Interpersonal Skills: Disambiguation

(Back to Skills)

The relative values in the Charm, Fast Talk, Intimidate, and Persuade skills serve to define a character and how they interact with people.

It is not for the player to nominate which one of these four skills they are using in a given situation. Instead, the player should describe what their investigator is doing and saying, and it is then up to the Keeper to decide which of the four skills is appropriate.


 * If the investigator is threatening violence or acting aggressively, the skill is Intimidate.
 * If the investigator is attempting to befriend or seduce, the skill is Charm.
 * If the investigator is using rational arguments and debate over a prolong time, the skill is Persuade.
 * If the investigator is acting quickly to deceive, con, or trick, the skill is Fast Talk.

 When Use on Player Characters 

Each player (normally) has only one investigator through which they act in the game; it would therefore not be fair to allow one player to dictate the actions of another player's investigator. However, if one players wish to put pressure on another player's investigator to do their bidding, they might use violence (combat rules) or their investigator's social skills. The former could inflict damage and ultimately death; the latter is subtler.

When one of these four skills is successfully used on an investigator (either by an NPC or another investigator), the player is not compelled to follow the wishes of the other party. If the player refuses to act in accordance with the wishes of the character who is coercing them, the latter can inflict one Penalty die on the dice roll (of the coercer's choice) made by the player of the coerced investigator. This Penalty die need not be be applied to the very next dice roll, but does not last indefinitely. Only one Penalty die can be held by one character against any other character at a time.