posted by Tavar

It's someone entirely new.

I've always been a bit confused on that point, but I don't think resplendent destinies actually change your appearance by themselves. They give you a bonus to passing yourself off as someone else, which (combined with Arcane Fate) makes it easy to disguise yourself, but if your resplendent destiny is an old woman you have to make a cursory effort to look like one.

Edit - like Clark Kent, basically. Glasses and a change of clothes are a paper-thin disguise, but it's something.

[Ifni]

For those who don't read spoilers, Orchid is using Mastery of Small Manners as she goes to talk to Aya - mostly just for the non-mechanical effects, that she doesn't put her foot in her mouth and people are more inclined to do her small favors than not (and her effective Appearance goes to 4 so she's not quite so outclassed by Aya on that front ), but it also gives her "the basic motivations of everyone present in the scene", as if I had rolled 3 sux on a mundane Perception+Investigation to estimate each person's motives.

I think Aya's Manip+Socialize is 6, so the difficulty of my Perception+Investigation is 3*, so I should be able to get a sense of what she's there for unless I've missed something or she chooses to use some kind of defense.

*The rules for this are on p.131, for the record - I initially thought you had to beat the defender's (Manip+Socialize)/2, but on rereading it says the difficulty is (Manip+Socialize)/2 rounded up - I believe I only have to equal the difficulty rather than exceed it, right?

[Tavar]

Pretty sure that since it's essentially a static value/opposed roll, you have to beat it.

[Ifni]

Originally Posted by Tavar

Pretty sure that since it's essentially a static value/opposed roll, you have to beat it.

As I said, that was what I initially thought (and why I said in an earlier post I thought the required successes were 5, to beat Orchid's Manip+Socialize/2 of 4, when she was greatly surprised by something and trying to hide it). However, on rereading, the quote is:
"After several minutes of interaction or observation, a character can try to glean the truth of a subject's mood or personality with a successful (Perception + [Investigation or Socialize]) roll made by the player, using whichever Ability has a higher rating. The difficulty is equal to half the target's (Manipulation + Socialize), rounded up. If successful, the observer knows the other character's most dominant emotion and can place that emotion in the context of the current scene, if applicable."
(italics mine - and you can also use it to check for lies and probe Intimacies, just not quoting that bit as it's not relevant to the issue at hand)

p.118: "The difficulty of a task equals the number of successes required to achieve it. Many tasks have difficulty 1, succeeding if even one die in the dice pool rolls a success."
And p.120: "If the number of successes matches the difficulty, the action succeeds."

I honestly don't see how this is ambiguous (I mean, I was wrong originally, but it wasn't because it was ambiguous, it was because I was going by memory and how it usually works, rather than reading the rules). The difficulty of the task is (Manipulation+Socialize)/2, rounded up; you succeed if you roll a number of successes equal to the difficulty.

No, this particular action doesn't follow the normal rules for opposed checks or social attacks, but specific rules trump general ones (like how we round down for dodge MDV and lethal soak, even though "Exalts round up" is the general rule). p.131 explicitly says this doesn't fall under the aegis of social combat, and lays out the unique rules that apply to it.

Comparing to the wording for attack rolls, on p.148, DV is considered to cancel attack successes, and the difficulty of the roll is 1 (so you need to have at least one success un-cancelled by their DV, i.e. beat their DV by 1). It's a different mechanic.

It's not a big deal in this scene (since Aya and Child's motivations in the scene are known to me OOC and not nefarious at all), but might be worth confirming one way or the other, as Eris is going to be using this action pretty frequently (since she invested four dots in Investigation and has a charm that does it automatically), and there are several other social characters among both the PCs and NPCs.

[Tavar]

Well, I guess the key thing is that you know the dominant emotion, which is much, much, much, much less than you seemed to imply earlier. So, essentially, we aren't talking about similar things at all.

[Ifni]

Originally Posted by Tavar

Well, I guess the key thing is that you know the dominant emotion, which is much, much, much, much less than you seemed to imply earlier. So, essentially, we aren't talking about similar things at all.

Response mostly in spoiler tags. Bottom line is outside the spoiler tags, below.

Spoiler

You use the same roll with the same rules to discover whether another character has just given a "lie or significantly deceptive omission". If you use it for the first application, you get their dominant emotion and its context in the scene, not just the emotion. With high successes, as I said before, you can probe their Intimacies, check if they hold any Intimacies to another person in the scene, and glean whether any such relationship is positive or negative.

I agree it would be really nice if they'd made clearer exactly how the baseline application relates to "reading motivation", the title of the section, but I can imagine "context in the scene" plausibly relating back to that - they're curious, and looking for information on the events of last night; they're angry, at Lookshy for supporting the Cleansing; they're bored, but need to be here for appearances' sake. (And if they have a high Manipulation+Socialize, they're better at hiding all these things.)

Now, Mastery of Small Manners, the Charm, states, "this Charm ensures that the character understands the basic motivations of everyone present in the scene, as if her player had rolled three successes on a mundane Investigation roll to estimate each person's motives". The rules I quoted above were under the header "Reading Motivation". They're the only rules I can find for resolving such a mundane Investigation-based roll. But the Charm tells you that it lets you understand the basic motivations of everyone present in the scene.

That said, I'm not expecting to get, "To keep a watch on the house and see if anyone comes by looking to attack a Sidereal's child" from Mastery of Small Manners. I'm expecting to get, perhaps, a sense of "she's focused and here to keep watch" or "she's bored and just following along to see what happens", or something else depending on Aya's attitude (which I'm not sure of OOC).

When I rolled the mundane Perception+Investigation to see if Child reacted at all to me name-dropping Skandi, I said:

Perception+Investigation to see if Child reacts when she name-drops Skandi. If this is the wrong thing to roll, let me know.
EDIT: Reading motivation or deceit, with this pool, typically goes against (Manip+Socialize)/2.

It seemed to fall broadly under the aegis of reading emotional reactions and picking up deliberate omissions, which is why I phrased it like that (but I agree it's not completely straightforward, which is why I asked if I was rolling the right pool, and only suggested Manip+Socialize/2 as the appropriate thing to oppose). Sorry if the "reading motivation" thing was misleading, I was just calling it that because that's the title for the section.

I haven't played a character with favored Investigation before. I'm figuring out the rules as I go along as well (and I have made at least one mistake already, as noted above), and I'm really sorry if you (or industrious) feel I've been overstating what my Charms/Abilities do. Everything I've asked for with regard to Charms has been quoted directly from the Charm descriptions, though, and the one time I rolled a mundane Perception+Investigation to figure something out I explicitly asked if I was doing it right. (And what I was trying to figure out - i.e. if Child reacted at all to Skandi's name - was pretty minor, and seemed like something a mundane roll should have a chance of picking up, given that it can tell if someone's being misleading by omission.) If it was unclear what I was actually trying for, then I apologize.

I'm not trying to annoy you, Tavar, but I appear to be managing it, and I'm sorry for that. Basically I am trying to get information that would allow my character - tends to be cautious, doesn't trust very easily, nervous around people who might figure out her true nature - to justify cooperating with the group, if only for the promise of finding answers to her questions. Also because she is a Solar information-broker with high Investigation/Socialize and it would be grossly out-of-character for her not to follow up mysteries like this to the best of her ability - this is her niche, it's what she does. (And also it's an entirely new set of Charms and Abilities for me, and I want to play with them.)

[industrious]

I don't think you're being unreasonable, Ifni.

Mastery of Small Manners and mundane Investigation/Socialize will let you pick up the dominant emotion and/or, depending on success threshold, basic motivations. And I mean, basic. Like "guard the house," or "maintain social grace." Specifics will have to come by other means.

[Tavar]

So, essentially, a difficulty 3 roll (this doesn't allow any response from the other side!!!!!!!) does that. Well, guess any chance for a character to hide things is pointless then.

Should I just assume that RD and misdirection are entirely useless?

[Maugan Ra]

Misdirection, quite possibly. I'd assume that the motivation reading taken from a Resplendent Destiny, though, is the motivation consistent with that destiny. Maybe with a bit of an odd feeling to it, though.

Since someone wearing a destiny damages it if they do something wildly out of character I.e their motivation is radically out of line, this honestly shouldn't be too much of a change.

[Tavar]

Except that's not what seems to be happening. And as it's a difficulty, I can't do anything to oppose it.

[industrious]

Originally Posted by Tavar

So, essentially, a difficulty 3 roll (this doesn't allow any response from the other side!!!!!!!) does that. Well, guess any chance for a character to hide things is pointless then.

Should I just assume that RD and misdirection are entirely useless?

I'd say that RD's add their usual penalty to the roll, with failure due to the RD bringing up the Motivation of the Destiny. Add the value of relevant stunt(s) to your Manipulation+Socialize/2 pool directly, a la DVs.

[Tavar]

So, is this an Opposed Roll/DV, or is it a difficulty? Because the two are completely different(in that one is essentially unmodifiable, and the other is very modifiable).

[industrious]

It's a difficulty roll, but just like I change the difficulty of actions based on circumstance, I'm letting you change the difficulty slightly based on circumstances you describe. So, you can't use Excellencies et al on it. I'm saying RDs work on it because they are, essentially, a super-augmented disguise.

[Ifni]

Just a heads-up, guys, as indicated in my signature I'm in the area that just got clobbered by Hurricane Sandy - I'm safe, but I don't have power or Internet back at home yet, and don't expect to have it back for another few days. There are a few local places with Internet but they're overwhelmed and the connections tend to be really bad. Thus, posting will be sporadic (although posts can be long, as I can write them offline and post them when I get a chance): sorry, but it's unavoidable.

(I'm still waiting for a response from Child or Aya in the IC, so I won't be posting there now anyway, but if a response does appear, I may not be able to reply for a while.)

Discussion on the Investigation stuff is in the spoilerblock, all should feel free to read, I'm just putting it there to clutter up the thread less.

Spoiler

How I understand MoSM or mundane Investigation/Socialize vs RDs, from what's been said:
-There are essentially two target difficulties. One is just the usual (Manip+Socialize)/2 for the character (no RD penalty). If this is failed, you get nothing. If this is passed, you discern the motivations/emotions/etc consistent with the RD.
-The second is against the RD-augmented defense, that is, the character's (Manip+Socialize+3)/2. If the investigator is rolling Perception+Investigation/Socialize they also take a -3 internal penalty (these +3/-3 bonuses/penalties are the effect of the RD). If this second, higher difficulty is also passed, you get some information about the truth behind the RD.

However, as industrious says, MoSM gives basic motivations, emphasis on basic, and the usual baseline result from the mundane roll is dominant-emotion+context-in-the-scene (or to tell that a statement was a lie or omitted significant information).

industrious, is that correct, or am I still misunderstanding?

FWIW, as the one who's been using Investigation to read people, I would also prefer that people be able to use Excellencies etc to raise Manipulation+Socialize in defense - it's a difficulty, yes, but it's a difficulty set by a static value (Ability+Attribute/2), and you can raise those static values with Excellencies. Reading the sidebar on p.185 it seems rather clear that DV and MDV are just examples, not the be-all and end-all of "unrolled activities that can be enhanced by Charms". I don't actually see why a Socialize/Manipulation/appropriate-Yozi Excellency wouldn't momentarily raise your effective Manipulation+Socialize, and hence modify the difficulty of the Perception+Investigation/Socialize roll - if I'm missing a subtlety in the rules, can you explain it? (that's not a rhetorical question)

From p.185 of the core book:

For unrolled activities such as DV, mental DV, or feats of strength, Charms increase a character's static rating by adding to (the relevant Attribute + Ability). This bonus increases the (Attribute + Ability) pool, not the final result of any calculations, so if the (Attribute + Ability) is divided in half, the bonus rating will be applied before the division, not afterward. The result is that the player will normally have to add two "dice" to increase a static value by one - although the First Excellency provides a discount of sorts for this, increasing static values by one per success rolled.
Regardless, no combination of Charms, including the First Excellency, can increase a static rating by more than half the (Attribute + Ability)."

Aside from the RAW, lying or concealing your intentions seems like something you should be able to actively enhance, to me. If you can use Excellencies to detect lies but not to hide them, that seems asymmetric in a bad way: in the Exalted-investigator-vs-Exalted-master-of-deception scenario, with equal dicepools, both of them possessing Socialize Excellencies but no other relevant charms, it bugs me if the result is "investigator always wins because master-of-deception can't actually use their magic to lie better".

That said, I might point out that in this case it's not really Exalted-investigator-vs-Exalted-master-of-deception (that was Orchid vs Chimes, with the advantage of power and probably Attributes/Abilities mostly on Chimes' side, and while Orchid certainly picked up some very useful information, I would not score that encounter as a clean win for her). The only reason the base RD-enhanced difficulty is as low as 3, and thus in reach of MoSM, is that Child is bad at lying; his one dot of Socialize is just canceling out the fact that, with Manipulation 1, he is an unusually honest person.

The RD is taking him from difficulty 1, i.e. "an Exalt with completely average Perception and no dots in relevant Abilities has about a 50-50 chance of figuring out his feelings and their meaning in the context of the scene", to difficulty 3 with a -3 internal penalty, i.e. "that person needs a 9-dice pool or other Charms to get the same effect". That is not a trivial difference; the Destiny's giving Child an enormous leg up, taking his before-Charms-baseline from 'open book to just about anyone' to 'open book to someone who's both very perceptive and trained in reading people'. Or, of course, 'basic intentions are discernible to a Lawgiver using a Socialize charm' (and as industrious said, basic means basic). Orchid doesn't have a 9-die pool for this, incidentally, she just happened to roll well above average - and then MoSM bypasses the usual dicepool.

As I said above, I would prefer the use of Excellencies (or other die/sux-adders) to raise Manip+Socialize to be valid here, and I'm not sure why they wouldn't be. But without the assistance of Charms, people with Manipulation 1 and Socialize 1 should not be relying heavily on misdirection. (If Child had Socialize 3, or Manipulation 3 - if he had any specialist training in lying, or a natural inclination toward it - the Resplendency-enhanced difficulty would be 4, and MoSM would be returning zilch.)

Tavar, you're saying that RDs are "useless" because a Sidereal who's really bad at lying can't automatically deceive Solar Socialize purely by virtue of being under a Destiny, without using any other powers. But it's not that "a character" can't hide anything, it's that your extremely-honest-and-straightforward Manipulation 1 character has trouble hiding things.

That said, as I said above, I do hope that Excellencies and die-adders are applicable when people are trying to lie.

(Just a note in case the problem is that this seems one-sided - there are a bunch of ways people can figure out Orchid's secret. Charms that detect the magical materials will reveal the orichalcum armor hidden under her coat - if she's confronted with this, she has an excuse, but it can arouse suspicion. There are a number of DB charms that have clauses she is unaware of - like the fact that Revelation of Associates Hunch doesn't work on Celestial Exalts - and so the chances are pretty good that at some point she'll claim that X information came from Y charm, when Y charm is completely incapable of doing that. For someone familiar with the structure of the DB charm trees, there are capabilities she should have (that are prereqs for Charms she claims to have) that she doesn't possess. Chimes might out her - she's actually worried he's pissed off enough about her probing re Deathknights that he's going to drop an anonymous tip to the Cleansing. Given the number of wards we've already seen in this game, she might walk straight through a ward against the Dragon-Blooded without realizing it's there, or bump into a ward against Solars. The Sidereal who met her in Thorns - whoever that is - might recognize her. Child is probably already aware of her sister, since he's on the Convention on Thorns. And then there's always the traditional method, getting sufficiently Essence-stressed that she has to tap into Peripheral.
If all else fails, at some point she'll probably feel guilty about lying to friends/allies, and spill the beans. But there are a lot of ways people could trap her in a lie before then (which would probably cause her to gain limit, as well). Any way, it'll be interesting RP.)

[Maugan Ra]

At the moment, I'm guessing that if Zhou is going to find out about Orchid at all, it's probably going to be because she made a mistake regarding Dragon-Blooded charms. He already thinks she's somewhat unusual, since from his experience Dragon-Blooded tend to behave and excel in ways that favour their own aspect. Orchid has shown excellent and near-instinctive skill with both swords (Fire) and wordplay (Air or Fire, depending), and also a strong familiarity with the investigative ways of the Water aspects.

Even more interestingly (extrapolating from the fact that they've known each other for a while, and thus he can have observed how she acts):
- She's not nearly as good with a bow as he is, even though she should have an instinctive grasp of it and he only learned archery because it was required of him.
- She isn't all that good at first aid or general medicine, which could easily have been discovered in a minor training accident where he had to patch up the victim (quite possibly himself) despite her being available.
- Finally, they both seem equally familiar with surviving out of doors and making use of riding animals, even though Zhou is very aware he's basically a novice in both skill sets.

Orchid is, in short, utterly terrible at everything a Wood Aspect is supposed to be instinctively good at, while very good at a variety of things that would be quite unusual for what she claims to be. And now she's been displaying uncanny knowledge of other Exalt types and gleaning insight into other people's characters far beyond what Dragon-Blooded investigative or linguistics charms should be able to discern (the revelation about how Lunars feel regarding Sidereals is a big one, as it's basically outright mind reading that no amount of mundane investigation short of outright asking one should be able to reveal).

He's not quite sure what is going on here, or what Orchid actually is, but there are remarkably few remaining options...

[Tavar]

I'm saying that they're useless more because, for no real expense(a few motes on an excellency), you basically get to auto win and I can do nothing to stop it. Because that's the current situation. Even the most Manipulation and Socialize focused Sid's wouldn't be a match for that, and they wouldn't be a match against DB, Lunars, Spirits, etc. Hell, they'd be vulnerable against effing mortals, because they can't add stuff to their roll.

Oh, and don't forget that using this stuff is risking paradox, which is a giant f-u to Sidereals as a whole.

[Maugan Ra]

Your resplendent destiny means that people need an additional three successes to get any sort of useful information out of you, and they operate with three less dice in the majority of cases. In what way is that useless?

If your manipulation+Socialise/2 is above three (so having scores of Manipulation and Socialise 2 while wearing a destiny, for example) Mastery of Small Manners becomes unable to get any kind of accurate read on you. And successes added by an excellency in no way bypasses the increased difficulty, any more than buying a success on a Melee attack guarantees a hit. The destiny is still a significant advantage.

Hell, considering the excellency costs, an investigator would have to spend six motes on the second excellency and then three motes on the first excellency just to counter the Destiny. The only reason Eris is presently able to get any real read on Child is because Child is an incredibly bad liar.

So where exactly is the auto-win coming from here?