Building an Alternate corruption System

[Shuckster]

So Using the corruption system detailed in GURPS Horror on a test-run of the 8 session campaign Im making hasn't worked too well.

By default corruption works by assigning players secret corruption points based off certain actions and situations they encounter, then once per in game week the GM starts by making a will roll for anybody with even one corruption point at -1 per full 10 points of corruption they have, on a failed roll the GM gets to convert every full 25 points of corruption into -1 character point to buy off "good" themed advantages, add "evil" themed disadvantages or rework existing ones to make them worse by lowering Self Control numbers etc.

The issue with this is that its basically too slow for a campaign that only has about a week's worth of in-game time in it, and even doing these rolls after every session didn't yield much, as only one out of five characters ever had anything happen due to getting over 25 points of it.

also this default system has no real mechanic for becoming fully corrupted and therefor evil, which is a theme I want to include in the game.

As a result Ive been trying to come up with a new corruption system and I stumbled on the "Romance Points" idea in Big Lizzie, where players get these secret points for doing certain things in game (just like corruption) but rather than spending these points to change the character they have an effect on the end of the story.

The idea I have is a threshold-based corruption system, where corruption points add up and dont do anything until the player gets a certain amount, at which point a penalty is automatically applied. Characters would gain and lose corruption for different events and actions, just as before, but now corruption does not go down unless you lower it directly.

Corruption Thresholds

Pure (0 Corruption): No penalty, +1 on reaction rolls for prayers through divine favor, +1 to Exorcism, Religious Ritual etc. as well as rolls for blessed advantages like divine guidance and heroic feats. Advantages with "Pact: Spiritual purity" are active. Pure individuals get +1 on reactions from religious individuals who value purity if they notice it.

Untainted (1-24): No bonus to faith based rolls, no bonus to reactions, but this threshold carries no penalty apart from the pact modifier for spiritual purity no longer being met.

Mildly Tainted (25-49): -1 to all the aforementioned faith-based rolls. Characters who hit this threshold for the first time take on an evil-themed or otherwise thematically appropriate quirk or lose a good-themed perk.

Fully Tainted (50-74): -2 to all the faith-based rolls, blessed characters or those with Devine favor make a reaction roll with their god at -2, on a poor or worse reaction they lose the use of up to 5 points worth of divine advantages (which become useful again should the character become redeemed). Characters hitting this threshold get 1d-2 (minimum one) negative character points for the GM to spend or save up the same way as the vanilla corruption system.

Mildly Corrupted (75-99): -3 to all faith-based rolls, blessed and favored characters make another reaction roll at -3 vs losing the use of another 5 points worth of divine advantages. Characters hitting this threshold get 1d-1 negative character points for the GM.

Moderately Corrupted (100-124): -4 to all faith-based rolls, blessed and favored characters make another reaction roll at -4, losing the use of all divine advantages until they redeem themselves if they get a poor or worse reaction. Characters get another 1d negative character points added.

Severely Corrupted (125-149): -5 to all faith-based skill rolls (as advantage rolls aren't viable at this stage). Make a reaction roll at -5 to your deity, on a result of poor or worse the deity sends you a fearful vision as a final warning, which is a fright check at -6! Characters get another 1d+1 character points added for the GM to use.

Evil (150-174): Faith-based characters roll one final reaction roll at -5, on a failure they take 2d cosmic, unavoidable burning damage as their deity actively punishes them, no faith based skill will work until the character is redeemed. 1d+2 negative character points are added for the GM to use. Religious NPCs or those who value spiritual purity react to the character at -1 on top of any penalties caused by their newly gained evil traits.

Irredeemable (175 or more!): Faith-based characters can never regain their faith based advantages, remove them from the sheet and lower their point value. The character cannot become less than irredeemable even if they get back to 0 corruption. Your character is now fully corrupted, this is not a failure state like death, it simply means they no longer have the same motivations they had before and have different goals, at odds with any pure members of the party. The GM uses any remaining un-spent negative character points they may have saved on the character till now. Fully corrupt characters might side with the evil forces the party opposes and even secretly act as a double agent etc.

this system also has some in-game events determined by the thresholds, for example if a character is bitten by a were-shark they might get a bonus to resist becoming cursed if pure, no bonus if untainted, and increasing penalties for each threshold beyond that. Some monsters with corrupting attacks may target the pure characters first etc.

Beyond this you could come up with more thresholds for irredeemable characters trying to earn boons from evil gods, gain power from their corruption etc, with penalties for dropping above irredeemable.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Shuckster

stumbled on the "Romance Points" idea in Big Lizzie

This reminds me of how Horror talked about how coupling with succubi is one way to gain corruption but there's nothing in the racial template to reflect it.

All I can figure is to use modifying ST-based damage with Symptoms: Disadvantage, but that would only work if the succubus inflicted damage...

I guess their Leech inflicts FP damage lik Fatigue Attack... but I don't know of a legal way to apply Symptoms to Leech.

Given Leech uses the same modifier % for Hazard would it make sense to just float over other Innate Attack modifiers? Seems to do that for other stuff like Malediction or Contact Agent

[Shuckster]

Im wondering if the thresholds, penalties and mechanics seem sound or not and what should be done with them if any for balancing