Custom Challenge Question

[johnnytv2]

One of my players wrote on his character sheet "Losing a sense, can't speak" and took four stones for it as a challenge during character creation. I would argue that being unable to speak isn't really losing a sense, and four stones seems like a lot to get back. What do you think would be a fair number of stones for being unable to speak? The character is still able to read and write and find other ways to communicate, and there's a telepath in the party so I feel like this would have to go a lot farther than lack of speech to justify a 4 stone challange. What are your thoughts?

[Manah]

Disagreed. Being unable to speak is annoying as heck, very restrictive, and there being other ways to communicate does not take away from the fact that the character has lost something that makes things significantly easier for most people. Having a telepath on the team is in no way related to that limitation either, just like how 'having a tall friend' does not take away the problems a small person may have to face, it's simply one of the means the small person has of overcoming some of his limitations once in a while. The 'it not being a lost sense' is simply a wrong wording of the challenge and has nothing to do with its value. It's semantics. Just call it 'Mute' or whatever and move on.

4 stones for losing one's speech is more than appropriate in my opinion. You don't always have time to write or type what you mean, and the telepath is not necessarily always by your side ready to use his own energy to make sure you have a voice. If your friend is about to be hit by a car, and you're the only one who sees it, your friend is still going to die in front of your eyes. Writing takes time, it requires a writing tool and a surface to write on, and you have to physically be able to show it to the person. It's a way to get around it, sure, but it's loaded with inherent limitations that simply being able to talk would work around. It is, absolutely, a major limitation, and as such, your friend is not going overboard at all with his 4 stones.

If you ask me. Which you did.

[Gris]

I guess that it depends on the focus of the game. If it's non stop super heroic action it could be seen as min maxing with a thing that's going to add just a bit of flavor. If it's a more grounded game with daily life stuff, the 4 stones are clearly okay. The naming can just be changed as needed.

[Neros]

I agree with both Manah and Griss. Many challenges requires something to overcome them, especially the tougher ones. They are usually overcome by the player getting aid for it, spending some of the stones they get to overcome it, get the help from a team mate.

For example with being unable to walk. The player could say that they have a wheelchair, spend stones to be able to fly or have a fellow player carry them. All of them are valid ways and does not remove the challenge. And they can usually be worked around so the challenge can come up in some situation.

But if you do feel like it is to much, then I could agree to a 3 stone challenge, especially in the case of a more combat focused game as Griss mentoned.

[simonatomus777]

I think muteness is more akin to a minor disability (2-3w) than to a lost sense.
Having said that, I will now weigh in on the question as asked. I think it largely depends on the circumstances presented in the setting. Like in a modern day, real world-type setting, with the level of technology available and the prevalence of literacy, I could certainly be swayed to the 3w argument. This, however, presumes that the world (society, culture, etc.) is the way it is, which surely need not be the case in every setting. If the technology to communicate is not available, then naturally communication is more difficult and I would be more inclined to award 4w. Literacy is a factor here as well, for both the mute and the societal norms of the setting. Can everybody read and write, or might a given culture only allow its learned elite (wizards, priests, statesmen, etc.) to learn? It does the mute little good being literate if the majority of people can't ever read what they write, but they are even worse off if they are not literate at all; absolute worst case scenario (e.g. dark ages, mute is illiterate, literacy restricted), I might even award 5w.

[simonatomus777]

As a semi-related aside, I am curious to know how you guys might adjudicate Losing a Sense - Touch (can't feel pain, temperature, etc.). I saw a bad GM once award somebody 5w for this and it literally never became an issue ever again, like he forgot he even did it or it was even a thing. What implications, other than that the player might not get to know when the character takes damage, could a loss of tactile sensation present in terms of a Challenge?

[Neros]

Oh yes, the circumstance would greatly affect the cost. The literacy example is a very good one, especially if the setting is set today when English is so widely spoken/written and there are so many tools to communicate. Just imagine a future setting where Telepathic translators are basically implanted into every newborn... Or something like that.

And for the other question: I agree with you. 5w for that Challenge is way to much. I would even say that it is a little of and advantage since it could justify a normal human getting Toughness. And I would say losing your sense of touch is mostly a roleplaying thing. There could be situations where it could be important where the character could miss important ques about a situation/location (a hum vibrating through the floor from a bomb being armed, radiation slowly affecting his health, etc.)

[Gris]

May 31, 2019 13:28:52 GMT -5 simonatomus777 said:

As a semi-related aside, I am curious to know how you guys might adjudicate Losing a Sense - Touch (can't feel pain, temperature, etc.). I saw a bad GM once award somebody 5w for this and it literally never became an issue ever again, like he forgot he even did it or it was even a thing. What implications, other than that the player might not get to know when the character takes damage, could a loss of tactile sensation present in terms of a Challenge?

The problem there wasn't as much as the 5w, but about something that important for the character being forgotten.

I'm currently playing a character with such a challenge here: murpg.proboards.com/thread/21003/cad-shinozaki-ayana-hype (with the challenge valued at 4w, but that doesn't really matter). The challenge is one of the two core ideas with the character. On one side she's (or she was) a diligent Japanese student that had been strictly raised in certain traditional values who's currently rebelling against said values after perceiving that it's more about the image people have of you than about really being a certain way herself, something that connects with her own duplicitous behavior given that she's acting undercover. On the other side, the one that's relevant for the matter at hand, part of the power that makes her seemingly impervious to death and able to heal others comes with that lost sense inability. The important part of that, besides practical concerns like the ones already mentioned, is how it affects her behavior. Not being able to feel when someone is touching her makes the character also carry another challenge, making her extremely mindful of her personal space. It would also arise concerns about intimacy, boundaries, connection with others in the most elemental levels...

As said before, it's about how you spin it and the impact on the character and game more than about the challenge's name and cost.