yes, yes he definitely said stuff!
I'm partially refering to Whipstitch's post, but have been wanting a quality that's some mild version of Infirm for long time.

something stepwise would be nice. Templates might be Mental Handicap (RC 105), Biosystem Overstress (AU 21) or/and Virtual Personality (UW 38)


I make a weak start:

Old
Bonus: 5 BP/level

some fluff text
-1 dice pool modifier to Athletics skill tests and Healing tests per lvl taken. Max 3.

This looks like an excellent idea, especially considering a story idea I got not that long ago...

Also, folks, "Old" doesn't necessarily come with age. I know people twice my age now that are in better shape than I was in when I was 25. I'd have "Old", and I'm not even that Old!

Indeed. A lot of things considered flaws of age, mostly come rather as adaptions to a more sedentary, less active lifestyle.
Don't forget Perception.

Or physical injuries, or problems with growth. It's not just due to non-active lifestyles...

My knees, for example, have pained me since before I was a teenager (Insufficient cartilage and a few other issues), and I was a very active child. The rest is just injuries I've acquired that are a touch more than someone my age that doesn't play sports. (And I do, now, have a sedentary lifestyle.).

Of course. (past) Pathology and anatomical variation are always eager causes for limited physical capability. That's not really specific to old age though.
I was just trying to say the general philosophy of "the more active you keep, the more active you'll be able to be", or the ever popular "use it or lose it" apply.

So maybe 'Aged' would be a good name?

"Handicapped" would be more universally fitting.

Players can than decide, if their char is just old or has a longterm injury or something else.

Maybe you could represent this by having low scores in BOD, STR, AGI, and REA. And, depending on the person, mental stats.

*Gasp* Do people actually DO that?

The beauty of my approach is that you 'get' a lot more BP for your 'negative quality'.

if I have a low agi score. my old man will be bad at things like palming or lockpicking. maybe just Bod, rea, str

No, because he'll have high skills in that. Experience. But again, it depends entirely on 'what kind of old' for what attribs should be low.

While it could be interesting rules for aging (like instead of starting with someone old already with low stats, you eventually grow old), Shadowrun has enough augmentations to prevent or alleviate the health problems of old age. Besides, even playing with Orks or Trolls, the youngest of them by the 50's would be reaching the end of their lifetime just now.

my old man will definitely get the Reduced Sense negative qualities for hearing and vision

Indeed...

WHAT? WHO SAID THAT? I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE! MY SHOTGUN'LL BLOW YOU STRAIGHT TO JESUS!!!

if you just build around a high skill low attribute character you could mimic "old" fairly easily. Throw in some buggy ware if he's a street sam to represent that cyberarm (or whatever) that might have been SoTA back in 64 but it's no where near as wiz as it was back then.

Actually, I like the idea of the Quality, and force the Role Playing of it as well.

"It's not the years, it's the mileage."

"Christ, kid. It's not like I get a deposit back at the end of it."

"Don't mean I got to drive it like I stole it."

"There comes a time in every runner's life where he's got to push the pedal to the floor, break the tires loose, and push the frame to the limit."

Maybe this quality should enforce some limit on character improvement as well? Otherwise there's nothing someone taking this quality and then raising all their attributes with Karma or something. Maybe lower attribute maximums?

That's one way of doing things, but it's ultimately one that my players and I have been a bit unsatisfied with in the past. Part of the issue is that skills are relatively cheap and cap out at a relatively low number once you get past your two fives or your single six. So emphasizing skills over attributes has a tendency of resulting in characters with an emphasis on breadth of skills rather than being really, really good at a particular niche, since it's not very hard for someone to have both high skill and high attributes in a few areas. That's fine in and of itself-- after all, it's hard to live long without picking up a skill here or there more or less by accident-- but it's not something that fits a lot of what my players have wanted to do in the past with their older characters, which is why I was interested in looking at a quality for it. Qualities tend to be one of my preferred ways of bringing in some flavor to sheets because they can bring definite traits a character somewhat independently from the rest of the stuff that's on the sheet. It's really a matter of style, I think. A quality is admittedly more superficial than shifting around attributes wholesale, but I don't really consider that to be a bad thing per se.

Anyway, I'm going to touch on the thought process behind my hijacking of Biosystem Overstress in the previous thread for a second. There's two big reasons I picked Biosystem Overstress for my own version of an "aging" quality. The first one is simple: I thought Biosystem Overstress was a bit expendable thematically since there's Implant-Induced Immune Deficiency if you want a PC that generally feels crappy because of having too much 'ware. Second, and anecdotally, slower healing and fatigue damage problems made me think of that point athletes hit where they're still good but have to start living and playing differently from how they did in their early 20s if they wish to extend their stay on the top. That's the niche I really wanted to hit that I didn't feel was covered very well by Infirm-- if anything, I'd rather go Yerameyahu's route and just lower Body than take Infirm, for example. In particular, I'm reminded of the time I saw one of Terrel Davis's last NFL games. He still looked good and ran hard. For 4 plays. After that he had to sit out the rest of the game as they drained the fluid in his knees to prevent more swelling. Of course, TD was only 29 at the time but he had taken more pounding than many see in a lifetime. Maybe I should rename my "Too Old For This Drek" Quality to "Old Bones" instead. I've never really been quite happy with the name anyway.

No matter what anyone thinks, John is not too old for this shit.

-1 dice pool modifier to skill tests linked to physical attributes and healing tests per level taken. Max 3.

-or-

10 BP/Level
Reduce your natural maximum for STR, BOD, AGI, and REA by 1 for each level taken. Max 3

So the numbers..... a human with 30BP worth of the natural max reducing one would see a natural cap of 3 and augmented cap of 4 for all his physical attributes. I think there needs to be a boon in that negative quality, perhaps for each level you take you get a point in LOG, WIL, CHA, or INT?

I don't think it fits for Palming and even shooting, unless you want him to have him a shaky hand


it's 5 per with surge, but well, hm

Ew, not that D&D crap.

It may be D&D crap, but given how big of an impact that negative quality would give you at character generation. There is a need for something to balance it.

A human could start with no more than 3 natural in his physical attributes. That means it costs 35 BP to have a physical attribute at 3. Any race would gain 30BP from losing 120BP worth of potential in attributes (unless the race has an attribute that has a natural max of 4 or less). I don't find giving 30BP of mental attributes to be at all unbalanced.

Given that the impact is literally under the control of the person writing the house rule… Just make it worth more and they can buy their own mental attribute. Or make it less negative. Or go with the DP penalty one. This is, of course, all assuming that the idea of just not buying as much physical attributes has been rejected.

Also, aging might bring reduced LOG, INT, CHA and WIL too.
Just take a look at Alzheimer, skin conditions, reduced senses, etc.
Only in D&D an elder man can hear better than when he was young.

Indeed, that's my main problem. There's no reason this 'Aged' quality shouldn't affect mental stats, and… well, anything at all. It's much too broad to use in the game. Unless it's "-1 to everything per level of the quality'.

Nah, even age doesn't dull everything. Hell, skill makes up for a lot in certain circumstances.

My Father, for instance, has failing eyesight and his hands shake a bit. He is, however, an excellent pool player, having been good enough to train with someone that had won Canadian Tournaments.

I'd have had the Negative Quality while still a Teenager, and only a few of my "Abilities" would have been affected.

But, it can. Or not. It's too broad and vague and variable, is my point. Definitely no D&D -physical/+mental silliness.

Any Quality that has to do with age should have a slowing effect on healing. Of all the things I have noticed in my aging (57 years and counting), it's that the things that used to take a couple of days to heal go into the weeks. Or not at all.

It sucks.

There we go, that would make it perfect. You just don't bounce back as well! From injuries, drugs (Including booze), partying all night, and so on...

I mentioned this issue with Jon "Money" Johnson complaining about hangovers hitting him harder than they used to... But, then again, he's so filled with cybernetics and bio-engineered replacement parts that nothing really affects him like they would a "Stock" human. That's what happens when a 100+ year old, fireproof, brick and mortar building falls down on you after having a bomb go off in your face, and you wife's skull splinters burst your eyes.

Yep. That's exactly what my middle aged quality was going for, since the detrimental effects of aging are due to the body failing to renew itself like it once did. I've never really been interested in a super broad quality, really, since I have always had a fairly specific point in mind. Namely, that time when people can still do just about everything they could do when they were younger (or well enough, at least, that a system as granular as SR4 would see little point in marking the difference), but they suffer for it. My dad is a security guard and former fitness instructor and he's stronger than I am, but when he shovels the driveway his back lets him hear about it over the rest of the weekend. Me? I go out drinking the same night.

So that's why I always hijacked biosystem overstress. Half intervals on fatigue damage, double intervals on healing. Thus a 48 year old runner can have great peak performance but cannot maintain as well as a young runner, and any damage they take from crashing on drugs or getting beat up will take twice as long to heal.

That does sound great.

Works for me.