Quirk Brainstorm and Review

[ch0m5]

I enjoy making unique characters with quirks that shape a personality, with both good and bad traits, and I think there's more that could be done with them without fucking up the meta or having OP/Useless quirks. Take this list as a brainstorm of ideas to see if anything interesting sparks that could be implemented.

The Good:
Handyman (-2 quirk)
"You're very skillful with your hands and can craft items faster than most."
Reduces slightly the duration to all crafting recipes.

Yeet(?) (-2/-3 quirk)
"You're exceptionally good at throwing objects, making them deal slightly more damage on impact."
Throwing stuff is a risky and limited move because you lose what you've thrown, which could make the quirk an advantage without being OP.

Lifeguard (-3 quirk)
"You're proficient with first-aid treatment and can get someone barely out of critical state using CPR."
Makes your CPR able to heal someone barely out of crit (1% HP or similar).

Good Grip (-2/-3 quirk)
"Dragging people or heavy objects doesn't slow you down as much."
The amount of slow this quirk removes is up to balance testing.

Best Friend (-1 quirk)
"Inseparable from birth, a good squeeze to it is enough to make you smile."
You get a random plushie on spawn and squeezing it slightly improves your mood. Losing it could make your mood worse Family Heirloom style, but if such happens maybe it could be a neutral +0 quirk instead of a -1 one.

Fight Fan (-1/-2 quirk)
"The thrill of seeing a good fight improves your mood. Not so much when it's you receiving the punches."
Seeing people beat each other is exciting for you, but not fighting yourself otherwise it would be the ultimate grief ticket.
Ideally this quirk should activate when both people actively fight, not one beating the fuck out of the other. Involving boxing gloves could make it more effective.

Masochist (-2/-3 quirk)
"Pain is the ultimate pleasure to you, and you crave it, but it doesn't make wounds hurt any less."
The idea is to reverse the negative impact of damage on your mood but add a craving for it, or just straight out lower the negative mood impact and remove the addiction.
This could become a grief ticket to go around seeking fights, however you can hurt yourself and Reality Dissociation Syndrome has a warning for griefers so this could work in a similar fashion.

Agile (-2/-3 quirk)
"Getting up takes less time."
Speaks for itself, it should still take a little while.

Experienced Diver (-2 quirk)
"You're able to hold your breath for a while when no air's available."
Having a time span before starting to get suffocation damage from lack of oxygen in the environment or get slightly less suffocation damage in such situation.

The Bad:
Addiction (+1 quirk)
"You love it, you crave it. So much that you can't live without it! A random ingredient/food is assigned at the start of every shift."
As it says, a random ingredient/food is assigned as your preferred one and you will accumulate bad mood if not consumed often, similar to Smoker and Junkie.
Note: Addictions in general can have a lot of possibilities. Caffeine could also work for this quirk, a Sweet Tooth for sugar, or maybe gambling with slot machines, playing Russian roulette, etc. In general, forcing the player to do certain actions during the shift.

Alcoholic (+1 quirk)
"You're only happy when you're drunk enough to not give a damn."
I think it deserved a unique spot like smoker, as being drunk makes your speech a mess as a drawback, with the added withdrawal that worsens your mood whenever you're not drunk.

Allergy (+1 quirk)
"You're allergic to an ingredient/chemical and if consumed you will have a severe reaction to it. A random ingredient is assigned at the start of every shift."
Consuming the ingredient/chemical would provoke toxic damage and if consumed in large quantities it could provoke random organ/senses failure.

Diabetes (+1/+2 quirk)
"You're sugar levels are constantly raising, you need regular insulin doses to keep yourself from facing hard-hitting symptoms."
Similar to addictions, and would be treated with insulin. Missing your insulin dose would mean to get hit by the symptoms: Hunger, nausea, and if it gets worse convulsions and a potential coma. Sugar should be able to slightly help, but having no insulin means trouble.

Clumsy (+2 quirk)
"You slip at random and not even walking can prevent it, so watch where you're walking."
Makes you slip at random and anything that's even slightly slippery will always make you fall.

Big Foot (+1 quirk)
"Your feet are stupidly large and can't fit in any pair of shoes or boots."
Makes you unable to wear any kind of footwear, like lizard dirtigrade legs, forcing you to go barefoot. An alternative is to make wearing shoes lower your mood in a constant rate similar to Bad Back with backpacks.

Fast Metabolism (+1 quirk)
"You process food incredibly quick, which makes you crave it more often."
Your hunger meter depletes faster, how much depends on balance testing.

Arrhythmia (+3 quirk)
"Your heart doesn't work properly. Stress and physically intensive activities drain stamina quickly and can lead to cardiac arrest."
Running, hitting things, suffering damage, etc. quickly drain stamina. The less stamina you have the higher the chances of suffering from cardiac arrest and falling to crit state.

Sickly (+1 quirk)
"Your immune system is faulty and makes you prone to catching diseases with ease."
Makes any disease on your body level up faster, how much depends on balance testing. I thought of making an AIDS quirk with more hardcore reactions to disease but it felt inappropriate.

The Neutral:
Salty (+0 quirk)
"You like your food with salt, otherwise it's not as tasty to you."
Food with salt improves your mood slightly and vice-versa.

Lactose Intolerant (+0 quirk)
"You can't consume anything that contains dairy."
Dairy produces nausea, worsens your mood by making your stomach feel awful, and can lead to toxic damage.

Allergic to Fur (+0 quirk)
"Being close to any kind of fur makes you sneeze."
Harmless sneezing when close to fur, could worsen your mood if the sneezing is not stopped.

Extra Notes on Quirks:
Light Drinker seems a pretty tame quirk as you can just avoid alcohol entirely, and when combined with Drunken Resilience is more an upside than a downside. It feels like a "free point" as you can get it with any character and just not drink alcohol. The only situation where it has a negative effect is when it's force-fed to you.

Prosopagnosia makes everyone you examine an Unknown, but still shows his real name when Right-Clicking on it, which makes the downside pretty easy to avoid.

With the amount of talking the game has, I think Social Anxiety could improve to +2. It's a real pain to have any kind of conversation with that quirk.

End:
If you got this far thanks for reading. All these are ideas that can be changed and discarded at will, but I think that having more quirks in general can lead to more unique characters with special behaviors while avoiding quirks that are overpowered or near useless and never taken.

[Super Aggro Crag]

i liked reading these.

[Cobby]

Anything that can be used as a positive combat quirk won't get merged but some of these are quite nice.

[knacker48]

Make it so the only footwear you can use with the Big Foot quirk are clown shoes. Otherwise clowns will pick it by default so they never have to wear clown shoes