Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well I'm going to give Sex Appeal something, I'm just a little bit wary of whether double impact is too much. Balancing lower applicability with greater potence risks making Sex Appeal the standard skill whenever it is applicable for someone who is an expert in all the Influence Skills.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Sex Appeal can be used to manipulate people and it has it's niche but Sex Appeal as a primary social modus operandus is, in my opinion, mostly a role for NPCs who can afford to bypass the subject limitations by spending time finding a legal subject, don't mind allowing themselves to be pidgeon holed somewhat as the Sex Appeal person in people's mind and are fine sticking to a strategy that works instead of spending a lot of effort really learning other social skills. PCs on the other hand often need to influence the person in front of them right now and don't want to allow themselves to be perceived as the Sex Appeal person.

If it doesn't have a high impact (I'm estimating at least 1½ the impact of other skills), then people will just never both to throw points at it, and focus on other approaches.
Concepts like Christian Troy and Catherine Tramell or Ava Lord will be considered stupid gimmicks that make the character significantly less effective than the more Diplomacy- or even Charisma-oriented concepts like Cap'n Kirk, Darth Revan or Commander Sheppard.

Think of it this way: Do you take a skill that is 50% restricted by available targets, and is likely to be shot down with extra penalties by sceptical GMs (upper-paragraph examples to the contrary), spending more points on it? For a small bonus of some sort?
Or do you focus on the skills that 'just work' with less fuss and conditions, and spend the saved points on getting about as many plusses in other social goodies (skill or RMs)? And if a situation comes up where you need to be appealing, do it the way Starbuck and Nigel Bailey do it.

I'd say that making Sex Appeal anything less than the current double impact risks discouraging the former concepts in favour of the latter ones.

Originally Posted by Sindri

I think you are underestimating Intimidation a bit. Aside from providing an alternate route to social ability for the large unattractive character (Which shouldn't really count.) it has an important niche as the go to skill for talking to people who don't and aren't going to like you.

Maybe I am. It's certainly useful for an unattractive big character, assuming his bulky exterior and pushy manners are not hiding a weak-willed interior like Captain Hammer.

But for a typical social-oriented character, it seems better to walk the path of Howard Roark, The Nameless One, Comander Sheridan, Gaius Baltar et al. I.e. making them like you despite the nay-sayers' predictions, or at least tolerate you and accept your point.

Penalties? But of course.

Originally Posted by Sindri

[...]Diplomacy can help in the later but it can't stir up passions or increase your perceived hotness.

I don't think I agree. SE explicitly calls out one that is based on Streetwise and even has a trope for it. Given how popular compliments seem to be, and how they affect some people, Fast-Talk seems a common choice. Some people fall for displays of the Intimidation skill, particularly if it's nominally aimed at someone else. Surely one can come up with others given sufficient experience.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well I can't fault a list that includes Slayers.

I'd recommend Code Geass to someone with as many Social Engineering tagged threads as you have. Certain aspects of the plot also have significant NGE influence.

I don't think I like the premise. 'Supernaturally-gifted villains do villainous things with goody-heroic justifications, and seem to feel miserable along the way and/or at the end'? This sort of reminds me of Breaking Bad. Now, the 'one command only' is an interesting limitation of an ability, I'll admit.

Oh, add GitS and GitS 2 to the list.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Empathy is quite cinematic however if you are going to include it turning it into a skill makes rather a lot of sense.

Turning it into a skill would presumably make it way more common.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

If it doesn't have a high impact (I'm estimating at least 1½ the impact of other skills), then people will just never both to throw points at it, and focus on other approaches.
Concepts like Christian Troy and Catherine Tramell or Ava Lord will be considered stupid gimmicks that make the character significantly less effective than the more Diplomacy- or even Charisma-oriented concepts like Cap'n Kirk, Darth Revan or Commander Sheppard.

I'm not coming out of this looking very pop culturally aware but I haven't actually seen/read Nip/Tuck, the Basic Instinct series or Sin City. That said I have a hard time envisioning a player who actually wants to play someone who uses Sex Appeal more often than Captain Kirk. The character who uses their sex appeal all the time is an NPC role, not to mention rather undignified.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

=]Think of it this way: Do you take a skill that is 50% restricted by available targets, and is likely to be shot down with extra penalties by sceptical GMs (upper-paragraph examples to the contrary), spending more points on it? For a small bonus of some sort?
Or do you focus on the skills that 'just work' with less fuss and conditions, and spend the saved points on getting about as many plusses in other social goodies (skill or RMs)? And if a situation comes up where you need to be appealing, do it the way Starbuck and Nigel Bailey do it.

I'd say that making Sex Appeal anything less than the current double impact risks discouraging the former concepts in favour of the latter ones.

I absolutely would. Once your preferred social skill is high enough to be reliable for PC use it's better to pick up another skill that offers a small intrinsic mechanical bonus and a different route that will be better suited to certain goals than to just keep pumping up the same skill/

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Maybe I am. It's certainly useful for an unattractive big character, assuming his bulky exterior and pushy manners are not hiding a weak-willed interior like Captain Hammer.

But for a typical social-oriented character, it seems better to walk the path of Howard Roark, The Nameless One, Comander Sheridan, Gaius Baltar et al. I.e. making them like you despite the nay-sayers' predictions, or at least tolerate you and accept your point.

Penalties? But of course.

There are some people who even if you could get to like you would take too many resources and possibly involve compromising your image to do so and people who you don't have time to get to like you.

In a world where you can practically always persuade anyone to tolerate and accept your point and there aren't rare tactical advantages to intimidating certain foes then yes Intimidation is just terrible.

Similarly if the only significant social interaction you do is to haggle over prices and talk with villains that are completely opposed to your point of view Diplomacy is terrible. It becomes much better to invest in Fast-Talk to allow you to deceive them, Intimidation and Sex Appeal to occasionally sway one while bypassing the mountain of penalties for actually changing their point of view and perhaps Savoir-Faire in case persuasion by appeal to things like gentlemanly conduct can work.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I don't think I agree. SE explicitly calls out one that is based on Streetwise and even has a trope for it. Given how popular compliments seem to be, and how they affect some people, Fast-Talk seems a common choice. Some people fall for displays of the Intimidation skill, particularly if it's nominally aimed at someone else. Surely one can come up with others given sufficient experience.

Meh, allowing Streetwise to use "bad boy charm" got filed under instantly rejected rules the first time I read it. Bad boy charm isn't an approach it's a flavour.

But then, I think Streetwise is a rather ridiculous skill to begin with. It should really be replaced with a Savoir-Faire specialty and some uses of other skills.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I don't think I like the premise. 'Supernaturally-gifted villains do villainous things with goody-heroic justifications, and seem to feel miserable along the way and/or at the end'? This sort of reminds me of Breaking Bad. Now, the 'one command only' is an interesting limitation of an ability, I'll admit.

Well it's not for everyone. Lelouch is far from perfect and also gets hit with a lot of mental stress.

That said while Lelouch sends out a lot of fictional "I'm a villain" signals he does good things and leads a relatively clean rebellion against a rather psychotic empire. Suzaku also practically always provides a counter perspective as well for people who prefer his viewpoint.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Turning it into a skill would presumably make it way more common.

There's no reason why that would be the case. In a realistic campaign it shouldn't be allowed at all. In a cinematic campaign it can be behind a gate like the various supernaturalish skills.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

I'm not coming out of this looking very pop culturally aware but I haven't actually seen/read Nip/Tuck, the Basic Instinct series or Sin City. That said I have a hard time envisioning a player who actually wants to play someone who uses Sex Appeal more often than Captain Kirk. The character who uses their sex appeal all the time is an NPC role, not to mention rather undignified.

I can't recommend Nip/Tuck. It was a heavy thing to watch, in some ways sharing the hard parts of Breaking Bad (perhaps somewhat milder); I kinda did it in background mode. The new Sin City is a-OK, but not SE material. It's been quite a long while since I saw Basic Instinct, so I'm no longer sure what to make of it.

Anyway, I've seen those who do want to play such characters. In fact, I'd try one if I knew for sure that the idea wouldn't be stupidly suboptimal in practice (possible reasons include discrepancy between character and player that are quite problematic with some GMs, and suboptimality for game-system reasons). It's not like using sex appeal to solve 90% social encounters is any worse than using fast-talk/acting/other forms of manipulation, so why do you think there are no players who would try?

Originally Posted by Sindri

I absolutely would. Once your preferred social skill is high enough to be reliable for PC use it's better to pick up another skill that offers a small intrinsic mechanical bonus and a different route that will be better suited to certain goals than to just keep pumping up the same skill/

Better suited to what goals? You already have the full toolset to do everything Sex Appeal can do, from Influencing people to making Ruses to seduction/romance, with the the rest of the skill set. Sex Appeal is the one which is way more limited in application, but stronger in effect; that's its selling point!

Originally Posted by Sindri

There are some people who even if you could get to like you would take too many resources and possibly involve compromising your image to do so and people who you don't have time to get to like you.

If you're the sort of person who uses Intimidation, your image is already compromised.

Originally Posted by Sindri

In a world where you can practically always persuade anyone to tolerate and accept your point and there aren't rare tactical advantages to intimidating certain foes then yes Intimidation is just terrible.

Similarly if the only significant social interaction you do is to haggle over prices and talk with villains that are completely opposed to your point of view Diplomacy is terrible. It becomes much better to invest in Fast-Talk to allow you to deceive them, Intimidation and Sex Appeal to occasionally sway one while bypassing the mountain of penalties for actually changing their point of view and perhaps Savoir-Faire in case persuasion by appeal to things like gentlemanly conduct can work.

It seems like of those skills, some (e.g Fast-Talk) are still more flexible and useful than others.
Notably, aside from Influence, Fast-Talk can lie, Steetwise is good for knowing street stuff, Diplomacy for prediction negotiation outcomes. Savoir-Faire with its etiquette-knowledge seems kinda weak (it does the same thing Diplomacy does, in many ways, particularly if you have Disarming Smile), while Sex Appeal and Intimidation seem even less versatile in terms of how often you can use them at full skill and with no strings attached to negative consequences of some sort.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Meh, allowing Streetwise to use "bad boy charm" got filed under instantly rejected rules the first time I read it. Bad boy charm isn't an approach it's a flavour.

Could you please expand your opinion (optionally related to the whole page from where the list of approaches comes)?

Originally Posted by Sindri

But then, I think Streetwise is a rather ridiculous skill to begin with. It should really be replaced with a Savoir-Faire specialty and some uses of other skills.

It might be a way to consolidate skills, yes.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Anyway, I've seen those who do want to play such characters. In fact, I'd try one if I knew for sure that the idea wouldn't be stupidly suboptimal in practice (possible reasons include discrepancy between character and player that are quite problematic with some GMs, and suboptimality for game-system reasons). It's not like using sex appeal to solve 90% social encounters is any worse than using fast-talk/acting/other forms of manipulation, so why do you think there are no players who would try?

Well I wouldn't want any dedicated social PC to rely on one skill for 90% of encounters. At the very least I'd want something like the majority of Influence Skill being split vaguely evenly between Fast-Talk and Diplomacy with the others forming a small but significant minority.

I think Fast-Talk is somewhat more flexible than Sex Appeal, but mostly it's that vamping it up all the time is lame.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Better suited to what goals? You already have the full toolset to do everything Sex Appeal can do, from Influencing people to making Ruses to seduction/romance, with the the rest of the skill set. Sex Appeal is the one which is way more limited in application, but stronger in effect; that's its selling point!

You can produce the same end results in general, but that's not the same thing as having the same toolset. For one thing Sex Appeal is a vector that works well with persuasion that doesn't involve actually changing the subject's mind. Using Sex Appeal to deal with guards is a classic example for a reason. Diplomacy has to do a lot of work to persuade a guard that they don't need to be guarding this door. Sex Appeal on the other hand can work by ignoring the question of whether the door should in theory be guarded by making other concerns seem more important at the time. Occasionally Diplomacy might have this to work with and Fast-Talk can fake an issue if you have the right information or guess correctly but there is a lot more to Influence Skills than their intrinsic mechanical benefits.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

If you're the sort of person who uses Intimidation, your image is already compromised.

That's not true at all. There are lots of situations where being seen publicly intimidating someone is better for your image among people you actually care about than relinquishing an inch of rhetorical ground to certain people.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It seems like of those skills, some (e.g Fast-Talk) are still more flexible and useful than others.
Notably, aside from Influence, Fast-Talk can lie, Steetwise is good for knowing street stuff, Diplomacy for prediction negotiation outcomes. Savoir-Faire with its etiquette-knowledge seems kinda weak (it does the same thing Diplomacy does, in many ways, particularly if you have Disarming Smile), while Sex Appeal and Intimidation seem even less versatile in terms of how often you can use them at full skill and with no strings attached to negative consequences of some sort.

Indeed. There are different tiers of utility with Diplomacy and Fast-Talk being at the top. I plan to have peg them at different skill costs in my rather hypothetical skill house rules.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Could you please expand your opinion (optionally related to the whole page from where the list of approaches comes)?

Sure. "Bad boy" allure is, in my view, just a particular type of Sex Appeal approach possibly interacting with other things such as a preference quirk on the subject's part. I'd also note that while pick-up lines or flattery might fall under Fast-Talk for me the defining use of Fast-Talk in seduction is persuading someone that "why of course I intend to marry you later on" is actually truthful. I don't really know what Social Engineering meant by "assume privilege" in regards to Savoir-Faire allowing seduction but I think it would require a rather odd situation for Savoir-Faire to be the core skill being used in seduction.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well I wouldn't want any dedicated social PC to rely on one skill for 90% of encounters. At the very least I'd want something like the majority of Influence Skill being split vaguely evenly between Fast-Talk and Diplomacy with the others forming a small but significant minority.

I think Fast-Talk is somewhat more flexible than Sex Appeal, but mostly it's that vamping it up all the time is lame.

After playing 1½ years as a social character, I can say that I've handled 90% or more of social encounters through Diplomacy. There were, IIRC, two cases where I used Intimidation, not because it was good at that moment, but because I was getting tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy, and wanted to show the character's tough side; it was also done largely because the targets were significantly lower in Status and freedom of action.
Aside from being the nice guy, it's actually cool in a way - being the one who forges (somewhat reluctant) alliances wherever he goes, eventually recruiting even former enemies (well, not all of them).

I think it's likely that there are other concepts that call for a strong dominance of one approach over others:
The noble who does most of his influences in court with Savoir-Faire. The thief who does most of her interactions with street acquaintances through Streetwise. The glib bard who only solves social problems for long enough to get away to the next time, with Fast-Talk. And of course the Casanova or Femme Fatale, who is specialised in dealing with the opposite sex (and others who are interested), relying primarily on Sex Appeal.

You can produce the same end results in general, but that's not the same thing as having the same toolset. For one thing Sex Appeal is a vector that works well with persuasion that doesn't involve actually changing the subject's mind. Using Sex Appeal to deal with guards is a classic example for a reason. Diplomacy has to do a lot of work to persuade a guard that they don't need to be guarding this door. Sex Appeal on the other hand can work by ignoring the question of whether the door should in theory be guarded by making other concerns seem more important at the time. Occasionally Diplomacy might have this to work with and Fast-Talk can fake an issue if you have the right information or guess correctly but there is a lot more to Influence Skills than their intrinsic mechanical benefits.

Why is that lame?

Originally Posted by Sindri

That's not true at all. There are lots of situations where being seen publicly intimidating someone is better for your image among people you actually care about than relinquishing an inch of rhetorical ground to certain people.

Okay then, seems like who those people are and in what context is relevant, and this can't be discussed abstractly. Either may or may not be bad, depending.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Indeed. There are different tiers of utility with Diplomacy and Fast-Talk being at the top. I plan to have peg them at different skill costs in my rather hypothetical skill house rules.

Well, dropping Sex Appeal to an Easy skill while also dropping its double-impact property still makes it unappealing. Or are you hypothesising something drastic, like making it cost [¼,½,1,2,2,2...] and making Diplomacy/Fast-Talk cost [2,4,8,8...]?

Side note: IME, the more drastic tinkering I do, the less I get to actually GM the tinkered version of the system; the best tinks are the streamlined ones. But I'm sure this experience differs from GM to GM.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Sure. "Bad boy" allure is, in my view, just a particular type of Sex Appeal approach possibly interacting with other things such as a preference quirk on the subject's part. I'd also note that while pick-up lines or flattery might fall under Fast-Talk for me the defining use of Fast-Talk in seduction is persuading someone that "why of course I intend to marry you later on" is actually truthful. I don't really know what Social Engineering meant by "assume privilege" in regards to Savoir-Faire allowing seduction but I think it would require a rather odd situation for Savoir-Faire to be the core skill being used in seduction.

The first . . . a quirk would probably make the effectiveness greater, just like there's a quirk that makes the effect of Diplomacy or Fast-Talk greater.
Regarding the second: lying is certainly part of Fast-Talk (and Acting), but lying isn't an Influence Roll.

The third is indeed an odd one, but apparently it's a thing, vaguely related to the Intimidation one: I vaguely recall once overhearing one girl telling another that it's 'not proper' to turn down a guy after admitting that he did everything perfectly proper during the date; apparently some people have some sort of guilt/peer-pressure-sense that makes them behave in accordance with the unwritten rules of etiquette . . . in fact, that's probably how etiquette-based influences work at all!
What do you think? I'm not a very social person, to say the least, and the internal workings of Savoir-Faire influences are probably one of the most alien to my mind.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

After playing 1½ years as a social character, I can say that I've handled 90% or more of social encounters through Diplomacy. There were, IIRC, two cases where I used Intimidation, not because it was good at that moment, but because I was getting tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy, and wanted to show the character's tough side; it was also done largely because the targets were significantly lower in Status and freedom of action.
Aside from being the nice guy, it's actually cool in a way - being the one who forges (somewhat reluctant) alliances wherever he goes, eventually recruiting even former enemies (well, not all of them).

No Fast-Talk?

It idly occurs to me that maybe you're are just significantly better at Diplomacy than Intimidation personally, but Diplomacy is really strong either way.

Originally Posted by vicky_molok

I think it's likely that there are other concepts that call for a strong dominance of one approach over others:
The noble who does most of his influences in court with Savoir-Faire. The thief who does most of her interactions with street acquaintances through Streetwise. The glib bard who only solves social problems for long enough to get away to the next time, with Fast-Talk. And of course the Casanova or Femme Fatale, who is specialised in dealing with the opposite sex (and others who are interested), relying primarily on Sex Appeal.

Sure but concepts that call for basically sticking to one skill either aren't dedicated social concepts or start to strain at higher CP totals.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Why is that lame?

Well disclaimer that the reason I think I think it's lame may not be the actual reasons I think it's lame.

I've never seen fictional use of Sex Appeal that I actually thought was cool and I've consumed a lot of noir so it's not like I haven't had the opportunity. Part of it is that I tend to view successful use of Sex Appeal more as failure on the subject's part than success on the user's part. Another is that it's one of the Influence skills that relies on keeping up an act. Intimidation lets a PC revel in their badassness, even Diplomacy can sometimes be done with a smirk when you have laid out a position that the subject thinks they have no choice but to follow it. Sex Appeal needs to commit to it's act and has difficulty letting a PC demonstrate that they know how awesome they are being. Another is that a lot of flavours of Sex Appeal are rather undignified. Finally variety is more interesting than repeatedly using the same trick.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Okay then, seems like who those people are and in what context is relevant, and this can't be discussed abstractly. Either may or may not be bad, depending.

I'd give an example but right now I've having trouble thinking of social scenes not from Code Geass : ).

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, dropping Sex Appeal to an Easy skill while also dropping its double-impact property still makes it unappealing. Or are you hypothesising something drastic, like making it cost [¼,½,1,2,2,2...] and making Diplomacy/Fast-Talk cost [2,4,8,8...]?

Side note: IME, the more drastic tinkering I do, the less I get to actually GM the tinkered version of the system; the best tinks are the streamlined ones. But I'm sure this experience differs from GM to GM.

Something vaguely along the lines of the second. And what, are you implying that I'd do anything as gauche as actually play an RPG? : ).

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

The first . . . a quirk would probably make the effectiveness greater, just like there's a quirk that makes the effect of Diplomacy or Fast-Talk greater.
Regarding the second: lying is certainly part of Fast-Talk (and Acting), but lying isn't an Influence Roll.

The third is indeed an odd one, but apparently it's a thing, vaguely related to the Intimidation one: I vaguely recall once overhearing one girl telling another that it's 'not proper' to turn down a guy after admitting that he did everything perfectly proper during the date; apparently some people have some sort of guilt/peer-pressure-sense that makes them behave in accordance with the unwritten rules of etiquette . . . in fact, that's probably how etiquette-based influences work at all!
What do you think? I'm not a very social person, to say the least, and the internal workings of Savoir-Faire influences are probably one of the most alien to my mind.

For the first a quirk of likes bad boys would indeed be the most significant affecting trait, though I can imagine others.

For the second basically everything Fast-Talk does including Influence is some kind of lie. There's a difference between persuading someone that a statement about future intent is true and making them believe it is so true that it's okay to engage in risky behaviour.

For the third I just don't believe savoir-faire as being the primary skill in seduction baring an unusual society, but then I don't see savoir-faire as being a primarily influence skill either.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Sindri

No Fast-Talk?

If you're in a campaign where you aren't a nomad, and have a reasonable expectation of meeting people again, Fast-Talk is often a bad idea. People you've fast-talked often get disgruntled about it when they realise and are harder to deal with next time.

For the social-skill based character I played in a THS campaign, I can only think of one use of Fast-Talk, to get past security guards who didn't know that I knew what was really going on, and wouldn't have believed the story if I had stopped to tell it, and one use of Intimidation, where it was necessary to point out to someone that their course of action would involve making enemies of the entire EU, including the Royal Navy SDV currently overhead.

It idly occurs to me that maybe you're are just significantly better at Diplomacy than Intimidation personally, but Diplomacy is really strong either way.

It is excellent when what you want the target to do is actually reasonable, or you have something worthwhile to offer. If neither of these is true ... you have a problem with using Diplomacy.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

No Fast-Talk?

It idly occurs to me that maybe you're are just significantly better at Diplomacy than Intimidation personally, but Diplomacy is really strong either way.

Originally Posted by johndallman

If you're in a campaign where you aren't a nomad, and have a reasonable expectation of meeting people again, Fast-Talk is often a bad idea. People you've fast-talked often get disgruntled about it when they realise and are harder to deal with next time.

For the social-skill based character I played in a THS campaign, I can only think of one use of Fast-Talk, to get past security guards who didn't know that I knew what was really going on, and wouldn't have believed the story if I had stopped to tell it, and one use of Intimidation, where it was necessary to point out to someone that their course of action would involve making enemies of the entire EU, including the Royal Navy SDV currently overhead.

It is excellent when what you want the target to do is actually reasonable, or you have something worthwhile to offer. If neither of these is true ... you have a problem with using Diplomacy.

No Fast-Talk. I'm playing the one who forges alliances and turns enemies into uneasy allies. I'm not playing the one who fools everyone for 10 minutes, and leaves a long queue of enemies for the rest of the campaign as a result.

As for being good for asking reasonable things:
Actually, I got burned on many GMs who believe that it is absolutely impossible to ask anyone to do anything non-reasonable. Not hard, but rather 'do not even bother rolling' impossible. So I got out of habit of trying. I vaguely started making steps into trying the over-the-top requests (for information!) once I realised that Caine has something like Elicitation (Diplomacy) 22 and something like a +8 total Reaction Modifier. But that's something of a single experiment with a single success.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Sure but concepts that call for basically sticking to one skill either aren't dedicated social concepts or start to strain at higher CP totals.

Someone's a specialist, someone's a generalist. Some combatants walk with their signature rifle named Betty; someone's a One-Man Army with skill points in 8 different ranged weapon skills.
I think I said it somewhere before that it's not nice when each and every social character needs to have the absolute same set of advantages or skills. Having some proficiency in more than one, of course, helps with flexibility!

What's the strain at higher CP totals?

Originally Posted by Sindri

Well disclaimer that the reason I think I think it's lame may not be the actual reasons I think it's lame.

Are you sure you're writing what you think you are writing?

Originally Posted by Sindri

I've never seen fictional use of Sex Appeal that I actually thought was cool and I've consumed a lot of noir so it's not like I haven't had the opportunity. Part of it is that I tend to view successful use of Sex Appeal more as failure on the subject's part than success on the user's part. Another is that it's one of the Influence skills that relies on keeping up an act. Intimidation lets a PC revel in their badassness, even Diplomacy can sometimes be done with a smirk when you have laid out a position that the subject thinks they have no choice but to follow it. Sex Appeal needs to commit to it's act and has difficulty letting a PC demonstrate that they know how awesome they are being. Another is that a lot of flavours of Sex Appeal are rather undignified. Finally variety is more interesting than repeatedly using the same trick.

Hmmm.
Fast-Talk, Intimidation, and to some extent Savoir-Faire are also an act, at least to some extent.
Fast-Talk is all about confusing or misleading people one way or another.
Intimidation is about getting people to treat you as a bigger threat than rational analysis would indicate.
Savoir-Faire is about using essentially 'social ritual lies'.

On the other hand, one can also see Diplomacy, Intimidation, Sex Appeal, Streetwise and Savoir-Faire as revelling in one's coolness:
Diplomacy as revelling in politeness and reasonableness.
Intimidation as revelling in badassitude.
Streetwise as revelling in street smarts.
Savoir-Faire as revelling in good breeding and manners.
And of course Sex Appeal as revelling in sexiness.
The latter, in fact, is quite similar to Intimidation in that it can have little to no verbal component but suffer little to no penalties for it.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Something vaguely along the lines of the second. And what, are you implying that I'd do anything as gauche as actually play an RPG? : ).

Jokes aside, are you trying to prepare for using those rules in an actual campaign, or just having fun constructing a thing that is perfect on paper but mostly unplayable?

Originally Posted by Sindri

For the third I just don't believe savoir-faire as being the primary skill in seduction baring an unusual society, but then I don't see savoir-faire as being a primarily influence skill either.

Let's face it: it seems neither of us is good at what GURPS calls Savoir-Faire. We're geeky tinkerers, not haughty social butterflies.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Actually, I got burned on many GMs who believe that it is absolutely impossible to ask anyone to do anything non-reasonable. Not hard, but rather 'do not even bother rolling' impossible.

Well, Diplomacy isn't the best way to do that, but I think it's "come up with a good line of argument" hard, not impossible.

signature rifle named Betty

We have a rifle called Betty. She's outlived the first PC who had her.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Well, Diplomacy isn't the best way to do that, but I think it's "come up with a good line of argument" hard, not impossible.

Coming up with an argument is not impossible. But I think we've seen this type of people on this very forum. Those who examine social interaction on an almost-metagame level of detachment, and dismiss the argument out of hand based on the outcome it tries to achieve.

The example from this forum was some forumite who started a thread on how Intimidation shouldn't work: "Either the NPC considers the PC's threat the lesser evil, or the NPC considers doing what the PC asks the lesser evil! There is no skill involved!" - that was his (?) way of thinking.