Mind Control

Cost: [50]

Mind Control [50] is an exotic mental Advantage where you can mentally dominate those you can see or touch. Without special enhancement the subject will remember them doing the actions but not know why they did them

mental connection

Mind Control establishes an invisible mental connection, depends on the user’s mental capacity (IQ), and must overcome the target’s willpower

communication and language

The description "will obey your every command" raises the question: is UNDERSTANDING a command assumed? What if it is given in an order they don't speak?

Clarification on this vagueness can be found in later powers based on the ability. For example on page 149 of GURPS Powers the Linguistic Programming ability is described as "for two seconds in a master language understood by all sapient minds" and has no special enhancements to reflect that. It in fact has the Hearing-Based limitation, which adds an extra requirement in addition to either sight/touch.

Hearing-Based reflects only the need for your target to be able to hear (deafness protects) but not actually the need to speak, or the need to be understood. These are approached in the ability Imperium in Powers: The Weird 27 which define two Accessibilities on top of Hearing-Based: Must be able to speak and Only those who know your language

on animals

The emphasis on "sapient minds" (IQ6+) seems to imply that Mind Control requires the Speak With Animals ability for Mind Control to affect animals. There is no "sapient minds only" limitation applied to the ability to reflect why Linguistic Programming has that specificity.

The GURPS Sorcery approach to Animal Control is however based on Mind Control with the accessibility of "animals only" worth -25%, which implies it CAN be used that way.

One possible explanation however is that sometimes limitations actually introduce partial enhancements built into them as sort of a "meta-modifier". For example:

• Insubstantial Only includes Affects Insubstantial baked into it
• Afflictions and Inanimate Targets (Powers 40) mentions in it's 2nd paragraph "Afflictions restricted to inanimate targets via Accessibility modifiers (such as “Only on Electrical”) affect those objects instead of living beings."
• Mana-Sensitive includes benefits in High Mana such as next-second FP refund

The confusion caused by this might be avoided by codifying beneficial aspects as enhancements. Like for example if it didn't work on animals by default and it was a +5% enhancement, and "doesn't work on sapients" were -30%, that would work out to the net -25% mentioned.

"Mind Control: Many skills can replace IQ: Animal Handling to affect beasts, Computer Hacking to control computers (requires Cybernetic or Cybernetic Only)"<ref=name="P116"/>.

Given the lack of a similar "requires" parenthesis, some readers might take that to imply that a special ability isn't needed for animals but IS needed for computers.

• You are completely immune to any power defined as “Telepathic,” and to magic spells that specifically affect living minds

Mind Control and Mind Reading do not actually specify "telepathic" though, so this might only be a consideration when using the Psi source

cross-examination

P195 under "Mind Control and Possession" mentions how it might be used in lieu of Mind Reading to glean information:

A mind-controlled victim can be cross-examined at will, making this an effective if indirect form of mind reading, prone to derail mystery plots.

The mind controller does need to know what questions to ask, but “What should I ask?” is a good start . . .

This can be confusing since it's not worded like a command, "tell me what I should ask" would be more spot-on.

duration and awareness

P195 also specifies:

these powers almost always come with complications.

Often, controlling an opponent requires all of the controller’s attention or has an unreliable duration,

so the PCs never know quite when they’re going to lose their pawn.

It seems like BOTH aspects could apply to mind control. The initial (possibly unlimited duration) control "requires all attention", while the post-concentration duration is not a fixed (ie reliable) length, it is based on the Margin of Success.

The phrase "never know quite when" implies that:

• the character doesn't actually know what MOS they got, just that it's at least 1

Beyond that though, it also seems to imply that it might not be clear when the ability ends (not just inability to predict when it ends) since that would be an obvious fix for avoiding false info from a pawn: you'd sense the ability had ended, stop questioning them and re-initiate a new Mind Control attack.

Distraction and Injury

B68 talks about a quick contest in extreme situations inflicted upon the user: incapacitation such as "stunned" or "knocked out". This applies the residual (MoS minutes) duration.

One thing which might be overlooked however is the condition termination of the initial indefinite-lengthe period: "persists for as long as you take uninterrupted Concentrate maneuvers."

What constitutes "uninterrupted" is not clarified here, and might lead people to think "so long as I do not take another maneuver choice", which one generally cannot be obligated to do unless stunned, which forces a Do Nothing.

The meaning is eventually clarified on page 155 of GURPS Powers under the explanation for Involuntary Deactivation and is much broader than a stun though, it effectively works like with casting magic spells:

• switchable abilities that require constant concentration; e.g., Control, Illusion, Mind Control, Telekinesis, and anything modified with Requires Concentrate
• If the user of such an ability attempts an active defense or resistance roll (against an Affliction, spell, etc.), makes a self-control roll for a mental disadvantage,falls, or suffers affliction or injury, he must make a Will-3 roll.
• Failure means he loses his focus and his ability switches off.

This clarifies how much more useful Independent is.

Altered Time Rate

P42 notes for the Super-Speed enhancement that users can't hasten "special abilities" and "concentrating on Mind Control" is listed as an example. This doesn't seem to be a restriction for the baseline use of the ability, but using the Size and Speed/Range Table quantities for it.

immunity

New Approach means any immunities that happen due to past failures cease to apply once this is removed via the Decreased Immunity enhancement

Independence enhancement

P61 notes taking this enhancement:

doesn’t require ongoing attention. If it works, you’re free to do other things.

It has a slight drawback:

can’t claim the +2 or +4 for lengthy

This is described as:

control persists for one minute per point by which he lost

With this limit:

can’t maintain it indefinitely by concentrating

Given that the baseline ability, after one ceases concentration, ALREADY lasts 1 minute per MoV, this raises questions as to why someone would take it. These are listed as unique benefits not applying to the normal version:

• "only an attempt to force the subject to act against his principles can break"

The only other baseline "break" conditions other than this is incapacitation (only knockout and stun are listed as examples) so the primary purpose seems to be to remove this.

Pg 21 of Psionic Powers notes under Reduced Duration:

cannot be applied to advantages with a “maintained” duration, such as Mind Control

(though Mind Control ffffwith the Independent enhancement would qualify).

PP50's Drain Emotion is an example of this enhancement being applied at +70% and described as:

loses the ability to experience any emotions for (10 x your margin of victory) seconds.

This seems to ignore B68's "Once you stop, your control lingers" requirement, which made the effects of that enhancement baked into the ability already.

PP62's Suggestion on the other hand (which does not have Independent) acknowledges it:

you can give him orders for as long as you concentrate, and then for minutes equal to your margin of victory afterward

PP72 appears to do the same for Beast Control:

can give it orders for as long as you concentrate, and then for minutes equal to your margin of victory afterward.

requirements

P61's Pheromones mentions "doesn’t work by touch or sight" though it's unclear how those requirements were bought off.

Special Enhancements

• Conditioning (+50%)
• Independent (+70&)
• No Memory (+10%)
• Rationalization (+20%)
• Slow and Sure (+40% or +80)

Special Limitations

• Conditioning Only (-50%)
• Emotion Control (-50%): mutually exclusive with Conditioning Only and Suggestion
• Puppet (-40%)
• Suggestion (-40%): mutually exclusive with Conditioning Only and Emotion Control
• Telepathic (-10%)
• Mind Tricks (-20%)
• Zombie Command

Alternatives

• Very high Charisma
• Dominance
• Possession

Fantasy

GURPS Fantasy 53 for the Wendigo expands the ability in interesting ways

Conditioning Only is present as a limitation without requiring the Conditioning enhancement. GURPS Psionic Powers 15 mentions Slow and Sure "must be combined with Conditioning or Conditioning Only" making a similar implication. So this is net -50% not 50-50=0

The +105% Symptoms enhancement which is defined as

• +10 ST,
• Unnatural Feature: Gaunt
• Unnatural Feature: Glowing eyes
• Unnatural Feature: Long tongue
• Unnatural Feature: Matted hair
• Unnatural Feature: Sallow skin

Conditioning can normally "add or remove any mundane mental disadvantage". Symptoms appears to add additional limited capabilities of alternation here also:

• add mundane physical advantages (ST) worth 50 points
• add supernatural physical disadvantages (Unnatural Features) worth 5 points

It's unclear if this was defined somewhere.

Giving +1 to ST (worth 10 points) is a +100% affliction enhancement, so giving 10 points would be +1000%. Giving a quirk (-1 unnatural feature) is merely a +1% enhancement, giving all 5 would be +5%

The Symptoms enhancement designed for Innate Attack uses these base costs for the 2/3 level, and they are multiplied even higher for the 1/2 and 1/3 levels of HP.

Conditioning appears to impart all of these at once rather than a gradual growth. Rather than lasting until HP is healed, it lasts 1 day per "point of success" (probably meaning Margin of Victory

The "at -1 per full -5 points of disadvantages changed" suggests 15 points were changed because the Wendigo rolls at -3.

If there was a typo and it was only meant to be +1 to ST, this would make more sense, because -1 to ST is a 10 point disadvantage and combined with -5 for 5 unnatural features (the maximum) would be a full -15 points.

If the Cumulative enhancement was borrowed from Affliction, that 400% would somehow need to be heavily reduced.

Quotes

Kromm in 2007:

abilities that let the PCs gather and send information are priced so high: they can be used to get a "fix" for abilities that require line of sight, which is a huge number of abilities, including Mind Control

References

• Basic Set pg 68-69
• GURPS Powers pg 61