Total Nonviolence and the impact of IQ

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Plane

B148's "will not lift a hand against" sounds like at least "will not punch or slap" but I'm not sure if it refers to parries... maybe only parries which can inflict violence such as an unarmed Aggressive Parry or parrying using a weapon?

Pacifism: Total Non-Violence is a very old and badly-worded rule which survives unaltered from GURPS 2E and should have been reworked at some point.

The lack of game mechanics after all these years means that the details of how the disadvantage works depend on what the GM and the player consider to be "totally non-violent" based on the campaign and the character's exact philosophy.

For example, a totally non-violent martial artist might consider "soft" grappling and unarmed blocking techniques to be acceptable as long as they are guaranteed to be non-damaging, while a totally non-violent mystic might consider even the act of "raising a hand" against a foe to be unacceptable and limit themselves to just dodges and no offensive maneuvers.

My opinion, perhaps shared by most other experienced GURPS players and GMs, is that "total non-violence" should be read to mean "Any combat action which might cause HP damage, pain, or lasting injury to a foe."

That certainly covers unarmed "hard" parries designed to injure the attacker, but also extends to using a shield to Block an incoming unarmed attack if you know that a successful defense might cause the attacker to injure themselves (e.g., by breaking their foot or fist on the shield).

Taken to extremes, it might even force an invulnerable character to protect foes from accidentally harming themselves while they attack! For example, you might have to drop a force field if a foe might damage themselves by slamming into it.

It's up to the GM - based on the campaign genre - as to whether completely non-lethal and non-painful attacks, like sleep gas guns or Vulcan nerve pinches, are allowed.

Originally Posted by Plane

"free to defend yourself against attacks by animals, mosquitoes, etc." I think relates to the statement "another intelligent creature"

I would take this to mean that if you know, or strongly suspect, that a sapient (i.e., IQ 6+) entity has assumed the form of a non-sapient entity you must treat that creature as if it was sapient and behave accordingly. So, no lethal attacks against sapient mosquito swarms even if the individual entities in the swarm are non-sapient.

It's further GM or character roleplaying call as to whether you will take violent action against a non-sapient creature actively controlled or possessed by a sapient entity, or vice-versa. E.g., whether you can use lethal force against a cat possessed by an intelligent demon, or whether you can use lethal force against a once-sapient entity reduced to IQ 5-, such as a human zombie.

A final gray area is if you are allowed to use damaging but non-lethal supernatural force against utterly malignant intelligent supernatural entities like demons or eldrich horrors. E.g., is it legitimate to use "spirit weapons" which just inflict pain and banishment on such things.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

no lethal attacks against sapient mosquito swarms even if the individual entities in the swarm are non-sapient.

PU8p6 has an example of "giant ants" who have IQ 2 individually but effective "Horde Intelligence" of IQ 6 in groups of 32 or more... thoughts regarding Nonviolence and that?

Zombies 72 also has other "variable IQ" options like Borrowed Brains (Z50) worth thinking about... like you're temporarily +1 to IQ for 1 minute by eating a brain... should it be disallowed to use violence against them within that after-meal minute, but then once they drop from IQ 6 to IQ 5 after the meal is over, you can then kill them since they're sub-sapient once more?

It seems like baseline ought to matter more than a temporary state: morally speaking it would seem worse to kill an IQ 10 person who is reverted to IQ 1 for 1 minute from an Affliction, than to kill an IQ 1 animal temporarily boosted to IQ 10 from an Affliction for 1 minute.

At some point the duration of temporary states would matter though... I wonder if something like an "effective IQ lifespan" weighing the value of life could be used.

Like for example an IQ 10 human with 50 years of expected lifespan ahead of them has "500 InteLife" value.

Also wondering if maybe skill investment should weigh into this too. Someone with IQ 6 and various Talents who has bought all his IQ skills up to effective skill 30 is arguably more worthwhile in many ways than someone with IQ 10 with no skill investment and a bunch of Incompetent quirks or AntiTalents.

Maybe something along the lines of "sum total of mental traits" and consider skills to be mental traits? You could do some kind of skill roll to estimate that total "mental worth" and then that estimation would work as a modifier against rolls to try and use force against that being.

Probably some risk-of-harm estimate could work into that too: it should probably be harder for a Non-Violent person to throw an AOA:strong haymaker (or fire a bullet) at someone than to shove them.

A shove can potentially injure someone (it lacks inherent damage but if they fail their DX roll during knockback they can fall down and suffer fall damage) but is much less likely to, and like grappling can have non-injurious implications.

For example: "this bomb is going to explode, get out of the room!". Even if they suffer some crushing damage from a fall, your intent is to prevent much greater damage from the bomb exploding so in terms of context it's not really considered to be violence as it would if you were shoving someone to the ground without such protective intent (or worse: into traffic or in front of a train)

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

It's further GM or character roleplaying call as to whether you will take violent action against a non-sapient creature actively controlled or possessed by a sapient entity, or vice-versa.

E.g.,
whether you can use lethal force against a cat possessed by an intelligent demon,
or whether you can use lethal force against a once-sapient entity reduced to IQ 5-, such as a human zombie.

In either case it seems like when considering the ethics about this it's all about "future expectations".

Like for example, does killing the cat kill the intelligent demon, or just kill it's host body and it's spirit form remains and can possess another thing?

Is the zombiehood viewed as temporary (some drug that can wear off) or permanent? This type of perceptive difference comes up in movies like Survival of the Dead as well as Z-Nation and probably one of the TWD story arcs.

Ethically speaking purely on IQ, whether it is acceptable to use force against an IQ 5 zombie who will grow to IQ 7 within five years could be related to B20's "Age and Beauty' rules: infants have 50% adult IQ (IQ 5 for IQ 10 average) and five-year-olds have 70% adult IQ (IQ 7 for IQ 10 average adults) though obviously there are a lot of other factors to take into play when justifying self defense (ie zombies have strong adult bodies and an impulse to kill you, babies do not)

I don't expect that those with "Total Nonviolence" get a pass on non-violence just because babies are briefly sub-sapient sentients (IQ 5), because there is awareness that they will become IQ 7 in under a decade and I think that this is the moral lens you would look through.

Statistically I don't know how you'd break that down though. Perhaps the difference between current IQ and "destined adult IQ" could be similar to buying Potential Advantages? B33's Heir seems like the closest in basic set, as rich grand-uncles dying off and leaving you their title/mansion can be predicted in a sense of time (gruncles only live so long) even if you don't know the exact moment. The same could be said of IQ growing up: it tends to happen on a somewhat predictable average timeline but it's not like you can pinpoint an exact moment it goes up.

An alternate approach might be to treat children's incomplete IQ as how psi powers work: just treat the Potential IQ (difference between current IQ and adult IQ) as "Uncontrollable" and "Unconscious Only" ? PU8p9's "Latent Advantage" might work too...

Zombies actually talks about how normally GMs could discourage buying up IQ on Z72: "PCs, requiring brain-eating to justify spending points on IQ
is a 0-point feature – many GMs don’t even let human PCs raise IQ with points!"

In that sense it seems possibly worth a perk though. We after all see see "Unusual Background" in many cases where it's possible to spent CP on acquiring traits in play in ways that you normally can't just randomly do.

B290's "Improving Attributes and Secondary Characteristics" doesn't exactly talk about that (ie in theory a human could buy up their IQ and ST to 200 apiece) but I think it would make sense applying the "Improving Mental and Physical Advantages" rules on B291 to human attributes as well.

PU2p21 does this for DX/IQ/HT exceeding 20 using leveled "Special Exercises" perks, and also for Will/Per and Basic Speed / Basic Move and HP/FP too. Doesn't mention needing perks for buying up ST as a whole, just has options for Lifting ST / Striking ST bought standalone...

Buying UB (quirk level or otherwise) just seems like it's meant to be a way to ignore normal reasonable requirements a GM would put in place for acquiring certain advantages, like B294's Learnable Advantages. Perhaps GM makes some stuff not purchaseable with bonus points (or abandons bonus points entirely?) and limits the rate they're acquired to the Improvement Through Study system of gaining non-bonus character points.

This sort of harkens back to how in 3e it used to cost double to raise attributes in play vs buying them up initially ,something which isn't a thing in 4E anymore.

If GMs were to allow characters to build attributes, one way to keep it in check and more realistic would be to require it be done one point at a time. So for example each session you buy could buy up 0.05 IQ by spending a character point each time: the character is gradually becoming more intelligent but not in one huge monstrous jump.

This creates a downside in that until you've bought up the remaining 0.95 IQ you're not getting any benefit for those points, and lacking the freedom to spend them on other things. Whereas if you invested it directly in a skill, you could get a benefit after only two sessions!

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Plane

PU8p6 has an example of "giant ants" who have IQ 2 individually but effective "Horde Intelligence" of IQ 6 in groups of 32 or more... thoughts regarding Nonviolence and that?

Don't overthink it - at least at the generic level.

Different philosophies might consider the use of (lethal) force against certain entities, or in certain situations, to be fully justified, only justified in some cases, or totally abhorrent.

You pose a number of philosophical questions, but the only person who can answer them properly is the GM for a given gaming group, with the advice and consent of their players.

Remember, Pacifism is a "soft" "roleplaying disadvantage," not a "crunchy" "game mechanics disadvantage." That means it's exact implementation depends on what the GM and/or players consider to be proper non-violent behavior and the group's collective tolerance for debates over moral philosophy.

If you want to get into details regarding what sort of behavior is allowed, consider the RAW Pacifism advantage to be a starting place for more or less restrictive house-rules versions. If a given philosophy allows a character a greater range of options to deal with foes and to survive combat, it should carry a reduced character point penalty.

Total Pacifists with odd "add ons" to their philosophy, like "kill nothing which is capable of producing beauty" or "kill nothing which can emulate sapient behavior" might have further Quirks or even a Code of Honor or Sense of Duty.

A quick skill roll vs. Law, Philosophy, or Theology might be helpful in clarifying the expected moral behavior for player characters in ambiguous situations.

On a meta-level, to prevent potential disagreements, the GM and the player of a character with more restrictive forms of Pacifism should have a discussion to clarify why a given PC has a that trait and how it might play out in the context of the campaign.

The GM should feel free to use any suitable game mechanic to tailor the RAW Pacifism traits to suit the player character's exact philosophy. In turn, they should expect the player to abide by that philosophy when playing the PC and penalize them for bad roleplaying if they ignore it.

The GM should also be on alert for attempts by players to evade the serious restrictions which Pacifism places on their character. For example, no sophistry like allowing a "Total Pacifist" to kill unconscious foes because they are temporarily reduced to non-sapience.

Originally Posted by Plane

Probably some risk-of-harm estimate could work into that too: it should probably be harder for a Non-Violent person to throw an AOA:strong haymaker (or fire a bullet) at someone than to shove them.

This is a weakness in the RAW Pacifism trait - it ignores the possibility of "enforced pacifism" which prevents you from taking violent action even if you wish to do so.

As a house rule, the GM is well within their rights to require a Pacifist to make a Will roll in order to behave violently, or require them to make Fright Checks if they involuntarily offer violence (e.g., as a result of a failed self-control roll or being mind-controlled). Bonuses might apply if the character is attempting to use minimum force, believe that their attack is harmless, of if they believe that the violence is utterly justified for some important reason.

Violating your moral principles "for the greater good" is a classic dramatic trope, so both the GM and the player should play up the moral dilemmas involved if they believe that it makes the game more fun.

OTOH, the GM should avoid forcing a Pacifist character (or any PC) into "trolley problem" dilemmas which require the PC to violate their moral principles unless the GM knows that the player and the gaming group won't mind the ensuing fallout.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Pacifism: Total Non-Violence is a very old and badly-worded rule which survives unaltered from GURPS 2E and should have been reworked at some point.

The lack of game mechanics after all these years means that the details of how the disadvantage works depend on what the GM and the player consider to be "totally non-violent" based on the campaign and the character's exact philosophy.

For example, a totally non-violent martial artist might consider "soft" grappling and unarmed blocking techniques to be acceptable as long as they are guaranteed to be non-damaging, while a totally non-violent mystic might consider even the act of "raising a hand" against a foe to be unacceptable and limit themselves to just dodges and no offensive maneuvers.

My opinion, perhaps shared by most other experienced GURPS players and GMs, is that "total non-violence" should be read to mean "Any combat action which might cause HP damage, pain, or lasting injury to a foe."

That certainly covers unarmed "hard" parries designed to injure the attacker, but also extends to using a shield to Block an incoming unarmed attack if you know that a successful defense might cause the attacker to injure themselves (e.g., by breaking their foot or fist on the shield).

Taken to extremes, it might even force an invulnerable character to protect foes from accidentally harming themselves while they attack! For example, you might have to drop a force field if a foe might damage themselves by slamming into it.

It's up to the GM - based on the campaign genre - as to whether completely non-lethal and non-painful attacks, like sleep gas guns or Vulcan nerve pinches, are allowed.




I would take this to mean that if you know, or strongly suspect, that a sapient (i.e., IQ 6+) entity has assumed the form of a non-sapient entity you must treat that creature as if it was sapient and behave accordingly. So, no lethal attacks against sapient mosquito swarms even if the individual entities in the swarm are non-sapient.

It's further GM or character roleplaying call as to whether you will take violent action against a non-sapient creature actively controlled or possessed by a sapient entity, or vice-versa. E.g., whether you can use lethal force against a cat possessed by an intelligent demon, or whether you can use lethal force against a once-sapient entity reduced to IQ 5-, such as a human zombie.

A final gray area is if you are allowed to use damaging but non-lethal supernatural force against utterly malignant intelligent supernatural entities like demons or eldrich horrors. E.g., is it legitimate to use "spirit weapons" which just inflict pain and banishment on such things.

It is not. Inflicting injury goes against total nonviolence. As for formerly sapient beings, that would depend on whether it has been established that their condition seems potentially curable. So in the early stages of a zombie outbreak, you don't know they're already dead, and you die, solving all of your moral and philosophical dilemmas.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Different philosophies might consider the use of (lethal) force against certain entities, or in certain situations, to be fully justified, only justified in some cases, or totally abhorrent.

There's a Harvard psychologist named Joshua Greene that specializes in using variations of the trolley problem to probe people's mental attitudes. One of his grad students, Xin Xiang, did a thesis entitled "Would the Buddha Push the Man of the Footbridge? Systematic Variations in the Moral Judgment and Punishment Tendencies of the Han Chinese, Tibetans, and Americans". In this case, the switch between the two tracks (killing one or five) was replaced by pushing one man off a footbridge* over the tracks where (according to the problem) his body would stop the train so it didn't hit five people further on.

Turns out the practicing Buddhist monks "were overwhelmingly more likely to say it was okay to push the guy off the footbridge", a much higher percentage than the American population. According to Green, "When they gave that response, they said, ‘Of course, killing somebody is a terrible thing to do, but if your intention is pure and you are really doing it for the greater good, and you’re not doing it for yourself or your family, then that could be justified." (Full article in The Atlantic.)

As is often the case, the GURPS Disadvantage is stated in a very strong form. Real people aren't generally quite as rigid as the text on the page. Mental Disads aren't really in the same category as the more simulationist rules that are trying to be laws of physics. Most GURPS groups I've been expect roleplaying of mental Disads, including losing opportunities because of them, but don't try to apply them totally and literally. A lot of those Disads would simply be unplayable in their literal utter form. That much rigidity in interpretation wouldn't make the game better, nor is it necessary for balance. I'd expect a cinematic Total Nonviolent to be even less willing to rationalize or compromise than the Buddhist monks, but the Disad isn't a suicide pact. That character doesn't have let the bad guy kill them, nor stand idly by while the Dark Lord subjugates the continent to feed the population into his Soul Engine for mana because some mooks would get hurt if they had fun storming the castle.

The munchkin that takes the Disad for big points rather than concept and the constantly tries to weasel out of it simply needs to be taught how to roleplay. If they can't, then you (a) don't want to play with them anyway; (b) can refuse to allow them to have characters they can't handle; and/or (c) point out that in just a few sessions, the loss of xp to bad roleplaying penalties will outweigh the points they got for the Disad in the first place, in which case their minimax munchkin reflexes will take over and they'll drop the Disad during the build stage.

--
* Greene had found earlier that (for whatever non-utilitarian reason) people were less reluctant to pull a switch lever than to kill the one victim directly by pushing them over the edge. Kills one person either way, but the slightly more indirect form of killing is a little more acceptable to people (which probably isn't a surprise after the Milgram experiment).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Inflicting injury goes against total nonviolence.
As for formerly sapient beings, that would depend on whether it has been established that their condition seems potentially curable.
So in the early stages of a zombie outbreak, you don't know they're already dead, and you die, solving all of your moral and philosophical dilemmas.

I think for total nonviolence perhaps grappling is still an option since it doesn't necessarily inflict injury? Like you wouldn't be doing Wrench Limb or anything damaging, but if all you're doing is inflicting DX penalties and temporarily restricting limbs it definitely walks the fence of 'violence'.

Plus you have those new MA/TG options like 'shoving people around' that aren't literal shoves which cause knockdown (potential injury) just hex relocation.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

There's a Harvard psychologist named Joshua Greene that specializes in using variations of the trolley problem to probe people's mental attitudes. One of his grad students, Xin Xiang, did a thesis entitled "Would the Buddha Push the Man of the Footbridge? Systematic Variations in the Moral Judgment and Punishment Tendencies of the Han Chinese, Tibetans, and Americans". In this case, the switch between the two tracks (killing one or five) was replaced by pushing one man off a footbridge* over the tracks where (according to the problem) his body would stop the train so it didn't hit five people further on.

In that scenario did they explore the implication that if you're in a position to push a man off the bridge, you're also in a position to jump off the bridge yourself to stop the train? Or is it like there's bars separating you and you don't have time to climb over them and jump, only reach through to push the man?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Plane

In that scenario did they explore the implication that if you're in a position to push a man off the bridge, you're also in a position to jump off the bridge yourself to stop the train? Or is it like there's bars separating you and you don't have time to climb over them and jump, only reach through to push the man?

The guy you are pushing off the bridge is incredibly fat so he can actually stop the train.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The guy you are pushing off the bridge is incredibly fat so he can actually stop the train.

Would the average person be able to move a person so large that their body would be able to stop a train?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Would the average person be able to move a person so large that their body would be able to stop a train?

No. It's a stupid gedankenexperiment that makes no sense. But for the purpose of the scenario you aren't large enough to do any good and he's very delicately balanced in exactly the way the morbidly obese tend to be. Also the train is very small and feeble and yet capable of killing multiple people.

Whatever. The moral dilemma however can be put in these terms:

You are on the perimeter of a city that has experienced a zombie apocalypse. Everyone in the city has been exposed and is a potential carrier. You are standing on the quarantine perimeter with a gun having been drafted in an emergency mobilization. You see a small group of refugees who have escaped. It's very likely that one or more of them is a non-symptomatic carrier of the disease but it will be days, maybe weeks before adequate containment and examination facilities will be set up. You warn the refugees to turn back but they're too desperate. They call your bluff.

Do you open fire?

Well of course totally nonviolent guy doesn't. Totally nonviolent guy doesn't do well in the zombie apocalypse.

[Opellulo]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Do you open fire?

Well of course totally nonviolent guy doesn't. Totally nonviolent guy doesn't do well in the zombie apocalypse.

More realistically a totally non violent guy would have refused to be given the gun...
...I know it may sound weird but for many non 'murikans guns are not tools but simply weapons of offence.

Partially OT: there are a couple discussion about nonviolence in the latest threads and I don't get the gist: it's a way to game the system to get free points of a clumsy philosophical discussion about force?