Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

[Harry Canyon]

Hi all,

 

Anyone care to share the best examples of players role-playing their character's disadvantages well?

 

(Sadly, my brain is on hiatus today and I can't think of any examples myself. )

 

Take care,

 

Derek

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

Hmm. So far the best example I have is in our recently-dissolved Champions game. Our scientist character whose name escapes me has a rivalry with Dr. Silverback. During one of our last games, a fire broke out in Dr. Silverback's lab. This character's eyes it up, and he sat back a moment, debating internally.

 

Finally, he said, "Y'know, if I save Dr. Silverback thanks to my gadgets, when his couldn't save HIM, I'm obviously MUCH better than him."

 

^ v ^

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

A player in my game runs an Overconfident Brick. Typical exchange:

 

GM: "What's your DCV?"

 

Player: "two"

 

Other Player: "TWO? What happened?"

 

Player: "Nothing. This guy's no threat - Stonewall's not bothering to avoid his pathetic attack."

 

I think his best, however, was challenging Firewing to honorable combat - one on one! The player in question is quite familiar with Firewing's power level. At one point, he decided he wanted to dodge (he had 2 Stun left...). He made an Ego roll at -5 to see if his character would do so.

 

Meanwhile, the rest of the group, freed of the distraction of Firewing, accomplished their goal and returned. The character simply continued the battle - he promised honorable combat, and there was no way he was backing down and letting Firewing claim he won!

[sinanju]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

A fellow player in a "Traveller" (kinda-sorta) game many, many years ago. He was playing a ninja. He wound up fighting the Beta Villain (minion of the Alpha Villain, but more than a match for the entire PC team) alone. He had no chance of defeating the guy ordinarily, but felt duty-bound to stop him.

 

So when the Beta Villain took a swing at him with his uber-weapon, he told the GM, "I'm not defending."

 

"What?" says the GM.

 

"I'm not going to try to defend myself. I'm going to let him hit me while I strike HIM."

 

Everyone was shocked (we were a bunch of rules-lawyering powergamers)--but he was, after all, simply playing his character. So he didn't defend, he died, and he stopped the bad guy.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

Total Jackass.

 

A character grabs a hat of mind screw (think 24d6 mind control to "kill everyone", because they knocked him unconcious, and out of spite, hit them all with the hat and made them fight while he watched

[Onyxclaw]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

umm, well I think one of my favorite exchanges was between three characters.

 

Rocky, from rocky horror picture show. Baby Joe, a mesiah born from a vat. And Zekari, a young dragon. All pf which were PCs.

 

Zekari likes to sleep in the freezer, she knows nothing of human society, she can not use technology, and she has a few other problems, like spending her entire life as livestock up until this point.

Baby Joe is young, childish, and well acts it, with a symbiote.

Rocky is slow but only in mind, think rocky from rocky horror picture show and you're about right. as the character once said in game...

"The doctor said that rocky has a power called brain damage. He also called rocky frank, but rocky is not frank he is rocky."

 

Once when foolishly the rest of the party left the three of them alone on the ship....

 

Rocky and Baby Joe came across the dragon in the fridge. Now Zekari is smarter than both of them (in wisdom, not int score) since she's 100 years old. They ask her where she's from. She tells them a slaving ship. and then askes them or do they mean where her species is from. The two looked at eachother and say, well we're both from vats.

 

Zekari ponders this for a second and says, well I came from an egg. What's a vat? They explain that a vat is a wet container that people like them are born from. Zekari ponders this, and decides that she was also born from a vat if this is the definition of the word. They all then agree that eggs are vats and all reasonable sensible people are born from them.

 

Then rocky pointed at the bandolier of batteries that Zekari has around her body (endurance absorption....electrical dragon) and asks her what they're for. She explains that they are for eating. Rocky immediately takes a battery and tries to bite it.

 

it was an interesting interaction.

 

We also had another during the first session where the pascifistic altruistic healer (also a PC) (everbody deserves to live!) kept trying to distract the starving dragon from the living enemies because she didn't want her to kill them. By waving her hands and yelling at it. Not only that, but she actually started healing our enemies, because in her opinion they didn't deserve to be hurt or killed they were living things too! She also protected them the whole time they were in custody. Oh, but cross her med bay and you'd get it. That's part of her territorial disadvantage for being part tiger.

 

And another still where after being brought on board the ship Zekari follows the healer off the ship into the forest and is promptly left behind. Since the character didn't know what a ship was she couldn't get back and wandered through down town. She even got picked up by gangsters who tried to feed her McDonalds (which sha can't eat due to a dietary disadvantage) and after they gave up and ended up feeding her rival gang memebers she followed them home like a puppy. Nothing like a ebonic speaking dragon in a bandana at the door when the other PCs realized she was missing and finally managed to find her.

 

really everyone in that game plays them pretty well. I still remember the space dwarf (PC) and his strict customs trying to speak to zekari before she learned any common languages, and the insectoid mutant (PC) translating, but only as much as he felt he should and pulling a few tricks as a prankster. Oh, and the offering of a bead flat handed to a dragon with the clumsy hands dissadvantage for anything smaller than a baseball....he almost lost his hand there.

 

honestly playing disadvantages well, is just roleplaying the character the way it should be. Like:

I know I want my character to do this, but this is what they would actually do. And going with the later. Even if it's in your character's best interest not to do it.

 

Ok, concievably this dual will ill me...but he wouldn't back down. So I can't come up with a decent excuse why he should.

 

The best though by far was Saheya, who took the disadvantage "goes into estrice" and went into heat and slept with everyone who she could pin down on the ship. That was funny. Especially since she's a mentalist with total mindcontrol so long as the command is 5 words or less. (and I mean like 20d6 worth) it's so convienient that "shut up and "do" me" is 5 words

[Dust Raven]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

Allow me to introduce to you the disads from a hero. The villain (Evan Kreegar) is the one responsible for destroying her family and ruining her life, and the lives of all of the mutants on her team.

 

Code versus Killing (common, total): 20 points

 

Hatred of Evan Kreegar (uncommon, total): 15 points (actually, 0, as this was gain during game play)

 

When she has him pinned and helpless and ready to deal the death blow, no witnesses, and lets him live because she can't bring himself to her level: Priceless.

[mattingly]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

In a playtest for the Serenity RPG, my character was a pacificist minister mechanic. While the rest of the crew was on a ship filled with Reavers, I figured the best way to keep our passengers and guests safe was to cold weld our airlock door shut so that the Reavers couldn't get on board. The fact that my teammates were now trapped on a ship full of monsters was irelevant.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

Alice played one of Beacon's limitations so well it was scary at times. She would kill the room when someone made a joke in her character's direction and she would take it literal. I can't remember the actually wording of the disadvantage but it was the step below being Austic.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

Alice played one of Beacon's limitations so well it was scary at times. She would kill the room when someone made a joke in her character's direction and she would take it literal. I can't remember the actually wording of the disadvantage but it was the step below being Austic.

Psych Lim: Asperger's. I think it was a 20-pointer.

 

And people wonder how I fill up so many disadvantage slots with psych lims . . .

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

I actually think anytime a player actually uses his disads on himself without GM insistence that us a good example.

 

To whit my Dawnstars PC Chimera has a limitation from the Master List called Manchurian Candidate. Her symptom/cause is that the biosuit she wears is actually a lifeform created by a worldbeater archvillian called Abyss. From time to time the suit, takes over and does something...strange.

 

I had her fall off a building after stopping a mugging and plunge deep into a venice canal as her suit took over. What she did between that time and when she crawled out of the bay onto the Miranda was up to the GM to decide.

 

I had her unconciously move toward Forrestal, our team plant empath, because the suit was more comfortable around him as opposed to the cold wielding Nordcapp Man. The suit is vulnerable to cold attacks, but since Chimera has never had a cold weapon used on her she has no idea. I have a slight gag going on where Allegra (the PC) likes Grak (Nordcapp Man...a Neandertal) but the suit likes Erich (Forrestal)

 

Chimera also has access to a vast fortune (15 wealth) but she doesn't access more than say 5-7 points because she thinks that her hunted (Father the PM of Italy) will notice and end her gig as a superhero.

 

Hawksmoor

[Lanith]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

I was bringing in a new character after my last one was mutilated. New character, Steele, was a brick with lots of large chunks of low grade steel running through his body.

Big Baddy is a lightning projecting, weather controller. Everyone goes in and attacks, I hang out in the back throwing everything I can get my multiple limbs and stretching on. When people were flying backwards from the baddy's knockback, I would catch some of them and "fast-ball special" them back into combat.

Everything is all said and done and the GM said that was the most interesting use of stretching he had ever seen... "But why didn't you get into the fight? You're a brick."

Then I reminded him of the Vulnerability X2 Body and X1 1/2 Stun from Electrical attacks.

[Ghost Archer]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

Disad: "Overconfidence"

 

Perp: Captain New Jersey aka CNJ, teleporter, martial artist, all around good guy.

 

Scene: 1 a.m., San Francisco waterfront bar. The villain group Zodiac (pre Doug's Zodiac but still as scary) are relaxing, having a few beers and sharing war stories.

 

What happened: CNJ had followed one member of Zodiac to this bar. After observing the party inside, the SERIOUSLY overconfident hero teleports onto the middle of the table and announces, "You are all under arrest!!"

 

Problem 1: NO backup.

 

Problem 2: Twelve members of Zodiac, one CNJ.

 

Results: Luckly only an extended hospital stay.

[Ghost Archer]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

Disad: Coward

 

Perp: Chameleon, shapeshifting telekinetic.

 

Scene: Pier on San Francisco waterfront. The Wild Hunt, including Chameleon, are about to do battle with an unknown number of bad guys. Chameleon uses his shapeshifting to become R2D2 and rolls down the pier pretending to be a kid's toy robot.

 

Problem: Tsarsaidor, pain-in-the-ass Lord of Balance and dragon.

 

What happened: Tsarsaidor, at the time known only as Nick Ruby, banker, to the Hunt, shapeshift into his full dragon form for the very first time.

 

Results: R2D2 spun in circles, spraying everything in range with oil and squealing his domed head off. (The laughter went on for a good ten minutes.)

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage

 

One of the players in my post-modern Cthulu-esque campaign played an engineer with "Curiosity" and "Engineer Tunnel Vision," meaning that whenever he was engrossed in any kind of problem he tended to ignore what was going on around him. So he would occasionally wander off in the middle of fights to check out some cool piece of alien technology or whatever.

 

Of course, the *player* is an engineer who suffers from the same maladies, so it wasn't exactly a stretch role-playing-wise.

 

 

bigdamnhero

"He thinks we're either a threat, food, or a mate. He's either going to kill us, eat us, or hump us."