SR3 companion was filled with false disadvantge, giving edge points to PC basically for free. Getting Edge points for having enemies, for example. Happy to see that one in particular is gone (for the moment...)

But there is a new reigning king in SR4, IMO.

Uncouth.

Oh, if you have a charisma of 3, uncouth is a disadvantage alright. Can't default and all that. But hey, you paid 20 BP for charisma 3 which you won't be using and got 20 BP for Uncouth so no problems. Should you buy 1 point in a social skill group to mitigate, there goes your 20 BP!

But if you have a charisma of 1... You already can't default. You already are gonna fail every charisma challenge tossed your way. You already ARE uncouth. And you should get an extra 20 BP?

"Hey GM, I have invested no BP whatsoever in charisma or any social skill. As a result I have more BP available to boost my combat abilities. I would like you to reward this behavior by giving me an extra 20 BP."

Hum. I think not. And the double cost for learning social skills is bogus ; we all know the player of an uncouth character has no intention whatsoever to invest in those skills.

As result I'm likely to just ban uncouth for my upcoming campaign. You want to be uncouth and have more physical stats? Flatline charisma, buy no social skills and there you are, completely uncouth.

What do you think?

Infirm and Uneducated can lead to similar situations but with those it's more academic since few players would flatline two or three attributes.

characters who take uncooth, fall into one of two places. They are magic people who are abit crazy and have reasons to take the flaw, or they are dead men walking. Cause guess what, you big hulking troll who can't talk worth shit? Well, there is a bigger meaner troll out there that would want to hurt him, or two or whatever. You as a shadowruner live and die by the fact you can and do understand the social graces of those near by you.

If social interaction is not a big place in the game uncouth is broken. If it's a necessary facet of existence uncouth is not worth the points.

Welcome to the club. I ban Uncouth (among other disadvantages) in my campaign as well.

another disadvantage that is broken is sinner. WIth false sins costing 4000 (less than one build point, why wouldn't everyone take sinner.

uncouth is one of those advantages where the player should be required to RP it out before getting anything out of it, IMO.

for example, if a character keeps his mouth shut all the time, he isn't uncouth... i personally would require them to spend all the karma they get on removing the uncouth flaw before they get to spend karma on anything else.

essentially, if they have uncouth, and they are not being a disadvantage to the face's efforts simply by being nearby and *not* keeping the mouth shut, then you are absolutely right... they don't deserve the points, and you should charge them the cost of removing it (and possibly give penalties to the face/whoever anyways until they have).

in comparison, if someone just had a charisma of 1 and no social skills, i would have to say that they might just know when to keep their mouth shut. particularly if they have a high intuition score, for example.

however, high intuition brings me to my next point: unable to make social skill checks. well, let's see... what is it that you *resist* social skill checks with? oh that's right... social skill + attribute... and not always is the attribute gonna be charisma either so then, it looks to me like your uncouth character is also gonna have to dump willpower... you know, that stat that determines the length of your stun condition monitor? the one that lets you resist spells? the one that is absolutely critical to mages and technomancers, and just slightly less critical to everyone else, for that matter. looks the character may also have to dump intuition to get the benefit you mentioned, since according to the text con is opposed using intuition (the table says charisma though... personally, i think intuition fits better, and would use that, though).

and no matter how many positive modifiers you give to the uncouth person, they still don't get to make a check unless they have the skill. not with a +1 modifier, not with a +10 modifier, not with a +100 modifier.

any BP spent on contacts is also useless, since you won't be getting any social skill checks with them either.

and it gives a point of notoriety, which brings you one step closer to having a public awareness rating...

so overall i would say there's more disadvantages here than you might think. and not *all* social tests are done with charisma =D

The examples in hackmaster are okay, but the massive amounts of "BP" that you gain is awful. Being Blind or a Double Amputee shouldn't make you more skilled than other heroes. It's absurd.

I don't know. I've heard being blind enhances your other senses, so if you put the points into Observation it could make sense. Of course, there's nothing in the system that forces it to make sense. That's Hackmaster though. The game is meant to be taken pseudo-seriously. You can ignore the "Gary speak" and have a serious game from it, dive full force into the "GM vs. Player" mentality and have a KoDT game, or meet somewhere in the middle.

Any "flaws for BP" system will have that problem, unless you make it so stringent that it's almost worthless. I suppose one could have the flaws come with their own inherent advantages so every one would be it's own tradeoff (such as blind giving you +2 to nonvisual perception tests, or being an amputee givign you +1 strength with your remaining arm.) That would probably take more work than it's worth though.

Yeah, our Uncouth combat hacker has to play his semi-retarded/savant character well or else he doesn't get roleplaying Karma. It's almost unfair the way we've done it. His character is harder to roleplay than everyone else's but he gets no further benfits for actually doing it right. He has to work harder for the same reward. I'm going to have to rethink that as a GM.

Yeah, you can do it with SR4, with the slight problem of flaws being different. Awarding XP based on the amount the flaw interfered could work, although it's incredibly subjective and more work for the GM.

This isn't a new thing. This is the problem of the 1 Charisma Street Samurai with no etiquette at all. And the problem is usually GM's let the players bullshit FOR their characters. You know the one I'm talking about, the smooth person in real life who could talk his way out of a murder and uses that to get his 1 Charisma character out of trouble.

Use it to your advantage. Isolate the offending character, put him in a situation where he can't shoot his way out and he'd better fucking lie like he was born with a silver tongue.

Rig the roll so that he wins by the skin of his nose, but off-handedly suggest that he should probably try and make up for his abhorrent social skills (maybe make it a point of having whoever was facing him down with 10 dudes with guns point this out as well, like "Jesus, this whole thing could have been avoided if you just weren't such a raging asshole")

....if he does it a second time, well then he's going to die.


Players suck. They will almost always powergame the edge/flaw system. Your job as a GM is to screw them with said flaws. Rare allergy? No problem, they go to new and exotic locales....or biotech greenhouses. Dark Secret? You call it. Players will make up stupid shit like "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die". But you need something guaranteed to make the players (NOT the characters) sick with disgust, like he's a convicted sex offender or something.

I kind of think you're skillfully dodging by dismissing "whether it's good to be a social moron and run the shadows" and simply making it a rule mechanics question. If you want to do algebraic equations about min/maxing that's fine, but the rules are there to support the roleplaying game, not the other way around. So to dismiss that key fact (and you'll note I completely ignored your dismissal in my reply) is somewhat dishonest. Not harping on you or anything, but simply calling uncouth "broken" without even examining the roleplay aspect of it is silly.

In my game, someone with 1-2 Charisma and no etiquette is going to die. Plain and simple. If you don't use etiquette/charisma rolls in your game, you're not really utilizing SR to even a marginally beneficial portion of what it's supposed to. Information should get your characters killed. Well, not your character(s), but any character that walks down the street without his more charismatic buddies. Anybody who has uncouth should be afraid to spend downtime outside of the house.

Ok. Regular program: Uncouth = Low Charisma. Low Charisma is a debilitating flaw in the hands of a good GM. In the hands of an uncreative GM, it's a tool for abuse.

Close thread. Back to the regular regular program.

Too long, didn't read. Your argument hedges on "You'd have to make contrived scenarios to get this done" and being a raging condescending asshole.

To retort your argument in three words or less: No I don't.

Runner Uncouth needs APDS ammo. Bad. Team doesn't have a Face. It has a Mage with Magic Etiquette, and a Rigger with Corporate Etiquette or Negotiations (Gotta get the most nuyen for your run, after all), and possibly a Decker with Matrix etiquette. Who's he going to talk to? He doesn't have street etiquette. So how the hell is he supposed to get a gun? In my game: He doesn't. In your game I presume that you let him get away with murder of a shopkeeper and a theft of firearms from a licensed weapons dealer that LoneStar doesn't investigate because you can't GM worth crap.

Sure, yes, you can have your other runners do it for him, but they're not likely to get results because they specialized in what was their specialty, not HIS.

Would you like to try and elevate the discourse again, since you started with your brusque garbage about getting "back to a regular program" or would you like to continue behaving like a cock? Either way, I think my tolerance for your "I know I'm right but I'm posting a thread about this anyways..." attitude is at its limit.

We can only hope that this is a sign that DS is growing its teeth back.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Personally, I wouldn't worry so much about the flaw. It gives serious in-game disadvantages, so it's not "free points" even for a low-charisma character - because even someone with a charisma of 1 could still spend 4 measly build points to get etiquette: 1 with a street specialization. That's the real min-maxing - spending juuust enough on social skills to be "safe". With flaws limited to 35 points, and all of the other restrictions on character generation, it's not like taking this flaw will turn a player into an unstoppable munchkin.

If someone takes the Uncouth flaw, they either want to roleplay it, or they are solely combat-focused and are not interested the wheeling and dealing. In the first case, it's not cheesy, since they will actually be playing the flaw out. In the second case, what's the big deal? Let the player play the type of character he wants to! If the uncouth flaw is fatal in your games, then either tell the player ahead of time, or ban it from your game. The flaw should come up occasionally, but the GM shouldn't be using contrived situations to punish the player - it's supposed to be a game, played for fun.

Heck, try to see it as a challenge. Maybe you can make your NPCs and social situations interesting enough that the player of the uncouth character will get tired of watching from the sidelines, and will try to either buy off the flaw or get some social skills.


Now... there is one exception to the above. Some of the players who disdain social skills will take this flaw for the same reason they took it, and the vindictive flaw, in SR3 - because they will use it as an excuse to turn roleplaying enounters into combat encounters by being abrasive and offensive. Such cases should be treated the same way you would treat any other disruptive behavior in your games.

Fangirl--please don't bait them.

Charon/Adam Selene--you are both in agreement that it is detrimental to a player to have a low charisma score and no social skills, right?

The argument following seems to stem from the ramifications of taking the negative quality.

Low charisma individuals can be uncouth (note the lack of capitalization to signify the adjective rather than the Quality) or they can simply be socially inept, perhaps not knowing what to say, how to say it etc.

Characters who are Uncouth, suffer the same role playing problems as uncouth characters, but it is a much more obvious problem. The fact that they cannot default on tests and must pay additional karma costs is a mechanical disadvantage.

Beyond that we need to look at the descriptive text which describes the two characters from a RP perspective, which is often deemed to be equally important to the discussion of qualities.

SR4 p. 61 (A low Charisma Character)
A whiny demeanor, a me-first attitude, or an inability to read body language or subtle hints are just a few traits that can give a character low Charisma.

SR4 p. 83 (An Uncouth Character)
Uncouth characters are antisocial or sociopathic and have a difficult time interacting with others.

Given the descriptive text, I would say that a low charisma character with the Uncouth flaw is the type of runner that you wouldn't bring to the meet. You'd leave him in the van where he can't hurt negotiations.

Examples:
A pencil pushing lab aide, who knows how to recombine DNA but couldn't pick up a date at the bar--Low charisma and a lack of social skills.

A pencil pushing lab aide, who drugs his date at the bar to make her easily swayed to leave--Low charisma character who is Uncouth.

By taking the step from fumbling in social circumstance to psychotically driven and manipulating social circumstance, the low charisma character becomes Uncouth.

Obviously, there are times when the use of sedatives are required in an unwillful extraction, but an anti-social or psychotic individual would use inappropriate, possibly dangerous, means to fulfill his/her own objectives in place of the proper social forms.

"Unaware" means that a success test may be required to perform certain tasks that most people take for granted and the skill cannot be defaulted on. (See SR4, p. 108 Skill ratings table and SR4, p. 82 Incompetent)

The example given for social skills is a hermit. Individuals who have spent the last several years in solitary confinement or suffered sensory deprivation during their formative years would be appropriate.

While the double karma cost does not come into play in my campaign, I've never had one of my players take Uncouth. My players put Uncouth side by side with Uneducated. (The second has the same mechanical qualities, except that it applies to knowledge skills rather than social ones.) Both of these negative qualities need to be explained in the runner's background and will come up.

From an SR3 perspective, I actually saw more Uncouth deckers than sams. The sam needs to be able to buy guns, ammunition and cyberware, and in general the sellers of these goods in the black market are not the type of fellows you want to pick a fight with. On the other hand, a smart frame isn't going to care that you were rude and failed to follow the social script. It only cares if your orders can compute.

Just for fun and because I can search my copy of SR4...

The following specific actions cannot be performed by an Uncouth character, per the rules in your hymnal. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but rather a compilation of tests described in the rule book that explicitly require a Social Skill.

• Con someone
• Resist a Con attempt
• Defeat a voice recognition system with Voice Control (adept power)
• Ease someone's suspicions
• Negate a social gaff
• Teach
• Intimidate someone
• Resist intimidation
• Lead others
• Resist being lead
• Negotiate anything with someone
• Resist a negotiator
• Notice if someone is lying
• Get information from a reluctant contact
• Haggle a discount with a contact
• Get a favor with a rating higher than a contact's Loyalty Rating
• Purchase a controlled item on the black market
• Fence gear

Most other things, I imagine, are fair game.

Ummmm. I'm not going to claim you're wrong on the list, but...

It seems stupid, to me. An Uncouth character is the epitome of rude and obnoxious. Why would he listen to what some silver-tongued cocklicker has to say? (Such as being negotiated with, or being lead.) I would say he would automatically resist such things - without any say as to whether he wants to resist or not.

I personally don't consider the mechanical aspect of Uncouth to be worth 20 points...frankly, most groups have one guy do the majority of their talking, so having one dude who can't talk to anyone without offending them isn't really that big of a problem. You leave his ass in the car when you go to your meets, and he's got 20 free points.

The real disadvantage is if the person roleplays as a complete asshole. Which is, generally speaking, a detriment to the play experience of the group (in my experience, anyway). So I just don't allow it in my games.

@Charon:
One little misunderstanding on the first part you quoted. I meant someone taking Charisma of 1 and etiquette/street: 1(+2) instead of the uncouth flaw. And it also should have been 6 build points for that, not 4.


Now, as far as characters with the uncouth flaw being unable to resist con or intimidation attempts, I would beg to differ. They still get the Attribute to resist. Saying they can't resist is like saying someone with Incompetent/Pistols can't dodge pistol bullets. It's bad enough that they are stuck rolling an Attribute against someone rolling skill + Attribute, not to mention that the Attribute in question for 3 of the 5 resisted social skills is Charisma, which will generally be low for an uncouth character.

Also, "antisocial or sociopathic and have a difficult time interacting with others" does not mean "humps people on the leg and takes dumps in the middle of the street". There are three archetypes included in the book that have the uncouth flaw - the bounty hunter, the enforcer, and the hacker. Of the three, the first two would probably fit the sociopathic category, and the hacker would be more likely to be in the antisocial category. But they still seem to be able to have a few working contacts, and function on the fringes of society - they are hobbled, but not utterly crippled.

**NOTE FOR GMS**
Be careful about two of these archetypes - for both the enforcer and the hacker, they forgot that the uncouth flaw doubles the cost of social skills at character creation. For the hacker, that's merely 6 build points over, but the enforcer is a whopping 26 build points over.

If dodging bullets were "Reaction + Pistols" it would be the same. I can see it from both sides, and having resisting social rolls be counted as skill checks definitely makes the flaw a beating for anyone that takes it, even the 1 charisma guy with no social skills.

p. 108 uses the word "hermit" to give a quick example about a person thats unaware in the area of social skills.

that makes me think of the classical hermit that will call a spade a spade even if he is talking to royalty. i would say that the 20 point is a indication that they have gone for effective rather then polite.

the hacker would be someone you would not want to handle user assist phone calls. be an ass or idiot and he will most likely call you on it and then hang up...

I considered the Hermit a pretty bad example, since that's not remotely in the same league as some of the other examples. For example, I'm not sure precisely how someone in the Sixth World ends up never having seen a pistol in his life, but it probably involved head trauma.

One of the interesting contradictions of SR4, I suppose. Sometimes Unaware seems to indicate a profound gap in basic knowledge, and othertimes...not so much.

But personally, I don't think it makes sense for uncouth to mean "can't resist being fast-talked or intimidated". That doesn't fit any of the archetypes with the flaw, and "hacker" is like "street samurai" - it's one of the major character types. So would the bounty hunter drop to his knees and put his hands behind his head when the elderly mall security guard points his light pistol at him and orders him to surrender, since he can't resist intimidation? Would the hacker (assuming a hetero one) walk out of the bar with the three gay S&M trolls, since he can't resist seduction?

Okay so... back to being Uncouth changes nothing at all for a PC with charisma 1 and no social skills, or what?

Well, at any rate it's pretty clear that I'll just ban it for my upcoming campaign.

I think its a big penalty personally, I'd rather take uneducated since you usually can't default on technical skills and individual rolls based on technical skill are way less likely to come up. But then I guess I'm used to GMs who make individual social rolls a part of the game.

An example of an individual social skill roll would be as simple as the first impression when you walk into a meeting with a Mr. Johnson. A more important roll would be trying to get through a checkpoint. That presents individual fake ID/License + charisma + skill rolls that a samurai with 1 charisma and no etiquette could still manage through with good enough fakes. A uncouth character cannot.

But I guess as a GM if you're not going to make charisma and social skills matter that much, you're right. Uncouth isn't much of a disadvantage as long as you're the GM. I wouldn't just change uncouth though. I'd also alter the cost for raising charisma and social skills, otherwise players that do raise them might feel cheated once the campaign starts if they're not familiar with your GM style.