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Posted by: The Monk Oct 14 2009, 07:25 PM

I have a player that took the TLE-x flaw. At the end of last game session, he got very agitated in a fight with an or ganger. I made him role to see if it kicked in, he failed.

Now what? The disease does not have a Speed, says basically that once you have it, patient must undergo gene therapy or brain surgery.

The way I read this is that the player gets one Disease Resistance Test, if the power is not reduced to zero, then she suffers from the effects. Which stays with her until she undergoes the above procedures.

Is this close?

Posted by: Sengir Oct 14 2009, 09:03 PM

Quick RL check, does an epileptic seizure last until you cut open the patient's head?
The therapy options help to get rid of the underlying condition, the acute seizure should end by itself or with a shot of some sort of tranquilizer.


Speaking of which, is there actually any source for psychiatric/neurologic medications? SR has a whole laundry list of possible flaws which would require it, but there does not seem to be any remedy except costly surgery or long-term (and equally expensive) therapy

Posted by: Method Oct 15 2009, 03:48 AM

TLE is particularly interesting to me. Yes, I'm weird. Its also one of my favorite negative Qualities that I've never gotten to use (you'll see why in a bit).

To answer some of your questions:

-- Your interpritation of the original Disease Resistance test is correct. Once he fails that test, he has TLE-X. There after, you (the GM) call for a Body + Willpower (3) test whenever he is in a stressful situation (Augmentation page 132). If he fails he has a seizure episode that causes "Stun Damage, Disorientation, Paralysis" per the rules in augmentation.

-- You can prevent or terminate the seizure with drugs. Augmentation lists "AEXD" (page 132) for this purpose. (Sengir- in real life you would usually use benzodiazepines or dilantin to terminate a seizure. If you are really interested in a drug resource, you can check out http://www.epocrates.com/products/online/, but it really won't be that interesting or relevant unless you have some idea of what you are looking for).

That covers the game mechanics, but if you are looking for a little more fluff (and to answer some more of Sengir's questions):

-- Yes you have it all the time. You aren't seizing at all times, but the condition is ongoing. You can have seizures all the time (a condition called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_epilepticus), but thats pretty rare and very bad (like fatal).

-- The disease is degenerative, which means it gets progressively worse (more frequent seizures which are longer and more intense).

But here's the interesting thing about TLE:

-- There is a common misconception that seizure = convulsions which is not the case. The results of a seizure have to do with the function of the region of the brain in which the seizure occurs. Convulsions happen when you have seizures in the motor cortex. But the temporal lobe (t if for temporal) has some very special functions- sensory perception, emotion, perception of time, memory, and others. So a temporal lobe seizure can manifest as hallucinations (usually auditory but can be visual or any other), memory distortions (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capgras_delusion), altered perception of time (deja vu or a sense of fore-knowledge), euphoria beyond anything a drug user can imagine and even a transcendental experience that people liken to communion with God. This is because, it is theorized, that the temporal lobe contains the "God Module" or a part of our brain that is "hardwired" for religious experience. (Note: God Module would also make an awesome name for a hacker.) This experience does not occur in all people with TLE, in fact its pretty rare. Usually these people refuse medical treatment- why the hell would you want to get rid of the best feelings you could possibly imagine? If you have some time, check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIiIsDIkDtg out.

But wait! There's more!

-- Many people who experience this transcendental experience undergo lasting personality changes. This is called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschwind_syndrome, and is characterized by hyper-religiosity, hyper-graphia (compulsive writing... image what that would look like in AR) and hypo-sexuality. There are theories that Saint Paul, for example, had TLE and his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus was his first seizure.

So the punch line is that your PC basically has a one-way ticket to Crazyville. Have fun with that.

Posted by: The Monk Oct 15 2009, 05:24 AM

Wow, that is very interesting. Thank you for that!

My main problem with TLE-X is that as it doesn't list a Speed, there is no mechanic for which the Effects are reduced after the initial onset of the disease (when the symptoms start appearing).

The way I read it, the character has TLE-X when she took the Quality, however does not yet have any symptoms. Once she fails the Body+Will (3) test, with AEXD giving her an extra three dice, she develops the symptoms manifested in the Effects (5 points of Stun, Disorientation, and Paralysis). She rolls the standard Disease Resistance Test, which is her Body, nothing else helps her with this not even AEXD.

If she manages to reduce this to zero, then she gets a reprieve. She still has the disease, but no symptoms, essentially resetting it to her condition before she failed the Body+Will test. If she does not bring the power of the disease down to zero, she has some extremely bad problems:

First of all since there is no Speed listed for this, when would she make another Disease Resistance Test? According to RAW, there is no way to reduce the Power to zero, and therefore fight off the symptoms (if not the disease) if she does not do so with the first try.

In my case she rolled her Disease Resistance Test, got three successes. The Power is reduced to two. Now since she did not reduce it to zero, she suffers from both the Disorientation and Paralysis, as well as having two boxes in stun.

She does not have any more rolls to resist the disease since there is no interval (Speed). She now has two boxes of Stun and -4 dice to any physical activity until she undergoes Gene Therapy or Brain Surgery. When she does this, she is then able to heal the rest of the two stun naturally I guess, but does not get rid of the disease unless she buys back the Negative Quality with Karma. Essentially the medical procedures brings her back to square one. She still has the disease but no symptoms unless she fails another Body+Will test. AEXD can help her again.

Absolutely harsh I know. The player took this Quality, and I warned her against it. To me it seemed rather cruel. During the games, I would monitor the Players emotional state while role-playing her character (we've been playing for over a year now), if she seemed agitated with what was going on with her character, I would ask for a Body+Will roll. She always made it, and frankly from her puzzled look I think she forgot about her character's TLE-X. Last game she failed. When I described what happened to her character, a realization came across her face.

Posted by: Method Oct 15 2009, 05:55 AM

Ah. You're right. I see the problem. You need a Speed to determine how long the seizure event lasts.

On re-reading the book it seems you don't get an initial Disease Resistance test. If you fail the Body+Will (3) test you get 5 boxes of stun, paralysis and disorientation- but these I believe are intended to be temporary.

I would just house rule a Speed and let the player resist all but the first interval. In the absence of some official ruling on the Speed for TLE-x I would say 2 minutes is about right.

Posted by: Sengir Oct 15 2009, 09:32 AM

Yep, I know what gets used IRL, but I was wondering whether there is anything about those drugs in Shadowrun. Because some shady doc handing out Benzos without regard for side effects or potential sounds far more SR-ish than having surgery or a psychatrist avaiable for everyone


But I guess the writers just fell for that misconception, because the whole description and especially the causes mentioned in the books (MBW systems and other radical surgery on the mortor system) sound like the authors meant the classic "spasms and foam at the mouth" thing. Sure it does not make sense to anybody who knows about the topic, but so do the explosives rules (needing a truckload of explosives to put a hole in that wall) or getting rad poisoning from DU rounds...

Posted by: Stahlseele Oct 15 2009, 02:50 PM

question: TEMPORAL Lobe Epilepsy?
Is that the lobe telling you the time?
I think i don't quite understand something here . .

Posted by: Blade Oct 15 2009, 03:15 PM

No, that's because it's next to the temple (the one on the head you point your gun at to threaten people).

Posted by: Stahlseele Oct 15 2009, 04:29 PM

Ah, i see ^^#

Posted by: X-Kalibur Oct 15 2009, 06:50 PM

Is 2 minutes including the recovery time, or do you mean a 2 minute ictal phase? Although if I was a runner with TLE-x I think I'd just have an auto-injector hooked up to the biomonitor watching for seizure activity to give me a dose of Cerebrex or some equivalent (or valium perhaps, that would be in addition to a long term drug like Phenytoin or Clonazepam)

Posted by: Sengir Oct 15 2009, 08:26 PM

The standard effects of Tranquilizers are:
- dizzyness (like after a few beers, not exactly sober but not too drunk to stand, either)
- feeling awfully tired
- a complete lack of feeling emotions, even though you know that there should be some

So somebody who just got a shot of a Tavor, Valium etc. is not exactly fit for shadowrunning anymore...plus the after-effects of the seizure, which I honestly don't know anything about. And stim patches will most likely do more harm than good in that case.

Posted by: Method Oct 16 2009, 05:43 AM

That would be ictal phase, meaning the seizue lasts 2-6 minutes until the PC resists or passes out. The post-ictal phase would basically be the lasting effects of 5 boxes of stun damage (which would persist after the seizure) or unconsciousness. In RL post-ictal phases can include altered mental status (confusion, disorientation, etc), but I think for the purposes of SR the DP mods you get from stun damage are close enough. And as Sengir points out, even a momentary seizure in combat would be catastrophic.