My Honest Opinion

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Also, in any media I've seen, both characters routinely broke laws, but because the writers (and most viewers) don't really know much about law, it doesn't matter.
.

But they are perceived as honest in universe and those law breaking aren't significant for describing the in universe personnage !
The movie Battle of the Bulge action is near Bastogne, even if the Spanish mountain are visible in the background...

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

But they are perceived as honest in universe and those law breaking aren't significant for describing the in universe personnage !
The movie Battle of the Bulge action is near Bastogne, even if the Spanish mountain are visible in the background...

Sure. Which is why I noted that GURPS Honest might be a possible trait of protagonists in children's fiction or games with a similarly distant relationship with versimilitude, but didn't actually suit adventurers in any fiction set in world's where the law worked even remotely like the real world.

The sheer number of laws in a modern first world country means that it is functionally impossible to avoid breaking laws on a daily basis. Reasonable people distinguish between laws that actually matter and anyone cares about enforcing and the morass of laws that exist for other reasons.

Everyone who works for an international company, finance company, in a medical field, for a public institution or in any other of the hundreds of fields where legislators keep adding new laws which affect the field, cannot actually function without breaking dozens of laws each day. Even perfectly ordinary people routinely break laws every day without anyone noticing or caring, because laws are often badly worded and thought out, and what they literally say may not be what anyone intended or what anyone can actually enforce.

With the Internet, significant parts of the daily lives of people may actually occur in other jurisdictions. This makes it even more impossible to actually follow every law and even more necessary for psychologically healthy, actually functioning people to develop the facility to distinguishing between what may technically be written into law and what they actually should or should not do.

Having GURPS Honesty means that doing so requires a SC roll, which is going to fail on a regular basis. Even if the SC is 15, that's a whole lot of failures when you need to make a roll for every business transaction and, in some jobs, every email, minor decision or trivial interaction.

Which means that a GURPS Honest character are constantly taking action to 'do their best' to ensure that other people follow laws that are impossible to follow without breaking other laws, not to mention constantly turning themselves in for minor infractions.

And, really, while Hollywood scripwriters may believe that only minor legal snags exist for vigilantes, pointing excitedly at some romantic idea of citizen's arrests, the reality is that almost everything that adventure-fiction protagonists do is breaking one law or another.

For one thing, it doesn't matter how justified some act of self-defence or citizen's arrest may have been if you conceal any relevant facts from the police in the aftermath. Hell, just causing property damage and then concealing your identity from the insurers and the owner is breaking the law.

Superman breaks the law every time he lays hands on someone without then going through the requisite legal steps afterwards. It's no good stating that 'it would have been a valid citizen's arrest', because it isn't. Superman has never performed one in his life. Hell, he's an illegal alien whose life as Clark Kent is probably founded on felony fraud.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Superman has never performed one in his life. Hell, he's an illegal alien whose life as Clark Kent is probably founded on felony fraud.

Is he actually defrauding anybody? I mean his name basically *is* Clark Kent. It's the Superman thing that's closer to fake.

I think he might get a pass on the illegal alien issue too, because of the physical impossibility of the United States deporting him to his now nonexistent home world - there are some UN conventions that forbid you to criminalize someone continuing to live on the planet because nowhere will accept them. I suppose he really ought to apply for refugee status on the grounds being returned to the toxic (kryptonite filled) environment of his shattered native planet would endanger his life.

Though I dunno, the Kents might have formally adopted him, which would cover both of those. You'd think they'd have had to have *some* sort of paperwork straightened out somewhere to do stuff like enroll him in school.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Is he actually defrauding anybody? I mean his name basically *is* Clark Kent. It's the Superman thing that's closer to fake.

I think he might get a pass on the illegal alien issue too, because of the physical impossibility of the United States deporting him to his now nonexistent home world - there are some UN conventions that forbid you to criminalize someone continuing to live on the planet because nowhere will accept them. I suppose he really ought to apply for refugee status on the grounds being returned to the toxic (kryptonite filled) environment of his shattered native planet would endanger his life.

Though I dunno, the Kents might have formally adopted him, which would cover both of those. You'd think they'd have had to have *some* sort of paperwork straightened out somewhere to do stuff like enroll him in school.

Superman has foundling citizenship.

US Code 1401 (f) a person of unknown parentage found in the United States while under the age of five years, until shown, prior to his attaining the age of twenty-one years, not to have been born in the United States;

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Is he actually defrauding anybody? I mean his name basically *is* Clark Kent. It's the Superman thing that's closer to fake.

Well, Clark Kent has not, to my knowledge, ever admitted to being responsible for the massive property damage he causes when he plays dress up.

If you give a fake name to the cops and fly away, whatever you did was not a legal citizen's arrest or any other kind of legal act. If you are involved in a violent, destructive event, especially if there are multiple felonies involved, in strict legal terms, it's not really optional whether you choose to let the police know who you are. And I'm pretty sure that the owners of the destroyed property feel pretty defrauded, as they can't sue the appropriate person, but only some pseudonym that doesn't legally exist.

Of course, it's very understandable why he would act that way. But someone with GURPS Honesty couldn't.

Originally Posted by malloyd

I think he might get a pass on the illegal alien issue too, because of the physical impossibility of the United States deporting him to his now nonexistent home world - there are some UN conventions that forbid you to criminalize someone continuing to live on the planet because nowhere will accept them. I suppose he really ought to apply for refugee status on the grounds being returned to the toxic (kryptonite filled) environment of his shattered native planet would endanger his life.

Superman should absolutely qualify for refugee status. The fact remains, he never applied, not in any media I'm familiar with. What he actually did do, as far as I can tell, is enjoy the benefits of falsified paperwork which allowed him to leapfrog past other, legitimate refugees who were honest enough to actually rely on the system instead of obtaining a false identity.

Originally Posted by malloyd

Though I dunno, the Kents might have formally adopted him, which would cover both of those. You'd think they'd have had to have *some* sort of paperwork straightened out somewhere to do stuff like enroll him in school.

Yeah and because his identity as Clark Kent is a secret identity, the paperwork was obviously falsified. Relevant information, including the identity of his parents, was deliberately suppressed. Again, understandable, but if Superman had GURPS Honesty, he'd have to clear that up as soon as he came of age.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Of course, it's very understandable why he would act that way. But someone with GURPS Honesty couldn't.

You know, I've occasionally been called out on using too-literal interpretations of RAW and wondering why this gives broken results. And I think this time, you're doing the overly literal interpretation and making it look unplayable as a result.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

You know, I've occasionally been called out on using too-literal interpretations of RAW and wondering why this gives broken results. And I think this time, you're doing the overly literal interpretation and making it look unplayable as a result.

This entire thread is an awful lot of text dedicated to one person saying "I think calling it 'Honesty' is wrong, and it's pretty poorly written for doing what the writers clearly intended."

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Yeah and because his identity as Clark Kent is a secret identity, the paperwork was obviously falsified. Relevant information, including the identity of his parents, was deliberately suppressed. Again, understandable, but if Superman had GURPS Honesty, he'd have to clear that up as soon as he came of age.

Eh, I'm not sure they would have had to *falsify* anything. They legitimately didn't know who his parents were, and the paperwork on an adoption probably wasn't anything like as exhaustive ca. 1900 when they'd have been filing it for the original version of Superman. It's not like they neglected to tick a checkbox on the form for "found the baby in a crashed spaceship".

[Flyndaran]

I vaguely remember an episode of a Superman tv show where he was sued by someone "wrongfully injured" during a rescue.
One of the jokes was how hard it was for him to find an honest kind lawyer to defend him without using any tricks or duplicity.

He was served papers by a false suicide or something or other. Those guys are rather tenacious, eh?

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Superman should absolutely qualify for refugee status. The fact remains, he never applied, not in any media I'm familiar with. What he actually did do, as far as I can tell, is enjoy the benefits of falsified paperwork which allowed him to leapfrog past other, legitimate refugees who were honest enough to actually rely on the system instead of obtaining a false identity.

This premise lends itself to a comedy skit about ICE reluctantly turning up to ask Superman to 'go back'.