Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: yesferatu Oct 20 2011, 03:22 PM

Do drones and spirits have hardened armor by default?
Are all drones considered "vehicles"?

Vehicle Armor
Vehicle armor functions just like character armor, and is used for the vehicle’s damage resistance tests. Vehicle armor is the same rating
against both ballistic and impact attacks. Since vehicle armor is often much higher than ordinary character armor, gamemasters should remember to use the trade-in rule for large dice pools (4 dice for 1 hit, see Buying Hits, p. 62). If an attack’s modified DV does not exceed a vehicle’s modified
Armor rating, then the attack automatically fails.

Hardened Armor
Type: P • Action: Auto • Range: Self • Duration: Always
Hardened Armor is even tougher than normal armor. If the modified Damage Value of an attack does not exceed the Armor rating (modified by Armor Penetration), then it bounces harmlessly off the critter; don’t even bother to make a Damage Resistance Test. Otherwise, Hardened Armor provides both Ballistic and Impact armor equal to its rating.

Immunity
Type: P • Action: Auto • Range: Self • Duration: Always A critter with Immunity has an enhanced resistance to a certain type of attack or affliction. The critter gains an “Armor rating” equal to twice its Magic against that damage. This Immunity Armor is treated as “hardened” protection (see Hardened Armor above), meaning that if the Damage Value does not exceed the Armor, then the attack automatically does no damage. Additionally, this “armor rating” is added to the damage resistance test as normal armor.

Immunity to Normal Weapons: This immunity applies to all weapons that are not magical (weapon foci, spells, adept or critter powers). If the critter has the Allergy weakness, then the Immunity does not apply against non-magical attacks made using the allergen.

Posted by: Draco18s Oct 20 2011, 03:30 PM

Vehicle armor is NOT hardened and should not be confused as such.

The reason it is mechanically identical is that vehicles lack a stun track. You can throw gel rounds at a vehicle all day long, beat it's armor 90% of the time, and still do jack diddly squat.

Posted by: HunterHerne Oct 20 2011, 03:42 PM

However, there is a slight problem with that. It may be functionally identical because vehicles lack a stun track, but it is entirely identicle, without the actually ability, if even a low force Spirit possesses the vehicle.

Posted by: Draco18s Oct 20 2011, 04:47 PM

That's a different question entirely.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Oct 20 2011, 10:55 PM

I know you've said this before, and I've said it before, but since you said it again I'll say it again.

Vehicles being immune to weapon DVs lower than their armor, and them being immune to stun, are two separate rules. Assuming that one is what causes the other is a reasonable extrapolation, but it is not actually stated.




-k

Posted by: Stalag Oct 21 2011, 01:13 AM

"The yakuza are still after us! Why are we stopped?!?"
"The car fell unconscious after that last hit"

Sorry - that really has nothing to do with what you just said... that just popped into my head with the thought of vehicles and stun damage

Posted by: yesferatu Oct 24 2011, 07:31 PM

I don't think any of the above posts really address my concern, would you guys mind taking another pass?

1. The vehicle armor section in the core says, "If an attack’s modified DV does not exceed a vehicle’s modified Armor rating, then the attack automatically fails." That's the same mechanics as "hardened armor". Are drones all considered vehicles?
Does a Steel Lynx get the same armor benefit as a say...a step van or a patrol car?

2. The spirit combat section of the core (p.186) says, "Physical spirits have the power of Immunity to Normal Weapons (p. 295), giving them Armor equal
to twice their Force against all attacks." So they do have both twice their magic rating in armor and hardened armor?
Does a force 10 spirit have 20 hardened armor? I thought double their magic rating in armor was bad enough.
It's not that hard to summon a force 10 spirit. I really don't know how you'd even begin to damage it.
Doesn't that completely break spirit combat?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 24 2011, 07:43 PM

Yes, drones are vehicles. Yes, attacks fail against vehicle armor if they don't beat armor; this resembles, but is not, Hardened Armor.

It should be hard to summon Force 10; if it's not, fix the rules. ITNW is Armor 2*Magic "treated as hardened" and adds to Damage Resistance.

Posted by: yesferatu Oct 24 2011, 08:06 PM

Thanks Yerameyahu.
I think the first few times I read the drone and spirit rules, I just went off the rules on the main page, not the sneaky "oh, and this hugely important rule we barely mention" page referral.

I don't think it's all that hard to summon a big spirit.
It's just overcasting. You roll a bunch of dice, the spirit roles 10 dice max...the drain is just whatever the spirit gets...sometimes nothing in physical damage. I suppose it could technically kill you.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 24 2011, 09:00 PM

Most people also give it Edge.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 24 2011, 09:59 PM

I know we do... Gods do not serve Sheep...

Posted by: HunterHerne Oct 25 2011, 12:36 AM

Agreed. Fortunitely, I have avoided this, so far, since none of my Magician players have any skill in the conjuration group.

Posted by: pbangarth Oct 25 2011, 02:05 PM

A Force 10 spirit has 20 armor, total, which is considered hardened. So, if the DV of the weapon (modified appropriately by things like net hits but not by things like burst mods) doesn't exceed 20 - AP, then it doesn't do any damage at all. If the spirit happens to be wearing armor, then that worn armor - AP is added into the damage resistance along with the 20 of the spirit itself, but is not considered in the ItNW calculation.

Note: Some people do not apply the AP to both the ItNW and to worn armor when calculating damage resistance.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 25 2011, 03:09 PM

And the spirit shouldn't be wearing armor anyway, ugh.

Posted by: Minimax le Rouge Oct 25 2011, 03:14 PM

spirit armor and physical armor is like wearing multiple armor : it doesn't stack.
A Force 10 spirit possessing a metahumain wearing a 18/14 armor will push is armor to 20/20 hardoned, and that's all for me.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 25 2011, 03:27 PM

That doesn't make sense, but I'm fine with it. Screw spirits, especially if they wear things.

Posted by: pbangarth Oct 25 2011, 05:34 PM

ItNW is not material in any way shape or form. It is an intrinsic resistance of the critter to damage of a specific type, is merely "treated as 'hardened' protection" as described under Hardened Armor on page 295 SR4A (which expands on Armor, page 293), and as such does not fall under the rules governing stacking of external, worn armor. Neither does armor in cyberlimbs, dermal plating (natural or otherwise) or the aura of an Armor spell.

So that Force 10 spirit possessing a metahuman with 18/14 armor would have hardened protection of 20/20 which, if overcome, would allow the possessed being to use 38/34 points of armor to resist damage. This could be part of the reason why the game has so many restrictions on magic (many of which are ignored or misunderstood, leading to the belief that magic in SR is overpowered and must be attacked from all directions till it curls up in a little ball and whimpers).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 25 2011, 05:46 PM

Like I said. I'm fine with the error because screw spirits, esp. possession.

Posted by: Draco18s Oct 25 2011, 05:56 PM

And it'd be stun, unless the DV was greater than 38.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 25 2011, 06:22 PM

Which is irrelvant, as a spirit is still disrupted if its Track is filled, regardless of whether it is a Stun track or Physical track.

Posted by: yesferatu Oct 27 2011, 08:39 PM

So how does armor piercing work with spirits?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 28 2011, 02:04 AM

Same way it does with anything else. Take the Spirit's ITNW, apply the AP, if your DV is greater than their remaining modified ITNW, then they soak to reduce damage. If their damage track becomes full, they disrupt. Pretty simple really.

Example:
Force 6 Spirit (ITNW of 12)
Sniper Rifle with DV 7, AP -3 using APDS (AP now -7).
One Net hit on Spirit.
Apply AP to ITNW (12-7=5).
Check if DV is > Remaining ITNW (8>5).
Spirit Soaks Damage with Body + 5 (Remaining ITNW); DV is 8
Spirit takes damage (or not, depending upon Soak).

Posted by: Neraph Oct 29 2011, 08:11 PM

Gods would not be F10. You can still realistically summon a F10 spirit that uses Edge by using Edge yourself (on Summoning and Drain Tests). F16+ would be more in line with gods, but they'd be more like Asgardian deities as opposed to (some) Hindu or other pantheons.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 29 2011, 09:03 PM

Personal Opinions...
Force 10 is God-like enough so as to not really matter, even if they are not as powerful a god as Force 16+ would be....

Posted by: Neraph Oct 30 2011, 06:23 AM

It depends on how watered-down your definition of god is. And I guess how strong your tables normally run...

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 30 2011, 04:00 PM

True...

Posted by: Neraph Oct 30 2011, 05:33 PM

Two easy examples: I know how to deal with the 387 armor 400 BP character (a few different ways) and I know how to mitigate the Magic 14 Supermage at chargen.

Those freaking Stealth + Longarm snipers give me more problems...

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 30 2011, 05:51 PM

Heh... The first is easy; Just say No. The Second is also easy; Just say No.

Snipers are ALWAYS a problem.

Posted by: Cain Oct 31 2011, 03:28 AM

*shrug* Force 10 spirits are powerful, but easily dealt with without the necessity of making them cheese the player character. You can handle a lot of it through roleplay as well: a high force spirit is more likely to be creative in interpreting orders, forcing the summoner to burn through services more quickly. And, unless you roll like I do (lot's of critical failures on summoning resistance rolls) those high force spirits won't have many services to begin with.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 31 2011, 12:52 PM

All very true. However, No one at our table has ever been able to actually summon a Force 10 Spirit. I am okay with that. We have seen Force 5 Spirits dealing 20 Damage on the Summoner (with no Services gained). The Force 7 was about as brutal, with 18 Damage (and 1 Service Gained). Hell, for a long time, the character I use to play (Necromancer) could not summon a Water Spirit (Viscera Spirit) above Force 3, because every time I did, it beat the crap out of me and I gained no services. Ironically, that was the only spirit type I ever had that issue with (I routinely summoned Force 5 and 6 Spirits of the other types). Not sure why. No one has ever attempted to summon that Force 10 Spirit. Works for us.

Posted by: Cain Oct 31 2011, 04:38 PM

You also play a different game than the rest of us. 100+ karma and characters as weak as you describe? It's ok if you guys like it, but don't think that because you don't optimize, it's not powerful.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Oct 31 2011, 04:59 PM

Ugh, how can you have a spirit of viscera.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 31 2011, 05:56 PM

Lets see if I can remember the Classifications...

Combat: Death Spirits – The Reapers of the Damned (Guardian)
Detection: Ghosts - Ancestor Spirits (Guidance)
Health: LifeBlood - Viscera Spirits (Water)
Illusion: Ghosts - Poltergeist Spirits (Air)
Manipulation: Specter - Malevolent Spirits (Man)

Yes, it was a very disturbing imagry. And no, the Viscera Spirits are not the Blood Spirits of a Toxic.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 31 2011, 05:58 PM

The characters are not weak, though. I would really like for you to please tell me how they are Weak compared to the world actually depicted in the books... I bet that you can't.

You just see them that way because you prefer an over the top powerful game. Please at least acknowledge that your version is so far above the guidelines of the books that we are likely not talking about the same game in the end.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Oct 31 2011, 06:03 PM

I have to agree somewhat.

The game indicates that pretty much anything above rating 5 is damn rare in the SR universe, relegated to only the elite.

The rules mechanics don't actually reflect this, though - a standard 400 BP character is supposed to be the starting point, a runner just making his way out into the mean world of the Shadows. But it's fairly easy to build a character with 400 BP that matches or exceeds the capabilities of some of the most powerful NPCs depicted in the setting.



-k

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Oct 31 2011, 06:16 PM

It is indeed easy to do so. There is no real reason why you should though.
Just saying....

Posted by: Neraph Nov 1 2011, 04:16 PM

Survival isn't a reason? What strange world do I exist in then?

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 04:24 PM

Wait, what?
How is not-being "all you can be" a good thing?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2011, 04:25 PM

Survival is not properly the primary focus of a tabletop RPG character. It depends on how that fits the game, group, story, etc.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 04:45 PM

No, but usefulness is. If you have a character that's only half as useful as another character, what was the point?

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 1 2011, 04:50 PM

If the rest of the team, and the GM, are operating with dials set to 5, bringing in a character with dials set to 10 might be a bit disruptive to the campaign.

It's all about fitting into the particular campaign you're playing.

For example, you can build a Missions character with dice pools in the 24+ range if you want to. But most folks seem to have pools in the 12 to 16 range for primary tasks, and there seems to be a gentleman's agreement at most tables not to push the cheese TOO far.



-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2011, 04:53 PM

I didn't say anything about that, Draco18s. But the same point indeed applies: it depends on fit. 'Doing everything better' is not properly the *primary* focus of a tabletop RPG character.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 05:42 PM

Define Half as Useful.
Whether you have 24+ Dice to Shoot someone or 14 Dice to shoot someone. They are just as dead. You cannot be MORE dead.

And Yerameyahu and KarmaInferno have said it better than I can, as usual, so *shrug*

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 05:49 PM

Ah, but the 24 dice person can fire More Bullets at More Stuff and with Bigger Guns.

Also, the principle applies to all tasks, not just bullets.

Good, you built a summoner that can summon F3 spirits without a problem, but F4 starts getting risky.

I can summon F6 all day every day. How are you useful?

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 1 2011, 06:36 PM

Not everyone plays with the throttle wide open, dude.

And nobody said anything about playing characters that are less powerful than the other characters in the particular campaign they are in.

There are, however, campaigns that are higher or lower powered than others. If you want the group to have fun, it is best to match your characters to the average power level of the others. Otherwise you either will be a drag on the rest of the group or dominate the group, neither of which is very fun for the other guys.



-k

Posted by: Paul Nov 1 2011, 06:41 PM

Man I can't say this enough. I can't tell you how many times I've described a game and had someone show up at the table with a character that specifically built to be a pain in the ass. Whether setting incompatible, or crunch incompatible it's annoying and rude.

It's the Wil Wheaton rule: Don't be a Dick!

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 06:51 PM

I didn't say it wasn't true, I asked why.

If the scale is "1-6" why isn't everyone at 6?

Just because the rules allow for a 1-20 as a possible range doesn't mean anything, what I'm saying is, regardless of what the range for a given campaign is why do people play things that aren't at the top end of that range? What's the benefit?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2011, 07:20 PM

Does that happen? And if so, what part of that is simply a function of specialization-vs.-generalization?

I'd guess that any residual variation is based on playing a role that doesn't call for that (crazy thought).

Posted by: Chimera Nov 1 2011, 07:21 PM

There are many reasons why players might not dial it up to 6. A few come to mind.

1. First time players..Not really sure what they are doing.
2. A player might not want to be a specialist, but more of a generalist between two roles.
3. The GM has made some house rules (e.g. dice pools cannot be more than twice of the linked, augmented attribute).
4. A casual game hosted once a month with players going in and out.
5. A role-play emphasized game with combat/active skill use De-emphasized.



My answer to "Where's the Benefit" is because I've realized I will never "win" at Shadowrun so I may as well get the most fun out of playing my character as I wish. And sometimes that involves using a whiffle bat as a primary weapon.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 07:32 PM

Unintentional sub-optimality is not intentional choice.



Generalists have this habit of taking two roles and trying to be "ok" at them when both of those roles are filled by specialists in the party already. I've never seen a generalist in SR that worked well. I.e. they end up being half of two different characters and never get to shine.

Except one, and it was mine, and only because I'd been trying for a specific concept and lucked out that there was no dedicated hacker (and I still had to Mr. Lucky those roles when it came up). So my secondary role ended up being useful (my primary role was still specialized as far as I could with my limited BP budget). Even so, I ended up with several skills or abilities that never once entered play and thus ended up being more of a liability than an asset (whereas if I'd specialized more, I'd have performed better).



So, in other words, dialed up as high as it can go, and thus not a counterexample. (You altered what enforces the intended range, but not countered the point of playing below the range cap).



This is more a factor of "I need a character in 10 minutes" rather than any intentional decision on part of the player.



As if low dice pool = role playing. Haven't we been over this?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 07:33 PM

The instance you refer to was for a character that had issues with a SINGLE type of Spirit that I was Extremely unlucky with. You shoud go back and read it. *Shakes Head* Simply Amazing.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 07:37 PM

I was in no way referring to that character at all. I was making a point.

PC1: I can summon F3 spirits without a problem, but F4 starts getting risky.

PC2: I can summon F6 all day every day. How are you useful?

PC1 is quite literally half as useful as PC2, simply because they're equally good at summoning spirits, but PC2 can summon them at twice the force for the same risk and benefit.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2011, 07:39 PM

He said that it was a game in which skills were de-emphasized, not that RP=non-optimized. This is a weird, but possible, scenario.

Yes, and that's why usefulness is totally irrelevant.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 07:44 PM

True, However, I tend to design characters with a concept in mind. If I am not the Best in the World, My skills will reflect this. Novel Concept, I know, but there you go. Apparently, you do not follow that philosophy.



That is really a shame. I have played plenty of Generalists, and they have almost always worked out, and have had plenty of room to shine. There were a few duds over the last 20 years (and by that I mean like less than a handful), but not because of the design philosophy. They just did not develop as I intended them to. A big part of the design component/phase is how your table functions. If your table functions within the design parameters of the Book (and they DO exist, regardless of whether you choose to acknowledge that or not), then you can be quite capable. If you design characters to be the absolute best at everything that they do, with little chance of failure (and lets face it, that is the only reason to go for the absolute highest maximum dice pool that you can cram in), well, that is a completely different game then, isn't it? I find perfection to be very boring...



Sounds like you had issues with your concept. And I find it absolutely Amazing how you are the only one who can design competant Generalists, too. You do know that others ARE capable of such things, right?

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 07:45 PM

Contrived at best, and not how our table actually runs in play. You really should get out more.

Posted by: Warlordtheft Nov 1 2011, 08:09 PM

Hey, If he assumes a F6 spirit is twice as capable as a F4 then yeah. Problem, F6 can lead to 12S drain damage if the player gets unlucky, more so than th 8S at F4 or 6S at force.

Maybe the post should read:
400BP PC1:I can summon F3 spirits all day, con my way past the guards like I own the place, give first aid to my downed team mate when the drek hits the fan, and can cast a variety of spells.

400BP PC2: I can summon F6 spirits all day. Can cast a couple of other spells, and have a 1 body, 2 agility, and 3 reaction.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 08:09 PM

It's that this is a philosophy which is not the point I'm making. The rules are such that a mechanically better character is always better. There's no reason to play anything less other than "because I want to" and tends (emphasis!) tends to work out poorly because the other players aren't doing the same thing.



Where did I say that I didn't enjoy the character? I simply said that there were places that I could have cut back to have made him play better for that game that I should have been aware of (and often was, but ignored). Such as the perfect breaking and entering spell, minus the fact that the game would have no breaking an entering.



I've seen competent generalists, the problem is that they're only competent in actual play when no one is capable of stealing their thunder. This is the primary reason, nay, the one and only reason no one plays a "half hacker" to help the full hacker out when he hacks. He's not an asset, he's a liability. Thus leading to the inevitable situation where The Hacker is the only one who knows how to use a computer and therefore never leaves his house (not to say that people don't play mobile hackers, just that it's easy and advantageous to not do so) causing a plethora of quadriplegic technomancers.


Basically it comes down to, "Yes, you can play a Paladin with 6 Wisdom and 6 Charisma, but why would you?" (referencing the fact that I've heard of such a character and it would have been so much easier/better/optimal for that player to have made a fighter).

It's not about the fact that suboptimal choices exist, but that the system favors (heavily) characters who don't take them. "The monk class wouldn't be a trap if it wasn't for every other class ever."



you mean:

400BP PC2: I can summon F6 spirits all day, they can use Concealment and get me past the guards. I can cast Heal, which is just as good if not better than First Aid in combat. I don't need body, agility, or reaction because I have meat shields, now get out in front.

Stop comparing characters in a vacuum. They have team mates.



Force 3, not Force 4. And we're assuming that the F6 mage can reduce the stun down to the same level that the F3 mage can. Which is possible with 400 BP, although uses a high level of cheese. The F3 mage spent his points "trying to be everybody at once" and ends up being "no one at all" whereas the F6 mage picked a spot that wasn't full and exploited the shit out of it.

It's called a "monopoly."

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 08:12 PM

Heh... Indeed...

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 08:17 PM

See reply to that post above.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2011, 08:19 PM

That's not a good rebuttal, though. That *character* is not identically capable, even if he did it all himself using spirits.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 08:24 PM

"Why do I need skill X at 2? Steve already has it at 4, and his attribute is higher too. I suppose I could take skill Y but Joe has it also and his attribute is higher. In order to do one/the other/both I'd have to make serious sacrifices at being Me."

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2011, 08:33 PM

That's a non-RP metagame argument. It assumes numerical optimization is that goal, and that the team of runners were designed together. That's the whole point.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 08:36 PM

So your (generic) group designs each of your characters in a vacuum, unknowing what everyone else is building? And that sometimes three people will show up with overlapping skills and be superfluous?

Wasn't that my other point, that a generalist will be overshadowed by a specialist in the same field? That is, that the generalist will defer to the specialist because they're more apt to succeed at the job, and thus might as well not have the skill at all? To the point where if all of a generalists skills are already covered then the entire character might as well not exist?

To take this example to the in-character point of view:

Why did the generalist-who-is-useless join the group anyway? Why did the group let him in, if anything he could do was already being done better?
"Your skills are great, 'n all, but we kind of already have it covered."

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 08:36 PM

Not all tables work this way. Ours doesn't. There is every reason not to play the World's best "Whatever". Primarily, when you cannot rationalize, or do not want to, being so.



That is a communications issue, not a design philosophy or rules issue.



Again, this is a Communications Issue. I often play a "Half Hacker" as you put it, and I am always useful to the primary hacker. Again, just because it is not your main focus does not mean you cannot be decent at it. And we have YET to have a Hacker/Technomancer who hacks from Home Primarily. It may occur from time to time. But our team tends to run together on the runs. No leaving someone behind. You never know when something may come up to interfere with whatever is missing, be it a hacker, rigger, or whatever. It is LESS advantageous to play an immobile hacker/rigger than a mobile one. At least in my experience. Though it can be done.



Bad analogy. I do not refer to DnD. Shadowrun is a wholy different game with many more options. Maybe at your table, your GM favors (heavily) the characters that are hyper-optimized. It is not a universal condition.



That is like the pot calling the Kettle Black. Criticise yourself before you criticize others.
Besides, You DO need Stats to be somewhat surviveable. A character without decent stats dies quickly and horribly, regardless of how many meat shields exist. All it takes is a luck shot.



Again you make blanket statements of "Fact" with no evidence to back them. That may be how it is at your table, but I can assure you that this is not how it is at our table.



There are Anti-Trust laws to combat that Draco18s.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 08:41 PM

In real life, yes.

Not for designing characters.

That.

Is.

My.

Point.



I'd like to play at your table sometime, honestly. Because my table has yet to move beyond "Skill 2 is better than two skill 1s." I keep trying to have concept and background and well rounded, but it never works.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 08:44 PM

Yes, we often build characters apart form each other. A team is not a hyper-optimized unit, especially in the shadows. They are a collection of characters who have been drawn to gether from the shadows, who likely have never met each other prior to their first run together. So how, exactly, are they able to cover each other's flaws so precisely? What you are talking about is a Meta-Game thing. I choose not to play that particular game.

I see your above opinion as extremely short-sighted and self-limiting.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 08:46 PM

Indeed...

I am sorry to hear that. I would welcome you at our table. Always looking for more players. Everyone has to be on the same page for the game to work well. We still have a few concerns from time to time. But not too many, and not all that often.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 1 2011, 09:40 PM

Draco18s, the question is 'why would a character not be maxed out?' … That's why: because character concept is not a maxed out character. To assemble a team of perfectly-matched min max monkeys (master blaster!) is *bad*. There is nothing wrong with people having overlaps. (It's the extremes that are the problem: a team of specialists with minor overlap is fine, and typical.)

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 1 2011, 09:43 PM

Shame there's no way for me to show up.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 1 2011, 10:10 PM

Indeed... Maybe sometime in the future....

Posted by: Falconer Nov 1 2011, 10:38 PM

Answering the OP.

All drones are considered vehicles, not all vehicles are drones. (a drone at a minimum must have a pilot program and be able to act autonomously or given commands... not necessarily be jumped into by a rigger).

No vehicles aren't considered to have hardened armor. It's a side effect of the fact that vehicles can't take stun damage. In SR4 the wording was that 'vehicles are immune to stun damage' so the attack does nothing... (except mar the paint job . In SR4a... they just said attack fails (to damage it, my own completion).


Spirits armor is a side effect of the ItNW... which itself is a side effect of either its "Materialization' or 'Possession/Inhabitation' powers.


It's possible to possess vehicles but the rules for such are different than possessing a person or corpse. Also the spirit give the new combined entity a stun track... so the while the vehicle may be immune to stun, the spirit animating it isn't. Nowhere in the rules does it state that spirits gain the immunities of the form they possess.

Fair warning: the rules there suggest adding the spirits force directly to the vehicles armor rating. IE: an armor 8 sedan like a VW beetle possessed by the force 5 spirit Herbie... should probably have an armor rating of 13 (8+5), not 23 (8+5+10ItNW). You can end up with some nigh indestructible things if you're not careful... an armor 20 van posssed by a force 6 spirit at 26+12==38 armor puts a tank to utter shame (and is nigh indestructible), and even an adept with a weapon foci is very unlikely to broach the vehicles base armor of 20+6 even bypassing the ItNW. So use your common sense in what you try to do and what you allow as a GM.

Also, any vehicle or character possessed should be very obvious to others Perception check threshhold (6-force)... so anything force5 or over only requires 1 success on a perception check to know it's possessed and also to have a good idea what is possessing it. (it also suggests applying a shamanic mask whenever the spirit is using a spirit power for an additional +2 dice on the check).

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 2 2011, 12:17 AM

I'll use Missions again as an example where you have a LOT of players not turning their dials to maximum despite the rules and campaign allowing quite a lot of cheese.

I have found that in Missions you have a lot of players rolling 10-16 dice, when it's entirely possible to make a character using the same BP that does the same job with 18-24 dice.

Some are that way because they're not optimizers, and really only look at the rules when they have to. Otherwise they're playing to have a good time, whether they're more into roleplay, or simply just want a "casual" game, they simply don't care about being min-maxed.

Some folks just aren't that good at min-maxing.

Some are indeed newbies who don't know the rules well.

Some are doing so because everyone else is. I'm in that group. My characters are mostly CAPABLE of the uber-dice pool, but I watch the rest of the table to see what kinda of power levels everyone else is operating at, and try to match them. Maybe I won't use every bonus that's coming to me, or perhaps use pools I'm not so min-maxed in. I consciously do this so as not to dominate the table because that's no fun for anybody.

Also, sometimes as a challenge I make gimped characters, or have a character not operate at his fullest, especially if it's a game where I know the rules very well.




-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 12:56 AM

Yup.

While it's true that optimization and roleplay are not directly related, it is true that they have areas that *don't* overlap. It is not possible to be game-optimal if your character isn't, and that's fine. It can be a great character, because they're not all world class (sometimes beyond!) experts in their fields. Not everyone is an escaped lab experiment and/or ex-elite-soldier—these are both possible *roles*, but so are burnout mages, born-again gangers, etc.

Posted by: Cain Nov 2 2011, 03:27 AM

First of all, being optimized doesn't mean you're roleplay inept. Some of my most fun roleplay experiences were with maxed-out Shadowrun characters. Roleplay is up to the player, not the sheet.

Second, it's entirely too easy to create an optimized character in SR4.5 who *has no weaknesses* worth mentioning. I have a mage I like to play with Strength 1, it doesn't impede the character at all-- in fact, it's often humorous, when she tries to lift something and fails miserably. That's technically a weakness and cheese, except it fits the character all too well, and actually adds fun at the table. She's got no other significant weaknesses for a mage; she's not as tough as the troll, or savvy with computers as the decker, but she shouldn't have to be. In the areas where she needs to be functional, she is, and tends to only come out one or two dice behind the pure generalist.

Shadowrunning is about teams of specialists, working together. If you don't have someone good in all the roles, your team is going to have a rougher time of it.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 03:35 AM

Everyone knows that optimized doesn't mean bad roleplay or unfun. However, there are many good roleplay concepts that inherently can't be optimal.

As I already said, there's a difference between a team of specialists and a perfectly matched set of totally unrealistic, symbiotic characters.

Posted by: Cain Nov 2 2011, 08:52 AM

And there's just as many extremely fun roleplay concepts that inherently can't be sub-optimal. Your point?

If roleplay is all you want, and stats don't matter, what's the difference between an optimized an an unoptimized build? In Shadowrun, it's that one will help the team, while the other will drag it down. So, in the end, the optimized build will actually be more fun to play, for both the player and the team.

Posted by: Dahrken Nov 2 2011, 12:03 PM

I think your discussion revolves around a misunderstanding.

One of you answers the question "Is the optimised character more effective" (he is, at least in it's specialty), and the other "Is the non-optimised character effective enough" (he can, depending on the table)...

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 2 2011, 01:32 PM

Also misunderstood - I wasn't implying that roleplay means unoptimized.

But there are in fact players who don't pay much attention to the extreme details of the rules, and being only interested in roleplay can be one of the reasons why.

More generally, an awful lot of people I run into don't optimize because they simply aren't interested in doing so.

I know it's sometimes hard for a hardcore optimizer to understand the mindset, but some folks just don't find searching and scratching out every little loophole and min-max rule to perfect a character build all that fascinating. They cobble together a character that fills their particular basic needs and that's as far as they want to think about optimization.



-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 02:04 PM

That *is* my point, Cain: the categories 'optimized' and 'fun roleplay' are not congruent. I said exactly that earlier: they overlap some, and they also have areas where they don't overlap.

Your second point is crap, though. Fun-optimized is not more fun than fun-unoptimized. They are both fun, by definition.

That's the thing, Dahrken: I'm saying that 'effective' is irrelevant either way.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 2 2011, 02:10 PM

Falling back to the good ol' "because I want to" argument.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 02:24 PM

Let's refocus. Here are the questions I think I've been answering all along:

My position is that, no, survival and usefulness are *not* reasons (not primary ones, anyway). Fun characters are, which fit the game/group/table. This might arbitrarily be high- or low-powered, but that's unrelated. If your *concept* is 'god of pistols', you need to be optimized—if you're not, you're not playing the character right. However, if your concept is 'burnout mage', you basically *can't* be optimized without playing your character *wrong*.

So… that's why you'd see suboptimal characters: don't fit the game/group/table, and/or don't fit the concept. Being non-optimized 'because I want to' is one of the *best* possible reasons.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 2 2011, 02:57 PM

And what, exactly, is a burntout mage bringing to the table? I'm remembering this post, from the CLUE files.



Not saying you can't play a burnout mage, just that I don't see what they're bringing to the table if all they can do is yammer on about magic and how they used to be good at it (it's the only thing they were skilled at, but no longer).

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 03:02 PM

A character! That's the point: usefulness is not *the* factor. If he can help the team at all (knowledge, contacts, other skills, anything), then he could conceivably be part of a shadowrun—especially if the overall power level is low.

I don't understand the clue bit. Bad player is bad? Shock.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 2 2011, 03:03 PM

So it's ok to show up to a table and be in a game and contribute nothing towards completing the mission?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 03:04 PM

That's the exact opposite of what I *just* said. I specifically mentioned contributions. I'm not sure how you got from 'non-optimized' to 'nothing'.

But if that's what happens, sure, fine. The object is to *play* the game, and playing the concept of 'character who doesn't help on shadowruns' is a valid, if short-lived, concept. He'll get cut loose, which is a perfectly good narrative event. I still don't think it's *likely*, but it's your example, not mine. There are other (infinitely many) possibilities, even in that weird subset: un-ditchable tag-along of another character, maybe. If someone thinks it's fun and they can make it fit the setting and game, that's the point. Lord knows we've seen 'optimized' super-sams with literally zero social skills, contacts, knowledge, etc., which is just as bad.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 2 2011, 03:16 PM

Depends upon the build, doesn't it?
It really is very amusing that you are incapable of seeing any character that is not hyper-optimized as being useful.

Not long ago, I talked about a build that was non-Augmented, who had more than 30 Skills, many of which were in the 9-12 Dice Pool range. Yet, That was just not good enough. I have to tell you that, maybe at YOUR table, it may not be good enough for you; but any table I would play at, he would probably be the team leader. Why? Because he was competant at many, many things, including Leadership. 9-12 Dice is competant. No, he was not hyper-specialized, nor was he over-optimized, but that is okay. As I have said previously: Why would a character need 20 Dice if 10 will suffice? If the answer is so that the character never fails, well, that is boring.

I have yet to find a table where 10-12 Dice was not sufficient for most things. Will that number creep up over time? Yes, with experience and Karma, the DP's will increase, but it is not a mandatory thing. For reference: Most of My characters tend to top at around 16 dice (give or take a few), once they have received sufficient (100+) Karma. On rare occasions, I will build one with close to 20, but that is because the concept demands such proficiency. I don't do it very often. And when I do, I often do not play the character very long because, as I said before, never failing a roll is boring to me.

And for an answer to your question. Say you have a Burntout Mage who was once very powerful (Magic 6). Now, he has some ware, and addiction or two, a Magic of 2, and 2 Initiate Grades. You can't see any redeeming qualities for this character? I sure can. For one, His Counterspelling is completely unaffected for Spell Defense purposes. Yes, His magic is weak, but he is still more powerful than any Non-Mage out there as far as Magic goes (Spell Selection for such a character is key here). And he likely has a ton of knowledge about magic and its dangers. I could see a lot of potential for this character, dependant upon his backstory and his character development. The fact that he is not OMG Powerful does not make him useless.

Anyways...

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 2 2011, 03:24 PM

Roleplaying games do have success or fail moments, but they are not, in fact, games with an overall "win" condition.

Even failing a mission can be fodder for roleplay. It doesn't have to mean the end of the game, put another quarter in, start over.

Being "the best" is only one possible roleplaying play style. There are many others just as fun.

I remember going and playing a game where all the characters were young girls and the premise was "the parents are out for the day and there's some weird noise in the basement". The characters were each one of the classic fantasy RPG classes, but down-powered to represent kids who haven't mastered their skills yet. The sorcerer could barely manage one spell, for example. None were min-maxed at all. Everyone at that game had an absolute blast.



-k

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 2 2011, 04:26 PM

Oh sure. Failing missions is good too. But my point is, if everyone is trying to succeed, and one character is a bump on a log, what's the point of that character?

Posted by: Cain Nov 2 2011, 04:48 PM

In the case you describe, while the character concept might say "burned out mage", we could simply put the sub-heading "Face" on it, and have at. We now have someone who's social primary, magic secondary. The concept doesn't inherently mean he's unoptimized, it means he's unoptimized at magic, but very optimized at face skills and contacts. I'm afraid your argument isn't holding water:

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 2 2011, 04:51 PM

Goodness, what a difference that makes. Now he has a primary ability (amazing!) that can be built towards and be optimized within the bounds of the concept. Obviously he's not going to be great at magic, he burnt out. But he can still be a great face/hacker/rigger/gunbunny or whatever.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 2 2011, 04:57 PM

Except that you were the one saying he was useless; no on else was (except maybe Cain)...
And yet, to be a burntout mage, he should have magical Skills and Knowledges. Otherwise how was he even a Magician? The concept demands it.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 05:15 PM

Cain, I didn't say he was 'very optimized' at *anything*. I said, as I've always said, that he's not 'worthless'. And I think you'll find that a burnout mage can *never* be optimal… he wasted BP on lost magic. Duh.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 2 2011, 05:30 PM

He'd be functional, but sadly, the loss of that much BP might actually be too great to have a viable character, except in a street level game.

Similar to my drake adept. Functional, but would have been better if I'd specialized more.* Better still if he hadn't been a drake.

*I had hacking at like, 2. With a logic if ~5. I had 4 edge at that point in the game, tops, and spent three of it not-failing some hacking tests to disable a ceiling mounted turret (I was doing hardware hacking, getting a scanner to accept a single valid passkey multiple times for different people, rather than doing a software spoof/hack which I'd never have been able to pull off). Instead, I could have been pure mage-side (still a mystic adept, probably) and spent those BP on spells and spirit summoning. Would have both been more effective AND effective in more situations.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 05:59 PM

'Better' numerically.

What's 'viable'? People keep posting concepts and asking if they're viable… anything is viable, if it's part of the setting and *fits*. At a lower-power group/game, a pornomancer is *not* viable.

Posted by: Cain Nov 2 2011, 06:04 PM

That depends on how you do it, why his magic is so low, and so on and so forth. Really, you could make him as a total mundane with serious Addiction flaws, he burned out his magic through drugs, not heavy cyber. There's also several people who play with house rules that starting essence only lowers your Magic cap, not your actual Magic rating. So yeah, there are ways of having a character who's a burned out mage (low magic or no magic) and still not waste too many points. The burnout mage can be done, the way you describe it is a face with a minor magical punch. That's entirely doable.

Point is, if he's not good at something, if he's not "very optimized" at something, he's good for nothing.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 06:19 PM

And that's a bad and wrong point. You can be good for something without being 'very optimized' at anything.

If he's a burnout, then making a mundane with addictions (or ware) is cheating. He has to have had magic and lost it.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 2 2011, 06:28 PM

Indeed...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 08:13 PM

And, for the record, I wasn't describing any kind of face (primary or otherwise). All characters can (should) have contacts, knowledge, various skills, and the last item in my list of examples was 'anything'.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 2 2011, 08:36 PM

Precisely, which is why a character that brings ONLY that to the table is going to get raised eyebrows.

Posted by: Cain Nov 2 2011, 09:50 PM

If he's got no magic, but buys up appropriate knowledge skills, why is that cheating? It works out exactly the same either way. The difference is that he'll be more effective, and thus fun to play, than a deliberately gimped character.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 2 2011, 09:57 PM

There you go again. There is nothing Gimped about playing a Concept.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 2 2011, 11:37 PM

Cain, if he didn't burn out, he's not a burnout. Someone who had Magic (has an Awakened quality) and loses it is fundamentally different. If this example is no good for you, we can change the example. The point is that there are concepts that are inherently suboptimal. Another common example is 'Mr. No Augmentations, Drugs, or Magic'. (You also reiterated that 'more effective' = 'more fun', which is wrong.)

Draco18s, um, what? Did you just say that a character bringing "only" 'contacts, knowledge, various skills, and anything else' to the table will raise eyebrows? You just described all characters.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 3 2011, 01:06 AM

Minus the "other stuff"

Posted by: Cain Nov 3 2011, 05:39 AM

But there's nothing fun about it either, especially if the character turns into nothing but a dramacopter that drags everyone else down. Humans tend to define themselves by what they do; if someone asks the character: "What do you do?" and the truthful answer is: "Not much", how is that an interesting character to play?


You can lose Magic through addiction test failures, at the GM's discretion. If the character burned out because of drug abuse, you can reflect that in the starting stats and backstory. You know, *gasp* via roleplay? Your Mr. Nothing also isn't even a concept-- he's a stat block. A character concept is a combination of abilities and personality, and if he's got no abilities worth mentioning, how can that be fun?

Here's a game for you. Name any Shadowrun character concept (personality and abilities) and I'll show you how optimization will not only improve the character, but make it more fun to roleplay.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 3 2011, 11:19 AM

I know *how* you can burn out. I'm saying fluffing the fact that you used to have magic is cheating and lying if you *didn't* use to have magic. That's the whole point of the example: *burnout*.

I didn't say 'no abilities worth mentioning'. On the contrary, my whole point is that you can have abilities worth mentioning without being 'optimized'. And you continue to wrongly say that more numbers means more fun to play. There is no connection (positive or negative) between better numbers and more fun.

My point was never that you can't (partially) optimize any given character, but that some concepts (fun ones) are inherently suboptimal. Valuing 'survival' or 'usefulness' above everything else precludes many fun characters for no reason.

I don't understand why you keep ignoring what people say and just making up things they didn't say instead. No one is suggesting 'worthless' characters that 'drag everyone down'. We're talking about sub-optimal, but perfectly normal, real, and valid, characters.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 3 2011, 02:21 PM

You must not play concepts very often then. I play them all the time, and I gave great fun. Ask any of my characters what they do and they can give you an answer. Since I NEVER couch it in DP's (in game), the mecahnics become irrelevant. It is a descriptive, and that is what I give you. Characters are not aware of their DP's. And I rarely tell the other players my DP either. Actions speak way more than DP's do. I have great fun with my characters.



Except that if you do not have the requisite, actual, background and active skills to reinforce your backstory, well, then you are not truly playing a burnout, are you? You are, in effect, cheating. You are obviously no longer playing a concept, but a collection of favorable numbers that you attempt to get to the highest point you can, backstory be damnned. If you are incapable of coming up with a concept, and then actually following through with it, why are you even asking if it is fun. If backstory, personality, and abilities do not mesh, how can the concept even work?



So, now you know what kind of Fun I like too? Wow, you are truly amazing; and highly arrogant. Who are you to tell me what kind of fun I like? And believe me, I can improve my character's just fine, without having to optimize or hyper-specialize. Just amazing...

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 3 2011, 02:43 PM

There is, in fact, a difference between "useless", "adequate", and "hyperoptimized"

It's not like there's a binary switch that flips between only "can't accomplish anything" and "super-min-maxed demigod".




-k

who actually plays super min-maxed demigods much of the time, but appreciates other play styles

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 3 2011, 02:57 PM

Thank You KarmaInferno and Yerameyahu. This cannot be said often enough...

Posted by: Cain Nov 3 2011, 09:40 PM

Is it cheating when a character says "I used to be a cop" when he's starting out? I mean, technically he never was a cop; the character only really existed at the start of the game. It all amount to the same thing: Backstory and roleplay. If you had magic, but lost it during your backstory, it's just color and direction.


You're missing my point. By fixing your concepts, I'm not making them hyper-optimized. But I am 'optimizing' them, so they do something well. If you can't do anything well (not optimized), then it's not fun to play. If you can do something well, you're min/maxed and optimized to some degree. There is nothing wrong with optimizing a character-- in fact, since it involves a greater player investment, min.maxed characters are often more fun to play.

Now, hyperoptimized one-trick-ponies? Those can get annoying. But that depends on the game.


Name a few, then. Burnout mage is disproven, see below. Mr. No-nothing? That's not a concept, that's a stat block, give me something to work with. (Although I can see a starting character who not only hates magic and augmentation, but doesn't even realize he's an initiated adept. That would actually be more fun.)


In fact, I never play concepts. I play *characters*. Fully fleshed-out and realized concepts, who take on a life of their own and are fun for everybody.


Who says I don't? Given that you can't take any active Awakened skills unless you have Magic, you can't start a burnout with any of those skills... but you could invest heavily in magical Knowledge skills. You could also have a ton of magical contacts (representing people who trained you magically, and take pity on you) and otherwise gear yourself up as a burnout. Making a burnout with magical Active skills *is* cheating.

See? Not only does backstory, personality, and abilities mesh, you've now got more points for abilities, making him more capable and fun to play with.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 3 2011, 09:57 PM

A cop is totally different from an Awakened character, and a burnout. For one thing, cops don't know anything to start with.

Mr.-Pure isn't my concept (and I didn't say it was a complete character), but it's an aspect of character concepts I've seen here before.

… How could a character not know he's an initiated adept? Crazy.

Nope. Fun has nothing to do with 'usefulness'. However, I still don't understand why you're mentioning this at all. I already said, "My point was never that you can't (partially) optimize any given character". There's no question at all of 'fixing', 'hyper-optimizing', or anything even vaguely like that. My point is that some character concepts are inherently less powerful than others, which has zero bearing on being fun. T

Let's re-refocus: That's the only thing I'm talking about. They asked 'why would you ever play a character who's not super-powerful?' That's not even 'the best version of himself', it's 'why isn't everyone a pornomancer [or other 'super build']?'

Posted by: Cain Nov 3 2011, 10:04 PM

No, but it's easier. If you hand the players characters without strong points and weak points, there's much less to build a personality on. You need those strong and weak points, because every human has them. Shadowrunners, being somewhat larger than life, need bigger ones. At any event, if your character isn't strong enough at something to be useful to a Shadowrun team, why are they there?


Please note, you're the one discussing super-builds. I'm talking about strong builds, not "leaping over a tall building in a single bound" builds. And strong builds are inherently more fun that weak ones, because they can do more and accomplish their goals. Even suboptimal "concepts" can be made into strong builds, as my twist on the burnout mage shows. Or Mr. Nothing; if he hates magic and swears to hunt down everything magical and destroy it, while unknowingly being an initiated adept with masking, *that*'s a fun concept.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 3 2011, 10:07 PM

You cannot "unknowingly" initiate... It takes focus and effort, which does not coincide with the "unknowingly" that you posit.
And nope, NOT a fun concept. Not for me anyways...

Posted by: Cain Nov 3 2011, 10:38 PM

Oh yes you can. First recorded instance was in Shadowbeat, an athlete who turned out to have multiple initiate grades without knowing it.

And it's only not fun if your into sour grapes. A magic-hater who doesn't know he's magical? Fun on a bun..

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 4 2011, 01:12 AM

From what I know, that is the Only recorded Instance. Could be more, maybe, but not likely. And my guess is he tells people that to divert them. See, even you believed it.

It has nothing to do with sour grapes. I do not like the concept, so it would be no fun for me. See how that works. You cannot dictate what is fun for others.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 01:41 AM

Cain, that's the question I was responding to all along. If it's not what you're talking about, then you're not talking to me. Draco18s and Neraph asked 'why play if you're not powerful?' or possibly 'why not be powerful (given you can)?'.

That's a *different* fun concept, which is fine (AFAIK, though, you can't *currently* initiate accidentally, but I don't particularly care either way ). As I said, there are lots of powerful (fun) concepts, and lots of not-powerful (fun) concepts.

Posted by: Cain Nov 4 2011, 03:52 AM

You're talking super-builds, they're talking powerful builds. There's a huge difference there. You can be an effective Face without being a Pornomancer, for example. And before we start quibbling over what counts as "powerful" and what counts as "super", the point is that a Shadowrun character needs to be good at something. If he's not effective somewhere, without anything worth contributing to the team, it's no fun for anyone.

Even your "non-powerful" concepts can be more fun if they can actually accomplish something, which means they're capable in some area.

Also: there's at least two cases of people initiating without knowing it from SR1: the guy I mentioned and Sam Verner. Additionally, all SR4.5 says is that it requires preparation and karma expenditure, not deliberate magical effort. Things like building your own sword, going on a walkabout, crafting your own lucky charm/religious icon, and so on, can all count. You can even do an Ordeal "accidentally", the magic-hunter "Mr. Nothing" might take on a hive of bug spirits, and earn a Deed. Even though TJ wouldn't play the concept, he has to admit it's interesting, and therefore fun for the right player. The only difference is, it's not deliberately gimped, and much more fun with a more interesting hook for the GM.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 03:57 AM

That's not the case. Draco18s said 'why would you ever play someone who can summon F3 spirits when you could just make one who can summon F6 all day long?'. Neraph said "it's fairly easy to build a character with 400 BP that matches or exceeds the capabilities of some of the most powerful NPCs depicted in the setting," and followed with the assertion that you therefore *should*. That's them talking 'super', not me. I'm not even talking powerful.

I lost count how many times I've said this about non-optimal characters: they *are* good for something. They *are* effective somewhere. They *are* contributing something. They *are* capable in some area. What they're *not* is 'optimal'.

It's a fine concept, if irrelevant. I was just surprised by the idea that they wouldn't be aware.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 4 2011, 04:07 AM

If by "easy" you mean "accidentally" then yes.

From my understanding, it's actually really hard to build a 400 BP character to be "less effective/useful/whatever" than a setting NPC.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 04:15 AM

*shrug*. When he says "the most powerful NPCs depicted in the setting", I give him the benefit of the doubt that's meant to be something relatively powerful. If he actually meant, 'all NPCs are crap', then I don't understand his statement at all.

Your sentiment seemed clear, as well: 'why be okay at magic (F3 spirits are very handy) when you could instead be awesome?' If I'm mis-stating your position, tell me. The way I read it (along with your following comments), you were saying that F3 spirits (or any character of that power level) is useless (by vice of not being optimal).

My constant point has simply been that F3-spirit-summoner (or equivalent) is not worthless, unfun, dragging the team down, etc., especially given that there are different power levels, amounts of combat, or other group/table variations. Cain distracted me into the subpoint that power is totally unrelated to fun, but it's really all the same.

Posted by: 3278 Nov 4 2011, 04:26 AM

It's no fun for you, and perhaps no fun for persons of your acquaintance. There are other people, however, who enjoy things which differ from the things you enjoy; for those people, it's possible to play a non-optimal, sub-optimal, or even downright useless character, and enjoy it as much or more than a more "effective" character. In fact, many players find it's the incapabilities, or "flaws," of a character which make it interesting or memorable. One of my most popular characters was the the Street Kid contact; I daresay he was less-than optimal, and he was fun for myself and the others at my table. The very fact that there are people in this thread saying, "I play sub-optimal characters and they're just as fun," should indicate that not everyone's experiences match your own; or are you under the impression you know what's fun for them better than they do?

Shadowrun's a big game, and it's played by an incredibly wide variety of people. It's great that you share your experiences at the table with other people; that's the reason forums like this exist. But it's a lot less helpful, and often completely unreasonable, to make absolutist statements like, "it's no fun for anyone," because while it might not be fun for you, or for persons in your experience, it's important to remember that the world is broader than our own experiences. Indeed, that's the purpose for sharing them at all.

Posted by: Cain Nov 4 2011, 04:55 AM

I have yet to see someone who played a truly "suboptimal" character that wasn't also a dramacopter. All the character/player could do was drown the others into their personal drama, which might *sound* like fun, but really blows chunks in the long run.

What I see is people saying they play "suboptimal" characters when they really mean "not min/maxed to hell and back again". Those sort of characters can be fun. But a deliberately gimped character, not good for anything? Nope, sorry. There's nothing they can bring to the table except maybe roleplay, and that roleplay is only about themselves. The original "Mr. Nothing" concept is an example: no magic, no drugs, no augmentations, no nothing. In SR4.5, there's nothing he can do that someone else can't do a hell of a lot better. But if you bend the concept a little, you can both be effective and an interesting character.

I will acknowledge that a character's flaws are just as interesting as his strengths. Any good personality should have its highs and lows, that's part of what makes a character. But concept-wise, what's the difference between someone who can only summon Force 3 spirits, versus the guy who can summon force 6's? Without knowing anything else, the more powerful guy sure sounds a lot better, because that means he can do more. Now, there might be atradeoff somewhere, more effectiveness in some other area, but it's hard to say. There's nothing to be gained from gimping a character, and a whole lot to lose.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 05:25 AM

Ugh. So boring. Your personal experience is not evidence. Power does not equal fun; it doesn't even equal 'the ability to do more things'. I shouldn't have to tell you the character-concept difference between a mage that can summon F6 spirits 'all day long' and one who can only manage F3; those are totally different concepts, just by that interacting with the setting.

A character who *can* summon F6 'all day long' *is* "min/maxed to hell and back again". We *are* talking about 'super' being the only thing that's good enough… and you're on my side of that (original, central) argument.

Even a 'deliberately useless' character (a weird edge case that other people brought up, I guess) is perfectly fine if it's fun for the group—this isn't impossible, unlikely, whatever. Bad roleplay is bad roleplay; it has nothing to with power. 'Drama' has nothing do to with power. Spotlight hogs are spotlight hogs, whether via mechanical power or 'just' roleplay.

Posted by: Cain Nov 4 2011, 08:01 AM

Actually, the character that can summon Force 12 spirits all day long is min/maxed to hell and back again. Force 6 is powerful, but not game stopping. Force 12's? Insane, and I've seen it in enough different environments that I know it's not just me. Summoning a force 6 at little risk is easy to do, it doesn't require significant cheese. Force 12's, now....

Power does not equal fun, but the ability to accomplish your character's goals does. What's the fun in not being able to accomplish anything? And the ability to accomplish things is a form of power, although admittedly it's not the only one.

Deliberately gimped characters, however, are universally no fun. Not only can they not actually do anything, they tend to drag others down with them. It's not just that they're inept, (that can be comical) but that they can't be relied on for anything. Role-playing games are team play games; you always rely on the other characters. What's more, they might be "roleplay characters", but if they don't have the stats to back it up, *they're not even good at that*. A fast talking street waif with Charisma 1, Con 0, isn't going to be able to convince anyone to give him spare change, let alone be able to convince a guard he's harmless. The player is relying on roleplay cheese, using superior roleplay skills to get things he should have spent points on. That's at least as bad as relying on superior system mastery skills.

Posted by: 3278 Nov 4 2011, 12:35 PM

Okay, sure, you have yet to see that, but that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist, right? I've never seen a black swan, but I hear they're real. Well, here's your black swan: several people in this thread have seen it, and while you can't see it for yourself until you play at our tables, surely the fact that several people are showing you pictures of their black swans means that you'll change your position from, "There are no black swans," to, "I've never personally seen a black swan, but I've heard they're real." Right?


This, by the way, is the initial assumption from which you're operating that is incorrect, and on which your other incorrect views are based. You're taking as a given that everyone equates "can do more" with "better," and many, many groups and individuals don't agree with this initial assumption. It's totally cool if you feel this way - I think a lot of people do - but other people feel differently; you probably want to avoid assuming your own experiences are universal, as a general rule, in roleplaying as elsewhere.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 01:32 PM

Cain. The theoretical character *can* accomplish something. Read that again. Stop arguing that he can't, and therefore isn't fun.

The elf example is a character whose stats don't fit his concept, so he's automatically bad and disqualified. The same goes for characters whose stats are too *high* for their concept.

F12-summoner would be even worse (if it's even a possibility), but someone who can consistently never take drain from F6's is plenty super, and they're plenty game-breaking.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 4 2011, 02:20 PM

F3 spirits can be useful, but personally F4 is right at the cusp of risk/reward for the most part. They're sturdy enough to have in a fight, but low force enough to be summonable with multiple services and generally doable without supercheese.

But I've had a character that could realistically only get services out of a F3 or lower spirit and looked at the possibilities and gone, "Ehhh...can't really justify it for the benefit." Concealment is awesome. Concealment at F2 is not awesome when you're trying to hide the Not Stealthy people and the stealth monkey doesn't need it.

Spirits have an exponential growth in power, so even being able to summon F4s over F3s is roughly "twice" as good, and doing that only takes tweaking.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 4 2011, 02:54 PM

Here's the problem, Cain.

Nobody on the other side of the argument is really talking about such completely useless characters.

The argument started off as "why would you not take maximum power on every character"?

The response was "Not every character needs to be Max Power, Joe Normal can be fun too."

No real mention was made about Bob Incompetent.


-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 02:59 PM

Certainly. I don't think anyone's denying that higher force is a huge increase in power; in fact, my point *is* that Mr.-F6 (all day long) is so vastly above Mr.-F3. A person who can summon those F6 is a totally different character.

In (re-re-re-)summary:
• F3 spirits are useful (non-zero usefulness)
• a character who brings F3 spirits is therefore useful
• a character who brings F3 spirits is a different (but useful) character from Mr.-F6
• Mr.-F3 can't be replaced by an identical-but-more-powerful (an inherent contradiction) character, Mr.-F6
• both are fine, fun, fitting, etc., depending on the game/table/group

I honestly can't see why any of this would be controversial. Notice there's nothing about 'bad players being good', 'worthless characters (another inherent contradiction) being good', or 'winning'.

Posted by: 3278 Nov 4 2011, 03:55 PM

Although in my experience, characters can still be comparatively pretty useless and still be pretty fun. For one thing, from a "winning" perspective, a good player can take a "man off the street" character - someone with all average attributes and no combat skills - and easily be as "powerful" as a bad player with a normal Shadowrun character.

That's not really my cup of tea, personally; I'm not really interested in "winning" with my characters. We recently started playing SR4 again after an extended break, and we made some really ineffective characters to start with. I really enjoyed playing them. Sometimes, we didn't succeed at things we intended to do; that was fun. Sometimes, we got injured when we didn't expect to; that was fun. Sometimes, things went horribly wrong and had long-term consequences for our characters; that was fun.

On a personal level, my character - a homeless, unemployed UCAS veteran whose shelter coordinator gets him "work" with a local fixer - is interesting to play, in large part because of the things he can't do. I didn't have to make a guy who lived on the streets; I could have taken some Allergy and given myself the points to give him an optimized lifestyle, and then he'd be able to do certain runs a lot more easily. But I'm not really interested in easy. There's not very much challenge in that, and the level of interesting human drama is much lower, as well. A character failing is compelling to me; a character just kicking ass and stopping briefly to pose heroically is not.

Ultimately, because the GM can tailor the challenge level to the capabilities of the characters, this is really a question about how challenging the game should be, isn't it? Or is it a question of relative "power level" within a group?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 04:26 PM

I'm saying that 'ineffective' or 'failing' characters are improperly labeled. If they're fun and animate (i.e., characters), they're not ineffective.

Posted by: Cain Nov 4 2011, 06:26 PM

A character who can only summon Force 3 spirits is actually an impossibility without deliberate gimping. The best you could do is force 2 or 4, and force 2 spirits can't even have an optional power.

You guys are missing the point. You're complaining that super character's aren't any more fun than optimized characters, which may be the case. However, you're making the fallacy that this extends to all characters, which isn't. For example:



Is demonstratably untrue. Sure, such a character might seem fun at first, due to sheer force of personality; but the moment you rely on them for something, they can't come through. The street kid who says he knows everybody is a great concept; but when it turns out everybody he knows hates his guts, (lots of Notoriety, Enemies, Charisma 1 and no Contacts) is an unworkable character concept. Having a street kid who actually *does* know everybody (lots of low-level contacts, decent social skills) is a workable concept, and a street kid with solid social skills and lots of contacts might be a pretty decent face. In other words, as the character gets more powerful, it only gets better.


That depends on roleplay cheese. In some ways that's worse than stat cheese, because you can have both. Roleplay cheese is when someone uses roleplay so he doesn't have to face weaknesses in a character, or derive in-game benefits that other people had to pay for. I had a PC in my game with Uncouth and no Etiquette try and roleplay his way out of many situations with Japanese characters, using his personal knowledge of the culture and character background to carry him through. He got really upset when I made him roll at full penalties, or didn't let him roll at all. He thought that because he had written his backstory using his knowledge of "proper Japanese culture", he shouldn't be penalized for it... and he wouldn't have been, if he hadn't taken Uncouth on top of it. That character sheet eventually got completely rewritten for other reasons, but all boiling down to the fact that he was so ineffective, he was actually dragging down the other players with his frustration.

Posted by: Paul Nov 4 2011, 06:33 PM

Nothing is more final on the internet than someone just saying "Not uh!"

Posted by: 3278 Nov 4 2011, 07:06 PM

When several people are holding up pictures of black swans and dude's still saying they don't exist, I'm not really sure what to say.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 4 2011, 07:07 PM

Cain, what you posit as fact or inevitable truth makes no sense. First, I stipulated that the character is fun as part of the 'if' proposition… you can't say that the character I stipulated is fun isn't fun. *If* the character is fun, *then* it's by definition not 'ineffective'.

'Deliberate gimping' is not at all the same thing as 'completely useless', so I don't understand why you're responding to the latter using the former. Even if it were true, just change the number to 2 or 4; same point. Your characterization of this 'street kid' concept is the same as the last straw man you set up: those stats don't match the concept, so you're not talking about the concept character at all. And then you repeat the other wrong idea that if 'decent kid' is good, then 'more powerful kid' is *better*. Illogical.

No one is claiming this: "You're complaining that super character's aren't any more fun than optimized characters". I'm saying that super (optimal) aren't more fun than *any* playable character; 'optimized' isn't even a meaningful concept.

The last bit sounds like you're just projecting bad experiences (again), because I didn't see anything implying that 'man off the street' was metagaming, cheesing, abusing anything. He just said that a 'normal'-stat character isn't a lump of dirt, but instead a human being who can do all kinds of things… things that are fun in an RPG.

Posted by: Cain Nov 5 2011, 06:07 AM

Making a character who isn't effective is "deliberately gimping" it, as your Mr. Nothing demonstrates. By playing an "inherently suboptimal" concept, you're deliberately making a less-effective character. Now, you can have fun with a character that isn't hyper-optimized, that much is true. But if you've got a character who can't even do one role as well as the other characters. So, mechanically speaking, it is less fun, especially for the other characters who have to cover your weak spots.

So, what's the gain of the suboptimal character? Power, defined as the ability to accomplish things? He doesn't have that. Roleplay? That depends more on the player, and you can actually make the concept more interesting by making it more effective.

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 5 2011, 06:10 AM

There *is* no character who isn't effective, (not my) Mr. Nothing isn't ineffective, and *again*, 'deliberately gimping' (an incredibly ugly phrase) is not the same as 'completely useless' or 'ineffective'.

And you're assuming the other characters are all better, though I've repeatedly said it depend on the group, game, and power level. There is no such thing as 'mechanically speaking less fun', especially if the other characters enjoy covering your weak spots.

Who said there was a gain? And no, there is absolutely no relationship between interesting and effective.

Though it's fully obvious, I'll point out anyway that these characters don't have to be extreme. Playing an over-the-hill version of (almost) any character is going to be 'weaker' than the 26 year old version of that character, but 26 is not an option, because the concept is an old guy. Changing the concept to 'old guy with cyber' is *changing the concept*, which shouldn't be done in service of a few +DP.

And this is completely commonplace and normal. Playing nearly anything that's blind is weaker than not doing that, and we know the BP gain is minor. Basically every Neg Qual is a 'mistake' (or cheesy loophole abuse), but if that's who the character is, that's who the character is. It doesn't make them less fun, or ineffective/useless/whatever. Taking away part of the finished character won't make them more fun.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 5 2011, 09:54 AM

This statement hurts my brain.



-k

Posted by: Cain Nov 5 2011, 01:40 PM

Let me get this straight. If you have a character who can't actually do anything well, has no real ability to reach his goals, you find that *fun*? I really think you're mis-stating something.

Characters are comprised of two parts: roleplay and stats. Deficiencies in either make the character less fun. That's just a given. And relying on one to make up for the other is a form of cheating. The pornomancer who never roleplays out a scene, only rolling dice, is just as bad as the Uncouth character who delivers flowery speeches and demands circumstance bonuses (or worse, a free pass because his roleplay was good).

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 5 2011, 02:07 PM

Again, Cain, where are you getting that anyone (besides you) is discussing completely useless characters?

Even in the post you quoted by Y, he opens with "and *again*, 'deliberately gimping' (an incredibly ugly phrase) is not the same as 'completely useless' or 'ineffective'."

The discussion was about "less optimal vs more optimal" not "useless vs useful".




-k

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 5 2011, 02:13 PM

Nope, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly said the opposite of this.

You haven't only been saying that 'deficiencies in stats make the character less fun' (already false). You've been saying that better stats make the character more fun (also false).

Posted by: 3278 Nov 5 2011, 03:39 PM

It's not a given. You're assuming the part of the issue that's being questioned, and thus not grasping the fact that people have "fun" in different ways.

Posted by: Irion Nov 5 2011, 04:01 PM

On a side note, it is quite hard to end up with a completly useless character in the first place. Using Karma-Gen I would go so far and tell you, that it is outright impossible unless intended badly.


I suspect Cain is along the line of Shadowrun-Diabolo, where the characters have to be skilled precicely to get the maximum synergie to survive in (I guess) combat.
The other extreme in video games would be Fallout 1/2. There going all combat helps you shit in the end. You still have a good chance of getting killed while the other guy just needs to make a simple negotiation test to get an even better effect. And in RPGs my impression is, that this is (having a good GM) even more that way.

I remember multible times where using one skill at the right moment was faster, easier and more rewarding than going into combat.

And with all the security equipment in shadowrun even the elven stripper with only muscle toner and low dicepools in firearms might easy get a job done, where the heavy cybered, special Agent Counterpart is failing.
Remembers me of the comic Order of the stick. Where the linear guild is shown as beeing the better "powergamers" but are still loosing all the time.

Posted by: Paul Nov 5 2011, 04:52 PM

I think Cain just likes to argue and would rather have the moderators close this thread than just say, "Hey maybe you're right. Other people have fun in different ways than I do." But then that kind of makes him a lot like a lot of posters on this board. Which why these sorts of threads end up with 500 replies, and the threads asking for story ideas end up with 60 or so.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 5 2011, 05:02 PM

The problem is that your definition of "Can't actually do anything Well" is completely different than most, if not all, of Dumpshockers. It definitely is not the definition that I (or the tables that I have gamed at) currently use. I really think that you are OVERSTATING something. Maybe for you, 10 dice is incompetant and useless, but not for me, and I would bet not for a lot of others.



Yes, they are, and if the Stats do not match the Concept, then something is wrong. If the character concept matches the stats given, how can you stand there (or sit there) and tell me the character is no fun. And no, obvisoulsy what you see as "Deficiencies" are not what others see. Stats do not equate to "Fun." It is how you translate the stats on the sheet into a living, breathing character that makes it fun. The mechanics have absolutely no say in how fun the character is. As others have said, the only one who has even mentioned "completely uselsess characters" is you.

Yes, A Magician (I will use this one as you have come back to it often enough) with a Magic of 3 is likely less powerful (note that I said powerful and not effective) than a Magician with a Magic of 6. This is common sense, and no one refutes that. However, I have often seen the Magic 3 magician as being MORE USEFUL (again, not more powerful, you will note) than the Magic 6 Magician. Why? Because the lower powered one must often be more devious. He does not have the reliance upon the OMG Spells that a Magic 6 Character often comes to rely upon. For me, the Magician with magic of 3 is going to be MORE FUN to play than the Magician with a Magic of 6. Why? Because I will have to actually think, rather than just rely upon the power that Magic 6 Brings (And I cannot tell you how many times I have seen powerful mages do just that, in numerous games).

Again, 10 Dice is more than competant in anything that you want to accomplish as set forth in the game world; I see that as useful, and able to carry your own weight. Is 16 dice "Better?" Maybe, but it depends upon what your definition of "Better" is. There is absolutely no doubt that Magic 6 is More Powerful than a Magic of 3... But you have admitted that you like games where characters have 20+ Dice in their primaries. In this case, The 10 Dice character will be much less useful. That is not MY problem, nor is it the PROBLEM of the Game System. That is a Local table condition that you have imposed. Please do not assume that we all like your level of play.

And here is the point everyone else seems to be making, that you seem to be missing. More Powerful does not necessarily equate to More Fun. At least not at their tables (nor mine). What constitutes fun, for me at least, is a well executed concept, with an adherence to backstroy and character development. I could care less about having DP's at twice the level of the standard NPC's in the game just becasue I can do so, and so I do not strive to approach that, especially at character creation. Everyone approaches the game differently, and you seem to be forgtetting that...

Anyways, No worries...

Posted by: Irion Nov 5 2011, 05:35 PM

@Tymeaus Jalynsfein

Unless we are talking about some uber statistic like magic (or even Force or Edge with free spirits) it is not that obvious what "powerful" even means.

There are two extrems of running a game:
First: Dungeoncrawl style
Second: Adventure Style.
The Dungeoncrawl style is very common in some older computer games, which involve a party with which you run over the map. Every skill of every party member is usable all the time. So it is important to have some extreamly high skills for each character, some defancive skills and everything else would be a waste.

The Adventure style means that a certain character has to perform a certain action at a certain point.
Leading to a main field of expertice in one and low to medium knowledge in many.

For the mage the best example is a situation with BC.
If you are dealing with BC 6 it does not matter if you had magic 6, a spellcasting focus 5 and a powerfocus 4 or just magic 3. It is gone now.

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 5 2011, 06:13 PM

Except that Cain contends that Power is synonomous with Fun, a stance that I do not hold to... If you Have issues with that, talk to Cain.

Posted by: Cain Nov 5 2011, 06:26 PM

I actually haven't given a specific dice pool range. The problem is, however, that if 10 dice is average and you have no pool over 10-ish dice, then you're a completely average character. Which in turn means you've got what's the least fun concept to play: a character with no strengths or flaws, and has nothing mechanical to connect to roleplay. So while the exact value of average varies from table to table, a sub-average character is not much fun, and a completely average character is usually worse. that pretty much means the most fun will be with an above-average character. Place whatever dice pool value on that you like, but I see everyone doing that with their characters.


Never once seen it. In fact, quite the opposite: the low-Magic characters I've sween comes from low-experience players at Missions games, who tries to be more useful by generalizing out his skills. So, instead of being good at one thing, he's average at a lot of things. The Magic 6 character, using the SR4.5 system, can easily come out within a die or two in the other skill areas, and still be better at magic. This is true for all specialists: it's easy to give a character a focus, and not be gimped elsewhere. It's also easy to lose focus of a character, in an attempt to be useful.

Characters without focal points are definitely less fun to play. That's just a core concept of roleplaying.

I'm not saying that more powerful = more fun. I'm saying that deliberately weak = less fun. See the difference?

If you want to play a face, and you've got good social dice pools (whatever those might be for your table) that's fine. If you want to play a pornomancer, that can be fine as well, if your table can handle it. But if you want to play a face with Cha 1 and Uncouth, because it's a "role playing challenge", you're asking for a whole lot of no fun for everyone. Even less extreme, if you build a face who doesn't have noticeably better social dice pools than the rest of the party, you're still asking for no fun. (And despite what KarmaInferno says, it's all too easy to gimp a character like that, even under karmagen.)

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 5 2011, 07:01 PM

This is mere opinion.
'Focal points' doesn't equal 'powerful areas'.
In fact, you specifically said more powerful was more fun several times.
Then you're not a face, and the mechanics don't fit the concept.
Again, that's your bare opinion. It doesn't logically follow from anything.

Posted by: Irion Nov 5 2011, 07:10 PM

Depends on how you like the game.
If you like to go with a smart plan against a superior opposstion, beeing more powerful, compared to the game world would kind of ruin your day, I guess.
If you like to just kick NPCs well, more power is always better...

@Cain

Depends on the group. This character can be, if played the right way, be a lot of fun and contribute to an evening everybody will remember.

Going at something with low statistics only armed with a big pair of balls/ignorance is mostly just hilarious, if you are a good actor...
And if you make it through a luck roll it is even better...
A Rincewind character played by a "good" roleplayer. Hell, the group will probably need to be transported to the hosptial because of injuries sustained by extensive laughing

Posted by: Cain Nov 5 2011, 07:42 PM

No, it can mean both. But if all you've got is weak areas and no fun/strong areas, you're deliberately gimping a character.

I've also clearly said that super powerful != super fun. However, less powerful does equal less fun, especially to the degrees we're discussing.

I've seen in often enough in many different games. Because the player knows he can deliver powerful speeches, he ignores or outright dumps social skills and instead relies entirely on roleplay. Heck, I just had it happen. It's not that it doesn't fit the concept, it's that it's cheese and cheating.

More often it's a recipe for disaster. Deliberately playing up your weak spots can be fun, but an inability to deliver when needed isn't fun at all. Rincewind doesn't pretend he's actually good at anything but running, so he gets away with it. But to be fair, in SR4.5 terms Rincewind would have an Edge of 12 and a Magic of -200, so he would be utterly helpless at magic but great in the pinch.

Posted by: Cain Nov 5 2011, 07:42 PM

No, it can mean both. But if all you've got is weak areas and no fun/strong areas, you're deliberately gimping a character.

I've also clearly said that super powerful != super fun. However, less powerful does equal less fun, especially to the degrees we're discussing.

I've seen in often enough in many different games. Because the player knows he can deliver powerful speeches, he ignores or outright dumps social skills and instead relies entirely on roleplay. Heck, I just had it happen. It's not that it doesn't fit the concept, it's that it's cheese and cheating.

More often it's a recipe for disaster. Deliberately playing up your weak spots can be fun, but an inability to deliver when needed isn't fun at all. Rincewind doesn't pretend he's actually good at anything but running, so he gets away with it. But to be fair, in SR4.5 terms Rincewind would have an Edge of 12 and a Magic of -200, so he would be utterly helpless at magic but great in the pinch.

Posted by: 3278 Nov 5 2011, 07:48 PM

On a subjective issue like this one, that's the only right answer. Anything else is just trolling.

Posted by: Irion Nov 5 2011, 07:50 PM

Only if failing can not be fun. And to be honest: The best storys consist of the heroes actually failing...
It is quite a good thing in a dystopien setting...

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 5 2011, 07:51 PM

"no fun/strong areas". Not related.

I didn't say you said that, though. You're the one who lied about what you said: 'more powerful means more fun'.

Yes, and that's metagaming and cheating. We agree. It is bad, but it is totally unrelated to this.

Posted by: Cain Nov 5 2011, 08:03 PM

Actually, it's the same thing as using stats alone and never roleplaying, just with a mirror to it.

You're pulling a straw man, since I've repeatedly said that super powerful != super fun. More powerful is always more fun, but that was always with the definition of power being the ability to accomplish things, not a fixed number of dice as TJ or you implies. I'm not talking about power in the ability to leap tall buildings, but in the ability to achieve character goals. What's the point of creating a character who can never succeed at anything? Or worse, is overshadowed by everyone he meets?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 5 2011, 08:30 PM

Yes, they're both bad. We agree. It's just not related to this.

No, I'm not at all. I'm saying what you said. You *just* now said it again. "More powerful is always more fun"; no, not even 'up to, but not, including super'. Power is *not* related to character goals.

Now, again, I never said anything about "can never succeed at anything". Repeatedly the opposite. And the idea that someone who *can* do things, but is 'overshadowed' is *worse* than useless? Sigh.

Posted by: KarmaInferno Nov 5 2011, 11:53 PM

I dunno, my focus for my Prime Runner Missions character is "cranky old man".

He's ancient, has asthma, is infirm, and is decidedly not a social master. Most of his dice pools are decent but not spectacular.

But he's a blast to play. and no, I don't "cheat" by using roleplay to overcome weak dice pools. Stuff he's bad at, I play him as being bad at. His main strength is being prepared for nearly ANYTHING, and that while difficult to pull off in play, that has nothing to do with stats.

I have yet to play at a table where he was considered useless. Most of the time I get the reaction, "Cool character."




-k

Posted by: 3278 Nov 6 2011, 01:09 AM

Yeah, our table really appreciates flawed characters, as well. We used to raise it to an art form: one of our best players used to have a character who had killed the entire rest of the team [on purpose] more than once [and covered it up, obviously]. Far from angering the other players, people used to regularly request that he be played. But at our table, you knew that's what you were getting into: absolutely anything might happen. Runs pretty regularly didn't get completed, characters regularly made some horrible error that cost everyone dearly, with their players consciously choosing to make that error because it was in character.

We've mostly got that kind of gonzo roleplaying out of our systems now [most of us, anyway; I never quite have that out of my system], and we play as teams, and we definitely do our best to complete adventures in roughly the way the GM envisions, but the characters people think are the most fun - to play and to play with - still aren't strongly correlated with the most effective characters.* I don't enjoy playing Kaas because he's good at getting the job done, I enjoy him because I love doing Kaas' voice. Other people at the table don't enjoy me playing Lil Buddha because he's effective, they enjoy me playing him because they like seeing the results of making decisions the way he would make decisions, which often is very different from what we personally might find most effective. ["I shoot him in the face." "You shoot...I'm sorry, you don't mean your fixer, do you?" "Yeah. I shoot him in the face. For a little while."]

But the players we play with enjoy a certain type of game; not every player fits at our table because not everyone enjoys the kind of lawless metagame we do. Some people want a pretty straight-up game, where there's a defined party, and everyone's got the same goals, and you go from job to job kicking ass and getting beat up and kicking some more ass. Some people don't like that a lot of our players speak in character: accents and voices seem lame or pretentious to them, or make them feel self-conscious. Those people probably aren't going to fit at our table, and more power to them: we try to find them another local group that they'll fit better with, and they go with our good wishes. What we don't do is tell them they don't understand what fun is, and that they're doing their fun wrong.

*And "most effective character" still doesn't strongly correlate with "has the biggest dice pools."

Posted by: Tymeaus Jalynsfein Nov 6 2011, 02:53 AM

You are wrong, Cain. Point Blank Wrong. More Powerful does not equal More Fun. Get over yourself... Who is talking about never succeeding at anything? Oh wait, that would be you. You keep saying that, and no one else is. Get it?

It really seems that at this point, you are just trolling for reactions. As smart as you are, I really am having a hard time believing that you do not get it.

Posted by: Cain Nov 6 2011, 03:26 AM

Without power, at least as I define it, you're not going to achieve his goals. I mean, what's the point of playing a face if the otaku can do the face job better than you can? Power, to me, is capability. Playing a character without capability-- an incapable character, in other words-- is inherently non-fun. Flawed characters can be fun, as 32 correctly points out; but incapable is not the same thing as flawed.

I don't know what you guys are defining power as, but without the capacity to reach the character's goals, the game isn't going to be much fun. That applies regardless of what game or style of play you're looking at. If you fail every dice roll, what's the point in even having dice? Or any option to succeed at all?

Posted by: Yerameyahu Nov 6 2011, 03:41 AM

Again, again, *again*: I didn't ever say 'no power'. I never, ever said 'no capability'. I did not say, 'fail every dice roll'.

I said, 'less is fine'. I said, 'fun is not related to power in any way'. I said, 'more power is not more fun'.

Posted by: Method Nov 6 2011, 04:58 PM

A.) The current conversation is off topic.
B.) Generally speaking if you have to restate your point more than twice, nothing productive is going to come of it.
C.) The tone of the current conversation is degenerating toward ToS violations.

Lets move along folks.

Posted by: Draco18s Nov 7 2011, 01:30 AM

So glad this is still going without me.