GURPS Action, why is Common Sense not allowed?

[Peter Knutsen]

None of the PC templates in GURPS Action 1 have Common Sense, and it's not on the list of allowed Advantages.

Why? It fits some character concepts well. Reading the box on high-IQ characters in Ac1, several of the entries made me think of the character Sam from the movie "Ronin". He's an obvious case of Common Sense (although he also has Versatile, and above-10 IQ).

I can't see the reasoning. Can someone explain it to me?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

None of the PC templates in GURPS Action 1 have Common Sense, and it's not on the list of allowed Advantages.

I think it's a genre thing: the kind of cautious behaviour that Common Sense normally guides you to may well be counterproductive in something that follows the conventions of action movies.

In the Action campaign I played we had a new player who is seriously into action movies. His character was Overconfident and Impulsive, and would get quite annoyed with the rest of us, who tended to want to make a plan before trying to do ridiculously dangerous things.

[OldSam]

Ronin is a really great movie - one of my favorites - but IMHO it has a more realistic feel than "Die Hard" or something like that, which is the default for GURPS:Action.
Of course it's no problem to make your Action-Game a little less cinematic than that! Actually I'm doing that myself in the next campaign where I'm using down-scaled Action-Templates lacking some things like Luck, high values of Hard to Kill, Gadgeteer etc. - so it's more realistic than the action-default and thus fits better for movies like Ronin in my opinion.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by OldSam

Ronin is a really great movie - one of my favorites - but IMHO it has a more realistic feel than "Die Hard" or something like that, which is the default for GURPS:Action.

Ronin is specifically mentioned in the Introduction to Action 1, and in fact fits the 'team' model of GURPS Action much better than the solo hero of Die Hard.

[OldSam]

For the team-model that's absolutely right!
But as I said, in my opinion there is a difference in feel of Die Hard and Ronin and _both_ are mentioned in the introduction. The way I see it the default-numbers of each Template feel a bit more like Die Hard than like Ronin, so I took out a few points of the most cinematic stuff (using 225 cp templates) and it was good for me. But it's a fine line and just my taste... ;)

[SCAR]

They are quite different sides of the Action genre, both supported by Action.
Which does not address the original question!

I suspect Common Sense is subsumed by genre conventions, so effectively every Action Hero has some measure of Common Sense.
That fact that they then ignore that voice in their heads saying "Is this really a good idea?" is also genre convention.

[OldSam]

What I meant is that I wouldn't hesitate to customize the templates... ;)
If you feel some of the archetypes should have Common Sense in your action-campaign (which is probably leaning a bit more to the realistic side of the genre), go ahead and include it as an option! I really don't think it would make any problems, it is a normal build option anyway... Just don't forget that GURPS is still a toolkit and you don't have to see the templates as carved in stone ;)

In my dungeon fantasy- and action-games, I let players use the templates as base - and most often they just stick to it - but they can always break out of the default and fine-tune something with normal options from the Basic Set if they want to... (which still may need GM-Approval of course)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Why? It fits some character concepts well. Reading the box on high-IQ characters in Ac1, several of the entries made me think of the character Sam from the movie "Ronin". He's an obvious case of Common Sense (although he also has Versatile, and above-10 IQ).

Common Sense (w/o Conscious) is an utterly metagame trait. I don't think that you can really say that any given fictional characters have it. A thoughtful player can play any character as though they are sensible, and such a player probably doesn't benefit from Common Sense at all.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Common Sense (w/o Conscious) is an utterly metagame trait. I don't think that you can really say that any given fictional characters have it. A thoughtful player can play any character as though they are sensible, and such a player probably doesn't benefit from Common Sense at all.

Which is probably why it isn't allowed. That doesn't mean you can't take it, just that it isn't the sort of thing Kromm's going to put into a template. Whether a character has Common Sense is more about the player than the character.

[pawsplay]

It would be hard to define, since it's supposed to suggest a good course of action. In Action, a good course of action is slamming a guy's face into a bar.