Okay so, not the party face. Check.
Kinda going for Dr House, if he was a jaded soldier. Crass, brash, bad bedside manner, but somewhere in there he cares.
Meanwhile...
-- Silver Drifting is heading off the other end of the bridge to scout (correct?), while...
-- One-Eye is going up the tower with the two rookies. One-Eye, if you want to make a group roll, Tabitta has 2 dots in Maneuver and Monicca has one, and then everyone gets +1d because Ravens.
So this would be 1d for One Eye, who is not a Raven, 3 dice for Tabitta, and 2 dice for Monicca? Assuming, Risky/Standard (I'm honestly ok with any Position/Effect for this one unless the effect is none). Of note, if you wanted to simplify, you can use the advisory in p223 on group actions, where I would roll once for the squad instead of for both Tabitta and Monicca separately. If so, just take Monicca's results. I a leading.
Brother Attero jumped in and used Discipline. Which is correct from an RP point of view for him, but not actually the best action -- Consort or Sway would have been better here. So, while he succeeded, it's limited effect.
In face to face, definitely, though usually the debate is done before the roll, to allow the players to change their minds and use a different approach or to apply "moves" to alter the roll.
In RAW, the position/effect is adjudicated by the GM, and meant to be their best assessment of the success of the action according to the fiction. So to debate, you can argue something like, "I am invoking my authority as a representative of the combined Old Empire forces, as Aldermark and the Eastern Kingdoms have united as in the old days, and invoking that your loyalty as a Bridge Keeper officer to the same to yada yada yada. This gives me enough of an appeal to common discipline for this to land on Hans and appeal to his existing loyalties instead of against it". GM still makes the final call at the end of the day.
Alternatively, you can say, I want to modify the roll, by pushing for effect. Or, I will really lean hard into Hans, and trade Position for Effect, so Desperate/Normal perhaps? Or I want to do a setup action (flashback or not) before the roll to get extra potency). Since this is a new roll, GM is prob likely ask you to roll again.
Tabita, it's said, was a burglar before she joined the Legion. An expert in climbing, in breaking and entering, and in the stealthy, silent...
"Eew, it's covered with, like, algae and stuff. Eew! It's all slippery." Tabita's grip suddenly slips, and as she drops downwards a dozen feet on the rope, her heel connects solidly with Doyen's eyeball. "Eeew! I can't work like this!"
Below you, Monicca sighs heavily. "Just... stay focused, honey."
Above you, you can see that the barrel of cask has slipped partly out of Tabita's backpack. All around you, the superstructure of the bridge creaks and groans, while the cables hum and sing in the wind. The gale is cold, and it is indeed hard to keep a grip on the slippery surface of the tower.
One Eye, wary of the conditions on the bridge, and having previously observed Tabita struggling with the cask on the road to the bridge, had taken some of the rope from his climbing kit and tied it around Tabita's backpack prior to the climb up the tower. As the cask begins to slip, One Eye quickly cinches up the backpack, narrowly averting trouble. Everyone knows that it is taking your life in your hands if you drop Old Gurgle's Good Stuff.
Silver Drifting is heading off the other end of the bridge to scout (correct?)
Weren't those other two rookies setting charges?
Yup. But I might say, well, Hans has been his own boss since forever, reporting only to the Lord of the Treasury, and he doesn't recognize your authority! Or, OTOH, I might say that he's been waiting for years to hear someone give him firm instructions...
Drift turns and moves heading back to One-Eye, Keeping his head down but focusing more on speed than stealth.
"Out of time!"
Drift turns and moves heading back to One-Eye, Keeping his head down but focusing more on speed than stealth.
"Out of time!"
"Damn". One Eye takes out the borrowed flare gun, and fires the red flare which, in Legion parlance, means "Incoming!"
DESTROYING THE BRIDGE
10-clock 0/10
You need to set casks of Stuff until you've filled the 10-clock. This requires Rig or Wreck rolls -- 1-3 is 1 tick, 4-5 is 2 ticks, the usual. Each cask will require a Maneuver roll to get where you need to go, i.e. atop the two towers, under the bridge, etc. Note that the Ravens get +1d on Maneuver rolls, so that's a thing.
If old Hans can be convinced to help you, then you get +1d on your Rig / Wreck rolls.
You can make things go faster by splitting up, but then only one group can get the +1d from the Ravens and/or Hans.
Are the Rig/Wreck rolls fortune rolls? If not, do they have position/effect? And do the Grinning Ravens with me, does Monicca have rig or wreck, does Tabita have rig, and what is her wreck?
(Why does your squeamish burglar recruit have two dots in Wreck? Hey man, it's the Legion. Everyone has a back story.)
One more quick question, can I use Marshall to order some of the Grinning Ravens to set up the Good Stuff, and use that roll instead?
"Monicca, Tabita, you have bravely faced the elements, the algae, and the Infamous bird poop to get this far. In all seriousness, it is time to place the stuff that Old Gurgle's has blessed us with. Go ahead and place the barrels, I'll keep watch."
Drift skids to a halt, gravel bounces towards the thing.
"Woh!" He has a very bad idea.
Leon hears and sees the flare behind him as he continues talking with the old bridge keeper.
"Look, they are already coming. If we don't bring this bridge down they'll desecrate it and pour across. Many lives will be lost, including both of ours. Your duty is to the kingdom, help us or get out of the way."
Then he turns on his heel and stalks to the barricade, raising his voice.
"You see the flare, we've got incoming, find a place and hold. We have to give the rest time they need to get the charges placed."
Drift skids to a halt, gravel bounces towards the thing.
"Woh!" He has a very bad idea.
Just a warning, it is likely that that monstrosity is the minion of the same Broken as the riders, you might end up in a very dangerous position if you do that.
Would I suspect the thing has greater than beast intelligence?
If there is a chance that it crashing into the riders will work, that would be a deed.
Would I suspect the thing has greater than beast intelligence?
The common expectation with the Cinder King's forces is that either they have greater than beast intelligence or can be guided by others nearby who were created/follow the same Broken. Usually, the Legion only faces the minions of one Broken in a particular battle.
There are exceptions to this rule, but they tend to be the exceptions rather than the rule. GM, let me know if any of this is off base for this campaign or whether this information is not common knowledge.
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Yes, certainly.
Brother Attero jumped in and used Discipline. Which is correct from an RP point of view for him, but not actually the best action -- Consort or Sway would have been better here. So, while he succeeded, it's limited effect.
1) What's actually going on?
Imagine if you will, you're a bridge keeper. It's your job to monitor this big huge bridge spanning this wide river. You're a civil servant, employed by the govenment. Let's make a name for the bridge. We'll call it something weird. Like Tczew.
One day you're approached by a bunch of army guys, running away from the close border. They say "Hey my dude. There are literally all of the enemy armies coming this way. We really need to blow up this bridge to slow them down."
You know what you would say?
It's easy to find out. Just ask Poland.
Even thought the Tczew bridge was one of the largest bridges in Poland, when they saw Army Group South's VI Panzer Corps under Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt coming down on them like a falling mountain, they blew up their own bridge, knowing what they were doing.
It seems like this is a similar parallel, where appealing to their realization of the military situation seems the best option.
II) Chain of Command.
Bridge-Keepers were officers of the Old Empire.
All civil employees seem to know, intrinsically, that all governmental power originates with the army. Which is why Captain America can order around cops. I mean, if you're a cop, and suddenly the First Army rolls into town and says "Hey my dude. The enemy is attacking. Suddenly you gotta stop handing out jay-walking tickets and come help us," he would automatically know that whatever he was doing before is Orders of MAanitude less important than what is happening right now.
III) RAW.
You mention Consort. This, to me, seems like the weakest play. It's first description in the book is "you socialize with friends and contacts". This isn't a social event, it's the vanguard of a retreating army trying to slow down an advancing army. With explosives and guns. It seems like Consort would be one of those 'possible, but not the best' sorts of options. I'd but it on par with rolling Marshall. Possible, but not the best.
Since it is a military situation, and we are appealing to the person's tactical sense, it seems this is the purview of Discipline. ("We got the Nazi's behind us. Do you want to help us hurt the Nazi's? Or do you wanna do something that helps the Nazi's?")
IV) A question of Discipline.
On an unrelated note, I can see how there might a school of thought that "Discipline" is only about "Intimidation". In which case the entire skill is fully over-shadowed by "Marshall". In that, for every situation that Discipline could be used, Marshall could also be used, and usually quite better. (In which case the skill is poorly named and should just be called "Intimidation" and have done with it.)
Mind you, my reading of it was that it was a shorter, more compact, and stripped down version.
i.e.:
Marshall: "Come on men! Hold here and take the starch out of their attack! Then we'll be able to push on and kill them all and we'll all be hailed as heroes! Griffin Eternal!"
Discipline: "Stand and you might live. If you run you will all die."
Marshall: "If we don't blow up this bridge you're putting everyone's lives in danger!"
Discipline: "If you don't help us I won't have to kill you. The people behind us will."
If I'm wrong about this I see Discipline only being used very sparingly, with Marshall being much more useful.
IMHO. YMMV.
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On the bridge below, while you speak with Hans, the three Rookies are quickly assembling a barricade.
Aron: "See, this is exactly the sort of thing I've been talking about. The working man is told, take the trash, push and heave, make something useful of it that we can all cower behind. Does the working man have power over his working conditions? No. Is he truly free to negotiate a wage? Ha ha, no."
Alisa: "Darling, will you please talk a little less and shove a little more? I really want to shoot something tonight, and I'm perfectly willing to start with you."
Jughead: [Inarticulate, surly grunting]
Brother Attero has attuned himself to Aron's constant harping, and he has made it his mission to stamp it out before it infects those around them.
He turns and shouts back a reply. "You always have a choice, Aron! If you do not like your current situation, you may advance! And see what sort of career options our pursuers are likely to give you.
Of course you could always desert. And then you would see what -my- options looked like.
Blessed is the mind too small for doubt," he concludes, explaining it all and turning back to the task at hand..
The squad had gone to gather the casks and Drift had moved away from the rest of the team, these places reminded him of things best left forgotten. Something about how Sonia says "process" causes Drift to look away. His eyes alight on the neck of a bottle sticking out of a straw filled crate, Fire Oil, he is sure of it, how could he forget the way it is bottled. Without being sure why he carefully moves over and pulls the bottle out and slides it into his sack.
Being the junkie that I am, I've read the description of the skills far too long, and so here is my two cents worth about the resolve skills.
Generally speaking, Consort, Intimidate, and Sway are somewhat similar in that the are all about socially influencing someone. They can often be applied to achieve the same effect but in different ways.
The key to Consort IMO is that it is all about caring genuinely caring about someone. In its ideal form, it is how you bond with someone and make them truly know that you are on their side. After such a successful consort, the target will understand that you care about them, and then are more likely to use their own initiative to do things that align with you out of social influence.
The key to Intimidate is that you use some form of leverage to compel the other person to do what you want. Threats (especially of force) is an easy type of leverage, but there are other forms, such as pulling rank or using social clout. There is also the fictional element, especially if somehow the supernatural is involved, of imposing your will directly (e.g. exorcism or ritual).
The key to Sway is that it is fundamentally manipulative. You aren't forcing someone to do something, and you aren't usually concerned about how their best interests-- you just want to convince them to do the thing you want to do.
Both Sway and Intimidate are good at transactional actions-- I want this person to do this thing. Both though naturally lead to consequences. Consort tends to be best one for gaining a loyal friend or ally, aligning them to you in general.
All three are particularly sensitive to the fictional story. You generally can't consort with your enemies. Your target usually needs to feel that there is some real consequence to disobeying for Intimidate to work. You need some angle (often an enticement or distraction) to sway someone.
Marshall is very different from the other three. Marshall is about leading a group. It isn't social influence-- social influence is usually a prerequisite. It is about organizing, coordinating, and strategizing. So I think of it as narrower in scope to the other resolve actions, but its primary advantage is scale. It seems to be the primary action you can use to take the place of a group action. Thus, it allows you to avoid all the stress you can accumulate from them. Don't get me wrong-- group actions are very powerful. But the stress can quickly pile up, especially when leading rookies who often don't have the best skills.
Leon turns at the mention of the old man's final request.
"If we make it through this mess, I'll take him. Dogs can be helpful for recovering soldiers. I make no promises, however, since we will be moving quickly and this IS a war zone. I will do the best I can."
Our company could use a mascot, good for morale
As Hans turns to go, he stops, hesitates, and turns back. "I just have one thing to ask of you boys," he says softly. "I got... I got a dog. Blue. He's just a pup. Will you... will you take him with you?"
As Hans approaches the tower, One Eye is strongly reminded of his uncle. Last he saw his uncle, he had a brace of dogs too, and Alistair had played with them when they were pups. "I'll safeguard Blue. My uncle was a Bridge Keeper too."
One Eye turns to Monicca and Tabita. "Great work you two. I fear that, with the enemy about to arrive, things will get worse. I've overheard though that the Grinning Ravens have a response to that."
Monicca breaks out into a wide grin for the first time since Ettenmark Fields. She then throws her head back and gives out a scratchy laugh that is the signature of the Ravens. Tabita locks eyes with Monicca and joins in with the laughter. Even One Eye joins in.
"All right, I need to provide fire support for recon, so head on to the next objective-- I'll follow soon. The Aldermani man below will help guide you. He's a throwback, like us."