Hi everyone, I'm going to ask a few opinion to more experienced GMs (but anyone is invited to participate in the discussion, of course).

1 - Would you let your players buy the powerful ally/contacts/powerful enemy more than once?

2 - Would you let your players buy Artifact more than once?

3 - If your player bought Artifact 2-3, would you let him "trade" the allmighty artifact with 2-3 lower level ones?

4 - Would you let a character have BOTH arms atrofied?

5 - How about letting a character buy Aptitute In a Subject/Field or Natural Learner/Field more than once (on different abilities/fields, of course)?

I think that's about it, for now (as soon as I get my hands on the GM toolkit...which might not be until a long while...I guess more questions might arise)!

In the rules it states that unless the advantage/disadvantage states otherwise, you cannot the same advantage/disadvantage more than once. So,

1) I wasn't aware that such an advantage/disadvantage existed. Can you reference it?
2)No.
3)Not quite sure what you mean. Why would he trade it? Surely you, as a GM, designed the artifact to be of actual help? Besides, at 3 I'd try to make it so he can't lose it, or with great difficulty, i.e, inbedded in his chest/arm sort of thing. At 3, the artifact should be an integral part of the character, more than just a simple tool (artifact at 1, a bit more than that at 2).

4)No, but there's also a playability issue here. More or less everything in the game relies on the use of arms/legs, so having one atrohied limb is already a pain, but two is just simply unplayable.

5) Eh, I find it hard to say this, but by virtue of the aforementioned rule, No. Besides, again there are a playability issues, in this case having 2 Aptitude in a Field is game-breaking (since you could cut the cost of Athletics/Subterfuge down to 1 each for a Shadow = massive stats where he needs them).

1) That sounds like its from the Gaia book. Most of its new mechanics just deal with in-game social aspects.

Sorry for not mentioning. Ally/Contact/Enemy are advantages/disadvantage from Gaia - Beyond Dreams expansion book. There's a table with a few organizations which you can choose as friends/enemies (some of them like the Church are just 1 CP worth, while others like Inquisition or Wissenshaft are worth 2). As an advantage you may spend 1-3 points on powerful contacts/allies, while as enemy you may gain 1-2 CP.

As for the Artifact it just might happen that a player would prefer having several "lesser" Artifacts, instead of an "End of The World" one. An example might be a Weapon Master/Paladin/Dark Paladin spending 3 points in Artifact and asking for weapon+shield+armor (hence having 3XLevel 1 Artifacts). I'm just asking opinions because I don't like disappointing players during character creation, since I'm very strict during gameplay.

By the way...I don't entirely understand if it's legal by any mean for a human to get his characteristics beyond 10 (except of course for Elan powers, which descending from deities are supposed to allow a character to surpass human bonds).

No one ever said anything about an ''End of the World'' artifact, if anything as a GM you'd want to avoid that at all costs. But I somehow don't see the point in having several lesser artifacts, rather than one big one. My advice for your player is to try and work on the fluff of the artifact, i.e what makes it interesting rather than it's actual in-game abilities and powers, which is more for you to decide. As I said, at 3 the CP cost is so high, that it has to be of the utmost importance to the character, and not just some uber-god-slaying-sword-of-destiny's-doom. But in the end, it's your choice, if you think it's valid then fine, in terms of game mechanics I have nothing against the proposal.

For the characteristics, it is effectively THE grey area of the whole game. It really is up to you as GM. I think the rule of thumb is that no stat may be above 10 at creation, except through the use of CP, and then afterwards the limit is 13 for any physical stat, except through supernatural means (i.e spell/Inhumanity/Zen/Elan...).For intellectual stats there really is no rule. it is entirely up to you, I choose to say that there is no limit on Intellectual stats, but that doesn't mean that a character can use something he has no knowledge of.