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Old 07-09-2019, 10:46 PM   #18
VIVIT
 
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Join Date: Jun 2018
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Default Re: Extended Secondary Attributes

Wow. As it turns out, Pyramid was ahead of us this whole time:

Quote:
Originally Posted by J. Hunter Johnson, Pyramid 9 (as edited by Kromm for a sidebar on page 8 of GURPS Compendium I)
Another way to avoid [3e's problems caused by self-control rolls being made against IQ plus modifiers from ads and disads] is to define three different types of Will: Mental Will, Physical Will, and Emotional Will. Figure mental Will exactly like the official GURPS Will: IQ + Strong or Weak Will. Characters would use this to resist mind probes and similar mental attacks. Physical Will is computed by HT + Strong or Weak Will. Players roll against this rather than straight HT to avoid unconsciousness or death due to injuries, and to avoid being stunned by blows to the head and the like . . . Finally, Emotional Will is equal to 10 + Strong or Weak Will . . . this is what characters would roll against to avoid succumbing to their mental disadvantages.
Other approaches proposed by the article included the addition of Will as the fifth Basic Attribute (long before the last Pyramid article proposed Quintessence!) and a prototypical form of what would become standard in 4th edition: self-control TNs assigned to behavioral disadvantages individually, with associated cost multiplier. And it looks like the idea of Secondary Attributes was also first published in Compendium 1! I think I'm starting to get a decent picture of the historical narrative here:

In early editions, IQ was used for too wide a variety of rolls. This problem was addressed with the introduction of certain advantages and disadvantages that afforded bonuses or imposed penalties to specific types of IQ rolls. Compendium 1 introduced optional rules to refine and expand upon these mechanics, and some of which ultimately were ultimately made into standard rules when the Compendia were edited and compiled into Basic Set 4e. In particular, additional stats were added, and traits like Strong/Weak Will were removed from the (dis)advantage lists and made into stats.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
In the transition from GURPS 3E to GURPS 4E the designers were fairly conservative, fixing only what was obviously broken about GURPS 3E, in part to keep the simplicity of basic character design. That meant that the number of new secondary traits (Per & Will) was kept to a minimum.
After checking the Compendium, I'm not so sure about this. Per and Will are the only secondary attributes described in the sidebar about secondary characteristics in Compendium 1 -- the others mentioned there being HP, FP, and Basic Speed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kdtipa View Post
I'm a little confused about how Charisma becomes an attribute though. In GURPS, Charisma provides a bonus to some skills and it affects the reaction rolls. So, you might have a +2 to reaction rolls with the Charisma advantage, but if you have a Charisma stat of 12... what does that mean for reactions?
The Compendium sidebar mentions that if you make Strong/Weak Will or Alertness into a "Fifth [Basic] Attribute", but you still want them to modify the rolls they originally modified, then you can subtract 10 and then add it to the roll -- e.g., Tracking would be based on IQ+Per-10 rather than just Per. You could do the same thing with Cha -- only instead of subtracting 10, you would subtract your IQ. This passed through my mind when I was first coming up with these house rules, but at this point I think the best approach would be to just express Cha as a modifier.

Last edited by VIVIT; 07-10-2019 at 10:26 AM.
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