I asked a few of my players to write themselves up a lifestyle with edges and flaws.

I got a whale shaman with almost every edge, a female troll adept with almost no edges except one step away from everything, and a rigger who lives in the middle of nowhere.

First run with this group, I have them hijack a truck as it starts to come into town. Sure enough, two hands fly up.

shaman/adept: "So, since our places are close to everything, it's not far from home right?"
me: "No, it's miles away."
shaman/adept: "But our houses are close to EVERYthing."
me: "I told you, it's in the middle of nowhere."
rigger: "So it's near my place then?"

After some discussion the players decided that it was near all of their houses. The magic users had it nearby since they were close to everything, even the middle of nowhere, while the rigger, living in the middle of nowhere was obviously near the truck.

This went on for almost ten minutes before I put my foot down and told them to hijack the damn truck already.

You need some new players.

I know what BlackJack would do in that situation.....

Unfortunately, I've mixed Shadowrun and pleasure.

They're my friends.

How old are they? 12? If you really want to solve this problem, grab a map and tell them to decide where they live. Then you will have no more problems.

On a different note, how can theses people have a lot of edges, but no flaws? Why not make it so that their edges and flaws balance to 0.

Having more edges than flaws just makes the lifestyle more expensive.

I would use their impeccable logic and state that nuclear warheads are being tested in the middle of nowhere. This is where the rigger lives, so he or she dies, and as for the other characters, well, they're one step away from everything, including the blast.

Though technically that'd make the rigger just two steps away from everything...

~J

Have them actually read what the flaws and edges say rather than assuming. "Middle of Nowhere" and "One Step Away From Everything" only worsen or improve the travel distance to conveniences and specialty services, like grocery stores and malls. It has nothing to do with their actual location relative to every other location in the world, let alone one another's homes or safehouses.

So basically it takes the adept 15 minutes instead of 30 minutes to get to a mall, while the rigger has to drive for 60 minutes to get to a similiar (but by no means the same) mall. That's all it means. Note that the baseline 30 minutes was chosen on a whim.

@Kagetenshi

That was wonderful!

I guess I missed the humor in it, then. Just seemed to be a demonstration of blatant ignorance on both the players and GMs side. I guess it'd be a real hoot for a player to waste ten minutes of a game arguing with the GM because his character got wet despite having the Hung Out to Dry flaw, too? Or that because they have the Daredevil edge, they have natural ultrasonic vision for free? To each their own, I suppose.

So what you're telling me is that my players tried to amuse themselves with blatant attempts to be silly, hence I'm incompetent?

Thanks, I'll be sure to note that.

L.D: Why thank you

~J

Yeah, it's cool.

You misunderstood me, I misunderstood you.

All cool?

Note to self: Don't post while tired. Bad stuff happens.

Well I thought it was funny. As well as Kagetenshi's reply. Good story.

Likewise. Must appeal to the British sense of humour...

Y'know...yer only s'posed to be able to go +/-.5, total...right?

Also--I can't find the injunction in the rules against adding edges and flaws to a Street lifestyle. I half want to make a character who lives under a bridge, which is on a manaline, but the river running under is polluted, and all the local kids come to drink under the same bridge. I think that'd balance out. That'd be fun, in a cruel sort of way. Actually that WOULD be an interesting location:

"Let's go to that power site to do ritual sorcery on summat or other!" And then half hour or so later up pops a truck full of high school football players with a few cases of beer...heh. And then a terrible botch, and a toxic spirit arises from the river and kills the towel boy!




Sometimes I let my imagination run away with me. Anyway, it could be an interesting location, but munchy place to live.

Erm... what's a towel boy? I'm thinking Yankee reference here...

Boy what carries towels.

~J

Usually a tiny little lad who waits hand and foot on a sports team.