exceptional attribute quality = 7 Reaction (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

that's assuming a human driver, of course...

Don't forget specializations for your Nascar driver:

Pilot Ground Vehicle (Left Turns)

I thought the NASCAR driver spec looks like Pilot Ground Vehicle (Vehicle Crash Test)

I'm sure there's some positive quality we're not thinking of, either.

NASCAR "cars", seems more like the skill would be Pilot Aircraft (Ground Driving)

Nas should have. He might have gotten out of the bottom of that wreck in better shape than he did. Of course, it was the fire that got him...

Explain to the player that playing a shadowrunner with no magic or 'ware is bad roleplaying. A lot of people seem to think that good roleplaying equals playing a crappy characters, which is false. In the shadows, you are either good at your job, or you are dead. There is an arms race in the criminal underworld, people are always upgrading their tech to be better than their opposition, and their opposition does the same.

A real life example, the Thompson Submachine gun was orginally rejected for use by most law-enforcement divisions, who didn't think they needed it, but when the criminals and the mob god ahold of them police upgraded to the weapon themselves. If you don't take the advantage, someone else will.

Shadowrunning is one of the most dangerous professions out there, so anyone going into that field is going to take any advantage they can, up to and including 'ware. If they don't start with 'ware, getting shot up a few times will make them reconsider.

So, OOB, you're saying something like my "Accountant From Hell" build is "Bad Roleplaying"?

Because, from a certain point of view, what you're suggesting is more like "Roll"playing.

No. He's saying that gimping your character is bad roleplaying, especially in a team play game where others will have to carry your weight. I'm emphasizing the "play" part of roleplay here-- you're playing a cooperative game, but not cooperating, when you run a gimped character. The same thing applies with attention whores and power gamers. They may or may not be roleplaying, but they're definitely not helping the game be more fun.

I've discovered the term "Rollplaying" only gets trotted out when someone accuses gimpy players of not contributing fully to a game. I don't want to get into a battle over it, but I will say that I've seen plenty of "rollplay" characters go on to be some of the best-played characters out there. And I can't count the number of "roleplay" characters who were so gimped, they were no fun to be around and dragged down the game for everyone else. Rollplay vs. Roleplay is a matter of personal choice and player ability, not something you can enforce.

To assume that Rollplaying and Roleplaying are mutually exclusive is a fallacy.

You can be strong in both. Or weak in both.

That said, I strongly disagree with the idea that "playing a shadowrunner with no magic or 'ware is bad roleplaying". It is entirely possible to build an effective skills-focused character with no magic or 'ware. It's harder, but doable with the right selection of qualities and gear. Remember that much cyberware can be replicated with gear, and a lot of tasks you'd do with magic can also be done using mundane tools.

A skills & gear focused character needs to do a lot more planning ahead, however. One of the great strengths of magic is that it's flexible, a caster can switch spells on the fly or summon just the right spirit for the job. The 'mundane' character will have to carry the gear or know the skills ahead of time. It's a little cliche, but think Batman. His greatest strength is in tactics and planning.




-k

And adaptability. The first casualty is always the plan.

You plan for contingency where the plan fails.

And then you plan for if that fails.

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-k

A mundane character is an interesting challenge for an experienced player, and can be viable - because Shadowrun is a very tactical game. But it is usually not a good choice for a new player, who will have enough of a hard time absorbing the rules and setting.

Also, it depends on the type of campaign, and the characters played by the other players. The GM himself said the character would have been great for a low-powered campaign, but the other players were playing pros. If the other players were all playing gangers and street punks, then there would be the same problem if this player was bringing in a badass sammie with face and driving abilities.

To me, an augmented character is hardly "roll-playing" - it's playing a character who fits the setting. It is an unaugmented character who actually takes more background to justify - why is this character running the shadows, competing against people with (usually) a huge edge against him? Why has he shunned technology when it is such a logical thing for someone in such a dangerous and competitive vocation?

Which I agree with, but what counts as "gimping your character" is very much going to vary (like so very, very, much else in Shadowrun) from game to game. A worthless piece of crap in one game, based on one GM's interpretation of how gameplay works and NPC competence levels and that sort of thing could be a powerful generalist in someone else's game.

No one wants to have a derp derp derp hanging out just dragging the group down, taking a share of the money, botching all the Infiltration checks, screwing up all the social scenes, and throwing grenades at the party in the middle of every firefight, for sure. But I disagree with the implication that every mundane, non-cybered, character is that guy (if that's an implication you were intending to make).

/dev/grrrl?

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-k

I just find it hard to believe that someones who job regularly includes the exchange of small lead object flying at supersonic speeds would not at some point in their career get performance enhancing 'ware, even if only a synaptic booster and muscle toner. This is a setting where cybereyes and datajacks are considered normal, and the only people who care about a little essence loss have magic. Your foes will certainly have 'ware, why shouldn't you? If you had religious or ethical concerns about 'ware, I think you're in the wrong job.

That's not to say there absolutely cannot be a 'ware-less runner(though driver is kinda a bad roll for someone without consistent access to multiple passes), but those characters would likely be super specialists in a larger team, and most certainly would not be in the line of fire if it would be at all avoided(after all, after surprise, initiative passes is the most important factor in combat). Since most runner teams have between 3 and 5 runners, it's not unfair to assume that they can all fight, and it's also not fair to make everyone else work with The Load, when most runners wouldn't be caught dead with someone who can't fight on even grounds with augmented opposition.

The trickiest part is that oftentimes those players who wish to eschew augmentations are rarely any more open to making use of combat drugs either. I mean, I managed to run a character that was built around the notion of actually using Spell Knack halfway successfully, so I can say from personal experience that some fairly gimpy character concepts can be bootstrapped into something resembling competence.* But with that said, I flexed my Munchkin-Fu muscles harder on that project than I do on my "regular" sheets making up for his weaknesses, since I had to use a pinch of creativity just to make sure he could fill a niche the team was otherwise pretty hopeless in. Even then, he still wouldn't have been a good fit for a truly high-powered group. Frankly, I'd say if anything the mundo characters do worse on a large team with a decent amount of resources, since collectively a 5+ man group usually has a fair set of contacts and can get a hold of skillwires or whatever. My mundane character, by contrast, often got by through saying "Hey, I know a guy who..." whenever our 4 man group started to hit a snag.

*For those who are curious, he was built around having good social skills, 5 body, 6 Edge, Spell Knack: Influence and a Trust Fund. Being able to plant low Force magical suggestions "stealthily" through Edge uncapping is a neat trick that helped make up for the lack of things like Tailored Pheromones and the Trust Fund helped keep him in combat drugs and Immortal Flower for when things got hairy.

No one should be a "driver."

R6 Command program (easy) +2 hotsim bonus +1 commlink optimization bonus -1 to all thresholds (basically the same as +3 dice.) 3 passes.
All for less than one BP worth of gear.

It's technology.
It makes things easier and better.

I don't agree that the mundane, non-cybered character is always gimped, if that's what you mean. That said, it *is* a serious disadvantage, and not for a novice player. I've seen both magical and cybered characters that were utterly useless in Sr4.0; there's no reason for 4.5 to be any different. With the attribute and skill caps being what they are, a noncybered mundane will hit the glass ceiling much quicker.

However, someone playing a noncybered mundane might be out to gimp his character for "roleplay" reasons, which actually makes no sense. If he's playing a shadowrunner, he needs every edge he can get to survive. No team would want him, because there's nothing he can contribute. Even worse are the players who do this sort of thing so they can act all holier-than-thou, and tell you how you should play your character. I've dealt with my share of those players.

Well, you all forget about the one and only RULE OF COOL.
Meaning the normal human driver will always get away, because he is COOLER.


@KarmaInferno

Not from the start. But since the rules do not stick to reason everytime, they exclude each other as soon as the "ROLLplay" solution goes againt reason, because the rules...
There is more than one Situation, where ROLL stants against Role.

In general:
Cyberware for a Face is kind of problematic. Cyberwarescanners are everywhere. And you do not want to be seen as the crazy guy with wired Reflexes.
So to start with none is not such a "bad" move, if you play realistic.
And if you insist on fights, yes the group with the focus on combat will have the edge.
But on the other hand it is close to no streatch to make "you sounded the alarm" to a death sentance for everybody with heavy cyberware or magic. (The once without might be able to blend in as civilians and be ignored by the strike team butchering the rest.)

On the other hand I could imagine CanRay "Accountant From Hell" standing with a box of flowers in the middle of the strike team searching for Runners and the only thing he gets is the direction to the office he claims he was ordered to deliver the flowers to. Well, and some heads shaking over the incompetance of regular security, who did not even see this guy enter.

If you do not look dangerous, you are not considered so. And in a world where everyone tries to keep the edge with cyberware, well the guy without cyberware is less than not dangerous. Who knows he is carrying tons a military grade hacking programms on his commlink. Because since he has no datajack, he can not be a hacker. Can he?
You might think this is unrealistic, but it is what happens evey day. In germany there is a book, written by a former homicide detective about some of his cases.
In one case the police had a very good description of a subject of several rapes and attempted murders. The scetch they had resambled the guy like a photograph.
This guy was checked out by the police several times (of police officers knowing the scetch).
And nobody thought he might be it, so he was never taken in.
Because he was small and seemed harmless (which was also part of the description). (He was called the "Messerzwerg" "Knife dwarf".)
As a matter of fact this scatch was displayed in the bar he worked in. (And there are several things like it. Humans tend to believe what they want to believe.)

This means: If you do not look like a runner. There is a high probability even high good security will let you walk no matter the indications.
Because they are all looking for cybered up Hacker, SAM etc. Such a guy would not even a problem for the head of the office with his knew muscle augmentations for ego. And every second they waste on you is a second the badass gets away, kills the boss, rapes the secretary, blows up the building etc.

Like I asked before: how well does the player know the SR system?

It isn't uncommon for a new player to want to play a "vanilla normal human" at first. Because they don't really realize how much more powerful everyone else will be. Only when they see implants and adept powers in action will it really sink in.

Face it: most 1st-time characters suck. Because SR is a fairly difficult system to build a good character in. There is a lot to be said for letting everyone completely re-build their character after the first mission, so they can use what they've learned about the game system as players. Until you've played it, it's just very hard to estimate what all the numbers really mean.

Agreed. I usually take the Missions approach. Let the new player choose from the archetypes for the first session with the understanding that he or she will (re-)make the character his or her own after the first mission. On the other hand, even some of the archetypes aren't "optimized". For example, I found the Combat Mage to be too much of a generalist to be really good at the what I wanted him to do well (magic). I'm also unlucky enough as a player that I don't leave the house with a character under 4 Edge...and preferably higher.

@Ascalaphus

I call you on this one. As a matter of fact I think it is quite easy to build a good char in shadowrun.
First off all, you should start with a mage, because there are much less books to know. (This was my first char, because I did not fell like going through all the augmentations and combat rules, weapons etc. And since playing a mage is the same in SR, D&D and so forth you can use your know how from other games)
Well, and off you go with the strongest class. What a hit. (I think the group had corebook, arsenal and augmentation at this time)

So next the attributes. Since I read the Karma and BP rules (it was 3BP for attributes then) I thought to myself:
Well logic and intuition look pretty need, because I get Bonus BP. They pay for themselves. And one is my drain stats. Nice one.
A alright, willpower is the other, so lets take another five there and my only Bonus as human is Edge so lets get it to 6 (since it said to led you survive stupid situations. And as a new player you get in those a lot)
Well, a bit Charisma for the spirits. Reaction or strenght from one to two would just increase the possibility of a glitch, and would be cheap later so what the hell, did not have the BP for it anyway.
Well, as for flaws and edges. I had already spend 15 BP on magician. As I wanted to play a healer (since healer are very well liked in other games) I went for the biotechgroub and the flaw pazifist 1 and in dept (because it fitted the background story and it a similar disadvantage was known to me from other games). (And some others I can't remember)
As for the spells I was shocked to learn, that you could take spells all over the board.
So I took things like Stunbolt (since I did not want to kill), Shapchance, heal, heal disease, increase Willpower, Influance, Control thoughts and some other stuff.
Then I got some cyberware not much tought. Just a datajack(because I was told this was common) and Cybereys for visibility.
(If you go with the Karma generation even the stuff about getting attributes high is not nessecary anymore)


Which is, as a matter of fact, not that stupid. If you manage to survive the first run. Which is not that hard, because the opposition does normaly not start maxes out to the end. So you spend your first money on cyberware. Since you get to benefit from the easy ways of getting stuff in game (availability test) you just might get your muscle toner of 4 right after the first two to three runs. So if you max out edge it is quite efficient.

It is possible to build nearly any basic concept in Shadowrun and optimize it to sometimes silly powerful levels. That is one of the great strengths of the game system. Sometimes it requires you to optimize... differently, though. Think sideways.

Alright, you've inspired me to go make a 'mundane' character. As per the original post, he will be a driver and a face.

I fully expect him to be able to keep up with any team without having anyone needing to carry him.

I'll post him when I'm done.



-k

Not to mention the Handling Characteristics of the Vehicle itself.