[Brainstorming] “Power-Level” for influencing people?

[Alex-01]

I have some evil guys who want to influence / control one or two people on the planet. These people should help them to increase the chaos in the world by encouraging riots, creating powerful computer-viruses or producing new deadly weapons. This control should happen immediately (maybe like a simple cast). There is no time to spin a subtle net of ingratiation.
The evil guys come from “outside” the world. Therefore they don’t have connections to criminals, don’t have money to corrupt the needed people …
I want to make a (difficulty-) difference between a “normal”, powerless inhabitant and a powerful politician or scientist.

One idea is to make a general “power-level-list”. People with high influence and power have a higher level. Therefore there are much harder to control.

I’m not sure if this is a good idea. Do have other suggestion about influencing people?

[Jon Hastings]

Hi Alex,

Sounds like an interesting idea, but I do have a few questions: is this for a game you're already playing?  Or are you designing a new game with this as the set-up ("evil guys try to sow chaos throughout the world!")? If so, what would game play be like?  Are the players playing characters who are trying to stop the evil guys or are they playing the evil guys?

Without more context, I'm not sure how useful this will be, but in one of my stalled game designs about planetary conquest, I divided up types of influence (Government, Science, Military, in this case) and rated characters within each sphere.  This might work with your idea of a power-level list.

Another angle to take is that someone who is powerful might be hard to control, but they might also have their own agenda which can influence their decisions.

I hope to see more of your ideas about this.

-Jon

[brainwipe]

I'd like to echo Jon's questions, answer those and the feedback you'll get will be much better.

Generally speaking:
I think influence has a lot to do with your connection to the wider world - not just you occupation. If you are a single, homeless orphan with no friends, it's more difficult to influence you than if you were a family man with home, car, lots of aunts/uncles/sisters and a wide network of people you cared about. Your rating should try and measure how many real world connections they have. The more connections (or roots) they have, the easier they are to influence, because you have more arms to twist and houses to burn. Much more to lose.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

One thing you might try is rating how many people X person has under his influence.  The person gets 1 point per person.  So a politician might have a very high score.  A streetbum might have only a score of 1.  The "evil guys" you talk about would have a score of some kind.  Call it "Influence" let's say.  Their "Influence Score" would somehow dictate how many and what kind of people they can have under their control.  Does that help you any? :)

Peace,

-Troy

[Alex-01]

Hi Jon,

thank you for your reply.

Sounds like an interesting idea, but I do have a few questions: is this for a game you're already playing?  Or are you designing a new game with this as the set-up ("evil guys try to sow chaos throughout the world!")? If so, what would game play be like?  Are the players playing characters who are trying to stop the evil guys or are they playing the evil guys?

The game will be a new designed game, where the players play the good guys who has to fight against the "results" of the work of the evil guys. The evil guys can choose their "attack" from a list of actions. On possibility is the control of other people.

but in one of my stalled game designs about planetary conquest, I divided up types of influence (Government, Science, Military, in this case) and rated characters within each sphere.  This might work with your idea of a power-level list.

This is a good idea.

One continuing idea about Power-Levels: Give every person a value between 1 and 10.
Extended: Maybe we can split the power-level into sub-levels (also from 1-10) like political power [or influence] (bush, putin ...), economic power (bill gates ...) and will-power (nobel-price-scientists, powerful magicians...). Than we add the values and get a final power-Level-value (max. 30).

I think influence has a lot to do with your connection to the wider world - not just you occupation. If you are a single, homeless orphan with no friends, it's more difficult to influence you than if you were a family man with home, car, lots of aunts/uncles/sisters and a wide network of people you cared about. Your rating should try and measure how many real world connections they have. The more connections (or roots) they have, the easier they are to influence, because you have more arms to twist and houses to burn. Much more to lose.

This is a interesting idea as well, but it's the opposite of the first idea. This means that the president of a powerful nation (with a lot of roots) would be very easy to control. The more you have to lose the more you can be blackmailed. That makes sense. But it would be very problematic for our game, when it`s so easy to control powerful people.

One thing you might try is rating how many people X person has under his influence.  The person gets 1 point per person.  So a politician might have a very high score.  A streetbum might have only a score of 1.  The "evil guys" you talk about would have a score of some kind.  Call it "Influence" let's say.  Their "Influence Score" would somehow dictate how many and what kind of people they can have under their control.  Does that help you any? :)

This is a good idea. Maybe we can put it under the sub-level "political power/Influence". The bigger the nation, the person rules, the bigger the power-level. This political power can also include e.g. religious leader (the pope, sect-leaders ...).

[Jon Hastings]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for answering my questions.

I think Troy's suggestion is definitely something that could work, but I have a couple more questions that will help me get a better sense of what you are trying to do:

So far, I see that in the game we have Evil Guys, the PCs (who are trying to stop the Evil Guys), and the Important Influential NPCs (who have some kind of power level that indicates both how hard it is for the Evil Guys to influence them AND how big of an effect they can have on the world).  What I'd like to know now is how do we, as people sitting around the table (players and GM, both) make these three groups of characters interact?

For example, are the PCs and the Evil Guys fighting over who controls the Influential NPCs?  That is, if I'm playing, do I want my PC to run around and try to convince, say, the Governor that she needs to help me fight against the Evil Guys before the Evil Guys get her on their side?  I.e., are the Important NPCs resources that the PCs and the Evil Guys are going to fight over?

Or, are the Evil Guys going to buy up Influential NPCs in order to use them directly to cause adversity and complications for the PCs?  (This might be what you mean by a "simple cast" system).

These are just suggestions, but the important thing is that how you answer this question will hopefully give you a better sense of how to structure the influence system.  (One thing that can be helpful is to imagine how you'd like the system to play out in an actual game, describing both what the players and GM are doing and how that would look in the game world.)

-Jon

[FLEB]

The difficulty controlling powerful people is not in controlling, it's in getting at the powerful people. Powerful people are not much less vulnerable than ordinary folks, but they have layers and layers of protections, both physical and bureaucratic, to limit harmful contact from the "rabble".

[TonyLB]

It might do you good to consider what the question looks like turned on its head:  Not "If they wanted to cause chaos, who would they choose?" but "If they wanted to choose this person, what global-scale chaos can I justify them having as their motive?"

That way you can look at your players and say "Who do the players want to save from alien influence?  Oh ... the takoyaki vendor on the corner?  Okay ... let's figure out how this guy could foment global chaos!"

Or maybe I've just been watching way too much Gatekeepers.

[Alex-01]

Thank you Jon, FLEB and TonyLB for your ideas and hints.
During the weekend I worked on an idea to classify people. This classification depends on the power they have and the damage they can cause. Higher ranked people are therefore harder to influence. I want to test this idea in the next session - a detailed report will follow.