On being Feared

[whswhs]

So let's look at the actual situation.

Nergul is a ghoul, and like typical ghouls, is Unattractive. That's primarily to her own race, but also affects the other humanoid races. It gives her a -1 reaction modifier, which means that the typical reaction to her requests is 8-11, half Poor and half Neutral; in other words, ghouls are less cooperative than other races.

In the Urbes Septemplex, though, which is the reference society, ghouls have Social Stigma (Minority Group), which gives them +2 reactions from other ghouls and -2 from the other humanoid races. This partly reflects their not having a well defined legal status, which for nixies is tied to land; if you want to find a ghoul, you can't go to her house or to the hostel where she's staying, but have to wander through various ghoul encampments asking after her. On the other hand, ghouls have some tendency to stick together, because there aren't many of them in Portus Argenti. So the typical non-ghoul reaction is 6-9, meaning that most nixies are cautious about dealing with ghouls and some will outright refuse to deal with them.

Nergul is Wealthy, and as a result has Status 1, which gives her +1 to reaction rolls; on the other hand, she has Odious Personal Habit (Body odor), from her work as a tanner, which gives her -1, so the two cancel out on the average.

So as a baseline, if she tries to hire a ghoul, the typical reaction range will be 10-13, meaning she'll usually get acceptable loyalty and sometimes get good loyalty. If she tries to hire a nixie, they'll typically be unhappy working for her (typical range 6-9), likely to quit if they can find a better offer, and sometimes just because they've had enough.

Now, how this applies is a bit ambiguous. It mostly sounds as if you search for an employee, find one who's available, and then roll the dice to see how loyal they are to the job they've already taken. But there's also a suggestion to roll first, before the interview, and let the PC try to assess the hireling's attitude. That implies that they haven't been made an offer yet, and the attitude is there when Nergul makes the offer—and that makes it seem likely that many nixies will turn down the job, or will find one they like better while Nergul is making up her mind.

Now, we have Nergul's being Feared, which is worth +3, and reflects both her having the accoutrements of a necromancer (it won't immediately occur to her to remove them, both because she feels safer with them and because she has a very "in your face" attitude) and her having an aura of death and the uncanny about her. On one hand, this could produce better reactions. On the other, it could be treated as an inappropriate Influence roll and produce a negative modifier. Since this isn't Nergul actively threatening her potential employees, but merely her being creepy and disturbing, let's call it a -1 reaction modifier.

With ghouls, then, reactions are either 13-16, suggesting that they're going to work hard and may be prepared to take serious risks rather than risk displeasing her; or 9-12, suggesting totally average reactions. With nixies, they're either average in reactions (9-12) or seriously reluctant (5-8), taking the job only because they feel they have to.

So I think the basic question is, when does each of these apply? It might be, for example, that they show the better attitude when they're being interviewed, but go to the worse one when deciding whether to actually show up; or that they behave better when Nergul is on the scene, but fall into worse habits when she's away (note that the writeup on Intimidation says that a lowlife may actually feel true loyalty, which suggests that intimidation normally doesn't produce real loyalty, but only outward conformity), and perhaps are afraid to admit to her when there are problems.

Nergul could try to improve their attitudes, if they start working for her; but the definition of Feared says that reaction rolls are normally interpreted as if you had used Intimidation, which may hinder this. On the other hand, Nergul could try cultivating a persona (discussed in GURPS Social Engineering), with a roll vs. IQ or Leadership+3 against the employee's IQ; if this works, she gets +1 to reactions, which I think would take the place of the -1, giving her a range of 7-10 for nixies and 11-14 for ghouls.

So I think what I'd ask is what kind of interplay is there between the "enhanced influence" and "inappropriate influence" effects of Feared in this situation. That seems to be central to this application of the rules.