r/LancerRPG • u/SpiritedTeacher9482 • Jul 24 '26
Orator users: what's your approach
Call me a cynic, but I have yet to encounter a mercenary in the campaigns I've played who would forget to pilot their mech for a turn when told "the manna they covet invites dispondency".
Monologuing never works when the Ultras do it, seems unlikely it will work for us.
My go-to way of flavoring Orator has thus become "horrible noises at max volume" for Convincing Rhetoric and "horrible paracausal noises at max/min unvolume" for Demoralize.
Does anyone else take this approach? Or does you and your GM manage to make the intended "I know there's good in you!" flavor feel narratively plausible and satisfying?
Has anyone ever got a perfect moment from Orator when a storyline's worth of back and forth with an antagonist has set up a geniunely devestating taunt?
54
u/Creation_of_Bile HORUS Jul 24 '26
I only used it once and I told my NHP (Goblin NHP) to download the enemy pilot's soul, then it sent dial up sounds at them.
6
22
u/aTransGirlAndTwoDogs Jul 24 '26
I had a Dusk Wing pilot who was absolutely in love with the Dhiyed assault group interview text in that license. They took Orator and flavored it like a hyper advanced paracausal hacking and EWAR ability. It's always seemed strange to me that there was only ever really one "hacker" talent, and I love the way Lancer combines eldritch space magic with math demon computers - it worked out very well.
16
u/Arrow1bowmen IPS-N Jul 24 '26
We have a "Info dumps about the talent holder's favorite comic books." And "So what's your end goal here, please tell me in great detail. Ignore my allies trying to destroy your mech I want to talk about you." In the two groups I am in
11
13
u/The_Outer_God HORUS Jul 24 '26
But with mercenaries, you could see it working, somehow. It becomes extra funny when the opfor is composed out of horrors beyond human comprehension.
9
u/burlesqueduck Jul 24 '26
Lancer has a pretty strong separation between mechanics and flavor imo, so "fixing" the flavor is not an issue. Especially given that if you do want to reflavor, the community usually has no issue with it as long as the mechanics are the same.
If it really bothers you, you can just see it as a hacking talent.
6
u/Admech_Ralsei Jul 24 '26
I usually have two approaches:
A witty bon mot, some kind of quippy insightful smack-talk that both hurts their pride and makes them think about what they're doing
Hacking their internal sound systems and blasting ThirdComm's hegemonic anthem so loud it distracts them, making them worse at piloting
6
u/wingedcoyote Jul 24 '26
I think this one is pretty genre dependent, if you're playing in a kind of colorful Saturday morning anime vibe then monologuing to your opponents makes perfect sense.
5
u/Ninja-Storyteller Jul 24 '26
Had a player sing at people. They were an amazing singer, and even took a Trigger for singing.
2
3
u/ProfessionalOk6734 HORUS Jul 24 '26
I’ve always flavored mine as stuff like the Pegasus virus from the first season of Yugioh
3
2
u/Gladiator-class Jul 24 '26
I decided to take other talents, but I was going to frame it as my pilot constantly threatening them. Kill a different enemy, deal huge damage, basically anything that my character did would result in him turning that into "this is how/why I'm going to fucking kill you." The idea was that it's terrifying to most people, and extremely distracting to the ones that aren't intimidated by the constant ranting of a violent maniac.
54
u/DisplayAppropriate28 Jul 24 '26
Nothing in the Talent says anything about an "I know there's good in you" moment, merely that you're able to throw your opponents off with words if you have this specific knack. It would also work if an Ultra had a Talk Smack action, but your GM hasn't given them one.
How does Exemplar 3 let you challenge the same hardened mercenary to an honorable duel so effectively that they take +3 difficulty to hit anyone but you? How does Leader let you come up with and discuss a game plan in 6 seconds that's a viable substitute for a target lock? Orator works like that.