03-13-2020, 12:37 PM | #1 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Social Disease
Social Disease [-5] is a mundane physical disadvantage. You have some kind of disease that can’t be readily cured, is not fatal in the short term, and is only transmitted by close unprotected physical contact. Anyone who knows about it reacts to you at -1, and automatically resists any seduction attempts you make. This disadvantage appeared during the 3e period, possibly in Cyberpunk.
The symptoms of the disease are deliberately left undefined, since its nature will be setting-dependent. An incurable disease in a society with magical or ultra-tech healing will be different from one in a realistic Crusades campaign. This is a disadvantage for gritty-grimy role-playing, rather than heroic fantasies. It doesn’t show up in many GURPS supplements: Bio-Tech re-purposes it for representing unusual symbiotic bacteria or nano-machines that don’t like being spread to other beings, and provides an example of curing it. Social Disease can be a guilty secret in Horror, and Britannica-6, and there are perk and quirk versions in Power-Ups 2 and 6 respectively. It shows up in the dispossessed humans of Reign of Steel: Will to Live, and Zombies has a [-10] version for carriers of zombie plagues. I’ve never used this disadvantage, as player or GM, and don’t feel I’m missing much. Has it been significant in your games?
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
03-13-2020, 06:01 PM | #2 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Slocial Disease
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-- MA Lloyd |
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03-14-2020, 10:08 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Slocial Disease
So would it need many changes to represent something like covid-19? Assuming "Close Unprotected Physical Contact" isn't a euphemism, it feels like it could work.
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03-14-2020, 11:08 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Slocial Disease
Covid-19 is so transient. You will be free of it (or dead, but that's rather rare unless you're old and/or have other diseases already) after a month or two. I would certainly suggest that anyone who show signs of a communicable disease should a reaction penalty, but it should be something that can't be treated permanently.
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
03-14-2020, 05:32 PM | #5 |
Icelandic - Approach With Caution
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Reykjavík, Iceland
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Slocial Disease
Wouldn't the disease (COVID-19) have to have some easily discernible physical symptoms for this disad to apply? Most if not all of the symptoms are identical to the common flu.
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03-15-2020, 02:29 AM | #6 |
Banned
Join Date: Mar 2006
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Slocial Disease
Y2K much?...
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03-15-2020, 02:55 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: On the road again...
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Slocial Disease
I've used Social Disease to represent someone HIV-positive in the '80s and '90s (guy was a heroin-addicted womanizer, no less), and to represent someone in the Age of Sail with syphilis. (Both in the "we have no cures, and treatments are few and far between" time frames for those diseases.)
Both times, I wasn't sure how else to represent having these diseases, or how the effects would play out in the game world. As a "catch-all" for covering all possible effects of these diseases, it worked as a placeholder until the characters could - if possible - be respecced to fit how the world reacted to them better.
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"Life ... is an Oreo cookie." - J'onn J'onzz, 1991 "But mom, I don't wanna go back in the dungeon!" The GURPS Marvel Universe Reboot Project A-G, H-R, and S-Z, and its not-a-wiki-really web adaptation. Ranoc, a Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy Setting |
03-15-2020, 05:06 AM | #8 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Slocial Disease
Quote:
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. Last edited by johndallman; 03-16-2020 at 12:00 PM. Reason: Remove obsolete line |
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disadvantage of the week, social disease |
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