Say a security guard stumbles unto a player in a place he shouldn't be, and he tries to con his way out of it by:
He's an exec from HQ (Impersonation roll)
HQ screwed up by not reporting his visit (Deception roll)
He'll have the guard fired if he detains him and checks with HQ (Intimidation roll)
That's a lot of rolls. Is that how you run it? Or just use one of them (and then how do you factor in say emotional dampers or synthmorph kinesics resistance, which shouldn't apply where intimidation is needed)? Or the lowest score of them all?
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How do you run the mechanics of conning?
Mon, 2012-04-02 12:58
#1
Smokeskin
How do you run the mechanics of conning?
Mon, 2012-04-02 16:26
#2
Arenamontanus
Re: How do you run the mechanics of conning?
I would use a single roll, baking the three elements together under the main skill used. To use impersonation the PC needs to know something about the exec, while deception is more general (behaving bossy and using the right style). Intimidation is probably least effective, since the guard needs to believe the PC really is an exec (otherwise it is just a scary person in a place where they shouldn't be - still possible to intimidate one's way out of, but likely tougher).
Skills overlap, and I think sequential rolls are necessary mainly when there are definite steps to a process, not when they form a cohesive whole. Designing, building and testing a new kind of machine might take three rolls, with failures producing different kinds of non-functioning, but making a standard device is just one roll.
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Mon, 2012-04-02 22:57
#3
Foucault
Re: How do you run the mechanics of conning?
I'd also go with a single roll, taking things like Emotional Dampers and complementary skills into account. And I don't just mean that the impersonator gets +10 for his really good deception skill, but also that it's at -10 because of his Intimidate is so much poorer than the other two skills. In a multi-skill endeavor, bad ones should bring you down just as much as good ones bring it up.
The second thing I'd mention is a correlary to Arenamontanus' explanation of why building takes multiple rolls. In the Spirit of the Century game they give some advice for when to call for rolls: imagine failure. If the fail state of the roll stops your game flat, just leads to more repetative rolling, or is exactly the same as the next roll you'd ask for then you should seriously consider if you need that roll.
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R-Rep: 2
Tue, 2012-04-03 05:36
#4
LatwPIAT
Re: How do you run the mechanics of conning?
I'd say that unless the conversation really drags on, that whole thing is a deception. Since the player doesn't impersonate any one specific person, Deception works as well as Impersonation ("I am an exec from HQ" is an attempt to deceive verbally, after all). So all in all, the whole conversation could be summarized as "I am allowed to be here", which is Deception.
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@-rep +2
C-rep +1
Tue, 2012-04-03 05:58
#5
Arenamontanus
Re: How do you run the mechanics of conning?
Impersonation is a bit about acting: not necessarily acting exactly like the original person, but acting like the viewer thinks they should act.
We had a hilarious example last session: impersonating a wounded exhuman dreadnought. And the PC doing it (Impersonation skill: 20!) pulled it off. Of course, it helped that he was sleeved in an unfinished replica dreadnought that had accidentally run through several walls (the integration test failed badly...) Of course, it was such a good impersonation that the allies of the PCs did not realize who it was (and it did wreck walls and vent the habitat!), so they added to the cover by firing desperately at it. Which gave a fine bonus to fooling the real exhumans - if the mere transhumans are firing at that wreck, it has to be ours.
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