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Pursuivant 11-21-2023 10:55 PM

Re: New perks
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Prince Charon (Post 2508127)
Um, is even the normal use beneficial enough to be considered a perk?

I was trying to think of minor Precognition-related perks that could be legitimately considered to be weaker than a -80% limitation. That requires some serious limitations to the basic advantage to take it below the normal minimum of 5 points.

As written the Perk is marginal. The ability to learn the exact date that your viewing or being able to view a specific time period beyond a "lockout period" (e.g, anything 1M+ years into the future) might make it more useful.

The basic idea is that you can see so far into the future that the knowledge you gain isn't particularly meaningful. If you're lucky, it might give you an idea for a story or an invention, but it's mostly just a cool trick unless you have access to incredible time travel abilities. It's good for uncanny cosmic entities that can slip in and out of the time stream, not so good for ordinary mortals.

With a lot of work, an ordinary person could use the Perk to figure out the best place to bury a time capsule so it can be found by a specific future person or store high level nuclear waste so it isn't disturbed before it becomes inert.

Anyhow, it's a starting place for perks for clairvoyants and precognitives.

RGTraynor 11-21-2023 11:36 PM

Re: New perks
 
Nah, that's a zero-point feature at best; I can't imagine how that could possibly meaningfully interact with game play. So I can determine that a million years into the future, Earth is part of the (Unpronounceable Squiggle Realm) of (Unpronounceable Squiggle)? Presuming people don't dismiss me as a nutcase, now what? Probably do me a lot less good than to be able to "see" that the dominant polity in the Connecticut River Valley 10,000 years ago was the Speckled Rock tribe of Paleo-Indians ... and likely few campaigns turn on academic paleontology.


EDIT: Thinking a bit more on my answer, the principal reason why folks are houseruling the cost of advantages such as Unaging and Extended Lifespan down as far as Quirk-level for points is that they have no practical effect on game play in the vast majority of campaigns. This one is even more so.

jason taylor 11-22-2023 09:59 AM

Re: New perks
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Pursuivant (Post 2508136)
I was trying to think of minor Precognition-related perks that could be legitimately considered to be weaker than a -80% limitation. That requires some serious limitations to the basic advantage to take it below the normal minimum of 5 points.

As written the Perk is marginal. The ability to learn the exact date that your viewing or being able to view a specific time period beyond a "lockout period" (e.g, anything 1M+ years into the future) might make it more useful.

The basic idea is that you can see so far into the future that the knowledge you gain isn't particularly meaningful. If you're lucky, it might give you an idea for a story or an invention, but it's mostly just a cool trick unless you have access to incredible time travel abilities. It's good for uncanny cosmic entities that can slip in and out of the time stream, not so good for ordinary mortals.

With a lot of work, an ordinary person could use the Perk to figure out the best place to bury a time capsule so it can be found by a specific future person or store high level nuclear waste so it isn't disturbed before it becomes inert.

Anyhow, it's a starting place for perks for clairvoyants and precognitives.

It can allow for you to predict that the Shadows are going to return several years from now and that your descendant will marry a human and steal Babylon 4.

David Johnston2 11-22-2023 12:38 PM

Re: New perks
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Pursuivant (Post 2508136)
I was trying to think of minor Precognition-related perks that could be legitimately considered to be weaker than a -80% limitation. That requires some serious limitations to the basic advantage to take it below the normal minimum of 5 points.

Wrong Number: (Must have Weirdness Magnet as a prerequisite) You regularly get misdialed numbers, but the people making the call are in the future. IE you have Weirdness Magnet but one particular type of weirdness is recurrent and has a slight chance of being useful

Right Caller: (Must have Precognition as a prerequisite) You always know who is calling you although only by name if you know their name in the first place. Alternatively you always foresee the face of someone at your door. Alternatively you know the name of everyone you see but only if they were likely to tell you their name.

Weather Wise: You know when rain is going happen in a few hours.

Fated Mate: Once in your life you will encounter the person Fate has chosen to be your mate. You will know them when you see them, both of you will perceive each other as at least handsome/beautiful (because they may not be pretty but somehow they're totally your type), and you will be fertile with each other.

TGLS 11-22-2023 02:44 PM

Re: New perks
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by David Johnston2 (Post 2508196)
Fated Mate: ... and you will be fertile with each other.

If the character in question is not straight (or either partner is sterile for whatever reason), then it would seem a bit more like a very minor ability that could be granted by a god of family or outright reality warper.

David Johnston2 11-22-2023 02:48 PM

Re: New perks
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by TGLS (Post 2508205)
If the character in question is not straight (or either partner is sterile for whatever reason), then it would seem a bit more like a very minor ability that could be granted by a god of family or outright reality warper.

The Fated Mate concept is intended as divine intervention to keep a race on the verge of extinction from dying out by increasing reproduction. People who aren't straight or at least bisexual or who are totally infertile aren't eligible for it.

jason taylor 11-22-2023 02:53 PM

Re: New perks
 
Compulsive Correction: interferes whenever someone makes a logical error, a factual error or even a grammatical error. Actually that is more a quirk.

Compulsive maintainance: always fixing the tools he has. Good for a gadgeteer. With a warrior applicable to personal arms.

Pursuivant 11-22-2023 06:53 PM

Re: New perks
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by David Johnston2 (Post 2508196)
Wrong Number

Thanks! This and the rest of the perks you've come up with are exactly the sort of Precognitive perks I was trying to think of.

I could also see Perk level Precognition perks they're very tightly focused on certain events or locations, or if there's little you can do to benefit from your precognition.

Cassandra: You get glimpses of future catastrophes, but there's nothing you can do about them. People ignore your warnings and any attempt to alter fate just makes things worse. That includes taking out insurance policies or making bets to profit off of future bad events.

Geo-Fenced Precognition: You can only see random flashes of future events in one particular unimportant location. If you're very lucky you might see a glimpse of an event of interest, such as a crime, battle or social interaction. Other than that, it's just visions of sky, weather, vegetation and random animals.

Nostradamus: My original Extreme Precognition perk potentially becomes useful if it gives you random glimpses of events which will happen decades or centuries in the future, rather than eons. You don't know exactly when or where a particular event will occur, but you can describe it accurately enough that people will recognize your precognitive power in retrospect - after the event occurs. Mixed with Fortune Telling or Writing skill you have a career as psychic or SF writer. (Could also be called Jules Verne or Agnes Nutter)

Person of Interest: You get visions of future events which affect individual strangers. If you're lucky you can geolocate or date the place or time where your vision takes place. To change the future, you have to identify the location and travel to it, then find the stranger and convince them that you're not just a random nutcase.

Trivial Precognition: You have precognition of truly trivial events, like the outcome of random amateur sports matches. Nobody really cares except for the participants and their immediate relatives, so there's no way you can make book on the outcomes without serious effort.

Ultra-Specialized Precognition: As above, but tightly focused. Examples: You always know how much change you're going to get as a result of your next (cash) purchase, although you don't get a vision of how many dollars you'll spend. You always know if a shop has your favorite candy in stock.

Pursuivant 11-22-2023 07:19 PM

Re: New perks
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by David Johnston2 (Post 2508196)
Fated Mate: Once in your life you will encounter the person Fate has chosen to be your mate. You will know them when you see them, both of you will perceive each other as at least handsome/beautiful (because they may not be pretty but somehow they're totally your type), and you will be fertile with each other.

A better name might be "True Love."

As variations:

Heart Line: Requires Precognition and Fortune Telling skill. By making a Fortune Telling skill roll, you get a vision of the person the subject of your fortune telling will marry/otherwise be seriously romantically involved with. You can describe this person in sufficient detail that your subject will eventually recognize them when they see them. Assuming they remember your words and take your precognition seriously.

Love Connector: When you see two people who are ideally suited for each other in the same place, you just happen to have two trivial objects which will bring them together. Giving one object to each of them will trigger (or reveal) a trivial event which brings them together. E.g., you just happen to have a button you can give one partner and a needle and thread you can give to the other. As soon a you do so, one of them discovers that they've just lost a button of the same type and needs to have it sewn back on. This is a good way to get Reaction bonuses or even a good Reputation. With the right social skills you can eventually use it to gain minor social advantages. GM's choice as to how often your perk comes into play.

Yenta: You occasionally get flashes of insight that two random people are ideally suited for each other. Your power manifests when you see one of the two parties, at which point you get a vision of the other party and their general location. That vision is good enough that you will immediately recognize the other party when you see them. Actually reaching them might require an adventure. Getting the two parties to realize that they're perfect for each other might require another one.

David Johnston2 11-22-2023 10:03 PM

Re: New perks
 
Perhaps it will shine a different perspective on "Fated Mate" name when you know it comes from werewolf romance novels.


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