Advantage for Doppelgangers to perfectly Act like mimicked?

[Flyndaran]

I want my Doppelgangers to perfectly mimic the person whose form and mind, through Mind Banked Mind Probe, they are in. As it is, the best they can do is throw tons of points into Acting, maybe with a specialization. But that still allows for failure.
I want them to, in some ways, become the mimicked, not just loosely pretend.

I want them to be discovered by means other than Acting failures like oh, Jim hates eggs with a passion, or Jenny is terrified of spiders.

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I want them to be discovered by means other than Acting failures like oh, Jim hates eggs with a passion, or Jenny is terrified of spiders.

From my understanding about the Acting skill, that is exactly what a failed Acting roll is supposed to represent; you do something the person you are pretending to be would not do. Acting is about long-term impersonation, which means, in the long term, not making mistake you wouldn't do, like speak in the wrong language, use expressions from somewhere else, or eat eggs when you're supposed to hate them with a passion. It's resolved as a contest because making a mistake in of itself isn't a deal-breaker per se; others also need to notice the mistake and be aware of its relevance. So what you're looking for is the "in-game explanation" of having failed an Acting roll.

That being said, if I wanted to eliminate the Acting contest to prevent possible failures, I see two ways of doing it.

The first is the simplest, and follows the general statement for any social skills: you can simply roleplay the situation and not bother rolling against the skills. This method is even mentioned in Social Engineering in the section that says (paraphrasing) "you don't really need this book". It's up to the style of the campaign to determine when rolls are needed and when they aren't. The downside of this method is that, for example, diplomatic players will wind up with diplomatic characters without any required skills. Or, in this case, why aren't you treating all Acting situations like this. But it is a valid method of playing. And it sounds like what you want to do with the acting anyway.

For the second method, assuming you're looking for something more mechanical and by using actual game rules, I'd first get Acting skill to 16, then add Cosmic (No Roll Required) +100% to the skill, thereby doubling the cost to get a skill of 16. This means you effectively always roll a 3 for Acting, giving a success by 13, so others are highly unlikely to ever beat it.. they would need a skill higher than 16 and have to roll a 3 themselves. The odd time that happens, you give them one of their clues ("he just ate an egg"). If I had a monster with this trait, I wouldn't even bother rolling - since they're supposed to be secret rolls anyway - and roleplay the effects by giving the occasional hint for the players to solve, treating those hints as the odd time they got their critical success. So, basically, I'd play it out just as the first option above, but purchasing the Cosmic Acting skill just gives me a rules justification to play it out that way without playing out every single acting situation that way.

As to why a level of 16? It matches the level required for the No Nuisance Roll perk, but you can't use the perk since it's not valid for any situation that results in a contest, thus you add Cosmic instead.

[Bruno]

The use of Mind Probe + Memory Bank +100% and a bunch of Reduced Time Rate with a hefty Accessibility "Only people I'm memorizing for Shapeshift" (possibly -40% or more) would be very helpful as it gives you a "snapshot" of their mind so you don't have problems of "Stuff I didn't know about them".

[PK]

Alternatively, use a variant of Cosmic, No die roll required (+100%) on Morph to represent that no Acting roll is required; the doppelganger always succeeds perfectly, automatically.

However, Kallatari is right -- messing up the person's likes and dislikes is exactly the sort of thing that a failed Acting roll represents.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by PK

Alternatively, use a variant of Cosmic, No die roll required (+100%) on Morph to represent that no Acting roll is required; the doppelganger always succeeds perfectly, automatically.

However, Kallatari is right -- messing up the person's likes and dislikes is exactly the sort of thing that a failed Acting roll represents.

You'd need the GM's approval, but couldn't a set of Cosmic Modular Abilities to buy the Impersonate Technique (p. B233) or the Rehearsed Role perk (GURPS Social Engineering, p. 79) do the same thing? A 100-points for what amounts to a potent No Nuisance Rolls perk seems a bit steep to me.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

You'd need the GM's approval, but couldn't a set of Cosmic Modular Abilities to buy the Impersonate Technique (p. B233) or the Rehearsed Role perk (GURPS Social Engineering, p. 79) do the same thing?

I like the idea of Cosmic Power (Limited, Rehearsed Role perks) to synergize with Morph. But no, it isn't the same thing, because it gives a bonus to a roll which could still fail.

A 100-points for what amounts to a potent No Nuisance Rolls perk seems a bit steep to me.

It's expensive, but the intent here is that it makes the Morph literally flawless, providing access to every memory, every quirk, every movement, to the point where a parent or soul mate couldn't tell the two of you apart even with a critical success. That's an extra 100 points worth of potency, in my mind.

And there's no way that your Acting roll is a "nuisance roll"! One of the biggest things that people miss with No Nuisance Rolls is that they have to be nuisance rolls -- the sort of thing that the GM would rather just skip over because they aren't really important or interesting. At most, No Nuisance Rolls (Acting while morphed) would let you ignore those rolls for the purpose of fooling people who had only met the subject once or twice and barely knew them.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by PK

I like the idea of Cosmic Power (Limited, Rehearsed Role perks) to synergize with Morph. But no, it isn't the same thing, because it gives a bonus to a roll which could still fail.

In that case, couldn't you just enhance your base skill for Acting with Cosmic? At this point it kind of seems like it would function as a racial or supernatural ability.

Originally Posted by PK

It's expensive, but the intent here is that it makes the Morph literally flawless, providing access to every memory, every quirk, every movement, to the point where a parent or soul mate couldn't tell the two of you apart even with a critical success. That's an extra 100 points worth of potency, in my mind.

Wait. So it gives access to memories as well?

Originally Posted by PK

And there's no way that your Acting roll is a "nuisance roll"! One of the biggest things that people miss with No Nuisance Rolls is that they have to be nuisance rolls -- the sort of thing that the GM would rather just skip over because they aren't really important or interesting. At most, No Nuisance Rolls (Acting while morphed) would let you ignore those rolls for the purpose of fooling people who had only met the subject once or twice and barely knew them.

That's fair.

[vicky_molokh]

It won't work against soulmates if by soulmate you mean Empathy (Single Person), since that makes an uncontested IQ roll.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Bruno

The use of Mind Probe + Memory Bank +100% and a bunch of Reduced Time Rate with a hefty Accessibility "Only people I'm memorizing for Shapeshift" (possibly -40% or more) would be very helpful as it gives you a "snapshot" of their mind so you don't have problems of "Stuff I didn't know about them".

That's initially how I went. But under Memory Bank, it says that the snapshot removes penalties for Acting, not gives a bonus.
Though I wonder whether the limitation should be on Mind Probe: only shapes I've memorized via Morph, or on Morph: only to mimic those I've Memory Banked.

But I also wonder about Mind Probe; Memory Bank ONLY. You can't quickly ask single questions. It's either all or nothing probe.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by PK

Alternatively, use a variant of Cosmic, No die roll required (+100%) on Morph to represent that no Acting roll is required; the doppelganger always succeeds perfectly, automatically.

However, Kallatari is right -- messing up the person's likes and dislikes is exactly the sort of thing that a failed Acting roll represents.

But with Mind Probe: Memory Bank, I have all his likes and dislike on tap. And obviously would have done prep work with basic questions the very first day of mimicking.
Maybe that could be a Perk: S.O.P. exhaustive pre-established list of questions for new persona.