I know that this topic appeared at least a couple of times, but I am not sure whether it's been systematically discussed, so I'm opening the thread.
One of glaring omissions, almost surely intentional, is that there no skill responsible for lying and deception. In some cases, this can be reasonably represented by using standard social system framework. However, the whole system does seem to be aimed towards representing genuine persuasion.
So let's look at some example of "pure lying": a character pretends that she is a messenger which was supposed to take an important letter from a high-ranked officer. She presents some suitable evidence confirming she is who she claims to be (for examples, presents some mark of a prince she claims to serve) and possibly some convincing story of why she isn't the guy that used to be a messenger for last half a year, but the officer is a grizzled veteran. He maybe kind-of-suspects something, but has no good reason, to actually not trust that person, other than gut feeling and it would be potentially ruining to impede the whole communication because of a mere gut feeling. Now the situation essentially depends on how convincing the alleged messenger will be, and how able to mask the stress.
How do you model this mechanically?
The situation seems poorly modeled by the standard social interaction system. The messenger doesn't try to convince the officer to like her (although this might be potentially helpful), but to convince the officer of what is the matter of fact, so this is rather not an instill action.
It could be persuade action. However, again it is not simply a matter of nudging the officer to pursue one course of action or another. Moreover, it fits strangely into the standard interaction system: giving an important letter to someone is a big deal. It's definitely not a "trivial or risk-free action", so RAW, there should be some intimacies supporting this course of action. Incidentally, there could be some such intimacies: maybe something along the lines "One should not be distracted by gut feelings" could be helpful and "There's more to this position than the protocol" could hinder the task. However, in general not everyone has such intimacies, they are typically not strong, so it doesn't fit the standard mechanical solution of persuasion. There could be some persuasion actions involved: an old servant who doesn't trust the impostor, could try to convince the officer to not pass the letter no matter she is lying or not, so that to avoid the unnecessary risk; to do so, would be a conscious choice of the officer and already falls into the territory of usual social interaction. But in our case, it shouldn't really be a matter of decisions of the officer, but simply of how convincing the impostor is. If you like, you can think of a situation, where a cunning enough manipulator could simply give no reason to suspect her, so the modeling by persuasion could be even more awkward.
It could be a simple roll or an extended action. What to roll then? It's almost surely Manipulation + something. Possibly Manipulation + Socialize or Manipulation + Larceny. Is it then an opposed roll and what is it opposed with? There is no "Empathy" skill in Exalted after all.
Alternatively, we could say that the active side in this story is not the impostor who tries just to say everything as plain-faced as possible, but the officer. So maybe it should be modeled as a resisted roll of officer's Perception(?) + Investigation(?), Perception + Socialize(?) at Difficulty [imposter's Guile], possiby modified with relevant Intimacies. I think this might be a natural fit, since there is a lie-detecting charm in the Investigation tree. Then, if the officer remains unconvinced, there's still a lot of options. One could persuade the officer to pass the letter along the lines of "Procedures are to be followed" or to interrogate the alleged messenger.
How would you resolve it, mechanically?
One of glaring omissions, almost surely intentional, is that there no skill responsible for lying and deception. In some cases, this can be reasonably represented by using standard social system framework. However, the whole system does seem to be aimed towards representing genuine persuasion.
So let's look at some example of "pure lying": a character pretends that she is a messenger which was supposed to take an important letter from a high-ranked officer. She presents some suitable evidence confirming she is who she claims to be (for examples, presents some mark of a prince she claims to serve) and possibly some convincing story of why she isn't the guy that used to be a messenger for last half a year, but the officer is a grizzled veteran. He maybe kind-of-suspects something, but has no good reason, to actually not trust that person, other than gut feeling and it would be potentially ruining to impede the whole communication because of a mere gut feeling. Now the situation essentially depends on how convincing the alleged messenger will be, and how able to mask the stress.
How do you model this mechanically?
The situation seems poorly modeled by the standard social interaction system. The messenger doesn't try to convince the officer to like her (although this might be potentially helpful), but to convince the officer of what is the matter of fact, so this is rather not an instill action.
It could be persuade action. However, again it is not simply a matter of nudging the officer to pursue one course of action or another. Moreover, it fits strangely into the standard interaction system: giving an important letter to someone is a big deal. It's definitely not a "trivial or risk-free action", so RAW, there should be some intimacies supporting this course of action. Incidentally, there could be some such intimacies: maybe something along the lines "One should not be distracted by gut feelings" could be helpful and "There's more to this position than the protocol" could hinder the task. However, in general not everyone has such intimacies, they are typically not strong, so it doesn't fit the standard mechanical solution of persuasion. There could be some persuasion actions involved: an old servant who doesn't trust the impostor, could try to convince the officer to not pass the letter no matter she is lying or not, so that to avoid the unnecessary risk; to do so, would be a conscious choice of the officer and already falls into the territory of usual social interaction. But in our case, it shouldn't really be a matter of decisions of the officer, but simply of how convincing the impostor is. If you like, you can think of a situation, where a cunning enough manipulator could simply give no reason to suspect her, so the modeling by persuasion could be even more awkward.
It could be a simple roll or an extended action. What to roll then? It's almost surely Manipulation + something. Possibly Manipulation + Socialize or Manipulation + Larceny. Is it then an opposed roll and what is it opposed with? There is no "Empathy" skill in Exalted after all.
Alternatively, we could say that the active side in this story is not the impostor who tries just to say everything as plain-faced as possible, but the officer. So maybe it should be modeled as a resisted roll of officer's Perception(?) + Investigation(?), Perception + Socialize(?) at Difficulty [imposter's Guile], possiby modified with relevant Intimacies. I think this might be a natural fit, since there is a lie-detecting charm in the Investigation tree. Then, if the officer remains unconvinced, there's still a lot of options. One could persuade the officer to pass the letter along the lines of "Procedures are to be followed" or to interrogate the alleged messenger.
How would you resolve it, mechanically?
Comment