Is Acting listed anywhere as a skill? Do you suppose it would be active or knowledge? Linked to Charisma if active, I assume. Should it be a specialization of a different skill? Seems like it could be very useful (at least as a complementary skill) in a lot of situations.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks.

Acting is under the perform skill as a specialization. It is definitely an active skill and uses Charisma. Knowledge skills for acting are very reasonable and as the saying goes, Those who can't do Teach.

A director or agent may have a very significant knowledge:Acting skill. They can't do it, but they can spot it and help make it better.

I'm with you that acting could be a specialization of perform, but can you convince me that perform is an active skill? Book/page?
Sorry to be a pain.

I've got no page reference, but look in SR3 under Social Skills.

Hows this moon.

If you are performing, you are doing an act, and thus, it is an active skill.

If you only know the theory behind performance, you are knowing something, and thus, it is a knowledge skill. Albeit a background:performance one.

Depends on what you want to do with it.

I think it's from the shadowrun companion. It doesn't show up on the gm screen at the official site, but it's in NSRCG. And I'm pretty damn sure I saw it in one of the books the other day too.

We've been using the skill lots in the past where I play PnP. No face is complete without a little acting to convince mr. Johnson that we feel truly sympathetic for his plight and only ask more money to ensure that we can help him even better

Under normal circumstances, I would suggest knowledge. However, if it were to be used as a primary skill in runs (instead of, for instance, a complementary skill to Fast Talk), or as a source of income on its own similar to the performance rules in Shadowbeat, I would say active. It all depends on what will come up in your game.

~J

Jrayjoker: Looking at SR3 pg 92-95: Using charisma-linked skills: I find no reference to performing.

Tarantula: Sorry, I don't buy that explanation for a second. Small Unit Tactics is purely mental, and yet costs active skill points because it's useful. If a player wanted their character to be able to play the guitar I would never dream of telling them they had to give up active skill points just to flesh out a character a little like that. The names "Active Skills" and "Knowledge Skills" are horrible names for the difference classifications, but I like the way they're used in practice.

The only reference I can find to performance skills is MitS pg 72-74, the section on Centering. Centering is an active skill linked to willpower, and must be linked to a creative skill that can either be an active or a knowledge skill. It lists dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, arcane languages, or meditation, but never says which type they are. (except language)

Oops, I just found it!
SOTA 2064 pg. 65

That is only in reference to designing a performance, not doing it. Performing:Acting is a physical skill. And why don't you make your characters take guitar as a physical skill? They have to practice as hard at guitar as someone does at Karate for the same level of performance.

It may have been in shadowbeat, I think it was in some book I never actually owned.

It was Shadowbeat, but then again, knowledge skills didn't exist back then.

~J

The biggest mess I have with any new Active skill is what to do with the successes. All the active skills have some rules associated with how to interprete successes generated, so how would you handle acting, moreover, what purpose does it serve?

So if no special rules are needed for the skill, then it's more than likely a Knowledge skill although I think any active skill should have some degree of knoweldge associated with it.

In my own games we've never explored entertainment so I can't speak to any of the SR sourcebooks.

It depends on the context. Acting for the sake of acting is a Performance test as described in Shadowbeat. Acting to supplement, say, Negotiations (Fast Talk) would be, IMO, a complimentary skill since it's a knowledge skill.

It was 2nd ed, of course but Maria Mercurial had an active skill for performing synthlinked music in the published adventure. At the very least, there's a precedence for performance(acting) being an active skill.

Most shadowrunning uses of acting are already covered as bluff or con, I think. Acting as in stage or recorded drama would not be of much use during a run, other than to assist in the above tests, so I would classify it as a knowledge skill. If for some reason in your campaign, acting is a skill that is used frequently and aggressively while running, then an active skill might be more valuable.

I can't remember where I've seen it, but it's in one of the magical additionals in a recent sourcebook - I'm thinking T:AL but can't place it.

This is something I looked for a long while ago, and was thinking about creating a Performance active skill purly as a way to limit my shaman player's ability to centre.

But I went with knowledge since it makes more sense - wish the rulebook was clearer though.

Oddly enough, in some ways it seems like acting falls somewhat into the Stealth category and Negotiation skill.

Stealth - Hiding: As it applies to disguise (rationalized into adopting a particular character) and Negotiation - Fast Talk, as you use it to support the persona you've adopted.

If you wanted to make 'real' skills, I'd say there's two skills one a knowledge and one an active skill. Or something like how the build/repair skill relates to a particular firearm skill.

See, now that's something else entirely - Disguise and Handle Animal.

No where that I can find is either mentioned as a skill, or what attribute they're linked too or anything aside from making the tests for them in SOTA 64.

I think it might be time for a PDF with all skills on it in the right boxes, and a few of the more common knowledge skills listed too.

Disguise is in SotA63 in the Culture Shock section, IIRC.

Page 104. The end of the "Keeping the Rabble Out" section. But if you have the book open to page 104 you can see page 105, which is the beginning of "Culture Shock", so it's a good way to find it.