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Old 01-03-2019, 05:50 PM   #1
johndallman
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Default [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

Impulsiveness [-10*] is a mundane mental disadvantage with a self-control roll. You prefer action to planning, and tend to act without thinking. This disadvantage appeared in GURPS 1e, and the basic idea has not changed.

When you’re alone, you need to make a self-control to pause and think about what to do. When you’re with others, and they want to plan, you’ll suggest something if you have any kind of idea, and then go and do it, unless you can make your self-control roll. Obviously, this exacerbates other impulse control disadvantages, such as Lecherousness or Truthfulness. It’s kind of the opposite of Common Sense.

Impulsiveness is a common option on published character templates, since it’s a reason for getting involved with dangerous and exciting things. Like Overconfidence, it’s a bad idea around explosives, or for engineers, which is why the eponymous characters in Casey & Andy both have it at [-20]. Bio-Tech can engineer it, and DF makes it a possible moral code for priests of the sea, storms or war. High-Tech and Horror point out that it’s a possible side-effect of psychiatric medications, and Madness Dossier, naturally, has drugs to cause it. There’s a herb in Locations: Hellsgate that does the same, and a bunch of related quirks in Power-Ups 6. Chinese Elemental Powers has it as a symptom of excess yang, and Zombies has the signature line: “… it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I don’t think I’ve ever had a PC with Impulsiveness as a deliberate disadvantage. I tend to be fairly careful as a player, possibly more so than in real life. How has this disadvantage changed your games?
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Old 01-03-2019, 06:22 PM   #2
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

Heh.

I just gave it to a PC prior to the start of the player's first session (he was joining a new campaign shortly after the start), commenting that as the player had never, in his approximately twenty years of gaming, role-played anything but an impulsive, reckless lunatic, he might as well get the points for it.

Another player, who, I swear to God, had not heard the exchange (which took place while he was fetching food), was considering doing something incredibly ill-thought out when he asked: "Didn't I take any Disadvantages that tell me that it's a good idea to run ahead alone, chasing an incorporeal spirit that only I can see, into the literal Haunted House where something nasty is definitely waiting?"

I told him that, no, this time he had somehow forgotten to take Impulsive, and, in any case, another player had already claimed the role of the character who got everyone into trouble because they had the attention span of a toddler and the self-preservation instincts of a bunch of lemmings being interfered with by Disney. If this bothered him, he could console himself with his Overconfidence and a Quirk related to risk-seeking behaviour. You know, like his job as a Monster Hunter, or the fact that he had already suggested splitting up to search the spooky haunted mansion.

The player thought for a while. "But can I still add Impulsive, for synergy?"

This is the story of why there are now two Impulsive PCs in my new campaign and how the emotionally-scarred Mythos-survivor and the crazy-as-a-fox swamp druid have become the sensible, normal people in the group.

And why Lucien Lacoste, the Jesuit-educated former detective in the NOPD, ran into a kitschy haunted mansion (closed until the weekend), through the door without opening it first (which hurt his shoulder a lot, but was apparently worth it), loaded down with over a hundred pounds of weapons and tactical gear, carrying a huge bowie knife in one hand and a huge container of salt in the other, and screaming fairly mild and non-blasphemous obscenities at a foe only he could see.
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Old 01-03-2019, 06:31 PM   #3
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

I've seen it fairly often. The favourite lethal combination seems to be Curious and Impulsive, if only because it gives an excuse to act before any of the more cautious players can spoil the fun.
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Old 01-03-2019, 06:32 PM   #4
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

I've run two GURPS characters for which I have character sheets that include Impulsiveness. Bertran was a Dzur noble in a friend's Dragaeran campaign; Dzur are supposed to rush headlong into fights and embrace lost causes, so it seemed to fit. Maria Rosa Vargas Sandoval (la Gata Encantada) was a character in that same friend's supers campaign; she was a low-end speedster, more in the Spider-man style than in that of the Flash, able to run at freeway speeds, and with DX and Per 19 and Dodge-16 (boosted if she combined it with acrobatics), and her Enhanced Time Sense seemed to favor her taking action quickly. . . . They were both fun to play, in somewhat different ways; Bertran's impulsiveness was an occasional thing (I got more mileage out of his IQ 9), but Maria's was definitely over the top.
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Old 01-03-2019, 06:45 PM   #5
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

It's pretty rare for Impulsive not to show up on a Character sheet for me. If it doesn't it's because I'm either deliberately aiming for the "extra cautious" Character or I'm playing the "dumb as a box of rocks" Character. Or I ran out Disad points...
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Old 01-03-2019, 08:27 PM   #6
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

I would possibly rank it as the most popular disad to show up on character sheets in games I've seen. It's kind of the "mostly harmless" disad that fits many kinds of character and it's how many PCs are played anyway.
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Old 01-03-2019, 08:56 PM   #7
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
I would possibly rank it as the most popular disad to show up on character sheets in games I've seen. It's kind of the "mostly harmless" disad that fits many kinds of character and it's how many PCs are played anyway.
This, most of the campaigns I have been in have had 1 or 2 characters with it.
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Old 01-04-2019, 01:37 AM   #8
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

For the last 25 years I've played mostly Cliffhangers, and in such a campaign Impulsiveness is highly appropriate.

Otherwise we've been playing Spec Ops or former spec ops mercenaries, in which case it isn't quite sensible.

Anyway my Cliffhanger character from 1994 to 2009 had Impulsiveness...along Overconfidence and Jealousy.
So he did things without thinking, believing he would be able to pull it off for sure, especially if someone else had done it or claimed they could.

One time, in the arctic when a polar bear god into the food at the camp, he was goaded (needing little encouragement) into walking over at taking the food away from the bear.
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Old 01-04-2019, 01:42 AM   #9
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultraviolet View Post
For the last 25 years I've played mostly Cliffhangers, and in such a campaign Impulsiveness is highly appropriate.

Otherwise we've been playing Spec Ops or former spec ops mercenaries, in which case it isn't quite sensible.
For real special operators, obviously not. The ideal mission for the Quiet Professionals and their brothers-in-arms is one where everything goes absolutely to plan, nothing is left to chance and, if it can be arranged, no one hostile even learns that it took place until you've achieved all your objectives and exfiltrated safely.

For special operators who've had missions turn excitingly kinetic often enough to fill out the many, many adventuring incidents in a typical PC's career, well, either they are Murphy's most favoured son or they are making a point of inviting Murphy along.
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Old 01-04-2019, 03:40 AM   #10
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Impulsiveness

I'm firmly in favour of someone taking an Impulsive character in my group, with or without Curious and/or Overconfident, as a counterbalance to the player who tends to plan and plan and plan, and then mid-action, try and plan some more. The whole game can grind to a halt from over-planning and analysis paralysis, and having one or more character that will not stand around and will prod things is really useful.
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