Finer grained self-control
 

Has anyone tried doing self-control numbers other than just 15/12/9/6, i.e. the whole spread from 6 to 15?

I'm thinking about going a bit retro for a possible campaign, as one of the RPGs of my misspent youth had mandatory disadvantages ("negative attributses"), where everyone had Greed or Acrophobia or Curiosity to a certain degree. Which was really fun, and characters weren't just looked at as having some kind of disability/affliction, but just being on a regular spectrum.

Mathematically it would just be interpolating, either between the given values or if that's a bit too uneven between the extremes, re-jiggering some costs.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

I haven't tried doing this myself, but it's not too hard to interpolate the multipliers for different levels of self-control. I'd suggest something along these lines:

Only controls on a 3: X2.5
4 or less: X2.3
5 or less: X2.15
6 or less: X2
7 or less: X1.8
8 or less: X1.65
9 or less: X1.5
10 or less: X 1.3
11 or less: X1.15
12 or less: X1
13 or less: X0.8
14 or less: X0.65
15 or less: X0.5
16 or less: X0.3
17 or less: X0.15
Only fails on an 18: A quirk.

These numbers will end up with a lot of disadvantages costing the same as a higher self-control number, due to how the rounding works, but it could still make a bit of a difference, since you apply modifiers before rounding.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

They only thing I've ever done was to add a Perk and Quirk to go to 16 and 5.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

An old article I wrote for my website and still use:

Optional rules for Unreliable, Self-Control, and Resistant. Short, sweet, simple.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

My personal rule is if you want a self control number other than one of the official ones, buy the next higher number. I've never run into a case where I wouldn't let you write anything lower than you paid for on your character sheet for any trait at all if you wanted to.

If you wanted the lower number for characterization reasons and not for munchkin point optimization, that ought to be a completely adequate solution. If you are looking for munchkin point optimization, look somewhere else - I don't think there are any disadvantages with self control rolls that are over -15 points base, so after rounding we're talking about a maximum of like 4 points anyway.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

OTOH, it is only - at most - 4 points so why not let them have it since it will have an actual game mechanical effect? That's exactly why I never had a problem with the extra granularity of allowing a slightly worse self-control number for an extra point or four.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

Thanks, everyone. I intend for this to be the main source of disad points in a campaign, so everyone will have a degree of problems with 5 or 7 given issues. 5 point disads have rounding issues, true. And "curiousity" was one of the things I want to emulate, but I'll probably combine that with Overconfident, and end up with a default 10 point distribution. Greed is another issue, but as I never quite understood why that is 15 points in the first place, I'll just mark it down a bit.

Realistically speaking, that would mean a bunch of people with some serious mental health problems, but in a game it'll just end up as a more narrative device anyways.

Might as well use Heroic Flaws for the disadvantages not covered by this set.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

Greed causes acute inter-party conflict. Greed causes one PC to hide treasure from the others, to conceal extra profits or bonuses they earned from a shared employer, to skim off party sales, and to steal things right out of other players pockets/backpacks. That causes really bad feelings.

Two PCs with Greed is a disaster waiting to happen. Their shared motivation can quickly turn into us-vs-them, and then once they get away with the goods, they rapidly degenerate into Me-Vs-You. Or they flat out fight with each other, accusing one another of hiding treasure that the other wants.

Problems that may result in angry PCs kicking you out of the party/murdering you/turning you into the authorities for imprisonment long enough to remove you from the campaign are pretty big problems. Greed is worse than many other obnoxious Disads, in that many people regard money earned as their "score" - both in games and in real life. A person who is not personally greedy can feel particularly wounded when their PC has money stolen from them. Heck, that's the quickest way I know to get PCs to chase after someone in particular - have that person steal something from them. It makes players furious in a way that attempted murder just doesn't.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

Yeah, pretty much all this. GURPS tends to rate disadvantages that provoke disputes between party members as worse than those that don't. See also Compulsive Lying or Kleptomania.

Re: Finer grained self-control
 

There are campaigns that never actually count money - most of the GURPS I play is like that. But most of them have the party members answerable to a fairly strong legal system, which means stealing valuable stuff gets the people who did it into trouble in the long term.

There are some campaigns where money is just irrelevant, and so is Greed. In Infinite Cabal, the party have access to the bullion holdings of the Bank of England on Enigma (IW, p140), but try not to break economies, because it draws attention.