[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Reprogrammable and Slave Mentality

[johndallman]

Reprogrammable [-10] is an exotic mental disadvantage, which allows you to be programmed to obey someone. It’s mainly appropriate for modelling mindless automata, and the GM may well forbid it for PCs. It appeared at GURPS 4e, modified from the 3e disadvantage Reprogrammable Duty.

Slave Mentality [-40] is a mundane mental disadvantage, which means that you lack normal levels of initiative, and depend on external orders for most of your motivations. Obviously, it interacts with Reprogrammable, and like that disadvantage, the GM may forbid it for PCs. This disadvantage seems to have appeared in Fantasy Folk for 3e. This trait is now deprecated, and some other trait should be used in its place: the Automaton meta-trait is suitable for many purposes, as is Duty or Reprogrammable. Better, avoid characters that are slaves. Instead, give their bosses Ally, Possession or Mind Control.

You can be both Reprogrammable and have a Duty, although the effects of Reprogrammable takes priority when they conflict with your Duty. This implies that Reprogrammable can’t add or remove other traits, although it can override them. You can interpret orders from Reprogrammable creatively, if you are sapient and don’t have Slave Mentality. However you have to stay within either the letter or the spirit of the orders, although you do get to chose which. If you are non-sapient (with IQ 0) or have Slave Mentality, you always remain strictly within the letter of your orders. There is plenty of science fiction about the problems of being both sapient and reprogrammable; HAL 9000 is a sad, but plausible, example. The Mind Control advantage makes its subject Reprogrammable, and it’s a possible prerequisite for the Puppet advantage. It’s also a default part of the AI meta-trait, but PCs usually buy that off.

Anyone with Slave Mentality, even if they aren’t Reprogrammable, needs to make an IQ-8 roll to take independent action, even to save their own life. They also automatically fail Will rolls to resist social influence or assert themselves, unless the GM rules that there’s a possibility they might do so, when they roll at -6. They can still have high IQ and/or Will, and use them to figure things out or resist fear, but they have almost no capacity for self-motivation or resisting orders. The infectious attacks of the Dominance advantage cause Slave Mentality, as does the Puppet enhancement for Possession, and it’s part of the Automaton meta-trait.

Unsurprisingly, these disadvantages are extremely rare on published character templates. Gargoyles, golems, robots and the dumber sorts of undead are commonly Reprogrammable, and some spirits can afflict Reprogrammable to make possession easier. Bio-Tech can genetically engineer Slave Mentality at TL 11, and uses it for bioships, while Fantasy uses spirits with Slave Mentality as a new kind of Modular Abilities. Horror has plenty of uses for both disadvantages, and while adding Reprogrammable to humans is beyond Madness Dossier technology, Slave Mentality definitely isn’t.

These disadvantages don’t have quirk-level versions, although Power-Ups 6 provides embellishments for Reprogrammable; Powers’ Awe ability can cause either of them. Psi-Tech has some fairly icky things with these disadvantages, while Social Engineering has involuntary relationships and effects of Slave Mentality on loyalty. Steampunk has Shocking Revelations that can cause temporary Slave Mentality, and its own kinds of robots with both disadvantages. Thaumatology uses both disadvantages for some spirits and magical items, and Urban Magics has ghostly debt slavery and Reprogrammable illusions.

It looks possible to turn Slave Mentality into a levelled trait. Some military organisations in the past have trained soldiers to obey orders and do little else, trying to limit their imagination and independence, and that could be represented this way.

I’ve never used either of these traits on a PC or NPC character sheet; the closest I’ve got is using Possession as a GM. They’re worth having for modelling purposes, but has anyone ever wanted them on a PC in your experience?

[WingedKagouti]

I've used Reprogrammable Duty on a 3E Neural Net (ie. not fully sentient) military robot, where the character's arc was about slowly becomming sentient.

It didn't come up much in gameplay as far as I recall, outside the character not questioning the why/how of assigned tasks. Or not understanding when the human characters did question why the team had to perform certain ethically questionable tasks.

[vicky_molokh]

I played a Reprogrammable black ops drone in a short space opera campaign. Seems like a rather common trait for AIs.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I’ve never used either of these traits on a PC or NPC character sheet

You've been in campaigns with them, though; Transhuman Space AI templates include the AI mentality meta-trait (p. B263), which includes Reprogrammable.

The main difficulty I see here is that it's not clear how hard it can be to do the reprogramming. Can I disconnect all the data ports that would allow it, so that someone would need to make major hardware modifications in order to gain access? Does "vision" count as one of those data ports? How good can my security software be? Does the attacker need l33t computer skills or can they pick up a phone app to turn me into a murderbot? (Well, a different murderbot.) These things really ought to affect the cost of the trait.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by RogerBW;2299804The main difficulty I see here is that it's not clear how hard it can be to do the reprogramming. Can I disconnect all the data ports that would allow it, so that someone would need to make major hardware modifications in order to gain access? Does "vision" count as one of those data ports? How good can my security software be? Does the attacker need l33t computer skills or can they pick up a phone app to turn me into a murderbot? (Well, a [I

different[/I] murderbot.) These things really ought to affect the cost of the trait.

My thoughts:

The base Disad needs to reprogrammable by a minimum of one NPC and the controls must be at least non-combat accessible, and accessible if the subject decides to rebel. From there, if I felt it warranted it, I'd modify as necessary.

But, like most everyone else, no PC has wanted to take this, so it's never been an issue.

[ericthered]

I stick this on NPC templates occasionally. I've got a race of constructs who upon "dying" leave behind a semi-precious gemstone heart. When brought back from this state they owe mystical allegiance to a person determined by the one who brings them back.

The Designer notes for Pulp Hunters (Pyramid 3/31) have a template for a golem that includes reprogramable, but with a maximum duration of one minute. These notes are made:

Requires a roll against Theology (Abrahamic) vs. the golem’s Will. Failure means the golem is now under that person’s control for one minute and may make a Will roll every minute to snap out of it. Critical failure means this lasts for a day instead!

When I wrote up the MH5 Android as an inhuman template, I put reprogrammed on the "Hacked Android" lens, to represent the ability of the enemy to possibly take him back, and the ability of his "Friends" to make tweaks to the way they control him.

I once played a Solo Monster Hunters game where all of the hunters where inhumans, and one of them used the above golem template. It never came up.

So for all of my sticking the trait on templates, I've never actually seen it used in play.

Originally Posted by RogerBW

The main difficulty I see here is that it's not clear how hard it can be to do the reprogramming. Can I disconnect all the data ports that would allow it, so that someone would need to make major hardware modifications in order to gain access? Does "vision" count as one of those data ports? How good can my security software be? Does the attacker need l33t computer skills or can they pick up a phone app to turn me into a murderbot? (Well, a different murderbot.) These things really ought to affect the cost of the trait.

I agree. It could really use some basic guidelines on how much needs to happen. I can see why its left basic. No one appears to use it, and "hacking" is ever evolving, highly technical, and often poorly understood by players.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

The main difficulty I see here is that it's not clear how hard it can be to do the reprogramming. Can I disconnect all the data ports that would allow it, so that someone would need to make major hardware modifications in order to gain access? Does "vision" count as one of those data ports? How good can my security software be? Does the attacker need l33t computer skills or can they pick up a phone app to turn me into a murderbot? (Well, a different murderbot.) These things really ought to affect the cost of the trait.

I've thinking about this a bit. The relevant factors seem to be:

• How much control does the re-programmer need to have over the target? This can be anything from "Needs to be in radio range" to "Needs to open up the casing and change jumpers."
• How long does the work take?
• What are the skill modifiers?

Ordinary humans can have their motivations modified by people who have near-total control, plenty of time, and professional-level skills, which gives us a vague idea of what a -100% modifier might require. I'll see if I can make more progress with this.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by johndallman

You can be both Reprogrammable and have a Duty, although the effects of Reprogrammable takes priority when they conflict with your Duty. This implies that Reprogrammable can’t add or remove other traits, although it can override them.

I would say that Reprogrammable can't add or remove externally sourced traits. Duty is external to the being, just like Patron, Contacts, Allies, Reputation, and Social stigma.
Sense of Duty, Vows, Phobias, etc. would all be fair game. Adding internally sources advantages should be fair game, but seems like trait abuse unless character points are spent on the receiving end.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by johndallman

This trait is now deprecated, and some other trait should be used in its place: the Automaton meta-trait is suitable for many purposes, as is Duty or Reprogrammable. Better, avoid characters that are slaves. Instead, give their bosses Ally, Possession or Mind Control.

Can you provide some context for this edit? I don't recall ever seeing anything suggesting this is the case, especially given the date of the edit. Also, you say you shouldn't use Slave Mentality, but then suggest using Automaton, which... includes Slave Mentality? I'm just very confused overall.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I've thinking about this a bit. The relevant factors seem to be:

• How much control does the re-programmer need to have over the target? This can be anything from "Needs to be in radio range" to "Needs to open up the casing and change jumpers."
• How long does the work take?
• What are the skill modifiers?

Ordinary humans can have their motivations modified by people who have near-total control, plenty of time, and professional-level skills, which gives us a vague idea of what a -100% modifier might require. I'll see if I can make more progress with this.

Ordinary humans however, won't stay programmed without regular reinforcement of the brainwashing. The need for regular reinforcement would probably be worth a good -40%