[EternalZiggurat]

No, being completely unable to pick up a gun perfectly represents being completely unwilling to use a gun. She can't use a gun, by choice, but how does it matter?

[emsquared]

I don't have a dog in this race, which is why I said, "If I were GM."

But mostly I was going to be interested to see how much you claimed to care about story and RP, because if it seemed to be a lot, that Incompetency disconnect is pretty significant, as it is mechanically and fluff-wise distinctly not what you are saying it is. It's like he was basically trying to avoid some of the suckiness of the Negative Quality. What's the Notoriety for if not for being known to be completely Incompetent with Firearms? It's just cheezy is all.

[All4BigGuns]

No, being completely unable to pick up a gun perfectly represents being completely unwilling to use a gun. She can't use a gun, by choice, but how does it matter?

It is nothing but a case of "WOW! She is just awesome at everything! Bow to her awesomeness!" but being unwilling to actually spend the points to back it up.

[Glyph]

If the only discrepancy is the fluff, I would be fine with it.  If the character cannot ever use firearms and has four points of notoriety from it, then I would allow it.  If someone wanted to play a mage who abhorred binding, considering it the equivalent of enslaving a sentient being, and would never learn or use the skill, then I would let them take incompetent: binding.  Honestly - this is a set of incompetencies that will really limit the character, in her area (combat); I would much rather see something like this than the ever-popular (at least as an example  ) incompetence: aeronautics pilot.

I would be fine with "Used to be awesome with guns", too.  The character stats at creation are a snapshot in time.  If someone's background is that they were a mage, burned out from drugs and cyberware, and are trying to make it as a bitter street samurai now, I would expect them to have a relevant magical knowledge skill or two, but I wouldn't make them buy the mage quality and all of the awakened skills and spells that they had before becoming a mundane.

The only problem I have with the background is that it needs to make it more clear what an absolute limitation this is.  It can't just be "Guns weren't challenging enough any longer".  It has to be an unbreakable mental block, or an equally unbreakable vow to herself.  With the incompetence quality, this character literally would not be able to pick up a gun lying on the ground to shoot someone about to kill one of her loved ones.  So while I would allow a "roleplaying" reason for the flaw, it needs to be a slightly more compelling one.

[All4BigGuns]

If the only discrepancy is the fluff, I would be fine with it.  If the character cannot ever use firearms and has four points of notoriety from it, then I would allow it.  If someone wanted to play a mage who abhorred binding, considering it the equivalent of enslaving a sentient being, and would never learn or use the skill, then I would let them take incompetent: binding.  Honestly - this is a set of incompetencies that will really limit the character, in her area (combat); I would much rather see something like this than the ever-popular (at least as an example  ) incompetence: aeronautics pilot.

I would be fine with "Used to be awesome with guns", too.  The character stats at creation are a snapshot in time.  If someone's background is that they were a mage, burned out from drugs and cyberware, and are trying to make it as a bitter street samurai now, I would expect them to have a relevant magical knowledge skill or two, but I wouldn't make them buy the mage quality and all of the awakened skills and spells that they had before becoming a mundane.

The only problem I have with the background is that it needs to make it more clear what an absolute limitation this is.  It can't just be "Guns weren't challenging enough any longer".  It has to be an unbreakable mental block, or an equally unbreakable vow to herself.  With the incompetence quality, this character literally would not be able to pick up a gun lying on the ground to shoot someone about to kill one of her loved ones.  So while I would allow a "roleplaying" reason for the flaw, it needs to be a slightly more compelling one.

I'm the opposite. You want to be the expert marksman with all types of guns, buy the skills to represent that. You want to have been a Magician at one point, but got burned out, buy the quality and the skills and then "burn out". I'm not going to allow someone to skimp on the skills the character should have just because they're not going to use them. It was their choice to have that in their background, so it's my choice to enforce that they actually have to buy those skills to back it up.

[Excelsior]

I'm the opposite. You want to be the expert marksman with all types of guns, buy the skills to represent that. You want to have been a Magician at one point, but got burned out, buy the quality and the skills and then "burn out". I'm not going to allow someone to skimp on the skills the character should have just because they're not going to use them. It was their choice to have that in their background, so it's my choice to enforce that they actually have to buy those skills to back it up.

Which, as you've said, is up the the GM running the game. It's a personal dislike and an understandable one.

But I agree with Glyph and believe he put it quite succinctly. (I also agree with the fact that I need a better reason to not use guns, cuz that one is pretty cheeze.) Because I think that making the character take all of the qualitites/skills s/he would have limits the scope backstory. Because honestly, if I really wanted to play a 62 year old war vet (For both wars) the BP/Karma that character would have would be pretty high. But I didn't have all that sweet, sweet karma, so I tried to make something that could be fluffed towards. Otherwise I'll never get to play that character concept I adore because I'll never have the points for it. And being able to roleplay a charcter I really like is more important than numbers to me.

[Novocrane]

She can't use a gun, by choice, but how does it matter?

If the character was blackmailed (with something sufficiently convincing) into shooting someone ... Character choice and player choice fail to line up, unless it's the singularly most importance choice in the world to them.
 
/agreeing with Mad's comments.

At the very least, it's given me an idea for PAB-induced combat blocks for another character.

[All4BigGuns]

I'm the opposite. You want to be the expert marksman with all types of guns, buy the skills to represent that. You want to have been a Magician at one point, but got burned out, buy the quality and the skills and then "burn out". I'm not going to allow someone to skimp on the skills the character should have just because they're not going to use them. It was their choice to have that in their background, so it's my choice to enforce that they actually have to buy those skills to back it up.

Which, as you've said, is up the the GM running the game. It's a personal dislike and an understandable one.

But I agree with Glyph and believe he put it quite succinctly. (I also agree with the fact that I need a better reason to not use guns, cuz that one is pretty cheeze.) Because I think that making the character take all of the qualitites/skills s/he would have limits the scope backstory. Because honestly, if I really wanted to play a 62 year old war vet (For both wars) the BP/Karma that character would have would be pretty high. But I didn't have all that sweet, sweet karma, so I tried to make something that could be fluffed towards. Otherwise I'll never get to play that character concept I adore because I'll never have the points for it. And being able to roleplay a charcter I really like is more important than numbers to me.

Such is life and happens to everyone at some point. Some times one will have character ideas not actually feasible to build and play.

[emsquared]

Honestly, if you wanted to hold on to that being the fluff, "I choose not to use guns", you still won't be able to make a claim to having been an expert with them, but just try and negotiate a Unique Negative Quality with your GM, similar to a "Code of Conduct" - that just says "I swear not to use guns, and if I break this Oath, I get X penalty to every other attack pool" or something to that effect.