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Old 05-24-2014, 10:12 PM   #1
Sindri
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

It's annoying that reaction rolls connect only tenuously to later influence rolls. It seems clear that influence skills should act directly upon the result of a reaction roll. The limit of good or very good reactions while useful for mechanical differentiation also produces odd results. Someone rolling a good reaction should not go "welp, guess I don't need to roll diplomacy then". Social Engineering (and a possible interpretation of Basic) doesn't let people roll reaction and then influence except with diplomacy but that's bad and can be ignored.

So, anyone done anything like this?
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Old 05-25-2014, 01:48 AM   #2
Dinadon
 
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
It's annoying that reaction rolls connect only tenuously to later influence rolls. It seems clear that influence skills should act directly upon the result of a reaction roll. The limit of good or very good reactions while useful for mechanical differentiation also produces odd results. Someone rolling a good reaction should not go "welp, guess I don't need to roll diplomacy then". Social Engineering (and a possible interpretation of Basic) doesn't let people roll reaction and then influence except with diplomacy but that's bad and can be ignored.

So, anyone done anything like this?
Done anything like what exactly?

Sure, Diplomacy is the only skill that can use an Influence Roll after determining the initial reaction, but I'm okay with that. If the players want to find out what someone feels about them first, that's their choice. if they want to make Influence Rolls on npcs then they should be making a point of actively trying to ingratiate themselves with the target.

Anyway, Influence Rolls are only a part of Influence Skills. Social Engineering shows this. Whilst Building Trust and Competitive Influence make use of Influence Rolls, many things are just Skill Rolls. A Good (or better) reaction is not the end for your Social Skills.
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Old 05-25-2014, 02:17 AM   #3
Sindri
 
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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Done anything like what exactly?
Having Influence Skills directly modify the results of a Reaction Roll.

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Originally Posted by Dinadon View Post
Sure, Diplomacy is the only skill that can use an Influence Roll after determining the initial reaction, but I'm okay with that.
Great for you, but I think it's absurd.

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Originally Posted by Dinadon View Post
If the players want to find out what someone feels about them first, that's their choice. if they want to make Influence Rolls on npcs then they should be making a point of actively trying to ingratiate themselves with the target.
It's quite apparent that it's not their choice to find out what someone feels about them first if that locks them out of Influence Rolls afterwards unless they happened to want to use diplomacy.

This doesn't correspond with a great deal of social interaction where one does observe how someone reacts and then later tries influence. Not to mention that absolute prohibitions are generally a bad idea when it comes to social matters. If a PC starts talking to an NPC and a reaction is produced either by rolling or substituting GM fiat and then the PC later tries to influence him what is supposed to happen? You can't say "that's impossible", the PC can trivially prove that someone could try it, it's hardly a secret technique that the character wouldn't know and GURPS is supposed to avoid producing "you can't do it because the rules just don't support it" results. It's also incoherent because it acts as if Reaction Rolls are a thing PCs do. They aren't, they're a thing GMs do. The GM rolls a Reaction Roll whenever he damn well wants, including when the PCs literally don't know of the NPC's existence. The first time a PC meets someone obviously he should often have an opportunity to modify the NPC's reaction even if the NPC observed him first and it doesn't work for Reaction Rolls to work one way if the GM initiated it and another if the PC initiated it by starting to talk to the NPC.

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Originally Posted by Dinadon View Post
Anyway, Influence Rolls are only a part of Influence Skills. Social Engineering shows this. Whilst Building Trust and Competitive Influence make use of Influence Rolls, many things are just Skill Rolls. A Good (or better) reaction is not the end for your Social Skills.
It's irrelevant what other uses they have.
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Old 05-25-2014, 02:17 PM   #4
malloyd
 
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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It's also incoherent because it acts as if Reaction Rolls are a thing PCs do. They aren't, they're a thing GMs do. The GM rolls a Reaction Roll whenever he damn well wants, including when the PCs literally don't know of the NPC's existence.
He could, but it wouldn't mean anything. You make a reaction roll when the PCs are interacting with the NPC each time it matters how he responds. You could have rolled one before they met if you want, but as far as I can tell by the RAW it wouldn't matter what the result was, since you'd roll a new one the first time they cared what he did. And again each time they asked for something else. And in neither case would the fact the last roll was horrible not at all influencing the odds this next one will be great....

Reaction rolls (and influence skills) are quite blunt instruments. I'd hoped Social Engineering would do something about that, but it didn't really. A major rewrite (perhaps on the model of Control Points) would be interesting, but I don't know that it would be all that much better - social interactions are so multidimensional it's hard to flatten them to a single scale of a few named reaction levels.
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Old 05-25-2014, 02:54 PM   #5
Sindri
 
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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He could, but it wouldn't mean anything. You make a reaction roll when the PCs are interacting with the NPC each time it matters how he responds. You could have rolled one before they met if you want, but as far as I can tell by the RAW it wouldn't matter what the result was, since you'd roll a new one the first time they cared what he did. And again each time they asked for something else. And in neither case would the fact the last roll was horrible not at all influencing the odds this next one will be great....
I think you are only supposed to make another roll if circumstances actually change. Even if the rules actually say to roll everytime the NPC is encountered it's obviously superior to not.

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
Reaction rolls (and influence skills) are quite blunt instruments. I'd hoped Social Engineering would do something about that, but it didn't really. A major rewrite (perhaps on the model of Control Points) would be interesting, but I don't know that it would be all that much better - social interactions are so multidimensional it's hard to flatten them to a single scale of a few named reaction levels.
It would be nice to at least reduce the chances of people randomly hating PCs. SE's expanded reaction tables kind of ameliorates that actual results though they do nothing to address the actual causes.
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Old 05-25-2014, 03:36 PM   #6
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
It's annoying that reaction rolls connect only tenuously to later influence rolls. It seems clear that influence skills should act directly upon the result of a reaction roll. The limit of good or very good reactions while useful for mechanical differentiation also produces odd results. Someone rolling a good reaction should not go "welp, guess I don't need to roll diplomacy then". Social Engineering (and a possible interpretation of Basic) doesn't let people roll reaction and then influence except with diplomacy but that's bad and can be ignored.

So, anyone done anything like this?
If you walk into an encounter using a social skill like Sex Appeal or Fast Talk, I don't bother with a reaction roll at all. Your social skill is your first impression. If you use a social skill later on, I penalize or boost the roll based on the character's established attitude.
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Old 05-25-2014, 03:50 PM   #7
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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He could, but it wouldn't mean anything. You make a reaction roll when the PCs are interacting with the NPC each time it matters how he responds. You could have rolled one before they met if you want, but as far as I can tell by the RAW it wouldn't matter what the result was, since you'd roll a new one the first time they cared what he did.
It's not at all clear how often you reroll reactions; other than the 'second reaction rolls' given on B495, RAW has no situations that specifically call for reaction rolls, as opposed to just using your initial reaction.
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Old 05-25-2014, 04:47 PM   #8
Sindri
 
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
If you walk into an encounter using a social skill like Sex Appeal or Fast Talk, I don't bother with a reaction roll at all. Your social skill is your first impression. If you use a social skill later on, I penalize or boost the roll based on the character's established attitude.
Do you have a system for that or do you do it on the fly?
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Old 05-25-2014, 05:34 PM   #9
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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Do you have a system for that or do you do it on the fly?
On the fly like most task difficulty modifiers.
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Old 05-25-2014, 06:15 PM   #10
Figleaf23
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Default Re: Influence Skills Modifying Reaction Rolls

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
If you walk into an encounter using a social skill like Sex Appeal or Fast Talk, I don't bother with a reaction roll at all. Your social skill is your first impression. If you use a social skill later on, I penalize or boost the roll based on the character's established attitude.
That's my approach too. I thought it was RAW, but I haven't actually read through in detail.
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