Barter and PCs
Hey folks, I have a question about the first barter move:
When you give 1-barter to someone, but with strings attached, it counts as manipulating them and hitting the roll with a 10+, no leverage or roll required.
Does “someone” include PCs as well as NPCs? The language would seem to suggest it, but I’d expect players to push back against having their characters forced to do what someone says or lose a stat highlight just for 1-barter.
Have I misinterpreted this? Or is it a non-issue in practice?
PS: Are there any plans for an official forum after G+ dies out? I’d presume not, since I believe the Bakers needed to shut down the forums they used to have.
Yep, it applies to PCs as well as NPCs as far as I can tell. Whether it’s an issue in practice or not, I don’t know since it hasn’t come up in any of my games. Interested to hear if it has been a problem for anyone.
PC’s get multiple incentives: XP (via highlighting) and barter. The genius tact here is to stand them against each other and make the players choose: Your money or your XP.
I also wonder about re-using this for the same thing. In its ugliest form:
P1: Have sex with me. Here’s 1-barter.
P2: No, guess I’ll take a hit off my highlight.
P1: Ok, here’s another barter.
P2: Fine, here’s my other highlight.
P1: And another….
P2: I guess the rules say we have to have sex now?
That’s X-card territory right there, Rob.
Yes, of course, but it’s in the design as it stands, right? That’s an issue I don’t want to replicate, unless there’s something I’m missing.
Also, when first responding I didn’t see it was you and thought it was some rando. I’ve got a feeling one of them Bakers might show up, as this is an interesting kinda question.
Robert, I say you’ve already offered barter when you ask for sex. Upping the barter, or asking again or whatever, isn’t a separate offer — it’s the same offer. You’re repeating yourself is all your doing. I don’t think that’s any more valid than failing a Manipulate roll and insisting on rolling again without changing the situation or your offer.
Alfred Rudzki Hitchcock – I seem to remember language about circumstances having to change before you can make a move again. Thanks.
Robert Bohl “Yes, of course, but it’s in the design as it stands, right?”
No, I don’t think that’s right.
“Seducing someone, here, means using sex to get them to do what you want, not (or not just) trying to get them to fuck you” (page 142).
What is or is not attainable through seduction and manipulation is up to agreement at the table. Can I manipulate you to saw off your own leg? Can I manipulate you to have sex with your own mother? Can I manipulate you into stabbing your own child to death and using the blood in a broth? The game doesn’t say I can’t, but the table does. Or it doesn’t, in which case, that’s the world that table creates. I just don’t want to be anywhere near it.
And as Alfred Rudzki Hitchcock said, your second example is just making the same move over and over again, just like rerolling the dice.
So if I take sex off the table, and player 1 wants player 2’s murdering services for 1-barter, player 2 needs to spend a highlight to say no. 2 does not get the barter but isn’t forced, and can’t have 1 force a second stat highlight to go away by asking again because circumstances haven’t changed. I can buy that.
But then what if 1 says, “ok, 1-barter for your services as an art model.” 2 has to sacrifice the other highlight to say no.
Now what if 1 comes back again and is like, “I want to stay at your place.” 2 no longer has resources to spend to say no and is now at the whim of 1.
Am I wrong?
Refuse me three times you and mean it.
1) Technically, I think that’s how the move would work, although I don’t agree with the idea that if you have no highlighted stats you are at the whim of the other players. If you say no, they can remove a highlighted stat. That you have no highlighted stats to remove is their problem, not yours.
2) If that happens, the table will immediately be prompted to have a full on conversation about the move and about what an asshole player 1 is being. Since player 1 is clearly an asshole, that conversation is going to happen one way or the other, no matter what this move says.
3) The game allows a lot to happen between each of those barter offers. Player 2 can can say yes, take the money and XP and keep saying now is not a good time to model. Player 2 can kick player 1 in the junk and rob player 1 of all his barter (I’m assuming player 1 is a dude; all evidence points in that direction).
4) As points 2 and 3, show, the move as it is can bring about much needed conversations at the table is players are inclined to abuse it any way. That said,
5) it’s pretty painless to say the barter move (which, as I pointed out in my Daily Apocalypse post about it, I’m not a huge fan of anyway) can’t apply to PCs if that’s the direction you want to go. If you do that, though, you might want to make it so that PCs can’t manipulate or seduce each other too, since you set up the same possible scenario, though with a dice roll.
1 is a strong enough argument to mollify me, actually.
I do think the lack of a necessary die roll makes it deeply different from a regular seduce or manipulate.
Jason D’Angelo’s answer 1 is correct.
If you’ve already lost both of your stat highlights, seduce or manipulate loses the stick half of its carrot and stick.