Modelling Equal Gender Appeal

[Armin]

IMO: The OP wants mind control. Mind control should be what's paid for.

[whswhs]

Matrix Walker, I don't think there is anything to be gained by our discussing this subject further.

[the_matrix_walker]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Matrix Walker, I don't think there is anything to be gained by our discussing this subject further.

That's a shame. I was thinking of spinning this off to its own thread on "What does it mean to be 'Attracted to someone's sex' for the purposes of the Sex Appeal Skill", which I probably should have done in the first place.

I may still do so later... or more likely another day. If you're not interested in the discussion any longer, please don't feel any pressure to post to it, but you are welcome of course. And I will refrain from quoting you or referring directly to your involvement in the original discussion if that's your preference... I'm definitely not trying to start a flame war with a beloved author! Thank you for all of your fine work! Special thanks for Covert Ops, Low Tech et all and Supers!

[whswhs]

You're welcome.

[Plane]

One idea I was fiddling with, is if we for simplicity assume a pansexual/bisexual baseline to characters, we could establish different reactions to different sexes via some kind of zero-pt feature.

"mascusexual" for example = +1 to use sex appeal against masculine characters (your enthusiasm is genuine) but -2 to resist sex appeal attempts against you by masculine characters

"mascuapathy" = +2 to resist sex appeal attempts against you by masculine characters, but -1 to use Sex Appeal against them since your disinterest is harder to hide

Similar femisexual/femiapathy inverted for feminine characters.

Someone "asexual" could have both mascuapathy+femiapathy while someone "bisexual" could have both mascusexual+femisexual.

Your standard "gynephile" (a heterosexual male or lesbian) has mascuapathy+femisexual while your standard "androphile (homosexual male or heterosexual female) has mascusexual+femiapathy.

If a single tier of +1/-2 or +2/-1 isn't a steep enough difference you could just enough tiers of it to represent. IE maybe you could have up to 10 levels of either feature? Or 20 levels?

The reason I used 1:2 and 2:1 ratios is so we don't have people loaded up on "loves X" being able to easily seduce the apathetic.

At ten level caps you're looking +10 vs +20 for example

Originally Posted by malloyd

you are [not] rolling to convince the target to sleep with you. You are rolling to give them the option of choosing between sleeping with you or suffering a penalty equal to your margin of success to do anything else as long as the scene persists.

I kinda wish we had clearer time guidelines for these margin-based penalties than 'scene'. Not just in social engineering, but the same issue w/ "battle" for the Tactics rerolls in Martial Arts.

I always figured something like MoS seconds and to require new rolls to refresh the penalties duration or create a new period of usable rerolls.

Originally Posted by malloyd

It is entirely reasonable for the result of your massive cross-orientation Sex Appeal success to be the target still refuses to sleep with you and suffers massive penalties for it.

Doesn't free will like this only apply to PCs though? If it's an NPC you get guaranteed outcomes via Reaction Roll the GM is expected to follow out of fairness.

Originally Posted by whswhs

Impressive says explicitly that the reaction does not have a sexual aspect.

Further clarified in SE the bonus you normally get to sex appeal applies to Intimidation, I think?

[Black Leviathan]

I don't think there are any true absolutes in GURPS by design and I firmly view sexuality as a spectrum, but this is a pretty tall ask. Regardless of aim, sex appeal is something that works for people who find your sex appealing. This would be the equivalent of using Fast Talk to convince someone they are actually a different gender, or attempting to haggle with your merchant skill with no trade goods of any recognizable value..

The effort would not be simple and would be more than 15 minutes or so of effort, dependent on what you hoped to accomplish it could be days of effort. It would be beyond the unthinkable -10 to skill penalty to seduce someone cemently end-of-spectrum on the wrong side of your sex appeal, and for obvious reasons you would not get an appearance bonus for someone attracted to your gender. But "don't be silly" is still not "no".

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Plane

Further clarified in SE the bonus you normally get to sex appeal applies to Intimidation, I think?

Yes. That seemed a logical extension.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

This would be the equivalent of using Fast Talk to convince someone they are actually a different gender

I wouldn't call it quite that extreme. There's a huge difference between redefining someone's concept of who they are vs "I'm feeling very aroused, this unusual for me, but they seem so different from all the other Xs... maybe I'll just try it out this one time?"

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

The effort would not be simple and would be more than 15 minutes or so of effort, dependent on what you hoped to accomplish it could be days of effort.

What we need here is some kind of base time for using influence skills for some kind of desired effect. Longer periods could be the result of using "Time Spent" to get a bonus.

For example if you made it 30 seconds (ie you could try it in 3 seconds for -9 to skill) then 30x time (900 seconds) for a +5 bonus would be 15 minutes.

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

It would be beyond the unthinkable -10 to skill penalty to seduce someone cemently end-of-spectrum on the wrong side of your sex appeal

-10 actually doesn't seem extreme enough to me given you can offset half of that with 30x time spent, and -5 to skill is pretty achievable.

With that in mind like before, -3x6 tiers for -18 would be a better starting point, or maybe -2x10=-20 if you wanted more tiers.

Basically you have tiers and each tier gives a multiplied penalty. How big a penalty per tier would depend on how many tiers you wanted to define.

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

you would not get an appearance bonus for someone attracted to your gender

Did you mean no bonus for someone NOT attracted to it?

Part of the issue here is that the +1 attractive is a uniform response benefit and it seems androgynous and should benefit, just like ugliness penalties should still apply.

[Quantumboost]

Originally Posted by whswhs

In general, reaction modifiers also act as modifiers to Influence rolls. But this doesn't seem to be the case for Appearance. It's listed specifically as giving its standard bonuses to Sex Appeal for above average Appearance (and double penalties for below average Appearance), and as giving bonuses to Intimidation for seriously negative Appearance; I think that (a) these clearly supersede the standard reaction roll bonuses in these cases, rather than adding to them, (b) this strongly suggests that Appearance modifiers don't apply to the other four Influence skills, for which they aren't listed (for comparison, Voice is listed for Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, and Sex Appeal, but not the other three, and the definition of Voice concurs), and (c) if you have a split modifier, it seems clear that you get the higher modifier to Sex Appeal for those attracted to your sex, but for those not attracted to your sex, you don't get to roll in the first place, and therefore the lower modifier is irrelevant.

That isn't as clear-cut as it might seem - Diplomacy, Sex Appeal, Intimidation, etc. are usable as Influence skills, but not only for Influence rolls (and there are lots of ways to use various other skills as Influence skills/on Influence rolls). You don't apply Reaction modifiers when you're using Diplomacy as a complementary skill, or using Streetwise to pick up on which cops can be bought off, because the Reaction modifier bonus is a property of Influence rolls - it's in the Modifiers section under B359, not under the various Influence skills.

Rather, as described in Basic Set (deliberately disregarding Social Engineering's take for now), it seems like Appearance would apply its Reaction Roll modifier to all Influence rolls regardless of skill as normal, and would also provide its bonus to Sex Appeal even when used for other, non-Influence reasons that wouldn't normally get the Reaction bonus. Likewise, you should be able to use Voice to control your pitch and tone to scare someone into compliance (i.e., Intimidate as an Influence roll) without having to sound like a chain-smoker. Attractive people get their way more often even when they're being deliberately friendly, not just when playing up their sexuality or going full zero-effort.

[sir_pudding]

I don't think the intent for Intimidation is for the modifiers to cancel out.