Regrettable Disads

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Sinanju's story brought tears to my wife and my eyes and completely had my teenage daughter helpless with laugher.

One of my players had a blind character who saw with "zen sense"( spatial sense) who took 2d6 unluck with guns. It was in a science fiction campaign so there was a fair amount of gunfire. He had all sorts of jedi type powers so it wasn't that big deal most of the time but it was really funny. He really got into it.accidentally disassembling stuff etc.

One of my wife's characters takes 3d6 from stimulants including smelling salts etc. "why won't she wake up?I don't know try another dose." ARRRGGG!! Doctor! Doctor! Come quick!"

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Ha! Yeah, I played that one in the very beginning once.

 

Even better! Oh, this is just too delicious

 

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned 5d6 Unluck. Or has nobody been brave/foolish enough to actually take that one?

 

I've seen a characte rwith 5d6 Luck and 5d6 Unluck ...

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I've seen a character with 5d6 Luck and 5d6 Unluck ...

Peter Parker...?

 

But seriously, how'd that work out for them? I always wanted to try it myself.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Peter Parker...?

 

But seriously, how'd that work out for them? I always wanted to try it myself.

 

I thought Peter had Hunted: Comic Book Writers, 14-, Harm or Embarass

[Karmakaze]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

If it hasn't already been mentioned, Susceptibility to Water

'nough said.

 

I've done that. Although in that case I limited it to "Susceptible to Water when in Heroic ID", and all of the characters powers were OIHID. Mostly it meant that the character refused to chase villains into the sewers and once or twice had to drop all of her defenses in order to be able to apply her skills someplace wet. (Well, and she never stopped complaining during the one mission that took us to a submarine.) I don't think she ever took significant damage from it directly, although she did get badly clipped once because she'd dropped her forcefield in order to wade over to something we needed.

[Captain Xenon]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

one hero game, the only disads that ever came up were my vunerability to mental, and the base being public identity. as a result, the base got attacked every other game! and always by villians who automaticly rendered its defenses useless, and teleported out when defeated.

 

more a question of a GM abusing one disad while ignoring all the others... but its something im never putting on a base again.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Peter Parker...?

 

But seriously, how'd that work out for them? I always wanted to try it myself.

 

Not quite ... basically, the character was kind of an avatar of Chaos. Weird stuff just *happened* around him for no discernible reason. It was mostly just minor stuff ... we rarely got into the proper situations (doing too well or doing too poorly) where throwing the dice actually became an issue ... and then it did, no 6s. :/

 

Kind of disappointing on the whole.

[mattingly]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Lately, I've been handling my "Weirdness Magnet" characters with this:

 

Hunted: Weirdness 8- (Less Pow, NCI, Mildly Punish, PC is Easy [for "weirdness"] to Find)

[CourtFool]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I have been using Disadvantages incorrectly all this time. I thought they were to add dimension and humanity to characters. Now I see they are an excuse to screw over players.

[Balabanto]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

It depends on the value of the disad, Court.

 

If some guy takes "Berserk at the sight of the Hookie Pookie Pookie bird, which only appears once every 78 years in East Pakistan at the festival of the moon, 14-, Rec 8-", then you, as GM, are obligated to have a villain who

 

1) Can summon the bird himself

 

2) Is Garuda, the king of birds, who can bring any bird into existence at will

 

3) Creates holograms of birds as part of his shtick.

 

If the player takes a disad and it hasn't come up in a while, it's NOT a disadvantage. It's worth NO points.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I have been using Disadvantages incorrectly all this time. I thought they were to add dimension and humanity to characters. Now I see they are an excuse to screw over players.

Duh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, wanna join my game...?

 

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I have been using Disadvantages incorrectly all this time. I thought they were to add dimension and humanity to characters. Now I see they are an excuse to screw over players.

 

Most of the Disads on this page are in the 'there's no way to actually apply them WITHOUT screwing the character hardcore', which means they were ill-chosen. I did once see a character with Susceptible to Water, Very Common, 3d6 per Segment (I was a fellow player in that one ... as a GM, I wouldn't have allowed it). With the possible exception of 'I have a water pistol and I'm not afraid to use it', there is no way to actually get the character his points worth for the Disad without 'whoops, you're boned'.

 

It seems more of a warning to players than encouragement to GMs for me. Any Disad you get 40 or more points for singly is going to be a 'when it comes up, turn your sheet upside down and go take a LONG coffee break'.

 

(Says the person who had a double Stun/Body Vulnerability to Electricity ...)

[Metaphysician]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

IMO, alot of these disadvantages should have been nixed by the GM, as either the player was trying to take advantage of the 'Achilles Syndrome' mentioned above, or they just didn't realize how hideous it really would be.

 

Lord knows, if someone came into a 350 point game I was running with "Hunted: VIPER 14- ( Kill )", I'd take them aside and explain exactly what that means. . .

[CourtFool]

No, Log, I don't want to play in your game

 

I agree that 40 points worth of Disadvantage should inconvenience the character. It's not an excuse to rape them every scene.

 

I think any Disadvantage worth 20+ points requires discussion between the player and GM about expectations. This is a defining characteristic. I also feel that some GMs will use 'pet' Disadvantages more often than others.

 

I find it hard enough to convince gamists to take meaningful Disadvantages. I do not want to penalize* them for trying.

 

 

*Make them the laughingstock of the table.

[Gideon]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

One of the problems is that (as was pointed out) some people just want their charcter to have his "kryptonite". And well... when the player chooses susceptability to Plumbnum (lead) or Tungstun not realizing what they really are, you get dead characters.

 

A similar problem can occure when a GM trusts his players almost too much. My friend was in a game where he chose 2d6 Susceptability to Anti-matter: uncommon, every segment (25 Pts). He figured the limitation might come up once or twice in the course of the campaign.

 

Unfortunately in the first game session he got seriously wounded (I belive he took a bullet and was bleeding out) and was taken buy another Team to their Leader who was a doctor for surgery: The Anti-Mistress.

 

The GM had never bothered to look at the disads the players chose, becasue he trusted them not to cheese or cheat, and since the characters had just met the PCs had no reason to know that the character had this disad. Needless to say my friend was building a new character by the time the game session ended.

 

And lastly there are sometimes disads that just end up being worth 10 times what the player paid for it. This could be a anything, a hunted that the GM already planned on being prominent in a campaign, a vulnerability or susceptability to a teammates powers... anything and its regretable, but it happens.

[Dracheneisen]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

We had a character named Houngan in our Champions campaign. The idea was that he would voluntarily get possessed by the Voodoo gods and that gave him his powers. These were mostly aids and drains. Since his character was new at this he ended up with a 14- chance of going berserk and then whichever god he was channelling would just keep doing whatever it was until he snapped out of it. I don't remember his chance of snapping out of it.

 

I do know that he always went berserk and never seemed to regain control. So, instead of INT draining the villain once and moving onto other things, he would reduce them to imbecility.

 

The GMs did a pretty good job with this and usually ruled that once the villain had hit 0, the god got bored and left.

 

However, it wasn't much fun to play. He's now deciding whether it's worth buying down the disadd or just starting over with a new character.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Which reminds me: if your playing as part of a team, always remember- collaborate in character design! That way, you don't end up with three energy blasters who are each susceptible to the others' special effect.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Which reminds me: if your playing as part of a team' date=' always remember- collaborate in character design! That way, you don't end up with three energy blasters who are each susceptible to the others' special effect.[/quote']

Oh, I don't know, that sounds like it could be a very interesting game...

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Oh' date=' I don't know, that sounds like it could be a very interesting game...[/quote']

 

 

Especially when Reflecto shows up.

[Runemaster]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who mentioned something like this, but back when we were playing 4th ed still there was a guy in my group who was hunted by Dr. Destroyer and Firewing on 14-.

 

I think it lasted like a session and a half before he decided to make another character. And our GM never GMed for us again.

[oroborous]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

In a Dark Champions game I played a techie/security cracker, and my GM let me take a Psych Lim of Reluctant to Kill but luckily he wasn't so anal as to penalize me for committing justifiable homicide when I killed a man who was trying to stab me to death.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

In a Dark Champions game I played a techie/security cracker' date=' and my GM let me take a Psych Lim of [i']Reluctant to Kill[/i] but luckily he wasn't so anal as to penalize me for committing justifiable homicide when I killed a man who was trying to stab me to death.

 

Which was the correct call, really.

[oroborous]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

Which was the correct call' date=' really. [/quote']

 

IIRC he warned me on a few occasions that I would have to buy off the disad if I fired back at enemy NPCs in melee combat unless they were specifically targeting me. My though on the matter is that I would have to have Danger Sense or Analyze Combat in order to determine that, so my PC just ducked alot.

[Scott Baker]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

And lastly there are sometimes disads that just end up being worth 10 times what the player paid for it.

 

I had this happen with Secret Identity. And it had nothing to do with the GM! It was all the other PCs--with friends like these....

 

Scott Baker

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Regrettable Disads

 

I ran a game where a player had an electrical character with Susceptability: partial or total immersion in water. He was okay in a light rain (or if hit by a water pistol), but stepping in a deep puddle or jumping in a pool was out.

 

I ran one session where a Beyonder-type megapowerful alien moved the heroes' consciounesses into a group of PRIMUS agents (the PCs always ragged on PRIMUS, and the alien wanted to see if being a "superhero" was tied to having powers).

 

The electrical character's player wasn't available that weekend, so I ran him through a solo adventure. The character was put into the body of a Silver Avenger on vacation in Florida. Diving off a boat into the water, to be precise.

 

Since it wasn't his body, the Susceptability didn't come into play. But the player still acted as if the character had it (IOW, freaked out in the water), because it was such an intrinsic part of the PC.