Thanks everyone. A quick run down of the passes is what keeps me thinking it wasn't a role playing effort (he uses a Hindi-Indian accent when he's in character and didn't here). Pass 2 (last pass they can act, turns are 4 passes long), send spirit in to room that bad guy's in have it materialize use confusion (bad guys resists) bad guy escapes out window. Pass 3, spirit chases bad guy, bad guy keeps running. Pass 4, both running. Question asked.
Nope, never mind, you guys are totally right. I should have just said, "ask that in character" to the player and then responded appropriately. I let my annoyance get the best of me. Of course every player is going to want to know if their character's "tools" are right for the job but I only saw the player asking "Am I going to win" as if to just bypass the game. And because of that I missed out on a good role-play seed as it is one of his first bound spirits.
generally from what i have seen is the GM ''controls'' the spirit similar to an npc. so i would of treated it like he was asking the local resident npc street sam if he could of taken the guy. so base it on what the spirit itself thinks not the stat/skill comparison.
Alternatively that vague of a question to a spirit (especially a tree) is likely to just confuse it. maybe have a chat to him with the sort of things his spirits may or may not understand.
Yeah, definitely. I was far more into a "rules" state of mind than RP at that moment.
No, it wasn't a rules thing, it sounds more like RP. Spirits are intelligent beings, and they understand speech. A better phrase would have been "hey, spirit, are you capable of taking this guy down for me?" To which the answer would be anywhere from *rustle, rustle* to "Of COURSE, I can, I am a mighty spirit" (If high force) to "Perhaps" (for a weak spirit), etc.
Also, The GM controls the spirit unless the player specifically orders it to use a specific ability. I dunno if the player or the GM rolls for it, but i usually say the player does.
I love the *rustle, rustle* hehe. In combat I definitely have the players control their spirits (movement, dice rolls, which powers to use when) and just keep an eye on it to make sure they're keeping within the bounds of the service being used. It's "their" spirit so the benefit should go to them and if they're unsure what to have it do I'm happy to help and also happy to intervene when appropriate (rolled a glitch in the summoning, higher force than the summoner's magic, etc.)
Of course there is also the matter of spirit temperament.
I want to quote this because it's cool and it seems apt. Kieron Gillen on writing magic
The one magical rite that’s been in play is that of the magical promise. Loki makes Hel-Wolf swear something. Hel-Wolf swears it, but does so in a way which allows him to ignore the oath. We know about that kind of faustian deal, so that kind of oath is something we kinda know about. Even so, if you didn’t, the way we use it also introduces it as a concept. HERE IS A PROMISE/HERE IS WHAT I’VE ACTUALLY SWORN/HERE IS THE RESULT. After that scene, magical promises are in our box of magical tricks that work in our fictional universe. It’s not a magic solution which works on a single problem. It’s a general tool you can expect to see used again
I mention that because just asking could be a service if the GM was feeling particularly evil. Depending on how I was feeling and whether I could recall how the summoning test went, you can play with this a great deal. There isn't just the question of whether the spirit would be able to understand that, but how they would respond.
"Can I take him? Hm ... No. I do not have the power to 'take' this person anywhere." The GM can be a prick about how the spirit responds, and it depends on the situation. I would be inclined to mess with them if it was at the end of a slog of a fight and I was feeling punchy.
With regards to the total hits, say a mage summons a force 4 Fire Elemental. His Summoning [6] + Magic [6] generates 7 hits, while the poor Elemental only gets two. That's five net hits, which grant five services, but you could also play the Elemental that it feels it's being bullied by the Mage's excessive skill dice pool, and takes the attitude of a rebellious servant.
I like this, but it could also go in the opposite direction. In your example, FastJack, the spirit may also end up admiring, respecting, become fearful of such a "powerful" mage who can so deftly summon, while if the summoner got 7 hits and the spirit got 6 then there's less respect, "meat bag got lucky and doesn't truly deserve my services." I'd prefer some other metric to judge the spirit's attitude and then use the "hit-gap" as why the spirit feels the way that it does. (I just realized I haven't had coffee today, dear gods). Maybe a flat out D6 roll on the summoning of any spirit, 1 = hostile, 2 = unfriendly, 3 = Ambivalent, 4 = friendly, 5 = helpful, 6 = I'm-your-new-puppy, summon me again. Though I loathe to add additional die rolls, but yeah. I like the "summoning taint" mentioned (I think in SR4A in the summoning section) where if a mage is a constant dick to his/her spirits then word gets around at the astral water cooler. So just keeping an Astral Street Cred/Notoriety rating for mages might help to do the trick (but to make another die roll from it, roll Astral Street Cred with a Threshold equal to Astral Notoriety, on a fail the spirit is not a happy camper).
Spirits (summoned in this case. Free spirits are a given) DO have their own agendas. At least, some do. That's the thing about spirits. Mana is both astral matter and energy, and the fluctuations in how they interact in a spirit has to be to some extent why sometimes you summon an extradimensional "person" who can either be cool or a dick, and sometimes it's an astral toaster where you press the button and it does what you tell it to do.
That said, in twenty years it's been uncommon for me to have seen that side of the spirit relationship where you have to be an astral litigator to exact your precise service. But you know that's why as far as I know and just to me that it's so apt that Charisma was the summoning drain and is the astral Strength stat.
All hail the Astral Toasters!
The best time to put on the astral litigator hat is when it will cause tension in the story. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave." And Dave starts to sweat 'cause he knows MCT's going to be busting through the door soon. But for every single service, or every summoning, no. GM != Dick, but Dick could be the GM. But dealing with characters summoning spirits is still relatively new for me. I can sit back and out of combat hit all the bases, the rolls, the RP for services, etc. But in combat I'm still overloaded from not having rules memorized, keeping track of what the bad guys are up to, remembering the mage has half the team invisible so I need to stop having the bad guys act as if they can see them, keeping things flowing, etc.
Again, thanks for all your input
