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"Buffing" your group with the Leadership skill

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prionic6

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« on: <07-07-14/0549:57> »
So, I'm a face with 11 total dice in Leadership, which opens up quite a few bonuses with the Direct / Inspire / Rally actions. The thing is, what is needed for those dice to work? It says "If you lead people who accept you as their (lone) superior, even temporarily, you can take a Complex Action to make a Simple Leadership + Charisma [Social] Test.". Our group does not have a defined command structure, would they have to explicitly acknowledge me as some kind of superior before any of this could work? Or would it be reasonable that they kind of accept my Leadership just for the kind of situation I'm trying to help them with?

Also, do I have to be physically with them for the skill to be effective? In our last run we had a situation where we kind of split up and I was mostly alone for a few moments but we do have a shared radio channel and the GM ruled that I could use some of the skill as long a I had a video transmission from someone showing me a bit of the surroundings. How would you handle "remote" Leadership situations? Could I use (hot-sim) VR and maybe a surveillance drone or two to be even more effective because of more initiative passes?

Triskavanski

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« Reply #1 on: <07-07-14/0658:18> »
Well, I don't know how GMs would handle it..


Since I don't believe Technomancers are inherently 'hacker' types like Deckers, but rather leaders and group buffers, this is my thing. Generally I buy a few cameras for my team, and try to get as many video/audio feeds as I can. Then go hot-sim VR to give the team commands. Without that.. my technomancer designs fall apart a bit.
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Top Dog

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« Reply #2 on: <07-07-14/0829:05> »
I think you'll have to have your party acknowledge your command through roleplay, but I also don't think it needs to be a big deal. You're good at commanding people - hence the leadership, so you ask them if you can direct them, tactically, in combat. It needn't be more than that - the skill even mentions that "temporary" leadership works. And it doesn't need to be more then pure in-combat command; I don't think they need to recognise you as the party leader in other areas.

(Of course, while the above means you're 'officially' the one who decides what happens in combat, don't actually decide, out-of-character, what happens in combat. That should always remain with the players of the characters).

As for what's needed, you need some tactical information on what's happening, but I don't see why VR couldn't work for that. People do it through radio's now. Maybe a penalty for not doing it in person? Say, 0 for in-person, -1 for VR with camera's, -3 for audio-only?

Of course, all of the above is subject to GM interpretation.

silentninjadesu

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« Reply #3 on: <07-07-14/1139:17> »
Our group has a super face, or the Cheerleader as we like to call him (also only dude on team, so a bunch of gritty ladies led by one gorgeous man  ;D) and the gm lets him use leadership on us as long as we can see or hear him, so he let us do it through comm links and such. The gm has also house ruled that since we have accepted the Cheerleader as our leader if he wants us to do something that we don't want to do he gets to make a leadership vs composure check and if he wins for one ip we just automatically do what he wants anyway because we are so used to following orders. (There are so common sense rules in place. He can't use this power to make us jump off a bridge.) This kind of house rule may only work in a group with high ooc trust.

Top Dog

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« Reply #4 on: <07-07-14/1235:12> »
The gm has also house ruled that since we have accepted the Cheerleader as our leader if he wants us to do something that we don't want to do he gets to make a leadership vs composure check and if he wins for one ip we just automatically do what he wants anyway because we are so used to following orders.
See, that rule makes sense and all, but that's what I would warn against, for any group. I think you need to be very careful with allowing players to dictate the actions of other players, however justified.

prionic6

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« Reply #5 on: <07-07-14/1235:44> »
Thanks a lot for your input! Let's say I also have some combat drones, would I be able to use Leadership on them as long as they are acting on autopilot? They clearly have a limited capacity to understand commands... What about spirits?

Top Dog

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« Reply #6 on: <07-07-14/1256:12> »
I don't think you could Leadership drones. Leadership is a social skill; it's about inspiring sentient beings to do stuff better, and that doesn't apply to drones. I also don't think they have the capacity to accept you as a leader (they're drones; they do what they're told by their owner, there's no concept of accepting leadership there).

Spirits is a different story, since they're fully sentient beings (probably?). I doubt anyone but the summoner could make them accept them as their rightful leader though.

ZeConster

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« Reply #7 on: <07-07-14/1330:47> »
Leadership on drones? You mean Diagnostics? :P

silentninjadesu

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« Reply #8 on: <07-07-14/1413:23> »
The gm has also house ruled that since we have accepted the Cheerleader as our leader if he wants us to do something that we don't want to do he gets to make a leadership vs composure check and if he wins for one ip we just automatically do what he wants anyway because we are so used to following orders.
See, that rule makes sense and all, but that's what I would warn against, for any group. I think you need to be very careful with allowing players to dictate the actions of other players, however justified.

Yeah. It hasn't actually come up yet, but I do see it as a potential for problems. Anytime intra-pc leadership situations have come up we have just resolved it through role-playing and discussion.

voydangel

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« Reply #9 on: <07-07-14/1519:21> »
The gm has also house ruled that since we have accepted the Cheerleader as our leader if he wants us to do something that we don't want to do he gets to make a leadership vs composure check and if he wins for one ip we just automatically do what he wants anyway because we are so used to following orders.
See, that rule makes sense and all, but that's what I would warn against, for any group. I think you need to be very careful with allowing players to dictate the actions of other players, however justified.

I'm currently playing (not GM'ing for once) in a group where we have a player with a face character with high leadership. Every time anyone else wants to do almost anything, he feels the need to jump in and tell us all how to do the action so he can use his leadership skill to give us bonus dice and tells us what to roll, etc. Basically he plays the system, not the game, which is annoying as heck on it's own, but when he disrupts game in order to force the rest of us to play the system instead of the game as well, it really boils my blood. I can say without qualification that this is one of the most annoying player "quirks" I've ever had to deal with. I want to club him in the face with a baseball bat every time he does this.

I would highly recommend following TopDog's advice and, even if there's a good reason for it and the other players haven't expressed concerns, I would not allow any player to dictate what actions to take to other players. Even in my case where the players "dictations" carry no authority and we can choose to ignore him, it's incredibly infuriating to have to deal with someone telling you how to play your character.
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RHat

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« Reply #10 on: <07-07-14/2000:53> »
One thing to consider - Leadership doesn't have to be about telling someone what to do; you can also be expressing confidence in the idea they're already going to run with and in their abilities.
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Davidvs

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« Reply #11 on: <07-07-14/2046:44> »
We haven't found a great way to RP this one yet. Mostly we just hand wave it and state we are using the skill to Cheer/ help, etc. We haven't asked our GM about if it can be done when the leader isn't there. We also designated a leader ooc and the RP it in character.