[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Things are pretty desperate if WoD is a competitor in mechanics. Precisely one of the things I'm trying to push away from is the idea that these are approaches. They aren't approaches, they are tools.

That's an odd way to phrase it. I'm pointing at Storyteller because it more clearly illustrates that which is more subtly shown in Social Engineering. And if acting natural vs. consciously trying to influence someone vs. manipulating someone are not approaches . . . well then nothing is ever an approach. (Whether or not traits and skills are tools is another matter - I'm certainly willing to consider skills to be tools. But whether to use this, that, or neither tool - that's an approach.)

Originally Posted by Sindri

That's rather unfair to behaviourists. It's also not what I meant by cynical. Social interaction is push-here-get-result-there, there's nothing magical about it. The cynicism I'm talking about is "everyone's out to screw everyone over for personal profit so why shouldn't I join in?" sort of approach.

You don't always have to push. Some results are achieved whether you deliberately push or not. (And sure, there's nothing magical. That is beside the point.)

Originally Posted by Sindri

No it isn't about having someone do something that is bad for them. That was my whole point. If you are trying to get someone to like you, be impressed by you, do something good for themselves or even have a pleasant time you are trying to manipulate something about them. That's not what we refer to as manipulation in practical terms but it's manipulation nonetheless. Social interaction is rather odd in that what for one person is a very deliberate action is for another an ingrained habit and for another a fundamental part of their personality. Functionally though these frequently behave the same so automatically differentiating them isn't a good plan.

Let's not muddle the line between Influence and Manipulation. You seem to be saying that the two and one and the same because they are one and the same.
There's a way to describe people for whom some approach is part of their personality to the point of always using it: the Inappropriate Manner quirk for skills and the Mind-Numbing Magnetism quirk for descriptors such as 'talkative' or 'poetic'.

Originally Posted by Sindri

It means they are well-suited to jobs that require handling social situations. It doesn't matter that there might be other parts of the responsibilities that they can't handle well. The point is that their social abilities are generally relevant to other social traits that they might leverage their abilities into acquiring and thus they are thus not necessarily unethical in pursuing those traits.

Thing is, too often jobs that require handling situations also require handling lots of other stuff. The primary example seems to be positions of power within a state, where getting there is largely social, but doing stuff there is economical, judicial etc. And thus we get lots of people who are professionals at Getting There, but are awful at doing what they promised to be doing, either through stupidity or malice (or both!).

Originally Posted by Sindri

What "theme"? There's no theme. The point is that people who acquire a lot of followers for whom circumstantial bonuses are contributing a large percentage of their bonuses are going to be the sort of people historians interested in refuting the Great Man theory will tend to point to not proving that viewpoint right.

The primary method of refuting the Great Man Theory seems to be centred around causality . . . overall, this whole branch seems like it is potentially misleading in this discussion, and I'm not quite sure how it is best handled in the context of this discussion.

Originally Posted by Sindri

That's not what's being attempted any more than reducing the damage increase per strength level because it produces unrealistic effects is an attempt at reducing differentiation. The point is making things work more reasonably. It will end up, as a cost, making the differences between low levels less extreme. On the other hand it will increase the noticeability of differences at the higher end because further purchases have more room to improve things.

Well, IMHO, all those talks about reducing ST damage should come with some way of increasing granularity: we already have the problem that half the ST purchases do absolutely nothing for Thrust damage.
On one hand, nobody wants to have 20 enumerable reaction levels for all the half-dozen or so classes of reaction results (trade, romance, request for information, request for aid, combat etc.).
On the other hand, human-scale ranges of traits should have a reasonable noise-to-signal ratio. About 50% roll results fall within the 8-12 range (inclusive), which is roughly a noise range of ±2, 50% of the time. But it takes a change of ±3 or so to achieve a measurable change of reaction. But the difference between a person whom others find unremarkable (Appearance:Average) and one people are attracted to (Appearance:Attractive) is +1 . . . and the problem is, already that is too low a modifier to achieve a noticeable differences in the outcomes on the table of attraction.

Reputation -4 is the level of Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. In practice, it's not particularly bad in RAW, and even less so under the house rule table.

Originally Posted by Sindri

A person doesn't necessarily like doing what they are good at. People do.

People also have one ovary and one testicle per person and slightly fewer than two legs. Talking about people as a group when discussing individual characters, even many of them, seems off.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Allure as in the talent? Talents having reaction bonuses baked in is silly. I don't really care to balance with that in mind.

Yes, the talent. If you prefer Alternative Bonuses, that's quite fair - I like them too. But Allure is one of the few talents whose alternative bonus is a Reaction Modifier. And I really don't see what would be a better idea of a benefit for it.

Originally Posted by Sindri

So you adjust prices until reaction modifiers and influence skills are comparable purchases.

If you don't like how easy high/low reactions are to get, then perhaps just adjusting the reaction modifier absolute costs might be the way to go.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Faces already try to stack all the traits. If you are stepping forward as the face of the whole group buying Very Handsome Appearance isn't gonna cut it unless you are operating at low enough points that no one can actually do their job.

Depends on point cost and level, indeed. But it is important that faces at low point levels are able to do their job against targets of low point levels. 25 points is realistic, Very Handsome Appearance is realistic, using it as your shtick in social interactions is realistic.
But having one trait at the human maximum level should be a Big Deal. Having several is an even bigger deal.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Furthermore we want our specialists to desire having all the traits. A swordsman doesn't buy superhuman strength and then consider fighting to be handled and he shouldn't. The way to get people to only buy some of the social abilities is to push back against having "a face character" who does all the social interaction as a reasonable party strategy. If social abilities are important everyone should be able to contribute just like everyone needs to be able to contribute in a fight. People have "a face character" because if you can have one person handle all the social stuff it's wasteful to have more than one person have the abilities to do that, but generally in play everyone would like to be able to talk to the NPCs.

Ideally, we want to have different flavours of specialists: in combat, we want to encourage diversity, with beefy tanks, flashy dexterous swashbucklers, sneaky dexterous rogues, perceptive dexterous rangers, strong fighters, strong and dexterous lightning-bruisers, harmonic monks etc.
Same with social traits: it's good to have all sorts of characters, those who stack up one primary traits, those who disperse between several, those who go for one-trick ponyism, those who focus on skills, those who get a bit of each, those who fill a certain narrow social niche quite well while not being face characters in other social niches etc.

Originally Posted by Sindri

A nerf isn't necessarily a bad thing. Social traits are seriously cheap for what they do if the characters actually get a chance to use them properly. Having one trait at superhuman levels is only unimpressive compared to the overpowered normal rules. Having superhuman beauty is a powerful tool not an "I win" button for social challenges.

+2/+6 (average:+5) is not an IWin button. Used on its own with an average roll, it either does nothing or shifts one line against same sex and opposite-sex gay characters, and shifts two lines for opposite-sex and same-sex gay characters. So you maybe get a -0% or -20% discount at the local marketplace; not a big deal.