"To the best of your ability"

[jpariury]

Unless someone is explicitly given instruction not to try and stop their Enslavement, they are free to act as they choose.

On the way, Bob yells, "Look out George! I'm coming to kill you! Sorry about this!".

people should roleplay appropriately when given orders - if you're ordered to do something, you need to *do it* to the best of your abilities

How is warning the person you intend to attack doing it "to the best of your ability"? Shouldn't "to the best of your ability" impose a requirement of not taking actions that you know would hinder your chances of success (like warning your target), inasmuch as the character would allow for?

PS - apparently you can't use quote tags in posting a new thread here... weird.

 

[Polare]

Unless someone is explicitly given instruction not to try and stop their Enslavement, they are free to act as they choose.

On the way, Bob yells, "Look out George! I'm coming to kill you! Sorry about this!".

people should roleplay appropriately when given orders - if you're ordered to do something, you need to *do it* to the best of your abilities

How is warning the person you intend to attack doing it "to the best of your ability"? Shouldn't "to the best of your ability" impose a requirement of not taking actions that you know would hinder your chances of success (like warning your target), inasmuch as the character would allow for?

The fact that you're saying something as you're running at someone to fight them doesn't interrupt or slow down your progress to them. As is often the case with Enslavement or other RP effects, it's up to the marshals on the scene as to whether someone is following the spirit of this rule. As a marshal, I wouldn't have a problem with Bob the fighter rushing at his buddy, yelling, "Look out George! I'm coming to kill you!" and following it up with a Slay to the chest (as best he can, anyways), especially if George is clearly seeing Bob coming at him with a weapon raised. If someone's rushing you with a weapon, telling them that you're coming isn't exactly giving anything away.

On the other hand, let's say Bob gets enslaved in battle as above and turns to fight George when told to "Kill him!". But this time, he starts walking slowly over there, taking his time, and yells as above. Before he even reaches George, he swings a few times - really slowly, and extremely easily to block, and all of a sudden he's fighting like someone who has never held a boffer weapon in their life. This is lameness and as a Marshal if I saw a player doing a pattern of "oh my, look, all of a sudden when I'm enslaved I can't actually do anything" I'd pull them aside and mention something about their RP in these situations.

When I gave the example in the original answer, I was considering a "battlefield Enslavement" situation where it's not exactly hidden that someone is Enslaved, and as such I think it only adds to the RP (instead of taking away from it) that someone still has enough free will to shout "I don't really want to do this!" when they're attacking their friends. It doesn't take away from them trying to take out their buddies! It is a very different situation when someone is, say, Enslaved in secret and told to not warn anybody of what they're doing or some such. All RP effects have different standards in different situations. That's just the way they work.

-Bryan Gregory
ARC Member