Social Skills Options

[evilgoattea]

How have you guys handled the use of social skills in the game? I am reading about hositality levels which I kinda like. But for example: How would characters interact with a gruff bartender they are trying to get information out of. I am considering him to be suspicious since the runners are brand new with no rep. They roll the opposed test and get him to be friendly, then what? How would the interaction continue? Negotation? Con?

I guess I am just a little confused at how the social skills work. If someone could point me to a page in the book I will check it out for myself. Thanks.

-Josh

[Mantis]

Are you trying to reduce the social interactions to a dice roll? I mean that can work if you have players who are totally socially inept, but really this sort of thing is best done as a role play. If the player does a good job you can just ignore the dice altogether and if not then maybe give him a dice roll to gain the info anyway if it is really important. Or you could give bonus dice to the player for good role playing if you absolutely must have a dice roll.
If it is a case of asking contacts about some aspect of a job then it is usually a CHA + Etiquette roll with number of hits determining how much of what the contacts knows he is willing to pass on.

[toturi]

Are you trying to reduce the social interactions to a dice roll? I mean that can work if you have players who are totally socially inept, but really this sort of thing is best done as a role play. If the player does a good job you can just ignore the dice altogether and if not then maybe give him a dice roll to gain the info anyway if it is really important. Or you could give bonus dice to the player for good role playing if you absolutely must have a dice roll.
If it is a case of asking contacts about some aspect of a job then it is usually a CHA + Etiquette roll with number of hits determining how much of what the contacts knows he is willing to pass on.

It is best to inject a dice roll into the social interactions, even if you do not have players who are totally social inept. Unless you want your players to ditch social skills on their sheets and skate on their role play, you should make their social skills relevant and not rely purely on role play. Afterall, you are not going to handwave or give bonus dice to the street sam making his shot if he describes his technique well, are you?

[Red-ROM]

I want to play in Mantis' game, where I can save the points I would have put into socail skills and just roleplay it.
I'm kidding a little, he made some good points, but don't let the guy with 2 charisma and no street cred talk down your bartender. It can be tough, you need to roleplay the scene, but take the dice into account. You can be pretty relaxed about it. just know your best and worst possible outcomes. if they net a couple of hits, the bartender listens to what they have to say, if not, he shows 'em the door. Of course you only have to roll social tests when there's a win or lose situation. just like driving a car, if your not in danger of crashing, theres no reason to roll. I'd say skip the initial "what does the bartender think of me" roll, and wait for the team to ask him for something.

[Mantis]

Maybe I am. No, actually I make sure the player doing the talking actually has the skills and stats to back it up. I just got the impression the OP was talking about devolving the whole thing to dice rolls. This misses out on alot of the interaction of the game and the sort of things that make an NPC memorable. In my own game I'll ask for a dice roll after the role play to see how the NPC takes the PC. I don't generally go with either all dice rolls or all role play unless it is a minor encounter.

[evilgoattea]

I definatily want to have the dice rolls just for what toturi and red-rom said. However I think Mantis made a good point too. I will definatily award good roleplay in some way, most likely in the form of bonus dice.

[Jaid]

I definatily want to have the dice rolls just for what toturi and red-rom said. However I think Mantis made a good point too. I will definatily award good roleplay in some way, most likely in the form of bonus dice.

i would suggest simply letting the good roleplaying be its own reward. asking the right question with 10 dice will get you farther than asking the wrong question with 40, much of the time.

[Ol' Scratch]

How have you guys handled the use of social skills in the game? I am reading about hositality levels which I kinda like. But for example: How would characters interact with a gruff bartender they are trying to get information out of. I am considering him to be suspicious since the runners are brand new with no rep. They roll the opposed test and get him to be friendly, then what? How would the interaction continue? Negotation? Con?

In general, you use Etiquette to get people to warm up to you. Negotiation is used to haggle (be it on a price, to pick someone up at a bar, or alter their plans). Con is used to trick or fool someone, such as acting like someone you're not, trying to pull one over on them, or sweet talking some information out of them through guile and charm. Leadership is used to inspire others to follow your plans or acquiesce to your will. Intimidation is a more aggressive form of Leadership and Con, relying on fear tactics to get others to do what you want or to extract information out of them.

In your example, Etiquette is the skill of choice. The runners would be using it to make the Bartender believe that they're trustworthy and that they're good on their word. After that, it depends entirely on what they want out of the bartender. If they're after information, Con would work best if they're trying to do it by chatting him up and tricking him into revealing what they want. If they're trying to bribe the information out of him, Negotiation is the skill of choice. If they're just trying to bully him around, Intimidation is the way to go.

It's pretty self-explanatory, really. Just go with your gut. Pretty much any of them can be rationalized depending on the situation at hand. The important thing is to base the die roll on the way the players are going about it, not the other way around.

[wind_in_the_ston...]

I like to go by the general roleplaying, with the die roll bringing the overall "mood" up or down. But that's for more general situations. More critical ones, especially where we have an opposed test where we're trying to con or negotiate, we stick closer to the die roll. I might lower the threshold, if the player said smart things.

[sunnyside]

I do encourage roleplaying myself. Dice are more of a matter of the lens through which people view the character.

For a good example see:
http://current.com/1s8pm4c

However I do try and blend the two. For example I'll usually allow for the initial roll the OP described. Changing a hostility level initially changes how the RP starts off (similarish to the video). After that I might give a bonus dice or two for how they handle the RP.

Something else a face with a good roll can get is a "hook". Usually NPCs are faceless and often nameless blobs. They've got the stats to shoot them. But the sort of things a face would use are details simply left out of the description. Class rings, a particular brand of cologne, the sports team indicated on his hat, maybe a bit of body language that says the guy is interested in the girl at the bar, or afraid of the guys at the pool table. Throw them an easy hook and even the socially inept guy will be feeling like a pro in no time. Equally importantly the guy with strong real life social skills but cha 1 wouldn't have been able to pull off the same thing, becase without the hook he wouldn't know how to go about working the guy.

Those sort of rolls would be ettiqute, because they're all about how well you can "fit in" and notice cultural factors. Though I wouldn't mind slipping in the odd knowledge test.

Con and negotiation rolls are for when you get to a specific thing that is a con or negotiation.

Practically, I'd be willing to throw a player with a much more social character some advice, and if you're going to have generic NPCs, maybe have a precompiled list of generic hooks. In any case be careful about how long you spend. It's good to make RP fun and get the face in the limelight, but dwelling on any one player doing something for too long too often is bad form.