From: woodhams@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Michael Woodhams)
Subject: Re: GURPS Absent-Mindedness and Disads in General
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University Observatory
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 03:30:16 GMT

In article <ByzuL5.1C8@csugrad.cs.vt.edu> kerr@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (Shane Kerr) writes:
>As long as I'm bitching about GURPS, I might as well toss in
>comments about the Absent-Mindedness disadvantage.  Let's see...
>you suffer a -5 IQ roll except for the task you are currently 
>acting on.  That's steep, but for -15 points, I figure that's 
>okay.  All it really does is prevent you from standing guard
>and make you an airhead.
>
>HOWEVER, if no interesting task is presenting itself, then
>you drift off into your own thoughts - and you leave the world!
>You have to roll vs IQ-5 to notice anything short of physical
>injury.  I guess it depends on what your character considers

As a real life absent minded person, I can add a little bit of reality
checking to this. The biggest problem is not forgetting things
(although this happens to) but just not remembering them at the right
time. This means that if somebody asked me "when is your doctor's
appointment" I would (probably) immediately be able to reply "2:30". I
can even think at 12:00 "I must remember the doctor's appointment",
but at 2:15 when I should be leaving, it has completely slipped my
mind, and I don't remember again until 6 or something. The other
reasonably major problem is forgetting people's names and faces.
Anyone who I meet only once a week has a fairly small chance of having
their name remembered. Somebody I've met a couple of times can come
up to me and I will not even recognise them.

The mental "leaving the world" also happens, but it is nothing like as
severe as in GURPS. This frequently happens while walking, or reading
a dull text. I maintain sufficient awareness of the world to navigate
and wake up sufficiently to cross roads. (Unfortunately for the world
and Marie, Pierre Curie fumbled this roll once.) Simply being
addressed is usually sufficient to retrieve my head from the clouds.
However I did have a conversation like this once:

Friend: "Why didn't you talk to us in town today?"
Me: "Huh? When?"
Friend: "Half an hour ago on Queen St. We were a couple of metres in
front of you."
Me: "I didn't see you."
Friend: "We were waving and calling you."

Bad spelling is another side effect of my absent mindedness. (To
demonstrate this, I've not run this post through a spell checker as I
normally would.) Sometimes I will start going to do something, get
lost in thought, and then suddenly realise I no longer know where I
was intending to go.

The example GURPS gives of the detective who forgets to reload his gun
is a good one. I get around some of these problems by cultivating
habits: my keys ALWAYS go straight back in my trouser pocket after
use. I ALWAYS transfer everything from the pockets of what I wore
yesterday into my clothes when I dress in the morning. I ALWAYS have a
collapsable umbrella in my bag, which I take with me almost
everywhere, so that by habit I take it away with me when I leave
somewhere.  I know that if I had a non-collapsable umbrella, it would
last about 3 days before getting lost. I try to compensate for my
absent mindedness by writing myself notes on the back of my hand,
warning people that I may forget their appointment etc. (Writing this,
I've just remembered I have to report an intramural bridge score from
Friday to the gym by tomorrow.)

In game terms: About 50% chance to forget an appointment, unless it is
very important. Roll under 5+number of times somebody's name has been
told to you to remember it. (Modified by how important the person is
to the character. The new boss's name will be remembered.) Roll under
6+3*(number of times you've met somebody) to recognise them (but
probably not remember their name.) On near misses, you know you know
them, but have no idea from where. When the character has their head
in the clouds, any unusual event or being addressed will bring them
down, with a couple of seconds to orient themselves. It is likely that
whatever was said to bring them out of it will have to be repeated.
Putting an absent minded character on guard duty would indeed be a
very bad idea. I don't think IQ affects chances to remember things
except in the amount of intelligence used in thinking of compensating
mechanisms.

Michael W.