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Old 04-12-2019, 03:22 PM   #1
johndallman
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Default [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Lecherousness

Lecherousness [-15*] is a mundane mental disadvantage with a self-control. You have a very strong desire for successful romance, and it influences your actions enough to be worth [-15] with a self-control roll of 12-. This disadvantage appeared at GURPS 1e, and hasn't changed, except to replace Will rolls with self-control rolls.

When you meet someone you find appealing, you need to make a self-control roll to avoid making a “pass” at them. You're at -5 if they're Handsome/Beautiful, or -10 if they're Very Handsome/Very Beautiful. If there's nobody good-looking around for a while, your standards are likely to slip. Once you make an attempt, you have to deal with the consequences, pleasant or otherwise. If you're turned down very firmly, with violence, humiliation or arrest, the GM may give you a bonus to future self-control rolls when meeting that person again. You don't have to make repeated attempts in the same day, except with people who are Very Handsome/Very Beautiful.

Lecherousness is a pretty common disadvantage on published templates, tending to occur on social types who can succeed in seductions, and obnoxious oafs without the sense to stop. The Ham Clause in Action is tailor-made for this disadvantage, while Bio-Tech can gengineer it in or out, and often uses it as a Temporary Disadvantage. Horror applies it to B-movie aliens (very much optional in Mars Attacks), and Lands Out Of Time to lusting after different forms of humanity. Magic has an elixir that imposes this disadvantage, and Power-Ups 6 a quirk-level version, as well as other quirks that interact with it. Social Engineering has more detail, and Space points out that you need Xenophillia to be Lecherous towards aliens. Chinese Elemental Powers covers its effects in yin-yang imbalances, and Ultra-Tech has pheromone spray that's instant Lecherousness (and maybe assault).

I've used this disadvantage a couple of times on PCs. Once there were two PCs, both Lecherous, good-looking and attracted to each other, so they were quite happy. In the Elizabethan game, it got replaced with Dependent (Loved one) in the form of a sister of a primary opponent: very Shakespearian.

And in the Witch World campaign, we were once staying in an inn on a long journey, where one of the barmaids had Lecherousness ... “Actually, your best chance is with the short, ugly lizard man. Two of the PCs expect they'll lose their magical ability if they lose their virginity (this is a fairly common belief on the Witch World), and the other one is having a heavy relationship with the magician who brought him here from Earth. If he's unfaithful to her, she's liable to reduce him to a small pile of ash. She'd be very sorry about that afterwards, but she wouldn't be able to bring him back. So, does the barmaid fancy the lizard man?” She didn't.

How has Lecherousness caused complication in your games?
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Old 04-12-2019, 03:56 PM   #2
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Lecherousness

Huh, now that I think about it, Lecherousness is very uncommon for PCs.

Even a PC who has seduced roughly two people, creatures or entities per session doesn't, upon checking, actually have Lecherousness. I guess the player really dislikes the thought of being forced to make a pass at NPCs he doesn't fancy.

NPCs have it moderately often, most often because they have impulse control issues and/or a pathological need for affirmation.

A coven of allies/enemies/to-be-determined Mesopotamian vampires, dead bodies animated by evil spirits motivated by physical pleasures and hedonism, have strong tendencies toward Lecherousness and related Disadvantages.

A wereserpent exotic dancer Dependent-picked-up-in-play also has Lecherousness. Sort of self-selected for it, as the PC wasn't looking to pick up a Dependent, but NPC Lecherousness combined with divinely granted looks and charm on the PC's part meant she made a serious effort to attach herself.*

*Well, actually, the NPC exotic dancer was assigned to seduce him and spy on him, but the traditional James Bond effect turned her loyalties around.
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Old 03-13-2020, 11:07 AM   #3
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Lecherousness

In a thread a while back, someone suggested Compulsive Behavior (Womanizing) as a less restrictive form of lecherous. I thought that was worth mentioning here. I'm not sure if it's a five or a ten point disadvantage. It might depend on the setting.
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Old 03-13-2020, 12:57 PM   #4
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Lecherousness

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
In a thread a while back, someone suggested Compulsive Behavior (Womanizing) as a less restrictive form of lecherous. I thought that was worth mentioning here. I'm not sure if it's a five or a ten point disadvantage. It might depend on the setting.
I think that's like Compulsive Carousing: -5, -10 in puritanical settings.
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Old 03-13-2020, 01:36 PM   #5
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Lecherousness

One of my players of some years ago had a behavioral pattern somewhat comparable to his character having Lecherousness: They could not resist making a play for an attractive female PC, but only if she was played by a woman whom this player found attractive. If the player were male, or were a woman this player wasn't interested in, they were less exciting than frozen porridge; if the player pushed this player's buttons, he found it hard to let the matter drop. One woman friend of mine came up with a countermeasure, though: She had her character (a non-native speaker of the main campaign language) conclude that his character was offering to act as her father, and the implied squick brought him up short.
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