Social Engineering

[Pagan]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I think the other obvious thing for a GURPS Social Engineering book, if it hasn't been mentioned upthread, is just how to make an adventure centered on social interaction- much as Mysteries does for mystery adventures.

How many NPCs should you have?
How many factions with competing goals?
How many subplots is enough or too many?
How do you include dramatic tension without resorting to the threat of violence?
What dramatic niches should NPCs have, and how much information can each give the party?

Basically stuff you might find in a novel-writing textbook, but focussed on GMing.

This seems less to do with Social Engineering than it does with adventure construction. Your questions don't really have too much to do with how pcs and npcs utilize influence skills/contacts/patrons, etc to gain information or influence people and/or events.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Pagan

This seems less to do with Social Engineering than it does with adventure construction.

Which is what I was asking for- "how do you construct an adventure based on social interaction?", as opposed to hiking through a dungeon or solving a detective mystery with a trail of clues.

Gaming through the plot for Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars is as much about the socio-political situation of the town that the protagonist stumbled into and how he played each side against the other as it is about his great sword/gun skills.

Setting up a meaty, intricate, compelling political palace intrigue is harder than drawing up 6 levels of a dungeon, throwing in some tough monsters and choosing a few treasure types, and this sort of book would be suited for covering that kind of information.

Your questions don't really have too much to do with how pcs and npcs utilize influence skills/contacts/patrons, etc to gain information or influence people and/or events.

It's nice to have new rules for allies and influence skills, but if the game isn't centered around social interaction there's not such a need for them.

[Kromm]

"Social engineering" describes personal-scale feats for individual heroes to attempt – a way to exploit innate gifts (like good looks and a nice voice), inherited gifts (like social standing), and training (like knowing how to lie or negotiate) to deal with challenges. Thus, the book Social Engineering will be to sexy, high-born, and deceptive heroes as Martial Arts was to strong, agile, and combat-trained ones: A supplement on doing the best you can with what you've got. Just as Martial Arts didn't get into training and equipping armies, fighting wars, or any other large-scale combative considerations, Social Engineering won't get into large-scale social considerations. A book on NPC motivations, subplots, setting-scale social structures, etc. would be very cool, but such a "GURPS Society" would be to Social Egineering as Mass Combat is to Martial Arts.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kromm

A book on NPC motivations, subplots, setting-scale social structures, etc. would be very cool, but such a "GURPS Society" would be to Social Egineering as Mass Combat is to Martial Arts.

In some respects true, but Martial Arts put a good deal of material in on the context and environment of and plots concerning martial arts, as well as covering applied mayhem.

Of course, Martial Arts is a large hardcover. If Social Engineering isn't (I'm not sure if we know what size it is), it'll presumably have much less room for that.

[Gizensha]

Originally Posted by Kromm

"Social engineering" describes personal-scale feats for individual heroes to attempt – a way to exploit innate gifts (like good looks and a nice voice), inherited gifts (like social standing), and training (like knowing how to lie or negotiate) to deal with challenges. Thus, the book Social Engineering will be to sexy, high-born, and deceptive heroes as Martial Arts was to strong, agile, and combat-trained ones: A supplement on doing the best you can with what you've got. Just as Martial Arts didn't get into training and equipping armies, fighting wars, or any other large-scale combative considerations, Social Engineering won't get into large-scale social considerations. A book on NPC motivations, subplots, setting-scale social structures, etc. would be very cool, but such a "GURPS Society" would be to Social Egineering as Mass Combat is to Martial Arts.

So, we need to wait for GURPS Propaganda for memetics, then? :p

(Or use whatever pyramid the updated THS memetics rules are in, though more on doing that sort of thing at different TLs and outside of THS would be nice)