Let me be clear: this is not about creative optimization. This is about those moments when you look at a character sheet and wonder what the hell the player was thinking. I'll kick it off with this: a player, who ended up not joining the campaign, showed up with a character who spoke thirteen(!) languages... all at rating 1. Yes, rating 1 (one). I never did get an explanation of why he thought this was a good idea. It wasn't even related to the concept (which he said was a "weapons master.")

Don't know if that counts, but a player on a convention once showed me the knowledge skills of her character. Two of them made me laugh out loud. The first one, relatively harmless, was the ability to spray 'Innocent but strangely kinky graffiti', the other one was called 'Throwing weapons usage, aided by useless trigonometric calculations and old Xena episodes'.

An SR3 player who took Knowledge: Martial Arts, but misspelled it...

In that other game, I had a player playing a 5th level bard. I asked him to roll a perform check and he responds, "Can I make a perform check untrained?"
After asking why he doesn't have any ranks in perform, he asked if perform was important for bards. I asked what he thought a bard was and he responded, "Well they do music stuff, like sing or something, and magic."
I suggested a few changes to his character after the session.

In SR, I had someone that wanted to replace their arm with a heavy machine gun, which I was not immediately opposed to, but when I asked how they planned on hiding the heavy machine gun when not fighting, since it was too big be concealed in an arm, her response was, "I'll just put a coat over it." She thought that no one would find a muscley orc walking around with a trench coat constantly hanging over their arm suspicious.

I once took Painting with a specialization in Neo-Impressionism as an active skill. The character was a painter. My GM thought that meant I'd take Art related knowledge skills. Eventually it was of use, but that was only due to some extraordinary luck (GM didn't realize I'd taken it as an active skill (even though he had a copy of my sheet from day one) and he gave us a job that required a painter).

I once played in a game (so long ago can't even remember the name) in which one of the PCs had a State the Obvious skill. Every so often he'd cry "state the obvious!", make a roll and then follow it up with something like "there are two doors in this room" or "if her name's Laura she'll be a woman". At first I thought this was just a comedy throw-away 'skill', until the GM had him make a roll and then had him point out something crucial we'd all overlooked. I yoinked it for the troll in my next SR campaign.

What the character nicknamed Casanova from that point onwards?

I may or may not have tried to convince the GM who originally got me into Shadowrun to allow me to play a Free Spirit (of Man, with a resemblance to trash) with Inhabitation (not allowed by RAW, if I recall) whose origin story was that he had been summoned by a rogue conjurer and made to inhabit an anesthetized dog, resulting in a Hybrid Form, only to suddenly find himself masterless when the conjurer was geeked by some armed thugs due to an unresolved financial matter.

Unable to return to his home plane until his host body died, the spirit decided to explore a bit in his new form and ended up ended up hanging around, fascinated by the mortal plane. His Hybrid Form was this scrappy, rusty-coated mutt of a medium-large dog, who (having merged to form a Hybrid with a Trash Spirit) was rather stupendously dirty looking. He had all sorts of bits of junk and rubbish "caught" in his coat, ranging from bits of metal and wire to a length of yellow Caution Tape trailing from his tail, all of which was actually a physical part of his form and irremovable. The hope was that, ideally, unless someone was looking closely, he'd just appear to be a very filthy dog. This would be offset in large part by the social stigma a very filthy dog would carry, compared to a clean one. That and the physical limitations of a canine body, including lack of vocal cords and opposable thumbs, and inability to wear most gear or implant most 'ware.

What can I say? I like the idea of playing unusual characters.

~Umi

Surprisingly, no. When the error was discovered several sessions in, the GM, who is a crafty SOB, ruled that Knowledge: Martial Marital Arts gave the character the knowledge and ability to conduct marriage ceremonies.

I've had a couple of adept PCs who had the Linguistics adept power, so I gave them a bunch of languages at Rank 1 just because it was likely they would learn a few in passing.

One of the more unusual things i've seen was one player copy-catting another player and snagging Uncouth for a character - but missed the dawning realization the first player had when they realized it was so bad, and figured out that Incompetent: Etiquette fit a rude dude a lot better.

A couple of SR versions ago, one player I knew had a PC optimized for speed on roller blades, and a very high Force (beats me how the previous GM let him have this) weapon focus bullwhip.

Did he become a pornomancer later in his career?

That's freaking genius.


*yoinked* I have two points of karma on my troll so I might as well get it.

Was it an active skill or knowledge?

I may be taking that on the next character I make, if I ever get to make a character.



But not meaning that.

Did your GM at least contrive a situation in which a massively encompassing knowledge of marital rites came in handy?



I'll have to yoink that one, too.

I've been told of a D&D game where the character had "Starship Enterprise" on his character sheet as equipment. The GM allowed him to think he'd gotten it over him until he tried to use it. Then he calmly pointed out he'd didn't have a communicator and went on with the game.

See, if that had been Shadowrun it would have come back to bite the GM in the ass, because they would find a way to make contact.

Probably the easiest would be spirits or ritual magic, but I wouldn't put it past runners with the Jury Rigger quality and enough legwork to come up with something I couldn't overrule without having a mutiny on my hands.

~Umi

In a game of Big Eyes, Small Mouth (the anime generic game that Silver Age Sentinals is based on) we were playing a game set roughly in the Final Fantasy 8 universe. I asked for a Phoenix Down (a resurrection potion) in something like the second or third mission and was given a "cinematic Phoenix Down" that could only be used during cut scenes (i.e., where the GM was describing the scene). Obviously this was meant as a joke and something I'd never be able to use. Flash forward nearly six months of real time. We had to break into a peace summit and stop an assassination attempt on one of the delegates. Of course, just as we break down the door, the GM takes over and describes the events. We arrived half a second too late and the murder had already taken place, the delegate was lying on the floor, gasping. Obviously, we were only going to get one quick answer out of before he passed. I let the GM go through with it all and then calmly asked if this was a cinematic. The GM answered in the affirmative. "I USE MY CINEMATIC PHOENIX DOWN!" The GM doesn't believe me, so I show him the character sheet and the entire group remembers when he gave it to me. The GM has no choice but to allow it, so I resurrect the delegate, get all of our questions answered, as well get commendations from the nation for saving a nation hero.

Same system, different group, I was GM. I had a player create a four-armed monster (like a Shiva) and attempt to convince me that he got four attacks with his four arm. This player was the most terrible Rules Lawyer, Munchkin extraordinaire, and the worst sort of Power Gamer all rolled into one. I knew that he was trying to screw me with this one, so I had him re-read the rules section for extra arms, out loud in front of the whole group.

Extra Attacks is the next attribute on the same page. He didn't argue it again. Also, I'm going to steal the "State the Obvious" skill as well. That's almost better than Common Sense.

There is a min-max reason to do this.

Get some Learning Stimulus nanoware and Bam! Suddenly all those language skills are rating 3, for zero Karma cost.



-k

Yeah, but I seriously doubt this player was aware of that. He had just, for reasons beyond understanding, made his character able to ask where the bathrooms are in thirteen different languages.

As much as I love BESM, it's greatest weakness is munchkinitis. It is definitly a story focused game filled with much waving kf the GM handfiat, as well as excessive nod and wink character creation.

Also, I think everyone is going to steal "State the Obvious;" though I may make it an a quality.

Linguistic Power with Linguist, and get some trid-vids and watch them subbed. I came up with that particular idea and a friend of mine did this in game.

And then you can break into strongholds, kill cyberzombies, and take over the world! Oh wait, you can marginally speak some languages. That's what linguasofts are for, if it ever comes up.

The skill was used as part of a legitimate cover to get into somewhere tightly guarded. An arcology, I think. The character officiated a wedding ceremony, while the rest of his entourage pulled off a datasteal. The whole team then left, and extracted one of the high-ranking guests with them.

That's just awesome! I would have loved to see the expression on his face when it happened. I used to play with one guy who was regularly trying to get one over on the GM. Watching as it fell apart every time was a joy to behold.

Jep, thank you. Already got all the necessary parts in place, I'll just need my character watch those subbed movies. Easy work as he only needs three hours of sleep
This will be awesome. I already took two or three new languages rating 4 for zero Karma in the last month of downtime.
I think I will add in some "Movies" knowledge skill for 1 additional karma while I'm at it.

As for unusual gear, I've got a complete "MacGyver" list for my character, along with the "juryrigger" quality
The strangest things in there being an aluminum bag of potato chips (salted), a couple one-use syringes, barbecue charcoal lighters, short metal tubes with a glass vial in it and a glass of salsa sauce (bolognese sauce will do, too). They'll never see anything coming
Plus, of course, a ten foot pole/telescopic staff. Mine comes with gecko grip, reduced weight and maybe personalized grip.
Oh, and duct tape, but that's neither strange nor weird.

Yeah, I think if someone really wants to know 13 languages it's OK. It's a dumb way to spend BPs, but it's not abusive. I'd be willing to give them more than 1 point each for free if they could articulate a reason for wanting that many languages.

I could see myself taking that many languages if I had a very strong RP character concept that I was trying to fulfill. Of course, I would be discussing it with the GM first to make sure that it would fit with the campaign he had in mind. Off the top of my head, I am already building an archeologist/historian who would have that many languages, many of them dead ones. Could work very well in the Artifacts storyline. Just sayin'.

Mhm, and encourage them to come up with good reasons to use some of them in play.

My PC, Professor, in the Post or Die thread has both the Linguist Quality and the Linguistics adept power. He has travelled extensively and collected languages he used in his archaeological work.

As far as usefulness, yes, linguasofts are easy to get... for the common languages. But walking into a bar in Backwoods Shithole, Anywhere, buying a few drinks and getting to talk to people in their own dialect after a couple of hours can be handy, and mighty impressive to the locals.

It depends if you're running the shadows in such a boring place.

i put some cybernetic blades into one of my troll fighters and gave him Origami as a knowledge skill. another was beer-related.
he used these in combination to first drink the beer from the can, then cut up the can into an aluminium square. he would then proceed to make little origami figurines out of the sheet, because:"i like them better this way, not as fragile as paper and easier to come by too"
a bit later i gave him wood working as a hobby knowledge skill too.

It's not hard to make contact with a starship in orbit which is actively searching for you. Arranging enough material on the ground to form the shape of Starfleet's emblem large enough to be visible from orbit with the naked eye is a task of manual labor, sure, but it can be done with time, equipment, or peons. Doing it so Mr. Data (you did not specify which Enterprise) could see it would be fairly trivial.

Or you could always use magic (if D&D; or Shadowrun,) or technology (Shadowrun.) I guarantee that broadcasting a repeating signal of "S.O.S. NCC 1701" will get their attention, and you could do that just as soon as the Marconi set had been invented.

Just leaving this here:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Subspace_communication

It supposes the ship is orbiting he plane you're on - and if it's in another star system even radio won't do you much good...

Common Sense Positive Quality.

It also works for all Knowledge skills.

Which many GMs do use on a regular basis.

Also, I said it was a min-max reason, not that it was an overpowering or broken reason. Someone who is willing to go to this level, though, is probably min-maxing everything else on their character just as hard.



-k

Which I cannot stand mostly because it's a player positive quality, not a character one. Why should I be spending 5 BP to cover my gaps of knowledge over stuff my character SHOULD know.

Stating the obvious is also a bit different anyway. It would be like, the GM is describing a compound, mentions that there's an unguarded gap in the wall and the players are all discussing the best way to get over/through/under the wall. That's not necessarily common sense.

I've just remembered that yesterday, I realized that one of my players - a Magician (primarily a summoner,) has no applicable Knowledge skills towards any form of sorcery-related phenomena.

Not necessarily weird, but a Stupid Player Trick nonetheless.

No, KarmaInferno, if they're minmaxing hard they're not wasting (a fair chunk of) BP on Linguist, Linguistics, and a bunch of level 1 languages. That's what I meant anyway.

There was once this SURGEd Gnome who took Striking Skin Pigmentation (Blue) and Vestigal Tail as his metagenetic negative qualities... and dressed completely in white.

Hmm ... Sammy Smurf.
Yeah, I'd watch that show.

"Smurf Straight. Smurf Ammo. And never, ever smurf a deal with a dragon."

Did he have one active skill? Smurfing 4 Specialization (Smurfing) +2

A Querx!

I think I'd have just told him Star Trek was only an imaginary story in that setting and that his "Starship Enterprise" was a limited edition scale model. Works even for SR.

Hell, it works for any setting except Star Trek!


Oh wait.

Yup, they have models in Star Trek. Poor delusional character!

Brings back memories of running into the Enterprise in fallout.

Well, into one of her Shuttles at least.

Yeah, or the "mystical bar"? or the bad luck dog... I hated that dog.