[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Fashion Sense

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I'm more of the opinion that "Fashion Sense" makes more sense as a Skill, then the MoS can be applied in some manner as a Reaction Bonus and Time Use can factor in.

I have to say I find that problematic. Fashion Sense as written up gives +1 on reaction and influence rolls, the same as one level of Charisma, and costs the same 5 points. But if you use the margin of success as a modifier, then a fairly modest Fashion Sense of 12 would easily give you +2, and on a good roll could give you +7, which exceeds the recommended human maximum for Charisma. So just by knowing how to dress well you could have a better reaction bonus than the founder of an empire (like Alexander the Great or Napoleon) or of a religion (like Muhammad or Buddha).

If I were going to redesign Fashion Sense, I would look at turning it into a Talent, with the transferable reaction bonus as an alternative extra benefit.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I have to say I find that problematic. Fashion Sense as written up gives +1 on reaction and influence rolls, the same as one level of Charisma, and costs the same 5 points. But if you use the margin of success as a modifier, then a fairly modest Fashion Sense of 12 would easily give you +2, and on a good roll could give you +7, which exceeds the recommended human maximum for Charisma. So just by knowing how to dress well you could have a better reaction bonus than the founder of an empire (like Alexander the Great or Napoleon) or of a religion (like Muhammad or Buddha).

If I were going to redesign Fashion Sense, I would look at turning it into a Talent, with the transferable reaction bonus as an alternative extra benefit.

I didn't know there was a recommended maximum to Charisma. 10 is a soft cap in my games only because it is similar to talents and they with (not ST) attributes I like to soft cap at 20.

I imagine a straight MoS would be too much. I could see something like "any success is +1, MOS 5+ becomes +2, critical success is +3, critical failure and you don't realize how bad you messed up giving -2 without you noticing".

Having Fashion Sense be a talent sounds good, but I do wonder exactly what skills would fall into it and how you would determine what reaction bonus you get.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Having Fashion Sense be a talent sounds good, but I do wonder exactly what skills would fall into it and how you would determine what reaction bonus you get.

The standard reaction bonus would be +1 per level of Fashion Sense.

As for skills, I think Connoisseur (Fashion), Makeup, and Sewing would be obvious; I expect a couple more could be added to round it out. Professional Skill: Barber/Hairdresser might work. I wouldn't apply it to Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, or Streetwise; the reaction bonus would already help those.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The standard reaction bonus would be +1 per level of Fashion Sense.

As for skills, I think Connoisseur (Fashion), Makeup, and Sewing would be obvious; I expect a couple more could be added to round it out. Professional Skill: Barber/Hairdresser might work. I wouldn't apply it to Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, or Streetwise; the reaction bonus would already help those.

Let me rephrase; Talent's reaction bonuses are (usually) pretty niche. Would this talent give a full bonus no matter what, or do we need to figure out who that group is?

As for those three skills, a reaction bonus only help when they are used as Influence skills. At least for Savoir-Faire I feel like other uses of the skill could be affected by this.=

[Kaslak]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I'm more of the opinion that "Fashion Sense" makes more sense as a Skill, then the MoS can be applied in some manner as a Reaction Bonus and Time Use can factor in.

Social Engineering tosses in a couple of extra benefits, including:

- as social chameleon but only for visible status (and importantly, no "this is a cinematic advantage" label) and avoiding reaction penalties for high CF accessories in an otherwise low status outfit

- you can be extempt from the material cost when gathering material to put together a higher status outfit.

Especially the former imho is more an advantage kind of benefit

[Phil Masters]

You could do Fashion Sense as some kind of skill or skills combo or modified version of Charisma, but this is one of those situations where the perfect is the enemy, not only of the good, but of GURPS's reputation. That approach is potentially complex, whereas a 5-point tag is a nice simple way of saying "This character is a snappy dresser, always looks insufferably cool, and could land a job in the fashion business if that's what they want." It's a character type with whatever modest but useful game-mechanical benefits are judged appropriate by the GM.

cf. Single-Minded, Versatile, Magery 0...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

You could do Fashion Sense as some kind of skill or skills combo or modified version of Charisma, but this is one of those situations where the perfect is the enemy, not only of the good, but of GURPS's reputation. That approach is potentially complex, whereas a 5-point tag is a nice simple way of saying "This character is a snappy dresser, always looks insufferably cool, and could land a job in the fashion business if that's what they want." It's a character type with whatever modest but useful game-mechanical benefits are judged appropriate by the GM.

cf. Single-Minded, Versatile, Magery 0...

Posts like this make me want a "like" button.