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Old 10-19-2018, 08:21 AM   #1
johndallman
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Default [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

Frightens Animals [-10] is a supernatural mental disadvantage, although I think “spiritual” might be a better description for the classic reasons for having it. It makes a common idea about unnaturalness into a concrete disadvantage, which appeared during the GURPS 3e period, although I’m not sure just where.

All reaction rolls to you by animals are made at -4, generally biased towards fear and aggression. People who see this happening react to you at -1, as do people with Animal Empathy, even if they don’t see how animals treat you. If you need to deal with guards or police who are partnered with dogs, they handle you based on the animal’s reaction roll, not their own. If you have this disadvantage because you’re a vampire, lycanthrope or something else that you keep secret, observers get +1 on rolls to deduce it.

This isn’t a common disadvantage on published templates, but it shows up on a few. DF demonologists, elementalists, incanters, mentalists, necromancers and wizards can have it, and Astral Things, ghosts and Elder-Spawn always do; it’s a bad idea in Wilderness Adventures. Horror has several things with this disadvantage, and Magical Styles: Dungeon Magic several schools of magic that tend to suffer from it. There’s a Monster Hunters template that always has this disadvantage, which also shows up as an opponent, and there’s a quirk-level version, to affect a specific type of animal. Zombies, unnaturally enough, often suffer from this disadvantage.

If you have this disadvantage for supernatural reasons, buying it off without changing your nature is probably impossible. However, I could imagine people having this disadvantage for mundane reasons. For example, people from an artificial environment who’d never encountered any animals and were frightened by them could have this disadvantage, and would be able to buy it off with time and exposure to animals.

I’ve never used this disadvantage on a PC, or formally as a GM, although I expect I’ve used the “your horses are uneasy” image a few times. Has it been important in your games?
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Old 10-19-2018, 08:52 AM   #2
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

I had a character once with Alternate Form. The combat oriented secondary form had FA, so whenever our camp was attacked at night, we had to go searching for our pack mule afterwards.
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Old 10-19-2018, 11:32 AM   #3
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
However, I could imagine people having this disadvantage for mundane reasons. For example, people from an artificial environment who’d never encountered any animals and were frightened by them could have this disadvantage, and would be able to buy it off with time and exposure to animals.
I think that bit may have got turned around somewhere ... presumably specific animals could be raised and/or trained not to fear you. The only mundane reason that I could imagine might be if there was some scent based thing that made you smell alien and frightening. Specific clothing might also have this effect - either the very garish or the unnaturally stealthy ... perhaps some kind of holographic camo that works well on humans but looks really weird to anything else?

Presumably there may be limitations applicable, based on accessibility so that you only frighten (or don't' frighten) specific species or clades... so a werewolf might frighten most herbivores (or most mammals) but canids might have a neutral or positive reaction (or not, depending on the lore). I also find it hard to imagine some things - like insects or some of the more single minded lower predators like sharks or crocodiles - being meaningfully scared by anything. Presumably anything that went that far back up the tree would be extremely supernatural.
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Old 10-19-2018, 11:42 AM   #4
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Presumably there may be limitations applicable, based on accessibility so that you only frighten (or don't' frighten) specific species or clades... so a werewolf might frighten most herbivores (or most mammals) but canids might have a neutral or positive reaction (or not, depending on the lore). I also find it hard to imagine some things - like insects or some of the more single minded lower predators like sharks or crocodiles - being meaningfully scared by anything. Presumably anything that went that far back up the tree would be extremely supernatural.

Sharks and crocodiles certainly know fear. Sharks grew up in the ocean, which is a world where everybody eats everybody else. They show less of it when faced with things smaller than them, but they certainly know fear. This is less true of crocodiles, but they still have predators when they're small. Also, Sharks and Crocodiles are among the smartest fish and reptiles, respectively. Larger animals tend to be smarter, and sharks and crocodiles aren't particularly close cladistically to the rest of fish or reptiles.



I'm not sure how much of a discount I'd give for everything but one group. This is a disadvantage, not an advantage, which means its trickier to price it. And there are situations where a character scares only one kind of animal, like spiders.
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Old 10-19-2018, 11:44 AM   #5
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
I think that bit may have got turned around somewhere ... presumably specific animals could be raised and/or trained not to fear you. The only mundane reason that I could imagine might be if there was some scent based thing that made you smell alien and frightening.
Not actually turned around. Many animals react badly to people who are frightened of them. I have a visceral dislike of dogs, and most of them regard me as an enemy, but only once I've noticed them,
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Old 10-19-2018, 12:31 PM   #6
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

Being frightening to all animals is probably supernatural for the simple reason that different animals care about different things, and it's hard to come up with something broad enough to bother all animals without being equally annoying to humans, but in practice most of the value comes from being annoying to dogs and horses.
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Old 10-19-2018, 02:22 PM   #7
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

Mechanically I see this as Generic Reaction Penalty -4, Animals Only (-50%). It's so specific that it feels like cruft from previous editions.

I could see adding this to a template for certain classes of supernatural being, but I can't see putting it on a character. (Mind you, most of the games I run or play in feature animals very rarely anyway.)
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Old 10-19-2018, 02:30 PM   #8
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

It sometimes gets put on robot templates as well.
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Old 10-20-2018, 12:03 AM   #9
evileeyore
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

I've currently got it on a Character and it very rarely comes up... but then it's a DF Megadungeon campaign and all of the animals we've encountered are antagonistic already.
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Old 10-20-2018, 07:19 AM   #10
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Frightens Animals

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Frightens Animals [-10] is a supernatural mental disadvantage, although I think “spiritual” might be a better description for the classic reasons for having it.
"Mental" is a technical term here (capital-M Mental). It indicates that when you have a disassociation of your mind and body, the trait goes with your mind. So if you Frighten Animals and swap bodies with me, you will still Frighten Animals in my body, and I won't Frighten Animals in your body. Physical traits are the opposite, and stick with your flesh (Extra Arms don't follow you body swapping, for example).
Social traits are traits that go with your identity: When you are disguised as someone else, you don't have proper access to them, and someone else can impersonate you to "steal" them.

GURPS has a tendency to assume a separable mind and body, and in as much as it addresses "spirit", "spirit" seems to be pretty tightly bound to the mind.
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