GURPS On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

3e High Tech, Buck Fever was an inexperienced shooter spotting his first prey.

Not it wasn't. At least not limited to that. It also included situations such as shooting at a competition (-1), or shooting a person holding a hostage (-5, -10 if the hostage is a loved one). PCs rolled Will at the listed penalty. On a failure, the penalty also applied to the Guns roll. Bullet shyness applies penalties to Guns when a person is being shot at. Oh, and lost FP (hard breathing, fatigue, shaky hands etc.) should penalize guns too, while we're on the same page.

[aesir23]

Not everyone should need training to be abnormally fine with hurting and killing people.

I might design a Sociopathy/Psychopathy metatrait to include: Taboo Traits: (Cannot Kill, Empathy, Guilt Complex, Reluctant Killer), Callous, and Selfish.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Not everyone should need training to be abnormally fine with hurting and killing people.

I might design a Sociopathy/Psychopathy metatrait to include: Taboo Traits: (Cannot Kill, Empathy, Guilt Complex, Reluctant Killer), Callous, and Selfish.

Indeed not everyone does.

Two characters in the 3e black ops* campaign I ran went through years of morally questionable and extremely stressful operations without ever showing outward signs of PTSD or other psychological problems. One of them was showing some signs of stress, but apart from making it likely that he would get an ulcer before 35 and be dead of heart attack before 50, it didn't hamper him in the field.

One of them had Callous and Selfish. The other had Callous, Fanaticism (Security of Americans) and Unfazable.

*Which covered several years of deniable covert operations run with shadow funds by an ADD/O of the CIA, unbeknowst to Congress and even much of the Cabinet**.
**The president was not cleared to know of their existence and when they performed an operation with his knowledge, they were falsely represented as CIA assets with foreign citizenship to him. In fact, two of the operators had no citizenship, having been declared dead in order to use them as deniable operators.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Not everyone should need training to be abnormally fine with hurting and killing people.

I might design a Sociopathy/Psychopathy metatrait to include: Taboo Traits: (Cannot Kill, Empathy, Guilt Complex, Reluctant Killer), Callous, and Selfish.

Despite the name, I'm not sure Emapthy should be on the list; Emapthy is the "I can read you" advantage, Sense of Duty is the "I care about you" disadvantage. Callous + Empathy seems to be the basis for "Hannibal Lecturing".

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Despite the name, I'm not sure Emapthy should be on the list; Emapthy is the "I can read you" advantage, Sense of Duty is the "I care about you" disadvantage. Callous + Empathy seems to be the basis for "Hannibal Lecturing".

Umm, I think given the way it is described, it's an 'I can feel you' advantage; compare to Body Reading, errr, Body Language. Notably, Empathy, by default, is not Sense-Based.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Despite the name, I'm not sure Emapthy should be on the list; Emapthy is the "I can read you" advantage, Sense of Duty is the "I care about you" disadvantage. Callous + Empathy seems to be the basis for "Hannibal Lecturing".

I've always used Smooth Operator for sociopathic master-manipulators. In my experience (working with at-risk youth, some of which were diagnosed with Anti-social personality disorder and sociopathy), Sociopaths aren't good at reading people, other people aren't entirely real to them, and many of the motives of healthy people are unfathomable to them.

They might be great at lying to and manipulating other people, however and may in fact be able to play the role of an emotionally healthy individual, but I think Smooth Operator's a better fit for that.

In a cinematic campaign, sure, give Hannibal Empathy.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by aesir23

I've always used Smooth Operator for sociopathic master-manipulators. In my experience (working with at-risk youth, some of which were diagnosed with Anti-social personality disorder and sociopathy), Sociopaths aren't good at reading people, other people aren't entirely real to them, and many of the motives of healthy people are unfathomable to them.

They might be great at lying to and manipulating other people, however and may in fact be able to play the role of an emotionally healthy individual, but I think Smooth Operator's a better fit for that.

OTOH, why would someone who had Callous, Empathy and high IQ ever be diagnosed with anything?

He doesn't suffer from any inability to function in society or live a normal life. In fact, he may carefully fake being normal in every way, except that he's better than most people at social skills and anticipating the reactions of others. Being Callous carries with it no obligation to perform violent actions or indeed anything which is likely to bring a negative consequence upon the character.

There have been theories that even in the real world, a significant fraction of highly successful businessmen or politicians are just such high-functioning sociopaths. They don't really care about the feelings of other people, but they care very much about the benefits that they enjoy by acting as if they did. Until they judge that the benefit of causing other people to suffer outweigh the loss of reputation.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

OTOH, why would someone who had Callous, Empathy and high IQ ever be diagnosed with anything?

He doesn't suffer from any inability to function in society or live a normal life. In fact, he may carefully fake being normal in every way, except that he's better than most people at social skills and anticipating the reactions of others. Being Callous carries with it no obligation to perform violent actions or indeed anything which is likely to bring a negative consequence upon the character.

There have been theories that even in the real world, a significant fraction of highly successful businessmen or politicians are just such high-functioning sociopaths. They don't really care about the feelings of other people, but they care very much about the benefits that they enjoy by acting as if they did. Until they judge that the benefit of causing other people to suffer outweigh the loss of reputation.

People with Empathy (and, by extension, Body Language) get a bad feeling from Callous people. I guess people with Psychology should be identify the whys and hows behind it. Whether knowing someone is GURPS Callous is enough to classify them as diagnosed with sociopathy is a question that I'm not sure how to answer.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

People with Empathy (and, by extension, Body Language) get a bad feeling from Callous people. I guess people with Psychology should be identify the whys and hows behind it. Whether knowing someone is GURPS Callous is enough to classify them as diagnosed with sociopathy is a question that I'm not sure how to answer.

Why should it?

Giving someone a bad feeling is not enough to qualify as a mental disorder.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Why should it?

Giving someone a bad feeling is not enough to qualify as a mental disorder.

If they know that this is the exact feeling that correlates with having a certain type of disorder, they're likely to 'investigate', eventually being able to diagnose the disorder. (This is assuming Callous is the trait that qualifies one for having the disorder.)

Edit: to be more precise, characters with Empathy react at -1 towards characters with Callous. This is most likely because they understand that those characters are Callous - remember, Empathy (and by extension, Body Language) allows determining true loyalties of characters. And if a character has zero loyalty towards anyone except Numero Uno, well, that tells something.