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Old 03-14-2018, 11:37 AM   #11
Jarreth
 
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Default Re: Influence Checks

I like your houserule, I think I will have something similar in my game.

How would you handle a meet with a gangster boss where the object is to negotiate a settlement between the PCs and the gang?

Lets say the PCs send their face to do the talking.

Would you start out with a Reaction Roll to form the basic of the negotiation and then have the influence skills to be the final determination of the result?

EG: Reaction (3D6+face Charisma, and APP bonus [minus X because the boss doesn't like them])? Then that result will form the modifier on the influence roll?
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Old 03-14-2018, 11:46 AM   #12
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Default Re: Influence Checks

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How would you handle a meet with a gangster boss where the object is to negotiate a settlement between the PCs and the gang?

Lets say the PCs send their face to do the talking.

Would you start out with a Reaction Roll to form the basic of the negotiation and then have the influence skills to be the final determination of the result?
I'd only start with a reaction roll if the PCs said they weren't making any particular effort to sway the boss, just letting their natural charm do its work. However, if I was the PCs in those circumstances, I almost certainly wouldn't do that, I'd try to make an Influence roll. The reason for that is a) because most reaction modifiers also add to Influence rolls, so it's not like I'm wasting those bonuses, and b) the GM is always free to arbitrarily set reactions, rather than rolling them, and this is exactly the sort of situation where that is likely to come up, so I want the relatively-guaranteed reaction of an Influence roll instead.
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Old 03-14-2018, 12:02 PM   #13
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I see, thank you Kelly. You been very helpful :)
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Old 03-14-2018, 12:08 PM   #14
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I see, thank you Kelly. You been very helpful :)
Happy to help!
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Old 03-14-2018, 12:52 PM   #15
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Default Re: Influence Checks

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I'd only start with a reaction roll if the PCs said they weren't making any particular effort to sway the boss, just letting their natural charm do its work. However, if I was the PCs in those circumstances, I almost certainly wouldn't do that, I'd try to make an Influence roll. The reason for that is a) because most reaction modifiers also add to Influence rolls, so it's not like I'm wasting those bonuses, and b) the GM is always free to arbitrarily set reactions, rather than rolling them, and this is exactly the sort of situation where that is likely to come up, so I want the relatively-guaranteed reaction of an Influence roll instead.
I think it depends on the character (and obviously the situation). For example, Appearance doesn't affect most influence skills, and Charisma only affects some, so if a character has high levels of these they might well want to chance a reaction roll rather than use influence, especially as if the GM has set a fixed reaction they may well have also decided that influence rolls (or all influence rolls but those with a specific skill) won't work. That said, most characters I've seen with these sorts of builds have Diplomacy as a safe fallback.
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Old 03-14-2018, 01:12 PM   #16
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For example, Appearance doesn't affect most influence skills, and Charisma only affects some,
"Influence Rolls", p. 359, says "All your personal reaction modifiers (although the GM or the skill description may rule that some modifiers do not apply)" (emphasis mine). None of the Influence skills, except Intimidation, call out any non-applicability for Appearance, and the most obvious one to include it, Sex Appeal, doesn't list Appearance in its modifiers section. From that, I'd say that Appearance is supposed to apply by default to Influence rolls. Charisma is even more explicit: "Each level gives... +1 to Influence rolls" (p. B41).

You can always decide that something like Appearance doesn't affect a particular Influence roll (trying to influence an alien with radically different standards of beauty, for instance), but I'd say the default assumption is that it does apply. I'd be even more generous with having Charisma apply - I think it should basically apply to any Influence roll made face-to-face.
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Old 03-14-2018, 01:29 PM   #17
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I think it depends on the character (and obviously the situation). For example, Appearance doesn't affect most influence skills, and Charisma only affects some, so if a character has high levels of these they might well want to chance a reaction roll rather than use influence, especially as if the GM has set a fixed reaction they may well have also decided that influence rolls (or all influence rolls but those with a specific skill) won't work. That said, most characters I've seen with these sorts of builds have Diplomacy as a safe fallback.
Appearance is already the equivalent of Charisma (Accessibility: Majority race or Own race -x%; Sense-based:Vision -20%), which means it ought not be less useful than Charisma when it does apply, and it is both unbalancing and illogical to remove it as a modifier to Influence rolls. The rules in the Basic Set certainly have it apply.

I can see that as with any Reaction modifier, it is situational whether it applies to different Influence checks, i.e. probably not many uses of Intimidation and only some uses of Streetwise.

I very much doubt it won't help with, say; a Carousing check to get fellow revellers to like you, a Diplomacy check to convince an aging dowager that the roguish PC is a decent young man and should be allowed to court her granddaughter, a Fast-Talk check to trick a bouncer into letting an underage and attractive PC into a bar, a Merchant check to haggle over a fancy dress or a nice piece of jewelry, a Savoir-Faire (High Society) check to court the fair heiress with the terrifying grandmother, or Handsome Rob's Streetwise check to exchange witty banter and funny criminal anecdotes with Brutal Bobby, the (not as secretly as he thinks) gay mob enforcer, to get him to agree to arrange a meeting with his boss, Al the Notoriously Distrustful.

I think the rule in GURPS Social Engineering that removes this effect from Appearance is misguided and yet another example of Bill Stoddard's lack of feel for mechanics. It effectively makes Appearance almost useless for a dedicated 'Face' character, which does not fit reality or fictional precedents, and it has the perverse incentive that even very skilled social engineers can't really use their skills if they are good-looking, as that would turn a Reaction Roll with maybe a +4 to +10 into an opposed QC against Will with +0 to +4. It's counter-intuitive and stupid that actually trying to get people to like them should harm the chances of good-looking people of getting what they want from others, even if they are quite good at Influence skills.
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Old 03-14-2018, 01:38 PM   #18
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I very much doubt it won't help with, say; a Carousing check to get fellow revellers to like you, a Diplomacy check to convince an aging dowager that the roguish PC is a decent young man and should be allowed to court her granddaughter, a Fast-Talk check to trick a bouncer into letting an underage and attractive PC into a bar, a Merchant check to haggle over a fancy dress or a nice piece of jewelry, a Savoir-Faire (High Society) check to court the fair heiress with the terrifying grandmother, or Handsome Rob's Streetwise check to exchange witty banter and funny criminal anecdotes with Brutal Bobby, the (not as secretly as he thinks) gay mob enforcer, to get him to agree to arrange a meeting with his boss, Al the Notoriously Distrustful.
Wouldn't Brutal Bobby be a police officer?
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Old 03-14-2018, 01:41 PM   #19
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Wouldn't Brutal Bobby be a police officer?
Good point, let us make him a corrupt copper in Al's employ.
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Old 03-14-2018, 02:16 PM   #20
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I think the rule in GURPS Social Engineering that removes this effect from Appearance is misguided and yet another example of Bill Stoddard's lack of feel for mechanics. It effectively makes Appearance almost useless for a dedicated 'Face' character, which does not fit reality or fictional precedents, and it has the perverse incentive that even very skilled social engineers can't really use their skills if they are good-looking, as that would turn a Reaction Roll with maybe a +4 to +10 into an opposed QC against Will with +0 to +4. It's counter-intuitive and stupid that actually trying to get people to like them should harm the chances of good-looking people of getting what they want from others, even if they are quite good at Influence skills.
Forgive my saying this, but I think the lack of understanding is yours.

In the first place, Sex Appeal is explicitly called out as getting bonuses from Appearance, and double penalties from negative Appearance. There is no such modifier for Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Merchant, Politics, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire, or Streetwise. There is a modifier for Intimidation, but in the reverse direction. As the Roman saying has it, exceptio probat regulam de rebus non exceptis: The exception establishes the rule for things not excepted. If you state explicitly that A is modified by Appearance, you are implying that B, C, and D, for which you don't state this, are not modified by Appearance.

In the second place, you seem to be equating Appearance with Charisma (Accessibility: Own race, -20%), by saying that Appearance should work for anything where Charisma works. But if that were truly the case, there would be no point in having a separate trait of Appearance in the first place. Yet GURPS has such a trait.

Of course, Charisma has the limitation that it must be applied actively to gain reaction/Influence bonuses; you can only gain them if you can perceive how the audience is responding to you. (Kromm spelled this out to me when I was writing SE; I didn't make it up.) But Appearance doesn't have that restriction. If it can do everything that Charisma can do, but doesn't have one of Charisma's limits, then it's better than Charisma. But Charisma (Own race, -20%) would cost the same as Appearance. That's obviously not right.

However, I wouldn't see it as objectionable if, as GM, you decided that in a particular case, Appearance couild help with an Influence roll. Or, alternatively, you could allow the player to roll against Sex Appeal as a complimentary skill; or you could make a reaction roll for the character they're approaching, to check their general reaction, and maybe give bonuses or even exempt them from having to make the Influence roll. GURPS is a toolkit and you're allowed to improvise with it. See the final section of SE, "Throw Away This Book!"
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