 Quality: Maintenance, spin-off from sniper thread |
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 Oct 25 2007, 12:53 AM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 573 Joined: 17-September 07 Member No.: 13,319  |
Many players would say "well OF COURSE my character practices daily, cleans his gun after each use, and has compared results on a few different ammo loads; and changes passwords daily; and checks oil on his motorcycle daily." Sometimes that's consistent with characterization, sometimes not. There is a wide behavioral range, and the extremes at either end are worth BP/Karma.
A character with the 5-point Zealous Maintenance quality will always have one category of their gear (eg guns, blades, electronics, drones, foci) in peak condition, which will sometimes grant a +1 DP modifier, or reduce penalties, or ameliorate glitches, at the GM's discretion. The 10-point version extends that bonus to all categories of the character's gear. Characters may offset this with the Obsessive-Compulsive quality; -5 points, and the character is sometimes slowed or gets minor social penalties by being unable to cut corners or abandon a minor task (WIL [2] to overcome). (unless someone else has already written up OCD?) A character who fails to appropriately roleplay this Quality may lose its benefits, although GMs are advised to warn players before enforcing this. At -5 points, the character has Sloppy Maintenance; they never get around to checking oil, they rarely change passwords, and so forth. Sloppy Maintenance is appropriate for low-level grunts, and may emerge as a side effect of major Addictions. At -10 points, the character's gear is generally rusty, slipshod, obsolete, mismatched, and substantially less effective. Apply the rules for the Gremlins quality exept when the character is using new-to-them gear. So, that's my proposal. Any ways to make it less of a judgement-call headache for GMs? |
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Oct 25 2007, 01:01 AM
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#2
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Don't use it?!? :D Seriously though, I assume that a basic level of skill allows a PC (or NPC) to keep his associated gear in a reasonable state without worrying about the details. It is only when unusual circumstances could possibly interfere that I even require any sort of test, and even then I use the higher of the actual skill (eg. Pistols) or the associated build/repair skill (eg Armorer) for most 'maintenance' type things. If there was an interest in more detail though, I would suggest a limited form of the already present Gremlins Quality might be applicable. |
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Oct 25 2007, 01:10 AM
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#3
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 7,089 Joined: 4-October 05 Member No.: 7,813 |
on a side note, obsessive compulsive has been written up. it's in augmentation, after cyberzombies and cyborgs.
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Oct 25 2007, 01:15 AM
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#4
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 268 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Brisbane, Australia Member No.: 78 |
Glitches! A high skill user will glitch less, and it's easy to imagine this has to do with the fact they have the expertise and inclanation to keep their gear in good shape. A low skill user will glitch more often, and this can be flavourfully blamed on their ineptly maintained equipment. |
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Oct 25 2007, 01:35 AM
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#5
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Street Doc Group: Admin Posts: 3,508 Joined: 2-March 04 From: Neverwhere Member No.: 6,114 |
I kind of like the idea, not because of the in game penalties or advantages, but because I think it would add an interesting over-arching character trait that might be fun to roleplay (which I think is the whole point of qualities).
As far as making things simple, you don't often get that effect by adding new rules. I'd say if you want the added complexity, that run with it, and if you want things fast and loose adopt one of the other suggestions above. |
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Oct 26 2007, 10:28 AM
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#6
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 831 Joined: 5-September 05 From: LAX, UCAS Member No.: 7,687 |
Yes, they did.....very, very poorly. The description of the quality in Augmentation has nothing to do with real world OCD, and is obviously a relic of 2nd/3rd edition cyberzombies who would get "lost in the details". Real OCD is better described in levels (like allergies and mania/phobias) and can be better modeled in terms of game mechanic effects by using the mania phobia tables. This doesn't describe all forms of OCD well, but it's a hell of alot better than the joke that was written into Augmentation under the name Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. |
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Oct 26 2007, 12:04 PM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 104 Joined: 19-June 07 From: Florida Member No.: 11,950 |
I think the best way to handle this kind of stuff is time management. Think of how long it's going to take to clean your guns (my last shadowrunner used an average of 2 per run)check your bike's oil and change your passwords on all sensitive systems you have access too. There are other little maintenance things too: like working out and getting a decent night's sleep (or morning's depending on when your run was). The thing to ask yourself is how is time structured in your game. If it runs on bizarro time where no matter where you were when the last session ended the next session's going to start w/ a comm call from a fixer w/ a job and a blob of time has mysteriously passed in between than you can freely assume you've done all the maintenance or use qualities. If you use a highly structured time system (like I prefer) where if session 1 ends and it's 3:59 a.m. in game than session 2 begins at 4:00 a.m. in game than the PCs are going to have the time in game to make the decision to maintain their gear or not as they see fit. There is also another way to handle things like this. I've seen a few cases where GMs have asked for behaviors from players. wanting 3 to5 things that the character does daily or almost daily. Things like: Jeff always eats breakfast or gets up at the crack of dawn even between missions. This would be the perfect place to put: always cleans his gear. However at the end of the day I have to ask the question that has been posed many times before: Do we really need another quality rule or quality? |
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Oct 26 2007, 09:30 PM
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#8
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 718 Joined: 10-September 05 From: Montevideo, in the elusive shadows of Latin America Member No.: 7,727 |
not really, however use what you like. Some people might like it and that's it.
Cheers, Max |
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Oct 26 2007, 09:39 PM
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#9
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,246 Joined: 8-June 07 Member No.: 11,869 |
If you take the Mania (equipment maintenance) negative quality, can you use that to buy the Zealous Maintenance positive quality? :D
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