GURPS Social Engineering

[Langy]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Well, I should note that I have never bought a computer made by anyone but Apple, so my perspective on this may not be typical.

As to dominating the market, though, you specifically cite "Microsoft ten years ago," which implies that Microsoft did not have that solid a lock on its line of business, as it lost it fairly quickly.

I mentioned ten years ago mainly due to the emergence of an entire new market (smartphones, tablets) happened a bit after that, which 'eroded' Microsoft's market share from greater than 90% to about 89.5%, as of February of this year. I wouldn't call that 'lost if fairly quickly' - it was simply more clearly in a dominating position ten years ago, while Apple was still futzing around and hadn't quite got its legs back under itself.

I would hesitate to call that "dominance." It's not like Catholicism in Catholic countries, which tend to stay Catholic generation after generation. Being the most successful firm in an industry, even the overwhelmingly most successful, may or may not be "dominance": it depends on whether you actually control the industry in such a way as to exclude potential rivals, or you just have the top position because your customers willingly give it to you. See William Baumol's work on the theory of contestable markets.

I think I would call this a GM judgment call, though, and I would say it reflects your personal model, as GM, of how the economy works in your campaign setting.

Bill Stoddard

Alright, that's a good enough definition of 'dominance' for me to use, now. Just wanted to be clear what qualified or not - seems like corporations will only rarely be able to claim Dominance, just like they can only rarely claim Legitimacy.

[Rasputin]

FYI: 236 on e23 for Thursday and Friday, and that's without any help from the Daily Illuminator.

[RyanW]

I'm planning very soon to run a TL3 fantasy game with more than a little politicking, specifically the PCs will be (possibly) gathering internal and external support for and subsequently leading a rebellion. Although knowing my players, they may be just as likely to turn in the plotters for a fat reward.

Now, I had two questions about Social Engineering for those who have had a chance to flip through it:

1) How much help will SE be for a game like this?
2) Should I postpone character creation a couple of weeks until I can get SE?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by RyanW

1) How much help will SE be for a game like this?

Lots.

Originally Posted by RyanW

2) Should I postpone character creation a couple of weeks until I can get SE?

No. SE may lead you to add some nuance to a number of traits, but it's less about genuinely new traits and modifiers thereto, and more about detailed ways of handling existing skills and rules.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RyanW

1) How much help will SE be for a game like this?
2) Should I postpone character creation a couple of weeks until I can get SE?

Quite a bit. Possibly; it doesn't radically revise the skills you need for this kind of campaign, but it does add some new uses for skills which can affect which ones you might expect to use, and it has some new techniques and perks. But mostly it's a book of "this is the right way to do X" advice.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

No. SE may lead you to add some nuance to a number of traits, but it's less about genuinely new traits and modifiers thereto, and more about detailed ways of handling existing skills and rules.

You might want to allow character adjustments after you have a chance to read it, just in case you spot something that you want to recommend to one of the players. But it won't call for major changes.

Bill Stoddard

[aesir23]

I agree. It will be very helpful, but it shouldn't have a large effect on character creation.

[RyanW]

I was curious because preview included some examination and reworking of Rank. If other social traits were similarly treated, it might make adopting during play, or even just between character creation and play, a little bumpy for such a social game.

I tend to allow alterations to character sheets through the first few sessions, anyway, but I do really want to read this before getting into play, at least. It may be serious scrounging time.

[Refplace]

Social Engineering hit 300 already :)
Making it in the top 100 GURPS books for E23 and in the Top 20 for the year.
Not bad for a book that's been out less then a week

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Social Engineering hit 300 already :)
Making it in the top 100 GURPS books for E23 and in the Top 20 for the year.
Not bad for a book that's been out less then a week

And it's got a good chance of making the Top 100 (of any books) on e23 within the week!