[Raiden]

How many GMs allow these? how do you handle them?

[Walks Through Walls]

I gave my players the option, but surprisingly most haven't taken me up on it.

I would make it so if they take negative modifiers make sure that they come up in game play. For example if they have nosy neighbors then have the neighbors call the cops when they come home bleeding or if there is a shoot out at the crib have the neighbor record it all through their peep hole (or window if across the street)

[Crunch]

I like them as long as they're used to give the characters more flavor and depth.

[Michael Chandra]

Positive lifestyle qualities they pay the price for, so fine with that within reason. They want In Tune? Sure, but after chargen it will definitely be hard to get so try not to lose it. Negative qualities? Be prepared to score the consequences. Haunted? During a run the stay-at-home technomancer hears a loud rapping at the door, then when they send the cleaning drone to investigate suddenly a hellhound bursts into the room. Oh, and security just noticed the team at the facility and is initiating shutdown protocol. Good luck.

[ZeConster]

Positive lifestyle qualities they pay the price for, so fine with that within reason. They want In Tune? Sure, but after chargen it will definitely be hard to get so try not to lose it. Negative qualities? Be prepared to score the consequences. Haunted? During a run the stay-at-home technomancer hears a loud rapping at the door, then when they send the cleaning drone to investigate suddenly a hellhound bursts into the room. Oh, and security just noticed the team at the facility and is initiating shutdown protocol. Good luck.

As the stay-at-home technomancer you speak of, who hasn't had this encounter yet since we've only had a session 0 so far, let me just say this: I hate you.

[Raiden]

^ I second this. luckily my pad has a security team :3333

[RHat]

And this is why you bind a Machine sprite to home security and let it have all the guns.

[All4BigGuns]

Seeing as how the Lifestyle negatives only give a very slight reduction in the cost of the lifestyle and don't really add anything which can be used to strengthen the character in any really meaningful way, they should only be occasional minor annoyances, but anything that can potentially be life threatening for the character should elicit the player making use of The Book.

[RHat]

Seeing as how the Lifestyle negatives only give a very slight reduction in the cost of the lifestyle and don't really add anything which can be used to strengthen the character in any really meaningful way, they should only be occasional minor annoyances, but anything that can potentially be life threatening for the character should elicit the player making use of The Book.

Some carry larger reductions.  Also, Guns, if a player combines Ambusher's Delight, Lax Security, Rough Neighbourhood, Worse Neighbours and Affiliated, they are LITERALLY begging to be assaulted in their home.

The frequency with which a benefit of a given value comes up should set the frequency with which a negative of the same value comes up - of course, the fact that some of these combine the way they do impacts that consideration.

[Michael Chandra]

Haunted's -5 in this case is the difference between 20.000/month and 4.000/month per member of the shared lifestyle team.

[Reaver]

I'm not against my players using the resource to custom design their residences, but not a single player has taken the time to do so. They just usually buy a standard lifestyle (low,mid,high) and do a little hand waving. (it's in the downtown core... But just barely. It's a 2 room bachelor pad.)

[Crunch]

Seeing as how the Lifestyle negatives only give a very slight reduction in the cost of the lifestyle and don't really add anything which can be used to strengthen the character in any really meaningful way, they should only be occasional minor annoyances, but anything that can potentially be life threatening for the character should elicit the player making use of The Book.

In general if you don't want to deal with a negative quality you shouldn't take it.

[Raiden]

a lot of negative qualities are more often than not small, nosy neighbors are just well, nosy, mechanically if people ask, where is yadas house they get +3 DP in the hood. haunted has a danger mechanic, thats why you make sure to get enough sec. for a on site guard team :3. (with astral help close at hand). but a lifestyle for a team. with feng shui, in tune, and a resonance well coupled with neq. Q. can total about 3k a month per member for a 3-4 man team. now that TM that stays at home as 15-18 DP for most of his things. also on a slightly different note. the cracking group still falls under the technical skill group it seems...

[All4BigGuns]

Seeing as how the Lifestyle negatives only give a very slight reduction in the cost of the lifestyle and don't really add anything which can be used to strengthen the character in any really meaningful way, they should only be occasional minor annoyances, but anything that can potentially be life threatening for the character should elicit the player making use of The Book.

In general if you don't want to deal with a negative quality you shouldn't take it.

Nowhere was it said in my post that they shouldn't come up at all. All that was said was that since they won't really make a meaningful increase to the character's strength that they shouldn't cause extremely serious issues.

Some carry larger reductions.  Also, Guns, if a player combines Ambusher's Delight, Lax Security, Rough Neighbourhood, Worse Neighbours and Affiliated, they are LITERALLY begging to be assaulted in their home.

You miss the entire point. The point is to "make the punishment fit the crime", and those (I'm thinking Affiliated might be one of the safehouse only ones, but not sure) combined may make the lifestyle pretty cheap, but they don't really increase the character's "power" much, so it'd be best for them to cause the occasional "flea bite" annoyance at worst.

[Crunch]

I'm a big fan of making this sort of thing clear at the outset of the game, but if you take a negative quality you can expect it to come into play at some point in my game. If I can't think of a way for the negative quality to apply  would simply disallow it. Allowing players to try to pick and choose qualities that will never come up (I'm wanted on the moon, allergic to polar bear blubber and mildly prejudiced against martians!) punishes players that don't want to exploit the system.

If in the example given you've chosen that set of negative qualities (Worse neighbors, Lax Security, Ambusher's delight, and possibly affiliated) than I would have a discussion at the start of play about exactly what the situation is and whether it merits the points, but as written there's a big shiny plot hook that is going to at least have the opportunity of coming up.