Blurberry Template

[Dangerious P. Cats]

While trying to sell some people on GURPS I explained that the character creation system was so versatile you could play as anything from a swashbuckling environmentalist to a particularly intelligent blueberry muffin. Unfortunately they asked me to prove this and in the interests of honesty, integrity and all the other thing that mean I will never succeed in getting elected I would like to do it. SO can anyone help me make a template for a particularly intelligent blueberry muffin?

[Tommi_Kovala]

How do we know if it's intelligent? Can it talk or somehow manipulate objects? Or is it telepathic? Does its muffiny exterior conceal a complex anatomy, or is it just light and fluffy throughout (with blueberries)?

[Ed the Coastie]

Most importantly, does it taste good?

[Kirby]

Is tastiness a Perk or a Quirk, I wonder? My first thought is the former, but if it makes people prone to eat you, I guess that would be a bad thing.

A while back somebody made an inanimate object template; I suppose one could adapt that for use with blueberry muffins. At a guess:

Sapient Muffin
Stats: ST 0 (-100); DX 0 (-200); HT 10 (0).
Secondary characteristics: HP +1 (2); FP N/A (0).
Features: Fixed bodily stats; SM tiny.
Advantages: Immunity to Metabolic Hazards (30); Injury Tolerance (Homogeneous, No Blood, No Brain, No Eyes, No Head, No Neck, Unbreakable Bones) (72);
Disadvantages: Anosmic (-5); Blind (-50); Deaf (-20); Dead Broke (-25); Fragile: Brittle (-15); Mute (-25); No Legs (-30); No Manipulators (-50); Numb (-20); Quirk: Tasty (-1); Social Stigma: Food Product (-20).

I'm sure there's other stuff that goes in there, if you happen to be a muffin gearhead and demand total realism in your sapient muffins, but this seems like it would do for a start. Also, this muffin has IQ, but really just sits there and thinks whatever thoughts numb, anosmic, blind, deaf muffinoids can think. One might want to give it enough paranormal powers to make it *fun* to play -- e.g., Scanning Sense and Telekinesis. I don't know how much muffins weigh, so I'm totally guessing on the HP.

--K

[Anaraxes]

Social Stigma? Blueberry muffins are quite popular in my social circles. They generally get a positive reaction.

A fundamental GURPS design principle is that costs are based on the in-game utility of a trait. Tastiness is only worth points in a game where that's expected to be a frequent occurrence. The campaign itself would dictate whether you want to be Tasty (an advantage), or whether that's a bad thing (disadvantage). Perhaps the goal is to be the first muffin consumed, in which case appeal to consumers would be an advantage, something like Charisma. Blueberry muffins definitely have an edge here over the bran muffins (generally eaten only by those consumers with the Sense of Duty (health) disadvantage).

Players should note that blueberry muffins benefit greatly from taking Ally (Butter).

I doubt the use of "Homogenous". Clearly, the requirement is for a blueberry muffin. Corn muffins are homogenous -- but not muffins with blueberries scattered throughout. Blueberries would be a targeted hit location with perhaps a -6 to hit. (They're small, but numerous.)

[Kirby]

The value of the Social Stigma is based on that of Subjugated. It just indicates that people consider muffins to be property rather than people, and get very alarmed when their muffins rebel. I use the value Transhuman Space and (I think) Ultra-Tech assign to robots' Stigmas.

Blueberry muffins do have blueberries, but I don't expect they suffer greater harm from being hit in the blueberries. (That sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it?) Hence the Homogeneity.

--K

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Kirby

[snip template]

Looks great, except IT: Homogenous includes IT: No Brain.

Social Stigma would depend on how common sapient blueberry muffins are in the setting of course; Minority Group or Barbarian may be more appropriate.

If your species is generally known to be very tasty to a large group who are willing to eat you, I'd call it a quirk. If this particular muffin seems as though it would be very tasty based on its pleasing aroma and other obvious characteristics, I would call this some level of high Appearance with the Impressive feature.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Looks great, except IT: Homogenous includes IT: No Brain.

Ah, yes! I had totally forgotten that. Does it include some other subsidiary IT as well? I have the intuition it does.

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Social Stigma would depend on how common sapient blueberry muffins are in the setting of course; Minority Group or Barbarian may be more appropriate.

I like Valuable Property, myself. I was just trying to be compatible with THS and UT, which seem to prefer Subjugated for property-as-PCs.

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

If your species is generally known to be very tasty to a large group who are willing to eat you, I'd call it a quirk. If this particular muffin seems as though it would be very tasty based on its pleasing aroma and other obvious characteristics, I would call this some level of high Appearance with the Impressive feature.

Good point! Perhaps a Perk balancing the Quirk, for a total 0-point feature: "+x to reactions from muffinophiles, counterbalanced by the tendency of those unacquainted with your sapience to try to snack on you."

--K, having a serious discussion about the best way to model muffin PCs

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Ah, yes! I had totally forgotten that. Does it include some other subsidiary IT as well? I have the intuition it does.

No blood, and IIRC No vitals.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Does it include some other subsidiary IT as well? I have the intuition it does.

Yep, No Vitals also.

Originally Posted by Kirby

Perhaps a Perk balancing the Quirk, for a total 0-point feature: "+x to reactions from muffinophiles, counterbalanced by the tendency of those unacquainted with your sapience to try to snack on you."

That sounds good for the species template, sure. I'd still do that even if people know they're sapient, if they're willing to eat them anyway. It could be an advantage of a Banana PC over a Muffin PC in an office setting for example.

I would definitely model individual tastiness with de-sexualized Appearance. If two sapient muffins were trying to persuade me to take opposing courses of action, I honestly had no opinion on the matter, and all else was equal, I'd listen to the yummy fresh-smelling muffin over the stale one.

Originally Posted by Kirby

having a serious discussion about the best way to model muffin PCs

I know how you feel.