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Old 02-05-2020, 09:48 PM   #1
awesomenessofme1
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Default Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

A cursory Ctrl-F suggests it's the only case in the entire Basic Set where you round costs. Seems a bit strange, and I don't see any reason why it would be unique.
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Old 02-06-2020, 02:09 AM   #2
johndallman
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Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

The pricing for Reputation is such that rounding is relatively common. I've always had the impression that rounding its cost down, as opposed to everything else rounding up, is to encourage players to take Reputations for their characters.
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Old 02-06-2020, 08:27 AM   #3
Michele
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Udine, Italy
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

My opinion is that normally, Advantages round up (you get no discount on decimals). Disadvantages round down. Yes, that "round down" doesn't appear through a raw search function, because the wording used is "drop all fractions" (i.e., if you would get a -22.5 break, you only get a -22, not a -23).

Reputation is a special case, because the section deals with negative and positive Reputation together (i.e., as a Disadvantage and as an Advantage). It could have stated that you have to round up for positive Reputation costs, and down in the case of negative Reputation costs, yes.
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Old 02-06-2020, 10:11 AM   #4
awesomenessofme1
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Michele View Post
My opinion is that normally, Advantages round up (you get no discount on decimals). Disadvantages round down. Yes, that "round down" doesn't appear through a raw search function, because the wording used is "drop all fractions" (i.e., if you would get a -22.5 break, you only get a -22, not a -23).

Reputation is a special case, because the section deals with negative and positive Reputation together (i.e., as a Disadvantage and as an Advantage). It could have stated that you have to round up for positive Reputation costs, and down in the case of negative Reputation costs, yes.
This is specifically addressed in the section on rounding, which says that rounding down means rounding in a negative direction, and applies to both advantages and disadvantages unless otherwise stated.
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Old 02-06-2020, 10:37 AM   #5
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

Quote:
Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1 View Post
This is specifically addressed in the section on rounding, which says that rounding down means rounding in a negative direction
Check again.

Quote:
Originally Posted by B9
Rounding
...
Round up for point costs. When you modify a point cost by a percentage, or multiply it by a factor, round all fractions up. For instance, a 25% enhancement to a 15-point ability would result in 18.75 points, which would round to 19 points. For negative numbers, “up” means “in the positive direction”; e.g., if you multiply -7 points by 1/2 to get -3.5 points, round the result to -3 points.

Round down for character feats and combat results. When you do math to determine what a character can do – how much he can lift, how far he can jump, etc. – or to calculate injury or other combat results, round all fractions down. For instance, for an attack that inflicts 3 points of injury with a 50% damage bonus, round down from 4.5 to 4 points.
"Drop all fractions" occurs about half a dozen times in the rules, as special cases (calculating Move and Flight Move, damage from Dependency, point costs for the Disad associated with Stress Atavism, etc).
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Old 02-06-2020, 10:49 AM   #6
awesomenessofme1
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Check again.


"Drop all fractions" occurs about half a dozen times in the rules, as special cases (calculating Move and Flight Move, damage from Dependency, point costs for the Disad associated with Stress Atavism, etc).
I think it should be pretty clear from reading that I had a slight mixup between positive and negative. If you replace down with up and negative with positive, what I said is in the text you quoted. And what I said still should be true for the fee cases you round point costs down.
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Old 02-06-2020, 11:04 AM   #7
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

Quote:
Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1 View Post
A cursory Ctrl-F suggests it's the only case in the entire Basic Set where you round costs. Seems a bit strange, and I don't see any reason why it would be unique.
It also shows up for Resistant - x1 for Immunity, x1/2 for +8, x1/3 for +3, drop all fractions. I think Reputation and Resistant may be the only Advantages where it's typical to modify price by a divisor rather than by a percentage, so there's that link I suppose. My guess would be that for Reputation, they wanted negative and positive Reputations to cancel out evenly; no clue for why Resistant uses the same trend (particularly as it doesn't line up very well with Susceptible, and you're not allowed to have overlapping Resistant and Susceptible).
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Old 02-06-2020, 11:41 AM   #8
awesomenessofme1
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
It also shows up for Resistant - x1 for Immunity, x1/2 for +8, x1/3 for +3, drop all fractions. I think Reputation and Resistant may be the only Advantages where it's typical to modify price by a divisor rather than by a percentage, so there's that link I suppose. My guess would be that for Reputation, they wanted negative and positive Reputations to cancel out evenly; no clue for why Resistant uses the same trend (particularly as it doesn't line up very well with Susceptible, and you're not allowed to have overlapping Resistant and Susceptible).
But it actually doesn't work that way for Reputation, since it's "round down", not "drop all fractions". If you have a -2 reputation and a +2 reputation, both with x1/3, the negative one will be [-4], but the positive one will be [3].

Last edited by awesomenessofme1; 02-06-2020 at 12:54 PM.
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Old 02-06-2020, 12:41 PM   #9
Stormcrow
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

I suspect a simple carryover from previous editions, which did not include general rules for rounding, but which DID say "round down" in the rules for Reputation.
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Old 02-06-2020, 06:28 PM   #10
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Is there a reason why Reputation modifiers round costs down?

Quote:
Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1 View Post
But it actually doesn't work that way for Reputation, since it's "round down", not "drop all fractions". If you have a -2 reputation and a +2 reputation, both with x1/3, the negative one will be [-4], but the positive one will be [3].
Hmmm... right you are. That's rather contrary to typical GURPS design (a Disadvantage has at best the same absolute value as its opposite Advantage, and often has a lower absolute value), so I'd probably reinterpret that as "drop fractions" rather than "round down."
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