Hi guys,

I was sitting around the table with my current SR group, discussing character ideas. One of my players had the idea of playing a character (a shaman) with hardly any body control to speak of and a good portion of sheer bad luck. She's neither stupid nor careless, she just happens to do stupid things by accident
Examples:
- drop something while trying to sneak past a guard
- slam a door shut during an escape while the sam has still his fingers in it (ouch!)
- spill a drink on the Johnsons new suit during the inital meet
- bump into a "son of sauron" who is having a baaad day

The idea was that it's up to her to play this in non-critical situations (mainly during down time or whenever it doesn't cause any real trouble) and to make a dice roll in critical situations (whenever the consequences can be dangerous). When those dicerolls are made is mainly left up to GMs discretion. I was thinking of a quicknes roll against a TN of 4 or something like that...
I believe that flaw is worth about 4 buildpoints.

Do you think this is fair? Overpowered? Too tough? Any comments? Ideas?

i'd make it a six-point flaw that gives you rule-of-one whenever half or more of you dice come up 1s. as it stands, it's not clearly enough defined.

The thing is that it is also supposed to happen for things that don't really require a test (slamming a door shut or having a drink) and only for physical tasks.

You are correct in the aspect that it is not very clearly definded. It's still has this attitude of "now would be a cool time for something funny to happen".

stuff like that can be handled with Bad Reputation, Uncouth, or one of the countless other social skill-affecting flaws that all have the same effect and cost.

Don't think so. Bad reputation has nothing to do with what I described, neither has uncouth. Uncouth only says you can't or don't want to behave yourself. She can behave herself very well it's just that sometimes accidents happen to her. It's more of a very broad version of the Gremlins flaw. The flaw isn't social either since it's not restricted to social situations. I've gone through the Companion and looked at all the available flaws but found nothing to suit this idea.

Yes, in non-critical situations that's fine but when there's something important connected to it (like negotiations with a Johnson) the players should at least believe that they have a chance of succeeding. Just saying "You spill your drink on your Johnsons suit thus you only get paid half as much" (alright, bad example, I know) would sound a lot like railroading and general the GM being an asshole. I don't think the players would regard it as fair if the where sneaking past a guard and I said "you are so busy looking out for the guard that you walk against a lamp post and drop your gun with an audible *clank*"

Those are both test-related. That's botched etiquette/negotiations and botched stealth

What if she doesn't negotiate at all and is just sitting at the table? She's not the team's negotiator.
And for the slamming the sam's fingers in the door example, I usually wouldn't have her roll for simply slamming a door shut...

Well, if you want that real walking disaster area effect, you could apply the rule to other people with the explanation that the botch was her fault. That way she can spill drinks and slam hands to the detriment of others.

Simple.

Horrible Luck (-2.-4.-6)

Any time a success or open test is being performed in the character's vicinity, roll a number of dice equal to the points spent on this flaw against TN 6. Each success on this test causes the test to have a +1 TN modifier or a -1 TN modifier, whichever would be more harmful to the character.

There was also the house-ruled Trouble Magnet flaw: base -2, but we ruled you could make it stronger or weaker.

Another house variant for its interpretation (adapted it from the old Ghostbusters RPG):

For any given action, among the dice to be rolled, choose a number of d6's rolled equal to the value of the flaw. Replace those dice with differently coloured dice. If any of the designated dice come up 1's, something unfortunate happened ... although it could still result in a success overall, just in an unhappy manner. ("You dodged the bullet, but in doing so you crashed into the guy on the other side of the table, spilling his drink. ...")

I like that, Talia!

What if you made the # of dice be something like ... half the dice being rolled, or something, and then had:
lvl N flaw -> anything lower than an N on the flaw dice (hehe) causes something bad to happen?

That's a lot of bad mojo happenin tho, it might be simpler to simply have ONE die that is rolled.

Why am I reminded of the WEG Star Wars Wild Die (old group called it that) / Drama Die (my new group calls it that)? =)

You could have an appropriately handled edge as well, where if the drama die cale up a 6 (or 5, or 4 . . . ), something cool happened. Or, make it only 6 and 1 for Cool and Tragic, and the # of dice rolled are based on the rating of the flaw/edge.

If you took both edge and flaw that miht be interesting, though, with more than one die. You could roll a 1, 1, 6(10 via Rof6) -- "You dive behind a table, knocking a trayfull of drinks all over a big, burly ork while he was hitting on someone, in front of his friends. However, the steel tray deflects the bullet so that it knocks over the disco ball, causing it to knock one aggressor's gun out of his hand..."

Like I said, adapted (stolen)

Being fans of the straightforward and basic, we were trying to keep it as simple as possible for us. Then again, I often estimate TNs on the fly rather than strict by-the-book calculation.

Oh, and one level of the Trouble Magnet flaw per initiation level was compulsary for those following the path of Coyote

Well, this definately sounds interesting, though it is not quite what I wanted. I was not aiming for a trouble-magnet but for sheer clumsyness. It's not that bad stuff will happen around her, she's just incredibly clumsy. Too clumsy to be covered by a low quickness attribute.

Maybe not. Just give her a flaw which lets you call for a number of quickness tests per game dependant on the value (-2 = 1, -4 = 2 or 3, etc.). These tests are for doing normal tasks which normally don't require quickness tests (opening a door properly, carrying an item across the room, etc.). Tests should be against a TN 4 or 5, and she shouldn't be able to start with > 2 quickness. Or something.

Just a quick question, was the character in question a hardline badass? Cause if not, why would anyone in their right mind hang out with a jinx?