Influence Checks

[Jarreth]

My copy of Social Engineering says "An Influence roll is a Quick Contest [snip]
The person being influenced rolls vs. Will to resist [snip].

The Campaigns book says "A “Quick Contest” is a competition that is over in very little time – often in one second, perhaps even instantly.

[Snip]
Each competitor attempts hsi success roll. If one succeeds and the other fails, the winner is obvious. If both succeed, the winner is the one with the largest margin of success[Snip]

My group and I been struggling with influence rolls for a while and I feel we're missing something in the rules to make it more comprehensible to us. This is where I turn to you guys to hopefully assist me in understanding this aspect of GURPS.

If I understand the two sources correct when you make an influence roll it is resisted with Will by the opponent. Lets say both make their rolls so now we're counting margin of success. These tend to get out of control with the character doing the influence roll often having margin of success of 10+ due to the many bonuses afforded to influence skills. Making it very difficult to resist even with a very high Will of 15+.

Am I understanding this correctly?

As a bonus question "The Rule of 16" found on page 349.

"The Rule of 16
If a supernatural attack (magic spell, psi ability, etc.) offers a resistance
roll and the subject is living or sapient, the attacker’s effective skill
cannot exceed the higher of 16 and the defender’s actual resistance. If it
does, reduce it to that level."

Does this not use the Quick Contest rules and thereby the Margin of Success? What would be the purpose of capping the roll at 16?

[AlexanderHowl]

I generally allow characters (NPC and PC) to resist with Will-based social skills, as it makes sense that being skilled at social manipulation will make you more capable of defending against social manipulation. As for the Rule of 16, the skill reduction occurs before any Quick Contest, so any margin of success is based off the modified skill for the Quick Contest.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

The Campaigns book says "A “Quick Contest” is a competition that is over in very little time – often in one second, perhaps even instantly.

Note that while Quick Contests are often this brief, they don't have to be. Influence rolls, in particular, can take longer, and really have to, to make sense. My rule of thumb is that most Influence rolls take at least a minute, with the exception of Fast-Talk, which, true to its name, can be accomplished in a few seconds.

Originally Posted by Jarreth

If I understand the two sources correct when you make an influence roll it is resisted with Will by the opponent. Lets say both make their rolls so now we're counting margin of success. These tend to get out of control with the character doing the influence roll often having margin of success of 10+ due to the many bonuses afforded to influence skills. Making it very difficult to resist even with a very high Will of 15+.

Am I understanding this correctly?

You are. But note that Influence rolls have restrictions on the level of reactions they can provide - most are capped at Good, no matter what margin of victory you get (Sex Appeal can get up to Very Good). So high skill isn't actually all that useful, except for overcoming someone with high Will more reliably.

Also note that the GM is free to, and should be, applying modifiers to the contest based on circumstances. A wild-eyed, poorly-dressed type who comes running up to a pair of guards and shouts "You've got to let me into the facility, there's no time to question, just open the door!" is going to take a penalty to their Fast-Talk roll, because they're just too implausible. And using the wrong skill for the circumstances can apply a hefty penalty too: if you're trying to convince someone at a funeral to listen to you, Sex Appeal is almost always going to be the wrong choice.

Originally Posted by Jarreth

"The Rule of 16
If a supernatural attack (magic spell, psi ability, etc.) offers a resistance
roll and the subject is living or sapient, the attacker’s effective skill
cannot exceed the higher of 16 and the defender’s actual resistance. If it
does, reduce it to that level."

Does this not use the Quick Contest rules and thereby the Margin of Success? What would be the purpose of capping the roll at 16?

The point of the Rule of 16 (which doesn't apply to Influence rolls, note - they're not "supernatural") is that it's generally easier, in GURPS, to specialize in one attack, compared to defense. Therefore, resisting such attacks has been made a bit easier, to put a bit of a brake on the characters who buy Mind Control with effective skill 30, and try to run roughshod over everyone.

[Jarreth]

Thank you for your replies. Would a Reaction Roll be resisted by Will as well?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

Thank you for your replies. Would a Reaction Roll be resisted by Will as well?

No, reaction rolls are not resisted. They're actually being made by the NPC, rather than the PC, so they'd be sort of resisting themselves, which would be weird.

[Jarreth]

What do you mean by they are made by the NPCs? Cant a PC make a Reaction roll to influence an NPC?

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

What do you mean by they are made by the NPCs? Cant a PC make a Reaction roll to influence an NPC?

No, a PC can do something which causes an NPC to make a reaction roll to see what they think of the PC (like ask them for assistance or propose a transaction), but a reaction roll is not an influence roll. It's a roll on a table to determine how friendly an NPC is feeling, modified by reaction bonuses / penalties. An influence roll can be used in order to replace the result of a reaction roll with a fixed reaction.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

What do you mean by they are made by the NPCs? Cant a PC make a Reaction roll to influence an NPC?

No, they're two different things. A Reaction roll is made by the GM when an NPC first encounters a PC, or when they think it's reasonable for the NPC to have a change in their attitude. A Reaction roll is made by rolling 3d, adding any reaction modifiers that apply (for example, Handsome Appearance adds +2 to reactions, or +4 to people physically attracted to the character), and looking up the result on the Reaction Table (pp. B560-561).

If a PC wants to actively use a skill to change how an NPC reacts to them, on the other hand, that is an Influence roll, which works as you've laid out, above: the PC rolls one of the influence skills (or another skill, if the GM allows it to be used as an influence skill in the circumstances), while the NPC rolls their Will, in a Quick Contest. If the PC wins, the NPC automatically has a Good reaction to them (Very Good, if they used Sex Appeal), while if they fail, the NPC has a Bad reaction (or Very Bad, for specious Intimidation rolls, while a failed Diplomacy roll can just use whatever the regular reaction roll would have been).

[Jarreth]

I see. So if I got a poor reaction result I could use an influence skill to change that into a good reaction instead? Provided that I succeed on the influence skill roll.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Jarreth

I see. So if I got a poor reaction result I could use an influence skill to change that into a good reaction instead? Provided that I succeed on the influence skill roll.

Not usually, no. Reaction and Influence rolls are usually mutually exclusive - the reaction roll only happens if you're not actively trying to influence the NPC through some skill. Once they make the reaction, that's set, unless the situation changes notably.

Basically, when the GM is about to make a reaction roll, they should usually ask "do you want to try to influence this person?", giving you the opportunity to make an Influence roll. But if you choose to let the dice fall where they may, you have to take the roll that results.

As a house rule, I actually do allow later influence rolls to improve a bad reaction, but it's at a penalty depending on how bad the initial reaction was: -2 for Neutral, -4 for Poor, -8 for Bad, -12 for Very Bad, and -16 for Disastrous.