Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I'm putting together a required & recommended skill list for characters in my Cabal game. Based on Kromm's adventure skill list, and on the premise that a Cabal game is going to focus on investigation and cover ups more than action-adventure (at least at low levels), an Initiate (i.e., a “normal person” dragged into the Cabal) is going to need the following skills at 12 or better:

• Acting or Intimidation, for deception and cowing witnesses.
• Carousing, Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, or Interrogation; preferably 2 from that list.
• Holdout and Stealth: Cabalists have to hide, or hide things, quite frequently.
• Forced Entry and Lockpicking for getting into places you aren’t allowed.
• Observation, Scrounging, or Search,
• Disguise, Shadowing,
• Research, Occultism, and Hidden Lore
• Savoir-Faire or Streetwise
• First Aid
• Guns, if TL allows. It is the easiest weapons skill available. Knife is also recommended. Brawling or another hand-to-hand skill is highly recommended.

Higher level Cabalists are going to need the full action-adventure skill list plus the above conspiratorial skills as a minimum.

My question is, what skill have I missed that are going to come up regularly in a game that focuses on investigating secret magic and covering it up.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Maybe Driving. The default is good enough to go from point A to point B (no roll is required to drive into town) but characters will probably have to do more than that: shadowing another car, getting involved in car chases ...

Edit
Oh, I forgot to tell ... If it is a modern game world, Computer hacking, of course.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

A note on which skills are “everyman” vs which skills just needs somebody in the group to have them. For instance, Lockpicking or Forced Entry will almost certainly be needed by the party, but not necessarily be needed for everybody.

I’d recommend “prediction” skills as well. The best way I can describe it is you use one skill to forge somebody’s signature, but another skill to know whose handwriting to forge – is that Administration? Politics? Professional Skill: police procedure?

Some way of communicating discreetly – Gesture? An exotic language?

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I fully do agree. Ditto for Driving and Computer Hacking.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Depending on your sources, driving is often treated as an everyman skill in modern media. While it might be possible to have just one specialist do it, that seems unusual for the genre.

Also, if your party doesn't maintain extreme cohesion (which they might, but it's less a given than in some other genres) somebody other than the designated wheelman may find themselves needing Driving. (To, for instance, lose a tail or escape a vehicular assassination attempt.)

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Here's a couple more suggestions:

• Computer Operation. Not everybody needs Computer Hacking, that can be a specialist. But everyone pretty much needs to know how to at least use a computer.
• In addition to Disguise, Mimicry. Mimicry is an often-overlooked, but essential, part of impersonation. Disguise might make you look like someone, but if you don't sound like them, your options are sharply limited.
• I'd strongly recommend a grappling skill in the combat options - either Wrestling or Judo. If you need to subdue someone, these are your best options. Beating someone unconscious has serious consequences (barring certain cinematic options being turned on), whereas you can much more safely use grappling to pin someone.
• Intelligence Analysis. This is your basic "find patterns in data" skill. Not everybody needs to have it, perhaps, but anyone who wants to contribute to that scene where the protagonists tack a bunch of photos and notes to the wall and start connecting them with string or lines or what-have-you should have it.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Right. I was speaking for a skill level of 12+ (a professional level).

Now, your other point is a good one: having two or more professional drivers can help escaping pursuers.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I'm pretty sure that this is the provenance of Acting, and Basic Set p. 174 explicitly notes that impersonation is one of the uses for Acting. Mimicry would let you sound like someone, but you'd need Acting to make people think you are the person you're impersonating.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

It's all three, actually. Disguise lets you look like someone, Mimicry lets you sound like them, and Acting covers behaving like them consistently.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I'd also add Climbing as one of the infiltration skill like Lockpicking, and Detect Lies to go with Interrogation and the like: getting bad information isn't helpful.

Current Affairs is appropriate, for general knowledge of what's going on in the world. Using Hidden Lore and Intelligence Analysis to find out who the Conspiracy is manipulating is less useful if you don't know why those people are important.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I'd dispute this one as an Every-conspirator skill.

It's an essential skill for the impersonation specialist, sure. But you only really need it for impersonation of someone whose voice is known to people you're trying to fool. Acting and perhaps especially Disguise have much broader applications.
Yeah, so was I. I'd argue that 'can drive at all' and 'can drive in a car action scene' are not commonly differentiated for protagonists.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

It seems odd for that list to be something everyone would have, even members of a cabal. It looks more like a good useful skill list. It seems like the only requirement would be the social skill that represents knowing how to behave and be discreet (savoir-faire or streetwise), and perhaps at least one of the other skills (or possibly just a useful advantage).

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Well, it's a skill list for Cabalists who are going to survive and thrive, not just tread water or get devoured by qlippoth. In short, it's a list of skills for PCs to meet the challenges they're likely to face in a Cabal-focused campaign, and shouldn't represent the skill set of NPC Cabalists so much. It's also more a tool for me to refer to when building templates than a handout for players to build PCs from scratch.

Anyway, here's an updated and still unpolished list:

For violence and its consequences:

• Brawling, Knife, and/or Gun.
• Running
• First Aid

For investigation and cover ups:

• Current Affairs, Shadowing, Diplomacy, Interrogation, Intimidation, Observation, Scrounging, Search

For infiltration

• Stealth, Forced Entry, Acting, Fast-Talk, Climbing

For occult goodies:

• Occultism, Research, Hidden Lore

For general use

• Savoir-Faire or Streetwise
• Driving or Riding

Additionally, the following skills should be known by at least one PC in the group or they should have a Contact who can give them access to these skills:

• Acting, Mimicry, and Disguise, for impersonations
• Computer Use and Computer Hacking (if at TL7+) to get information from networks, remove information, or plant false data.
• Administration, Electronics Operation (Media), Propaganda, and Writing (Action 2, p. 26)
• Forgery

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Seems like Acting covers voices as well.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Evidence clean-up would probably benefit from Housekeeping for most of the group and Forensics for at least one PC.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Oh, good catch.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I'd put Disguise as well as Acting as recommended for general use. They're good for all kinds of tradecraft, not just impersonation.

Also, you've got Acting duplicated between the infiltration sub-list and the impersonation specialist list.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

Yeah, by the literal reading of that, it seems like it does. I don't like that that basically completely makes Mimicry (Speech) completely irrelevant, though. I mean, Mimicry isn't even easier than Acting, so we can't claim it's a hidden optional speciality or something! So, personally, I'd rule as I explained above - Acting covers behavior, Mimicry covers speech. I suppose I could see ruling that the note in Acting about covering "voices" means it covers things like verbal tics or patterns of speech - Mimicry lets you sound like General Ripper, but it's Acting that lets you know exactly how often to refer to "his essence" in conversation to fool his subordinates.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I would add Psychology or Detect Lies here.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I suspect that's the difference between having driving and having Driving.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

I wouldn't consider this an "everyman" task, even in a conspiracy game - impersonating specific individuals to those who recognise their face or voice would be a highly specialised task. Also a very high-risk strategy since if you're making Disguise checks at all you're probably making a lot of Disguise checks, and if I realise your nose is fake, that's a red flag even if I don't know the person you're pretending to look like.

(although using your own face for anything shady carries its own risks)

Acting has some stiff penalties for impersonation. -5 if you're not well-acquainted with the subject, -5 with acquaintances, -10 for close acquaintances. With Mimicry, you just get a flat -3 to mimic a specific person, and it's treated as a Quick Contest vs the IQ of anyone who knows the person mimicked well (essentially any time I'd call for a Quick Contest for Mimicry would be a situation where Acting suffers the full -10).

Also I'd rule a Disguise success + Mimicry success + Acting failure would be viewed as "General Ripper isn't behaving like himself today, something strange is going on?", a point on the suspicion-meter instead of going straight to "Imposter! Get him!" It could seriously mitigate the consequences of failure at the Acting roll, which can be a very valuable investment when Acting would be at penalties from -5 to -15.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

No, see my post #11.

Re: Conspiracy "everyman" skills
 

True. That's the difference between us, in real life, and roleplaying characters. Very few of us will ever get involved in a car action scene ...