Now i didn't understand a word of that.

what I got out of it is that he and the GM are planning on breaking that poor poor other players little mind, piece by fragile piece....and enjoying it the whole time heheheheh..MUAHAHHAH..heh....

errr...sorry..lol

And Javvek's mind. The character currently has the "limited emotional range" flaw.

But yes.

::Salute:: !!

Speaking of, I have this feeling that the kind of personality I'm giving this chick has shown up in TV somewhere.
"Daddy's perfect little brat" of sorts. Always goes "Yes daddy" and then when he turns his back, she sticks her tongue out at him.
Something from the 80s, probably.
But I can't think of the name.

And any GM< would step on you HARD for trying to pick non-negative negative qualities.

Admit it, though... there are some negative qualities that are simply fluff. Now, I often take fluff qualities, both positive and negative, because they fit the concept, but neon hair, or the color of your eyes, are not that big of a detriment; neither are going to be heavily noticed when the masses can change them at whim. That is why they are not worth a lot of points.

Can it get ridiculous? I am sure that it can. Taking 30 points of fluff negative qualities might be an issue. But even fluff negative qualities can come into play from time to time. As long as they have SOME impact, then they are likely okay.

I look on qualities as a way to accessorize your character. AS long as your qualities are reflected in the concept, then I generally have no issues with them. If I see abuse, I recommend something else that might fit better. It is a collaboration between player and GM after all...

Oh I'd attach an additional addendem to something like unusual hair... BTW it's unusual hair, it grows at 5-10 times the pace of normal hair, pretty sure this is part of the joy of GM approval, and discussion of character. GM doesn't like it, then GM doesn't have to accept the trait purely on the fact that it doesn't fit, or you're just gonna get rid of it.

The purpose of those negative parts is to have some interaction, if you choose to take it and take advantage of how it's written with character choice, it's the GM's choice to make it have interaction.

As long as they produce a negative fluff effect, it's still "a negative". The negative can come from RP, that's fine by me.

It's when things are chosen, knowing full well they will never come into play for that character, that my hackles go up; that says to me "the player seeks free points", and that's a no-no to me. TANSTAAFL.

...

Among the "cosmetic" negative SURGE traits, I'm fond of Unusual Hair (especially for elves or Japanese, and doubly so for Japanese elves, if it's in "Anime" hues). It's something that NPCs can and should comment on (even if nonverbally, like doing double-takes, or staring, etc). I also like Bioluminescence; it's a neat idea, and makes it much more difficult to sneak around in the dark. (Not impossible - just harder. Full-body suit required!) Great at a rave, not so good at a midnight meet.

I like mood hair...hehe....reminds me of farscape a little.

Indeed...

Unfortunatly....I have not yet been able to convice my Co-GM to allow SURGE.....and since we are keeping things consistant betweent the two games.....


sigh....my 33 meter walking speed troll wont get played anytime soon


hehe

I prefer metal melting screams and the inflicted pain to cause it. Jool was such a perfect punching bag.

I was at a convention a few weeks back and while in the board game room, someone walked in with those mood-sensing cat ears.

I missed watching it happen, but apparently they walked in, took a look around, the ears tilted down dejectedly, and they walked out.

My greatest fear for going to GenCon is that I'll do this.

Heh.

Try also dressing up as Waldo.

Edward Cullen?! No friggin' way.

i'm so tempted to get some of these for my girl . .
but i'm afraid she won't be wearing them nearly enough for me to get warning signs about her mood from them <.<

Exactly. Some negative qualities may be less harmful than others, but they are called negative qualities for a reason. Elfenlied's take on it is cheese central, and GMs that let players get away with a list of non-negative negative qualities are not worthy of the name.

My take on Extravagant Eyes is something like cats eyes, lizard eyes, or oversized cutsey anime-eyes rather than strange coloured irises that contact lenses could hide effectively. Wraparound mirror shades or goggles might help hide them (although I would probably requirethem to be 2x base cost customized eyewear), but there are times when such eyewear stands out just as bad. And watch out for reflections off the mirror shades when bad guys come searching for you with flashlights!

Shadowrun has a lot of negative qualities that are relatively easy to get rid of: shoot your enemy (or your dependent ), quit your day job, dye your unusual hair, etc. But if a character eliminates a negative quality, they should either have to spend Karma to buy it off, or have it replaced with another negative quality of equal value.

I think the last part of your quote is the most important, namely that the quality has to be detrimental to the character. No GM should ask a player to take flaws that will cripple the concept, but on the flip side of the coin the player should never consider negative qualities as free BP. Good GMs will find a way to occasionally throw characters in situations where their negative qualities hurt them, let's take a look at your examples and a few others:

1) Mild Addiction (Betel)
Mild addiction is only a 5BP negative quality anyway, so shouldn't necessarily be too harsh. I make players with addiction pay incremental portions of their earnings on feeding said addiction, and while I may be more extreme than some GMs, paying cash over and above lifestyle costs to feed their addiction should be part and parcel of addiction qualities.
Also, consider the addicted PC going on an out-of-town job: he might run out, and without access to his usual dealer he'd better have the time and social skills to get his fix.

2) Sensitive system
Admittedly this should really be a 10BP flaw for awakened characters, but such characters are either denying themselves the possibility of getting a few choice pieces of cyber without paying twice the essence cost: cybereyes for a mage, encephalon for a techno etc.

3) Poor self control
High mental stats may help a character beat the crunch test sometimes, but things can get catastrophic when lady luck deserts them. This quality should also be role played as a central part to the character, which in turn should lead to some minor inconveniences from time to time. If the PC just has to beat the threshold when the occasion calls, I am afraid the GM just ain't doing it right.

4) Aspected Magician
Again, the counterspelling adept is limiting his options taking this quality, and in my opinion it is one of the harshest negative qualities out there.

5) Allergy
Might not come up often, but can be very detrimental when it does. In addition this can be a kryptonite-like weakness to be exploited if someone who comes gunning for you has done their legwork.

6) In debt
I will admit the way I run this quality is a bit heretical, but my take is as follows:
Although I advise my players against it, if one were to take In Debt I would watch a few episodes of The Sopranoes and the debt collectors would be connected guys like that. In a world where one wrong decision could leave the runner dead and the debt uncollectable, these guys don't play nice. They can turn up at your place anytime, beat you up and/or take away your toys (at about 20% book value, natch). God forbid you fight back, because then you get to pay a visit to the boss, who tells you that laying a finger on any of his colleagues in the future is going to get you whacked, and informs you that the victim's hospital bill and a gratuity have been added to your bill.
On the flip side, I don't make PCs pay karma to buy off the quality once the bill has been repayed, but until they do they are in for it ...

Prejudice works the same. At mild level, a character with 3-4 Int and Wil can just buy a hit, because on 6 to 8 dice, he's going to roll one anyway.

Simple solution: don't let anyone buy hits to resist flaws like addictions, psychoses, and so on.

... and laugh evilly if the character glitches or crit glitches on a roll ...

Oh, I forgot:

7) Incompetent
The way I run it (which, while not strictly RAW, is a house rule I highly recommend) is to allow almost anything* for 1 5BP flaw, an important secondary skill for a second, and only a main skill that the character has points in for a 3rd; never a 4th, but none of my players have ever taken more than 1).
Examples for a sammy : 1) Ettiquette, 2) Gunnery, 3) Pistols; examples for a mage : 1) UA Cbt, 2) Ritual Spellcasting, 3) Binding.

Also I want a background reason for the incompetence, which may impact the player marginally in other situations. For example a martial artist/adept who plans to only use UA Cbt might take Incompetent (Blades) for an easy 5BP. While I will allow this (only as a 1st incompetence, like I say it is only a 5BP flaw), I need a reason why the character can't do with blades. Should he say, for example, that he doesn't like the blood spurting caused by blade wounds, I might also give him a -2 in the unlikely scenario someone tried to torture him using a bladed weapon etc.

This "other situations" part of my thinking is the fault of the mage PC in my group, who took Incompetent (Pilot Ground Craft): the reason he gave was that the character witnessed his mother's death in a mob wars crossfire when he was a kid. One time when the PCs were fleeing a hot scene in a stolen car with bullets flying the mage tried to cast a spell on the pursuers, and voluntarily took a -2DP penalty due to poor concentration caused by agitation remembering that horrible day. I gave the PC a bonus karma point for good roleplaying at the end of the run, and a new concept was born ...

* ... but not cheesalicious things like Pilot Aerospace, Parachuting, Diving and the like.

When you roll for it for the tenth time with a pool of 8, and you get the required single hit, you just roll your eyes, say "fuck it" and start buying hits for the guy unless the situation is really tense. Like, someone's actively pissing you off, make that two or even three hits. That's what effectively killed the crunch side of this flaw in my campaign (which of course doesn't change the fact that the player actively roleplays it anyway).

My drake character took unusual eyes. Had a nice pair o' bright purple slit-pupil irises.



My old GM had a clever rule. Every time you succeeded on a compulsion test, every subsequent test was at a cumulative -1. When you finally failed, the penalty reset to 0.

So while a low-pool character sees his compulsion just about every time he rolls (as he rightly should) it makes those high-pool characters succumbing every once in a while (once every 2 to 6 sessions, depending on the compulsion, the size of the dice pool, and the number of rolls per session).

Worked really well.

Personally, I apply wound modifiers whenever I let the players roll. Makes combat monster and certain drugs with a damage component much harder to resist.

Yeah, sounds like your basic WoD Willpower mechanic (esp. in Exalted?).

Also a possibility.
Though I'd say that some compulsions shouldn't be harder to resist when you're hurt.
Particularly those ones that make you want to stand up and DO something.

We also house ruled that the the "path" adept powers are available for all adept without taking a way, you only need to get the qualitiy if you want the savings. Also, all powers can be reduced in cost
Just seems too arbitrary and random that any adept CAN get +3 for social stuff (and even get it cheaper with a way), but not the same for physical skills for example. I think it's much fairer this way.

Incompetent is not a positive flaw.

Nor is Incontinent.

Or Impotent.

I like that. Yoink!

It is if you poop orichalcum ...

My next character is going to have this quality.

Because heaven forbid roleplaying should upset this fun little numbers-game?

I really abhor this notion. When a player goes out of his way to deal with a quality I think it's a dick move to dock his advancement or give him some new detriment. It's up to the GM to make it an effort, naturally, but roleplaying the solving of a problem should be enough in a roleplaying game.

Aerospider... no it's not because we're out to screw one of the players. It's to prevent one of the players from screwing the other players and getting special house rule benefits. And gaining benefits of trashing his own negative qualities simply because he chose easy ones to eliminate.

P270. Buying off negative qualities! The rules are there, the rules do not include simply killing whomever and eliminating the negative quality for free. The reason it costs karma is because the rules say it is so. That said... yes you can do special runs for karma towards buying off the quality (that's the best way to do it IMO. I'm actively running to eliminate this enemy... award some karma towards the 20karma it will take you to buy it off).

Simply because you iced one enemy... simply means another one will eventually crop up to replace him... UNLESS BUY OFF THE QUALITY. This is not out to screw the player, it's because you got the benefit of the freebie BP for taking it. Now you get to pay it off or it stays.

Even a quality like in-debt. You may not owe the loan shark any more money... but the quality is still there. What does that mean... it means there's some organization/individual depending on rating of the quality with the means to actively collect and track you down to collect. What can be done with that... blackmail... selling out your paydata for a little extra return on investment when others are trying to do legwork to hunt you down... etc.

If you want roleplaying to determine everything (which basically means GM whim determines everything), that's free-form. It's not tabletop. Tabletop means numbers and dice keep things objective for everyone.

It can (and should) be dealt with both ways. Spending karma to make your Enemy go away without ever actively doing anything about it RP wise is just as lame as the reverse.

Obviously. Numbers-only isn't tabletop either, it's wargaming, but numbers-only isn't what I said. Tabletop *is* roleplaying… constrained and grounded by the numbers.

Would that be Role-Gaming or War-Playing?

So what you're saying is, as a GM yu' be okay with me buildign a character with both Reduced Sense (Sight, Total) and Reduced Sense (HEaring, Total), gaining -10 BP for each of them. And then, after the first session, spending 1,000 to get R1 Cybereyes and R1 Cyberears ... completely eliminating both negative qualities?

WOO! TWENTY FREE POINTS!

[/sarcasm]

[* accidental double-post *]

[* accidental double-post *]

Would that be Role-Gaming or War-Playing?

Holy Cow, What the hell happened?

Absolutely Crazy, Man...

GM: So you've just iced your enemy.
Player: Yup.
GM: At great risk to your own personal safety, using a considerable amount of gear and nuyen, calling in a favour and only after all negotiations failed.
Player: Pretty much sums it up.
GM: Well good for you, he is totally dead so no more problems from him.
Player: Great.
GM: But his son is pissed off something chronic and he's just inherited his father's empire.
Player: Okaaaay ...
GM: So just change the name on your quality and we'll carry on as before, k?

Is that about right?
RAW or no, this is no game for me.