How does a Perdo specialist solve a social encounter?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
#1

Inspired by the content that some of the members of this community have created in November, I would like to publish a series of discussion proposals about how a specialized magus can solve a particular type of problems. The general question would be:

How does a X specialist solve: a) a social encounter b) a combat encounter c) a physical barrier d) an investigation e) whatever you like ?

“X” can be any Art or Focus, but for easiness and convenience, I will start with Techniques.

I am not interested in the trivial combinations (for example, how does an Intellego specialist solve an investigation? Or how does an Ignem specialist solve a combat encounter?). Also, some combinations seem very difficult, like how does an Intellego specialist solve a combat encounter or how does an Animal specialist solve a social encounter. But others have the right degree of interest (How does a Creo/Muto/Intellego/Rego specialist solve a social encounter) for comparative purposes, or on its own (how does a Terram specialist solve a social encounter – I am guessing that he is going to buy his way out).

I will try to publish several articles, but I don’t know when or with what frequency.

Feel free to add to the question with other spell proposals for the situation or even to start your own thread with your favorite combination.

Let’s begin:

How does a Perdo specialist solve a social encounter?

For example, ReMe 5 guideline “Quell an emotion in a person” comes handy. When the local busybody tries to ask the Perdo specialist an uncomfortable question, or a guard wants to know what is he doing, the Perdo specialist just destroys that inquisitive intention:

Kill curiosity (PeMe 15) R: Voice, D: Momentary, T: Individual. This spell destroys whatever curiosity the target is feeling at the moment of the casting. He or she will show uninterested even about hearing the answer to a question just formulated. Note that the duration of this spell is momentary, so it does not destroy the ability to feel curiosity. The target can feel again the curiosity about the same question, should the conditions arise again. (Base 5 +2 Voice)

[Note: “Calm the emotion of the heart (PeMe15)” does the same thing but I feel that this guideline should be applied to a single type of emotion. There should be one spell to calm the angry person, other to stop the curiosity of somebody, other different one to calm fear…. I don’t understand why you need a different spell for each animal form you want to adopt with MuCo(An) but you have the swiss knife of all problems with this spell. Just personal preference. You can consider also that narrowing the focus I have allowed a more powerful effect with the statement: “He or she will show uninterested even about hearing the answer to a question just formulated”].
But, sometimes, the interaction has already gone too far and it is necessary to erase all memories of the conversation. Usually “Loss of but a moment’s memory (PeMe15)” is enough to solve that interaction and erase any memory of magic used during the conversation. But for those situations in which you need a more nuclear option

The day lost (PeMe 20) R: Eye, D: Momentary, T: Individual. This spell destroys the memories of the target from the last sunset or sunrise, whichever happened last, to the present moment. (Base 15 +1 Eye)

But a Perdo specialist normally thinks that the best social interaction is the one that didn’t happen, so they are not above using “Veil of Invisibility (PeIm20)” or “Silence of the Smothered Sound (PeIm20)” to avoid the encounter altogether.
Nevertheless, there are moments in which not even a Perdo specialist can avoid the interaction. Those are the moments to tell the biggest lie available and make their interlopers believe. With simpler people, “Trust of Childlike Faith (PeMe10)” may be enough. But the Perdo specialist has bigger guns:

Blind Trust of the Believer (PeMe20) R: Eye, D: Diam, T: Ind The target loses judgment and believes almost any lie for the duration of the spell. An Intelligence stress roll of 12+ is allowed to resist. Truly incredible lies allow easier resistance rolls. (Base 4, +1 Eye, +1 Diam +2 increased effect, from 6+ to 12+)

If the Perdo specialist faces an aggressive audience, he can consider either using “Enchantment of Detachment (PeMe15)” or a bigger spell to smooth things out:

The detachment of the audience (PeMe25) R: Eye, D: Sun, T: Ind Calms and greatly lowers the intensity of the target group’s current emotions. (Base 4, +1 Eye, +2 Sun, +2 Group)

I hope that you like the idea. How would your Perdo specialist solve a social encounter?

#2

This spell came up in a game where our mentem based tytalus had just dropped out (I made him an NPC antagonist) and the apromorian flambeau was forced to compensate for not having frosty breath of the spoken lie available to him. This spell is a recreation based on the idea, I'm not sure if any of the details are the same. (I also used it for Ranulf because he's so bad with intellego)

#3

Thank you Aeric and Erik for some good spell ideas.

I really like the creativity and inventiveness of these exercises.

#4

Social encounter is easy:

Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Enter the hut. Have a debate. Wait till you say something wrong. Mind-wipe.
Repeat until you find the right words (or until your storyteller starts begging you to stop).

#5

How does a [technique] specialist solve a social encounter?
With Mentem.

As an alternative "How does any mage solve a social encounter?"
Hire/coerce/create someone else without the Gift to handle it for you.

#6

In my game our Tremere developed a habit of doing this to peasants.

#7

That sounds an awful lot like computer game tricks of Quick Save before and Quick Load until you get the result you want.

#8

This spell is cool. I suppose that if that person becomes aware of the situation, he or she can simply stop talking. Still, it seems a quite good spell to have.

And that is why nobody thinks that Perdo specialists are cool people (except if you are really are talking about temperature). Which is my point entirely with this kind of posts. Having a specific kind of tools available to you probably tends to drive your personality towards specific paths. You don't need to know about other people's feelings when you can undo mistakes like that.

#9

Yeah, I guess it really depends on the personality of the magus, which makes the range of options simply too wide. For example when reading this topic I thought: how the bigger Perdo specialist in the line, Philippus Niger of Flambeau, would manage a social encounter? How a guy who haves a spell named Evisceration of a Thousand Knives react to mundanes bothering him with their social silliness?

Rephrasing, wouldn't at least some Perdo experts think: "why bothering to remove memories or feelings when you can just remove humans, and get rid of the social nuisance"?

Though not every expert is the same, and I'm enjoying a lot all the subtler, less apromor-ish approaches in this topic.

#10

I think the pretense of the thought experiment was that you, for some reason, had to have a social encounter. 9 of 10 magi would probably avoid the situation or try to avoid it as a plan A.

#11

For a Merinita, I find that Bargain Durations are also pretty nice:

Magus: Can you promise that you won't lie to us?
Trader: Why of course!
Magus [touching the trader's nose]: I'll hold you to this!

#12

My point is that your magic area of expertise probably influences your personality because, if that is the tool that you have, you probably will use it. And you cannot use it repeatly without changing your personality accordingly. Cognitive dissonance and all that Jazz.

And, about the social encounter, it needs not to be with a mundane. Perhaps you need something from a faerie or magic ceature and intimidation won’t cut it. And the only way to bypass magic resistance is to use your area of specialty (Perdo).