G:STAR TREK , Need 'Trek-specific' Disadvantages and Quirks...

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Qoltar

It doesn't matter - I was asking for Disadvantages & Quirks that work well with the STAR TREK universe or are setting-specific for it.

Honestly, I think few ST characters have any individual disadvantages, at least not presented as *disadvantages*. "Heroic" disadvantages are often OK, but they're not particularly setting specific. When characters do have something so serious as to qualify as a disadvantage, it's ordinarily racial - lots of ST races are separated from humans almost solely by a disadvantage everybody has - often a strange Code of Honor or Delusion or Dependency or Addiction.

I suppose Delusion (The Prime Directive is a virtue and not a complete abdication of ethical responsibility with a side of paternalism and preventing non-citizens from seeking redress when abused by our people) could count as a setting specific racial disadvantage for humans and other Starfleet characters, but it's actually sort of a base assumption of the setting that this is true, so you lose the ST feel if you play up it being a Delusion. A number of other common ones fall into that same category of being non-disadvantages because they are true by the setting rules - Intolerance (Machine intelligences) for example could be a disadvantage in some settings, but in ST isn't because machine intelligences are always villains.

I guess characters could have beliefs that opposed one of the implicit setting truths - The prime directive is abusive, machine intelligence is a good idea, psionics are inherently evil, The Federation is imperialist, the Klingon government needs to stamp out this stupid cult of warrior honor, Vulcans are right and humans should adopt non-emotion, wealth discrepencies are perfectly fair, (non-new age) religion makes sense - as valid disadvantages, but in the canon material anyway having one of those pretty much automatically makes you a villain.