[gurps] Whimsical thought

[tbone]

I have home-brewed "group competences" that are pretty much the same  
as the Talents that 4e later brought. (4e picks a much better name;  
I'll steal "Talent" for the rest of this discussion.)

They all have accompanying "Group Incompetences", that reverse the  
bonuses into penalties. The latter make for amusing character  
concepts (and sometimes amusing trait names), and work as you  
suggest, but with one big difference: I only award -1 per Group  
Incompetence, far less than the advantage value of the reverse Talent!

http://www.gamesdiner.com/gurps/GULLIVER/BXouttakes.htm#SkillBonusTraits

For what its worth, my reasons for preferring these to 3e's  
Incompetence:


1) I think -1 per Incompetent skill is far too generous. You can  
easily rack up several points of disad by declaring Incompetence in  
trivial skills you'd never use anyway.

-1 for an entire group, however, is not a crock. The available groups  
are generally meaningful ones too.


2) Just as bonuses on a related group feel more sensible than do  
bonuses on lone individual skills (4e apparently agrees, as that's  
how Talents work), penalties on related groups also feel more  
sensible. (Again, 4e may agree; it appears to have dropped the  
Incompetence idea, though without yet adding Anti-Talents.)


3) I really dislike the Incompetence disad's "you can't learn the  
skill" restriction. Real life suggests incompetences that you *can*  
struggle through; you'll just always have a real hard time of it.  
Much more interesting!

A nice skill penalty makes it difficult, though not impossible, to  
gain competence in the skill. (I hadn't specifically considered  
modifications to time required, as you suggest, but that could be  
done too.)

Best of all, you can still have the oddball character who *can't*  
learn a skill. The character simply doesn't buy the skill in  
question, with "can't" as the explanation. No special rules needed.


So that's one existing take on "Anti-Talents". I think 4e could  
easily incorporate the idea, reversing the effects of all those nifty  
Talents that 4e and players have come up with. It may even make sense  
to reverse Talents at 1/5 value, so a 10-point Talent becomes a -2- 
point Anti-Talent. What do you think?

(Final thought on your suggestions: I see no reason to rule that the  
character can't buy off an Anti-Talent. As long as there's some good  
explanation, why not?)

T. Bone
tbone at gamesdiner.com
Visit the NEW T. Bone's Games Diner!
http://www.gamesdiner.com



On Jul 14, 2006, at 7:19 PM, <hal at buffnet.net> wrote:

> Hmmm - if we can have talents that emphasize a person's ability with a
> group of skills, can we have an anti-talent that shows he's less
> proficient with a set of skills?  How about an Anti-art talent?  The
> person couldn't draw or chisel or paint to save their lives?  Worth an
> equal amount as a "dsiadvantage" (permanent and not permitted to be  
> bought
> off with later experience points) as it would have been worth as an
> advantage.  Each point of anti-talent increases time required to  
> earn 1
> character point (ie 220 hours for a level one anti-talent, 240  
> hours for a
> level two etc).
>
> Comments?