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Posted by: hyphz Jul 9 2011, 10:09 PM

So, we're gradually getting our heads around making characters, but two slightly odd things came up while we were experimenting this week. Can I just ask for a bit of guidance about these?

1. Everyone in the group is taking Adept just to get extra IP without losing Essence. Is this normal?

2. We experimentally had one character fire full-auto at another. Even when he's a Troll with good Body and high Ballistic Armor, it blew straight through his entire PCM and killed him in one round. Is this normal?

3. Another player then tried throwing a grenade. Is it acceptable to "aim at a location" with a grenade and have the location be someone's feet? If you aim at the person, it seems that ridiculously high scatter is pretty much guaranteed. In fact, the way the rules work it seems that the target trying to dodge causes the grenade to scatter further which makes very little sense.

Posted by: Udoshi Jul 9 2011, 10:23 PM

I can try to answer some of these. Your players are likely just falling for HollyWood Syndrome: magic kung-fu man is just a COOL archetype that people seem to enjoy.
Take it, run with it, and encourage it. Forming an initiatory group for your players, and adventures around it, could be excellent. You should be grateful they are are not all Magicians.

2: Yes. guns are hilariously lethal in shadowrun. Did you forget about Full Defense? Said troll ought to have been rolling reaction+dodge if he really wanted tp live, and/or using Edge. Also, what exactly are the stats involved?

3) Grenades, sadly, suffer from Fucked Up Catalyst Rules in the change to Anniversary edition.
Basically, how it used to work, is everyone in the blast radius got a chance to dodge a grenade.
Someone decided 'god, this is too many dice to roll for npcs' and changed it for the worse.
Currently, i believe, only the 'main target' gets to dodge, and everyone else nearby just kind of takes damage. If someone is throwing a grenade at someone's feet, that would be a Called Shot for extra damage, not a change in location.
The problem is, the loophole was never actually CLOSED, or a new one introduced anyway, and the current rules still allow for aiming at inanimate objects, who do not defend. This makes it better to aim at someonebody's chair, or the nearby couch, in order to inflict full undodgable damage on the actual target you want to hurt.
Also, scatter was pretty much doubled across the board, as a side effect grenades can bounce(teleport, really) farther than they were actually thrown, and you don't get net hits to damage after reducing scatter to 0 any more.

Basically, your solution to your grenade problems is to use 4th Editions rules for it, because they're just better.

Posted by: Glyph Jul 9 2011, 10:32 PM

1. No, that's not really normal. I don't know why their Essence, a mostly metagame stat measuring how much cyberware you can put in yourself, would matter that much to them. Adepts can do a lot of things, but initiative boosters are a lot easier to get with wired reflexes: 2 (and reaction enhancers: 2 as well, if you're really feeling frisky). It seems kind of silly to buy up an additional Attribute (Magic) to get something you can buy fairly easily.

2. Ranged combat in general, and full bursts especially, can be deadly. The target gets to roll to dodge it, and then gets to roll to resist the damage, but sometimes that isn't enough. Keep recoil in mind, though, and also remember that your test was made under optimal conditions. In a real shadowrun, the shooter might be suffering from wound penalties, facing visibility modifiers, and be shooting from cover, at a moving target at medium range. There are lots of potential negative modifiers that can really add up.

3. Aiming at a location should not make hitting the target any easier, so don't let them get away with that cheese. The target's resistance test is basically them getting out of the way of where the grenade is headed.

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 9 2011, 10:42 PM

No, it's not. That's a seriously huge amount of BP for nothing. It's actually cheaper for the full adept to get cyberware for his IPs than it is to use build points.

Simply because it's 2.5 PP (that is, 3 magic needed) in order to get one additional pass versus something like 1 essence and $50,000.

Your group is taking the Essence thing to seriously.



THIS IS UNTRUE!

ALL effected characters getting a dodge was never the rule. It was "only the character being targetted."

Everyone effected getting a doge to move away is actually a very reasonable house rule.

Posted by: Udoshi Jul 9 2011, 10:45 PM

Glyph brings up a very good point in his second reponse.

In shadowrun, situational modifiers are really important. Really important.

Try the shot again, factoring in Range Penalties, Vision/Lighting Penalties, and, say, Light Cover. If the defender is Running, i believe thats another +2 for the defender.

And remember that Surprise is incredibly deadly, because the ambushers get a free shot that can't be defended against - though this depends greatly on how the initiative dice fall.

Posted by: hyphz Jul 9 2011, 11:05 PM

I think it's just fear of the healing penalty for Essence.

What are the "better" grenade rules from 4E?

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 9 2011, 11:14 PM

They're worse. To the point at which no one uses anything but areodynamic grenades, otherwise the scatter is too far (for a guided missile with a rating 6 sensor you need a critical success (4 net hits) to get your target in the blast radius and need 8 net hits to hit dead on....50% of the time (the other half of the time, the scatter is large enough to put the missile in the next county); add air burst and suddenly that hit rate rises dramatically to needing only 1 net hit for a dead-on hit and only a 1 in 12 chance of not getting the target in the blast at all).

Compare:

Posted by: hyphz Jul 9 2011, 11:44 PM

.. That seems like the SR4 scatter is much lower than SR4A's.

Posted by: Summerstorm Jul 10 2011, 12:09 AM

Hm... i haven't had that many people shooting with rocket-launchers in my game so far, even grenades only came up only sporadic. But they nearly always were dangerous, even with the scatter.

I mean:
Scattering BEHIND a target (and the target is tall) pretty much means you have hit
Scattering left and right, means you can even hit without net hits, if the target is long (like an APC, Limousine whatever)
Scattering in front of something... yeah damage drop.

If you scatter in rooms, it is automatically limited by walls (which also salsas the damage up, if tough) So say you scatter 7 meters behind someone... but he stands 3 meters from a wall. That means the grenade explodes there and salsa's the damage up from 10 (normal) to 14 reaching him.

And hitting a vehicle: Come on it is large (+2) or more, you AIM... because you are shooting with MONEY at it. (say you are good +2). And have a passive spotter, Tacnet, or missile. Whatever. It isn't that far fetched.

Just firing that into a MEDIUM drone, while it murders your friends or hunts you down... yeah theat is tough. Have to make it airburst and hope for the best. Seems realistic for me.

So yeah: screw scatter.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 10 2011, 12:29 AM

1.5 PP (2 magic, so 15 or 20 BP) for +1 IP
Wired Reflexes 1 is 2 essence and 11 000 nuyen (approx 2 BP + change)
Synaptic Booster gives the same for 0.5 Essence and 80 000 nuyen (16 BP)

Since you don't recover essence outside of a very expensive and lengthy procedure, ... it's more or less a matter of preference. Some bonuses, some negatives, their choice. Magic is the most expensive resource to use, but has it's own benefits and down sides beyond that.

Posted by: Udoshi Jul 10 2011, 12:43 AM

I could have sworn this wasn't the case, but would make sense for the 'target a the chair to automatically hit the person sitting in it' exploit in the rules.

But yeah. Anniversary Edition rules for scatter basically have Teleporting Grenade effects. There was one thread on here, ages ago, who had a grenade he fired down the stairs at a group of foes scatter ALL the way BACK UP the stairs, and paste his team, scattering entirely further than the normal distance of the shot, due to bad rules. The thread was basically 'wtf is this, it can't be serious'

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 10 2011, 12:49 AM

If I ever end up in a Missions game I will take the flaw Prejudiced (Furniture), Radical for 25 BP. And do just that: target the furniture.



I was guessing. I couldn't remember the right costs. But if you get those Wired Reflexes as Betaware, it's only 1.4 essence and 44,000 (8.8 BP), as Deltaware it'd be 1 Essence and 110,000 (22 BP, but I agree that this is a little expensive). Which isn't far off from what I suggested.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 10 2011, 01:03 AM

If you're going for deltaware wired reflexes, you're probably better off getting Synaptic Boosters from bioware. Standard grade is cheaper on both nuyen AND essence loss. Type O system, if you're going for alot of bioware, would drop the essence loss for it to negligible levels.

Posted by: hyphz Jul 10 2011, 01:03 AM

Oops. I've just realised it's not due to essence cost. It's because they want 4 IP right out of the gate, and Wired Reflexes 3 is out of Availability range for char gen.

Posted by: PoliteMan Jul 10 2011, 01:09 AM

Point them at the Restricted Gear quality.

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 10 2011, 01:09 AM

For four IPs, it's almost better to go full mage. 16R and $40,000 for a force 4 sustaining focus. The same 4+ magic, 3 BP for the spell, and 5 BP for Restricted Gear.

Spending that much of your PP on more IP is silly.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 10 2011, 01:23 AM

Unless you're going Way of the Warrior, in which case it's 3 PP for +3 IP (total 4 IP). But then, at that point, you're not trying to hack, are you?

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 10 2011, 01:38 AM

In any case.

You're not supposed to have 4 initiative passes at chargen. It's the equivalent to building a first level wizard in That Other Game that can prepare a 9th level spell.

Posted by: UmaroVI Jul 10 2011, 01:44 AM

It's more that IPs have diminishing returns. Having 2 IPs on which you can do effective actions is better than having 4 IPs but only being half as effective on each.

Posted by: Faelan Jul 10 2011, 01:46 AM

This ain't SR3 with a fixed and diminishing dice pool.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 10 2011, 01:50 AM

If you spend too much on IPs, you might be missing out on vital skills and gear due to the investment. Then again, that's what optimized characters pull off.

Posted by: hyphz Jul 10 2011, 02:30 AM

I've asked them to use only base SR and Arsenal (because they like guns). Giving them Runner's Companion would, I fear, result in a party of Drakes toting military lasers and end up me staring at a wall and gibbering. They can have those when I've gotten the hang of the system a bit more.

Posted by: Glyph Jul 10 2011, 02:33 AM

4 IPs is well within the reach of starting characters, but it is a significant hit on a starting character's scarce resources. It is usually better to start out with 3 IPs, and upgrade later. The same can be said for hard-maxing in general - those last few dice tend to be disproportionately expensive. Not that it can't be done, but hyper-specialists are hard for newbies to pull off without shortchanging themselves in an important area or two.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jul 10 2011, 04:11 AM

I cry manly bitter tears that the best way to get 4 IP's is to play a mage and have a super spell lock. I hates the Magicrun, I hates it so much.

If your players are having issue with the healing hit for having essence loss might I just suggest getting rid of that entirely? It's been a stupid rule since it's inception.

Posted by: Hida Tsuzua Jul 10 2011, 04:13 AM

I think he's talking about the cost of getting more IPs and what you could have done with it. Each IP is about half as useful as the one before it. A 2nd IP is huge and really needed because the fight can still be up in the air. By the time the 3rd IP rolls around, the fight will be decided or being cleaned up. The combat is over by the fourth or you're just cleaning up.

Sure I'll take more IPs if I can. But that fourth IP is costly (unless you're a mage). You can make those more vital IPs matter more.

Posted by: hyphz Jul 10 2011, 05:38 AM

The players certainly are going for hyperspecialists. Did I mention that the guy who fired the Full Auto burst had an Automatics pool of 21 (Exceptional Attribute Agility, Enhanced Physical Attribute Agility, Aptitude Automatics, Specialization, Smartlink)?

This kind of brings me on to another issue in that first I don't really know what the effects of that will be. I mean sure with Automatics, he hits really well, but another player did the same with Infiltration. Can someone with hyper Inflitration just walk past a guard in a corridor unnoticed? Part of me says no, he shouldn't be allowed to dice every problem to death; part of me says yes, because his ability is so off the chart that to restrict it to what I can visualise is unreasonable. I'm thinking of that story about the locked car that got turned around..

The other thing is that I was going to do On The Run for a first adventure and I really don't know how they'll get through the first major scene (no spoilers please, my players may read this). Maybe they'll come up with something creative, good for them. Maybe they'll realise that the skill sets they've chosen aren't ideal, good for them. But on the other hand I figure they're making their characters this way because that's what they want to play and it might just put them off the game entirely. Should I finagle things to match their specializations? Problem is, at those pool sizes that's just lining up the ducks in the gallery.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jul 10 2011, 05:43 AM

Just as your players shouldn't be allowed to shoot their way through every problem there's some situations where even batman can't make a stealthy entrance without getting creative. The manned checkpoint in a well lighted hallways is a fairly good example of that.

Of course that's not to say that there's not other ways for a stealthy character to get around that. Finding a air vent big enough to crawl through bypassing the sensors and physical protections on said vent and then going is a good option. No single skill should do everything but a multitude should find an answer to most problems.

Posted by: Glyph Jul 10 2011, 07:00 AM

The main thing high dice pools do is let you succeed consistently, and in the face of high negative modifiers. But I don't see them as breaking the law of physics or common sense. All skills should have hard limits. And there should be things they simply can't do, no matter how many successes you get. On the other hand, when you combine high skill with creative players, a lot more becomes possible. Walking right past that guard might be more feasible if the character steals a janitor's cart and walks by mumbling about that big mess in the exec bathroom.

Posted by: suoq Jul 10 2011, 01:14 PM

I suspect you'll find that hyper-specialists create their own problems.

The stealthy guy in now separated from the team and can't hack, con, shoot, or do anything more than sneak out.
The gunman will be bored the entire time the stealthy guy is sneaking because he'll do nothing.

It's one of the reasons I dislike playing the hacker. I know that the process is long, involves a lot of dice rolling, and bores everyone else at the table. Hyperspecialists don't work together, they work one at a time, so with 5 hyper-specialized players, most of the time 4 players are surfing the net.

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 10 2011, 01:47 PM

This.
It's ok to hyperspecialize once in a while, but you need other skills too.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 10 2011, 02:18 PM

It's kind of adorable that your newbies are making all these classic mistakes, hyphz, but you get the opportunity to educate them!

Posted by: suoq Jul 10 2011, 02:40 PM

I don't think they're mistakes. The characters are well made for the challenges. The challenges are single events, not a line of connected events. The problem (IMO) isn't that the answers are wrong, it's that the tests are wrong. If all that matters is combat then, yes, 4 IPs and a fistful of dice is the right answer. When asked to create characters for an adventure that incorporates all of the tests, I'm willing to give them odds that they make good balanced characters given the available tools.

Note that with the Chummer character generator, you can specify what books they can use in the options. It may save them some time.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=34674

Posted by: hyphz Jul 11 2011, 09:44 PM

We're using Chummer, although it seems to have some slightly odd maths at some times.

Oh, also, what's the deal with all the sample characters being allergic to gold? Is it some kind of D&D-based joke?

LurkerOutThere, I'm interested by your .sig - what are the common GM errors with the magic/matrix rules that you're referring to?

Posted by: UmaroVI Jul 11 2011, 11:28 PM

The sample characters are terrible, I suggest looking at them as little as possible. They were forged in the fires of failure and sadness, and tempered in the waters of poor understanding of the rules.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 11 2011, 11:37 PM

In other words, prior to munckining little weasels like us getting ahold of the rules, having our way, and not calling back afterwards?

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jul 12 2011, 12:55 AM

Things people forget about magic:
Perception 6-Force test to notice active magic.
The police take magically related crimes much much more seriously then they do regular.
Spells require foci, foci requires permits, getting caught knowing a spell you don't have a permit for runs you afoul of the above. All mages are supposed to be registered. See above.
[quote]

There's other stuff but i'm in the middle of something right now. Maybe at some point i'll do up a post for posterity.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2011, 01:06 AM

Spells don't *require* foci, and foci are category-specific, not spell-specific. They'd have to directly observe you using a bad spell (or maybe find your signature, I forget how that works).

Posted by: Hida Tsuzua Jul 12 2011, 01:21 AM

They were pretty bad and more illegal to boot back then too. If "if I want to be good at something I should have at least soft cap my attribute, have a high skill!" is munchkin, then I guess nearly everyone is munchkin (except TJ).

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 12 2011, 01:36 AM

Never doubt that I CAN Munchkin with the best of them. I just see no reason to do so, as I have a lot more fun with the flavor of the character rather than the hard mechanics. Thanks for the nod, though, Hida Tsuzua...

Posted by: Glyph Jul 12 2011, 02:07 AM

I think the terms munchkin and powergamer are used too often. Most often to describe a player who, in a game where you play magical or augmented elite covert expediters, creates a magical or augmented elite covert expediter.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 12 2011, 02:09 AM

I'm with you on this. I much prefer flavor over power levels. Unfortunately, most I've gamed with have led me to go concept, min max, THEN flavor. My latest character I've been graced with some bonus points for drawing a picture and helping the GM out with a few things. Unfortunately, with a month to go before the game starts, I'm already facing the not-so-veiled threats of other players. Thank Dog I can pretty easily whether most of those threats (esp with extra build points).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Jul 12 2011, 02:12 AM

On the other hand, there's no special prize (or praise) due for making your character weak. Weakness isn't flavor, fun, etc. Power isn't necessarily un-fun or flavorless. Don't being a Magic 2 snob.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 12 2011, 03:03 AM

One man's Weakness is another Man's Strength...

Posted by: suoq Jul 12 2011, 04:25 AM

Why do people think that creating a cost effective character AND creating an interesting character with flavor are polar opposites in competition with each other?

Creating an interesting character does NOT mean creating a weak character. Creating an effective character does not mean that you're playing a batch of numbers. They're two different points on two different scales and it is possible to focus on both.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 12 2011, 05:59 AM

Part of it is that the fluff doesn't necessarily pan out when applied to character concpets. 2 is the standard human average, boosted per metahuman base stats. Characters need to be able to fill some sort of niche, and having 4 dice (stat + skill) really won't usually cut it. heck, having just soft-capped dice won't always cut it depending on your GM. Sometimes the only way to get the GM to understand just how possible it is for your runner to do something is to haul out a massive pool of dice and see if he feels lucky. So, no, in concept you won't need 24 dice to shoot somebody, or to negotiate your run. But sometimes, in reality, those 24 dice are the only way to tell your GM "Yes I can."

Posted by: ggodo Jul 12 2011, 06:16 AM

The thresholds in the books are a bit more fair than how d20 does some of its stuff. I swear it expects you to have all 18s at level 1 sometimes. Besides, human average is 3, I believe. That's statistically one hit rolling attribute, add in whatever skill you have and you may pick up another, more if you're at a high skill. It also depends on the skill. 2 hits in combat isn't going to do much. 2 hits on a jump check and you'll leap 4 meters horizontal. climb check will get you 2 meters. It's not awesome, but faster than I climb in 3 seconds. D&D assumes you've got better than average human stats in order to complete simple tasks.

Posted by: Glyph Jul 12 2011, 06:41 AM

I think some people also interpret the fluff in different ways, both the hyperbole at the upper end of the skill descriptions, and the unfortunate choice of words in describing a skill of 3 as "professional". The problem with the latter, is that a professional shadowrunner is a different beast than a professional beat cop or army grunt. They're not the only ones, either. A typical Ancients go-ganger will have a vehicle skill of 5, an typical street doc will have a cybertechnology skill of 5, and a typical doctorate will have a knowledge skill of 6.

Some people might look at a skill of 6 and say "Wow, that's how good people like Matador are! My character probably isn't that good!" I would look at it and think "My character is focused on combat. He does things like acquire targets or reload instinctively, and his gun is practically an extension of his hand. He spends regular time at the range, and also uses his gun in actual combat situations fairly often." After all, I assume that if the rules let you take either two skills at 5 or one skill at 6, that it is acceptable to do so. One of the examples of character creation does just that, in fact. And in the vignette before the skills section, a generalist and a one-trick pony are contrasted, with the implication that both of them have their niche in the shadowrunning world.

That's assuming a default-level shadowrun game, of course. Lower powered games by all means should set more limits. The problem with 400 BP, and even with higher or lower levels of points, is that you can go all up and down the power scale, depending on your concept.

Posted by: Elfenlied Jul 12 2011, 11:34 AM

@OP:

1. Like everyone else said, going adept for IP is not worth it, even with the DP penalty to heal checks. Heals through First Aid cap at your skill anyway.

2. Your troll is doing it wrong. If he has access to heavy (SWAT,Fullbody or Milspec) armor, and the right ware, he can take a full auto burst without dying. But yes, combat in SR is deadly, and supposed to be.

3. Best way to handle it would be to allow everyone caught in the blast a standard dodge roll.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 12 2011, 01:01 PM

I think that it comes down to what people expect from the system. For me, when I see that the majority of the Upper-end, published opposition throws from 12-17 Dice (The Elite Tir Ghost can throw from 15-17 Dice in Firearms Skills (Pre Tacnet), IIRC), I tend to think that the fluff is accurate. 12-15 Dice in your primaries is sufficient in that case. If your table experiences opposition that is consistently at 20+ Dice, well, then your characters will likely fall into that category as well. I have been playing SR4 since its debut, and have seen absolutely no need for a character with 20+ Dice. There is really just no call for it. The only thing that 20+ Dice does in game is minimize or eliminate failure, which to me is boring. If you can never fail, why are you even rolling dice? The purpose of the game is to provide a setting for a story. To me, at least, there is nothing more boring than having a character that never fails at anything. If you cannot actually fail, then there is no drama, no risk. I like the Story that develops from success and failure.

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 12 2011, 01:36 PM

Actually no, it's 3.

Posted by: squee_nabob Jul 12 2011, 01:39 PM

I just want to parachute into this thread and rant about min/maxing attributes:

Posted by: Elfenlied Jul 12 2011, 01:41 PM

That's why our group plays with Karmagen. It has its own flaws, though, and certain character archetypes get really shafted in comparison to BP.

Posted by: DamienKnight Jul 12 2011, 02:04 PM

As soon as someone got ahold of milspec armor, our group started seeing ALOT more grenades. They are awesome for killing armored characters... if they get a direct hit they halve armor, besides usually having some AP anyway.

We allow anyone in the blast radius to roll dodge to reduce damage. If the target of the grenade can get out of the way, so can people nearby. If they do a full dodge, every success = 1m extra distance from the blast area.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 12 2011, 03:00 PM

to the people who corrected me, my thanks and apologies. 3 is the standard. However, that doesn't change my point on basic dice pool versus maximized dice pools.

Perhaps it's the GMs I've dealt with that color my opinion on that matter, but at times, 8 charisma and 4 in influence isn't enough for that face to be a face. It takes every advantage you can pull out to maximize your dice pool, so that a GM can't simply ignore your ability to do what you do.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Jul 12 2011, 03:17 PM

That does, indeed, sound like a Table Issue, rather than a Rules issue.

Posted by: suoq Jul 12 2011, 05:07 PM

I've faced with 20, I've faced with 12. It doesn't really matter. The problem isn't necessarily the GM. The problem may be communication and sometimes player expectations.

Do you want to be Face from the old A-Team or Sophie from Leverage? If that's so, no dice pool is ever going to be enough, because they are faces by fiat, not by skill. Even their worst ideas work perfectly. (The con in the tent on the mountain in a recent episode of Leverage just stands out in this one.)

And there are times the GM should ignore your ability. As a face for example, the client's choice may well be to pay the team what he offered or to go elsewhere. No amount of negotiation will make him have more money in his pockets. Sometimes people really are out of resources. And you can't convince the security guard you're the janitor if they know the facility only uses drones for janitor services.

And sometimes the dice just hate you. Burning an edge up front, rolling 20D6, watching the 6's explode, and.... 2 hits. Yep, that was my shining moment this weekend.

Posted by: Draco18s Jul 12 2011, 05:13 PM

There's an old classic example from SR3 where a mage cast a fireball to "save everyone's bacon," gathered up some 26 dice, and didn't roll anywhere near the threshold, critically botching the spell and blowing himself up.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 12 2011, 06:04 PM

I know there's times when GM fiat is called for, like if the mark isn't interested in what you're offering in more ways than one. However, when you and the opponent have a common subject to negotiate over, and you're at 12 dice as a face, and there's absolutely no way you can succeed because the NPC is absolutely perfect at everything and knows everything forever, it's not playing the game, it's waiting for the GM's ego to subside before you're allowed to be who you spent build points and karma to be. The difference here being, when the GM says the NPC is better than you, and you pull out 24 dice and say, "Really?" it forces the GM to heartily reconsider his notions. Or admit that he just put you up against the 47th Great Dragon or overly powerful free spirit so far in the game.

As a GM, I do make some powerful and dangerous (not usually both at the same time) NPCs in a game, but while some are specialists, none are perfect. I'm also absolutely certain not to fall in love with how perfect they are, or to worry if they get killed by the group. I faced such overpowered GMing as a player, and I never liked it, so I took that as the lesson to learn for when I GM. It's easy for a combat-specialist to kill a bunch of people, because there's plenty of pre-statted and well known cannon fodder for it, and the GM doesn't feel bad about having cannon fodder wasted in endless waves to make a player feel powerful. However, a GM who's too in love with his high-powered fixer or Mr. Johnson will balk at the idea that a player could even match him, after all the work such a person went through to build their empire or earn favors, or whatever. The cannon fodder isn't a symbol of the GM and don't gain his affection or protection; the big powerful NPC on the other hand...

It falls down to game design theory and literary tropes in the end. It's not always about winning, but if the face character can never be as awesome as those street sams, riggers, and adepts mowing down the competition, then why would anybody want to play it?

Posted by: suoq Jul 12 2011, 07:19 PM

Fixed.

If it's banned for the GM, it's banned for the player. If the player is allowed to have it, the GM gets it too. Some things the GM gets that player's don't, such as dragons. If the GM has personal issues, that has nothing to do with chargen and doesn't need to be brought up in a chargen thread because there's nothing that can be done in chargen that actually fixes those issues.

Again, Character Efficiency AND Roleplaying are on two different scales. It's possible to be both. Its possible to be higher in one than the other. It's even possible to be deliberately low on one or the other. (My favorite Champions character was, quite frankly. useless. I never really thought about it this way before, but when it comes down to it, I was playing a sidekick.)

In Burn Notice, Sam Axe is simply not in Fiona's league, never mind Michael Weston's. He's fun anyway. None of the hobbits were rocking the power stats in any Tolkien book. Ron Weasley is rocking the bottom of the Hogwart's threat list. Characters do not have to be powerful to be fun and characters do not have to be weak to be fun. They simply have to be characters.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 12 2011, 07:47 PM

touche. I do understand that. You'll note I mentioned that this matter is most likely more about game design theory and literary tropes rather than dice pools. However, it also falls back upon another point I bring up, "power in as great a concentration as you can muster [dice pool], and style... and in a pinch, style can slide." - Xykon. 12 dice is alot for a social test. 20 is more. The player doesn't have to play a great dragon, or a dracomorph, or anything else (except maybe an elf) to get good stats for a face. However, when every NPC you go up against, as I've pointed out in less direct but fairly obvious terms, is a GM Mary Sue, then it's when you more or less need 20 dice to convince the GM to let you play the character you were told you could play, instead of being a glorified NPC.

I don't need to be overpowered. I don't necessarily need those 20 dice or the best ware around. What I do require, however, is the chance to throw the dice and see where they lay. When a GM doesn't let you throw dice, there should be a good reason, and the bigger the dice pool, the better the reason the GM should have to come up with. "Sorry, sugar, you're not gonna be able to seduce that Orc, he likes the man meat." "A butch cut, taped down chest, boy-shorts and 20 dice say he'll at least be going out shopping with me later..." "..."

Posted by: hyphz Jul 12 2011, 11:40 PM

Cool, that's helpful. What are the misconceptions that make Matrix too weak? It looks like we might end up with a Matrix jockey in the party after all.

Posted by: suoq Jul 13 2011, 12:13 AM

1) That isn't going to convince the GM.
2) He doesn't need to let you play anything.
3) You can go run your own table.

At some point, be it gaming, dating, a job, roomates, whatever, learn to get up and walk away because the problem isn't the game, the event, the hours, the unwashed dishes, or whatever. The problem is that the two of you are not compatible. Your issues with anyone at the table, be it a GM or player is not part of the rules of Shadowrun, the size of the dice pool, or any of that. It's an issue between the two of you and complaining you need 20 dice is avoiding the real problem. Put down the character generator and walk way from that table.

Posted by: suoq Jul 13 2011, 12:13 AM

1) That isn't going to convince the GM.
2) He doesn't need to let you play anything.
3) You can go run your own table.

At some point, be it gaming, dating, a job, roomates, whatever, learn to get up and walk away because the problem isn't the game, the event, the hours, the unwashed dishes, or whatever. The problem is that the two of you are not compatible. Your issues with anyone at the table, be it a GM or player, is not part of the rules of Shadowrun, the size of the dice pool, or any of that. It's an issue between the two of you and complaining you need 20 dice is avoiding the real problem. Put down the character generator and walk way from that table.

Posted by: Glyph Jul 13 2011, 02:14 AM

Karmagen has its fair share of problems, and is not suited for some of the advanced options such as infected, AI's, or free spirits. One thing it really gets right, though, is dice pools. Build points shaft generalists. Dice pools are one of the main measures of in-game effectiveness. A low dice pool, quite frankly, is not worth nearly as much as a high dice pool. If you play someone with average Attributes and skills, you should be able to have a lot of those skills.

With exponentially increasing (rather than flat) costs for both Attributes and skills, the character with low Attributes and skills will be able to afford more. Don't get me wrong, though. A more traditionally min-maxed character is still easy to make in Karmagen, and usually comes out a bit better than it would under build points. The generalist, by comparison, would be way over 400 BP, but is still balanced, because again, lower dice pools should be treated as less valuable.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that karmagen does a better job of accommodating both specialists and generalists.

Posted by: Rubic Jul 13 2011, 02:33 AM

I have stepped away from a few GMs before, one I refuse to play under ever again after gross misconduct and abuse of power to no real end. A GM's powers derive from a mandate from the masses, after all.

However, as I said a few posts back, it's generally a bigger problem for a face character, as they're going to show a higher percentage of bumping heads with a GM's favorite NPCs. It's also harder to conceive of cannon-fodder negotiators. Despite this, showing just how much power you have in your negotiations can sway the GM. It's best to not NEED to have an overpowering dice pool, but while being OVERPOWERED isn't necessarily MORE fun, being UNDERPOWERED (to the point of never having a chance at winning) typically is much less fun. While, in theory, POWERED (neither over or under) is the ideal, just what the median is WILL change based on circumstance, like the difference between having too little, just enough, and more than enough money (or any resource really). Just enough never is, there are only too little and more than sufficient.

Posted by: Elfenlied Jul 13 2011, 02:59 AM

Infected are easily done, just charge them the quality with cost equal to BP=Karma (so a Ghoul would cost 35 Karma), and apply the stat bonuses before raises, much like every other race. AIs, I can't really say, but I'd rule similar to infected. Dito for free spirits; our free spirit PC was along the lines of everyone else in a 750pt Karmagen game. Do note that we use x3 for costs, no experience with x5.

As for the rest of the post, I agree. The only generalists I play in BP gen are possession mages