One social trait, multiple society?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Good even for social morons like myself?

Good even for social morons like us.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Good even for social morons like myself?

I have been saying for some time now that I like rpgs partly because the roleplaying gives me a model of social interaction that is a bit slower and more explicit than the real thing, and therefore easier for me to follow. A lot of my experience with running campaigns that do that kind of modeling went into GURPS SE. One of its explicit aims is providing game mechanics to be used by people who aren't naturally good at social interaction, and suggestions on when and how to use them. I hope it may be useful to, say, someone like you.

Bill Stoddard

[Refplace]

Like many I am so seriously looking forward to it.

[Lamech]

Hmm... at least in some settings, you could have the advantages morph depending on where the character is. So an infinite worlds character might have social regard: Psychic Healer, on Homeline, and off homeline have the a patron of equal value.

It also occurs to me that you could add the group size modifiers for reputation to social regard, and create an anti-social also with group size reputation modifiers. Effectively, you could make some traits a reputation mechanically, but have them be something else fluff wise.

[sclose1970]

Are there any additional supplements or companions planned for Social Engineering? Like Low-Tech, was there just too much material to fit in one book?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by sclose1970

Are there any additional supplements or companions planned for Social Engineering? Like Low-Tech, was there just too much material to fit in one book?

Not at this point. The book grew a bit in the writing to accommodate material that the playtest identified as needed; with e23 titles, of course, that's an option. I don't think anything substantial has been omitted.

Of course, it could be the basis for a genre book, such as GURPS Soap Opera, Romance, Courtly Love, or Academic Politics. But I wouldn't necessarily be the first choice to write such a book. And I wouldn't count on there being demand in the GURPS target market . . . though it's certainly possible to run any of those genres as an rpg!

Bill Stoddard

[Kuroshima]

One thing that surprised me in Social Engineering, is how many of the pieces were already in the basic set, almost overlooked by all. Part of the genius of SE is making them all fit together.

[PK]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

Completely incidentally, my own approach to this in the absence of Social Engineering was merely to apply the modifiers for "group size" (etc.) from Characters' treatment of things like Reputation.

Not only does Social Engineering acknowledge this approach, it has full rules and guidelines for it. However, while you can use this to handle traits from two different societies, it was really intended more to represent traits that apply within sub-societies or have minor catches (e.g., I have Social Regard 2 among my entire society, except from the upper nobility).

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I much preferred the simple, "If you are playing in a Homeline Infinite Worlds campaign build your character as a Homeline character."

And that's how Social Engineering will recommend handling it as well, by introducing the concept of a "reference society" (as Bill explained above), and also providing rules for "parallel social traits" that apply only in one of the non-reference societies.

Originally Posted by Refplace

So whats the latest word on when we will see this?

We have not yet announced a release date for Social Engineering. We are working on it very fervently, however, as pretty much everyone who's seen it agrees that this book needs to come out now. :)

I do not think I have heard anything about it since it left playtest.

It has been edited and given a rough layout and authorial review. We are now at the "art and final layout" stage, after which there's still some more work to do (indexing, final check, etc.) before it's ready for y'all.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Good even for social morons like myself?

You know how Martial Arts provided tons of info about how melee worked in real life, and how certain styles trained you to fight a certain way, so you could better picture how to play your fighter? And then it provided even more in-game options, so that even if you didn't know anything about real-world combat, you could say, "Um, I think I'll make a Committed Attack using my Reversed Grip knife, to his vitals. That looks like a lot of extra damage, and it doesn't hurt my Dodge too badly if he counterattacks." Yes?

Social Engineering does all that, but for interpersonal and mass media interaction. "I'll make an approachability roll to pick out a mark. They're all tight-knit? Damn. Okay, I'll use Cutting Out to isolate one. Success! Awesome. Okay, I'll use Fast-Talk with subtlety at -3 to convince her that I'm trustworthy enough that she should vouch for me. That's Hinting (Fast-Talk), which I know at Fast-Talk+3 so no penalty."

Originally Posted by whswhs

Not at this point. The book grew a bit in the writing to accommodate material that the playtest identified as needed

Yeah, this is not a short book. But neither is it overwritten or bloated -- I'd say it's a very tightly-written sourcebook on a subject so diverse that a lot of wordcount is justified. As a general treatment of social interaction, it's quite complete.

Of course, it could be the basis for a genre book, such as GURPS Soap Opera, Romance, Courtly Love, or Academic Politics.

Sure. Though even with all of those examples, I'd say Social Engineering has everything you need to cover the social rules for it. But there might be room for a supplement that goes into even more detail on edge cases, specific modifiers, etc., along with packing in a ton of genre advice for that specific setting.

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

One thing that surprised me in Social Engineering, is how many of the pieces were already in the basic set, almost overlooked by all. Part of the genius of SE is making them all fit together.

Amen. Bill did a great job of absorbing everything the Basic Set had to say about social rules before sitting down to write. A large part of Social Engineering is just presenting some details and guidelines for using those existing rules. Another large part is simply expanding on them, often just by adding some new modifiers or advice. There are very few places where Social Engineering recommends "optional rule"-type changes to what the Basic Set says, and in all cases, such changes appeal to common sense and aren't particularly drastic.

Heck, it wouldn't be unfair to sum up Social Engineering as, "GURPS has wonderful rules for social interaction -- let's explore how to best use them, shall we?"

[Kage2020]

Originally Posted by Rev. Pee Kitty

Not only does Social Engineering acknowledge this approach, it has full rules and guidelines for it. However, while you can use this to handle traits from two different societies, it was really intended more to represent traits that apply within sub-societies or have minor catches (e.g., I have Social Regard 2 among my entire society, except from the upper nobility).

That's more than understandable. The use of a referent society or sodality works except when the campaign goes "South of the Border," which was basically what was happening when dealing with the 40k universe. I say this mostly to indicate that I'm going to be interested in where Social Engineering goes and how "elegantly" it handles the situation. My own approach works for me when dealing with the absence of a specific reference society, but that obviously doesn't make it the "best" approach.

Again, though, looking forward to when it comes out. I might not buy another GURPS product until it does... ;)

Heh, the idea of putting it as required reading in an anthropology class would be awesomely nerdy. I don't think that I'm that brave, though. GURPS Archaeology might give me pause. ;)

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Kage2020

Heh, the idea of putting it as required reading in an anthropology class would be awesomely nerdy. I don't think that I'm that brave, though. GURPS Archaeology might give me pause. ;)

So that you can tell your class, now remembered do not copy the actions of Drs. Jones and Croft ?