[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Fat, Overweight, Skinny and Very Fat

[johndallman]

Fat [-3], Overweight [-1], Skinny [-5] and Very Fat [-5] are all mundane physical disadvantages, relating to above- or below-average body weight for strength. Fat and Very Fat date from GURPS 1e, and Skinny and Overweight from 3e. They changed significantly at 4e, when extra weight ceased to count as encumbrance, which made handling higher or lower gravity rather complicated.

Basic p. 18 gives suggested ranges of height for different levels of ST, and ranges of weight for average bodyweight, plus all of these disadvantages. You aren’t actually required to take one of these disadvantages if you qualify for it; that’s a player option. Another option is altering Basic Move upwards for Skinny, and downwards for excess weight; see p. 19. Being Skinny or Fat requires you to pay an extra 10% for clothing and armour, or 20% for Very Fat; Overweight doesn’t impose this penalty because it’s commonplace in many settings. Being Overweight or heavier also qualifies you for a single level of Increased Consumption, if you want it.

Skinny gives you -2 to ST for resisting knockback, -2 to Disguise, and -2 to Shadowing when following someone in a crowd. Your maximum HT is limited to 14.

Overweight, Fat and Very Fat give you +1, +2 or +3 respectively to ST for resisting knockback; -1, -2 or -3 to Disguise, or Shadowing when following someone through a crowd, and +1, +3 or +5 to Swimming. Overweight does not limit your HT, but Fat limits it to 15 and Very Fat to 13.

All of these disadvantages are individual variations in build, based on human weights. Different species may well have different weight-to-ST ratios, possibly with a different SM. I reckon it’s plausibly possible to combine Fit with Overweight, although not Fat, but being Very Fit requires average build or Skinny.

These disadvantages are quite common options on templates for characters who aren’t athletic, or don’t get enough to eat; Sumo wrestlers are a special case, since resisting knockback is important for them. Templates for characters who obsess over hidden knowledge often have Skinny as an option. Discworld Trolls don’t get to claim disadvantages for being big, and Aliens: Sparrials are often Skinny. Bio-Tech uses these disadvantages as results of genetic problems, applies Skinny to making winged creatures, and has technology to prevent or control them. High-Tech has liposuction, and psychiatric medications with side-effects that include Overweight; Horror has more on that and a variety of Skinny creatures.

Low-Tech has rules for the size of hole adventurers need to climb through by build, and Magic has spells to change build – temporarily. Technical Grappling calculates “Grappling Encumbrance” using the extra weight from being overweight, and that sort of looks as if you should get negative encumbrance from Skinny. Monster Hunters has rules for how many bars you need to remove from a window, which are shared with Action and DF. There’s a quirk for BL/2 of intrinsic encumbrance in Power-Ups 6, and Powers: the Weird has weird radiation that can change your build. That could be useful in Underground Adventures, for getting through narrow spaces.

To the best of my memory, I’ve only ever used these disadvantages twice, in the same setting. A PC who’d become Overweight between WWI and WWII, but slimmed down once he was back in the army, and his daughter, who grew very tall and Skinny as a teenager, owing to undeveloped magical potential. She wanted to be an opera singer, and I felt it amusing to avoid the usual physical type for that.

Have these disadvantages carried weight in your games?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I used the mechanics of Fat to create a new physical disadvantage called Bulky to represent unwieldy body shapes such as snake- and spider-centaurs. It's probably not as simulationist as it could be.

[Icelander]

The absolute best use of Fat in a pen-and-paper RPG context; cast Shapechange on Duquesne.

"What shape do you choose for him?"
"Faaaat."
[...]
"How much?"
"Make him as fat as Fat Neil!"

[ericthered]

I see a lot of build shapes on my players. Its a disadvantage that you should at least consider every time you build a character, because people really do vary in size. I think I see skinny the most often, Perhaps because of modern weight stigmas and because it of pentaphilia.

[Bengt]

I don't understand why Fat etc are disadvantages, they give more bonuses than penalties, also a bonus is typically worth more points than the same penalty would give back.

[Pursuivant]

Canonically, Skinny doesn't represent being underweight due to starvation, but a naturally extremely thin build.

Likewise, Overweight, etc. don't factor in the major benefit of being fat - starvation resistance.

I think that this is a mistake, and that temporarily acquiring the Skinny disad should be part of the Starvation game mechanics, and that extra resistance to Starvation should be an occasional benefit of obesity.

Obesity and Starvation: Your fat (or your slow metabolism) protects you from starvation. If you are Overweight, whenever you miss a meal, you can roll vs. HT+2, at -1 per 3 missed meals. On a successful roll, you take no FP loss from the missed meal – you are still hungry, but your body isn’t affected. If you fail your roll by 5 or more, or on a critical failure, you drop to Average mass and must buy off the Overweight disadvantage.

If you are Fat, whenever you miss a meal, you can roll vs. HT+5, at -1 per 3 missed meals. On a successful roll, you take no FP loss from the missed meal – you are still hungry, but your body isn’t affected. If you fail your roll by 5 or more, or on a critical failure, you drop to Overweight mass and must partially buy off the Fat disadvantage.

If you are very Fat, whenever you miss a meal, you can roll vs. HT+10, at -1 per 3 missed meals. On a successful roll, you take no FP loss from the missed meal – you are still hungry, but your body isn’t affected. If you fail your roll by 5 or more, or on a critical failure, you drop to Fat and must partially buy off the Very Fat disadvantage.

If you are Skinny, if you miss a meal after spending FP on physical activities, you must roll vs. HT, at -1 per 3 missed meals, or lose HP due to starvation. If you make your roll, or if you miss a meal on a day when you don’t physically exert yourself, you take double the normal FP loss.

Additionally, following the game mechanics progression of Skinny, Overweight, Fat, and Very Fat, there could be three additional disadvantages:

Underweight (-1 point)
You are at the extreme low end of normal mass for your height. You must take the lowest possible mass for an Average build on the Build table. Your effective ST is reduced by -10% to resist knockback, to resist being picked up or moved or to “throw your weight around.” This also gives you -1 to Swimming rolls to stay afloat and to HT rolls to resist the effects of extreme cold. On the positive side, if you are a mammalian creature, you get a +1 bonus to resist Aging rolls if you have spent most of your life underweight.

If you miss a meal after spending FP on physical activities, roll vs. HT to avoid taking double the normal FP loss, at -1 per 3 missed meals. When you lose more than half of your FP score due to starvation, roll vs. HT, at -1 per missed meal. On a failed roll, you become Skinny.

Very Skinny (-10 points)
You are skeletally thin. You automatically have the minimum possible mass for your height under the Skinny line on the Build table, or half the normal weight for your height, whichever is less. This doubles knockback and reduces your effective ST by -30% to resist being picked up or moved or to “throw your weight around.” You get -3 to Disguise - or to Shadowing, if you are trying to follow someone in a crowd, -3 to Swimming rolls to stay afloat and -2 to HT rolls to resist the effects of extreme heat or cold.

Extremely Fat (-10 points)
You are at the extreme end of Very Fat. Your minimum mass is equal to the highest mass for your height on the Very Fat line of the Build table. At most, it is double that. You get -4 to Disguise - or to Shadowing, if you are trying to follow someone in a crowd. However, your extra fat gives you +6 to Swimming rolls, and a +40% bonus to ST to resist knockback, being picked up or moved or to “throw your weight around.” You get a +2 bonus to resist the effects of cold weather, but you suffer a -3 penalty to resist the effects of hot weather, -6 if you physically exert yourself. Your size makes it impossible for you to fit into places where a smaller person could easily go, such as doorways, corridors or the cockpits of most vehicles. Essentially, you have a limited form of the Inconvenient Shape disadvantage.

Your fat (or your slow metabolism) protects you from starvation. Whenever you miss a meal, you can roll vs. HT+20, at -1 per 3 missed meals. On a successful roll, you take no FP loss from the missed meal – you are still hungry, but your body isn’t affected. If you fail your roll by 5 or more, or on a critical failure, you drop to Very Fat and must partially buy off the Extremely Fat disadvantage.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Bengt

I don't understand why Fat etc are disadvantages, they give more bonuses than penalties, also a bonus is typically worth more points than the same penalty would give back.

It depends on the skills you use. Fat might be a desirable advantage for a sumo wrestler, not so much for a cat burglar or shadower.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

I used the mechanics of Fat to create a new physical disadvantage called Bulky to represent unwieldy body shapes such as snake- and spider-centaurs. It's probably not as simulationist as it could be.

limitation
Inconvient body position -10%

Fantasy or Sci Fi races may have 'tails or tails that can hold things etc'. But this is an inconvient place to have an extra arm. Trousers, pants, skirts, dresses and plus the problems with chairs (as opposed to stools), including car seats, bus seats or fair ground rides.

[Fossilized Rappy]

Bulky Frame from GURPS Power-Ups 6 and Thin Frame from Transhuman Space: Bioroid Bazaar seem like they're intended to be the quirk-level racial template versions of these disadvantages, or at least that's how I've interpreted them.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Fossilized Rappy

Bulky Frame from GURPS Power-Ups 6 and Thin Frame from Transhuman Space: Bioroid Bazaar seem like they're intended to be the quirk-level racial template versions of these disadvantages, or at least that's how I've interpreted them.

That was certainly the idea with the latter. Races (including engineered genotypes, android designs, etc.) can’t be Skinny by the rules, because Skinny is relative to racial norm — but Skinny has some specific effects on things like knockback. So one needs a racial feature that produces those same effects.

Arguably that’s a glitch in the rules. To fix in the 5th ed that’ll never happen.