[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Honesty

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Dalin

While I agree with the gist of your post, I quibble a bit on this point. I don't love the name of this disadvantage, but I've always thought that it felt very realistic to people I actually know. These are the sort of people who never go past the speed limit and ask me to slow down if I'm speeding; they always return library books on time; they drive 30-minutes back to a gas station to pay for the gum that the attendant forgot to ring up; they pay the maximum fare to the ticket agent if they lose their metro card, even if they could easily jump the turnstile, etc.

This doesn't mean that they don't have opinions about the laws or know when something's not in synch with their principles. They might rant about the speed limit being ridiculously low. Or, if it really bothers them, they may write to their representative to get it changed. Often they can be a real thorn in authority's side because instead of rolling their eyes at silly rules, they abide by them but then work hard to change them. In general, I have often heard the idea that you need to work to change the laws, but you can't just ignore the ones that you don't like.

I agree with all of this. I don't take nearly as extreme a view of this trait as some of the others in this thread do.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Brandy

I agree with all of this. I don't take nearly as extreme a view of this trait as some of the others in this thread do.

I sometimes wonder if some of the people expressing extreme views of Honesty (or any other trait really) have ever actually tried to play a character with it that way, or even had a player take it in a game and been satisfied with how it was handled.

An interpretation that basically makes a trait unplayable unless the setting is carefully crafted to make it viable (and hence presumably not worth the listed points) probably has something wrong with it. Especially for a trait that's been in common use for heroic characters for this long (there are multiple characters in Harkwood who have it, as do Bili the Axe and Blind Hari, and there aren't a lot of GURPS character writeups older than those...)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Especially for a trait that's been in common use for heroic characters for this long (there are multiple characters in Harkwood who have it, as do Bili the Axe and Blind Hari, and there aren't a lot of GURPS character writeups older than those...)

<shrug> Honesty is supposed to be madatory for Lensmen but in Civilization havign a Lens means that there are virtually no normal limits on your actions. For a Gray Lensman it's absolutely meaningless. A Gray Lensman couldn't violate the law if he tried. He literally has the legal authority to do _anything_.

So maybe Honesty hasn't always been used correctly in the past.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That you think that says to me that you are misinterpreting the RAW. For one thing you are assuming that the law itself does not allow for "reasonable exceptions".

The jury might not convict in a case that deserves a reasonable exception. A truly reasonable prosecutor might not even file charges but neither example is relevant to Honesty. It's when the law says "No." not when you wouldn't e convicted.

For a non-adventuring person it might be possible to avoid any situations where Honesty would require you to do unreasonable things. That still doesn't mean that Honesty does not require unreasonable behavior. "Obeys the law when it makes sense to do so" is another one of those non-disads.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I think this is one of the most egregiously misnamed characteristics in the whole rule-set. In any putative future edittions, I would recommend subsuming it under the Compulsive Behavior category as Compulsion: Obey Authority or something like that.

And I Disagree, it is the Honesty in "Honest Attempt or Honest Man"

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Personally, and in my observation of the people I play with, constantly running afoul of a disadvantage in that way would not be all that fun.

I am perplexed. I can't really imagine the situations you mentioned coming into play unless both the player and the GM were explicitly interested in that sort of conflict. If I wanted to play an Honest football player who is clueless about distinctions between consensual hazing and assault, I would have talked that over with the GM to figure out what sorts of challenges I might expect the disad to produce.

The way Honesty usually plays out around the many games I've seen it in is not about obscure laws that the player doesn't know about (like some sort of GM trap), but the basics: you won't speed when the plot wants you to get somewhere quickly; you butt heads with the thief about his desire to sequester jewels in his boot so that the tax collector doesn't know about them; you don't try to hide a knife in your gear when you go somewhere that doesn't allow weapons, even if you suspect you'll be ambushed there.

Of course you can roll your self-control roll to overcome these occasionally, but I wouldn't choose the disad if I wanted to do that most of the time. I would reserve that for the argument in the car when the rest of the PCs are like, "The bomb will go off and thousands will die if we don't blaze through that toll booth at top speed!" Then my character might agonize and roll the die. If I make it, I feel guilty and turn myself in after the climax with the terrorists. If I fail the roll, the other PCs hold me down in the back seat and we all patch up our hurt feelings after the climax with the terrorists. It should be fun!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I said nothing about morality. The issue here is making the decision about which law or set of laws has the greater legitimacy. An Honest Frenchman can decide that the new regime is illegitimate and stick with with their pre-existing loyalty, or adapt to the new circumstance.

Why?

There wasn't any true legal dispute* over the right of the French government to surrender. It's just that some people felt that patriotism or other factors of morality trumped mere issues of legalism.

The way I interpret it, those people either did not have Honesty or made their Self-Control roll and then bought it off.

*You can find a dissenting opinions, as always, but none that would reasonably have had a prayer in any kind of neutral court.

[Flyndaran]

It's only -10 points of disadvantage, not the -30, -50 or whatever that some seem to be defining it as. It shouldn't cause more hassle than the equivalently priced nearsightedness with glasses.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No it doesn't. Nor however does it obligate people to do more than the absolute minimum to comply with the law when they have a problem with it or to necessarily to accept that surrender means accepting the new regime's laws as being more legitimate than the previous ones. An Honest person living in occupied France must decide for itself whether the Vichy regime is a legitimate authority or the France they were born in is an over-riding authority and Vichy is a temporary aberration just as when an Honest person travels in a foreign land they must balance their laws against the local laws and decide which takes precedence.

If I remember the Constitutional authority of France legitimately established the Vichy regime by rightful procedure (just as come to think of it the shadow state of Poland was by contrast the legitimate authority as it had gone underground rather then making terms). An Honest Frenchman might obey Vichy as an Honest Pole the Resistance.

Such a man however is likely to refuse to Round Up Usual Suspects especially if he starts to get the impression that their intended fate was rather Unusual. Alternatively he might be a sly fellow and somehow figure out how to get the Usual Suspects somewhere they are not supposed to be.

He will not refuse to fire on Allied forces. From his point of view they are violating the neutrality of Vichy France (as indeed technically they were) and it was his duty to do so as ordered.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Dalin

I am perplexed. I can't really imagine the situations you mentioned coming into play unless both the player and the GM were explicitly interested in that sort of conflict. If I wanted to play an Honest football player who is clueless about distinctions between consensual hazing and assault, I would have talked that over with the GM to figure out what sorts of challenges I might expect the disad to produce.

I gave three examples where realism will challenge the ability of a character to stay within the letter of the Honesty disadvantage. Many others are imaginable. In respect of the one you have chosen to address, the character is only relieved of that problem by a metagame agreement with the GM to 'read down' the disad. That may solve the problem for a player at a given table, but it doesn't address the problem of the rule itself.

The way Honesty usually plays out around the many games I've seen it in is not about obscure laws that the player doesn't know about (like some sort of GM trap),

The GM is not setting a trap for players. The GM has created a setting for characters. The problem is that the disad demands conduct from the character that the character realistically cannot supply.