There are only a few; also check the rules for my Middle-earth campaign for more.
by Bryan J. Maloney (bjm10@edu.cornell)
Your character (presumably from an Unaging race) is Very Old. That means that he or she has seen and done just about everything. To simulate the incredible bank of experience built up, take the “Racial Memory” advantage (see p. CI42).
GMs may permit cheaper versions of this advantage with concomitant penalties to the IQ roll, to reflect a younger character.
Note that knowledge is not identical to skill. The character still has to have some skills that are actively maintained during the last few years. These have points devoted to the individual skill. A Very Old character may have been a great swordmaster during the Age of Brilliant Heroes, but if that was 700 years ago, and he hasn’t picked up a weapon since, he may have quite a bit of theoretical memories regarding swordsmanship, but his muscles and reflexes are likely to have forgotten everything, giving him no better than default in actually handling the darn thing.
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A well-rounded character is one who has a lot of interests outside his "work". The advantage effectively buys five points' worth of skills, but the player does not have to specify what those skills are during character generation. When spending XP, the player may also allocate some of these points -- so, if he thinks it might be interesting, he can say "I used to practice juggling when I was at school" and spend one point on Juggling. Once the points are spent, they can't be regained.
The advantage over just keeping 10 character points spare for skills is that you don't have to study when you want to pick up a skill -- it's assumed that you already learned these skills, they just haven't been specified yet. This advantage offers one way for players to flesh out their characters as the game proceeds and they have a clearer idea of the background.
Restrictions:
Copyright © Doug Atkinson (douga@earlham.edu)
The character with this Disadvantage is, of course, pregnant. Unlike most Disadvantages, this one becomes more disabling (and worth more points) over time. For simplicity's sake, it has been divided into three sections. (Note that these are somewhat extreme, and represent the later portions of each trimester.)
After the child is born, it may be taken as a Dependent (see below). This can replace any changes made in the character using the points from this Disadvantage. If the child is not taken as a Dependent, the player should (at the GM's option) pay for anything replaced by Pregnancy.
If a character begins with a second or third trimester Pregnancy, it is handled as a normal Disadvantage. Players should be careful about taking this Disadvantage if they don't think they can pay it off!
[Back to the top]Actually, this one is just an extreme version of the Dependent disadvantage as described on page B38: built with zero or fewer points, loved one and appears almost all the time all add up to -96, and I added a -4 both to round it up and to make it for the constant fuss you have with a baby.
Note that you don't have to take the disadvantage automatically if your character ends up with a child unexpectingly, even if she is the child's mother: there is a long history of mothers who left their kids lying around or gave them to someone to care over it. However, if you wish to raise the child yourself, you must keep it with you; otherwise it won't recognize you as its parent later.
An infant requires constant care -- including breast feeding, washing, changing nappies etc. -- until the age of three; after that the cost of the disadvantage can be recalculated if the child is given to someone to care about it, although you still have to visit it regularly if you wish to count on the child later in your life. (It's all to the GM, but it would be realistic if you couldn't get the child to be your Ally when it grows up if you didn't pay your visits when it was needed; of course your characters might not know that when it counts.)
At the age of ten you can create a child as a character (although you could do it earlier, I don't recommend it: there are still too many personality traits yet to be shaped out). I suggest to do it with (5 times the child' age) points, and then recalculate its cost as a dependent accordingly.
When you lower the point cost of the disadvantage for any reason, the difference must be either paid for, or substituted with another disadvantage. Good candidates for the replacement -- which you can combine as desired -- are the following:
Reverse of the Early Maturation advantage (p. A12, CI53), Late Maturation doubles (more or less) the age at which a member of the race is considered an adult (age 18 for humans). That age can't be higher than the age when the aging rolls (p. B83) begin, although it can be equal.
If a character with Late Maturation takes also the Youth disadvantage (p. B29), his current age is 10% -- per level of Youth -- lower than the “maturation” age. Limit of number of levels that can be taken for Youth (three for humans) is determined by the GM, and depends on the actual age when a member of the race reaches the race's average attribute values.
The perfect example for this disadvantage are the Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, which have indeed inspired me to design it. They are considered adult at the age of 33, so they would have one level of Late Maturation. They probably reach their adult stat values at age of about twenty, so they could take up to four levels of Youth disadvantage, each worth three years.
By Thomas Barnes, who said: “One of the AD&D character books had a marvelous disadvantage that is perfect for GURPS, so I converted it.”
No matter what you do, you always seem to be in the center of controversies you know nothing about. This makes your life very interesting.
When a thief needs to stash the loot from the diamond heist he hides it in your garage. The lady you stop to ask directions from is accompanied by a jealous bodybuilder boyfriend who automatically assumes that you were trying to seduce her. The Mafioso the FBI has been tracking looks just like you. Your appartment is right next to the CIA safehouse and you accidently get all their mail. The Illuminati want to talk to you. Your phones are tapped and the guy behind you at the supermarket wears dark sunglasses and talks into his lapel pin.
Unlike the Unluckiness disadvantage, these problems are not immediately harmful and could even work out to the character's advantage, but they will always make the character's life interesting, if not dangerous.
You suffer from asthma attacks. Attacks can be brought on by two things: Fatigue loss and stress. Anytime you lose fatigue (even from magic or psi), you must make a HT roll or suffer an attack. Anytime you are in a stressful situation (GM's ruling), you must make a Will roll or suffer an attack.
During an attack, any fatigue loss you suffer is doubled (including the fatigue that brought on the attack, if any). You will wheeze and have a hard time speaking in complete sentences. You cannot cast spells that require verbal components, and you are at -3 to DX and IQ, as all your concentration is needed just to breathe.
Once an attack has started, roll vs. HT every minute. On a critical success, or three consecutive successes, you recover. A failure costs you one fatigue. On a critical failure you take 1d of fatigue and begin rolling every 10 seconds. If your ST reaches zero you will pass out and begin suffocating. You will die in four minutes unless you receive first aid.
You can never learn the Breath Control skill!
At TL7+, medication can prevent attacks. This reduces the point value of this disadvantage to -15 points. An inhaler (medsensor at TL9+) must be used to administer the medication as soon as the attack occurs, or up to 30 seconds in advance of an attack (e.g., if you are about to lift something heavy and know that it will fatigue you). The medication adds a bonus equal to its TL to the subsequent HT checks, but will not restore any fatigue already lost.
You can't remember shit. This is not the same thing as Absent-Minded; you can concentrate on boring tasks and generally remember to do the minor day-to-day things that need doing, but you can never quite remember important facts when you have to. You can never take notes unless your character is physically taking notes in the game (in which case he should keep them on him, or he may forget where he put them). Anytime you need to remember a fact, roll versus IQ. If you learned the fact less than an hour ago, it's a straight IQ roll. Less than a day is at -2, less than three days is -4, less than a week is -6, and less than a month is -10! Anything you learned over a month ago will only be remembered on a critical success.
Remember that this is only a -10 points disadvantage; don't get too silly with it. If you get a new job, a roll will be needed to remember the address of the place (unless you have it written down), but you do not need to roll to remember than you got a job! This affects the details, not the overall stuff.
Note: This disadvantage was originally posted to alt.rec.frp.gurps; I have edited Andy's excellent reply to make it clearer and more in line with GURPS terms. -- Incanus
At TL5 (medical) and later, type 1 diabetes becomes a disadvantage: you have a Dependency to insulin (a common drug), which you must take daily or lose 1 HT per hour after missing a daily dose. You also have HT-1 versus contagion, as described above. -20 points.
Type 2 diabetes at TL5+ becomes only a Dependency disadvantage, where you must take insulin daily. However, if you miss your dose you don't lose HT; instead, you receive a -1 penalty to HT versus contagion, as above.
By TL8 both types should be curable.
Similar to Sense of Duty -- but focusing on a single entity (person, organization, idea etc.) instead of a group -- or Fanatisicm -- only less severe -- this disadvantage shows how much a character is loyal to someone or something. It is similar to the Loyalty check for Hirelings (see sidebar p. B195), but it should be roleplayed whenever possible. However, if the player for some reason can't decide on his character's actions, he should roll vs. the appropriate Loyalty number, as if the character was a Hireling.
There are two levels of this disadvantage:
Loyalty means that the character will listen to the orders of the person or the organization he is loyal to, unless these involve dangerous and -- especially if he also has Honesty -- illegal situations. At this level, the character's Loyalty number is 10.
Strong Loyalty is somewhat more binding, forcing the character to follow his ideals or leader even in some dangerous situations, although not those which involve almost certain injuries and possible death. It can be considered a weaker version of Fanaticism, and the character rolls at 15.
Stronger loyalty is so binding that the character will refuse almost no order or course of action, even having his own initiative to promote his ideals or to serve his leader -- since this could be considered a Loyalty of 20 and more, which according to p. B195 doesn't even have to be rolled, it is covered by the Fanaticism disadvantage.
A nuisance is someone who makes the character's life difficult in minor ways, but can occasionally be helpful.
This is a subclass of the "Enemy" disadvantage -- figure the cost of the Nuisance character normally (including modifiers for frequency of appearance), then halve the cost.
When the dice or the GM decide that the Nuisance appears in the adventure, (s)he shows up to cause minor problems for the PC. In a modern-day game, the Nuisance may have borrowed some equipment that the PC needs for the adventure, or visits the PC at an awkward time. A Nuisance in a Supers game may need to be rescued by the PC hero.
However, if the roll for the Nuisance character to appear is a natural 18, then the Nuisance actually provides some sort of minor benefit to the PC. In a modern-day game, the character may be able to act as a reliable Contact for one question the PC has, or can loan the PC a piece of needed equipment for the duration of the play session. In a Supers game, the character may be able to rescue the PC hero.
Fictional examples:
If you have lungs, gills are a 10 point advantage; if you have gills, lungs are a 10 point advantage. Therefore this disadvantage.
You have no breathing apparatus at all. Beginning at birth you will lose 1 Fatigue per turn. When you reach ST 0 you fall unconscious and will die in four minutes. You can never learn Breath Control (or much of anything else for that matter). This is incompitable and downright ridiculous with Age or Doesn't Breathe (it's only downright ridiculous without it).
I need to cut back on Pop TartsTM.
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