Making Sense of Brainer Moves

My PC group for which I'm MC has a Brainer, Burroughs. Both the player and I have been having some issues with the effectiveness of his Deep Brain Scan.

Per the rule book on the move:

Deep brain scan: when you have time and physical intimacy with someone — mutual intimacy like holding them in your arms, or 1-sided intimacy like they’re restrained to a table — you can read them more deeply than normal. Roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re reading them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1:

• what was your character’s lowest moment?
• for what does your character crave forgiveness, and of whom?
• what are your character’s secret pains?
• in what ways are your character’s mind and soul vulnerable?

On a miss, you inflict 1-harm (ap) upon your subject, to no benefit.

The PCs had a prisoner, Pellet, from a gang of gun runners. Burroughs uses the Violation Glove to do a brain scan and asks for Pellet's lowest moment.

Scrabbling, since this is an NPC that just acquired a name, we go into some details of Pellet's childhood and his bullying of hit little (possibly mutated) brother and how horrible Pellet feels about it now.

All fine and good but, as Burroughs realizes, not terribly fucking useless when Burroughs really wants to track down Pellet's buddies who have large firearms and an RPG in a truck.

This has happened a couple of times with the brain scan now. It has wound up being useful for character development but tactically kind of useless.

I'm wondering if this is normal or if there is something I'm missing here in how to handle this.

I'm wondering if this is normal or if there is something I'm missing here in how to handle this.

Now the Brainer has emotional leverage on Pellet for manipulating him into telling him other stuff... like where's the guns, f*ckwad?

Or simply using the threat of the Deep Brain Scan to go aggro and such.

Nobody in my games wants to get DBSed as it lays you out bare!

Your player should feel lucky! When I was playing Burroughs the Brainer I didn't have a violation glove. I had to beat people up and hold them down (or get others to do that) before I could find out about their horrible childhoods.

Chroma has it right, though. You don't Deep Brain Scan someone in order to find out useful, tactical information that you can then immediately put into action. You Deep Brain Scan someone so you can find out how you can become the biggest fucking asshole they have ever met in their entire life, and then you use the threat of being that asshole against them to make them do stuff.

So in the example above, how do you think Pellet's going to respond when Burroughs skips the whole physical coercion and goes straight for the guilty conscience? "So, Pellet. How about we talk about where your buddies are, hmm? No? Alright, then. Maybe instead we'll have a little talk about your brother. The mutant, right? Yes. In fact, why don't you sit here and think about how you treated him while we go get him and bring him here..."

To be honest, "how is your mind and soul vulnerable" is the one that should get the most tactically advantageous leverage over someone, but your answer for this guy's lowest point was pretty much a silver platter full of amazing. If your player doesn't go straight to stuff like the words above, they might just be too nice to make it as a Brainer...

"Deep brain scan is useless," is like a klaxon going off. I'd have a talk with them about whether they really want to play a Brainer or not. If not, no worries, pick a new playbook.

If they do want to, then okay, they're not very good at playing a Brainer yet. No biggie. They'll get better with practice.

MC, play Pellet like a real person who just got his lowest moment ripped out of his brain by a violation glove. Ask the Brainer how they want to manipulate and control Pellet with that info. That'll help.

I'm curious why the Boroughs chose to find out about Pellet's lowest moment if he really wanted him to spill the beans on his buddies. As John says, you can use the info to get what you want, but there are other choices in the move that seem more likely choices if you want to get info out of them. How is your mind and soul vulnerable, seems good fodder for interrogation. For what do you crave forgiveness and from whom, might give you a something to trade.

Not that they made a bad choice, but I'm interested in what motivated it.

I'm curious why the Boroughs chose to find out about Pellet's lowest moment if he really wanted him to spill the beans on his buddies. As John says, you can use the info to get what you want, but there are other choices in the move that seem more likely choices if you want to get info out of them. How is your mind and soul vulnerable, seems good fodder for interrogation. For what do you crave forgiveness and from whom, might give you a something to trade.

Not that they made a bad choice, but I'm interested in what motivated it.

The motivation wasn't explained. I think the player may just like that version of the move. :-)

I'm curious why the Boroughs chose to find out about Pellet's lowest moment if he really wanted him to spill the beans on his buddies. As John says, you can use the info to get what you want, but there are other choices in the move that seem more likely choices if you want to get info out of them. How is your mind and soul vulnerable, seems good fodder for interrogation. For what do you crave forgiveness and from whom, might give you a something to trade.

I'm the player of this Brainer. I was hoping for a result that might have been more directly applicable to manipulating him, maybe something that might apply to Pellet's current life. But it was also the first brain scan of the campaign, so I was trying the options on for size. "How is your mind and soul vulnerable?" is the next one I did; what we did with that info resulted in poor Pellet having certain health problems that have precluded further interrogation...

Cool, I had some wtf moments myself when I was first playing and just trying things out. Deep brain sounds like it would just pull out the info you want until you look at it and realize its giving tools for manipulation.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Pellet is dead, so you won't get to make him squirm about his little brother.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Pellet is dead, so you won't get to make him squirm about his little brother.

Sounds like a perfect opportunity, though, for the MC to introduce Pellet's younger sister Kip, who was there, unbenknownst to Pellet, and watched in silent heartache as their little brother was bullied and worse.

And Pellet's lover, Cheyenne, who always thought he was the nicest guy on earth and would be devastated if she got mental images of what Pellet did.

Now the Brainer has something on *both* of them – before even doing a brain scan on either of them. Whether she chooses to tell them Pellet felt remorse for that, or holds that in reserve too, is up to her.

Unfortunately, it sounds like Pellet is dead, so you won't get to make him squirm about his little brother.

Pellet isn't dead. He's getting bed rest, supervised by the loving Brainer, after the PCs realized that they'd forgotten about him for a day after locking him in a dark closet with a gunshot wound to the leg without medical treatment. Our hardholder said "Oh, we'll send a medic after we question him" and then got distracted after questioning and forgot...

The info that Burroughs the Brainer pulled was that Pellet has some severe issues with dark and confined spaces so Mr. Toughguy didn't do so well with his seeping, infected wound lying bound in the dark without food or water for a day or so. :-)

Our work here is done ;)