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Old 09-11-2022, 06:19 AM   #1
johndallman
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Default [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

Possession [100] is an exotic mental advantage, usually cybernetic, psionic or supernatural. You can move your mind into different bodies. This can operate in many different ways, and this advantage has many special modifiers. It first appeared at GURPS 4e, as a generalisation of various 3e abilities.

The basic version, which is usually psionic or supernatural, requires you to touch your intended new host, using the body you’re currently occupying. You then need to win a quick contest of your IQ vs their Will to move in. The victim gets +5 to resist if they’re in combat with you or otherwise suspicious, so stealth or deception are advisable.

If you win, you take control of the new body, and its own mind is completely suppressed. Your old host’s mind recovers from being suppressed, after 1d seconds of mental stun, and has no memory of events while their body was possessed. Of course, they may well wonder how they got to wherever you left them, and what happened to the time they’re missing. The sort of dedicated drinker who’s used to recovering consciousness in strange places can be useful for a possessor.

If you lose or tie the quick contest, you suffer 1d seconds of mental stun, and the intended victim is immune to all further possession attempts by you. Someone who realises what’s going on may well use those 1d seconds to do you harm, which brings up the great limitation of Possession. If the host you’re occupying dies, so do you. You could in theory live forever by moving into younger host bodies, but you cannot survive without a host. You need to keep your host alive until you can find another.

When you move into a host, you use their physical traits, includes ST, DX, and HT, secondary characteristics calculated from those attributes, and their physical advantages and disadvantages. You use your own mental traits, including IQ, Per and Will, and mental advantages and disadvantages. Social traits depend on their nature and the society: if you move from an old body into a young one, you obviously lose any Social Regard that came from being elderly. If you’re operating in a society where Possession is openly used and socially accepted, you get to keep traits like Rank that are tied to your identity, but otherwise, you loose them.

Skills based on IQ, Per or Will are not changed. Skills based on physical attributes are adjusted by the differences between your old and new hosts: if you have Knife at DX+2, and move into a body with higher DX, your skill level rises. If you occupy a body for a long time, or move regularly between a set of bodies, the GM is at liberty to charge you for the most expensive of these bodies.

These rules on body-swapping allow for a clear distinction between, for example, Acute Senses (physical) and high Perception (mental). Some of the alternate rules for, e.g., Basic Speed in Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes get more complicated when they’re based on a mixture of physical and mental attributes, but the Basic Set rules work reasonably simply.

When you have moved into a new host, you get some access to their memories. This is enough to learn basic facts about them and their life, but not enough to learn any of their skills. Roll vs your IQ, at ‑1 per hour since you took possession, to recall facts they knew. You only get one try per fact.

There are a set of mutually exclusive limitations that create different forms of this advantage, most of which have further rules not summarised here:
  • Digital, -40%: You must be a Digital Mind, and you take over computers, not living bodies. This requires network access, rather than touch, and full control of the new host, bypassing all security limitations. The host must also be powerful enough to run you. You have the option of copying yourself, rather than moving, but unless you have the digital version of Duplication, the newly possessed system is an NPC that thinks it’s you.
  • Magical, -10%: Appropriate protective magic (including Magic Resistance) helps a potential victim resist takeover.
  • Parasitic, -60%: Rather than touching a potential host, you physically go inside them. They must have a greater SM than you, and you need either Permeation (Flesh), or a host with enough Payload to carry you. They can resist takeover with the better of Will and HT; if you fail, you are not forced out, but you aren’t in control. While inside a host, you are subject to medical or technological countermeasures, but you can take nourishment from the host. You can release your host without having to leave, but you need a new Quick Contest to regain control.
  • Spiritual, -20%: You need to be an immaterial spirit, and can presumably live without possessing someone. You can be expelled with Exorcism skill, if the exorcist wins a Quick Contest of his skill vs. your Will, and if that happens you can’t return to that host for 24 hours.
  • Telepathy, -10%: the usual Power Modifier, since the basic advantage works fine as Telepathy.
There are more enhancements, allowing you to forget some of your skills and learn new ones from a new host; to leave “backdoors” so that you can re-possess a host without a contest, if you have the points to buy them as a Puppet; to swap minds, moving your new host’s mind into your old body and to use remote control, which has the great advantage that you don’t die if your host does.

Special limitations include only being able to possess people with whom you have a Mindlink; not having any access to your host’s memories and only being able to possess your puppets.

Puppet [5 or 10] is also an exotic mental advantage, which appeared at GURPS 4e. You can only buy it if you have Possession. A puppet is someone or something who you have paid for as an Ally or Dependent, plus the extra [5] for Puppet. They cannot resist your Possession, for reasons the GM endorses. If you have an Ally Group, you can buy them as Puppets for [10].

Anyone who is a Puppet must have an Involuntary Duty towards you, be mindless (IQ 0), or be Reprogrammable. An Involuntary Duty must have the same frequency as they have as an Ally or Dependent: they can appear without serving as a Puppet, but you always have the option to do that. Allies are often Minions or Unwilling, but this is not mandatory. Mind Control has a “Puppet” limitation, which is different, although victims might not notice.

The Basic Set tells us how Possession interacts with Channelling and Mind Shield; Puppet interacts with Duplication, as one might expect. Powers adds enhancements for full memory access and better remote control, and a limitation for only being able to possess certain kinds of host. Magic has spells for possession of people, animals and machines, which aren’t quite the same as the advantage, and for ending possession, which a GM might allow to work against the advantage.

Girl Genius has its own mechanics (literally) for Possession, and a disadvantage for people who are possessed, but can sometimes resist it. DF7 Clerics gives many kinds of cleric spells for ending possession; DF14 Psi’s “Death Possession” is a kind of psionic reincarnation. The Possession in Fantasy: Portal Realms is a plot device for visiting said realms, but the uses for it in Horror aren’t nearly that nice. Infinite Worlds tells us about time travel via Possession, while Powers: The Weird adds further versions of Parasitic. Psionic Powers adds some modifiers from Mind Reading, and a limitation for being unable to smoothly control someone you’ve possessed, while Steampunk 2 has a drug that makes you vulnerable to Possession. Supers adds a limitation for controlling machines when you aren’t a Digital Mind, and has a useful categorisation of machine types. Ultra-Tech has “Biopresence Software” which lets you operate other people if they have Puppet implants, without the Possession advantage. Your implanted computer can have this, letting it operate you.

Together, these advantages let you be anything from a one-person horror movie to an AI with several bodies for different kinds of work. How have you used them in games?
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Old 09-11-2022, 01:14 PM   #2
Plane
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

one idea I had for this with 'Using Abilities at Default' from Powers would be to take puppet as a temporary advantage, though it seems like something you should only be able to take for an Ally
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Old 09-11-2022, 02:33 PM   #3
TGLS
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

I had an idea for a 20 or 40 point version of Puppet that let you make as many puppets as you wanted (perhaps limited by paying for allies), based off the same logic of quadrupling point cost for wildcard powers.

I am left wondering whether an enemy (even if the animosity is just, "I gotta figure out why I keep blacking out") or a nothing at all puppet would be a valid option. Like, Dependent implies that you'd be at least a little upset if they die, and Ally implies that they can help out in other ways or are brain dead. What's the option for "easily possessed guy who doesn't want to help/actively causing problems for you"?
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Old 09-11-2022, 02:50 PM   #4
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

Quote:
Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
What's the option for "easily possessed guy who doesn't want to help/actively causing problems for you"?
There is the Unwilling option for Ally, not sure if you could/should combine it with Minion
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Old 09-11-2022, 02:57 PM   #5
TGLS
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

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Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
There is the Unwilling option for Ally, not sure if you could/should combine it with Minion
To me, Unwilling implies that the Ally can be ordered around because you have a figurative gun to their heads. I'm not sure if, "do what I say or I'll possess you and do it myself" is a good enough threat.
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Old 09-11-2022, 04:06 PM   #6
Overheat
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

I feel that Maximum Duration is especially a good limitation to put on Possession. Not only does the high base cost encourage trying to have limitations, but from the GM side, Possession that only lasts X minutes means that you can have it be used tactically in your games without dealing with the issues of the PC permanently stealing a better body.
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Old 09-11-2022, 07:30 PM   #7
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

I always felt like Puppet was a bit narrow by being tied to Possession exclusively—shouldn't it apply to things like Mind Control as well?
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Old 09-12-2022, 01:57 PM   #8
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

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Originally Posted by Aldric View Post
There is the Unwilling option for Ally, not sure if you could/should combine it with Minion
Minion seems like "I won't get docked XP if I use this ally as cannon fodder" which seems perfect for Unwilling
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Old 09-12-2022, 03:01 PM   #9
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

Possession is a neat little advantage that I've used all over the place.
  • I've stuck it on aliens that possesses the bodies of others.
  • I've stuck it on spirits, especially demon spirits.
  • I've stuck it on alien plants who can use it on space explorers in orbit.
  • I've stuck it on fairly generic wizards
  • I've had players who were AI's buy it to represent having multiple shells (I lean away from that now adays, in favor of using the piloting skill)
  • It featured as the signature ability of the villians in Overgrown Secrets, where it was a terrifying I-win button the PC's were made mostly immune to
  • It showed up as a sample ability for Dreadstormers under telepathy powers
I've also used posession-like effects for custom magic systems without invoking the advantage itself, most often in Lost in Dreams. I have a bunch of prep I've never used that invokes it... It might be one of those concepts that is really evocative but takes some handling to make fun and gameable, because actually mind controlling Player characters is hard.

Most of the time, the base mechanics of the advantage get overwritten by a pile of modifiers, but its fine, because having intricate, new, and surprising conditions for possession is both fun to handle and easy to describe.
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Old 09-12-2022, 04:01 PM   #10
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Possession and Puppet

Possession is one of those mechanics that is problematic for PCs, because it doesn't really have a fair price (all depends on what bodies are available) but makes for fun NPCs or monsters.
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