The Golden Strings (Puppeteer power)

[FishStampede]

I'm working on an Item of Power that will be important in an upcoming game. It's a set of strings made of pure gold that will fit on any stringed instrument, even if the number of strings is more or less than the four it seems to treat as average. The strings are originally from a certain fiddle made of black wood with golden strings (really, solid gold would sound terrible and weigh a ton).

In my concept, the strings are something like a lesser version of the Denarian coins, and have a built-in conflict with their own opposite in the form of John's Silver Strings. In the original Silver John story "Nine Yards of Other Cloth," the Black Fiddle gave its user the ability to control people's actions as long as he played. It wasn't really mind control since its victims retained their will they were just physically puppeteered.

How to represent this in game? Hellfire alone doesn't seem to cover mind or body control and Domination is way too brute force, but I'm wary of giving Evocation to an Item of Power.

Oh yeah, the current bearer of the Golden Strings is a mariachi. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Latest version of the signature power, as of 6/20



Puppeteer [-3]
Description: The most terrifying ability of the Golden Strings is the ability to directly take control of victims, moving them around like puppets as long as the bearer plays. In the past this has been used for everything from forcing people to commit crimes to making people work in a factory past the point of exhaustion. It is pure physical control and the victim knows they are not in control of themselves. This makes it no less terrifying, but ironically makes it cause (very slightly) less lasting psychological harm than true mind control.
Skills Affected: Performance
Effects:
Master of Puppets: You're able to do maneuvers at +2 to your roll (using Performance) to place a temporary aspect of control on characters (most often "Puppet on Golden Strings"), so long as you continue playing the instrument strung with the Golden Strings. The victim defends with his Discipline or Might. You can also prevent the victim from taking other actions as well if you do this as a block instead of a maneuver, or use this to establish a grapple. This power can be used as a spray, at a range of up to one zone away, or both. In some circumstances it may work up to two zones, provided the music clearly carries that far.
Pulling Your Strings: Whenever you maintain a grapple with this power-in addition to the normal options for a grapple-you can force the subject to take a single physical action of your choice (fire a gun, swing a knife, etc). If you succeed at the grapple roll, use the Effect of your roll (if any) as the skill bonus for any rolls necessary for the victim's action. If you choose instead to move the victim, you do not have to move with them. If you choose to inflict a hit to the target, you can choose for it to deal mental or physical stress.

[Praxidicae]

"Puppet of the Golden Strings" sounds like a mental consequence to me.

Have the fiddle have the power to start some form of mental conflict between the bearer and the target, with resultant consequences being of the "Mental Puppet" ilk.

Another option would be to use the Incite Emotion rules and have it do the same thing (2 refresh would allow temporary aspects/blocks to be imposed that could be flavoured as the target being puppeted by the fiddle player - it wouldn't allow attacks though).

[FishStampede]

I like "Puppet on Golden Strings," and perhaps something like Emotion Control is probably the best way to handle it, maybe with a sort of Perform-based grapple. This is my first attempt at making a new power, how does this look:

Puppeteer [-3]
Description: The most terrifying ability of the Golden Strings is the ability to directly take control of victims, moving them around like puppets as long as the bearer plays. In the past this has been used for everything from forcing people to commit crimes to making people work in a factory past the point of exhaustion. It is pure physical control and the victim knows they are not in control of themselves. This makes it no less terrifying, but ironically makes it cause less lasting psychological harm than actual mind control.
Skills Affected: Performance
Effects:
On Golden Strings: You're able to do maneuvers at +2 to your roll (using Performance) to place a temporary aspect of control on characters (most often "Puppet on Golden Strings"), so long as you continue playing the instrument strung with the Golden Strings. The victim defends with his Discipline or Might. You can also prevent the victim from taking other actions as well if you do this as a block instead of a maneuver. This ability also can be used at range of one zone, or as a spray affecting everyone within a zone.

I basically did a slightly different Emotion Control, with the defender having extra options instead of the attacker, and added the range and spray at the cost of two extra Refresh. I figure the ability to run this as a form of psychic grapple is implied, or should I spell that out? How does that look?

Presumably someone could change the skill involved, or drop the range+spray ability and make it only -1 refresh.

[Sanctaphrax]

Spray attacks don't hit zones. For the sake of clarity, I suggest changing that bit.

Actually, the wording here could use a general clean-up. Can I use this on a zone I'm not in?

The ability to grapple ought to be spelled out. Especially since it offers you the chance to make the Power better by letting it force actual actions on the victim.

Normally, grapples allow a specific list of supplemental actions. If you change that list, you could get something really evocative.

PS: There's a Captivate power on the master list that might be good inspiration for you. Or it might not, I dunno.
PPS: Would you be amenable to seeing this Power and its associated item added to the appropriate lists?
PPPS: Good on you for developing Item-specific Powers independently of their Items. It makes it easier for folks like me to comment.

[FishStampede]

Misunderstood the rules for spray there. Here's a modified version.

Puppeteer [-3]
Description: The most terrifying ability of the Golden Strings is the ability to directly take control of victims, moving them around like puppets as long as the bearer plays. In the past this has been used for everything from forcing people to commit crimes to making people work in a factory past the point of exhaustion. It is pure physical control and the victim knows they are not in control of themselves. This makes it no less terrifying, but ironically makes it cause (very slightly) less lasting psychological harm than true mind control.
Skills Affected: Performance
Effects:
Master of Puppets: You're able to do maneuvers at +2 to your roll (using Performance) to place a temporary aspect of control on characters (most often "Puppet on Golden Strings"), so long as you continue playing the instrument strung with the Golden Strings. The victim defends with his Discipline or Might. You can also prevent the victim from taking other actions as well if you do this as a block instead of a maneuver, or use this to establish a grapple. This power can be used as a spray, at a range of up to one zone away, or both. In some circumstances it may work up to two zones, provided the music clearly carries that far.
Pulling Your Strings: Whenever you maintain a grapple with this power-in addition to the normal options for a grapple-you can force the subject to take a single physical action of your choice (fire a gun, swing a knife, etc). If you succeed at the grapple roll, use the Effect of your roll (if any) as the skill bonus for any rolls necessary for the victim's action. If you choose instead to move the victim, you do not have to move with them. If you choose to inflict a hit to the target, you can choose for it to deal mental or physical stress.

The first part was getting too cluttered, so I split it up and threw in a musical reference. I'm going for the idea that the victim's attempts to resist your grapple make any precise actions (like combat) more difficult, so even if you manage to maintain the grapple and force someone to fire a gun at their friends the shot is likely going to go wide. Now, forcing someone to walk into a dangerous situation doesn't require precise action, so he's more likely to march a victim into traffic (and thus force allies to save them) than get them to successfully shoot an ally. The wording probably still needs to be cleaned up, but I'm trying to get the basic concept down before I clean it up.

And yes, I'd love to see this added to the list once it's ready. It could be changed to allow other skills, but since this item is working off Performance, I'm running off that assumption for now.

[Sanctaphrax]

Five vague bits:

1. Does the +2 help with grapples?
2. What situations would affect the Power's range?
3. Suppose I drop a 5-shift grapple on you, and I take a supplemental action to make you shoot a buddy. How do I calculate the accuracy of your forced attack? It seems that my margin of success on the grapple is supposed to determine the accuracy, but I'm not certain. Besides, there's no defence against grapples. So determining a margin of success is actually somewhat difficult.
4. Is forcing an action a supplemental action? Can I do it and another grapple-based supplemental action in the same exchange?
5. Can you do spray grapples with this?

[FishStampede]

Five vague bits:

1. Does the +2 help with grapples?

Yes and no. Yes as in "that is in fact how I wrote it." No as in "that is probably unbalanced and I should change it."

Devil's advocate says that this is something of a one trick pony, albeit a hell of a trick, so it should be pretty potent. I'm willing to bow to whatever you think would be best, given my answers to the following questions.

2. What situations would affect the Power's range?

I left that somewhat vague. Good acoustics in the area might increase the range, while loud noise might only allow it in the current zone. Perhaps I should rewrite it so extending or shrinking the range could be done with a scene aspect? Or just leave that assumed and stick to one zone away as default?

3. Suppose I drop a 5-shift grapple on you, and I take a supplemental action to make you shoot a buddy. How do I calculate the accuracy of your forced attack? It seems that my margin of success on the grapple is supposed to determine the accuracy, but I'm not certain. Besides, there's no defence against grapples. So determining a margin of success is actually somewhat difficult.

Ah, see, this is one reason why I'm doing this. Making new stuff within the system is the best way for me to understand it. This one resulted from a misreading of the grapple rules, which I think I now understand a lot better. Glad I'm getting the hang of this before the game actually start, but I'm now at something of a loss for how to represent what I wanted.

Should you roll your Perform -2? Your victim's skill -2? Neither really get across what I was going for.

Using the difference between your perform and the victim's Might/Discipline? Too much math, I think, but closer to my intent.

I'm open to suggestions.

4. Is forcing an action a supplemental action? Can I do it and another grapple-based supplemental action in the same exchange?

Again this is possibly due to my misreading of the grapple rules. You can't do that normally, can you? If you can't, then you can't here. Forcing an action is meant to be an additional option to the normal grappling choices.

5. Can you do spray grapples with this?

It sounds so dirty when you say it like that.

Yes, that is my intent. You would be taking standard penalties for multiple targets with a spray, and if you decide to grapple you'll be taking those penalties for forcing each one into a supplemental action as well unless you want to just hold them still, but yeah, I totally meant for that to happen. So this guy could control an entire (weak) crowd, but would probably have to focus if one or two PCs tried to oppose him.

In theory, at least. That's what I'm here for, making that line up with practice.

For future updates, I'm putting them in the first post.

[Sanctaphrax]

Yes and no. Yes as in "that is in fact how I wrote it." No as in "that is probably unbalanced and I should change it."

Devil's advocate says that this is something of a one trick pony, albeit a hell of a trick, so it should be pretty potent. I'm willing to bow to whatever you think would be best, given my answers to the following questions.

I might go with no bonus, but no penalty for supplemental grapple actions either. Kind of a middle ground. That's just an off-the-cuff idea, though.

I left that somewhat vague. Good acoustics in the area might increase the range, while loud noise might only allow it in the current zone. Perhaps I should rewrite it so extending or shrinking the range could be done with a scene aspect? Or just leave that assumed and stick to one zone away as default?

I think a fixed range with a note that Aspect use could change it would be appropriate.

Ah, see, this is one reason why I'm doing this. Making new stuff within the system is the best way for me to understand it. This one resulted from a misreading of the grapple rules, which I think I now understand a lot better. Glad I'm getting the hang of this before the game actually start, but I'm now at something of a loss for how to represent what I wanted.

Should you roll your Perform -2? Your victim's skill -2? Neither really get across what I was going for.

Using the difference between your perform and the victim's Might/Discipline? Too much math, I think, but closer to my intent.

I'm open to suggestions.

My first thought is that whenever the opponent fails to break the grapple they are forced to take another action using their margin of failure as their skill.

But that wouldn't work well if the other guy chose to take a full defence or an action not blocked by the grapple.

Again this is possibly due to my misreading of the grapple rules. You can't do that normally, can you? If you can't, then you can't here. Forcing an action is meant to be an additional option to the normal grappling choices.

The normal grappling options are all supplemental actions, which inflict a -1 penalty on the main action. And if I read the rules correctly, you can only perform one of them per exchange.

Is that the case here as well?

It sounds so dirty when you say it like that.

Yes, that is my intent. You would be taking standard penalties for multiple targets with a spray, and if you decide to grapple you'll be taking those penalties for forcing each one into a supplemental action as well unless you want to just hold them still, but yeah, I totally meant for that to happen. So this guy could control an entire (weak) crowd, but would probably have to focus if one or two PCs tried to oppose him.

In theory, at least. That's what I'm here for, making that line up with practice.

For future updates, I'm putting them in the first post.

Sounds good.

[FishStampede]

I might go with no bonus, but no penalty for supplemental grapple actions either. Kind of a middle ground. That's just an off-the-cuff idea, though.

That does seem to even out, but then there's no incentive for him to just hold someone still in a grapple while he focuses on someone else. This could be a good or bad thing, I'm not sure. I'm also tempted to just remove the +2 entirely since it's largely a holdover from Incite Emotions.

Also, see below about the forced attack.

I think a fixed range with a note that Aspect use could change it would be appropriate.

I will fix that one in my next revision then.

My first thought is that whenever the opponent fails to break the grapple they are forced to take another action using their margin of failure as their skill.

But that wouldn't work well if the other guy chose to take a full defence or an action not blocked by the grapple.

I've kicked around a few ideas, and I think the best answer is to just make it one roll. Your roll to maintain the grapple is also the effort of the attack. You're already taking a -1, as well as whatever penalties from spray. If we say you don't get the +2 to maintain a grapple, then there's already pretty hefty penalties involved. How does that sound?

The normal grappling options are all supplemental actions, which inflict a -1 penalty on the main action. And if I read the rules correctly, you can only perform one of them per exchange.

Is that the case here as well?

Yes, though if you're spraying grapples everywhere (immature giggle) you can take a supplemental action for each of them. With the penalties for spray, and then with each of them taking a further -1 for supplemental action, you're going to run out of plusses pretty fast.

[Sanctaphrax]

I've kicked around a few ideas, and I think the best answer is to just make it one roll. Your roll to maintain the grapple is also the effort of the attack. You're already taking a -1, as well as whatever penalties from spray. If we say you don't get the +2 to maintain a grapple, then there's already pretty hefty penalties involved. How does that sound?

Sounds good to me.

I'd also have the target's skill modify or restrict your roll/skill, though.

I'd probably leave the +2 to maneuvers in, just because it's a nice extra that doesn't seem unbalancing.

Now, how do forced actions work exactly?

Can I force people to use Evocations? Does that cost them stress? Can I force a 20-shift evocation that'll kill them with backlash?

If I force someone with Blood Drinker and Swing For The Fences to attack, can I add the bonuses for Swing For The Fences and Blood Drinker? If they kill a dude, do they heal? Can I choose whether they heal? And do they get a defence penalty for using Swing For The Fences?

Also, can a dude who's being puppet-ized act twice if he beats the grapple without breaking it?

Also, can I make people attack themselves? Can I make them forfeit defence rolls?

[FishStampede]

Ah, now it gets tricky. I'm gonna have to wait until later to make the latest revisions after thinking about some of these questions:

Sounds good to me.

I'd also have the target's skill modify or restrict your roll/skill, though.

I'd probably leave the +2 to maneuvers in, just because it's a nice extra that doesn't seem unbalancing.

Well, the target is not voluntarily taking the action. The target's skill doesn't come into play since you're not using their training or will, you're just appropriating control of their body. I guess you could make an argument for someone with high Might doing more damage when he smashes something while under control, but someone with high Might is less likely to be in this situation to begin with and is going to be fighting it that much harder, so it probably evens out. Like trying to extend and flex your arm at the same time, it just stays in place and quivers a bit.

Now, how do forced actions work exactly?

Can I force people to use Evocations? Does that cost them stress? Can I force a 20-shift evocation that'll kill them with backlash?

If I force someone with Blood Drinker and Swing For The Fences to attack, can I add the bonuses for Swing For The Fences and Blood Drinker? If they kill a dude, do they heal? Can I choose whether they heal? And do they get a defence penalty for using Swing For The Fences?

My first instinct is no on all of these. Barring some strange circumstances, the victim is likely not cooperating and things like Evocations  and Stunts require them to actually consciously want to do it. Further, the results on the grapple roll are the effective Effort of any actions you force the victim to take, be it swiping at someone with a weapon or firing a gun. At no point does the victim's training or will come into it, so I don't think you can force the use of supernatural powers or stunts either. Make sense?

As for the blood drinking...I think it'd be up to him whether he wanted to let you drink, but if he did you certainly could choose to heal. I'd imagine he could even use this to force a Fellowship member (provided they couldn't break out through main strength) to kill someone and then drink their lifeblood. As for whether or not that would actually cause the transformation since it wasn't technically them that did it...that's a thorny issue there, and even if it didn't cause the transformation it would probably carry mental consequences. Thanks for the idea of evil things this guy could do!

Also, can a dude who's being puppet-ized act twice if he beats the grapple without breaking it?

Why would they act twice? I may be misreading the rules here. By my understanding, if he beats the grapple but doesn't break it he gets one action. Then on the puppeteer's turn, the puppeteer can force him into an action, but that's the puppeteer using his turn, not the character acting twice. Basically, if someone is being puppeteered, they are a weapon in the puppetmaster's hands. When he forces them to act, it's basically him acting through them, they're not acting at all.

Also, can I make people attack themselves? Can I make them forfeit defence rolls?

Good question! I think you might make people attack themselves, but I don't think you can make them forfeit defense rolls unless a normal block can do that (can it?).

[Sanctaphrax]

Well, the target is not voluntarily taking the action. The target's skill doesn't come into play since you're not using their training or will, you're just appropriating control of their body. I guess you could make an argument for someone with high Might doing more damage when he smashes something while under control, but someone with high Might is less likely to be in this situation to begin with and is going to be fighting it that much harder, so it probably evens out. Like trying to extend and flex your arm at the same time, it just stays in place and quivers a bit.

Muscle memory is kind of a big deal. A Kincaid-puppet would shoot better than a me-puppet. A loup-garou-puppet is more dangerous in a fistfight than a me-puppet. And so on.

Barring some strange circumstances, the victim is likely not cooperating and things like Evocations  and Stunts require them to actually consciously want to do it.

Not necessarily. Sometimes Powers and Stunts are inherent qualities of the target's body. And many of the bonuses they provide are passive.

Why would they act twice? I may be misreading the rules here. By my understanding, if he beats the grapple but doesn't break it he gets one action. Then on the puppeteer's turn, the puppeteer can force him into an action, but that's the puppeteer using his turn, not the character acting twice. Basically, if someone is being puppeteered, they are a weapon in the puppetmaster's hands. When he forces them to act, it's basically him acting through them, they're not acting at all.

Forced actions are still actions, and unless I badly misunderstand they use the victim's weapon rating. So a puppeteer and a very strong character working together could toss out two big attacks per round through teamwork.

Good question! I think you might make people attack themselves, but I don't think you can make them forfeit defense rolls unless a normal block can do that (can it?).

No.

[FishStampede]

Muscle memory is kind of a big deal. A Kincaid-puppet would shoot better than a me-puppet. A loup-garou-puppet is more dangerous in a fistfight than a me-puppet. And so on.

Quite the opposite with the Kincaid example. If you're controlling a Kincaid puppet, you're not seeing through his eyes or looking down his sights. You're not controlling his breathing or trigger squeeze. In fact Kincaid is at the level of skill where he could use even the tiniest movement he's allowed to deliberately screw you up something fierce. Jerking the trigger or even just breathing rapidly as you fire his weapon would ensure you hit everything except what you're shooting at.

By the same token a loup-garou due to its greater mass and might (remember, Might helps you resist this sort of rough control as much as Discipline) its every struggle would probably be more damaging to the environment than whatever you're trying to hit.

Granted, in both cases due to whatever absurd caliber weapon Kincaid is firing and the sheer power of the Garou, if it does hit something that something probably won't be enjoying its day, but that's mostly covered under weapon rating.

Not necessarily. Sometimes Powers and Stunts are inherent qualities of the target's body. And many of the bonuses they provide are passive.

Going over some of the existing stunts most of them require some action from the character using them. Like, Lethal Weapon says it adds Weapon:2 when attacking an unarmored opponent with Fists. Well...you're not using your Fists here. It's some other Jerk using his Perform to make you flail at someone.

Forced actions are still actions, and unless I badly misunderstand they use the victim's weapon rating. So a puppeteer and a very strong character working together could toss out two big attacks per round through teamwork.

Ah yeah, totally didn't think of the Murphy's Rules factor. I was only thinking in terms of an adversarial relationship between the puppet and puppeteer. Thanks for bringing that up. I may have to say that the only action someone can take while grappled like this is to try to break free, or something like that. Any suggestions for how to prevent the double team?

No.

Then you can't here.

I think a lot of the issues are because this is supposed to be extremely rough control. It's not mind control, it's purely physical and without a lot of precision. I think a good comparison to the effect would be bloodbending from Avatar, where people under its control can certainly be dangerous and it's extremely disturbing, but you can't force someone to use their own bending powers with it.

And thanks for poking holes in this idea, I needed someone to point out just how many ways this can go wrong in practice. Got a lot of work to do for my next rewrite before I even think of using this in play.

[Sanctaphrax]

Rough control or not, it's still control. A superior puppet should in fact be superior. Otherwise, what's the point?

Lethal Weapon might or might not have anything to do with the character's intentions depending on how it's flavoured. Some people will call it Jagged Fingernails, and some people will call it Secret Art Of The Uytop Monks. Or whatever, you get the point. In order to avoid having to rule on every single effect case-by-case, I suggest a simple general rule. Like "passive bonuses only".

If I were you I wouldn't try to prevent people from puppeteering their allies. It was cool in Naruto, it could be cool here too. Just make sure it's not unfair to do so.

PS: Aiming with a gun is hard, any random spasm will make one's shots ineffective. You don't need any special skill in order to miss. So I don't think your Kincaid example works.