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Deception vs Persuasion: Skill merge?

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Mon, 2013-03-04 15:46
#1
revengespc revengespc's picture
Deception vs Persuasion: Skill merge?
My PC's have been questioning me about the dichotomy between Deception and Perception, and when exactly each should be used. Case in point: A PC who is lying only by omission when trying to convince an NPC to tag along with the group - the PC is lying, but not directly, and persuasion is the intent of the action. Which demonstrates, to me, the general clunkiness of having two separate skills dealing with verbal communication. Isn't deception a form of persuasion - persuading another person that they're telling the truth? So I'm thinking about house ruling Deception out of the skill list - making all verbal communication based on Persuasion rolls, for both lies and truths. The other character may still oppose with her own Kinesics, to represent the possibility of reading insincerity into what's being said, or simply noticing dissonance between the character's verbal and nonverbal communication, which prevents you from being spellbound by the speaker's oratory. The speaker can precede her Persuasion roll with her own Kinesics roll, to take better conscious control of her body language and give penalties to the other person's Kinesics roll. In a nutshell: Deception gets folded into Persuasion, but it's still an opposed roll against the target's Kinesics. The speaker can still use her own Kinesics or other tools to get bonuses to her Persuasion, or penalties to the target's Kinesics. Thoughts?
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Mon, 2013-03-04 17:22
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
They should be independent
They should be independent skills. Look at the listed specializations to see justification for both skills. It's hard to reconcile those specializations under just one of those skills. Kinesics is only a valid defense against deception when characters are dealing face to face. As a Gm I'd also rule that if the intent were to deceive then deception would be the test even if that's just persuasion via lying by omission. In a nut shell; I would be unhappy playing in a game where one skill gave a character access to all of those abilities. As a GM I think it's best to make the social engineer pay for multiple skills. that's a powerful archetype in this system.
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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

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Tue, 2013-03-05 11:06
Lilith Lilith's picture
I'm with OneTrik on this. The
I'm with OneTrik on this. The two skills are separate because there [i]is[/i] a distinction between them. Lying through omission is still an attempt to deceive; it doesn't matter that it's not overt, it's still a deception, and if the target finds out the truth, he/she/it is liable to think so as well. You might still rule that the PC can roll Persuasion, but I don't think that's evidence enough that the skill somehow needs to be more encompassing.
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Tue, 2013-03-05 11:12
revengespc revengespc's picture
I just noticed I screwed up the thread's original title!
YMMV, I guess - I don't see how Acting, Bluffing, and (especially) Fast Talk can in any way be construed to be wholly or partially different from the ability to "convince someone to do what you want through the use of words and gestures." Of Deception's listed example abilities, bluffing, conning, and fast talking are all clearly forms of persuasion. Acting and pretending are both covered by Impersonation. Misrepresentation can easily be construed to be the foundational premise behind Persuasion - you're using verbal communication to misrepresent some of the NPC's goals as more important to them than other goals, or to misrepresent the value of the PC's bargain as more desirable than it is. The entire point of Persuasion is to misrepresent/distort the NPC's normal cost-benefit analysis. That leaves Deception with only one unique action type (flat-out lying) and no listed specializations. (I guess there could be, say, self-deception!). I'm not trying to make Persuasion more encompassing - I just don't see how Deception is differentiated. This contrasts with the high differentiation between the other social skills. Protocol specifically pertains to formal etiquette and social blending, and is different from the other social skills because it either deals with a large gathering of people, or specific points of manners and procedure. Impersonation is a form of deception that uses a variety of different tactics (cold reading, body language, idioms) to achieve a specific goal (imitating a specific person). Intimidation shares the same goals as persuasion, but uses a completely different set of tactics. As far as balancing the social engineer goes, a house-ruled skill merge takes the number of social engineering skills from 7 (Deception, Impersonation, Kinesics, Disguise, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Protocol) to 6, which doesn't strike me as an incredible boost. I guess it also depends on how one wishes to run social interactions - I force my PC's to make a [i]lot[/i] of rolls against their Knowledge skills in conversation, because you can't bluff a description of a prion virus, and you can't walk into a fusion power plant by skillfully saying "Please?" That way social interactions involve just as many rolls as combat or hacking. (Although my PCs tend to circumvent a lot of that with the liberal use of bribes.)
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Tue, 2013-03-05 12:03
Lilith Lilith's picture
revengespc wrote:I force my
revengespc wrote:
I force my PC's to make a [i]lot[/i] of rolls against their Knowledge skills in conversation, because you can't bluff a description of a prion virus, and you can't walk into a fusion power plant by skillfully saying "Please?" That way social interactions involve just as many rolls as combat or hacking. (Although my PCs tend to circumvent a lot of that with the liberal use of bribes.)
Bribery is a form of Persuasion that doesn't involve Deception, and someone skilled enough in Deception probably wouldn't have to make a bribe in the first place. I suppose it might be a YMMV thing, because I've never viewed Persuasion as a skill that, by its nature, somehow involves misrepresentation. If I'm trying to convince someone of something that's true ("No officer, I didn't murder that guy with a plasma rifle! I was defending myself from an Exsurgent!"), then that's Persuasion. If I'm haggling prices for the use of a fabber or negotiating favors to hitch a shuttle right to the next hab over, that's still Persuasion — unless I try to convince the shuttle pilot that I'm a member of Oversight and therefore commandeering his shuttle, there's no misrepresentation involved. To use your example, if I'm trying to get into a fusion power plant for some reason, Persuasion would involve my having a legitimate reason to be there ("I have reason to believe there's a known terrorist on the habitat and he may already be trying to sabotage the reactor.") or, as your PCs did, outright bribery ("I know you're just doing your job, so tell you what: 1000 creds and I was never here."). Deception, then, involves hiding the real reason why the PCs are there and instead misrepresenting themselves to circumvent the guard ("Hey, I'm with the militia, we're conducting a surprise inspection of the reactor security protocols. Stand aside, please."). Part of the reasoning too, given the setting, is probably the fact that people activity undergo physical changes when lying (that's the basis of lie detectors, after all), and a better Deception skill implies that the person in question is better at hiding such tics or giveaways. Someone with natural charisma might be great at Persuasion, but the moment he has to lie to someone he starts sweating profusely or looking around nervously (hence augs like Emotion Dampeners and Endrocrine Control to offset such tics). To me, the difference is pretty blatant, but then hey, that's me.
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Wed, 2013-03-06 08:44
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
You could also think about it
You could also think about it in terms of archetypes. A scammer might be very good at tricking people, but that doesn't necessarily make him a good negotiator. A high level negotiator on the other hand might very well not be any good as a con artist. In some situations you'll need to rely on several skills to get through with something. You might both need to pass a Deception roll to convince a guard that you're being chased by killers AND then a Persuasion roll to convince him he should break the rules and let a stranger onto the premises.
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Wed, 2013-03-06 09:49
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
I'd support it. The 'face'
I'd support it. The 'face' ends up buying a LOT of skills which seem almost identical. In fact, the face has more skills on the 'must buy' list than any other archetype. Although of all of the social skills, those probably aren't the two I'd choose, because they are so big. Instead I'd consider joining Disguise under Impersonation, Intimidation under Persuasion, and maybe Protocol under Networking. (As a quick note, a Con Artist needs: Deception Impersonation Disguise Kinesics Networking (multiple) Persuasion Protocol + combat and stealth skills. I'm not aware of any archetype which comes close to requiring that many skills to be reliably functional.)
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Fri, 2013-03-29 07:51
Solar Solar's picture
I'd fold impersonation and
I'd fold impersonation and disguise, because in a transhuman future mimicking other people is going to rely more on body language, mannerisms and mesh presence. After all, with people's body's, fashions and so on changing so fast, and with lots of people having sensors that can easily penetrate most disguises, it's not really that useful and not deserving of being a seperate skill IMO. Deception and Persuasion can be separate, because otherwise you can't play someone who is persuasive but crap at lying, which I have done, or fantastic at lying but not very good at persuading people for that matter. Disguise and Impersonation don't have that problem, you are nearly always going to need both, they cover the same area, definitely a merge opportunity.
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