How long can someone hold an object in Gurps

[Stormcrow]

What rule is there that requires you hold the gadget for it to work? Are you just imposing this on yourself? If there's no rule, you could just say the gadget works when it's possessed or worn rather than necessarily held.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by cupbearer

hi

how long can you concentrate for? is there a rule on this?

I don't think there's a specific rule, and indeed the fact mages can do Slow and Sure Enchantment at all - which basically requires 8 hours of uninterrupted concentration each day - implies there's no limit. If you want there to be some sort of limit, GURPS: Tactical Shooting, page 33, states maintaining Condition Orange (Focused) for threat recognition is tiring, requiring a Will roll every 10 minutes, with failure burning up 1 FP. Maintaining the Concentrate Maneuver (which I feel is more intense than normal concentration) would likely be similar (indeed, you're arguably doing just that with Condition Orange, using Concentrate to avoid the "free action" penalty to perception), so use those rules.

[cupbearer]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't think there's a specific rule, and indeed the fact mages can do Slow and Sure Enchantment at all - which basically requires 8 hours of uninterrupted concentration each day - implies there's no limit. If you want there to be some sort of limit, GURPS: Tactical Shooting, page 33, states maintaining Condition Orange (Focused) for threat recognition is tiring, requiring a Will roll every 10 minutes, with failure burning up 1 FP. Maintaining the Concentrate Maneuver (which I feel is more intense than normal concentration) would likely be similar (indeed, you're arguably doing just that with Condition Orange, using Concentrate to avoid the "free action" penalty to perception), so use those rules.

interesting. that seems too harsh. someone suggested the rule in powers for long term power use, which is basically 1 fp per hour. im tempted to use this.

[cupbearer]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

What rule is there that requires you hold the gadget for it to work? Are you just imposing this on yourself? If there's no rule, you could just say the gadget works when it's possessed or worn rather than necessarily held.

yes i am imposing it.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by cupbearer

interesting. that seems too harsh. someone suggested the rule in powers for long term power use, which is basically 1 fp per hour. im tempted to use this.

It's not as harsh as it sounds - for an average person with Will 10, it works out to around 3 FP per hour (6 rolls per hour, fail 50% of them). For a moderately heroic character with Will 12, it works out to around 1.5 FP per hour (6 rolls, fail around 26% of them). For a notably willful person with Will 14, it works out to around 0.5 FP per hour (6 rolls, fail around 9% of them). The bonuses related to Single-Minded, Focused, or Attentive would probably apply, allowing characters with one of those traits to get by with a lesser amount of will.

Still, 1 FP per hour also works well here, and has the added bonus of not requiring any rolls.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by cupbearer

Hi

Ive made a gadget that grants the advantage decreased food consumption (or whatever it is called

While you hold it you only need one meal per week. The problem is in reality its really hard to hold onto something 24 hours a day, which seems to make it impractical, so my question is how long can you hold something, is there a rule in GURPS that answers this question?

I don't know about GURPS, but if it's an important item, I can hold it all day, and sometimes even while sleeping. If armpits, mouth, chin, thighs, knees, or buttocks count for holding, it could easily be held 24x7 in various ways. If this is needed to stave off starvation, someone might easily devise ways to use ace bandages or leather thongs to force hands or other body parts closed on the item during sleep.

[Purple Snit]

I think the real question here is, why create a gadget that does something, and then make it so that it requires pages of rule discussions to use it? Is it intended as a cursed or deliberately inconvenient object? Is it meant to be part of a greater challenge to possess it or survive in your game? Otherwise, just make it into a ring, a pair of socks, or a monocle, and eliminate the "how do you hold it when asleep?/how can I zap strap in to my butt?" arguments.

[Evil Roy Slade]

Originally Posted by Culture20

If this is needed to stave off starvation, someone might easily devise ways to use ace bandages or leather thongs to force hands or other body parts closed on the item during sleep.

We're getting back to the early days of tabletop RPGs here with a magical phylactery.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Purple Snit

why create a gadget that does something, and then make it so that it requires pages of rule discussions to use it?

I don't think the rules would be created just for that particular thing, but to anything you'd need to hold onto to keep active.

Originally Posted by Purple Snit

Is it intended as a cursed or deliberately inconvenient object?
Is it meant to be part of a greater challenge to possess it or survive in your game?
Otherwise, just make it into a ring, a pair of socks, or a monocle, and eliminate the "how do you hold it when asleep?/how can I zap strap in to my butt?" arguments.

Conceptually, sometimes you just want something to be a staff or a book, a holdable item, rather than a worn piece of jewelry.

It's -30% whether it's a DX contest (worn items) or a ST contest (held items) in basic rules, and probably that's supposed to balance out somehow. A wand doesn't leave you with a free hand, while a ring/amulet does, so I'm not sure exactly how it balances.

Originally Posted by Varyon

mages can do Slow and Sure Enchantment at all - which basically requires 8 hours of uninterrupted concentration each day - implies there's no limit.

Requiring 8 hours uninterrupted concentration doesn't necessarily mean that 8 hours uninterrupted concentration is easy.

M19 mentions "A Slow and Sure Enchantment can be disrupted easily by organizing a distraction." but M18's pink box makes it clear you can take a break to step away and cast other spells while doing this, albeit at the -3 penalty for having to concentrate to maintain a spell.

Originally Posted by Varyon

If you want there to be some sort of limit, GURPS: Tactical Shooting, page 33, states maintaining Condition Orange (Focused) for threat recognition is tiring, requiring a Will roll every 10 minutes, with failure burning up 1 FP. Maintaining the Concentrate Maneuver (which I feel is more intense than normal concentration) would likely be similar (indeed, you're arguably doing just that with Condition Orange, using Concentrate to avoid the "free action" penalty to perception), so use those rules.

That sounds fair. If I was using Last Gasp, maybe could rework that as using 1 Action Point per minute? Although that would let them get it back by reverting to a Do Nothing a second or two...

Given how the "10 minutes to lose" rate matches the "10 minutes to restore" for normal FP rules, maybe it might instead work like 1 AP/turn on a failure.

Kind of strange how a Will roll mitigates this rather than a HT roll though. I thought Will was more about keeping focused despite fatigue, not avoiding the fatigue that focus causes.