Shapeshifting Questions

[Geeky Meerkat]

So I am looking over the rules of shapeshifting as they are in GURPS and see that they go with "If you are knocked out or killed, you immediately revert to your native form (which will also be unconscious or dead)." as a factor that shapeshifters need to take into account.

That's great and all for the classic were-creature plot where the secondary form is some unidentifiable monster that once the adventurers deal with it is revealed to be the local duke's son or some such thing. Great for movies and mystery adventures, but not what I personally want to go with.

It suggests an active muscle or organ maintains the change, that unconsciousness or death will cause to stop working. (Sort of like how we might breath rapidly when running, but if we are knocked out or killed our breathing slows back down or even stops.) However I would rather go with something that's more of muscle or organ that causes the change and nothing maintains the change. (Sort of like how you can either have your arms straight or bent, and all unconsciousness or death would do is prevent you from bending or straightening your arm yourself.)

Personally to me this sounds like a 0% modification to the Shapeshifting, but I am curious what others think. In regards to the rule that "In addition, you must specify a single, reasonably common external influence that can force you to return to your native form against your will." I would simply handle that as "... can force you to change to your other form against your will."

Also the rules don't specifically say anything about how Shapeshifting affects recognizing someone that has been shapeshifted. In general I think it is implied that Form A does not look anything like Form B, and that there are only 3 ways of recognizing someone in an altered form.

1) Knocking them out or killing them while they are altered being the most obvious.
2) As a mundane that has been made aware that shape shifting can happen, noticing personality similarities. IE: That werewolf attacks people in general but calms down around the blacksmith's daughter, when it's been noticed that the Duke's son is in love with the blacksmith's daughter.
3) Using some identification method related to the cause of the change.

But it doesn't actually say any of that in the rules, and so doesn't give any sort of idea on what kind of penalties people might have when making attempts at identification. For instance, if someone shot the beast before it got away one of the players might be all like "I want to gather up some of it's blood and take it back to the lab to see what we can find out about it." In a high TL campaign it might be that genetic markers are kept in computer records, and if shapeshifters are known about this might even be a shapeshifter that has it's genetic markers on file already. Though someone influential (like a Duke) might have access to such records restricted.

The reason I'm looking into this is I'm trying to design a race for a campaign I'm working on. Everyone in this race would have two forms that both look basically human. One form would be stronger and faster and more geared towards physical labor (but not beastly) while the other form would be more geared toward thinking and other non-hunter type things. Both forms would have about the same point value just with the points distributed differently. For purposes of recognizing someone of this race you would have the following things to consider

• Form 1 does not look like Form 2. So if you meant someone in Form 1 and knew a bit about the race, you would know that they are in Form 1. You would not know though if you had previously meant them in Form 2.
• Despite the differences, there would remain commonalities between forms 1 and 2. Things like hair/eye/skin colors would all remain the same. Mater of fact if someone from this race went and dyed their hair purple in one form it would be purple in the other form also. While these things if known would make it easier to identify someone you've seen before in the other form it wouldn't be conclusive. Just imagine how many brown haired, white males with blue eyes you know in RL. If little is known about this race and it isn't known that someone has two forms, this someone could easily pass off one form as the family member of the other.
• More skill checked similarities would exist though. For instance, fingerprints, psychic signatures, dna profiles, and what not would all be there. Though it might still cause confusion. If for instance these basically human looking people were trying to blend into our society the police might have the fingerprints of someone when they were in form 1 on file. Later if this person did something in either form and the police investigated the issue it would lead them to finding a picture of form 1 based off of any fingerprints.
• Testing for DNA or blood samples would lead to some confusions depending on how in depth the tests went. If it's simply a matter of comparing two samples, the sample would be the same between form 1 and 2. If compared to a human sample though it would reveal oddities that depending on how much is known about this race would say "Something strange is going on" or "We are dealing with someone from that race with two forms"
• Forms are individual in appearance. That is to say if you saw someone in form 1 and later saw someone else in form 1, you wouldn't assume they were the same person unless they happened to look alike. This is the same as if you happened to see two men you likely wouldn't confuse them for each other unless they happened to look alike.
• Forms are consistent. That is to say if you know what someone looks like in one of their forms, you will recognize them anytime they are in that form. If you know what they look like in both forms then you'll recognize them anytime you see them.

So all that being said, I'm curious on what kind of penalties people would be dealing with on IDing someone that is of this race when trying to make ID checks. In the start of the campaign the player characters would know nothing about this race, but later on as they learn more they would become more familiar with dealing with and identifying such. The basic questions I can see that would need to be asked when dealing with these penalties would be:

• Do the players know of the race yet?
• Have the players seen the person in form 1?
• Have the players seen the person in form 2?
• What form are they looking for?
• What form does the information point to?

So for instance in the start of campaign they would know nothing yet. They might have seen the person in both form 1 and form 2. They further might be directed to find a specific form (IE: This man robed me, and I need you to find him), but all the information they keep finding keeps pointing to the other form (IE: Sir, the gun found at the scene isn't owned by that man but is registered to so and so.)

[kirbwarrior]

To get rid of the first thing you asked about, in Powers p75&109, 'Once on, Stays On' costs +50% and makes the 90% of the extra points into 100%. Then it is a feature as to which form is the 'base' form (in case of 'changing back' or Negated Advantage).

As for the forms looking alike, it is a feature what each one looks like, so they don't have to look alike at all (I've seen Alternate Form be used as a 'super' Hermaphromorph in the past due to that). By default, they do keep any personality traits, though. Having to keep dna signatures, fingerprints, etc. might be a Nuisance Effect (since that does undercut a small usefulness of the trait).

As for understanding them and to notice someone might be the same person, a Per-based Psychology roll is a good rough starting point.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Geeky Meerkat

So for instance in the start of campaign they would know nothing yet. They might have seen the person in both form 1 and form 2. They further might be directed to find a specific form (IE: This man robed me, and I need you to find him), but all the information they keep finding keeps pointing to the other form (IE: Sir, the gun found at the scene isn't owned by that man but is registered to so and so.)

I take it from this that the existence of this race is not generally known? Any legal system that was aware of such a trait would certainly take it into account for things like weapon registration, ID, and similar documentation.

[Geeky Meerkat]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

I take it from this that the existence of this race is not generally known? Any legal system that was aware of such a trait would certainly take it into account for things like weapon registration, ID, and similar documentation.

Yes this is mostly correct. More correctly it's a modern day campaign where things like this are generally not known about, but that there are rules in place made by the people that do know about such things.

Take any random relatively law abiding citizen in our society. They can go and purchase a gun and have it registered to them without a DNA check. It just takes a standard background check and the idea behind these shapeshifters is that both shapes are human looking enough that big red flags are going to be raised.

If on the other hand a shapeshifter has gone and been careless, and both forms have been finger printed by the police and it's been noticed that those finger prints match, it's going to raise a few red flags and the campaign's local Men in Black organization is going to start poking their nose into things.

The biggest problem I'm thinking is going to be there for this campaign is that while I want the shapeshifters to be a big part of the campaign, I don't want them to instantly become the "All the time bad guys". I don't want either of these happening:

• Time for another adventure, who's the shapeshifter this week?
• Oh a shapeshifter is involved in this plot? Well let's focus all our attention on him.

I don't mind either of those happening at first as I do want them to think the shapeshifters are important, but as soon as it is known that the shapeshifters are not the bad guys all the time there is the question of "Well then can I play one?" by the players.

In a campaign where magic is real, but just not known about to the players, once they do learn about magic there's always the question of "Well can I have my character learn magic?" and while with magic that makes sense, it doesn't so much make sense with this style of shapeshifting. One doesn't learn to be this type of shapeshifter, they are born this type.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Geeky Meerkat

The biggest problem I'm thinking is going to be there for this campaign is that while I want the shapeshifters to be a big part of the campaign, I don't want them to instantly become the "All the time bad guys". I don't want either of these happening:

• Time for another adventure, who's the shapeshifter this week?
• Oh a shapeshifter is involved in this plot? Well let's focus all our attention on him.

I don't mind either of those happening at first as I do want them to think the shapeshifters are important, but as soon as it is known that the shapeshifters are not the bad guys all the time there is the question of "Well then can I play one?" by the players.

Well, shapeshifters take the spotlight be proxy of what they are pretty fast. Either they have to be only touched upon (maybe once or twice making a shapeshifter an enemy), or make the specific race a largely known thing (which doesn't work in your setting).

As for players, you can always just say 'no' or 'maybe if we want to do another campaign another time'. To play devil's advocate, a player could always justify being a shapeshifter retroactively, such as by taking whatever traits one side has (as long as it's all mundane), subtract those from the character, and then buy the race using new points and the ones just gained.