05-24-2014, 10:12 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls
It's annoying that reaction rolls connect only tenuously to later influence rolls. It seems clear that influence skills should act directly upon the result of a reaction roll. The limit of good or very good reactions while useful for mechanical differentiation also produces odd results. Someone rolling a good reaction should not go "welp, guess I don't need to roll diplomacy then". Social Engineering (and a possible interpretation of Basic) doesn't let people roll reaction and then influence except with diplomacy but that's bad and can be ignored.
So, anyone done anything like this? |
05-25-2014, 01:48 AM | #2 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls
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Sure, Diplomacy is the only skill that can use an Influence Roll after determining the initial reaction, but I'm okay with that. If the players want to find out what someone feels about them first, that's their choice. if they want to make Influence Rolls on npcs then they should be making a point of actively trying to ingratiate themselves with the target. Anyway, Influence Rolls are only a part of Influence Skills. Social Engineering shows this. Whilst Building Trust and Competitive Influence make use of Influence Rolls, many things are just Skill Rolls. A Good (or better) reaction is not the end for your Social Skills. |
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05-25-2014, 02:17 AM | #3 | |||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls
Having Influence Skills directly modify the results of a Reaction Roll.
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This doesn't correspond with a great deal of social interaction where one does observe how someone reacts and then later tries influence. Not to mention that absolute prohibitions are generally a bad idea when it comes to social matters. If a PC starts talking to an NPC and a reaction is produced either by rolling or substituting GM fiat and then the PC later tries to influence him what is supposed to happen? You can't say "that's impossible", the PC can trivially prove that someone could try it, it's hardly a secret technique that the character wouldn't know and GURPS is supposed to avoid producing "you can't do it because the rules just don't support it" results. It's also incoherent because it acts as if Reaction Rolls are a thing PCs do. They aren't, they're a thing GMs do. The GM rolls a Reaction Roll whenever he damn well wants, including when the PCs literally don't know of the NPC's existence. The first time a PC meets someone obviously he should often have an opportunity to modify the NPC's reaction even if the NPC observed him first and it doesn't work for Reaction Rolls to work one way if the GM initiated it and another if the PC initiated it by starting to talk to the NPC. Quote:
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05-25-2014, 02:17 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls
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Reaction rolls (and influence skills) are quite blunt instruments. I'd hoped Social Engineering would do something about that, but it didn't really. A major rewrite (perhaps on the model of Control Points) would be interesting, but I don't know that it would be all that much better - social interactions are so multidimensional it's hard to flatten them to a single scale of a few named reaction levels.
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-- MA Lloyd |
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05-25-2014, 02:54 PM | #5 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls
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05-25-2014, 03:36 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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05-25-2014, 03:50 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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05-25-2014, 04:47 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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05-25-2014, 05:34 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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05-25-2014, 06:15 PM | #10 | |
Banned
Join Date: Apr 2008
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Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls
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Tags |
house rules, influence rolls, influence skills, reaction rolls, social engineering |
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