[Basic] Skill of the week: Politics

[johndallman]

Politics is the IQ/A skill of acquiring political office, and dealing with other politicians. The defaults are IQ-5 or Diplomacy-5, and Diplomacy and Public Speaking have defaults from Politics. It doesn't provide any of the practical capabilities that are needed to do government or administration: it's mostly a social skill. On a success, you get +2 reactions from other politicians, but other reaction modifiers are valuable. Elections can be handled as a Quick Contest of Politics, but there's obvious scope for them to be much more complicated. The skill dates from GURPS 1e.

Politics takes Cultural Familiarity modifiers, and is boosted by Smooth Operator talent and Voice, and penalised by Low Empathy and Shyness. Being able to apply money is often very useful. It's important to distinguish Politics skill from two other skills, Current Affairs (Politics) and Expert Skill (Political Science), that are sometimes spoken of as "politics", and are easier to study. B215 says that Politics can only be learned in office, or while working for someone in office. I'd broaden "office" there to include senior businessmen and military officers, hereditary nobility and monarchs, and similar positions where politics is important without elections being involved or politics being the only means of acquiring it.

Social Engineering has most of the published additional material about Politics. It applies penalties for Stuttering, allows the skill to be used for analysis of relationships within a large group, extends the reaction modifier to elected officials even if you aren't an official yourself, allows its use in seeking backers for projects, as a complimentary skill to Influence skills in dealing with people who set policy, and for deciding how to go about bribing politicians. It's also good for trying to get prompted within an organisation, becoming the head of a government and staying there, for navigating jail power structures among political prisoners, and changing public opinion. It can be used as an Influence skill among politicians, as a complimentary skill in making political speeches, in "working a crowd", and in maintaining a persona as a politician. There are rules for running elections, alliances and diplomacy, and trade/labour unions. This book is necessary if you want politics to be important in a game.

Politics is a rare skill on published templates, although a fair number of published characters have it. They tend not to be the good guys: there's a concentration of them in Banestorm: Abydos, plus Lord Milligan and Satan in Casey & Andy. City Stats has plenty of uses for the skill, legitimate and otherwise, plus some example officials with high skill levels. Crusades has a Knight template and leaders' character sheets with this skill, and DF9: Summoners has demons that offer political advice. Fantasy has priests, merchants and courtesans with Politics as an option, and Roman magistrates and Praetorian Guards need it. Horror makes it a prime skill for attorneys, an option for conspiracy theorists, and an Incompetence for alien invaders. Hot Spots: Renaissance Florence has some notable politicians, and Infinite Worlds has rules for trying to alter history via Politics, and its cross-world familiarity penalties. LTC1 covers the development of Politics in early societies, and PU3 and PU7 have examples of Talents and Wildcard skills that include it. Psis has a Celebrity template that can be used for politicians, and SEALs in Vietnam has templates for SEAL officers and VC cadres that include the skill, although Expert Skill (Political Science) would also be credible. Thaumatology has "Stadium Ceremonies" that can use Politics, and Transhuman Space: Changing Times deals with Politics and the setting's memetics (and down-powered versions).

I don't seem to have ever used this skill very much in a game. That may have been our problem in Gloriana (mentioned last week) where we found our schemes increasingly stymied by our opponents, but it's too late to do anything about that now. I have a naval officer character in an SF game who knows that learning Politics is likely to be helpful when he becomes a staff officer, but there's a lot of other things that will soak up training time, and he's not that keen to be an Admiral anyway.

What have you done with Politics?

[Mailanka]

It came up often in Cherry Blossom Rain. I don't think I'd describe it as a social skill, though you can use it as such. It seems closer to Strategy for Social Position. That is, it gives you an idea what other politicians are doing to advance their power, and it helps you if you want to increase your own power. It doesn't help you in the sense of improving how you run your domain, but rather, in currying favor and moving to a politically advantageous position. A character like Frank Underwood excels at politics: He knows which palms to grease, which position to undermine, and where to apply his leverage to get into the position that he wants.

It works well with Current Affairs (Politics) which keeps you abreast of what's going on, but it's not precisely the same thing.

I expect it would come up a lot if I ran GURPS Cabal, which is often about advancing one's political position, albeit in an arcane and secretive association, and understanding why politicians are doing what they are doing, so that you can control and manipulate them to get what you want.

[jason taylor]

It is very good to go with Intelligence Analysis. If you are Victor Henry and are assigned as Berlin Attache, the President will be pleased with you if you guess from all your partying with Nazi flunkys that an alliance is about to be made between Berlin and Moscow.

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

You've got one skill for two very different things.

a.) Politics -- getting into office. Gaining favorable publicity; smearing your opponent (in a non-traceable way); mobilizing friends, political workers, allies, and, especially money; assessing the electorate; finding hot-button themes to make you look good and the opponent bad; heck, just look at a couple of issues of current papers about the 2016 election.

b.) Politics: getting stuff done when in office. Figuring out what is do-able in the current political climate; how to form alliances within the legislature/court; which favors to trade for what benefits; how to twist arms politely; who to intimidate into support, who to cajole, and to whom you must surrender; how to manage a graceful retreat from an untenable position (and when to reverse course and recoup your losses;) choosing the issues on which to work & which to abandon (notoriously absent from the political bag of Winston Churchill;) etc.

I would rate both of these as Hard or Very Hard skills. Lots of people think they're good at both; very few are.

For sources -- any book of Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson will give you a good Politics 101 introduction. For less structured environments, read up on Cosimo d'Medici. Took a modest, mid-level political family into being a world power for several hundred years -- in an absolutely and literally cut-throat environment. To call him brilliant is to damn with faint praise.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym

You've got one skill for two very different things.

a.) Politics -- getting into office. Gaining favorable publicity; smearing your opponent (in a non-traceable way); mobilizing friends, political workers, allies, and, especially money; assessing the electorate; finding hot-button themes to make you look good and the opponent bad; heck, just look at a couple of issues of current papers about the 2016 election.

b.) Politics: getting stuff done when in office. Figuring out what is do-able in the current political climate; how to form alliances within the legislature/court; which favors to trade for what benefits; how to twist arms politely; who to intimidate into support, who to cajole, and to whom you must surrender; how to manage a graceful retreat from an untenable position (and when to reverse course and recoup your losses;) choosing the issues on which to work & which to abandon (notoriously absent from the political bag of Winston Churchill;) etc.

I would rate both of these as Hard or Very Hard skills. Lots of people think they're good at both; very few are.

Yeah I have always read and used the Politics skill as A and Administration for B.
Not sure I am right but that is how I read the skills.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yeah I have always read and used the Politics skill as A and Administration for B.
Not sure I am right but that is how I read the skills.

That depends on _how_ you get things done. If you get a law passed Civics textbook style it could first be a LAW roll to write the bill correctly and then _perhaps_ an Administration roll to go through all the procedures properly. It's usually not that simple at all. You have to be played by Jimmy Stewart in the movie to even get noticed doing this.

If got your bill passed by making deals with other politicians it's very definitely Politics. That's the Skill of dealing with politicians and that's most of what you're doing.

Creating pressure from voters/interest groups can be Propaganda or Memetics or some form of Bribery for ones with organized groups but it might all go back to more Politics with those professional interest group leaders effectively being politicians rather than civic-minded individuals.

Administration is for understanding some bureaucracy's rules and getting said bureaucracy to obey its' own rules and/or to do it in a reasonable timeframe. It lets you deal with governmental entities but very little of it would apply to running a government.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That depends on _how_ you get things done. If you get a law passed Civics textbook style it could first be a LAW roll to write the bill correctly and then _perhaps_ an Administration roll to go through all the procedures properly. It's usually not that simple at all. You have to be played by Jimmy Stewart in the movie to even get noticed doing this.

Your right.
Somehow I was parsing that as office politics (as in corporate), not sure how though.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Administration is for understanding some bureaucracy's rules and getting said bureaucracy to obey its' own rules and/or to do it in a reasonable timeframe. It lets you deal with governmental entities but very little of it would apply to running a government.

Understanding good policy would be Administration. If you did a realm management system, correctly handling things like taxation would be Administration.

I get where you're coming from: In a modern democracy, getting anything done at all requires a lot of negotiating with other politicians, which is Politics. But if you have final say (say, you're a dictator or you're the direct head of an organization, or you've gained said cooperation and now everyone asks what you want to do), administrating effectively requires Administration.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

TIf got your bill passed by making deals with other politicians it's very definitely Politics. That's the Skill of dealing with politicians and that's most of what you're doing.

Up to a point - I suspect one might even say that while Politics tells you what sort of deal you should be making, it's the good old influence skills that allow you actually to make them. At the very least there might be complementary skills involved.

I had a character in a Laundry game with Politics, optional specialisation Civil Service Internal, though it never came up in play. (In the official Laundry RPG it certainly would, but we were less about the bureaucracy and more about the investigation.)