Compulsive, The World's Best Flaw

 The sun shines, not out of affection, but out of compulsion.

Something that SR5 distinctly improved upon compared to SR3 is flaws. SR3 just doesn't have a whole lot of them, and I pretty firmly believe the flaws you take are an important defining factor to your character. Lucky for us, SR3 outright tells you to come up with your own flaws, and even includes a "general category" of flaw called Compulsive. Today I'm gonna list some new compulsive behavior flaws I came up with. These are for SR3, but they can surely be easily adapted to other editions with a bit of care. For SR5, I'd place these somewhere between 5 and 20 karma. Just use your judgment. 

Fitness Fanatic (-2). The character is serious about all aspects of their fitness. Their lifestyle costs are increased by ten percent to account for fitness equipment, doctor's visits, better food, vitamin supplements, or anything else the GM and player deem appropriate. In addition, the character must succeed at a Willpower (6) test to consume anything with an addiction rating, or any other substance or food deemed particularly unhealthy. The target number may be adjusted at the GM's discretion for times of desperation or extremely harmful substances. 

Shopaholic(-1 to -5). The character loves to shop. It doesn't matter what they're buying, they're addicted to the rush of joy that comes along buying something new. Every month, the character must spend at least 1000¥ per level of this flaw. This must be in objects, equipment, food, or anything else the character owns: bribes and services do not count, but experiences like concerts or a spa trip do.  If this is not done by the time lifestyle payment is due, the character loses their cool and blows the entire amount on anything with an availability of "always", and it doesn't count against this month's shopping, either. 

Fashionista(-2 or -3). Whether an aspirational poser or they came from real money and status, the character can't stand to be seen wearing pedestrian clothing. At -2, the character takes a +1 to all mental and social target numbers when dirty, unkempt, or wearing less than fine clothing. At -3, the character must wear tres chic clothing and an additional 1000¥ in wearables such as jewelry, electronics or weapons with a custom finish or engraving. 

Armor clothing costs can be increased by 50% to match appropriately with the character's fine clothing, or doubled to match with a tres chic outfit. The armored clothing must still be paired with an appropriate set of clothing. Security or mil-spec armor violates this flaw regardless of how well it's tailored. 

Gang Pride(-2). The character is proud to be a member(or former member) of a street gang. The character represents the gang's colors or uniform at all times, regardless of what else they're wearing. In addition, they must succeed at a Willpower (6) test when asked about their gang membership or clothing, or else directly and firmly state their affiliation. 

These sorts of actions aren't popular with high society or corporate types, and the character may face social penalties when dealing with them, at the GM's discretion. 

Child of the Street(-1). The opposite of Fashionista, the character can't stand to wear expensive clothing or live in comfort, finding both stifling and uncomfortable. The character takes a +1 to all target numbers while wearing anything "fine" or "tres chic". They may wear armor, but not any armor clothing that counts as fine or tres chic. In addition, when faced with a living situation better than Squatter(13 points or higher in the expanded lifestyles optional rule) they must succeed at a Willpower(8) test to stay the night, or else leave to stay outside. 

Needless to say, this flaw is incompatible with Fashionista. 

I like doing this a lot, so expect more in the future. A final note: Remember to check with the GM for the final value of these flaws. After all, they may disagree with how much they're worth at face value, or they could be running a game where they'll be more or less of a hassle. Gang Pride in a campaign where the characters are all members in a go-gang is liable to get you in a lot of trouble, for example.

I Hate the Steyr AUG-CSL

 I don't like warriors. Too narrow-minded, no subtlety. And worse, they fight for hopeless causes. Honor? Huh! Honor's killed millions of people, it hasn't saved a single one. 

Equipment lists often have sub-standard or even useless gear in them from the player's point of view. I mean, that's fine. The biggest culprit is probably the D&D 3.X/PF armor list, but these things would logically exist in the world. Not everyone is going to have access to the best stuff, and they'd have to make due with brigandine, chain mail, half-plate, or what have you. It's helpful for the GM too: they can give enemies worse gear to soften an encounter. Shadowrun is no different, and has lots of gear a runner might not have much use for, but an NPC might. 

This sub-standard gear usually has some justification for its existence, even if it's nothing a PC would touch. Corporate execs might want a light or hold-out pistol because of the weight or style, or because they can just directly get APDS ammo from their corporation's armory. A ganger might buy a vibro knife instead of a cougar fineblade for its intimidating thrum when it's turned on, or they might carry around a rattan stick because their daily itinerary is mostly filled with harassing shop clerks for protection money.

But I do have a limit. I understand that Shadowrun may even have its fill of dumb hipster shit in it, but it's really rare that you find a piece of gear that utterly can't justify its existence beyond the consumer being pretty stupid. This is where the AUG-CSL comes in. 

Real life does have modular weaponry that uses the same pieces to build weapons with multiple functionalities. Shadowrun isn't really set up for this in its mechanics, so we have this thing. It's a weapon "system" that can be rearranged into four different configurations: an assault rifle, a carbine rifle, an SMG and an LMG. My issues are numerous and my rage is immeasurable, but I'll try to list them here in no order. 

One. While my local game has adapted skill groups that soften this problem, it's really super rare for people to take many weapon skills. It just doesn't come up. The Rifles skill is often useful for extreme range combat or assassination, but it's pretty rare someone has more than one of SMGs, Assault Rifles, and Heavy Weapons: They all do the same thing. They makes the bullet go super fast. The three weapon types do have differences I'm not going to go into here, but suffice to say that skill points are at a premium. Nobody has the room to learn a bunch of gun skills. 

Two. Only one of the forms really has any value. The Carbine Rifle configuration is a rifle that can burst fire: It(and the HK G38, a virtually identical weapon to the AUG-CSL) is the only source of this capability outside of building your own weapon. The other three are just lackluster, common weapons in their category with no decent accessories. Their damage codes are competitive, thank god. In fact, they only differ in the following ways: their concealability rating, the skill it takes to use them, and their range. Basically, this means all you're doing is bolting more parts on to progressively increase the range of your weapon, something that's got a limited usefulness to begin with: a lot of your encounters are probably taking place inside fifty meters. That is, after all, about half a football field.  

Three. It's expensive and hard to find. Not much to say here, it's twice the cost and harder to find than weapons which are far better than it. You also can't start the game with this piece of shit, despite it being a (almost) completely pointless weapon. Obviously this is to imply that this thing is some sort of rare proof of concept build or limited release, and that probably is what they were going for. That doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. 

Four. Reconfiguring the weapon requires an assault rifles B/R check. It's a simple TN, four, but it still means this stupid thing has yet another skill requirement to get any use out of it. Of course, you can probably ask your fixer to configure it to Carbine Rifle then throw all the other parts away. The fact that you can take it apart probably has some level of use, but for that you have the SA Puzzler and the WW Infiltrator, which are even better at this purpose, cheaper, and easier to find. 

So technically, this weapon might have an edge use case. If your GM is a real jerk and likes making custom firearms hard to get(I don't see the point) then it's your only source of a rifle that can burst. Even that's of an extremely limited use: This isn't a weapon you can start with, so by the time you can get this you can just get a sniper rifle. It's arguable which damage code would be better(14S sniper rifle vs. the 10D burst) but I lean toward the sniper rifle reflexively. Higher damage codes are usually better, and it's a third of the bullets fired: those special APDS assassinatin' bullets add up. 

Oh, and the HK-G38 sucks too.