[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Weirdness Magnet

[Kesendeja]

In my Shadowrun hack I have one player with weirdness magnet. So far it has netted him:

One visit from a powerful free spirit in the form of a talking dog
Several Interventions by a gang of chipheads called the Pirates of the Puyallup (Yes they all have the pirate theme going including a "pirate" ship in the shape of a heavily modified bus.)
A demon in a bottle (complete with cute genie costume.)
Several dragons showing up to have him settle an argument. They didn't know him, just picked him at random.
And finally he's being stalked by the men in black because they think he's an alien.

The modern game hasn't kicked into gear enough to let me pull out all the stops yet, but the MIB is going to show up.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It is a quirk (Realistic Weirdness Magnet).

Can you explain this? I mean, part of why I am confused may be that I'm not understanding Weirdness Magnet properly. To be fair, it does have a lot going on under the hood. Let me just try a quick, lazy rewrite because that might be the best way to explain what I mean:

Weirdness Magnet (Mundane) [-??]

Strange and bizarre things happen to you with alarming frequency. You're the one mafiosos stop and chat with. Items with disturbing histories or hilarious contraband find their way to you. The only guy in the area who likes to dress up as a dog comes to you with his problems. Distant relations from other countries suddenly contact you about "family business"... or maybe just drop by unexpectedly for tea.

Nothing seriously harmful (relative to your character) happens to you, at least not immediately. Occasionally some weirdness is beneficial. BUt most of the time it is terribly, terribly inconvenient. People looking for a good story will flock to you once this becomes known, if it isn't known already: these are the kind of happenings that tend to draw attention. Everyone else reacts at -2, whether because they think you intentionally invite disturbances of the local "peace", or because they realize you're attracting weird happenings and fear the fallout. Nothing says the same person won't belong to different groups at different times: your neighbor may love the craziness when it is just a good story at the pub, but not when it is tearing up their yard.

Hardly perfect, but I hope that at least conveys the general idea. Maybe not, as I couldn't resist tweaking a few sentences so they mean what I think they mean with actual Weirdness Magnet.

[AlexanderHowl]

It is mentioned in the Quirk supplement. It is called Realistic Weirdness Magnet.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Can you explain this? I mean, part of why I am confused may be that I'm not understanding Weirdness Magnet properly. To be fair, it does have a lot going on under the hood. Let me just try a quick, lazy rewrite because that might be the best way to explain what I mean:

Weirdness Magnet (Mundane) [-??]

Strange and bizarre things happen to you with alarming frequency. You're the one mafiosos stop and chat with. Items with disturbing histories or hilarious contraband find their way to you. The only guy in the area who likes to dress up as a dog comes to you with his problems. Distant relations from other countries suddenly contact you about "family business"... or maybe just drop by unexpectedly for tea.

Nothing seriously harmful (relative to your character) happens to you, at least not immediately. Occasionally some weirdness is beneficial. BUt most of the time it is terribly, terribly inconvenient. People looking for a good story will flock to you once this becomes known, if it isn't known already: these are the kind of happenings that tend to draw attention. Everyone else reacts at -2, whether because they think you intentionally invite disturbances of the local "peace", or because they realize you're attracting weird happenings and fear the fallout. Nothing says the same person won't belong to different groups at different times: your neighbor may love the craziness when it is just a good story at the pub, but not when it is tearing up their yard.

Hardly perfect, but I hope that at least conveys the general idea. Maybe not, as I couldn't resist tweaking a few sentences so they mean what I think they mean with actual Weirdness Magnet.

That as you have it written is just Weirdness Magnet in a less cinematic campaign. It's just as debilitating with the same -2 reactions [-10] plus 'stuff happens enough to inconvenience' [-5]

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I've all but banned Weirdness Magnet from my games because it seems more of a setting feature than a personal trait. That there's one player who gives it to every single one of his characters even when I say "no exotic/paranormal traits" doesn't help. (He also tends to use Lifebane and Frightens Animals the same way.).

Weirdness Magnet suffers seriously from being written in a way that conceals what is supposed to be bad about it, and from depending heavily on a reaction penalty that quite often gets interpreted not to matter even when it probably should.

I rewrite it to be much less attractive: Weirdness Magnet is a kind of aspected Unluckiness - once per game session something that should have been a success or otherwise gone your way arbitrarily goes wrong, including having a reaction that should have been positive go very negative, but in a weird way or for a weirdness connected reason.

Only one player has been interested since, even though I think this is really about the same thing as the actual intent.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

In Supers campaigns I've run in the past, I had Weirdness Magnet as mandatory for superheroes, because otherwise their lives simply don't make sense.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by malloyd

...
I rewrite it to be much less attractive: Weirdness Magnet is a kind of aspected Unluckiness - once per game session something that should have been a success or otherwise gone your way arbitrarily goes wrong, including having a reaction that should have been positive go very negative, but in a weird way or for a weirdness connected reason.

Only one player has been interested since, even though I think this is really about the same thing as the actual intent.

That's how I read it. It's a unique "color" of bad luck sometimes with an added reaction penalty, hence it being -15 to basic Unluckiness' -10.

I like the idea, but think a -5 or even -10 version would be more playable. A full -15 could easily be a bigger aspect to the character and game than preferred.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

It is mentioned in the Quirk supplement. It is called Realistic Weirdness Magnet.

No, it isn't. The only "quirk supplement" is Power-Ups 6: Quirks, which contains no references whatsoever to Weirdness Magnet.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

I've had it on a couple of characters and have only have it come up once ever. And that was only after I reminded the GM that my character had Weirdness Magnet.

So for me it has usually just turned out to be 15 free points.

Weirdness Magnet is meant to be a social disadvantage. It doesn't need to annoy you, it means you're surrounded by those who either see you as an obnoxious trouble maker or a source of cheap thrills. It's a social handicap.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

This is why I tend to discourage it in my games. I don't usually ban it outright, but I need some good justification for how the player intends it to work, and it had better be more interesting than 'I get 15 points in exchange for making your job harder and getting more of the spotlight'.

I'm a lot more forgiving of 'aspected' forms of it, like Monster Hunters' Divine Curse (Monster Magnet) which is basically an alternate, specific Weirdness Magnet that's being classified under a different disadvantage, because something like that actually tells me-as-GM what it's supposed to do and suggests how it will probably be disadvantageous.

Monster Magnet is about dangerous problems coming to you first. Weirdness Magnet is about people seeing you as being a monster magnet or worse. The one is a form of Unlucky or Cursed, the other is more about people seeing you as cursed, whether or not you are cursed.