GURPS Social Engineering

[Anders]

Will this book help me play Humphrey Appleby?

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by SCAR

And it's got a good chance of making the Top 100 (of any books) on e23 within the week!

I intend to make my contribution to the Top 100 goal next Monday my time (Sunday in the States).

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Will this book help me play Humphrey Appleby?

I'll note that Yes, Minister made the bibliography.

What surprised me about that is that during the playtest, it came up that Bill hadn't seen it before. I'd have thought that would have been a long-time favorite of his.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

What surprised me about that is that during the playtest, it came up that Bill hadn't seen it before. I'd have thought that would have been a long-time favorite of his.

It was a television program. My exposure to television is pretty sporadic. I'm really mainly print oriented.

Bill Stoddard

[Anders]

It exists in book form, in the form of Hacker's diaries.

Edit: Amazon has it.

Among the praise for the book:

'Its closely observed portrayal of what goes on in the

corridors of power has given me hours of pure joy'

- Rt Hon. Margaret Thatcher MP

[SolemnGolem]

A very late bump, because this doesn't really fit elsewhere...

On the GURPS products update page the blurb says they specifically did not want to make Social Engineering into a "social combat system". This struck me as noteworthy, because I wondered why that would ever be an expectation in the first place.

Then I heard that DnD apparently put out a set of rules that basically were exactly that: combat, but with reputation instead of physical attributes.

Here's a summary, on a different forum, to aid in comparison. Makes for interesting reading - it appears this was an article supplement to 4th ed. rather than a core rule.

[demonsbane]

I get what your mean here. Personally, I prefer the GURPS Social Engineering approach.

Defining the book literally as a "social combat system", with mechanics substituting Hit Points/Health for Rank/Status (for instance) would have been . . . unsuitable —for saying the least.

[SolemnGolem]

I'm still working my way through Social Engineering, and I like the content. I also think it's interesting to see what other, more abstract, mechanics are out there, especially as RPGs have usually under played social interactions for simple combat.

[PK]

SG: Pretty much. In many ways, Social Engineering is the GURPS equivalent of "a social combat book," inasmuch as that means anything in GURPS -- but after what systems like d20 and Exalted did to redefine that term, it was important to ensure that no one thought we were implementing a "take the standard combat system, but just redefine everything social terms" approach.

Honestly, I have yet to play through a "social combat" that felt at all natural -- every time, the surrealism of it pulls me out of the verisimilitude. The craziest must've been a few months ago, in Exalted, when we had to convince a mayor to sleep with a call girl (long story), and I experienced the "Mass Social Combat rules." It was really weird to feel like I was being yanked out of the RPG and into a wargame, especially when the whole idea is that it's a form of social interaction (which usually leads to more immersion, not less).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Honestly, I have yet to play through a "social combat" that felt at all natural -- every time, the surrealism of it pulls me out of the verisimilitude. The craziest must've been a few months ago, in Exalted, when we had to convince a mayor to sleep with a call girl (long story), and I experienced the "Mass Social Combat rules." It was really weird to feel like I was being yanked out of the RPG and into a wargame, especially when the whole idea is that it's a form of social interaction (which usually leads to more immersion, not less).

That was how the rules for HeroQuest struck me: There was exactly the same abstract skeleton of contestation for combat, diplomacy, and every other sort of opposed action, and the idea was that you played out the skeleton, determined the outcome, and only then made up the narrative to explain it. I found that I had no interest in running a campaign under those rules, and I was at pains to avoid anything like them in GURPS Social Engineering. What I wanted was the reverse sequence: You narrate the action, and then you decide what game mechanic represents it, and then you determine the outcome. Which, if you think about it, is the way GURPS handles most things.

I suppose you could do a "mass social engineering" system, along the lines of Mass Combat, and maybe even attached to it ("I want to propagandize the enemy city's populace into opening the gates"). It might even be interesting. But that's not what you see characters in a story or film doing, most of the time. You see Rorschach breaking the fingers of a bar patron who mouthed off to him while he asks the crowd questions. . . .

Bill Stoddard