Wow, so not getting back into this rules wank with you. You and I interpret rules very, very differently. I know that you would interpret "friendly" in the most restrictive means possible. Thus, even if the player succeeded, you would simply interpret the rules so that they failed instead. You have repeatedly demonstrated that this is how you DM.
But, please, this is a play style thing. Do not presume that all DM's interpret the rules the way that you do. The fact that you are incapable of extrapolating the mechanics to include torture does not mean that it cannot be done. It apparently cannot be done at your table, but, then, I'm not playing at your table. Take it as a given that some of us interpret things differently.
There are very different interpretations of "friendly", as past discussions have shown. The rules provide a handy chart:
| | |
Hostile
| Will take risks to hurt you
| Attack, interfere, berate, flee
|
Unfriendly
| Wishes you ill
| Mislead, gossip, avoid, watch suspiciously, insult
|
Indifferent
| Doesn’t much care
| Socially expected interaction
|
Friendly
| Wishes you well
| Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate
|
Helpful
| Will take risks to help you
| Protect, back up, heal, aid
|
[TD="align: left"]Attitude
[/TD][TD="align: left"]Means
[/TD][TD="align: left"]Possible Actions
[/TD]
Which will probably unformat as soon as I hit reply. Yet we have very different interpretations of what these words mean from different GM's and players. When we have valid interpretations of alignments that differ, you consider that makes alignment a bad rule which should be removed. Why does the vastly different interpretations of "friendly" versus "helpful" not mean those rules should be removed? It seems like, if the Intimidated target is Helpful to the bomber, and you have Intimidated her into being Friendly toward you, we need to resolve the "chat/advise/offer limited help" she will offer you with her "willingness to take risk to help, protect, and aid" the bomber. That doesn't mean the PC should gain no benefit. It does mean that the intimidated (or diplomacy'd) target should not lose all her prior allegiances.
You have trimmed enough of my response that it is no longer clear that I asked you to cite the rules, after you indicated use of torture to intimidate would be:
Governed by the mechanics. Again, Intimidate rules apply. The players know that and would act appropriately
So the players would know how this specific GM interprets Friendly, its interaction with Intimidate and its interaction with other attitudes and allegiances of the target, despite the fact we have established different GM's interpret this very differently. They would also somehow know how the GM has extrapolated the Intimidate rules to incorporate both the effectiveness and the time requirement of torture, which is not, contrary to the implication of your response above, contained in the rules for the Intimidate skill.
Now, a player who has gamed with you for many years may have a pretty good idea how you will interpret Friendly, Helpful, Intimidate, torture, etc. But he should also have an equally "pretty good" idea of how you interpret alignment, were you using it. So it seems no more unreasonable to delegate the decision of how the NPC victim reacts to the character's use of Intimidate and Torture than to delegate the decision of how the NPC Forces of Good reacts to his tactics in this regard. Both require significant interpretations of the rules at a minimum, perhaps exrapolation from, or addenda to, the rules as well.
Telling someone I don't want to play with them is not telling them how to play. Telling someone I don't want to go to the movies with them is not telling them what movie to watch. The equivalences that you are drawing are spurious, almost comically so.
I'd say it pretty clearly says you don't like their play style.
I don't see what this has to do with anything I said, other than that you are once again positing that you know me, my friends and my game better than I do. Are you suggesting that my friend is a liar? Are you suggesting that I'm a liar?
I'm not sure why the issue becomes such a personal one to you. I am saying you can sincerely believe that your co-opting of the familiar fell within the rules of the game while others can sincerely believe it was not. That was the crux of the discussion on this issue - whether the activation and use of the familiar by the GM was within the rules of the game.
To clarify, we (or at least I) were not debating whether it was, or was not, accepted by or acceptable to the player. Nor was my disagreement whether, if the rules were altered, they were altered in a good way or a bad way. It was not whether you were a good GM or a bad GM, nor whether he was a good player or a bad player, nor whether it made the game better or worse. To the extent those issues were discussed, my sense was that those who felt it was a violation of the rules of the game felt that it was a positive move for all involved in the game.
That does not change the fact that it constituted the GM taking control of a player resource in a manner not provided for in the rules, at least in the opinion of several posters, most of which have a better grasp of the 4e rules than I do, and whose quotes were sufficient to persuade me they were correct. Although my initial comments on the issue were not directed to rules legality anyway, but to the fact that you had removed a PC resource unilaterally, rather than requiring the choice of whether to remove that resource to the player.
But since the issue has been brought up:
My friend lurks on this site from time-to-time, and at our last session commented that he had looked at this thread and seen you and @
Imaro white-knighting on his behalf. He found it quite amusing. He also made the point to me, that I had already made on this thread and thought was obvious, that part of the reason that he put the Eye in his imp rather than himself was so that he was free to conflict with Vecna without suffering personal blowback, and that - had he had the Eye in himself - he would not have crossed Vecna.
and to return to the context of the discussion, the player was OK with you removing a character resource based on his behaviour. He chose to create a situation of conflict with Vecna which placed that character resource at risk. I wonder whether, had you been playing a traditional mechanical alignment game, he might not be OK with you removing a character resource which was contingent on maintaining a specific alignment, given his choice of character, and his choice of actions, placed his character in a moral or behavioural conflict. Tough to say, of course. While I continue to find the two similar, I certainly agree that a Paladin falling from grace is greater in significance by several orders of magnitude. I rather suspect, however, that he would either be similarly accepting, or that he would not have placed his character in that conflict in the first place, as many players choose not to, by choosing a character not so beholden to alignment.
