I was wondering if any of you have played a character, or have players, that have taken the addiction flaws to new levels.

I am basing a lot of this on people I know who are addicted to gambling, and one who is addicted(To the point of getting divorced, and running into debt) of skydiving.

Basically, I was thinking about addiction to spells.

Control emotions. Are you addicted to fear? Anger? Love? What would you give for ten minutes of feeling love? An hour? If the only way you ever felt it was at the hands of some street mage punk, what would you do to afford it?

How about the need to feel something beyond the norm? For instance, sexual gratification? Turn to Goo spell, anyone?

I know a girl who revels in being covered in liquid latex. But I wonder how she would feel if she could become...goo. Or stone.

These are just a few things to make you think about unusual addictions.

"The run is in 5 hours. Where the hell is Jester?"

"Umm.. He's indisposed."

"What i hell's name do you mean?"

"Yeah... Jesters just getting his rocks off before the run. To calm his nerves."

"Dammit, this is no time to visit a joygirl"

"About that. He's not. Visiting a joygirl."

"Look I don't care if he is into men, just get h..."

"He's in to Goo."

"What?!?"

"He hires a mage to turn him to Goo for an hour or so. Says it makes him feel free. No metal in him. No worries"

"Ohhh... kay..."

Personally, I enjoy my team-mate's addition to shoes. To date, despite earning 10's of thousands of nuyen, she has not spent a penny on anything but shoes. However, in several negotiations, she has received compliments on her boots/shoes/heels...

Luckily, my hacker has the same shoe size as her character, so we get along great. (And yes, for lifestyle costs, she just mooches off the rest of us. What are friends for?)

If you really want to make a fragged up character take the addiction that no one ever takes, Essence Drain. By canon, being the victim of essence drain causes an addiction unless the character can succeed in a Willpower (2) test, which is difficult for any character with less than six Willpower. Most people who are fed on by a vampiric creature will try to get one to feed on them again.

The good news for this addiction is that you have plenty of free essence space for 'ware after you are fed upon. For even more fun, make a magician or technomancer with only 1 point of magic/resonance.

What about a mild phobia to sleep (the feeling of being helpless) and a mild addiction to longhaul. Then you make a Hacker with a sleep regulator.

At best you are awake for a week and SHOULD probably have a somewhat shorter sleep cycle due to the sleep regulator and the bad is that you just might fall asleep in the middle of a run if you haven’t timed it right.

These are stunning concepts.
I think I may use the sleep one as an NPC.
If noone minds of course?

I have one player with a character who has not one but three addictions

Mild addiction to Alcohol
Mild Addiction to Gambling
Moderate Addiction to Sex (one of the characters in the group is a Seductress Shaman and another runs a "dance" club on the side)

As a GM I find this character is loads of fun & actually makes for some very interesting tangents that basically turn into new scenarios of their own.

For a Decker (er...hacker) PC, I am considering taking a mild Addiction to the Matrix. (Technomancers already kind of have it written into the description)

NERPS are habit forming...

What about the 2070 equivalent of 2006 internet addiction? I mean, with a comlink, maybe your char is constantly embedded in too much AR to realize what's going on?

Perhaps he / she just can't stop sending messages to internet friends / forums (or even strangers passing by on the street), won't go to hidden mode (even in a high spam environment) and is always transmitting too much info?

I have an NPC named "Tubba-Luv" who doesn't have the addiction flaw per se, but might qualify - he's CONSTANTLY listening to music streamed through his comlink (ragga-jungle mixed with punkish stuff) - so it looks and sounds to others like he's hard of hearing all the time, or distracted. Plus, he ALWAYS broadcasts a live "what I'm listening to now" podcast sorta thing, making it fairly easy to track him. He's always rapping in his head (badly), and he broadcasts that too.

So, while he won't descend into worse addiction, it could be a concievable flaw in that he's easy to track, and always distracted.

"It's ma life mon, an ma music is da soundtrack - you canna be aksin' dem heros to go wit no soundtrack bwoy, whatchu, stoopid mon? So we on a 'run? Irie mon, I can be turnin' it off if I want, but I don' want, see? Ya sayin I be addicted? Bwoy, ya crazy..."

It's funny, in real life I write electronic music, so I've gone and made some simple mash-ups of ragga-jungle and punk, just to provide the PCs some examples of Tubba-Luv's style. But now, they're constantly texting or asking him "Hey Tubby, what on?" and I am constantly having to make a new remix between each game just to keep up with them!!! Damn...

By the way, Tubba-Luv is a skinny, teenaged korean elf who fancies himself a dreadlocked rasta; but he just comes off as a lame ass poser. Quite funny.

How about hot VR for a decker? (they're still deckers, dammit!) Whenver you use the matrix, you go hot. Even if safety would say go cold.

Aaah, ok. So you don't actually get more Essence, just what you lost is still available?

It is not actually available. It's just that you first would lose the essence you already have lost. Like someone shooting at your right arm while you do not even have a right arm anymore. So no effect.

In earlier versions, I always considered the essense hole to only apply to ware. If I llost 4 points to ware and then 2 more to a vampire, bye bye

You definitely die if you have 3 essence and a vampire drains you for 4. It should probably work the exact same if you get drained for 4 then lose 3 to cyberware.

Same here... the "hole" was only created by the removal of cyber, and only fillable by the introduction of more cyber.

A hole is a hole is a hole. In past editions filling an essence hole was not automatic. It was a matter of the surgeon's skills. If your doctor can roll well in surgery the hole can certainly be filled no matter where it came from. If the doctor doesn't roll well then you'll die on the table from essence loss unless you have some cybermancers on call.

The first being?

I'm guessing firearm design rules.

interesting, even ingenious, flaws are great for character flavor/depth/predisposition/whathaveyou... helping to round out the persona you want while affording you with BP for your trouble. sadly my group has the fortune of viewing them as free BP.. as in Zero potential consequences. i have yet to see the GM take into account any of the players Flaws and seed the scenario with story hooks/ situational happenstance concerning even one. i rate that as a giant cheeze factor and disillusions me some.

then again.. i dont see myself, or any of the players, suddenly stating "this seems like a good opportunity for you to invoke a consequence of my Flaw and muck up this op."

Addiction to the stun dmg inflicted due to magic drain resists? Maybe some penalty to resisting drain, since you don't really want to resist it?

If they're not happening in the game, they're not really flaws. Think of it as the campaign starting at 435 build points instead of 400 and it won't sound so bad. Maybe a little silly, but not so bad.

If they're not being brought into the game, the GM's not on the ball and/or the player isn't playing his character very well.

right... 'look on the bright side' n' all that. seeing as its the only SR game around, i suppose i can buck up my little camperyness.

EDIT

Addiction (severe, ShadowRun MMORPG boards)

I might as well face it, I'm addicted to love.



*duck and cover*

-4 dice pool for resisting seduction. Roll 2d6 at the begining of every session and compare result to STD table.

A terrible addiction to have, really.