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Old 04-26-2010, 01:03 AM   #1
Daigoro
 
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Default De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

I've had a bit of trouble playing a character with Cannot Kill.

Not doing anything likely to kill someone, and trying to prevent companions killing, is fine and leads to some fun party tension. But sometimes accidents happen (well, more than sometimes) and the result is another body on the floor. When this happens, you have to play "morose and useless" for 3d days, so an average of 10 days. That's often 10-20 gaming sessions where you have to act depressed.

The first time it happens is okay- your character hits the booze, doesn't want to adventure, etc. But the 3rd or 4th time it happens it gets to be a bit of a drag.

People could argue that Pacifism is fine, just not appropriate for a certain character or type of campaign, but in this case I want to keep it as it suits this character and his background, at least for the time being (it may become appropriate to buy it off later).

Of course, Pacifism is a disadvantage, so it has to be disadvantageous. So there's the limit on available courses of action in a given situation, which is disadvantageous. Then there's the penalty for disobeying or transgressing that limit, which is a bit crippling.

Perhaps the penalty could be swapped out, instead of Depression:

- Berserk/Bloodlust: Paradoxically, the character totally loses it when he kills someone.
- OPH: Sobbing and brow-beating and very vocal self-recrimination for a period.
- Obsession: You must make amends, to the victim's widow or family, with a large sum of money, or a period of service (although this can also restrict adventuring).
- Mild Neurological Disorder: Representing a physical shock reaction.
- Low Empathy/No Sense of Humour/Oblivious, maybe Callous: To represent some kind of withdrawal or personality suppression.

If the penalty is represented by a different disad, what point cost should it nominally be? Another -15pt disad, or something worse?
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Old 04-26-2010, 01:15 AM   #2
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

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Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
If the penalty is represented by a different disad, what point cost should it nominally be? Another -15pt disad, or something worse?
well, a Secret once revealed turns into disads worth double the value, so take that as a guideline? Cannot Kill temporarily replaced with -30 points worth of suitable disadvantages, until you regain your cool and go back to Cannot Kill?

Still, not sure how hard it is not to kill people.
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Old 04-26-2010, 01:41 AM   #3
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

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well, a Secret once revealed turns into disads worth double the value, so take that as a guideline? Cannot Kill temporarily replaced with -30 points worth of suitable disadvantages, until you regain your cool and go back to Cannot Kill?
That might be a step on the right track, although in this case the limit on action remains in place during the penalty (except for the Bloodlust case).
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Old 04-26-2010, 01:56 AM   #4
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

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But sometimes accidents happen (well, more than sometimes) and the result is another body on the floor.
There's your problem. Either your character is insufficiently careful to be playable with that disadvantage, or the campaign is too violent and bloody for the disadvantage ever to be playable. Fiddling about with the disadvantage is almost certainly missing the point.

("The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves...")
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Old 04-26-2010, 04:32 AM   #5
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

Perhaps that is true, however-

1) The campaign needs to have some risk or dilemma of needing to kill someone come up regularly, otherwise it's a free disadvantage.

2) What sort of campaign would it be interesting or appropriate to spend 10 sessions being morose and useless? Some campaigns may have a faster pace, where 10 days pass in a couple of sessions, but in my experience action time passes at an average of a session per day game-time, with possible lengthy intervals of non-action.
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Old 04-26-2010, 04:49 AM   #6
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

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1) The campaign needs to have some risk or dilemma of needing to kill someone come up regularly, otherwise it's a free disadvantage.
Maybe you'd be better off with Dislikes Killing [-1]?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
2) What sort of campaign would it be interesting or appropriate to spend 10 sessions being morose and useless? Some campaigns may have a faster pace, where 10 days pass in a couple of sessions, but in my experience action time passes at an average of a session per day game-time, with possible lengthy intervals of non-action.
It's never interesting to lose game time, that's why it's a big honkin' 15-point Disadvantage. Cannot Kill is appropriate in a campaign that doesn't feature frequent violence (but is still worth the -15 points, because it cuts off a very fast and useful problem-solving option from the pragmatic player's point of view... even more useful than normal in a peaceful setting, because nobody's expecting it)
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Old 04-26-2010, 05:12 AM   #7
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

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Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
But sometimes accidents happen (well, more than sometimes) and the result is another body on the floor. When this happens, you have to play "morose and useless" for 3d days, so an average of 10 days. That's often 10-20 gaming sessions where you have to act depressed.
This only happens if YOU kill, or feel responsible for the death.

If you did your best to convince you're party not to kill and they did it anyway, that should create conflict, but it shouldn't send you into a depression.

It seems to me that it's pretty easy to avoid killing someone in GURPS, unless enemies are making all of their HT rolls for consciousness and fighting when any reasonable person would surrender.

As a pacifist, you'd have to accept their surrender, or call an ambulence for an unconscious person, but as long as you end the beating and don't run around with a deadly weapon, you should be fine.

The 3d days of uselessness should be a VERY rare occurance, perhaps once a campaign, IME.
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Old 04-26-2010, 05:35 AM   #8
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

I don't understand how someone can accidentally kill like that. If your character is a construction worker manning the controls of the crane when something horrible happens, that probably qualifies as accidentally killing someone (and 3d days of being morose seems appropriate in response too), but it isn't going to happen 'more than sometimes'. That kind of accident is unlikely to ever happen more than once, and the guy who was at the controls is likely to become noticably more cautious. (It's the sort of event that could be used to justify the quirk 'careful'.)

Can you give an example of how an accident could happen "more than sometimes" that leaves bodies on the floor? The forum will know more about how to tailor the disadvantage (or even if tailoring the disadvantage is appropriate at all; it may just not suit the campaign) if we know what we're talking about.
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Old 04-26-2010, 05:49 AM   #9
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

A character morally opposed to killing under any circumstances should be finding a new line of work if in the course of normal work conditions killing often occurs...

If the character is forced into this line of work by circumstnaces, I think the depression is justified... To treat his new depression, alcoholism or womanizing or some kind of compulsive messed up behavior seems appropriate. Nervous breakdown. Midlife crisis. Etc.

If the life he leads makes his become more callous, buy down pacifism cannot kill to reluctant killer and consider yourself happy.
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Old 04-26-2010, 06:16 AM   #10
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Default Re: De-nerfing Pacifism: Cannot Kill

I should imagine you could play some fairly active campaigns with this disadvantage - even a realistic police campaign.
The vast majority of police (for example) don't kill someone from one year's end to the next and might well be disturbed if the did end up with a fatality.
A martial arts campaign, even a cinematic one, might have a very low fatality count as well.

It's certainly do-able.
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