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Old 11-08-2018, 09:57 PM   #1
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Mitigator Schedule...

Hello Folks,
Looking more closely at the mitigator effects and such, the pricing is "variable" and then goes on to give the reader the following:

Daily: -60%
Weekly: -65%
Monthly: -70%

So what would the hourly mitigator be? Should it be -55%/

What would the next time interval be for the -75%?

What should the time interval be for a mitigator that was worth -95%?

For example? If a cybernetic eye has a montlhy mitigator value of 70%, blindness worth 50 points, is now only worth 35 points when it has this level of mitigation.

But if you had a mitigator of -.95%, the value of such blindness would only be 2 points.

So, thoughts?
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Old 11-08-2018, 10:11 PM   #2
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
What should the time interval be for a mitigator that was worth -95%?
Too infrequent to be a Disadvantage. If we continue that progression, it will come out to something like 75 years between treatments. (Dropping the "common named time interval" pattern for a 5-ish pattern gives you 6 months / 3 years / 15 years / 75 years. Being blind once per lifetime isn't really a restriction -- but I'd probably let you take it for a Quirk (rather than -2 points) as a sort of pre-defined Quirk-level Cursed, where the GM will maliciously cause you to go blind once at some time of his choosing. Trading the pattern for the Speed/Range progression still gets you up to about a year (50 weeks) for 4 steps past monthly. Keep the "common names" progression and you're looking at year-decade-century-millenium.)
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Old 11-08-2018, 11:03 PM   #3
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Too infrequent to be a Disadvantage. If we continue that progression, it will come out to something like 75 years between treatments. (Dropping the "common named time interval" pattern for a 5-ish pattern gives you 6 months / 3 years / 15 years / 75 years. Being blind once per lifetime isn't really a restriction -- but I'd probably let you take it for a Quirk (rather than -2 points) as a sort of pre-defined Quirk-level Cursed, where the GM will maliciously cause you to go blind once at some time of his choosing. Trading the pattern for the Speed/Range progression still gets you up to about a year (50 weeks) for 4 steps past monthly. Keep the "common names" progression and you're looking at year-decade-century-millenium.)
I was thinking more in line of this:

x -.60% = 1 day
x -.65% = 1 week
x -.70% = 1 month
x -.75% = 3 months
x -.80% = 6 months
x -.85% = 12 months
x -.90% = 24 months
x -.95% = >24 months.

If you have a mitigator that is permanently attached, hard to remove, and reasonably reliable such that it lasts longer than a month, we'd need some time frame to determine what would be a valid value for -75%, -80%, -85%, -90% and -95%.

As I pointed out, there are only three such time frames. I wondered if any other SJGames publication maybe contains such information, as GURPS POWERS doesn't seem to do so.
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Old 11-09-2018, 09:15 AM   #4
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

I don't know of any other "regular dose period" Mitigator examples. Pyramid is the main source I don't have, though my PDF collection is far from complete even otherwise.

The only Mitigator I know of that's more than -70% is Monster Hunter's "Morphology Inducer" (a piece of equipment that lets aliens / demons / etc look like a normal human, and has to also be bought as a Gadget in addition to letting you Mitigate Disads like Appearance or Social Stigma).

I suspect anything over monthly / -70% is by RAW simply considered not to be a Disad. (I don't know of any source that uses really short dose intervals, either.) Anything over -80% would get clipped by the Limitation cap anyway, though such values are still useful when it comes to countering large Enhancements. But in this case, the common interpretation of -80% as "will never come up" isn't far off.

From a gameplay perspective, longer and longer time periods have increasingly less effect on play. There's not a lot of practical difference between six months and two years. (In some games, it will literally never come up again!) You can of course make up whatever schedule suits your own view, but given that we stick to a linear increase of -5%, then the time period has to increase exponentially to model that sort of declining negative effect.

The Mitigator dose is usually as trivial as popping a pill. A really burdensome "dose", like having to complete some six-month quest to find the guru that lives on a mountaintop and randomly relocates every time someone visits him to dispel their Disad, might interfere with the character enough over a multi-year timespan to matter. But that's the sort of thing that's an in-game adventure, triggered by the GM just imposing the Disad to motivate the adventure, rather than a strict clock, or else by threatening imposition of the Disad to give a "ticking time bomb" feel to the motivation -- but during the adventure the Disad hasn't actually reappeared yet. Or, the Mitigating action is just is assumed to take place in downtime -- which is another case where the character shouldn't really have the Disad being Mitigated on the character sheet in the first place. (That would be a case of the "Disads that don't actually affect the character aren't worth points" rule. You'd have to be in one of those immortals-over-centuries long-view sorts of games for these kind of rates to matter.)
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Old 11-09-2018, 10:08 AM   #5
Daigoro
 
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Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
(That would be a case of the "Disads that don't actually affect the character aren't worth points" rule. You'd have to be in one of those immortals-over-centuries long-view sorts of games for these kind of rates to matter.)
I think it's fair to say though that the OP might've had that case in mind when he posed the question.
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Last edited by Daigoro; 11-09-2018 at 10:46 AM.
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Old 11-09-2018, 10:31 AM   #6
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

It looks like the multiplier for a step is approximately 5; that is, "a number that is closer to 5 than to 0 or 10." So for shorter intervals, I would say 6 hours, 1 hour, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, 1 minute, 15 seconds, 5 seconds, 1 second. For longer ones, probably 6 months, 2 years, 10 years, 50 years, 200 years, 1000 years. Those are mostly between 4 and 6, but are also conveniently round time periods.
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Old 11-09-2018, 12:28 PM   #7
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
It looks like the multiplier for a step is approximately 5; that is, "a number that is closer to 5 than to 0 or 10." So for shorter intervals, I would say 6 hours, 1 hour, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, 1 minute, 15 seconds, 5 seconds, 1 second. For longer ones, probably 6 months, 2 years, 10 years, 50 years, 200 years, 1000 years. Those are mostly between 4 and 6, but are also conveniently round time periods.
So what you're suggesting would follow something like the schedule below? If so, I think I could work with that.

x -20% = 1 second
x -25% = 5 seconds
x -30% = 15 seconds
x -35% = 1 minute
x -40% = 5 minutes
x -45% = 15 minutes
x -50% = 1 hour
x -55% = 6 hours
x -60% = 1 day
x -65% = 1 week
x -70% = 1 month
x -75% = 6 months
x -80% = 24 months
x -85% = 120 months
x -90% = 600 months
x -95% = >600 months.

One of my issues is that when dealing with the pricing scheme with GURPS as regards to "Blindness" and "One Eye" - the premise is that when you lose one eye and you require two eyes to function normally, that yes, losing one eyes loses depth perception, changes your peripheral vision arc etc. After a time however, people who suffer from the issue of depth perception learn to compensate (witness one eyed drivers) to some extent.

Losing your ONLY eye however, results in all of the penalties of losing your vision at all. However, it is LUDICROUS to believe that buying one cybernetic eye counts as a 4 point advantage, while buying two eyes counts as a -1 disadvantage (or a quirk level problem).

I think too, that the approach taken with requiring 1 month maintenance and the maintenance scheduling costs are just asinine. "too granular"? Um, excuse me?

Then comes the issue "it doesn't come up in play" or "it doesn't affect the player sufficiently". As I pointed out in another thread - maintenance incurs a cost both in character time allocated towards performing the maintenance, and also incurs an expense. A technician who performs the maintenance gets paid to do that maintenance. At TL 9, the average income for a struggling job is 1800 per month. At an estimated 4 weeks per month, 40 hours per week, dividing 1800 by 160 = $11.25 per hour. Few maintenance personnel can simply handle the job without overhead costs, so let's make it a simple $20 overall (call it the cost for paying for the equipment used, the room/building the maintenance is done within, and the staff support that handles scheduling etc).

Each 1 hour maintenance interval should be costing $20. If one eye alone takes an hour, then 2 eyes take 2 hours. If you have a cybernetic arm, two eyes, and perfect balance - are we talking about an increased monthly cost of 80 per month and a loss of 4 hours of free time? If you have NPC enemies, knowing you have to go to a clinic to do maintenance might prove to be a nice adventure hook <shrug>

Me? I just don't like it. Maintenance every 6 months is nice. Every 2 years is also nice. Having to do it every hour might be for a prototype device just off the drawing boards. Having an expanded maintenance interval along with an expanded Mitigator schedule would go a long way towards alleviating my issues with the "system" as proposed with GURPS.

Then on the other hand? Having the original "unreliable" and "breakdown prone" from GURPS CLASSIC CYBERPUNK would also help a little bit.

So, piece by piece, item by item, I have to take a hard look at the pricing of cybernetic devices from GURPS ULTRATECH and see if this is something I'd want for my Cyberpunk campaigns.

Oddly enough, the one person who loves Cyberpunk as a genre, is also the one person who won't take any cybernetic implants voluntarily because of the EMP potential or Electrical overload potential to shut down temporarily, his electronics. Yet he is also the same player who loves his DNI, his computer implant, and the ability to store digital video of his activities as computer files. Never mind that an X-ray of his head or perhaps MRI's of his body might complicate things a wee bit. ;)

In fact? The one time I had a little fun at his expense was the question "Where are you keeping your file recordings of your activities?" They constitute incriminating evidence of any illegal activity should you be investigated." So he turned to an IRON MOUNTAIN like service for his stuff, unaware that his enemy had infiltrated the Government's agencies. They in turn simply set up a subpoena and confiscated his files...

So, yes, I do utilize the Down time rules in my campaigns. Yes I do have situations in which a character might find himself stranded and far away from maintenance personnel. I also have a problem with treating certain "cybernetic" devices as mitigating devices where the rules specify that the mitigator is a TEMPORARY fix for the issue. Glasses when removed/stolen/broken - force the player to deal with his bad vision. Cybernetic eyes when used in replacement of actual eyes are not easily stolen, are not easily removed, and the way to break them tends to use the same process as would blind/destroy biological eyes in the first place.

Put another way?

If during game play, a 100 point character loses an eye, his point total drops 15 points and he is one eyed. Should the same character lose his remaining eye, he loses another 35 character points. Should he purchase or have installed, a cybernetic eye, his point total is functionally back up to 85 points (assuming no maintenance costs involved, no unreliability issues, etc). He goes back up to 100 points when he gets that second eye.

In all? This whole process started strictly as a result of a closer examination of the cybernetic eyes issue and why the whole thing results in a 4 point advantage for one eye but loses 5 points simply for having two eyes of the same capability/functionality.

Having eyes that can magnify an imagine without requiring you pull up a pair of binoculars is not worth the same as being in a society or tech environment where the only way to have that level of vision is as a strictly biological/supernatural/supernatural advantage. Not having to lug binoculars is convenient. But when any yahoo can buy contact lenses and get the same effect? Um. No, not worth the full value as given in GURPS ULTRATECH. But, that is a debate for another thread, another time.

I do want to thank you for the refinement above however, THAT is very much appreciated and what I shall adopt going forward. I will also likely change the maintenance advantage to suit my uses, but that will strictly be a house rule for my campaign(s).

I've always said that the point costs for advantages and disadvantages and attributes is largely arbitrary. So, if they don't seem to work, change them. ;)

Last edited by hal; 11-09-2018 at 12:29 PM. Reason: I really need to proof read my posts darn it!!! - fixed a typo...
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Old 11-09-2018, 01:10 PM   #8
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

Quote:
Originally Posted by hal View Post
So what you're suggesting would follow something like the schedule below? If so, I think I could work with that.

x -20% = 1 second
x -25% = 5 seconds
x -30% = 15 seconds
x -35% = 1 minute
x -40% = 5 minutes
x -45% = 15 minutes
x -50% = 1 hour
x -55% = 6 hours
x -60% = 1 day
x -65% = 1 week
x -70% = 1 month
x -75% = 6 months
x -80% = 24 months
x -85% = 120 months
x -90% = 600 months
x -95% = >600 months.
I don't have a specific opinion as to whether extending the scale in either direction is a good idea. But yes, this is the scale I was proposing. I would probably treat "1 second" as "constant." It seems to me that this doesn't deviate too far from the established ratio.
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Old 11-09-2018, 01:38 PM   #9
hal
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
Default Re: Mitigator Schedule...

Personally, given that some things last a long time (created electronics) and some break down more quickly - I'd have liked to see some difference between 6 months and 2 years. But hey, it looks reasonable, and establishes a coherent progression, which is why I will use it going forward. ;)

I thought your concept was sufficiently elegant that I had to vote your plan than mine. :)
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