Okay, the next page gives some more information on gambling,
as in a character can choose to not use his full gambling ability to avoid
being noticed. Then we get right into the other sci-fi staple skills: Bribery
and Forgery. Oh, and Administration, because dealing with bureaucrats is such
an important thing for a star-blazing hero to do.
I know, sarcasm doesn’t always play well. As I said
yesterday, I find it funny that these are the skills, after weapons, that get
the first attention. And there are plenty of harder, darker sci-fi settings
where these are just as important (or more) as piloting and engineering.
So, Bribery allows characters to skirt the legalities and
formalities, and if you don’t have the skill, DON’T TRY IT, because you take a
-5 hit to your roll (which means the best you can roll is a 7, and you need an
8 to succeed. Even if the official likes you (+2 DM), you’re still not likely
to succeed. So, the moral of the story is, leave bribing to the professionals.
Forgery works differently from Bribery, in that it’s a
negative modifier to the chance the person reading the documents has to detect
the forgery. That’s a complicated sentence. Let’s try it again. The documents
are detected as a forgery by a roll of 6 or more, but the forger’s skill lowers
the roll, improving the chance that the examiner doesn’t detect it. Better? The
better the skill, the harder it is to detect the forgery. There.
Next up is Administration, which helps get around the
bureaucracy. Dealing with bureaucrats is a pain (someone who has no
Administration skill needs a 10+ to get anywhere with them). Administration
also lets you look competent in the eyes of superiors, which is great when
you’re not actually capable of doing the job. Dilbert’s Pointy-Haired Boss has
about a 15 in Administration, as a rough estimate.
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