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Old 07-01-2015, 06:47 AM   #18
ArchonShiva
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Seeking Cinematic Social abilities *short of* mind control / reading / supernatur

Grasping any conversation where you can see both speakers, or see only one speaker at a penalty. Additional penalty for not hearing them, but Lip Reading compensates. This isn't a language ability, it's more a cinematic use of Body Language. May require an additional skill roll (e.g. Physiology) for really weird species, but it will tell you "The Zgorklyn ordered the human to kill the president tomorrow, but the human insisted on getting drone support, which he got."

In the vein of Cosmic, negating any penalties to a type of social roll coming from the target's personality, beliefs, oaths, situation, and so on. This works best for seduction or bribing, but selling fridges to eskimos (the mythical version, of course - eskimos have fridges like everybody) seems like the typical example.

Stuff you do gets routinely credited to others, or to random events like the weather or animal attacks. This is really good for thieves, spies and assassins.

Cool stuff others do around you, or even random happenstance, gets routinely credited to you. This is really good for conmen, but also some types of politicians and heroes.

Always pass for the smartest person in the room.

Your actions of a certain type do not trigger demands of exclusivity from partners. The obvious example is sexual, but this is a pretty cool thing for politicians, mercenaries, journalists, information brokers, spies, or weapons manufacturers that sells to all sides.

You can look someone in the eye and play out a scene of what you're about to do to them. They then act in the knowledge of how things would end if this happened, but know you didn't actually do anything - useful for interrogation, threats, blackmail, etc.. The film Hero features the martial arts version. Note that the scene itself provides you no information: if you interrogated them, you only heard something like "lie, lie, lie.. truth, TRUUUUTH!" and they'll have to give you the info again.

You can look someone in the eye and play out a scene to gauge how they would react. They are not aware of the events.

A cosmic version of Social Chameleon where you never not fit in a social context, and can improvise your way through any conversation just by picking up on clues from others, and actually seem knowledgeable of the subject.
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