Depending on how good a roleplayer the player is, you might want to simply make him read your adventure notes BEFORE the session, or tell him what do you intend there and the likely motivations of the main characters. That way he can play like "I just noticed that this guy looks suspicious" without even rolling. If your troupe is out to tell a story more than overcoming obstacles it might be worth it. We sometimes do that (not all the time, where is the surprise otherwise!!) and it seems to work OK My players have read the Isle of Man tribunal book, for example, since there is not much that I need to hide there (and they know I will be changing a few things anyway) ansd that gives them a good grounding on the "feeling" of the place and how they characters would react in front of the main vitki chaqracter or king reginald.
Or, in play, the SG can just say something like, "'I wasn't there!' the baillif bellows, his face puffy and red, his spittle striking your cheeks. But you can see the shame and the terrible fear that underlies his puffed up outrage. He wasn't there, you can tell, but he might as well have been. He knows what happened, he was directly involved."
No glimpses behind the curtain for a 'favored pc', no coaching on how to be subtle, no mechanical "buzzer," no collapse of drama, no shafting the character's ability, no dice roll. This social character got lots of information, and it's all good. (At least until the InMe magus steps in.
((The alternative is painful, especially by PBeM:
GM: The bailiff yells, "I wasn't there!"
Player: Do I think he's lying?
GM: How would you know?
Player: Diego has an awesome folk ken total.
GM: What is it?
Player: 17 plus a die.
GM: Roll it... and it's a stress die. Let me know if you botch.
Ken...oO(Ain't that the way.)
Player: I got a 24.
GM: You can see that he is yelling loudly. His cheeks are all puffy and red. You think that maybe he is overacting his outrage, the whole looming over you thing.
Player: That's it? That's all I get?
GM: This is an intuitive ability! It's not like real people know when someone is lying or afraid or something, they guess from what they notice.
Player: Ok, so Diego is a good guesser, and I rolled a 24.
GM: Well, there's definitely something going on here, but I'm not just going to tell you. The ability doesn't work that way, and the fun of the game is figuring things out.
Player...oO(Next time, I'm going to play a Flambeau.)
Firstly I'd like to state that I am not the SG, I'm a fellow player. The discussion I would like to try to steer to goes something like this: It seems as though most wizards aren't super good at lying OR detecting said lies but due to the form bonus/more virtues that aid Folk Ken there are more wizards that are better at reading ppl then there are at telling fibs. This prolly has obvious effect on magi and thier politics. Jerbitons, Tri-Bonisagus, and any quesitor, for instance, have to be highly feared for thier ability to read ppl. I take it no one else has thought too much about this?
We reasoned that in any Tribunal there has to be several magi that maybe are not quite as good as the player Mage I listed but still pretty good.
At least Folk Ken 5, plus Mentam of at least 10 or so (+2 or +3), WHAMMY!!!! If you think about this, how many wizards are going to have the Guile to stand up to even those kind of numbers.
As to my friends Magi I listed the adds for: I have enjoyed reading your very nice and well reasoned ways/arguments on how to deal with a player with adds that crazy in a story, HOWEVER, my storyguide is one of the best I have ever played with in my 37 years of life (about 30 of these gaming (if you count D&D---BURN!)) I have no doubt of his ability to handle the roleplaying aspect of being able to read ppl at a mythic level.
I am even more curious now to find out if no one has really thought about the implications of this.
I see this as making sense. Jerbiton and Trianoma magi are not known for being powerful, yet there they are, thriving. And Guernincans... they're doing pretty well too. Meanwhile, the schemier magi tend to always need a new plan for their next episode. If it were easy, there'd be nothing special about being a Tytalus....
Yes I would agree 100 percent Owarwa! I would say that Tytalus at the very least might be one of the few Houses that might be able to get away with lying regularly...(although still prolly not to a very skilled Folk Ken expert w/ virtues to aid them). The other houses must have to be fairly tight lipped in order to try to pull sneaky moves though.
I see having a skilled politician as being an important member of a covenant....maybe even giving a covenant a dominant role in tribunal politics maybe? If you can send only your politician who has a decent Folk Ken, AND Guile...you might be able to pull some horrors/detect the horrors of the competitors.
Now I'm thinking about Jerbitons. There they are, partying with the nobles, chatting it up at court. What fools they are, not to pursue real power! Then they arrive at Tribunal, with massive scores in Guile, Folk Ken, Intrigue, Etiquette, Charm and even Carousing....
This works better for NPCs, of course, because most GMs across all games shaft social abilities. "I think it's more fun to roleplay these things out."
Not to get back on the numbers topics too much but a wily GM could have a number of rolls written down pre-game so that the die rolling could be kept to a minimum.
I'm curious why you make this assumption. It seems that a lot of this discussion is predicated on the belief that this assumption is true, and I think this might be a slight tactical error. Magi in general suffer penalties to their social interactions with non-magi only (assuming they don't have the Gentle Gift), but within the wizards' club they should be considered on more or less equal footing. And while the Order of Hermes, the Parma Magica and the covenant system fosters a level of trust among colleagues I don't believe it implies absolute trust and comfort with each other (or there would be no real need for Guernicus). So I think it's safe to say that there is a consequent level of distrust among the Order's membership. It follows that traits like "tight-lipped" and "keeps it close to the vest" should be relatively common. Guile is not a rare skill, in other words.
The Folk Ken ability should apply to both telling and detecting lies, seems to me. I would reason that Folk Ken is a far less common ability among magi than Guile. Therefore your lie-detector character (sorry for calling him that, but I don't have a name) definitely has a superior advantage over most magi. And I hesitate to assign "stereotype" abilities to certain houses, even though I know that stereotypes exist for real reasons. Jerbiton and Guernicus and Trianoman B's are more likely to have "people reading" magi than other houses, but remember this is a generalization. IOW, take 100 Jerbiton and 100 Flambeau: out of the 100 Jerbiton you'll likely have 50-60 or so good people readers, and out of the 100 Flambeau that number may only be 15-20. Be careful with assumptions, because even a whacked out Criamon or a stick-in-the-butt Tremere can be an "off-stereotype".
This is the real question, IMO, and I think this character is obviously superb at foiling subterfuge, way better than most (if not all) magi in your or any Tribunal. This is your PC's strength and I would hedge my bets with his ability, not on the assumption that other wizards aren't good liars. Remember, when it comes to lying at Tribunal (or similar) you can't afford to be better than most, you have to be better than the best. But with your numbers I'd say you don't have much to worry about.
This is correct, IMO. (Sorry for agreeing with you again) And this got me thinking about "good roleplaying" and social skills. I've played a lot of RPG's and none of them require a PC to have social skills in order to socialize. And a lot of players ignore them if they don't conceive of a "social character" (e.g., "My guy's a bruiser, he doesn't talk much anyway"), which is fine. And it's obviously more fun to roleplay a social interaction, unless you want it to sound like this:
SG: The barmaid brings you your drinks and winks at you.
Player: Is she hot?
SG: Sure, you know, she has most of her teeth.
Player: OK, my guy's a randy fellow, I flirt back.
SG: Make a Charm roll.
Player: I got a 12. My Charm is 3 and my Com and Prs are both +2.
SG: OK, it works. She gets off at ten bells and tells you to meet her by the stables.
Maybe some people don't feel comfortable "flirting" with another player, even in character (and esp. if the other player is not "sexually compatible" with them), but the above scenario demonstrates how NOT to handle social skills. If your PC has a Charm of 3 you should roleplay that level of charm. Sure you'll garner some giggles around the table, but a good SG will appreciate the roleplaying attempt. Even if they still want a die roll, whether it's before or after the actual interaction, I want my players to roleplay their abilities. If a grog is hitting on my barmaid and has no social skills and no Prs/Com then I reward them for being "in character", whether their attempt at flirting with the barmaid is crude or inept, but so long as it reflects their lack of social graces. If he's got the skills, show me what you got, big boy.
On a sidenote, my current magus has a Com of -2 and it is the biggest challenge of my roleplaying life trying to keep my roleplaying on that level.
There's another way to handle it, but it requires GM participation. I call it "I want him to do it, but if you try the exact same thing, I'm calling the cops." I'll leave the exact nature of "it" to the imagination.
So there we are, with a player whose social abilities are... wanting, playing a character with maxed out social abilities. Naturally, the player won't be able to turn on the charm--if he could, he'd be doing it rl too, yes? But a GM can remember the character sheet, and translate gawky stammering into charming diffidence, arrogant pushiness into a seductive edge, and so on.
Conversely, a player who tanks his social skills and relies on his ability to roleplay might find himself surprised when the players laugh at his jokes while the npcs act like he just shat on the table, female npcs treat his charming banter as creepy, his reasonable proposals are treated like treacherous lies, and so on.
Of course. Thanks for pointing that out. We have a similar situation in my troupe. One of the magi has an aptitude for social encounters (Folk Ken and all that) while the player is somewhat lacking... not exactly a silver tongue, shall we say. It's not his fault and should not be punished for lacking the abilities of his make-believe character, any more than I should be limited to playing characters with low strength because I'm thin IRL. So you bring up an excellent point.
What I end up doing when the player says "I'm going to shmooze the barkeep" is tell him to role-play it for me, give me your best shot, and remind me of your Prs/Com and relevant skills/virtues/flaws. So I grade him on his character's abilities, but if he manages to make me laugh or something it's all the better for him. More enjoyable for everyone else, too.
Yes, exactly. And if the player ends up calling the baron a dumb putz, maybe that was incredibly the perfect thing to say, even if you and I couldn't pull it off.
The player proceeds to roll a +23 total for his charm roll after saying that and the lord is looking forward to be called a meat pie again. Gives the player whatever he was after as a reward for being so canny: nobody has been so bold with him before.
The next day a poor knight calls him a meat pie and he is decapitated for the unbelievable insult
My players have read the Isle of Man tribunal book, for example, since there is not much that I need to hide there (and they know I will be changing a few things anyway) ansd that gives them a good grounding on the "feeling" of the place and how they characters would react in front of the main vitki chaqracter or king reginald.
