Regroup (OOC)

Fair enough, that may be where we were not seeing the scene from the same viewpoint. I don't see a huge distinction between 'clever' and 'subtle', and I did not see anything subtle about Benji's not mentioning certain aspects. What exactly was the Misleading, Distracting, or Tricking part that happened from the omission?

As I said, we could (and now I am thinking should) have spent a bit more time on the scene and gotten it to the point where that applied. Next time we can make it work.

Ah! That might be the root of our confusion. I’ve been taking a ‘subtle falsehood’ to mean the opposite of a boldfaced or outright lie. As in, it was a subtle lie because it was only subtly untrue. But you’re right that subtle can also mean cunning or crafty.

The misleading part was that Benji was trying to mislead Alasdair by implying he sent the rats away because they displeased Alasdair rather than as part of an escape plan.

This line confused me a bit: What does this mean? We have three things--Pers speaking of her fear of going to sleep, the idea of visiting her place, and calling over the server. Is he calling over the server to get Pers another drink, rather than leaving for her place? Or is he asking for the check? Or...?

I just worry that, without a cunning plan, subtle lies of omission night not have much effect on the fiction. We only roll when both success and failure could be interesting.
Yeah, that is how I interpreted it after the 3 picks you made. Playing into Alasdair's emotions.

Sorry about that.
I had intended it to be 'to get another drink as you asked for'. But if you want Persephone to signal for the bill then that will happen instead.

If Henry gets you too drunk he may be leery of 'taking advantage of you in that state', but if you don't get him a little more tipsy he will be worried about future consequences related to Emma (finding out). It depends a lot on what you, the player, want to have happen.

@Delirium: I worry we are leaving you out of the action. Do you want to do anything, still, tonight? 'Tomorrow' is Monday, but David is too sick to go to work.

I don't think anything Persephone does will directly impact you in that timeframe, though, and we won't know about Benji till we see how he gets along underground (Benji does not have signal, and may not even have battery anymore).

We could always try get a friend (if you have any;) to sit with him while you do other things. The Relationships are meant to make it hard for you to engage with the action and be a distraction while you do, not to make it impossible and keep you out of the story.
You let me know how easy you want that to be. How believable you find it will depend largely on Emma's mood.

That's fine, I am sure we can work with that. Such black and white attitudes could make the character harder to keep in the action, but this is your husband, after all, so he is special.
Is that a player choice? Or is it that you can't see how that would happen? If you want, we can engineer a reason? For instance: your boss could call you in, putting your Relationships in conflict with each other. This could force you to ask a neighbor to pop over for a few hours, for instance.

But we don't need to do that if you want Emma to stay in the flat.
Using your 'sick husband' as an excuse to avoid that confrontation seems right in line with what we have seen so far. :)
We could start that from the flat, 'tomorrow'. You have the internet, and your stolen data, and such. You are limited in what you can do from home, though (Hit the Streets [ref] requires you to go out and meet people), and what you find may pull you away, forcing a choice (if you, the player, want it).

We can run that scene when you awake?
The answers won't depend on your mood, how you interpret them might. Your interpretation and whether you believe people is up to you.

Figure Someone Out [ref] always yields true answers. But what you can ask depends on the situation and the fiction at hand, though. You can't just roll the dice and ask the questions, what you do needs to be able to lead to those answers.

Would any of those questions help Emma with her doubts?

 • who's pulling your character's strings?
 • what's your character's beef with ˍˍˍˍˍ?
 • what's your character hoping to get from ˍˍˍˍˍ?
 • what does your character worry is going to happen?
 • how could I get your character to ˍˍˍˍˍ?
 • how could I put your character in my Debt?

You could... I don't know, this seems radical... just talk to him?

I sorta figured as much, which is precisely why I introduced the discovery that you had (unwillingly) done so this past weekend. :)
OK. That will limit you... unless you can get people to come to your home?

This also seems like the right time to put a little pressure from your other Relationship. You may have to rebuff Noah Thompson when he calls you into the office.
While that technically could hint at an answer about if he was/is tempted, do we want to go that route? On a hit all that happens is that you kill off this plotline that you introduced (and David asks you a question you might not want a answer (about the weekend and who you were with, maybe?)).

You could also get much the same information (without the risk) by talking to your husband. Emma does not know that the information from Figure Someone Out is always true, that is player-facing.
No, in non-mechanical conversation you would need to work around to it, and the Figure Someone Out questions are not asked by your character, of the other character, they are intuited from the interaction.

Ah that's sad. To be clear, I agree that Persephone was absolutely wrong to do that. I hadn't intended that to be a Rubicon moment, however, only a rupture that would later be repaired. Honestly, I thought we had been on the same page about it, but apparently not. I am sorry I didn't do a better job communicating around that scene.

I'll be honest, that really takes the wind out of my sails for this game. I am not sure if I want to play in a game in which the PCs don't like one another to such an extent that can't ever be overcome. I'll see about forging meaningful relationships with Benji and some NPCs, I guess, and allow Emma to manipulate Pers or a little while. But once Persephone realizes how Emma really feels, she will try to apologize again, but if Emma doesn't accept it, that's basically the end of our character interaction. And that sucks, frankly.

I apologize that my character choices resulted in this.

And if my in-character actions hurt your feelings, offended you, or hurt your feelings, I am truly and deeply sorry about that. Seriously.

Oh good! That's such a relief. Honestly, that makes all of this much less of an issue for me. I had thought I had crossed a line and pissed you off, tbh!

And obv I don't want to force you to do anything that doesn't feel true to Emma. So it might have to be a very long term, campaign goal that the two of them make up. I'm guessing they'll have to go through a lot together and separately and suffer plenty before they are able to.