Handling Failed Self-Control Rolls Differently

[Varyon]

By default, a character in GURPS with an appropriate Disadvantage (Bad Temper, Lecherousness, etc) who fails a Self-Control roll is required to act out their Disadvantage - snapping at the person who triggered their Bad Temper, making a pass at the person who triggered their Lecherousness, and so forth. Unfortunately, this makes such Disadvantages often result in characters who are essentially caricatures of people with such traits, which can either result in players avoiding them in favor of Quirk-equivalents or being somewhat-blindsided when the character they intended to just be a bit overly-amorous ends up having to be played like an idiot controlled by his "lower brain." An idea I like is to allow for a greater degree of player agency than just "Do I attempt an SC roll or not?" (I'm also not a fan of requiring the player to spend a character point, or take an experience penalty for "poor roleplaying"). I'm thinking the player should have a choice of, upon failing an SC roll, to take some sort of penalty to future actions instead of acting out, in cases where the character would have the sense to not, say, break cover to flirt with the cute girl he's been ordered to secretly follow around. Essentially, the character really wants to act out, which distracts him and/or is stressful, but reins himself in.

The issue is, I have no good idea on exactly what the consequences should be. One option would be to take a page from the way NPC influence rolls work (see B359), but that's going to be a bit too mild in my opinion. A related option could be to take a penalty equal to some fraction (1/3, 1/2, or even just 1x) of Margin of Failure on the SC roll on all success rolls (including later SC rolls, for a sort of cascade effect, although I'd probably have a new failed SC roll replace the old one rather than stack, so long as the new result wasn't better than the previous one) for some period of time, due to being unduly distracted. This could be (partially) alleviated by acting out - perhaps the shadowing lecher opts to go to a brothel as soon as his shift is up - or by meditation or similar. For a harsher take, perhaps the player has to declare they're going to auto-resist before rolling, and even a success is treated as a failure by 1 for purposes of the penalty.

What do people think? Would this be useful in your games, and what sort of penalty scheme might work best? Would it be better to adapt the Stress and Derangement rules from GURPS Horror?

[awesomenessofme1]

This sort of has a canonical basis in GURPS Action. The "Ham Clause" (A1:20) allows a PC to deliberately inflict a disadvantage on him- or herself for one important scene, giving a penalty of -1 per -5 points of the disadvantage value. In exchange, the disadvantage can be ignored (mechanically, at least) for the rest of the session. It does say that it makes disadvantages less limiting and thus increases campaign power level, though.

[Anthony]

If I were replacing forced succumbing with the ability to take a penalty, I'd balance that out by also giving a penalty on success -- for example, your penalty is -1 if you attempt a self-control roll, and if you fail, you take an additional penalty equal to the amount by which you fail.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

This sort of has a canonical basis in GURPS Action. The "Ham Clause" (A1:20) allows a PC to deliberately inflict a disadvantage on him- or herself for one important scene, giving a penalty of -1 per -5 points of the disadvantage value. In exchange, the disadvantage can be ignored (mechanically, at least) for the rest of the session. It does say that it makes disadvantages less limiting and thus increases campaign power level, though.

I don't have any of the Action! series, but this looks like an option to consider.

Originally Posted by Anthony

If I were replacing forced succumbing with the ability to take a penalty, I'd balance that out by also giving a penalty on success -- for example, your penalty is -1 if you attempt a self-control roll, and if you fail, you take an additional penalty equal to the amount by which you fail.

I really like this idea, although I'd probably amend it to have a Success by 5+, or any Critical Success, avoid taking the penalty, as well as treating Success and MoF 1 the same. What we need now would be how long it lasts (awesomenessofme's mention of Action! indicates "one scene" could be an option, although I'd prefer it to be a more concrete amount of in-game time, perhaps a set amount per -1 that gets negated so the penalty gradually lessens over time), and how indulging in vices or meditating can help mitigate it (for the latter, ideally a failure when meditating can make the penalty worse, as you end up focusing on whatever's itching at you while trying to meditate).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

What we need now would be how long it lasts

My assumption is that it's a penalty to do anything opposed to the disadvantage, and thus once the trigger goes away the penalty goes away.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Varyon

By default, a character in GURPS with an appropriate Disadvantage (Bad Temper, Lecherousness, etc) who fails a Self-Control roll is required to act out their Disadvantage - snapping at the person who triggered their Bad Temper, making a pass at the person who triggered their Lecherousness, and so forth. Unfortunately, this makes such Disadvantages often result in characters who are essentially caricatures of people with such traits, which can either result in players avoiding them in favor of Quirk-equivalents or being somewhat-blindsided when the character they intended to just be a bit overly-amorous ends up having to be played like an idiot controlled by his "lower brain."

I think its fair that if you want 10 or 15 extra points of cool stuff, you get heavy restrictions on your behaviour. I am one intermediary away from people who would have Lecherousness, Compulsive Lying, etc. in GURPS- there are plenty of deeply disfunctional people in the real world. If players want the points but not the compulsions, they should talk to the GM: possibly the point level should be higher? And if a new player does not understand what a 10 or 15 point mental disadvantage means, that its not "oversexed" or "sometimes fibs," the GM should communicate that. They should also look over draft character sheets and ask whether the player understands what all the traits mean (just like they suggest "should your character have a point in Armoury so they can modify and maintain their massive arsenal?")

To me, a trait like Lecherousness is restrictive, but that is not an excuse to reduce it to "my character takes lots of cold showers and internally struggles with his sexuality" like one person in the other thread does. This is an adventure game not an existentialist novel about a tenured English professor deciding whether to cheat on her husband and take the job in Singapore. That is an excuse to take quirks and 5-point and 10-point mental disadvantages unless you want a character with serious compulsions; and for the GM to chose point totals which let characters achieve what they want to achieve without loading up with disadvantages which they don't want to roleplay.

There is an issue that Superman should probably get more points of cool powers for Charitable than the 50-point journalist at the next desk. I don't have a good solution for that.

[lvalero]

Acting against your insticts is stressing. You might as well charge Long Term Fatigue each time you try to fight against your disadvantage (wether you are sucessful or not).


This LTF can only be regained by indulging in other disadvantages or by having a complete unstressfull day and night rest.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

My assumption is that it's a penalty to do anything opposed to the disadvantage, and thus once the trigger goes away the penalty goes away.

I'm thinking it's more like general stress from having to suppress yourself. When I was younger, I had some anger management issues (not enough to rate RAW Bad Temper, but it would match decently well with what I'm suggesting here), and I know when I was angry but not able to lash out it certainly caused problems with doing unrelated tasks, as I dwelled on whatever it was that angered me - even if said trigger was no longer within view/earshot/whatever.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I think its fair that if you want 10 or 15 extra points of cool stuff, you get heavy restrictions on your behaviour.

You appear to be approaching this believing I'm wanting to make the Disadvantages functionally worth less. That's not really the case - I want an alternative scheme that's roughly as bad as "You have to act out," so that the Disadvantages are still worth just as much, but we regain a degree of player agency. Players who want to play a character who is as dysfunctional as the RAW Disadvantages would make them certainly still have that option - I'd say anytime the character fails the SC roll, the player can opt to avoid the penalty by acting out. This could just be the further penalty, however - the character may still be saddled with the -1 for attempting to resist at all. That said, if the scheme works out to be less Disadvantageous, I wouldn't be opposed to making it into a Limitation.

Originally Posted by lvalero

Acting against your insticts is stressing. You might as well charge Long Term Fatigue each time you try to fight against your disadvantage (wether you are sucessful or not).


This LTF can only be regained by indulging in other disadvantages or by having a complete unstressfull day and night rest.

That could be an option, but the FP mechanics don't really match what I'm looking for here - someone who is stressed/distracted by having to suppress themselves isn't necessarily going to tire out faster, but rather is overall less competent at performing various tasks. They'll miss things while on watch, forget important details, make mistakes trying to put something together, and so forth. That is, a general penalty seems to make the most sense to me. I think Anthony's suggestion works really well for the penalty scheme (although it may be a bit on the harsh side; perhaps -1 for attempting to resist, then further -1 per MoF 2, to a maximum of -5 for MoF 8+?), I just need a time frame for the penalty to be reduced. I'm thinking something like a Will roll every 30 minutes - success eliminates -1 worth of the penalty, and another -1 per MoS 2. Indulging yourself gives a bonus (and a higher bonus if you indulge the Disadvantage that caused the penalty in the first place) and may even allow you to roll early. Spending some time meditating or otherwise calming yourself down (like a cold shower for Lecherousness) might also give a bonus, and maybe let you roll early.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Varyon

... Unfortunately, this makes such Disadvantages often result in characters who are essentially caricatures of people with such traits, which can either result in players avoiding them in favor of Quirk-equivalents or being somewhat-blindsided when the character they intended to just be a bit overly-amorous ends up having to be played like an idiot controlled by his "lower brain."

I definitely agree that this is an issue. As I alluded on another recent thread, my solution so far has been to 'read down' Disad text to more realistically suit the setting/context, or to informally allow players to earn self-control bonuses through alternative ways a person might manage such tendencies.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I think its fair that if you want 10 or 15 extra points of cool stuff, you get heavy restrictions on your behaviour. I am one intermediary away from people who would have Lecherousness, Compulsive Lying, etc. in GURPS- there are plenty of deeply disfunctional people in the real world.

There are problems with that though.

Firstly, in many kinds of adventures, PCs cannot really be deeply dysfunctional people or they would never have got to the starting point of the campaign. And yet minor flaws make good role-playing and having a RARE fall into a major blunder makes for exciting stories.

Secondly, some Disads as written are profoundly derailing, so while one PC has gotten the extra CP, it is the entire party (and the GM) who have to deal with the fallout of the extreme language chosen by the rules.

Originally Posted by lvalero

Acting against your insticts is stressing. You might as well charge Long Term Fatigue each time you try to fight against your disadvantage (wether you are sucessful or not).


This LTF can only be regained by indulging in other disadvantages or by having a complete unstressfull day and night rest.

I really like that method. Consider it stolen.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

This is an adventure game not an existentialist novel about a tenured English professor deciding whether to cheat on her husband and take the job in Singapore.

Unless it is. I mean... no badwrongfun, but I've played in the 'slice of life game' before and it can be enjoyable as a break. In fact I like my Action! games to have downbeats of Slice of Life to give the action meaning/weight. And in some cases some Disadvantages get more workout in the SoL segments than the Action! segments.

There is an issue that Superman should probably get more points of cool powers for Charitable than the 50-point journalist at the next desk. I don't have a good solution for that.

I disagree. Yes, Supes should have more "opportunity" for Charitable to trigger, however, as I mentioned before, it's the GM who sets those stages.

So yes, if the GM has Supes super hearing having him constantly bombarded with pleas for help from around the world such that his heart is breaking from his inability "to save everyone", they need to set the pricing to scale with the enormity of the Disad.

If however it's a "every so often" (say every third adventure or so) Supes has to chose between "helping a mugging victim or going on his date with Louis" (frex) then it's properly scaled at -5 points.

Originally Posted by Varyon

That could be an option, but the FP mechanics don't really match what I'm looking for here - someone who is stressed/distracted by having to suppress themselves isn't necessarily going to tire out faster, but rather is overall less competent at performing various tasks.

I treat it just like Reaction penalties, however in this case it's a flat -1 penalty to all rolls (as applicable*) per -5 points of the Disad.


* This is a highly subjective call. For instance Ensign Haut Tempeer has a -3 to all rolls because their Bad Temper (9 or less) went off during a briefing but they suppressed the urge to lash out at the Mission Commander over it, if a fight breaks out during the mission, I wouldn't penalyze ST based damage rolls, or any to hit roll made during Committed or All Out Attacks (they're clearly lashing out and expressing their frustrations and minimizing the caution they are showing).

However if Sgt Bleeding Heart was at -1 for leaving behind a starving waif on the docks and not giving over her meal packs (she doesn't know how long this mission will last, and lives are on the line) she would still see that -1 during combat, however if she was working at a solution to ending the famine plaguing the lower class workers, she wouldn't be penalized on those rolls.

In both cases the Character is doing something congruent to the source of the penalty, even if it's not directly addressing the exact source of their pathos.

And I don't care if they make the roll, I don't penalize them. If the PC constantly fights the urges, and constantly succeeds at the rolls, eventually I will have them begin buying the Disadvantage down.





I have toyed with using a FATE/Impulse buy mechanic directly tied to Disad cost. Everytime the PC gives in to a Disad without rolling, they get Impulse Points equal to 1/5 the Disad cost. In this campaign however, Disads wouldn't give points... just the opportunity to accrue to IP.