Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing

[Sindri]

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.

Well it also depends on whether the person is important. Being able to lie convincingly to people who aren't going to shift from being enemies or even people who might but can do bad things with information right now is also important

Originally Posted by johndallman

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.

It's excellent. If it had no weaknesses it would be rather better than excellent.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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.

It feels like you are in a situation that rather favours Diplomacy. You never need to lie to a question?

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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.

It's a real problem in GMs which is significantly encouraged by terribly balanced social rules in a lot of games.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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?

Some people are dedicated social characters, some people aren't but dabble in social stuff by being an expert in one skill and some people are playing at low enough points that being the dedicated social character means they can only afford to be good at one skill.

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.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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

Yes? I think it's lame because "that's lame" comes to mind when thinking of someone who using Sex Appeal to solve 90% social encounters. I'm a fairly introspective person so I can put together reasons behind that, but I'm not perfect and what I think is the reason I think it's lame may not be the actual reason why I react to the suggestion by thinking it's lame.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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.

Indeed it isn't alone in that. Fast-Talk for example has that feature too. It doesn't matter because Fast-Talk is already awesome. Sex Appeal has significant weaknesses in the cool department anyway.

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.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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?

I'm having fun constructing a thing that should be perfectly playable for a currently mostly theoretical future campaign.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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.

Uh... I'll admit that Savoir-Faire isn't my strongest social skill. My dojo haven't been formal enough to really need Savoir-Faire (Dojo) and I've never been a member of the Mafia, military or police. I haven't worked as a servant either. If I had to pass as three status higher than I am I'd perform better than most of my peers but I haven't really spent time studying the skill in any depth.

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.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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.

Of course the are many campaigns where actual metagame concerns impede social skills at least a bit. "No you can't get the king to do [thing that damages the foundation of the actual gameplay]". That can be a problem if it isn't made explicit that things will work that way or if there's no real chance that they king wouldn't do that.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

It feels like you are in a situation that rather favours Diplomacy. You never need to lie to a question?

There were a few cases, with a list of but's:

• Answering questions with lies is risky, because that means you're avoiding X trouble now, but are adding X×1½ trouble further down the road.
• Generally, it was optimal to mislead by omission or the like instead of doing outright lies.
• In cases where Caine did lie, usually by omission, it was with the aim of long-term plausibility, and so Acting was the skill of choice, not Fast-Talk.
• The +1 Acting per level of IQ difference tends to play in favour of cerebral PCs. However, in this campaign, most of the targets seemed to be about as intelligent, so it didn't matter most of the time.

Originally Posted by Sindri

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.

Hmm. Having more than one is generally good. But being a likeable person is generally better than learning all six shortcuts - like all shortcuts, social skills have drawbacks.

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.

Originally Posted by Sindri

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.

'What to skip' is definitely a legit characterisation question, as there's no point in taking all six.
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.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Indeed it isn't alone in that. Fast-Talk for example has that feature too. It doesn't matter because Fast-Talk is already awesome. Sex Appeal has significant weaknesses in the cool department anyway.

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.

I wouldn't equate Influencing someone with mere not screwing up. It's not screwing up and succeeding at the social task at hand.

Originally Posted by Sindri

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.

I totally disagree about Intimidation: "look how I frightened you" is absolutely grounds for re-evaluating the situation; in the worst case scenario, it involves a formerly scared NPC realising that he can just annihilate the PCs in a few seconds, and should've done so some while ago.
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.)

Originally Posted by Sindri

Uh... I'll admit that Savoir-Faire isn't my strongest social skill. My dojo haven't been formal enough to really need Savoir-Faire (Dojo) and I've never been a member of the Mafia, military or police. I haven't worked as a servant either. If I had to pass as three status higher than I am I'd perform better than most of my peers but I haven't really spent time studying the skill in any depth.

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.

Hmm. Performing better than peers can be chalked up to higher IQ (whether it is actually higher I don't know, but surely some percentage of forumites has it, so it's not an implausible possibility).

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

There were a few cases, with a list of but's:

• Answering questions with lies is risky, because that means you're avoiding X trouble now, but are adding X×1½ trouble further down the road.
• Generally, it was optimal to mislead by omission or the like instead of doing outright lies.
• In cases where Caine did lie, usually by omission, it was with the aim of long-term plausibility, and so Acting was the skill of choice, not Fast-Talk.
• The +1 Acting per level of oIQ difference tends to play in favour of cerebral PCs. However, in this campaign, most of the targets seemed to be about as intelligent, so it didn't matter most of the time.

I would not allow use of Acting to pull of an unprepared direct lie. Acting is for maintaining the deception, having it work in the first place is Fast-Talk.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Hmm. Having more than one is generally good. But being a likeable person is generally better than learning all six shortcuts - like all shortcuts, social skills have drawbacks.

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.

I'm just presuming that someone who goes hardcore into social stuff picks up the standard set of Reaction Modifiers.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

'What to skip' is definitely a legit characterisation question, as there's no point in taking all six.
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.

I think taking all six is entirely defensible. The main reason to skip one is because of character concept.

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.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I wouldn't equate Influencing someone with mere not screwing up. It's not screwing up and succeeding at the social task at hand.

I wouldn't equate it either. You asked why I thought it was lame and one of the reasons is because I tend to respond to people falling for sex appeal as "what a chump" instead of "what an impressive example of social engineering". I didn't claim it was true so it doesn't make any sense to disagree with me about it.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I totally disagree about Intimidation: "look how I frightened you" is absolutely grounds for re-evaluating the situation; in the worst case scenario, it involves a formerly scared NPC realising that he can just annihilate the PCs in a few seconds, and should've done so some while ago.

Well of course you can screw it up but "you're awfully brave for someone [who can barely stand/has no one behind him/whatever]" is a useful approach.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I don't get why revelling in Savoir-Faire would necessarily involve humiliating someone.

Because it's either gauche and thus not a successful use of the skill or being used to highlight someone's failed Savoir-Faire.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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.)

How well you can pull off revealing your manipulations and whether you get to show off during the encounter itself are really completely unrelated things.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Hmm. Performing better than peers can be chalked up to higher IQ (whether it is actually higher I don't know, but surely some percentage of forumites has it, so it's not an implausible possibility).

Well I'll avoid speculating on my GURPS IQ.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

I would not allow use of Acting to pull of an unprepared direct lie. Acting is for maintaining the deception, having it work in the first place is Fast-Talk.

That seems to be houserule territory. Acting is very officially the skill you roll to resist Detect Lies when telling lies that are meant to stand long-term.

Originally Posted by Sindri

I'm just presuming that someone who goes hardcore into social stuff picks up the standard set of Reaction Modifiers.

Well, it's the 'standard' that is sad. Not the fact that most will pick up some number.

Originally Posted by Sindri

I think taking all six is entirely defensible. The main reason to skip one is becaus eof character concept.

I think I did pick all six, and I feel it was overkill. Largely because I stuck to the diplomatic characterisation, the sort of guy who works very carefully at not ******* off anybody, and being on politely respectful/'friendly' terms even with enemies.

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.

Originally Posted by Sindri

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.

Somehow I doubt we'll ever get those. And even making unofficial ones seems an interesting and not trivial task.

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.)

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

That seems to be houserule territory. Acting is very officially the skill you roll to resist Detect Lies when telling lies that are meant to stand long-term.

No, my house rules are removing Acting entirely : ). Ihonestly believe that Acting is for maintaining deception or begining a planned deception not successfully pulling off impromput lies. Who would use Fast-Talk for lies if they could just decide that their lies are going to be long lasting if they succeed at no penalty?

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, it's the 'standard' that is sad. Not the fact that most will pick up some number.

I know you don't like there being a standard but in my experience players focusing on social stuff don't actually want to specialize in one form of Reaction Modifier.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I think I did pick all six, and I feel it was overkill. Largely because I stuck to the diplomatic characterisation, the sort of guy who works very carefully at not ******* off anybody, and being on politely respectful/'friendly' terms even with enemies.

Well yeah. The value is dubious if you don't use them.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

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.

Yes they overlap significantly. That's why secondary social characters have one or two skills that fit their style best for efficiently picking up some social power. Thouh I wouldn't put Savoir-Faire high on the list of skils to skip. You may not roll against it directly very often but it improves other approaches all the time.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Somehow I doubt we'll ever get those. And even making unofficial ones seems an interesting and not trivial task.

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.)

Well I did start a thread on social Techniques for a reason...

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.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Sindri

No, my house rules are removing Acting entirely : ). Ihonestly believe that Acting is for maintaining deception or begining a planned deception not successfully pulling off impromput lies. Who would use Fast-Talk for lies if they could just decide that their lies are going to be long lasting if they succeed at no penalty?

Acting is a narrower specialisation than Fast-Talk: Fast-Talk can be used for Influence, and IIRC some other related stuff. Acting is great for pretending, but it needs to come with a secondary skill such as Diplomacy if you want to Influence people.

It's not clear whether Acting as a skill is always better. I do see it as better for my diplomat character.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Yes they overlap significantly. That's why secondary social characters have one or two skills that fit their style best for efficiently picking up some social power. Thouh I wouldn't put Savoir-Faire high on the list of skils to skip. You may not roll against it directly very often but it improves other approaches all the time.

Well, aside from impersonating higher Status, Savoir-Faire is very Technique-like point-wise:
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.

Originally Posted by Sindri

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.

Agenda is kinda-okayish. Irony . . . I'm finding the debate rules somewhat fuzzy, probably because I keep forgetting them.

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).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, aside from impersonating higher Status, Savoir-Faire is very Technique-like point-wise:
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.

Savoir-Faire is most important when you need to have it to be acceptable company. You may get into the Duchess' ball, or the Officer's Mess without (High Society) or (Military), once. But without the skills, you become known as unacceptable, and can't go there again.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Acting is a narrower specialisation than Fast-Talk: Fast-Talk can be used for Influence, and IIRC some other related stuff. Acting is great for pretending, but it needs to come with a secondary skill such as Diplomacy if you want to Influence people.

The way I see it Fast-Talk is the primary deception skill and Acting is stuff like maintaining consistency (both in information and in not dropping the role) and impersonating people that some people who would have the deception skill don't have practice in doing.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It's not clear whether Acting as a skill is always better. I do see it as better for my diplomat character.

I would say that Acting is normally worse though of course there are characters for whom it is better. It's also rare for it to be a good idea to have one and not the other.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, aside from impersonating higher Status, Savoir-Faire is very Technique-like point-wise:
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.

It's fairly common for Savoir-Fair to basically be High Society. Military and Police aren't terribly useful if you aren't in the military or police respectively. Dojo can be necessary sometimes but doesn't really do things so much as avoid problems. Servant is very dubious except in an unusual campaign. If organized crime is significant in the campaign Mafia can be useful. When you have it at a reliable level for a lot of campaigns it gives +1 from complimentary use a huge amount of the time to multiple choices of Influence skills. Plus it occasionally gets a direct roll. It's not the strongest, but it's not something you should quickly drop.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Agenda is kinda-okayish. Irony . . . I'm finding the debate rules somewhat fuzzy, probably because I keep forgetting them.

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.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Savoir-Faire is most important when you need to have it to be acceptable company. You may get into the Duchess' ball, or the Officer's Mess without (High Society) or (Military), once. But without the skills, you become known as unacceptable, and can't go there again.

If you need to cover all bases and the campaign is cinematic or has high-TL brainwork (e.g. THS nanodrugs), you're better off buying Social Chameleon. And I suspect that spending more than one point on a Savoir-Faire is unusual even for single-skill, unless the character spends a really fraction of the time in a given subculture. E.g. Savoir-Faire (Goth-Punks) among Vampire Masqueraders. ^_^

Originally Posted by Sindri

The way I see it Fast-Talk is the primary deception skill and Acting is stuff like maintaining consistency (both in information and in not dropping the role) and impersonating people that some people who would have the deception skill don't have practice in doing.

I would say that Acting is normally worse though of course there are characters for whom it is better. It's also rare for it to be a good idea to have one and not the other.

Having one but not the other seems quite okay concept-wise to me. I don't get the wish to enforce having both by requiring Fast-Talk to start all lies.

Originally Posted by Sindri

It's fairly common for Savoir-Fair to basically be High Society. Military and Police aren't terribly useful if you aren't in the military or police respectively. Dojo can be necessary sometimes but doesn't really do things so much as avoid problems. Servant is very dubious except in an unusual campaign. If organized crime is significant in the campaign Mafia can be useful. When you have it at a reliable level for a lot of campaigns it gives +1 from complimentary use a huge amount of the time to multiple choices of Influence skills. Plus it occasionally gets a direct roll. It's not the strongest, but it's not something you should quickly drop.

Come to think of it, any speciality depends heavily on campaign type. A military campaign will have little use for SF(HS), and cases where you can use it will also be covered by SF(M) 99% of the time. SF(D) is just as cool in a campaign set in a martial arts school.
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.

Originally Posted by Sindri

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.

Irony is probably only ridiculous because you think of it as of the wrong meaning of the word. Agenda sounds kinda cool, but misleading.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

II suspect that spending more than one point on a Savoir-Faire is unusual even for single-skill...

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).