Just musing -- the liar quality says there's a chance for someone to disbelieve you any time you address them. Three strikes with the same person, and you gain a point of Notoriety. But what about if you are proven true? Does that get rid of a strike, or not?

For instance, what if you say "It's a nice day out," and roll a 1. The person therefore thinks you're lying. Then they go outside, and the see that you were telling the truth. Do they a) assume it wasn't actually nice when you told them it was, but just happened to change before they went out, or b) consider themselves mistaken about the fact that you were lying? It seems like a) would go beyond the realm of people thinking you're a liar in general, and would cross into the supernatural, where people are absolutely convinced that you're a liar, no matter the evidence to the contrary. If you go with a), the quality becomes more metaphyiscal than simply a consequence of you having shifty eyes, or something.

I know that, per RAW, a) is correct. The quality does not provide for having a strike removed if the person is shown undeniable evidence that you weren't lying. But still, it seems appropriate to add a bit of wiggle room into the quality so that it's at least slightly realistic.

If you're a compulsive liar you may also simply say "it's raining outside" when it is in fact sunny. That's just the kind of guy you are.

It's a nice day out.

Was I talking about the weather? The Mood? The rest of the day? The earlier part of the day? Do I have a sunburn, an allergy? Do I get a cold the next day? Did my favorite sports team lose because of the nice weather?

What is a nice day?

Roll a 1, and the subject will interpret the statement in a negative way.

And trust me, whatever is, or is not said, it can be interpreted in a negative light.

Runners are bad people who go around shooting people in the face for money. Of course they lie. They lie because they are about to shoot you in the face.

No, with the Liar flaw, you're not necessarily a compulsive liar. Just something about you makes everyone think you are. People disbelieve you on a 1d6 roll of 1, no matter if you're telling the truth or not. You could be a compulsive liar, but you don't have to be. Compulsive liar would be covered by the Compulsion flaw.

@DireRadiant: I think there are still some statements that aren't subject to any ambiguity. "I have a golf ball in my right hand," for instance. By RAW, someone could roll a 1, and think you're lying. And then you open your right hand in the very next instant and show that you indeed have a golf ball there -- and they still think you were lying?

Does seem to be a sort of Catch-22 situation... I would think that in the case of proven fact, they would no longer think that you would be lying...

But hey, even here on the forums, that does not seem to work all the time...

Scenario 1

Liar : "Here is the package Mr Johnson."

Rolls 1

NPC: "No, you are not. You are double crossing me!"

Bang bang bang!

Scenario 2

Liar Teacher : "If x-y=2 and if x=3, then y has to be 1."

Rolls 1.

Student NPC : "No way, you are lying!"

One way of making it work would be to skew the results of people trying to detect lies. Detect Thoughts/Lies/Whatever on Liar. Liar rolls 1 when he isn't lying. He is lying and not at the same time. Game hang.

Obviously there's either an illusion casting mage, a mind raping one, and you had powers you didn't tell me about. Or I'm deaf, or I misheard you, or you thought you said there was a golf ball, but you didn't really say that.

The lie doesn't have to be about the immediately preceding statement. You get a negative quality that causes you problems through the mechanism of causing you notoriety and you get three strikes per notoriety point. No matter what you said, the person believes you are a liar.

It's about being a liar, not whether the statement is a lie.

You could make a truthful statement that makes a lie of your previous ones, that would make you a liar.

Shall we continue? I'm on a streak and can keep coming up with all sorts of reasons for a person to believe the person making an apparently true statement is a liar.

What happens when the Liar rolls a 1 if he only states he is a liar?

@toturi That particular one does pose a problem. But it could be in the why is he messing with me class.

"On a result of 1, the person or contact being addressed assumes that the character is lying."

Clearly allows for a True statement to be said, but considered a lie. There could be some amusing scenarios where X is told to "You should duck!" and doesn't and then is hurt. Yeah, you spoke the truth, but you sounded insincere and X ot hurt so they don't like you, so they blame you and spresd nasty rumors about you, which is what notoriety is about.

I dunno, it's not really a big deal. Just an interesting question of RAW vs. believability. I'd just rather say that if they know the statement is true beyond doubt, then there's no roll... that would make so much more sense. I don't think I should be able to get notoriety for "lying" about the sky being up. Everyone knows it is, and nobody would call me a liar for saying so. After all, it's a 5 BP flaw. It's not some kind of magical metaphysical thing, it's just an incurably insincere way of talking. That shouldn't break the laws of reality.

What if the true statement is taken in a completely meaningless context?

In any case, why roll the D6 for a true statement? As a GM I wouldn't even bother, but there are going to be plenty of relevant cases where stating something true can in fact be easily misinterpreted and result in the possibility of Notoriety.

As a note, someone with that negative quality going around explicitly making absolute true statements to avoid the consequences of the negative quality all the time is probably going to suffer from some other issues socially.

Well, you'd definitely have to make the roll for most true statements, otherwise it wouldn't be a flaw. It's just when the hearer knows beyond any doubt that the statement is true that you wouldn't roll. It could also be restricted to relevant statements. I couldn't see someone getting notoriety for spouting nonsense.

For instance:

"Hey, did you hear about that awful liar guy?"

"No, what's so awful?"

"Well, the other day he comes up to me, and he's like "tea bags are made from kitten whiskers and star dust!" And I was like, "dude, you gotta be kidding me, fuck off you fucking liar.""

"Whoa, what a douche. I'd never go on a run with a guy like that. Can't even tell the truth about what teabags are made from."

Plus, there's the fact that Notoriety increases Intimidation. For instance:

"O-o-okay man, I don't want any trouble. I know your rep, I know you'd totally lie right to my face if I didn't do what you wanted!"

But that's more a problem with using Notoriety to represent the all-in-one measure of a bad rep, I guess.

Gah, I'd drop a cow on any pc making me roll a d6 every time they opened their mouth.

This, so far, is the most compelling argument for changing it, other than its sheer brutality.

How many times do you think your character will address a Contact in her lifetime?

Every time she does, there's a 1 in 6 chance she'll totally fuxate it, and it *increases* from there on in.

Since the text doesn't say that the threshold modifiers reset, she only has to be "caught" six times before a Contact goes into a hideous Loyalty death spiral. It won't be very long before the team gags her with a tranq patch during all future negotiations.

This..Doesn't seem like a +5 BP flaw, it looks like the Runner Mark of Caine. If I wanted to be hung out to dry, I'd have taken that instead.

Taking a page from similarly priced flaws (Computer Illiterate, Matrix Personality, Reality Impaired) I'd revise it to a -1 or -2 mod on all social rolls where truth and falsehood are a factor.

I think this really only applies to things where you might in fact be lying, and it's relevant. If you say you like chocolate, no one cares, it can't possibly be checked against you. If you sing along with the radio, you don't roll 1d6 for each verse.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that proof will save you from reproach. For example, you give the case to the Johnson. He asked if you opened it and you say no - but fail your roll. He examines the case and notices the seals are intact, 'proving' you didn't open it. His conclusion? That you did not technically open it, but that you're hiding something - perhaps you checked it in another way, like X-rays or using magic. He KNOWS you're hiding something, he doesn't know what. Until he can get overwhelming proof that you didn't do anything, it WOULD count as a check against you (not as being a liar, but as being too tricksy for your own good).

I would argue that if he could get overwhelming proof, perhaps by mind probing you, he'll grudgingly agree you were telling the truth and the fault was his, and his level of suspicion would go down a notch again.

(In the example given, the weather should be applied to something. "Do I need an umbrella?" "No, it's nice out." "Hrmm... it is sunny.. But what is he hiding? Is it a high-UV day? Rain anticipated for the evening? Or is it something not weather related he knows - high crime day or maybe it's opposite day. I'd better just stay in.")

@nezumi: Yeah, that sounds about right to me. I guess the standard should be whether it actually matters, not whether you can prove it. It doesn't matter if you "lie" about the sky being up, nobody's going to give you notoriety for that, because it's irrelevant. But for things that matter, being "caught" lying makes people suspicious that there's a lie hidden in there somewhere even if you can prove your veracity.

As for the value of the flaw, it's not a big problem if your character has 0 social skills. I once played a character with Liar and Ugly and Doesn't Care. He almost never directly said anything. Half of his statements were grunts and obscenities. The other half weren't statements, they were just violence

It amuses me that one of the Fixers for my group has pretty much has this quality. He's a rather truthful, for a fixer. He's just got this air of "He is about to screw us hard" going on at all times.
Why does the group put up with the paranoia? (Best Cheech Marrin(SP?) acsent I can pull) Cause he can get you stuff man!
The real bonus came up a short while ago when he sent the team out on one of his little "jobs" - Transporting smuggled goods from the border runner to the final depot, and it turned out to be a police sting (Fixers can critically glitch too). Poor Fixer man hadn't a clue, party assumed it was a screw job, hilarity ensued.

Did he have to roll for lying for the violence?