Administration

This broad skill provides a character with knowledge concerning the

forms and procedures that go into running an office or organization of

almost any kind. With this skill, a character understands scheduling,

personnel and equipment management, and the regulations and laws that

apply to such endeavors. Any large organizations, including

governments, agencies, and corporations, have some type of

administrational bureaucracy that a character may someday be called

upon to interact with. This skill allows him to attempt to identify

the proper administrators to deal with in a particular situation, the

proper procedures to follow, and the best way to cut through red tape.

The Administration skill can be used in an attempt to change the

attitude of an individual employee of some corporation or

organization. In such a case, it is treated as an [encounter

skill](/core-mechanics/characters-in-action/#encounter-scene). If the

use of this skill results in a target’’s attitude being changed to

Friendly or better, this can provide a bonus on any subsequent skill

check to get information or cooperation out of the organization that

is the employer of the target.

Using this skill, or either of its specialties, to get results out of

a bureaucratic organization requires a complex skill check. In this

case, the situation modifier for conditions relates to how quickly the

character using the skill wants to produce results: It’’s a condition

of Amazing difficulty (+3 penalty) if you need an answer in 1 day;

Good, you’’ll settle for d4+1 days; Ordinary, you can afford to wait

d4+2 days; Marginal, you’’re resigned to not getting an answer for d6+3

days.

The complexity of this skill check relates to the size of the

bureaucratic system and the ease with which the system could process

the request: Marginal, small system/extremely easy request; Ordinary,

medium-sized system/routine request; Good, large system/complex

request; Amazing, extremely large system/restricted or illegal

request. (These two factors can offset one another to some degree; for

instance, trying to get an extremely large bureaucracy to process a

routine request would be a feat of Good or Ordinary complexity,

depending on the Gamemaster’’s judgment.)

A character’’s Administration skill can also be used to hinder someone

else’’s attempt to gain information. In such a case, the modifiers for

conditions are transposed: It’’s a task of Amazing difficulty (+3

penalty) to slow down the process for d6+3 days; Good, if you’’re

trying to gum up the works for d4+2 days; Ordinary, d4+1 days; or

Marginal, if you only want to cause a delay of 1 day. Likewise,

complexity works the other way around: For instance, slowing down an

extremely easy request being processed through a small system is a

feat of Amazing complexity, requiring a large number of successes in a

relatively short time.

Bureaucracy

This specialty skill measures a character’’s ability to grease (or

clog up) the wheels of bureaucracy. Important applications,

permits, clearances, reports, or other bureaucratic requests can

be processed faster and more efficiently with the use of this

skill. Conversely, this skill can be used to make the same

bureaucratic processes slower for others.

---

Management

This skill indicates a character’’s ability to manage both

personnel and administrative duties. A skilled manager can

increase productivity, inspire workers, and supervise the workings

of a business or office.

---