[Basic] Skill of the week: Fortune-Telling

johndallman · 08-01-2015, 04:12 AM

Fortune-Telling is the IQ/A social skill of talking to someone to learn about them and using the information to make predictions about their future that can be passed off as supernatural divination. It does not provide any special way of knowing the future, and works much better on people who are keen to believe in it. It defaults to IQ-5, Fast-Talk-3 or Occultism-3; knowledge of occult beliefs and practices, and suitable props, are helpful in maintaining the illusion. The skill is useful for characters with actual divinatory abilities, as it let you present predictions in culturally acceptable ways. It requires specialisation in a particular form of divination, such as astrology, crystal-gazing or tarot. No skills default to Fortune-Telling.

If you have a subject who actually believes you can tell the future, and you take the time to do a "full reading", it's possible to use this skill instead of Fast-Talk, Interrogation or Psychology, by steering the subject towards a particular course of action, or asking leading questions. This kind of usage is at -3; Empathy and Charisma bonuses apply to all uses of the skill.

Fortune-Telling isn't a terribly common skill on templates, usually showing up on fringe types of magicians, like DF Shamans, or scholars and sacrifice-survivors from Dragons. Fantasy-Tech has rules for casting horoscopes and for using Fortune-Telling to boost Esoteric Medicine. Fantasy has guidance for Fortune-Telling as a magical ability that can reveal the future, and Horror has both charlatans and true Tarot-readers. Worminghall has several uses for the skill, as do Low-Tech's medical skills. Powers and Enhanced Senses have abilities that can improve the skill, and PU3 and PU7 have examples that include it. Psionic Powers and Psis have powers that work well with it. Social Engineering points out that Fortune-Telling can be useful to convince someone you have special insight, and Supers provides ways to use the skill to analyse real special insights, in place of IQ. Chinese Elemental Powers makes Fortune-Telling (Feng Shui) useful for interior decoration tasks up to the terraforming scale. Urban Magics has rules for really effective Fortune-Telling, and Underground Adventures for fraudulent dowsing.

I don't think I've ever had a character with this skill. My tastes as a GM are more towards the practical and effective: when I've used NPCs with abilities of questionable validity in this style, the players haven't responded much.

What have you done with Fortune-Telling?

08-01-2015, 04:12 AM	#1
johndallman Night Watchman Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Cambridge, UK	[Basic] Skill of the week: Fortune-Telling Fortune-Telling is the IQ/A social skill of talking to someone to learn about them and using the information to make predictions about their future that can be passed off as supernatural divination. It does not provide any special way of knowing the future, and works much better on people who are keen to believe in it. It defaults to IQ-5, Fast-Talk-3 or Occultism-3; knowledge of occult beliefs and practices, and suitable props, are helpful in maintaining the illusion. The skill is useful for characters with actual divinatory abilities, as it let you present predictions in culturally acceptable ways. It requires specialisation in a particular form of divination, such as astrology, crystal-gazing or tarot. No skills default to Fortune-Telling. If you have a subject who actually believes you can tell the future, and you take the time to do a "full reading", it's possible to use this skill instead of Fast-Talk, Interrogation or Psychology, by steering the subject towards a particular course of action, or asking leading questions. This kind of usage is at -3; Empathy and Charisma bonuses apply to all uses of the skill. Fortune-Telling isn't a terribly common skill on templates, usually showing up on fringe types of magicians, like DF Shamans, or scholars and sacrifice-survivors from *Dragons. Fantasy-Tech* has rules for casting horoscopes and for using Fortune-Telling to boost Esoteric Medicine. *Fantasy* has guidance for Fortune-Telling as a magical ability that can reveal the future, and *Horror* has both charlatans and true Tarot-readers. *Worminghall* has several uses for the skill, as do *Low-Tech's medical skills. Powers* and *Enhanced Senses* have abilities that can improve the skill, and *PU3* and *PU7* have examples that include it. *Psionic Powers* and *Psis* have powers that work well with it. *Social Engineering* points out that Fortune-Telling can be useful to convince someone you have special insight, and *Supers* provides ways to use the skill to analyse real special insights, in place of IQ. *Chinese Elemental Powers* makes Fortune-Telling (Feng Shui) useful for interior decoration tasks up to the terraforming scale. *Urban Magics* has rules for really effective Fortune-Telling, and *Underground Adventures* for fraudulent dowsing. I don't think I've ever had a character with this skill. My tastes as a GM are more towards the practical and effective: when I've used NPCs with abilities of questionable validity in this style, the players haven't responded much. What have you done with Fortune-Telling?