I noticed that a few of the positive and negative qualities for changelings in the runners companion won't actually do anything to make your character obviously stand out. I mean sure my guy might be nocturnal, and animals do not like him, but other than that there is nothing really obvious about him that screams changeling. I know this is probably obvious, but it seems like it would be odd given there are changelings that are obvious, and how that might cause odd moments when Mr. Nightshift brings up the fact that he has an in at club purple haired cat girl.

I expect that a changeling who looks like a normal human would be less likely to be accepted among other changelings than a plain old human would, really.

I think he's talking about the description of the Distinctive Style negative quality, where it states that all of the advanced character options automatically suffer the effects of distinctive style without a BP bonus. I think that is an overly broad statement, and that common sense should be used to determine some exceptions to it.

It makes sense for a changeling with cat ears, purple skin, and 4 arms. But what about the changeling who gets metagenetic improvement to an Attribute as the positive quality, and a mild allergy to silver as the negative quality? Should such a character suffer the effects of distinctive style?

I would say that such a character, while within RAW, is completely contrary to the flavor text describing SURGE and changelings. As a GM, I would probably insist on any changeling having at least some kind of distinctive feature. On the other hand, a changeling who gets rid of these distinctive features with surgery would probably not suffer the effects of distinctive style any longer (although if the distinctive feature was one they got points for, they still need to spend Karma to buy the flaw off).

In short, use common sense.

Personally I run the Sixth World as rather Pink Mohawk so I just ignore that stupid rule.

Keep in mind, and this is important, distinctive style only functions if you know what the persons distinctive trait is. So if you are looking for a cat-girl changing, it will be easier to find them because those features are not incredibly common, however if they where wearing a disguise when they raided for facility, you don't know they are a cat girl and thus don't gain the bonus.

It's the same with other advanced types. If your changing qualities make you super strong but weak to silver, you only get the bonus if you know about those traits and have found a way to use them to help your search. Similarly if the person you are looking for is a shapeshifter, and you don't know that they are one, you don't get the bonus.

Normal looking changlings still have the neg quality, it just won't come up as much.

Not to mention that you can duplicate just about every changeling look with 'ware. Actual catgirl changelings might be rare, but catgirl mods might be relatively common.

Which is not really defined anywhere else in the book. That could potentially mean anyone with a Quality found in RC to nobody at all.

This is less a problem with changelings and more a problem with the distinctive style flaw as written.

I've modified distinctive style (and a number of other flaws like vindictive) in my games so that they don't give points up front, but only when you play them out. So you have a style, and if you don't do anything to disguise it, you get extra karma at the end of the run. But if you hide your style, cover up the pink mohawk, then no extra points for you.

In my game, changlings have a small presence as a subculture. And in that subculture, the easier it is for you to pass as a normal human, the more you are looked down apon by changelings. One NPC changeling's only visible effect is neoteny, so she looks like a 12 year old despite being 24. She got a boob job in an effort to improve things, but she just looks like a 12 year old with a boob job. This violates a taboo among my changelings against bio-modification (you should be proud of who you are and not attempt to hide it). So she's doubly outcast among her own kind, once for looking human and twice for goin under the knife. Of course, she also has the berserk quality and an SMG, so most are too afraid of her to really give her crap.

IMHO certainly not.
Same goes for oni and koborukuru in Japan, hobgoblins in the Middle East (or any place with a sizeable population of immigrants from Arabia and Asia Minor, like the AGS), ogres in Western Europe and so on.




RC states that lvl I SURGE is very often barely noticeable or not visible at all.
The example given are humans who happen to have low-light vision through SURGE.

Actually, SURGE I is described as minor and cosmetic changes. Things like purple hair, or cat-slitted eyes. And like Fuchs said, who can tell whether it is cybernetic or not, just by looking? Even for SURGE I, though, there should be at least some little thing different about the character. Again, this is my opinion, not RAW, although I think the flavor text backs up my opinion.

I think the Distinctive Style negative quality was written this way to stop people from going "Well, I'm a minotaur with purple fur and glowing neon eyes - hey, might as well take Distinctive Style, since I'm gonna be easy to track down anyways." But it was clumsy wording, and too broad. I prefer to see Distinctive Style as a character's desire to be distinctive, or inability to blend in, something above and beyond any conditional modifiers that a sasquatch in downtown Seattle, or a guy in a Hong Kong suit in Cascade Ork territory, or a norm in a changeling enclave, might receive.