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Old 03-26-2014, 04:55 AM   #31
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
I want this fixed. Am I missing something about Hidebounds implementation? Does anyone have some suggestions on how I can use that implementation to shape play at the table, rather than how someone builds their character? Or, barring that, any suggestions on how to change the implementation so it actually turns up in play?
Do it the Sagatafl way:
Write something like "Hidebound: You are mentally set in your way, and adverse to change and to all new things, finding them frightening and/or distasteful", then assign a base point value (-5 or -10 CP - I'd be leaning towards -10 because it's dangerous for adventurers to be like that), and slap a Self-Control Roll onto it. Easy peasy.

I do that with a bunch of mental hangups and barriers and so forth, so that these mental disads are more about specific irrationalities of the characters (when such a "disad" is "provoked", the character can either go with his inclination, or he can try to resist his inclination, the later represented by an "SC" roll), rather than spelled-out game mechanics in the form of plusses and minusses.

Makes it easier to slap down a bunch, so that the players will have something to choose between during character creation. They still need to be defined to reduce the risk of assumption clash, and my above definition isn't quite good enough - but it is a starting point for you to work on.
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Old 03-26-2014, 04:59 AM   #32
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
There is a rule in GURPS Social Engineering where you can use a Psychology roll to gain an advantage on a skill by figuring out another character's behavior. Hidebound seems like it could be used for this purpose: You figure out that the other character is Hidebound and you know you can influence their choices by framing them as "innovation vs. stability."
In certain situtions, Theology (Other Guy's Religion) should be able to do the same.
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Old 03-26-2014, 05:02 AM   #33
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by NineDaysDead View Post
Yes.
This statement doesn't follow from your first statement. People often enjoy doing hard things.
I might well be playing an IQ 20 PC who is much better at innovating than the average person, in spite of his -2 penalty from the disad.

No, slap a SCR onto it. It's not that innovation is hard for the character. It's that he's disinclined.

But, like John (and, I'm sure, several others on here), it's basically an alien phenomena to me.
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Old 03-26-2014, 05:03 AM   #34
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by Dwarf99 View Post
For me in my games, if you're the one with the nice original idea for getting out of the fix you're in, the players can't use it, because you can't tell them in game, and telling them out of game would be metagaming if they tried to use it.
Why is that metagaming? Why is it not one player helping another player roleplay his character more correctly?
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Old 03-26-2014, 05:12 AM   #35
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by DocRailgun View Post
It seems to me that only NPCs should have Hidebound. It's pretty much the opposite of being an adventurer (that is, a PC) of any stripe.
I'm sure I'll get around to adding something like Hidebound to Sagatafl's list of Flaws, eventually, and when I do I am very sure that it'll come with an attached warning: "This Flaw is ill-suited for adventurers, or for PCs in general".

Not saying players shouldn't be allowed to take it. Merely that they should be warned that it's usually a very bad idea, likely to inflict suck and frustration on the player out of proportion to the compensatory point value of the trait, if the campaign is going to feature much adventuring or intrigue, or other shenanigans.
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Old 03-26-2014, 05:18 AM   #36
NineDaysDead
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
I might well be playing an IQ 20 PC who is much better at innovating than the average person, in spite of his -2 penalty from the disad.
Yes, you might. You get the points back because you're not as good at innovating as a normal IQ 20 PC.

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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
No, slap a SCR onto it. It's not that innovation is hard for the character. It's that he's disinclined.
This statement doesn't follow from your first statement. It's that innovation is hard for the character, compared to someone of the same IQ.
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Old 03-26-2014, 05:33 AM   #37
Frost
 
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by SCAR View Post
For a Hidebound race, I would thing they would become their own stereotype.
They would at least behave in a highly ritualised way in any given situation, even if the race themselves don't see their behaviours as any kind of formal rituals - 'that's just how you solve this problem!'
I am not sure that it should be quite that crippling.

Hidebound doesn't automatically imply that they are neophobic (although quirk level neophobia might be partial justification for the trait) or that they are incapable of innovation merely that they find it difficult to innovate and that by implication are slow to accept new innovations.

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The Swarmer Warriors always charge into battle with blades, regardless of their opponents armament. Even after they've seen how badly that goes, they would try the same thing again next time.
Returning to this example the Swarmers behaviour is a great deal more sophisticated than this statement suggests.

The way I see it Swarmers are an old culture who give humans a run for their money on raw intelligence, in the case of the warriors this includes the ability to implement fairly complex tactical systems. Having said this these tactics boil down to a combination of possible choices from a menu of rote learned options and won't include novel tactics developed on the fly.

The same applies with the choice of weapons. In addition to the swords, knives and sickles that dominate the ritual warfare that warriors are most commonly engaged in swarmers employ a variety of projectile and beam weapons. But the swarmers tend to treat the more advanced weaponry as supplementary to the basics. Even going into pitched battles warriors tend to retain the blades and stunners they would use in ritual combat.

In addition to this when surprised they will tend to fall back on the ritual weapon regardless of its suitability.

I was toying with the idea of the roll specificaly as a way of modelling the tendency to fall back upon the most familiar option in particular situations. I wouldn't go as far as to use this approach as the default treatment of hidebound as Peter suggests. What Peters version appears to represent is full-blown neophobia i.e. you are capable of innovating or adopting new ideas but you, albeit unconsciously, choose not to. It is not a bad option for some characters but it isn't what hidebound is for it is and should be a completely different disadvantage.

Last edited by Frost; 03-26-2014 at 05:50 AM.
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Old 03-26-2014, 06:01 AM   #38
SCAR
 
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by Frost View Post
I am not sure that it should be quite that crippling.

Hidebound doesn't automatically imply that they are neophobic (although quirk level neophobia might be partial justification for the trait) or that they are incapable of innovation merely that they find it difficult to innovate and that by implication are slow to accept new innovations.


Returning to this example the Swarmers behaviour is a great deal more sophisticated than this statement suggests.

The way I see it Swarmers are an old culture who give humans a run for their money on raw intelligence, in the case of the warriors this includes the ability to implement fairly complex tactical systems. Having said this these tactics boil down to a combination of possible choices from a menu of rote learned options and won't include novel tactics developed on the fly.

The same applies with the choice of weapons. In addition to the swords, knives and sickles that dominate the ritual warfare that warriors are most commonly engaged in swarmers employ a variety of projectile and beam weapons. But the swarmers tend to treat the more advanced weaponry as supplementary to the basics. Even going into pitched battles warriors tend to retain the blades and stunners they would use in ritual combat.

In addition to this when surprised they will tend to fall back on the ritual weapon regardless of its suitability.

I was toying with the idea of the roll specificaly as a way of modelling the tendency to fall back upon the most familiar option in particular situations. I wouldn't go as far as to use this approach as the default treatment of hidebound as Peter suggests. What Peters version appears to represent is full-blown neophobia i.e. you are capable of innovating or adopting new ideas but you, albeit unconsciously, choose not to. It is not a bad option for some characters but it isn't what hidebound is for it is and should be a completely different disadvantage.
I almost certainly over simplified the scenarios, although the basic principles are exactly the same. The 'rituals' of a Hidebound race may be as simple or as complicated as their evolution has dictated.

If 2 members of the same Hidebound Race were to independently encounter the same scenario, they would react and behave in essentially the same way, based on their races previously established mechanisms (patterns/'rituals') for dealing with that particular scenario.
Those mechanisms may be extremely complicated and detailed, they may in fact be over complicated - involving many steps and actions which a non-Hidebound race might easily recognise as redundant - but the Hidebound race would follow their established patterns anyway.
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Old 03-26-2014, 06:14 AM   #39
Frost
 
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

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Originally Posted by SCAR View Post
If 2 members of the same Hidebound Race were to independently encounter the same scenario, they would react and behave in essentially the same way, based on their races previously established mechanisms (patterns/'rituals') for dealing with that particular scenario.
I would tend to agree with this. I would however substitute culture or group for race. They are not incapable of learning new things, however hard they find it and this will still breed a fairly wide degree of divergence over the entire species.

Differences between groups may even be more pronounced than in cultures without hidebound because the options used by any given group closely reflect their specific experiences.
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Old 03-26-2014, 06:27 AM   #40
Sunrunners_Fire
 
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Default Re: How is Hidebound a disadvantage?

Hidebound is ... two levels of an anti-talent that applies to an occasional adventuring activity, doesn't prohibit learning and doesn't include a reaction penalty.
Anti-Talent 2 (Can Learn Skills, -25%; No Reaction Penalty, -25%) [-5]

Are you looking to replace the existing mechanics or to add more?

Adding more mechanical bite to the disadvantage should increase its' value; the easiest way of doing that would be to treat it as an unmodified anti-talent -- adding back in the skill prohibition and the reaction penalty. Replacing it involves deciding if it penalizes attributes, skills, reaction rolls or imposes a self-control check. As a player, I'd push back on imposing a self-control check as Hidebound shouldn't be a hard compel but rather a soft compel like Code of Honor.
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