Basic Emotional Mechanics

AlexanderHowl · 12-03-2019, 08:04 AM

GURPS, like almost every tabletop RPG, tends to gloss over the mechanics associated with basic emotions. For the sake of simplicity, the eight basic emotions are anger, attraction, fear, hatred, joy, love, repulsion, and sorrow. While popular culture likes to create dualities, it is possible to combine each emotion with any of the other emotions, so we would consider the dualities only for mechanical reasons.

Mechanically, emotions should probably provide bonuses and penalties in specofic situations dependent on the duality. For example, anger would give a bonus to attack and a penalty to defense while fear would give the opposite effect. The bonus/penalty would only apply when a certain threshold of emotion had been met (probably equal to the character's Will). Emotional intensity would fade with rest, so every FP recovered would reduce the level of all emotions by one. If a character reaches an emotional level equal to twice their threshold though, they would permanently accumulate -1 CP worth of associated mental disadvantages.

So, what do you think? What would you add, change, or subtract to make it better? Would you use emotion mechanics in your games?

talonthehand · 12-03-2019, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

GURPS, like almost every tabletop RPG, tends to gloss over the mechanics associated with basic emotions. For the sake of simplicity, the eight basic emotions are anger, attraction, fear, hatred, joy, love, repulsion, and sorrow. While popular culture likes to create dualities, it is possible to combine each emotion with any of the other emotions, so we would consider the dualities only for mechanical reasons.

Mechanically, emotions should probably provide bonuses and penalties in specofic situations dependent on the duality. For example, anger would give a bonus to attack and a penalty to defense while fear would give the opposite effect. The bonus/penalty would only apply when a certain threshold of emotion had been met (probably equal to the character's Will). Emotional intensity would fade with rest, so every FP recovered would reduce the level of all emotions by one. If a character reaches an emotional level equal to twice their threshold though, they would permanently accumulate -1 CP worth of associated mental disadvantages.

So, what do you think? What would you add, change, or subtract to make it better? Would you use emotion mechanics in your games?

This seems to give a lot of work of minimal results, and at the same time over-simplifies emotions. Just going off of fear - people can just as easily lash out aggressively when they're afraid as huddle into a ball.

I guess my question is - do you find that your GURPS sessions do not already have enough rules?

Tomsdad · 12-03-2019, 08:35 AM

It depends on what you want to do

Are you going for a gamest set of bonuses? In which cases go for it, work out what mechanical bonus and penalty trade off you want for each emotion that triggers when that emotion is suitably in effect.

If you trying to map the reality of emotional states to a game system than no. Emotions are complex enough even in the abstract let alone how angry is angry enough to qualify in this context. Emotions are very rarely ever felt singularly and it's the net effect that matters.

Linking direct effects to emotions is not really sound. For example does being very angry make you more accurate in combat? It could do, but I wouldn't say it always does, and I'd also say there will be some instances where being sufficiently angry makes you less accurate.

Similarly some emotions might 'fade with rest' (I know what you mean), but hell other emotions don't!

I think mechanically I would look to link characters emotional states to the control rolls on various advantages/disadvantage.

I do quite like the basic idea of tying ongoing extreme emotional duress with negative mental disads though (not sure I'd penalise player CP totals though, that said I don't care too much about CP totals!)

whswhs · 12-03-2019, 08:41 AM

I don't see the value of that sort of thing. That's what we have roleplaying for.

Hide · 12-03-2019, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

GURPS, like almost every tabletop RPG, tends to gloss over the mechanics associated with basic emotions. For the sake of simplicity, the eight basic emotions are anger, attraction, fear, hatred, joy, love, repulsion, and sorrow. (...) emotions should probably provide bonuses and penalties (...)

I like the idea and I understand your point, but I think GURPS has already covered this with its mechanics. You can always take concentration maneuvers, all-out attacks, spend FP or HP to achieve special feats, etc.

IMO, emotions should always be in check in order to be a functional character/NPC/human being. This means that if you get carried away by any of these, then you get a penalty.

In other words, if you want a bonus, then your player actions should be planned and the "hard" bonuses not from compulsory arbitration but from game mechanics.

For example, if you get angry and want a bonus of sorts in combat, you simply say "I am angry, I take all-out maneuvers to kill the guy that took down my BFF ASAP". (If well executed, and if it makes sense within the setting, the "gods of dice" may give you a secret bonuses to survive the battle; but that would be something else).

OTH, if the actions you take are not planned (i.e. character blinded by rage) then maybe said character simply rushes forward w/o tactics with a vanilla move and attack (hence no bonuses); that's the kind of action I would expect from a L. Jenkins type.

Another example would be an enemy you taunt; you taunt somebody with rapier wit, the enemy fails to resist then he's mentally stunned. He doesn't get any bonuses from being angry, he possibly does something stupid.

One exception would be characters with leadership/motivational/self-control skills (warlords, bards, spies, etc.). They may have the ability to direct and focus said emotions and provide others/themselves with a bonus of sorts; but that requires a skill roll.

It should be the people controlling their emotions and doing something smart against the odds, and not emotions controlling people giving them bonuses. For that matter there's stuff like "berserk".

Boge · 12-03-2019, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by talonthehand

This seems to give a lot of work of minimal results, and at the same time over-simplifies emotions. Just going off of fear - people can just as easily lash out aggressively when they're afraid as huddle into a ball.

I guess my question is - do you find that your GURPS sessions do not already have enough rules?

I agree. Gurps is pretty complicated as is. If I was a GM, I would simply give modifiers or require will rolls in certain situations depending on how I believe the individual SHOULD be feeling. The players usually don't properly represent the emotion that should be felt.

khorboth · 12-03-2019, 09:14 PM

I remember the City of Heroes Inspiration mechanic as being both simple and effective. It could be ported roughly as:

After an emotional event, mark down how that event could fuel future endeavors. At the appropriate time, the character remembers the event and draws inspiration from it. For instance, after having survived a harrowing experience, that memory may allow a temporary burst of energy reflected in a few (1d) regained FP. A promise to return to a loved one may grant the determination for ignoring the 1/2 move/dodge penalty for several rounds and perhaps even consciousness rolls for low HP. Maybe encouraging words from a mentor will be good for increased charisma for a single roll.

It would be up to the GM to determine if these refresh or if they are single-use. Perhaps individually determined.

This is probably cinematic, but there are many accounts of people who say they made it back or did a thing "because I was thinking of a time when..."

It's not quite what the OP was talking about, but it's a simpler mechanic. And may lead to better roleplaying.

~~namada~~ · 12-04-2019, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boge

The players usually don't properly represent the emotion that should be felt.

For this reason, I would absolutely use Emotional Mechanics in a game, I find it annoying when players are just like, "Meh, my character's wife died, I'm going to have the PC go back to work tomorrow so the party can finish this adventure."

However, the OP is way off base of what I'd want out of such mechanics. Like a disadvantage in GURPS, in reality, feeling a strong emotion limits a persons options - they're not thinking straight in some way because the emotion has a hold of them. So, I might use some sort of "Emotion" check & have the PC gain a disadvantage temporarily to limit their options appropriately. Then have another "Emotion" check to regain composure, somehow...

That's where I'd start with something like this, map the emotions you want to track to disadvantages (Anger = Bad Temper, Attraction = Lust @ that one person only, Hatred = Intolerance @ the one person, etc.), figure out how to check for emotional control to see if the PC temporarily gains a disadvantage, then figure out how (and when) to recheck for emotional control to lose the disadvantage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't see the value of that sort of thing. That's what we have roleplaying for.

And some folks are terrible at it, which is why I like them.

Michele · 12-04-2019, 02:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by namada

I find it annoying when players are just like, "Meh, my character's wife died, I'm going to have the PC go back to work tomorrow so the party can finish this adventure."

And some players find it annoying when they feel their characters lose agency. Losing agency due to physical or somewhat objective factors, they can stand; "that's a failed HT roll, you lose consciousness and fall to the ground".

But as to psychological factors? Having to lose agency to them is acceptable if they have taken that in beforehand, by giving their PC a Disadvantage such as Bad Temper, Berserk, a relevant Intolerance etc. And even when they have done so, they will want to try and avoid the problem with the self-control roll, if the Disadvantages entitles them to that. Or, possibly, they do like to roleplay a short-tempered barbarian, so they're OK with this to start with.
But telling them: "you are so angered you can't think straight and you must do the obviously stupid thing", regardless of not being subject to relevant Disadvantages, isn't going to go down well with my players.

AlexanderHowl · 12-04-2019, 05:45 AM

The emotion causes both a bonus and a penalty, though I admit that I was unclear in my initial post about the bonus being specific and the penalty being universal. Extreme emotions are mechanically a net negative and risk giving an individual permanent disadvantages. After acquiring a disadvantage, the emotion would reset.

For example, Anger would give an attack bonus towards the target of your anger at the cost of a corresponding defense penalty from everyone because you are focusing your attention on harming that one individual. So, a Will 10 individual with Anger 15 against another individual would receive a +5 to attack that individual and a -5 to defend against any attack. If they reached Anger 20 against that individual, they would gain -1 CP of mental disadvantages related to Anger, and they would reset their Anger for that individual to 0.

12-03-2019, 08:04 AM	#1
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Basic Emotional Mechanics GURPS, like almost every tabletop RPG, tends to gloss over the mechanics associated with basic emotions. For the sake of simplicity, the eight basic emotions are anger, attraction, fear, hatred, joy, love, repulsion, and sorrow. While popular culture likes to create dualities, it is possible to combine each emotion with any of the other emotions, so we would consider the dualities only for mechanical reasons. Mechanically, emotions should probably provide bonuses and penalties in specofic situations dependent on the duality. For example, anger would give a bonus to attack and a penalty to defense while fear would give the opposite effect. The bonus/penalty would only apply when a certain threshold of emotion had been met (probably equal to the character's Will). Emotional intensity would fade with rest, so every FP recovered would reduce the level of all emotions by one. If a character reaches an emotional level equal to twice their threshold though, they would permanently accumulate -1 CP worth of associated mental disadvantages. So, what do you think? What would you add, change, or subtract to make it better? Would you use emotion mechanics in your games?

12-03-2019, 08:35 AM	#3
Tomsdad Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Brighton	Re: Basic Emotional Mechanics It depends on what you want to do Are you going for a gamest set of bonuses? In which cases go for it, work out what mechanical bonus and penalty trade off you want for each emotion that triggers when that emotion is suitably in effect. If you trying to map the reality of emotional states to a game system than no. Emotions are complex enough even in the abstract let alone how angry is angry enough to qualify in this context. Emotions are very rarely ever felt singularly and it's the net effect that matters. Linking direct effects to emotions is not really sound. For example does being very angry make you more accurate in combat? It could do, but I wouldn't say it always does, and I'd also say there will be some instances where being sufficiently angry makes you less accurate. Similarly some emotions might 'fade with rest' (I know what you mean), but hell other emotions don't! I think mechanically I would look to link characters emotional states to the control rolls on various advantages/disadvantage. I do quite like the basic idea of tying ongoing extreme emotional duress with negative mental disads though (not sure I'd penalise player CP totals though, that said I don't care too much about CP totals!) __________________ Grand High* Poobah of the Cult of Stat Normalisation. not too* high of course Last edited by Tomsdad; 12-05-2019 at 12:18 AM.

12-03-2019, 08:41 AM	#4
whswhs Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Lawrence, KS	Re: Basic Emotional Mechanics I don't see the value of that sort of thing. That's what we have roleplaying for. __________________ Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more.

12-03-2019, 09:14 PM	#7
khorboth Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Denver, CO	Re: Basic Emotional Mechanics I remember the City of Heroes Inspiration mechanic as being both simple and effective. It could be ported roughly as: After an emotional event, mark down how that event could fuel future endeavors. At the appropriate time, the character remembers the event and draws inspiration from it. For instance, after having survived a harrowing experience, that memory may allow a temporary burst of energy reflected in a few (1d) regained FP. A promise to return to a loved one may grant the determination for ignoring the 1/2 move/dodge penalty for several rounds and perhaps even consciousness rolls for low HP. Maybe encouraging words from a mentor will be good for increased charisma for a single roll. It would be up to the GM to determine if these refresh or if they are single-use. Perhaps individually determined. This is probably cinematic, but there are many accounts of people who say they made it back or did a thing "because I was thinking of a time when..." It's not quite what the OP was talking about, but it's a simpler mechanic. And may lead to better roleplaying.

12-04-2019, 05:45 AM	#10
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Basic Emotional Mechanics The emotion causes both a bonus and a penalty, though I admit that I was unclear in my initial post about the bonus being specific and the penalty being universal. Extreme emotions are mechanically a net negative and risk giving an individual permanent disadvantages. After acquiring a disadvantage, the emotion would reset. For example, Anger would give an attack bonus towards the target of your anger at the cost of a corresponding defense penalty from everyone because you are focusing your attention on harming that one individual. So, a Will 10 individual with Anger 15 against another individual would receive a +5 to attack that individual and a -5 to defend against any attack. If they reached Anger 20 against that individual, they would gain -1 CP of mental disadvantages related to Anger, and they would reset their Anger for that individual to 0.