Quirks: Vision

[whswhs]

I've been creating NPCs for my current GURPS Fantasy campaign, as one of the PCs is looking for a wife, and I want to introduce him to the prospects his mother has come up with. One of them is a member of the scribes' guild. I don't want to give her 25 points of Bad Sight, as that's a huge disad value; but it seems plausible that she would have some measure of nearsightedness, and it would give her something in common with the PC, who does have the full disadvantage.

This seems like a reasonable quirk: "Mild Nearsightedness" or the like. Any speculations on what would be a reasonable level of penalties and restrictions for this? It doesn't seem to be in PU: Quirks (though it does have other sensory quirks such as partial color blindness, so the concept seems legitimate), and I didn't do disads or quirks in Enhanced Senses.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Scribe in a fantasy world?

Spending years writing in delicate penmanship by candlelight ...

Quirk: Squints in light brighter than lantern-light. (-1 to all Vision rolls whenever lighting is normal or bright; visible squint makes features more noticable but not enough to cause Appearance penaties; people inclined to think she suffers from Bad Sight)

[Anthony]

A generic -1 to vision beyond 2 yards (probably representing -1 level of telescopic vision, so 20:40 vision) seems about right for a quirk.

[Kromm]

I've allowed a quirk that amounts to "If after all modifiers a Vision roll is at a net penalty, add another -1." So the modifiers go {. . ., +3, +2, +1, 0, -2, -3, -4, . . .} instead of {. . ., +3, +2, +1, 0, -1, -2, -3, . . .}. It means the person who has the quirk is no worse off than anyone else seeing nearby things in good lighting – or huge, obvious things not terribly far away – but doesn't do so well in situations that would make anybody squint. The quirk would also render Acute Vision and Night Vision taboo, though it could be stacked with Bad Sight; my real-life vision is a lot like this even with my glasses.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

A generic -1 to vision beyond 2 yards (probably representing -1 level of telescopic vision, so 20:40 vision) seems about right for a quirk.

Originally Posted by Kromm

I've allowed a quirk that amounts to "If after all modifiers a Vision roll is at a net penalty, add another -1." So the modifiers go {. . ., +3, +2, +1, 0, -2, -3, -4, . . .} instead of {. . ., +3, +2, +1, 0, -1, -2, -3, . . .}. It means the person who has the quirk is no worse off than anyone else seeing nearby things in good lighting – or huge, obvious things not terribly far away – but doesn't do so well in situations that would make anybody squint. The quirk would also render Acute Vision and Night Vision taboo, though it could be stacked with Bad Sight; my real-life vision is a lot like this even with my glasses.

These proposals seem to have comparable effects. I think I'll adopt the -1, and the limitation to situations where you have a penalty for range, smallness, and/or poor light. I think it would also make sense to have a -1 to ranged attacks (but no impairment of melee attacks), which amounts to multiplying effective range to targets x1.5; Ettu doesn't have any missile skills, but it's a logical effect for those who do. I think maybe I'll call it Poor Sight (Nearsighted).

Thanks!

[Humabout]

I wrote a blog post on more granular sensory traits here, if you're interested. The short of is that I figured it cost -2.5 per -1 to Vision for myopia, and less still if you have mitigator, too. In the end, it basically reduces to a quirk.

[coronatiger]

How about negative levels of Acute Vision?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by coronatiger

How about negative levels of Acute Vision?

Hard to reconcile with a specific form of Bad Vision giving you -6 for -25 points, when six negative levels of Acute Visions would give you -6 for -12 points.

[Mark Skarr]

I would use Kromm's rule, which is pretty awesome. Or, I would just adopt "Cosmetic Eyeglasses" from Power-Ups 6 Quirks, pg 13 (Power-Downs 1?). You don't actually wear glasses, so you can't lose them, but you also don't get the bonuses from people who like glasses.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Hard to reconcile with a specific form of Bad Vision giving you -6 for -25 points, when six negative levels of Acute Visions would give you -6 for -12 points.

Most of the point value of bad vision is for the DX penalties.