Spirits and Mute (Substantial Only)

[lugaid]

I'm trying to fine-tune my dark fantasy game, and want to give Spirit templates the Mute (Substantial Only) disadvantage, but provide the exceptions of Channeling, Medium, and most importantly, allow the Spirit to talk to someone in their dreams, who must then use the Dreaming skill to remember the communication. Mute (Substantial Only) is pretty obvious, and I suppose that Channeling and Medium provide their own exceptions as that is the nature of those advantages. Should I bother with finding a point cost for the dreaming mitigation, or is that a reasonable special effect of the dream state? What would be a fair cost if I were best advised to figure one out?

[AlexanderHowl]

Mute (Accessibility, Conscious Targets Only, -10%; Substantial Only, -10%) [-20] would probably allow for communication with dreamers (it would also allow the spirit to whisper in the ears of sleeping people).

[lugaid]

Yeah, that seems workable. As a Perk, Autotrance is probably too cheap to allow to substitute for being asleep (since that would be worth the same cost as Medium, Requires a Dreaming roll -10%), but I could probably extend it to someone in a deep trance from the use of Hypnosis or the Technicians of the Sacred methods—again, requiring a Dreaming roll (defaults to Will-6) to recall and report accurately, or perhaps a Fortune Telling (Dream Interpretation) from someone else instead can help tease out the details; Technicians of the Sacred also suggests a guide's Religious Ritual skill as helping frame an entheogenic experience so perhaps that could be used for this purpose as well, though I'm inclined against that.

[AlexanderHowl]

I wonder what would be in effect of a spirit whispering to the sleeping?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by lugaid

Yeah, that seems workable. As a Perk, Autotrance is probably too cheap to allow to substitute for being asleep (since that would be worth the same cost as Medium, Requires a Dreaming roll -10%),

Meh. Medium lets you sense and communicate with a spirit within a yard which is better than only hearing what a spirit whispers to you, especially if you need to roll against a skill or penalty to remember what they said because you were sleeping.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I wonder what would be in effect of a spirit whispering to the sleeping?

Minimal but might help shape the dream.

[lugaid]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Meh. Medium lets you sense and communicate with a spirit within a yard which is better than only hearing what a spirit whispers to you, especially if you need to roll against a skill or penalty to remember what they said because you were sleeping.

I guess I don't understand what you are advocating. Do you think that Autotrance should be allowed to substitute for being asleep for the purposes of spirit communication under these conditions, and if so why do you think that it is substantially different and more limited than Medium (Requires a Dreaming skill roll -10%) [9]? If not, could you rephrase your suggestion because I don't seem to be able to parse it? Or is there a third option that I am not seeing?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by lugaid

I guess I don't understand what you are advocating. Do you think that Autotrance should be allowed to substitute for being asleep for the purposes of spirit communication under these conditions, and if so why do you think that it is substantially different and more limited than Medium (Requires a Dreaming skill roll -10%) [9]? If not, could you rephrase your suggestion because I don't seem to be able to parse it? Or is there a third option that I am not seeing?

Autotrance should work for a spirit that can talk to you while your sleeping. Afterall whats the difference thematically between a trance and sleeping?
Pretty much it being directed, so does your version not work against sleepers using the Dreaming skill?

Medium only while sleeping I'd rate higher than -10% by the way, at least -20% but likely higher. Its -70% on Precognition for instance (Psionic Powers, p. 39).

The perk in this case lets you duplicate a standard function (sleep) that costs no points by taking a minute. Compare to Deep Sleeper perk, no time specified but has fewer benefits. Autotrance gives that +2 for instance.

Medium allows you to sense nearby spirits, so even if your asleep you could detect and possibly wake up to a spirit hovering over you.
You can also call spirits to you, no distance is given in any currently published book that I am aware of. However he perceive and communicate is strongly implied to be a yard in GURPS Powers, p. 60. I think the calling to you is farther than that and generally use earshot modified in certain situations.
So even if you limited it to sleeping you would be able to call a spirit to you, either unconsciously or using Dreaming skill.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by lugaid

I'm trying to fine-tune my dark fantasy game, and want to give Spirit templates the Mute (Substantial Only) disadvantage, but provide the exceptions of Channeling, Medium, and most importantly, allow the Spirit to talk to someone in their dreams, who must then use the Dreaming skill to remember the communication. Mute (Substantial Only) is pretty obvious, and I suppose that Channeling and Medium provide their own exceptions as that is the nature of those advantages. Should I bother with finding a point cost for the dreaming mitigation, or is that a reasonable special effect of the dream state? What would be a fair cost if I were best advised to figure one out?

This seems like a feature to me. But I suppose you could use the Accessibility, Only on sleeping subjects (-20%). Honestly, I wouldn't build it that way. If a spirit can send messages to a subject in their dreams I'd use Telesend + Accessiblity, sleeping subjects + Video + Universal. That lets them communicate in a way they can understand and share images as well. If you want it to require a successful Dream or Fortune-Telling (Dream Interpretation) roll then I'd add that as a -5% Nuisance Effect.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by lugaid

I'm trying to fine-tune my dark fantasy game, and want to give Spirit templates the Mute (Substantial Only) disadvantage, but provide the exceptions of Channeling, Medium

I'm not sure Channeling would actually need an exception. Mute is a physical disadvantage and Channeling is a "minor form of possession" (B41) so I don't think it would be brought along. What would matter is whether or not the Channeler themself is mute, and if the spirit knew a proper language to communicate in.

As for Medium, I think the whole reason B68 would bother to mention "communicate with" / "speak with" would be to offset stuff like Mute spirits. P60 under alternatives "None of these traits lets you speak with spirits."

Could be wrong but 'with' sounds 2-way, if it was 1-way (spirit hears you, you don't hear them) I would expect that to be "speak TO".

The spirit template on B263 didn't have Deaf or Mute so there wasn't any clear target for that ability, the big draw was the ability for them to hear you from far off (not really sure what the range on that is) so they could travel to you.

Originally Posted by lugaid

and most importantly, allow the Spirit to talk to someone in their dreams, who must then use the Dreaming skill to remember the communication.

Psionic Powers 73 Dream Projection + PP74 Dream Control perhaps? ie you use Jumper to enter their mind and then Illusion to set up communication with them? B188 presumably applies here.

Originally Posted by lugaid

Mute (Substantial Only) is pretty obvious, and I suppose that Channeling and Medium provide their own exceptions as that is the nature of those advantages.

I think so. I do like the idea of there being a mental version of the mute disadvantage representing a mental block around speaking.

Originally Posted by lugaid

Should I bother with finding a point cost for the dreaming mitigation, or is that a reasonable special effect of the dream state?

Other than the Jumper/Illusion approach PP uses, I think I'd just go with "Telesend: Only on Sleeping Subjects" as a baseline.

Sometimes when people talk to you you won't wake up, but maybe it gets into your dream somehow, but you'd need Dreaming skill to remember it. This might be moreso when the person is talking to you with something other than external sound, because that would seem more like the dream than hearing sound.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Mute (Accessibility, Conscious Targets Only, -10%; Substantial Only, -10%) [-20] would probably allow for communication with dreamers (it would also allow the spirit to whisper in the ears of sleeping people).

Unless we assume that anyone dreaming has gained Insubstantial (Projection) they would still qualify as Substantial and not be able to hear.

I think you're still technically 'conscious' while sleeping, but Illusion prices "Only on sleeping subjects, -20%;" so it's an even bigger discount.

If you want "I can only talk to insubstantial subjects or sleeping substantial subjects" that would be:

Not Mute (Either/Or Limitations -10%) [30] using 0.2x0.5=0.1

(I'm pricing "Not Substantial" as -50% based on the 50% difference between Affects Substantial +20% and Insubstantial Only -30%)

Substantial Only was meant for advantages like Invisibility, being applied as a mitigator to a disadvantage like Mute as Fantasy did (H78 also did w/ Cannot Speak for ghosts, and H79 for Poltergeist) goes against PU8p6's guidelines of limiting a "counter" like "No Deafness".

We can see why when doing an either/or limitations: this reduces the discount, which makes you save more points (character value goes down) even though you are adding capability to the character.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Medium lets you sense and communicate with a spirit within a yard

I actually wondered if "in your presence" might be B101's 2 yard default, while "Calling" could be 100 yards.

1 yard does seem right to actually hear the spirit though, because P60 says you need another advantage to see spirits more than 1 yard away, and the Visual enhancement says "see spirits while communicating" (no range limit mentioned) ergo "in your presence" must mean "within 1 yard" for hearing spirits (same range as for Manifestation to make them visible to others)

[lugaid]

Originally Posted by Plane

The spirit template on B263 didn't have Deaf or Mute so there wasn't any clear target for that ability, the big draw was the ability for them to hear you from far off (not really sure what the range on that is) so they could travel to you.

Pretty sure that it was an oversight, which is why Fantasy and Horror corrected it in those templates.

I think you're still technically 'conscious' while sleeping, but Illusion prices "Only on sleeping subjects, -20%;" so it's an even bigger discount.

Good point.

If you want "I can only talk to insubstantial subjects or sleeping substantial subjects" that would be:

Not Mute (Either/Or Limitations -10%) [30] using 0.2x0.5=0.1

(I'm pricing "Not Substantial" as -50% based on the 50% difference between Affects Substantial +20% and Insubstantial Only -30%)

Substantial Only was meant for advantages like Invisibility, being applied as a mitigator to a disadvantage like Mute as Fantasy did (H78 also did w/ Cannot Speak for ghosts, and H79 for Poltergeist) goes against PU8p6's guidelines of limiting a "counter" like "No Deafness".

We can see why when doing an either/or limitations: this reduces the discount, which makes you save more points (character value goes down) even though you are adding capability to the character.

The discount, though, is supposed to be applied to the Disadvantage points, reducing its value. So, a -10% on a -30 pt. disad would make it worth -27, effectively costing 3 points. Thus, giving the spirit the ability to talk to a sleeping character ends up costing points, while being able to talk to insubstantial characters similarly is less limiting than being Mute to everyone. So, it shouldn't really be an either/or limitation, right? Each portion of the limitation provides a particular exception to the effects of not being able to speak: "Substantial Only" allows Mute to be bypassed for Insubstantial entities, while "Sleeping Subjects" provides a separate ability to bypass Mute to talk with those who are asleep. Each separately reduces the Disadvantage value of Mute.