Do you allow players to take additional advantages mid-campaign?

[Donny Brook]

I certainly allow characters to obtain Advantages after chargen.

Which ones they can get is very dependent on the setting. A reality-based setting will be more restrictive than, for example, an high TL biotech setting.

IMO, Advantages that can be gained with appropriate narrative support non-controversially for a realistic setting are:

-Allies (and groups thereof)
-Contacts (and groups thereof)
-Patrons
-Favors
-Social Status
-Wealth
-Independent Income
-Rank (various)
-Reputation
-Alcohol Tolerance
-Claim to Hospitality
-Clerical Investment
-Combat Reflexes
-Cultural Familiarity
-Fashion Sense
-Fit and Very Fit
-High Pain Threshold and Less Sleep (though I might require Will checks to complete such training)
-Legal Enforcement Powers, Legal Immunity, Security Clearance, Alternate Identity
-Lifting ST, Arm ST, Leg ST*
-Social Chameleon
-Tenure
-Small improvements to Move or one level of Speed independent of the underlying attributes

In addition, in a realistic campaign I might also consider allowing the following to be obtained under more stringent or special conditions:

-Ambidexterity
-Appearance
-Autotrance
-Breath holding
-Charisma (one level)
-Common Sense
-Cultural Adaptibility
-Deep Sleeper
-Eidetic Memory
-Enhanced Defenses
-Fearlessness
-Flexibility
-G-Experience
-High Manual Dexterity
-Indomitable
-Intiution
-Luck
-Metabolism Control (one level)
-Mimicry
-Mind Shield
-Night Vision (one level)
-Penetrating Voice
-Pitiable
-Schtick
-Signature Gear
-Single-Minded
-Social Regard
-Striking ST
-Temperature Tolerance (one level)
-Unfazeable
-Versatile
-Voice
-Zeroed

[ericthered]

If you can justify it in play and you have the points, you can generally take it.

There are games where I don't allow advantages to be purchased, but I don't generally allow anything to be purchased in those games.

[Almenac]

Thanks a lot everyone!

Maybe I took the Characters book a bit too seriously. If I don't remember wrong the book says that by default advantages can be chosen only at the start of the game. But it's a couple of years since 2004 so maybe conventions have changed since then :)

[zuljita]

Certainly some of the advantages make no sense being inborn (Trained by a Master in particular comes to mind). There's room for lots of different play styles out there, but players often like to see character growth. I'm more lax about adding advantages after starting the game in general.

[sgtcallistan]

Occasionally in games run by myself, things like the purpose of the quest, such as enlightenment, a weapon mystically bonded to the wielder, a data download to the cortex of the brain are immediately reflected on the player' character sheet; pencilled in.

This can be temporary or permanent, need to be supported by practise, etc.

If it's a reward that can be expressed as an advantage, such as filthy rich, it still needs the character to not be on a desert island, frex.

My favourite example: SF spaceship crew encounter a small culture living on a vast breathable gas giant in a floating city made of local equivalents of whalebone and leather. A mix of high-tech knowledge in a low-tech environment.

The reason for their persistence is a local creature that can be harvested to make a human-compatible liquid that grants a limited form of absolute direction; we called it the 'grandma's house' advantage. Useful on their home-world.

It was on the character sheet for one character for the rest of the campaign; it was up to him to find a use for it; he did. Their ship could never truly get lost, as even if no familiar stars showed, the direction to his grandma's house was still available, even over interstellar distances.

A role-playing detail, it did no damage to game balance.