How Do Teenage NPCs Gain Influence:
One of the things I’m intending to do with my group is have them face off against other super teens. I think it will lead to some truly interesting RPing and self reflection, along with the possibility of a heel faced turn or two. However, I want these teens to affect the PCs and possibly gain Influence over them. But there isn’t a lot said about how an NPC takes influence over a PC.
The Influence section says, “All adults have Influence over you when first introduced. They can lose that Influence when you reject what they say or through other means, but they can regain it during the story.” It also says that “When an NPC tells you who you are or how
the world works, accept what they say or reject their influence.
If you accept what they say, the GM will adjust your labels accordingly; if you want to keep your labels as they are, you must reject their Influence.” This seems to imply that anytime any NPC tells the PCs about who they are or how the world works, the PCs have to accept or reject it, regardless of whether or not they have influence. If this is the case, what is the benefit to an NPC already having influence over the PC? If it isn’t, how does a teen or an adult who has lost influence regain it?
I know one of the GM moves is “Take influence over someone.” But it seems rather… against narrative if influence can just be inflicted without characters being able to reject it. If it’s just enacting the “tell the PC about who they are or how the world works,” refer back to my previous question. I suppose inflicting influence could be a hard move, but I’d like an example of how that could be done in a narrative fashion since I’ve never seen that before.
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Remember that GM Moves should follow the fiction, so even though taking Influence can be done as a hard move, it should make sense within the fiction. I think rejecting influence is only done when somebody actually exercises the influence they have, not when they try to gain it.
Some Team Moves give another character influence when you reveal a weakness or vulnerability, though those are more voluntary things. Could be cool to encourage players to use those moves with NPCs?
Here are a couple of narrative/mechanical examples that I can think of, also:
1. The PC and an NPC teen are bantering while they fight. Starts off fairly light hearted, so far as it goes, but at a critical moment the NPC escalates things dramatically with an armor-piercing remark. Say, an uncomfortable truth about The Legacy’s predecessors and what they’ve done in the past, and how The Legacy is repeating those same awful patterns. Whether it’s true or not, it’s something that hits The Legacy hard, so the GM asks her to Take A Powerful Blow.
She rolls an 8, and chooses to give ground. GM says that the ground given is admitting that the NPC has a point, so they gain Influence.
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2. The Janus has a tense rooftop meeting with an NPC teen. They’re not exactly enemies, but the NPC comes across as more of a cynical and dangerous antihero and The Janus doesn’t really know where they stand. So he tries speaking frankly to clear the air, and the GM has him roll to Pierce the Mask. He rolls snake-eyes, so the GM turns his move back on him, and asks what the NPC could do to gain Influence over him. Player thinks, and answers that if the NPC invited him along on a mission, that would do it.
Narratively, it plays out as The Janus revealing maybe too much curiosity when he asks what exactly the NPC’s angle is. The NPC reacts by saying that if he really wants to know, he should come along for the night and see how the other side handles things. The Janus agrees, so the NPC gets Influence over him and the next scene is him and the NPC on a mission.
James Etheridge’s answers are spot on! Love the examples!
It’s a good point for me to clarify how the adult moves work. It should really be, “When an NPC with Influence over you tells you who you are or how the world works…” If you reject someone’s Influence, one of the options lets you take Influence over you away from them—essentially, you say, “I don’t care what you think anymore.” So you can prevent an adult (or anyone) from messing with you like this.
The move of “Take Influence over them” is a pretty hard move, and it should be reserved for appropriate situations, but at the right time it can work great. When a Beacon tries to save someone, rolls a miss, and gets 100% shown up by an existing superhero, it might make them feel terrible, and it might also give the existing superhero Influence over the Beacon—the existing superhero just showed that they are exactly what the Beacon wants to be!
The same might not be true for a Transformed who doesn’t care about things in the same way, though. In the Transformed’s case, for example, maybe they roll a miss on an Unleash to try to bend a fire escape into a cell for a captured villain. The result? The news media says, “Look at that monster destroy that building!” and the Transformed hears it. Try as he might, he can’t help but care about what the news is saying about him, and the news takes Influence over him.
Keep in mind the real danger of someone taking Influence over you when they already have it—they immediately get to shift your Labels, and you don’t get to reject. You can reject later, even without them doing anything to shift your Labels. But in that moment, they reach you and change how you see yourself.
I think this is a good time to Ask Questions. How do the PCs know the NPCS? Who’s rivals with who? Who would they rather have on their team than (PC)? Give players influence and take it on them accordingly; with a sense of balance, you’ll simulate the complicated teen politics at play.
Brendan Conway Ooh… hadn’t considered treating the media as a single entity for the purposes of Influence. That’s a really cool idea! I can see doing the same for other organizations, too, e.g. the police.
Could create some weirdness (does this NPC have influence because they’re an adult, or do they not because the PC has rejected the Influence of the media?), but still: intriguing.
With multiple characters, I’d even say “The Media” could be monolithic. Talk Radio vs. Action News 8 vs. Twitter vs. The Daily Worker; all imply very different levels of intimacy with the hero.
I feel somewhat proud that my casual question unlocked a whole new kettle of fish for many, many players down the way. Thanks everyone for the ideas and insights! Especially Brendan Conway for the clarification that Taking Influence is a hard move. I’ll make sure to keep that in mind when my supers run into the equivalent of the Hive from Teen Titans.
I also use “generic name” has having influence on PCs. Our Legacy was always posting news about her new costume on her FB page, but recently her public judged her harshly (after an impossible choice) and she couldn’t take the risk of rejecting its influence (great chances of rolling 6-, which would have resulted in 2 Conditions) so even if people are now more and more criticizing her, she still feel the need to inform her public about what she does: the opinion of her public is still important to her.
And for gaining influence on PCs, I think y ou can just ask questions. “Bull, you see Quantum kid on the TV, he’s beating the crap out of Behemoth while the hospital wing Behemoth came out is crumbling. What do you think about him ?” If he tells me it’s a good example, he’s impressed, etc… I give influence to Quantum kid on the Bull.
For adult having influence, one point is annoying me : I don’t think adult vilains should have influence on teen heroes from the start
It still makes me feel smart that I came up with treating entities as a single character in our first playtest.
( Some of the discussion about it here: https://plus.google.com/+TimFranzke/posts/ZxrmBQoYHBz)