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Old 10-26-2020, 10:59 PM   #11
kirbwarrior
 
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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Originally Posted by EskrimadorNC View Post
So how would you handle it in game if the PC failed his Will roll vs the Intimidation check? Would you say "Sorry dude...this guy is big and scary...you know what's good for you, so you move your car"? Or do you let the PC continue with his preferred course of action, but give him a penalty on any further checks equal to his margin of failure?
I think a huge thing to consider is "Influencing PCs" on B359 and the most important part being "few appreciate being told that they must roleplay a good reaction toward an NPC they do not like or trust."

If we look at things from an NPC's perspective, we can say that a player succeeds an Influence skill and the npc fails. Now the npc will react accordingly. Will. All the modifiers and rolls dictate things that go into this.

Now let's look at OP's situation. We have a guy trying to use Intimidation on someone, promising to hurt someone to make sure a task gets done. Let's assume the skill roll was a success but the will roll is the unknown part;

A) OP does not make will roll. He complies and likely quickly, doing what this guy wanted just to make sure he doesn't get hurt. Maybe he hurries a bit into the store.
B) OP does make will roll. He complies after some amount of time thinking through options (maybe even just a second). He does this through deliberate logic and reasoning, deciding it's just easier to do something easy and avoid pushing things.

The guy doing the Intimidation check knows that he succeeded his side of the contest and got what he wanted. But if B was what happened, things really could have gone down differently. OP might have been ready to throw down out, even out of boredom. OP could have pretended to do as asked then pulled a gun out of the dash and turned the Intimidation around. OP could have had a great memory and called the cops once inside to try and show them they can't do that. But is A is what happened, then I don't think any of those would have happened, OP would be too scared to think.

Now, we can look at two other important parts;
1) Let's assume OP was a PC. He lost the contest by 3. -3 to doing anything is pretty huge. It's just not worth it and, again, compliance is low cost.
2) There's another guy. GURPS does a really good job of showing that a 2 on 1 fight is extremely unfair. Even if the guy failed his Intimidation roll wholesale, OP didn't seem to have any advantage in this fight. This part is very important, even someone with Unfazeable can and will acknowledge the unfair fight and comply even though no fear was triggered.

Actually, I think Unfazeable is a great place to compare. How often will someone with Unfazeable still do what someone trying to Intimidate them wants them to do? Even a robot might do something when threatened with an EMP if it's capable enough of understanding a situation.
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Old 10-27-2020, 09:51 AM   #12
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

Just thought of something... Social Engineering makes "Impressive" the "I can get an intimidation bonus from my looks without suffering seduction or reaction penalties" trait group...

But couldn't you get a lot of that from Controllable Disadvantage (Horrific) ?

That gives you a few moments where you can't use Sex Appeal effectively but how often does one rapidly shift between those 2 things?
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Old 10-27-2020, 10:25 AM   #13
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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Just thought of something... Social Engineering makes "Impressive" the "I can get an intimidation bonus from my looks without suffering seduction or reaction penalties" trait group...

But couldn't you get a lot of that from Controllable Disadvantage (Horrific) ?

That gives you a few moments where you can't use Sex Appeal effectively but how often does one rapidly shift between those 2 things?
Also a few moments where anyone making a reaction roll is probably not going to like you at all.

And making new reaction rolls for people who have already had reactions but didn't expect the monster face might be appropriate.
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Old 10-27-2020, 02:54 PM   #14
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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Also a few moments where anyone making a reaction roll is probably not going to like you at all.
Yeah, and I don't think you can actually turn CD off until that minute is up, unless you enhance the perk w/ switchable where it costs 2 points.

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And making new reaction rolls for people who have already had reactions but didn't expect the monster face might be appropriate.
Yeah, unless of course they can't see it, like if only one person is looking at you during that time...

I wonder if you can take Selective Effect on Appearance too...
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Old 10-27-2020, 04:55 PM   #15
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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But couldn't you get a lot of that from Controllable Disadvantage (Horrific) ?
Yep, but unless it was somehow plausible to identify you easily as the same person I'd likely ask the player to use Alternate Form. For instance, a way to avoid it is maybe CD: Horrific is "I glare at them and suddenly I'm not cute and fun anymore".

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I wonder if you can take Selective Effect on Appearance too...
It seems like it would be fine. I've had players take Switchable on it and Variable. Selective Effect seems like the better (and more expensive) option.

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Yeah, and I don't think you can actually turn CD off until that minute is up, unless you enhance the perk w/ switchable where it costs 2 points.
The main reason you can't take Berserk as CD is because of how easy it is to turn CD off if that matters.

Oh, also, I posted this in the other thread but it's still relevant here. Kromm explaining influence skills (albeit 8 years ago);

http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...&postcount=140
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Old 10-27-2020, 09:12 PM   #16
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

Questions that seem to fit this thread (because my mind goes to strange random places, but I could maybe see this happening in a game): A few small children (age five-to-seven, maybe) are trying to intimidate an adult by grunting and T-posing at him. Mostly, they just look silly and adorable. What would be the penalty on Intimidation for whichever one of them is the 'leader' in this context? Does it even make sense for five-year-old humans in around the modern era to have Intimidation above default?

EDIT: In case it matters, there are about three or four of them, and they want ice cream, which the adult considers an almost trivial expense. So, they might get what they want even on a failed roll, but they'd have been much better off using Diplomacy ('Pwetty pwease wif sugar on it?') or Fast Talk, instead.

Alternatively, what bonus or penalty would a few alley cats get to Intimidation if they stood on their hind legs and started grunting and T-posing? After all, that's not normal cat behavior.
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Old 10-27-2020, 09:41 PM   #17
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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Questions that seem to fit this thread (because my mind goes to strange random places, but I could maybe see this happening in a game): A few small children (age five-to-seven, maybe) are trying to intimidate an adult by grunting and T-posing at him. Mostly, they just look silly and adorable. What would be the penalty on Intimidation for whichever one of them is the 'leader' in this context? Does it even make sense for five-year-old humans in around the modern era to have Intimidation above default?
Schooling, especially at young ages, is to give people defaults. Further, the penalty for size and likely low Will means that succeeding the roll is quite rare. Lastly, if children are actually try to scare an adult, as in they have the goal of scaring an adult into doing something for them, that fact would likely worry and/or scare a lot of adults regardless of what the child rolls. Children having the want to use most Influence skills seems it could be pretty rattling.
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Old 10-28-2020, 01:34 AM   #18
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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Schooling, especially at young ages, is to give people defaults. Further, the penalty for size and likely low Will means that succeeding the roll is quite rare. Lastly, if children are actually try to scare an adult, as in they have the goal of scaring an adult into doing something for them, that fact would likely worry and/or scare a lot of adults regardless of what the child rolls. Children having the want to use most Influence skills seems it could be pretty rattling.
I'd suggest that Intimidate is an eminently relevant skill for small children at least in modern societies. It's fairly important for elementary school bullying.

Of course, the failure of judgement that would be required for a child from that background to try to physically intimidate an adult goes beyond stupidity and into the realms of Delusion.

(A kid from a much nastier 'school' might attempt such intimidation in a pinch...with the help of a serious weapon. A 7 year old who will stab you probably still won't win a serious fight with many adults - but a mother cat won't win a fight with a bear ten times her weight either. They still have a credible threat to offer.)
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Old 10-28-2020, 04:08 AM   #19
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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I'd suggest that Intimidate is an eminently relevant skill for small children at least in modern societies. It's fairly important for elementary school bullying.

Of course, the failure of judgement that would be required for a child from that background to try to physically intimidate an adult goes beyond stupidity and into the realms of Delusion.
For the first thing, I honestly wonder how that would work out. It might still be a case of logical compliance with someone who doesn't have 'logical' down yet. Kid-to-Kid stats seem too low for Intimidation to actually work well. Maybe I don't recall the rules for contests among low numbers well.

For the second, my point was more that this kid is in a situation where they know enough that they can try to Intimidate, regardless of who they are trying to intimidate. That they've seen enough of anything to understand that they can wrap their mind around it. The kids who I've seen can actually do that very much do scare their parents and other adults around them (except for the adult that 'taught' them, if applicable). Which sounds like a kid with probably high will (the most variable attribute in real life) and some amount of points in Intimidation, especially to make up for the size difference (that, and they likely don't have Pitiable).
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Old 10-28-2020, 07:54 AM   #20
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Default Re: Thoughts on "Intimidation" in GURPS

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It seems like it would be fine. I've had players take Switchable on it and Variable. Selective Effect seems like the better (and more expensive) option.
I like the idea of Variable, basically "I can control how cute I am" whereas Selective Effect is "I can control who I'm cute to". In combination I could see that as "specify normal to person A, attractive to person B, beautiful to person C" basically applying both enhancements simultaneously.

If you have Variable at +5% it actually seems like switchable isn't even necessary, unless you rule that Variable mandates you use at least 1 level of it?

(like for example a Variable Crushing Attack can't just hit with 0d right?)
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