Seduce or Manipulate Questions

So, two questions on seduce or manipulate.

First: Leverage. Do you need to have leverage that the person your manipulating cares about, or does the simple presence of leverage allow the roll to happen, and how well you use it is based on your hot roll?

Second: Groups. Can you seduce or manipulate multiple people if the leverage you have works on all of them?

1: If they don't care about it, it's not really leverage. It's something you thought was leverage.

2: Sure.

The group thing depends on the fiction i think. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.
There is a reason why there are extra Moves for dealing with groups.

I guess you could manipulate groups, but you'd have to have suitable leverage.  If that's barter it's a hell of a lot of jingle.  But yeah, I could see a hardholder calming a mob by promising them a lottery where every day one person gets to live in high-lux or the execution of a prisoner they hate or something.  You manipulate a whole family of cannibals by bluffing that you've got their mama and if you don't walk out of here she's going to be baked in her own oven.

Seducing a group?  Heh heh heh.  Mine is a creepy laugh.

I definitely agree that there are moves for influencing a group. I ask because I had a sexy brainer gone battlebabe try to seduce a group of three soldiers, and the group (we were co-mcing) decided to go with a acting under fire roll before I could attempt to seduce the group). At the time I thought it was weird, but in retrospect I can see the justification (the fire being, can you keep all of their attention as you flirt and coo). It seems to me like seducing or manipulating a group is possible, assuming you have the proper leverage to do so.

Some other questions:
1.) On the barter = auto 10+ manipulate move, does the subject have to want the item traded for the move to work?
(I looked at this post for answers, but didn't really understand the outcome of the conversation)

2.) Is it true that you don't need leverage to manipulate a PC?
(Question based off of this quote by vincent "For PCs, the leverage comes after the roll.")

#2 yes you don't need leverage

#1 Yes they still want the item, they don'T want anything more. They might give you a bit of time to trade it though.

Okay, so then some followup questions:

1. For the barter move - what's the difference between using 1 barter as leverage and rolling+hot vs using 1-barter for leverage and auto-scoring a 10+? Is this rule there as a money=power thing?

2. For manipulating a PC - Why don't you need leverage? Or I guess, why does the leverage come after the roll? This just isn't computing in my head.

For example:
"Keeler confesses her crush to Bran. She wants him to like her back. She hits the roll with a 7. “If you like me back, mark experience,” she says. “Wow I’d like to,” Bran’s player says, “and you’re sweet and all, but…” “Oh no!” Keeler’s player says. “Crushed!”

What's the leverage here? Did Keeler have any at all? Did she need to? What happened that allowed the use of a seduce or manipulate roll? Can PCs can just seduce/manipulate each other just because?

3. Assurance - Can you still seduce or manipulate someone if they're already planning on doing what you want? By this I mean taking the risk of making a move to mechanically insure the person does what you want.

For example, Skins says he'll guard the food storage, and thats cool, but I want to make sure he really guards it, and doesn't fuck off because Zipfly gives him the goggly eyes. I tell him that if he fucks this up there'll be hell to pay, and roll to manipulate. 10+. "Yeah sure boss, don't worry, I'll be cool." - and he will.

Does that sound right?

1) yeah, it's about "money" (goods, in fact) as power. In a cruel world of AW shiny things are rare and they are valued. about liking the thing ? I suppose by making barter generic "things" Vince tries to assume that having barter you either have something Rolfball likes and wants, or he's sure that by trading it he can get what he wants.

2) I suppose in this example it means "giving them xp is leverage"
still in my games I try to mediate so that manipulation uses something other party cares about. not that we have problems with that...
3) yes, you have a good idea, do that.

Okay, I re-read the thread where Vx talks about leverage on PCs, and I think I get it. The leverage for PCs is what you choose after your roll.

So, Keeler the Battlebabe walks up to Leema the Savvyhead and starts chatting him up. After a minute or two, Keeler drops the bomb - that he wants Leema to make a bomb. Leema's like "holy shit," and Keeler rolls to manipulate (or seduce). He scores a 7-9 and decides to make it "acting under fire." "Come on Leema, you know I would only come to you for something like this. Your my special little tech-bunny. You wouldn't want to disappoint me now, would you?"

Now Leema could still ask for barter, or a promise, or whatever, but either way, if she doesn't make the bomb, she's acting under fire. The "disappointing Keeler" becomes the leverage, because of the option taken and how it played out in the exchange. Sound right?

I don't know if this thread http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=2858.msg17291#msg17291 will clear things up or make things more muddy, but it helped me conceptualize this whole exchange.

In your example, it's less (or not) about Leema refusing to make bomb, and more about what the Savvyhead does instead right at that moment that triggers the <b>do it under fire</b>.

Here is the original thread where Vx explains the seduce/manipulate-act under fire flow: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=652.msg5727#msg5727

So it's less about Keeler's disappointment directly affecting Leema, and more about how does Keeler's disappointment suddenly manifest in the fiction surrounding them (do allies of Keeler interpret the disappointment as an excuse to beat up Leema, do enemies of Keeler overheard the conversation and attack Leema to stop the Savvyhead from making the bomb, etc.).

I think... honestly, this part of the game often has me confounded.

Oh damn, those are good links - thanks Lin_fusan! Okay, so example rewrite 1:


Keeler the Battlebabe walks up to Leema the Savvyhead and says that he wants Leema to make a bomb. Keeler scores a 7-9 to manipulate and decides to make it acting under fire. "Come on Leema, you wouldn't want to disappoint me now, would you?" Leema says "fuck off," and goes back to working on that water filter. But now she's acting under fire to get it done.

Leema rolls:
On a 10+, whatever, Keeler's not that hot.
On a 7-9: "Leema, you get the filter done, but this thing isn't going to work for more than a few days without regular maintenance."
On a miss: "So you get the water filter done and installed, and your sure it's good. But a few days later, people start getting kind of green in the gills..."


So here the leverage is disappointing Keeler (because acting under fire was chosen), and the acting under fire applies to what Leema does instead of making the bomb.

Also, if I'm right here, that also seems to mean that a PC can decide to Seduce or Manipulate another PC whenever they want something from them, and determine who/what they are offering as leverage after the roll. This could be as simple as fear of disappointment or Keeler saying "Come on Leema, don't be a fuckface," which generally wouldn't suffice as leverage for NPCs. Is this right?

(Vincent, if you could weigh in here that would be awesome.)

1. For the barter move - what's the difference between using 1 barter as leverage and rolling+hot vs using 1-barter for leverage and auto-scoring a 10+? Is this rule there as a money=power thing?

Remember, on a actual seduce/manipulate 10+ you wouldn't have to give them the barter.  You just have to make the promise, not keep it.

And, depending on the promise, you might not have to give them the barter on a 7-9 either.  Are they doing what you want because you're going to pay them?  or are they doing it because you're rich and it's in their interest to have rich friends?

Quote from: Jwok on April 30, 2013, 01:46:52 AM

1. For the barter move - what's the difference between using 1 barter as leverage and rolling+hot vs using 1-barter for leverage and auto-scoring a 10+? Is this rule there as a money=power thing?

Remember, on a actual seduce/manipulate 10+ you wouldn't have to give them the barter.  You just have to make the promise, not keep it.

And, depending on the promise, you might not have to give them the barter on a 7-9 either.  Are they doing what you want because you're going to pay them?  or are they doing it because you're rich and it's in their interest to have rich friends?

That depends on whether you are Manipulating PC or NPC.

1. For the barter move - what's the difference between using 1 barter as leverage and rolling+hot vs using 1-barter for leverage and auto-scoring a 10+? Is this rule there as a money=power thing?

Note that the manipulate move gives the npc room to decide what to ask for themselves. Not certain they'll ask for something you want to give them.