[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Space Sickness

[johndallman]

Space Sickness [-10] is a mundane physical disadvantage. You cannot adapt to microgravity, and cannot learn Free Fall skill. Obviously, this disadvantage is only allowed in campaigns where there will be regular space travel. It appeared during the 3e period, presumably in the first edition of GURPS Space.

Your default Free Fall skill (DX-5 or HT-5) is not penalised by this disadvantage, but that’s all of the good news. As per p. B434, you roll against the better of HT-4 or Free Fall-4 (i.e., DX-9) when you enter free fall, and on a failure, you are nauseated, and may begin vomiting. The only way to recover from being nauseated is to get back into normal gravity.

Depending on the GM’s views, and the campaign TL, it would seem plausible to have a modifier to this disadvantage for “Can cope with spin gravity”, or “Can’t cope with spin gravity.” It seems quite possible to have G-Experience for gravity levels other than your native one, as well as Space Sickness, if you can get between them without dying of dehydration and general debilitation.

This disadvantage doesn’t show up in many GURPS supplements. In Tales of the Solar Patrol, there’s usually artificial gravity, but when it goes out, it does so at the worst moments, so Space Sickness has to be a Secret. Template Toolkit 1: Races points out that races who normally live in free fall have Immunity to Space Sickness as a [0] feature, and Transhuman Space: Changing Times has drugs that mitigate Space Sickness.

I’ve never used this disadvantage as a player or GM. All the GURPS games I’ve played in space settings have obviously been going to feature lots of free fall, which make this a very painful choice. It’s mostly useful for modelling people who go into space without the option. Has it been useful in your games?

[WingedKagouti]

It feels like one of those disadvantages that is mostly there to be used in a very specific campaign.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

It feels like one of those disadvantages that is mostly there to be used in a very specific campaign.

IME, it'd see a use primarily in a hard science space campaign where there is no artificial gravity, rarely centrifugal force, and can't produce thrust at enough strength to be felt full-time (half-G or better). Even with centrifugal force being common (say, in Babylon 5), you'd still encounter it with space walks.


That said, I used Space Sickness as the basis for Hyperspace Sickness in my space opera setting.

[RogerBW]

I can't see this ever being used on a PC. It's debilitating enough to be crippling if you're expecting freefall in the campaign, and if you're not you can't buy it anyway.

On an NPC who wasn't expecting to go into space, as an excuse for them to stay home and tell the PC how to defuse the bomb, perhaps…

[Pursuivant]

This is another NPC disad.

It is also another badly thought out holdover from GURPS 3E. Both physiologically and for purposes of game mechanics it should just be a special instance of Motion Sickness, and Motion Sickness should just be a special instance of Susceptible. Ditto for Timesickness.

The point cost also doesn't make sense. Technically, it's nothing more than Incompetence (Free Fall) [-1] and Susceptible 4 (Occasional/Common Threat) [-4 or -8]. That makes it top out at a maximum of -9 points.

But, by comparison to Motion Sickness (also worth -10 points) it's a steal: It only affects you in one occasionally/commonly encountered environment. It only causes Incompetence with one skill. You only have a -4 penalty to resist one particular Hazard and if you pass your initial HT roll you suffer no ill effects thereafter. Admittedly, it's harder to get back into a gravity well than to just stop your ride, but still . . .

Then there's the problem that actual inconvenience of the disad is entirely campaign-dependent. In any campaign where space travel isn't a major element the GM should prohibit this trait. In any campaign where space travel is a major feature and artificial gravity is rare players aren't going to run the risk of having their character crippled in critical situations for a lousy 10 character points.

This means that the GM has to seriously think about how often the characters are likely to end up in zero-G and adjust point costs accordingly. In your typical Star Trek/Star Wars setting where artificial gravity is ubiquitous Space Sickness shouldn't be worth more than -5 points (Susceptible to an Occasional hazard + Incompetence). If personal anti-gravity technology is available or if the mechanics of space travel aren't going to play a major role in the campaign it shouldn't be anything other than a Quirk (Incompetence: Free-Fall).

Realistically, at TL6 and above there are drugs and medical devices which aid with motion/space sickness. Drugs should count as -60% mitigators. Medical devices should count as -65% or -70% mitigators.

Realistically, "Vulnerable to Motion Sickness if not driving/piloting" or "Vulnerable to motion sickness if you can't see the horizon" are valid quirks.

Personally, I've found the Motion/Space/Time Sickness disads mostly helpful for purposes of comparison when developing new disadvantages. Essentially, for -10 points you have a -4 penalty to resist an occasional Hazard, or a -5/-2 penalty whenever you engage in a fairly common activity, or the occasional risk of being Stunned for 1d hours, plus Incompetence with one or more skills.