Poems With Only Five Words, Sit down and shut up? Options

[Ascalaphus]

So, the Commanding Voice adept power lets you use command sentences with at most five words. Which are the sentences you've found most useful?

[Aerospider]

"Stop shooting at us!"

Or optionally –

"Stop shooting at us, f***face!"

Unless that counts as two commands ...

[Karoline]

"Shoot yourself in the head."
"Fall asleep."
"Toss me your guns."
"Pretend you're a [insert non-preditory animal here]." <- more for entertainment than effectiveness (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
"Fight amongst yourselves."
"Run for your life."
"Tell me your bank password."

Edit: The problem with a command like 'sit down and shut up' or 'stop shooting us' is that you have to remember the command doesn't last long. They'll sit down, then stand right back up. They'll stop shooting for a moment, then start shooting again. If they give you their weapons though, or kill themselves, or move themselves out of combat, etc they'll be disabled for slightly longer.

[Zyerne]

"Give me your sister's commcode"

"Remove your underwear" (try doing that in full underwear"

[MK Ultra]

Didn´t come up often...
One of my players used "Drop your weapon" only to be anoyed, when the angry pimp picked it up again with his next available action - at least it bought him some time ...

I guess "reboot your com-network" would be nice, if you encounter the enemy hacker in person (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Karoline]

This power would be so much more effective in Germany. German tends to combine several words into one large word. Usually works better with nouns though...

[The Jopp]

"Shit yourselves"
"Drop your pants"
"Drop your guns"
"Overcast your highest drain spell"
"Summon a F25 spirit"
"Shoot the person beside you"

[Makki]

"Summon a F25 spirit"

he will probably not have Magic 13. but you could still ask for a F10 or so. chances he'll drop dead and the spirit won't come are good. I just imagine my GM rolling and the summoner achieving 1 net hit, while not resist the drain and the spirit go free (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Zyerne]

Anything over twenty would put if over the five word limit too. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Machiavelli]

That was my idea, too during the last run. A (theoretically) great way to kill a mage...except he survives the summoning and the spirit has lost the challenge. In this way.....you are really, really f***ed up.^^

[Karoline]

Is 'force' even a known word in SR? And even more than that, would a mage know what a 'force 20' spirit is exactly? Hermetic and Chaos mages might have developed a word like force to help them quantify the strength of a spell, but I'd call BS on a player asking for specific force spells/spirits. Overcast and drain might also fall into this category.

[Zyerne]

Player speak has a habit of slipping over into character speak.

Of course in this case the mage could just look at the adept blankly, then blast him for being a dick.

[Draco18s]

"Overcasting" I could see as in-character lexicon. A mage would know how well each of his spells effects him, and how strong he can make them and at what point that "strength" causes him to get nose bleeds (or bleeding ears, etc.).

"Force" probably exists in some sense, a unitless measurement like "Decibels,"* that quantifies** magic in some fashion.

Drain, "force 25," or spirit size is probably beyond in character talk, though. "Cast spell that hurts you" is 5 words and should imply overcasting. "Hurt yourself most by spellcasting" should as well, and might also get you the mage's most draining spell.

*Decibels are the x in a 10^x unitless measurement of sound, which is why negative values are still positive fluctuations in the air.
**Not all mages will use the same measurement. It might vary a bit, too, like "a pinch of salt" being a valid cooking ingredient.

[Karoline]

I could see a word synonymous with overcasting, or a phrase, but I don't think the word would necessarily be overcasting, and especially not across all traditions.

And I agree, force likely exists in some form, most likely in hermetic and chaos traditions, as they are the ones that treat magic the most quantitatively. But there is nothing that says that their term is force, and there is even less that says that our F5 spell would be rated at '5' for them. They could rate it 50, or 5, or .5, or ln(5).

"Cast spell that hurts you" - Force 1 stunbolt at self (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
"Hurt yourself most by spellcasting" - Bit harder to worm your way out of this one, have to think about it which conflicts with the high speed nature of the ability. Of course, this means that you're going to have a F12 fireball or something coming at you. Yes, you might take out the mage, but you'll likely get fried in the process.

[Draco18s]

"Hurt yourself most by spellcasting" - Bit harder to worm your way out of this one, have to think about it which conflicts with the high speed nature of the ability. Of course, this means that you're going to have a F12 fireball or something coming at you. Yes, you might take out the mage, but you'll likely get fried in the process.

Oh, completely. You have to be real careful with that one.

(Also, a F1 stunbolt at self isn't a complete waste, the guy spent his action, kekeke)

[Karoline]

Oh, completely. You have to be real careful with that one.

(Also, a F1 stunbolt at self isn't a complete waste, the guy spent his action, kekeke)

Very true, but that can be said about virtually any command. Oh, I got a fun one:
"Everybody Tango!" *Start beat on commlink*

[Mayhem_2006]

"Go ejaculate over a cop"

If the area is right, substitute "cop" for "Troll" "bloodmage" or "Dragon".

[Draco18s]

"Go ejaculate over a cop"

If the area is right, substitute "cop" for "Troll" "bloodmage" or "Dragon".

Remember that the requested action only lasts for 1 combat round, tops. They'd "go" then come right back before they get to said cop/troll/dragon.

[PresentPresence]

This reminds me of the line from the end of Push, where an "adept" uses "commanding voice".

[ Spoiler ]

Put the gun in your mouth...pull the trigger.

When I first read the topic line, though, my initial thought was "Life sucks, then you die." But I guess that would just make your combatant morose.

[sunnyside]

This reminds me of the line from the end of Push, where an "adept" uses "commanding voice".

[ Spoiler ]

Put the gun in your mouth...pull the trigger.

When I first read the topic line, though, my initial thought was "Life sucks, then you die." But I guess that would just make your combatant morose.

With a five word verison of that I'd so pull a fight club ending on the players. Maybe a couple boxes of damage though.

As for force and all that, I'd let a hermatic talk that way.

They probably have long discussions over the quantized nature of casting. i.e. why you can't cast a force 5.732 spell.

[Karoline]

They probably have long discussions over the quantized nature of casting. i.e. why you can't cast a force 5.732 spell.

I'm sure you can cast a force 5.732 in the SR world, it is just that there is no reason to from a gameplay standpoint, so it wasn't included.

[cybertier]

I think i remember a name for a scale of power of magic mentioned somewhere in a novell.
In our world we handled it the way that hermatic mages really have a scale for power (with which you could identify people casting illegal force spells in SR3)

On Topic:
Better than "drop your gun" -> "Throw your gun, far away."
Maybe you'll get hit by a gun, but thats better than a bullet.

[Smokeskin]

"Force" probably exists in some sense, a unitless measurement like "Decibels,"* that quantifies** magic in some fashion.

*Decibels are the x in a 10^x unitless measurement of sound, which is why negative values are still positive fluctuations in the air.

That makes no sense. A decibel is the unit that sound pressure level is measured in. It is a dimensionless unit, not a unitless measurement.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

I think i remember a name for a scale of power of magic mentioned somewhere in a novell.
In our world we handled it the way that hermatic mages really have a scale for power (with which you could identify people casting illegal force spells in SR3)

On Topic:
Better than "drop your gun" -> "Throw your gun, far away."
Maybe you'll get hit by a gun, but thats better than a bullet.

Improvised weapon throwing adept.... yeah, you get those as adversaries all the time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Faraday]

On Topic:
Better than "drop your gun" -> "Throw your gun, far away."
Maybe you'll get hit by a gun, but thats better than a bullet.

Really, "Toss your gun to me" is probably a better turn-out anyway. It means a weapon closer at hand that I could potentially use while still disarming them quite effectively.