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Old 08-26-2016, 02:17 PM   #1
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default [Basic] Skill of the week: Propaganda

Propaganda is the IQ/A TL skill of persuasion through some form of medium rather than face-to face, normally targeted on large numbers of people. The defaults are IQ-5, Merchant-5, and Psychology-4, and no skills default to it. The skill covers advertising and marketing messages as well as psychological warfare, and the two kinds of Propaganda are treated as different familiarities. Naturally, the originators and opponents of this material often have rather different ideas about the truth of the issues. The skill seems to have appeared at 4e.

Propaganda is boosted by Business Acumen talent, reminding us that most of the use of the skill is advertising, and can be opposed by Intelligence Analysis when that skill is trying to discern the truth behind disinformation. It isn't noted as taking cultural familiarity or language modifiers, but I'd certainly apply them.

The basic way to use Propaganda is as an Influence skill, with a Quick Contest against a notional Will of the target audience set by the GM, depending on its composition, size and receptivity. There's obvious scope for persuading a larger fraction of the audience depending on the degree of success, for modifiers depending on the means and budget available, and so on. Propaganda normally takes a fair amount of time, but this is left to the GM: the right (or wrong) thing said on TV or radio can have very rapid effects. However, the line between that and Public Speaking is not clear at first glance.

For that, we need Social Engineering, which tells us that Propaganda is the planning skill for the campaign, deciding what to say and how to say it, and Public Speaking is one possible medium for delivery of Propaganda. OK, that makes sense. Social Engineering has fairly detailed rules for doing this within the game, including competition between campaigns, a natural part of electoral campaigns. Totalitarian governments normally run large-scale Propaganda efforts aimed at their own populations, to maintain popular support. Revolutions are normally based on Politics, with Propaganda as a complementary skill.

Social Engineering also uses Propaganda for any and every kind of media or publicity campaign that targets lots of people, such as hiring someone when you want a lot of candidates, soliciting bids for a contract, or designing tag sets for Augmented Reality. The book also explains when you don't need Propaganda, such as recruiting one person, or selling single items. When you do need the skill, it's possible to hire it; that's one of the things that advertising agencies provide. The skill also has other uses, often as a complementary skill, such as selecting evidence that suits your case, planning blackmail, jazzing up one's resume, as the skill for leading a campaigning organisation, including a trade union, and to assist Merchant skill (via advertising) in running a business.

Propaganda appears on published templates for face-men and cinematic spies, plus the (similar) kinds of criminals who run cover-ups. Action uses Propaganda for misleading radio/text/internet/etc., messages, and Banestorm applies it to missionaries. DF bards use it for advertising for adventures, selling the less desirable goods from dungeons, and blackening rivals' reputations. Fantasy bards do the same, more plausibly. Madness Dossier has lots of uses for the skill; the action-adventure of PCs is arguably only support work for the real conflict of belief. Infinite Worlds make Propaganda an appropriate skill for causing cultural changes, and gives it cross-world familiarity penalties; Britanica-6 has natives trying to change the system. LTC1 points out that Propaganda needed inventing, but isn't precise on when that happened, although it's implied at TL4. Power-Ups volumes 3, 6 and 7 have examples for this skill, and Powers: The Weird has mind-modification tricks that require it. Thaumatology provides for Propaganda in preparing stadium ceremonies, Magical Styles makes it useful for the Mind Control college, and Urban Magics uses it for mass ceremonies, affecting the soulless, and demonically possessed mobs. Transhuman Space: Changing Times deals with Propaganda and the setting's mimetics, including more restrained versions. And Zombies can be a critique of totalitarianism.

The only time I can recall using Propaganda in a game was in a THS campaign, where a journalist NPC we knew was being subjected to a smear campaign. We were able to provide some reputational first aid, and the details of what was being said about her were a useful clue.

What have you done with this skill?
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