How "Serious" are Disadvantages?

[AlexanderHowl]

I disagree. I have seen men hitting on cashiers, waitresses, etc. plenty of times in real life, and I have known people who would qualify for Lecherousness (6-) and Xenophilia (6-) because they had very large appetites and very broad tastes. In their case, the only thing that mattered to them was having sex, with as many different people as possible, and they were attractive and charming enough that they could get away with it.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I disagree. I have seen men hitting on cashiers, waitresses, etc. plenty of times in real life,

But were those men on an adventure when you saw them?

What happens in daily life stays in daily life as far as GURPS goes. You don't have to play out every moment of a character's life. If your character spends a week not on an adventure, you don't have to make rolls to see if he gets a date, blows up at his boss, pushes every unknown button, or acquires a new mental quirk because he fails his fright check upon seeing a spider. You say, "A week passes."

I'll say the usual mantra: GURPS is not a life simulator. It's a system for playing out adventures. Mental disadvantages are not supposed to represent life-crippling hindrances (unless they specifically say they do). They represent your behavior in an adventuring context. Outside of that context, they may operate differently, and the rules won't tell you that. You may not find as many triggers for your Bad Temper outside of an adventure. You may not see so many unknown buttons to trigger your Curiosity outside of an adventure. Your flirtation due to your Lecherousness may or may not be successful, but the results are irrelevant to the adventure, so they are ignored. And so on.

[AlexanderHowl]

No, I really do not see it like that. Disadvantages should apply to every aspect of a character's life. Physical disadvantages like Blindness, Deafness, Mute, etc. do not just go away when a character is not on an adventure, so neither should mental or social disadvantages.

For example, a heterosexual male character with Lecherousness is going to probably make a pass at any available attractive woman that he encounters. If he possesses a sufficiently high Sex Appeal or Reaction Bonus, he might succeed often enough to avoid difficulties, but he will always try if there are no particular reasons to resist the urge. What adventures provide are reasons to attempt to resist the urge, not circumstances where the urge occurs.

[transmetahuman]

I see the official Disadvantage descriptions as often depicting truly insane or unplayable characters. They really are worded that way, regardless of self-control roll level. Honesty as worded won't let the PC even be in a party where someone else commits a crime (they'd be an accessory) - I've seen a lot of Lawful Paladins thrown out of groups in that other game...

I've thought about a few ways to fix it:

• the GM applies modifiers liberally to the base self control number, based on intensity of the triggering stimulus (your Greed SC roll gets a big bonus for the impulse to steal your nephew's piggy bank; your Lechery roll takes a penalty for Helen of Troy), the danger of indulging, and/or the annoyance it'll cause the other players and benefit of detriment to the flow of the game. That's a lot more work for the GM though.

• steal from FATE and similar games for certain mental disads - you don't get CP up front, but if you choose for your character to indulge, and it seriously inconveniences the character, you're awarded a watered-down Impulse Buys point that can only be used for a set list of weaker effects. Eventually you might end up getting the equivalent of more points than the Disad would have given you, though, with no upper limit.

• go through the most problematically worded "in every situation X, you do Y stupid thing" Disad and come up with a more realistic and playable thresholds for them, then charge half price for the Disad (after adjusting for SC). Again, more work for the GM.

Has anyone tried one of these, or modified the rules in some similar way?

[AlexanderHowl]

Honesty is a perfectly good disadvantage for police and/or superhero games. As for other genres, it depends on the local laws of the setting. In some settings, dueling would be legal, so killing someone during a duel may be permissible. In other settings, stealing from 'monsters' would be legal, so traditional dungeon crawling would be allowed.

If a player is not comfortable with the consequences of a disadvantage, they should not take it unless they are planning on buying them off. For example, a character in a contemporary setting could take Bad Sight (Mitigator, Corrective Lenses, -60%) [-10] and buy it off after a few sessions by getting LASIK. In the case of mental disadvantages, life changes, maturation, or therapy can all justify buying them off. In real life, many people have temporary manifestations of mental disadvantages because of adverse circumstances and, when those circumstances change, their behaviors may also change (though some people require help).

For example, depression effects many people who suffer a stillbirth but, with assistance and understanding, it will fade in most of them after a couple of years. A character who suffered a recent stillbirth (or other recent tragic event) could justify practically any mental disadvantage as a potentially temporary deviation of their normal behavior which will fade over time as the sharp edge of grief dulls. Such an event would be best represented by taking the disadvantage during character creation and gradually buying it off over time by purchasing limitations until they pay off the entire cost of the disadvantage.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I believe it reflects the idea that GURPS rules are for adventures, not everyday life. Unless you're playing Adventures in Grocery Shopping, you're not going to play out a food-shopping trip, so situations like being unable to decide between products, hitting on all the customers and employees, and believing every bit of marketing aren't going to be played out, and so won't affect you.

So mental disadvantages are a significant part of a character's personality, but they don't interfere with the character's entire life. Their frequency and strength are appropriate for just the adventuring part of your life, not all of it.

How is that an explanation for not triggering Disadvantages every time the events at the table meet the specified condition?

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I'll say the usual mantra: GURPS is not a life simulator. It's a system for playing out adventures. Mental disadvantages are not supposed to represent life-crippling hindrances (unless they specifically say they do). They represent your behavior in an adventuring context. Outside of that context, they may operate differently, and the rules won't tell you that. You may not find as many triggers for your Bad Temper outside of an adventure. You may not see so many unknown buttons to trigger your Curiosity outside of an adventure. Your flirtation due to your Lecherousness may or may not be successful, but the results are irrelevant to the adventure, so they are ignored. And so on.

Any scene that occurs at the table is within what I would consider "adventuring context" for purposes of applying a Disadvantage.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

How is that an explanation for not triggering Disadvantages every time the events at the table meet the specified condition?

It's not, and I never suggested such a thing. I said that mental disadvantages' frequency and severity are tuned to their use on adventures, not their appearance in non-adventuring life. You still have the disadvantage in everyday life, but it won't necessarily be triggered in the psychopathic way that people are reading into them.

Originally Posted by mr beer

Any scene that occurs at the table is within what I would consider "adventuring context" for purposes of applying a Disadvantage.

Your every trip to the supermarket is not played at the table. If the GM says "a week passes," then you haven't played all those potential social interactions, and your mental disadvantages have no mechanical effect on the game or your character whatsoever during that week. (One exception: a job roll might possibly be affected by a disadvantage.)

If the GM played out every social interaction you had for that non-adventuring week, then you'd basically be unable to function in normal life with many of these disadvantages, as you make passes, blow up at people, peek into every off-limits area, or run away screaming many times a day. And that's just not what mental disadvantages are supposed to represent.

[mr beer]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Your every trip to the supermarket is not played at the table. If the GM says "a week passes," then you haven't played all those potential social interactions

Yep agree. I wasn't sure what you meant by 'non adventuring', well 'a week passes' is non-adventuring. If we play out a trip to the supermarket, which we can safely assume we won't do every time the party needs bread and milk*, then that's all part of the adventure and Disadvantages apply.

* Unless maybe we're playing GURPS: The Shoppening or something.

[AlexanderHowl]

Blindness does not just go away when the characters are not adventuring, so why should any other disadvantage? Mental disadvantages determine a lot of the personality of a character and that will apply even 'off camera'.