In the adventure I am writing, there is an undercover Bene Gesserit would might ‘persuade’ a PC using the Voice to make the PC suggest they might let her tag along. In the rules, the Bene Gesserit Talent ‘Voice’ says that usage adds points to Threat. What if this NPC tries to use this talent against a PC? Would that give the PCs Momentum?
It works kind of the opposite way. For the NPC to use the voice against a PC they would use Threat to pay the cost and not Momentum. So you take Threat points out of the pool and not add them.
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Very much this.
Basically you can always reverse Threat/Momentum when switching between PCs and NPCs.
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Are there any examples of difficulty levels for different uses of the Voice? For example:
Gaius Helen Mohiam commands Paul to come to her on Caladan.
Paul tells the Harkonnen captor to remove his mother’s gag.
Jessica uses it on the Harkonnen guards in the ornithopter.
For using Voice its more about the Difficulty of talking someone into performing the action. Voice just makes it easier. You add Threat to grant automatic successes, but its up to you how much to risk depending on the Difficulty of getting someone to follow your command (without the voice).
So, to cover those, here’s how I’d run it:
Gaius Helen Mohiam commands Paul to come to her on Caladan.
This is a pretty simple command and Paul has been told to do as he’s told. So Its probably only Difficulty 1 or 2. As such Helen just adds 1 Threat and manages to roll what she needs for the rest. She’s just trying to make a point and show off after all.
Paul tells the Harkonnen captor to remove his mother’s gag.
Much tougher. The soldier knows this is dangerous as Jessica is a BG. He also has no loyalty to Paul or his family. But its not a complex action, so it also doesn’t feel like asking for much. Still its probably a Difficulty 4. Paul tries to be subtle and just adds 1 Threat, but he still doesn’t get enough successes. The GM uses the Threat to give Paul a complication of injured when the soldier hits him for his temerity.
So he tries again, adding max 3 Threat and throwing everything into it. The dice are with him this time and he gets the rest of the successes he needs on the roll.
Jessica uses it on the Harkonnen guards in the ornithopter.
Jessica has more skill and subtlety so she can be a bit cleverer and less direct.
She tells the soldiers there isn’t a need to fight over her. Talking the soldiers into killing each other is a Difficulty 4 action. They don’t like each other after all and lack discipline. For a group of Sardaukar it would be 5.
Jessica has a lot of skill here, and the GM lets her use some of her traits, like Bene Gesserit or even Seductive because of the way she has framed what she is asking. So her player just adds 2 Threat with Voice, and with traits dropping the Difficulty her skill roll easily provides the rest of the successes she needs.
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Ah brilliant, thank you for such a detailed answer, it is most appreciated.
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Thinking about this some more, looking at the rules, you can buy up to 3 automatic successes using threat, and still buy more dice using Momentum/Threat, which means that while yes it does rack up the Threat pool, a player running a character who has the Voice Talent could quite easily take out a major NPC before they finish monologuing. 