[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Extra Sleep, Insomniac and Light Sleeper

[johndallman]

Extra Sleep [-2/level], Insomniac [-10 or -15] and Light Sleeper [-5] are all mundane physical disadvantages. They first appeared in an article by Richard LeDuc in Roleplayer 21, which was reprinted in modified form in the Compendiums for 3e, and absorbed into 4e. Characters with default sleep requirements require eight hours of sleep a night, and don’t have much trouble going to sleep.

Extra Sleep means that you need an extra hour of sleep per level per night to avoid the penalties for missed sleep, described on pp. B426-7. It’s the reverse of the Less Sleep advantage.

Insomniac means you have periods (“episodes”) when falling asleep is difficult. During one, you need to roll against HT-1 every night. On a success, you fall asleep easily, and the episode ends. On a critical failure, you get no sleep that night. On an ordinary failure, you miss two hours of sleep. The interval between episodes depends on the severity of the disadvantage: 3d days at [-10] or 2d-1 days at [-15]. If you suffer stress over several days between an episode, the GM can require a HT roll to avoid an episode starting early.

Light Sleeper means that going to sleep, and staying asleep, is harder than normal. You need to make a HT roll to fall asleep if there is any noise, or if you’re in an uncomfortable place. If you fail, you can try again after an hour, but that means you’ve missed an hour of sleep. You wake up easily if there is noise or disturbance, although you’re stunned on awakening, unless you have Combat Reflexes. To stay asleep, you need to fail a HT roll. And once you’re awake, if you need to go back to sleep, you ned to make a HT roll, as above.

Clearly, the wrong combination of these disadvantages can be extremely unhealthy. It’s not crystal clear how the rules for uncontrollably falling asleep interact with needing to make HT-based rolls to go to sleep, but I’ve been in a state of severe jet lag where I could not get to sleep, although I was barely conscious owing to fatigue. At least in GURPS, Fit and Very Fit help, by improving your HT rolls.

The commonest of these disadvantages on published templates is Insomniac, which is often an option for characters who are likely to feel guilty or be obsessive. Light Sleeper is sometimes used for the same purpose. AtE handles missed sleep in its long-term fatigue rules, and Bio-Tech uses these disadvantages as bugs in engineered creatures, or as stress-related disadvantages. High-Tech points out that any of them can be drug side-effects, while Madness Dossier has defences that spoil the wearer’s sleep. There are quirk-level versions of Extra Sleep and Light Sleeper in Power-Ups 6, and Psionic Powers offers all of these disadvantages as Afflictions to use with Dream Control. Thaumatology: Ritual Path Magic has a ritual that suppresses Insomniac and Light Sleeper, which sounds really good as I write this, and Transhuman Space: Changing Times has nanodrugs that do much the same.

I tend to always be a little short of sleep, which may well be why I’ve never taken any of these disadvantages on a PC. Have they been important in your games?

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I tend to always be a little short of sleep, which may well be why I’ve never taken any of these disadvantages on a PC. Have they been important in your games?

Were I playing in a game I ran, I'd consider Insomniac because I as GM tend to forget to enforce checking for the episode start and timing for these sorts of disads making them cheap points.

Which reminds me, I need to refresh myself on what the party's various disads are as I've probably been skipping over some.

[Railstar]

I have insomnia-related issues in real life, so I am not a fan of the disadvantage in general. I think generally being unable to sleep is not fun for me, so playing those sleeping difficulties is not my idea of fun either.

To some extent this applies to most disadvantages, but I think these tend to be "logistical disadvantages" - meaning they depend heavily on how much mind the GM pays to logistics. Logistical disadvantages start running into a couple of problems.

1 - The GM doesn't really care about logistics, so the disadvantage gets overlooked most of the time. I don't like disadvantages under those circumstances, either as player or GM, because to me it's the GM-player contract of "this will be annoying to keep track of, so we're not going to bother", and finding exploits for free points is against the spirit of the contract.

2 - The GM doesn't care much about logistics, but starts keeping track of it for the player. If the group doesn't want the extra bookkeeping, it becomes an annoyance.

3 - The GM takes logistics seriously, which means these disadvantages end up earning the points they give you.

The most unusual thing I've done with it was vampires with the Quirk "Light Sleeper at night" - with night being their natural time to be awake, and the day being their natural time to sleep. So not Nocturnal, because they can go out during the day, but that their inclination was generally over the long-term to sleep during the day and go out at night.

Since then, I've been considering changing it, to having any activity during the daylight count as "staying up late", but never applying the penalties at night no matter how long the vampire has been awake for. On one hand, I like it, on the another, when I think about daylight hours I think it would be equivalent to a few levels of Extra Sleep.

Should we add Nightmares to the list? I had one character who had Nightmares, who tended to put off sleep because of it - he was afraid of sleep, even if he didn't like to admit it. I'd always been wondering how to represent that behaviour.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Railstar

Should we add Nightmares to the list?

I plan to do Nightmares with Sleepwalker, since they're related, and Nightmares' interaction with hours of sleep is quite simple.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Railstar

1 - The GM doesn't really care about logistics, so the disadvantage gets overlooked most of the time. I don't like disadvantages under those circumstances, either as player or GM, because to me it's the GM-player contract of "this will be annoying to keep track of, so we're not going to bother", and finding exploits for free points is against the spirit of the contract.

2 - The GM doesn't care much about logistics, but starts keeping track of it for the player. If the group doesn't want the extra bookkeeping, it becomes an annoyance.

3 - The GM takes logistics seriously, which means these disadvantages end up earning the points they give you.

This is a really good point. Most games I've played aren't heavy on book keeping, and these disadvantages tend to be rely heavy on them. In the games where they would actually matter, players tend to go for sleep advantages, not disadvantages.



Lost in dreams had a number of folks who took sleeping disadvantages. Most often nightmares (which I was very clear about having detrimental effects). I did have one person take light sleeper, though that never came up. And the campaign has sleeping as a major part of game play!


The disadvantage that has made me track sleep the most is actually manic-depressive. Its in a city management game, and the character who has it has a bad habit of staying up very late when he's in his manic phase working on whatever seems urgent.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I plan to do Nightmares with Sleepwalker, since they're related, and Nightmares' interaction with hours of sleep is quite simple.

I'm curious to see the reasoning behind that as I don't see them being related much.

Personally, I have Extra Sleep during the winter months, but Less Sleep during the summer months.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm curious to see the reasoning behind that as I don't see them being related much.

They're both to do with dreams, a more specific thing than sleep in general.

[Flyndaran]

Sleepwalking has nothing to do with dreams in my experience. I sleep walked a lot from childhood until young adulthood. I engaged in full conversations while asleep in such a way that family often didn't know I was not conscious until the next day. But I guess everyone's different and some have concurrent dreams.
Sorry for the OT. I was just really curious about that comment.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I plan to do Nightmares with Sleepwalker, since they're related, and Nightmares' interaction with hours of sleep is quite simple.

Actually, many of the sleep-related disads are closely related and could be combined. There's also the oddity that GURPS has both the Sleepy racial trait and the Extra Sleep individual trait. I think that there's also a quirk which requires you to get an extra half hour of sleep a night.

Failure to get 8 hours of sleep imposes 1 FP per missed hour, with Sleepiness (-2 to IQ, DX, and self-control rolls, and must make periodic Will rolls to avoid falling asleep) after HT/2 hours of missed sleep. Furthermore, you must sleep a number of hours equal to hours of FP lost due to sleep. Essentially, this is an Irritating Affliction, which reduces FP by one or more levels, with a secondary chance of temporarily imposing -80 points in reduced character points due to reduced attribute scores.

Insomniac = Badly crocked, needs to be reworked.

Lose 2 hours sleep unless you can make a roll vs. HT-1. Worse effects on CF. For -10 points you must roll vs. HT-1 an average of once per 10 days, with an average chance of 40% of ending FP loss per day of insomnia, plus the need to get extra sleep to make up for missed sleep. For -15 points, as above, but an average of 6 days between episodes.

On average, you risk losing 2 FP every 10 days, with 40% chance of losing no FP, 60% chance of losing 2 FP, and lesser chances of losing additional FP due to multiple days of insomnia.

Compare to -6 points for just subtracting -2 FP from your FP score which affects you constantly.

Additionally, since the disad is based on HT, it makes it a point sink for characters with high HT.

A simple fix is to give it a base value of -5* and eliminate mild and severe forms of the disad. To mimic HT-based insomnia, just set the Self-Control number equal to HT-1.

Light Sleeper = Undervalued in most conditions.

Effectively imposes Insomnia unless sleeping conditions are ideal or extra measures are taken to impose sleep (e.g., sleep spells or drugs) which has the potential to incapacitate the character. Given the rough sleeping conditions adventurers often face, and inability to wake up quickly if drugged (or whatever), this is a real problem. The slight advantage is that you automatically wake up if you make a Sense roll to detect some stimulus around you. Cost is -5 points.

Because it is HT-based, it is a potential point sink for characters with high HT, and/or those with regular access to sleep aids.

Could be converted to a -10* point disad., with the Mitigator limitation if you have regular access to sleep aids.

Nightmares = Probably OK.

Lose the equivalent of 1 hour of sleep unless you can make a self-control roll. Worse effects on CF. -5* points

Sleepwalker = Probably OK.

Get woken up due to sleepwalking, and possibly find yourself in a strange or inconvenient location, unless you make a self-control roll. Possible chance of falling down for injury and/or stun. (And actually grossly simplified from all the strange things that sleepwalkers have been known to do.) -5 points*

Realistically, there are more severe forms of somnambulism which can last longer and where the sufferer can engage in activities more hazardous than just walking (e.g., cooking, driving, violent activity). There are also similar syndromes such as restless leg which can cause problems for sleepers.

As for sleep duration traits, GURPS is also a bit weird.

The default is 8 hours of sleep, a 0-point feature.

Doesn't Sleep is an advantage worth 20 points. Extrapolating from Less Sleep, sleeping for 0 hours makes Doesn't Sleep worth just 16 points, although you can rationalize the extra 4 points as Immunity to attacks, drugs, diseases, etc. which impose sleep or sleep-like effects.

Less Sleep costs 2 points/level, up to 4 levels, which eliminates the need for 1 hour of sleep down to a minimum of 4 hours. For non-humans, or humans with underlying medical conditions which reduce the need for sleep (e.g., some brain tumors), it should be possible to have up to 7 levels of this trait.

Extra Sleep costs -2 points/level and requires you to get 1 extra hour of sleep per level.

Sleepy costs -8 points for 12 hours of sleep, -16 for 16 hours of sleep, -20 for 18 hours, or -26 points for 21 hours. (With the exact duration of sleep/wake periods being a racial special effect.)

Costs and effects of levels of Extra Sleep and Sleepy are identical, so the two traits should be combined:

Extra Sleep 0 = 8 hours or asleep 33% of the time.
ES 1 = 9 hours or 38%.
ES 2 = 10 hours or 42%.
ES 3 = 11 hours or 46%.
ES 4 = 12 hours or 50%.
ES 5 = 13 hours or 54%.
ES 6 = 14 hours or 58%.
ES 7 = 15 hours or 62%.
ES 8 = 16 hours or 66%.
ES 9 = 17 hours or 71%.
ES 10 = 18 hours or 75%.
ES 11 = 19 hours or 79%.
ES 12 = 20 hours or 83%.
ES 13 = 21 hours or 88%.
ES 14 = 22 hours or 92%.
ES 15 = 23 hours or 96%.

Realistically, some humans might have the Sleepy disad, especially if they have intermittent sleep/waking periods which total more than 8 hours a day of sleep. For example, this sort of interrupted sleep might apply to certain sleep apnea sufferers.

[RogerBW]

In GURPS, consistent failure to get a full eight hours of sleep will eventually kill you unless you fail an unpenalised Will roll and aren't woken early.

Personally I always have trouble remembering which, out of Light Sleeper and Heavy Sleeper, is the disadvantageous one - in common parlance it would be the latter.