[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Unique

[johndallman]

Unique [-5] is an exotic disadvantage, notionally mental, but that just means you can’t escape it by swapping bodies. It is only relevant in campaigns featuring changes to history or time paradoxes, and it means that you’re “unlikely,” liable to vanish in such events. This disadvantage appeared in GURPS Time Travel for 3e.

All the descriptions of Unique emphasise that it is not appropriate for PCs, simply because if it ever comes up, you vanish from the game. This is not normally fun for the player. The Temporal Inertia advantage is the opposite: you always exist, no matter how much the world changes.

Unique plays differently in an alternate-worlds campaign, which won’t have alternate versions of you in different worlds (or if there is one, something unusually strange is happening). This deprives you of a potential ally, but means you’re “effectively Zeroed” in any world other than your own. About a decade ago, Kromm clarified Zeroed as an advantage that actively gets rid of records, which justifies [10]. However, I don’t see why this would necessarily apply to being effectively Zeroed owing to being from an alternate world. I’d run that situation with the Basic Set wording of Zeroed (which has not changed in the recent PDF update). Unique is, after all, a disadvantage, and should not become a powerful advantage just because you’re playing in a world-hopping campaign without reality quakes.

Unique as a disadvantage should not be confused with the gadget limitation of the same name, or with Unique Technique power-ups. Once you filter those out of a search, this disadvantage only shows up in one GURPS supplement, as far as I’ve discovered. Infinite Worlds has a +0% enhancement to it that makes it more playable, and that’s all.

I’ve never seen or used this disadvantage in a game, but I encountered a version of it in Alisdair Reynolds’ SF novel Redemption Ark. That’s a space-opera with no FTL, and interstellar travel via almost-speed-of-light ships and cold-sleep. To simplify a little, the antagonist uses knowledge from past civilisations to build inertia-suppressing systems for their ship, allowing them to get closer to c, but odd things start happening: “What happened to Jastrusiak?” “Who? Oh, he died years ago. Don’t you remember?” Fridge horror at its finest, but difficult to carry off in a game.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Unique [-5] is an exotic disadvantage, notionally mental, but that just means you can’t escape it by swapping bodies. It is only relevant in campaigns featuring changes to history or time paradoxes, and it means that you’re “unlikely,” liable to vanish in such events. This disadvantage appeared in GURPS Time Travel for 3e.

All the descriptions of Unique emphasise that it is not appropriate for PCs, simply because if it ever comes up, you vanish from the game. This is not normally fun for the player. The Temporal Inertia advantage is the opposite: you always exist, no matter how much the world changes.

Unique plays differently in an alternate-worlds campaign, which won’t have alternate versions of you in different worlds (or if there is one, something unusually strange is happening). This deprives you of a potential ally, but means you’re “effectively Zeroed” in any world other than your own. About a decade ago, Kromm clarified Zeroed as an advantage that actively gets rid of records, which justifies [10]. However, I don’t see why this would necessarily apply to being effectively Zeroed owing to being from an alternate world.

So is any illegal immigrant. But being one isn't a net advantage. The disadvantages outweigh the benefits. Fortunately a world hopper isn't really an immigrant and can usually leave before it becomes an issue. I'd actually describe "Unique" as just a physical quirk in world-hopping campaigns at most. Honestly having a local twin seems likely to produce as many problems as solutions.