Dungeon World question on affecting the behaviour and actions of characters and other things:
My problem: AW doesn’t really let you affect the emotional state (the S&M move comes close but still) of fellow players’ characters without them playing along, and their actions even less. DW looks like a whole lot different and not in the best way.
If you look at the Charm person spell:
“The person (not beast or monster*) you touch while casting this spell counts you as a friend until they take damage or you prove otherwise.”
or the Dominate spell:
“You gain 1d4 hold. Spend one hold to make the target take one of these actions: (…)”
These pretty much dictate their attitude towards you and their actions, in this order.
When I compare the former with the following:
“A monster is any living (or undead) thing that stands in the characters’ way.”
I get the idea that in DW, PCs are not less controllable than monsters even with the basic manipulation move being only againgst NPCs.
*And thirdly, yeah. What does this dualism mean? Everything is monster except the PCs. So what does “beast or monster” mean? I mean, I suspect this is just badly worded, but if they are not monsters, they must be persons as they are the very characters of the players.
Any thoughts on these?
The terminology is less than optimal.
Charm Person works on things of roughly human intelligence, not cows or hippogriffs of whatever.
Is there any RPG that does influencing the others emotion in a good way?
Monsterhearts comes pretty damn close with it’s strings system. I definitely recommend checking that out!
Nope. You can’t make someone feel something emotionally that they don’t want. Physically maybe but not emotionally.
Sage LaTorra can the Wizard charm or dominate another character?
What’s your intention with this especially Péter Czigány ? DW is not really a game about that. Just look at parley and how it doesn’T work against Player Characters.
Yup, sure.
The intention of the spells is quite different, though we may not have said it as clearly as we might.
Charm Person changes a person’s feelings for a bit. They treat you as a friend. Then the spell ends (due to damage or you tipping them off) and they realize they’ve been magically duped.
Dominate lets you take control of a person’s mind. They’re your puppet. When you run out of hold they know they’ve been taken over.
Either way, the spells (deliberately) say nothing about what happens afterwards. In both cases it’s fairly short term control.
It’s also worth noting that a spell being cast on you is likely a danger, so you may defy it, or interfere with the caster.
I had super-fun time with my player’s wizard casting Charm Person here and there. It’s an awesome golden opportunity. First player gets something valuable, but then he has to keep his “friend” happy. And if he doesn’t, it’s over. The victim realizes he was scammed and tells everyone.
Wizard used it to get some rations from a castellan and then spent some sleepless night rewriting his ledgers clean to help friend in need. And then went on quest for him. For just a few rations!
Sage LaTorra I like it. Defying danger and interfering both sound awesome.
Tim Franzke hey, if there are rules for that, maybe it’s about that. What do you say?