Masks, Personas, and Flesh-Shaping: Playing With Shapeshifting (And a Few Other Advantages)

Happy Halloween, everyone! It’s unthinkable and shameful that we’re nearly through the entirety of October, yet I haven’t written even one post for the best month of the year. I’ve decided to rectify that by giving a generic GURPS post on a subject close to the spirit of the season: putting on a different guise. Shapeshifting, in both figurative and literal forms, features in stories, art, and cultural practices the world over. Why, exactly, are they so ubiquitous? Given that shapeshifting iconography goes back into prehistory, it seems like something that’s pretty big to the human consciousness, and the usual suggestion is that shapeshifting (or at least animal-related shapeshifting) related to crossing the perceived boundaries between humans and the rest of the natural world.

Whatever the reason for its prevalence, the theme of changing form has remained with us into the present day in both real world belief and fictional media alike. For GURPS, shapeshifting is primarily achieved through the two advantages listed under…well, Shapeshifting. In some edge cases, other advantages do come into play instead, but for the most part those two advantages are where any skin-changing spellcaster, superpowered hero, or strange esoteric being will be heading for mechanics. This isn’t nearly the end-all-be-all on shapeshifting as a concept – especially when it only covers advantages and disadvantages, not skill-based skill systems and such – nor do I expect anyone to find it on par with an officially published GURPS title, but hopefully it’s at least a somewhat useful set of gathered rambling thoughts on the subject. The post format was inspired by the one used by Christopher Rice/Ghostdancer for his GURPS 101 advantage posts, but tries to avoid adhering to it 100%, as 1. I’d prefer my words to flow in my own way, not someone else’s. 2. I’m not nearly the level of writer he is. I had originally planned to end this post with a set of premade shapeshifter goodies, but time was against me, so that will be a follow-up post at a later date.

Dissecting the Shapeshifting Advantages

The Bare Basics

Starting with the very basics that anyone who has looked through the GURPS Basic Set already knows, Shapeshifting (GURPS Basic Set, pg. 83 to 85) is a header for two advantages: Alternate Form for a single secondary form to change into, and Morph for any living or “formerly living” (undead, based on other rule comments) alternate form within a point limit that you can see and/or touch, with the option to memorize a number of them equal to your IQ score as permanent parts of your repertoire unless you decide to forget one. Assuming there are no modifiers applied, it takes ten seconds of concentration to change between forms. Damage is shared between forms, though it changes proportionally if total HP is altered, and death or unconsciousness reverts the user to their primary form. One note that seems to never be brought up is that the Basic Set states that you require one “reasonably common” criteria that prematurely terminates your shapeshifting and puts you back in base form, such as dispelling.

GURPS Horror adds a third type of Shapeshifting called Disadvantageous Alternate Form. Rather than have an Alternate Form advantage that is monstrous or evil but nonetheless roleplayed by the player, Disadvantageous Alternate Form is a disadvantage that forces the player character to become a GM-controlled NPC when in their alternate form.

Advantage-Specific Enhancements

Absorptive Change (Price varies, Alternate Form only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75): Clothes, armor, and other worn and carried gear gets absorbed when you shapeshift, then reappears when you return to your base form. Convenient for avoiding wardrobe malfunctions and lost personal effects.

Active Change (+20%; GURPS Powers, pg. 75): You don’t need to concentrate while changing, meaning you can perform normal actions. This is a must-have enhancement for cinematic changes where the protagonist charges forward while changing into a more powerful form and other similar show stealers.

Improvised Form (+100%, Morph only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75): Rather than exchanging the currently used racial template, you can mix and match whatever you wish as long as it doesn’t break your point total for Morph or incorporate things that don’t exist in the setting; you also still need Unlimited for things that require it, of course. This is a common enhancement for comic book heroes capable of shapeshifting

No Memorization Required (+50%, Morph only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75): Another rules exemption enhancement, this one makes your memorization bank unlimited.

Non-Reciprocal Damage (+50%, Alternate Form only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75): Your two forms track damage separately. Assuming you don’t have Reciprocal Rest, however, the two forms also track recovery separately, which can be a burden when you need to heal up your combat form but also need to do everyday things as an everyday person.

Occupational Shifting (Cost varies; Pyramid #3-72, pg. 32): While Shapeshifting of either sort normally has you change your racial template, Occupational Shifting lets you alter your occupational template, either in lieu of or in addition to the normal functions of the advantages. Appearing in the article “Dungeon Fantasy Video Gaming”, it is meant to emulate job systems in games such as Final Fantasy V and Bravely Default.

Reciprocal Rest (+30%, Alternate Form only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75): Regardless of which form you’re in, your other form is getting rest and recovery. This is meant to be taken in combination with Non-Reciprocral Damage for a secondary form that has its own damage but still gets the benefits of healing when it’s not being used.

Unlimited (+50%, Morph only; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 85): Removes that pesky “must be living or formerly living” limiter for Morph. Mechanical devices, elemental beings, incorporeal entities, and inanimate objects are now in the shapeshifter’s already wide repertoire.

Advantage-Specific Limitations

Cannot Memorize Forms (-50%, Morph only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75, GURPS Fantasy, pg. 131, and GURPS Horror, pg. 18): The opposite of No Memorization Required, in that you can never memorize a form. This means you always have to be able to see or touch whatever you want to turn into, no exceptions, which can provide issues if you really wanted to turn into that elephant you saw at the zoo last week to break out of a cage, but the only thing nearby you can look to to transform is a measly mouse.

Cosmetic (-50%; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 84): The limitation for an Alternate Form or Morph that only changes appearance, not actual mechanics of the character. This is the perfect limitation for creating illusory forms, perhaps even moreso than the actual Illusion advantage! On Morph, it includes Mass Conservation by default.

Flawed (-10%, Morph only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75 and GURPS Horror, pg. 18): Be it having an always vaguely ‘fake’ feel, always looking like you’re made of red metal, or whatever, there’s always something about you that makes it impossible to pretend to impersonate individuals. A poster child for this limitation is Beast Boy of DC Comics’ Teen Titans with his perpetually green body.

Linked Changes (-25%, Alternate Form only; GURPS Fantasy, pg. 131): Through some manner of supernatural ties, two individuals end up transforming at the same time, either both to their base form and vice versa or one to their base form while the other becomes their alternate form and vice versa. Since the two recipients need not to have the same base and alternate forms, this could be used for any number of interesting dichotomies.

Mass Conservation (-20%, Morph only; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 85): You’re only able to change forms into other things that can normally be your same general mass. This effectively limits your ability to take on larger or smaller forms; if you’re human and have Morph with Mass Conservation, no amount of gains are going to get you the bulk to turn into an elephant.

Needs Sample (Cost varies, Morph only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75 and GURPS Horror, pg. 18): You need a fresh physical sample of what you’re going to transform into, be it merely having to touch rather than see, requiring a small bit of genetic material, or having to horrifyingly devour what you want to be.

Only When Insubstantial (Cost varies; GURPS Fantasy, pg. 131): As it says, this creates a character only transform when insubstantial, such as a soul that can shapeshift when untethered from the body or a protean ghost whose form loses its malleability when they fully materialize. There are differently priced versions for being able to keep a shifted form when you become corporeal once more for -5% or if you lose the form as soon as you stop being insubstantial for -10%; the latter appears in later titles as an Accessibility for any advantage, keeping its -10% price.

Preventable (-10%; GURPS Supers, pg. 28): Your transformation is predicated on a spoken phrase, gesture, holding aloft a magic sword, or some other manner of action that can be interrupted and thus stop you from transforming. Think Billy Batson’s cry of “Shazam!” as he becomes the hero formerly known as Captain Marvel, or Prince Adam with his sword-waving and catch-phrase used to become He-Man. This doesn’t replace Gadget limitations, so you still need to add those separately if they’re required.

Projected Form (-50%, Alternate Form only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75 and GURPS Horror, pg. 19): You enter a trance and conjure a secondary physical entity that you control. This could be some manner of manually controlled thoughtform, a heroic (or villainous) alter ego that is made manifest rather than changed into physically, an avatar of a patron supernatural entity gifted to a follower, or even the soul itself given an external secondary shell. It’s even a potential limitation for werewolves, based on certain traditions surrounding them. According to a forum post by GURPS line editor Sean Punch, while Projected Form can only be applied as a limitation to Alternate Form rather than morph, the projection itself can have Morph as an advantage to be a many-faced alter ego. As useful as having a projected form is, it’s nonetheless clear why it’s a cost-reducing limitation rather than an enhancement: not only are you effectively comatose while ‘piloting’ the projection, you have to be in a limited range of the projection to desummon it and wake up, and you still have both yourself and the projection die if either form gets killed.

Required Intermediate Form (Cost varies, Alternate Form only; GURPS Fantasy, pg. 131): This advantage can only be taken if you have at least two Alternate Forms, and makes it so you have to either go back to your base form in between alternate forms or have to go through a transitional chain of your alternate forms. An example of the latter would be a werebeast that has to assume a hybrid beast-man form before becoming fully animal or fully human in shape.

Retains Shape (-20%, Morph only; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 85): Retains Shape limits your Morph to other things with the same general shape, posture, and limb count. If combined with Mass Conservation, things become particularly specialized. For example, human with regular Morph could easily become an elf, a 10″ tall winged demon, or a mule deer (as well as a myriad of other forms, but examples often live on simplicity). Adding Retains Shape would leave the elf and demon but remove the deer, Mass Conservation would leave the elf and mule deer but remove the demon, and both Retains Shape and Mass Conservation together would just leave the elf.

Skinbound (Cost Varies; GURPS Fantasy, pg. 131, GURPS Horror, pg. 19, and GURPS Powers: The Weird, pg. 23): A limitation that halves the normal costs of Gadget modifiers taken in tandem with it, Skinbound means you either wear the skin of what you wish to shapeshift into or remove your own skin to take on another form beneath it. It is one of the more common forms of shapeshifter in folklore and religion, with examples including the skinwalker of the Diné, selkie of the North Atlantic islands, Sigmund and Singfjötli of the Icelandic Volsunga Saga, and a fair amount of witches in the tales of Medieval Europe. In modern fiction, especially urban fantasy, some doppelgangers have this advantage due to needing to wear the flayed skin of the individual they wish to emulate. While GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Horror limited this limitation to Alternate Form, GURPS Powers: The Weird rules it to be applicable to Morph as well.

Unliving Forms Only (-0%, Morph only; GURPS Powers, pg. 75): You get the benefits the Unlimited enhancement, but at the cost of no longer having the normal benefits of Morph.

Some Useful General Enhancements and Limitations

There are far too many general enhancements and limitations to reasonably list them all, but here are some that are particularly useful in emulating specific types of shapeshifting powers.

Accessibility (Cost varies; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 110 and GURPS Power-Ups 8: Limitations, pg. 4 and 5): One of the workhorses of relatively open-ended modifiers, Accessibility is there for you when you need some measure of limited usage in an advantage or disadvantage. An Accessibility such as “Animals only” on Morph can turn a near endless repertoire into one that has a limited theme but is still very wide in its applicable uses, for instance, and “Only during full moon” is a classic trait of the cinematic werewolf. Other potentially useful forms of Accessibility include “Only at night”/”Only during the day” (maybe skin-changing witches only work under the cover of darkness because they are literally incapable of doing so during the day), “Not during [season]” (a wintery shapeshifter might become “dormant” in regard to their powers during the summer), and “Requires [item]” (more on that in the paragraph on Gadget below).

Can Carry Objects (Cost varies; GURPS Powers, pg. 108): An alternative to Absorption, this enhancement allows you to transform your equipment along with yourself rather than have it magically vanish within you.

Cosmic (Cost varies; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 103): The text for Cosmic in the Basic Set explicitly calls out “Immune to negation by external forces” for Shapeshifting as a +50% example of the enhancement.

Emergencies Only (-30%; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 112): Transformation via stress is typified in the change of Marvel’s Bruce Banner into his monstrous green alter ego when he becomes full to the brim with anger. Of course, “Hulking out” isn’t the only possible use of this limitation on an Alternate Form: it could also be some manner of supernatural defense mechanism triggered in a magical creature when it feels threatened, part of a multi-mode robot’s safety protocols, or a curse that induces a weaker Alternate Form in combat to force a ‘hits first, asks questions later’ warrior to learn lateral thinking.

Gadget Limitations (Cost varies; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 116 and 117): In addition to being used in tandem with Skinbound, Gadget limitations can reflect any number of other transformation-aiding devices such as an ultra-tech belt, magic fairy cap, or wizard’s wand/staff. Note that Gadget assumes you require a specific, specially-made device. If you can use any of a certain kind of item, then the Accessibility type “Requires [item]” is more apropos: carving your own one-of-a-kind wooden mask to draw out its sympathetic magic and take on an Alternate Form is a Gadget, being able to transform with any wooden mask on your face is an Accessibility.

Glamour (Cost varies; GURPS Powers, pg. 111 and GURPS Power-Ups 8: Limitations, pg. 13): Only applicable to Alternate Form or Morph if the Cosmetic limitation is also present, Glamour helps cement the feel of supernatural illusion.

Limited Use (Cost varies; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 112): “Once per night” is an official use of Limited Use on an Alternate Form, being combined with Uncontrollable Trigger to force a werebeast to only transform into their were form and then not back again until the night has passed.

Maximum Duration (Cost varies; GURPS Powers, pg. 111 and GURPS Power-Ups 8: Limitations, pg. 15): Maximum Duration is good for shapeshifters that have to a limited amount of change time, or combined with either Minimum Duration or Limited Use to put a timer on how long a form has to be remained in.

Nuisance Effect (Cost varies; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 112 and 113): Another workhorse of variability, Nuisance Effect can describe any number of awkward and deleterious effects that accompany your shapeshifting. A classic Nuisance Effect on Morph is having some body part never change when your form does, such as retaining donkey’s hooves, glowing red eyes,or a fox’s tail; note that this same effect on Alternate Forms is instead listed as taking Unnatural/Supernatural Features on the alternate form’s template.

Once On, Stays On (+50%; GURPS Powers, pg. 109 and GURPS Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, pg 16): An enhancement that overrides the normal rule that unconsciousness or death reverts a physical transformation. While not unique to Shapeshifting, it has obvious applicability therein. GURPS Dragons has the similar “No reversion while asleep or unconscious” as a pricy +150% enhancement, but it seems reasonable to retcon this as Once On, Always On given that GURPS Powers is the newer title of the two.

Reduced Time (+20% per level; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 108) and Takes Extra Time (-10% per level; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 115): While shapeshifting in folklore and media are rarely given exact time durations, many seem instantaneous or excruciatingly drawn out. These modifiers allow you to change the default ten second duration of transformation time between forms to be as short or long as you wish.

Trigger (Cost varies; GURPS Basic Set, pg. 115): Trigger helps with the creation of the large number of transformations induced by a specific circumstance, substance, or similar cause. In both European and Colonial American folk tales, some witches rub themselves with a magical ointment to take animal form, and Dr. Jekyll had his formula that drew out the darker aspects of his nature to create Mr. Hyde. It’s also a great limitation for an environmental shapeshifter, such as mutant who gains an alternate form with gills and fins when entering the water or an elemental super that gains the Body of Flame meta-trait when exposed to high temperatures. Note that Uncontrollable Trigger (see below) is taken instead when you can’t ever opt out of transforming when coming in contact to your Trigger.

Uncontrollable Trigger (Cost varies; GURPS Powers, pg. 106-107 and GURPS Power-Ups 8: Limitations, pg. 19): The flipside of Trigger, Uncontrollable Trigger is just as its name implies, being a trigger you don’t personally control. The full moon is the most popular example, but not the only one. Various comedies have played with involuntary shapeshifting via hiccups, sneezes, and any other number of bodily functions, and Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2 has transformation into an alternate form through cold water.

Other Form-Altering Advantages

While Alternate Form and Morph may form the backbone of transformative advantages, there are times when others are more well-suited.

Other Physical Alterations

Sometimes, you just need to change one aspect of yourself, not many, and it happens that in some cases there are appropriate advantages to do the job.

Elastic Skin: While shapeshifting entirely may be beyond you, Elastic Skin is useful for simple disguises, allowing you to shift around your facial features to disguise yourself. As with Shapeshifting proper, Glamour can transform this advantage’s flavor from a physical alteration to an illusory power.

Growth and Shrinking: While Alternate Forms can be differently sized than your base form, these advantages are your go-to if you simply wish to become larger or smaller.

Hermaphromorph: The ability to change between physical sexes at will isn’t a particularly common power, but there are examples to draw on, such as a number of stories of succubi/incubi.

Switchable Physical Advantages: One way of reflecting minor shapeshifting powers is by placing the Switchable enhancement on physical traits such as Claws, Sharp Teeth, and Extra Arms.

Stretching: Any number of rubber men and women of super fiction and other stories of adventuring do-gooders are, of course, using Stretching as their big gimmick. Rather than a full alternate form to shapeshift into, these individuals can stretch and contort their bodies to the limit.

Of Punishment and Power-Ups: Afflicting Change

The curse of wolf form thrust upon King Lycaon by Zeus, the witch that transforms the unwilling victim into a frog, and the fairy that hexes the prideful prince to become a monstrous beast: all are classic examples of a change in form based on the powers of an individual other than the changed. In GURPS terms, this is Affliction bestowing an Alternate Form, an official worked example of which can already be found in the Frog Curse ability (GURPS Powers, pg. 143). While such powers in traditional stories are wielded by what would be classified as NPCs in a roleplaying narrative context, there’s room for both NPC and player afflicted changes in an RPG. The purpose of a transformative Affliction can be sorted into several categories.

Many older stories featuring a transformation have it as a punitive action,punishing the target for a perceived transgression. In many cases, this change is meant to reflect upon the transgression, either as part of a lesson or as simple ironic punishment: vanity rewarded with a monstrously ugly form, a bigot given the guise of their targeted prejudice, an animal abuser transformed into the animal they abused, etc. Others may be thematic for the changer rather than the changed, such as a fairy of the wilderness giving plant forms or a machine god spreading its metal embrace. And, of course, there are some that have seemingly no thematics, such as the sorceries of the goddess Circe. Punitive transformations are for the most part not particularly well-suited for abilities utilized by player character, but as with anything it ultimately falls to what the players and the GM are comfortable with. Similarly, a portion of plot wherein a PC/PCs are the targets of such a change should only be performed if the players in question are okay with it.

The form of Affliction-based shapeshifting that is more traditionally player friendly is that of the beneficial alteration of an ally for a specific task. This is the shaman that buffs their warrior ally with a very powerful combat form, the wizard who turns their party into mice to sneak into the heavily-guarded castle, or the hero who has the superpower to make themselves and others as malleable as rubber. This is more a theme of modern fantasy stories and roleplaying games than ancient ones, and slots in especially cleanly with the Sorcery magic system. Simply follow the rules of building Buff keyword spells (GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery, pg. 9) and have the Affliction spells give the Alternate Forms you wish to have.

Possession With Ill-Intent

Possession in its normal state is reflavored as Pod People body snatching in GURPS Horror, and a reflavored Possession with the Mind Swap enhancement is an easier way to reflect a shapeshifter forcibly taking someone’s form while giving the victim their own base form. Furthermore, in a more recent addition to the GURPS mechanics library, the September 2015 edition of Pyramid magazine (Pyramid #3/83, pg. 30) provided the Transformative enhancement for Possession, a modifier that allows the possessing entity to alter the body of its host. This is another concept that is more modern than ancient, with the motif of demons becoming monstrous and disfigured being a particularly popular one across pop culture. Also popular is the idea that a possessing spirit slowly makes the body it inhabits more comfortable…by its own standards, of course. This type of transformation is not entirely tethered to modern fiction, however, as there are some historical narratives wherein werewolves are purported to be the result of possession by an unclean spirit. Certain versions of the wendigo narrative similarly have it as a corrupting spirit that warps the flesh of its victim as they succumb to the dark urges of cannibalism.