More Quirks

[Pursuivant]

Emotionally Scarred (Mental)

Past events in your life have left deep wounds in your psyche. While your bad memories don’t generally interfere with your ability to function, and you aren’t required to act on your feelings, you must roleplay them.

Based on the nature of your emotional scarring, you might react more or less negatively towards a particular person or type of person, you might find yourself drawn towards or repelled by certain groups or personal relationships, or you might have a preference or dislike for certain settings or situations. Alternately, you might react to certain people or situations in a non-productive or irrational fashion.

At the GM’s option, you might have a temporary -1 penalty to Will rolls, Fright Checks, or Self-Control rolls to resist certain disadvantages when you are “triggered” by people or events which remind you of bad times. Occasionally, you might have a -1 penalty to skill rolls, or Reaction Rolls from others, when performing tasks which trigger negative thoughts.

With the GM’s permission, you can further define this quirk with terms like, “Accident Survivor” or “Family Issues.” In such cases, you might be able to behave normally in most situations, but issues relating to your past trauma strongly affect you and might give you double the normal penalties.

This trait can also be defined as a very mild tendency towards one or more mental disadvantages such as Bad Temper, Chronic Depression, Compulsive Behavior, Cowardice, Guilt Complex, Intolerance, Jealousy, or Phobia, but which are only triggered by certain people or situations.

While the causes of your emotional scarring can be as broad or as narrow as you wish, you can only take this quirk once.

This quirk is a classic for cinematic heroes who have survived past trauma, but who never seem to be limited by their experiences when it really matters.

Easily Embarrassed † (Mental)

You feel deep embarrassment or shame if you are caught in a particular situation, and when you observe a situation which would cause you anxiety, guilt, or shame if it happened to you.

You must specify some broad condition or common situation (or a group of less common situations or stimuli) which triggers your embarrassment. It is possible to have multiple versions of this quirk.

You react at -1 to any situation where the potentially shocking behavior seems likely to occur or is implied, and at -2 to any situation it actually occurs.

If the shocking situation happens to you, you must make a Will roll to avoid being Mentally Stunned for seconds equal to your margin of failure. After that, unless you are in a life or death situation, you can only attempt to recover from your embarrassment (e.g., hiding or fleeing). The GM can apply modifiers to your Will roll to avoid mental Stun, similar to those imposed for Fright Checks, especially if you are surprised or you are embarrassed in front of a large group of people.

Unless attacked, or otherwise in dire peril, you can only use your hands or items you are holding to attempt to recover from your embarrassment.

You must also make a Will roll to voluntarily behave in a fashion which is likely to trigger the embarrassing situation.

At the GM’s option this quirk might interfere with certain applications of skills which involve overtly “immodest” behavior, either giving skill penalties, forcing you to make Will rolls to perform a particular action, or both.

Afterwards, you might feel intense guilt, shame, or sense of personal violation, although such feelings must be roleplayed.

This quirk represents a limited form of Code of Honor, Compulsive Behavior, Disciplines of Faith, Intolerance, or Obsession. At the GM’s option, one or more versions of this quirk might be part of any one of those traits if its total negative character point value is -5 points or greater. In such cases, you can’t take this quirk as well.

This is a realistic perk suitable for people raised in highly restrictive or shame-conscious cultures. There are six common variants:

Body Shy: You react badly if you suddenly find yourself naked in public, or are unexpectedly exposed to naked people, especially in an erotically-charged situation.

Fears Loss of Face: You feel deep embarrassment and shame at loss of “face,” which occurs when you are publicly corrected, disrespected, or humiliated, or when your behavior or words might potentially disrespect or humiliate a friend, loved one, or social superior.

You will go out of your way to avoid such situations, possibly going against your best interests or withholding vital information to do so. This quirk is extremely common among members of many traditional East Asian cultures.

Personal Modesty Taboo: You are unusual among members of your culture (or the dominant culture) in that you are far more concerned about personal modesty than most people. This might be a limited form of Code of Honor, Disciplines of Faith, or a minor Phobia.

You must define your personal modesty standards when you take this Quirk. For example, you might be a member of a culture which otherwise doesn't have problems with nudity, but insists on keeping their feet covered in public and which considers pointing your feet at someone, kicking them, or touching objects with their feet to be uncouth or insulting.

Prudish: You have strong negative feelings regarding sexuality, whether disgust, fear, or shame. You react at -2 to lewd jokes, open displays of lewdness, sexuality, or sexually-suggestive nudity (including nudity by anyone of Attractive to better appearance, and people who succumb to the Lecherousness disadvantage). You react at -1 to non-sexual nudity (e.g., anatomy texts, classical nude sculptures), and clinical discussions of sexuality.
You can never learn or use the Sex Appeal or Erotic Art skills, and react at -2 to any attempt to use those skills on you. Should you react positively in spite of your Prudishness, you might enjoy yourself for the moment, but will then be overcome by strong negative emotions which might make you flee or even attack your partner.

The exception is that you can enjoy discreet, legally-sanctioned romances with whatever sexual partners your culture approves of (typically a single spouse, but possibly other partners such as additional spouses, or legally and socially-approved concubines or prostitutes). Even then, your sex life is likely to be limited and unimaginative.

This is a limited form of Intolerance, Phobia, or Squeamishness. If you are secretly drawn to some sort of socially-unapproved sex (e.g., homosexuality, liaisons with prostitutes), you also have a Secret. It is likely to be associated with the Body Shy Quirk.

Self-Conscious: You’re uncertain, or ashamed of, yourself regarding some skill or common area of activity.

Under normal circumstances, you suffer no penalty to use your skill or to perform tasks, but if you’ve recently been mocked, if you’re the subject of public attention, or if you’re feel extreme social pressure to succeed, you must make a Will roll. Failure means that you have a -1 penalty to use that skill or perform tasks regarding some endeavor.

You must specify the affected skill or area where you feel self-conscious. The GM can veto areas or skills where your self-consciousness is unlikely to be a factor. Valid examples are Self-conscious (Driving) or Self-conscious (Guns), “Self-conscious about romantic relationships,” or “Self-conscious about business transactions.”

Waste Elimination Taboo: You have strong negative feelings regarding urination and defecation, whether disgust, fear, or shame. You react at -2 to crude jokes, open displays of elimination, or to any display which strongly suggests such themes. You react at -1 to clinical discussions of waste elimination.

You find it extremely difficult to urinate or defecate where others might see, hear, or smell your activity. The GM can require you to make a Will roll to engage in such behaviors unless you are certain that you have absolute privacy, although possibly with bonuses if the need to eliminate is urgent.

While this seems silly, long term inability to urinate or defecate can result in life-threatening conditions such as intestinal blockages or a ruptured bladder. More typically, inability to relieve oneself causes the equivalent of Moderate or Severe Pain or even Agony.

This is a limited form of Intolerance, Phobia, or Squeamishness. Some animals have a variant of this quirk which makes them go far out of their way to just eliminate in certain locations, carefully cover or disguise their waste, and refuse to eliminate in situations where they might be observed.

[David Johnston2]

Tsundere: Verbally denies affectionate or compassionate feelings they may be acting on.

Taciturn: Uses the absolute minimum of words possible

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Tsundere: Verbally denies affectionate or compassionate feelings they may be acting on.

This is a version of Shocking Affectation. Call it "Public Personality" if the Japanese term isn't appropriate.

On a more severe level, Tsundere could be a limitation to Odious Personal Habit.

Dissipates (-40%): Your seeming OPH is just a front. People who know you can ignore reaction penalties due to it.

Subtle (-40%): Your OPH isn't immediately obvious. Reaction penalties only apply to people who know you well or who have spent at least a few hours in your company.

[RyanW]

Generally, I prefer quirks that make a character memorable over ones that inconvenience. I see them as a reward of a few points in exchange for making the character a character instead of a game token. Some I have used that came out very successful to that end:

Names possessions and carries on little conversations with them
Chronic nicknamer
Pretends he is incompetent and his success is all luck
Backstory changes with each telling

[whswhs]

Looking over my last couple of campaigns, I spot the following:

Overcautious Habit (Frequent backups) — this is backups of computer files, not of the character!
Pretense (Faithful husband)
Daily Ritual (Rosary)
Not maternal
Disadvantage Embellishment (Overconfidence about combat skills)
Habit (Drunken skinnydipper)
Habit (Scribbling notes)
Collects fingerbones of slain enemies
Ritual tobacco use
Forgets her manners
Daily Ritual (Inventorying his and his sister's possessions)
Uncomfortable sleeping in a solid building, chance of bad night's sleep if required to be in a place that feels like a trap

[Astromancer]

I proposed several for bioroids and parahumans on the Transhuman Space board. To rehash.

Juvenile Hair Pattern As a side effect of your genetic modifications you didn't get an adult hair pattern when you went through puberty. If male you lack a beard or mustache. Your body hair is like that of a prepubescent child. You won't go bald naturally.

This can be a Quirk or a Perk.

Nonstandard Color Vision You see color, and your sight is either in the same range as other humans or to close to the normal range to be an advantage. But you don't register the same colors as other people. Maybe one or more colors cover a far wider band of the spectrum. Maybe the colors are reversed, red is violet, and vice versa. Whatever, when it comes to picking out clothing or decorations you might as well be color blind.

Variant Genitals Your genitals aren't quite what might be expected. This isn't sterile or eunuch, you might be able to function sexually. However, your genetic modifications have given you genitalia with nonhuman qualities. This can cause odd reactions.

This can be a Quirk or a Perk.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Nonstandard Color Vision You see color, and your sight is either in the same range as other humans or to close to the normal range to be an advantage. But you don't register the same colors as other people. Maybe one or more colors cover a far wider band of the spectrum. Maybe the colors are reversed, red is violet, and vice versa. Whatever, when it comes to picking out clothing or decorations you might as well be color blind.

Would the reversed colors even work? It's an old philosophical fancy that I might have a reversed color spectrum from you, so that tomatoes looked violet to me, and blueberries looked sort of orangish. But as long as I could tell the color of tomators from that of oranges from that of lemons or bananas from that of limes and so on (not color blind) and as long as I thought that, for example, tomatoes and ripe apples and the flesh of watermelons and stop signs and so on were all more or less the same color, how would we ever discover that our subjective sensations weren't the same? It seems to me that the person with reversed colors would still be perfectly able to match all the violet fabric (which looked red to them) with all the other violet fabric (which also looked red to them).

[PTTG]

If it's not so much reversed as the peak responsiveness wavelengths are shifted, then a lot of dyes would look subtly different and monochromatic light sources would generally be harder to see (such as LCD screens and LEDs in general). On the other hand, artificial camouflage would probably not work well on you.

I like the kind of work that went into the OP, though I would generally prefer to keep them simpler. Part of the attraction of quirks is that they are generally self-explanatory. I might write them as something more like, "Prude: You are uncomfortable when confronted with anything lewd." Or, "Dislikes: clothing: You prefer less clothing over more, and none at all if the situation allows." Compare: "Dislikes: exposure: You don't like exposing any more skin than necessary."

The idea that a quirk is neither shocking nor terribly bizarre for your culture is built-in.

That said, here's a bit more:

Devotee: You are mildly obsessed with an artist, celebrity, culture hero, character, or politician, and rarely miss a chance to quote them.

Fandom: You have a trivial Reputation as a celebrity, online or otherwise. Appropriate for an influence or just the best fiddle player in the village.

Extremely narrow expertise: No matter your general skill level, you will never fail in one very specific way. For instance, you might be a standard electrician, but you have perfect fuse handling and will never drop or lose one. This does not give you skill bonuses, but specifically prevents the GM from ruling that a failure occurred in some common, specific way -- and people who work with you will notice.

One-Entry Encyclopedia: Pick a trivial subtopic of some informational skill -- a specific minor building, a day in history, a non-noteworthy historical individual, a specific and mundane species of bird or insect, a particular type of rock, a particular notable object or model of some product. You are the foremost expert on that thing, and automatically know anything that is public knowledge about that thing. Appropriate for someone who has memorized the entire history of the local haunted house, or the obsessed biologist who knows every meaningful fact about Ptilinopus melanospilus. Note that without Biology skill, most of that information is just memorized trivia. "Did you know that the Andean Swamp Goat has an AMR of 4352 kCal/day? Isn't that amazing? I just wonder what an AMR is, and a kCal..."

Wannabe Brachiator:You never let an opportunity to hang from your arms pass you by.

Better How It Used To Be: You can't stand new-fangled stuff. You use time-tested and nearly obsolete equipment out of habit.

Cutting edge: You take pains to use the latest and greatest.

Cat's Courage: You have no fear of heights. Maybe you should learn it.

Bendy: You tend to lounge over even the roughest terrain, and make it look comfortable while you do it.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Looking over my last couple of campaigns, I spot the following:

Some recent ones here:

* Dresses like a gypsy (is not one, but used to hang with some, and got into the habit);
* Loves heights, and can't climb;
* Distracted easily during conversations;
* Just will not talk about her phobia (being buried alive) ever, to anyone;
* Insists on Ornate weapons (and is indifferent to them being Fine or magical);
* Biscuits are wonderful! Hand them all over!
* Frequently quotes a particular notable sage of the last century;
* Smiles sweetly at her victims;
* "If it hasn't been burned, it isn't seasoned."
* Takes "trophies" from slavers. (Three guesses.)
* Dresses shabbily, no matter the occasion;
* "Gold is how you keep score."
* Gets drunk easily; effectively, -2 to HT to resist the effects of alcohol
* It's always "sir" or "ma'am" -- just will not use proper names;
* Rubs lemon juice in her hair;
* Will Not Dance Don't Ask Him (he thinks he looks like a dork when he tries)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Some recent ones here:

* Takes "trophies" from slavers. (Three guesses.)

That one sounds like it could be an out and out Trademark. And depending on the nature of the trophies, it might get you points for Sadism.