Social skills in SR5, Are they any better? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Glyph]

SR4 social skills had major problems.

The dice pool bloat was part of the problem. Too many things added to social dice pools, and stacked with each other. The bigger problem, though, was that when changing from TNs to dice pool modifiers, situational TN modifiers were changed directly to much more surmountable dice pool penalties. Rather than a +6 to the TN, faces only suffered a -6 to their dice pool, something they could easily steamroll over with their own inflated dice pools. High Willpower was also weakened by this, giving someone a mere extra success or two rather than making the face's job a lot more difficult. Furthermore, the skill + Attribute mechanic meant that to resist social skills, you needed to have social skills; you couldn't be an antisocial curmudgeon and be a hard sell.

The other part of the problem was that social skills were too vague. What happens when someone wins a test? What can the losing character realistically be compelled to do, and what sort of things are outside the scope of the skill no matter how many successes you get? What happens if the character is a mark that has previously been fooled (most real-life con men keep moving for this very reason)? Purely by the rules, the face is like Harry the Hat, able to con the same characters again and again. What about obsessive fans or creepy stalkers? How much agency does someone have when they have been successfully conned or intimidated? The vagueness of the rules combined with bloated dice pools to create a lot of potential problems.


Now, I already know SR5 has social limits, and rules for using leadership in combat. But what I want to know is, have they made anything any clearer, or set any firmer boundaries for what can or cannot be done with social skills? Have they fixed any of the structural problems that SR4 social skills had? Do they have more/better examples of social skills in use?