Social Vulnerability: Daddy Issues (?)

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Fear of the bush moving due to wind is less deadly than lack of fear of the bush moving due to a hungry leopard. Just a tad.

Unless fear of the bush moving due to wind causes you to cease from working and starve. Which is why calculating probabilities is one of the most important parts of the human brain. You have to be able to calculate when it is right to risk as well as wrong.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

When the bonkers is real and rational, the rational becomes bonkers.

"Quitzecoatl is come back for revenge! Men with faces like snow, magic armor, magic swords, and magic thunder-bows are come riding on monster Llamas and tearing down the statues of our gods!

"You're crazy!"

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Unless fear of the bush moving due to wind causes you to cease from working and starve. Which is why calculating probabilities is one of the most important parts of the human brain. You have to be able to calculate when it is right to risk as well as wrong.

That's terror, not mere fear. You used trust and distrust, not terror and cultish loyalty.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Give an unclear answer, get a confused response. And a true belief is as capable of getting people to act crazy as a false one. How many people have you seen in fiction getting into trouble because they believe things like "my husband is trying to kill me!", "shapeshifting aliens are infiltrating our cities!", "Revelation is upon us!", "I am a princess from a land on none of your maps" and "my child has disappeared and everyone is denying she ever existed!" and either they are freaking out unproductively or are just trying to convince people of an unsupportable proposition that is totally out of their ken?

I submit that blaming someone's unproductive freakout or incompetent PR move on their possession of correct information is not a reasonable attribution...

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I submit that blaming someone's unproductive freakout or incompetent PR move on their possession of correct information is not a reasonable attribution...

And yet they would not be getting into that trouble if they had remained ignorant. Delusion can represent a false belief. It can also represent knowledge of a truth that is poorly handled.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

And yet they would not be getting into that trouble if they had remained ignorant. Delusion can represent a false belief. It can also represent knowledge of a truth that is poorly handled.

The disadvantage is from their behavior, not belief. One could freak out for any conceivable reason or its exact opposite. The operative words being, "freak out".

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The disadvantage is from their behavior, not belief. One could freak out for any conceivable reason or its exact opposite. The operative words being, "freak out".

Bingo. As with the example I gave from Waterloo. The French were behaving in a manner that was at least arguably suboptimal for their own survival. But it was indifferent whether that was caused by the crazy,"We are betrayed" or the very real, "We are defeated."

[Phantasm]

I'm pretty sure the point people are trying to make is: It's not the belief itself that affects the pricing of the Delusion, but how you act on the belief.

Let's take the "aliens live on Pluto" Delusion.

-1 point actions: You believe it, keep it to yourself, and maybe look through the New Horizons probe data that's been made public looking for proof in your spare time. You otherwise live a normal life.

-5 point actions: You believe it, mostly keep it to yourself, occasionally give voice to the belief, and when it comes up in conversation state quite assuredly that the New Horizons probe will prove you right. You otherwise live a normal life, but people think you're eccentric in this one thing.

-10 point actions. You spend every possible waking moment pouring over the New Horizons probe data looking for the proof, which affects your ability to live a normal life. Your friends, family, and co-workers are concerned for your mental health.

-15 point actions. This belief has the appearance of having driven you bat-s**t insane. Honestly, I'm not sure how this would be played out.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The disadvantage is from their behavior, not belief. .

Without behaviour, a belief is nothing at all. Not a Delusion, not a quirk. If you have a belief that those around in general regard as insane, it qualifies as a Delusion regardless of its truth or falsity...but only if you take insane action because of it.

[arnej]

FWIW, when I had a character with "Sucker for a Pretty Face", I cast it as:

Charitable (Women Only): -7

So this might work as Charitable (Older men): -5 (?)

Charitable forces you to give folk the benefit of the doubt, which would work for the "bad back" scenario, for example.

arnej