Foot in Mouth

Question: Damage Control is a great knack with a lot of potential. However, an associate of mine recently pointed out that it does not say the knack can be used to cover up your own social blunders. Is this knack supposed to be able to help you smooth over your own social blunders, or should it be restricted to those of other people?

Damage Control is, in fact, intended entirely to help smooth over the blunders of those less awesomely witty than yourself; it isn't usable on your own foot-in-mouth moments and it isn't meant to be. The idea behind the knack is that you're so quick-witted that you can, as an observer, realize when your friends have said something boneheaded in time to jump in with a well-placed clearing of the throat or distracting compliment. Being an observer is quite different from making a mistake yourself, though, and this knack isn't meant to wave those away like the old World of Darkness Etiquette ability; divine politics are serious stuff, and even the highly witty have to watch their mouths.

However, in most cases, it's just a normal Wits + Politics roll to catch yourself before you say something dumb in the first place, so there's no need for the knack to be doing what you, with your awesomely fast brains, are already doing automatically.

An added layer of fun: Damage Control has been known to cause large-scale riots and hilarious political and international incidents, because when you repeatedly silence, distract from or head off somebody with the Expression Virtue, they often can't help but explode furiously and ruin everything anyway. Use sparingly, and use wisely!