SBA - State of Mind Minor Reword

[Agnaa]

Our Standard Battle Assumptions page currently says:

Characters will not give up of their own accord. That means a character that is uninterested or sees no chance of winning won't simply leave and characters wouldn't simply become friends with each other. This doesn't prevent a character being made to give up, because the other character manipulates them via things like, for example, mind control, fear inducement, psychological tricks or superhuman charisma.

I still think this leaves too much room as is. I suggest a reword to this:

Characters will not give up of their own accord. That means a character that is uninterested or sees no chance of winning won't simply leave and characters wouldn't simply become friends with each other. This doesn't prevent a character being made to give up, because the other character manipulates them via supernatural abilities like, for example, mind control, fear inducement, or superhuman charisma.

I added the words "supernatural abilities", and removed the words "psychological tricks".

 

[Moritzva]

This is fine.

 

[Zaratthustra]

Looks good.

 

[Duedate8898]

What exactly does this change exclude that wasn't accounted for before?

 

[Agnaa]

Social Influencing that still lies within the range of what humans can accomplish.

 

[Moritzva]

Social Influencing that still lies within the range of what humans can accomplish.

No, not really, the wording didn't lend itself to that. It just wasn't very clear on what it did mean.

 

[Agnaa]

I don't know how you could interpret "psychological tricks" as being superhuman, especially when mind control is already listed separately. But to each their own ig.

 

[Duedate8898]

Social Influencing that still lies within the range of what humans can accomplish.

Is that not a valid way to win a fight?

No, not really, the wording didn't lend itself to that. It just wasn't very clear on what it did mean.

So what is now being accounted for with this change that wasn't before?

 

[Agnaa]

Is that not a valid way to win a fight?

A fair few people seem to think not. I think you should need a supernatural ability to overturn our implanted willingness to kill, rather than just human-level sweet-talking.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I think supernatural abilities sounds better than superhuman. But looks fine.

 

[Moritzva]

The problem is "psychological tricks" being impossibly vague and unclear on what it is even meant to mean.

 

[Agnaa]

I think supernatural abilities sounds better than superhuman. But looks fine.

Good point, I'll go change it.

 

[Duedate8898]

A fair few people seem to think not. I think you should need a supernatural ability to overturn our implanted willingness to kill, rather than just human-level sweet-talking.

Don't know why it'd have to be supernatural. If the characters involved are able to reach a point in their battle where they can talk and one manages to just talk their way out of a fight through words and get the opponent to admit defeat then that should be a valid way of victory.

The problem is "psychological tricks" being impossibly vague and unclear on what it is even meant to mean.

Then maybe the change should be towards better explaining what psychological tricks means instead of just changing it to something else since everything there before makes noting supernatural ability redundant.

I don't really see a point in this rule change so mark me against it.

 

[Agnaa]

Don't know why it'd have to be supernatural. If the characters involved are able to reach a point in their battle where they can talk and one manages to just talk their way out of a fight through words and get the opponent to admit defeat then that should be a valid way of victory.

It shouldn't, because that heavily biases fights against characters who are ordinary or kindhearted people, and biases them towards characters who are even mildly convincing. Which really shouldn't be the kind of thing we encourage on a site about comparing the ability of characters to beat each other in fights.

 

[Purgy]

It shouldn't, because that heavily biases fights against characters who are ordinary or kindhearted people, and biases them towards characters who are even mildly convincing. Which really shouldn't be the kind of thing we encourage on a site about comparing the ability of characters to beat each other in fights.

If that's the case then why not just ban in-character fights entirely and make everyone bloodlusted? The way things are at the moment, a characters personality and way of fighting are just as important as the abilities they have when determining the outcome of a fight.

Also unrelated to this point, but how is superhuman charisma a supernatural ability?

 

[Duedate8898]

It shouldn't, because that heavily biases fights against characters who are ordinary or kindhearted people, and biases them towards characters who are even mildly convincing. Which really shouldn't be the kind of thing we encourage on a site about comparing the ability of characters to beat each other in fights.

This site also indexes a sizeable number of non-combatants and I don't see us nuking them anytime soon. And it biasing fights a certain way I don't think is fair ground to try and toss it out. Plenty of things bias fights a certain way, that's the big thing about hax, but they're still considered valid ways to win. If it makes a fight a stomp, then we don't need to change the rule since stomps aren't added anyway. The argument just ends up being can they get to that point in a battle and then effectively execute their power. It should be valid.

 

[Agnaa]

If that's the case then why not just ban in-character fights entirely and make everyone bloodlusted? The way things are at the moment, a characters personality and way of fighting are just as important as the abilities they have when determining the outcome of a fight.

Also unrelated to this point, but how is superhuman charisma a supernatural ability?

The character's personality and way of fighting are important because they determine the approach taken to the fight. But "{X character} just leaves because he doesn't want to hurt people" isn't really a fight.

Superhuman charisma is supernatural being it is, well, superhuman. It's not something that can be done IRL.

This site also indexes a sizeable number of non-combatants and I don't see us nuking them anytime soon.

We nuke non-combatants from non-combat verses without anything supernatural.

The argument just ends up being can they get to that point in a battle and then effectively execute their power. It should be valid.

Using human-level discussion to convince a character who doesn't want to hurt people to not hurt you is not much of a fight.

That's why we have the SBA mindset of being willing to kill in the first place.

 

[Bobsican]

The argument just ends up being can they get to that point in a battle and then effectively execute their power. It should be valid.

Using human-level discussion to convince a character who doesn't want to hurt people to not hurt you is not much of a fight.

That's why we have the SBA mindset of being willing to kill in the first place.

That got changed, characters are no longer inherently willing to kill per-say

 

[Duedate8898]

If that's the case then why not just ban in-character fights entirely and make everyone bloodlusted? The way things are at the moment, a characters personality and way of fighting are just as important as the abilities they have when determining the outcome of a fight.

Also unrelated to this point, but how is superhuman charisma a supernatural ability?

The character's personality and way of fighting are important because they determine the approach taken to the fight. But "{X character} just leaves because he doesn't want to hurt people" isn't really a fight.

Superhuman charisma is supernatural being it is, well, superhuman. It's not something that can be done IRL.

This site also indexes a sizeable number of non-combatants and I don't see us nuking them anytime soon.

We nuke non-combatants from non-combat verses without anything supernatural.

Okay, that doesn't change the fact that we have general non-combatants indexed. The argument of this being a site all about fighting is one which hasn't stood for a long time.

The argument just ends up being can they get to that point in a battle and then effectively execute their power. It should be valid.

Using human-level discussion to convince a character who doesn't want to hurt people to not hurt you is not much of a fight.

That's why we have the SBA mindset of being willing to kill in the first place.

Neither is using mind control or fear manipulation to make someone not want to fight, but those are considered valid means to get a win.

 

[Agnaa]

Sorry, attempt to win, whatever.

They're not really attempting to win if they give up as soon as an ordinary human tells them not to.

 

[BigSmoke4269]

Using human-level discussion to convince a character who doesn't want to hurt people to not hurt you is not much of a fight.

hax can also make it "not much of a fight". we have characters who would instantly erase the other dude, characters who can rewrite each other out of history, and characters who would just go back in time and strangle their opponent to death as a baby. none of those are much of a fight either, but they're still valid wincons. honestly, using mind hax to make your character leave the battle is even less of a fight.

 

[Agnaa]

Okay, that doesn't change the fact that we have general non-combatants indexed. The argument of this being a site all about fighting is one which hasn't stood for a long time.

And our standard battle assumptions are for battles between combatants. You can add esoteric rules for getting two gamblers to play Poker against each other, but that's outside of the scope of SBA.

Neither is using mind control or fear manipulation to make someone not want to fight, but those are considered valid means to get a win.

It is a fight; it's a superpower they have that can cause the opponent to submit against their will.

hax can also make it "not much of a fight". we have characters who would instantly erase the other dude, characters who can rewrite each other out of history, and characters who would just go back in time and strangle their opponent to death as a baby. none of those are much of a fight either, but they're still valid wincons. honestly, using mind hax to make your character leave the battle is even less of a fight.

By "not much of a fight" I mean "It turns it into a non-combat oriented encounter". Using abilities is a form of combat, and thus, hax is still making it a fight.

 

[BigSmoke4269]

Sorry, attempt to win, whatever.

They're not really attempting to win if they give up as soon as an ordinary human tells them not to.

i don't think anyone's been arguing that average people can just say "don't kill me" and instantly stop the battle. it would probably take a lot more than just that. hence why it has only been used for particularly persuasive characters with social influencing.

 

[BigSmoke4269]

By "not much of a fight" I mean "It turns it into a non-combat oriented encounter". Using abilities is a form of combat, and thus, hax is still making it a fight.

https://vsbattles.com/threads/grace-turnabout-among-us.111243/

this was allowed.

 

[Agnaa]

https://vsbattles.com/threads/grace-turnabout-among-us.111243/

this was allowed.

I have no clue why it was allowed to be added to profiles.

 

[BigSmoke4269]

if this goes through, doesn't it make social influencing a completely useless ability? i fail to see why we're indexing an ability which isn't allowed to be used.