If you want to get into semantics: the Power is called Commanding Voice, not Irresistable Command. That would appear to mean, to me, that the voice is particularly commanding regardless of what is being said. A certain limitation applies, of course -- a Seduction attempt would not particularly benefit from it, but outside of blatantly misplaced usage, anything that leads to the instigating or curtailing of a target's action is fair game.

That said, Obi-Wanning a border guard can only work when the guards are looking for you and your droids. If this is not the case, the above necessary requirement is not met, and the Voice does not have any positive effect. Certainly the guard is going to agree (in a "Oh, okay. If you say so" kind of way), but that is not going to get anyone over the border because droids are not SINs or passports. Only given a situation where one needs to avoid drawing attention to those droids on the back seat would this attempt have any measurable effect whatsoever. That is not the same as saying it wouldn't work outright, however.

so if one were to switch DROIDS for SIN's . . one would be able to cross the border just fine, even if the SIN is blacklisted, because the guard would not care because he is NOT LOOKING FOR THEM?

Well, with a wording like "You don't need to see my SIN to let me pass" (or, even more deviously, "You've already checked my SIN"), which GM in their right mind would object? It's precisely this sort of thing that CV is meant to do.

Checkpoint thing reminds me of something that happened in one of my games. I was GMing, there were 4 other runners. They were passing a security checkpoint for an area. The one fellow playing...well, best way i can say it, 'generalist runner' (had some combat, social, fixit skills, quite well rounded...combat was probably the bigger forte), but he had a negotations(fast talk) skill, i think around 2(4). So he pulled out the fast talk. But he did it in such an awesome way,the player himself was literally fast-talking me. It was such good roleplaying(he was saying stuff that made sense, and throwing other words in, like fast-talkers do), I lowered the target number as a bonus(using the social skill table). It was quite impressive. They ended up passing.

Just to show; if the players are genuinely trying, pornomancer or mundane runner with some fast-talking skill, it's sometimes worth a shot. And i wanted to share a cool instance of social skills being utilized.

i'm still saying one should be able to default to any combat and most technical skills when needing intimidation and the such <.<

...I have a player in my group like this as well. At times he has done such a good job roleplaying his character's social abilities I've reduced the target subject's DP accordingly and on rare occasion even handwaved the roll altogether. Good roleplaying like this and as mentioned in ELFenrir's comment above should be rewarded.

A guy I used to play DnD, Demon, and some other games under(still in our group just doesn't run games anymore) used to love when I made characters with social skills. As long as they had the requisite dice/dots/+ and mental stats he would let me just roleplay the situation through and if I did a good enough job I wouldn't even have to roll. Of course the GM I play SR under right now just seems kind of scared whenever I truly try to roleplay during his games instead of just keeping my actions in character and rolling dice, but to each their own.

There was one point in DnD when we were trying to convince a king that we came with the best of intentions(which we did), from another land trying to enlist his aid in the take down of this incredibly powerful wizard who called himself the Shadow King. Now this land has been plagued by the Shadow King for awhile and this isn't the first time he has tried to sneak spies or assassins into the court. So, we were held at... well spell and spearpoint I guess, while trying to convince the king of our good intentions. I was playing a Fighter/Exotic Weaponmaster/Kensai and this had Diplomacy out the yang, but instead of rolling a d20 and moving on like alot of the party probably would have(we don't actually roleplay NEARLY enough for my tastes) I locked eyes with my DM and proceeded to give a nearly 10 minute long speech about what we had been through and what we were trying to do and why, and how we knew the things we knew and so on and so forth trying to convince him we were genuine when he hadn't heard any of our escapades before. When the 10 minutes or so was over everyone around the gaming table was just kind of staring at me like.... "Woh..." and the DM was like "The king says "Strangely I believe you, sir, and I will render whatever aid I may." My fellow players kept looking at me strangely and since I'm a jackass I responded something in the vein of "What? That's just how I roll." After the groaning over the pun was done and we moved on, and everyone still remembers that speech, it was one of the more memorable positive dramatic P&P RPG experiences we have had. Most of our good ones are humor.

I guess I said all that just to say that while dice are all well and good, in MY games you have to have something else to bring to the table. Mind, if you aren't a smooth person you can still make a smooth character, but you have to put forth at least a little effort. Act like a total jackass at the wrong time and I don't care how many dice you have, you just fucked something up. It might be recoverable if you come up with better ideas, but I warn my players not to create characters that they cannot think like. I think it makes a better smoother game, and I think they enjoy it more, because really if you can't imagine being your character then why not just get together and play board games or something?
Chris

At the same time, though, if someone who is naturally shy wants to play a smooth talker, and has a good idea for one, i don't want to penalize them of that. Im one of the ''play whatever the hell you want'' train of thought. I have a character who'se pretty black-hearted, for example, but i myself am a pacifist softie. Shy people especially i don't want to A. Penalize or B. Force to play quiet loners with a low Cha score.

It's pretty much a case by case basis. If i am with a friend, whom i know, and is talkative and enjoys roleplaying, i might ask ''come on,you can do a little better than the roll''.

I don't think anyone is saying that people should only play characters like themselves. I forget who said it here, but to me the critical part is "characters you can think like". I play Jack Bauer/"The Jackal" style runners. I am good at RPing characters with a mercenary and decisive style (with wildly varying degrees of success). Some people are just too cautious, and have a hard time playing that style and should do something else. Similarly, I could loosen up enough to play an ork face that brought a bunch of his ganger friends on a run. In my last game season that lead to some totally un-pro hilarity, that I as a player could never bring to the table - regardless of how many points in contacts I had

bah, if anyone uses "these aren't the droids you're looking for" in that kinda situation, they're clearly not trying.

as anyone can tell you, the line immediately *before* that one (specifically: "you don't need to see his identification") applies perfectly to the situation, and anyone who knows "these aren't the droids you're looking for" should know it as well

(other than that, i am so not touching this topic... it's getting dangerously close to role-playing vs roll-playing, and i'm not about to give an opinion on that)

I don't see a problem with social adepts.

As someone else mentioned, their abilities are magic. So their dramatic results are often justified.

The GM should feel free to modify the social adept's dice pools for conditions. Walking up to a stranger on a subway platform and suggesting oral sex should get a -6. Telling a police officer who's trying to arrest you to shoot himself should be -10 dp. On the other hand, walking up to a stranger on a subway platform and starting a conversation that might lead to sex hours or days later would have a lot less of a penalty. Using Con+CHA+adept abilities to explain to the cop that he's got the wrong man would have a much lighter penalty than getting the cop to kill himself (depending on the evidence against the adept).

The GM should also be willing to declare some social tests to be extended tests. Seducing someone at a club doesn't happen in the first three seconds of, "What's your sign?" Converting someone to your religion doesn't happen in the first three seconds of, "I'd like to talk about Jesus Christ."

And keep in mind that a social adept is not very durable in combat if his social roll fails or if he loses initiative.

That would be me, Weaver, and you guys basically hit the salient points I was trying to express. All I want from my players is EFFORT, if you try then you can think like a character. You might not do it well, but you are doing it. I mean, I really hope that no one here thinks that a troll with 2's in all mentals is going to come up with some wonderful convoluted plan to sneak into a facility, and a pacifist eco runners first resort is NOT going to be kill everyone in the facility then nuke it after we get what we need. But characters are multi-faceted people so the combat troll might try and help sneak in or do something else smart and the pacifist might in this case shoot people if it's needed, but you need to think about what the character would do in that situation, NOT what is numerically superior. This is for my games, of course, YMMV. I've got nothing against making numerically superior characters, I just have a chip on my shoulder in regards to people who try to do whatever the hell they want and use dice to justify it as well as people who just generally act like a jackass or do whatever is numerically superior in that particular situation with no regards to the personality they have otherwise given their character. Then again, I've have someone respond to my prejudices by playing a calculating mercenary in my game so doing whatever was numerically superior for them WAS in character, and you know what it didn't bother me a bit.

Chris

Ok guys the thing with the Obi-Waning our way past the border guard. Really was a joke. We had high rating SIN cards which were good enough to get past.
It was just a joke based in my high social skill checks we did before I even got the power commanding voice. HELL, I have yet to use commanding voice. I have yet to play shadowrun sense getting the power of commanding voice.

It wasn't meant to be taken seriously in game or out of game.

So please for the love of Dunkelzahn stop ranting about how I Obi-Wan my way past some guards. It was a joke at a border crossing we make once or twice a run where nothing has ever happened.
We handled border crossings as they are in the downloadable missions.
Fake SIN Rating + Charisma + Etiquette. Vs a threshold on the test of TR/2 (round-up),(our TR was 3 so 2) possibly adding some other number.
With out adding in the SIN I got 9 hits hence he joke about the wave of my hand.

So please go back to your other rants and drop my whole Obi-Wan thing

I don't think anyone is really ranting at or even about you specifically at this point. Even as a joke, you raised an issue that does happen at some tables, and there was a lot of good discussion about it.

I think the spell should be more versatile and powerful because it(generally) requires more BP expenditure and is has drain associated with it and it is harder to pump the dicepool on. Also, Commanding Voice seems to be kind of Bene Gesserit with a limited duration, influence actually channels mana into a target and implants a command that could be of any length in words and duration, Commanding Voice is limited in both word count and duration of effect. Influence gets a check if someone points out the wrongness of their actions, Commanding Voice can just be confused if it goes against the grain of their character.

At least, that's how I see it. I realize you were asking Eurotroll.

Chris

I know, and I figure(because I'm badass, of course) that I run it about the way the majority of people do, but then again most people think that they interpret things in the logical fashion so I figured I would throw a potential baseline out there to either be agreed with or argued against so Eurotroll would know WHY you were asking.

Chris