Fairly new GM here and I'm not sure when to have my players use their Etiquette skill. In what situations do you use this skill in actual play?

When I gm other games beyond shadowrun, when questions have cultural questions over social interactions, Etiquette might be a good use for that, so that they know how to avoid looking foolish when talking to people. If they're talking to a Johnson, and are debating on how to phrase something, you can do a 'that's kinda dumb' roll so that the player doesn't mistakenly offend the guy.

When they make a social gaff and they understand that they have, you can use it to cover that particular action up with an Etiquette roll, only those that succeed at some social based perception roll would notice it. Like using the wrong fork for the salad course in a high high end dinner party.

Edit: Another thing that they could use it for, would be to get an edge in negotiations. Say some fixer or black marketeer has a rather fond taste for some particular indulgence, a drunk or drink, they could offer that up as a gift to the person they're talking to.

I often envision this skill as the 'give your players more information about the world' skill.

I would do it whenever they're meeting someone with some sort of power. Gang leader or a pack, a Johnson, an oyabun of the Yakuza - anywhere where a culture clash could start a fight. Runners need to know how to act to get by the gangs, to not piss off the Yaks, or to put the Johnson at ease so he relaxes those purse strings.

'course, a lot of this can be alleviated through the transfer of nuyen, but I tend to be stingy.

Etiquette, for me, is general awareness of how to act, respond, and behave given the situation you are in.

Example - In a matrix meet (in RL) I might type stuff like "LOL" or "IMHO". But I'm not going to say that in a real conversation in person with someone.

Example - At work, in a corporate environment, I will be very proper, saying please and thank you all the time. I wouldn't say "Shit" or "Damn" (often, only when I fail an etiquette roll). Obviously quite different than chilling with friends.

How it should be impletemented, I'd run it like this. You start a social encounter. Everyone rolls and tells you their results. Those that succeed, you tell them how they should be acting. The one's that fail, should behalf opposite of what you say, maybe not as bad if they didn't fail by much or just failed to get a success. After a certain amount of the social encounter occurs (assuming its a long one) maybe get teh guys who failed a chance to roll again, since they've seen more about the situation and might have learned from their social gaffes.

Etiquette has always seemed to me to be a "I don't feel like RP-ing" skill, similar to some of the Qualities found in Runner's Companion.

Keep in mind that Shadowrunners live and work in a world of crime, corruption, violence, and covert power mongering. People assume you are an informant, a mole, a nobody, a liability, a scam-artist, a potential enemy, etc. until you prove otherwise… and that means first impressions are critical and can be outright dangerous. Etiquette is mostly used in first encounters and during “business” conversations. By coming across as a person that knows and fits well in the shadowy world, the encounter typically goes down well.
I have used Etiquette to negate Glitches when Social Skills are being used, as well as allowing the player to correct “wrong” role-playing.
In addition, we have used the following house rule:
Roll Etiquette Dice (do not add Charisma).
Add the number of Hits as extra dice to your Social Skill dice pool.

I tend to use Etiquette as both a Social Skill and a Knowledge Skill. In my game it covers things like knowing the difference between proper forms of address like "-san" and "-sama" and the appropriate time to use them without needing to know formal Japanese. Etiquette (Military) might include knowledge of what out-ranks what and the proper forms of address as well as a myriad of other things. It could also cover a bit of knowledge about Military Bureaucracy regarding where to go and who (in general not specifically) to talk to in order to get what you need.

I probably use Etiquette as a Knowledge Skill more often than I do a Social Skill and only use it as the latter whenever another Social Skill doesn't fit the circumstance or is unavailable.

You will see there are 2 different version of the use of the skill. It is obviously not a knowledge skill (in this case), but an active skill. Anyway, I recommend my version for more RP. Most of the others are recommending a version for less RP.

The More RP Version: You roll prior to the social encounter, the results determine how your character should act. Lots of successes means that you give guidance on what would be appropriate. Maybe allowing him to ask a question per success about what is ok to do or what is not ok to do. A failure should mean the PC should RP to avoid what you said to those who succeeded.

The Less RP Version: Roll and see what the outcome is. Lots of success means they like you. Failure means you get off on the wrong foot, potentially starting a fight. Otherwise, if you are entering a situation where you would have attempted to negotiate, you might be at some penalties.

The answer is that you should ask your group (or just know) their play style. If they like the action, and don't like the social encounters, then do the less RP one. But if your group likes to speak in character, then the More RP version is probably better.

Etiquette basically is a measure of a character's ability to fit in. I would not roll it and then tell players how they have to act, though. Instead, they should say what they are trying to do, and the etiquette roll should determine how well they pull it off. A lot of situational modifiers can apply to etiquette - wearing Ancient colors when you are at a street party with a lot of the Spikes in attendance, etc. Sometimes knowledge skills can be used to determine if a character knows something specific that can help the general etiquette roll. The face might charm the Oyabun well enough purely by rolling etiquette, but a successful skill check on his Tea Ceremony knowledge skill might give him a bonus to that dice roll.

One of the first scenes I'll be running when my group starts playing on Thurs is an Ettiquette test for all the players as a way of helping the Johnson determining if they are suitable for the task he has for them.

The 1 Charisma, no social skills Mage may have a problem.

At the same time, I'll be showcasing Ettiqutte failure, one of the NPCs (who has superthyroid and thus major munchies) will be busy chewing on a soyburger as the meet goes down.

Etiquette has always seem to me like a way to curb players from abusing their "roleplaying" skill when their characters are not good at it.

I ask my players to roll before the encounter. Then they get to RP their rolls. Good RPing, for either good or bad rolls, will get RP karma. Bad RPing, RPing to avoid consequences of their lousy roll or a simple lack of RPing, won't get RP karma.

Well said and well illustrated.

As long as you have moderately cooperative players.

I once had a situation where the characters couldn't get a guy to talk. One of the players came up with the idea of shoving wood splinters or something similar under his fingernails and wouldn't accept that this out to bypass any dice rolling and automatically get him the information he wanted.

I can't remember if I was the GM at the time or another one of the group was. I do remember that was a great deal of reluctance to just let this guy torture his way through the scenario.

Well, you can let them skip the RP conversation, but they don't gain/lose karma awards. Additionally, if they kill the guy, word gets out they were the last to talk to him. If they leave him alive, the get a nasty rep, and get some negative street credit.

One of my players is trying a more face based character but is not good at the whole thinking of the right thing to say. So I tend to allow an etiquette roll during the conversation to see how the meet is going in general with modifiers based on what they are trying to do / say.

I have another player that is very good at the whole talking bit, but he has a low etiquette so I will make him roll to see if he manages to screw up even though he has said all the right things.

I am in favor of RP, but not if the skills of the player totally override the skills of the character.

Exactly, which is why you pre-roll the etiquette, and then tell them how to RP (good or bad) based on the roll. The side benefit is that you're players should bet getting better and better at roleplaying through this method.

<head desk interaction> I hadn't thought of pre-rolling the etiquette, I was getting them to roll during the conversation. But doing it first and telling them how to RP it makes more sense ... I will try that next session

I really like this idea and I think I'll try to adopt this in some fashion. This will certainly make things interesting for the players that skimped on Etiquette during character generation.

isn't that, how every single dice roll in any rpg is intended?

Thinking about it you are right.

I currently roll etiquette after the conversation with modifiers based on the subjects, or sometimes just don't roll. But I think I will have to start rolling before.

Social active skills are a bit funky compared to other skills. Something like firearms, is an easy results. You roll, you see the result. Inflitration is similar, you roll and you get a result. It's either enough or not.

Social skills should enhance the RP of the situation. I like my etiquette pre-rolled, and then role play out the result. However, for negotiations, I like to actually role play the negotiations then roll to see how the NPC reacted to it. If the role play of the negotiations by the PC was good, I might add bonus dice or lower the threshold number. If it was bad, I might enact a penalty or increase the threshold. Similarly, I tend to handle Con, Leadership, and Interrogation the same way.

Not exactly in my game. I tend to have the players roleplay out a social situation and then roll the appropriate skill to see how well they fared with a dice pool modifier based upon their roleplaying. I'm not saying that is how it is "intended" but that is how I do it. The better they roleplay the scene, the better the dice pool modifier within reason.

So you're running with a similar style as I do. I would keep all other social skills, as mentioned, as "after RP" rolls, but use etiquette as a "before RP" roll to set the stage for the ensueing social encounter. That's how I do it. I think it works out quite well. It helps get your PCs in-character and usually ends up being fun and usually pretty funny. After a while, anyone who doesn't want to play a social retard usually starts buying skills in social skills. The most under appreciated skill group in the game. For 10 BPs, not defaulting on social skill rolls is very nice.

That's backwards, devaluing the skill—the equivalent situation is to let the player go out back to a shooting range and then give modifiers based on how well they shot. The right way to do it is to roll and then roleplay the result (or alternately be honest about whose social skills are being tested and not make players buy them to begin with).

~J

I would agree with this statement only for etiquette. But how are you supposed to RP a negotiations roll pre-RP? Say DP 8, roll 2 successes. So the GM says you did well, but not great, so give him an above average request and it will be ok. Something around 2k more maybe. Then the PC would respond, "Well Mr. Johnson, don't you think you could cover our expenses, maybe cap it at 2k nuyen?" Say DP 4, no successes, DM would say, eh, you ask for some stuff, but he's going to say no regardless of how reasonable it is. Then the PC say, out of character to the GM, "Eh, let's just move on since it won't matter anyway."

In a post-RP rolling situation, you get the best of both the RP and then the impact is determined by the rolls. That way, players are rewarded for good ideas, dice pools still matter (even if you get a bonus dice or two), and the RP matters because the subsequent roll determines how receptive the NPC is to the idea. That way, the PC can RP however they want, if its good, not outrageous or ridiculous, then they can get some bonuses. It's realistic as well, because even if you're bad at negotiating, if you say something that makes sense, you should get a bonus.

Also used to determine when NPCs are acting out of character for the environment, like spotting the corp exec failing to blend in at a club.

I don't see how it devalues the skill at all when the players are still rolling their skill checks to determine the outcome of the scene. The dice pool modifiers are based on their roleplaying, and however minor, adds to the player buy-in of the game.

I think I understand where you were trying to go with the example of a shooting range but I think you are comparing apples to oranges. I have no expectation that a player at my table can go out and shoot a pistol with any level of competence or familiarity. I do have a small amount of hope that they can roleplay out a social scene. For example, if a player wants their character to negotiate a better price to the fence for their stolen goods, I let them roleplay it out and see what they can come up with. Then they roll their Negotiation skill. This oftentimes provides hilarious or memorable moments in gaming. I would hate to run or play a game where we just rolled dice to determine all actions and skill checks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that my way is the only way to game. It just works for me and my group.

Yep, exactly how I see it.

Right, the RP only reflects what the dice showed. This is only a problem because you're coming in with the expectation that it will do something else—how you roleplay getting shot, for example, is only going to reflect the damage (and maybe the ability to take Free Actions), and it's true that it consequently isn't obligatory.

Also, simply because the value is fixed doesn't mean there's nothing to negotiate any more. Without some kind of new leverage you can only get 2 successes worth of stuff out of the other party, but there are places you can go from there—can you sweeten the pot and maybe try again? Could you try to get more value out of what the other party will give by requesting an alternative payment form that's more valuable to you but no more costly to the other party?

Actually, you also illustrate another reason why roll-first is critical. If you RP first, the other party comes in, offers you n¥. You RP-negotiate, then you roll. The other party gets more successes. Now what, they say "oh, we'll only pay n-k¥"? That seems actively offensive, but it's the proper consequence of your losing the negotiation roll and there's no good reason for the other party to be forced to give that up if they don't want to alienate you (if they're a contact, say).


But "players are rewarded for good ideas", if by "good ideas" you mean "players are rewarded for having good social skills", means that suddenly your character's actual abilities matter on the player's abilities rather than their stats. The extreme version is the uncouth character with the player with a silver tongue who wins all social situations, but the issue is the same in less exaggerated circumstances—any time you award a bonus (or penalty) based on what is effectively the player using the skill that the character will use, you're devaluing the skill.

A secondary issue is that it can create serious contortions to follow the die result. A character gets thrown into a situation unexpectedly, but their character comes up with a brilliant approach and delivers some stunning dialogue that all fits together and makes sense. Up comes the roll, and they fail! What happened, did they not actually say what they just said and tripped over the words? Did the listener just not believe them (careful, this is very dangerous! This approach means that one character's dierolls can affect what other people think without affecting what the character actually does!)?

This gets even weirded when you don't want to entirely cancel out everything. Take the same situation as above, only this time instead of failure they got an absolute minimal success. They deliver this air-tight, compelling story and… it just falls flat. That's inconsistent because we already decided the story was compelling before the test happened—that's why the test had a bonus, right? The cart has been placed before the horse, much like it would be if the player said "I plunge my knife deep into his gut and twist" before rolling the attack roll.

Finally, like I said, if you allow player social skills to stand in (partly or entirely) for character social skills, why not let the player go demonstrate their ability to shoot a tight group at 50 meters with a pistol for a bonus to their attack test?

~J

So in your game, it is common for a charisma+negotiation 2 troll who is played by a very persuasive player to be better at negotiation that a charisma+negotiation 6 human whose player happens to be shy and not very confident in speaking?

I don't think anyone is arguing that a player's social skill should "replace" a character's social skills. I'm just advocating the player give it their best shot at roleplaying the scene out in-character and then rolling the dice. More times than not in my game, the player either receives a minor bonus to their pool or their attempt falls flat and they don't get a bonus. Only on rare occasions where they totally fubar and patently offend the NPC do they receive a negative modifier.

The social skills at least fall within the scope of "roleplaying" while shooting a firearm is a different beast entirely. Asking a player to tell you in-character how they are trying to bluff their way past the private security guard clearly falls within my definition of roleplaying. How many players come to the table every week without expecting or looking forward to talking in-character to NPCs? Not many that I know.

For me etiquette is something like "street savvy" and "street smarts". Its a skill a professional has high because he knows how to treat the people in his entourage, he knows what is kosher and what isn't the shadow business and knows who is important this week and which is the hottest rookie team on the streets. Does this make it a very good skill, yes. Also, etiquette covers this on corporations and lots of other grounds, but the main use will be for the main line of work of the characters -Shadowrunning-.

In short it a catch-all skill for basic shadowrunning, hence an almost mandatory buy in any of my campaigns, funny though my playrs tend to buy minimal amounts of it forfeiting a lot of good intel and information -the most prized currencies in Shadowrunning- because of it... so tehy may shoot better.

This is when it comes into play, in my table.

As for rolling and role-playing social situations: For good roleplaying, there are bonus dice and in case of a failure I work a narratively coherent explanation for the roll's result, knowing beforehand what is the players goal with it.

And in the case of really astounding social role-plays, as long as its coherent with the character, I do handwaive the rolls in favor of the player.

And nobody is saying that they shouldn't.

However, the incredibly eloquent and persuasive player who delivers an astonishingly good speech about why he should get a discount, whilst playing a 2-charisma-no-skill street sam, is NOT roleplaying well, if at all.



So, if a player demonstrates that he can wrestle you to the ground, would you also allow waive the combat rolls necessary for his PC to do the same to a security guard?

This is getting to the point of contention between roll playing and role playing. At what point does a chracter have less capability than the player. Pretty easy for things like combat, but for social skills you run into what the player wants his PC to do (the right thing) and based on the numbers what he should do.

1. Rolling first should be a good idea (I try to get my players to do this). The way if he glitches he should role play it that way.

2. Even if the player still role plays it it does not take into account the PC's body lanuage. So you can always use that excuse. OR-if the die roll was close they may just squeak by, at an increased cost.

3. All tables are different---choose the approach that best fits and is fun for your group. Yeah I'll cop out here with that cause it is so true, some groups like the talky Mc Talk Talk, other groups woud sooner skip the 15 minute conversation with the johnson and make a few rolls to represent the negotiations.

Absolutely not. The skills are not replaced by roleplaying. Great roleplaying only adds to the skill check and only rarely deducts from the pool for an egregious error in judgment.

This argument reminds me of a SR event last year at GenCon. A player at my table was asked by the GM what his character was doing for a task in-character and the player told him that he'll just roll the dice. The GM said that was fine but what his character was doing in-character and was trying to get him to roleplay it out. The player then said, "I just roll the fucking dice and you just tell me what happens." The game soon ended uncomfortably.

I'm just saying that the value of a skill is not diminished by asking players to roleplay. Isn't that the reason why we play the game?

Nope, because he initiated physical violence against me.
If his description is nice, and he shows me how he performs the locks, without any violence, during an RP fight, I'll give him bonuses... even big ones, and HELL YES!! If said guard is a non important NPC, and its, again, coherent with the character.

Actually doing that is what makes fights much mroe interesting than bucket o'dice rollings...

Then again, the magic words is: Coherent with the character. If said wrestler is the Strength 1 elf chica, and the security guard is a Strength 10 troll... I'll only give him the dice bonus for good description, then proceed to roll into her and crush teh character under the muscle mass and security armour.

Someone failed their Etiquette(Roleplayer) roll methinks.

Nor is the player who delivers that astonishingly good speech and then rolls poorly. The player can't know how they should play until they roll.


Well, right, but the GM was wrong for asking what the character did first (or maybe not—it really hinges on whether the player is deciding which skill to use, which should happen first, or whether the question is the description of how they use it, which comes after). The player's mistake comes in at the "and you just tell me what happens" part—what should happen is that then the player describes a sequence of actions that are of appropriate quality for the roll made, and then the GM describes the results. As you point out, much of the game loses its flavour without this collaborative fleshing-out of the world whose skeleton is made by the rules and rolls.

To some degree I think we (or at least I) may be polarizing a bit—in much the same way that someone fighting a polearm-wielder might get bonuses in melee for falling back to a place with lots of projecting and overhanging obstacles (branches, pipes, your classic fight in a bamboo thicket) I think there's room for declaration of a general tactic as something not inherently part of the skill and therefore reasonable to let a player do for a bonus or penalty ("I'll work the Fixer's missing daughter into the conversation", "I'm going to assert authority and threaten to fire the guard if he continues to ask questions"), but that's different from actually beginning the use of the skill before rolling it. I'm not sure I was clear enough on that avenue before.

~J

And as mentioned above SEVERAL times, nobody is saying the roleplaying shouldn;t happen. However, for it to be actual roleplaying, to whit, the playing of a role, then what is acted out should be based on what the *character* is capable of, not what the *player* is capable of.

If the stats (and the resulting dice) say the character accidentally insulted the troll Capo, then the roleplaying should reflect that - and roleplaying out the accidental insulting of a troll mafia head is just as much fun as making a perfect speech. And better roleplaying.

Otherwise, you are just creating a situation in which the eloquent player *knows* he can shave 2 points of his CHA and spend them elsewhere as he knows he can reliably get the +2 "Public Speaking" bonus.

***

Also, having the GM add a bonus when *he* is impressed by a player fails to take into account that the Johnson the player is talking to is probably MUCH more experienced at negotiating runner contracts than the GM, and has a much higher ability to spot when a runner is feeding him a load of drek...

Yup, impressing me as a GM means impressing my NPC's.

I guess its arbitrary like that... and there is simply no counterargument to offer except that its more fun that way too.
Instead of replicating reality, we have fun acting and showing what happens.

Different table, different style, I suppose.

I probably should have explained that I am extremely lucky in that my players, in their attempts to roleplay out the the social skill check, still stay in-character and within the abilities of their stats. The troll street sam killing machine that has absolutely no social skills still plays it that way. It's just that every now and then, he'll come up with something that his character would say that works. More times than not, it doesn't go that way but we still have fun watching him play it out. I also haven't had a problem with anyone shaving off points during character generation to create an uncouth asshat and just use persuasive out-of-character skills. All in all, it works for us. I was just unsure how to incorporate the Etiquette skill into the game and when a roll was required. Thanks for all of the advice here.

I've generally used it for 2 things:

1) Making an impression. Make your Etiquette to see how friendly your target is going to act towards you. If you critical glitch it's like that scene from Stepbrothers where they interview with Seth Rogan's character. Success usually means that you move to a more favorable part of the social modifiers table when it comes to the target's feelings about you and how detrimental they think the task will be to them.

2) Social Infiltration. The biggest part of sneaking into a place is just acting and moving like you belong there. Looking confident, making the correct chit chat, pinching the secretary's bum, basically just blending in. Security guards don't take notice of the person who looks and acts like a corporate executive. Hell, I've had some faces actually enlist target personnel in the run thanks to Etiquette and Corporate Procedures knowledge skill. Your Ork with the crotchless chaps and the 3' pink mohawk who wanders in and pisses on the potted plants will likely raise some alarms however.

You probably should have used leadership, not etiquette to enlist help of random corporate NPCs.

For that, if it's still like SR3 the advice was "to put people at ease, convince someone that you belong, manipulate conversations to get information out of people, judge people’s attitudes and convince people to do or allow something. Unlike Negotiation Skill, which involves giving and taking or otherwise making a deal or exchange, Etiquette involves getting something because you look, act and feel like you belong."

Note that NPCs should probably be using it on characters a lot as well. I had a post that outlined a bunch of those circumstances some years back, but I can't find it now.

Oh hey, I was apparently more eloquent on the side topic some years ago:



(From here)

~J

IRL I am just horrible socially, going by the results of how many people bother to spend any time with me. If I was a stated out character, I would suspect I would have low scores in things like Charisma and try to have a rank in social skills just to try to cancel it out.

So if I ever get the chance to GM a game (see above for the likely hood of me convincing others to game with me), I will advocate rolling the dice first, then allowing the lee way in how they play out the results.

"But what if the results are poor, why will the player bother role playing that out?" I thought the most eloquent solution I have noticed in this thread was the Karma award. +1 point of Karma for accepting and having fun with poor rolls would be a pretty big incentive if you ask me, it gives the chance that if that poor roll of the dice result bugs them IC and/or OoC, they have a chance to change that later on come Karma spending time. No better incentive in this game really, the promise to not only survive the shadows a little longer but thrive as well by growing from their experiences.

But if it is just me relying on my IRL skills to try to get other people to understand me and go along with my intended goal to have fun? My character is fucked. At least that was my experience in role playing social interactions when it came to D&D the couple of times I gave that shot and the one time I did it in SR4. Ugh, my characters just straight up stopped going to meets or asking questions, no amount of numbers on my piece of paper seems to make a difference, might as well put those points into being better at killing pretend enemies. For me, silence is golden because opening my mouth just seems like a opportunity to get socially embarrassed by a slip of the tongue, a stutter, a sentence structure that reveals ignorance of social customs, any sign of weakness, etc... The sneers, the hard looks, being laughed at rather than with ... it can get a bit tiring after a while.

Oh well, perhaps one day there will be a NWN1/2 equivalent for Shadowrun, where my lack of charisma irritating the GM (and probably the other players) can be hidden behind the 1s and 0s, where my characters stats count for a lot more. At least in things like these posts, I can somewhat hide my social awkwardness by trying to follow what little I know of Netiquette and lurking to see what might be acceptable to pipe in on.

I've always thought that Etiquette is kind of an easy one, honestly. By the RAW it's supposed to be used to cajole NPCs away from having a negative opinion of you, thus changing situational modifiers and paving the way for the use of other social skills.


Here's an example:

So a savvy runner in a cheap armored jacket is trying to get a meal at an exclusive restaurant without a reservation. For the sake of this example, he's not trying to pull any fast ones and thus is Negotiating with the suave elf host. As such the GM decides the host's attitude towards the runner starts at a base of Prejudiced, which would give a -2 penalty to the Negotiation test. The runner then rolls Etiquette with a -2 penalty (he isn't dressed right) and pulls out a success. Nobody thinks he's classy, but he got the name of the restaurant right and probably won't rob anyone, so the host's attitude is now at merely Suspicious (a -1 penalty). Now you have an opposed Negotiation test, with the following penalties for the runner: -1 for Suspicious, -1 for the host having plenty of time to meditate on what a pleb he is dealing with and another -1 penalty since the host knows letting the wrong guy in could get him chewed out by his boss, which would be annoying. The runner manages to pull out a success again, but glitches, so the host tells him to go around the back where he's allowed in through the staff entrance and is given a table where hopefully nobody too important will be offended by his table manners. Welcome to Bellevue.

Doesn't everyone do that?

Wait, so you mean, if someone has a 6 in pistols, you just let him roll for it?

No. They were not directing them in the action. They used the corporation's bureaucracy against the corporation. Make yourself seem official enough and when you tell an employee to do something they'll do it. You only need to use Con and Negotiation if the target is unwilling or the consequences are detrimental to them. If you seem to be an exec and the thing they tell you to do is reasonable and within your pay grade then there isn't really any reason to question the request.

Case in point, 2 sessions ago our Face just walked into a Triad front company's offices. When he was challenged by an employee working there (it was after hours) the face told the guy that he was building security and he was doing an audit. A burly ork that is acting and talking like he was security helped put the guy at ease so that he was more compliant with other orders (still had to make a Con test so not the best of examples but you get the idea).

Again, by the RAW it actually appears to be a 2 stage process. Etiquette affects how suspicious they feel about you and then Con, Leadership, Negotiation or Intimidation dictates whether they actually buy what you're selling. Etiquette sets the stage for your preferred method, basically.

Aye.

Etiquette is step one, always step one. It determines if you are using correct phrases, postures, non-vocal cues, etc.

Con/Negotiate/Leadership/Intimidate is step two through whatever. And this determines if the NPC, as Whipstitch so eloquently put, is "buying what you're selling".

I say two through whatever, because many social encounters might have multiple rolls involved. I can potentially see other rolls of etiquette required, if you have to, for example, talk to a lackey before you meet the boss. Might be an etiquette roll for the lackey, then another one when you meet the boss. However, one could argue that starts a new social encounter though.