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Old 09-18-2009, 08:48 AM   #1
nerdvana
 
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Default Choosing not to wear glasses...

So, in the Bad Sight disadvantage (p123) GURPS has this to say:

Quote:
Originally Posted by GURPS Characters, p123
At TL5+, you can acquire glasses that compensate totally for Bad Sight while they are worn. <...> If you are starting at a tech level in which vision can be corrected, you must take this limitation.
Bolded emphasis: Original Source
Underlined emphasis: mine


That requirement that you must take the limitation seems harsh to me. Some people cannot afford glasses and thus don't have them. But, since they are TL7 or 8 and glasses are available they have to take 15 points off the disadvantage and only gain as much as their fellow Bad Sight sufferer who can afford the glasses.

Could someone explain why this is balanced? I'm guessing that it is due to overlap with negative Wealth at those TLs (or Stubbornness if it is a willing choice out of pride or what not).

I am still of a mind to allow individuals at TLs >4 to have the 25 point version of Bad Sight if they do not have glasses to wear. Can anyone tell me why this is a bad idea?
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Old 09-18-2009, 08:51 AM   #2
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Quote:
Originally Posted by nerdvana View Post
So, in the Bad Sight disadvantage (p123) GURPS has this to say:



Bolded emphasis: Original Source
Underlined emphasis: mine


That requirement that you must take the limitation seems harsh to me. Some people cannot afford glasses and thus don't have them. But, since they are TL7 or 8 and glasses are available they have to take 15 points off the disadvantage and only gain as much as their fellow Bad Sight sufferer who can afford the glasses.

Could someone explain why this is balanced? I'm guessing that it is due to overlap with negative Wealth at those TLs (or Stubbornness if it is a willing choice out of pride or what not).

I am still of a mind to allow individuals at TLs >4 to have the 25 point version of Bad Sight if they do not have glasses to wear. Can anyone tell me why this is a bad idea?
Well, your GM can always let you, I myself would probably only if you took something like "Dead Broke" or whatever. There is always contacts if your hatred of glasses is pride/looks thing. I even have a superhero in a game where she wears glasses normally, but when she goes out as a superhero she uses contacts (and she totally has the Masked perk from GURPS Supers PDF LOL)
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Old 09-18-2009, 08:57 AM   #3
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Quote:
Originally Posted by nerdvana View Post
Could someone explain why this is balanced?
I think there are a couple of things here. First, I suspect that the number of people who

a) have correctable bad vision

b) have it badly enough that they qualify as having the Bad Sight disadvantage (not everyone who doesn't have 20/20 vision has Bad Sight)

c) live in a society where vision correction is commonplace and

d) cannot afford to buy glasses on their own and don't have access to charitable or government programs which can assist them to get eyewear sufficient to correct their vision to the point that Bad Sight no longer applies

is sufficiently small that it's not terribly unbalanced. Second, assuming you have a PC adventurer (because that's really all that the character creation rules apply to) who fits those rather peculiar criteria, he's very likely during the course of play to acquire sufficient resources that he can afford to get his own glasses. It's the equivalent of starting a cyberpunk with a blind PC and having him buy new eyes as soon as he gets a bit of cash. At TL5+, vision is simply too easy for adventurers to correct to be worth much.

ETA: If the character adamantly refuses to wear glasses, I might let him take a vow or something worth at least part of the point difference. But I'd require him to pay it off if he ever wore glasses in play.
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Old 09-18-2009, 08:58 AM   #4
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Frankly, I'd say it's due to not giving a character "free points." If vision can easily be corrected but a player takes the 25-point version of Bad Sight, one of two things will generally end up happening:

1)The character buys glasses or contacts at some point. Hey presto, I got 15 extra points at character creation for nothing!

2) The character tries to buy glasses or contacts at some point, but is barred by the GM until they have enough points saved up to cover the Mitigator. (Which is probably going to start a PC-GM argument.)

If the character is really physically unable to wear corrective lenses (and there are still a few in this day and age), I'd say go ahead and take the 25-point version. If it's a psychological barrier, I'd say take the 10-point Bad Sight and some level of Vow: "Never wear glasses, no matter how much I may need them." That makes it clearer what the nature of the disadvantage is -- the character CAN correct her sight, she just WON'T.

EDIT: Partially ninja'd by TBC! And for extra vanity (and points), you can also have the character take Secret: Needs Glasses. This is the kind of PC who will covertly squint during a driver's license eye exam, just to fool the DMV ...
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Last edited by Rocket Man; 09-18-2009 at 09:02 AM.
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Old 09-18-2009, 09:04 AM   #5
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

If the character in question just won't use corrective optics, guaranteed, then the full disad is fine. Sort of the same way a humanoid super can take 'can't wear armor' on their DR if they definitely won't even though in principle they could wear anything available.

In general getting 15 points for something largely trivial to correct in play is a bad idea. 15 point disadvantages tend to be life-altering, not 'if I had $500 this would go away'.
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Old 09-18-2009, 09:19 AM   #6
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Thanks for the quick replies.

On one point... I am the GM and thinking of this in terms of building my list of advantages and disadvantages.

The end result is that I see the need for two disadvantages:

Bad Sight at -10 points and Bad Sight (uncorrectable) at -25 points

The second would be for people/species incapable of accepting vision correcting technology (very rare) or for those people who have Bad Sight when wearing glasses and (effective) Blindness when not wearing glasses.
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Old 09-18-2009, 09:23 AM   #7
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Quote:
Originally Posted by nerdvana View Post
The second would be for people/species incapable of accepting vision correcting technology (very rare) or for those people who have Bad Sight when wearing glasses and (effective) Blindness when not wearing glasses.
Sounds about right. Actually, you might go for something a little stronger for the second case. Having Bad Sight as your best-case scenario and Blindness as the unmitigated option is a bit worse than Bad Sight alone.
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Old 09-18-2009, 09:33 AM   #8
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
Sounds about right. Actually, you might go for something a little stronger for the second case. Having Bad Sight as your best-case scenario and Blindness as the unmitigated option is a bit worse than Bad Sight alone.
That was what I was planning to do... just haven't written it out. :)

Probably something like Bad Sight (only when not blind accessability of some %, maybe -20% and thus 20 points?) and Blindness (mitigator, just like bad sight at -60% and thus 20 points) for a total of 40 points.
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Old 09-18-2009, 09:38 AM   #9
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Quote:
Actually, you might go for something a little stronger for the second case. Having Bad Sight as your best-case scenario and Blindness as the unmitigated option is a bit worse than Bad Sight alone.
I think the correct way to do this would be to take the difference between full-blindness and Bad Sight (25 points) and give it a mitigator (so it's priced at 7.5 points), then add that back to Bad Sight, making it a 32.5 point disadvantage, or a 35% limitation on Blindness.

EDIT: This is because Bad Sight is already included in normal Blindness in the same way that Combat Reflexes is included in Enhanced Time Sense.

Aside: My mother very nearly qualifies for this disad - her eyes are so bad that even after lasik eye surgery she still needs to wear both her contacts and her glasses at the same time to be able to see much at all - definitely qualifies as bad sight. Without glasses or contacts she's very nearly blind, though she can get by with just one or the other, though not very well.
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Old 09-18-2009, 10:23 AM   #10
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Default Re: Choosing not to wear glasses...

Speaking personally I would probably have fitted the description for a while, not because I couldn't afford glasses (or rather, given my age at the time, not because my parents couldn't afford glasses for me), but because I wasn't diagnosed until my eyesight had got pretty bad, and even once I was issued glasses, I disliked wearing them and only put them on when absolutely necessary. Obviously I had to get over that.

So I actually had the mitigator but, perhaps we could add the 'only under stress' modifier (IDHMBWM) to represent not using it under normal circumstances. In game terms I suspect that would mean suffering the full penalty to anything where the PC is surprised or (for example) needs to check for spotting something he isn't actively looking for.
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