Flawed character, Without being a munchkin Options

[BishopMcQ]

So I was flipping through books the other night and came across the new flaw, Faulty Deprogramming. Has anyone made a character or examined the possibilities a character like this would present?

It sounds like the character snaps back to a deep cover identity and gains access to a different set of skills than the character normally would have. How have people been facilitating this? Are you giving a set of skills at a certain rating that become available during the switch while their regular skills become unavailable...

And because it is bound to come up, how would you rate this with Amnesia? If a player took the hefty 6 (?) pt form where they do not even know what their skills are, would you allow the Faulty Deprogramming to be combined with Amnesia or would the two flaws work in tandem and only get the negative value of the larger one rather than the sum of both?

[Hasaku]

I'd say he only gets the points for the more expensive one. If I was feeling particularly evil, I'd make his deep cover personality a chef, with the attendant skillset. No combat skills, but he can make a mean lobster bisque.

[BishopMcQ]

Hasaku--My understanding is that the deep cover personality is generally a non-combatant type, so the Chef concept would be perfect. My curiousity comes in at the point of does the player have to pay for Cooking 6, Knowledge Cuisine 4 and all the other skills that comes with being a chef if they only have access to those skills under certain circumstances...also does the character lose access to his other skills when he is cooking?

[Joe Outside]

Indubetably. Deep cover personas are just that--deep cover. Very few deep cover spy situations (the folks that use deep cover programming) have much if anything to do with combat. Give tham a skillset intractably bound to a combat-useless persona, and tell them congratulations.

As far as amnesia goes, one option would be to only make one of the personas amnesiac (preferably the real one--making the cover persona wouldn't be worth squat.)

[edit]Responding (very slowly, apparently) to Hasaku[/edit]

This post has been edited by Joe Outside: Nov 20 2004, 06:29 PM

[DrJest]

Mind you, there's a rather chilling episode of Alias in which Sydney Bristow is tasked to retrieve information from a top assassin. The problem is, he's a Manchurian Candidate; a keyphrase brings the assassin persona to the top, and the main personality has no memory of anything done while the secondary personality is in charge.

The twist is, the programming is starting to break down. The poor sod is kind of remembering flashes of what he's done. He, of course, thinks he's going nuts, and checks into a Romanian mental instituion.

An interesting side-note is that the assassin persona only sees in black and white. It's supposed to increase detachment, allowing truly horrific acts.

[Hasaku]

Since they're noncombat skills, and the personality is a major liability, I wouldn't make him pay for them. Turning into a chef in the middle of a run is bad enough.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

I guess if Amnesia and Flashbacks works, Amnesia and this could work.

I'm thinking of maybe someone who was an energy consultant who was actually tracking WMDs.

And, yes, this is a fictional deep cover agent who is married to a fictional ambassador who was outed by a fictional columnist in a fictional newspaper after receiving the tip from fictional persons unknown who do not work in the White House.

[Cynic project]

A Chef, are you out of your mind? Look at those undersiege movies,all like what four of them. chefs can kill more people than a whole team of navy Seals...

[Hasaku]

What if Shadowrunner is the alternate personality, and this poor chef spends most of his time blacked out?

[toturi]

[hyzmarca]

It is important to identify which personality is to original. Is he a chef brainwashed to be an assassin or an assassin brainwashed to be a chef? Although similar concepts, the dynamics would be completely different.

[Siege]

Run it past the GM and see what (s)he says.

Deep cover agents won't have anything that draws undue notice to them - which means combat skills are probably a no-no.

Also check out the movie "Total Recall" for more possibilities with fake memories and deep-cover assignments.

-Siege

[Da9iel]

Be sure to shop here to outfit your chef!

[toturi]

[Siege]

Not having read the book, I'll take your word for it.

But the comments about the assassin going deep cover as a chef or a chef going deep cover as an assassin make good points.

Ultimately it would depend on the purpose and nature of the covert work.

-Siege

[toturi]

Taking a page from the Tom Clancy book, it is best that if you want a deep cover assassin, one of the best cover would be to be a bodyguard. A bodyguard is trusted even by those who routinely teach people to trust no-one, because if you don't, you'll never get anything done.

[Blaze]

Before the advent of SotA64 I did something similar to an NPC involving cybersurgery and PAB reprogramming. She's a diminutive 16-year-old shy but friendly girl most of the time, until she is under enough stress to trip her mental conditioning. At that point, her data filter and wired reflexes kick in, as do her combat skills. She's got enough cyberware to crank her up to a Body of 7 plus having high Quickness and not-too-shabby Strength, has a cyberarm with gyromount and is drek-hot in unarmed and armed combat as well as with an SMG. The catch is that when her reflex trigger goes back on, not only does she lose access to all her combat abilities (plus dropping back onto the Combat Paralysis flaw), she doesn't keep any memory of what she's just done. Imagine being threatened by a gang, having everything going black, then regaining consciousness to find half a dozen dead orks around you, a smoking Ingram in one hand and a bloody knife in the other...

-JH.

[Siege]

Ya know, this is why thermo can be such a life-saver.

When a potential mark has the thermal signature of a tank - warning.

-Siege