Intimidation is also used to resist Intimidation. For that reason alone no Face, and few runners, can do without it. A "leader" without Intimidation will back down when talking to the punk on the corner.

It's clearly used to influence people, so if that group is called Influence, it should be in there.

I'm thinking about maybe Etiquette as a group of Knowledge skills; Corporate Etiquette, Japanese Etiquette, Street Etiquette and so forth. Because the other social skills are far more generic while royal dinner etiquette won't mean so much in the Barrens.

Etiquette is a behavioral social skill, not a knowledge skill.

I see the various Influence skills as cooperative, whereas Intimidate tends to be antagonistic.

Having them be separate makes sense to me.

Just because you are good at working well with others doesn't mean you are good at bullying them.



-k

I think most of the social skills are antagonistic; Con opposed by Con to lie, Negotiation opposed by Negotiation to agree on a price, Leadership opposed by Leadership to take charge, Intimidation opposed by Intimidation to get the upper hand. Etiquette is the odd one out.

Yeah, but the Influence skills generally get their results by getting the target to agree to your wants via some sort of positive, even if it's a lie.

Intimidate more or less is getting the job done with a threat.

Carrot vs stick.

Just because you are a smooth talker doesn't mean you're intimidating. And vice versa.



-k

Completely disagree, of course. Esp. with the emphasized text.

At my table...and I can't imagine this is only me...Intimidation comes up often and Leadership comes up rarely or never. I really don't understand why Leadership is in the Influence group and Intimidation isn't.

As has been said, really the most likely reason is game balance, a group of 3 skill is nice and one of 4 is serious bargain, so that fourth skill being one of not so high use is a balancing factor.

Karma: As intimidation is a charisma linked skill, being a 15 charisma pornomancer does actually make you pretty intimidating too(even if your defaulting on the skill) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I could not agree with you more!
I would much rather include Intimidation in the Influence Skill Group and exclude Etiquette.
It is a big stretch to use Etiquette to persuade others to act or not act as you want them to. It is more accommodating with Disguise, or to get people to fist "take you seriously" before applying any of the Influence skills (including Intimidation).

For example:
A character with good Leadership must also have good Etiquette in military protocol, if he wants others to take his orders seriously.
“All you guys go over there!” verses “Alfa squad, move out!”
A character that has high Intimidation must also have sufficient Etiquette in street gangs, if he wants others to believe he really means business.
“Would you like to take a chance on you life?” verses “I’ll pop your head, bitch!”

I'd go for that. Everyone needs Etiquette anyway, so they can just all get it singly.

To get back to to the question:
First: A skill group with 5 skill would be a bit too good.
Second: Influence gives you the skills you need to be a face. Intimidation is not the classic face skill. Actually this skill might be a bit off for some concepts.

Y'know, Leadership gets a lot of dirty looks, but I'm rather fond of it. I know it doesn't have a lot of explicit use, but with a little creativity it's very handy - for example, if you wanted a Lone Star officer to think you were on his side, you could roll Con to make them think you're the real thing, or you could roll Leadership to take charge of the situation with sheer force of personality.

I dunno if I've ever seen Leadership used, actually. What's it intended to do? Intimidation without the threat?

Having been looking over the pregens again I've just noticed the sample Face does have Intimidation but doesn't have Leadership.

Well, the pre-gens are generally fairly bad. Face would be much better off getting the Influence group at 4 than buying 3 of the skills separately.

I think it's partly an illustration of the "2 skills at 5" thing.

True, but it seems like an absurd waste for 1 extra DP. Like I said, the pregens just aren't particularly good. It isn't even that they aren't perfectly tweeked, it is that they are lacking very very basic optimization.

I'm not disputing that at all, had a long conversation with one of my players as to why he shouldn't play the pregen weapon specialist. My comment was more having picked 4 skills, Intimidation was the one they picked over Leadership.

That's true, but my point is that the characters are sub-optimal, and so their choices aren't always the best. And then again, skill groups are often sub-optimal too. So, as other people have said, they could have put leadership in there instead of intimidation specifically because they wanted to exclude a skill that you would want.

I'm sure plenty of people would love a skill group that is Gun, Gun, Melee, Dodge but it isn't out there, because the skill groups are a compromise. You get more skills for less points, but they aren't always exactly the skills you want.

Similarly a magic group of Summon, Bind, Cast, Counterspell would be awesome, but it doesn't exist because it would be too good. People don't really want ritual spellcasting or banishing, but if it comes at half price as part of a group... well, maybe it might be nice to have.

In the Influence group, no one would ever get Leadership if it wasn't in that group, so it is just a nice freebe.

If I ever recreate my old SR2 merc, she'd take it, but maybe I'm an exception.

Then again, in that case, it may be more about flavour than usefulness.

Based on background, my PC has Leadership 1 and Etiquette 1. I'm still waiting for the day I get to leverage those skills....

Okay, I shouldn't say never take it, but generally won't. Just like you wouldn't never take swimming if it wasn't in athletics, you just would exceedingly rarely take it.

Can't argue with that one (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

People swim in SR, i thought it was like GTA where puddle = death ? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Given all the armor, weapons, gear, low str characters, and general disinterest in the swimming skill, that is how it usually ends.

The problem with swimming skills seems to me that you need to take a lot of levels in it to be good. Unless you spend significantly, you can't really rely on it. At which point players say Screw It, and don't take it. Then the GM can throw a tantrum and drown the party, but what does that prove?