[SE] Selling fish to a fisherman

[weby]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Well, there's a problem:
Even with Social Engineering, there isn't all that much crunch to social influence. Everything boils down to 'apply modifier for all the appropriate factors, then roll Contests untill the outcome becomes clear'. Crunch that spices up combat - equipment, map positioning, number of attacks and differences between various defences - don't apply to social combat, for good or ill. (Game systems such as Exalted tried, but the result is far from perfect.)

There is actually a fair amount of the extra you can easily introduce, though getting to the level of normal Gurps combat is... very hard.

Basically my solution has been to make some of the requirements so high(huge penalties) that the PCs have had to try to find ways to reduce the penalties and to get bonuses. In different situations that has included things like:
-academic research on topics related to the action
-starting of separate rumor campaigns to make the initial actual approach easier
-burglary to plant incriminating evidence on a rival
-collecting rumors on what a target likes
-finding extremely rare items that the target has been looking for a long time
-using several complimentary skills, like applying disguises to seem part of a more acceptable group.
-and many many more