Secret - lose a hand

[Anders]

People in my setting don't really believe in prisons, thinking them expensive and preferring the "chop off bits" approach to law enforcement. This causes a slight problem with pricing the Secret disadvantage, as "lopping of a hand" isn't on the list. Tentatively I've priced it at -15 - the same as One Hand - but I want to know what you think?

And there's no easy way to regrow limbs in the setting. Magic isn't that common or powerful.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Anders

People in my setting don't really believe in prisons, thinking them expensive and preferring the "chop off bits" approach to law enforcement. This causes a slight problem with pricing the Secret disadvantage, as "lopping of a hand" isn't on the list. Tentatively I've priced it at -15 - the same as One Hand - but I want to know what you think?

Well...

Originally Posted by Characters, p. 152

There is also a
lasting effect: you suddenly acquire
new, permanent disadvantages – or
lose advantages – worth points equal
to twice what the Secret was worth!

...so if the outcome of the secret being revealed is just losing a hand, the price would probably be something like -8 points. However, if there are also lasting social consequences, those will raise the cost of the disad.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Well...

...so if the outcome of the secret being revealed is just losing a hand, the price would probably be something like -8 points. However, if there are also lasting social consequences, those will raise the cost of the disad.

There almost certainly would be a Social Stigma associated with being a handless person and therefore presumably a criminal.

[RyanW]

Is justice so efficient that it skips straight from Secret to One Hand, or would it actually be Enemy (Bounty hunters, constables, and/or agents of the wronged parties)?

[Gedrin]

I'm pretty sure it goes like this:

Secret: Hand Lopping Offender
to
Enemy: Bounty Hunters and The Law (to chop off hand)
to
Secret: Cop Killer
to
Enemy: Bounty Hunters and The Law (dead or alive)

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

I'm pretty sure it goes like this:

Secret: Hand Lopping Offender
to
Enemy: Bounty Hunters and The Law (to chop off hand)
to
Secret: Cop Killer
to
Enemy: Bounty Hunters and The Law (dead or alive)

Or, depending on how skilled you and they are:
Secret: Hand Lopping Offender
to
Enemy: Bounty Hunters and The Law (to chop off hand)
to
One Hand [-15], Social Stigma (Handless criminal) [-10], Social Status -1 [-5]

[Flyndaran]

I doubt the secret is that he lost a hand. It's why he lost it.
Perhaps his secret is a believable backstory explaining the loss.

Add some scars to the stump and say it got bitten off by a wild bear.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I doubt the secret is that he lost a hand. It's why he lost it.
Perhaps his secret is a believable backstory explaining the loss.

I think you're reading it wrong, it isn't Secret (I lost a hand), it's Secret (I did something for which I would lose a hand).

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I think you're reading it wrong, it isn't Secret (I lost a hand), it's Secret (I did something for which I would lose a hand).

Oh, okay. I see now how I misread this whole thread. I claim not having eaten before posting.

But as the secret's value gets doubled, then coming up with a price for said secret depends on what the character would lose... including the hand.

A giant stigma at least.

[Anthony]

It's an interesting problem how the 'severity of consequences' and 'difficulty of avoiding consequences' interact. On the one side, if you're currently dodging alimony payments that are equivalent to a 2p debt, it's probably not worth more than 1p whether you're being hunted by a single 100p PI or the Galactic Empire. On the other hand, if you're being hunted by a comedy villain worth 25% of your character points, it doesn't really matter if his goal is to cut off your hand or cut off your head, since either way he's not likely to achieve his goal. In general, avoiding threat X which, if not avoided, applies consequence Y cannot be a bigger disadvantage than automatically suffering Y, nor can it be a bigger disadvantage than avoiding X when not avoiding X utterly destroys you and everything you care about. However, it's difficult to price something like this. One pricing would be something like (S*D)/(S+D), where S is the point value of severity of what you're avoiding, and D is the point value of the difficulty of avoiding it. In this case, the severity is 'lose hand, gain social stigma' and the difficulty is dependent on whatever sort of action you might need to take to avoid consequences; if they're both worth 25, final value is (25*25)/(25+25) or 12.5.