Talents

The talented elite Yuichi Jin spends a lot of time behind the scenes socializing and interacting with the higher ups in Border. It is not only his side effect that helps him pull strings, call in favors, and otherwise maneuver the political landscape; it is also his social skills. That is what inspired including social skills called Talents in the World Trigger RPG.

Social Skills

Five skills were chosen that include a broad application for social situations. In a normal RPG, these skills would fall under Charisma and Wisdom, and at times there is overlap. So instead of going that route, an entire set of pure social skills was developed, that when combined with Personality would create a much more customizable and nuanced approach to a characters Charisma and Wisdom.

Social skills have a rating between 1 and 5. At character creation, everyone starts with 12 points to spend on the 5 Talents. The maximum a fresh character can start with is a rating of 4. The Rating of the skill determines the dice that gets added when building the dice pool. 1 = d4, 2 = d6, 3 = d8, 4 = d10, 5 = d12.

• Deception: fairly straight forward, though there can be a few advanced applications of this, including Netsuki’s use of misdirection, and Osamu’s adoption of it when convincing Kido to allow Hyuse to join Tamakoma-2.
• Intimidation: The threat of violence. Not seen very often in the manga, except in the case of Kageura. This skill not only covers physical posturing, but overall attitude, tone of voice, and use of eye contact.
• Investigation: This is the art of asking questions and directing a line of inquiry to get to the bottom of whatever subject is being investigated. This skill can also be used to resist forms of deception by analyzing the statements being made in the deception and asking the right questions to uncover it. It can also be used to resist intimidation by analysing the body language and mannerisms of the one doing the intimidation in order to discover if they can back up their threat with action.
• Persuasion: The art of getting what you want, by offering the other party what they think they want. This is used in negotiations if one does not want to either deceive or intimidate to get their way. It’s a delicate form of diplomacy aimed at getting the other side to agree to an action and showing that it can benefit everyone involved.
• Humor: Some people just have the gift. Ever notice how two people can tell the same joke, but only one will get the audience to laugh at it? They just manage to tell it the right way. This Social talent covers that ability, as well as the ability to tell when a joke is appropriate for a situation. For that reason, funnily enough, Humor is also the skill rolled in social defense situations when someone is using humor to disarm or de-escalate a person or situation.