Which optional rules do you use for social traits?

[Sorenant]

Similar to my last thread asking about which optional/house rules people uses regarding muscle-powered damage, I'm creating this thread to ask how the social aspect of a game is implemented on other's game. That is, do you use rules from supplements like Social Engineering or Boardroom and Curia? Do you have specific house rules tweaking social advantages or disadvantages?


I personally believe that Advantages should be purely beneficial, a player shouldn't have to shy away from a trait that might enrich their characters because it comes with some string attached. So I removed the "Reliability" part of Contacts. It makes the advantage more desirable and indeed, players actually began to take these for their characters.
The other change I've done to my game (though I'm still experimenting) is to remove Rank and use only Patron. The Rank advantage never sat well with me (one of the reasons is that low levels are barely useful, and high levels doesn't make sense for adventuring character) so I've been trying several changes to it like those found on Social Engineering and as of recent I adopted a rule based on Pulling Ranks but sort of in reverse. Instead of using patron-to-rank tables and assistance rolls tables, I use the frequency of appearance as a measure of how favored the character is by the entity. This way I don't lose time with AR rolls and characters doesn't have to be high ranking members themselves to get sweet benefits from it, they might just be a favorite of one (eg Adam Jensen and David Sarif).

[Anders]

I remake Charisma and Voice into Talents.

[RedMattis]

I soft-cap the reaction modifier to -10/+8 most of the time, at least in somewhat serious settings.

Lower than -10 is mostly just suitable for Lovecraftian horrors, I think. Not even (GURPS Magic) demons have that low of an initial reaction with their "social stigma" + "appearance". Less than -10 means just about everyone the modifier applies to will either run away or attack you even if they are otherwise nearly pacifistic. Your poorly-dressed vampire bum when correctly identified should not give you a -18 penalty or something f.ex. unless you actually want people to react more negatively to you than a literal pure evil demon.

Above +8 results in almost everyone (the bonus applies to) reacting in a positive way towards you. This might make sense for a charismatic ruler, or a charismatic and renowned hero, so I permit it under some circumstances, but not to everyone unless the reaction comes from supernatural traits such as Charisma (Glamour), or any type of character which might also have "Terror (Awe)".

By "soft-cap" I mean that I don't generally permit player characters to stack up total penalties or bonuses below/above those values except as noted above.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Sorenant

Similar to my last thread asking about which optional/house rules people uses regarding muscle-powered damage, I'm creating this thread to ask how the social aspect of a game is implemented on other's game. That is, do you use rules from supplements like Social Engineering or Boardroom and Curia? Do you have specific house rules tweaking social advantages or disadvantages?

Not really any house rules I can think of.
I like Contacts overall and certainly dont have a problem with the Reliability modifier. Most people pay more attention to the name than the mechanics, Somewhat Reliable at *1 cost is no worse than rolling the skill yourself really.
Where I do think Contacts could be changed is to make them use Limited Use rather than Frequency of Appearance modifiers.
As it is now its often better to buy an Ally or Patron for the same cost.

I like Rank, I think the AR roll is too hard for most campaigns but cant argue its unrealistic.
I'd recommend a PC take an appropriate wildcard skill and use points for success to make those rolls.

[Alden Loveshade]

I playtested GURPS Social Engineering, so used rules from that before the book even came out. I particularly use the option for variations on guild rank. For one example, some guilds are widely known and respected, so you pay more for Rank but get Status with it, while others don't include Status so are cheaper. There are a number of different variations, and I've used several of them.

For money, I use http://mygurps.com/pmwiki.php?n=Main.GURPSMoney

I and several GMs I game with use the above.