Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

For specificity and cost balance, I would suggest limiting it to melee fighting, and jumping and acrobatic skills in combat.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

The drunken fighting perk is actually official, and turns alcoholic penalties into bonuses in combat.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

It's actually one of the more seriously unbalanced perks in print - it amounts to +2 to all combat skills and combat related DX rolls with preparation required (get drunk) and a temporary disadvantage (you are drunk). That *ought* to cost you 10 or 15 points.

I do allow Drunken [skill], allowing you to ignore intoxication penalties to one skill, and might be talked into multiple (or all) skills - after all you could just take Immunity to Ethanol instead. But a *bonus* for being drunk? Nah. Even a +1 to a single skill with preparation required and the irritating condition is pushing it for a point, though the penalties to everything else do help. Certainly not for something as broad as all DX rolls in a fight.

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Perk to ignore intoxication penalties coupled with Higher Purpose; stay drunk and fight for the bonuses? That is too much benefit for a single point, even if in genre for certain "Kung Fu" games.

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FYI, Drunken Fighting is a canonical combat perk already.

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I realize this isn't strictly "custom," but I've used Attribute Substitution (Intimidation based on HT) for several characters. It makes it possible for big, beefy, dumb characters to be as menacing as they should be.

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Heh, the downsides of no longer allowing ST-based (nor ST-substituted) skills, eh?

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Weasel Ward
In supernatural terms, you count as a weasel regardless of your actual form. This protects you from the petrifying gaze of the cockatrice, but no other magical hazards, and you cannot pass through magical barriers that block weasels.

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I can get something like it down to around [12] --

Daredevil +2 (30) (Only in Combat -20%, Only on Combat actions: -20%, Temp Disad.: Drunk -20%)

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For the standard magic system, barriers against weasels are in the Animal College and so would only block you if your IQ was 5 (sometimes 6) or less. Though breaking that for flavor text purposes like this isn't exactly a problem.

I think the usual GURPS nomenclature would be Affected as Weasel, which is probably a better description (this doesn't *ward off* weasels) and somehow sounds funnier to me anyway.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

would this count as a perk or a feature?

Killer Smile

Your smile is a portent of doom.
you can make an intimidation test simply by smiling in your certain way, this requires no other overt action or dialogue on the part of the character.

If it's only a feature what benefit would make it a perk?

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Being able to make an Intimidation attempt by doing essentially nothing, and not suffering any penalties, is a canonical Perk.

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It would let you pass wards that block humans but normally don't block weasels, though, which is appropriate for some magic systems. Check with your GM before getting it, of course.

Yeah, I'd say 'Affected as Weasel' works better, as long as you are also affected by spells like 'Summon Weasel' or 'Detect Weasel.'

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Accent adaptation (language): You can speak a specific foreign language without any accent, or at the very least with a local accent. Usually, slight accents will betray your origins as a foreigner even if your language is flawless enough to count as "Native". This perk allows you to speak like a native (If you have English as a second language, you will be able to flawlessly speak English with the accent of any English Speaking place you have this perk for (London accent, Scottish accent, Texan Accent...). This perk is mostly useful for spies or people wishing to cancel reaction penalties for people with people who are distrustful of your nationality.

Androgynous voice: You can flawlessly sound like a male or female of your species, regardless of what your actual biological sex is, whichever may be convenient for you at any given moment. A variation can be taken for a robot with a flawless voice module that has a male and female setting, or for any given species for a shapeshifter (each species (elf, dwarf, human, whatever alien lives in the setting...). You mitigate -1 of penalty to disguise yourself as the other sex, and in purely audio conversation where nobody can see you, you can pass as either male or female, at your convenience, without having to roll. Many professional Japanese voice actors have this perk as they are often cast as both sexes during their career.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Accents?
I wonder how one would develop a Linguistic Talent but limited only to accents. I don't even know if normal Language Talent would or should include it.

There are some interesting youtube videos by linguists analyzing movie actors' attempts at such things.

Of course shibboleths being very important to real world spy detection.

Which also relates to your androgynous voice perk. It's not overt, but men and women talk slightly differently even in English. Not just in pitch, but in word choice and certain intonations. For example, around here and back in the 90s, the only people I heard end statements with a questioning tone were female. It's common now for both genders.

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Well, ordinary Language Talent makes it cheaper to have Native ability, which is much less accented than Accented ability. I've seen players take Accent perks (Power-Ups 2, p12) for languages that weren't their native one, to help with masquerades. I think I'd be happy as a GM with a Meta-Accent advantage [5] which lets you adopt any accent you're familiar with (8 hours conversation with people who have it) in any language you have at Broken or better.
It's really pretty obvious in Glasgow English. I once encountered a dispensing optician who was clearly from Edinburgh, which is a distinctive accent for women. But her technical vocabulary was pronounced like a Glaswegian man, which sounded very weird. I asked about it, and she'd been one of two women in a cohort of about fifty at college in Glasgow, which made perfect sense.

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What would it even do? Remember you always speak with *some* accent - people with "no accent" typically are using a high prestige one - so you can't just say it removes them. If you want to be able to imitate a lot of different accents, you want the Mimicry skill.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

That's a much more encompassing ability yet always limited by rolling. If I know West Coast English and Boston English, then I wouldn't ever need to roll to speak them.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Accent is a canonical perk, page 12 of Power-Ups 2.

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Multifaceted - Similar to Dabbler, Multifaceted allows you to buy off one point of negative die modifier for eight defaulting skill rolls, however Multifaceted is for defaults between related skills. The -1 for eight subjects is fungible between bonus and number of skills in the same way Dabbler is. The maximum improvement is to a -1 default roll.

Example 1: Dawn is trained in Electronics Repair (Sensors), but hey, she loves electronics, so she's always reading what's going on in other fields. So she buys Multifaceted, Electronics Repair (Force Fields, Security, Comm, EW, Media, Scientific, Surveillance and Medical). She can now default her rolls against those specialties at -3 instead of -4.

Example 2: Phil is a famous lion tamer. He has Animal Handling (Big Cats). He is also an avid conservationist and his success has allowed him to fund an animal rescue center in Kenya. He lives there and works with the staff. He has now done a lot of work with other fauna, and has Multifaceted, Animal Handling (Canines, Ungulates, Primates and Rodentia). He can now default his rolls against those specialties at -2 instead of -4.

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If I've understood this correctly, it under-prices improved defaults considerably.

Say I have one Electronics Repair (IQ/A) specialty at IQ+4, which costs [16]. All the other specialties default at IQ, and it would cost [2] each to buy them up to IQ+1. With Multifaceted, I can buy 8 of them up to IQ+1 for [1], which does seem a bit too good.

Alternatively, I can use Multifaceted to buy two of them up to IQ+3 (a default penalty of -1) for [1], instead of the [24] it would cost to buy the specialties that high.

This only really bites when you have more than [4] in a single skill. That's comparative rare for IQ skills in my experience, but fairly common for DX skills, notably weapons and Stealth.

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It's more that Buying Skills from Default is a load of jank to even understand how you're supposed to pay, much less a good price when you do...

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Indeed. If you had 24 points to spend on those skills, you're far better off raising the main skill by 6 levels and bringing all its defaults up with it. But yeah, it's spending 1 point for what RAW says should be 8 points.

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Or alternately, you can buy every one of them to IQ+1 for [4], by raising the skill you are defaulting from by 1. The perk is a good deal, but the official buy up the defaults is actually overpriced.

The entire concept of skill to skill defaults is pretty broken, and generates more troublesome complexity than it's worth, compared to something like "Many less specialized tasks can be attempted with more than one skill or skill specialization. The GM should impose a situational penalty for attempting something with a plausible but less than fully appropriate one".

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It very much seem likes a "some rules are better than no rules" for GMs that simply don't feel comfortable making "too many" decisions on the fly.

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Personal Style. You've developed a personal style for a single artistic skill, or artistic use of a craft skill, which gives +1 to that skill, while you work in that style. You can buy instances of this perk for more than one skill, if they are all for the same style. The drawback of this perk is that your personal style may go out of fashion, at the GM's whim.

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Mostly, that sounds like specialization. The drawback fits most skills anyway especially artistic ones.
For example, a character may think specializing in 1950s Disney style is cool, only for all 2D art to go out of style.

I suppose if it only really comes up for NPCs that have a quirk to loving that style, then it fits other perks like Classic Features.

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I made it up when I was tinkering with skills to invent techniques, and found that some skills that definitely get used for artistic work, like Sewing, are DX/Easy and thus can't have optional specialisations.

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Oh. I tend to see those skills as the functional aspects of those endeavors and associated artistic versions as the aesthetic forms. Like how Carpentry gets you functional work, while Artist: woodworking says how pretty it is.
But my mind's a bit foggy today, so I hope someone will correct me if I'm miss-remembering things.

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Keyring Master When you get one of your keys, you automatically select the correct one.

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What do you guys think of this perk: it might be a bit too powerful since it's basically limiting a 5 point advantage but I don't thinks it would break a game or anything

Men/Women's Fashion Expert: You have the benefits of Fashion Sense, but only for the opposite gender, meaning the reaction bonus never applies to yourself or your own outfits, however whenever you put together someone else's outfit of the opposite gender they get a +1 reaction bonus as per normal. This is more penalizing the normal -20% penalty for only apply to one gender because a big part of Fashion's sense point value is granting yourself a reaction bonus, this functionally denies. It's up to the GM if this reaction bonus applies to a crossdressing individual.

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OTOH a group of 2+ PCs would only need to have a male and a female PC and spend a total of 2 CPs to effectively provide Fashion Sense to the entire group.

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Oh crap didn't realize that. I'll just rule that (Only on the opposite gender) is -40% for fashion sense to accommodate for the fact you aren't getting the beenfit of it. That makes it 3 points, meaning that a party would require 6 points accross board to get the +1 to entire party and fashion sense can give a +1 across the board to the entire party at base I feel that's fair.

If you still want the Men/Women's Fashion Expert Perk just rule that also includes the additional penalty that it doesn't apply to your party members only to NPCs (I can't think any possible flavor justification for that what ever) but that make it too weak even for a perk.

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Also this perk should be better:
Raised by *Culture*
You have some familiarity with a certain outside your own because you were raised by someone of that culture however since you only have experience with one or two people of that culture it's still obvious you're an outsider, this reduces the penalty for cultural unfamiliarity to -2, you also have the benefit of knowing some the cultures language you can understand the language at Broken comprehension as well, you however can only speak very minimalistly not even at the level of broken, only basic worlds such as "mother", "hurry" etc, not enough to really hold a conversation.
Example: Someone raised by someone from the middle east but might have Raised by Middle Eastern will have the Cultural unfamiality penalty of -2 dealing with middle easterns and be able to understand Arabic at Broken comprehension and might be able to say a few words of arabic not enough to hold a conversation though

Designs Notes: This is basically Cultural Familiarity cut in more than half with language (Broken/None) cut in half only to understanding with an additional benefit of being able to speak minimally to balance out that you get -1 shaved off your point cost for cultural familiarity. Another solution is to reduce the cultural familiarity penalty to -1, and say you can only understand the language period, (You can't speak at all), this will result in being a little bit over the 1 point threshhold.

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Repeated Casting (Spell)
Healing spells have a cumulative -3 penalty when cast on the same subject within 24 hours. This perk reduces it to a cumulative -2 penalty for the chosen spell.

I introduced this perk to give some options to the only healer in the group. He took the perk alongside a level of Power Casting (Major Healing), which I ruled would allow up to 10 point of healing per casting even though the his Magery (and the setting Magery cap) was 3.

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I already noted this elsewhere, but in case anyone missed it, I posted a big bunch of Standard Operating Procedure perks here:
http://www.gamesdiner.com/2017/08/new-sops

I have another batch of perks I hope to post soon. Perks have been a great addition to the game. I like low-powered PCs and games; for these, the Perks book is like a big catalog of really weak but fun superpowers. Maybe this huge thread will yield a Perks 2 book some day...

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Looks useful. Bookmarked. Thank you for sharing it.

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I forgot about S.O.P.
It fits my Doppelganger perfectly. With Mind Probe: Memory Bank, he has access to the mimicked mind, but without S.O.P. he could easily not think to ask about uncommon issues that could come up.
Nowadays, he may need to know their mother's maiden name, for example.

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Unusual Background: Latest Equipment

This came to me from re-perusing Cliffhangers. Pocket-knife is of course in the equipment table but the thought was that for a thirties American that would probably mean a Buck. Victorinox was not yet fashionable enough to be a household word. So while it would be easy to justify the hero having one(he picked one up in Europe and liked it)at the time, one does have to go to the trouble to justify it. It would be unusual background but only at a perk level.

The same could be said for any number of gadgets that are just on the market or otherwise rare in the hero's neck of the woods. If it is really hard to find the points can be pumped accordingly. For instance it is not to much of a twist to have someone somewhere working on a shoulder launched anti-tank missile but it is almost impossible to imagine a real person getting his hands on one whereas a Swiss Army Knife in the 1930's only requires someone to say,"I got this from a friend who has a friend of a friend who lives in Switzerland. Isn't it cool?" or whatever. The missile would have to be a MacGuffin, whereas the Knife could conceivably be part of the Hero's regular gear, even if a Buck was more probable then a real Victorinox.

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Soundtrack:

Whether you have an implanted Ultra Tech psionic projector, a power armor with built-in speakers, or simply use magic, you can have music on auto play whenever you want to. Enjoy having badass heavy metal beats whenever you turn them on because you just got into a fist/gun fight, or the OST from your favorite Visual Novel whenever you're dating.

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It's a re-skin of Accessory (music player)?

The difficulty with a lot of proposed perks that are based on media (and I'm assuming this is inspired by some sort of "background music" idea) is that they don't actually do anything when you think about them. They look or sound cool in the media presentation, but are useless as far as the character in the setting is concerned, and don't come across to seem cool to the *players* in the (non-visual) media of RPGs either.

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I was in a (non-GURPS at the time) campaign where a PC had an ability like this, and it honestly led to some pretty interesting roleplaying. Telling the other players what music was playing was a way to express the character's mood, intentions, etc. without stating them explicitly in situations where that would have been out of character.

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You could also do a limited form of precognition that manifests as background music that the characters must interpret before whatever it's predicting becomes obvious, but depending on how you do it, that could be too useful to be a Perk.

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If the player gets to (is required to) say what's on the soundtrack at any particular time, and if the cut being played is really appropriate, it can lead to some memorable moments even though it never affect a die roll at all. Been there, enjoyed that.

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If the player gets to (is required to) say what's on the soundtrack at any particular time, and if the cut being played is really appropriate, it can lead to some memorable moments even if it never affects a die roll at all. Been there, enjoyed that. I still think of that game whenever I hear Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer."

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-3 to target the Fruit Cage (where the fruit is as sweet as can be).

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Gamer's Luck:

You always catch lucky breaks during games. A guild mate will run you through a quest series with an item so great he has been farming it for months and so rare he's convinced it's an urban legend, and on your first run, it will drop for you. If a random event with 1% chance of happening is needed for you to get an achievement, rest assured it will happen in short order. Your favorite tabletop character will often survive certain death one hit point short of death, you can go through a campaign of a turn-based strategy game known for being a meat grinder as far as your virtual soldiers are concerned with fatalities in the single digit with the option of having one save ever active and on a high difficulty setting with regularity. You often get pure lucky shots on enemy players in FPS games. You can gain four Legendary skins in a row from a loot box system where you gain a percent chance of gaining a skin after each win or loss, and upon winning a skin having your chance reduced to 2%, and without your chance of getting a skin ever raising over 15%. Bonus points if your Gamer's Luck benefits your friends/guild mates/team mates more than you.

But as soon as there is the potential to earn anything else than a fancy title on your gamer card arrives, your luck fizzles out, and you have to rely on your skills. Your luck only applies to games, so it won't work in real life.

For added fun, take this perk alongside Unluckiness or Cursed.

I have both this perk and Unluckiness in real life. I don't think my soldier fatalities across a single campaign in XCOM Enemy Unknown and XCOM Enemy Within ever rose to double digits, even on a blind Ironman run. Earlier today I got locked outside of my home because the key broke in half. It The half of the key fell out of the lock instead of getting stuck in it, and I knew people with a spare key whose numbers I could find online who could arrive within 2 hours so I had to borrow a laptop and a cellphone from a neighbor, so I don't think I'm quite Cursed, but that must rank at least Unluckiness.

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Technological Charisma: You're familiar with all of the tricks of the trade when it comes to telepresence — you stare at the camera, not the screen, and know how to pitch your voice so that all the relevant tones carry even over plain copper telephone wire. You treat any telepresence medium as one step better for purposes of your Charisma bonus: you get your full bonus over two-dimensional audio/video, and half your bonus even over a low-definition link.

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Quirk: You never benefit from the Makeup skill. [-1]

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Seems like a good idea, so I clarified it a bit, and put it where it can be found again.

Costing it as a cut-down Reduced Consumption comes out at zero, but doing it as Resistant costs rather more, so a perk seems right overall.

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No, the Makeup skill is the skill of Make-up artists, primarily to make people look like different people.

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Key Memory: You have Photographic Memory to remember which key goes into which lock. You always find the right key for the right lock on the first try.

I have this perk IRL. That, or I have an Aspected Photographic Memory.

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That raises the idea of other Photographic memory Perks.

House memory: You know every aspect of your home and can find anything no matter how small or navigate it in the dark without any table bumping.

Name memory: even if told once long ago and no matter how complicated it may be, you always remember someone's name.

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Immune To Annoying American Tourists : Saw this in modern day Supers Campaign . One person's hero is/was a Tour Guide for Coach Trips around major European Cities & tourist attractions .
No matter how rude , arrogant , obnoxious , irritating , unintelligent , silly or bizarre Americans act , you are unflappable in any response to them .
Can also be extended to certain Canadians as necessary ...

Became a major plot point when an American Hero ( think Punisher meets Deadpool type , with the manner of a grumpy Sabertooth ) signed up for a London-Athens package in his civilian persona ... hilarity ensued ...
Must find & post the strip on Deviant Art that another player drew : Geneva ; Customs ; French Wine ; Anti Tank Missile System ; Paperwork ... I'll let your imagine the scene until I can locate it .

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Controlled Sleep: you fall asleep whenever you want to for however long you want to. You still suffer from the normal effects of missed sleep, but you are otherwise in complete control of your sleep, from when you fall asleep to whenever you naturally wake up. You can literally order your body to take a 2 hours power nap during a train trip and not wake up until either the hour you choose or something dangerous that would have woken up anyone else happens, whichever comes first.

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Always Beautiful:

This character never loses aesthetic and sexual appeal no matter how many times they have been injured. They can be struck in the face repeatedly and it will be radiant. They can escape from a Gestapo dungeon with no sign except a tasteful dueling scar (I'm talking to you Lazlo!). They can spend three years on the Russian Front and look like someone who could attend a ball. They can go to Auschwitz and look the way-Jane Seymour-looks at a concentration camp.

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Unarmed aim*
* You must specialize by a weapon you can Fast-Draw and throw.

You can take the Aim action with your chosen weapon before drawing it. After Aiming for one or more rounds, you can attempt to fast-draw and throw the weapon. If you fail the roll to draw the weapon, or you take any action other than throwing the weapon after drawing it, including Aim and Do Nothing, you lose the bonus gained by Aiming before drawing the weapon.

It's obvious to anyone who looks that you are aiming something at the target, even if it isn't necessarily clear which weapon you are going to use.

If you have this perk for several weapons, e.g. throwing knives and shuriken, you must declare which weapon you are preparing to use when you announce the Aim action.

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What makes it obvious is that you drawl "It's hiiiiigh nooooon!"

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Natural Subject: You are incredibly receptive to realistic hypnosis. Anyone trying to use the Hypnotism skill on you for harmless/positive purposes (like providing anesthesia, or just for consensual harmless fun) gets a +4 to their Hypnotism rolls.

I have that perk IRL.

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This sounds more like a Quirk than a Perk. It gives the character a better chance of being put in a compromising position. You may be convinced it's for your benefit going in, but once you're hypnotized I don't see how it couldn't be turned around to work against you.

Resistance to Hypnotism would be a better Perk, IMO.

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That seems to be based on the idea (whether realistic or not) that trying to get a thus hypnotised subject something it doesn't really want tends to be resisted much stronger.

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I've been under enough times to know how it works. A simple recording is enough to make me fall asleep even in the middle of an insomnia episode, but try to make me do something I oppose and it just instantly ends the trance. Has happened a few times when I was experimenting with audio files. Realistic Hypnotism is more limited than people believe. The real horror stories I've heard happened when people in difficult situations were abused by therapists or cults, and you don't need Hypnotism for that. At it's worst, realistic hypnotism could allow you a heavily penalized roll on Fast-Talk to convince someone to do something harmful, or a Complimentary Skill to Brainwashing, in both cases only if you have your victim's trust beforehand.

Now if we were talking cinematic Hypnotism... Resistance would be a full on advantage. I've read enough stories to know the difference between the cinematic Hypnotism in them and realistic Hypnotism.

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It depends on how much resistance you have, but it would fit the Resistant advantage in Basic Set: Characters pp80-81. Just the Hypnotism skill alone would qualify as Rare even in most cinematic campaigns, and +1 to resist that would probably fit as a Perk, as the lowest the book offers is +3.

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That sounds a lot more like Self Hypnotism.

Listening to my favorite music has a similar effect on me when my insomnia is kicking in hard.

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GURPS calls it Autohypnosis. It's a skill in the Basic Set (separate from Meditation, for some reason).

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I don't think looking for hypnosis audio files counts as self-hypnosis. Now making a good file probably takes a hefty penalty for not having feedback and another penalty if you're making a generic file rather than one custom made for a single subject, but it's definitely Hypnotism. Trust me, there are many "sleep hypnosis" files on Youtube, and there are plenty of NSFW hypnosis audio files in general.