Johannes replied to me: > I mean hollywood amish with their total pacifism.
Take the split between Vulcans and Romulans in Star Trek and exaggerate it ... > > An extremely powerful ability. But I dislike powers which alter the > > mind of player characters. > > Hence the option to make option, that it does not work fully on aliens, > not forcing them to act on it. If the pcs are humans they are aliens with > regard to that power. Pacifism could be a learned or inborn behaviour of the majority culture, without the need for psi. If the majority is strongly non-violent, they would have a hard time to stop equipment thefts by the violent minority, but they would ultimately act if the minority takes their worst crimes to the homeworld. As long as it happens a couple of gates away, the pacifism wins over the outrage. > If people abuse loopholes on grand scale for centuries, creating evil > pocket empires based on it, then you really need to think about changing > the rules eventually. Well, it puts a bad light at the mainstream society. Sanctimonious prigs. > > You wrote that the psi power enforces a compromise solution in the > > interests of everyone. This minority is part of the community, so > > their interest would be part of the solution ... > > If they are plain greedy, then yes. But if their interest is to hurt > others (and not willing masochists either) or exercise power over > unwilling subjects, then there simply is no compomise solution. The best > they can get is a sort of simulation, where they can roleplay their > villiany, but if they know that, it will still be a very unsatisfactory > compromise for them. The psi power would force the mainstream to accommodate the sadists if it works as advertised. Either it does affect such small groups, or it doesn't. > It also is a complex what if question, how hunting technology would have > developed without military weapons development. Would you start developing > weapons to hunt for food or pelts, if it is more efficient to get thoose > resources via animal husbandry. And if you start with primitive weapons, > hunting will not be all that efficient. Hunting could be a defense against dangerous animals. Hikers in bear-infested woods need a compact weapon to stop a bear cold. Think Zat. Other hunters would offensively go after problem animals. They need a ranged weapon, but probably not a high RoF. No autofire for suppression since animals don't shoot back. Like the staff weapon, except for the weird lack of grips. > And how would hunting for sports develop? Modifications on existing tools > yes, but how much effort would there be to develop entirely new weapons. People developed entirely new classes of weapons to deal with animals in slaughterhouses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_bolt_pistol Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
