So, I was surfing Cracked.com when I came across this interesting little article.

Electrosensitivity would be absurdly crippling in Shadowrun, but it doesn't actually exist so we can ignore it.
Sunlight is a commonly used allergy so new discussion on it is unnecessary.
The other four allergies, however, have the potential to ruin the days of some characters. A really sadistic GM could pre-build characters with one of these allergies. A more thoughtful GM could give these allergies to NPCs both friendly and hostile to provide extraction runs with a little spice or give the PCs more tactics against a powerful foe.

First, have exercise or, specifically, physical exertion. Exercise induced anaphylaxis makes the Infirm Quality seem downright merciful, particularly taken at Severe. Any Athletics test, gymnastics melee combat, or even running, would activate the allergy. Characters with this allergy should just be thankful that it is impossible to make a weapon out of exercise. On the other hand, it doesn't present too much trouble to vehicle riggers and couch-potato characters in general.

Then we have the allergy to Cold. Honestly, like allergy to sunlight or any other environmental allergy your mileage varies depending on environment. In the tropics, cold is a hell of a lot easier to avoid than sunlight. In the far North, sunlight is easier to avoid than cold. Any time that cold resistance would be useful, such as being trapped on a tundra by angry Eskimos or trapped in a meat locker by Mafiosos, characters with this allergy are screwed. Weapons to avoid include fire extinguishers, capsule rounds filled with liquid nitrogen, icicle knives, and elemental cold spells. Free points if you're cyberpirating in the Caribbean with Black Jack Savage.

Semen - okay, this really only comes up for pornomancer characters. And most people with semen allergies are only allergic to specific people's semen. Having a character with an allergy to Damien Knight's semen is almost free points unless the GM wants to pull out Firewatch teams with squirt guns full of the stuff. However, it is apparently possible to be alergic to one's own semen, which must totally suck for vampires with that allergy. They can have their prostates removed but doing so would instantly reactivate their regeneration causing their prostates to grow back. This is one of the reasons I prefer the SR3 regeneration rules. If one's GM allows this allergy expect sexual encounters with a certain corporate bigwig to become major plot points.

And most dangerous of all - Water. The water allergy happens to be the single most debilitating allergy anyone could have, even beyond the exercise allergy, particularly at severe. Living on a planet covered with the stuff ain't gonna be fun at all.

Really? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleepy.gif)

That is so awesome idea, even to i think that if your hit whit few of these your cold allergy is the least of your problems considering that your pretty much a human popcikle at that moment.

You, my friend, is one properly twisted individual; If I ever find myself in you neck of the woods I should get you a beer for that comment.

Just to add to the fun, I have a friend that's allergic to his own sweat.

Most portable fire extinguishers used compressed CO2 under high pressure. Compressed gases tend to be cold and the more you compress them the colder they get. It isn't uncommon for fits of dry ice (frozen CO2), to shoot out of the nozzle. It probably isn't cold enough to severely injure a non-allergic person, though the lack of oxygen that results from standing in a cloud of concentrated CO2 would probably be very harmful.

Ah, you were talking about fire extinguishers from the middle ages. My bad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Actually, compressing a gas makes it warmer!
But when a gas is stored under pressure and then released, allowing it to expand rapidly, it cools down instantaneously.
You can check this effect when you open a bottle of any carbonated drink - the pressure in the bottle drops, allowing the carbon dioxide to expand and form a pocket of quite cool gas on top of the liquid, often visible as miniature fog (this works well with Coca Cola).

There are different types of fire extinguisher, you know...
...For different kinds of fire/materials - powder, co2, water, foam.

I've known a couple of people allergic to common water [as in water that you get from taps, etc - not filtered/boiled water]...
...And they suffer - they are allergic to their own sweat, so they don't enjoy warm places, excersiese, spicy food, sex, etc.

It's quite tragic.


There's a tv comedian over here in the UK who's actually allergic to copper, so he gets a rash everytime he handled UK coins.


I knew someone who was allergic to tobacco, and only found out because the women he was dating was a smoker, and he came out in a rash.

Electrosensitivity does exist - wither in the form that sharks have, or the medical condition [wikipedia - "a condition in which a person experiences physical or psychological symptoms, reportedly aggravated by electromagnetic fields or other electromagnetic waves at exposure levels tolerated by the general public"].

If you want to get technical, compressing a gas reduces its specific heat capacity, causing its temperature to increase, which causes it to lose heat to the environment until its temperature is equalized with the environment's again. Releasing the gas then restores its specific heat capacity to its original value.

All technicalities aside, CO2 extinguishers are very limited in application and can easily kill people who are not allergic to cold. I can't remember when I last stumbled upon such an antique over here in the present, so I assume that the future will have even less of them. They are kind of a non-issue if you explode when someone points a Cornetto at you, anyway. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

I've used CO2 extinguishers to instantly cool a six pack. Whether it is cold inside the extinquisher or not means nil however you look at it.

As for the semen allergy, it usually involves someone developing the allergy to the specific allergen.

The cold allergy can also cause an asthma type reation.

And the water allergy, we all have it. It's called drowning.

You're talking about the "lack of air" allergy most of us have. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Drowning doesn't cause you to develop painful itching rashes upon even slight contact with moisture. Aquagenic Urticaria does.

and here i tought nerds just avoided water and soap simply because O.o
i REALLY did not know about there being an allergy to something your body is mostly made up from . .

The skin is affected, not all of you tissue, so you don't burst out in flames just for drinking, or being made of water, but sweating might already do the trick and trigger some nasty rash.

I'm really glad I'm not allergic to anything (as far as I know at least).

Hyzmarca should make a trashy flash game where you're a scantily clad female elf ninja who must run through a sidescroller while avoiding the attacks of Firewatch guys so armed.

What about an addiction instead of allergy to water?

I worked in the Psych ward at the local hospital and had a patient who was an Aquaholic. He literally got drunk on water. I was one-on-one with him on night shift and had to make sure that he didn't drink out of the water fountain, sink or toilet. He could drink tea, coffee, pop even kool-aid, just not plain H2O. Needless to say by the end of my shift after he locked himself in the john to "see a man about a dog" he was staggering around drekfaced.

Any other strange addictions out there in SR or RL?

Real allergies tend to be the most abusive IMO, in terms of stuff not having an effect on the character. Shellfish is a little iffy, but unless the GM decides that all soyfood is now served with a side of real clams it's probably not going to come up much. I had a character with an allergy to certain kinds of detergents, which came up all of, I think, twice. So on and soforth.

~J

...had a character allergic to processed soy. Imagine trying to find and "real" foods store open at 2 AM when you get the munchies during a run. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Soy is my most common allergy as well. GM kept sending us into the wilderness and since most survival food is pure soy, my character ended up having to buy a couple of ranks in survival just to well... survive. Helps that he was a mage with stunbolt, ignite, and levitate though. Stunbolt deer unconscious from line of sight, levitate it up off the ground and cut it's throat and split it's gut to get the organs to fall out. Set a bush on fire and let it cook.

Chris

allergy(medium) against dogs paired up with phobia(light) of dogs < = my most used combination . .
just good that the metahuman mind knows two reactions to fear . . flight AND fight *g* . . i once red misted a little poodle with an ares viper clivergun, because he scared me . . yes, i play trolls, why do you ask? *g*

Hmmm...
...And the -4 modifier didn't have any effect on your targetting at all ["moderate allergy = intense pain, -4 dice pool to all tests while the character experiences the symptoms"] ??
'Cos with a moderate, your troll should've had some trouble red misting - maybe not red misting, more like occasional splatter.


As a general rule [as repeatedly mentioned in the HERO rules, which has spent decades dealing with with advantage/disadvantage systems], if a disadvantage doesn't cause a disadvantage, it's not really a disadvantage at all.

was that before or after the mythbusters episode? or would you happen to be adam savage under that yeti fur? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

And I refuse to believe it is the GMs responsibility to make you disadvantage one. It IS their job to ride herd on the players and make sure you don't take Allergy(Uncommon, Severe)- Black Lotus Pollen when that can only be found in a small geographic area in Asia(not a real life example I don't think) if they are playing in a Seattle ganger game. The main guideline I use is your player cannot have an allergy to something that they would not have reasonably interacted with before. I want a story. That way, the allergy is already in their general vicinity. I also allow them to give me leave to give them a random allergy. I let them select the point value of it and then I pick one(or more) things worth that amount of points that they will find out about at a later date.

Chris