[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Plane

"driven off by Frightens Animals" sounds like a disadvantage itself, so what advantage would exist in the metatrait to offset it?

Immunity to Influence skills?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Plane

"driven off by Frightens Animals" sounds like a disadvantage itself, so what advantage would exist in the metatrait to offset it?

The effect of Frightens Animals on the affected animals isn't necessarily "driven off", though. They react negatively to you, but what form that reaction takes is up to them - while one could run off, another could attack. That's why I think it's a 0-point feature to be affected by Frightens Animals. Since the form of the reaction is up to the character affected, it's really not that limiting.

Compare this to the "Can be turned by True Faith" quirk that's emerged as the default trait for things like demons, supernatural zombies, and such. In that case, your reactions to the trait (True Faith) are pretty limited: you have to avoid the True Faith character, no excuses. But it's still worth no more than -1 point.

[Plane]

Terror (Always On -20% Animals Only -25%) [17] sounds a lot like the name of this ability, I'd prefer "Disgusts Animals" since negative reaction rolls don't inherently create Fright Checks, as "Frightens" in name implies in contrast to description of function.

As B166 explains: "these modifiers need not be actual Reputations – they could as easily be due to looks, a supernatural aura, etc"

Reputation with -4 reaction has a basic cost of -20, so costing -10 could be due to 1/2 from treating "all animals, all the time" as a "large group" according to B27. By comparison something like "everyone but the French" is 2/3, excluding all humans is a smaller group.

The -1 to Animal Empaths (base -5, would cost 1/3 rounded down to -1 point quirk for a "small class" like "all literate people in 12th century england) might fall under "so small that, in the GM’s opinion, you would not meet even one in the average adventure, your reputation isn’t worth points" rule. As might "people who see animals react to you", because that would probably require some kind of perception check.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Plane

I'd prefer "Disgusts Animals" since negative reaction rolls don't inherently create Fright Checks, as "Frightens" in name implies in contrast to description of function.

I'd disagree that "frightens" always suggests "roll on the Fright Check table". A Fright Check is basically a reaction to a quick shock, an instant source of fear. But lots of types of fear don't cause the effects suggested by the Fright Check table, the sort of "frozen for a few seconds, possible disadvantages later from stress" thing. Fear responses to other sorts of stimuli can, indeed, be things like aggression and defensiveness, exactly the sort of thing I'd model with negative reaction modifiers. So I don't think that "Frightens Animals" is particularly in-apt as a name - it's describing why animals tend to have a negative reaction to you.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

The effect of Frightens Animals on the affected animals isn't necessarily "driven off", though.

Yes, a lot of animals react to fear with aggression. "This thing threatens me, attack!" I mean it's right there in the first sentence of the disad:

Animals react to you with fear and aggression.

In the case of my Character, as I mentioned, it hasn't come up as all the animals we tend to encounter are already attacking. Or... hmmm... maybe they're attacking because of my Character, I hadn't considered that possibility before.

Mostly I see it as a -1 to doing business In Town as any town animals react badly and thus those who witness this will be summarily of the mindset "There is something wrong with him".


In my Character's case it's an Elder Thing thing.