Trait Cost Variants in Specific Settings

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

On the thread about Honesty, it came up that the inconvenience of always obeying the law depends on how restrictive the laws are. To that Dalin replied:

Originally Posted by Dalin

To my mind, this is a symptom of being a generic system, and it’s true for many other disadvantages (and advantages, for that matter). I can think of many examples that differ wildly in risk depending on the setting and campaign assumptions. Cowardice, for example, could be a near death sentence in some games but barely more than a quirk in others.

The GM, when deciding what elements to include on the char-gen menu, can ban it or change the price. Similarly, I’ve seen players renegotiate (or replace) disads in play if they feel out of synch with others. As a GM, I’m certainly open to that conversation.

The base cost for honesty seems appropriate for how I’ve seen it used in a wide variety of setting (DF, regular fantasy, Arabian Nights, various sci-fi, horror, 1920s mystery, etc.) For unusual circumstances, I would raise or lower the price.

This is a sentiment I've seen a few times and the idea certainly makes sense. But especially for beginning GMs, or somebody trying to design their own setting, it can be difficult to guess how much to change trait costs. There's been extensive discussion elsewhere about traits that affect lifespan (Unaging, Terminally Ill, etc.) but not for other types of traits (that I've seen).


So this is a polite request for some examples of doing so. Or a prompt for discussion of how to set about deciding when to change point costs.

GMs, would you be willing to share examples of advantage or disadvantage costs you have changed in your campaigns, and why you changed them? How did it work out in play?

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

So this is a polite request for some examples of doing so. Or a prompt for discussion of how to set about deciding when to change point costs.

Despite being the source of this thread, my own campaigns are rarely so unusual as to make me do this in advance. But, I have joined games as a player where this was true. I recall a Cthulhu-esque GURPS game where the GM bumped up the value of Xenophilia because it was more likely than usual to lead to irrevocable death. In another futuristic game, the GM reduced the value of most sensory disadvantages because it was trivially easy to mitigate them with sensory implants. Costs were modeled on the -60% TL5 mitigator for Bad Sight.

In my own games, though, we sometimes adjust costs of things after character creation or even swap them out. There's a continuum here between players not role-playing things and unexpected ramifications of the setting. I had a player once who took a pile of social disadvantages for what was expected to be a regular fantasy game with plenty of time spent in civilized lands. After a few months of play, things changed dramatically, and it became clear that the wilderness exploration aspect of the game was going to be much more central than we had originally thought. It basically became a multi-year hex-crawl. The player voluntarily swapped out the disads for other things since they felt like free points. (In my experience, most players want their disads to create meaningful inconvenience; I've had sessions where we barely do anything other than role-play out the consequences of various disadvantages; people without interesting disads feel left out.)

Other forumites are wiser than I am about how to decide costs. At my table, we just eyeball things and usually move in increments of 5 (or convert 5-pointers into quirks), though I might look at Bad Sight as a RAW example.

[Donny Brook]

Any time technology provides a substitute for an ability that is small enough to implant in the body, it could be priced as an Accessory perk instead. Make it worth [2] to be organic and indistinguishable. E.G. Absolute Timing and Absolute Direction.

[evileeyore]

I once priced a version of Jumper/Warp/Detect (Planar Crossings) at 20 points because I wanted it as part of the Elven racial template and I still wanted Elves to be affordable as PCs.

[gmillerd]

I think its tempting to change the trait's cost, but I would rather negotiate it elsewhere; and likely mime that trait for a better character.

I often require unusual background for things that are problematic for character generation rather than increase the cost of the trait due to bias. (example: children with somewhat rare adult skills)

Also I often require unusual background for higher than semi-professional values for skills, some reason that you are skilled beyond belief in. An exception to this would be if you built in a reason elsewhere. (example: character is a STEM savant tween, unusual background unless you have a Duty: Tiger Mom or similar)

I have played in games where people have changed values of traits in specific settings because of historic context. Likely that would have just been handled with frequency changes rather than revaluing. (example: racial/cultural bias during a specific era and location)

Game-busting players that buy Fearless or Stoic for their a Mythos game character's seem like they should pay more, and Horror notes that the game may be at risk if you let them, but I have found those traits are often double edged, Overconfident Fearless bus drivers are not the best chauffeurs. I think neglecting this may be a problem for GMs that omit that.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Dalin

In another futuristic game, the GM reduced the value of most sensory disadvantages because it was trivially easy to mitigate them with sensory implants. Costs were modeled on the -60% TL5 mitigator for Bad Sight.

I've always run with the assumption that if you take a Disadvantage that could in theory be completely fixed, you can't or won't get it so easily fixed.