So, looking over SR4's rules, there's obviously a lot concerning physical combat, but I'm finding a lack of information for what you can do on the social side of the fence. One of the PCs is the 'Face' for the group, who handles all the negotiations for the team, and I would really like the character to be effective without having to wing it every time they're making a diplomacy-based roll.

There's a little bit available (about a page, almost two), but it doesn't cover much. How far can one go? For example, our PC uses their skills to haggle over the amount the PC group is getting for their run -- I usually rule 5% increase per Hit, to a maximum of +50%.

But, for example, how many hits to convince someone not to shoot you? Or to convince your worst enemy that his boss is going to double-cross him? You know, things like that.

I agree with you there. The social skill rules are maddeningly vague. Yes, there are too many variables to cover them all, but some more examples, and a better depiction of what can (and can't) be done with social skills would have been very useful. Unfortunately, the GM needs to set thresholds, and determine the results of beating the threshold, on a case-by-case basis. The vague rules, and super-high social dice pools, lead to a lot of differing conceptions of what a face can, or cannot, do, simply by rolling that cube of d6's.


My general opinion is that a face, even with magical and technological enhancements, can be a great con artist or negotiator, but doesn't perform the equivalent of mind control. I think social situations should be similar to negotiating with a Johnson - successes can get you more money, up to a certain hard limit. Similarly, dealing with an NPC should have certain thresholds, along with an upper hard limit of what you can accomplish.

For instance, convincing the local gang to let the wounded runner team past them. Maybe (after also factoring in some negative modifiers) a threshold of 1 gets them to consider only humiliating and robbing the runners, a threshold of 2 means they will settle for a "toll" or the runners owing them a favor, and a threshold of 3 means the gangers think it's not worth it, and will let them by if allowed to save some face. But if the runners insult the gangers, it might make it impossible to get past them without a fight. And the best the face can do, with a good roll, is to get them by. Even a 51+ dice pornomancer shouldn't be able to get the gang to swear allegiance to him, or loan the runners their bikes.

But that's just rolling dice. Someone thinking and roleplaying might attempt, for example, to hire the gangers as bodyguards through the area, letting them save face and get some money, while giving the runners some protection and some possible future contacts. A face who does that is like a sammie who uses cover and sets up ambushes - just like the thinking face, that sammie will get better results than a sammie who just rolls his 18 pistols dice.

I'm not quite sure I understand the question here? When my group negotiates over pay scale, I tend to use 5% per hit as well, with a maximum of what the client can pay (normally I pre-determine that), however that 5% sometimes varies (if I know that the client is in urgent need or in a rush, the increase sometimes goes up to 10% per hit).

However, convincing somebody not to shoot you ... you either use Con (Fast Talk) or Negotiation (Bargaining) with the modifiers of -4 dice (Attitude: Enemy); -4 dice (Desired Result: Disastrous or -3 if Harmful). With an opposed roll, the odds (unless the PC is some sort of pornomancer type) are that there won't be a good result. Oh, you can apply other sorts of modifiers too, such as -2 dice (PCs were fighting NPCs beforehand); -2 dice (PCs are violating NPCs territory) etc. etc.

Oh, and at no point will the NPC be dumb enough to shoot himself (probably even with mind-control dice bonus on the PCs part).

All of these are just my opinion of course.

Social skills can be very powerful or very weak depending on your GM. It helps to go over with your GM what exact ally each skill does. Here's what my group agreed upon.

Negotiation: Is always an opposed test against someone else's negotiation(save when using it to oppose a con check). It is used whenever two parties are dealing with each other in a situation where both sides are trying to get the upper hand in a compromise. How we usually run it is the NPC has a what they are willing to give up/receive to seal the deal. Then if the player wants to negotiate they roll the opposed dice(adding modifiers based on the situation), and the more net hits they get, the more they talk the NPC down/up(as the situation dictates), keeping in mind that each NPC has an upper limit to what they are willing to do for the deal(getting 10 net hits isn't going to make johnson pay you more money then he can afford to do the run.) Doing exceptionally bad(NPC getting more then 1 or 2 net hits) causes the NPC to somehow get the advantage in the deal and changes the conditions of the deal in the NPCs benefit. After the check the PCs always have the final choice whether they accept the deal or not, and further negotiations don't change things unless the situation changes.

Example-Malus is trying to get entrance to an exclusive club without a membership and is trying to bribe the guard. The guard wants 200nuyen to let malus in the club, but malus is short on cash and tries to haggle him down. The GM decides that each net hit on a negotiation test will change the price by 20 nuyen, with a minimum price of 100(the guard needs it to be worth the risk of getting in trouble with his employer.) The two then roll opposed negotiation tests, with malus getting a -2 penalty because his clothes are two weeks out of fasion.

Etiquette: This is the general social skill for most situations. Aside from avoiding player gaffs as per the rules, it is also used for fitting into unnatural situations(a street punk trying to fit in at a black tie affair), impress people and improve their opinion of you(our group gives a +1 bonus on future social tests for each net hit, but it attracts a lot of attention), convince people of a point(within reason), or try to gather information from a person/group.

Example-Malus is tailing a target who enters a biker bar. Malus is currently dressed in corporate casual and tends to be overly professional, which would make him stand out like a sore thumb and make shadowing his target more difficult. The GM decides that he will take a -4 penalty on all further shadowing attempts, but that he can reduce the penalty by 1 for each hit on an etiquette test to fit in at the bar(a bonus here is impossible, the best he can hope for is to fit in).

Con: Is used whenever you are trying to convince someone that what you say is not a lie(note that a)even telling the truth may require a con test if it is far-fetched enough, and a successful test doesn't make someone believe it, just doesn't give them any indication you are fibbing to them). Con can also be used to fast-talk someone, getting them to make a decision on a matter before they have ample time to think about it(and can be used to gain bonuses on other social roles, at the penalty of a negative reaction later).

Example-Malus' team member needs to get past a guard standing post at a facility. He uses Con opposed by the guards con or negotiation(whichever is higher) to strike up a conversation about a local sports team to give his team member a chance to pass by unnoticed. The GM rules that meeting the guards number of hits is enough to give the team member a chance to sneak by, with net hits adding to the infiltration test, while net hits on the guards part giving them a bonus to perception because of the suspicious behavior.

Leadership: Leadership is simple, leadership lets you make people do what you tell them to do. Your number of hits affects what you are able to convince them to do, how much effort they will put fourth, and how long they will do it after you are gone. Leadership is only opposed if two people are trying to do opposing commands. Leadership only works if the targets have some reason to obay you, or are prone to following orders.

Example-Malus need's to clear the street of on-lookers so his ally has a chance to break into a near by store. He starts to loudly proclaim that the department store 2 blocks down is having a sale and that they should all go down and check it out before all the good stuff is gone. The GM decides that the crowd provides a -2 penalty on his friends attempt to sneak into the store without notice(he has a maglock passkey so it's not blatantly obvious), and that each hit on Malus' leadership test will give him a +1 bonus on his infiltraition check as Malus convinces more and more people to leave the area.

Intimidate: Intimidate can do anything any other social skill can do pretty much, but with the added threat of force to make it work better. Can either replace a skill in some circumstances, or add to one in others. Keep in mind this tends to make enemies though.

Example-Malus has been caught carrying an illegal firearm in downtown seattle by a lone star beat cop. Rather then try to talk down the ticket or bribe the cop, Malus decides to remind the guard that anyone carrying a silenced military grade SMG knows how to use it and will do so if needed. The GM decides that a single hit is enough to make the lone star let Malus go(it's not difficult to intimidate a star with that level of force), but he will call in for backup after a number of minutes equal to the hits after Malus leaves.

Hope that helps.

I like the idea of Intimidate being able to avert violence. Though the threshold/negative modifiers should be challenging, if you convince a ganger pointing a gun at you that he better hope he can take you down in one shot, or you will outclass him and make him pay for underestimating you. Even if you're not that physically intimidating, with the right amount of conviction, you could convince an enemy that you've got an angel with a cross-hair on him. Only a nihilistic and insane enemy would enter a combat they're not sure enough about their chance to not get killed.

I also like intimidation because even if you're a sammy with a unimpressive dicepool, you can get some good positive modifiers for looking deadly (eg. Trolls should get positive modifiers to intimidate tests).

When it comes to thresholds and modifiers, you have to look at it on a per situation basis. To use the "convince enemy not to shoot you" example. Factor things in like the size of the weapon, the skill of the enemy, their professional rating, how many people they have backing them up, knowledge of their target, motivation for their actions, etc.

I would like to point out that Intimidation doesn't necessary mean threatening the target of physical retribution, one of the of the specializations is mental intimidation:

Exemple - Malus is caught by the Lone Star carrying an modified ingram SMG under his Greatcoat (original Mortimer's), knowing that fast talking or dribing the cops so choses to intimidate them; as their hands approach the holsters Malus gives them an angry stare down and with low, menacing voice tells them: "Do you have the faintest idea who I work for? Probably not, and you are better to not find out. Now if you gentlemen don't mind I'm quite in a hurry". Now Malus makes a Intimidation + Charisma test with a penality of -2 against the cops Intimidation + Willpower, every net hit will give Malus a minute of time before the cops start to searvh for clues and give the allarm, if the number of net hits excides their willpower they are going to just let it go and hope that no dreck hits the fan.

Once my character (mystic adept: mage/face) had to infiltrate a corp for an extended period of time (she even recived the wage), at some point she approached hers target for extraction and procided with seducing him, however he got too eager so she applied some mental intimidation to keep him in check and futher seduction to make sure he did what she wished; in the end she had just to tell him to show up at a certain place at a certain time that he did, he was heart broken when realized that it was an extraction but followed the team without complaining.

The Face in my group ends more combats than anybody else. When half the enemy gang is dead and the other half is wounded, the Face rolls Intimidation with big positive modifiers for the situation, and the surviving enemy either flees or surrenders.

Don't be afraid to require social tests as extended rolls with intervals in days or weeks. Spend a few months befriending and cajoling, or terrorizing and torturing, and you can get people to do all sorts of things. Look at Jim Jones, Gloria Steinem, Bernie Madoff, Joseph Stalin, Martha Stewart, Barak Obama, James Dobson. These people don't convince in three seconds. They build their case over time. Think about trying to convince someone to have sex with you. Rarely do you walk up to a total stranger and say, "Nice boots. Wanna f!ck?", and achieve the desired result.

Another thing I'll do is allow bonuses for preparation. Let's say a PC is taking a meeting with a corporate executive. I'll let the PC roll Etiquette or Fashion or some relevant knowledge skill beforehand, while they pick out they're clothes, or choose the place for the meeting. Each hit adds a die to the Negotiation test at the meeting. If the PC spends nuyen, I'll add dice to the Etiquette test - if you go out and buy clothes in the style favored at his company, then wear them to the meeting, it might make him a little more friendly toward you.

Another house rule I have is that members of organizations get social skill bonuses because of that. If A Mitsuhama man offers you a job, you're likely to take it, because you want to cozy up to the rich and influential corporation. If the Mitsuhama man threatens to have you killed, you take him seriously, because Mitsuhama has the resources to do it.

I've got a drake adept in that situation, only instead of "extraction" it's "sabotage." And he's not terribly charismatic. Getting hired was the EASY part.

But yeah. Social Combat isn't very well explained, and on the one hand I like that. It actually keeps people from knowing exactly how a character needs to be built to Jedi Mind Trick their way past every problem (and deprive the troll meatgrinder of his fun).

And besides, if these people are this good, why are they shadowrunners and not CEOs?

Because they want to be? There's any dozen number of reasons for being a shadow runner. Also, of course, is the point that not every campaign is going to be about people at shadow-runner level.

The 'Charisma 11' comment I made to go with this thread wasn't a joke -- we have two elves who have Charisma 11 (and Glamour, go figure). They run a nightclub, and act as go-to for difficult missions and specialized operations. They are, technically 'shadow runners' in that they do covert assignments and such, but they're not the stereotypical type of runner, either.

In fact, I've noticed very few people in my games make the 'stereotype' -- our current group is a troll nun, an adept driver/gunman with a legit SIN, an ex-mafia street-samurai renegade (legit, criminal SIN), a Tir Tairngire noble who ran from home and is doing repair/tech work (also legit SIN), a ferret shaman 'spoiled girl', a physical adept (only two who have a 'normal' shadowrunning background), and fox shape-shifter 'Face' (with legit SIN from the NAN).

Half these people don't have to 'run, but they do for their own personal reasons.

Oh, atypical shadowrunners are nice to see, I agree. I've got a drake adept with a legal SIN (which may as of next week no longer be valid as he's declared dead, or possibly MIA as he got hired by a corp for some good infiltration action and what becomes of his legal identity depends on how the rest of the team extracts him).

Concept wise we've created Tinker Toy (rigger elf who rigs his own limbs: modular detachable drones with guns), Rodrigo (previously mentioned--I think he made it to ink), Bubblegum (came from the same twisted mind as Rodrigo, a 16 year old girl with extensive bio/cyberware and is a missle launching killing machine machine with a cute and bubbly attitude about life), Friend Computer (of Alpha Complex; awakened AI who thinks its Friend Computer and refers to the other runners as Troubleshooters and keeps trying to kill them for treason) and a few others.

I would actually like to see social skills fleshed out in a book. One complaint I have had with almost every RPG I have ever tried has been that social characters just aren't that fun to play, because social activities tend to be summarily resolved with a single die roll. You wouldn't resolve a battle with a couple of combat skill rolls. I would like to see player skill come into play more, with players having to make decisions regarding stuff like negotiating tactics, what tac to take in conversations, etc. Done right, it could be a real blast to play a proper wheeler and deadler- think Chili Palmer in Get Shorty and Be Cool.

Nothing forbiddes to do it.

I remember hearing about a player who, during a scene, tried using a social skill. The game master let him roll dice, then continued on as if nothing happened. When it was brought up later, the game master said 'well, there's no rules for it'. Yes, that's poor GMing, but the fact remains -- if there's nothing to back up the use of social skills, they'll just be glossed over. I've often wondered about RPGs that put in social attributes and social skills, but then don't actually bother to set up any rules for their proper use.

For example, can I use Intimidation to impose a penalty on someone's attack roll? Can I scare them so badly that I make them miss? Can I use Con to convince someone I'm not actually injured? What about convincing someone that their boss is going to betray them, and shake their morale enough to have them turn on their boss first? Can I inspire my allies using Leadership to give them a boost on an activity they're doing, motivating them to do even better than normal?

Nothing in the rules covers any of this. Yes, I can wing it... but I don't like doing that. I like having the rules laid out so I can show people and so there's consistency from game to game and campaign to campaign.

I agree with AllTheNothing. Make the end result (the real reason you're engaging in social tests) intimidatingly difficult. Also, keep a whole bunch of invisible modifiers, and even if the player is not a particularly quixotic and pursuasive guy/girl, make sure they stipulate the tone/tack they're going to take. You mentioned the target's dead wife? Ooh, you just lost three dice!

To overcome a difficult to achieve outcome, you have the face make a few tests, not to contribute to the finally test, but to soften the target up for the final strike, just like in combat. For some examples, let's look at the social modifiers.

"With respect to the character, the NPC is: Hostile (-3)"

So you make a test to improve your standing. Make an etiquette test, make him feel comfortable, like you have things in common and he can trust you. Speak his language. For every hit on that test, improve that hostile modifier by 1 DP modifier. Six hits would get you "Friendly" with the character, and +2 dice to the final test. If the player has an idea of why con or negotiation might work as well, have them explain their idea and then roll with it, applying modifiers as you see fit.

"Character's desired result is: Annoying -1"

So whip out the negotiation dice. You've already appeared to be a fellow corporate wageslave, so work with that. Tell him that if he scratches your back, you'll scratch his. Maybe the info you want from him will help you with a promotion, and you won't forget who helped you up the ladder. Two hits will get you from Annoying to Advantageous. However, if the target gets more net hits, maybe he has a doubt. Maybe this is a loyalty test. What if he gets caught? This could be classified as insider trading! One net hit by him and he sees your intention as some-where inbetween annoying and harmful, for 2 dice.

"Character has superior rank: +1 to +3"

Use your con skill to lie to your target, convince him that you're actually above him in his corporate heirarchy. Each hit gives you another superior rank modifier. Let's say three.

Now, you want to make the final test, but it's looking easier because he's friendly towards you (+2), however he's also afraid for his job (-2), but he thinks you're of superior rank (+3), so you turned a -4 modifier into a +1 modifier, effectively gaining five dice.

This system can be scaled up or down to take as long as a major combat all the way back to the simple one roll you were initially doing, all depending on the situation.

What can a character do with 11 CHA? This.
Notice how the Cylons standing around her, who really just want to run, are so dumbstruck by that they fall into line; they immediately arm their weapons, preparing to attack Galactica in spite of their inferior tactical position.
While the Intimidation test wasn't even directed at them, the sheer power of it turned them into compliant followers for a brief moment. In fact, that whole episode is full of social tests, some more relevant than others.

Social tests, though, are about circumstances and positioning. You can't just convince anyone of anything. You need context. That context can be provided, or it can be created. For example, if you've just narrowly avoided being executed by a firing squad and, while holding your firing squad captive made a terse yet committed statement that you're going to take back your ship from the mutineers, then it is possible that some members of that firing squad might be so inspired by your show of leadership that they defect and join you on your quest to restore order.
But, that only really works if you have the guys who just tried to kill you at gunpoint and they think that they might be able to avoid being executed themselves if they switch sides again.

In fact, it is human nature to sympathize with captors, so you should try to use social skills to bring hostages over to your side.


The problem is that the potential applications and limits of social skilled are so context dependent that it is rather difficult to provide all-encompassing rules for them.


Thresholds and modifiers should be based on the NPC's disposition and beliefs. And there should be some good RPing, not just a simple "I intimidate him" or "I con him". And that's the best advice I can give. Since every NPC is different and every social test is different.

Someone recently told me the same thing for guns -- that it is almost impossible to assign 'damage' to a bullet, because the circumstances and situations on how it strikes someone, and how that person responds, is so different. A shot that someone isn't dropped by may kill someone else, with the exact same entry/exit point. Then a police officer I know mentioned a friend of his who got shot in the foot --- and died from hydrostatic shock.

It really depends on how far you're willing to go, for the details and modifiers. If 'I shoot the ork street samurai' is a viable thing, then 'I con the ork street samurai' should be just as viable.

There is a lot of truth to that. It's one reason why the focus on producing the horde of guns, gun modifiers and ammo mods for SR has struck me as silly. You can reasonable abstract it to a very limited classes of guns that are functionally identical inside the class. 12 gauge shotguns are much more likely to drop someone than a shot from .22 derringer, but people get killed by .22 pistols all the time.

I've known people who could talk people into doing seemingly crazy things. A relative of mine reminds me of the joke about George Halas. 'He throws around nickels like they were manhole covers.' She once made the mistake of attending one of those "free vacation" offers in which you have to listen to a timeshare pitch. She had forgotten her checkbook which is why she didn't end up owning a timeshare, as they were incredibly convincing.

I've also seen guys who always had the most amazing girlfriends, despite the guy not having any obvious redeeming qualities and essentially treating them like a doormat. There are limits as to what you can talk people into, but it's a lot further than you might think. Prison inmates have convinced guards to help them escape.

Absolutely. It *would* be nice if there were an optional combat-esque rules set for social/negotiation interactions though, that was a great suggestion. Thresholds are probably about the only thing we have to go with in the current system, kind of like playing air hockey - First side to 7 wins.

The big difference between social skills and combat skills is the impact the former can have on player autonomy if abused.


When a PC gets shot, you never have the player complaining that getting shot is out of character for the PC. No. The PC knows that the character has been shot and accepts that characters can get shot, and that your personality has nothing to do with the ability of bullets to pierce your flesh. Their might be some rules disputes, but that is it.

If you use social skills against a PC, on the other hand, you've opened up a can of giant nauseating headache. Because the players want to actually play, they don't want to be dictated to. They want to say "my character does this". They don't want the GM to say "your character does that". And there lies an interesting problem. Hard and fast social rules allow a character to compel a PC just as well as they allow a character to compel an NPC, and that isn't very fun. It's usually up to the player to define the bounds of a PC's behavior, not the GM, and not another player. And poorly applied codified social rules allows just that to happen.

Hey,I ran a game back YEARS ago, where a PC did that.....and the cops found out that, no, he was NOT joking when he said they did not want to find out who he worked for...The PCs were hired to be part of Big D's runner stable(this was before Dunkelzahn ran for president or anything like that...)

It doesn't allow high charisma players to come up with great story when they can (I watched a friend of mine play a dwarf fighter in D&D 4e who ended up being "the face" just because Jim is such a good RPer, nothing he said was out of character, it was just incredibly appropriate, actually outdoing the pre-written campaign).

OTOH I can't con my way out of a paper bag half the time, thus can't handle half the social rules that do exist.

Oh, I fully understand this. But the thing is, the alternative is 'social skills don't do anything', or 'social skills are this vague thing which may or may not work if the GM cares to consider it'. Neither of these, I think, are good options. The only alternative is to make functional social rules, and give the players an 'escape clause'. If the player doesn't like where the social attacks are going, let them blow an Edge and shake off the effects. That's not too bad, considering players blow Edge like candy in combat anyway.



Sure. But think of it this way: If characters use social skills on NPCs under the current rules, and the GM allows it, then that means NPCs can use the same social skills against PCs anyway. So, honestly, it makes no difference. The fact that the rules are vague, however, hurts the GM's case more, because at the moment, a player can say 'the rules don't allow that!!' -- and they're right.

At the moment, the rules are poorly codified, and thus there's a lot of room for abuse. And, as a counter-point... what do the players do against mages who throw around mind-affecting spells? A skilled mage can really screw with people, using mind reading, mind control, and emotion control. And it is incredibly dangerous what someone skilled with emotion manipulation can do. What happens when someone feels subtle annoyance every time they see someone? What happens when it builds up? What happens when they can't stand to be in the room with someone? All sorts of little tricks... then you toss in a brief moment of mind control, having the target attack the person they're annoyed with. Keep it subtle and quick (just one action, then cancel the spell), and they'll think it was their own idea, and nobody'll be the wiser.

Is that better, or worse, than having just nice, clear, social rules?

PC twinkery. When there's a set list of rules on how socials work (see D&D and its "epic uses of diplomacy") a player WILL break them (see the Jumplomancer: the man who jumps over towns and gets a +900 diplomacy roll by taking 10 or the artificer who casts a few Friend Shields on some friends mules, stabs himself, summons a god with a haiku, uses diplomacy +(infinity) on the god to cast Alter Reality to make the skill boosts permanent).

Without clear rules the GM can say "no, I'm sorry, dressing in drag and doing the hula does not give you any bonus dice" and not offend the player.

Conversely with combat our GM thought that a full dodge (complex action) lasted until the start of the next combat pass making Dodge and multiple initiative passes very very much worth having (full dodge the first pass, shoot passes 2, 3, and 4). Since discovering that this is NOT the case by explicitly written rules we've determined that Dodge is near useless (why waste 10 build points on 2 dice (4 with the spec in ranged/melee) you'll use once in a blue moon when you can instead raise your reaction getting +1 dice all the time AND get an initiative boost?).

I... both agree and disagree with that. On the one hand, I think that characters should be able to use social skills to be smooth-talking even if they are not that way in real life. And even an enthusiastic roleplayer will run dry on inspiration sometimes. And sometimes stopping to roleplay out a minor scene such as getting past a border guard will just bog down the game for everyone else. So I agree that the player should be able to whip out those dice and roll them to resolve the situation.

But even if you're not going to roleplay it out, I think there does need to be some, minimal detail. A face saying "I con the ork street samurai" isn't like the sammie saying "I shoot the ork street samurai". It's more like the sammie with cyberspurs, a claymore, a heavy pistol, and an assault cannon saying "I kill the ork street samurai". Your first question will be "Yes, but how, exactly?" Same for the face. You don't have to roleplay out everything, but let me know whether you are going to bribe him, pretend to be the boss's nephew, pretend to be part of the cleaning crew, pretend to be a new hire, etc.

And while the face who just rolls gets his dice, as I said before, the thinking face should be more effective, just as a thinking sammie is more effective.

The other issues is player vs player social skills. Ugg.

I used a negotiation (actually, it was con, but I didn't tell the player that.) roll against a player in Club Penumbra recently. A girl wanted to convince the runner that the guy she was standing with on the other side of the room was a debt collector and wanted to harvest her organs, and have him escort her out of there. I allowed him to set some modifiers based on how much he trusted her, and what effect his character perceived the action would have on him. She won, because she was practically a face, and he was an Orc infiltration specialist with 2 Charisma and no social skills.

IC I described to him that she was telling the truth, and threw in some sympathetic links between the two (he was in possession of paydata from a datasteal that went south, and with the rest of his team dead, he was alone and trying to get in touch with the Johnson), and told him he was inclined to help her.

OoC, he stopped me and asked whether he was being forced to do it. The guy is a shadowrun newbie, but a very enthusiastic and level-headed roleplayer, so I informed him that what he thinks and what his character thinks are not always the same thing. I told him that as of that moment, that was the course of action he wanted to take, but because I also shared his concern about his autonomy as a player, I told him that every time he believes his character would question his initial judgement, he could make an additional test, like a segmented extended test, and when he reached the threshold of her hits, he would be able to have free autonomy. For example, if he took her outside and they were immediately fired upon, he would get a hefty positive dicepool modifier if he wanted to decide "Frag this!"

Luckily, helping her was the action he wanted to take anyway, so it wasn't a big deal.

Oh, most assuredly, but then the question: If you can do it to an NPC, why can't you do it to a PC? Now, before we go into 'because that's just wrong' and the whole discussion I hear about 'social contracts' between players, I'm just talking mechanics here. If the GM allows you to use social skills on an NPC, than of course, NPCs can do it to PCs, and then, of course, PCs can do it to PCs.

I think having rules to govern it would help protect the players from having this get out of hand. What can a PC / NPC do? Here's a good list. Here's a few clauses for people to cover their butts so things don't get out of hand. Here's some upper limits.

That's been one of my biggest problems with the social skill rules. Generally, I prefer to define the social skills very narrowly, and use them only for the more quantifiable things, such as telling if a PC is lying or trying to get more pay from the Johnson. Social skills should never be used to take away a player's control of their character.

To be honest, I am not terribly fond of mind control spells, either. But with them, the character's will is overridden by outside forces, so their core personality remains intact. With social skill abuse, it's not just the loss of control, but the loss of how you envision that character. What do you do after your save-herself-for-marriage decker sleeps with the team pornomancer, or your fearless sammie grovels at the feet of a Renraku executive, even though you swore on your dead brother's grave to take revenge on those Renraku bastards? A few dice rolls, and you might as well use your 50-page background for toilet paper. Bitterness, apathy, and extreme metagaming are to be expected when social skill rules are abused.

Social skills need thresholds combined with hard limits. I would like more "hard and fast" social skills rules IF they enforced this, because sometimes it seems like half of the Dumpshock forums believe that high social skills should be able to do anything. So some clear limits would stop the worst of the twinkery, at least.

Face to rest of party, "He said he'd give us 15 grand to do the run" *rolls con, the actual number was 35 grand, wins even if the party totals their successes*

After, face to the rest of the party, "Here's the 15 grand, minus my share"

Face gets 23,000, everyone else gets 3000.

Yes.

This.

Sounds.

AWESOME.

Dude, where'd you get the solid gold toilet?

Um....it came with the house. *rolls con and wins, again*

That's a dangerous game to play with your co-workers when your co-workers shoot people in the face. For money.

It's done in more than one game already.

The problem with high con is that even if the smart character presents clear evidence that the face is stealing they can make up any lie they want and roll the dice and still win. The only thing stopping this schenanaganery is the GM, at which point if there are explict PC vs. PC rules, the face will just whip them out (and win again).

(underlined links for clarity)

See, that's what I mean about people thinking social skills are the equivalent to magical mind control. They aren't. But there need to be firm limits on what can be done with them, because there sure as heck aren't meaningful limits to the dice pools that a social adept can get.

But my point of view is that if the face can't get the Johnson to go over a certain hard limit, no matter how many successes he rolls, then why should he be any more successful in convincing his teammates to believe something in the face of clear, concrete evidence to the contrary?

Player: Ok, we just discovered through this handily placed hidden microphone that the Face has been stealing our money.
Face Player to GM: (I use con to convince them that the tape is doctored.)
Other Players: We want to roll to resist any further social attempts on us.
Player: She's been getting inbetween us and our cash, which makes her an "Enemy"
GM: That's a -4 modifier.
Another Player: And we really love our money, so being separated from it is "disastrous" to us.
GM: That's another -4 modifier for the face.
Another Player: We've also had plenty of time to evaluate the the situation.
GM: I'll chalk that up to a +2 for you guys!
Player: Dont' forget supporting evidence!
GM: +2 for you!
Another Player: We're also all adding our Street Cred
Player: And it's a teamwork test.
Face: Why are you guys all in Hazmat suits?
GM: Looks like you're not getting that tailored pheremones bonus. Or kinesics, for that matter.
Face Player: What about my emotitoy?
Hacker player: Remember when I cooked up a Firewall program for the team?
Face player: Oh no. Wait a minute, what is the mage rolling?
Mage player: Analyze truth.

Obviously you've never seen this guy at work.

Analyze Truth is actually fairly easy to get around. All you have to do is use equivocations, technical truths, and partial truths.

For example, in this situation "I didn't take your money" would come out as truthful. Because he never took their money. He just kept their money.

I always make the following rule for any RPGs I run. All character must be able to work functionally as a group, which explicit bars stealing or backstabbing the team.

Making a little extra money on the side is fine, but cheating your allies is not. Besides, you'd have to be downright idiotic to try to cheat money away from people who are not only professional cold blooded killers, but also people you spent large amounts of time with and have to trust in order to survive.

So...lets see, Analyze Truth is easy enough to get around (as posted).

-12 dice, effectively, off what the Face rolls. Even if you group test it (every one rolls independently and adds their successes in dice to the person with the largest pool) you'd be lucky to have a statistically "better than even" chances of winning.

Plus, all the Face has to do is talk with the one other "face-ish" player and say "hey, I'll split the loot with you" and if he says "yes" then you're golden forever even assuming your proposed "everyone teams up massive penalty." The face-ish character, with say, half the dice pool of the Face, is recovering a goodly portion of those lost dice.

For instance, a normal (not counting pheramones, etc.) die pool of 18 (not impossible, though probably out there) vs. the rest of the party's 8 turns into, not 10 vs. 12, but 13 vs. 12.

Adding edge is an indeterminable factor, as every player has their own ideas of how lucky they want to be. Personally I'm "good and lucky" but I've seen "only lucky" and "only skillful" as well as "unlucky" characters out there (I watched my current GM play a character with the Unlucky flaw and only 2 edge--was hilarious).

A successful con test doesn't make you believe a lie, it just makes you unable to sense any signs of falsehood. Just because someone manages to say "Grass is purple" with the same amount of sincerity as them saying "Grass is green" doesn't make you believe that grass is purple, at that point the best they can do is make you think that they think grass is purple.

In this case, a character's ability to fast talk, swindle, and get through social situations is restricted to the player's abilities, rather than the character's, and if the player isn't socially adept, they're screwed. (And I do often feel this urge to smack someone who says 'well, then they shouldn't try to play characters who are socially adept! ... seriously, forcing a player to be restricted by their RL capabilities is just lame)



Assuming of course, that their core personality does remain intact. You'd be amazed at what people can do with mind and emotion control spells and a whole lot of cunning. Pavlovian conditioning is an evil, evil thing. I've played enough Other Games and read enough psychology to have a really good grasp of what can be done to people. Have someone shoot someone else, then have them feel a rush of pleasure each time they do this. Eventually, they start to enjoy doing it. Subtle, but nasty.



Both situations actually seem probable. The former, even more so -- because I've been there myself. Being the victim of seduction is a horrible experience, especially if you've got a healthy degree of honesty and morality to you. (Case being -- I was seduced once... fortunately I didn't actually have sex with the girl, but it was a close thing. Felt horrible and guilty about it the next morning. Told my girlfriend of 5+ years what happened. She understood, accepted. Never happened again.)

The latter situation sounds like something that could happen in a really good movie. The protagonist comes in, having vowed revenge, and the bad guy shows just what will happen to the pro's family if they don't submit. The horror of what may come causes the pro to buckle and submit, this paving the way for others to try to pull the pro out of the mess. (In fact, I think I saw that in a book once, too... 'you work for me, or THIS happens') An excellent way to make a scene start as a tragedy, generating pathos, and then pulling triumph out of the jaws of defeat later.



I would presume so if anything is abused at all. That comes from any rules being abused, not just social rules.

Actually, the way my friends usually deal with a Face who is screwing with the group is not to talk to the Face. It involves holing up about a thousand meters away, taking out a sniper rifle, and blowing the Face's brains out. It is incredibly hard to argue with a bullet traveling faster than the speed of sound.

This goes for PC or NPC Face characters, mind... my group tends not to like being dicked around.

This is from a game that never took off. I played Vera - a face.

Tacoma Safehouse
Tuesday 15/04/70 0703
Vera
Cranial Comm [Offline], Front Comm [Hidden]

Vera sat in the back of the cab, her mind playing with the concept of being
both angry and puzzled by it at the same time. Aleph had in some ways scored
and scored well, but the game was not finished and she was already coming up
with a strategy to beat him. Did he even try on the face of a woman. He at
times carried himself in such a way that certain liberties were available to
him. Of course if that were true there would be a sense of satisfaction for
her and a great shame to him to be seen dressed in women's clothing.

The other side of her mind noted the orc in the front of the cab, a man who
had lost her interest in consequence to his station. The cab also smelled,
worse than the orc, but not by much. She absentmindedly wondered if he was
born in a litter like most orcs or had been turned years ago.

Her commlink was interfacing with her eyes and ears. Her two friends were
with her, the hacker's agents were performing admirably. Two tuxedo suited
black forms, one of whose cards of obfuscation were already shifting the cab
fare to another account, the cab camera being hacked in real-time to show a
picture of a middle-aged businessman, a composite from a thousand images
available to the agent, subtly shifted to create a realistic image.

The cab slowed down and she paid with the cab fare with a twist of a tuxedo
man's deck hand. Ritz-Carlton was her preferred hunting place . The
gathering place of a myriad of bored businessmen with too much money and too
many pent up frustrations.

The door to her cab was already being opened before the cab had come to a
full stop. Already she was putting on her shades, her head held up just so
to show how much better she was then everyone around her. Her PAN already
giving him the mandatory 50 nuyen tip.

The lobby was plush with its faux art deco furniture and golden chandeliers.
Already her PAN was beng interrogated on whether she was sure that she was
not willing to take any incoming data from a string of services. She was
more interested in the business men as she confidently walked over to the
desk.

Two Swiss delegates from a local seminar with their expensive commlinks, one
was in French, his interests involved rock climbing, pistol shooting, and
downhill skiing. The other in German, with only a business card and an
impressive bank as the bottom line. Both were in finance. An older balding
man read a paper newspaper whose cheap commlink was accentuated by his even
faker Rolex. His PAN said he was an entrepreneur, and his pheromones said he
was an equally cheap drunk.

As she came closer to the desk her PAN was being intruded by the hotel's
automated concierge service. She walked through the mirage of a menu and its
equally artificial hostess. She smiled at the concierge Simeon. His PAN was
that of a sideline of services being offered, virtual menus hinting at
untold wish fulfillment.

"Hi Simeon. I'm back for today. It's just been awful, I had an amazing party
at that new night club you recommended would be opening the last time we
talked. But first things first, could you find me my usual room, 2408?"

"Hi Ms. Starling. It has been a while hasn't it. Unfortunately that room is
reserved, but I can put you in the one next to it. Is that alright?"

"Oh, I guess it'll have to do." Vera said with faux inconvenience.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Simeon looked at Vera.

"Oh I'm sorry. My ex-boyfriend, no not the one from Sweden but the rocker,
has been trying to contact me all night. He's been desperate to get back
with me since, oh a week ago." Vera lowered her voice to a stage whisper
"He's a bit of the possessive type." Vera slipped on her PAN to active mode
for five seconds, just long enough to see a SIN, but not much more.

Vera picked up the keycard handed over by Simeon and walked a bit before
taking off her heels and walks over to the elevators giving Simeon a smile
and a wink. Like her facsimile she too wanted a bath, some rest, and food.

***

At the hotel

Tuesday 15/04/07 0755

Vera

Vera had been bothered by a niggling doubt for a while. She was still used
to being on the run where all electronic devices were turned off - Aleph had
rubbed off on her in the worse possible way. Not that either would admit
that could happen. AR was one of the many things that she had been warned
against on turning on and of course she had listened and then turned them
not off but to hidden. Now she may have blown her cover completely by
keeping it hidden to the hotel system.

She mentally adjusted herself and through her skinlinked commlink turned it
back on. Immediately her eyes and ears were overlayed by what can only be
described as a grateful system, who politely wanted to inquire if everything
was alright. Of course she said she was fine.

The hotel system with its virtual concierge made a note of her increased
stress levels in her voice and happily changed its selection to fit the
parameters set into it. A certain dependent side of it simply wanted to
please the client in any way possible. It inquired that would she like
breakfast brought to her and would she also like a bath run.

Vera accepted the bath, but decided against the breakfast, she was already
going through the list turning on the AR musical selection to the hotel's
choice of streaming music stations.

A collection Michele Tanhauser's Liquide Oxygenne began to pipe through the
hotel room. The virtual concierge based on information by the physical
concierge had shifted the music selection to fit that of relaxing after
party music.

The bath was perfect in its warmth. Just a few degrees warmer than the
surrounding atmosphere. She selected tropical sunrise as the theme of her
bath from the touch screen next to her, small currents rushed through the
vents mixed with a Thai ocean rinse that had a tropical fruit aroma to it.
The lights took on a yellowish tinge, the heat lamp slowly becoming ever
slightly stronger, and the music overlayed with a more soothing sound of
surf and possibly the sound of a bird in the background.

She relaxed and checked her commlink looking at its screen possibly for the
first time. While the commlink was possibly water proof up to 100 meters,
she would would prefer not putting it to the test and anyways her commlink
had warned her that the hotel would not responsible for loss of a commlink
due to water damage.

There was a message for meeting up for 1930.

She mentally made up a message, but the realized how silly it was so she
shifted up out of the tub for a moment placing the commlink against her
skin. The agent immediately jumped, holding out a virtual screen of a queen
of hearts in which she could mentally type her message.

"Hi Beta, I am at the hotel. We need a few contacts and such, could you see
if there is an information broker out there who needs some work done. Could
you also have a look on the Matrix and see what does it look like for the
ghost side of Seattle. Maybe we can come up with something that will upstage
the boys? I'll be sleeping for a few hours, so don't worry if I don't
immediately respond."

The agent slipped the message into its breast pocket of its silhouette tux
and disappeared in a flash of red haze.

Vera dropped the commlink onto the floor and finished her bath. She just
dropped in her complementary bath robe onto the nice double bed and fell
asleep almost immediately, her sleep regulator smoothly flowing her to an
increased use of sleep.

The AR system already dimming the lights down and muting the music, leaving
only the barely audible sound of crashing surf and screeching birds.

***

Grand Hyatt

Tuesday 15/04/07 1208

Vera

Skinlink commlink online, cranial commlink offline

Vera got up out of bed. The light began to rise turning first a bluish tinge
and then an orange as if a thousand tropical sunrises were distilled into
one until they reached noon day. It was magical in its childish fakery.

Her dreams were always upsetting that of possibilities. Of happiness. Of
loss. Of pleasure. Of death. The dream chip that she had implanted in
herself did not remove the dreams as she was promised but instead made them
stronger more distilled. It slipped past that of the buffering bliss of
dreamlessness to that of dreams going at every faster rates.

It took her a moment to realize where she was and who she was. Was she Vera
or was she the name the AR system insisted was she. The lights had gone up
and she was on the stage.

A glass of water from the sink in the immaculately white bathroom, it was
cool and refreshing, and the tinge of blue was just as artificial, another
piece of AR dream. She noticed that her agent had come back with a message
from Beta, attached was a single matt black square, with faint gossamer
spiderwebs criss-crossing it. A few single words embossed in silver. Silken
Solutions.

She wondered when she looked back in the mirror if they really did know
everything that when she would turn the card it would reveal not a mirror,
but an image of who she was supposed to be.

It always took time to differentiate between sleep and wakefulness. The
hotel still wanted to know what she wanted. She chose a cup of coffee, and
that she would like to have lunch in the hotel restaurant, at 1PM.

She flicked through the choices that her fake SIN could buy and chose a new
outfit from among those offered on the local matrix by the local hotel.
Sharp angles were back in style this month as well was leather. Her sizes
were in the system, but she was grateful nonetheless that stepped on the
scales just to be sure. In a lesser hotel it would simply register weight,
but here it was a biometric scan of her body. Aleph would not approve. But
then again the pervasiveness of technology had meant that as soon as she had
stepped out of the taxi already and walked through the hotel door all her
biometric data was in the system.

The digital age meant that everything was recorded. Absentmindedly she
wondered if the pictures of Aleph were true. And whose wife had "he" been.

The shower was hot as the door was knocked on. The hotel's AR system
understanding that she was in the shower assured her it was a woman who was
only bringing her coffee.

Vera opened the door dressed in her towel. The man behind the door was
dressed as a hotel staff member. Two trays and complimentary hard plastic
bags advertising the designer shop where they had come from were in a
pushcart next to him. His skin was sweaty and his pupils were dilated. There
was that tell-tale smell of sexual pheromones from him.

"I brought you your coffee" he said nervously trying hard not to look in the
room but doing so anyway.

Vera smiled that little smile, her own pheromones mingling with his.

"Oh please do come in..." She said, the boy looked at her as she moved out
of the way to push the whole cart in. He stood there for a moment, trying to
go for the tray, but his hands were shaking.

"Why don't you bring in the whole cart?" As she walked back from the door.
Looking back at him over her shoulder. She turned her head to avoid seeing
him try to force the cart through the doorway, the unpleasant sound of a
nicked door jam and of crockery rocking was as he pushed it in.

Vera sat down on the divan and looked at him coyly, before getting up again.
"Hi Bill." She said looking at his name tag as she got within breathing
distance of him. her body nearly touching his. She lightly breathed down
along his neck and whispered.

"Do you have a commlink?"

Bill was confused. He started to say something, instead only his mouth kind
of worked around what he thought she said and then it registered.

"Sure." He gasped as he dug furiously in his pocket. Vera took hold of his
hand as he grasped it. She pushed him backwards, her mouth ever getting
closer to his, her body pressing into his.

"Thanks." She said as she closed the hotel room door in his face, his
commlink in her hand.

She looked through the bags noting none were hers. She quickly contacted the
stores and noted that they had delivered her the wrong sizes of items and a
few exasperated minutes later had them changed not only to the right size
but also to the right design. The other cheaper ones she informed the shop
she did not want and could be picked up untouched from hotel reception.

A half an hour later after her manicure, make-up and artificial tan, she was
dressed in a leather mini skirt and matching fashion leather jacket,
enjoying fresh mango and grapes in the immaculately white hotel restaurant.

She commlinked Beta at the same time as she looked at her fellow diners. It
was the after lunch crowd, those who could afford to have their lunch break
when they wanted, but not enough that it could more than martinis.

<< Hi Beta, thanks for the mail. It's nice having friends like you. Don't
worry about the commlink, I have a new one. Could you just check it out for
me? As soon as it does I'll have a chat with the people at Silken Solutions.
Thanks. Vera. >>

"Excuse me miss, but the gentleman at the bar wished to offer you this." A
waiter approached with a business card between his silk gloved thumb and
index finger. She took the card "Aubin Kross. Manager. Basel Bank Suisse."
She beamed a smile at him and walked over to the bar.

Nice.

I handle it like this: Face skills can't make you do anything. They can just color the "information" you have. No "you want to help this poor street urchin", more like "she really needs the help, or she'll die - a poor kid, she reminds you of your sister, the one that disappeared years ago". Or "she looks like a street kid, but her accent is a bit off - could be a rich runaway, if you help her there could be a reward". Or "she looks trustworthy, and her story sounds convincing, and from what she recounts, she's chased by some gangers out for a thrill, nothing major, even if she thinks those are the ancients the jacket colors she mentioned are off, and they sound more like some posers".

Depending on the results of the roll of the face, I'd describe her, her story, and maybe even her enemies accordingly. But whether or not the runner helps her is his decision.

My character gets scary when he finds people betrays him. The only solution is a bullet or five in the brain pan, but if you tell him where the swindled cash or what not is, he promises not to give the same treatment to your loved ones.

That may or may not require a con test.

Wow... that's great!!!

Anyway for what concernes social interaction rule, it's my opinion that they are left vague porpousefully, there are groups that are more roleplay oriented and have fun with social interaction, there are others that just want to get it done as quick as possible to get to the cool things as fast as possible, the rules just give the group the basic building blocks than the group defines how to implement them. There is also a purely pratical aspect: combat rules are based more or less on a cause/effect approach, you get shot you take damage, than damage dependes by placemet of the shot, type of weapon/ammunitions used, protection that target might have, how the organism reactes, ect., all this factors are realisticaly aproximable by rules and the outcomes are needed to be defined in non ambigue way (you either are wounded or are not, you either are living or dead, etc.); with social interaction doing something like that is simply not possible, there are too many factors, and there is no clear cause/effect relationship as it is based on psychology, a field that is much less predictable than physics or phisiology, the outcomes are not defined in a linear way either, no matter how much you refine the rules, you are never going to aproximate them in a belivable way, you are never going to cover enough possible outcomes to leave shasms instead of holes, and most importantly attempting to do it would take a monstrous ammount of time to do and would cause the social rule take ALOT of space, with so many case to refere to that a simple social roll becomes a matter of lawviering (not fun), also would you chose to give few hard points that tell "this means this" you would obtain a no more defined system with some hard points that make sense in just few situations and create just problems in other (not to mention the possibility of being exploited by player: the rules say so).
What must be done to solve the problem is simply have a little brainstorming before the beginning of the game, in that brainstorming the GM and the players chose the type of game they want to play and the feel they want it to have (gritty, happy go lucky, pink mohawak, black ops, etc.), and how to handle various aspect of the game (for exemple how much in detail you must go to cover your identity), social interaction is one of them.
To conclude I would like to tell what are the limits that social skills should be subject to:
Social skills aren't mind control effects, you can't convince an Azzie wageslave to do something that has the remote possibility of having him caught, it would be a death sentence for him and the family; the pornomancer can't convince the team to just close an eye for having them robbed of about the 80% of the payment, the best thing he/she can do is to convince them to spare him/her from retribution and settle the thing by returning them what he/she had taken way (and that's the best, if his/hers performance is less than fenomenal there's going to be extras for having betried them).
There's a limit to how much benefit you can obtain from a succesfull roll, you might haggle on the price of a gun, but the dealer can't give it for less than he had to pay for it; Mr. Johnson might be able to pay ten times what he's offering but for the kind of job that he's hiring your team for he's willing to pay as high as the X% more than his offering and he won't accept to pay more than that.
There are situations in wich social skills won't be usable, the target just won't listen.

just a few thoughts.

I was thinking about my other character who I have been playing for a year now, who had Charisma as the dump stat and as a good GM punished me for it. It has created an interesting situation where even the most whitest of lies she fails at. So it means that my character does not lie. Ever. It also means that when a threat is carried out. It is also real.

-Chrysalis

Were talent raw matter you would be called a gold mine.

I was really bummed out when that game fell through (I was the Beta that is mentioned in the writing). My character had a charisma of 1 (iirc), and even though Chrysalis never rolled against me, I had a lot of fun fawning over her character. In fact, the only other girl playing in our group was playing a male, who along with the other males, were evenly enamoured and terrified of her. A hilarious slinging match started at our safehouse where some innapropriate remarks were made about Vera and her use of bodily fluids, which stopped the meeting dead and had Vera walk out on us. Nothing to do with me, of course, because Beta was a obsessive compulsive vegan (her shedim possessed father ate her mother alive in front of her) and locked herself in the rigger's van (without permission) because she could smell cooking eggs.

Vera was probably my favourite face team-mate (even though our GM wouldn't allow her to be a serial killer, which I personally was looking forward to), and I haven't managed to land another game with Chrysalis since.

Reminds me what has happened to a face/infiltrator of mine: she was caught with funds stolen from the rest of the team and was almost lynched, in the end she "just" got gangraped and left with a "Now you know what happens when you betry your freinds, and quit crying bitch". Two days later they got a run and needed someone to do the haggling so called her (she was damn good at it), but she didn't respond so one of the group's samurais went to pay her a visit; when he got fed up of waiting for my character to open he put to use his knowledge of B&E and was prontly hit by a nauseating wave of stench of rotten flesh. It was a quite a shock for him to learn that his team's face face had committed suicide, even more when he checked hers comlink to see if she had left an message to explain hers actions; what he did find was a read-once-and-delete message from the hacker that told my character that now she did know that turning down a hacker can have dire consequences. The samurai returned to the team and they informed him that the team shaman had seen my character ghost, and he told them of what he had discovered; in the end they chose that punishing the hacker made no sense (they all were responsible for it) and tooke the job offered (at a much lower rate than usual).
The run went silky smooth until they found themselves face to face with a platoon (is it the word?) of elites corpsec waiting for them, the only one getting out alive was the troll meatgrinder, who discovered that THREE different bounties and a contract had been put on the team's member's heads, even worse on the matrix there were rumors about the team raping and torturing tom death their face, and the face's spirit that is returned from death to hunt them down.

If you want a game with clear delimitations of what social skills can do and where social rules as detailed as combat rules (more precisely they use the exact same system), play Dying Earth RPG.

In Shadowrun, my biggest problem is to know what someone with a 48 social dice pool is like. I guess I can tell what a character with a non-augmented maxed-out social dice pool is like, but an augmented character... it's hard to tell.