Social Activity is for interacting and communicating (using some form of Language) with others, influencing them, exchanging information, and causing them to act. There may be Social Features that leverage Social activities.
Common Standards: Social Standing/Status is reflected directly in a Standard of Living and indirectly in Clothing and signifiers such as Prestige in Places as well as Items and Marks. Conversely, such things may also be used to reflect or even present a specific level of Prestige fame, etc. A certain measure of such things may be required in Social Dealings and leveraged by Social Features and expected by Contact and shared bond of culture. All of these may vary by Availability and culture within a Setting and/or specific Properties of a Locale/Settlement.
For social activities to be understood, it requires some type of shared language, sometimes improved or gained through Communication Expressions. A certain matter of expectation also comes with a relationship – i.e. it must be kept up through interaction and use. Contacts can be purchased at the time of Character Inception, though afterwards, relationships must be built in game. They are typically providers of goods and services. Many things can influence this – species/race, fame/infamy, charisma, bribes, bureaucracy, and role-playing itself.
If a character does not possess competency in the Language they are using to communicate, they are only getting primitive/basic notions. Differences in accents and local variants easily reduce communication to the basics – with conversation becoming barely intelligible. In order to take social actions, you must be understood by those you are interacting with. Communication issues can lead to bad reactions, affecting the availability of goods and their cost in buying and selling.
Persuasion is using all manner of fast talking, deception, convincing, etc. on a single or few similar targets. Persuasion is not interrogation; such would be effected using torture or physiological constructions to break a victim. It is much different than swaying a large, diverse crowd – that is Oratory.
Social Persuasion: Social is the default and most widely used type of persuasion. It is merely the ability to use the character’s charisma, knowledge of social cues and norms (including bribery if necessary), and reasonable arguments to illicit a positive reaction or to convince a target of the validity of an argument and/or seeing things in the character’s favor. This can usually be done quickly, through conversation. Assuming a character knows enough about a subject, they may haggle for deals using Persuade in a battle of wills.
Bluff Persuasion: This is the art of fast-talking, misdirection, obfuscating, etc. while seeming to tell the truth. It employs disarming tactics to make the character seem harmless or pathetic if need be. Conversely, it can leverage intensity to intimidate. Both rely on changing the perceived presence of the character. Usually the character starts trying to ‘dig their way out of a hole’ with bluffing. The Result Level of the Persuade check becomes the reaction degree that the character has swayed the target towards.