Charm Person on PCs, need GMing help

Okay so, this is my party in 13th Age.

Female wood elf wizard, Elf Queen positive 3, OUT child of the Elf Queen and a fox concubine making her the world's first kitsune, but she keeps that secret, S8/D14/Co14/I18/W16/Ch8

Male human greatsword fighter, Emperor positive 3, OUT bastard child of the Emperor, S18/D8/Co16/I8/W14/Ch14

Male human greatsword paladin, Emperor positive 3, OUT bastard child of the Emperor, S18/D8/Co14/I8/W14/Ch16

Party started in a fancy tavern. Obviously the fighter and paladin brought their full plate and greatswords in. They didn't know each other. I was going to have someone approach them to give a quest. I let them meet each other and roleplay first.

The fighter and paladin thought it would be funny to be racist towards the elf and openly antagonize and insult her in front of everyone. Never mind that the Elf Queen and Emperor are on good terms and the tavern was in Concord, a cosmopolitan mixed-race city near the Elf Queen's court. They justified it by saying the elf had only Cha 8 and was thus unlikeable.

Spells in 13th Age have no verbal/somatic/material components. Kitsune had Vance's Polysyllabic Verbalizations, but only the PLAYER has to announce the spell's name, not the character. Kitsune also had High Arcana and Charm Person prepared twice. Kitsune used both Charms, named it "Lovey-Dovey Heart Spell" with VPV to make targets infatuated with her. I thought it was fine but I gave her a -2 penalty because they were racist against elves, but she hit with both.

Charm Person lasts indefinitely until the caster takes hostile action, which never happened. Session went on normally but fighter and paladin players kept balking about how they were forced to roleplay charm and infatuation with a Cha 8 "unlikeable elf." Fighter and paladin players threaten to leave the game if I don't have the charm completely drop by second session. What should I do?

Fox bump.

Boost the Elf's Charisma to 12 so she isn't 'unlikable'

Otherwise, remind the players that they were the ones to have their characters openly mock and insult someone, and they have to deal with the consequences. Ask them if you should give them a free revival if they had been killed by a dragon for mocking it.

>They justified it by saying the elf had only Cha 8 and was thus unlikeable.
If they're acting like assholes, then they're the unlikeable ones.

Give them CHA 8 and let the rest sort itself out.

Screwing with stats is a no-no.

Inform them that if they don't like the consequences of PC-PC hostilities then they shouldn't have initiated PC-PC hostilities. They shat in their bed, now they get to lie in it.

Or get out, that works too.

Then just remind them that someone with 8 Cha isn't necessarily unlikable or unattractive. It could represent them being shy and soft spoken instead.

Ask them why they feel the need to cheat the other player out of this when they were the ones being fucks to start with.

Escalating from insults to mind control is a bit much.

I don't claim to know anything about 13th Age, but you're the GM.

You don't even have to tell them that their stats are down. Secretly treat every check they make as if their stats were lower. If even that is off-limits for you, make it so that other people nearby speak out against whatever their comments. Getting in trouble with locals is a great way to never be allowed back to a town, which can cut them off from invaluable resources and more importantly, work.

Ask them what their in-character mandate is for being dicks to somebody they just met that has never interacted with them properly. "Their CHA is 8" isn't valid, since that's hardcore metagaming. They need an in-character reason. "I don't like X" also isn't valid, unless they plan on treating literally every instance of X equally poorly.

Call them out, and if they give you shit, then tell them to either take the consequences of their actions or to leave the table. Unless they're paying you to run a game for them, there's no reason you have to put up with them bullying you into running the game perfectly for them.

Insults are one thing, breaking character to fuck with a PC and likely ruin possible party coherency is just rampant faggotry. Using magic to enforce party coherency is a sane and logical response.
I mean, if the wizard is being a faggot about the charm now (which OP hasn't given reason to believe) then they need a slapping IC or OOC, but "I cast Play Nice, you have to stop being a faggot" is a damn good decision.

Not OP, but the reason for the stat change is quite obvious. All the players have an 18 16 14 14 8 8 array. Presumably they wanted each player to have 2 clear 'weaknesses', so removing one or adding a third would not be very fair.

The rest of the advice might be sound though. Confront them on the metagaming, and failing that, have rumors spread about those two dickhead racist knights.9

That seems really passive aggressive and likely to just make them leave.

Yeah. While it is a bit drastic, I don't really see the three of them grouping up otherwise. The knights were insulting her, and she didn't appreciate it. If they did get a job, they'd have no reason to speak about it to the other.

They've already thrown the gauntlet of "Bend over for us or we're leaving". You seriously don't want them to stick around if it means deepthroating them whenever their actions have consequences.

>Directly confronting them over their metagaming.
>Passive-aggressive

Ah, so the system has a Pick Value generation method, then. Yeah, in that case, tinkering with stats would be a big no-no.

I'd definitely confront the two about metagaming, though.

You can tell someone's Charisma on first impressions alone, can't you?

They both have Dex 8 Make them clumsy bumble fucks. See how they like stats used against them. turn about is fair play

Depends on how their Charisma manifests. If they're a well-spoken individual, they have to actually start speaking to give that impression. If they look pretty, you have to be able to see them.

Examples of low Charisma:
>Ugly (excepting in systems that have a separate stat for physical appearance)
>Generally grumpy/angry people
>Person that can construct good rhetoric, but trips over themselves too much early on.
>Incredibly shy people
>Low-"presence" people
>People that talk a lot but don't think about their words in advance
>Overly-blunt speakers
>Generally socially inept people

All of these can be applicable, none of them are mutually exclusive, and the best part is that there is absolutely no mandate for them to overlap. A character can have a Charisma of -50,000,000 and still deliver one hell of a speech, but be so revolting in personality for anybody to pay it any mind.

>also Int 8

looks like these guys are dumb as bricks as well.

But the wizard has Str 8 and Cha 8.

Yeah? All that means is she can't lift and is bad at convincing people of things in some way.

>Meganekko

but that's my fetish user

What do glasses have to do with this?

>if the wizard is being a faggot about the charm now (which OP hasn't given reason to believe)

The elf/kitsune half-jokingly asked the humans to clean the dirty soles of her high heels by licking them.

They did it IC (I never said they had to) then complained about it OOC.

Okay, that's really weird, even as a joke, but I still don't have much sympathy for them since they did it and THEN complained about it. If they had spoken up before doing so, like you said, you could have cleared up the extent of the charm and confirmed it was a joke.

It really feels like they're just acting on false assumptions about how the setting works and then trying to justify it later. Hating elves, treating charms as total mind control, it's odd behavior.

You need to get together with everyone and clarify the ground rules once more. Personally, I think the idea of a shy elf using a charm spell on a pair of knights hilarious, since with 8 Cha she'd probably still be nervous about the attention and not know what to do with it.

I'd bet money that if the elf had 16 charisma instead they would have led off the game trying to seduce/rape her instead and you'd be at the same point with a different excuse for why they shouldn't suffer the consequences.

would you lick the feet of your friend if they asked you to? if that doesnt sound like something thats likely then why would they; though they likely figured they were forced into being stupid will-less slugs, go over what it means to be charmed

Stereotypical Nerd with Glass. Shy Weak, but intelligent.

Wizards are the Nerd class of DnD

To be fair:
>named it "Lovey-Dovey Heart Spell" with VPV to make targets infatuated with her

>Personally, I think the idea of a shy elf using a charm spell on a pair of knights hilarious, since with 8 Cha she'd probably still be nervous about the attention and not know what to do with it.

She was fidgeting sometimes and accidentally letting her fluffy tail appear.

Tell them it's been fun, no hard feelings about leaving, seek replacements.

Yeah. It depends a lot on the tone of the game. I feel like OP and the Wizard player were on the same page with their sort of more lighthearted comedic anime style game, while the Fighter and Paladin were expecting Humanity fuck yeah in a more serious game.

That's probably why they freaked out over the charm spell, since while in the lighthearted tone it's just a weird way to get the party to stick together, in the serious tone it's pretty dire, especially if you assume it to be total control like they did.

In short, the two knights had different expectations, and it shows.

>lighthearted comedic anime style game

Foxgirls are always anime?

Nobody else plays 13th Age.

I'd play 13th Age with this GM, even though I've literally never played it before.

As a former Game Designer I'm 100% about learning new systems and ways to play tabletop RPGs.

Do you want to play a fluffy tail?

Maybe a meow?

Likewise. It seems like it could be fun.

Is getting mind controlled by a kitsune fun to you?

I'll try anything interesting once.

Seriously. Where do I find PDFs for this shit?

you think that you are haveing fun when she tells you that you are

>Is getting mind-controlled by a kitsune fun to you?
Only one way to find out.

Are you from /pfg/?

No.

I think it's a novel twist to get the party to stick together after they all meet in a tavern. Would probably want,it to just be feelings of friendship over outright domination, but I'd be willing to roll with it.

What if the party has a bard and they mind control each other?

>Bard and Wizard get off on the wrong foot, both start hurling insults
>Each storms off, only to hatch the idea to charm the other into being more agreeable
>Both cast at the same time, end up inadvertently changing their hostility into a deep and lasting friendship

As long as you run the charm as a charm more than total mental puppeting, it's easy to have interesting roleplay opportunities.

Does anyone want to play this?

I guess I would, but I'm just here because people keep posting cute foxgirls.

I would, though I'm not sure if I have the time free for it.

Yes.
Give the PDFs already you fucking Luddite.

Check the PDF thread yourself.

I would, if there was one up.

And before you say something, I checked and refreshed the calatlog 4 times before posting this.

Charm Person isn't mind control; it can't force someone to do anything they're firmly opposed to doing.
It just makes the target think you're their friend, and they treat you like they'd treat a friend.

>years later, they're hit with Dispel
>immediately drop back to being assholes

They are not my friends.

Don't worry, no charge for them.

That sounds like subbing to a foxgirl may be their fetish.

Change nothing.

You too?

If subbing to a shy foxgirl is their fetish, then why did they complain about it?

Clearly they don't want to admit they enjoy subbing to shy foxgirls.

Ask /pfg/ if they would.

Would this thread let a shota cross-dressing trap foxboy mind control them?

Nah.

Sure, its not like you would mind while charmed anyway

Why not?

Because nah to mind control in general.

Mind control is one of those hot-button things for me as a roleplayer, but going "you think this guy is your friend" isn't really OOC for most characters, because it's so fucking easy to break that minor charm.

In 3.PF, for example, literally any aggressive action would break the charm. A heated argument (which happens between friends) can break the charm.

>Charm Person lasts indefinitely until the caster takes hostile action, which never happened. Session went on normally but fighter and paladin players kept balking about how they were forced to roleplay charm and infatuation with a Cha 8 "unlikeable elf." Fighter and paladin players threaten to leave the game if I don't have the charm completely drop by second session. What should I do?

Let it burn and spread the ashes with the wind.

Charm, yes, but note that doesn't specifically mention Charm Person, but "mind control".

Oh well that's no good.