[Social Engineering] Skill-based Cold Reading / Sherlock Scan?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It's just that F-T requires a specialisation by prop that I find the weirdest for your idea.

Fortune-Telling bundles the skill of cold reading with the presentation of the information. You could split it into a Cold-Reading skill and put the rest under Performance.

Cold reading is an interactive process. You provide suggestions in the form of partial answers to see how the subject reacts, which informs your choice of further things to say and which answers you switch to. You might consider this "performance" as well, but I had in mind the explicit dressing it up as a supernatural power and structuring the presentation to as to be most impressive.

Originally Posted by Icelander

You can, of course, skip the first part and not interact with the subject at all, but then you're limited to what information he gives out willingly, which will sometimes be little enough.

Everybody lies.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Everybody lies.

Sure. The skill lies in getting them to tell lies that reveal stuff about why they're lying, how they lie, what they think you know, etc. You poke and prod in the right places to provoke reactions that you suspect will yield you more information.

If just asking someone was a foolproof way of getting reliable information from him, you wouldn't need a skill for it.

[Mgellis]

Simple version...

Roll vs. High Perception or Observation <-- to notice useful data

Roll vs. Expert Skill (Humanity) <-- suggesting a wealth of knowledge across the board that is both broad and deep, in connection to types of people, who they are, what they do, what they use, etc. (If this seems too broad, just apply penalties to certain kinds of information that seem TOO esoteric even for an Expert Skill.)

(Holmes is reputed to have been woefully ignorant in certain areas, areas that he did not think would help him solve crimes.)

(or, if you have time, Research skill to look things up)

Roll vs. High IQ <-- to draw connections between the observed facts, the knowledge of what they signify, and determine what they actually mean.

Perception spots both the kind of clothing someone is wearing and how worn it is, the Expert Skill identifies the kinds of people who wear such clothing and why, and the high IQ determines whether this is someone from that group, and how prosperous they are, or someone pretending to be part of it.

In fact, part of the Holmes shtick is not that he looks ONCE and gets a lot of information but that the one long look is, in terms of skill rolls, SEVERAL short looks. A typical Holmesian analysis should require four or five sets of these, and then one more IQ roll at the end to put them all together! Or, if you only want to do it once, use Detective! skill. That is, as Bill Stoddard pointed out, what it is for. :)

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Sure. The skill lies in getting them to tell lies that reveal stuff about why they're lying, how they lie, what they think you know, etc.

That would indeed be Housian technique.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

...

Everybody lies.

Not really. If I don't want to answer, I simply say, "None of your d*mned business." My girlfriend long ago learned not to ask me questions she doesn't really want the answer to.
I'm honest out of laziness and anxiety fear of being found out.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Not really. If I don't want to answer, I simply say, "None of your d*mned business." My girlfriend long ago learned not to ask me questions she doesn't really want the answer to. I'm honest out of laziness and anxiety fear of being found out.

As you are aware, your mind operates significantly differently to most people. Please, feel free to append "likely not Flyndaran" to generalisations.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by johndallman

As you are aware, your mind operates significantly differently to most people. Please, feel free to append "likely not Flyndaran" to generalisations.

I know I'm odd, but I don't think I qualify as a different species... most of the time anyway. ;)
I have been diagnosed as NOT autistic, and not that abnormal by psychologists, if anyone cared.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I know I'm odd, but I don't think I qualify as a different species... most of the time anyway. ;)

I know several people mentally odder than you, and I'm fairly sure they're biologically homo sapiens - although there's one I have doubts about.

[Goober4473]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

But 5-6 (let alone 7-8) rolls are not playable.

This is only the case if the investigation scenes aren't terribly important to the game, and especially if only one character in a large group makes all of the rolls.

Consider that in combat, making 7-8 rolls per character over the course of the scene is pretty normal, and sometimes a lot more are made. If the focus of the game is investigation, then having that many rolls while investigating will be perfectly acceptible. All the better if they can be split between players, as they discuss the scene and pass information back and forth (for instance, passing gathered info to the psychology expert to construct a psychological profile, which leads the group to investigate somewhere they wouldn't have thought to look, etc.).

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

So the real-world inspiration of Sherlock (and perhaps a less-outrageous version of Sherlock) has Fortune-Telling? Sounds weird, but we've seen weirder stuff. It's just that F-T requires a specialisation by prop that I find the weirdest for your idea.

Well the tv character in the Ops post was a fake psychic before going clean. So a lot of our responses initially were about that and that Fortune Telling skill is perfect for what he does and how hew does it.

However for someone else you could just rename the skill and possibly add another focus that helps you draw out the person your talking to.
A cop or detective does not really need that subterfuge though and could just use Interrogation and Body Language.
However the Fortune Telling technique is more of a Fast Talk and get them to slip kind of deal that is padded with some form of Psychic lure to help them feed you information.
You could do almost he same thing with Fast Talk ad a shared hobby skill.
Or someone like Colombo who comes in disheveled and sounding distracted to throw people off their guard. And alter practically just irritating them into slipping.
Only works when they have to stay there and listen or you can convince them they need to.