Judged Unfairly and the Gift

Since the typical Gift gives social penalties by inducing unease and distrust in mundanes, how is that different then the minor flaw Judged Unfairly?

Judged Unfairly only affects people, not animals or supernatural beings.

HoH:MC p.87 Offensive to (Beings) is a Minor General Flaw and allows you to specify only mundane people to be affected by your character, as if she were Gifted. This compares to the somewhat more mundane and less conspicuous Judged Unfairly.

Cheers

There are a number of differences, both mechanical and tied to roleplaying. I think they all make a lot of sense if you try to read beyond the very first line of Judged Unfairly: " You catch no one’s eye, impress no one, and can get no one to take you seriously." This is quite different from The Gift, which "has a strong emotional effect on those around the Gifted person, making them suspicious and mistrustful of the Gifted individual, inspiring envy" (p.75).
Basically, Judged Unfairly makes you look like a mediocre nobody who does not deserve to be promoted.
The Gift makes you look like a villain who deserves to be actively cast down.

In terms of mechanics, note that:

  1. The Gift applies a -3 modifier to virtually all in-person social interaction, Judged Unfairly does not. However, I would apply a situational modifier if you have Judged Unfairly and are trying e.g. to win a lady's favour at a tournament, or rally a bunch of harassed peasants to repulse a viking raid. And I would allow Judged Unfairly to provide the occasional bonus: the cyclops definitely will not think about you as the tastiest morsel, and an opponent might underestimate you in a fight, exposing himself.
  2. The Gift's social effects can be "blocked" by Parma Magica, which is not the case for Judged Unfairly.
  3. People grow used to The Gift, but not to Judged Unfairly, probably because if someone considers you a mediocre nobody, he will not bother to stop thinking about you long enough to reassess his impression.
  4. As OneShot correctly points out, only people are affected by Judged Unfairly. That's because it's tied to the way you project yourself in your social interaction with others. However, it's not necessarily clear where "people" ends. A mouse certainly does not fall in the group. An intelligent mouse? A faerie princess? That's less clear, and should probably be adjudicated on an individual case basis. A ghost will most likely be affected by Judged Unfairly.
  5. On the other hand, distance (e.g. communication via letters) shields one from the negative effects of The Gift, but not from those of Judged Unfairly.

Interesting.
So there would be extra effects if a Magus with the Gift penalty also had the Judged Unfairly flaw. Thus it would be a valid (if unpleasant) flaw for a magus to take.

Yes. A Gifted character who takes Judged Unfairly, for example:

  1. If an apprentice, is far less likely to be Boni-snatched.
  2. If a magus, is far less likely to become Head of the House (well, perhaps if the House is looking for a weak, "compromise", Head...), or to be assigned any House position entailing responsibility (this is likely to hurt a lot if you are a Tremere).
  3. If a Verditius magus, less likely to win the House Contest.
  4. If in certamen, is less likely to see an opponent use large amounts of vis against him (yes, this is generally a bonus!)
  5. If being Marched, is less likely to see a strong force sent against him (again, this is most likely a bonus!)

On the other hand he is also more likely to be Marched as he clearly has no redeeming qualities...

Does Judged Unfairly mean that you are perceived as having "no redeeming features"?

I started this thread based off of the character I was creating and mentioned in How dangerous is Twilight to the person next to you?.
At one point I was thinking of adding the virtue Unaging and balancing it with the flaw Judged Unfairly. Essentially my character backstory says a Bjornaer Maga on the verge of Twilight arrives at the sack of Constantinople and is confused when she doesn't see a thriving metropolis. She is only able to focus her addled facilities when she discovers my character and fixates on him when she perceived him as an obviously "helpless and lost" apprentice. Shortly thereafter she goes into Final Twilight, with my character the center of much of her self-awareness.
Thus my character could have been Unaging (because the Great Beast has only ever seen him at that age), but under a minor supernatural malediction of Judged Unfairly because she carried the perception "helpless and lost" over to Great Beast form.

How did the last perceptions of a Bjornaer before Final Twilight bestow these Virtues and Flaws upon the subject beheld? Many magi, especially Bonisagi and Bjornaer, would be interested in this.

Cheers

When I created a character I tried to justify some of the Virtues and Flaws as being based on a single supernatural event, as I asked about in https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/how-dangerous-is-twilight-to-the-person-next-to-you/11178/1 (How dangerous is Twilight to the person next to you?)
I almost included Unaging and Judged Unfairly as well, but I had questions, and they ended up not being included.
It has been a while since I was fully conversant on Ars Magica, and I thought someone else's Final Twilight could be a great supernatural event.

There has been some hand-waving, and the backstory for the character has been accepted.

Rereading this thread I thought I should give some context, and I tried to do it in the terminology others posted in the "How dangerous is Twilight to the person next to you?" thread.

Judged Unfairly can mean "perceived as having no redeeming qualities" in the sense that an innkeeper who charges high prices, serves poor food, and stinks can be "perceived as having no redeeming qualities", not in the sense that an innkeeper who murders his clients in the night can be "perceived as having no redeeming qualities". So I disagree on the fact that a Judged Unfairly character is more likely to be Marched, except in the sense that no magus would think his loss a great loss. In fact, a Judged Unfairly character who keeps a low profile is, if anything, probably less likely to be Marched, as nobody "takes him seriously" and thinks him a great menace to be eradicated.

I do not think that the character Ivgreen created needs to justify being Judged Unfairly in terms of the Great Beast's Twilight. He can be just that way "naturally" on his own; after all Judged Unfairly is a mundane personality Flaw that any grog can have. On the other hand, his being Plagued by the Great Beast can be caused by his being Judged Unfairly (reinforced by a "natural" Virtue of being Unaging), as the Great Beast, like virtually everyone else, sees him as an immature young fool who will never grow up and can't look after himself.

I would say that once brought to tribunal a character who is judged unfairly is more likely to be marched. Judged unfairly doesn't mean you are ignored or overlooked, it means you are judged unfairly- your good deeds are overlooked and your bad deeds are never forgotten. "You come across the wrong way to people, they distrust and underestimate you" Not "they underestimate and tend to ignore you" which would, honestly, be a virtue rather than a flaw.

Let us read the entire description: "You come across the wrong way to people, they distrust and underestimate you. You catch no one’s eye, impress no one, and can get no one to take you seriously." To me that does not really say "your bad deeds are never forgotten"; it does say explicitly that people underestimate you, and strongly suggests that you are less likely to be seen as a great threat ("nobody takes you seriously"), or in fact to be seen at all ("you catch no one's eye, impress no one").

If you check the definition of impress : to affect especially forcibly or deeply : gain the admiration or interest of
It essentially refers to a leaving positive (or physical) mark. Your reading would make it a virtue which essentially makes it a bonus to being sneaky, which it clearly is not intended to be. Yes they will underestimate you- both in terms of ability and character- thus more likely to be marched as being irredeemable once brought to Tribunal, though as noted, less likely to be brought to tribunal and more likely to be believed someone else's agent and milked to find out which "superior" you are reporting to.
It specifically does not say that you are more likely to escape notice.

silveroak: evidently our interpretation of the passage in question is different. I don't think that any amount of arguing will convince either of us.

I would just point out one thing about the "usefulness" of Judged Unfairly under my interpretation, which you say makes it more of a Virtue than a Flaw. Keep in mind that Judged Unfairly is a Personality Flaw, not a general Flaw. Personality Flaws strongly characterize how characters interact with others, generally "constraining" their behaviour along a certain direction - which is generally a hindrance, but occasionally a boon. Take Pious, for example; it is generally limiting, occasionally painfully so, but if you are indeed trying to do ... pious stuff :slight_smile:, like follow a spiritual path, it helps. My view of Judged Unfairly fits in this picture: you project yourself as an unimportant nobody, which is generally a hindrance, because it strongly limits the influence you can exert (you have trouble getting into a position of power or convincing others that they should do what you believe must be done), but occasionally, if you are indeed trying to project yourself as an unimportant nobody, it helps.

And it still seems that you are ignoring the part about distrust, which is specifically in the wording, in order to support an alternate meaning of being underestimated, which is not. To my mind being reliably underestimated without the distrust would be worth a major virtue, not a flaw, because it means no matter how successful you are people will continue to underestimate you. It's the James West advantage of the old "Wild Wild West" series...