Impress (Action)

Heroic Action Role-Play

The ability to dominate socially and establish yourself in a leading role. Used to intimidate, lead, browbeat, and install respect. Typically associated with alpha males and the upper classes. Impress can be used to oppress or to support others, but in both cases you establish yourself as a superior.

Unskilled Use

Impress skill defaults to Mind. You can intimidate or threaten, but always do so in an obvious and direct manner.

Use in Action

You make others feel frightened, uncomfortable, self-conscious, or inadequate. On a more positive bent you can also inspire, lead, boot morale, and be a figure of authority and confidence. You may do this by displaying impressive size, great skill, profound intellect, or just with an indefinable quality of superiority. Once you have successfully impressed someone, he is more likely to go along with your suggestions. This does not mean that he will automatically adhere to any request you make, but he will give it much more weight than he otherwise would have. Impress skill is also used along with Charm to interrogate.

Knowledge

You know fashions and customs, and how to get what you want without breaking the rules. You know which clothes to wear and how to wear them for each occasion. You have a way of finding out the secret weaknesses others try to hide. You know of famous leaders and bosses, tough you might not have had any contact with them.

Contacts

You know people you have browbeaten in the past, and a few strong individuals who have stood up to you. These people respect you, but might secretly want to get back to you. You know people from the organizations you have been a part of it the past. Depending on your current circumstances, your superiors may still support you or want you dead. Your former underlings will still revere you, even if they've been ordered to smoke you on sight.

Stunts

Impress stunts are used to slow down and dominate others in and out of combat.

Bad Cop Routine

Trigger Action (Finisher)

Make an opposed Impress roll against your target. If you succeed, they give up, spill the beans, and give in to your demands. Basically, they will do anything to please you, which means they might give you a plausible lie instead of an uncomfortable truth, especially if you ask leading questions. Combines well with Good Cop Routine.

Browbeat

Basic Action

You try to get an advantage or force someone else to cooperate with you. The roll will be heavily modified depending on how well you describe your stunt and use available props.

Make an opposed Impress roll against your target. If you succeed, add the Outcome as a modifier to your next skill roll against this target. You can also give away this advantage to someone else, effectively setting the target up for someone else's attack or stunt.

It you score an Outcome matching the target's Mind, you also inflict a Setback; the target suffers some direct penalty, as appropriate to the situation and what you did to him. He might cave in to your demands, run off scared, break down crying, or otherwise lose his cool.

Scare

Basic action

Use this to scare someone to lay off and let you be for a while; on a success, the target loses three shots and backs off, allowing you to move by or away. If your Outcome matches the target's Mind, he is seriously scared and loses a number of shots equal to your Outcome, or he might cave in and suffer an appropriate Setback instead.