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Mirilion
So... I was browsing through the "On the Run" mission, and came across a section that mentioned seduction, where an attractive orc female might seduce the male guards, who were orks and trolls.

This got me thinking. Can only ork women seduce them? What about humans, dwarves or elves? I mean, it's relatively easy for a GM to decide if someone is gay, straight or bi, but what about racial and ethnic preferences? Do i just decide or is there a sort of most common preference mentioned somewhere? I can see how most humans would be put off by trolls, for example, but why would an ork be any different?

I guess social stigma kind of steers the different metatypes to marry or date only their own kind, but I'm not sure how much that would affect seduction attempts. Seriously, if an ork woman tried to seduce me she'd get at least a +2 modifier, or an automatic critical success if she's cosplaying as She-Hulk.

Right now the number of options is so huge that I might as well ignore the entire thing, or just randomly assign a dice pool modifier to an NPC seduction victim based on hunches.
Draco18s
One GM in my group decided that the troll fixer who we were trying to get a winabego from was gay and had a preference for elves.
There being only one male elf in the group (me) and Not Being Interested, we didn't get QUITE as good of a deal.
Was amusing.
JonathanC
QUOTE (Mirilion @ Mar 28 2012, 12:15 PM) *
So... I was browsing through the "On the Run" mission, and came across a section that mentioned seduction, where an attractive orc female might seduce the male guards, who were orks and trolls.

This got me thinking. Can only ork women seduce them? What about humans, dwarves or elves? I mean, it's relatively easy for a GM to decide if someone is gay, straight or bi, but what about racial and ethnic preferences? Do i just decide or is there a sort of most common preference mentioned somewhere? I can see how most humans would be put off by trolls, for example, but why would an ork be any different?

I guess social stigma kind of steers the different metatypes to marry or date only their own kind, but I'm not sure how much that would affect seduction attempts. Seriously, if an ork woman tried to seduce me she'd get at least a +2 modifier, or an automatic critical success if she's cosplaying as She-Hulk.

Right now the number of options is so huge that I might as well ignore the entire thing, or just randomly assign a dice pool modifier to an NPC seduction victim based on hunches.

I'd say use your best judgement. In the case of those orks, they're gang members and old buddies of an "underground for life" rock/rap guy. It's a reasonable bet that they'd view guys who date outside of the ork race as sellouts or worse.

That said, if rough-looking human or ork lady with some real hez walked up and could speak the language without sounding like she was a poser or condescending (good luck on that Etiquette roll, girl!) they might give her some play.
Irion
I think you should make up modifiers as you see fit for the NPCs.
I do not think it is possible to give generic once.

But keep in mind, that one dice means a lot in this game. (The perfect natural human seducer has only 7+7=14)
And I guess this guy/girl should also have a chance to cross the straight/gay line. (No permanent change)

Critias
No real rules for sexual preference, but it seems like metaspecies stuff could be handled using the same guidelines as racism.
ShadowDragon8685
Dealing with seduction really needs a GM judgement every time. Basically it boils down to what a person finds attractive.


In the Sixth World, that's going to be high-Charisma elves, because the media has always, always, controlled people's notions of attractiveness, and elves are, let's face it, natural-born media darlings. You can even see this at work in a bizarre meta-example; when Shadowrun first started being printed, orcs and trolls were depicted as being downright horrifyingly hideous (hell, just about everyone was). Now, though, take a look at the troll from the SR4 (non-A) core rulebook. The worst he's got going for him is that he's got a lot of the "rough noble savage" going on. Female orcs and trolls (such as the adept gun-bunny from SR4A p104) can get downright cute. Look at her! Literally the only thing marking her as an orc is her tusks - take those away and she'd be an elf! Not a particularly notable example of a beautiful face, but let's face it, nobody would exactly be chewing their arm off to get away if they woke up next to her after a drunken bender, either.


Her Charisma score? 2. That's literally as ugly as an Elf can get. (Yes, yes, obligatory complaint that Charisma doesn't equal beauty.)


Of course, that's not the entirety of the situation. You specifically asked about On the Run and the troll gangers at the front of the warehouse. What you've got going on there is likely less about race in and of itself, as it is about socio-economic status. That's not to say they're not subject to the same pervasive media influence that makes curvy, lithe elves the metahuman ideal of beauty; they are! But they're Redmond gangers; poor boys from the definitional ghetto. They know that no pretty elf - or even a human, for that matter - is going to be interested in them when they could do much, much better. As a consequence, they'd lose face if they chased elf tail, the rest of their associates thinking them either deluded or foolish to chase something that's impossible.

So, if such a character - an elf, a human, whatever - tried to seduce them, they'd immediately jump to the conclusion that she's only trying to use them to get something she wants (and let's face it; they're right, because that's exactly what the player character would be attempting to do; she's not going to give them her legit commcode and take their call after the concert's over to go back to their shack for an ungreased, backdoor, Hammertime lovemaking session* or whatever she promised them,) and probably get angry, because there's something that's likely their very ideal of beauty practically taunting them with what they know they can't have.

Hell, the regular human guys of today don't take that very well. Getting told to frag off is likely the best such a character could expect! I leave it to you to consider the unfortunate ramifications there if a pretty elf glitches or critically glitches an inadvisable seduction attempt.


That said, should it be impossible? No. But it's going to take the right approach and a really good Con roll. The adventure specifically calls for an opposed roll against the guard's Con (or Negotiation) + Charisma; but the included stats for said guards (at the very top of the next page) lack either of those skills. They have Charisma 2, meaning that to resist a seduction roll, they can muster only one mighty die to throw.

So, how do you handle this? You make up some numbers to give them as a bonus on their opposing roll, or you could penalize the seducer's roll. There's differences on both, depending on the numbers involved. Giving the guards a large bonus will give them a slim chance of resisting even a moderately-invested Face's seduction roll, while penalizing the seducer's roll will mean very little to an invested face (since the Trolls can still only muster a mighty one dice, requiring the Face to only muster two successes to pass, no matter how well the guards roll,) but make a lightly-invested Face take a steep chance of rejection, and will make it outright impossible for a character who's not a face but has a decent Charisma score and a vagina but isn't of the appropriate races/tough background to make the roll, since her dice pool is likely to be penalized into nonexistence.

Of course, she could always spend Edge. Even if she's a well-dressed Elf wearing good jewelery and carrying an expensive commlink and such; maybe she could convince the guards at the entrance that she's a high-born girl who's out slumming and looking for the kind of wild time that only a bunch of orcs and trolls from the barrens can provide, or whatever. Not only would that get her into the concert, but probably get her ushered straight into Nabo's dressing room: while the barrens boys (and hell, girls!) would probably reject any notion that she might be interested in them, they'd probably jump at any chance to take advantage of someone like that.

So I would say it shouldn't be impossible, but you're going to need to adjust the dice pools to reflect the difficulty - and, of course, make allowances for a character who's willing to go the extra mile. (It goes a long way to convince the bouncers that you're willing to do what they want to if you start off by rubbing their crotches or whatever. Whether or not it gets the character any notoriety is up to the GM and whether or not the other players decide to go blabbing.)


*Two internet cookies who knows what I was referring to without searching for it.
Mirilion
QUOTE (JonathanC @ Mar 28 2012, 08:47 PM) *
I'd say use your best judgement. In the case of those orks, they're gang members and old buddies of an "underground for life" rock/rap guy. It's a reasonable bet that they'd view guys who date outside of the ork race as sellouts or worse.

That said, if rough-looking human or ork lady with some real hez walked up and could speak the language without sounding like she was a poser or condescending (good luck on that Etiquette roll, girl!) they might give her some play.


Ah, it makes sense now, thanks.

QUOTE (Critias @ Mar 28 2012, 09:31 PM) *
No real rules for sexual preference, but it seems like metaspecies stuff could be handled using the same guidelines as racism.


Yeah, I guess I'll use that if I have to make something up on the spot.

QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Mar 28 2012, 11:38 PM) *
Of course, she could always spend Edge. Even if she's a well-dressed Elf wearing good jewelery and carrying an expensive commlink and such; maybe she could convince the guards at the entrance that she's a high-born girl who's out slumming and looking for the kind of wild time that only a bunch of orcs and trolls from the barrens can provide, or whatever. Not only would that get her into the concert, but probably get her ushered straight into Nabo's dressing room: while the barrens boys (and hell, girls!) would probably reject any notion that she might be interested in them, they'd probably jump at any chance to take advantage of someone like that.


Nice post. I was actually thinking about this part. Lets say a talented elf face does try it, is there even a penalty? shouldn't high con skills include this kind of psychological profiling? or should I use a flat racism penalty UNLESS that player suggests otherwise? Right now I think I'd go with the second option and even give a bonus, because it rewards clever thinking.
Method
An NPC should prefer whichever sex or species would make for the best story. You don't need rules for that. wink.gif
Midas
Like Critas said, use racism modifiers. I would also suggest giving at least the leader a Con skill of 2 or something, and ramping up the negative modifiers for being suspicious, negative outcome for non-trogs.
Blade
I agree with most of what ShadowDragon8685 said.

I also think that in some communities or for some people, the notion of "desirable" might stray from the human/elf norm. An ork born and raised in an ork community might get his beauty ideal from the community rather than from society at large. Also a troll who knows he'll probably only get lucky with other trolls will probably slowly get to prefer trolls. And finally, the beautiful elf who's always surrounded by elves might find the orks exotic and thus more interesting.

To put it in a nutshell: sexuality is complex, you can have everything.

QUOTE (Mirilion @ Mar 29 2012, 01:40 AM) *
Lets say a talented elf face does try it, is there even a penalty? shouldn't high con skills include this kind of psychological profiling? or should I use a flat racism penalty UNLESS that player suggests otherwise? Right now I think I'd go with the second option and even give a bonus, because it rewards clever thinking.

I guess it depends on what the player intends to do. If the PC tries to pretend she's intersted in the orks/trolls, she'll get a negative modifier. If she uses the "slumming" angle, she won't get it (and might even get a positive modifier).

I'd allow the player some roll if she wants to know what's the best course to take, but I don't consider that high con skill will make her automatically use the best approach. It'd like telling the street samurai player if he'd better shoot a burst or throw a grenade: I might do it for a beginner (or if the action is far too retarded for the PC to consider it seriously) or let the player roll some related skill check if he wants my opinion, but I think the game is more fun for everyone if the player decide of how what their characters do.
The shooting/con roll is just to check if it works.

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