[Basic] Advantage of the Week (#42): Doesn't Sleep, Less Sleep

[Otaku]

I've had characters with Doesn't Sleep and with Less Sleep but under the 3e rules. Nowadays, it would fall under wish fulfillment as health issues mean I settle for waking up tired and a bit achy, seldom getting a good night's sleep. I actually have to allow extra time to sleep, because the sleep I get ends up being poor quality or I've just had to get up too many times during the night (sometimes for prolonged periods).

Back then, though, it was to take advantage of the extra time or avoid potential weaknesses in my character. As we often had campaigns involving Supers (or similarly powerful character, like demigods), it was easier to give them this than worry about some odd scheme to take them down via lack of sleep. When it comes to Less Sleep, it was always about whether the campaign was tracking such things, and whether you could spare the CP. The potential for extra adventure/study/fun time is quite high, and I would sometimes pair it with Light Sleeper. The reasoning was if Light Sleeper didn't kick in, I enjoyed the extra time, and if I didn't, it was likely (given the rest of the build) I'd break even outside of a string of bad rolls.

I understand the complaints about Less Sleep being potentially abusive when it comes to learning Skills, but I also have seen it work out just fine. I think this is a bit of a reality check; a lot of the more impressive people I know either have Less Sleep or enjoyed it in their youth. They cashed in on those extra hours to study or work more. It is an easy way for some of the heroes to explain why they are the heroes; while everyone else had to rest, they kept on fighting!

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I miss Reduced Sleep. It is a trait that produces a sleep pattern quite distinct from just loading up on Less Sleep.

I would call having your sleep distributed over a sleep cycle with a length different from 24 hours a zero point feature. Though I'd make it an exotic trait if it were a big departure from the human pattern, and I might charge for it if the character were free to sleep on a normal cycle if they chose.

[Flyndaran]

I consider it an almost mandatory perk for machines seeing as how if they don't have it, some GMs may interpret 16 hours awake as the maximum time before they just fall over to sleep. Or suffer Ht damage, something I can't even imagine meaning anything for robots.
(Ironically I'm tired right now, and can't figure out how to phrase my last sentence coherently.)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's why I put in the extra -i-. Somnus, somni-, sleep; somnium, somnii-, dream. Though I suppose that could also be someone who dreams about food!

(When you dream of eating, does the food have any taste? In my dreams, food is more like the abstract notion of food, without nutritive value or actual flavor.)

I've never had taste or touch, and sometimes not even vision in my dreams. I have vague conceptual sound, sometimes smells, and usually blurry vision.
Lacking vision is weird, because it is not blackness, but a pure lack of visual component.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I've never had taste or touch, and sometimes not even vision in my dreams. I have vague conceptual sound, sometimes smells, and usually blurry vision.
Lacking vision is weird, because it is not blackness, but a pure lack of visual component.

I experience all sense in my dreams, however not all of my dreams contain all sense. Sometimes food tastes how it should, often it just has some taste "close enough" for dream logic, sometimes it has no taste, and sometimes it has no taste and I notice it (one of the tells that I'm dreaming).

Getting more to what you said, Flyndaran, sometimes a sense is missing, or things behave in a wholly inappropriate manner. Sometimes dreams are sound/concept only, and I've even had dreams that seemed to just be text! I sometimes can read in my dreams, however either it involves the usual dream sleight of hand (I'm not reading, I just think I am and simply know what the dream intends the letters to say) or I can read something once but it will change if I go back to re-read it (again, a tell that I am dreaming). Sometimes I understand that I am reading something, and sometimes the dream just somehow proceeds as text. XD

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by ericthered

This is the most common use I've seen. My first gurps game was a play by post space exploration game with months of in-game time between destinations.

Yeah, I got lots of less sleep advantages and time spent work sheets. I can't think of a more ideal setup to abuse that loophole.

Given that the GM was allowing it to work, is it really abuse?

Sure you've got Less Sleep and study time, but unless your character had "Compulsive Studying", the GM probably should have required Will rolls to use all your extra time for studying. Unless you were on something like the Enterprise-D, you also probably had constraints on what and how well you could study.

In both cases, the GM can take advantage of this to tell a better story. Perhaps a role that was going to be reserved for an NPC goes to your character because hey, you had time to learn the language before landing? Adjust things because now you're Lockpicking is 20 instead of 18. Actually had something else for your character to spend that time on; could still be your choice, but studying means Path A, goofing off means Path B, ship maintenance means Path C, etc.

Don't get me wrong, GM's I had needed some time to realize these things, and the only reason I didn't mess it up myself in my own campaigns is they didn't last long enough (and were torpedoed by other, more significant problems). >.>

[Flyndaran]

Similar for me with regards to reading and simple math. I hate how it's "common knowledge" that it's impossible to do those.
Like the myth that no one can tickle themselves. I know someone that can.

[Otaku]

Yeah, I can tickle myself, but it is tricky. I also don't mean in NSFW ways. I've got very sensitive skin (including medically), so if I try to tickle myself, it works. On the other hand, even though another person can "tickle" me by barely making any contact on the back of the neck, back of the knee, and in the armpit, there my brain does its job and I have to actually make very light, irritating contact just like I would on my forearm.

...

Yes, weird tangent, I know. Does give me an excuse to point out I made a double post; my apologies if that caused anyone to miss something. ^^'

[Celti]

The odd paths some of my campaigns have taken have caused need for a couple of modifiers for Doesn't Sleep:

Drowsy: You never suffer loss of fatigue or stress from lack of sleep, but you still get tired, especially if it's been a while and there's nothing for you to do! If you have been awake for more than 24 hours, you must make Will rolls as for the Drowsy condition (p. B428) whenever you are inactive. The resulting penalties from a successful roll linger until you do sleep — though even a short nap will do! — or until you are once again engaged in something active. This is usually taken alongside No Immunity, but is not required to be, and is well complemented by Deep Sleeper. -20%.

No Immunity: You are not immune to sleep caused by magic, poisons, psionics, and such, but otherwise have all the remaining benefits of Doesn't Sleep: i.e., Less Sleep 8. -20%.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's why I put in the extra -i-. Somnus, somni-, sleep; somnium, somnii-, dream. Though I suppose that could also be someone who dreams about food!

Hmmm... weird, only tangentially related question, what traits does someone with Doesn't Sleep need to be able to deliberately enter a dream state?

Will Autotrance do it, with the Dreaming skill governing how much control he has over his lucid dreams?

Originally Posted by whswhs

(When you dream of eating, does the food have any taste? In my dreams, food is more like the abstract notion of food, without nutritive value or actual flavor.)

I can't remember ever having dreamt about eating. Well, I've dreamt about some alien critters who spent a lot of time eating brains, but I wasn't one of them in the dream. I was me. I did see them eat other unfortunates, but the dream ended before they et me. Not that I'm likely to have discovered what the brains tasted like if I was on the other end.

I do remember two occasions when the dream included a sense of taste. One was when I was killing a soldier at a train yard with a knife. I was a young teen in the dream and even an 18-year-old conscript was heavier than me, so as he was struggling and trying to breathe through a ruined throat, he fell on top of me. I kept the knife in the side of the neck and tried to jar it around to completely sever the artery and his blood leaked in my face. As I recall, it tasted like blood. It was shockingly warm, I remember that.

The other was somebody's lips. She tasted like strawberries. Well, fake strawberries. Gum or lip gloss, I guess.