Wanted: GURPS Power-Downs 1

[Lord Carnifex]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

I would want to see builds for some of our most common physical and mental illnesses. RPK I think did a good build of Diabetes, for instance. In my perfect world, every mental disorder listing in the DSM-IV would get GURPS stats...

It's an interesting idea, and one I've toyed around with myself for a while. But there seems to be a few problems:

1) Psychological and psychiatric disorders are notoriously tricky to define. Each new theory of personality seems to redefine disorders and their diagnostic criteria; witness the ongoing debate on just what is and what is not schizophrenia. On top of this, a given disorder can manifest itself differently from person to person, or even from time to time in one person.

2) It can be hard to define game-mechanical effects for many disorders. Those that can be defined usually fall into Quirks, OPHs, Incompetencies (or Untalents), Obsessions, Compulsive Behaviors, and other already existing mechanics. And that's when there's enough of a game-mechanical effect to warrant giving CPs for a Disadvantage. For instance, I'm pretty neurotic about always wearing gloves when I leave my house. But about the only effect it has that it sometimes takes me extra time to get ready to go out. It's a Quirk at worst.

3) One tends to run into the Incompetence problem. Players take disadvantages that cover areas that they don't plan their character to be good at anyway. So, for example, Social Anxiety Disorder might lead to reduced social skills, but a PC who has SAD is likely to focus on other areas. The only way to make the disad worth the points is to exaggerate it to the point where it impairs a PC's normal functioning. So a character with SAD has to be saddled with a -4 just about any time he talks to another person just to make the disadvantage meaningful. But quite a few disorders don't reach that level of severity.

4) The sense I've always gotten from the staff 'round here is that casual gamers (the ones that buy the majority of copies of popular books) like Kool Powerz and Neat Things They Can Do more than detailed explorations of things their characters can't do. Probably a rock solid proposal from a good author wouldn't be rejected out of hand, but a book of flaws might be facing an uphill editorial battle.

That being said, I think it's a neat project, and I'd be happy to lend what small expertise I have on the subject.