[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Pyromania and Mania

[johndallman]

Pyromania [-5*] is a mundane mental disadvantage with a self-control roll. You like fires, and like to start fires. This disadvantage appeared in GURPS 1e, and the idea hasn’t changed.

You need to make a self-control roll whenever you “have an opportunity to set a fire.” The interpretation of “opportunity” is crucial here. Clearly, if it only applied to normal and socially acceptable fires, this would not be a disadvantage at all. But if every unburned building or tree you saw was an opportunity, this disadvantage would be worth rather more. Treating it like a Compulsive Behaviour seems plausible: if you start a few fires per day without destroying other people’s property, it’s just expensive, and ensures everyone around you knows you love to burn stuff. But if you need to cover your tracks after going into someone else’s house, or someone has annoyed you … then it’s definitely time for a self-control roll, and there could be penalties if you haven’t set any fires recently.

You also need to make a self-control roll to avoid stopping to appreciate any fire you encounter. That’s more straightforward, and helps ensure that your love of fires will be known. The quirk-level version, “Likes fires”, or “Likes fires and explosions” doesn’t seem to be at all rare in real life. Actually starting fires is Survival, or presumably, Urban Survival, with modifiers for ignition sources and accelerants. Liquid Projector (Flamethrower) or Professional Skill (Firefighter) would often give automatic success.

Mania [-5*] is a generalisation of this disadvantage from Supers, p. 33. It’s just like Pyromania, for electricity, landslides, water or other natural forces.

Pyromania is a reasonably common disadvantage option on published templates, especially for characters who do fire magic, or blow stuff up. Bio-Tech views it as the kind of mental instability that can be prevented with genetic engineering, and DF 5 Salamanders pair it with Hobby Skill (Firestarting). DFM4 Dragons are prone to Pyromania and don’t usually worry about any social problems it causes. Madness Dossier implants can, of course, cause this disadvantage, but it’s a bit specific for a drug, or a drug-side effect from any of the Tech books.

I’ve used the quirk “likes fires and explosions” on a PC, but I’ve never used the full-scale disadvantage on a PC or NPC. Have you?

[cptbutton]

Does it affect tactical choices? If I am leaning out the window in a car chase, firing at the car in front, do I need to roll to shoot at the tires or occupants instead of at the gas tank? I mean, setting their car on fire would work, and be cool, right?

[Rupert]

Back in a 3e game, we had a fire priest with Pyromania. I think he caused less destruction via burning than the (non-Pyromaniac) mage, but the priest's bad habit certainly caused the party to have to leave several towns earlier than they'd planned.

[Fred Brackin]

Nyx the Barbarian had Pyromania and control rolls were an infrequent issue at best. She may have been pacified by putting Flaming on all of her melee weapons (and her shield and her warhorse too).

I suspect that I should have been rolling Fright Checks for my poor monsters that saw her charging them with her flaming morningstar but she was using Great Haste too and they were simply dying too fast for Fright Checks to have mattered.

She was very faithful about her interest in fire. She alwasy stopped t look at burning things (even though she was Colorblind "Oooh! Look at all the pretty shades of gray!"). She also never passed up a chance to to collect flammables. Once in an ancient Eqyptian-themed dungeon she found a pool of lamp oil and dumped out this poor guy's canops so she could carry some of that oil in his canopic jars.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

Does it affect tactical choices? If I am leaning out the window in a car chase, firing at the car in front, do I need to roll to shoot at the tires or occupants instead of at the gas tank? I mean, setting their car on fire would work, and be cool, right?

Seems reasonable to me.

The Hon. Richard Gardiner, an Elizabethan master gunner and my character with quirk-level pyromania, only once went on an overland expedition, but made sure to take half a barrel of gunpowder with him, on the grounds that it was "likely to be useful." Came in dead handy for incinerating a probably-dead mad magician.

[RogerBW]

In Roger's streamlined GURPS (which does not exist), this is just a subtype of Compulsive Behaviour rather than getting its own entry.

It may seem a very specific thing for a drug to induce, but a few years ago there was a treatment for Parkinson's which apparently (in specific people) caused compulsive gambling. (Last I heard it was still being litigated, but there seems to have been at least some effect.)

I've taken the full-blown disadvantage, but not in a game set in civilisation. In a dungeon bash it's probably fairly priced; usually a nuisance, occasionally life-threatening.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

In Roger's streamlined GURPS (which does not exist), this is just a subtype of Compulsive Behaviour rather than getting its own entry.

It may seem a very specific thing for a drug to induce, but a few years ago there was a treatment for Parkinson's which apparently (in specific people) caused compulsive gambling.

It does seem a very specific thing. And it is. That drug also causes compulsive shopping and compulsive sexual activity in different people. It really just messed with impulse control and fixation.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It does seem a very specific thing. And it is. That drug also causes compulsive shopping and compulsive sexual activity in different people. It really just messed with impulse control and fixation.

Interesting, thanks.

Affliction: reduces control number, or turns a Quirk into its Disad equivalent.