You influence others through negotiation and flattery, or find out information through friendly chats.

Gather Information
Exploration, Secret

You canvass local markets, taverns, and gathering places in an attempt to learn about a specific individual or topic. The GM determines the DC of the check and the amount of time it takes (typically 2 hours, but sometimes more), along with any benefit you might be able to gain by spending coin on bribes, drinks, or gifts.

Success You collect information about the individual or topic. The GM determines the specifics.

Critical Failure You collect incorrect information about the individual or topic.

Sample Gather Information Tasks

Untrained talk of the town
Trained common rumor
Expert obscure rumor, poorly guarded secret
Master well-guarded or esoteric information
Legendary information known only to an incredibly select few, or only to extraordinary beings

Make an Impression
Auditory, Concentrate, Exploration, Linguistic, Mental

With at least 1 minute of conversation, during which you engage in charismatic overtures, flattery, and other acts of goodwill, you seek to make a good impression on someone to make them temporarily agreeable. At the end of the conversation, attempt a Diplomacy check against the Will DC of one target. You can instead choose up to five targets if you take a –2 penalty. The GM might add other bonuses or penalties based on the situation. Any impression you make lasts for only the current social interaction unless the GM decides otherwise. See the Changing Attitudes sidebar for a summary of the attitude conditions.

Critical Success The target’s attitude toward you improves by two steps.

Success The target’s attitude toward you improves by one step.

Critical Failure The target’s attitude toward you decreases by one step.

Changing Attitudes

Your influence on NPCs is measured with a set of attitudes that reflect how they view your character. These are only a brief summary of a creature’s disposition. The GM will supply additional nuance based on the history and beliefs of the characters you’re interacting with, and their attitudes can change in accordance with the story. The attitudes are detailed in the Conditions Appendix and are summarized here.

• Helpful: Willing to help you and responds favorably to your requests.
• Friendly: Has a good attitude toward you, but won’t necessarily stick their neck out to help you.
• Indifferent: Doesn’t care about you either way. (Most NPCs start out indifferent.)
• Unfriendly: Dislikes you and doesn’t want to help you.
• Hostile: Actively works against you—and might attack you just because of their dislike.

No one can ever change the attitude of a player character with these skills. You can roleplay interactions with player characters, and even use Diplomacy results if the player wants a mechanical sense of how convincing or charming a character is, but players make the ultimate decisions about how their characters respond.

Request [one-action]
Auditory, Concentrate, Linguistic, Mental

You can make a request of a creature that’s friendly or helpful to you. You must couch the request in terms that the target would accept given their current attitude toward you. The GM sets the DC based on the difficulty of the request. Some requests are unsavory or impossible, and even a helpful NPC would never agree to them.

Critical Success The target agrees to your request without qualifications.

Success The target agrees to your request, but they might demand added provisions or alterations to the request.

Failure The target refuses the request, though they might propose an alternative that is less extreme.

Critical Failure Not only does the target refuse the request, but their attitude toward you decreases by one step due to the temerity of the request.