I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but what do people think of Active Skill: Simsense Acting? Sounds kind of marginal at first glance, but there are a couple neat tricks that I think I'd allow with it:

* Fooling aura reading (or Empathic sense, or pretty much anything else relying on emotion)
* Fooling detect truth, normal mechanical lie detectors, and the like.

I'd probably say that fooling emotion-reading would be a TN 4, looking for more or equal successes than the assensing test. Fooling lie detection could be TN 6 looking to beat successes on the spell?

I'd say linked to Charisma (or possibly willpower). Probably allow normal defaulting from acting? Any suggestions?

Charisma linked, and I'd have Simsense be a specialization of Acting.

Following canon, I'd just slide acting under knowledge skills and, as Ten suggested, apply Simsense as a specialization.

To fake an emotional content, I'd suggest Negotiations/fast talk (Active) + Acting (knowledge) as a comp bonus.

Assign target numbers as necessary.

-Siege

Fast talk, bluff -- all of that involves creating false physical and emotional content.

Acting, while a valid skill in its own right, falls under knowledge skills in 3rd edition.

I have always assumed the formula Active (if applicable) + Knowledge (if applicable) as a comp bonus.

However, if you want to run with Acting on its own merits, go for it.

On a side note -- suppressing emotions is one thing, faking an emotion is pretty difficult to do. Even harder if the person is trying to trick an "emotion detector" -- I don't think Acting (Simsense) would cover it entirely. Maybe something like Emotional Control (Anger, Happiness, etc.) -- although how a character picked up that as a skill requires some colorful explanations.

-Siege

I'm skeptical about the idea of making simsense a subset of acting in the first place. Think about the difference between acting in a simflick and acting on film or stage. Faking emotions is practically the actor's only job; unless it's a multi-POV flick, they don't have to worry about their facial expression or most mannerisms- they're not visible. They have to worry about remembering their lines and cues, controlling their voice, and most importantly, creating false emotions.

All of which happens under Acting to begin with. I think actors refer to it as "method" acting, but as I never strutted the stage, I'm not sure.

(I did monkey around with sets and equipment behind the curtain, but that's neither here nor there)

But if you disagree, run with it.

If you want to make Simsense Acting an active skill for your game, go for it. I personally dislike adding new Active skills given the tenuous seperation between Active and Knowledge, but that's just me.

-Siege

It's easy to fall into the character.

It's difficult to stay in the character the entire friggin' time. If you screw up a line, sure, you may gloss over it, improv a tiny bit and no on on the outside notices, but inside your stomach is dropping and all sorts of things that will be blatantly obvious on simsense.

~J

Just like acting on stage is different from tv acting which, I hear, is different from movie acting and so on and so forth.

Working simsense is just another set of criteria, but still close enough to be lumped in with other acting forms/stagecraft and not IMHO warrant a new and seperate Active skill.

-Siege