Rads on a character sheet

Not · 10-24-2015, 07:30 AM

I'd like to start a character with radiation exposure. Separate from any ill-effects of radiation sickness, how should I price "permanent" rads? Would it be more efficient to call it susceptibility to radiation?

Anaraxes · 10-24-2015, 08:01 AM

The effect of the past exposure is just to start you further down the table on B436. That's a disadvantage, but a small one. How common is radiation as a hazard? Modern day Earth is one thing, Gamma World something else.

The character isn't really more susceptible to further doses. They just have less tolerance before the effects get uglier.

Toward the bottom of the chart, each line costs 1 HT, so the price per line is less than that.

I'd put it at -10 points per line on the chart, modified by the Limited Defenses mods on B46. (So, -8 points for Very Common (as common as melee or ranged attacks) down to -2 points for Rare (silver weapons).) Maybe -5 as a base, even.

~~Peter Knutsen~~ · 10-24-2015, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'd put it at -10 points per line on the chart, modified by the Limited Defenses mods on B46. (So, -8 points for Very Common (as common as melee or ranged attacks) down to -2 points for Rare (silver weapons).) Maybe -5 as a base, even.

-5 per line for something like GURPS Action or techno-thriller or GURPS Space, down to -8 per line for post-nuclear-apocalypse?

Anaraxes · 10-24-2015, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

-5 per line for something like GURPS Action or techno-thriller or GURPS Space, down to -8 per line for post-nuclear-apocalypse?

Something like that, yes. Less than -5 for a modern-day genre that doesn't have defusing nukes and terrorists with dirty bombs around every corner (cops, urban fantasy), -2 for pseudo-medieval fantasy where it shows up only because the GM is showcasing the disad by putting in a weird monster or running Expedition to the Barrier Peaks for nostalgia.

It's worth keeping in mind the principles that "Disads are characterization that I want to come up in the game" along with "Disads that aren't disadvantageous are worth 0 points". If more radiation and thus a penalized effects roll is never to come up, and is just background color from a unique event in the character's history, it's just a Quirk at best.

~~Peter Knutsen~~ · 10-24-2015, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

It's worth keeping in mind the principles that "Disads are characterization that I want to come up in the game" along with "Disads that aren't disadvantageous are worth 0 points". If more radiation and thus a penalized effects roll is never to come up, and is just background color from a unique event in the character's history, it's just a Quirk at best.

The former is overly idealistic. The principle is that created characters, including created player characters, should be nuanced and imperfect, with various weaknesses large and small being part of what characterized them. The player acknowledges this and he acknowledges that you get an up-front point reward (what I consistently refer to as "compensatory points") for choosing them, as long as they are world-appropriate ones (world-inappropriate ones are treated as being worth zero points and don't need to be recorded on the character's sheet).

acrosome · 10-25-2015, 08:52 AM

There was a thread on this topic last year, where I posted my thoughts on the issue.

~~Peter Knutsen~~ · 10-25-2015, 09:45 AM

Another consideration that occured to me is whether drugs are available in the setting that can remove accumulated rads. If yes, then that drastically lowers the amount of compensatory points per "level of accumulated" that would it be reasonable for the system to give.

Such drugs won't be available in a TL8 GURPS Action setting (or if they are available, they can remove only a small percentage of accumulated, and non-cumulatively), but might be in a more techno-thriller'ish TL8 setting (able to remove a larger percentage, but still non-cumulatively), but as TL goes up to 9, 10, 11, it becomes more and more likely that we're dealing with a setting where the genetic damage caused by accumulated rads can be mitigated or even (at least at TL11) removed completely.

Also, as malloyd points out in the other thread, the main long-term problem with real-world radiation exposure is cancer. I find it hard to envision a realistic TL10 setting where cancer isn't much more curable than it is today (it actually isn't in my own space opera setting, but that's deliberately a mildly silly place, with retro-tech elements; they're not very good at genetics). So even if accumulated rads can't be cured, the effects caused by accumulated rads might be rather more curable in a TL9 setting than at TL8, and even more so at TL10

Not · 10-25-2015, 02:02 PM

People get cancer in space operas? You should only get diseases that look good for the camera.

10-24-2015, 07:30 AM	#1
Not Join Date: Feb 2013	Rads on a character sheet I'd like to start a character with radiation exposure. Separate from any ill-effects of radiation sickness, how should I price "permanent" rads? Would it be more efficient to call it susceptibility to radiation? __________________ Leave this space blank.

10-24-2015, 08:01 AM	#2
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: Rads on a character sheet The effect of the past exposure is just to start you further down the table on B436. That's a disadvantage, but a small one. How common is radiation as a hazard? Modern day Earth is one thing, Gamma World something else. The character isn't really more susceptible to further doses. They just have less tolerance before the effects get uglier. Toward the bottom of the chart, each line costs 1 HT, so the price per line is less than that. I'd put it at -10 points per line on the chart, modified by the Limited Defenses mods on B46. (So, -8 points for Very Common (as common as melee or ranged attacks) down to -2 points for Rare (silver weapons).) Maybe -5 as a base, even.

10-25-2015, 08:52 AM	#6
acrosome Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: The Land of Enchantment	Re: Rads on a character sheet There was a thread on this topic last year, where I posted my thoughts on the issue. Last edited by acrosome; 10-25-2015 at 09:13 AM.

10-25-2015, 09:45 AM	#7
~~Peter Knutsen~~ Banned Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Europe	Re: Rads on a character sheet Another consideration that occured to me is whether drugs are available in the setting that can remove accumulated rads. If yes, then that drastically lowers the amount of compensatory points per "level of accumulated" that would it be reasonable for the system to give. Such drugs won't be available in a TL8 GURPS Action setting (or if they are available, they can remove only a small percentage of accumulated, and non-cumulatively), but might be in a more techno-thriller'ish TL8 setting (able to remove a larger percentage, but still non-cumulatively), but as TL goes up to 9, 10, 11, it becomes more and more likely that we're dealing with a setting where the genetic damage caused by accumulated rads can be mitigated or even (at least at TL11) removed completely. Also, as malloyd points out in the other thread, the main long-term problem with real-world radiation exposure is cancer. I find it hard to envision a realistic TL10 setting where cancer isn't much more curable than it is today (it actually isn't in my own space opera setting, but that's deliberately a mildly silly place, with retro-tech elements; they're not very good at genetics). So even if accumulated rads can't be cured, the effects caused by accumulated rads might be rather more curable in a TL9 setting than at TL8, and even more so at TL10

10-25-2015, 02:02 PM	#8
Not Join Date: Feb 2013	Re: Rads on a character sheet People get cancer in space operas? You should only get diseases that look good for the camera. __________________ Leave this space blank.