Social Skills

The Social skills relate to interpersonal interaction, and they reflect a character’s degree of comfort and adroitness in dealing with others. While these skills have obvious application when one is at court, they are useful to characters in all walks of life. Dedicated warriors must command their troops or provoke their enemies, and many people outside of the samurai class must be as persuasive as any courtier to get by in life.

Elemental Approaches for Social Skills

Each Social skill represents a character’s expertise at dealing with people in a certain context, and each approach below dictates a set of results a character can produce when influencing others with a particular ring paired with a Social skill. The elemental approaches for Social skills function as follows.

Reason Approach (Earth Ring)

The Earth Ring is cautious and grounded. When used with a Social skill to influence others, it is rational and conciliatory, counselling a slow, thoughtful approach to problems. It is useful to get someone to measure twice before cutting, as the saying goes, or to get them to consider all available information before drawing their sword. A speaker using this approach appeals to reason and obligation rather than passion and desire, reminding the listener of their duties or the risks they face should they act rashly.
A character Reasons with someone when they want to:

• Convince that person to listen to reason rather than emotion.
• Soothe that person’s emotions.
• Comfort that person.
• Instill discipline in that person.
• Get that person to wait rather than acting rashly.
• Get that person to uphold an existing oath rather than pursuing their personal desires.

Charm Approach (Water Ring)

Flexibility and change are the domain of the Water Ring, so Charm, the Water approach for Social skills, revolves around fostering positive emotions in others toward oneself. This approach is frequently based around mutual understanding, sympathy, and shared feelings, or at least the facsimile of these.
A character Charms someone when they want to:

• Get that person to like them.
• Build a pleasant rapport with that person.
• Offer their sympathies to that person.
• Instill a new desire for something (or someone) in that person.
• Win that person’s sympathy

Incite Approach (Fire Ring)

A Fire approach to a Social skill seeks to persuade through emotional appeals and charisma, rallying others around exciting or novel ideas by inflaming their existing passions, desires, and fears. When deployed properly, it can get people to fall in line or rally behind a cause. However, such unsubtle approaches are not welcome in many courts, as this method risks running roughshod over propriety and obligation, both of which can become matters of life and death to a samurai. 
Further, a character cannot necessarily control the group they have Incited to act—stopping them once they are in motion might prove far more difficult than rousing them to a heedless course in the first place.
A character Incites someone when they want to:

• Rouse that person’s emotions (positively or negatively).
• Get that person’s attention.
• Persuade that person to listen to emotion rather than reason.
• Get that person to ignore the potential consequences of a proposed plan.
• Get that person to prioritize their own desires instead of their oaths and responsibilities.

Trick Approach (Air Ring)

The Air Ring represents a character’s subtle control over their outward countenance and choice of words, as well as their attention to the priorities and façades of others. Thus, the Air approach for a Social skill is Trick, which allows the character to lie, persuasively convey information, and draw out the faults and features of others from the subtle cues they display. Tricking someone does not always mean lying to them directly—it might mean manipulating them into thinking something is their own idea by subtly suggesting it, playing devil’s advocate to get them to solidify their position, saying something in a deniable way, or just leaving off a piece of information that might complicate the situation too much—but it is always a form of manipulation, even if it is not malicious.
A character Tricks someone when they want to:

• Get that character to believe something untrue, partially true, or only technically true.
• Obscure a key truth from that character.
• Deflect that character’s attention away from someone or something.
• Convey an idea to the character in a deniable way.
• Imply something to that character without stating it outright.

Enlighten Approach (Void Ring)

A Void approach to a Social skill seeks to get others to evaluate the wider situation and state of existence. Enlighten, the Void approach to Social skills, allows a character to attempt to shake someone to their core, calling into question the person’s fundamental truths. If a person has lost sight of one of their dearest ideals because of rage or despair (or even supernatural forces), this approach can be used to force them to remember it, realigning them with the person they strive to be. If a contradiction exists at someone’s core, Enlightening them to it can help them face and perhaps overcome it.
A character Enlightens someone when they want to:

• Challenge that person’s deeply held beliefs.
• Force that person to question a moral or philosophical truth they believe to be certain.
• Cause that person to remember an experience they had forgotten (or force them to confront an experience they are struggling to forget).
• Shock that person out of a stupor (mundane or supernatural).