Vow to not wear armor

[Anders]

A guy in the group I'll GM has a vow not to wear armor, and that's all fine and dandy, but... what do I do with clothes that provides DR? For instance, winter clothing provides DR 1 vs. cutting (only). And I do intend to send them into the arctic eventually. How would you handle this - keep to the vow and still not forcing him to stay behind?

[Mathulhu]

I view vows as a gm player covenant, not a source of pedantry. So the Dr offered is secondary to the intent of the player/character. He could wear clothes that offer Dr but not armour that did not.

Do you feel the player/character is likely to milk the winter clothing Dr for as long as possible or is he going to wear it to protect from the cold and take it off when it gets warm?

[aesir23]

I would say that a Vow to not where armor is absolutely NOT a Vow to not wear a winter coat.

It's not even a Vow to never benefit from DR, since the character who took the Vow doesn't realize he's in a GURPS game.

Let him wear the winter coats and get DR 1 vs. Cutting. He'll still be at a disadvantage compared to the guy wearing a coat of mail under his winter clothes.

[Hannes665]

Originally Posted by Anders

A guy in the group I'll GM has a vow not to wear armor, and that's all fine and dandy, but... what do I do with clothes that provides DR? For instance, winter clothing provides DR 1 vs. cutting (only). And I do intend to send them into the arctic eventually. How would you handle this - keep to the vow and still not forcing him to stay behind?

Don´t look at the DR number rather what the garment or clothing is used for. So he would wear heavy winter coat or leather chaps for horseback riding while he would not use mail shirt or any other "clothing" that is designed as combat armor.

I guess his Vow has something to do with his Warrior culture or his code of “honorary” thinking about combat and warfare, but not dressing for rain or winter

[Hannes665]

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

Do you feel the player/character is likely to milk the winter clothing Dr for as long as possible or is he going to wear it to protect from the cold and take it off when it gets warm?

And if he does that, wear his DR 1-2 vs cr winter clothing in normal weather 12-22 centigrade you penalize him with less points for not playing his character as he set him up. I try to avoid forcing players to play their disads, if they don´t they don´t get points.

[Anders]

I don't know about him - he might try to exploit it.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Anders

I don't know about him - he might try to exploit it.

Do you buy it at Wal-Mart, or is it in the Military/Police surplus store? That's the defining line, IMO.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Hannes665

I guess his Vow has something to do with his Warrior culture or his code of “honorary” thinking about combat and warfare, but not dressing for rain or winter

We'll have to discuss this, methinks. Because it might be because they hinder his movements and winter clothes would do that.

[Edges]

Why is he wearing it?

If it is to keep warm, it's clothing.
If it's to protect against injury, it's armor.

Just ask.

And if he says it's one and it is obvious that it's the other, you have bigger problems than GURPS rules.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Anders

We'll have to discuss this, methinks. Because it might be because they hinder his movements and winter clothes would do that.

There's also the question of fairness.

If he took Vow (Never Wear Armor) (-15) and you're enforcing Vow (Never Wear any Clothing that might inhibit movement) (-20), that's unfair.

Similarly, if he took Vow (Never Wear Armor) (-15) and he's playing it as Vow (Never Wear Heavy, Inhibiting Armor) (-5), that's also unfair.

One solution occurs to me: you can always make high-quality light-weight winter clothing available, which doesn't offer any DR at a higher price, and encourage your player to buy that instead.