Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

RPK only reduces Unaging to 5 points, makes Terminally Ill a quirk, and halves the other point costs. But, I see people in this thread saying advantages like Unaging didn't even give enough benefit in play to be a perk. I usually trust RPK's judgment so I wonder why he gives them higher values. Maybe he's treating Unaging, for example, as an Unusual Background that comes with the assumption the character is already quite old?

But on a racial template, it shouldn't necessarily come with that assumption. It seems to me that a 60-year-old Elf with racial Unaging shouldn't get an Unusual Background for it.

That does make me wonder, though. At what age should a character have an Unusual Background because of how much historical knowledge, skill levels, etc. they have compared to normal mortals? 200 years? 300? 500? 1000?

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

Never; they should spend points on advantages, attributes, or skills that reflect said learning.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

That can be said about everything that Unusual Background unlocks, though. It's always an advantage that gives literally nothing, except permission to purchase other advantages or skills that aren't otherwise available.

If Alice has magic skills, but Bob and Carol choose not to, Alice merely spends points on magic skills. But if nobody else is allowed to have magic skills, RAW says Alice should also pay 10 to 50 points for Unusual Background -- on top of paying for the magic itself.

So if being 1000 years old comes with permission to break skill and attribute caps, take Wildcard Skills, and supernatural or exotic advantages or magic powers off-limits to other PCs, by RAW that would apparently require an Unusual Background.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

Not entirely true, though. Unusual Background is one of the wildcard advantages for "there's no advantage for this", the same way Divine Curse is for disadvantages. And one of the things you usually get with Unusual Background is an assurance in the campaign that these things are less common, and NPCs won't be expecting them so much.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

If you are using Unaging to justify having skills that ordinary people don't or can't have, that much seems to be equivalent to Reawakened, which costs 10 points, and is defined as a specialized Unusual Background. Perhaps the 5-point difference is what Immunity to Aging is worth.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

Then there are of course the games which last a long enough in-game time to make those traits relevant. They can be very valuable there.

It generally makes sense to price advantages based on their utility in games which makes use of them. Players usually don't have to buy extended lifespan etc. if they don't think it will come up. There are plenty of other expensive traits that can be almost worthless. For example, combat traits are also massively overpriced in games which don't feature combat.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

Just as a note, my very first GURPS campaign, using the original edition of GURPS Uplift, had only two combat scenes in a two-year campaign. One was ship to ship, and the other was restrained a Tymbrimi crew member who had gone into gheer. Of course, I've run campaigns since then where combat was a lot more frequent!

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#50): Extended Lifespan, Longevity, Unaging
 

I like some variants on Unaging, such as:

Unaging (Ennui) [1]
Whenever you would be required to make an aging check, you are instead forced into a state of Ennui for a period of 3 months (thus, after age 90, Ennui is permanent); if you have extended lifespan, modify the length of Ennui as well. While suffering from Ennui, you are listless and bored; assume Improvement through Study is unavailable, as is productive labor beyond what is required for normal survival and lifestyle. You may spend 1 character point to break out of Ennui for 1 month (in one month, spending 4 hours/day in a part-time job and 8 hours/day in self-study, you would expect to gain 0.75 character points).

For +1 point, you may deliberately enter or exit Ennui; this takes a day and a Will check. During a period of voluntary Ennui, you do not age. This has no effect on forced Ennui.

For +1 point, you may choose to forget a point in a skill or sacrifice a point of social advantages to break free of Ennui, instead of spending earned character points.