Hi all,

My group has just encountered an unknown alien species and are looking to make a roll to determine, based on their body-language and manner, whether they are friendly or not.

They don't speak the language, but want to try and get a feel for what the alien is about.

Similarly if they were interacting with someone they could understand but who was not nescessarily trying to deceive them what skill would you recommend to use to try and get a "feel" for the person (good guy, bad guy, greedy etc etc).

Any ideas?

Twak

Knowledge (Xenology) can cover alien psychology. I don't believe that this game has a skill that lets you read general intent.

For the unknown alien I'd use Xenology

For folks they could understand possibly perception or maybe cool?

I recall Cool mentions using it for gaining a bit of insight on people.

Xenology is for any alien cultures, unknown languages, etc. If you were trying to gain a better grasp of a situation using a familiarity with psychology or any other knowledge skill not covered elsewhere, then I'd suggest Education.

CRB pg 113 for social skills

Cool is resisted by CHARM

Discipline is resisted by DECEPTION, Coercion & Leadership

Negoiation resisted by Negiotation or Cool

Cool is only used to detect if someone is being overly kind...trying to charm or manipulate you.

Xenology is what I'd use. You could make a general Precence or Cunning roll to determine someones motivates

I would use both Perception and Xenology.

First let the players roll a Perception test and roll play the weird and "alien" encounter.

Then, let them roll Xenology normal difficulty test with the following rules:

• Every success in the Perception test lowers the Xenology test difficulty by one.
• Every failure in the Perception test raises the Xenology test difficulty by one.
• Every Advantage in the Perception test grants a boost die to the Xenology test.
• Every Threat in the Perception test adds a setback die to the Xenology test.

That way, both players with Perception and with Xenology (or more likely with high Intellect) will have a chance to be useful in the encounter and it gives much more room for role play.