Do you know you were under an effect?

This might be a good thing to have its own topic. :)

cenobyte wrote:Hrm. The book I have says "Characters affected by Compelling Techniques know they are affected by a Technique" (p. 162).It also says (mere lines above) that each Rank of the Technique affects the perceivable effects of the Technique. (Meek = Conspicuous; Moderate = Recognisable; Pure = Inconspicuous). **sigh**Anyway, I think the same remains: you can resist a technique that would compel you to do something or which would have an effect on your thoughts, actions, and behaviour, by spending Devotion, taking Trauma, or using the Rebel Profession Expertise). Also, resisting causes the Manifestation to drop a rank, so any Inconspicuous Technique would automatically become Recognisable if successfully resisted.

Ah, another contradiction then.

Recognisable: page 162 "When dealing with Compelling Techniques, however, the target remains unaware and feels that they acted of their own free will." The "recognizable" is really recognisable to others who may convince you (involving a trauma test) that you are under the effect of a technique.

As far as I am aware, the only time a target *knows* they are acting based on external direction is when the technique is Conspicuous.

Inconspicuous is even more effective in that *no one* is supposed to know. There is a trauma test when confronted with direct proof, it isn't even automatic then.

Yes Alan, but a target of a Recognizable effect can be told they are being affected by a Technique, and will believe it as they normally would that person. Or that's the way it's SUPPOSED to be, anyway.

Actually, I'm not entirely clear about that 'taking a Trauma test to know you were affected by a Technique' thing. You can do it for both Recognizable and Inconspicuous (it just gets a little bit harder with Inconspicuous), which seems odd to me, as one of the things about Inconspicuous is that you WILL NOT believe evidence presented to you that you are under some influence. Is it just that you're still willing to believe others, at Recognizable? So you could then Aid your own Recovery (whoever suggested this, I like it) if you are the target of a Recognizable Technique, and you just take their word for it (rather than making the Trauma test?).

This is my understanding of the way the Manifestation is 'susposed' to work:
Conspicuous - EVERYONE knows a Technique is being used.
Recognisable - Everyone *but the target* might recognise that a Technique is being/has been used. The target *should not* be able to tell that a Technique has been used, if s/he did not resist it. If s/he did resist it, then the Manifestation becomes Conspicuous.
Inconspicuous - NO-ONE knows a Technique is being used.

The only exception to this is when a King uses her Sovereignty power.

The way I understand it is that you can resist a compelling technique (regardless of whether it's conspicuous or inconspicuous or anything in between) by taking Trauma. I'm not sure where this "take a Trauma to know you were affected by a Technique" comes from - Mark, do you have a page reference?

Molior wrote:Yes Alan, but a target of a Recognizable effect can be told they are being affected by a Technique, and will believe it as they normally would that person. Or that's the way it's SUPPOSED to be, anyway.

Actually, I'm not entirely clear about that 'taking a Trauma test to know you were affected by a Technique' thing. You can do it for both Recognizable and Inconspicuous (it just gets a little bit harder with Inconspicuous), which seems odd to me, as one of the things about Inconspicuous is that you WILL NOT believe evidence presented to you that you are under some influence. Is it just that you're still willing to believe others, at Recognizable? So you could then Aid your own Recovery (whoever suggested this, I like it) if you are the target of a Recognizable Technique, and you just take their word for it (rather than making the Trauma test?).

Jill, it is in the write-ups for manifestation, page 162.

Mark, even once told that you are under the effects of a technique you still must *test* to see if you believe the person. You can't automatically believe them. Success on the test is belief and failure is a traumatic wound.

Ah yes. Failure also means you don't believe what they've told you, yes?

cenobyte wrote:Ah yes. Failure also means you don't believe what they've told you, yes?

Indeed.

So it's equally tricky to know you were affected by a Recognizable or Inconspicuous Technique, IMO - the test is harder with Inconspicuous, but you don't have to have someone present you evidence/arguments.

Molior wrote:So it's equally tricky to know you were affected by a Recognizable or Inconspicuous Technique, IMO - the test is harder with Inconspicuous, but you don't have to have someone present you evidence/arguments.

No, it isn't.

Recognisable means others can see it and try to convince you.

With Inconspicuous even others can't see it and so proof of another sort must be found. Without others able to tell you that you were under the effects it becomes much harder to ever realise such was the case.

Thank you, Alan. That's what I was trying to get at, I think.

Alan, the rulebook seems to disagree with you.

pg. 162-3, under Inconspicuous, seems to indicate that you can make that Hard Trauma test as often as you like. While it does say in the flavour text of the description that 'proof to the contrary will not easily convince them', it doesn't say what mechanical effect such proof would have. A successful test does only reduce the Manifestation to Recognizable, so my earlier comments were somewhat hyperbolic, but regardless, you don't need 'proof' to make the Inconspicuous Trauma test as of the BRB.



On a different note, I wonder what the timing of this is like. Can the player make a Trauma test against the Manifestation whenever you feel is appropriate, if you're affected by a Technique (assuming you meet the pre-req. of having someone tell you if the Manifestation is Recognizable)?

Molior wrote:Alan, the rulebook seems to disagree with you.

pg. 162-3, under Inconspicuous, seems to indicate that you can make that Hard Trauma test as often as you like. While it does say in the flavour text of the description that 'proof to the contrary will not easily convince them', it doesn't say what mechanical effect such proof would have. A successful test does only reduce the Manifestation to Recognizable, so my earlier comments were somewhat hyperbolic, but regardless, you don't need 'proof' to make the Inconspicuous Trauma test as of the BRB.

On a different note, I wonder what the timing of this is like. Can the player make a Trauma test against the Manifestation whenever you feel is appropriate, if you're affected by a Technique (assuming you meet the pre-req. of having someone tell you if the Manifestation is Recognizable)?

Mark, I disagree with your interpretation of what the rulebook says. While it doesn't *clearly* state when the trauma test for Inconspicuous is allowed, the test is mentioned immediately after it says that proof will not easily convince them. Further the language for Inconspicuous is the same as that for Recognisable where the test occurs when the target receives assistance in the fight to become aware of the fact that a technique was used on them. I would consider proof to be a form of assistance in the context of fighting the manifestation of a technique, wouldn't you?

I read that either trauma roll is only possible with someone actively trying to convince you or blatant proof of such and that the trauma roll is a direct response to you trying to fight to their conclusion and reject your understanding that it was your own idea all along.

I think Trent was attempting to avoid redundancy of text by only explaining the changes to the process, i.e., proof instead of convincing.

My understanding of this rule meshes with Alan's, actually, knowing the way Inconspicuous and Recognisable Manifestations are worded.

Which makes me wonder: is it possible to lie someone into believing they're being affected by an Inconspicuous Technique when they're really not?

cenobyte wrote:Which makes me wonder: is it possible to lie someone into believing they're being affected by an Inconspicuous Technique when they're really not?

It's been done before to great effect in other games. :)

I guess it depends on whether or not someone thinks their character would succumb to such perfidy... please don't try it on me when my paranoia symptom is active. ::grin::

Perfidy is *such* a good word.