Deceit Stunts

Confidence

✪ Con Man [Deceit]

You are a bona fide confidence man, and that lets you get a read on people, easy.
You may use your Deceit instead of Empathy to get a “read” on someone (see Reading People), but the type of aspects that may be revealed are limited only to things like character weaknesses, never strengths or other advantages (unless you win the contest or are otherwise in control of which aspect is revealed).
Some aspects will completely miss you; a Good Hearted Person might just fly right over your head.

✪ The Fix Is In [Deceit]

Requires Con Man

The character is adept at cheating, so much so that he may use his Deceit skill instead of Gambling whenever he chooses.
When he does so, he is cheating, which means if he fails, he’s caught, and the game’s loss is treated as if it were a high stakes game, even if it wasn’t.

✪ Sucker [Deceit]

Requires Con Man

You’ve got this guy completely suckered – or at least, if he’s on to you, he’s rich enough that he doesn’t care. Design a companion (see Companions) with two advances. In addition, he is automatically Fair quality, and Skilled with Resources. He tends to buy things for you, along with whatever else it is he does.
The downside is that he’s a sucker – you hooked him in, but he is a Poor difficulty target for anyone else looking to sucker him too (although if you when that happens).
Heck, you may even have some fondness for the guy – you certainly won’t leave him hanging out to dry, and that’s not just because he pays for everything – but, still, the relationship’s not entirely honest.

✪ Big Sucker [Deceit]

Requires Sucker

You hit it big – this guy’s loaded. Your companion’s Resources skill is considered to be two steps higher than his quality; if you’ve advanced him to a maximum quality of Great, this means he’s running around with Fantastic Resources. You may also spend one additional advance on him. He’s not just about the money, you know.

Disguise

✪ Clever Disguise [Deceit]

Normally, a character cannot create a disguise that will stand up to intense scrutiny (see page XX). With this stunt, he may defend against intense scrutiny (anything short of physically trying to remove the disguise) with his full Deceit skill. Furthermore, he may assemble disguises of this quality in a matter of minutes, provided he has a well-equipped disguise kit on hand.

✪ Mimicry [Deceit]

Requires Clever Disguise

Deceit can be used to convince people you are someone you aren’t – but usually only in a general sense. You can seem to be a cop, an author, et cetera, but you can’t seem to be a specific person without a lot of work (and an elevated difficulty). With this stunt, you can easily imitate the mannerisms and voice of anyone you’ve had a chance to study – removing another potential cause to have a disguise examined, or perhaps convincing someone who can’t see you that you’re someone else even though you’re undisguised.
Studying someone usually requires only an investment of time, and not a roll of the dice – at least half an hour of constant exposure. This timeframe can be reduced, but will require an Empathy, Investigation, or Deceit roll against a target of Mediocre, increased by one for each step faster on the time chart (page XX).

✪ Master of Disguise [Deceit]

Requires Clever Disguise and Mimicry

The character can convincingly pass himself off as nearly anyone with a little time and preparation. To use this ability, the player pays a fate point and temporarily stops playing. His character is presumed to have donned a disguise and gone “off camera”. At any subsequent point during play the player may choose any nameless, filler character (a villain’s minion, a bellboy in the hotel, the cop who just pulled you over) in a scene and reveal that that character is actually the PC in disguise!
The character may remain in this state for as long as the player chooses, but if anyone is tipped off that he might be nearby, an investigator may spend a fate point and roll Investigate against the disguised character’s Deceit. If the investigator wins, his player (which may be the GM) gets to decide which filler character is actually the disguised PC (“Wait a minute – you’re the Emerald Emancipator!”).

✪ Infiltrator [Deceit]

Requires Master of Disguise

While the character is disguised (see Master of Disguise) he may make a single Investigation roll against at target of Mediocre. Each shift gained can be used to do one of two things: gain a useful (but general) piece of information about the area or group being infiltrated, or leave a clue, hint or message for the rest of the player characters without revealing himself.

✪ Disguise of the Mind [Deceit]

Requires Master of Disguise and a Deceit skill of Great or better

You inhabit your disguises so completely that you can actually fully inhabit another persona and unlock hidden skills and knowledge you don’t normally possess. While in a disguise, you may roll your Deceit minus two (so Fair if Great, or Good if Superb) instead of any other skill the disguised persona might reasonably possess. If you are outright imitating someone specific, sometimes this might give you a higher effective skill than they actually have – which is fine. You’re not a mind-reader, you’re simply so good at pretending that you can actually, temporarily unlock a skill that you believe your persona could have.
Any time you use this stunt, you must pay a fate point; if you do not wish to pay a fate point, you may instead roll your Resolve against a difficulty equal to the “false” skill. If you miss that target, you become lost in the persona for a time, and may be subject to one no-fate-point compel before you break out of it. The aspect compelled might not even be one of your own – it may be one possessed by the persona you’re mimicking!

Falsehood

✪ The Honest Lie [Deceit]

The best lies are the ones that contain a healthy dose of truth. Whenever the character incorporates a hefty portion of the truth into a lie, he gains a +2 bonus. The truth must be relevant, not unimportant, and significant, not trivial – it must be on par with (or bigger than) the lie, or at least in the ballpark.

✪ Takes One to Know One [Deceit]

As an accomplished liar, you’re especially able to figure out when someone else is lying as well. You may use your Deceit skill instead of your Empathy skill when trying to figure out if someone is lying. This is not the same thing as getting “a read” on someone, as with the Con Man stunt, above; instead, it’s a quick check: Is this guy lying? Is it a big lie or a small one? Is he mixing in the truth or is it all fabrication?

✪ Clever Facade [Deceit]

Requires either The Honest Lie or Takes One to Know One

Whenever the character is the target of an Empathy “read”, and decides to put a false face forward (see page XX), and wins the contest, he not only provides a false aspect to the reader, he also gets a read on the reader himself (revealing an aspect). The reader has fallen for your clever little trap!

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