alex_greene
Guest
Just looking at one of MWM's novels, Names. The protagonist is just what I described. A Noble, but seriously socially deficient, and surrounded by socially deficient people.
Non-Noble SOC Stat
- Thread starter alex_greene
- Start date
alex_greene
Guest
Charm (CHA) from the Traveller Companion 2024 Update implies deception. Charm is more about presenting a false front to onlookers. A characteristic of social awareness could still be used to manipulate people, but it's primarily about reading the room, and reading other people, to get the best outcome.
It's definitely something that should be kept separate from Social Standing, because the reality is that high-Social Standing individuals in this world are turning out to be as utterly charmless as they are utterly clueless, and there are many canny people with low Social Standing who are savvy as hell about social situations, sensing the way the wind is blowing, and generally reading the room.
It's definitely something that should be kept separate from Social Standing, because the reality is that high-Social Standing individuals in this world are turning out to be as utterly charmless as they are utterly clueless, and there are many canny people with low Social Standing who are savvy as hell about social situations, sensing the way the wind is blowing, and generally reading the room.
I have no idea where you get the idea that Charm implies deception. Certainly the brief description in the Companion doesn't limit it any such way. But it really doesn't matter whether you call it Charm or Presence or Charisma or Social Acumen or Empathy or anything else you like.
Has anyone in this thread disagreed that social status should be distinct from interpersonal aptitude? I guess you could argue that those nobles just lack the *skills* so they are taking a -3. But I doubt anyone actually would make that argument. The most anyone has pushed for is tracking both separately.
Has anyone in this thread disagreed that social status should be distinct from interpersonal aptitude? I guess you could argue that those nobles just lack the *skills* so they are taking a -3. But I doubt anyone actually would make that argument. The most anyone has pushed for is tracking both separately.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Charm is getting someone to do what you want, or go along with your agenda, without being confrontational, and/or offending them.
alex_greene
Guest
I work with sociopaths, and charm is the one thing they all have in common. Glib surface charm, with no sincerity behind it, is a solid indicator of sociopathy. Sociopaths use charm to, as Condottiere said, get what they want. As long as it's assumed that social acumen means only manipulation, you'll never really grasp the difference between real social intelligence, which fosters rapport between minds, and Machiavellianism.
But a person with high social awareness can spot a sociopath right away. Something about high charm sets off the alarms. Something about the person's surface emotions stinks.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
That would explain the high social standing of megacorporation chief executive officers.
alex_greene
Guest
High status does not confer high empathy. Rather the opposite.
If necessary, you could split the Social Standing into two characteristics: Status (STA) and Empathy (EMP).
As I said, you can pick whatever name you want that makes you feel happy. Whether your sociopath has a high social stat or has a high Deception and Persuasion skill is a semantic argument I'm not interested in. The point is to have a stat that reflects the character's base ability in social situations and provides the modifier for the social skills that is not ALSO the stat for societal rank.
If it's mostly about being able to read a room then I'd put that under INT. Actually, quite a few social interactions could fall under Int or Edu rather than a "social stat".*
This leaves SOC as something you call on when rank and formal standing actually matters, or CHA when it's your force of personality and informal celebrity doing the work.
Surface-level pretension, sociopath style, would be Deception combined with whatever stat is relevant. Deception covers faking that you're a pleasant person just as much as it does making someone believe that you're not the corporate drone they're looking for.
* While it tends toward comedic scenarios, I could even see END in a case where you're just trying to blather long enough that the other person finally wears down and throws up their hands saying, "Fine, whatever!"
This leaves SOC as something you call on when rank and formal standing actually matters, or CHA when it's your force of personality and informal celebrity doing the work.
Surface-level pretension, sociopath style, would be Deception combined with whatever stat is relevant. Deception covers faking that you're a pleasant person just as much as it does making someone believe that you're not the corporate drone they're looking for.
* While it tends toward comedic scenarios, I could even see END in a case where you're just trying to blather long enough that the other person finally wears down and throws up their hands saying, "Fine, whatever!"
You could do that. Int and Edu are already far and away the most important stats for skill checks, though. Of course, that means that SOC is practically never relevant unless you happen to be somewhere where people know you are a high ranking noble and actually care.
There are also lots of bright or well educated people who are clueless socially. But again, we are getting into the area of what's the stat and what's the skill. Was my high school buddy's physicist/inventor dad a social doofus because he didn't pick up any social skills despite his very high Int/Edu? or was social aptitude a different thing entirely?
There are also lots of bright or well educated people who are clueless socially. But again, we are getting into the area of what's the stat and what's the skill. Was my high school buddy's physicist/inventor dad a social doofus because he didn't pick up any social skills despite his very high Int/Edu? or was social aptitude a different thing entirely?
It's not specific to nobles even then. Someone with higher social standing will, in most societies, have an advantage over someone without whenever they're dealing with formal authority. A society doesn't have to have noble ranks at all for people with higher status (real or perceived) to be given preferential treatment. It happens all the time in real life, even in places where everyone is theoretically equal.
Sure. But you aren't dealing with people who are sticking around where their "real" social status matters. You are playing a game about Travellers. No one on Planet Y is going to care whether you are Soc 10 or Soc 6 on some rockball 10 jumps away. They are going to care that you are a free trader or an itinerant wanderer or that dude who just opened a MCr3 bank account. SOC works fine if you are playing in the same star system or something. But it really doesn't work as a *STAT*. It is more like a variable circumstancial modifier, imho.
alex_greene
Guest
INT doesn't work like that. Recon + INT to spot a contaminated stream before you drink from it, sure - but Recon + EMP, say, to spot who the shot caller is in the room (the guy just off to the left, near the buffet, who's always handing out the drinks and who's being approached by everybody), who the pretenders are (the dude lounging sprawled in the corner, whom nobody talks to), and so on.
Alqualonde
Banded Mongoose
The current SOC stat can be replaced by a rank (like an Army/Navy/Marines Rank). Tank 0 = Knight, Rank 1 = Baron, etc...
You can enter the Noble carreer as your 1st career by rolling 10+ (your parents were nobles). You start as a Knight, the advancement can be either like for other carreers (but very hard) or by events (someone dies/retires, you are the next in line).
For non nobles, some carreers can give you a chance (event) to be remarked and knighted. You can then enter the Noble carreer automatically.
Characters will have a SOC stat that does not represent a rank/place in society but their 'social acumen'. How they can react in a social situation.
That would be a bit more logical and doesn't require to increase the number of stats.
Bur I don't know how to make it work for low SOC characters (the lower part of the society).
You can enter the Noble carreer as your 1st career by rolling 10+ (your parents were nobles). You start as a Knight, the advancement can be either like for other carreers (but very hard) or by events (someone dies/retires, you are the next in line).
For non nobles, some carreers can give you a chance (event) to be remarked and knighted. You can then enter the Noble carreer automatically.
Characters will have a SOC stat that does not represent a rank/place in society but their 'social acumen'. How they can react in a social situation.
That would be a bit more logical and doesn't require to increase the number of stats.
Bur I don't know how to make it work for low SOC characters (the lower part of the society).
FreeTrav
Cosmic Mongoose
Regardless of what you call it, I don't think there's going to be a universal interpretation for C6 - at least, not a good one. Ultimately, though, I think the best examples of it being important to story have been in fiction, not gaming, and are represented by sfik (among the Kif) and Personage (among the Mahendo'sat) in C.J.Cherryh's Compact Space (the Chanur saga), and by melant'i among the Liaden in Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden Universe®. Both sfik and Personage are a fairly good match for something like the classic Traveller interpretation of C6, though both are more malleable; Melant'i is a good match for the 'social acumen' interpretation that has been discussed in this thread - with the caveat that melant'i is very much contextually dependent.
