Quite a few of the skills in the game have information about whta skill they usually are opposed by. How much do people follow this?

The problem popped up when I was writing an adventure where there was a huge angry smith who could be charmed or guiled into doing what they players wanted, but not easily intimdated.

In order to not be intimidated, he would need a high WP and possibly Discipline trained. This seems odd, when they guy is huge and the player doing the intimidating would use his Strength stat. In this situation I would probably elect to make the intimidation an Intimidate vs Intimidate roll.

Have you run into similar "odd" situations whith the system and to what degree do you follow the rules or just make it up as you go along?

You could also make the check not an opposed one but simply a check made against Strength of Fellowship with difficulty (challenge die) set by you. A big brute of a man might obviously be harder to intimidate than a 2 stone weakling. Also I agree there are different levels of intimidation. I think in many ways earlier editions had better (or at least more comprehensive) solutions to cover this. I'm thinking particularly of such things like the Expanded Skill Rules for WFRP document that I believe featured in Liber Fanatica. It expands on the degrees of success and failure mechanic for advanced skills and further subdivides skills as charm into different kinds e.g. bluff, charm etc. It also suggests that Intimidate Checks can use either Fellowship or Strength.

Another similarly related 2nd series of tables I have (again from 2nd edition source) perhaps from the GM kit. I forget because i've got the screenshots of the tables and have them stored separately. Their Expanded Intimidate table also suggests alllowing a choice between ST or FEL when attempting to Intimidate and also distinguishes between Intimidate and Scare. It's something i've considered adapting for 3rd edition. The degrees of success is a factor I've been considered borrowing aspects of to represent 3rd editions dice.

In summary though. Use whatever suits. If St v WP or Dis seems wrong then do something else. You're the GM

Basically I guess any skill could be opposed by any other skill, depending on the cirumstances.

If there's a reason for it, you could just give the smith in your adventure a special rule which adds extra bonus when opposing intimidate.

Many creature cards have special rules.

For example:

Brute: Add an expertise die to intimidate checks made by this character. Add an extra challenge die to all checks to intimidate this character.

Or the other way round:

Gullable: Add an expertise die to all checks to charm or gulie this character.

I like k7e9's idea.

I do agree that intimidation needs to be modified to explain certain factors.

Their are cases where a little old lady or witch scares a big brute of man due to her reputation rather than any strength factor.

The skill descriptions at times say which skill/stat opposes them though as above sometimes they don't quite fit or a substantial modifier is warranted. Someone might just be set in their ways etc. and automatically add a challenge die to talking them into a different idea, everyone in the rural village might have two misfortune dice on any check that requires trusting outsider etc. Intimidation can be substantially modified, I make it usually against Discipline usually but sometimes Str would apply (can take you if it's physical), To (I can take it even if you dish it out) but again situation modifies heavily as do things like comparative status etc.