Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing

Sindri · 01-15-2015, 02:27 AM

What's the skill for designing a caper or sudden extraction of a prisoner to not only be effective but impressive to onlookers? Skills like Leadership could presumably handle at least some of the implementation but not designing an impressive choreography in the first place.

Do Fast-Talk and Acting really need to be split up into two skills?

Detect Lies and Body Language are also good candidates to be folded into the same skill or at least turned into the voice analysis/body language and facial expressions avenues to getting the same information. I feel like some lies, such as those without emotional weight for the liar, shouldn't be detectable unless the liar really screws up their delivery. Detecting written lies should probably be dropped. If the writing is handwritten you could presumably use handwriting analysis but that's basically unrelated to the techniques behind Detect Lies and Body Language. On the other hand you could do content analysis which at at a small scale of material should probably be the the province of players with the potential aid of knowledge skills while at a large scale Intelligence Analysis seems like the right choice.

By default the influence skills are, if not perfectly balanced, at least vaguely competitive. Part of this balancing act is Sex Appeal having access to very good reactions. I'm not really a fan of that mechanical bit. I don't think that there should be a point where no influence skill but Sex Appeal can improve what favours you can get someone to do. Now Sex Appeal is probably always going to be one of the less desirable approaches to influence for PCs but I'd like it to be a little more competitive than it is if the special very good reaction is just removed and I'm not sure how to go about that.

The Civil Arts in GURPS has some social styles. These are nice from the collection of traits viewpoint but I'm a little skeptical about how often Style Familiarity is reasonable. Martial Arts styles are generally pretty specific so bonuses against costylists makes sense to me but are the methods used by diplomats in general really distinctive enough compared to the methods of people who have picked up the same skills from another context to justify a bonus against costylists? On the other hand the Con Games styles granting Style Familiarity seem much more defensible to me. So what do you think?

01-15-2015, 02:27 AM	#1
Sindri Join Date: Nov 2011	Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing What's the skill for designing a caper or sudden extraction of a prisoner to not only be effective but impressive to onlookers? Skills like Leadership could presumably handle at least some of the implementation but not designing an impressive choreography in the first place. Do Fast-Talk and Acting really need to be split up into two skills? Detect Lies and Body Language are also good candidates to be folded into the same skill or at least turned into the voice analysis/body language and facial expressions avenues to getting the same information. I feel like some lies, such as those without emotional weight for the liar, shouldn't be detectable unless the liar really screws up their delivery. Detecting written lies should probably be dropped. If the writing is handwritten you could presumably use handwriting analysis but that's basically unrelated to the techniques behind Detect Lies and Body Language. On the other hand you could do content analysis which at at a small scale of material should probably be the the province of players with the potential aid of knowledge skills while at a large scale Intelligence Analysis seems like the right choice. By default the influence skills are, if not perfectly balanced, at least vaguely competitive. Part of this balancing act is Sex Appeal having access to very good reactions. I'm not really a fan of that mechanical bit. I don't think that there should be a point where no influence skill but Sex Appeal can improve what favours you can get someone to do. Now Sex Appeal is probably always going to be one of the less desirable approaches to influence for PCs but I'd like it to be a little more competitive than it is if the special very good reaction is just removed and I'm not sure how to go about that. The Civil Arts in GURPS has some social styles. These are nice from the collection of traits viewpoint but I'm a little skeptical about how often Style Familiarity is reasonable. Martial Arts styles are generally pretty specific so bonuses against costylists makes sense to me but are the methods used by diplomats in general really distinctive enough compared to the methods of people who have picked up the same skills from another context to justify a bonus against costylists? On the other hand the Con Games styles granting Style Familiarity seem much more defensible to me. So what do you think? Last edited by Sindri; 01-15-2015 at 02:36 AM.