Aberrant RPG - Taint vs Personality

[metaphysician]

Discussion came up elsewhere over certain characters, notably Antaeus. Obviously, he suffers from some fairly hefty physical aberrations. However, the question is, do his personality issues and decisions he makes ultimately derive from taint? Or, are they mainly the result of the nature of his powers, and what they mean to someone of his prior personality? After all, vast increases in intelligence and perception would presumably be able to have effect on a person's personality from entirely natural reasons.

The more straightforward case is Caestus Pax: does he have mental aberrations that make him an egomaniac, or is he just a macho jerk on a power trip?

Thoughts?

[NFVD]

Discussion came up elsewhere over certain characters, notably Antaeus. Obviously, he suffers from some fairly hefty physical aberrations. However, the question is, do his personality issues and decisions he makes ultimately derive from taint? Or, are they mainly the result of the nature of his powers, and what they mean to someone of his prior personality? After all, vast increases in intelligence and perception would presumably be able to have effect on a person's personality from entirely natural reasons.

The more straightforward case is Caestus Pax: does he have mental aberrations that make him an egomaniac, or is he just a macho jerk on a power trip?

Thoughts?

I think this is mostly in the realm of ST-decision. Barring having a NPC's stats where it says Mental Aberration: Fruitcake (o whatever), it's all open for debate but the final say rests on whoever is running the campaign and should suit its needs.

[Alex Green]

In general I lean strongly towards calling it Taint.

Pax could be a hairless body builder who is "inhumanly obsessed" with his image... but considering he has Q7 and node 5, if that isn't taint, then we need to figure out what his aberrations are (although one solution is to reduce his node to 2).

Mal is *far* more extreme because he presumably has about 16 levels of aberrations. He's been through the big "C" 4 times, from the funky glasses he probably erupted with taint 4. I'd like to give him "Taint Resist" in combo with Mega-Int 8 and willpower 10 and then load him up with some serious mental aberrations. Although in Mal's case one could make the argument that his powers compensate. I.e. that he doesn't have Meglomania, he just deserves worship, etc.

[metaphysician]

Yeah, Mal is an extreme case I'm not really touching. Though, wrt Pax, I thought he was only Quantum 6? If he were, than Q6 + Node 5 would only require 5 Taint, or two aberrations. That could easily be covered by "hairless" and "anima banner".

[Blue Thunder]

What a coincidence, I was actually thinking of this issue yesterday...

I don't like how when a character has a personality flaw in Aberrant, it must be explained by Taint, at least in some players' eyes. Why can't you have an angry character without taking Hormonal Imbalance: Rage? Why can't your character be a total ego-trip without taking Egomaniacal? Certainly there are people in the world with these kinds of behavior patterns already...

[Sprocket]

Re: Mal's funky glasses

I don't know about that, as no mention of glowing (or even oddly-colored) eyes are mentioned in any descriptions of Dr. Primoris in Adventure! - the glasses just appear to be a fashion statement.

Re: Pax

Of course, there's always the (extremely plausible) chance that Pax was a real jerk even before his eruption, and his excessive Taint only exacerbated it. ::devil

Re: Nova jerks

I'd think that Tötentanz qualifies. He's only got a permanent Taint of 1, and look at the psychological problems he's got. ::wacko

[Alex Green]

RE: Pax

He's Q7, the Q6 in the book was a typo.

I don't like how when a character has a personality flaw in Aberrant, it must be explained by Taint, at least in some players' eyes. Why can't you have an angry character without taking Hormonal Imbalance: Rage? Why can't your character be a total ego-trip without taking Egomaniacal? Certainly there are people in the world with these kinds of behavior patterns already...

Totentanz is the obvious example of a super powered nut, with Astroth's Hell crew close behind. So it can be done... but...

But in general Aberrant is mostly about normal people getting powers. Not many normal people are hairless body builders who are inhumanly obsessed with their image. Further, we also know that novas are *more* unstable than baselines.

It can be done. But in general, it's probably not the way to bet... especially with the very powerful novas who have to have taint anyway.

So combine all that with the lack of cannon stats for most characters, and we have to look for clues as too what their stats are. From multiple sources, Mal just doesn't seem to be dealing with reality and he's got his own cult. Pax is "inhumanly" obsessed with his image.

Note further that for these characters, it almost doesn't make a difference whether their mental issues are taint or just natural. They are what they are. Pax is a self centered jerk. Whether that's taint or something else probably doesn't matter much for the PCs.

[phoenix]

Of course, there's always the (extremely plausible) chance that Pax was a real jerk even before his eruption, and his excessive Taint only exacerbated it.

ProfPotts wrote an interesting story for the Fiction section - I believe that unfortunately, it was lost - in which Caestus Pax is forced to undergo a hallucination of life as a baseline as part of his "punishment" from Divis Mal. Although he is only unconscious for a few days, the dream, as I recall, lasted much longer than that...