[Basic] Skill of the week: Dancing

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You might note that I did say "a way to enter into trance" and not "the way"?

Okay, as long as you plan on mentioning that in every thread involving repetitive skills. That seems rather repetitive itself though.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by trooper6

One of the grandest Dancing related moments I GMd was in a Traveller:ISW campaign. The PCs (all Terrans) all ended up at a very fancy diplomatic Vilani ball. The tensions between Vilani and Terrans were at an all time high and war loomed on the horizon. They had uncovered a Terran plot to assassinate one of the Vilani politicians at the ball in a really obvious way...which would just give the leader of the Vilani sector the pretense she needed to start war. They also uncovered that the plot was actually orchestrated by her in the first place...the target? One of her political rivals...but they didn't know which rival and had a few different potential assassin options. They had some intel the assassin might use a very short range bomb for the attempt...very dramatic. It would kill a bunch of people in a very small range, and leave most of the people in the ball safe.

One of the PCs had a very good Dancing skill, because she was the daughter of a diplomat. Other PCs...eh. It was really, really important not to have it look like the Terrans were dangerous, trouble-makers, uncouth, or disrespectful.

What ended up happening was a combat-like (i.e. we went to the combat map and used a turn sequence) experience where the Diplomat's Daughter Doctor PC was dancing with the target of the assassination attempt. The engineer had jury rigged a very short range signal jammer, the Pilot had it hidden in his tuxedo jacket and he was trying to maneuver his dance partner to stay within range of the most likely assassin so the assassin couldn't trigger the bomb. The assassin was trying to get close enough to the target to trigger the bomb while also getting far enough away from the signal jammer. The other team members were trying to remove the fake Terrans whose mission it was to be rude, insulting, and provocative.

Most of this happened through contests of Dancing skill. The assassin trying to lead his dance near enough t the target through the dance skill (in order to look inconspicuous), the dancing partner PC trying to stay near enough to the assassin to jam the bomb signal, and the Diplomat Doctor PC was trying to backlead her dance partner (the target) away from the assassin and anyone else looking dangerous, without it being obvious.

The it was awesome! The assassin would move closer closer on the map and the everyone else would dance around as well. It was very tense. Mainly because the assassin was a very good dancer...as was the Diplomat PC...the Pilot was not. So the Assassin would get out of the way of the jammer pretty easily and only the skill of the Doctor getting out of the way quickly enough stopped the explosion that one turn. Then the assassin gets close enough....but the Pilot had a great roll and got close enough to jam the bomb just in the nick of time! Then the maneuvers began again while the rest of the team was subtly removing villains from the ballroom--They should drug this one, flirt with that one, fast talk that one.

The climax happened when the Doctor PC convinced the target to ask the Villain Mastermind to dance and then asked the assassin to dance. Then it was assassin and PC dancing on the floor! Both trying to maneuver each other. The thief PC (Quartermaster) decided to dance with the Pilot to try and pickpocket the bomb from the assassin on the dance floor. The two couples are able to get close enough to each other for the Thief to try the pickpocket (lots of Dancing contests here)--which works! And the Thief and the jamming pilot are able to get off the dance floor with the bomb before the assassin realizes what happened. The pilot and the engineer jump in the hover car and gets the bomb out of the area...defusing of bombs happen, the plot is thwarted and no one is the wiser!

It was very tense...then, of course, the political meeting happens the after the ball and there are lots of testimony and negotiations and maneuvering. The mastermind doesn't get what she wants, but the heroes don't get everything they want either.

No hot war...but the cold war is on!

It was great!

Good job. You might emphasize the strangeness of Vilani by using a different term then "ball" and emphasizing different entertainments(I had one culture that had a version of a Karaoke bar where you tell stories instead of singing but that gives a more "heroic" vibe and less of the "elegant" vibe I would expect from Vilani). Certainly feasting: Vilani take pride in their Shugali cooking. And of course the dances will be different from the waltzes we associate with balls. Or maybe half the dances will be Vilani and half Terran. Or perhaps Vilani might look askance at couples dances and think that that might lead to mucking up aristocratic matchmaking with pesky emotions(they don't have the ability to genetically trace lineage yet, remember). That said, the basic idea of powerful people lubricating the wheels of business and politics by gathering to eat, drink, flirt, or whatever is universal among Humaniti from the biggest emperor to the most petty nomad chief. It is the details that add color.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Okay, as long as you plan on mentioning that in every thread involving repetitive skills. That seems rather repetitive itself though.

Only the repetitive skills that have no use except "looking cool in a specific kind of situation".

If we look at the fictional models dancing has four applications. You can use it to

1. Flirt with someone (boosting or subbing for sex appeal)
2. Earn a paycheque as a ballerina or a stripper.
3. Be a distraction, (Although reciting I'm a little teapot generally works just as well.)
4. Be inconspicuous (people notice bad dancers or people who aren't dancing at all at certain social functions)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If we look at the fictional models dancing has four applications. You can use it to

1. Flirt with someone (boosting or subbing for sex appeal)
2. Earn a paycheque as a ballerina or a stripper.
3. Be a distraction, (Although reciting I'm a little teapot generally works just as well.)
4. Be inconspicuous (people notice bad dancers or people who aren't dancing at all at certain social functions)

In fiction, I'd say that "5. Beat people up." belongs on the list, too. In fact, I'd rank it below #1 but above all the rest in the sorts of fiction that gamers tend to like . . . Anyway, that's why GURPS Martial Arts has Dancing Feints and lets people do things like buy perks that float Kicking to Dancing.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Technically, any repetitive skill would work for trancing.

Although the Toothbrush shamans never actually caught on.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Okay, as long as you plan on mentioning that in every thread involving repetitive skills. That seems rather repetitive itself though.

Mentioning what? If you mean that any time I bring up one skill that is a way of getting into trance I should specify that it is A way to do so and not THE way, well, knowing my habits as a writer, I would pretty much surely do that. If you mean that if a thread about a repetitive skill is started I have an obligation to make the same point for that skill, too, then I think you're being unreasonable. I'm not even obligated to read every thread; and even if a thread does discuss a repetitive skill, I wouldn't necessarily think of its being usable for trancing.

There is a handy phrase in mathematics, so often used that it has its own acronym: "without loss of generality" or "WLOG." It means more or less "I'm going to assert this general principle, and I'm going to bring up this specific case, and establish it in this case, but I am not confining the point to this case; I assume that you are able to think abstractly and generalize it to other cases as relevant." I don't claim to be a mathematician, but I have a few mathematical habits of thought, and that's one of them.

[whswhs]

On the subject of uses of dancing, does any of them mentioned ones cover the tango scene in The Mask of Zorro? That was really cool.

[whswhs]

Trooper6's story about dancing with the Vilani brings to mind some scenes from my past campaigns. Most of these weren't actually in GURPS, but in campaigns I ran using Big Eyes Small Mouth; but it has a skill for dancing too.

1. In one of my campaigns, the aristocratic households of an isolated community, and the upper servants charged with educating their children, arranged a dance for their adolescents and young adults to meet possible suitors from the younger soldiers and the children of professional households in the village. We ended up getting out a hex board and putting down counters to represent the soldiers and other counters to represent the villagers, and then using Cardboard Heroes to track the adolescent PCs and their NPC relatives and the chaperones. So we kept track of who came in when (including one NPC who had a moment of social panic!) and who danced with who and how well the dance went and who misbehaved (one of the soldiers took off her boots and had fun sliding over the dance floor until she was asked to stop) and who got away with it (another young woman among the soldiers asked the shy NPC girl to dance with her and that eventually led to their becoming a couple).

And then the cat came and sat down in the middle of the dance. . . .

2. When I was running my Barrayaran campaign, Ivan Vorpatril's two sons showed up at the Imperial Birthday. One of them tried a spectacular move during a line dance . . . and fell on his butt. An older retired military officer remarked, "It's good to see the Vorpatrils breed true," and the other brother invited him to step outside and repeat his remarks—which let a few days later to his being invited for a private talk with Gregor Vorbarra about the traits of character that a possible Imperial heir should cultivate.

3. When I was running my first Transhuman Space campaign, Trooper6's character had an eleven-year-old daughter, who was studying hardedge dancing, partly to give her some socialization—but she did well enough at it so that was advised to find her a teacher who worked with more serious students. We spent some playtime on his visiting and talking with teachers—and later with her first recital, where she didn't do as well as she wanted and had to be talked out of hiding behind a locked door.

I think that the common theme of all of these is that dancing is partly a form of social display and a way of building relationships (come to think of it, that's what Zorro is doing with it in the scene I mentioned previously), and using it for those purposes can be a great way to bring characters to life.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Trooper6's story about dancing with the Vilani brings to mind some scenes from my past campaigns. Most of these weren't actually in GURPS, but in campaigns I ran using Big Eyes Small Mouth; but it has a skill for dancing too.

1. In one of my campaigns, the aristocratic households of an isolated community, and the upper servants charged with educating their children, arranged a dance for their adolescents and young adults to meet possible suitors from the younger soldiers and the children of professional households in the village. We ended up getting out a hex board and putting down counters to represent the soldiers and other counters to represent the villagers, and then using Cardboard Heroes to track the adolescent PCs and their NPC relatives and the chaperones. So we kept track of who came in when (including one NPC who had a moment of social panic!) and who danced with who and how well the dance went and who misbehaved (one of the soldiers took off her boots and had fun sliding over the dance floor until she was asked to stop) and who got away with it (another young woman among the soldiers asked the shy NPC girl to dance with her and that eventually led to their becoming a couple).

And then the cat came and sat down in the middle of the dance. . . .

2. When I was running my Barrayaran campaign, Ivan Vorpatril's two sons showed up at the Imperial Birthday. One of them tried a spectacular move during a line dance . . . and fell on his butt. An older retired military officer remarked, "It's good to see the Vorpatrils breed true," and the other brother invited him to step outside and repeat his remarks—which let a few days later to his being invited for a private talk with Gregor Vorbarra about the traits of character that a possible Imperial heir should cultivate.

3. When I was running my first Transhuman Space campaign, Trooper6's character had an eleven-year-old daughter, who was studying hardedge dancing, partly to give her some socialization—but she did well enough at it so that was advised to find her a teacher who worked with more serious students. We spent some playtime on his visiting and talking with teachers—and later with her first recital, where she didn't do as well as she wanted and had to be talked out of hiding behind a locked door.

I think that the common theme of all of these is that dancing is partly a form of social display and a way of building relationships (come to think of it, that's what Zorro is doing with it in the scene I mentioned previously), and using it for those purposes can be a great way to bring characters to life.

How old was Gregor? Doesn't matter of course. He was old when he was five.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

How old was Gregor? Doesn't matter of course. He was old when he was five.

His oldest son was old enough to take the throne without the intervention of a regency. I had worked out the exact age, but I forget the specific number.