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Jill knew what the truth was.
I don't believe that your example supports your point, however.
You're seriously suggesting that Jill and Eustace, ordinary English children, really secretly believe that "There is no sun"? (Well, they're English, so I suppose that this might be on the edge of probability -- but no Spanish child would believe that for an instant.) This isn't them giving in to something they have always secretly longed for. This is magical compulsion, pure and simple, and they're not strong-willed enough to resist the compulsion. The same magical compulsion would make Jill believe that her name is really Robert Terwilliger and that's she/he is actually a mallard duck.... and again, these aren't secret desires she's been harboring in her heart.
Again, your example does not support your point. In fact, quite the opposite, the statement that there is no sun she describes, in one of the few sentences that provide any insight into her state of mind, as "good sense," which specifically contradicts the idea that she actually knew the sun existed.
Her flaw was that she would rather accept an easy lie than a difficult to explain truth. This flaw was what let the witch influence her and made her agree that the sun did not exist. The witch cannot simply dominate Jill with a spell and control her like a puppet.
That's absolutely counterfactual. It simply didn't happen that way.
The magic helps but at some level Jill has to agree, she can't be forced against her will.
No, she literally agrees because she is forced to agree against her will.
I prefer magic that is more subtle, individual and intricate like that, it literally bursts with RP material.
Perhaps. Not being a witch myself, I can't force you to agree with me against your will. But this kind of magic doesn't fit into the heroic fantasy tradition, it doesn't fit into the D&D tradition, it doesn't fit into the Pathfinder tradition, and it strongly violates player agency by forcing people to play characters who are randomly different than the ones they actually designed and chose to play. You are literally being forced to play something "against your will."
And few players will agree to that, as the reaction on this thread indicates.
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Dominate Person in particular is so unsubtle that a first level character with a rank in Sense Motive can easily and unerringly pinpoint any Dominated creature (DC 15 Sense Motive check).
Even the subtler ones are only a DC 25, doable by 5th level with certain classes easy.
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Consider this:
What happens to the narrative if you describe failed will saves not as breached mental defenses, but as a failure of character, a submission to temptation or flaws? That the character chooses, of their own will (as determined by the roll of the die), to take the worse option?
In this case, the will save represents not just a psychic wall against effects, but strength of character. What kind of game would arise from this idea?
I really like this alternative to normal compulsions as a way of flavoring failed will saves, but only of the effect is dir3ctly related to the character's vices, fears, or other flaws.
I like how it was handled in Vampire: The Requiem. As a Vampire, your instincts drive you to kill things that anger you, run away from fire or sunlight, and feed whenever presented with an opportunity. Conditions related to these events provoke that system's version of a will save. Fail it, you do the thing. And if you succeed the save you get to not do the thing, but it generally feels awful for your character.
Pahfinder lacks such a save-or-react mechanic, at least outside of some corner cases, and it's for good reason. But this mentality can add that little extra bit of flavor when a cowardly PC fails against Cause Fear or a lustful person fails against a Charm Person.
Of course, it works best when the GM and Player have an understanding of what is and is not okay.
Consider this:
What happens to the narrative if you describe failed will saves not as breached mental defenses, but as a failure of character, a submission to temptation or flaws? That the character chooses, of their own will (as determined by the roll of the die), to take the worse option?
In this case, the will save represents not just a psychic wall against effects, but strength of character. What kind of game would arise from this idea?
I really like this alternative to normal compulsions as a way of flavoring failed will saves, but only of the effect is dir3ctly related to the character's vices, fears, or other flaws.
I like how it was handled in Vampire: The Requiem. As a Vampire, your instincts drive you to kill things that anger you, run away from fire or sunlight, and feed whenever presented with an opportunity. Conditions related to these events provoke that system's version of a will save. Fail it, you do the thing. And if you succeed the save you get to not do the thing, but it generally feels awful for your character.
Pahfinder lacks such a save-or-react mechanic, at least outside of some corner cases, and it's for good reason. But this mentality can add that little extra bit of flavor when a cowardly PC fails against Cause Fear or a lustful person fails against a Charm Person.
Of course, it works best when the GM and Player have an understanding of what is and is not okay.
But Vampire does not say that when you got dominated your humanity drops. And that is what we are talking about here, essentially changes in personality due to a failed will save.
Retroactive changes in personality saves stating that this is the way the character has always been.
Retroactive changes in personality saves stating that this is the way the character has always been.
That would be inconsistent with past and maybe even later actions. Either you a certain way or you are not. That is like a spell forcing your to lie, and you trying to say "I have always been a liar", but your character has been completely honest before then even at the threat of death, and even after the spell happened.
Now of course a group/player buying into it could suddenly start to commit to the new action, such as lying but why now when this magic came up. People only commit to something when magic is in play? That is also hard to believe.
@ Orfamay Quest
To me you are coming across as overly negative, almost as though you were trying to "win" an internet argument rather than engage me in a conversation and understand my point of view. I am going to assume that is not the case so I will elaborate on what I have said before and hopefully you can see where I am coming from.
For the most part I am fine with the mechanistic way that spells work in Pathfinder. But not when it comes to mind-effecting enchantment spells. It is fine with me for a fireball to be a powerful, flashy, immediate spell that inflicts fire damage, but enchantments should be subtle, intricate and insidious. I feel that if enchantment spells operate the same mechanistic, mathematical way other spells like fireball do they lose some of their charm, their magic, their lustre if you will.
In my opinion enchantments should be manipulative and slow to weave like the spellcasting of the witch in The Silver Chair rather than forceful and immediate like the mind control used by the character Kilgrave in the TV series: Jessica Jones. If you contrast the two styles: Kilgrave forces people, he simply barks orders at people and they obey. It is direct, hostile and immediate, but I find that type of mind control boring both in literature and in games. The witch on the other hand has a far more elaborate approach. In the novel she burns a bewitching incense, plays monotonous, enchanting music and speaks in a soft and pleasing tone. She doesn't issue commands, she questions and cleverly steers the conversation in the direction that suits her, she manipulates with the aid of magic, she doesn't force people against their will. The entire scene between the witch and the heroes takes four full pages to resolve and is about as elaborate a manipulation as you are ever likely to see in a book written for children. Pathfinder magic works more like the Kilgrave style, immediate and direct. I find the witch's style far more interesting and more in line with how I think enchantment magic should work.
The opening post suggested changing the way will saves works and speculating on how that may effect the narrative. I agree that if handled poorly this would simply railroad players into roleplaying their characters in a way that they would not appreciate. However, I still think the concept of linking will saves to character flaws and or strength of character has merit and if implemented in the right way could foster some really interesting roleplaying opportunities. What I think is the wrong way is retroactively revealing character flaws to players. That would be pretty frustrating to the players as they would already have a character personality in mind. A better way would be for players to nominate character flaws in advance in exchange for bonus traits and those flaws could potentially make them more vulnerable to enchantment magic. In recognition that some players would not want to take flaws I would make them optional.
To summarise, and in the spirit of the opening post, I am looking for a way of changing the way will saves and mind-effecting enchantment spells work so that enchantment spells can be insidious, subtle, manipulative and beguiling like they are in some fiction and at the same time encourage roleplaying opportunities.
In my opinion enchantments should be manipulative and slow to weave like the spellcasting of the witch in The Silver Chair rather than forceful and immediate like the mind control used by the character Kilgrave in the TV series: Jessica Jones. If you contrast the two styles: Kilgrave forces people, he simply barks orders at people and they obey. It is direct, hostile and immediate, but I find that type of mind control boring both in literature and in games. The witch on the other hand has a far more elaborate approach. In the novel she burns a bewitching incense, plays monotonous, enchanting music and speaks in a soft and pleasing tone. She doesn't issue commands, she questions and cleverly steers the conversation in the direction that suits her, she manipulates with the aid of magic, she doesn't force people against their will. The entire scene between the witch and the heroes takes four full pages to resolve and is about as elaborate a manipulation as you are ever likely to see in a book written for children. Pathfinder magic works more like the Kilgrave style, immediate and direct. I find the witch's style far more interesting and more in line with how I think enchantment magic should work.
The opening post suggested changing the way will saves works and speculating on how that may effect the narrative. I agree that if handled poorly this would simply railroad players into roleplaying their characters in a way that they would not appreciate. However, I still think the concept of linking will saves to character flaws and or strength of character has merit and if implemented in the right way could foster some really interesting roleplaying opportunities. What I think is the wrong way is retroactively revealing character flaws to players. That would be pretty frustrating to the players as they would already have a character personality in mind.
Right, that works fine for spells like Geas or Dominate Person, but who exactly is going to perform a ten-minute ritual mid-combat to cast Daze Monster to politely convince an angry bear to be a little disoriented for a moment?
A better way would be for players to nominate character flaws in advance in exchange for bonus traits and those flaws could potentially make them more vulnerable to enchantment magic. In recognition that some players would not want to take flaws I would make them optional.
Oh, look, Drawbacks already exist, just like I've mentioned before!
To summarise, and in the spirit of the opening post, I am looking for a way of changing the way will saves and mind-effecting enchantment spells work so that enchantment spells can be insidious, subtle, manipulative and beguiling like they are in some fiction and at the same time encourage roleplaying opportunities.
That is different than the opening post. What you are suggesting is that the magic change people vs expose what was already there.
For your slow change to work it would likely require failing the same save and being given the same command several times. Assuming average dice rolls most saves are not failed, and even so it is hard to justify giving the same or even a similar command every time. Using dominate person as an example you can go with "attack your friends", but that gives a second save, and it gives a bonus to the save. Some casters may instead, tell the dominated PC to do something that involves them leaving the area of the fight or they will command them to do nothing. Basically what I am saying is not every caster is likely to give the exact same command so it's difficult to work towards one thing(flaw). Pathfinder is not build to work this way.
Even so the group has to buy in, and if you push more enchantment spells expect to see more people with higher will saves and Iron Will as a result.
The game master's authority does not extend to forcing players to do anything, so, no.You are forcing the player to have their character make some choice. Players are not characters, so there is no contradiction.Consider this:
What happens to the narrative if you describe failed will saves not as breached mental defenses, but as a failure of character, a submission to temptation or flaws? That the character chooses, of their own will (as determined by the roll of the die), to take the worse option?
In this case, the will save represents not just a psychic wall against effects, but strength of character. What kind of game would arise from this idea?
A self-contradictory one. You're forcing a character to choose of their own free will what they would, absent your force, freely choose not to do.
Basically, any time you say "no, your character chooses ..." you are lying.
I think you're reading way too much into it.
And, if that PC has failed their save vs Suggestion or Domination, the GM absolutely does have the authority to force a player to do something.
Absolutely not. "Hey, your character just failed a save; go downstairs and get me a beer." Not happening. The GM can control the actions of the player character, not the actions of the player herself.
In my opinion enchantments should be manipulative and slow to weave like the spellcasting of the witch in The Silver Chair rather than forceful and immediate like the mind control used by the character Kilgrave in the TV series: Jessica Jones. If you contrast the two styles: Kilgrave forces people, he simply barks orders at people and they obey. It is direct, hostile and immediate, but I find that type of mind control boring both in literature and in games. The witch on the other hand has a far more elaborate approach. In the novel she burns a bewitching incense, plays monotonous, enchanting music and speaks in a soft and pleasing tone. She doesn't issue commands, she questions and cleverly steers the conversation in the direction that suits her, she manipulates with the aid of magic, she doesn't force people against their will.
That's fine.... and has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion, nor with Pathfinder.
In Pathfinder, you don't need incense, music, or any such props to cast a spell; the suggestion spell simply requires verbal components, a snake's tongue, and a honeycomb. And it takes a standard action to cast, exactly the same as a fireball.
But more to the point,... the witch is still controlling people's minds. There is no suggestion that Jill really believes in her heart of hearts that the sun does not exist, or that this is a secret character flaw -- a psychosis -- that she has had since the beginning of the book. She believes it for the duration of the spell, because she is compelled to, and she shakes off the compulsion and returns to her original opinion as soon as the spell ceases.
To summarise, and in the spirit of the opening post, I am looking for a way of changing the way will saves and mind-effecting enchantment spells work so that enchantment spells can be insidious, subtle, manipulative and beguiling like they are in some fiction and at the same time encourage roleplaying opportunities.
Well, that's not at all in the spirit of the opening post.
And it's very easy to do. What you suggest actually comes close to the description of the geas spell : ten minute casting time, and it enforces a long-term compulsion on the person (although geas does not require music, incense, or anything like that). And you are welcome to fluff the spell and require the caster to play out the casting, although most parties would find it extremely dull (especially the party members that weren't involved in the actual casting), and possibly unfair, if the player were much less persuasive than her character.
But, again, this has nothing to do with the opening post, which is about retroactively rewriting the motivations of the character as designed by the player to encompass random events.
To summarise, and in the spirit of the opening post, I am looking for a way of changing the way will saves and mind-effecting enchantment spells work so that enchantment spells can be insidious, subtle, manipulative and beguiling like they are in some fiction and at the same time encourage roleplaying opportunities.
Will saves won't work for this. They are random and immediate. What you are looking for would be something like Geas, which gives penalties if the enchanted person doesn't follow the spell. Then if the person is morally weak they will go do what you tell them instead of taking -12 to all ability scores.
Great for NPCs, but I wouldn't expect players to use them much. Players rarely want to send NPCs out on quests.
Geas doesn't work like that either. The victim must comply with the Geas, and if they are prevented from doing so then they start to accrue penalties. At no point do they get the option of refusing to obey.