Pricing of Delusion [Basic]

[AlexanderHowl]

I was just curious how one would price certain Delusions in their GURPS games? For example, 2.5% of Americans firmly believe that the world is flat and that it is the center of a (very small) Universe. The guidance in Basic concerns the reaction penalty that it causes, thus the confusion about pricing the Delusion. In my own life, I would consider a self-professed flat-Earther to be an individual who has lost complete touch with reality and react accordingly (at the very least, getting away from them very, very quickly, so the equivalent of a -3 or greater reaction modifier), but I am not sure that my reaction is representative of the average character in a contemporary GURPS setting.

So, in the case of such a Delusion, what severity would you give it? Would it be a Severe Delusion, where anyone who declared their belief would suffer a -3 reaction penalty and be considered an individual to be feared and/or pitied? Or would you consider Delusion (Flat Earth) to be a less severe Delusion?

[RyanW]

It would mostly depend on their behavior. If they quietly doubt the prevailing science but go about their daily life more or less as usual, it's probably just a quirk. If they crash science conferences with false credentials in order to speak Truth to the sheeple, it's a bit stronger. Delusion is largely a special case of Odious Personal Habit.

[Celjabba]

In most cases, a flat-Earther would be a quirk or maybe a minor delusion (if it do noticeably affect the character daily behaviour.)

It probably doesn't strongly affect it's daily live (major) nor keep the character from functioning in the everyday world (severe).

Unless the character is or would otherwise be a teacher, an airliner pilot or involved in mapmaking, navigation software, telecommunication, space operation ... then it should be upgraded !

Also, the character may be uneducated instead of someone "who has lost complete touch with reality".

A flat-earther with a strong academic background in hard science probably deserve a stronger penalty than an uneducated illiterate character from a secluded area, although I don't know if that should be included in the delusion or separate ...

[JulianLW]

I know a flat-earther. I would call this a quirk. The real problem is "Clueless" and a really low Will. Maybe even Gullibility.

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

For example, 2.5% of Americans firmly believe that the world is flat and that it is the center of a (very small) Universe.

'People always answer surveys accurately' is a common delusion.

In a survey of US Army soldiers' food preferences in 1974 three completely fictional dishes (funistrada, braised trake and buttered ermal) scored as more popular than lima beans, eggplant and cranberry juice. Questions saying something like 'answer this as strongly disagree to show you are actually reading the survey' inevitably catch a couple of percentage points worth of people who just tick boxes at random. People frequently mark themselves as believing absurd things (flat Earth, Ted Cruz being the Zodiac killer) and having impossible experiences (or extremely unlikely ones far more often than would be likely, such as 3% of people claiming to be Siamese twins). A poll of American political opinions found that 5% of people who voted for Barrack Obama also believed that he was literally the Antichrist. 59% of Americans say they support homosexuals serving in the military, but 70% support allowing gays and lesbians to do so. A big chunk of survey respondents will do things like putting 'Female' as their nationality and 'British' as their gender.

Almost every absurd idea will have some people who really do seem to sincerely believe it, but there are also people who are too stupid (or tired, drunk, distracted, etc.) to understand survey questions and plenty who will simply lie about anything (some of them seem to be compulsively dishonest, some of them find it amusing, some of them want to push political agendas by 'false flagging' as idiots on the other side, and some of them apparently just hate surveys). I don't think this is restricted to surveys either. Fooling other people is a classic form of social play and those who are insecure regarding their own intelligence and status often find satisfaction in tricking higher-status people even if it makes them seem more ignorant.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I was just curious how one would price certain Delusions in their GURPS games? For example, 2.5% of Americans firmly believe that the world is flat and that it is the center of a (very small) Universe. The guidance in Basic concerns the reaction penalty that it causes, thus the confusion about pricing the Delusion. In my own life, I would consider a self-professed flat-Earther to be an individual who has lost complete touch with reality and react accordingly (at the very least, getting away from them very, very quickly, so the equivalent of a -3 or greater reaction modifier), but I am not sure that my reaction is representative of the average character in a contemporary GURPS setting.

So, in the case of such a Delusion, what severity would you give it? Would it be a Severe Delusion, where anyone who declared their belief would suffer a -3 reaction penalty and be considered an individual to be feared and/or pitied? Or would you consider Delusion (Flat Earth) to be a less severe Delusion?

To expand on what others have said - Delusion does not mean "Believes False Thing", it means "Acts In A Variably Disruptive Manner Against What Is Commonly Believed". And the penalty is representative based on how disruptive their behavior is.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

'People always answer surveys accurately' is a common delusion.

In a survey of US Army soldiers' food preferences in 1974 three completely fictional dishes (funistrada, braised trake and buttered ermal) scored as more popular than lima beans, eggplant and cranberry juice. Questions saying something like 'answer this as strongly disagree to show you are actually reading the survey' inevitably catch a couple of percentage points worth of people who just tick boxes at random. People frequently mark themselves as believing absurd things (flat Earth, Ted Cruz being the Zodiac killer) and having impossible experiences (or extremely unlikely ones far more often than would be likely, such as 3% of people claiming to be Siamese twins). A poll of American political opinions found that 5% of people who voted for Barrack Obama also believed that he was literally the Antichrist. 59% of Americans say they support homosexuals serving in the military, but 70% support allowing gays and lesbians to do so. A big chunk of survey respondents will do things like putting 'Female' as their nationality and 'British' as their gender.

Almost every absurd idea will have some people who really do seem to sincerely believe it, but there are also people who are too stupid (or tired, drunk, distracted, etc.) to understand survey questions and plenty who will simply lie about anything (some of them seem to be compulsively dishonest, some of them find it amusing, some of them want to push political agendas by 'false flagging' as idiots on the other side, and some of them apparently just hate surveys). I don't think this is restricted to surveys either. Fooling other people is a classic form of social play and those who are insecure regarding their own intelligence and status often find satisfaction in tricking higher-status people even if it makes them seem more ignorant.

Also not all surveys are created equal. It doesn’t take a lot to phrase questions in such a way that you’re more likely to get the answers you were hoping for.

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In my own life, I would consider a self-professed flat-Earther to be an individual who has lost complete touch with reality and react accordingly (at the very least, getting away from them very, very quickly, so the equivalent of a -3 or greater reaction modifier), but I am not sure that my reaction is representative of the average character in a contemporary GURPS setting.

Different people, different lives, different reactions. A Flat Earther would get no reaction penalty at all from me, but due to personal experiences a (DATA EXPUNGED), usually a 0 point feature or -1 point quirk at most, would get a -3 reaction and left to die in a triage situation.

Reaction penalties can generally be treated as an average rather that's abstracted as a constant, that Flat Earther would get reactions ranging from large positives to large negatives, but usually pretty mild.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

For example, 2.5% of Americans firmly believe that the world is flat

I'm thinking 80% of whichever people polled positively on such a question might just be trolls/liars.

Some might have a Controllable Mental Disadvantage perk they can use to infiltrate true-believer communities or upset others, but you wouldn't need that just to answer dishonestly on a survey.

1 in 50 Americans being deceptive surveys and merely 1 in 200 believing the Earth is flat is a little more believable.

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

In a survey of US Army soldiers' food preferences in 1974 three completely fictional dishes (funistrada, braised trake and buttered ermal) scored as more popular than lima beans, eggplant and cranberry juice.

Questions saying something like 'answer this as strongly disagree to show you are actually reading the survey' inevitably catch a couple of percentage points worth of people who just tick boxes at random.

I need to remember these two to bring up any time survey-worshipers annoy me :) Do you recall the years/names of them?

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

People frequently mark themselves as believing absurd things (flat Earth, Ted Cruz being the Zodiac killer)

Hold on a second bro, Jumper (Time) clearly makes the latter a possibility worth entertaining.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

'People always answer surveys accurately' is a common delusion.

In a survey of US Army soldiers' food preferences in 1974 three completely fictional dishes (funistrada, braised trake and buttered ermal) scored as more popular than lima beans, eggplant and cranberry juice.

Why shouldn't imaginary food score higher than those real items?

From my own experience I can say that cranberry juice is vile. In reference to military foos the lime bean was part of the C-ration universally known as the "dreaded ham & lima beans" and eggplants are high fat vegetables and thus give you the worst of two worlds.

A response of "I'm not sure what that is but it has to be better than x" is fairly predictable for sufficiently unpleasant values of x.