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01-15-2015, 02:27 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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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. |
01-15-2015, 02:49 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Oct 2014
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
As far as I know, the only reliable way to tell lies from truth is to deconstruct the lies by looking for (and finding) contradictions. If someone tells two pieces of contradictory informations, at least one of them must be false (studies have found that people were less likely to lie in e-mails because they could be kept forever as evidence). If someone tells you something that contradicts evidence you have at hand, that person is most likely lying, or at the very least misinformed. So I think Detect Lies is or should be a cinematic skill. Hell, even D&D uses the approach that the Psychology skills only tell you the emotions of the person in front of you (is he/she tense, relaxed, scared...), but then a few prestige class get the explicitly supernatural ability to detect lies...
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01-15-2015, 03:05 AM | #3 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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In the realm of unreliable but real ways to detect lies there are a bunch of content independent tricks that push up the success rate somewhat if often less than their practitioners believe. |
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01-16-2015, 10:25 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Dec 2013
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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(The real "fun" thing is that believing you're good at detecting lies and being good at detecting lies has almost no correlation. Believing you're good at detecting lies is largely correlated with your general self-confidence.) Some general percentages of accuracy in lie detection in various professions can be found on the bottom left of page 917 of this document. There's a fair amount of research done on this field, and most of them find trained lie detection accuracies in excess of 50%. |
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01-16-2015, 10:52 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Oct 2014
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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So here, I am asking a simple question: how much "Lie detection" is actually spotting contradictions, whether with what the liar said earlier, or with evidence available at hand ("I wasn't driving that car" "I exited through the right front door from the crash", the police report says the car was imported from England, is the person lying or not?), and how much of it is body language or some such? Most people usually believe me when I lie, but when I tell the truth and back it up with evidence they instantly stop believing me. Probably because I feel much more confident telling lies, but when I say the truth I'm nervous about not being believed... |
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01-16-2015, 12:43 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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Also keep in mind that technical equipment is unrelated to Detect Lies and Body Language. |
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01-16-2015, 02:09 PM | #7 |
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
I only have three social skills, and a couple primarily knowledge-based skills with secondary social purposes.
Deception is the skill of lying to people. Persuasion is the skill of convincing people to go along with what you want. Intimidation is the skill of scaring or bullying people into doing what you want. Merchant has a social application (Will-based Merchant skill for haggling), but its primary purpose is to appraise the value of loot. Combat Lore has a social application (rallying people to fight a la Leadership) but it's mostly a combination of Tactics, Strategy, and Soldier. Religion is mostly about theological and ritual knowledge and deducing the weaknesses of supernatural foes, but of course I'd allow a little social leverage out of it for dealing in church affairs.
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Ba-weep granah wheep minibon. Wubba lubba dub dub. |
01-21-2015, 02:09 PM | #8 | ||||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
I've been meaning to post here, but somehow forgot the thread after reading it for several times.
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(Intelligence Analysis is a different thing altogether, it's more of a spy/military skill, not a psychological one.) Quote:
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01-21-2015, 03:04 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
"Impressive to onlookers" and "impressive choreography" seems to suggest Performance.
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01-21-2015, 03:07 PM | #10 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Somehow, making a caper impressive doesn't sound like choreography to me. I'm more inclined to imagine the effects of John Dillinger, particularly in the film. Or the Third Row Saints from Saints Row III. Both seem closer to propaganda, particularly the latter.
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Tags |
body language, detect lies, influence skills, social engineering, social styles |
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