Why is Broad-Minded a Quirk?

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

"It's a quirk because it's a minor disadvantage,..."

If only it had not been written to reflect only benefits.

Do you really think it was needed to point all possible drawbacks? Then Basic Set: Characters book would be 50% larger in number of pages, full of obvious nuances -as the drawbacks of this Quirk. And points like this have been elaborated earlier in this thread.

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

However, in the post you are replying to, I had referred to the common, present day usage of broadminded, in the context of how SJG had chosen to name the trait.

Remember, GURPS is a generic universal etc system. Tying this Quirk to its present day "usual" acceptation (for the dominant progressive and globalist ideology) is your interpretation of this trait, and by doing it you're making non-generic assumptions and picking a very specific setting: the modern-day world.

What you're doing isn't generic, but the RAW is (or at least, it tries).

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

We are discussing the word 'broadminded'. Since it implies an improved condition from the norm, or baseline, a trait based on it would be expected to be beneficial -- hence a Perk rather than a Quirk.

Broadminded doesn't implies an improved condition from the norm.

Your utter convinction of this Quirk as an objective virtue or as an uncontestable positive trait is the underlying reason making this thread to grow.

The game mechanics discussion and how the Quirk description "should have been written"... are shots into the air: nothing of it grazes your underlying reason.

So I think this should be emphasized:

Broadminded sometimes is the mark of someone who is mentally lost a relativistic view world -hence, objective truth(s) is(are) denied to his understanding. Sometimes it's suited for people who are intellectually unsure, or morally lukewarm. Broadminded can be the mark of potential traitors when the setting is a culture needing protection from foreign influence threatening with ritual taint and/or subtle colonization. This still is a current issue, BTW. There's nothing advantageous in a person being unwilling to protect himself and his people from ethnocide and culturecide.

And there are times where being broadminded is a good thing if you are immersed in a setting where most values are questionable (Socrates' place & epoch), when there're good reasons for putting in doubt the view world, or when you're a member of an isolated town armored with prejudices rooted in pure ignorance, and there is need of someone able to break the frontiers to open a worthwhile contact with foreigners.

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

Once again, it should be brought up that Broad-Minded does not mean "gullible" or "stupid".

Sometimes it makes people gullible or stupid "in a trivial form" (BS, p. 163), enough for trusting in potentially hostile people (or creatures). Sometimes makes people smart enough for breaking groundless barriers. It isn't a straightforward possitive trait, nor by common sense nor by moral standards.

GURPS broad-minded trait is positive or negative, advantageous or not, above the norm or under the norm depending of the GM/players' assumptions & campaign setting. "Broad-minded" makes sense being classified as a Quirk and not as a Perk because that keeps the trait approximately in a state of indetermination. That is suitable because it's too variable and relative.