Hiho, I'm planning on creating new house rules for characters with SEVERE multiple personality disorder, since the current negative quality available in augmentation doesn't quite cut it for what I have in mind.
What I'm trying to achieve is to have a set of rules for multiple personalities that are REALLY fraggin' different from each other.
Since this can get incredibly complex really fast I could probably use massive amounts of help and critique for rules that I overlooked or that have an inadequate power level. So please, share any suggestions or thoughts you have on the matter.
DisclaimerThese rules should be handled with utter care due to their complexity.
They are specifically meant to provide players wishing to explore them with an additional option for creating interesting characters and a wide array of role playing possibilities.
However, they are NOT meant as a tool for munchkins hoping to create omnipotent Mary Sues. I hope that the rules I designed so far will give most of these players a hard time trying to abuse them. If you happen to find a way to abuse these rules, please report it here so it can be ruled out as soon as possible.
Please note that any and all numbers used are mainly meant as examples, although they do represent what I feel are appropriate values.
If you feel different, please feel free to voice you oppinion here.
So, let's get to the real stuff, roughly ordered from basic to specific rules:
The BasicsIf you want to create a character with severe MPD, first you'll have to use your BP (or Karma or whatever - so far I really didn't bother to try any of the alternate character creation rules) to create the basic character as in:
- metatype
- sex (although the mental gender can be different for every personality, the body's sex will stay the same)
- age (again, mental may vary)
- attributes except magic and resonance - those will be explained later
- certain qualities that are not personality specific (e. g. allergies, debts, physical addictions and so on - the GM ultimately decides what belongs in here and what not) Again, awakened characters and t echnomancers will be explained later
- physical possesions (obviously including 'ware)
- lifestyles(5% increased cost per personality living the lifestyle, accounting for differing needs of the personalities, like entertainment)
- money in general
all according to the character creation rules.
Then you also buy the quality "severe MPD" for 10 BP per additional personality you want to have. This quality also reduces your essence by 0.5 points per additional personality you take, to reflect the stress this quality causes to your very soul.
The quality does not count towards the 35 BP maximum for positive Qualities or negative Qualities.
After you've done that you go ahead and copy that sheet for every personality - best keep a copy of the basic character as well so you and your GM will have an easier time sorting through this giant mess
It can also help you keep track of karma, money, equipment and damage later in the game.
The PersonalitiesEach personality gets the amount of leftover BP to use on it's own. So if your basic character is left with 100 BP, every personality will get 100 BP for itself.
Now you can go ahead and use these BP to finish building each personality seperately, including:
- contacts (please consult the "Contacts" section for additional information on those)
- skills
- specific qualities representing personality traits (e. g. prejudiced, inspired, mentor spirit and so on - again, the GM decides what belongs in here and what doesn't)
- spells/complex forms, spirits/sprites, adept powers, binding costs for foci and the like. Please also refer to the section dealing with awakened/technomancers
Please note that every personality has to be built according to the rules of character creation. For example, no personality can have more than 35 BP worth of negative or positive qualities (including qualities "inherited" from the basic character). No Skill Group can exceed a rating of 4 and so on. I think everybody understands how these rules are intended, so I'm going to trust people to use them accordingly without me having to go through the pain of explaining every character creation rule.
Also note that you cannot change any information "inherited" from the basic character for obvious reasons.
In the end, every personality you created has to be a legal character on it's own!
It is also possible (and very likely) that every personality will have his/her own name. This is up to the player to decide.
Awakened Characters And TechnomancersSince magic, adept powers and technomancy are supposed to rely on genetics as well as on the personality of the character, they require special rules when used in combination with severe MPD:
- With severe MPD, it is generally possible to have characters capable of using magic, adept powers and technomancy - not at the same time, but with the same body
- If you want to have one or several personalities capable of using these features, you will first have to buy the appropiate attribute(s) for your basic character. It is possible for the basic character to have the magic as well as the resonance attribute. These attributes will not be carried over to the personality sheets, unless the personality takes a corresponding quality (see the "The Personalities" section if you are not sure how to handle personality specific qualities)
- once one of your personalities bought one of those qualities, every other personality will have to buy at least a latent version of that quality ("latent awakening" or "latent technomancy", whichever is appropiate). This reflects the genetic predisposition required for these abilities. These latent qualities are not mutually exclusive for characters with severe MPD, it is possible to have the genes required for both traits to be expressed. It is even possible for personalities to aquire a full fledged power according to the rules of the latent qualities. If a personality has both the "latent awakening" and "latent technomancer" qualities, it is up to the GM to decide if and when one of those abilities manifest, but as soon as this happens, the other will lie dormant forever for this personality. It is therefore still impossible for a character to use both abilities at the same time.
- Now the personalities who are entitled to a magic or resonance attribute will get to add it to their personality sheets.
- If you have a personality with the mystic adept quality or at least one personality with the magician and also at least one with the adept quality, you will have to split your magic attribute into power points and spellcastin magic. All of the awakened personalities are affected by this decision. If you have a magic of 6 and chose to get a magician personality and an adept personality, you have to decide how to split your magic. Let's say you decide for 2 magic and 4 adept power points. The magician will only get to use 2 magic dice to roll - however, (s)he is still able to overcast spells up to force 12. The adept will get 4 power points to buy his powers, but powers that are dependent on the magic attribute will get to use all of the 6 points. If the same character buys another personality that is a mystic adept, that personality will automatically have 2 magic and 4 power points.
- every awakened personality gets to chose qualities like adept ways, mentor spirits and even it's magic tradition for itself. The same goes for corresponding technomancer qualities if there are any. All at the GMs discretion, of course.
- it is also possible for awakened personalities to take on geasa. However, if another personality brakes a geas it still affects the personality that took it and only that personality. If one personality's geas is broken, the geasa of the other personalities might still be intact.
- every personality capable of spellcasting has to buy it's spells on it's own. the same goes for summoning and binding spirits and binding foci. The same again for the corresponding technomancer ressources.
- it is possible for multiple personalities to use the same foci. However, every personality has to pay the binding cost once
- everytime the personalities switch, all active foci are deactivated, sustained spells are cancelled, unbound spirits return to the metaplanes and bound spirits won't listen to the characters orders anymore. The rules for complex forms/sprites and the like work accordingly
- the new personality will have to take a successful binding + (modified) magic (force of the focus, 5 minutes) test before (s)he can use any foci used by other personalities again
- For bound spirits, the personality will have to take an opposed binding + (modified) magic test against the spirits force + services left to take control of it again. Everytime a character tries to take control again, it uses up one of the spirit's services.
If the spirit wins the test it deals stun damage equal to twice it's net hits against the character. This damage cannot be resisted. If the spirits force is greater than the characters unmodified magic, it deals physical damage instead.
If the personality wins and the spirit still has services left, the spirit will be bound and retain (1+ net hits scored on the opposing test) of the services left. A personality can never retain more services than the spirit has left.
How Personalities Are SwitchedThis is a variation on the rules presented in Augmentation, meant to ensure that the character(s) don't become utterly useless in combat:
It is generally assumed that the player can decide what personality is active at the start of a new run. Exceptions to this rule are explained under "Character Improvement".
Whenever the character is subject to high amounts of stress (GM decision), or whenever (s)he wakes up after more than one hour of sleep, (s)he has to make a Willpower + Charisma (3) test. If (s)he fails this test, her personality changes randomly - chose an adequate method according to the number of personalities to determine this (like throw a coin if you have two additional personalities, or throw a D6 and roll again on 5 and 6 in case you have 4 additional personalities).
Note that the personality definitely has to change, a character can't end up with the same personality again!
Exchange your character sheets. Transfer any damage, physical or stun, to the new personality - after all, you still only have one body
Add an additional point of stun damage that cannot be resisted, to account for the headache caused by switching personalities (this does not apply when your character changed personalities due to sleeping)
Any effects like drugs used or spells cast on the character will also persist. Some sustained mind controlling spells might lose their effect though - the character gets an additional spell resistance roll. Again, it is up to the GM to decide what effects fall under this rule.
Also check the "Awakened Characters And Technomancers" section to see what effects a switch of personalities has for these characters.
After the personalities switched the new personality will have to adjust to the situation first:
- If in combat, roll initiative for your character.
- Until the end of the first combat turn after the change, dodge (not full dodge!) is the only action the character can take.
- Until the end of the second combat turn after the change, every test (except damage resistence rolls, but including the initiative roll mentioned above) is subject to a penalty of -2
- Until the end of the third combat turn after the change, the character cannot change personalities again.
- As soon as the fourth combat turn after the change begins, it is possible for the character to change personalities again.
However, the character will get (6 minus (combat turns after the fourth), minimum 0) bonus dice to roll on the Willpower + Charisma (3) test.
ContactsSince no personality knows what the other personalities did while having control over the shared body, each personality will have to aquire contacts on it's own.
However, most contacts won't know about the character's MPD in the beginning. Whenever a contact...contacts (for lack of an adequate synonym) a personality that does not know him/her yet (for example via a commlink account shared by the personalities), it will assume that (s)he is talking with whatever personality (s)he knows.
After all, all the personalities look and sound pretty much the same.
The personality will automatically get to add the new contact to his/her list for free. However, the contact will interpret any personalities (s)he doesn't know yet as strange - the loyalty of the contact added to the list of the "strange" personality will be 1 (for loyalty 1-3), 2 (for loyalty 4+) or even 3 (loyalty 4+ and connection 4+) lower than the loyalty to the original personality, until the contact knows of and accepts the characters disorder.
Note that the loyalty modified this way cannot be lower than 1.
Any permanent change in loyalty caused by one of the personalities will usually also affect the contact's loyalty towards any other personality in the same way - regardless of whether the contact knows of the disorder or not ("If one of your personalities is acting like a royal rak towards me, it doesn't really matter whether or not I like your other personalities. I just don't want you around me, omae")
Every enemy one of the personalities makes won't make a difference between the personalities - all of them will have to add the unmodified enemy, whether they actually know him/her or not.
If one of the personalities gets the "enemy" negative quality on character creation, all of the other personalities get it too, but without getting to add any BP for it.
Character Improvement- mission rewards are to be given to characters, not to personalities. No matter how many personalities were active for the run, the character with severe MPD does not get any more karma/money/items than the other characters
- All karma, money and equipment aquired during the game will go into one "pool" and shared by all of the personalities.
- Players may decide to use karma to improve their basic character/personalities, according to the established rules.
- Any changes to characteristics mentioned under the list in "The Basics" apply to all personalities.
- Any changes to characteristics mentioned under the list in "The Personalities" apply only to the personality that made the changes.
- Since the characters usually have some down time between runs, it is generally assumed that the personalities change in between and the player can decide at will what personalities to improve.
If the GM explicitly rules that there is no down time between two runs or that it is very limited (a week or less), (s)he can decide how many personalities the player can improve, if any at all.
If the downtime is that short, (s)he can also have the player roll whether or not the personalities change when the character sleeps and what personality is active afterwards. Only personalities that are active at least once in between runs can be improved. The usual rules regarding the time it takes for specific improvements to be made still apply.
Okay, I think this is it. As I already said before, please share any suggestions and critique you have. If I have completely overlooked a set of rules that need special definitions for characters with severe MPD, please also tell me where I can find the original rules.
