Edges & Flaws - a primer, what are some common choices? Options

[vapor]

[Toshiaki]

[hahnsoo]

[banditf50]

Thanks much. It's nice to know that in addition to SR-related questions, one can also get other random thoughts expounded on here.

Thanks again 8)

[mfb]

enough people are allergic to aluminum that the US Army has special plastic casings for dogtag chains that may be issued.

edit: hey, i'm a dragon. when'd that happen?

[Eyeless Blond]

Oh yeah, my brother's allergic to aluminum. It's somewhat amusing because he keeps forgetting and putting on those stupid cheap chains he likes to play with. This means every few months or so he ends up with an itchy rash around his neck and has to be reminded that he can't be wearing those stupid things.

I'd give him the Oblivious flaw too. :P

[The White Dwarf]

The most common edges tend to be the ones that either help out a characters build or are just useful during play. I think Ive seen almost all of them show up at one point or another (animal empathy just cant cut it anywhere) but many of them seem to show up in more focused character ideas rather than in a broad variety of characters.

Bonus Attribute, Exceptional Attribute, High Pain Tolerance, Perceptive, Photographic Memory, Friendly Face, Good Reputation, Astral Chamelon, Focused Concentration, and Vehicle Empathy - seem to be the ones that show up in over half the teams (thats better than 50% chance to appear in a group of 4-6 runners)

The most common flaws tend to be the ones that fit with background or character history, or that fit our groups playstyle. We make a concious effort to not cheese these out, but ones that add flavor to the campaign or impose intesting limits on what actions people can take seem to show up more often than not.

Allergy, Weak Immune System, Impulsive, Phobia, Sensitive Neural Structure, Vindictive, Dark Secret, Distinctive Style, Spirit Bane, Bad Karma, Cursed Karma, Hunted, and Mysterious Cyberware - seem to be the ones that show up most frequently in our teams.

Personally, theres several ones on both lists Id never use, but in a (typically) 7 person group my opinions dont always hold the majority sentiment =)

[GlassJaw]

How are the Bad and Cursed Karma flaws in-play? They seem like they could old real fast but getting a -5 or -6 in one shot is tempting. Again, I've never used them so I'm hesitant to take something I would really regret later on.

Also, what about an allergy to alcohol? Would that be considered a common substance for the purposes of the flaw (since you could just not drink it)?

[Aes]

I'd say for something to be labelled as "common", there should be a decent chance you'd be exposed invoulentarely to it every 2-3 runs at least. Otherwise, it obviously isn't "common" to you.

[Fortune]

[nezumi]

Yeah, bad karma isn't bad for humans.

I've seen some great 'cheese' flaws.
Phobia: Drowning (claiming its common),
Allergy: Archaic drug I had to look up,
Flashbacks/amnesia are both very common
Combat monster for the stupid high schooler


Good looking and knows it is a very common edge, except that, technically, it isn't an edge at all. It's listed where they're talking about building edges, and it's really overpowered.

In general, I make people realize I ENJOY their taking flaws. I make a point of letting them take them. I keep a little list as I GM so I never ever forget what makes them squeal. Depending on how much they got from it, that determines how often I take advantage of it.

[Dawnshadow]

If you get a good GM, you can have great fun with flaws..

Having had the magician adept with a mild phobia of priests and a major one of churches.. coupled with hunted (everything tied into his backstory)..

Led to a 2 day solo run that had him swearing up down and sideways that the Fates and Norns had gotten together to make his life miserable. He survived. But.. so did the guy who's hunting him. Kincade's probably going to start running the next time he hears bible verses coming randomly..

Incidentally, his only other flaw is bio-rejection.. Works fairly well with him. And boy was it fun to play out.

[hahnsoo]

Flaws that I would like to see:
More Flaws based on established modern-day personality disorders like Histrionic (Drama Queen) or Borderline (Sees Things as Black or White), along with ones that only apply in the Sixth World (variations of Elf Poser, wants to be Awakened, things like that).
More Flaws based on existing medical disorders, especially auto-immune or genetic disorders. Diabetes, for example, probably would make for a great combination of flaws. A whole lot of material on the catastrophic effects of these diseases can be determined from the Bioware Stress tables.
More Societal/Cultural Flaws (for example, Braggart is a flaw only in Shadowrunning circles. The Water-based flaws are only applicable in Pirate or Coastal campaigns)

[Endgame50]

Every spellcaster should take focused concentration.
One to three boxes of pain tolerance work well.
Improved attribute is a must imo--it's a ton of saved karma in the long run.
Connected is really excellent, especially for money dependent characters.
Good Reputation is great for social PCs--very little short of kinesics lowers those tns.
Friendly face is more limited, as is Good Looking and Knows it, but also nice.

For flaws:
Infirm I've seen taken alot. It apparently only lowers the racially modified limit (cheese) so you can take six body as a mage if you wanted to--just means you couldn't raise it. (if you took infirm 3) I wouldn't recommend it though.

Phobia is fun. I made a decker who was in the Renraku Arc when it went down--he came out with a moderate phobia of combat drones. As with allergies, we don't just judge by how common the "trigger" is, we judge by how commonly a shadowrunner would encounter it. So while allergy: housecats might be common for normal people, it just doesn't come up in SR to warrant it.

Dossier on File + Enemy is fun, but as people noted, it's a real attention hog. On top of that, you're probably going to get gacked. *grin*

Bad Karma / Cursed Karma are easy sources of points, but the lack of karma or backfiring of karma you have can really bite you on the rear.

Gremlins for magical types--just have your friends handle the techy bits.

Spirit Bane--I wouldn't allow it unless the person could actually summon the baned spirit, but there's technically no restriction.

Matrix addiction (Mild)--unless you have extraordinary circumstances, most deckers spend 4 hours a day in the trix anyway.

[JaronK]

I had a lot of fun with my Cat Shaman who had a mild phobia and moderate allergy to dogs... it made hellhounds and gabriel hounds a serious issue.

Ambidexterity is virtually required for certain character concepts, like duel gun adepts.

Daredevil is a fun one, combined with Impulsive, for the adrenaline junkie characters.

Night Vision for humans is extreamly useful.

JaronK

[The White Dwarf]

Bad karma isnt too horrible on a human, but they do lose their 'racial advantage' so to speak. It really boils down to how often you like to rely on having karma pool there, and the way I figure it, the sooner you have lots the less likley you are to buy the farm. So its a bit of a personal opinion. On a metahuman, yea, youll never have a karma pool. Ever.

Cursed karma is a whole other situation. I will never take this flaw, ever. Anytime Im using karma pool, Im already in dire straights and hoping for a difficult roll. Last thing I want in that situation is to lower the odds by 5/6 straight off the top. However other people in our group dont rely on karma to save them as I do, so they take this and figure if they botch a roll they botch it. If a whole team subscribed to that logic in a 6 player + GM setup like we have, and people each used karma twice per run, this would screw up 2 of those 12 uses. Thats just too steep for me.

[Critias]

My main character (nearing 250 karma) is an elf with Cursed Karma, and it's not that bad. I find it balances him out fairly well, and in many ways it negates the super-badassness that a high-karma character can have (in that he has to rely on his skills and whatnot to accomplish the difficult, not just rerolling over and over again until he does the impossible). He's got enough blood on his hands that it's easy to understand why Lady Luck and he don't get along, to boot.

That said, there've been some tense moments with it, and I certainly can't say it's for everyone... but it's not a bad way to block off that "easy out" that a lot of mid/high karma characters can use. No karmic crutches, here. Good clean fun.

[Eyeless Blond]

[Sandoval Smith]

It is annoying when someone tries to cheese out on things like Phobia. The drowning one would actually be pretty good in a pirate game, or any other campaign that spends most of its time on the water. Then I'd say the phobia comes into play whenever they enter the water in an uncontrolled situation (knocked overboard, their boat shot out from under them, et al). However in a Seattle, or Denver (ha!) game, no way they could take it at common.

Stuff like that should really be done in the presence of the GM, just to save on later hassle.