Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Temporarily mitigating a character's odious personal habit

phayman53 · 07-04-2020, 01:21 PM

One of the disadvantage options listed for DF Scouts is "Odious Personal Habit: Unwashed Bushwhacker" [-5] for a -1 to reaction rolls. There are other disadvantages like this where a character's normal appearance or behavior is a disadvantage, but realistically it would be something that was possible to mitigate with some effort. Most people have seen the scene in a movie where the normally disheveled or otherwise uncaring about his or her appearance character cleans-up for a special occasion and is actually quite presentable/attractive. Another example of this is Aragorn in LotR, who normally is dirty and poorly dressed because of his life as a ranger, but when he on rare occasion (at least before the end of the books) cleans-up, he is actually incredibly lordly.

As a GM, how would you handle a player with an appearance based OPH like "Unwashed Bushwhacker" to clean-up for a special occasion even though they have the disadvantage? Would you just require them to take some time (maybe an hour or two), require a skill roll (maybe against an appropriate Savoir-Faire, or are their other, better skills?), or just not allow it because it is a disadvantage instead of a perk?

I tend to lean toward extra time and some skill roll (though someone making the roll for the character in order to help them get presentable would be appropriate). I don't think this preserves the inconvenience of the disadvantage while not enforcing always having a -1 when it could be mitigated realistically.

Thoughts?

07-04-2020, 01:21 PM	#1
phayman53 Join Date: Dec 2012	Temporarily mitigating a character's odious personal habit One of the disadvantage options listed for DF Scouts is "Odious Personal Habit: Unwashed Bushwhacker" [-5] for a -1 to reaction rolls. There are other disadvantages like this where a character's normal appearance or behavior is a disadvantage, but realistically it would be something that was possible to mitigate with some effort. Most people have seen the scene in a movie where the normally disheveled or otherwise uncaring about his or her appearance character cleans-up for a special occasion and is actually quite presentable/attractive. Another example of this is Aragorn in LotR, who normally is dirty and poorly dressed because of his life as a ranger, but when he on rare occasion (at least before the end of the books) cleans-up, he is actually incredibly lordly. As a GM, how would you handle a player with an appearance based OPH like "Unwashed Bushwhacker" to clean-up for a special occasion even though they have the disadvantage? Would you just require them to take some time (maybe an hour or two), require a skill roll (maybe against an appropriate Savoir-Faire, or are their other, better skills?), or just not allow it because it is a disadvantage instead of a perk? I tend to lean toward extra time and some skill roll (though someone making the roll for the character in order to help them get presentable would be appropriate). I don't think this preserves the inconvenience of the disadvantage while not enforcing always having a -1 when it could be mitigated realistically. Thoughts?