I was looking at some of the character generation options recently when a number of things struck me as wrong or at least odd.

Mind Cleansed: Should this really be a origin? Wouldnt it fit in the game better as a Background Package or Elite Advance Package? Does a Hive Worlder who is mind cleansed suddenly gain 5 points of Toughness? Does a Feral Worlder who is mind cleanse lose 5 ponts of Strenght and Toughness, plus his higher starting wounds?

I think it could easily be modded into one of the other starting options.

Noble: Same as Mind Cleansed.

Schola Progenium: Same as Mind Cleansed.

While I agree on the MindCleansed (it struck me as well), I disagree on noble and Schola.

"Noble" (as far as I can understand) does not include petty things like "feudal warlords" or "lesser hive houses". It regards the vast, inter-sector noble class which seem to share a certain lifestyle, life in the same luxory and thereby have the same nutrition and education. As an indicator towards my notion: this "vendetta" thing would oterhwise have no further impact once the pc leaves his homeworld.

Funny side not: even in a medivial earth historical setting, the noblity all suffered from a certain illness since they never ate much vegetables but had a diet leaning heavily on met. Thereby, their body lacked certain things. At least in medivial Europe (Source for this: GUPRS Compendium II; I trust GURPS to be rather well researched. Other might differ on this).

"Schola" as well is something (at least I assume to be) an imperial organization with very standarized methods of raising there children. It might be that this one child was hiver when he was 10 years old, but from that on he was raised by the Schola, got Schola training, Schola education and Schola Nutrition in a Schola environment.

Thereby, those two are to me quiet alright as "Origin"

Gregorius21778 said:

Understood. Think I will work on reworking the Mindcleanse.

One argument one could make for why Mind cleansed works as Homeworld is that the flavour text implies that most of what the person was is purged. This includes all those little knacks and tricks one picks up by being Feral/Hive/Forge/whateverworlder and those are perhaps hard to reproduce by whatever means they implement fake memories, so a Mind cleansed Hive worlder would not, by default be, "Accustomed to Crowds" anymore, for example. This hardly accounts for changes of physical characteristics, though.

Of course, one could argue that a decent implemention of fake memories should take care of that at least partially. So if you actually do turn Mind cleansed into a Background Package it might be best if the player picks the FAKE homeworld and not his real homeworld.

Edit: After re-reading the flavour text and traits for Mind cleansed I think it is actually very inconclusive and somewhat contradictionary. At one point they speak of leaving the mind pretty much a blank, waiting to be filled, while at another point they talk about destroying selective memories but leaving useful skills intact.

So yeah, depends entirely on how you read it, I guess.

Saibot said:

I'd say this is why it's an origin. Often, Mind-cleansed are used by Inquisitors simply because they want a blank slate who knowns little outside of service to their Inquisitor.

On the other hand, I think a well-done Mind-Cleansing elite advance would be really cool. Sort of like exorcism, it could be a dramatic way to remove the corruption and insanity points from an existing character. It could make for an interesting roleplaying experience as well, both for the "new" party member and his comrades.

Well, the mind and the flesh are connected in some strange ways. And minor attribute adjustments can easily be explained by minor damage or the body just not "remembering" the optimal way its supposed to react. Mind Cleansing, at least in my mind, should be a fairly apocalyptic event, so secondary effects and/or mild brain damage and corporeal trauma should be common consequences...just not for the PCs of course. Certainly I don't think the mild variation from the human norm are difficult to account for or explain away.

Sure you might have been a tough Feral worlder, but spending 3 months in recovery learning how to not drool all over yourself has cost you some muscle tone and endurance, and even though you seem as strong as ever, you feel somehow awkward and off-balance in this body of yours, unable to get the full effect out of your battle scarred bulk. On the flip side, you've had a lot of your preconceptions erased, and for weeks on end you've had to rely on others to help you do even the simplest things, making you more open to new ideas flooding into your blank mind, and more welcoming towards other humans.

Pretty sure you could make up whatever you wanted about the other homeworlds if you really wanted...

Not trying to rain on your parade, just that I think more origins are a good thing...even if some of them are a bit cheap or a bit too powerful...if anything, I feel that the Origins should be expanded slightly rather then removed or reworked into something else. Just my opinion of course.

Mind Cleansed can very well be a background package, while they wiped you and reprogrammed you they don't take away the inherent physical qualities of you being nor any skills learned in your youth.

Schola I think should be an Origens, it is the way you were raised in a protective inviroment, molded to be the perfect citizen.

Noble can swing both way, if its the way you've been raised yes, if it is a title you gained later in life no.

If this thread highlights anything, I think it's this: there are different levels to which your mind can be cleansed.

For my part, after being mind-scrubbed out of two years of my character's life she simply took the Mind Cleansed traits as part of an Elite Advance and left it at that.

To a large extent, Mind Cleansed and Infil-Traitor could work just as easily as Elite Advances or Background Packages as well as they do now, possibly more so. Having said that, as an Origin and as a Rank, I see no particular trouble with them as it stands. Just that others could use them in non-standard ways too.