You May Be at a Disadvantage, But It's Gonna Cost You!

[Le Joueur]

...The GM (Director, in Theatrix-speak) can also activate characters' descriptors against them.

Further, other players can indirectly activate another character's descriptors against them

That's a great idea!

I think I'll steal it (don't tell anyone).  Because it's like invoking a Genre Expectation, it might be worth Experience Dice for the 'activator.'  Or the player it 'happens to' might get the reward.  (I'm just thinking out loud here.)  Wait!  I know; I'll roll it into the Challenge Mechanix.  If you invoke someone else's Disadvantage, they can either accept it (it becomes self-applied) or they can rebuke it (triggering standard player-conflict-resolution).

This means I'll have to rewrite Challenge slightly.  But then I have to do that anyway.  What happens to the anted up Experience Dice when the player accepts the Challenge?  (I also need to get more of the "This is the Mechanix for Aiming and 'Called Shots'" into it anyway.)

I'm so glad I started this thread.  Thank you for your addition; it helps a lot.

Fang Langford

[Philippe Tromeur]

In the Story Engine, Quirks are "disadvantages".
They are mainly used to gains bonus dice in certain rare situation (I'm blind so it's easier for me to recognise a voice ; I've got a family to take care of, so I really want to get out of there ...). Because they are usable less frequently, Quirks are slightly less expensive than Traits ("advantages") but they cost something anyway.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Fang,

...activate characters' descriptors against them.

Synthesis has this. Alyria does as well.

A few months ago I was toying around with ideas for replacing the Story Engine Quirks mechanics with something I was calling "Front-side Descriptors." I know, it's a terrible name. But essentially the mechanic was lower-cost Descriptors that were a penalty to scenes of the Aspect they were attached to, and a bonus to scenes of the other three Aspects. So, a Front-side Descriptor of "Colonialist" attached to Mind would be a penalty to romantic interactions and navigating bureaucratic nightmares, but a bonus to chaotic bar fights and hacking trails through the rough. A Front-side Descriptor of "Colonialist" attached to Matter would be an entirely different character, idealistic and driven, but quite prone to sunburn and a liability in the bush.

The idea was to compensate somewhat for the generally low effectiveness of newly created Story Engine characters.

Paul