[Inky]

I was thinking that; whether it's widely (or, indeed, ever) useful long-term or not, as a temporary disadvantage it's useful - after all, many adventures play out over a few days, nothing like long enough for the horse the villain turned into a human in session 1 to have learned when to say please and thank you. :-)

That's a very good point about Bestial not being on the Domestic Animal template - I read that bit of the Disadvantage of the Week thread after I posted last time, and that clarifies things a lot. It seems to me that the things a Bestial character doesn't know aren't some mysterious abstract type of reasoning, they're more a mass of little details that you have to learn one by one and it takes time and intelligence. It's basically "Cultural Familiarity (humans)" or "Savoir-Faire (humans)". The equivalent of a spy trying to learn which forks are which to blend in at a high-society dinner party.

For that matter, would it be reasonable to use Bestial to describe a human abroad among aliens or some other very un-human civilisation, if the aliens were being used as the campaign standard? Makes me think of that Star Trek: Enterprise episode where a crew member managed to offend some alien diplomats by eating in front of them - unknown to him, on their planet that was in the same category as peeing in front of them and they wouldn't believe it wasn't a deliberate insult.

The temporary disadvantage thing probably applies to David Johnston's dragon too. The dragon perfectly well could learn those skills, but if it hasn't bothered, then it doesn't know the things - they can't be learnt on the spur of the moment if it suddenly needs them - and qualifies for the points for not knowing them. (This made me think of the dragon in Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!. It probably did have Bestial, not as a permanent can't-learn-this trait but as a buy-off-able haven't-learnt-this-yet trait. Judging by what we saw of it in the book, it was quite intelligent enough to learn the aforementioned Savoir-Faire (Humans) if it had seen any need to, but it was a giant fire-breathing dragon with no more scruples than an avalanche and didn't need to bother.)

Of course, I've often seen it said that in GURPS you pay for what your character could do, not what they do do. A character who does have those skills but sometimes ignores them because they're powerful enough not to need to bother may have an OPH but doesn't have Bestial.
Going to quote Buffy the Vampire Slayer because I want to: "Look, a Slayer's life is really simple, B. Want. Take. Have."
Faith undoubtedly did know better than that, if she tried, but having super-strength had gone to her head!