Odd Disadvantage Definition for Selfish

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Should I just start a separate new thread to address the OP's question and get advice about my house rule? The sociopathy derail is making it quite impossible to discuss the actual OP. I'm getting frustrated.

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Should I just start a separate new thread to address the OP's question and get advice about my house rule? The sociopathy derail is making it quite impossible to discuss the actual OP. I'm getting frustrated.

I'm sorry. Being the Original Post author, I encouraged the side track, and probably shouldn't have.

Where were we? I think David Johnston suggested that Odious Personal Habits covered us with a -15 version, but I don't think that covers the self control roll right? I'd like a way to represent differing levels of selfishness, and I think the self control roll is great for that.

There's a really good chance I'm using a selfishness like you defined it Vaevictis Asmadi, and I'm probably setting the value at -10.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

I addressed the Odious Personal Habit suggestion and have been working on a version using that. Which I already posted here, in two versions. It seems that nobody has seen any of those posts.


I'll start a new thread after work to discuss house-rules to replace Selfish.

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

I addressed the Odious Personal Habit suggestion and have been working on a version using that. Which I already posted here, in two versions. It seems that nobody has seen any of those posts.


I'll start a new thread after work to discuss house-rules to replace Selfish.

I think the OPH suggestion came both before and after your address of OPH. So I figured we were back to OPH as being the suggested solution.

I agree with you though that self-control rolls are an appealing part of representing selfishness, and in that scheme, I'm at the point of considering it a -10 base cost.

[Irioth]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

My Selfish/Amoral isn't meant to represent sociopaths, specifically. It's meant to be useful to represent selfish jerkwads who are not well-adjusted socially, no matter what their reason is.

I didn't mean it to preclude Code of Honor or Sense of Duty. It's only the opposite of Code of Honor (Don't Be a Jerk), which should make it partly an advantage IMO.

For the sake of PC party cohesion, it should only be about being a jerk to people outside the party, though. Then it would basically be 5 points, plus OPH. So -1/-5/-10 points with no self-control roll.


I renamed it because Selfish would be confusing, and Amoral is an official quirk. So my current version is:

Unscrupulous [Variable] (mental, mundane)
You habitually put your desires above the well-being of others, to the point that it interferes with social relations and other people’s lives. Examples include taking more than you need and leaving too little for others, manipulating or sabotaging other people to ‘cut’ socially, and unnecessarily risking or harming others or their property for convenience or personal gain. You seldom behave this way towards your adventuring companions, nor when it would violate a Sense of Duty or Code of Honor you have – but you disregard the needs of anyone else. Your selfishness benefits you to an extent, since your behavior is less restrained by morals. However, you receive negative reactions, exactly as for Odious Personal Habit (B22).

If you're capable of self-control some of the time, add a self-control number. Make a self-control roll anytime you have an opportunity to gain something by harming other people, their property, public property, or the common good, if it would be prudent or useful to avoid doing harm. On a failure, you do whatever you want without regard for others. When Unscrupulous clashes with a Sense of Duty or Code of Honor, you automatically succeed.

Decide the severity of your behavior as for Odious Personal Habit. Compared to Odious Personal Habits costing –5/–10/–15, Unscrupulous of the same severity costs –1/–5/–10 if you get no self-control rolls, 2/–2/–6 if you succeed on a roll of 9 or less, 3/–1/–2 if you succeed on a roll of 12 or less, or 4/3/2 if you succeed on a roll of 15 or less. Sometimes selfishness is an advantage! An Unscrupulous person can't be Selfless, but is not necessarily Arrogant.

OPH_no roll_9-_12-_15-
-5........-1......2....3.....4
-10......-5.....-2...-1.....3
-15.....-10....-6...-2.....2

This is a meta-trait:
No Code of Honor (Don't Be a Jerk to Anyone) (informal, all the time) [10]
+ Code of Honor (Don't Be a Jerk to Adventuring Companions) (informal, peers) [-5]
+ Odious Personal Habit with a self-control number

The -1 versions actually work out to 0 points, but I made them into Quirks (replacing my earlier Self-Centered quirk). There's no "6 or less" variant because it would price the same as having no self-control roll, for little practical difference in play.

So... how does it look now?

It seems fine, and appropriate to represent what you want it to, in game terms. I wish the canon system had something like this, and rename Selfish to Prideful.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's a problem with a number of GURPS traits. About all that can be done is to accept that it exists, and look up the actual definition of the trait before applying it in play, rather than going by what you think the word means.

For many disadvantages not defined elsewhere, Compulsive Behavior, Obsession, and Odious Personal Habit are usually flexible enough to fit.

For example, a conventionally self-centered (vs. status conscious) person might have OPH (Self-Centered), while a nakedly ambitious person who can keep his temper in check when dealing with social slights but who otherwise does everything he can do to advance might have Obsession (Gain Political Office/Power/Rank/Wealth) or OPH (Social Climber, Toady, etc.).

If GURPS were to be redesigned, certain traits would benefit from being renamed. In particular, rather than having different words to describe different levels of a trait (e.g., Fit and Very Fit, Extra Flexibility and Double-Jointed, Sensitive and Empathy, Overweight, Fat, Very Fat or Attractive, Handsome/Beautiful, Very Handsome/Beautiful, Transcendent) there would be a single name for the trait followed by a number where Level 0 is defined as a Perk or Quirk, and higher numbers correspond to levels of an actual advantage or disadvantage (e.g., Empathy 1 = Sensitive, Attractive 3 = Very Handsome, Fat 0 = Overweight).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

If GURPS were to be redesigned, certain traits would benefit from being renamed. In particular, rather than having different words to describe different levels of a trait (e.g., Fit and Very Fit, Extra Flexibility and Double-Jointed, Sensitive and Empathy, Overweight, Fat, Very Fat or Attractive, Handsome/Beautiful, Very Handsome/Beautiful, Transcendent) there would be a single name for the trait followed by a number where Level 0 is defined as a Perk or Quirk, and higher numbers correspond to levels of an actual advantage or disadvantage (e.g., Empathy 1 = Sensitive, Attractive 3 = Very Handsome, Fat 0 = Overweight).

That was done with some traits. For example, Selfish used to have a higher level called Self-Centered, if I recall correctly. Now it just has a self-control number.

[Sam Baughn]

Having recently spent some time getting to know someone who seems to be a 'low-functioning' psychopath or whatever the right terminology is, I was struck by how poorly he seems to understand that his behaviour can affect how other people act towards him. Like, it's obviously quite difficult for him to connect his long history of violence to the fact that police usually show up at his home in force and ready for confrontation. If you explain it to him slowly, he seems to get it, but he seems unable to generalise from that to the idea that being nice to people and not hurting them might lead to him being treated better by others.

He isn't exactly 'immoral'; he understands the concept that some behaviour is unethical, he knows what fairness is, he likes to 'punish' people he thinks are bad and sees himself as a good person. He just seems to have massive trouble modelling what goes on inside other people's heads, especially when he has to do it quickly and under pressure. I think the closest match might be the Oblivious disadvantage (he also probably has Bad Temper and possibly Berserk, but might actually not have Callous; he does seem to be capable of pity for vulnerable people who don't annoy him). He isn't exactly clever, but he's quick-witted enough and able to master technical skills so I don't think it's just an issue of very low IQ.

[ericthered]

The proposed selfish trait feels about right at -5. I actually think Callous is itself a close fit: Somone's whose actions take very little notice of the consequences to others. I wouldn't invoke odious personal habit unless you can't really turn it off, and such folks usually maintain a pool of people who are on their "Good Side".

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Sam Baughn

Having recently spent some time getting to know someone who seems to be a 'low-functioning' psychopath or whatever the right terminology is, I was struck by how poorly he seems to understand that his behaviour can affect how other people act towards him. Like, it's obviously quite difficult for him to connect his long history of violence to the fact that police usually show up at his home in force and ready for confrontation. If you explain it to him slowly, he seems to get it, but he seems unable to generalise from that to the idea that being nice to people and not hurting them might lead to him being treated better by others.

Severe Psychopathy/Sociopathy/Anti-Social Personality Disorder tends to come with a real difficulty learning from negative reinforcement, threats of punishment, have little fear of imprisonment, etc. I've never heard an explanation of where that comes from, I'm dead curious. That said, many adults seem to be still be kinda bad at long-term thinking, and consequences of your own actions are part of that - it could just be the two things coming together and interacting negatively. It may not be a factor of "very low" IQ, but more just "not enough IQ to compensate for the lack of built-in systems".

I'm autistic, and I definitely "make do" in life by actively thinking my way through social interaction. This requires thinking very hard (and fast), and paying a lot of attention - it's a very mentally taxing task. It's exhausting if I have to pay attention to more than two or three people and the situation isn't veeery structured (RPGs are structured, thankfully). If I'm not functioning at peak efficiency mentally (I'm tired, hungry, or my drain bamage is just generally being difficult) I can quickly loose the plot. If my brain damage was worse, or I just was a bit slower mentally in general, I'd lose the social plot and never pick it up again.

I can't see why a sociopath wouldn't also be able to power through their problems by consciously evaluating/modeling peoples minds and the long term consequences of their own actions, but that must be just as thinky-intensive.