I still fail to see how it gives the GM control of your character or makes you an NPC.

Also, I still fail to see how using Negotiations 6 on a fellow PC is worse than using Pistols 6 on them.

And ignoring your PCs stats so you can use your player attributes to influence your fellow PCs, bravo.

I have absolutely no problems with a PC or NPC using Intimidation or Interrogation on a PC. The problem I have lies with using Leadership or Negotiation on a PC, as it stands per SR3 rules (I do not have SR4 yet), it is easier to get a PC to do something than an NPC because all the modifiers on the Social Situations table refer to NPCs. Yes, it can be house-ruled, but it can also be interpreted as the writers never intended for Leadership and Negotiation to be used on PCs.

At this point, both sides have fairly well exhausted their position. If there's anyone left that doesn't at least understand where the other side is coming from (regardless of whether they agree), they're either being difficult for the sheer sake of it or are, as I like to say, "fucking retarded". I'd like to think that the majority of DS isn't the latter.

That, or they're not actually reading the other people's posts, but just replying blindly for the sake of argument. That would be different.

OKay, I'll give an example that is somewhat less extreme. Say one PC is actually a Good Merge but none of the other PCs know it. One say, a PC notices the Good Merge doing something insect-like and gets suspicious. The Good Merge tries to fast-talk his way out of it and gets decent rolls. It was a small incident, it was easily explainable and the PCs haven't met any Bugs yet.

Would it be valid for the dice to say that the PC believes the lie or would it be valid for the PC to just kill the Good Merge right then and there no matter what the dice say?

To make it more extreme, consider that this is several months before UB and the only people who know about the Bugs are immortals who were around for them the last time and double-digit initiates who do a lot of metaplanar travel.

Or, instead, consider that the runners had just gone against a major hive and the Good Merge was captured and out of sight for some time. In this situation, fast-talk success seems less likely.


In the most extreme situation, where the PC doesn't even know what a Bug is killing another PC because he may be a Bug is a little extreme, I'm sure we'd all agree. I'm not sure that a roll would even be necessary. But nothing says that the character can't put two-and-two together later after a long string of the GM's lovers are found decapitated or a Brundle-fly disolves someone's face.

In the latter situation it seems that the PCs should be suspicious but the level of suspecion is hard to guage. Would a PC murder a comrade on suspecion of being an insect? Possibly, it very much depends on the character. Could the Good Merge explain its way out of the situation, that is also very possible.

Between these two extremes there are many other possibilities so that it is impossible to calculate all of them. Pure roleplaying leads to one major problem. When the two players can't agree there is no way to settle the dispute. Should the Good Merge face meet certain doom because of a player's OOC knowledge or should a player ignore his own instincts just because the other character has a higher skill? The only thing to resolve the dispute is player altuism. Altuism can win here. Communism can work. Far too often, the gap between can and does in insurmountable.

Utilizing the dice provies an absolute and final solution to this conflict. Like most final solutions it is brutal and leaves a mass of stinking corpses for someone to clean up. But it does provide a defenitive answer to the conflict when and if it occurs.

It is the GM's ultimate responsibility to be the fair and impartial arbiter of this solution. It is the GM's duty to apply it with both ruthlessness and compassion.
For ruthlessness and impartiality, no backsies and no mulligans. Anything less would be poor sportsmanship. For compassion and fairness, the problem is much more complex. It is true that the player knows the PC much better than the GM, thus it makes sense that the player should have some input in the TN modifiers, within reason. It doesn't take much for a GM to ask the player what the PC is thinking and how difficult the player believes the social test against the character should be.
If the players are reasonable then everyone can agree on a TN and let the dice roll.
If a player is an asshole then we'll have him demanding +1,000,000 modifiers and the GM will be beating the player sensless with the rulebook as per his or her duty as arbiter of the dice.

Most of the complaints about the use of social skills against PCs is the lack of player input. This solves that problem. It is the fairest solution that I can think of. It may not be for everyone. If you live in a Communist roleplaying paradise then good for you, to each his own. If you live in a harsh world where the dice rule as blind and deaf idiot-gods without player input then that is okay too just don't expect me to visit.



"Who is going to pay the bar tab?"

Dwarf Sammie: 6, 2, 9
Troll Adept: 4,3,4,7
Elf Conjurer(defaulting):3,1,9,3,4,5,6,8,2,1,4,7,12,1,1,5,19,2

"So we crawl out the men's room window like last time, then?"

I personally have known two women that were saving themselves for marriage that thought they had found the one and ended up regretting it.

I have known a tough talking ganger that got dressed down by a suit in front of his friends and backed down.

It has happened. Whether or not it happens to you is a result of the dice rolls.

I can understand the ideas that the other side is saying. I just think that in the pursuit of being fair, it really isn't fair.

I think that their side just works better as an unspoken rule. It's impolite to use Mind Control spells on other players, or for the GM to do so. It is also impolite to use social skills in an excessive or demeaning fashion.

However, I roll social skills because players need to know that their characters are not any more infallible than any person or they may be.
If your players are good enough that they will remember to "fail the roll" when it is fitting, then great. I don't see why to use dice for anything else either, because they can just independantly arbitrate everything else to. They will be fair in how often they hit and such.

I understand where social skills are different, but you aren't making them an NPC. You are making them a victim, just like someone shot, or someone magically controlled. If you don't like PCs to be victims then you can run it that way. I have been in some very excellent games of Exalted where the PCs are demigods that tend to get their way. It can be a fun way to play. That's not how I like Shadowrun. I like gritty and painful, and I like conmen.

Wow. Lots of good points, both sides there.

We've gone with this -

where small unit tactics is involved, you don't take orders, you don't get the benefits.

There is a line between what you can reasonably convince someone to do with Negotiation, Etiquette, or Leadership without pharmacological, external stimuli or magical involvement. That line is fuzzy, and can probably not be quantified.

There is probably little you can NOT convince someone to do with intimidation, because that's the point of intimidation.

We are introducing an opposed roll for social skills tests which have the 'harmful to target' or worse modifier. We may even allow the target to have modifiers applied in their favour to their own tests but this has yet to be playtested, and I hope it will be a while before a player tries it on another player anyway.

Finally - using your social skills to adversley affect other players is to be discouraged, in the same way as PvP combat generally is in our game. But ultimately, if one player decides to use skills they've paid for on another player because they've run out of roleplay skill (or as in the case of combat ensuing, they might've irrevocably roleplayed their way INTO it) then fine, go for it. And both parties must live with the consequences - which may not happen immediately. Someone intimidated into following an order is likely to be looking for revenge later if they survive. If a PC orders another PC to do something like kill themselves, then that is not the sort of player I want in my game, unless there's a DAMN good hypothetical.

[SNIP - that sounded like I was being REALLY snidey. I didn't mean it to sound like that at all, and I've taken it out because neither sentence was necessary in the first place anyway. Sorry if anyone saw it and got offended - I didn't, didn't, didn't mean the insult it ended up being!]

Its been very valuable to me, anyway, so thanks!

Oh - and its all subject to change after playtesting.

TheHappyAnarchist, I get what you're saying. It irks you that players all too often will ignore anything that an NPC says, and you think it's only fair to use the dice to get them to react like normal human beings when threatened, schmoozed, and so on.

But I still prefer to let the player decide how to react. That's not to say that the dice rolls won't heavily affect the presentation, but the final say should go to the PCs for anything that isn't objectively quantifiable (like negotiating pay with the Johnson, or noticing that someone's Tir accent is fake).

The reason for this is that the PCs are the ones who best know their own character. Rolling for social skills can move the game along when it has reached an impasse, but it can be a tool for railroading if misused.

Even worse, it can ruin the character for the player. If you envision someone tough as nails, who hates the corpers who killed his brother, then the GM tells you that you grovel to the effeminate suit, what happens to your vision of the character? And don't tell me that the player should "roleplay" it. It's not roleplaying when your entire character concept gets trashed. Yes, characters can and should grow and change. But if it is imposed from outside, it will only be resented. Far from encouraging roleplaying, it will only encourage bitterness and apathy.


GM: "So, um, the rest of the group wants your decker to "take one for the team" from an overweight troll biker so they can get invited to the rally, and you're okay with that?"

Player: "Why not? She's just a ****ing slut now, so who cares?"

GM: "The group is under heavy fire now. Isn't your ganger going to fire his Panther Cannon at anyone?"

Player: "Nah. He's a wuss, remember? He can't even stand up to an unarmed guy in a suit without flinching, so no way he wants any part of this. He'll just hide behind that car for the rest of the round, then try to sneak away."

GM: "Hey, looks like the face finally failed his roll. Guess he's buying his own dinner tonight."

Player: "He... failed his roll? I SHOOT HIM! RIGHT NOW!!"

In RPGs the way the rules can be interrpreted on things like this are incedibly varied.
The following is how I think it should go and as long as you are having fun feel free to do it your way. At least until we are in the same game then we need to work things out at the table.

Myself I think that social skills can be used against any character in the game. But social skills are rather fuzzy in their use. You can say how long and how many successes it takes to repair a car. But how long does it take to change someones mind? Its a tough call for the GM to make and it shouldn't be done without the player's input.
Once you have the players input on the situation they shouldn't feel that their character was being controlled against their will anymore then getting shot does. I believe that dice and skills should be used. Social skills aren't mind control but a player that is not heavely influenced by the die rolls is not really playing the same game as the others players.
Now somethings are just impossible (social skills or otherwise), or at least they are under many situations. Determining if it is such a situation is something that should be done by all of the players (GM included).
For those wondering I do let players roll relavent skills to work on the plan or to realize something is just plain stupid.


I forget who mentioned but they said that D&D has better rules for this then SR. Could you please give me a quick pointer to what those rules are?

D&D's stance on social skills is that they just don't work on players. Exception is Intimidation, and only in the strictly-controlled sense of "You fail to beat his intimidate check, you take -2 to AC and attack rolls and damage on the next round."

Dice should never substitute roleplaying, and they should never take control out of the character's hands. Even at a TN of +12, a good Face (Especially one with various sorts of bio,) could do that. Convincing the decker to 'take one for the team' from the troll biker? No way. I don't care what the face says, and if he persists in trying to persuade me to do it, he can find himself another fucking decker. The ganger and the suit trying to intimidate one another? The BEST the suit can hope for is to provoke a violent reaction, not win a stare-down with someone like that.

...and if we all just keep saying the same things over and over again enough, then something worthwhile is bound to happen - isn't it?

Seriously people, can we just let this thing die? If you haven't been convinced by one side or the other at this point I think it's safe to say you're not going to be.

Well, okay. But it is an exercise in developing different ways of attempting to explain things, as well as providing evidence and assertive arguments in a debate setting.

Even if one side is really saying the same thing over and over again.

Either way, I am enjoying it. If you are not, why are you still reading it?
Reminds me of an RPG.netter's sig line. Something along these lines.

What the hell is wrong with gamers. Even my dog knows not to stick his nose in something he doesn't like.

If someone is trying to get me to do something I don't want to do, I don't care how smooth they can talk. It ain't happening. So why should my character, who can be just as obstinate as me, do something she dosen't want to do?

Short of mind control, the answer is "she shoulden't."

Which becomes mind control, because short of large amount of nuyen changing hands (specifically, from someone else's hand into my hand,) there's no incentive. And I'm the decision-maker of what's acceptable, not the dice.

When people start talking smoothly, I start getting more stubborn.

@Critias:
That's the problem, though. You do "think" that your character would never do certain things, and a roll of the dice simply isn't very convincing. After all, nearly everyone can think of several things that they can't see themselves bending on, so surely their Shadowrun character should also have a few hard limits.

Beyond the issue of being reduced to an NPC, which I have explained several times, there is also the issue of plausibility. If the GM tells you that your character does something, and there is no way that you can reconcile that with your character's personality or background, then what do you have left? Just empty stats. Bitter, apathetic, or metagaming behavior is a normal response at that point.

yeah. but it's still metagaming.

And just pumping the TNs up to compensate dosen't cut it. Again, take the theory of a young (meta)human male who is very hetrosexual, and was abused by a male authority figure as a child. And now a male ganger wants to bugger him in exchange for doing what the group wants. The group sends in their face - ok, let's calculate his TN's.

With respect to the character, the (NPC) is:
Friendly. -2 TN.
Player's desired reslt is:
Judgement call here. Technically, this isen't going to hurt him, and it will cause him no losses of property. This can go any way - a truely stupid DM will say it's advantagous to him, as it allows him to complete the run. An inteligent DM would tell the face to ram his dice up his ass. Let's assume we're using a book-thumping literal DM, who rules that it is of no value to him. TN +0.
That's it. The determined Target Number is the human male's INT score -2.This means that it is very likely that the Face is facing a TN of 4, at most. Even if the DM is inteligent and adds +2, that's a TN of INT. Even at +4 or +6, that's still within range, especially if our hypothetical male human is not very inteligent.

And all of a sudden, allowing himself to be buggered by a disgusting individual seems like a good idea to this man who was sexually abused by a male authority figure as a child, and as it not in any way attracted to men. This is a really, really stupid thing, as it is effectively mind control.

.... given character history, I have a phenomenally hard time seeing how any decent GM would say the "desired result" here was anything BUT harmful/disastrous to the PC... +4 or +6 there. And frankly, I'd be suspicious of my group's face the minute he proposed that reenacting an act of abuse was a good idea... book lists that as being a +2. Frankly, I might get downright hostile about it... that's another +4 (since hey, he's being a totally screwball manipulative bastard, trying to convince me this is a good idea, but I'm not going to call him an enemy, which would be a +6).

That's a +12 there, on top of his INT. Not exactly an easy test.

Some of us are talking about using Leadership to give commands in a fight, or Negotiations to talk the street sammy into paying for dinner or seduce someone who might find you attractive anyway, or Intimidation to stare down another 'Runner to convince him to go along with your plan or share the loot like he should.

Some others of us are talking about smiling, shaking hands, and talking someone into letting themselves get butt-raped.

No wonder the conversation's taking 8 pages to not change any minds.

Where does it stop from making someone outlay his nuyen for what you want done, or participating in unwelcome sexual situations? And you can't just tell the GM that "okay, I'm treating him as Hostile" to get bonusi on his tests, when you've been his friend for awhile.

Jesus Christ. Do you have a Doctorate in missing the point, or is it just natural talent that you've honed to a razor's edge without the benefit of a formal education?

I'd say that there are limits to what social skills can do in a given time frame.

Dressing down a subordinate into compliance within a combat turn isn't unreasonable.

The seducing decker who's saving her virginity for marriage would require a much greater investment in time, at least a month unless the face is exceptional. In SR4 such a courtship would require an extended test. The mechanics in SR3 are a little less forgiving to the face, who has wasted a month of effort in the event he fails the test. Such a total failure would represent the virginal decker kicking the face in the testicles and putting him on her enemies list after finding out what a jerk he really is.

With the right incentive you can, but words alone? Not often gonna happen, and certainly not if it's anything 'big', like sticking your neck into the line of fire, consenting to buttsechs, routinely paying for someone else's damn dinners, etcetera. You might make someone concede a point, but are any of those 'concessions' real, or are they just tired of arguing? *eyebrow lift.*

Damn, I wish I would have been in on this thread earlier! This is one hoppin' party! There were some VERY nice quotes in this thread- very funny. "A doctorate in missing the point," Critias that made me LOL.

As a neutral, outside party, let me throw in my 2 and see if it comes close to bringing this to a resolution.

After eight strongly-opininated pages and reading each post...

A moment of reason

The main underlying problem people seem to have with one player convincing another player to perform an action is the removed element of roleplaying as the target character takes orders dictated from the leader.

In the OP's scenario, ordering someone to join in a fire fight is not essentially taking control of the character. The character can no longer run away, cower, etc. but they now have to participate in the firefight. How they do that is up to them. There is still a roleplaying element there, however some of the escape routes have been forbidden.

Now, in the more extreme example of "go and kill your whole family and get all your money and bring it to me" or "I'm gay, you're not, let me buttfuck you pleasekthx"- it is OVERWHELMINGLY obvious that BOTH end of the argument are right and I will tell you why:

Side one says that "I'm not gay, I know what I would never do, I would never get buttfucked no matter what their charisma score" and side two says "if someone this smooth talking in real life actually tried it, you'd do it."

The problem here is everyone is considering this battle of wits to be an IMMEDIATE test with IMMEDIATE results. However, much like killing ones entire family, nothing this severe is going to be a wham-bam-five minute chit chat and you're now a mindless zombie.

Instead, think of the process as psychological warfare. The leader (as demented as they must be) would have to convince the target to kill his family by coaxing him into it over the course of a month or two.

He would start off with dropping hints; I dunno. "How much insurance do you have on your family?" "You know, you never really got into acting because your family was holding you back." "That girl over there was checking you out. Damn shame you're married."

Hiring a prostitute to "seduce" the man when he's drunk. Infuse him with guilt. Cause a few financial problems at home to start a few fights with him and his wife. THEN, and only then, after the ground work has been laid, would the leader be able to finally convince his drunk, depressed target "hey, why don't you do them a favor and just put them all out of their misery. You bring your money back here and I'll make sure you get back on your financial feet."

Now, in scenario two, the gay man (I guess.) I can't see it being possible that a gay man could walk right up to a straight man and, with charms alone, convince the straight man to take it up the haunches from a dude he doesn't even know.

Again, this would be a long process after months and months of prep work. Hanging out. Going out to get drinks. Uh... I dunno what gay men and straight men do when gay men are trying to seduce the straight men, but do you get my point?

The problem here, and I'mm say it again for my summary, is that we're all assuming these life-impacting negotiations are occuring BAM right that very second and they're NOT.

Perhaps this will bridge everyone closer together in an agreement.

I expect this thread to beat the Drop Bear's post count long before a resolution is complete but I must add something that I forgot earlier.

For a good example of a powerful, godlike face who can and does talk someone into murdering his own family, I suggest reading or watching some version of Othello. My main man Iago is the ultimate face who is able to uses social skills with no small talent.

From the very begining, he manipulates those around him to serve his ends. Not only does Iago apply his Leadership to talk Roderigo out of suicide, he also takes total control of Roderigo's considerable assets using his false promises and feinged benevolance.

Consider how he goads Brabanzio into becoming Othello's enemy and entices him to make an ass of himself by demanding that the Doge arrest his new son in law.

While it takes some time and a single prop, Iago is able to convince Othello to murder his wife whom he loves by playing on his sense of justice and making him believe an untruth. I would say, it is the fact that Othello loved Desdamona that ensured her demise. Had Othello not felt so strongly he could have simply made the evidence that Iago fabricated public and let her guilt be determined by trial. Had she been found guilty she would have been exectued anyway, so there is no reason for him to take the law into is own hands so drasticly except to spare her the humiliation of a public trial and execution. While he could have simply divorced her and let her go on her merry way to do so would offend his sense of justice and possibly allow her to victimize another man as he believed that she had victimized him.

But I rant. To conclude, read Othello it is great. Iago is the perfect face, except he should have killed his wife a little earlier and in private.

I think that is a good example Glyph. Except I use it slightly differently. If he rolls high we have to figure out how he got you to do it. That was a good example and you know your character well enough to think it is possible.

I would love to have you in a game.

Whereas, ShadowDragon would say I am a tightfisted dwarf, no way I could ever be convinced to ever pay for the stupid face's dinner, etc etc. You rollplayed and roleplayed, enhanced your characters concept by describing a seemingly out of place act, and were generally a pleasure. Shadowdragon turned his character into a piece of cardboard, a particluarly inflexible and uninteresting piece of cardboard.

Faces can convince you to do things you don't want to do. That is why conmen exist. Do I want to give this person 50$ of my money? No, but they made it plausible that I wanted to because they are that good.

If the face needs you to get butfucked to get past this ganger, then he is not convincing you that you like buggery. He is not saying you are gay. He is not saying that you will enjoy it. He is hitting on the fact that the team needs it, and if you don't do it, then you are letting the team down. Or if you are a spendthrift he is pointing out that if you do not do it, you may lose out on the money for the run.

For some people it is remarkably easy to get someone to do what you want them to. Really remarkably easy. And if you want to play someone that is not easily conned then you need to improve those attributes and abilities that will keep you from being easily conned.

If you don't, then you will get conned. If you think you shouldn't, you are a munchkin by definition, trying to get the equivalent of certain stats for nothing.

Oh yeah, and with a good face, if he starts talking smoother and you get more stubborn, then he will see that cue and start being more gruff. Everyone can be manipulated. You seem to think you are immune. I call BS.

I think you all have a hole in your head. I'm sorry, but your dice are not enough to convince me that taking one up the ass from a big fat troll is a good idea. I don't fucking CARE if I'm letting the team down, that's not gonna fucking happen. And if you want me to pay for your dinner, you'd better come up with a reason for it. IE: I'll pay you back. That would get me to buy you dinner. "I'm outta cash. Spot me some now an' I'll pay you back when we get the nuyen from this run?"

Of course, if you doublecross me, then you can eat an Alpo dinner next time for all I give a fuck. And the only people who fall for conmen are the greedy and stupid. Nongreedy stupid people have enough instinct to know that this person dosen't have their best interests in mind, and greedy smart people know better than to let go of their cash until they have something in their hand.

Battle on, Xena. You're too crafty for those wiley con-men, or that friend that borrows money just a little more often than he pays it back, or the family member that promises to pay "next time" a little more often than they should, or some hot chick who's not really into you for no reason than your rugged good looks.

No, sir. None of those are a match for the flinty, sharp, eyes and steel-trap mind of ShadowDragon. Where other men falter, he stands firm. A pillar of willpower and cunning, that's our boy.

Congrats, you inhumanly cool person, you. The weaknesses and frailties of other men do not apply to all mankind -- and I can only pray your seed is spread far and wide, that some of your greatness and fortitude might be passed on to future generations.

All hail! All hail! All hail!