Empathy versus Rapport

[Da_Gut]

I'm confusing about the difference between the two skills.

My impression - Empathy is your "muscle" so to speak - its how effective you are at interpreting what you see. Rapport is like control - its how effective you are at drawing out information which you can then digest with Empathy.

So, if that is the case, with the Poet stunt of Performance

Poet: You have an affinity for beauty in written
and spoken language. Your Performance is at
+2 when composing something with words and
is considered to be two higher when used to
modify (page 214) a social skill.

Technically speaking, Poet could (effectively) increase your rapport skill, but not your empathy. Though from a practical matter, it could increase both.

And does it seem reasonable that Poet will, under most circumstances, increase your social skills by one? Since they all heavily rely on language?

[luminos]

If you intend for it to be able to always modify social skills, its too powerful for a stunt (its a +1 to all social skills for all trappings that way).  I'd let Performance modify a social skill with the stunt just as often as I would without the stunt, so it would come in to play when some aspect of performance is going into the primary skill being used.

Could you elaborate a bit more with your question about empathy vs. rapport?  I don't think I understand what you mean to ask about them.

[Da_Gut]

In a nutshell, what is the difference between Empathy and Rapport?

[Ophidimancer]

Empathy is generally* passive, while Rapport is active.  You use Empathy to read people and to see through lies, while you use Rapport to make friends and influence people.

*The Shoulder to Cry On Trapping is just a bit more active.

[luminos]

Empathy is your ability to understand other people, which gives you the ability to figure out when they are lying, determine whats important to them (by assessing their aspects), provide the right kind of comfort when they are socially or mentally damaged, and let you get a feel for a way the conversation is going (represented by it determining initiative).

Rapport is your ability to get along with people, and how good you are at conversation.  High Rapport lets you give good first impressions, respond to social attacks with ease, conceal your motives (by shutting down, not deceiving), and lead the conversation in a way that will tend to get the other person to end up agreeing with you.

[KOFFEYKID]

empathy |ˈempəθē|
noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Basically you gain insight into their character and motivations through your understanding of their emotions.

[CMEast]

You could use performance to modify empathy if you were an actor perhaps, though I'd require a relevant stunt or aspect to show that as an actor you're used seeing the world from another persons view point. Though you might need to change the name of the stunt, perhaps 'method actor' or similar. Then it could also be applied to deceit and even intimidation too!

As for 'composing'. I'd allow a navel gazing manoeuvre in a social conflict so that in the next exchange you could recite some beautiful poem or speech to persuade someone that your point of view is the right one. I wouldn't allow it for intimidation though, poetry just isn't scary.

[John Galt]

Its hard to empathize with someone you just met.  Empathy should take time as a social skill, Rapport is for any length of conversation.  Declarations will also make a huge difference.   If I'm talking to Marcone and try to empathize with him, my GM could tag his high concept of generally being a hard guy to make it more difficult.  However if I'm talking to Molly as an apprentice, I could tag her high concept to give me an edge with my empathy skill.  And as a smart rebellious teenager, rapport would probably be less effective,  again through aspect tags.