What does Taken Out mean?

[Becq]

Not in my experience.

As an NPC power, I've found Demonic Co-Pilot to be a bunch of pointless dice-rolling.

Why would you need to roll dice if the host simply accepts takedown with the first mental attack, letting the co-pilot take the wheel for the duration of the conflict?  Boom: no stress, no consequences, no rolling ... so long as the host and co-pilot have symbiotic goals.

[Tedronai]

If the host and co-pilot have symbiotic goals, then there is no conflict.  If there is no conflict, there's no justification for an attack.  If there is no justification for an attack, then the power shatters into a thousand tiny pieces of Badly Written.

[Sanctaphrax]

If the host and co-pilot have symbiotic goals, then there is no conflict.  If there is no conflict, there's no justification for an attack.  If there is no justification for an attack, then the power shatters into a thousand tiny pieces of Badly Written.

Yeah, that.

Besides, letting people get out of the drawbacks of their Powers because they picked the right concept is just wrong.

(And honestly, rolling twice against yourself every action is pretty annoying even if the results matter. Especially if the results will matter or not depending on how things go.)

I'm still not sure what reason there is to not just use Sponsor Debt.

[Mr. Death]

I think some of us are reading the RAW too broadly and not accounting for the intent. The intent (based on the idea that the power's there to emulate the Hexenwulf belts) seems to be that the demon's agenda will pretty much always be, if not opposed to, then a lot more extreme than the host's. So what you do is you make the demon's agenda single-minded and ruthless.

Something along the lines of, "KILL EVERYONE AND EAT THEIR FLESH". I find it hard to imagine many PCs will be okay with letting that take over regularly.

There is the point about the dice rolls, however. I suppose I don't see it as much of a problem because with IRC I can do like a dozen dice rolls in a couple seconds (keeping track of what goes where, however...

[Sanctaphrax]

1. Even if you can roll fast, it's needless complexity. Not fun for me, and I tend to like complex rules. I expect many other people like it even less than I do.

2. If Demonic Co-Pilot requires you to understand an intent that it doesn't make clear, that's just another kind of bad writing.

3. Even when the intent is understood, most of the problems are still there. It still punishes high skills, it still may or may not be optional, it still doesn't represent what it's supposed to represent...and it still isn't fun. All this hassle for a generic +1.

[Mr. Death]

1. Even if you can roll fast, it's needless complexity. Not fun for me, and I tend to like complex rules. I expect many other people like it even less than I do.

I did admit it was a problem, yes.

2. If Demonic Co-Pilot requires you to understand an intent that it doesn't make clear, that's just another kind of bad writing.

I think the margin bit with Harry and Billy directly discussing the Hexenwulf pelts makes the intent pretty clear, personally.

[Sanctaphrax]

If other people don't get it, it's obviously not clear.

[Mr. Death]

Not necessarily. It could be perfectly clear, but people just don't get it. I've seen people ask questions on TV Tropes whose answers are directly and clearly stated in the work in question. Never underestimate peoples' ability to completely misunderstand something that's clearly spelled out for them.

[Sanctaphrax]

The definition of clarity is that people get it.

If people don't get it, it's not clear.

I guess you could express this as a percentage. If 99% get it, it's 99% clear. If 15% do, it's 15% clear. Etc.

[Silverblaze]

I think he is referring to people who can see the clarity in front of them and not process it properly.

"Wghat weighs more a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?"

Many answer a pound of lead. 

The answer is neither.

 They both weigh a pound.  It is clearly stated in the question.  It does not ask for mass.  In which case lead is still wrong.... 

This is perfectly clear.  it is 100% clear.  No one can always account for human error.  Humans can screw up anything.

[Mr. Death]

If people don't get it, it's not clear.

I'll have to check the text of the page, but it was pretty clear to me, and I'm notoriously thick in some cases.

[Becq]

The bit about the demon's agenda is at least as clear as the agendas for sponsored magic ... for what that's worth.  In the power text, it states "The GM should think about what the co-pilot’s agenda is." and that the copilot is "Usually an evil, angry one".  I parse this as basically the GM is directed to screw with the player.

But if the evil, angry spirit is co-piloting an evil, angry NPC ... what then?  It's not as though the hexen-FBI were fighting the belts' influence all that hard...

[Sanctaphrax]

In the power text, it states "The GM should think about what the co-pilot’s agenda is." and that the copilot is "Usually an evil, angry one".

Yeah, that's the thing.

If something is usually so, then sometimes it is not so. So some co-pilots are nice.

I don't believe that it's clear from the text that those nice co-pilots only inhabit the heads of people who'd find them problematic.

I don't want to debate the definition of clarity, but I'd use that pound joke as a good example of something unclear. It's deliberately misleading, it uses verbal trickery to make people misunderstand. How is that clear?

[Mr. Death]

Well, no. It's completely clear. It specifically asks which weighs more, a pound of one thing (a unit of weight), and a pound of another thing (again, a unit of weight). Peoples' perceptions screw them up, but the question is 100% clear on what it's asking and what the options are.

And now you're just poking at semantics. The "usually" isn't some hole that breaks the power, it's them not wanting to bind themselves with an absolute. The power makes the intent clear: This is for demons that are angry and evil, or violent, or something along those lines.

[Lamech]

No matter what the personality is you need to make sure there is an actual conflict. Suppose the co-pilot a friendly spirit of goodness, and it wins. After it helps your friends it goes directly to charging the local red court base. Maybe you get captured. Maybe you start a war. Maybe it succeeds and the red court hates you now. Oh, and you gave all your stuff to charity. Regardless being taken out is bad.