How is this one best characterized - Gossiping with the locals to find out rumors: passive maneuver or perform stunt?

The player's guide p66 says:

How is this one best characterized - Gossiping with the locals to find out rumors: passive maneuver or perform stunt?

I would say its an Action such as: ...Informal Carousing (charm), Winning Smile (charm), Fake Out (guile) ... or if the PCs dont have any of those or some other appropriate action then 'Perform A Stunt' with charm .... IMO charm is definately the go-to skill in this case ...but good rp can ofcause allow you to use another skill though perhaps I might be inclined to throw in a black die in any case....

I would generally characterize that as an Action. Getting an NPC to share information with you is "Influencing the Target". You're interacting with and manipulating them into telling you the juicy gossip.

The only way I'd see that as being merely a manoeuvre would be in situations where the GM was using an exceptionally long turn length. Like maybe during the travel sections of The Enemy Within, where a single die roll was determining the outcome of several days worth of journey. Traveling would be your main action, and if the players wanted to accomplish anything else on the side they'd do so at the cost of being fatigued when they arrived at their destination. In those situations, though, everything recharge-related gets mechanically wonky, so you're probably better off splitting each day up into several turns in the first place.

I guess it makes more sense as an action. Its not like you could do a charm:gossip maneuver and then another social action again afterwards during your same turn.

First , thanks for this question as it emphasizes an important point that I have been overlooking and though I was houseruling (hey folks, most skill uses are really perform a stunish!) when it is the core rule.

I agree that it is more a stunt. I think interacting with people to learn information is not "passive" as it is "interacting with something dynamic" (not a static landscape etc

Thanks so much for pointing this out Emirikol! This is something I've wondered about for some time, but never actually read that particular section on the Players Guide. I've struggled with finding uses for the Perform A Stunt card in the past, but it makes perfect sense to use it for "dynamic" skill checks, and to save straight up raw skill checks for more "passive" stuff or things that involved environment.

If your GM isn't forcing a roll, then you can use it as a maneouvre.

Example: I make my way idly to the party, chatting as I go.

Spend two maneouvres as opposed to one to make your way to the party. Gain a fortune dice to your first observation or intuition check to gather information.

If you roll dice, then it's an action innit?

If your GM isn't forcing a roll, then you can use it as a maneouvre.

Example: I make my way idly to the party, chatting as I go.

Spend two maneouvres as opposed to one to make your way to the party. Gain a fortune dice to your first observation or intuition check to gather information.

If you roll dice, then it's an action innit?

Not really, no. If it's an opposed roll or a competitive one, then yes, but a roll against a flat difficulty could be a manoeuvre.

Personally, I rule that actions are the narrative spotlight to your turn, it's the main action you're doing, storywise. You could spend a turn only doing manoeuvres, which means you are temporarily "out of the drama". Actions have a dramatic impact on the story, or the potential to have one.

Haggling during story mode is a manoeuvre, haggling to obtain a crucial item, while your limited resources might not make the item available if you fail your roll is definitely an Action. As a GM, use of perform a stunt by a player indicates that the player considers his attempt as important to the story and worthy of proper care and description. A manoeuvre roll is just a technical use of the mechanics to do a mundane action.

This would be good to print off and stick to the front of the GM's screen