GURPS Social Engineering

[Rocket Man]

So far, it looks useful indeed. I had to chuckle when reading the section on complementary skills, because all I could think of was Randolph Churchill's comment about Winston: "My father spent the best years of his life writing his extemporaneous speeches."

EDIT: I might add that I dearly wanted to be on the playtest for this one -- social engineering is essentially my professional stock in trade -- but knew I wouldn't have sufficient time. I'm glad to see it turned out so well.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

I looked, and it is not covered other than Fashion Sense, which I already acknowledged; my analogy is closer to Makeup. I guess I put an Advantage on my personal character sheet instead of my super skill. (And there's some roll to not look like a noob on WoW or SL for the first time, but that's more Acting. Experienced folks on the virtual worlds can spot the noobs.) I don't see anyone trying to transpose the Appearance range at all, so I don't understand why you said this.

Is there a reason making a good custom avatar and generally not acting newbish can't be represented by making a skill roll to get a reaction bonus? Like say... admin to get a bonus with a red tape monkey?

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

I might add that I dearly wanted to be on the playtest for this one -- social engineering is essentially my professional stock in trade -- but knew I wouldn't have sufficient time. I'm glad to see it turned out so well.

That is a sensible point. The playtest involved a good dose of personal involvement, time and effort —at least for the active members.

[Langy]

I've found one odd thing:

Originally Posted by GURPS Social Engineering, Page 64

Reputation: The average of the Reputation of the head of state (Reputation, p. 16) and the Reputation of the government as an organization (Organizational Reputation, p. 52), rounded toward 10.

You round the average of the Reputations towards ten? That seems a bit... odd, considering the fact that Reputation normally can't be higher than 4. Why not just say 'round up'? Or did you intend to mean 'rounded towards neutrality', which would be 'rounded towards zero'?

[Rasputin]

As a more positive and hopefully less controversial aside, this book has a good index. I know it's minor, but if you want every use of, say, the Politics skill, you can find it in back easily. I assume kudos are for RPK.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Langy

You round the average of the Reputations towards ten? That seems a bit... odd, considering the fact that Reputation normally can't be higher than 4. Why not just say 'round up'? Or did you intend to mean 'rounded towards neutrality', which would be 'rounded towards zero'?

The latter. Please submit this as an erratum!

Bill Stoddard

[Langy]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The latter. Please submit this as an erratum!

Bill Stoddard

Done. Happily enough, that was the only error that I've noticed so far.

I would have liked some more Variant Reputation examples to clear some things up, but I'm going to make another thread about that.

EDIT: Check that, there are some minor errors in the bookmarks. For example, Chapter 4's bookmark reads "The Organization• Man". No idea why. It happens on three chapter headings (Chapter 1, Chapter 4, and Chapter 6). If I go to rename the bookmark, the • disappears and turns into an extra space instead. Weird.

[Steven Marsh]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

As a more positive and hopefully less controversial aside, this book has a good index. I know it's minor, but if you want every use of, say, the Politics skill, you can find it in back easily. I assume kudos are for RPK.

Actually, Nikki Vrtis usually does the index for e23 supplements -- including this one.

Thanks for the kind words; I'll be sure to pass along the compliment.

[Anders]

GURPS indexes are almost always good. My players have already commented on that and the logical structure of the books. Now to find out if they actually like the frickin' rules...

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Steven Marsh

Actually, Nikki Vrtis usually does the index for e23 supplements -- including this one.

Thanks for the kind words; I'll be sure to pass along the compliment.

Please pass along mine as well. Indexes are really important and often overlooked or given shortshrift by other companies. I really appreciate the hard work an attention to detail of a good index.