Take the cilantro, leave the zamboni

....the way I'm pacing around the dining room table and gesticulating wildly.

See, there's this species disad that I don't like. I'm not sure how to read it. And I can't visualize doing it. I don't THINK it means half the character is NPCd, that might be one reading of it. I think it means for the purpose of this disad you have to choose which personality the PC controls, which the GM controls, and if the PC is playing the one they control _for this purpose_ at the time when they make a decision, the GM can say "okay, the other personality disagrees, make a Concentration check to see if you can insist." and if you don't make the roll you lose half an action and can't try it again until the next combat round, at which point you have to do the same thing all over again if you still want to do the action.

GM control over whether your 2 personalities disagree just doesn't make SENSE, unless maybe they're playing 1 of em, and I feel like doing THAT takes the fun out of the species concdept. And it specifically says in chapter 2 that the usual way of doing this species is for the PC to play both personalities and do it consistently. That's what makes the concept fun in the first place.

I don't this is intended to balance out the species advantages, of which there are already plenty, and I think we could just ditch it. I just can't see using it without it feeling like GM fiat "Ookay, your host disagrees, she's trying to get you to not do that, role a Concentration check to see if you can make that action or not." I'm actually thinking that it should just be a house rule that symbiote personality has to be dominant before you make any ancient Tok'ra history checks and to get the +2 species advantage to inspiration checks. (Swapping personalities costs 1 free action by the way.)

This idea works better with the other way of playing the character: you can have 2 PCs split the character up, and in that case if the GM sees them disagree I think it'd be appropriate to step in and say "Okay, roll to settle that." I'm fine with it in this situation. And of course, PCs can choose from these possibilities, I just think some ways won't work so well. If you REALLY want me to have your nondominant personality try to trip you up during combat every so often, well, so be it.