01-24-2015, 02:26 PM | #31 | ||||||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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Concepts that rely on being the person who uses social skill x begin to strain when they reach higher CP totals because they run out of things to buy. At higher CP totals the person with social skill x either is doing that as a side thing or is an NPC. Additional social skills are totally unlike additional weapon skills. Weapon skills past the first are mostly background skills that occasionally come in handy when something goes wrong. Social skills past the first are additional capabilities all the time. It's good for there to be variety in dedicated social characters but I think you are looking at the wrong place trying to achieve that with advantages and skills. There's some differentiation in things like what kind of appearance is chosen and what Influence skill you skip if you have most of them but not all but I think techniques should probably be where most of the differentiation occurs. Quote:
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Savoir-Faire isn't really about using 'social ritual lies', it's mostly about not screwing up and performing rituals adeptly. A few of those rituals involve white lies but they don't make up the core of the skill. What I'm referring to with revelling is about demonstrating that you are self aware of what you are doing. Skills react differently to this. You don't revel in your Savoir-Faire abilities unless you want to humiliate someone. Only a few uses of Diplomacy won't be worsened by revelling in how good you are. Revelling in sexiness describes some approaches of Sex Appeal, but there's a difference between that and revelling in your Sex Appeal skill. "Look at how well I am manipulating you with my sex appeal" generally spoils the actual influence while saying to a group "look at how much I have frightened you with my intimidation" isn't a problem at all. Quote:
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My inclinations tend towards the geeky tinkerer and of course I'd get totally shown up if I tracked down a professional social engineer but I'm pretty good at a lot of social stuff if I turn on the charisma. Quote:
Last edited by Sindri; 01-24-2015 at 02:32 PM. |
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01-25-2015, 11:28 AM | #32 | ||||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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That's how I feel with Caine: once I have many points, I'm somewhat regretting that I didn't take Voice and/or more Appearance instead of throwing points at various skills. Though getting Diplomacy 20 for the +2 to all Reaction Rolls is kinda neat, given my current levels (but this is only due to a good mix of OTJ training, Talent, and IQ). Diplomacy is good for having lots of Elicitation . . . but just doing Requests for Information could've been more flexible. Hmm. There's some similarity with combat skills: It's considered wasteful to have 4 Techniques instead of raising Skill for combat skills; a similar wisdom seems to apply to Social Stuff, where it's better to raise Reaction Modifiers than to raise 3-6 Influence Skills. Quote:
As for Techniques - I think usually it's not worth the trouble, as most of them take too small a subset of the skill. Elicitation is kinda cool, but that might be the property of the campaign I'm in. Quote:
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I don't get why revelling in Savoir-Faire would necessarily involve humiliating someone. As for admitting you manipulated someone with Sex Appeal, yes, it can result in nastiness, but it doesn't have to. Of the recent examples on my mind, Syndey Fox charming a Turkish ambassador enough to get an opportunity to steal back the relic he stole. At the end of the episode, when it becomes clear to him that nothing can be done about it anymore, it is noticeable that he doesn't hold a noticeable grudge, and is actually willing to propose another date. (IIRC a similar case happened with a French rival relic hunter.) Quote:
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01-25-2015, 01:50 PM | #33 | |||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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As for Techniques that's mostly because A tier social Techniques are almost or entirely missing so far. When social Techniques get their Targetted Attack, Combination, or Counterattack things will be different. Quote:
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Well I'll avoid speculating on my GURPS IQ. Last edited by Sindri; 01-25-2015 at 01:55 PM. |
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01-25-2015, 02:17 PM | #34 | ||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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But generally, the point is that the more of them you have, the less likely it becomes that you'll run into a situation where you can't cover the missing one with another one. In fact, Intimidation (due to marking you a bad person), Savoir-Faire (due to very narrow specialisation), and Sex Appeal (if used with whatever of the rulesets that eliminate the double impact) are the first candidates for being left out for a typical successful face character. Sure, the smash characters will want Intimidation. And as far as characterisation goes, it's generally somewhat unusual to have a justification for possessing high levels of both Diplomacy and Streetwise. Not impossible, of course. Just eyebrow-raising. Quote:
What sort of social Technique would you envision that would be worth their point cost? Of the official ones, I see the following: Agenda, Elicitation, Close Dancing (largely as a shortcut for people who lack Influence skills but have high DX, low HT, and want romance). Maybe Elevated Speech if there's lots of routine requests and they're usually made in public. Allowing things like 'Request For Aid' seems risky to me; it might become too powerful. (This is also the reason why I tend to single out Elicitation as one of the best Techniques out there.) |
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01-25-2015, 03:49 PM | #35 | |||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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I'll think about it and come back with some ideas. One of the main things that buuring a Technique to A tier is being able to deliberatly trigger it on a regular basis like Targetted Attack. A tier social Techniques would also do a lot to get players enthusiastic about social matters. No offense to Social Engineering but "Agenda" is not a very exciting Technique and I expect laughter the first time I mention the Irony technique's existence. Last edited by Sindri; 01-25-2015 at 03:57 PM. |
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01-25-2015, 04:25 PM | #36 | |||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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It's not clear whether Acting as a skill is always better. I do see it as better for my diplomat character. Quote:
You can probably get +1 from a complimentary use of Savoir-Faire in your chosen subculture. But let's see, High Society, Servant, Mafia, Military, Police, Dojo . . . if you want to cover everything, you're better off taking a Reaction Bonus, or a level of your primary Influence Skill, or a 5-point Talent. Caine has (High Society) and (Mafia), and I'm considering it dubious utility. Quote:
Deliberately triggering is easiest achieved by making Techniques that correspond directly to types of reaction rolls. Request For Information is, of course, Elicitation, and it's rather cool in campaign where MoS-based results are in play. Seduction/Romance seems like an okay choice. But there are other classes of RRs that seem overpowered as Techniques: Request For Aid, Commercial Transactions (if MoS-based effects are enabled), probably Loyalty. And the rest seem mostly meh. Things that might be balanced are: Potential Combat Results, Confrontation With Authority, and Gaining Admission Results (the latter is pretty odd, though). |
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01-25-2015, 04:47 PM | #37 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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01-25-2015, 07:33 PM | #38 | |||
Join Date: Nov 2011
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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They are both solid but not awesome Techniques that are also low on flash with faintly ridiculous names. Of the two I think Irony is the stronger. |
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01-26-2015, 03:31 AM | #39 | |||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
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But if the campaign is such that there's less than a 50% dominance of a single subculture, you're better off taking another Influence skill, one that is more generic. Again, that usually means Diplomacy and Fast-Talk first, depending on communication style. Actually, I find it kinda asymmetric that Streetwise is not called SF (Street) and that there is no SF for Status 0, but there is a special skill (SF & Streetwise) for both negative and positive status. Irony is probably only ridiculous because you think of it as of the wrong meaning of the word. Agenda sounds kinda cool, but misleading. |
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01-26-2015, 03:50 AM | #40 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Agreed. The only time I've done it was as the best way I could find to record having learned the SF of a very different army (WWII Red Army, when the character was British Army).
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body language, detect lies, influence skills, social engineering, social styles |
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