01-21-2015, 03:11 PM | #11 | ||||||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by Sindri; 01-21-2015 at 03:17 PM. |
||||||||||
01-21-2015, 03:35 PM | #12 | ||||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Quote:
My point is the 'simple careless lie' TDM probably should only come up in situations where the roll doesn't matter much anyway. If it's something worth lying about convincingly, then it's worth worrying about. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
So it's probably more realistic to have multiple variants of each style listed in Civil Arts. Probably the simplest way to handle it is to spawn one extra style variant in each Cultural Familiarity of the setting, maybe several. That gives a number of styles roughly comparable to the number of styles in MA. Not acquainted. |
||||||
01-21-2015, 04:24 PM | #13 | ||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Quote:
I agree though, that a TDM for simple careless lies isn't going to come up on a regular basis. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I also think that Social Engineering was a bit excessive in it's "influence skills are methods not results" message. It's a good message but while you can "seduce" someone without Sex Appeal I don't feel that "being sexually appealing" should be accomplishable with other skills. Quote:
Unfortunately I never actually played played a Saints Row game and I don't recall having seen many movies involving Dillinger. By the way I'm surprised that Haruhi beat out Code Geass for the token anime spot in the Social Engineering bibliography television section. Last edited by Sindri; 01-21-2015 at 04:28 PM. |
||||||
01-21-2015, 04:37 PM | #14 | |||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I'm not sure whether you're falling back into the common misconception that Sex Appeal is the getting-laid-skill. It isn't. Quote:
Not acquainted either. |
|||||
01-21-2015, 05:30 PM | #15 | |||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
We're having a hard time finding pop culture in common huh Mr. Wolf's Rain avatar. |
|||||
01-21-2015, 08:37 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
The bank robberies in Public Enemies weren't the sort of thing I had in mind. They seemed to be mostly typical bank robberies.
I'm thinking about capers like the opening moments of Daughter of Twenty Faces where we learn that Twenty Faces has given advance notice of the theft and what object he intends to steal and then he sneaks an airship above the house, floods the room with smoke bombs hidden in various decorations, reveals himself as having been disguised as a policeman in the room the entire time after being ordered to hold on to the object, has his airship rip the roof off the room, drops the ammunition that he removed from everyone's firearms after they try to shoot him, walks across what is presumably a strategically positioned sheet of bulletproof glass so as to appear to be walking on air, snaps his fingers to have the roof fall back down on the room in such a way that the ceiling crumbles and releases incriminating items and has himself pulled up into the airship. Ignoring the precise details this is the sort of thing I had in mind for capers. A caper involving a ton of different parts that all unfold smoothly with dramatic timing and where a huge amount of attention is devoted to making an impression that isn't really at all helpful in terms of actually stealing something. Also I forgot that Social Engineering also has Genshiken under Television. |
01-22-2015, 04:38 AM | #17 | ||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Quote:
Clearly all that indicates that Intelligence Analysis is not meant to be used for detecting lies in a letter from a friend, while Detect Lies is spot-on, both based on lack of restriction in Basic and with the new slight penalty in SE. Quote:
Basically, if you make Sex Appeal lack its double impact, it becomes even worse than Intimidation: you can't use it against about half the population but pay 100% cost for it, can't get quick-and-easy TDMs, and when you finally succeed, it's no better (without the double impact in RAW or ×2 MoS in houserules) than succeeding with any other skill. That basically hamstrings PCs whose concept is James Bond/Jessica Rabbit social-wise, because they become characters with a significant drawback but no strong side in their primary modus operandi. E.g. I played a diplomatic face character in THS:Eggshell. I had a point in Intimidation and one in Sex Appeal too (and Attribute Substitution:IQ too). I used the former once, and the latter never. Even so, relying on being a likeable character was usually more desirable than trying to influence others into liking the character. Right now, a new character concept for a different game does in fact call for using Intimidation and Sex Appeal. And I'm already not quite looking forward using this build: Intimidation will probably get me into more trouble at least as often as save from trouble; Sex Appeal is too runs the risk of getting a Bad Reaction, but at least it is the only semi-reliable way of getting a Very Good reaction. But I still find it better to load more points into Reputations that benefit those two skills than raising either of those skills. Take away the double impact, and I'll consider throwing away influence skills and loading those points into modifiers directly. Quote:
We seem to agree that seduction/romance can be achieved with more than one skill. But you seem to have some sort of opposition to the idea that being sexually appealing is good for other ways of manipulating people? Wolf's Rain, Neon Genesis Evangellion, X, Joshikousei, Tenchi Muyou, Memories, Agent AIKa, Slayers, RahXephon, Time of Eve, Macross Plus and one episode of Macross Sentinels, probably some things I forgot. Not those Geass things. |
||||
01-22-2015, 07:41 AM | #18 |
Join Date: Apr 2011
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
I largely agree w/ Vicky about how the skills work as written. But I also think that the skills and the actions they encompass need to be revised and consolidated.
As written, I'd use Body Language or Detect Lies as my go-to lie detectors. Psychology might also work-- but note that academics are no better than amateurs at catching lies in my experience. (I think it's telling that studies of police officers show that they're on average no better at detecting lies than the general public, but are more miscalibrated in the sense that they think they're far better than they are.) In specific contexts, certain skills seem likely to either substitute or complement the main skills above. Interrogation, obviously. Merchant, Diplomacy, or Streetwise in situations specific to those skills. Now with all that said, I think we need to rethink which skills should be applicable. Everything from this point on are proposed house rules. When detecting a lie, you're really looking for cues that something is amiss. The first line of defense is Empathy (which IMO is a Per skill rather than an advantage). Can you catch visual/audible/phrasing tics that give away the game? Next, you might look for internal inconsistencies in their story-- the domain of Interrogation. Finally, you look for external inconsistencies in the story, comparing the testimonies of multiple people, separating natural errors of memory from intentional falsehoods, and reconciling testimony against physical evidence. Intelligence Analysis. In that model, low levels of Empathy, Interrogation, and Intel Analysis are available to anyone as a natural consequence of social experience. High levels suggest formal training as a psychologist, policeman, or intelligence officer (perhaps these are social styles similar to martial arts styles). |
01-22-2015, 01:40 PM | #19 | ||||||
Join Date: Nov 2011
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
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. Quote:
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. Quote:
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. Quote:
I believe that normally Interrogation is supposed to be for actual interrogation not just inconsistency checking. I'd only allow Intelligence Analysis when you have a large corpus to work with. The methods used in Intelligence Analysis don't really scale well to the small scale. |
||||||
01-22-2015, 05:36 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
|
Re: Social Skill Questions, Reparcelling and Rebalancing
Quote:
Accordingly, I've found that with penalties for inappropriate social skill for a situation strictly enforced, Intimidation is very useful, without being a replacement for Fast-Talk or Diplomacy. The combat monster with high Intimidation can use it to save himself the trouble* of massacring a horde of less-competent foes in a battle and instead get them to flee or even, on a very high margin of success, to surrender to him. The social engineer, meanwhile, uses Specious Intimidation (Fast-Talk assisting Intimidation) to intimate that the charitable PC** will cheerfully slaughter anyone who resists him, while using Public Speaking and Propaganda to spread the idea that no harm will come to common soldiers and slave followers who surrender and Diplomacy or Savoir-Faire (High-Society) to negotiate the terms of official surrender for the leaders of the opposition forces. Intimidation can't replace Diplomacy or Savoir-Faire (or vice versa), but it sure is a nice complementary skill. *Not to mention the nighmares that would follow, as said PC is actually highly sympathetic to all his fellow creatures and regrets very much when he has to harm people. This, obviously, is not something that a successful use of Intimidation advertises to his foes. **Who does not speak the language of his foes, which the social engineer is 'interpreting' to him and vice versa, while inserting details of his own on both sides.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela! |
|
Tags |
body language, detect lies, influence skills, social engineering, social styles |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|