[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Delusions

[johndallman]

Delusions [-5 to -15] is a mundane mental disadvantage. You believe something that isn’t true, at least as far as the society around you knows. This is likely to cause people to believe that you’re insane, a heretic, or just very confused: these social effects give the disadvantage part of its value. The rest comes from its effects on your behaviour. This disadvantage dates from GURPS 1e, and has not changed much since then.

[-5] delusions are obvious to anyone if the subject comes up, and cause them to react to you at -1. Apart from that, you still seem like a normal member of society. [-10] delusions strongly affect your behaviour and give -2 to reactions, but you can still function in society as an eccentric. [-15] delusions risk making you unable to function in society, or the campaign (not the same thing), and need to be cleared with the GM before you take them. They give -3 to reactions, but usually cause pity or fear, rather than starting fights. There’s a limit of [-40] points from delusions, but it would take some doing to have that many and still be sane enough to relate to a campaign. Quirk-level delusions are also possible, but are just quirks.

A GM can decide that a delusion is true, if they can fit it into the campaign plausibly, and want to challenge the characters’ world-view. If this happens, it has to be bought off once the other players accept it as true, but that doesn’t mean that the character who had it was sane all along. Delusions don’t have self-control rolls, and must be role-played. There are a few rules where a self-control roll is needed, and then it defaults to 12 or less in the usual way.

Delusions are useful as attacks if you can implant them, via Mind Control with the Conditioning enhancement, or various kinds of magic. They also go very well with Paranoia, and like other forms of mental instability, can be genetically engineered, usually without being able to specify what kind of mental instability will happen. The right combination of Delusions and Obsession essentially turns into Fanaticism.

Horror has plenty on this disadvantage, including False Memories and Untrue Beliefs, which don’t involve reaction penalties, and delusions as symptoms of insanity. Madness Dossier has lots of scope for Delusions, acquired in many ways, including medical treatment. Martial Arts covers delusions about combat abilities, and Power-Ups 6 has the Delusional Competence quirk. Back to School covers removing delusions via study, or inculcating them while teaching.

Delusions aren’t especially common on published templates, but there are a few good ones, and more examples: “I’m immortal in my car” “How the (civilized) world works,” “Radiation is good for you,” “Master is capable,” “I will control the heavens,” “This realm and its people aren’t real,” “The supernatural is so much hogwash,” “The supernatural is everywhere,” “I’m just fine,” “The doctors did this to me,” “I’m immortal when I’m carrying a notepad” (or camera, microphone, etc.), “All tales of the occult are true” (or false), “I am rightwise King of England,” “This urn will resurrect me,” “I’m not dead,” “I am an alien,” “I am a god,” “I’m a real human” and “I’m a zombie.”

The only delusion I’ve ever played was in the Weird War II campaign, “This war still has trench fronts” [-5]. That wasn’t crazy at the start of the war, and it was possible to rationalise the departures from it for quite a while, but I eventually had to buy it off.

What Delusions have you see in play, apart from delusions of competence?

[Empada]

I made a PC who have 2 delusions of -5 each.
"I'm the Dragonborn (or the choosen one)"
"cats are mages observing me."
I also bought fear of cats.

[dcarson]

I had a player in a campaign I was running take the Delusion that squirrels were plotting against people. I had without knowing he was going to take this made the first arc in the campaign (a magic returns modern day) be that a reincarnated druid was using squirrels to help him steal a artifact for the small museum on campus. Made things amusing.

[Phantasm]

I've used "Delusion (I have Fourth Wall Powers!)" from time to time, complete with "$char turns to speak right into the camera" in-play. It's usually a -10 pointer.

It's also usually a "true" delusion, but one that's fun to play regardless of whether it's true or not.

[Fred Brackin]

I once made a character for a player who couldn't be there for chargen. He ended up with a character like Jayne from Firefly who had IQ 8 and the Delusion "I'm not as dumb as I look."

[TGLS]

I kind of wonder how much clearly delusional behavior, that is true, but hard to prove would be worth.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by TGLS

I kind of wonder how much clearly delusional behavior, that is true, but hard to prove would be worth.

The truth or falsity of the Delusion is less important than how stupidly the character reacts to it. I've got an example in an adventure seed for a planet write-up. A certain character has the Delusion "Lifelike robots are posing as humans among us." This was in fact true but that he reacted to his belief by wandering the city and sticking people in the buttocks with a long sharp pin to see if he could draw blood meant he was still very, very nuts.

[Bruno]

Definitely the characters investment in the belief and reaction to it is key; Delusions are largely "behavior that makes other people react poorly to you" or "behavior that makes you do non-productive or outright self-destructive things", or a combination of the two.

The key point being "behavior".

If you believe there are androids disguised as humans and hiding among us, but you don't really care ("Anything with authentic human-like appearance and behavior might as well be human") might be a mere Quirk if it occasionally comes up in conversation (and people give you funny looks). If you only ever mention your belief in philosophy debates about p-zombies, it might not even count as a Quirk.

If you insist on talking to people about it ("I think James is one of those androids") or you make bad decisions based on it (You hand James something dangerously hot/heavy/whatever without warning because you think he's one of those androids and will be safe from it) that's more substantial. David Johnston2's example of poking people with pins to test their humanity is another one - that's anti-social, and people will react badly to you for it. People would react badly enough to you even without knowing the reason for your pin-sticking that I'm not sure your motivation would actually matter to them.

Delusion differs in this regard from Compulsive Behavior or Odious Personal Habit in that both CB and OPH represent one set, rigid behavioral problem that is either time consuming or obnoxious, whereas Delusion can spawn a fluid and shifting complex of bad choices that are obnoxious or counter-productive (which could include time consuming stuff).

"Wears a Tin Foil Hat" could be an OPH - fundamentally you might be doing it because of a delusion, but if the only manifestation of the delusion is persistently wearing a Tin Foil Hat in inappropriate situations, it's an OPH. "Alien scientists are studying my mind" is a delusion, and can manifest in many ways - tin foil hats, unnerving conversations with people about your problem with the aliens, asking the staff at the hardware store about the best alien mind-reading ray blocking materials, occasionally stopping to yell at the aliens to leave you alone, etc.

[Otaku]

Delusions are ultimately about a combination of reaction penalty and/or counterproductive behaviors undertaking due to believing something that is simply is not, correct?

If this isn't one of those times when I'm utterly wrong about what GURPS intends by the Disadvantage, feel free to try and clear this up for me. XP Otherwise, this leads into my official "questions":

First, what all needs to happen for a character to be required to completely buy off a true Delusion? How do you handle it when anyone learns another's Delusion isn't a Delusion?

Second, I've often had a hard time with how I should handle the overriding beliefs associated with core worldviews in my settings. As a person with strong ideas on religion, politics, economics, etc. it can be hard to enjoy the game if it keeps turning into "Everything you believe is wrong!". I'm now wondering if I, were I to GM a campaign where such things ought to affect character behavior, it would be prudent to have everyone treat them - mechanically - as Delusions. Then, as GM, I would make sure such Delusions are only challenged if directly vital to the game.

If I apply it across the board, it helps preserve some of the mystery of what is real in the game world, and simplifies what might be otherwise complicated "religion" builds that might otherwise require using all five Quirks. If this sounds half-baked... it is. I just thought about handling it this way, so if the answer is "Well, duh. We've known to do this/not do this for the last 20 years"... my bad. XP

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Delusions are ultimately about a combination of reaction penalty and/or counterproductive behaviors undertaking due to believing something that is simply is not, correct?

As I understand it, yes.

Originally Posted by Otaku

First, what all needs to happen for a character to be required to completely buy off a true Delusion? How do you handle it when anyone learns another's Delusion isn't a Delusion?

Sadly, I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all rule for this. It depends on what the Delusion is, and how severe it is. How the character fells about it is as important as how the rest of the game world feels.

A quirk should probably be bought off when it's discovered to be true.

A [-5] Delusion might be bought off, or it might turn into a [-5] Odious Personal Habit (Smug about being right all the time).

[-10] or [-15] Delusions involve a certain amount of being crazy. People who go on and on about things that are (nowadays) accepted to be true certainly have a disadvantage, it just isn't a Delusion. It may be an Odious Personal Habit or an Obsession, or maybe Compulsive Behaviour. It may be the same value, or less, or it might turn into Fanaticism, or a different Delusion (e.g., The Illuminati hid the truth for years!).

So it I reckon it depends on what the character, the player, and the GM think, and how the Delusion has been played.