Draw Steel General Thread [+]

[Staffan]

In one of the videos I watched there was mention of also researching NPCs to discover their motivations/pitfalls. Is that in the book, too?

I don't think there are mechanics for it in the book but you could certainly learn things like "Sir Roxers is known throughout town for his lavish lifestyle" which would indicate that Revelry is one of his motivations.

 

[tetrasodium]

They're baked into the negotiation rules. You can just ask an NPC about their motivation, but they might not want to tell you. In that case, or to discover pitfalls, a hero makes a Reason, Intuition, or Presence test. On a tier 1, you learn nothing and reduce the NPC patience by 1. Tier 2 gains you nothing and on a tier 3 you learn a Motivation or a Pitfall. You can't do it again until someone makes an argument or the negotiation ends.

Haven't finished reading the new PDF yet but Iirc NPCs also have a value for how patient they are. If you need to ask it counts against that

 

[Staffan]

Haven't finished reading the new PDF yet but Iirc NPCs also have a value for how patient they are. If you need to ask it counts against that

Not necessarily. Trying to learn a motivation/pitfall without outright asking is a power roll using Reason, Intuition, or Presence. 11- means no info and lose a Patience, 12-16 is no effect, and 17+ you learn something.

Of course, just asking can never hurt.

 

[gnarlygninja]

Yeah, so far as I can tell just asking them at the start of negotiation doesn't cost patience. But thinking of some people I've known I can definitely imagine a scenario where the way you ask would.

 

[tetrasodium]

Not necessarily. Trying to learn a motivation/pitfall without outright asking is a power roll using Reason, Intuition, or Presence. 11- means no info and lose a Patience, 12-16 is no effect, and 17+ you learn something.

Of course, just asking can never hurt.
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Yea I was thinking more about the well trod metagaming social structure where the player with a job in sales or something gets to "roleplay" around the mechanics while the GM is expected to just kinda let them keep spinning the interaction.

Having those mechanics when I ran it during some of the the playtest packets was amazing when it made players say "oh wait no [Bob] stuff itmmm there are rules and they are kinda neat. I want to kinda insert myself between the two before [Bob] can screw us so I can...."