At the Role-Playing Games club today, a fun debate. The whole campaign is on this ice-locked ship in the arctic: the DM introduced the possibility of sirens.
One player declares their character is ace and therefore immune to romantic seduction.
Not so, says DM these sirens call out with "whatever you desire most" ... another player wonders if, since their character is monk seeking enlightenment and the death of all worldly desires are they immune?
@futurebird
there were some book-and-paper role playing games in which all dice rolls were replaced with the player making a plausible narrative argument for the turn of events to go their way. Amber (based in the universe of the Roger Zelazny Amber novels) was probably the most widely known. I couldn't convince my players to give it a try, which I found surprising, since all of them seemed to make multiple attempts per session to sway my rulings with plausible narrative arguments.
@futurebird OK but doesn't that imply that non-romantic calls are common? It can't be that historically everyone's number one on the list was a potential mate, can it?
@futurebird The sirens offer a promise to give you what you want most, they don't give it blatantly to you.
So even if you seek enlightenment and stuff, the chars just get the very intense feeling they'll succeed with the help of the sirens. And because they're still trying to leave workday desires behind them, they're still affected. Probably more intense than any other "normal" being that does not put their lives into pursuing their dreams.
@futurebird The sirens sing, the song hacks through the auditory cortex and flips on the limbic reward system, and the listener's forebrain does most of the work hallucinating what's out there that is apparently so awesomely great.
Your options are to sever your auditory system from the rest of your brain, somehow--preferably in some reversible way--or put up a psychic/magical defense against compulsions.
To have no desire is to have zero charisma, and that condition is more debilitating.
@futurebird Sounds interesting for the Monk character to think they will be immune, but then to discover that they were not... and there was something they were called to that wasn't enlightenment, and find out what it was...
@futurebird the BBC had an interesting documentary about monks recently. With some vigorous hand waving, monking is about trying to abandon the world while knowing that you will ALWAYS be tempted. Always.
I'd have thought that as creatures of seas, where the water is still in liquid form, that they'd avoid ice packs, so this is kind of an interesting point that deserves some consideration, as well...
@funkula@JamesDRyan@futurebird Oh gosh, little rolly polly sirens on the ice sounds so cute, I should just step off the shi-heyyyyyyyyy you’re not getting me THAT easily!