Bribery and Corruption

If you need to grease the wheels of a government, guild, or even a priesthood bribery graft can make the wheels spin. First, you need to roll Intelligence + Politics to try to figure out who you need to bribe to get the favor you want (difficulty is based on the commonality and legality of what you trying to do). Figuring out who to bribe to get a merchant stall installed is very easy, difficulty 3. Figuring out who among the baron’s guard is willing to help you spy on the baron would be at least difficulty 7. Failed rolls have no effect but a botch may alert interested parties to what you are doing. If you are dealing with something is primary a commercial endeavor you could use Intelligence + Commerce instead of Politics at the storyteller’s discretion.   Once you figured out whom you should bribe, roll Manipulation + Commerce (difficulty official’s Willpower) to figure out a smooth way to proposition the bribe and what the price should be. In a lot of cases, a bribe that is too large can backfire and cause the target in question to become overly suspicious or just try to rob you.   Usually a bigger bribe makes things easier than a smaller bribe, but if a bribe is ridiculously large, most well assume bigger events are in play. If your character offers a guard 500 silver pieces for what is normally a 10 silver piece bribe, he is likely to turn the briber in to his lord “This criminal offered me 250 silver to look the other way my liege, but I couldn’t be bought!”   Successes determines who well the bribe takes effect. One success, the official accepts the bribe but is wracked by guilt and will probably crack under the slightest pressure. Five successes means the official is ice cold. Failure means the official takes your bribe and doesn’t follow through with the action you desire. A botch means the official acts against you.