Technique: Cutting Out

[MaryAnn]

In the book Social Engineering there is a technique known as "Cutting Out", it is based on "Any Per-based social interaction skill". Does it mean that it is based on either Body Language or Detect Lies?

[Hide]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

In the book Social Engineering there is a technique known as "Cutting Out", it is based on "Any Per-based social interaction skill". Does it mean that it is based on either Body Language or Detect Lies?

Not necessarily, body language and detect lies are pretty much one sided; they could help, but they are not meant for socializing.

Both of your examples are per-based skills to process information and do not require an exchange; also, you don’t use them to influence others as you would do with interrogation, carousing, fast-talk, psychology and so on.

[MaryAnn]

Originally Posted by Hide

Not necessarily, body language and detect lies are pretty much one sided; they could help, but they are not meant for socializing.

Both of your examples are per-based skills to process information and do not require an exchange; also, you don’t use them to influence others as you would do with interrogation, carousing, fast-talk, psychology and so on.

What are the "Per-based social interaction skill" then?

[Tymathee]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

What are the "Per-based social interaction skill" then?

Be prepared to encounter the occasional outright hokey rules text in GURPS. The authors are usually pretty good at writing what they write, and Kromm does his (hard) job pretty well, but there's these odd little hiccups in the rules text unfortunately.

My advise is to ignore the discrepancies and logical fallacies you encounter in the rules text in favor of sensible houserules/homebrewing. Use what's provided in the RAW as a precedent for what you make so that your work is more or less cohesive with the RAW.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

What are the "Per-based social interaction skill" then?

It could mean a social interaction skill floated to Perception, but I am not whswhs.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

In the book Social Engineering there is a technique known as "Cutting Out", it is based on "Any Per-based social interaction skill". Does it mean that it is based on either Body Language or Detect Lies?

The details are on p25 of Social Engineering, approachability.

It is a per-based roll against a relevant skill, not against a skill based primarily on per.

So, if you have for example merchant at IQ+1, you could roll merchant at per +1 to spot the best target for an offer.
But if there is a small, cohesive group near you, you would roll against cutting out (merchant @per +1 -4 if using the technique at default) to isolate one specific person from the group.
You then have a +1 to the actual reaction/influence roll.

[Tymathee]

"Per-based social skill" makes me think of Psychology (Applied), which honestly could be better labeled Psychology (Cold Reading). Following that, here's some tangential but related thoughts on this.

"Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc." - from the Wikipedia page for Cold Reading

Sure, charlatans might wield this skill but it is more commonly utilized by sociopaths (Antisocial Personality Disorder), narcissists (Narcissistic Personality Disorder)... and autistics (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) who grow savvy to their own social fecklessness.

Narcissists and sociopaths may lack "soft empathy" (truly feeling for others) but have more "hard empathy" (intelligent identification of emotions). Autistics tend to struggle with hard empathy (hence "social fecklessness") but usually have better soft empathy. All of them benefit from Psychology (Cold Reading). Narcissists and sociopaths invest in it over their life time to better manipulate those around them, while autistics will attempt to pick up the skill to better compensate for their lacking hard empathy. Everyone benefits from learning it simply for the sake of more effective communication; rather than be presumptuous it is better to try to achieve more informed communication to be more amicable with others and have more productive discussions because you're wasting less time figuring out the nuances of the other person's identity and personality.

Given my background, I'm quite interested in the empathetically challenged. I hope this was useful ( somewhat tangential) insight.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It could mean a social interaction skill floated to Perception, but I am not whswhs.

That is exactly what it means.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Tymathee

"Per-based social skill" makes me think of Psychology (Applied), which honestly could be better labeled Psychology (Cold Reading).

FWIW, the realistic version of Fortune Telling skill focuses on Cold Reading techniques, although it's more focused on using cold reading for purposes of satisfying clients.

[Tymathee]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

FWIW, the realistic version of Fortune Telling skill focuses on Cold Reading techniques, although it's more focused on using cold reading for purposes of satisfying clients.

Hmm, somewhat tangential thoughts related to this, I don't think fortune tellers are necessarily con-artists. They're more like career/life counselors more than anything, with a supposed paranormal twist. Their intentions seem to be largely benign, unless they're truly set on selling you a pack of conveniently believable lies.

Cynicism dictates Cold Reading is more often than not used with malicious intent, but it couldn't hurt to be optimistic. One of my old high schools taught a interpersonal communications class and I feel like this ought to be a skill worth teaching. The world would be a better place if we all knew how to understand each other better. Teenagers are stereotypically callous though, I couldn't help but worry that they'd weaponize it for even more deeply cutting bullying.