Is giving non sentience to a character ever appropriate?

BeardedDork · Post by **BeardedDork** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 2:52 pm

My players had a very brief encounter with Man-Bat last night and for the brief moment of the encounter I simply used the Animal Genius replacing it's super speed with flight with the wings limitation. But as I'm actually building the character I was wondering if it would be appropriate to give him the normal disadvantage and the nonsentience advantage, possibly also with alter ego.

Post by **BASHMAN** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:26 am

This character is an NPC, yes? If so, then yes, it is fine. This is basically like some sort of feral were-wolf with no real sentience during transformation, cannot distinguish friend from foe, etc.

I'd also be sure to add "Alter Ego (Inconvenient)" and "Uncontrollable Transformation"

kevperrine · Post by **kevperrine** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 1:44 am

BASHMAN wrote:This character is an NPC, yes? If so, then yes, it is fine.

Confused.
Why does it matter?

I understand NPCs/Villains having some latitude for the Narrator to "fudge" the rules. But is that what this is, or is there a rule or something?
I really like when NPCs function very similar to PCs in building and play style.

Just wondering
-kev-

Post by **BASHMAN** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 3:31 am

kevperrine wrote:
BASHMAN wrote:This character is an NPC, yes? If so, then yes, it is fine.

Confused.
Why does it matter?

I understand NPCs/Villains having some latitude for the Narrator to "fudge" the rules. But is that what this is, or is there a rule or something?
I really like when NPCs function very similar to PCs in building and play style.

Just wondering
-kev-

It says in the description of Non-Sentience that PCs cannot have it.

BeardedDork · Post by **BeardedDork** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 10:47 am

What is the reason behind it saying that, what if I had a player who would uncontrollably turn into a bestial bat creature with no more control over themselves than a dog? Would it not still be appropriate?

Post by **BASHMAN** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 3:45 am

In that case I guess it would be fine, but what would the character do in their sentient form?

Also, the Narrator would probably take control of the character when it was in non-sentient mode.

kevperrine · Post by **kevperrine** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:49 am

BASHMAN wrote:In that case I guess it would be fine, but what would the character do in their sentient form?

Also, the Narrator would probably take control of the character when it was in non-sentient mode.

I think this could be an interesting fun take on a classic Jekyll & Hyde - except the "non-sentient" is controlled by the Narrator (and could be completely animal-like - as in a semi-heroic style version of classic Hulk or potentially a animal-element-of-nature destructive villain) THEN the PC-Hero would be under the player's control that could have any sorts of powers they like to fight crime and/or fight to stop/clean-up the damage his alter-ego did...

This is inspiring an idea for me!

-kev-