ScarletManualOfUprightBearing/ChapterTwo
Manipulating people is the art of manipulating the Respect they have for you, the Face they see in that Respect, and being careful to not become entangeled in their own nets- a difficult task, as it is human (and Exalted) nature to find friendship in others.
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Basic social actions
Universal modifier: If your Appearance beats the average (ST determined), reduce the difficulty by 1. If your Appearance is less than average, raise the difficulty by 1.
Universal rule: While it is possible to build up friendship entirely via correpsondence, a letter is a more limited form; your Presence or Socialize are limited to your Linguistics, and you always are considered to have an Appearance of 1 (unless you met in the past, in which case the memory of your Appearance is used).
Build Friendship: Charisma + Presence.
You can augment this roll by giving someone a free dice on a similiar roll, up to your Manipulation; friendships tend to be uneven, but not totally unilateral. It's also easier to deepen an existing bond- subtract the level of Respect someone presently holds for you from the difficulty from the difficulties given. Likewise, spending time with someone (especially under especially dangerous or pleasant circumstances) or providing someone a gift reduce the difficulty. (The precise degree to which will be determined. Soon. I swear :)
The first level of Respect has a difficulty of 2. It's the realm of the shallow friend- people acknowledge you, but wouldn't go out on a limb for you.
The second level of Respect has a difficulty of 4. It's the realm of good friends- the people you invite to private get togethers and who will readily loan you money.
The third level of Respect has a difficulty of 7. It's the realm of best friends and spouses- the people you can confide virtually anything in.
The fourth level of Respect has a difficulty of 10. It's the realm of fanatics- the people who will follow you to death and damnation, without regard for consequences.
The fifth level of Respect has a difficulty of 15. It's the realm of the perfect zealot and god-touched prophets, who would do anything- no matter how vile -out of their love to you.
You gain 1 Face of the highest level of Respect you roll.
Maintain Friendship: Charisma + Socialize.
Without a successful maintainenance check at the given interval, the debt decays by 1 Face at the first level of Respect- which can thus consume ever higher ranks. Only consider the highest rank for purposes of maintaining a friendship.
The first level: 1 day
The second level: 1 week
The third level: 1 month
The fourth level: 1 season
The fifth level: Never. If they have even 1 Face in the fifth level of Respect, the friendship will never weaken without external action.
Use Friendship: Manipulation + Socialize, Bid Face
Using Friends presents a paradox; Friendship is not a diminshing resource- often, the opposite is true. However, it is also true that one can abuse a friendship so that it will no longer bear the weight it once did. To represent this, you bid Face whenever you make a request of a friend. If the roll gets a number of success equal to half the Difficulty, the request is granted. If the roll gets a number of successes equal to the Difficulty, the Face bid is kept instead of being lost. Additionally, you gain 1 Face at a level below the Respect required for the request.
You may also grant 1 automatic successes on a Build Friendship roll to gain an extra dice; you may get no more than your Manipulation in bonus dice like this. You may also Bid additional Face. Each Face bid must be from the same Respect level, and grants one additional die. You may not more than double your Manipulation + Socialize roll in bonus dice total.
The minimum level of Respect needed is equal to the Taboo level of the request. Further information on Taboos is not available here, but may be found in /ChapterThree.
The Difficulty of the Request starts at 1, and goes up as follows.
If the (Background) cost is two less (or smaller) than what the target's (Background) is, add +1.
If the (Background) cost is one less that what the target's (Background) is, add +2.
If the (Background) cost is equal to the target's (Background), add +3.
If the (Background) cost is greater than the target's (Background), add +5. Additionally, the ST may decide the friend is simply incapable of fulfilling the request.
Requesting an Artifact the friend owns adds 2 to the Difficulty per level of the Artifact. Asking for an Artifact also tends to be fairly taboo.
Requesting attunement to a Manse of the friend's adds 1 to the Difficulty for everyone that must come to the Manse to allow you to attune to it, plus 1 for every level of the Manse.
Requesting a Hearthstone (instead of a simple Attunment) adds 3 instead of 1 per level of the Manse. This is seperate from the request to attune to the Manse.Asking for a Hearthstone also tends to be fairly taboo.
Making the request an interest free loan (I'll pay this back) reduces the difficulty by 1.
Making the request a low intrest loan (I'll pay this back, plus a half again it's value) reduces the difficulty by 2.
Making the request a high interest loan (I'll pay this back, plus a it's value again) reduces the difficulty by 4.
Promising to make good on a loan within a season or less reduces the difficulty by 1.
Promising to make good on a loan within a month or less reduces the difficulty by 2.
Promising to make good on a laon within a week or less reduces the difficulty by 3.
(Background), in this case, is any social connection you're asking the friend to use on your behalf. It may be money from Resources, troops from a Command, or getting yourself worshipped by their Cult.
In any case, the request must make sense to both the ST and the players. Nor is this list comprehensive. The difficulty by not be reduced to less than half it's original value.
Does the above make sense? Is there anything I'm totally missing? Bear in mind that a lot of what makes a request hard just goes into the Taboo-level of the task.
