Hello,

I recently bought the game, and am generally pleased with it so far. Something that has bothered me a bit though is what the intent behind some of the social actions are:

Actions like Honeyed Words, I Thought We Were Friends, Fluster and Formal Diplomacy seem to do pretty much what I would expect just having the skill would allow a character to as a basic use of the skill, although with some predefined results of the action.

I can't really see the reasoning behind these cards. Having the actions available could be just for the added benefit of some formalised boons and successes, or becuase the designers intended that the action card was needed to be able to do that kind of social effect. Forcing a player to buy the action just to be able to use their trained skill doesnt seem reasonable though.

Personally one way I might think of to solve it is to add a basic social action with a prereq of Charm/Guile that has some simple influence target effect as its result.

I would be very interested in how the designers intended for these actions to be used in relation to basic uses of the skills though.

What I have noticed about honeyed words is that it targets Int rather than willpower which is the default resistance to guile and charm. It would be useful for perhaps targeting a vigilant guard who has a high WP but maybe a low Int.

Because of this I would only let the standard charm and guile actions (i.e. without an action card) target the enemies WP. Even with the Stunt action I would not allow it as it would be a duplication of the honeyed words action card, the Int targeting I see as the special part of that card.

This is part of how I see the stunt card, I think it should only be used if a skill is being used in a special way. Skulduggery rather than education to pass an exam, Weaponskill to analyse an opponents fighting style etc.

Actually the description of Guile on p17 mentions that Guile checks involving duping, misleading or fooling someone are opposed by Intuition, and checks aimed at rattling, deceiving or distraction are opposed by Discipline, so even the basic use of the skill can target Int.

Yes you are right the targeting of Int is allowed as standard so I have had to have a rethink. We have to ask ourselves the question why we are not asking the same question about weapon skill and say thunderous blow. The basic success line is the same for thunderous blow and Melee strike so the advantage is at the higher levels of success, with honeyed words you have the ongoing benefit to you social actions at that higher level. When I initial saw this I thought this was not much of a benefit compared with just the basic skill. Now having compared it with some of the combat actions I don't necessary see this as the case. It is only on they multiple successes do you begin to get other benefits. We don't ask the question as we have a nice Melee strike card (which is basically the non card action for weapon skill) so do not begin to compare the advanced skill with the basic skill.

You might very well be correct in that this is a "problem" only seen while studying the rules, and not something that will be a problem in real play. I did think about the comparison with the basic attack.

I think what bothers me is that I feel that the action cards for the social skills somehow hamper my ability to provide uses for the skill ad-hoc with bonues for boons etc. Since the action cards are bought with advances I feel that the cards should be "better" than default skill uses, and this means that any bonuses on skill uses without an action card will have to be carefully thought about so they dont make a character without a purchased social action card as good as or better than the character that did purchase a card.

An example of this is the Day late shilling short scenario where there is a social encounter where the scenario specifies:

"A successful check moves the influence token one space to the
right. If one or more ¬ boons are generated on a check, they grant
the next PC to act a bonus fortune die as the party gathers momentum
and..."

which is pretty much the same as what several of the social action cards would provide...

I guess I'll see how much of a problem this turns out to be in practice, but as mention before it would be interesting to read some of the thoughts and intentions of the designer for these cards.

I too would love to get some insight on how the more experienced GMs are handling the social actions. One of my players has both really high Guile skill with specialization and Honeyed Words action card. Yesterday we we're playing the social encounter of "Day late, Shilling short" and the action card was pretty much useless (especially as my players think the white dice as not so important to have).

In the end I decided to give the guy two successes per action, when using the action. I know it was too much, but worked ok for the moment. Now he's asking me about the card and how useful it is.

As I see it a the card is currently doing pretty much the same as a standard guile check. There are a few moments where I could see having a special action card as advantageous:

- When in jail, the guard definitely doesn't want to listen to your blabberings. Even with a high guile, one can't get past the guards social defences. With the honeyed words cards one could get "under the skin" of the guard and make it possible to have further influence on him.

- When two opposing parties are trying to convince the target on something it could be that with Honeyd Words a character can sway the target NPC to his side, therefore gaining fortune for himself and giving misfortune to the third party trying to convince the target otherwise. Think Gandalf vs. Grima trying to get through to Theoden in LOTR.

There's also this "will grant a reasonable wish" to the character using the Honeyed Words. What is reasonable? Would love to get some examples what other people (and designers please) think.

I'll give a quick rundown of what my group is currently trying out. It's an extension of a quick system proposed by HedgeWizard some time ago.

Bullet points:

• A single 'influence' is normally all that's required for a quick check/influence (e.g. does the barmaid like you?).
• A progress tracker, with multiple steps of influence, is required when changing an opponent's mind, or negotiating a lengthy topic (e.g. negotiating an audience with the King with his chamberlain, or persuading someone that it is worth him giving up his secrets this time).
• You must be clear what you are trying to 'get' from the conversation. If you are not trying to 'get' anything then a progress tracker is probably not needed.
• Only 'social' skills can normally change Influence. Supporting skills (e.g. education, lores) can aid social skills, but cannot influence themselves.
• The rules below attempt to make social action cards useful by usually being noticeably more effective than base skills.
• Only social actions can influence a target twice in one roll (e.g. Winning Smile).

---

Social skills

Roll modifiers:

• NPC is favourable to argument (e.g. matches motivation) = +1-3 fortune to current roll
• NPC is unfavourable to argument = +1-3 misfortune to current roll

Use the following results for non-action card checks:

• 1 success = +1 fortune to next social check in encounter
• 2 successes = successfully influence target/encounter
• 2 boons = +1 fortune to next social check in encounter
• 2 banes = opponent gains +1 fortune to their next social check in encounter
• Chaos star = opponent gains 1 social defense (opponents add misfortune) for 1 full round.

Non-social skills (/assists)

Many non-socials skills – such as Education, Folklore, Nature Lore – can be used to ‘assist’ in a social action when they provide relevant information that can affect the argument. Non-social skills cannot normally in themselves influence a target.

• 1 success = +1 fortune to next social check in encounter
• 3 successes = +1 characteristic dice to next social check in encounter
• 2 boons = +1 fortune to next social check in encounter
• 2 banes = +1 misfortune to next social check in encounter, as the information delivered somewhat derails the conversation (”... Interesting, but anyway, as I was saying..”).

So far, it's working ok, and feels relatively balanced with the social action cards.

Dramatic Exit said:

nice! This certainly makes the whole social action setup a bit closer in drama and difficulty to combat setups. It also seems to be very much in the spirit of things as their are presented in the guides and sample campaigns. Seems like I will really have to learn to make full use of the progress tracker for social encounters when I start to GM my first campaign…

Maybe you want to upload this somewhere like Hammerzeit, so that we can use this as a checklist or something?

Dramatic Exit said:

Very nice. I'll try these tonight with my group and will let you know how it worked for us. Overall your post really made it all clearer in my head already, so big thanks for that.

Nansur said:

According to a very literal interpretation of the RAW, using a skill is a maneuver, whereas using an action card is an action. This doesn't exactly make things make any more sense, though.

I'm also looking for a better way to handle this. The rules really don't give much guidance here. I agree with your point that action cards should give you some bonus. It has to be something special. A trick or something, not just the average use of the skill, but something that your average skill user can't do.

And the action/maneuver thing just doesn't make a lot of sense.