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Old 01-16-2015, 08:45 PM   #11
Zeta Blaze
 
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

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Originally Posted by ArchonShiva View Post
But everytone and their two cats hates UB, so it was built into the advantage.
I like that use of UB but hate how proponents of that use use it to overshadow and cloud the real meaning of UB which is to represent the value of a trait that it gets from being something people in universe dont expect to varying degrees and utility as defined by the GM. That is why I think that there should be a new advantage that is clearly spelled out as a meta game trait to encourage things leaving UB to be just that the cost associated with the utility of extreme rarity. /Rant
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Old 01-16-2015, 09:06 PM   #12
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

UB is all about unusual for the setting or truly unexpected for the character type.

The Human telepath may need it when the Vulcan wouldn't.
The Vulcan Social Chameleon may need it when the Human wouldn't.
Because of the unexpected power it gives.
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Old 01-16-2015, 10:34 PM   #13
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

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Originally Posted by ArchonShiva View Post
But everytone and their two cats hates UB, so it was built into the advantage.
I hate built-in UB way more than UB as a separate disadvantage. Part of the reason UB has a bad reputation is because it was on top of the stuff built into the power, so it was a case of "not only do I have to pay an excessive price for this power, I have yet another tax in the form of a UB".
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Old 01-17-2015, 01:05 PM   #14
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

If it's intrinsic to the advantage, then it isn't an UNUSUAL background. It's just how much the ability costs.
Of course prices may change based on exact setting, but UB should be a separate issue.
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Old 01-17-2015, 01:17 PM   #15
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

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Originally Posted by ArchonShiva View Post
You know that PC who took anti-talents and incompetence quirks in Stealth, Observation and a combat skill for a weapon he ever expected to use in anger?

Yeah, me neither.
Stealth is listed under the "skills every adventurer should have" in both GURPS DF and GURPS Action. Or if it isn't then Sean Punch failed his RPG Design skill roll that day. But I'd be surprised if it isn't there. It's probably the skill for which is it most obvious that everyone in the party needs to be good at it, since it's a lowest-common-denominator thing.
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Old 01-17-2015, 01:19 PM   #16
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
From the psychological factors angle, increasing the price would actually aggravate this tendency, increasing the inconvenience unless you manage to actually drive players entirely away from taking the Advantage. Simpler just to outlaw it.
That'd be my inclination too. Dump the concept of Quick Gadgeteer completley from the world (it cannot physical exist in the world in which the campaign takes place), and instead invent rules for a cheaper trait that is more based around pre-session claculations so that it'll be quicker to use during actual play.

Something like Gizmo, but with Limitations, and dozens of uses per session, if not unlimited uses.
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Old 01-17-2015, 01:20 PM   #17
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

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I don't like that inability to take a skill. It's a bit silly and makes it impossible to have a species just be worse at something realistically.

I want my kangaroo species to have trouble climbing but not be comically brain damaged about it.
That would be my preference too. I don't like how Incompetence and Anti-Talent works in GURPS.

I think the idea behind Anti-Talents is good, GUPRS 4E needed something like that from day one. But the implementation is not to my liking at all.
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Old 01-17-2015, 02:04 PM   #18
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
I should add that many traits in GURPS include what I call a "psychological cost adjustment" to correct for the human factor – for how players actually buy abilities. Though not all players take only good stuff they plan to use to death and bad stuff they hope to avoid or work around, many or even most do, and the game works better if trait valuation accounts for that. That's the thinking behind Anti-Talent pricing, and also the relatively high price of Quick Gadgeteer (whose fans are prone to halting play to use it dozens of times per game session, to the inconvenience of everyone else). Likewise, positive traits that make the game more fun are often priced below fair value to encourage players to buy them. Combat Reflexes and HT are two examples of the latter kind of thing, increasing PC survival to levels expected by players coming to GURPS from other games.
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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
I don't like that inability to take a skill. It's a bit silly and makes it impossible to have a species just be worse at something realistically.

I want my kangaroo species to have trouble climbing but not be comically brain damaged about it.
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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen View Post
That would be my preference too. I don't like how Incompetence and Anti-Talent works in GURPS.

I think the idea behind Anti-Talents is good, GUPRS 4E needed something like that from day one. But the implementation is not to my liking at all.
I agree that I dislike very much that Incompetence and Anti-Talent disallows the concept of the character who is bad at something, but perseveres with it and manages to be merely inferior to other PCs at it, not unable to roll for it and liable to kill himself or others with a critical failure in 50% of all uses of the skill.*

I suppose that the ban on raising a skill that one is incompetent or has an Anti-Talent with is to prevent abuse where the character ends up better at the skill than if he hadn't taken the Disadvantage. On the other hand, I've never seen any PC try to do that and have a hard time seeing how such an attempt would work mechanically. Granted, with a Hard skill, taking 1 point in the skill and 1 point Incompetence might come out that way, but in that case, it's easy enough to require the PCs to use Dabbler instead and so come out worse at the Incompetent skill than merely default level.

I think that -1 to all combat rolls is quite enough of a Disadvantage for -15/level, without also having the effect of a limited Cannot Learn, as the PC is banned from raising any skill that can be used as a combat skill.

In my experience, Anti-Talents and Incompetence quirks are balanced against other Disadvantages and Quirks without having the effect of barring the affected skills.

*Default at a skill minus a further -4 usually translates to lower than 3 for a normal human. Even for a PC with high Attributes, default level at -4 or higher is often below 3 when penalties for an adventuring situation are taken into account.
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Old 01-17-2015, 03:29 PM   #19
simply Nathan
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

I don't see why it would be an issue to have someone with -60 points gained from the Non-Combatant anti-talent and dump those very 60 points into a single combat skill. He's at -4 to his attacks and -2 to his defenses relative to someone who got those 60 points through Disadvantages that don't touch his combat skills and has to take his defaults for any attacks outside of that skill at an additional -4.

Just like someone who takes One Eye and dumps 16 points into a single melee weapon skill has spent a net of 1 point for a relative +3 to hit.

Heck, the reason that extreme levels of shyness forbid the learning of social skills is that it makes no sense on a characterization level, not that it's broken on a gamist level. You can take points from mild or severe levels of Shyness and the Oblivious disadvantage and dump those points into Savoir-Faire or Sex Appeal, after all. Why should a generic "I am bad at a class of related skills" disadvantage be treated so differently?
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Old 01-17-2015, 03:53 PM   #20
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Default Re: Anti-Talent Cost: 1st Level Should Be More Expensive?

I have an obvious anti-talent for social skills, yet by necessity struggle hard to learn up to you normies' defaults.
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