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Old 03-22-2017, 02:48 PM   #141
sir_pudding
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
No. The AI templates should have a comment indicating the GM may wish to assign an unusual background.
Why even have templates at all then? Maybe there should be a note saying "The GM can make up stuff or whatever." that could be GURPS Ultra-ultra-lite.

Personally the rules listed under Digital Mind are useful for me, if they aren't useful to you, that is fine, but you really can't say they are useless to everyone.

Last edited by sir_pudding; 03-22-2017 at 02:54 PM.
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Old 03-22-2017, 04:06 PM   #142
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

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Why even have templates at all then?
If you prefer, you can write Unusual Background [var] in the template. Unusual background specifically exists for setting-dependent pricing.
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Personally the rules listed under Digital Mind are useful for me, if they aren't useful to you, that is fine, but you really can't say they are useless to everyone.
The rules under Digital Mind are not worth [5]. They are worth either more or less, depending on how you interpret them.
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Old 03-22-2017, 06:59 PM   #143
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

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Which just makes it an unusual background, and not worthy of distinguishing from other unusual backgrounds.
You do know that a trait like "High TL" and even "Low TL" are just Unusual Backgrounds right?
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Old 03-22-2017, 07:00 PM   #144
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

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You guys are just thinking in Unkillable for machines in a fixed way; but you gotta think scenario-wise. This is a trait that allows ressurection for machines. Unless you say that every human being must buy a very small kind of Unkillable because of the possibility of being ressurected by Magic, gods or superscience, I dont see why you would ask this of a machine.
Okay, but what if you were in a magic setting, and magic could resurrect humans, but not an equally playable construct, do you expect the humans to pay for a 5 point "revivable by magic" Advantage?
No, because that's a 0 point feature of living in that universe. So why should you charge it for machines? Answer, because it's more unusual to have a digital mind than it is to be a normal human, thus it's cost is reflected as part of an Unusual Background that includes those 0 point features along with allowing a few other Advantages.

Which comes back down to; it's an Unusual Background, and so it's price should vary from setting to setting. Not every setting will have the ability to so easily restore the mind to a body, some will have it be expensive, others will have it take a lot of time, and for some it may even be more common than your normal human meat brains.

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Which just makes it an unusual background, and not worthy of distinguishing from other unusual backgrounds.
I don't quite agree here though, but it should be listed as having a variable cost like any other Unusual Background, and maybe even listed as a option under them. Maybe it should be listed as a Meta-Trait since it's composed of many 0 point features? I don't think it's without Value, especially since the book doesn't give us many 0 point feature examples in which to build this up from.

Last edited by Leynok; 03-22-2017 at 07:09 PM.
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Old 03-22-2017, 07:20 PM   #145
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

If your memory can be stored, you can be restored from memory. Period. This is NOT ressuction "per se", ressurection is restoration after TOTAL DESTRUCTION. If your memory is still intact somewhere, you can be brought back. Ressurection is FAR harder to achieve... So, it is LIKE, but not EXACTLY LIKE.

It is not Unkillable either; you dont have a indestructable core; you don't go to cyberspace after the body destruction; so, its neither Unkillable 2 or 3. As for hibernation, you may not be able to enter hibernation mode, but if your energy source is cut down (by damage, or an EMP for example), your memory wont be erased. If your memory is volatile, however, you would be gone.

And again, this can't be Achiles Heel bacause it has nothing to do with "a specific damage source". Anything that could destroy the hardware were your memory is storaged will kill you. It isn't like "Achiles Heel: the only way to kill you is using a virus to cause cyberdamage to your memory"
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Old 05-29-2017, 07:54 AM   #146
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

A GM contemplating the use of Digital Mind in her setting might wish to think specifically about what the computer mentioned in the description can do. Some possible variations are:

-it is dedicated to, and fully occupied by, running the character's consciousness. (With this option the Complexity of the computer is mostly unimportant unless the character's mind becomes separated from it and it is then put to other use.)

Or

-it runs the character's mind as a program. The amount of spare processing capacity for other use would emerge from whatever the GM sets for the Complexity of the character's computer and the character's consciousness as per the computer rules on page B472. (Note that according to the standard rules, a computer can run two programs of its maximum complexity level. There do not appear to be rules for a program that would occupy both slots.) An interesting possibility is to add a Variable enhancement so the character could choose to run himself at a lower IQ to open processing capacity for programs.

Or

-it it is assumed to run the character's mind as an independent or background function, plus acts just like having a normally functioning GURPS computer in your character. The computer is essentially a straight up benefit of the Advantage, pretty much as if the description said " this trait includes Accessory: Computer". While there is no reason that an Exotic trait needs to match to any given TL, a GM wishing to reflect on the potency or realism of this benefit can consider Ultratech, pp. 21 which indicates that a personal computer (5lb, which will fit nicely into a human-sized head) has Complexity 5 at TL9. According to the Digital Mind description, such a computer would be supplied to a character with IQ10. This computer reaches Complexity 7 (good for IQ 14) at TL10 and Complexity 8 (good for IQ 16) at TL11.

The above is a distillation of some thinking provoked by this thread. Thanks to Kelly Pedersen and Ketsuban for key points.

Last edited by Donny Brook; 05-29-2017 at 10:28 AM.
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Old 05-29-2017, 10:28 AM   #147
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

The free computer with full complexity available for general purpose programs interpretation is almost certainly wrong, for the reasons already discussed, but primarily because that isn't how it works in any published example. Again, there's nothing stopping you from PMing Kromm about this.
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Old 05-29-2017, 10:30 AM   #148
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

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The free computer with full complexity available for general purpose programs interpretation is almost certainly wrong, for the reasons already discussed, but primarily because that isn't how it works in any published example. Again, there's nothing stopping you from PMing Kromm about this.
My view is that is it right for reasons already discussed, but if you want to discuss it more, how about keeping it over there? I'm not presenting them as 'interpretations' here, merely possibilities.
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Old 05-29-2017, 12:50 PM   #149
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#36): Digital Mind

Why are you so dead set on giving a perk to those with Digital Mind for free, when so many published characters list it?
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