Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Unusual Background: Latest Equipment

This came to me from re-perusing Cliffhangers. Pocket-knife is of course in the equipment table but the thought was that for a thirties American that would probably mean a Buck. Victorinox was not yet fashionable enough to be a household word. So while it would be easy to justify the hero having one(he picked one up in Europe and liked it)at the time, one does have to go to the trouble to justify it. It would be unusual background but only at a perk level.

The same could be said for any number of gadgets that are just on the market or otherwise rare in the hero's neck of the woods. If it is really hard to find the points can be pumped accordingly. For instance it is not to much of a twist to have someone somewhere working on a shoulder launched anti-tank missile but it is almost impossible to imagine a real person getting his hands on one whereas a Swiss Army Knife in the 1930's only requires someone to say,"I got this from a friend who has a friend of a friend who lives in Switzerland. Isn't it cool?" or whatever. The missile would have to be a MacGuffin, whereas the Knife could conceivably be part of the Hero's regular gear, even if a Buck was more probable then a real Victorinox.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Soundtrack:

Whether you have an implanted Ultra Tech psionic projector, a power armor with built-in speakers, or simply use magic, you can have music on auto play whenever you want to. Enjoy having badass heavy metal beats whenever you turn them on because you just got into a fist/gun fight, or the OST from your favorite Visual Novel whenever you're dating.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

It's a re-skin of Accessory (music player)?

The difficulty with a lot of proposed perks that are based on media (and I'm assuming this is inspired by some sort of "background music" idea) is that they don't actually do anything when you think about them. They look or sound cool in the media presentation, but are useless as far as the character in the setting is concerned, and don't come across to seem cool to the *players* in the (non-visual) media of RPGs either.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

I was in a (non-GURPS at the time) campaign where a PC had an ability like this, and it honestly led to some pretty interesting roleplaying. Telling the other players what music was playing was a way to express the character's mood, intentions, etc. without stating them explicitly in situations where that would have been out of character.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

You could also do a limited form of precognition that manifests as background music that the characters must interpret before whatever it's predicting becomes obvious, but depending on how you do it, that could be too useful to be a Perk.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

If the player gets to (is required to) say what's on the soundtrack at any particular time, and if the cut being played is really appropriate, it can lead to some memorable moments even though it never affect a die roll at all. Been there, enjoyed that.

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

If the player gets to (is required to) say what's on the soundtrack at any particular time, and if the cut being played is really appropriate, it can lead to some memorable moments even if it never affects a die roll at all. Been there, enjoyed that. I still think of that game whenever I hear Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer."

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

-3 to target the Fruit Cage (where the fruit is as sweet as can be).

Re: List Of your favorite Custom Perks
 

Gamer's Luck:

You always catch lucky breaks during games. A guild mate will run you through a quest series with an item so great he has been farming it for months and so rare he's convinced it's an urban legend, and on your first run, it will drop for you. If a random event with 1% chance of happening is needed for you to get an achievement, rest assured it will happen in short order. Your favorite tabletop character will often survive certain death one hit point short of death, you can go through a campaign of a turn-based strategy game known for being a meat grinder as far as your virtual soldiers are concerned with fatalities in the single digit with the option of having one save ever active and on a high difficulty setting with regularity. You often get pure lucky shots on enemy players in FPS games. You can gain four Legendary skins in a row from a loot box system where you gain a percent chance of gaining a skin after each win or loss, and upon winning a skin having your chance reduced to 2%, and without your chance of getting a skin ever raising over 15%. Bonus points if your Gamer's Luck benefits your friends/guild mates/team mates more than you.

But as soon as there is the potential to earn anything else than a fancy title on your gamer card arrives, your luck fizzles out, and you have to rely on your skills. Your luck only applies to games, so it won't work in real life.

For added fun, take this perk alongside Unluckiness or Cursed.

I have both this perk and Unluckiness in real life. I don't think my soldier fatalities across a single campaign in XCOM Enemy Unknown and XCOM Enemy Within ever rose to double digits, even on a blind Ironman run. Earlier today I got locked outside of my home because the key broke in half. It The half of the key fell out of the lock instead of getting stuck in it, and I knew people with a spare key whose numbers I could find online who could arrive within 2 hours so I had to borrow a laptop and a cellphone from a neighbor, so I don't think I'm quite Cursed, but that must rank at least Unluckiness.