I think most of us have had the experience where somebody either succedded (or at least tried) get all sorts of extra advantages or points/whatever for being alergic to camel hair or whatever.

Now I'm sure there have been plenty of threads on how disadvantages can be done wrong, but I'm wondering about what might be fun. More specifically I'm wondering if it might be OK/fun to have disadvantages that sort of break the fourth wall.

i.e.

plot hook whore

Records GM exposition and sprinkles it in during sessions

Once per session GM compulsion

Medium Awareness. Or for a potential fan-nickname "Deadpool Syndrome".

EDIT: Gameplay-wise it'd just make everyone think he's crazy. Kind of like Red Mage in 8-bit Theater.

Extra munchkin
Plot hook teflon
You can't touch me
Force majeure

How does that work? As an advantage where the GM agrees not to persecute you for abusing possession rules or something?

Role Player. Character my not gain karma for good RP, as the player merely plays for rolling dice.

querulous paranoia
Must argue every little detail of the GM's narration. Failure to do so or losing the discussion results in an immediate -2 modifier to all tests until the querulant can make up for his failure.

No, as a Disadvantage where the GM agrees to allow you to abuse more rules than you ask for.

Force du Jour - -3 to all Social Tests if character possesses a WEPON weapon.
"If all you have is a hammer..."

Another one for Poor Self Control....

Lecher. And no, I do not feel I need to spell that out any more.

Rocks Fall: Once per session, one of your cunning death traps automatically fails.

And while not a disadvantage, how about this as a skill:

Throwing (Dinner Tables)

Why not? Arsenal's already got Metahuman Body as an Improvised Melee Weapon.

Two of my group's favorite NPCs are built off of this fact.

Time Penalty: As a special interrupt action the GM may at any time take a Times/NYT/Zeit/Times of India/..., roll it up, and whack an annoying player with it.

Things I'd like to see as a GM would be:

A hacker that was hit by psychotropic IC. Nothing crippling, but relevant in some situations, where he enjoys the flaw as well.

A mage with codeslinger (This isn't a disadvantage? Ask a munchkin how many BP's are being wasted in such a build. Analytical mind works as well for the BP conscious)

A pacifist rigger (Drones are armed with narcoject, if that)

An alcoholic samurai (his cyberliver purifies all of the alcohol: he only gets the taste of it nowadays)

I'd like to see a GM as a GM. I've been wanting to PLAY since '92.

Man... That is sad.

And I know what you mean. Same thing happens to me... wait, no, sometimes I get to play... With horribly bad GM's.

Same sentiment but I've only been GMing since... 2002. I recently started playing in a Pathfinder (bleh) game just because I want to play so badly.

I'm tired of seeing Spirit Bane (Watcher). Or more correctly, I'm tired of banning Spirit Bane (Watcher). I've seen a good gamut of well-roleplayed neg. qual.s, including addictions, phobias, Amnesia (whole group of full amnesiacs shipwrecked on an island), and some others that I can't remember off the top of my head. My group's pretty good at it.

What's wrong with Spirit Bane: Watcher? Just makes them extra vigilant to point out the PC, and more likely to sniff them out.

Actually I'd love to see someone pick Spirit Bane: Watcher...
Watchers are by far the most common spirit there is. Every wiz kid, every burn-out, every mage can summon them and use them for day to day work. They are legal to summon without any permit (Is it SR2 or 3 that said that every force 4 and higher spirits required a permit to be legally summoned? Dunno, in any case I do offer the caveat: my capmaign makes that assumption), and thus think of the chances you have to have fun with such a disadvantange. Maybe not during runs, but every day, at some point a bored watcher manifests and starts calling you names, or just bothers you...

Awesome. Simply awesome.

I personally rejoice when my players (especially the nonmages) take spirit bane watcher spirits. Nothing like not being able to SEE anything because of all the watcher spirits mobbing you, attempting to poke or harrass you etc when you are trying to snipe someone. Better yet is when the watcher spirits go and help the enemy by pointing you out (by complaining about the absolute jerk or asshole sitting over there in the brush undercover...

Spirit bane watcher spirit is always allowed in my game because it can be, though not always is, the most deadly character negative you can have. Really bad for pretty much any character to take. My particular munchkin found that out the hard way.

You know, I think there's a great idea in there. Have some sort of "crappy build" disadvantage. Maybe something where you show your GM the character sheet for a far from munchkin build, and the GM grants back 25% of the what they feel are crappily/flavorfully spent points in the form of a disadvantage. Just a fun way to encourage a little more variety in characters.



I like keeping players greedy. Something like this could give them BPs up front, at the cost of nuyen every game session. Maybe they'd get Gaesa like penalties if they're too broke or otherwise cut off. Any expensive hobby could do.





I'm in with inncubi. I want to be a player, but than after a session or two I generally remember why I like being the GM.

Any negative quality that gives plot hooks and gives a reason for a character to go on a run. It makes it awfully hard to turn down a bad run if you need cash or the Johnson has information you want. Also players at a certain point should be making their own runs and I just create adventure of their choosing.

Actually, another reason that "Spirit Bane: Watcher" can be bad is that, against Magically Poor targets, Watchers make a GREAT Tac-Net that can't be hacked. The spirit(s) bounces from person to person transmitting messages and information at the speed of Spirits.

If you have the bane, however, well... Remember "The Telephone Game" from Grade School?

I have a character in an EP game (A Trip to Renewal, in the Pbp forum) who has schizophrenic delusions which make him think he's a character in a role-playing game. He spaced a character because the other player had to leave the game and blamed in on a a critical failure on a perception roll. All IC.

Unrelated to the fourth wall thing, but I've long thought that it's a bit odd that there isn't a Roger Murtaugh Memorial "I'm Too Old For This Drek" flaw of some sort. Nothing major, mind you, just a tidy li'l flaw that demonstrates how trading blows with the Triads in pitched rooftop firefights doesn't feel any easier once you're pushing 50. After all, as far as I know, Infirm and Progeria are the only qualities that specifically mention aging as a rationale for their effects, but well, those flaws are just plain vicious and don't really fit what my players have been looking for when they asked about building middle aged runners. Personally, I just houseruled one in by using the rules for the Biosystem Overstress flaw sans the bioware requirement.

Nice. Reminds of the Dark Knight Returns comic series, where Batman is 55 and often panting for breath. One of the best comics of all time btw.

Agreed, and it really does give you the feel for what that sort of hard living can do to a person, physically and mentally.

I can see that. Just a much more moderate version of the others, but it would only really apply for the sammy types.

Constantly opening yourself up to the forces of the arcane, tweaking your system with hot sim or just keeping the hours and diets most runners do would definately have an effect, and it seems a good baseline, though I will admit to being AFB right now...

One nice thing is that with Shadowrun medtech it's also pretty easy to talk yourself out of feeling obligated to take the quality just because you're making an older runner. For elves and dwarves it's pretty much a non-issue right out of the gate, and for everyone else you can just sort of assume that there's got to be some middle ground between present day preventative medicine and Leónization treatments. Even if the characters are roughly the same age it's not hard to imagine a former company man skipping the quality while the crusty private detective feels pretty haggard after a rough run. The Sixth World ain't fair.

It isn't? Damn, there goes my Innocence...

Too bad, you could have traded it in at the bar for a bottle of tequila and a box of condoms.

Whoa whoa whoa... You got CONDOMS for your as well?

Damn, did I get shafted!

Ouch, I hope Bubba atleast used plenty of "essential oils" man.

actually I'd kinda like to see my players take the qualities for negatives they're going to roleplay. I've got a player who created a dwarf mage, I think with no negative qualities, then when the game started she decided that she was going to be extremely racist (bias negative) and only use touch spells (I can't remember for sure, but I'm guessing there's a geas that would cover this.) After several sessions she's stuck pretty hard to both of them (no non-touch spells and picked a fight with an entire section of the Ork Underground...) though she did recently let me know that she's tired of roleplaying an angry racist all the time and asked me to provide a storyline opportunity for her character to become more accepting. But still, she took basically two big weaknesses without any compensation. Basically the opposite of what this thread is about I guess, I just thought it was a funny note.

Sometimes you don't know what a character's going to be like until you actually play them. Perhaps we should allow provision for limited retconning shortly after chargen (with GM approval, of course).

Sounds like a move I adopted from an old GM of mine. After the first, but before the second session, you can remake almost your entire character[with a loosely similar concept], after the second, but before the third, you can redo skills and qualities, and after the third, you can tweak some of your skills[one more point here, drop a point there, lower this one, boost that one]. Then you're done. It was mostly to help newer players get used to the system and optimize their characters a bit more for survival, as lethal a game it is.

Yeah, one time I ran a young but gifted magician who had the benefit of a pretty formal education at a great college. When I was writing his background I had thought of him as kind of a naive hands off type but nobody else in the group had much shadowrun experience but me and the GM, nor did anyone design a background that was really any more experienced than my magician. So I switched gears a li'l and played him as overconfident if anything. It really helped get the wheels rolling a few times and got a few laughs.

And sometimes you write someone one way and just find yourself playing them another.