After Sundown 1e

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."

When you want to talk to someone and you don't have something to talk about, you still have someone to talk at. Even if you or your audience is too ignorant to even understand relevant premises to agree or disagree with, you can still persuade people that your conclusions are correct. The techniques generally used to persuade in such situations are completely "illogical" in that the desired conclusions do not follow deductively or inductively from any shared premises, because there are no relevant shared premises. It falls to the user therefore to generate approval by some other means.

A solid example for After Sundown is getting people to evacuate in the face of an incoming Zombie uprising. Sure, as a supernatural creature your character knows that Zombie uprisings happen, and they know that the humans in the small sleepy town in its path are little more than food for the walking dead. Were your characters explaining the situation to another supernatural creature, it would be entirely reasonable to have a reasoned discussion about the best way to get everyone out before the Soulless arrive and how to deal with the Zombies themselves. But that's not going to fly for the humans on the other side of the Vow of Silence. They don't know that Zombies exist, they don't share any of the premises required to even begin that debate of Reason. Your argument needs to be something else, some kind of tangent or lie that will hopefully convince people to leave in the absence of understanding or believing the true reasons involved.

A severe disadvantage of Rhetorical argumentation is that it is generally ineffective on people who "know better". When a character has a relevant background skill, they are unlikely to be persuaded by Appeals of any kind. Braveheart style speeches are great for the peasants, but people with a background in logistics would rather just see the numbers.

"Who is Prince of this city?!"

Drawing upon one's own gravitas and imparting ideas as truth is a powerful way to inspire belief in those ideas. By giving orders or information directly, the audience can be made to believe. This is how people lead troops, give commands, or even just teach new subjects. These are good ways to motivate people to do things, but require a substantial amount of trust from the audience to work at all.

Dicepools of these kinds of Appeals are usually Willpower + Tactics. An Appeal to Authority is basically useless if the character has no recognized authority. Having a lot of recognized status is a good start, but it can be made when the character is merely in a position where they are circumstantially supposed to be listened to (such as a teacher in a class or even a team leader in a group project). As with most Rhetorical Appeals, an Appeal to Authority is poor at convincing people who are familiar with the topic if you are not. If someone has an appropriate background, and the character does not, raise the threshold by a point or two. An Appeal to Authority plays to the character's strengths, if the character is in a position of weakness, they suffer dicepool penalties.

An Appeal to Authority can be used to boost morale. Net Hits can cancel morale penalties or provide bonus dice to overcome fear.

"Iknowwhatyou'rethinking. Moreevil?Morepower?WheredoIsign?! Butwait, there'smore!"

Putting a lot of ideas out there in an avalanche of vaguely supported theses is a great way to at least temporarily convince someone of the veracity of an idea. With one concept following another in brutally rapid succession it can be difficult for onlookers to see the gaps in slippery slope arguments, disjointed statements and inadequately linked proof. This avalanche of text can easily overwhelm an onlooker, and take some amount of time to pick apart. A person with a strong personality can fast talk through any subject with no preparation whatsoever simply by letting loose the text avalanche.

Dicepools of these kinds of Appeals are usually Willpower + Persuasion. An Appeal to Babble is inherently vulnerable to time. If someone is given time to prepare a reply, they get bonus dice on any Contention or Appeal they make, and a large pile of bonus dice should be awarded to a Contention of Disagreement. Even audience members convinced by babble may well have their affects wear off over time as they have time to think about it. Successfully fast talking someone is generally only good for a few minutes, though Net Hits increase this timeframe. As with most Rhetorical Appeals, an Appeal to Babble is poor at convincing people who are familiar with the topic if you are not. If someone has an appropriate background, and the character does not, raise the threshold by a point or two.

"Think of the children!"

An Appeal to Emotion is where you attempt to provoke a visceral response from your audience. Usually the most motivating ones are fear, sadness, and anger, but there is a lot to work with. The idea is that the character does something, shows something, or describes something that provokes an immediate emotional response, and then presents an option to do something about it. Like a kettle under pressure, the audience hopefully rushes towards the presented option, creating and filling a need.

Dicepools of these kinds of Appeals are usually Willpower + Empathy. While generally speaking, most people respond to the same strings on their heart (children, country, the locally appropriate gods, food), the fact is that is just most people. If you choose to make a case about something that your audience generally doesn't care about, you straight up fail. Furthermore, people who are informed on the subject matter are unlikely to be swayed by purely emotional appeals on the grounds that they probably already have opinions about what should be done. If someone has an appropriate background, raise the threshold by a point or two. If someone has an appropriate background and the character making the Appeal does not, do that twice.

"We have normal rooms, and for a bit more we have luxury suites..."
"We would like 'free rooms' because the zombies are going to destroy this entire city and we're the only ones who can do dick about it."

An Appeal to Force is the suggestion that something horrible will happen to the people being addressed if they don't accept the point or accede to the demands. An Appeal to Force can be given as a threat or a warning, because those are really the same thing with very slightly different emphasis. Threats are more insulting than warnings, and in many cases actually illegal. Appeals to force usually work better if the audience has actually seen evidence of whatever is being threatened. But they can be delivered quite successfully with pure innuendo. Some of the greatest scare tactics in history have been based on terrorists, communists, or other foreign combatants that may well have not even existed.

Dicepools for Force based arguments are generally either Strength + Intimidate (for personal threats) or Willpower + Intimidate (for impersonal threats). Yes, while strictly speaking a gun is pretty much exactly as dangerous in the hands of a small man as it is held by a giant ogre, the fact remains that bigger people are always scarier (all other things being equal). It's not fair and it doesn't make sense, but that is how people react. The threshold to convince someone with an Appeal to Force is generally the higher of their Strength or Willpower. And yeah, that means that it's basically impossible to threaten Trolls into doing anything even though there are a lot of things in the realm of horror that do pose a real threat to them. Again, that's how psychology tends to work out. An Appeal to Force is a Rhetorical Argument, but it actually doesn't usually get penalized from audience members having relevant backgrounds. The exception is if you're basically bluffing: if you're threatening the audience with something that is essentially not threatening and your audience knows (or believes) that, expect threshold increases.

At the MC's option, a genuine demonstration of the power of the threat, such as using mighty magic to burn a Troll into fine white ash in front of the other Trolls, may convert the threshold of your Appeal to Force to a normal value based on the apparent danger to each of the onlookers. It is important to remember that if you try to intimidate someone and fail, you've pretty much made yourself an enemy. You may make them your enemy even if you do succeed in pushing them around - once they get enough backup that for good or ill they aren't afraid anymore, you're still the asshole who threatened them.

"Of course you should go with me, have you seen my awesome hat?"

An Appeal to Style is a persuasive argument that consists of a series of catchy slogans or verbal barbs. They are generally considered to be non sequitur arguments (at best) when viewed through the lens of logic, but that doesn't mean that they aren't persuasive or worth making. Presentation is everything, but in Appeal to Style it is also the only thing.

Dicepools for style based arguments are generally Charisma + Expression. An Appeal to Style is culturally specific. What presents as some catchy "Yo Mama Jokes" in a back alley confrontation is nothing more than a severe breach of etiquette in a court room. A character without an appropriate Background fails automatically. Appeals to Style also tend to fall apart under close examination, and if someone is given the chance to mount a counter argument with substantial time they can gain a bonus of 1-3 dice if they use an Argument From Reason. However, since a Stylistic Appeal is devoid of facts, there is no penalty whatsoever for arguing a case that is counter-factual.

"Ad Hominem? I'm surprised you can add small integers!"

An Insulting Appeal is a persuasive argument where you simply verbally attack your opponent or people who disagree with your position, rather than necessarily making a case for your own position. Belittling people in public doesn't just feel great, it also makes you appear to be socially dominant. And by extension, in the right. Sure, people will say that making fun of people is no reason to think your position is the better one - and that's true. But it's not a Reasoned Argument, so who cares? The entire point of an emotional appeal is to bypass reason entirely, and nothing does that faster than an attack - even one made out of wit.

Dicepools of these kinds of Appeals are usually Charisma + Intimidate. One of the great advantages to insults is that there is absolutely no need to know what you are talking about, since you aren't attempting to abide by culturally relevant politeness, nor are you engaging in meaningful dialogue. As such, not having an appropriate Background is no hindrance at all when engaging such an Appeal. What is a problem is using such an Appeal against someone who is respected. Any audience member who respects the status of the targeted opponent will react as if you had scored less hits. And if they respect that status a lot, the amount less hits will be likewise a lot. It doesn't really matter how funny it is, you aren't getting anywhere mocking the Prince in front of most Mehtar Councils.

Insults also need someone to target. You can't just insult ambiently, you need to insult someone. And while it can be an effective rhetorical tool to insult people who aren't there (on account of them not being able to defend themselves), you still need to target someone or something every time. And whenever you do that, you risk alienating the subjects of your scorn and everyone who likes them. Of perhaps more importance, is that by engaging in Insults yourself, you leave yourself open to insults in return. Even passive-aggressive insults. Other characters can Insult you in return without it being readily apparent that they are doing so. They can go on about how you're lowering the standard of discourse and so on, and in all ways make an emotional appeal of their own. But despite the fact that they aren't engaging in rational discourse themselves or displaying any knowledge of any relevant topics, there are no repercussions save for the character who took the low road first.