jebnotjib
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 30
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, baby!
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Post by jebnotjib on Mar 13, 2018 8:17:07 GMT -8
One of my favorite character types to play is the faceman. I often play him as a con artist, relying more on his glibness and personality than on weapons. What experiences do you have with playing or GMing for characters like this? What challenges struck you, and what rewards do you get out of it?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2018 15:57:15 GMT -8
Last long-term character I played recently was a Doji courtier in L5R. It's an interesting class because it's all based on smoothness and bribery essentially - your basic ability lets you get your hands on some pretty hefty 'gifts' that you can use on NPCs or even yourself. The balance is, of course, if it gets overboard, the GM will basically run an in-character audit by your school. So it's possible to have a roleplaying mess if you spend too much grift on yourself rather than advancing the clan's agenda.
The 'weakness' is that they are diplomats, and generally not warriors. The primary weapon the Crane clan has is that, while their diplomats and courtiers are seen as wimps and poseurs, the diplomat's bodyguards are generally viewed as the Empire's best duelists. So the basic court play is to lure someone into insulting your honor, provoking a duel, and then have your bodyguard step in for you.
I think for faces in general, the drawback is the amount of effort you spend specializing tends to hurt you in other areas. But you know what? A lot of good can come from super specialization. I go back to my default for a faceman being - well, I'm old and no pun intended but... Face from the A-team. He was the intel gatherer, the charmer but if combat happened, he could handle himself. He wasn't combat optimized any more than a standard soldier might be. Fittingly, Dirk Benedict's other well known character, Starbuck from the original BSG, makes another good faceman, or could: excellent fighter pilot, drinker, carouser, gambler, athlete, he really could fit in about anywhere.
GMing for a face character, the challenge becomes keeping up the roleplay aspects. And if you don't feel confidant in your roleplaying, it's like any muscle - the more you use it the stronger it gets.
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Post by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE on Mar 14, 2018 6:24:20 GMT -8
GMing characters like this: Being on board with the verbal acrobatics the Face character is going to attempt.
Sometimes you just want to say "What? NO!" But you gotta remember that this is what this character does in lieu of fancy guns and mystical powers. Let them do what they do, but don't see it as a Skeleton Key out of or into any scene. Let them earn a verbal victory through effort and present characters who will challenge them in the mental arena.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2018 9:16:57 GMT -8
In the L5R game I referenced, we were going into a skirmish with baddies, and another player said 'Well, just talk to them.' Another player jumped in, "It's awesome but it's not Charm Person!"
Totally a "That's not how the Force works!" moment
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Post by vyrrk on Mar 14, 2018 11:26:55 GMT -8
I feel like this is stepping dangerously into the topic of "social mechanics"... but... I love when face characters play in my games. I think it really adds something to a group where their first thought isn't to just kill the guards.
But as with everything I run, if you want to do the thing, you gotta do the thing. You better be on your game in fast talking or your looking at a hard DC. You talk the talk and the DC will be really low, you fumble for words and don't convince me, that DC is going to be pretty damn hard.
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bobcatt
Apprentice Douchebag
Patron
An infinite number of monkeys can't be wrong...
Posts: 81
Preferred Game Systems: AD&D 1e, 2e, 5e, Top Secret/S.I., Classic Traveller
Currently Playing: nothing at all :-(
Currently Running: completely stalled doing 5e via Roll20
Favorite Species of Monkey: Barrel of
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Post by bobcatt on Mar 14, 2018 13:45:34 GMT -8
I tried to play a faceman/con artist in AD&D a loooooong time ago. He was a run-of-the-mill Thief class but I wanted to focus exclusively on scheming instead of skulking around in the dark. After running a few simple scams, I'd figured a way to make a huge bundle of coin by rigging a group of fights in a major city. We played through several sessions with me slowly convincing the various NPCs, and everything was going really well until the big score came up. The GM (who hadn't been thinking ahead) suddenly realised our little group would shortly have more money than Croesus. He panicked, and arbitrarily chose to have the final scene fail badly despite some good die-rolling on our part. We ended up dead broke and on the run. I resented his heavy-handed decision, and still believe that there would have been much more interesting story-telling and roleplaying if we'd been allowed to succeed (as the dice were allowing us). Given the apparent pointlessness of wandering too far away from basic hack-and-slash behaviours, that experiment rapidly petered out.
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