[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Killjoy

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I'm going purely off of the James Bond wiki, as my memory of Brosnan-Bond other than Goldeneye is basically a single blurred together collection of dumb one-liners and a bikini homage (I think there was a guy with diamonds in his face in there too). It describes it as the loss of most of his sense of touch, smell, and taste. Might he have been waxing poetic over the purely physical sensations he'd never experience again?

Yes, he might. On the other hand, Killjoy is supposed to be damage to the pleasure center of the brain, removing the chemical release that causes people physical pleasure at various things.

Vikgor Zokas has brain damage that makes him unable to feel pleasure or pain. Out of all characters in mass media, I think he comes closest to exemplifying Killjoy.

Of course, no fictional character I can imagine has Killjoy as written, as that is neither neurologically sound nor does it make for any kind of interesting character. Viktor Zokas' condition, however, makes for a motivated villain, at least, which is more than the GURPS Cyberpunk version of Killjoy does.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I'm going purely off of the James Bond wiki, as my memory of Brosnan-Bond other than Goldeneye is basically a single blurred together collection of dumb one-liners and a bikini homage (I think there was a guy with diamonds in his face in there too). It describes it as the loss of most of his sense of touch, smell, and taste. Might he have been waxing poetic over the purely physical sensations he'd never experience again?

Renard was, as I recall, grossly under-written and under-used, and quite what the bullet in his brain did to him wasn't very well defined at all.

I mean, FFS, you have a relentless Bond villain with a bullet embedded in his brain giving him some kind of low sensitivity while it slowly kills him, and a final confrontation location with a lot of stuff lying around that could easily include a large magnet, and then he gets killed in a totally ordinary fight? The writers weren't even trying.

[newton]

what this reminds me of is in media where they have the sort of faceless horde of incredibly mundane/boring office workers de blob and probably other media. like if you combine killjoy incurious hidebound and no sense of humor with some disadvantage that allows you to be controlled you get a sort of “brainwashed masses”

[RyanW]

The Pax (from Serenity) did something similar to Killjoy. To most of its subjects, anyway.

[edk926]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I'd like to mention anhedonia, a psychiatric symptom. Anhedonia produces reduced wanting as well as reduced enjoyment, reduced learning, flat affect, reduced range of affect, emotional numbing, social withdrawal, cessation of activities usually pleaasureable, psychomotor retardation, and inactivity.

Well I now have yet another potential name on my list of "Band names I'd call myself if I ever decided to learn how to sing or play an instrument."

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The Pax (from Serenity) did something similar to Killjoy. To most of its subjects, anyway.

Actually it probably gave them all Slave Mentality. They died because nobody was there to tell them what to do.

[RogerBW]

I can't honestly see a need for this as written, when we already have Slave Mentality, Chronic Depression, Hidebound, Incurious, Oblivious, and (more to the point) modifiers to make those applicable only in certain circumstances.

However, this and other "big" disadvantages which might well seem to render a character unplayable might be interesting to try as temporary disadvantages on a suitably beefy power build. I can control the forces of the universe… by re-routeing them through the part of my mind that normally deals with enjoying stuff, so I'm a bit strange while I'm winding up a fireball…