Phobia Cost Problem

[petritis]

Huh, looking in Basic Set Characters, it lists the Disadvantage Phobias, but doesn't say much about figuring out the value of it.

I was looking to make a phobia part of a racial template and need to cost it out.
The race is 'Faerie', sort of like tinkerbell (tiny winged), and the phobia is going to be fear or being caged, with a self control roll of 12 or 15.
Shouldn't there be an effect on the cost based on the self control number?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by petritis

Huh, looking in Basic Set Characters, it lists the Disadvantage Phobias, but doesn't say much about figuring out the value of it.

I was looking to make a phobia part of a racial template and need to cost it out.
The race is 'Faerie', sort of like tinkerbell (tiny winged), and the phobia is going to be fear or being caged, with a self control roll of 12 or 15.
Shouldn't there be an effect on the cost based on the self control number?

Same as for any other self-control number. Look on page 121

[sn0wball]

Originally Posted by petritis

I was looking to make a phobia part of a racial template and need to cost it out.
The race is 'Faerie', sort of like tinkerbell (tiny winged), and the phobia is going to be fear or being caged, with a self control roll of 12 or 15.
Shouldn't there be an effect on the cost based on the self control number?

Fear of being caged ? Aren´t phobias supposed to be fears of things which average people are not afraid of ? Nobody likes to be locked in. Such a phobia shouldn´t give that much points.

[nyu2]

Call it Claustrophobia, then. That should work.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by sn0wball

Fear of being caged ? Aren´t phobias supposed to be fears of things which average people are not afraid of ? Nobody likes to be locked in. Such a phobia shouldn´t give that much points.

I would say that most people's dislike of confinement wouldn't even rate as a Quirk in GURPS. Fear of being caged (clithrophobia, I think) would be comparable to Claustrophobia, but less disadvantageous than that, IMO. I'd figure it to be about -5 points.

[JAW]

Originally Posted by sn0wball

Fear of being caged ? Aren´t phobias supposed to be fears of things which average people are not afraid of ? Nobody likes to be locked in. Such a phobia shouldn´t give that much points.

Well phobias are unreasonable fears. So someone with phobia of being caged would panic at seeing a cage even though there was not much real change of being actually caught. And that would be disadvantageous.

[tanniynim]

Originally Posted by JAW

Well phobias are unreasonable fears. So someone with phobia of being caged would panic at seeing a cage even though there was not much real change of being actually caught. And that would be disadvantageous.

From a Psych standpoint, Fear of CAGES is different than Fear of Being Caged.

My wife has a massive shark phobia we've been working on. It's not a fear of being eaten by sharks, it's a fear of sharks themselves (also toys, cartoons, movies, stuffed animals, and pictures of sharks, usually, although we've been working at it). You'd want to do the same thing with cages if you want it to be worth anything. Even still, the CR 6 or less version should only be 5 points at the most, and that's only if people are actively trying to capture faeries in your setting.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by tanniynim

My wife has a massive shark phobia we've been working on.

Which direction? ;)

[JAW]

Originally Posted by tanniynim

From a Psych standpoint, Fear of CAGES is different than Fear of Being Caged.

My wife has a massive shark phobia we've been working on. It's not a fear of being eaten by sharks, it's a fear of sharks themselves (also toys, cartoons, movies, stuffed animals, and pictures of sharks, usually, although we've been working at it). You'd want to do the same thing with cages if you want it to be worth anything. Even still, the CR 6 or less version should only be 5 points at the most, and that's only if people are actively trying to capture faeries in your setting.

OK right - seeing a lion cage at zoo would not make a pixie scared. Seeing a bird cage of size that could hold the pixie would make the pixie uneasy. But someone holdign such a cage in front of pixie with the door open would trigger the phobia as there would be a threat of being caged - even though the pixie would most likely be able to avoid being captured. Maybe somebody holding a butterfly net would trigger the phobia too even though no cage was shown..

And I suppose there are faerie hunters out there - othervise the phobia would not make any sense in the first place. Also as a racial disadvantage it's a bit more severe as most people will know about it and can use it to freak out faeries (for whatever it's worth.)... SO I'd say 10 points with CR 6 could be OK. If it was not racial ability or if most people don't know about it (faeries are rare or something) then 5 points. It being commonly known would make it at least twice as common a situation where caging is used as a threat to come up so 10 points in that case would not be too much if it's 5 otherwise.

[Anaraxes]

And if actually caged, the pixie freaks out, irrationally slamming against the walls to get out, maybe even hurting itself -- sort of the way a claustrophobic would panic in a confined area. The cage-phobic pixie won't be sulking in its cage making up escape plans, for example, or casting spells through the bars. It's out of its mind. And a few hours of abject terror would probably lead to psychological scars, either forcing buying off the disad (a la aversion therapy), or causing even worse problems (like, say, catatonia to mentally avoid the problem).

Any PC is going to protest at being caged and will want to be free. An actual point-worth phobic disadvantage has to be a lot stronger than a mere dislike.