The odd difference among social skills

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

There are times when I go, "Give me a roll at the best of your Architecture or Search skills. If you have both, you can roll the lower one as a complementary." This lets folks who have one but not the other have a shot at contributing, while those with both aren't going "why did I take both if I didn't need them?"

Well, yeah, I've never required anyone to have architecture to search for secret doors, even when Kromm said we did. And I'm glad he changed his mind, at least for the narrow genre of DF. But my regular fantasy doesn't need that kind of skill bloat. The only people that should have Architecture are people that design building professionally.

Though I note now that it is Vision, Observation, or Traps, not Search, my mistake.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by corwyn

Well, yeah, I've never required anyone to have architecture to search for secret doors, even when Kromm said we did. And I'm glad he changed his mind, at least for the narrow genre of DF. But my regular fantasy doesn't need that kind of skill bloat. The only people that should have Architecture are people that design building professionally.

Though I note now that it is Vision, Observation, or Traps, not Search, my mistake.

Architecture was NEVER necessary to search for secret doors. It was and is just something you can roll on to spot the existence of an anomalously thick wall or inaccessible room. Not to mention which walls are load bearing, which can be important in superhero games.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by corwyn

By default, however, the categories are very broad with only a handful of cultures around the world. In fact, the very example Skarg used would have no penalty at all. England, American, Mexican are all Western.

Sure, then you just narrow those categories. It's not that hard.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Architecture was NEVER necessary to search for secret doors. It was and is just something you can roll on to spot the existence of an anomalously thick wall or inaccessible room. Not to mention which walls are load bearing, which can be important in superhero games.

"If you're going to get involved in superheroics, you're going to have to get good at property damage. Lots and lots of property damage." -- Richard Rider/Nova, in New Warriors v1 prior to issue #50, as he was giving pointers to both Turbos. :)

And let's face it, when fighting someone like the Juggernaut or Rhino, being able to tell which walls are load-bearing so you can maneuver them into demolishing them to drop the building on them to slow them down is a good thing (though the insurance rates in that neighborhood will probably go through the roof, unless you can get Tony Stark to pay for all the damages).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Some have a built in knowledge of cultural norms (or sub culture) and include things like symbols, Heraldry, colors, flags, uniforms, etc and area knowledge like locations and even laws.
Others just focus on how to talk to someone in certain circumstances.

All of them are reliant on ability to navigate social norms, which is a combination of having the skill and having the contextually appropriate Cultural Familiarity.

Heraldry, Area Knowledge, and Law are their own skills. Certain forms of Savoir Faire may include a little bit (Heraldry has a default from SF(High Society), and SF(Military) implies some coverage of legally-mandated military codes of conduct), but not a lot.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Streeetwise and Savior Faire are pretty broad, though Savoir Faire requires a specilaity.
Carousing, Fast Talk, Diplomacy and Sex Appeal are much more limited in scope.

I'd say the opposite! Streetwise and Savoir Faire are narrow - they're very inappropriate Influence skills outside the specific social context they're meant for.

Carousing is a special case, it's not actually an influence skill except (per Social Engineering p32) in very limited use-case. Being a complementary skill skill of sorts is its main functionality. It does have pretty specific required context, but it cuts across most social lines - some individuals and a very few subgroups might never be targets for Carousing but most can be if you're able to put yourself at the right occasion for it. (Why the same skill covers everyone's idea of partying hard...eh.) And it's an HT/E skill.

Fast Talk and Diplomacy are as close to universal as you can get. Diplomacy is the influence skill whose closest thing to a downside is that it can't be used in active combat. And that it's a Hard skill, of course. Fast Talk applies to anyone anytime (unless they're immune to influence skills of course), though it burns bridges...hopefully behind you! There might be some contexts where one or both of them is specifically penalized, but I'd expect those to be rare.

Sex Appeal usually will only be applicable to somewhere in the neighborhood of half the population (depending on the frequency of bi/omni-sexuality vs. asexuality), at least without some means of switching your presentation. Depending on social structures (gender segregation of organizations and level of openness about sexual orientation) the set of targets available to a PC of a particular sex may seem much more or much less useful. That said, it's otherwise pretty general.

(Tangent - I feel like there must be rules about resistance to Influence rolls for targets in a group that I'm not finding...)

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

And let's face it, when fighting someone like the Juggernaut or Rhino, being able to tell which walls are load-bearing so you can maneuver them into demolishing them to drop the building on them to slow them down is a good thing (though the insurance rates in that neighborhood will probably go through the roof, unless you can get Tony Stark to pay for all the damages).

... this is why Tony keeps having to reinvent his company: he spends so much rebuilding New York every few months that anyone else would have gone bust!

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

... this is why Tony keeps having to reinvent his company: he spends so much rebuilding New York every few months that anyone else would have gone bust!

No one is rich enough to rebuild New York City more than once. Super battles would costs hundreds of millions to literal billions of dollars worth of damage and make it mostly unlivable for months if not years.
Money is just one of the vaguely defined super powers of comic books, not used realistically any more than "martial arts" or "training" are for supers like Batman.

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

No one is rich enough to rebuild New York City more than once. Super battles would costs hundreds of millions to literal billions of dollars worth of damage and make it mostly unlivable for months if not years.
Money is just one of the vaguely defined super powers of comic books, not used realistically any more than "martial arts" or "training" are for supers like Batman.

Huh, that gives me an idea. A world where a few decades after superheroes the cities have largely been abandoned (and reduced to rubble), the population more-or-less evenly distributed in small towns.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Huh, that gives me an idea. A world where a few decades after superheroes the cities have largely been abandoned (and reduced to rubble), the population more-or-less evenly distributed in small towns.

Not in the deserts of the southwest where the Hulk hangs out.

[Phantasm]

Well, Tony only really ever pays for superhero battles the Avengers as a whole are involved in, and usually he pays Damage Control to handle it (pretty sure he owns stock in the company...)

Other superhuman battles, such as X-Men vs Juggernaut? He doesn't often get the bill or promise to pay for those, though I don't doubt he helps with the cleanup.

One interesting factoid I came across in the 1989 Official Handbook entry for Damage Control was that New York City has been declared a permanent FEMA Disaster Area due to the high number of superhuman battles there, meaning the federal government helps pay for damages from superhuman battles. Yes, your taxes go to pay for cleaning up after the superheroes and supervillains.....