Point costs for limited, absolute Pacifism

[awesomenessofme1]

This was directly inspired by a post in the Minor League Supers thread, but it appears in fiction. The idea is that there is either an individual or some group that someone literally cannot attack. Even if he's putting a gun to the character's head and the character could destroy him in seconds, the character literally can't do it. Examples that come to mind are the movies Robocop and Demolition Man.

I'm wondering what the point cost of something like that would be. It's basically Pacifism (Total Nonviolence) with the limitations (Only against X) and (Don't need to discourage violence from others). I have no idea what kind of number you'd end up with there.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

I'm wondering what the point cost of something like that would be. It's basically Pacifism (Total Nonviolence) with the limitations (Only against X) and (Don't need to discourage violence from others). I have no idea what kind of number you'd end up with there.

The basic Demon template from Magic has:

Cannot Harm Innocents (Prevents direct harm of truly good or holy folks only, -50%) [-5]

[Michele]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

I'm wondering what the point cost of something like that would be. It's basically Pacifism (Total Nonviolence) with the limitations (Only against X) and (Don't need to discourage violence from others). I have no idea what kind of number you'd end up with there.

I suppose it would chiefly depend on how rare or common the group is, for starters; you could apply the frequency of appearance modifiers, for instance.

Then, another issue is how dangerous, and in particular how dangerous to you, the group is. If you're a vampire hunter and you can't harm only true believers that are also truly innocents, then it's not much of a disadvantage. But if there's a special subgroup of super vampires you can't touch, not even in self-defense, and they know and hate you, that's a big problem.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Michele

I suppose it would chiefly depend on how rare or common the group is, for starters; you could apply the frequency of appearance modifiers, for instance.

Then, another issue is how dangerous, and in particular how dangerous to you, the group is. If you're a vampire hunter and you can't harm only true believers that are also truly innocents, then it's not much of a disadvantage. But if there's a special subgroup of super vampires you can't touch, not even in self-defense, and they know and hate you, that's a big problem.

In the two examples I gave, the person that was being affected was someone who had authority over the character and was trying to use them. They weren't actively trying to kill the affected character (most of the time), but it was at least a major inconvenience.

[Flyndaran]

This sounds like the classic Genie geas. They must obey and can't directly harm the one that possesses the lamp/ring/etc. But they can get "creative".

Which I think is best suited as an Involuntary Duty. Only in this case it's not mundane threats that impose the requirement, but supernatural forces.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

This sounds like the classic Genie geas. They must obey and can't directly harm the one that possesses the lamp/ring/etc. But they can get "creative".

Which I think is best suited as an Involuntary Duty. Only in this case it's not mundane threats that impose the requirement, but supernatural forces.

Not quite. They weren't actually obligated to follow orders. The only mental block was the inability to attack a person or group. In Demolition Man, he was literally able to just toss one of his lackeys a gun and tell him to shoot the guy. In Robocop, he was obligated to enforce the law, but the only obligation he had toward OCP executives was that he couldn't attack them.

[Black Leviathan]

I don't know if I'd price that the same as pacifism. It's an involuntary restriction on behavior where pacificsm is a philosophical one. A pacifist can shoot and even kill you, it just represents a break-down of their guiding beliefs (And possibly having to buy off the disadvantage). And Total Non-Violence is an absolute restriction, some non-violence would be drastically less relevant. It would have to be a very large and present group for it to be more meaningful than a quirk.

[WingedKagouti]

In game mechanics, the closest fit seems to be an involuntary unbreakable Vow (Never Harm <group x>), which can be expressed through something like Divine Curse. GURPS Robots for 3E considers Isaac Asimov's First Law of Robotics to be a Great Vow even though it is (generally) both involuntary and unbreakable for the robot.

There's also the nature of what happens if an involuntary attack goes off against someone from the protected group, especially in a Supers campaign where powers could not work or even backfire in that scenario. The exact value of this would depend on the rarity of the protected group as well as their disposition towards the character and what happens on a (potential) violation.

If it's a very rare group and/or they're 100% benign to the character I'd value this as a -1 points Perk, unless the penalty for a forced/accidential violation is harsh. It's still worth a tiny bit of points since the character could be put in a situation where an outside tries to force them to hurt someone from the protected group or face dire consequences.

A more common group that has potential to turn upon the character would be worth more points, -5 to -15 seems depending on the rarity, the likelyhood of being antagonized by the group and the penalty for a violation.

Against an openly hostile group additional points seems apropriate. Perhaps an additional -5.

[jason taylor]

Wouldn't you have to refrain from occupations that might be associated with violence such as government service or what not, or even agriculture (which requires vermin killing, and meat slaughtering)? Not to mention wearing a surgical mask to prevent killing an insect?

[Aldric]

Isn't this just part of the problem of being Reprogrammable?