How to model an inability to reveal a certain truth - OG Myth-Weavers

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How to model an inability to reveal a certain truth

   
How to model an inability to reveal a certain truth

I'm kinda a hitting a wall here on finding out how to model this situation.

I want to create a character, who due to magic/mindwashing/whatever is physically unable to reveal a certain secret (this is not his secret, so it doesn't fall under the Secret disadvantage) to other people.
I thought about can't speak/limited, vow with somekind of physical limitation, slave mentality (limited) and even compulsive lying (limited, cosmic-no will roll), however I can't seem to get it right.

Does anybody have an idea on how to work this out?

Why not create your own mechanic for it? If the tools available aren't doing what you want, it's time to make a new tool!

Does it need any mechanics really? Couldn't you just make a normal character who also has a secret that he isn't able to reveal? To my mind this would only ever get forced out of him for plot-specific purposes, and until then you can just role-play it. Apologies if I've missed something.

I vote no real mechanics required. Mechanics are required to check (1) if something succeeds or fails, or (2) the degree to which something succeeds or fails: you need mechanics to check if an attack hits, if a spell is resisted, if the ogre sees you or how bad the subsequent pummeling hurts. This isn't one of those situations. This is "Bob can't do X". That is the mechanic.

Look at, say, the feat "Vow of Obedience" (BoED). It starts "To fulfill your vow, you must unquestioningly obey your superior and live according to the rules of your organization." The rest of it is just what happens if you break this oath, and what goodies you get for following it. As far as the actual restriction goes, that's it, that one line. Anything else just covers odd cases, like mindreading or magical coercion.

This is GURPS, not D&D. in GURPS, when a character can't do something that other characters could do, it is normally a disadvantage worth points to that character. The design philosophy behind that can be
Endlessly
debated but it's what he's trying to work with.
The most important consideration is just how big of a disadvantage to the character is this limitation? I'd bet on it ending up as little more than a quirk unless it's vitally important to some critical goal of the character. Or perhaps the
Oh by the way, our boss is an evil vampire lord who plans to eat us all tomorrow night
survival of the party.

I can't say how important it will be, but considering the type of game and the amount of knowledge he isn't allowed to share, I'm guessing it would be considerably major (Survival of the party at times), but that's really up to the GM.
At the moment I'm assuming it isn't Quirk level, so was trying to find something else.

I've gone with Vow with a cosmic modifier to denote he can't break it, though it still a bit bugs me.
Any other ideas?

Quote:
Originally Posted by leons1701 View Post
This is GURPS, not D&D. in GURPS, when a character can't do something that other characters could do, it is normally a disadvantage worth points to that character. The design philosophy behind that can be
Endlessly
debated but it's what he's trying to work with.
The most important consideration is just how big of a disadvantage to the character is this limitation? I'd bet on it ending up as little more than a quirk unless it's vitally important to some critical goal of the character. Or perhaps the
Oh by the way, our boss is an evil vampire lord who plans to eat us all tomorrow night
survival of the party.
Unless it's actually an advantage...
And the distinction would depend on whether the character might (edit: reasonably) WANT to reveal the secret in some circumstances (disadvantage), or whether it would be better for the character that the secret never gets out, regarless of the circumstance (advantage).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tedronai View Post
Unless it's actually an advantage...
And the distinction would depend on whether the character might (edit: reasonably) WANT to reveal the secret in some circumstances (disadvantage), or whether it would be better for the character that the secret never gets out, regarless of the circumstance (advantage).
Having a secret is never an advantage.
The secret disadvantages requires that the person wouldn't want to reveal the secret AND that it would be better for the character that the secret never gets out, since it requires that revealing the secret will have negative repercussions.

If the secret doesn't have any repercussions, and it's only by whim that the player doesn't want to reveal the secret, it's either not part of the char sheet at all (or a special feature at best) or a quirk.

Obviously if a character has a secret, he would be better for him if the secret never gets out, that's still not an advantage, it's a disadvantage since he would have been much better off if he didn't have a secret at all.

In any case, I don't think what I want to do can be modeled by the secret disadvantage.

except that this has already been stated to NOT qualify for the Secret disadvantage (edit: by you, in fact)
this is a secret, not a Secret

Ha, sorry, I thought you were specifically talking about the Secret disadvantage and not the term Secret in general.

In any case, I don't think it could be considered an advantage, since by all means he has less options then those who aren't in this situation, and is since impeded.
In general it's a trait that limits your choices (I.E. if he didn't have that trait he could simply keep quiet and so ACT as if he is) so it should be a disadvantage.

The only possible advantage I can see from it is that if interrogated, he can't reveal anything, but I think it's kinda balanced by the fact that if interrogated you can't reveal anything (and so stop the interrogation).




 

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