Incompetence - wild divergence in price fairness

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

However, I'm wondering what you'd do with characters like Discworld's Rincewind, who despite his occupation and training being "Wizzard", was completely unable to cast any spells.

I'd start by not giving him any spells.

Then I'd give him the skills he's good at, Fast-Talk, Running, Stealth, Running, Camouflage, Running, Streetwise, Running...

Finally I'd make sure he has all the various flavors of Luck: Luck, Serendipity, Extraordinary Luck, Destiny, Ridiculous Luck...

But not Daredevil.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Anthony

So? While the fluff may be incompetence, from a game mechanics standpoint he just has low points spent.

So why not just do the same thing with the Incompetence quirk? Why do we need it?

If we're applying Incompetence for non-core skills to core skills, we should at least make the character just as bad at them.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I'd start by not giving him any spells.

Then I'd give him the skills he's good at, Fast-Talk, Running, Stealth, Running, Camouflage, Running, Streetwise, Running...

Finally I'd make sure he has all the various flavors of Luck: Luck, Serendipity, Extraordinary Luck, Destiny, Ridiculous Luck...

But not Daredevil.

None of those are disadvantages. I thought we were trying to look at a more major form of an existing drawback.


What I mean is - you're both saying that Incompetence is only a quirk if it applies to something you don't do often, but it's worth less than a quirk if it's part of your main skill-set. I don't see that as logical.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I thought we were trying to look at a more major form of an existing drawback.

I'm not. I'm saying that Incompetence as a Quirk is fine the way it is.

What I mean is - you're both saying that Incompetence is only a quirk if it applies to something you don't do often, but it's worth less than a quirk if it's part of your main skill-set.

I'm saying it's a Quirk period.

If you want it to apply to your core skills? That's... sub-optimal.

I'd ask you start by outlining a Character that is incompetent in it's core skills and we can see what it is you're looking to do.



And if Rincewind is your go-to example, okay. But Magicing and Spells aren't his core skills/abilities, which I'm pretty sure I just outlined above.

I suspect what you mean is "the character is incompetent at what other people think it's core skills should be, but is actually quite genius at doing completely different things".

[a humble lich]

If you want a version of incompetence which is worth more points there are a few existing advantages that I would consider:
1. Social Stigma(Ignorant)/Social Stigma(Uneducated) -- If the skill is truly something important that everyone has, then they should have one of those social stigma.
2. Vow -- For skills important to a campaign, things like Vow(Will not use Guns) would be appropriate. I might even allow Vow(Will not learn guns). Things like Vow(Will not learn Astronomy) probably should not be allowed except at the quirk level in most campaigns.
3. Delusion -- For characters like Rincewind, Delusions of the from Delusion(I am a powerful Wizard) or Delusion(I am the best sword fighter in the world) would make sense. The combination Vow(Won't learn fencing), Delusion(I am the best sword fighter in the world), and Compulsive Behavior(Challenging people to duels) should be worth a whole lot of points.

[Celjabba]

Not relevant to the subject, but iirc, Rincewind could cast spells, at least in theory.

Discworld Spoiler :

IIRC, Rincewind accidentally memorized one of the world creation spells. Until he cast it, there was no room for any more spells. And casting it, assuming the necessary requirements could be met, would have had world-ending consequences.

.
Another exemples of incompetence specialization would be characters that are competent in housekeeping except for cooking, in which they are lethal. (Akane Tendo in DSR ...)

But rules wise, incompetence (and anti-talents) are in most cases free points, so making them large-scope make sense to prevent abuse.

For a character that is effectively incompetent in something he would be expected / required to have, a secret is probably fitting on top of the quirk.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

If you want it to apply to your core skills? That's... sub-optimal.

Disadvantageous, even?

And if Rincewind is your go-to example, okay. But Magicing and Spells aren't his core skills/abilities, which I'm pretty sure I just outlined above.

Not my "go-to", but a well-known example that first came to mind. There's nothing wrong with your write-up except that it fails to address the point in question, in regards to his lack of spell skills- does he have Incompetence or something more major?

Actually, as Power-Ups 6: Quirks has College Incompetence as a mage's quirk, covering all the spells in a college, Rincewind would appear to have a more serious version of that.

I suspect what you mean is "the character is incompetent at what other people think it's core skills should be, but is actually quite genius at doing completely different things".

Again, the second part of that is possible but not a given. For the first part- yes, indeed, people would expect a magician to cast spells, or a fencing student to be able to swing a sword. You could cover that with a Delusion or Secret, but I don't think they exactly cover this situation. Perhaps OPH: "Doesn't perform as expected in combat/on adventure" might do the trick, if the effect is that other people can't rely on you.

Still, I feel there's some greater disadvantage in choosing to be useless at your core skills (for whatever story or character effect) than just having a quirk. You're choosing to play your character less than optimally, which is what Disads do. It feels like there should be some kind of reverse Unusual Background. I guess Pact with the GM is close to what I'm looking for.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Disadvantageous, even?

Yes, but it's still a Quirk.

Not my "go-to", but a well-known example that first came to mind. There's nothing wrong with your write-up except that it fails to address the point in question, in regards to his lack of spell skills- does he have Incompetence or something more major?

There is written evidence that Rincewind was rubbish at spells to start with, but whether that was because he was a terrible student or Incompetent at Spells is debatable.

Note though, there is evidence he was good a Thaumaturgy.

Actually, as Power-Ups 6: Quirks has College Incompetence as a mage's quirk, covering all the spells in a college, Rincewind would appear to have a more serious version of that.

Or more than one. You can take more than one you know.

Still, I feel there's some greater disadvantage in choosing to be useless at your core skills (for whatever story or character effect) than just having a quirk.

I disagree. And the reason I disagree is that they won't actually be your Character's 'core skills'. You will be rolling all those other skills you've bought for the most part. And if you aren't, well, it's likely the Character isn't long for the world... so a few less Disads* aren't really affecting anythign now are they?

* In that instead of a handful of Quirks and some actual Disads, you'll pretty much just have Incompetence at some higher value.



But if you really want to have a run at it, there are Anti-Talents in Power-Ups 3 Talents.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

The Incompetence trait is listed among the Quirks in Basic Set. It gives the usual quirk value [-1] for being completely unable to learn a given skill and having an addition -4 on defaults. It says you can't take it on a specialization of a skill but only on the whole base-skill. You can't take it for Guns (Shotgun), only on Guns in toto.whatever skill you take it on it is still [-1].

<snip>

It's unfortunate that Incompetence uses Guns as its example for not being incompetent at one specific specialization and attention should be brought to it as a possible addition to the errata.

From B169 under specialties: "An entry on the skill list may represent an entire category of closely related skills that share a single skill name. … Skills like this are marked with a dagger in the list. … You may learn skills like this any number of times with a different specialty each time, because each specialty is a different skill."

As such, it seems the limitation on specialization should apply only to those skills where optional specialization is possible. Part of the problem is that unlike Melee Weapon which for example calls out Flail and Two-Handed Flail as separate skills, Guns and Gunner only refer to their skills as specialties.

Thus it should be possible to only be incompetent at Guns (Shotgun) and collect the full -1 point Incompetence Quirk for it.

On the other hand, the original problem in 3rd Edition was that you could, at least in theory, load up on points by being Incompetent at every skill that your character didn't take. Even if you avoided taking incompetence in skills defaulting from skills you did know, you could end up with a lot of free points. Now as then, the best solution would seem to be a hard limit on the number of times you can take Incompetence as a Quirk.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Or more than one. You can take more than one you know.

Not by RAW- "Nobody can have Incompetence with more than one college."
But I think pushing Rincewind as an example is a problem because of how GURPS mechanically handles magic.

And the reason I disagree is that they won't actually be your Character's 'core skills'. You will be rolling all those other skills you've bought for the most part. And if you aren't, well, it's likely the Character isn't long for the world... so a few less Disads* aren't really affecting anythign now are they?

Perhaps, it would very much depend on the campaign. I'm thinking though that Vow (to GM: Use weapon/skill of Incompetency) and OPH (Useless deadweight/Skillset unmatched to team niche) are probably what they'd take.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

I think this pricing is unfortunate.

Most GURPS point costs assume someone who understands the character building system is making the character to not accidentally suck. Additionally, disads are stingy as heck - they pay the least amount of points needed to get players to take these interesting traits.

So yes, "Incompetence: Guns" is a terrible choice for many characters, but the assumption is you will just not take that quirk if using guns effectively is part of your plan for the PC.

Incompetence, like most quirks, is there to encourage fun roleplaying. So it's not a terrible disad for a "GURPS:FMJ" game, but a fun bit of characterization for a "GURPS:M*A*S*H" game.

If you want to play a soldier in a combat situation who is somehow unable to use their kit, that's fine, but talk to your GM. If they think it is ok they can probably find a price or alternative disad that is fair. (And if they think that price is still -1, then they do not want to encourage this PC for some reason.)