Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Aaron Aug 30 2009, 11:16 PM

I've been hearing a lot of talk about a retirement system for Missions PCs, both from GMs and players. Everybody I've spoken with seems to think it's a good idea, both for power levels and to help keep new characters relevant at every table they encounter.

We'd like even more feedback on the subject. There's no real proposal on the table just yet, but here are some ideas that I've personally discussed with folks.

• A hard cap of Karma (numbers between 100 and 150 Karma have been discussed).
• A soft cap of Karma (i.e. a reduced Karma award per adventure after a certain Karma threshold is reached).
• Additional adventures, released less frequently than each month, geared exclusively toward retired characters (prime runner adventures), possibly that have a more direct impact on Missions story arcs.
• New characters having the old character as a contact.
• Retired characters being eligible to be used as major NPCs in Missions adventures.

This list is not exhaustive, of course. What sort of things would you like to see in a retirement system, assuming one was implemented?

Posted by: Cadmus Aug 31 2009, 02:12 AM

mm I like results 3 throu 5.

1 and 2 don't really appeal to me becouse I like my char that I currently play in missions, as far as retirement goes, he would have to find or steal something worth settling down, and most missions are not going to offer a table that much cash or what have you plus given the times missions takes place, a lot of chars are only running the shadows for a short time.


just my view really,

now from an RP stand point, I also have to ask my self, even with alot of cash is this a runner, running becouse he's good at it and/or likes it, or is there some other reason, my current streetsam is in the area of he does it becouse he can and make money at the same time, So theres no reason to retire...well till I the player gets bored and makes a diffrent style of char

Posted by: TranKirsaKali Aug 31 2009, 05:01 AM

I agree with Cadmus. I run Kali because I really enjoy her and want to see what I can do with the concept. I also can't see retiring. I do not have the newyen to do so. But prime runner missions would be fun to have. Especially if they had much higher pay outs with the goal of being able to have the cash do fade away into the night. Chuckle and I have to admit my ego likes the idea of being a contact for others or a big bad NPC.

Posted by: Caine Hazen Aug 31 2009, 05:13 AM

How bout another ideea in this, one to write into Missions... a retirement clause chance. Give characters with a set amount of karma (150+) and an affiliation an "out" to sell into the corp lifestyle. They can then be given a reason to retire their characters and make options 4+5 something that the GMs can send up into the Missions coordinators for possible use later. Also on that note, people can still be playing their characters if they don't like the deal they're given.

Otherwise, I do like the soft cap... because of things like our table at the Scramble. We had 3 top tier, over karma-ed characters there (I only had 38 carry over from the few Denver I played... so I'm only overboard cause I number crunched the hit buying for gear) At some point hitting 200 karma characters tend to break down the system when they are at a table or scramble with low Karma characters. However, forced retirement would never empower any players... so you need to come up with some other options to keep the fanbase interested. I could accept having a little less karma at a table if I was up over a huge amount (but I'm sure the mages would complain). However there needs to be something done about Nimnu....

Posted by: TeaTime Aug 31 2009, 02:36 PM

I could see the possibility of retirement at the end of a campaign arc (Denver, NYC), with a big blowout capstone module that includes guidelines for sunsetting the PCs. At the minimum, I would like a character to be able to play an entire city before hanging up their hat, with maybe 10% of (total?) earned karma moving over to the next missions PC as an incentive and reward.

Maybe Scramble and other special Origins and Gencon events become anything goes type games, when characters are briefly allowed to come out of retirement for "just one last Run"... big one-shot games that shape the storyline.

Posted by: Cadmus Aug 31 2009, 04:43 PM

eh, one last run type stuff dosn't seem to work well unless you have it at more then just two cons though, hehe if the only chance of playing my retired char was at the scramble then I would be compleatly agenst the idea of caps and retirement after all I'll never see a scramble game in person. to far away hehe

Posted by: SaintHax Aug 31 2009, 07:40 PM

The email I sent-- important stuff highlighted for the ADD and skimmers

Posted by: Wasabi Sep 1 2009, 11:41 AM

Someone should get a hardcopy poll to Kai so the runners at Dragoncon can all answer. You might get a larger cross section of the players that way.
(One hardcopy response per player of course)

I myself suggest an opt-in system worth opting into. You may still have some chars that want to push a bajillion karma around but I think you'll find many players would reroll their characters if they had options to keep like half to 3/4th of the karma and some new options for initial char building only available with Prime Runners:

1. x amount of Karma allows a Prime Runner race. (BP must still be spent as well, but for maybe 30 karma out of your half or 3/4 karma total kept from the old char you could become a restricted race like I dunno, Pixie or something.)

2. x amount of Karma allows a buff to Street Cred. (So for 20 Karma out of the half or 3/4 karma total the character gets a +3 street cred that goes above the normal street cred cap of Charisma)

3. [Gear only] The police offer a weapon turn in program. Turning in weapons requiring a Reinforced Weapon Mount or those containing missiles/rockets/bombs/grenades/explosives get 60% of retail value. The buying hits to acquire gear will make it harder to replace turned in stuff.

Stuff like that... things that make players WANT to use it. If a cap must be put in place so be it but I'd hate to see it come to that. I play a Technomancer and no amount of karma is going to make a technomancer do more than hack well and maybe shoot a drone well if a complex action is used for a command CF.

And as far as a 50 karma character ruining a group... our annual team gets together once a year and weve had new players and new characters come in and their karma total didn't matter. It is roleplaying that matters most and the problem solving and brainstorming that wins the mission. I will admit, however, that its easier to be inclusive when everyone else is able to work together well so the low karma character can be included and still have a safety net.

Posted by: SaintHax Sep 1 2009, 03:57 PM

I'm not sure you can afford to make it an "opt in" system. The problem is simply writing mods for 0 karma characters and 200 karma characters. A bonus for a person that retires his character sounds nice though.

Currently the races are wide open-- and VS allowed a restricted race per a campaign reward (like "winning" the SRM Scramble). It caused several problems in the long run though. Allowing an elite contact at loyalty 3 (or 4?) and perhaps a few CC benies (+1 Edge for free, and the restricted equipment for free, e.g.) sounds good though. Maybe even allowing a membership to a NYC only runner/mercenary group w/ perks for the new character.

Posted by: Wasabi Sep 2 2009, 02:25 AM

If the only prompt for a retirement requirement is module writing then the problem may be more perspective than skewed characters.
The opposition is not the goons, corpsec, or spiders. The opposition is the mission objectives and accomplishing the objectives in their entirety with minimal ruckus.

So if a 200 karma Troll Houngan is channeling and commands a half dozen invoked force 12 plant spirits to descend on a big baddies compound do the players succeed? Not for certain, because the violence is a hurdle and that whole 'with minimal ruckus' part is the really haaard part and the part where success is measured. Don't want a Voodoo Troll to stomp an encounter? Write it so some finesse is needed. So some discretion is needed. So some subtlety is needed.

Why are mission objectives needed? Because Faction Standing, Notoriety, Street Cred, Public Awareness, and the bottom line -- nuyen -- all ride on mission objectives. You cant grind like in an MMO. Taking a dozen AK74's to a fixer nets enough for one player to have a low lifestyle for 4 weeks. Your mission rewards are 95% of the nuyen you make so those pesky objectives, yeah... you'll want to pay attention to those. Some of the consequences can gain focus without deviating from stock BBB. For example, when a GM says "Public Awareness 6... as you go through the checkpoint ready to validate your fake sin the cop says "HEY, I KNOW YOOOOU!" you can bet the runner will wish he had paid more attention when goofballing his run in an attempt to break a mission as fast as possible.

Thats is NOT a campaign rule. Thats straight up BBB.
Bingo. Mission objectives brought into focus.

When players bond with their characters and play them for years they play a certain way and it adds to atmosphere. When the players instead are forced to make new ones with the promise of eventual discontinuity the motivation is directly affected and the roleplay will end up suffering. Sure it doesn't have to per se, but it will... and for what? Module writing?

If the problem is scaling then work on scaling. To breed an air of roleplay and mirth at a table let it be fun. To kill the fun simply turn off the lights. Which end of that spectrum is the end of a character's ability to be in SRM's?

Posted by: SaintHax Sep 2 2009, 01:35 PM

The adage that a perfect run is to "get in, and get out with out anyone noticing" doesn't hold 100% true to the actual game. There are normally adventure elements that make sure this is impossible: why? To quote a player of mine, "ShadowRun wouldn't give you books worth of cool guns if you aren't going to use them". And while in real life, the Gunslinger Adept, Weapon Specialist, and other archtypes maybe happy to sit around "just in case", and more happy to not have bullets flying at them and let the Decker and Face breeze them trough a run-- a player actually came to play.

In addition, your assertion that a high level character only has more fire power is skewed. The same mage can also summon those force 12 spirits (of man) and have them cast influence on everyone they meet-- or mind control, take your pick. Or sustain Imp. Invis, Change Self, etc.

Lastly, you can't scale the story: in SRM02 there was an adventure that was ill suited for Green parties. You went to a Meta plane and fought a free spirit, that by all accounts in the story (of whose free spirit ass he must have kicked), you'd need to be elite to accomplish it. There's elite missions that elite characters deserve. There's near milk run missions that elite characters would never take in real life.

Most importantly about scaling-- at a high level of karma, a character could have progressed several ways. You have no idea who you are writing for, b/c it's not your home game-- it's frankly too hard to accurately scale a game for dozens of high karma characters blindly.

Posted by: Wasabi Sep 2 2009, 04:37 PM

I never said eliminate ruckus, I said minimize. Using a concealment power to dampen a cop calling for help is minimizing. Saying screw it and pulling out a panther is not minimizing in most cases.

Lack of teamwork has consequences.
One trick ponies are penalized.
This is nothing new.

When you say "people come to play" How does this relate to the game benefitting from forced retirement of characters?



Not at all, the high karma character cant think better. The player does the thinking. The higher karma character can get a broader toolbox and maybe some extra dice over a starting character but the problem solving is the same at karma 1 as karma 200.

And regarding firepower its my belief that manifested F12 spirits cause their own form of ruckus. While an invoked spirit of man could influence a whole room he can only instruct them as a group or singly AFAICT. See also my earlier statement about one trick ponies.



Sometimes it cant be scaled and I say those times are suboptimal module writing. One badly scaling mod doesn't define whats possible in scaling merely what was done that one time.



Please exagerrate less. A missions game has 6-8 players not dozens and accuracy-wise writers cant be certain of what will be at the table EVER. It could be 6 mages, 6 sammies, or even 6 hackers. It could be low karma or high karma. Now go tell me how with all those variables how a writer can prepare a module to account for what is in each seat of a 0 karma table.

Karma adds variables, sure, but doesnt make it any harder to plan when they couldnt plan for whats at the table to begin with. They include elements of many roles so every role can hopefully have a place in the mission and thats the best they can hope for with the complete lack of information.

Posted by: Bull Sep 2 2009, 05:08 PM

It's not just a matter of how opposition or even mission objectives. It's a matter of fun.

One thing folks seem to forget is that the Missions game are designed to be run at COnventions, where you're going to possibly have 6 or more random strangers sit down at a table. Which means that while yes, you want diversity, you may well have 3 Hackers sit down at the same table. And if 2 of those hackers have 5-10 karma, and one of them has 200+ under his belt... WHo do you think is going to be the best choice for most hacking jobs? And which players are going to sit there feeling badly outclassed all game?

Yes, as a GM, you can find things to occupy these Hackers. And as a hacker player, there are things that you can do to occupy your time and still be useful. And for some players, this won't be a big deal. They'll have fun regardless. But for some... They're going to feel frustrated and useless.

Anyways, I'll throw my 2 cents in...

Retirement is a good idea. Considering a mandatory (or even partially mandatory) retirement when the new Missions Season is just ramping up (Sure, we've done a lot of missions at Origins and GC, but only 4 have been released publicly so far) is a really bad idea. But it is something to consider for when the current Season wraps up.

However you guys want to do it is fine, just be careful not to cap your players mid-stride. I'd rather start the season with a new character (Or at least know that maybe I should start a new character, since my old one will hit retirement "age" part way through), than start with my old one and then have to start over after a few missions.

I do like the "prime runners" game idea though. THat's an excellent idea.

I also like the idea of being able to retire characters to a specific job (Fixer, Armorer, Mechanic) and make them avaialble as NPCs for the next season.

Bull

Posted by: BishopMcQ Sep 2 2009, 06:14 PM

To help lay some worries to rest. This is a plan as we look forward to future campaigns. We aren't going to kick players in the shins after running their 2nd Mission in NYC and say it's time to retire. There are no concrete decisions made, but most likely this is something that will come into play between campaigns or at the tail end of this campaign.

To tip my hand slightly, other discussions which have been bantered around are:
-- starting clean on the 04 campaign when we get there (it'll be awhile, we haven't seen everything for 03 yet)
-- allowing a percentage of 03 karma to carry to 04 for everyone.
-- Putting a hard cap on karma--say 150/200. After that point, you can still run Missions for gear/nuyen, but not karma.

Now before you get up in arms, none of this is finalized. I often brainstorm by just writing down every possible idea and seeing what I'd be willing to live with, then passing that list on to Aaron and the Line Developer. We don't want to do anything that alienates a huge number of fans, but we are responding to feedback from GMs and Players.

Please keep adding in your comments and feedback--the more information we get, the better we are able to do our job which is to make Missions fun to play.

Posted by: SaintHax Sep 2 2009, 07:11 PM

Wasabi, I think yours and my debate has reached a wall. Not to be rude, but your perspective seems short and would require a thread where only you and I could discuss things to get you on the same page. For example: your first part I quoted, adventures need to be written where the game promoted archtypes are viable and playable. You can't punish a person for playing a Gun Slinger Adept, when the game uses those as examples of ShadowRun. The "in, out, quiet" is to be used as a goal, not dogma or expectations.

The second part, do you have a mod out there written that I can review? This is where I think you don't understand. This is linked to the next part: I wasn't exagerrating-- you have to write for every high karma character that plays SRM, not just one table. There are probably dozens currently over 100 karma, and I know I sat at a table at GenCon alone where I was one of six such characters. As for how a write must prepare, that's another thread altogether, and one that doesn't interest me enough to type about. (Stephen and Aaron can have that burden

Posted by: Wasabi Sep 2 2009, 09:09 PM

Nothing presented has shown how adding in forced retirement would make things better when the players are focusing on teamwork. Big guns, little guns, talking, hacking, whatever the element if people are there to have fun and are grownups then they will have fun... and if someone is hogging the limelight or with a big ego rains on the parade I'd rather not see an eventual mandatory forced retirement of all characters as an attempt at a cure for someone else's poor behavior.

Perhaps we disagree on what constitutes poor behavior. The campaign design shouldn't suffer from a few douchebags that don't play well with others. I've sat down at tables with big ego's and skewed power levels and to overachievers maybe that bad behavior is justified. The definition of fun for me is roleplay and problemsolving so my opinions are colored in that fashion. In the trenches we haven't had any issues with karma disparity. We have a team of 5 with about 150 karma each and a sixth member with under 40 karma. We all have fun with it and the GM's seem to have a nice time as well.

You cite a nebulous writing process that hasn't been a problem for me or mine. We've enjoyed the modules. Some favor each element in the game and some multiple elements. You cite folks hogging the limelight and other things I consider rude. I dont see rude behavior by a few as a reason to end characters people love. Cite what you like, and you've made some good suggestions, now get to the point that prompts your belittling. While you may not have read what I've written offline it should be obvious I'm trying to make a very specific point in this forum and since it impacts almost everyone on my team we care enough to voice an opinion. We're customers. Satisfied customers at that. It aint broke and we dont see the need to fix it.

Is there a problem? Sure! Players and GM's are voicing concerns. Same as you and same as me. If someone can please separate issues of player douchbaggery from campaign design then I'll see that line prompting for the sweeping change. So far I don't see fault with the modules I've played, the GM's running our games, and I havent seen fault with the players I've played Missions with. You can tell me the sky is falling and say I'm shortsighted but I'm about as active as a customer can be and so far the problems are all smoke and mirrors from my neck of the woods.

And by the by I don't disagree with your suggestions. I'm not sold on the reasons to need them. I do like the moderate approach BishopMcQ mentions in his 'bantering' response. While I'm against punitive changes to innocent parties something like a campaign reset is just a fact of life and one that allows even a partial carryover is a nice thing. And I'm still a fan of an opt-in retirement system. Just sayin'.

Posted by: DireRadiant Sep 2 2009, 09:59 PM

I've run most of the missions for lots of different combinations and I believe it will be impossible to write/design a module to scale "out of the box". Scaling the level of fun and challenge is entirely in the GM's hands, and the modules provide plenty of hints and tools to scale the session up or down, and to various archetypes as needed. The module is a tool, not a script to be run through mindlessly. Also while there is a natural progression through a single module, most of the time the modules don't have strong chokepoints nor preset solutions to the missions.

If you design a mission for a particular combination of skills, you will be restricting the players options. There are tradeoffs. Player skills are far more important in the PC build/archetype most of the time.

Posted by: toturi Sep 3 2009, 09:24 AM

My view on the matter is there should not be a retirement system. If the player wants to retire the character then so be it, but otherwise there should not be an enforced retirement system. If the player wants to bring to the table a heavyweight PC that can effectively solo the mission, then so be it. Unless the campaign objective is to forcibly keep things at street level (which I see no point, except to make things easier for the campaign writers), then I really do not think that there should be any kind of retirement system. Given the present system of TR, I do not see how new characters are going to be irrelevant or why retiring higher karma PCs is going to be good for power levels. At higher karma levels, it is unlikely that the PC will be that much more powerful, especially with the various caps in place. Even for those attributes that do not have a cap like magic, the costs for initiation and subsequent buying up of attributes is scales much faster in terms of karma than the increase in dice pools would indicate. It is more likely that a Elite/Prime runner would have a wider skill base than he actually having far better skills.

Posted by: CollateralDynamo Sep 3 2009, 03:59 PM

Hey guys, let me just say that I ONLY play SRMs at Gen Con. I'd love to play them more often, but I just can't find the time. I really like what has been done with the New York missions and being able to pick and choose your own table ratings. As a matter of fact, since my first (and only) Missions character was a karma 0 baby he has been taking on TRs of 4 and higher. He has only been through about ten of the missions and already I am pushing for max TR everytime I get to play.

My point is, new characters that are smart should be able to survive, and possibly even do very well in at least the planning stages of a run. Lets face it, even the TR 6 missions AREN'T all that difficult for a twinked out gun bunny I'm all for some sort of Prime Runner system, but my drone hacker certainly hasn't gotten THAT much better over time, and forcing him away from the table would make me very sad.

Of course, as soon as you actually instituted a Prime Runner system I'd want to opt-in asap!

Posted by: SaintHax Sep 3 2009, 06:07 PM

Not true at all. Take me and my partner at 140+ karma: Mystic Adept melee, and full shaman.

First, we have several bound spirits, as nuyen for mages become surplus, b/c all our big nuyen items have karma costs too high (binding) to really require us to get too many of them-- so bind spirits. I only have a F6, as I'm not that great of a summoner; he has a few (Cha 7 elf) plus a greater form F8 spirit. Not to mention, we... he... now can summon a Task Spirit at F8 unbound and get any Physical or B/R skill at a 16 DP for us (including stealth and lock picking) (or Divination or Search from the Guidance spirit). Even my unbound F4 spirits w/ concealment or Influence (Guidance) gets tricky.

By now we also have a slew of spells: Clairvoyance, Clairaudence, Mind Control, Influence. We also cap dice pools (@16) for all Social skills, and had a collection of contacts (lost in transfer to NYC, but this will be something that future high levels have). I have about 16 for melee attacks, and I have about a 9 DP for passively avoiding ranged attacks and soon to be at 24 DP for passively avoiding melee. My soak for physical damage is sick (20+ dice), and my Willpower is 9. He double casts F11 stunbolts for no drain. (Edge of only 2 for me, I think 4 for him?). I also roll 13 dice to spot (+3 if my vision enhancements apply) and 10 dice for Assensing tests. Oh, and Init of 17 and 4 passes.


I'd guess that almost all of those numbers are achievable by a Green player, if you built your guy to specialize in that: however, that Green player would have more chinks in their armor than we possess at this level. That forces a different game play: at my level, I can rush in on my Init pass and not worry too much about damage-- I can avoid and soak enough to allow my support to go to work. I also have enough offense to not be ignored and "tank", so to speak. Green players normally only have high levels in one of those areas, thus a different style of play is required.

Posted by: toturi Sep 4 2009, 02:16 AM

And I think you make my point for me. Officially the dice pool cap 20 dice or twice natural pool of Stat + Skill? You could go up to 20 dice, but it is prohibitively expensive. So instead you spread out, you cover the bases, but no more than what a Green guy could possibly do. A Green guy won't be overshadowed by you in his area of expertise at least not due to you having that much more dice than he does.

You are not that much more powerful as a mage, you are just better all-around. You can afford to act in a different manner but the Green guy is not necessarily overshadowed by you in his area of specialisation. You'd just be a one man swiss army combat knife (or a two man swiss army, in you and your partner's case).

Posted by: SaintHax Sep 4 2009, 01:19 PM

Just as a note, it's which ever is higher of the two (which is why I have a DP of 24 to defend melee, I'll cap at 28); and it's only for skill tests: so damage soak can and often does get over 20.

I'm pretty much done w/ this thread now

Posted by: Boomer1985 Sep 9 2009, 08:39 PM

Just to add in my two bits, I honestly don't like the caps on characters. Just playing around and my street samurai character is gonna need close to 500 karma just to get the basics that I want maxed not including other stuff i would like to be able to do, and this is not even on a karma intensive toon like mages, adepts, or technomancers.

But i do like the possibilty of when you hit a certain level in karma you can opt into a prime runner adventure as well as do the normal missions and when you hit an even higher karma total you are just elidgble for the prime runner missions which are designed for the higher karma characters, or prime runners. Thus resetting the table rating so you can get even stronger characters.

this would also encourage the building of new lower karma character so you can play all the missions including the basic ones. The only problem with this is you might have to make a few more prime runner missions than planned.

You might even give players an option of retiring their characters and offering it as a free contact for their next toon.

Posted by: Wasabi Sep 10 2009, 01:43 AM

If the goal is deflation perhaps allow Karma only from one campaign back.
(So in the NYC campaign cap karma at whatever the runner has certed from Denver and NYC)

I have to say I spoke with two low karma characters and they had fun and said the higher karma characters did not hinder their game. I also spoke with one character with 100 karma more than me and he was as easy to get along with as you please. I dont understand why the desire to cap characters because I'm not hearing anything negative among the dragoncon crowd. What the hell happened at Gen Con to prompt for forced retirement?

Posted by: Dyspeptic Sep 10 2009, 04:54 AM

Just to chip in my two credits:

When the 04 campaign starts, I actually think starting off from scratch is a good idea. I also think carryover of some karma from previous campaigns is a good idea, as it rewards the player base for loyalty over time.

I think a hard cap on karma (especially if you're still allowed to run for cash/gear) is, with all due respect, a freakin' horrible idea. My primary reason for this is that some characters are more nuyen intensive, and some characters are more karma-hogs. Under a system where you cap out karma, but continue running for gear, the sammy character hits his karma cap, but continues to buy more and better cyber/bio and gets more effective at what he does (combat and/or stealth), a non- Awakened Face or Infiltrator buys more and better gear to help out in their strong suits, Riggers buys more toys (and more toys, and more toys). Whereas a mage finally saves up the nuyen and enough favors to buy himself the holy grail of a Force 6 Power Focus and then has to face the quandry of "How the hell do I bind that?" He's got no more Karma, and no way to earn more. And I don't know who's going to help out a Mystic Adept or Technomancer. They essentially have to purchase more Magic/Resonance and/or Initiate/Submerge in order to access their core abilities (as does the Mage, of course, but the Mystic Adept and Techno are spread even thinner to cover the bases). I don't know, that's just how I see things.

I like some of the other ideas I've seen pop up... Prime runner modules come to mind. Also, the potential to use a retired character as a contact on future characters/Missions. I think there are many things that can be done to enhance the Missions gamescape, I'm just not sure capping out and/or forcing retirement on characters is the way to go about it. I enjoy playing Missions because I like seeing character evolution and progression. The idea of limiting things to "this far, and no farther" would dampen my interest to some extent.

Posted by: BishopMcQ Sep 10 2009, 07:28 AM

This last week, Aaron and I had a chance to sit down with Jason Hardy and talk Missions. While I can't discuss most of the specifics, the overall intent is that we want to keep Missions fun for everybody. This means you will be seeing some changes to the Missions structure as we keep what's working and tweak what's not. (I'm a big fan of not "fixing" things that aren't broken.) The future of Missions, Retirement, Prime Runner modules, were all discussed. More information as we have concrete facts to announce, but know that we are listening.

That said, I'd love to see more chatter about:

Retirement (Yes, No, Don't Care)
--Why you feel that way
--Solutions, how you'd handle it on a global scale
--Deal-breakers for you, things that would upset you

Prime Runners
--What would you like to see
--How often would you ideally like to see new offerings
--Separation between Regular Missions/Prime Runners (How would you separate them)
--Should characters have to choose one level of campaign?

Missions in General
--What do you like
--What do you wish would change (see more of XX, less of YY)
--Do you like playing in a separate playground, or wish for more integration into a metaplot?

As a side note: I enjoy active discourse, especially well thought out discussions. If you have ideas and feedback, please share it. The more constructive and specific your feedback is, the better. If you are posting, sending me a PM, or emailing to talk about a subject, be clear about what you like/dislike, why you feel that way (if possible), and possible solutions to the problem (if applicable). Messages and posts where it feels like you are measuring your e-peen against the rest of the community don't help the discourse and honestly get less attention due to their presentation.

Posted by: CollateralDynamo Sep 10 2009, 01:48 PM

Thanks for the update Bishop! As can be obvious by my little post count thingy, I'm new to Dumpshock, but I've been playing in the New York missions avidly since they began, and I played around with the Denver missions more then a little. So here is my 2 bit uncertified credstick, feel free to slot it (that sounded dirtier then I had intended):

Retirement
On this I am a maybe. Forced retirement I think would make the game less fun for a lot of people. Unlike that cancer causing game, most of the people who come to play missions, at least at conventions, seem to me to be the kind of people there to have a good time already. Not the kind of people to use their karma to create brokenly powerful characters and ruin the game for everyone. These people who are just having fun with a character they concocted will probably be none too pleased if they were forced into retirement early. I know it would upset me more then a little.

However, if you give players the option of retirement, with some sort of bonus for their next character, or a promise to create some nice prime runner contact for anyone who has "retired" from the shadows, then I'm sure that you will get players opting in to this.

Prime Runners
I think that prime runner content would be a TON of fun. Of course, with increase risk would come a vastly increased reward. For this reason, if you employed a Prime Runner system, it would likely be unfair to allow Prime Runners back into regular missions. Prime Runners do some crazy things and get some really twinked gear. You don't all of the sudden want to start writing missions worrying about if someone got that rocket launcher and super ex rockets back in SRM-PR-02.

As far as frequency goes, I really only get a chance to play SR missions at Gen Con, so if you were offering up intense content for karma'd up characters I'd like to see at least one (preferably 2 or 3) options per year. This way, I would have a chance to play the character I retired, and still have a chance to play in the kid pool with my new missions character.

Missions in General
Overall let me just start with a kudos on missions. Writing generalized, short length adventures is super hard work, and you guys have been doing great at keeping them interesting! But I did have a few things I wanted to mention.
Affiliations: I suppose it kind of makes sense that the megacorps all know exactly what it is you are doing while you are in Manhattan...but it is driving my paranoia meter through the roof. I quite literally got an affiliation with a company because I was "professionally sneaky and untrackable". HOW DID THEY FIND ME? But that is just my personal gripe, on a more general note, the rewards your affiliates give you are cool, but sometimes don't make sense. For instance, my drone rigger is teamed up with horizon more often then not. And they keep giving him crazy knock-out drugs or access to awakened gear shops.
As a player I want to keep the affiliation because it makes gameplay more interesting. But as a character I would be getting pretty pissed if I was doing all this work for a megacorp and they kept giving me sorcerer goodies. If you instead came up with some sort of reward options system, that would be really cool. Something like, "Horizon is very pleased with your work. They offer you either, an unbound power focus or a heavily modified news camera drone that just might have a sniper rifle hidden inside it. Which would you like?" That sort of option would make it much more entertaining IMO.

As far as the playgrounds go, keep Missions missions, and the Metaplot the metaplot. The current amount of overlap is quite sufficient.

Thanks again for this chance to ramble on and on about my thoughts on your awesome missions!

Cheers

Collateral Dynamo (CeeDee)

Posted by: Wraith235 Jan 11 2010, 03:31 AM

I personally have seen 1 instance that is listed as a "Forced retirement"

and 1 that turned into a forced retirement (Both from the same mod BTW)

each of these is a different basket

I will do my best not to post any spoilers but enuf reference for ppl to do the math

(1) the players have the option to step into a Role that is banned by missions campaign ... now I personally dont see any player really deciding to take this route .. but I suppose its possible

(2) this one takes a bit of knowledge on the SR4 Lore ... but if you know your Lore the result is a 7 digit payoff ... I spoke to Arron about this and was told its basically a retirement option

the 2nd example is the type of situation where I am 100% for Karma transfer ... if they can pull off the requirements stated in the Lore effectivly then I believe the the player(s) should be rewarded for Knowledge, Creativity, and success of the endeavor.... not told that because of the pulicity surrounding the event that their shadowruning Career would basically be over with no compensation to the new character

I am enjoying the missions setting ... but this was probably my biggest Gripe about it so far ... and needless to say my players were not happy either (some more than others)

now I dont know if there are any other mods like this where the Lore of the Game has a chance to play this heavily into the missions campaign

Voluntary retirement I dont think Karma transfers should be allowed except at the pre approved times (Setting changes ect)

and then the 3rd type .... 6 feet under ... sorry chummer , thems the breaks in the shadows

Posted by: Aaron Jan 11 2010, 04:55 AM

Since there has still been interest, I'll throw out a teaser: we're not planning a retirement system, we plan to do a promotion system.

Posted by: cryptoknight Jan 11 2010, 08:51 PM

Here's my take on this.

I know that the whole concept of level based characters is anethema to SR.

but.

Why not work on releasing more modules somehow?

Have the majority be for characters with 0-50 karma, 50%
Then for 50-100 karma 25%
100-150 Karma 16.67%
150-200 Karma 8.3%
200+ Karma 4.167%

With 2 missions per month... that's 24 per year and breaks down like this. (add 1 for the really high karma guys)
12 for 0-50 karma (1 per month)
6 for 50-100 karma (1 per 2 months)
4 for 100-150 karma (1 per quarter)
2 for 150-200 karma (1 per 6 months)
1 for 250+ karma (about 1 every 2 years)

In the convention circuit, you'd see people working up new characters and then slowing down a bit when they hit fewer and fewer missions. It would encourage them to likely create different and varied characters and still give them something to do with the big bad boys.

Posted by: BishopMcQ Jan 11 2010, 09:01 PM

Crypto--Aaron and I are working on a system that will produce more Missions per year, overall. At the moment, however, we are still trying to get the kinks worked out of the system so that current products are released in a timely fashion.