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Talia Invierno
Shadowrun character design comes with a list of active skills, some of which have become virtually standard to take. Knowledge skills give a bit more flexibility, but most runners tend to customise knowledges to their primary running focus. The points are limited, after all.

What are some of the more unusual skills (active and knowledge) a PC of yours has had? What is the most non-common language they've ever learned? (Sperethiel and the proto-language don't count!)

Kicking this off with a general example:

Because of the worldview of a small Tir college from which many PCs/NPCs in our campaign hail, every student graduating from there has a minimium of (Wilderness) Survival 1, Magic Theory 1 (whether Awakened or not!), Riding/Knowledge of Horses 1, and a (Tir-required!) creative skill of their choice.

Edit: for the future, please separate active, knowledge, and language skills? But the lists given thus far are great biggrin.gif
Nova
Our Rigger...a delusional and ugly dwarf who thinks he is an elf (man...can I pick em or what?) has "Elven Wines" at 4...

I am boring in comparison as I think the most unusual skill I had was "Pool 4" (Pool as in billards). As you mentioned I usually buy my skills to reflect my background...and what can I say? I just don't like elven wines wink.gif

Nova
YerMum
My troll sammie/fixer Jay had 2 skills he used on special occasions, they were Winning Smile and Letcherous Grin. I guess I had too much karma to throw around, but they did work *very* well in Dante's ;o)
Sunday_Gamer
I have Skateboarding at 6 =)

Wait till I get centering and start doing rail slides as a precursor to casting. wobble.gif

Sunday.

And let's be clear, Legolas (or Legless as he call him since he looks like an elf taken off at the knees) is a dwarven elf poser with a 1 cha who firmly believes he's an elf and all other elves look at him funny because he's too pretty. He's obviously speaks spereth, has a vast knowledge of elven wines and is an avid collector of elven porn. Ya, we sure can pick'em.
RedmondLarry
Fashion Sense, Cooking, Being Ignored, 19th Century Dance, Trucking Business, Pachinko, Skydiving, American History, British Royalty, Geology of Olympic Peninsula, Astrology, Cartoon Ideas, Beers of the Barrens, Drawing, Finding People, Begging, Male Fox Hangouts, Watering Holes.

These are across a variety of characters. The last two were knowledge skills of a female Fox Shapeshifter.
Rain
Seattle Area Dives, Cooking, Wines, Microbrews, Orienteering, International Law, Maritime Law, Marine Navigation, UCAS Foreign Policy, Meteorology, Marine Vessel Identificaton, Naval History.
Rev
I took "strike dramatic pose" one time for a shaman.

Eventually it was a centering skill (and, no, you cant strike a dramatic pose without an audience smile.gif).
kevyn668
Trivia, World History(Epic Battles), Greek History(Spartan), Corporate Accounting (embezzling), Sixth World Hockey, Not-So-Famous-Quotes, Porn Industry, History of Porn Industry, Lines-That-Strippers-Haven't-Heard-Before

biggrin.gif
Zazen
I can't really think of bizarre active skills I've had, but as far as knowledge skills, four jump to mind:

Coffee Brewing, Crack Smoking, Felching, and Child Molestation.
Ezra
Active Skill = Crawl With Lips.
(For when you need to leave, the lead is flying, and you can't feel your arms or legs.) biggrin.gif

Bölverk
I just started running a character with the knowledge skill "Badasses and Badassitude." It's used both for knowing about people (such as runner teams or others with a certain sort of street rep) and also for knowing how best to behave in any social situation. (Or, as the GM describes the skill, "Knows everything about Shaft." smile.gif)

Less interesting, but still somewhat unusual, is his highest level knowledge skill - "Mundane Methods" - in other words, "I'm a runner, yet I can't use cyberware and I can't do magic. How do I get the job done without getting fragged?"
Kurukami
For amusement value, I once had a character with knowledge of "Science Fiction of the Late 20th/Early 21st Century". On another character (a female ork who had the flaw "compulsively boy-crazy"), I threw in the knowledge of Thrash Metal Bands with a specialization in "Especially with Cute Elves in Them".

Others? "Fine Italian Recipes", "(Martial Art) Style Weaknesses" (a complementary roll with Martial Arts to take advantage of an opponent's weak spot in a particular style, in that case Kung Fu), "Electronic Locks, Access Controls, & Security Systems", and more stuff like that.
Entropy Kid
Had a street doc/interrogator who had "J-Pop" knowledge at rating 3, which was used once to torture a subject, and Kendo at 3. He actually fought with a stick, not a sword when in close combat, which was thankfully rare. The GM gave that character some free skill chips, which was great, but they were "Wok cooking" and "Ballroom Dancing." Never used them, but kept them handy, just in case.
Adarael
Post-Modernist Literature, Firmware Manufacturers, Macroeconomics, Parabotany (I love that skill...), Magic History/Myth (Arthurian Legend, 'Books of Magic', etc), Book Appraisal, Papermaking, Inkmaking, Penmanship, Dumpster Diving (different from scrounge, yes), Eerie Trivia.
Morphling The Pretender
QUOTE
..."(Martial Art) Style Weaknesses" (a complementary roll with Martial Arts to take advantage of an opponent's weak spot in a particular style, in that case Kung Fu), "Electronic Locks, Access Controls, & Security Systems"...


Not to sound like a jerk, but I'd be wary about allowing players to invent complimentary skills in the place of normal knowledge skills. Then, characters will have all the more incentive to have Int 6 and use the knowledge skills for stuff which can be used for extra dice and lower TNs.

I'm not saying you can't. It's just my sentiment that Electronics and Electronics B/R should cover Electronic Locks, Access Controls and Security Systems. Wouldn't it make more sense as a specialty, like Electronics (Maglocks) or Electronics (Security)?
----
As for strange skills, when I ran it at college, the two other Philosophy Majors (The third was I, the GM) both took Philosophy at 4 or higher. They also took 20th century gaming, with a specialty in Shadowrun.

Fortunately, my game was horrible, and no one needed those knowledge skills ever.
Arab_One
I had one kind of obsessed player who took the active skills Sex and Seduction at 8 each. He had a Lesbian scene with another character who was effectively a Blood Elf (Thats why he took Pain Resistance for the character) and at one point tried to seduce Ryan Mercury.
I once had a character who had his own special Language Skill for centering called Krozmartium. It was basically a collection of every cool sounding sentence used by magicians in movies that weren't actually from a language.
Siege
Tidbit skills that characters should pick up just for practical application -- the much overlooked "cover skills".

"Corporate Drone" -- know how to mimic the average wageslave and not be noticed.

"Bartending" or "Mixing drinks" -- besides professional drinkers, you'd be amazed at how many functions hire part-time or free-lance bartenders.

"Corporate policies and procedures" -- it sounds funny, but if you don't know how corps tend to function, you can stand out even if you're wearing a suit.

"Cleaning" -- for all those times you want to pose as a cleaning crew.

"Waiting tables" -- if you don't think it's an active skill, remember all the truly bad waiters you've ever endured.

"Small talk" -- while most GMs and players will use Etiquette to cover this, it never hurts to practice the art of wasteful conversation.

"Grooming" or "wardrobe and fashion" -- always a plus when trying to blend. Complements "disguise" active skill.

-Siege
FlakJacket
History of the Mesopotamian regions with a specialisation in the early to mid Sumerian period- 4/6. Might have been useful if he was ever in the Middle East but the nearest he ever got out of Seattle was Denver.
Warmaster Lah
Basketball ^_^ I mean come on, I never here about bball.

I also made a Troll SS that was fixated on Anime. He ran under Zaxon a character from a very obscure anime. I doubt anyone would have the guts to complain about his constant cosplaying.

I wanted to run a Barber one time. Nice way to make a quick few nuyen for fastfood or something.



Adarael
QUOTE
"Cleaning" -- for all those times you want to pose as a cleaning crew.


Actually, the same character who had 'Dumpster Diving' also had 'Janitorial Procedures', because he was.. well.. a coyote shaman janitor.

I mean, before you fall in with runners and you're SINless, what else are you gonna do, really?
Abstruse
"Great Dragon Talon Clippings". The character could tell which Great Dragon a clipping came from. Not that he ever got to actually see any over the course of the game, but he could if he needed to!

I gave the skill to the character for free because I laughed so hard at it.

The Abstruse One
RedmondLarry
Sleep Standing Up
Phylos Fett
BushBashing, Gambling, Pub Games, to name but three...
Namer18
Shipping routes 6, Nautical Law 6, Fishing 6, Sea Life 6, Tales of the sea 6, Songs of the sea 6, Accordion 1
TinkerGnome
QUOTE (Namer18)
Accordion 1

Accordion 1. Because there's no functional difference between Accordion 1 and Accordion 6. wobble.gif
Fenris
Literature(Norse Mythology)
Talia Invierno
Appropriate ...
QUOTE
I'd be wary about allowing players to invent complimentary skills in the place of normal knowledge skills
- Morphling The Pretender

That part of knowledge skills is already a bit blurred - don't PCs automatically have the equivalent of half their active skills as background skills?
[/tangent]

Roughly half my PCs take Bureaucratese as a language skill, and one also has Accountant-ese. They need it too!
Kesh
"Classic German Expressionist Films" (i.e. Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, etc.)
"Urban Legends of the 20th Century"
"Bibliophilia" aka "Book Collecting" wink.gif
"Cthulu Mythos" aka "Things Man Was Not Meant to Know" cool.gif
Person 404
Humphry Bogart
Blood Magic 3 (for a mundane who had met a total of one blood mage in his life)

I saw a player who brought Microbrewing up to 2 or 3 as part of his retirement plan.
Phylos Fett
Horticulture (Specializing in Dope Growing), and English (specializing in Drug Lingo)
TheBovrilMonkey
My current character has 20th Century Superheros as a knowledge skill

But then he's based on a mixure of the Punisher and Rorschach, so it kind of makes sense that he'd do his research before giving himself a street name biggrin.gif
Siege
QUOTE (Talia Invierno)
Appropriate ...
QUOTE
I'd be wary about allowing players to invent complimentary skills in the place of normal knowledge skills
- Morphling The Pretender

That part of knowledge skills is already a bit blurred - don't PCs automatically have the equivalent of half their active skills as background skills?
[/tangent]

Roughly half my PCs take Bureaucratese as a language skill, and one also has Accountant-ese. They need it too!

I've never heard that one Talia, sorry.

So far as I know, an Active skill does not automatically bestow benefit of any knowledge skill, even the knowledge variant of the Active skill in question.

-Siege
Phylos Fett
QUOTE (Siege)
QUOTE (Talia Invierno @ Sep 6 2003, 03:24 PM)
Appropriate ...
QUOTE
I'd be wary about allowing players to invent complimentary skills in the place of normal knowledge skills
- Morphling The Pretender

That part of knowledge skills is already a bit blurred - don't PCs automatically have the equivalent of half their active skills as background skills?
[/tangent]

Roughly half my PCs take Bureaucratese as a language skill, and one also has Accountant-ese. They need it too!

I've never heard that one Talia, sorry.

So far as I know, an Active skill does not automatically bestow benefit of any knowledge skill, even the knowledge variant of the Active skill in question.

-Siege

BBB p90, Active Skills grant Active Skill rating - 3 as Background Skill...
Anymage
QUOTE (Siege)
So far as I know, an Active skill does not automatically bestow benefit of any knowledge skill, even the knowledge variant of the Active skill in question.

-Siege

An active skill gives you the corresponding background skill (kinda like a knowledge, theoretical principles of the skill instead of practical applications) at the active skill level minus three. (P. 90, SR3)

Granted, that does provide a good reason to dislike using knowledge skills as complimentary active skills. After all, what would be a better compliment to using a given skill than it's background, and that actively encourages minmax silliness.
Daishi
One player I know actually used an aptidue edge for Pool. I think that was hip.

Also, I believe the strangest skill I've taken is "Techno Western Culture" at a 5. What would happen if the country-western scene and the techno-rave scene merged 60 years in the future... wink.gif
Phylos Fett
QUOTE (Daishi)
Also, I believe the strangest skill I've taken is "Techno Western Culture" at a 5. What would happen if the country-western scene and the techno-rave scene merged 60 years in the future... wink.gif

*shudders*
SugarDog
Children's Jokes and Stories (6)
Kurukami
QUOTE (Morphling The Pretender)
I'd be wary about allowing players to invent complimentary skills in the place of normal knowledge skills. Then, characters will have all the more incentive to have Int 6 and use the knowledge skills for stuff which can be used for extra dice and lower TNs.

I'm not saying you can't. It's just my sentiment that Electronics and Electronics B/R should cover Electronic Locks, Access Controls and Security Systems. Wouldn't it make more sense as a specialty, like Electronics (Maglocks) or Electronics (Security)?

Ah, but the ground has already been broken, and in the main rulebook to boot. Check out page 97, SR3.

QUOTE
While Active skills tend to have specific game uses, Knowledge Skills can offere benefits and, in some cases, directe support for an Active skill.  Skills that do this are called Complementary skills.

If a player has a Knowledge skill that can legitimately support an Active skill, then the player can roll dice for the Knowledge skill against the same target number as for the Active skill...

<snip>

Cheshire is going into negotiations for her team.  Since her last meeting with Mr. Johnson, she has spent some time learning psychology.  The gamemaster allows her to use Psychology as a Complementary skill for her Negotiations test.  (etcetera)

Look at it this way. An active skill in Lockpicking & Safecracking may certainly tell you how to open a lock or drill a safe in general, but the knowledge of specific locks and safes will tell you where the weak spots area and what dangerous areas you must avoid. Just as an example, look at Stella's character in the remake of "The Italian Job". She had both the active skill of Lockpicking & Safecracking and the Knowledge skill of Safes & Mechanical Locks... which was how she knew how best to defeat the security measures on the safe near the climax of the film.

Any Knowledge skill can be a complementary skill in the right situation. And yeah, munchkins may decide to go primarily for stuff that'll give'em bonus dice. It's up to the GM to look at the sheet and determine what's appropriate and what isn't. Some things will be more useful than others -- but are you going to tell me that a character can't take a Knowledge skill of the weaknesses of the rival martial arts school that has been his order's enemy for decades or centuries? It's all in the background... and it's a benefit to a very specific, and fairly narrow, area. Against other martial arts styles, it wouldn't apply. Against ranged combat, it wouldn't apply.

And no, a specialization of an Active skill certainly wouldn't make more sense.
Raptor1033
i wouldn't allow complimentary skills for combat skills, for other skills like wilderness survival and stealth sure. just not combat. with the knowledge skill rival martial art weaknesses i'd allow a roll vs an arbitrary TN (probably 4) and for every success i'd read off a single disadvantage for the martial arts style listed in the CC. then the character could act in accordance to take advantage of his knowledge ie back someone into a corner cause they weren't taught well how to get out of it, stuff like that
Ulfgeir
Well how about these skills...

For active skills
Athletics (dance) at 4(6) - guess it should actually be Athletics(Dance: ballet) as the character worked as a ballet dancer. She also has the knowledge skill of dance at 3 as well.

Or how about these knowledge skills(unfortunately at a bit too low level).
Art
Cooking
Drug cartels (The character HATES drug dealers. Only good one is a dead one.)
Horsebreeding
Wines

/Ulfgeir

TinkerGnome
One of the characters I'm currently playing has Urban Brawl knowledge at 4. It's amazing how few NPCs want to talk about the Seattle Screamer's chances of getting into the Super Brawl.

If anyone ever thought to, he could probably be traced through his fantasy brawl league on the Matrix wink.gif
sir fwank
my brother g is playing kiba (wolf's rain)

he has "way to paradise" 6, and "Flower Sense" 6
Solidcobra
lemme guess: "Total Pacifist"?

the strangest skills i've taken: Old Videogames (Metal Gear Series): 5(7)
and Video Game Music (Nobou whateverhisnamesu): 5(7)
Sahandrian
Nobuo Uematsu. The "Final Fantasy" music composer.
Solidcobra
ah, that's his name.... i forgot how it was spelled...... thanks for the reminder!
katiegreen
A friend of mine played an ex-navy man who had "Naval Science" as a knowledge skill, and tried to use it for every knowledge test he was presented with. "I had a seminar in this once . . . " quickly became his most common phrase. Of course, he never came up with any useful knowledge, but it was funny . . . for a little while.

EDIT: P.S. Talia--despite 4+ years of taking Spanish, I just realized this week what your name means . . . I have been duped. wink.gif
Fygg Nuuton
pimpspeak language skill for the gnome pimp

fo shizzle dizzle
Morphling The Pretender
WARNING:
This post has evolved into a vent session, rather than a response. The following is not really aimed at you anymore, Kurukami. It's now mutated into me undermining my play groups, and my saddness that my BeCKs Troll Adept punk/metal rocker with flashbacks from Humanis Policlub attacks is so outshined. (sob sob BANG)

Forgive the angry rantage, but I feel compelled to throw this out there and see what sticks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was trying to say that you need to use severe precaution before letting someone start chipping away at TNs. I would say it requires the same sort of surveillance as dismantled nuclear warheads.

It's the same precaution you need to take before allowing someone to take the edge Aptitude. Clearly, an Aptitude in Shotguns or Unarmed Combat are heniously bullcrap, no matter how much character history you try to justify it with. Then again, an Aptitude in Demolitions or Diving is not going to somehow ruin the game.

It's not something you can really arbitrarily assign. The GM has to decide what is bull and what is simply powerful. The only exception, as you mentioned, would be that combat skills should never have a literal complimentary skill. (No, pressure points, weak points and everything else like that should be vetoed immediately.)

Of course, the difference bewteen Aptitude and Compimentary Skill is the former is only a minus 1. Complementary skills don't have mathmetical limits (though they have practical limits of -2 or -3).

The allowance of either shouldn't be gauged on how logical it is for the character to be able to do it, but rather whether or not it would make rolling the dice pointless. If 2s on difficult tasks become commonplace, it's too powerful. Even an Otaku can have a rough time on a red host. He doesn't need Matrix Iconography or Otherwise Generic And Bullcrap Complimentary Skill to make him any more bad-assed.

There is a mathematical difference between adding a die, and subtracting from the Target Number. There is also a difference between knowing particular brands and makes of safes and knowing how to crack safes. However, the litterary sense of the game should not allow the mechanical sense of the game to become crippled or moot. The game is a story about characters, but it's also a game for fun which should be worth preserving.

Just remind your players that they aren't going to have 6s in everything, along with every possible pool and target number reducer. The game is suppposed to be a challenge, not an excercise in strict mathematical-type certainty.
Drain Brain
Wow, that was intense...

Back on topic though - top skills for me came from the character who was a technician for an amateur theatre company. SO many weird skills like lighting design, Sound(Mic Plotting) and various others like carpentry and metalworking.

He also had an edged weapons specialisation in "Leatherman Pocket Tool."

Oh, and I would like to point out that the "Aptitude Edge: Pool" is the coolest thing I've seen in this entire thread. I must steal that...

It kinda reminds me of my best friend... swine.
Zazen
QUOTE (Drain Brain)
Oh, and I would like to point out that the "Aptitude Edge: Pool" is the coolest thing I've seen in this entire thread. I must steal that...

Yeah, I think so too smile.gif
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