Social Graces

Question: As a general rule, do people know when you are using social knacks on them?

A general rule is hard in this case because there are so many different kinds of social knacks, but it usually depends on their intelligence and experience with social knacks, combined with whether the knack in question is a showy or obvious one.

For example, many social knacks are completely under the radar - they have effects, but in most cases the person they're being used on won't notice. Blessing of Importance probably goes totally unnoticed most of the time, as it really just seems like the person who used it said something nice that made you feel better about life; just like there are some people you love hanging out with in real life because they always make everything seem good, so Scions with these kinds of knacks always make people around them feel good or energized or motivated. Some of those affected who have high Intelligence or Occult and notice the pattern of the Scion's words causing happy effects may realize that it's a power, but it's just as likely that most people will think they just really like (or respect, or fear) the Scion.

In fact, more social knacks are "invisible" in this way than are noticeable, and that's the way it should be; knacks are, after all, just ways of showing how amazing you are at the Attribute they're attached to, so Charisma knacks tend to just make you seem that much more appealing, Appearance knacks just make you that much more physically alluring or terrible, and Manipulation knacks just make you that much more convincing. They're extensions and specific ways your innate social powers shine, so for the most part those you use on them will just feel like you're really convincing or likeable, rather than pegging you as using magical powers on them. Highly intelligent people, or those whose emotions are being turned completely upside down (i.e., they normally hate you but still have to feel like you're pretty nice when you use BFF on them) may suspect you're up to something, but in most cases there's no reason for that.

It's actually easier to list the exceptions to the rule; there are some social knacks that are very noticeable, though they're in the minority. Overt Order, Hard Sell and Sub Rosa in Manipulation are very blatant; they force your targets to do what you say, but don't cause them to think they wanted to do so, so they'll almost always be aware that something's forcing their hand. Appearance has the most obviously noticeable knacks, including Blinding Visage, Come Hither, Divine Splendor, Inescapable Vision and Serpent's Gaze, all of which happen right in a target's face and are hard to miss (Compelling Presence might also belong on this list, but it really depends on whether or not the victim notices the hole in their memory afterward and can figure out what might have caused it). When your corneas are being burned out, you probably realize that something active is happening to you.

But beyond these few examples, in most cases social knacks go unremarked and undetected. Folks who use Peak Performance are simply intimidatingly awesome, not using a power on you, because that's what Epic Charisma is about. Those using Not the Face are just so piteous that even the most hardened warrior pauses before striking them down, assailed by doubt and pity; those with Lasting Impression are just so striking to look at that others find themselves daydreaming (or nightmaring, as the case may be) about them long after they've moved on to do other things. For the most part, social knacks are just ways of expressing the social power of those characters; those affected aren't likely to notice anything but how impressive, convincing or terrifying those people really are.

In some cases, of course, people will notice, either because they've done that sort of thing themselves before, because they've got a wide occult understanding of how Epic Attributes work, or because they realize after the effect's worn off that something must have been amiss. But these are things that come up only sometimes, and Storytellers and players should rule on them on a case-by-case basis. For most players, my advice is to try not to assume you noticed anything was happening unless you have a concrete reason why that would be; it makes for better roleplaying when you treat social characters' powers as simply expressions of how socially awesome they are, just as you would look at someone lifting a battleship and think, "Wow, that person is insanely strong," rather than trying to figure out what combination of powers he might be using. There's nothing wrong with wanting to figure out crunch, but in the heat of the game, you don't want to let it get in the way of being able to roleplay your character in social situations.

And remember, the door swings both ways. Sure, it sucks when you're forced to kind of love that dude with all the Epic Charisma and you don't really know why... but he'll be just as confused about why he always listens to what you say with Epic Manipulation when he ought to know it'll just end badly for him. (And that example pretty much sums up Baldur's and Loki's relationship, I think, and the relationships of many other trickster gods the world over.)