Well said on all accounts, though I did want to elaborate on one specific account.

I was in a long-running(year long) shadowrun game that ran weekly, but our players did a LOT of party social when we could. The team was fairly well bonded, and would go out for drinks, parties, and occasionally talk and lie about the things they've done in the past. Lying, especially, as most runners aren't keen to give out details that can get their friends, family, or past associates hurt to near strangers. As we found out when our doctor's Judas quality kicked in. Ahem.

The interesting part was how we did it. I'm specifically thinking of the interactions between the hacker and the face. The face was a ridiculously high kinesics adept, who rolled a decent brick of dice for most things. The hacker(me) was only slightly less competent - he was made to include social engineering under hacking, and came with a decent charisma, the group, and some empathy ware - and we actually did use dice against each other fairly frequently. But not in the way you thing.

Both me and the adept's player were socially adept people who actually COULD put stats-to-play without dice, derive meaning and emotion from stances and positionings, or even the way people said hello. And more importantly, work information into our posts for the other to use. I think that playing-by-post, and not table, helps immensely in this regard, in that its much easier to make longer and more accurate descriptions of what is happening without making people wait. Just the general kind of combination of player attitude/maturity/competence that glyph mentions. Having a good partner makes it great to play off of other people. I also think that NOT having the gm around(like i said, weekly game) for interparty social actually helped a little bit - there was no potential animosity from someone ELSE stepping in to say 'this happens', and the dice are a neutral trustable party.

But when we used dice - and we did, fairly frequently - the one thing we used the most were Judge Intentions - to read what was going on - Con Checks(for lying, and having the other not notice), and, occasionally, Composure tests, for when something really strange or funny happened. None of this quasi-mind control social rolling crap. Having good character interactions, with the dice there as a sort of neutral adjudicator of 'what happens when...' happens to work out very nicely, and can occasionally lead the way to its own funny occurences. A good example from our game involves that kind of hilariously improbably dice luck that happens occasionally: the hacker and the face just could NOT lie to each other. They were both competent enough to not press for details, or cause a scene, or annoy the other person - over the course of multiple sessions, every(and I mean EVERY) time a Judge or Con roll was rolled against each other, the lie was spotted. Nothing was necessarily DONE about it, depending on the situation(nobody cares if you really don't like the coffee), but it was noticed.
And eventually we just stopped rolling, and started working the same information into interactions without the dice at all, just accounting for familiarity naturally in the course of play.


Just thought I'd share my experience with it. Worked out very positively, but I think the players are much more to blame for that. Rolling for Bullshit Checks(only), and letting the players act, react, and change the scene appropriately works out really well.
But it works out even better if your players can act their role well, too. An emotive, understanding, mature player who can bring that spark of life to a character is worth hanging onto, because they can make any game so much more interesting.

Then we'll have to just agree to disagree on that. I respect your opinion, but it isn't the one that I and my group came to. For the record, my opinion and interpretation are not wrong, and neither are yours... that's how interpretations work.



Well, as you know none of the people involved, and obviously have your own set of experiences you have been shaped by, I will give your concerns the appropriate consideration.



Yes, such players are worth hanging onto. Glad to hear of an example where Social skills were used, if only in a limited fashion, and such success was had by all. I'd enjoy hearing more about your experiences, as this is something we've been trying to work with for a while now.

I really see no need to continue discussing our particular incident. It is over. The guy left the group and as it stands, the way he left the group was such that he is not welcomed back. I guess he could apologize for his actions and petition the group to allow him back but we are getting on just fine the way it is. The group agrees with the black and white clear wording of the Glamour Power. This person in particular does not but as a majority has clearly stated this is how the power works, the discussion is done...otherwise the bebate would go on forever and we are there to game, not bicker. The group will not be railroaded. It was attempted by two other players in the past and in both those cases, the group was clear that railroading will not be accepted. In on instance, the player capitulated in favour of the group and the other left the group. We have a grand time when we game and one person's actions, which were unacceptable to the group, will not be tolerated. In fact, that player who keeps commenting on this incident more than 3 months later has demonstrated he is unwilling and unable to accept the rule as it is to be played in this group and continues to make waves. It is clear he is not interested in coming back to the group. The incident was fairly minor but the reaction was anything but. The reaction is the problem, not the incident, folks.

Sorry but that is hilarious. The guy you are talking about is an investigator with the government who has a law degree and interpretes legislation, evidence and facts every day. What do you do? lol

And yet, he apparently STILL gets the Glamour Power Wrong. Amazing...

Sure, I'd be happy to chip in. Its a lot easier for me to answer questions (how did this work, what might have happened in this situation) than to just blather on.

I'm not sure what to say, other than it was some magic combination of stats, coincidences, character attitude, player empathy and on the fly adjustments that.... just worked. Really really well.

And again, that's your interpretation. Neither right nor wrong, just your interpretation.

"The spirits love you, everyone else thinks you're a son of a slitch."

Also law. Only thing is, I'm good at it, so I didn't have to settle for a government job.

He quoted my words. Among those words was the phrase "without so much as a check." In context, this meant that the problem was that there was no check taking place. His ruling is that other players' behavior is altered without a check, and I said that this is wrong. He responded by giving other examples of affecting other characters without their consent, saying that they were just like his version of Glamour. This was not true, because each of those actions require checks.

This is precisely the degree of excellence I've come to expect from government personnel.

EDIT: Also, next time you get the urge to pull out somebody else's credentials and wave them around like they're special and unique on the Internet... don't.

Next time you feel like telling me what not to do on the internet, don't. Your pompous attitude has been recognized by many so it is fair to say your beginnings here have been inauspicious after only a handful of posts. Good job. To end a flame war even before it begins, although your posts have indeed been hilarious, your comments will receive no more responses. I tend to only respond to comments that are sensible anyway. Cheers!

Blitz66, tundrawalker1: stop it now.

Certainly. I have no interest in a flame war which is why I told him I won't respond to any more of his posts. I have no desire to converse with someone who happens to be brand new who comes on and attacks others like that. The discussion is over as far as I am concerned. Cheers!

Aw, but I had the marshmellows and weenies ready. *Pouts*

*chuckles at CanRay*

I love watching people try to "prove" their opinion too, always reminds me of this comic. Especially amusing when one of them is a close friend... That usually makes it good for some later teasing.

Sorry about the insult on your professional capability. You didn't present your own credentials as if they made you right and assume them to be superior to mine with no knowledge of me. Your friend did that, and I shouldn't have belittled your position when you weren't the one to make it an issue. Not cool of your friend to put you out there like that, though.

I still maintain that your interpretation of the rule is incorrect. Not just different from my own, but different from the intent of the rule, and extremely overpowered in play, and since you dictate how other players must behave as a result, harmful to everybody else's roleplaying fun. I'm still waiting for you to come up with an example of forcing an outcome on another character without a check, since, again, all of your examples require checks.

I find the quality poorly written. "Cannot help but feel moved and inspired", "always respond with awe, deference, and kindness to the character" - too overpowered, for any quality. The wiggle room is not in the character response itself, but in how a particular character might show "awe, deference, and kindness", and, more importantly, what a particular character might consider "hostile" (which negates this arbitrary aspect of the glamour power).

For the latter, I think the character in dispute had enough reason to consider the face's actions to be hostile. From his point of view, this upstart youngster was taking it upon himself to speak for the group without asking anyone's consent, and making him look unprofessional by trying to renegotiate the price after the other character had already agreed to do the job. Whether a character like that was appropriate for the group, I won't comment on, as there are two conflicting accounts of the incident.

Almost any use of social skills could be considered hostile (trying to get past the security guard? "Hey, this bitch could cost me my job, and damnit, I thought she was nice!" Trying to get more information from the Johnson? "Hey, I almost blurted out who I'm really working for! I'm being played by this bitch!"). But you know what? I still think the RAW quality is overpowered, in that a lot of times, NPCs will be hostile to the PCs, and having an instant "make everyone like you" card is way too much.

Probably not RAI, either, but merely a case of too much hyperbole in the wording (you see that in other things, such as the skill descriptions for higher-rated skills). Note, though, if you are running a RAW campaign, that said NPCs will only be non-hostile towards the PC with glamour, not everyone else. So keep that in mind if gangers accost the characters. And also keep in mind that NPCs will still do their job. A fixer might really like the PC, but he will still try to buy cheap and sell high - the character's glamour, at that point, is only the dice pool bonus. And a corporate strike team will already consider the entire group, including the PC with glamour, to be "hostile"

Not your job. Topic closed for 24 hours.

Watch your tone, ok?

Unlocked. Don't get personal and stick to topic please. And please don't play "Last Word" after a mod post in the future.

I disagree, but I wasn't there, so I really don't know.

What I do know is, while it's generally uncool to tell people how to roleplay their characters, there should be guidelines. The Glamour power gives us a guideline, which is then subjectively interpreted by the players. Trying to circumvent that is also uncool. Someone with a power like Glamour gets to start off being viewed in a more positive light, and mouthing off to somebody else is kinda stretching the definition of "hostile". Depending on the situation, it might just be humorous.

I admit, I'm very sick of the disruptive player's excuse: "But that's what my character would do!" There need to be guidelines to roleplay, so it's not an excuse to do whatever you want. The GM needs to define the framework, and the players need to work within that. As long as everyone's cooperating, there shouldn't be a problem, and there should still be a lot of room for creative roleplay.

Here's my example: Recently, in my game, I had to very firmly lay down the rule that there was no PvP. PC's are not allowed to hurt other PC's, no matter what. If your characters don't like each other, that's fine, as long as they're not actually out to hurt each other. Practical jokes are fine, too-- hence the troll in a tutu. If things get really out of hand between characters, I'll have a talk with the players, and then at worst retire one or both of the characters.