My rule of thumb as a GM: if a flaw isn't going to be a flaw then don't pick it.

Know what a fun Flaw is? Amnesia -5. The GM gets to make you up, all you get is a basic history that you can't do anything with. <3

Don't forget Flashbacks too! If your GM lets you: Have them triggered by tapdancing mongooses.

It's also fun to make a character who is a Claustraphobe+Agoraphobe... He's disconcerted in anything but rooms that are exactly the right size.

TinkerGnome if thats what you do to make flaws, well flaws then i want to play in one of your games!!

Sounds like fun!!

Just to clarify, that's not something I would do for flaws normally. However, someone who comes to you with a flashback flaw with a trigger like that deserves whatever they get. Hell, it'd probably even be worth bonus karma to them most games just to have the comedic factor hanging around.

Player with flaw: I sneak up on the guard and put him in a choke hold to quietly put him out.

GM: As you sneak up on the guard, your spine tingles. He's wearing earphones and you think to yourself, "Ah, stupid guard... you've made this too easy." Your arm closes around his neck and you start to apply pressure. To your horror, the ear phone is knocked loose and you hear that all too familiar song... "We are the happy funtime tapdancing mongooses!" His small color television comes clearly into view before you can look away. Roll me that Willpower (6) test.

I have had experienced players take full amnesia, but I don't even hand them a character sheet, I hand them a blank one and fill in skills as appropriate. Give him a severe phobia of doctors as a sammy so he COULDN'T go get a scan to see what cyber/bio he had Great fun!

That's the point of Amnesia -5, to totally surprise the player. Give them a base description of what they are, but no attributes or skills, let alone any history.

Hey, wait, suddenly, they're under attack! Time to use that handy Predator III that's hanging under your jacket! Whoa, wait, you just cracked that Troll in the head and gave him an M wound! You've got a skill of six in Pistols!

That's how it's supposed to be done. Not "Hey, I made your character. In two runs, you get to learn your entire history." Best make sure they have a good -5 Flaw to take its place if you do. Best would be Hunted or Bad Rep. Of course, that's just the way I'd throw it.

And newbies should learn to make the character too. Get some help from the GM and other players, but don't just make them a sheet. That's just no fun. =\

So you bring the new kid a few hours early to help him out. Or even the new kid and one or two people who would be willing to help him out. There truly is no excuse for not teaching somebody the system before they play.

Besides, what are they going to do while you virtually control their character? Sit around bored for who knows how long when combat comes up? Yeah, right.

Oy. Yes, that's exactly what they're going to do. You're spot on. Good job. That's completely and without question what I was referring to.

Unfortunatley, I don't know how to tapdance....

+++++++++++++++++++++++

I do think the Infirm flaw should be fixed so that it reduces both racial max AND racial modified limit. Modified limit wouldn't go below 1, of course. That way, it would actually make it more expensive for characters to raise thier stats to levles that normal people could easily achieve.

As an example, I've had heart surgery and am restricted from some kinds of working out (lifting weights, aerobic training that will raise VO2 max) for health reason and by drugs I take. I bike a lot, am pretty tall, and I think I could fairly claim to have Bod 4, STR 3, QK 3 if I was a SR character. Would I have an Infirm flaw? Yeah, probably. Is it at rating 4+, which is what the current rule would seem to indicate? Probably not. Rating 2 would make more sense- and under my proposed fix, it would be enough to hinder me from raising my Bod stat, by raising the karma cost.
Then again, my heart condition di threaten my life, so maybe I traded in the "Borrowed Tme" flaw for 4 points worth of "Infirm", plus some other stuff...

Amnesia is a wonderful thing but can only be used so often.

In the last SR campaign I ran several months back, all three of the player characters started the game in a burning car turned upside down, caught in a tree over the edge of a 100-ft cliff and slowly slipping. The car was all banged up and in their drowsy slowly-coming-to-full-consciousness state, they could hear the flames lighting up the tree as well. They had absolutely NO memory of what had just happened and who they were or how they got there.

They were dressed in street clothes but were wearing armour and had holsters or fast-draw rigs for firearms but there was only one pistol in the car (they figured the others must have gone out the windshield/windows during the crash 'cos there were a heckuva lotta bullet casings everywhere). During their climb out, one of them accidentally kicked the boot open and out fell a body and several weapons which dropped to the ocean below. When they got to the road above, they came under fire from a couple of strangers all kitted out for urban combat who seem surprised to see them come up from over the edge.

Anyway, they all had -5 Amnesia and I created their characters for them. They had no idea whatsoever what they were capable of - hell, they didn't even know what they looked like till much later when they had a breather from being chased, and looked into a mirror! It lent a GREAT air of intensity to everything and I would recommend an "amnesiac" game at least once to every GM!

I'd roll all their skills behind a screen for a while and after a while, rolled some of the dice in the open as they got accustomed to what they were capable of and eventually, I rolled their full skill level in the open when I felt they (in character) had a good feel for what they could do. It was fantastic while it lasted and it wasn't all that easy for them to figure out who they were and what they could do, and I give them a lot of credit for doing as well as they did.

Dont remind me about the Amnesia -2 flaw. My poor gentle Firebringer shaman got the shock of his life when he realized that he had been a blood mage.

Flashbacks are a VERY lethal tool for GM's since you are doing NOTHING for D6 minutes. IF you fail your WP test and roll a 6 for Flashbacks you will be standing still for 6 minutes, or 120 combat turns.

120 combat turns... I have a severe problem with that amount of time in a COMBAT situation. If it was D6 combat turns it would explain more since you should be able to be jolted out of it.

Fruminous, I'm not sure what you're getting at with that long list of 'free' Flaws. It seems to me you're saying they're free if the GM doesn't enforce them - well, wouldn't that include all flaws, not just about half of them?

(seems we're destined to misunderstand each other, huh?)

I expect my players to know their character, and if they have flaws I shouldn't have to be checking up on them.

I have a player who's taken the Day Job flaw. They are a freelance secure courier/escort rigger. I have generated overheads for the business, including her agent and mechanic (two contacts she has, so they'll skip a paycheck once or twice before walking away). It makes the flaw slightly less powerful because if she doesn't take legit jobs but earns enough from running she can subsidise the business to keep it going - but less legit jobs means her legit rep is not being maintained and she'll get less work and end up running to keep her business going, not getting the income money from the flaw and not having enough to maintain her vehicle and drones. On the plus side there's an awful lot she can write off as a tax expense...

But its still a Flaw (just a -2) - if she doesn't do the hours she can't maintain half her contacts and she really really needs them. But I don't check up on it. She checks in with her agent before accepting a run to make sure she has no work that clashes and so on. Maybe I just have good players!

D'OH! sorry, having a very off day yesterday.

Sphynx: you're suffering from a bout of 3-point Amnesia. You've forgotten you're a demolitions expert.

~J

It's better than Vindictive.

Sphynx

Only in your mind's eye. By the rules involved, the in-character consequences of the flaw, and the reprecussions of both of them, Police Record is *EASILY* three times (more like ten times) worse.

Fortunately, you live in a world where you can have your own (albeit bizarre) opinion. Lucky you.

Sphynx

Yes, lucky me. In my strange little world, having a bad attitude and a reputation for not being someone to fuck with (because doing so usually results in the offensive individual being punished for the perceived wrong -- sorta like Lucy Liu's character in Kill Bill), which admittedly can be a pain if you can't control it when around someone bigger and badder than yourself... is SO MUCH less a hassle than having all of your personal information on government and corporate records, a criminal SIN, constant harrassment, not being able to leave the area, nothing but street contacts, no association whatsoever with corporate types, and all the other pains that come with Police Record.

But as you pointed out, the former is obviously more of a hassle than the latter for a Shadowrunner in the "real" world. What a silly world I live in.

The greatest advantage of vindictive is that there is no requirement as to when you exact revenge, just that it will happen. The vindictive keep track of those who "will suffer greatly!" and implement the pain as is fitting.

A lying braggart griffin shaman is a potent flaw: will take credit for all accomplishments, none will believe the claims, and the first person to challenge his truthfulness gets in a fight to the death.

Vindictive is easy if the player and character are smart, low intelligence on either part makes it suicide.

Not to mention that an ex-con is going to get hassled on general principles. And anyone who happens to be with them at the time.

-Siege