12-21-2018, 12:58 AM | #1 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
Horizontal [-10] and Semi-Upright [-5] are both exotic physical disadvantages, which normal humans can’t take. They normally come from a racial template, rather than being traits of an individual. They both appeared during the 3e period, in GURPS Uplift.
Horizontal means that your normal posture is horizontal, like that of a quadruped. If you have No Limbs (Aquatic, or Avian), you can’t take this disadvantage, because you live in a three-dimensional environment, where posture doesn’t matter very much. If you’re human-sized, you are a two-hex creature. If you have hands, you can hold something in one of them while moving at half speed, but to use a hand fully, you must stop and stand on your other limbs. If you sit on your haunches, and aren’t moving, you can use both hands. You can stand on your hind legs for short periods, but this is very uncomfortable. Your kicking damage is reduced by -1/die unless you have the Claws advantage (Hooves don’t help with this). Having Extra Limbs that you can use as arms seems to make you ineligible for this disadvantage: the iconic character C31R07 (p. B307-9) only has Horizontal in his no-arms form. Semi-Upright means that you tend to switch postures between biped and quadruped. You can stand upright reasonably comfortably and use your hands, but your movement in this posture is only 60% of your full Move. You need to be in quadruped posture for full Move, but if your DX is 12+, you can carry one or two small objects in that posture. The most important use of these disadvantages is Horizontal’s inclusion in the Quadruped meta-trait, which is used for a great many animals and monsters. They’re very rare on character templates, but show up on racial templates for dragons, sphinxes and the like. Bio-Tech can engineer them into, or out of a species, and Martial Arts has additional rules for fighters who are Horizontal. Powers: The Weird has more bioengineering, and Space describes how to have these disadvantages naturally. I’ve never used these disadvantages, as player or GM. There are genres where they’d be important, but I’ve never played them. How have they been significant in your games?
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12-21-2018, 04:07 AM | #2 | |
Join Date: Jun 2017
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
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I will probably be using it a lot going forward as I love four-footed characters. |
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12-21-2018, 06:15 AM | #3 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
That's probably specific to the character. Elephants have an arm and the disad (both in Bio-Tech and in Basic Set), as do dragons and sphinxes (though with Bad Grip). Conversely, centaurs with their torsos being positioned as high as a rider, lack the Horizontal trait.
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12-21-2018, 07:07 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Denver, CO
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
I've actually used semi-upright once. I had a super-villian character who was a werewolf and had it on his alternate form. Other than that... Horizontal shows up on animal allies periodically.
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12-21-2018, 07:27 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
I've actually used Semi-Upright a few times for characters who can drop to all fours and run at a higher speed. I ended up buying up Basic Move to 10-ish and slapping on Semi-Upright; that gives a character with a human normal Move when wandering around like a human, but they get a significant (+2/3rds) boost when they drop to all fours, and no faffing around with trying to limit Move in some contorted way.
Werewolves, rat-ogres, trolls, those sorts of things.
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12-21-2018, 07:35 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jun 2017
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
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12-21-2018, 12:56 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
Florence in Freefall has something very like this trait. It's potentially suitable for aliens and furries.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
12-21-2018, 02:27 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Jun 2017
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
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12-22-2018, 03:21 AM | #9 | |
Join Date: Feb 2013
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
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12-23-2018, 09:42 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Horizontal and Semi-Upright
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EDIT: But if you want something that goes really fast on all fours, I'd do a combination of both.
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disadvantage of the week, horizontal, semi-upright |
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