Since Con/Fast Talk can go opposed vs. Negotiation, there's no need to take Negotiation unless you're a Face. Negotiation is only really useful when you're buying something.

Edge: In my experience, high-Edge characters always end up doing better than low-Edge ones. YMMV, of course, but I always recommend that you pump Edge as far as you possibly can for any character.

Edge really depends on how the GM deals with it. Sure it's nice to have a high Edge attribute, but with some GM it'd be better to spend BP on high "natural" dice pools so as not to rely too much on Edge.

The trick is to have high "natural" dice pools while keeping that nice high Edge.

Not according to p121 of SR4. Negotiation can resist Con or Negotiation, Con can only oppose Con.
Unless this too has been subject to errata.

That's part of the point. You can use con to negotiate with, particularly if you use the Fast Talk specialization. Negotiation is great on the "defense", but how often will a non-face be selling something?

Personally, I'd like to see the rationale for why people think something is critical; be specific, even if it's obvious (to you ) ("for obvious reasons" is not being specific....)

DS

You need to reread the descriptions of the skills as you have key elements of them backwards.
Con is used when "the intended result is to have the target believe something other than the truth," while Negotiation is used "when the character deals with another and seeks to come out ahead, either through careful and deliberate bargaining or through fast talk." (SR4, p120)
I concede that this last sentence's use of "fast talk" and the Con specialization "Fast Talk" is confusing, but the intent explicit in the language and the Opposed Tests Table is that you can't use Con to negotiate.
Further, your understanding of Negotiation is too narrow and misses the commercial, noneconomic uses.

I think much of it is too character dependent to generalize, but most character's with street backgrounds should have at least Negotiation 1 and Intimidate 1 to represent not being conned every day and not quivering in fear every three and a half minutes when a local ganger strolls by. Social defense rolls should really be more common in most games. A runner that every NPC can lie successfully to is going to be in for a rough ride.

I concede that Negotiation has uses other than the bargaining table, but that's its primary use. Con is a better general skill. Negotiation has its uses, but it works best in the hands of a specialized character, like a Face. You can negotiate a bit with Con, just like you can fast t alk a bit with Negotiation.

Which would you say a shady used-car salesman has, Con or Negotiate? If you said "Both", you're right. However, most characters won't need both skills, and can get by with just Con.

I'm not so sure about that. Con is all about lying to someone and getting people to believe you. You can use Con to convince me you're a dirt-poor beggar, living on the street, who hasn't eaten for three days. Hell, if you're good at conning you can do it even if you're fat and don't smell like a trash can, but unless you can persuade me to give you my cash, I'm still not giving you any change. I'll believe you're poor, sure; I just won't see why it's my problem that you're poor, and why I need to bail you out.

Part of the problem here is that SR4 doesn't really have a system for skill-to-skill defaulting. Negotiation and Con in SR3 would obviously default to each other, so someone who's good at Conning someone would be able to do a passable job at negotiating too. But in SR4 you have the odd problem of being slick as ice when it comes to lying your ass off, but you couldn't convince your mother lend you a cup of sugar.

More than that, Negotiation is the skill to use when working contacts. Just like no runner should be without a contact or two (hey, that should be on the list!), so should no runner be without the skill to actually make that contact help you.

This is why i miss skill to skill defaulting. I really enjoyed that in SR3; if you could use a shotgun, you could whip out a rifle(yeah, they were different skills then, i know), and only take a bit of a penalty; same with an assault rifle. And i agree, Negotation and Con could link to each other very well.

Almost makes me want to consider a sort of houserule for this sort of thing; if you have an appropriate skill(say, one within a skillgroup, or at least in the same family), you can default instead to the skill + attribute -1 or 2...without using a specialization, of course. It wouldn't be that bad. That way, your extremely shifty smooth talker(let's say con 4, charisma 4), could still roll 6-7 dice to Negotiate with someone. Attribute -1 defaulting would still exist, but it would be if you didn't have an appropriate skill(though yeah, yeah you might argue defaulting Intimidation to Shotguns. )

It seems balanced on paper. I'd probably use -2, that wouldn't be a big difference from Con 1 Cha 3 person, but to the Cha 4 Con 5 person, its a world of difference..that makes sense.

And back to Indispensable skills...that list above, i believe, might be great for you 'Garden Variety Shadowrunner''. But different characters and different campaigns would all have a different skillset...but, yeah e..Perception and at least a Con or Negotation 1 could help out absolutely anyone.

The problem of such skill to skill defaulting is that it's cheaper and better to buy 1 rating 6 skill than to buy two rating 4 skills, leading to munchkinism.

A good list, but in SR4, half of that list consists of items that are virtual in nature, and held in a commlink or other data storage, not a locker.

Well, luckily, houseruling such with my group won't have a problem. If i were GMing a strange group with whom i didn't know what kind of players they were...i might stick with the book. We play with an honor system. Perhaps i might better call it ''group house rules''.

Perhaps a hit cap could be added. the hits could be capped at half the skill, rounding down. making it so that it still is worth buying those 2 rating 4 skills, since those hits won't be capped. I just like how it makes more sense with skill to skill defaulting...and of course, non defaultable skills will stay non defaultable skills. You could be great at first aid, and while i'm sure you could pull off the ol' pen cap tracheotomy(sp?), i don't think you'll be able to default to it for quad-bypass surgery.

Im not sure how everyone else does it, but since we've known each other a long time, we have plenty of houserules that ease some things and don't get abused.

I'm just waiting for someone to bring up the skill web ...

The way both skills are written, there's enough overlap so that you can use Con in many places where you'd use Negotiation. It's not that one totally trumps the other, it's that one's enough to slide by. If you can convince a guard you're worthy to be let by, you con convince someone that you're worthy of some spare change. Besides which, I thought Etiquette was the skill to work contacts? I could be persuaded that Etiquette is more important than Con for that reason.

Cain is right in that chars can often do with very restricted skill lists. Know what you want to do, and you can cut the waste. Also, playing style plays a large role. If you can depend on specific skills being present in the group (and being used on your behalf), you need less skills. The freedom of unconnected skills forces you to decide what you want, because you won´t get what you don´t pay for. Cut the wrong corners...

The skillset of a char who can only do one thing in a given area, but that exceptionally well, is IMO not coherent. If your char would logically be able to do other things than his speciality, it is your responsibility to make sure he/she has the skill. It is a common problem with weapon skills, as the basic process of handling a weapon does not change with the caliber of the weapon. But it also applies to other skills: I´ve had the discussion with a super-soldier. You are not bossing around people without charisma, Leadership skill, or officially sanctioned leadership. You get bossed around. How surprising if "no skill" actually means "no skill".

My "indispensibles": Athletics 1, Infiltration 1 (Urban), Influence 1. The risk of glitches is still very high (for attributes 1-5 at least), and all skills may come up.



Edit: Rather important negation missing.

I'll use my Demolitions skill to pilot this airplane!

As for the whole Con/Negotiation/Etiquette discussion, I think it'll depend on the GM. Some GM will allow players to use one of these for all social tests and other will require the player to have a specific skill for a specific test.
Personally, I think it's better to limit the area covered by each social skill: it wouldn't be fair if a character with all social skills didn't get anything more than a character who just maxed out one of them. I tend to consider that most of the time, any of these skills can be used for the same situation but will lead to a different resolution with, most of the time, one skill being more effective than the other.

The usefulness of skills will also greatly depend on the way the game is played. If it's just a team going on missions together, specialists will do alright. If the group also plays the daily life, or some "solo" situations, a specialist might have trouble solving problems on his own.
The skill choice will also have an impact on how the team acts. A team of specialist will be less flexible than a team made of more versatile characters but will tend to be more effective when acting as a team.

See, this is another reason I dislike the new edition: the minor changes. If you re-read the section on contacts, there is nary a mention of Etiquette, except when you screw up; everything is Cha+Negotiation, modified by Connection rating. Con very explicitly never enters the picture; nor does Leadership.

Etiquette, unlike in SR3, is more like the anti-glitch skill, the "social saving throw," to bastardize a D&D term. It's actually more critical to low-cha, low-social skill characters, because you'll be making more glitches with low skill/attribute than high and will need to make the throw more often. It's also used for "fitting in," basically not drawing attention to yourself in a crowd or at a party or something, but I suppose that Con could sub for that.

Just to guide the discussion, and for people whose books are at home or something, here's the blurbs on the three skills:


In other words, Con is lying convincingly, Negotiation is getting people to do what you want, Etiquette is fitting in and mitigating a screw-up.

Yeah. My first character was a rigger, and I never bothered with piloting skills, since his Reaction was so mucking high when he was rigged in.

Except that Con has the Fast Talk specialization, and Negotiation doesn't. In fact, the example in the book has someone using Con to get a guard to do what she wants.

You mean this part (emphasis mine):

(p. 121) "Ashley gets 3 hits and the guard gets 1. Two net
hits gets her past the guard, temporarily convincing the
poor fool that she really is a Mitsuhama employee. With
only 2 hits, however, the gamemaster decides that the
guard will check up on her soon aft erward, as the holes
in her story become apparent with hindsight"

"Fast talk" sounds like trying to tell a quick and believable lie (rather than trying to, say impersonate or seduce, which are Con's other two specializations), rather than really convincing someone to do something for you. The example is actually trying to get the guard to not do something, not check up on the story, not call security, etc.

Con and its specializations certainly don't sound like the kinds of things you want to do regularly with trusted contacts; that's how you lose them. So, you have:

Negotiation:
-Used for all contact-work, per contact rules
-Used to get gear
-Used for getting more out of Johnson
-Used to resist Negotiate
-Used to resist Con

Con:
-Used to sleaze past guards, tell lies and get people to believe them.
-Used to impersonate people
-*Maybe* used to wheedle something out of a contact, but may piss them off.

Etiquette:
-Used to fit in where you don't belong
-Used if you glitch the above ("social saving throw")
-Used if you (player) make a mistake you (character) wouldn't have.


I'd say Negotiate comes out clearly ahead, with Etiquette in second, but I could easily be wrong.

I use this guideline:

If you're asking "What do you want?" it's Negotiation. If you're asking "What do I want?" it's Con.

Also, if there are lies (or truth-stretching) involved, I go straight to Con.

Talking about skill overlaping.... how about infiltration and shadowing?

I am eager to see your take on these...

Cheers,

Max

So.....Johnsons never, ever need Negotiation, right?

If you are unwilling or unable to stay out of line of sight entirely, you need to use Shadowing. So Shadowing comes into play any time you are fading into a crowd, most of the time you are following people, and pretty much all the time you are trying to escape observance while in a vehicle of any kind.

-Frank

Would it be fair to say, then, that Infiltration is for hiding, and Shadowing is for blending in, as a good rule-of-thumb distinction?

Well, there's a difference between negotiating a payment and giving details for a job.

I'd say less blending in and more not being noticed. The distinction is minor, admittedly.

Infiltration = is someone there? (i.e. sneaking, getting past motion detection scanners, etc. Not a skill for crowded areas or quick movement.

Shadowing = is someone following me/him? (i.e. urban tracking, getting close enough to overhear a conversation without appearing to be listening in, etc. A very useful skill for bodyguards)

This is generally how I look at it. Shadowing is the skill of being inconspicuous, while infiltration is moving with a low profile and not much noise.

In a world where it is rather trival for both magic and tech to rewrite anyone's memories everyone should have trust issues.

Mages and Magic: If you are capable of slinging mojo yourself then you shouldn't trust another Mage to handle your spell defenses. Mundanes are just Shit-Out-of-Luck one this one though.

Sammies and Combat: You should NEVER allow anyone else to perform routine cleaning on your firearms, and always load your own clips.

Faces and Talking: Never allow your Face to meet with the Johnson or Fixer alone, do you really know what kind of cut he is taking off of the top? And always make sure you have enough 'softs to be able to understand whatever langauge is being spoken, perferably without the rest of the team knowing that you can understand them.