12-01-2017, 02:51 PM | #1 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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[Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Bestial, normally [-10], is an exotic mental disadvantage, at least with respect to people brought up in a civilisation. It first appeared in Fantasy Folk for 3e, as a racial disadvantage, but would apply to humans brought up by wolves or chimpanzees. It is a component of the Wild Animal meta-trait.
The essence of the disadvantage is animalistic behaviour. You don't understand the rules of civilisation at all, having no concept of property, no idea of morality and no insight into why people behave in such strange ways. You have no skills that depend on the ideas or tools of civilisation, and no defaults in them either. Intimidation and Area Knowledge are about your limit in IQ-based skills. You run from or attack anyone who threatens or frightens you. If people leave you alone, you'll do likewise, unless they seem like food. You're quite capable of recognising people and remembering how they treat you, within the limits of your IQ, and even having friends and enemies. You may understand concepts like territory and dominance, and act on them, but this depends on the details of your background. While this behaviour may be quite annoying to civilised folk, you aren't eligible for an Odious Personal Habit disadvantage for it; that is rolled into the price of Bestial. However, you can take OPH for other habits or behaviours that aren't specifically beast-like, and if your Bestial behaviour is as annoying as a [-15] OPH, the GM can price Bestial at [-15]. It's likely going to be easier to play a Bestial character who isn't hugely intelligent. The GM may limit it to characters with IQ less than 10, or even less. Bestial is not a common disadvantage in published GURPS material. Discworld has a quirk-level version for mostly-civilised predators, and gives feral dogs and domestic cats the full version. Banestorm has some good advice on role-playing Bestial creatures, and Bio-Tech has uplifted dolphins that suffer from it, and a nanodrug that can induce it ... temporarily ... honestly! DF has Allies and things to summon with this disadvantage; Horror has ways to acquire it yourself, and Madness Dossier makes that simple. Locations: Hellgate doesn't make it quite so easy, and the Madness spell in Magic does it at random. Several Monster Hunters creatures have it, and Space has suggestions about uplifting. And then there's Zombies... Bestial zombies can't use equipment, which reduces their usefulness as troops. They aren't civilised, but nor do they have experience of being an animal, so they may well behave like small children. They can't co-operate in fights either. Really, we need some better zombies than these! Personally, I've never used this disadvantage. I could see an interesting game based on lycanthropes gradually buying it off, or a shaman or Discworld witch with animal companions. What have you done with it?
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12-01-2017, 03:04 PM | #2 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
It's the inability to understand property that I find the hardest to get. Many normal animals have favorite toys and familiar objects they prefer and may guard. And that's just mammals. We all know many birds love possessing/stealing objects for play or nests.
Even if we assume the disadvantage means understanding one's own property is okay but not others'... I had a cat that did understand my property somewhat. When he got upset at me he would pretend to swat at my 2 liter of soda even when it wasn't near me at the time.
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12-01-2017, 03:06 PM | #3 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
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12-01-2017, 03:31 PM | #4 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
If we went that route, then large portions of humanity don't understand property. I doubt that that's what was intended.
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12-01-2017, 04:05 PM | #5 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
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I doubt the intent is for it to include not understanding territory, since many examples are territorial. |
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12-01-2017, 04:13 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
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12-01-2017, 05:21 PM | #7 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
So it's not at all about concept of property? It's about concept of complex bartering systems and trade? That's not at all obvious from the write up.
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12-03-2017, 03:54 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
As I see it, Bestial essentially prevents your character from participating in civilisation without a keeper. Can't buy a meal, can't go shopping, can't rent a room, etc.
I can see that that might sort of work in a dungeon bashing game where you're spending most of your time away from society, and your mates can look after you on the rare occasions you're in town ("go and play in the lion pits while we talk to the duke" "Mongo like!"), but in the games I typically run it would be so crippling as to make the character unplayable. Clueless is also -10, and I'd call this much more damaging than that.
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12-03-2017, 04:29 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Bestial is mostly an NPC/creature disad, I’m sure. I imagine that plenty of people have never written it on a character sheet, but have used it implicitly countless times when GM’ing. Any time you play a wild animal encounter vaguely correctly, you’re playing out Bestial, whether it’s written down or not.
By which logic, it’s in the rulebooks mostly for completeness and to allow animal companions to be statted out.
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12-03-2017, 08:02 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Bestial characters in social-heavy situations are potentially interesting, but are effectively playing a different game from normal PCs. Which might pose significant game focus issues.
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understand property in the human sense, but (depending on your race) you might understand territory and avoid doing damage to objects on another’s territory." So some grasp of possessions is maybe a slight stretch, but no more than that. And taking the incomprehension as specific to human refinements on the concept of property, not necessarily excluding 'this is my favorite termite-hunting stick - mine! That stick is yours.' Though it might exclude the latter sentence, or the former, in some cases. Bestial covers a significant behavioral spectrum. It's definitely a disadvantage where just putting the name and point cost on your sheet does not sufficiently specify what you'll be about.
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