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cREbralFIX
post Aug 11 2009, 01:51 PM
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This is in reference to several comments scattered about the Doctor thread:

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...=27564&st=0

I feel it deserves its own thread because I see a massive calibration problem in the attitudes of many players. I see a definite trend toward level "6" in skills as much as possible. Perhaps it comes from people simply expecting hack-n-slash games.

Level "3" is "Professional". That means the character can make a living at it. He or she is competent...journeyman level, so to speak. Call it a level of performance after internship to two years. A doctor who never sees anything too complex may stay at a "3" for his or her entire career.

The problem comes in with PLAYERS of the game (players include GMs). Suddenly, everything has to be maxed out. I love to look at character sheets and find 22-30 year old characters of average intelligence with Nobel Prize level performance in various skills that take decades to achieve.

When people start speaking of having level "6" just to become a doctor tells me there's a problem in the game. Additionally, when people say they blow almost every roll with a maxed out PC...then there's definitely a problem with the game. A proactive GM would solve the problem by changing the difficulty level, incorporating lab tests and gear to add dice to the roll and allow collaboration with other doctors to increase the odds of success.

Not that any of this matters. It's fighting the wanker gamer culture.
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Ancient History
post Aug 11 2009, 01:54 PM
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The game expands to fill the needs of the players in it.

And wants.

And whims.

And whimsies.
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Brazilian_Shinob...
post Aug 11 2009, 02:17 PM
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My infiltrator/hacker character that I'm currently playing has skills around level 3. The only skill he has really high is Perception (5).
On the other hand, I spent almost the 200 points cap for attributes.
It is a 30-year old elf with Agility 6 ((IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) , Reaction 5, Intuition 5 and Logic 5 (7, cerebral booster, I love you (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif) )
He has a lot of potential and already has some experience (he is a Yakuza assassin on the run from them)

On the other hand, my munchkin friend is playing a Mage with Magic 6, all the most relevant skills for casting and counterspelling 6 (with specializations) and a lot of Foci (who the GM will start to roll for addiction). (and this character is supposed to be a early 20's years old human).
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CodeBreaker
post Aug 11 2009, 02:26 PM
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The thing is that the Players are special, at least they are at my Table. They are not just some people off the street doing a day job, they are highly trained professionals who are in the Shadows because they are either very good at something, or quite good at everything else. However agree, I do not like the general move towards having everything as high as possible, and personally I found the whole “Doctorate because of the Skill Table Examples� skewed. The example given for PhD level was a Knowledge skill, and my table has always been very lax about Knowledge skills (They do not count towards the whole only allowed one level six skill at CC thing). And I also believe that getting that high a Knowledge skill, compared to an active skill, would be so much easier that the Table might in fact be about correct.

And I think your comment about the “wanker gamer� thing is poorly chosen. Perhaps some degree of Geek Supremacy, my gaming style is better than your gaming style? If people choose to play high power games more power to them. It doesn't really influence me, none of my group reads Dumpshock and I actively suppress my Min-Max side (apart from when I am just playing with numbers)
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StealthSigma
post Aug 11 2009, 02:50 PM
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I had gone through a couple iterations of creating my character where I initially had a lot of 3s, 4s, and 5s. I realized I didn't like that and spread it out a lot more and now have skills between 1 and 5, with the majority clustering around 2-3.
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Ol' Scratch
post Aug 11 2009, 03:31 PM
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I've never understood why people think having characters with maxed out attribute scores is okay, but maxed out skill scores somehow makes you an insane munchkin who is horribly broken in all ways imaginable.

It's also pretty crazy to accept the skill rank charts as having any real meaning whatsoever when it comes to player characters. Shadowruns, as previously mentioned, are special. They're supposed to be exceptionally trained or talented in their particular fields and more than competent in a few other basic areas (such as stealth and the ability to use a firearm). If you're running the shadows as an ordinary schmuck with a skill set and attribute array similar to the average person, what's the point in anyone hiring you over anyone else? The shadows are all about specialization.

That said, trying to rationalize that you're a good gamer by saying you have all these skills in the 1-2 range, but then bragging about how you maxed out your attributes to unbelievable levels (most people are in the 3 range there, too) is pretty darn silly and more than a little hypocritical. Especially when you consider how cheesy it is rules-wise considering one attribute applies to multiple skills and tests while one skill only applies to a limited number of situations.
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Rasumichin
post Aug 11 2009, 03:34 PM
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QUOTE (cREbralFIX @ Aug 11 2009, 01:51 PM) *
This is in reference to several comments scattered about the Doctor thread:

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...=27564&st=0

I feel it deserves its own thread because I see a massive calibration problem in the attitudes of many players. I see a definite trend toward level "6" in skills as much as possible. Perhaps it comes from people simply expecting hack-n-slash games.


Hack n slash isn't really the appropriate term here, i think.
HnS sounds too much like simplistic, kick-in-the-door style gaming without much tactical, let alone strategical consideration.
Not the kind of game i'd love to play in anymore, i prefer gaming styles with a strong emphasis on creative problem solving, social interaction, a lot of planning and downtime...and dice pools you'd most likely consider obscenely inflated.
Not because i go for 6's in as many skills as possible, but because i love to pile on as many bonus dice as possible.
Much cheaper and more efficient than jacking up the basic dice pool.
I want my characters to be able to do something, to have a tangible effect on the gameworld, so that i have more ways to actively participate in the creation of a story.

And that's a lot easier when your PC actually has a chance to succeed at tasks that go beyond what Joe Average could do.
Because seriously, shadowrunners regularly participate in tasks that would make Joe Average shit his pants in sheer terror.

QUOTE
Level "3" is "Professional". That means the character can make a living at it. He or she is competent...journeyman level, so to speak. Call it a level of performance after internship to two years. A doctor who never sees anything too complex may stay at a "3" for his or her entire career.


Yes, of course.
But how often does that doctor have to treat a heavily cybered teammate with multiple gunshot wounds while he's dodging bullets in an open sewer and the group's mage has to battle a hostile spirit just two meters away from the emergency operation?

Seriously, take a look at the table for First Aid modifiers, it takes more than 12 dice (medkit included) to reliably treat your team's tank or spellslinger under field conditions.

QUOTE
When people start speaking of having level "6" just to become a doctor tells me there's a problem in the game.


Yes, the problem's called "people who don't read up on minmaxing and therefore depend on a skill rating of 6 to have a double-digit dicepool" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

QUOTE
Additionally, when people say they blow almost every roll with a maxed out PC...then there's definitely a problem with the game. A proactive GM would solve the problem by changing the difficulty level, incorporating lab tests and gear to add dice to the roll and allow collaboration with other doctors to increase the odds of success.


Yeah, that's what a doctor in a hospital would most likely do.
According to Augmentation, hospitals regularly include gear counting as a rating 10 medkit, so a doctor with Skill 3 and Logic 4 should very well be able to work with that under sterile conditions, especially if aided by qualified coworkers.
In most cases however, it is rather unlikely that the medic of a shadowrunner team is hauling a full-fledged operation theatre complete with medical staff with him in his backpack...
So it may be advisable to choose that your PC packs a higher dicepool before adding in external gear, teamwork tests and so on.


Of course, you are free to run a low-level game where average people succeed at average tasks.
Nothing wrong with that.
Nor would it be wrong to run a gritty, gutter-level game in the Barrens, where average people most often desperately fail at above-average tasks.
High PC lethality is a long-standing, respectable gaming tradition and i applaud everyone who makes the bold move away from the present-day level-appropriate, wish-fulfillment, safeguard-included gamer culture for pampered geeks living out their superhero fantasies.

But there's other alternatives around as well, and some include taking over the metroplex with dicepools in the low- to mid 20s.
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Backgammon
post Aug 11 2009, 03:39 PM
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The answer is that it's relative, so everybody loses 2 internets for trying to give an absolute answer.

It depends ENTIRELY on the power level set by the GM. Does the GM routinely put rating 3 maglock in your way or rating 6 ones? Your dice pool size should reflect the strength of obstacles put in your way. Period.
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the_real_elwood
post Aug 11 2009, 03:52 PM
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Yeah, I really just can't make myself care about what anyone else might do in their game with respect to skill or attribute scores.

But I will say that if I'm gonna spend my time playing Shadowrun, I want my character (and teammates) to be a bunch of stone-cold badasses who do amazing things. Playing low-powered characters who spend their days knocking over the local stuffer shack just isn't appealing to me. But if you like playing low-powered characters, more power to you. Good roleplaying isn't what you play, it's how you play it.
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Method
post Aug 11 2009, 05:13 PM
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Nothing says "troll" like starting off your thread by calling a bunch of
people wankers.

Awesome.
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the_real_elwood
post Aug 11 2009, 05:36 PM
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At least he didn't break out the "rollplayer". I hate it when people use that one too, and pretty much stop reading as soon as someone says it. As long as no one's cheating to get skill ratings of 6 at chargen, then what's the problem? If you don't like the rules, then houserule it for your game or play a different system.
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tsuyoshikentsu
post Aug 11 2009, 05:57 PM
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Agreed. We have a PBS here -- Problem Behind Screen.
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Malachi
post Aug 11 2009, 06:01 PM
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I think a good part of it is meta-game thinking (or lack thereof). RPG Gamers just tend towards wanting to max out their character. I don't think there's anything really "wrong" with that, it's just something that people tend to do. When walking something through creating an SR character and they get to a skill they really want their character to be good at they'll ask, "What's the max?" It often doesn't matter if you say "6, but that should be rare" they just hear "6" because "that's the max." Since there are no game-rules consequences for taking a skill at 6, beyond the fact that you can only get 1 of them at chargen, the real "gamey" gamers will see anyone with a skill less than 6 as "not awesome."

The real unfortunate thing with SR4 (and I saw it in my first reading of the rules) is a problem I call "compression of scale." Basically, with only 7 levels skill (and all of those being attainable at chargen) there isn't enough "room" for the GM to tell some of the stories they may want to tell. The limited number of levels makes it difficult to really put into game mechanics how much better Super Guy A should be in relation to the Average Guy B. Worse yet, because 7 is achievable at chargen, it massively cheapens what that level of skill is supposed to represent. Like it or not, gamers react strongly (often mostly strongly) to the mechanics of a PC or NPC rather than their "fluff" description. If the players meet some hardened spec ops veteran, that they probably should greatly respect (if not revere) and find out that he has an Automatics skill of 5 they will react differently. Most "muncher" players will become almost dismissive of the character ("pffft... I could build a character better than him"). FastJack is supposed to be the "best decker (hacker) in the world." So what's his Hacking skill? By the chart it should be 7. But I can make a starting character with the same skill level, so that (IMO) cheapens the achievement. I realize this is a design decision that the SR4 team made, and it does give a great deal of freedom to the players to make pretty much any character with any background they want, but I think the drawbacks outweigh the advantages.

In games where the crunch forces your character to start "weak" you are often limited in how you can create your character background. You are pretty much "forced" to create a character that is just "starting out." Some may find this limiting. SR gives a player the freedom to create, say, someone who was part of the original Echo Mirage team and has just come out of "exile" now on some secret personal mission. This person should quite likely have best-in-the-world level Hacking abilities. The system allows this, and that's a good thing. However, the baggage that comes with this freedom is part of the "gamey" mentality of players.

Part of the mentality of many RPG Gamers (isn't that what this thread is about?) is that things that can be achieved at chargen are "basic" or "introductory." In part, this is probably due to years of prior RPG's and video games where players were forced to start out basic and earn more power and skill through in-game achievements. The other part of this thinking is (IMO) due to the fact that what your character gets at chargen is not earned. Aren't some of the most memorable pieces of equipment you have ones that come with the story of how you got them? It's not just the widget you bought with your chargen budget, it's the widget that you snagged from that the BBEG's hoard while your buddies distracted him and then had to fight to escape with through a hoard of minions sent to get it back! When I play RPG's, it is primarily about telling a story, so that's what I revel in: playing a session that creates those long-lasting memories. But when New Guy joins your group, and he crunches his chargen points so that he also has a widget just like yours, but no in-game story, don't you feel a little let-down?

The first RPG I ever played was the old D6 Star Wars game by West End Games. The system bears a lot of similarity to SR. In that system, starting character's skills were capped, but they could be improved forever. This gave the GM an incredible amount of "scale" to tell cool stories. Starting characters felt competent, but with lots of room for improvement. The system scaled from starting characters to awesome galaxy-rulers incredibly well. This was shown by West End Games fearlessly publishing in-game stats for pretty much every major character in the universe: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, The Emperor, they were all there and (for the most part) they were awesome. There was a sense of awe when you looked at Boba Fett's blaster skill of 12D, or The Emperor's Alter (Force) Skill of 18D.

There are a lot of great things about the SR system, and the world is incredibly engaging. However, I would really like to see the "scale" of the game changed to give GM's the freedom to tell those great stories, and inspire awe in their players, without having to resort to "too cool for stats" tricks.
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Adarael
post Aug 11 2009, 06:04 PM
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Just one thing I'd like to point out.

If I make a 400BP character - that is to say, a standard one - I'm GOING to have skills at 5. Or attributes at 5. Or be rich as hell. Or be a magician with a ton of spells. Or something that is otherwise 'unbelievable.'

I think sometimes people who are bitching about the game being unbelievable because OMG PLAYERS IS MINMAXIN' forget that Shadowrunners, if created by the book, will end up that way by dint of the rules.
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Rasumichin
post Aug 11 2009, 07:54 PM
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QUOTE (Malachi @ Aug 11 2009, 06:01 PM) *
The real unfortunate thing with SR4 (and I saw it in my first reading of the rules) is a problem I call "compression of scale." Basically, with only 7 levels skill (and all of those being attainable at chargen) there isn't enough "room" for the GM to tell some of the stories they may want to tell. The limited number of levels makes it difficult to really put into game mechanics how much better Super Guy A should be in relation to the Average Guy B. Worse yet, because 7 is achievable at chargen, it massively cheapens what that level of skill is supposed to represent.


Another important thing to consider here is that Skill level alone doesn't say much about how good someone really is at what he does.
Climbing 7 doesn't mean you're the best climber in the world.
It just means that you have learned as much about climbing as is possible for an unaugmented human.
In fact, your intuitive grasp of climbing techniques, related muscle memory and so on are so incredibly profound that most people (read : the 99.99% of people who don't have Aptitude : Climbing and Climbing : 7) will never be able to reach this level of understanding.

However, what you have learned about climbing is only half of what makes up your Dicepool (and even that holds true only if we don't consider augmentations, be they magical or technological; more on this below).
The other half are your basic physical abilities- in this case, your Strenght score.
No use if you have a lifetime of climbing experience if you've become a couch potatoe since your last trip to the Himalaya, right?

Then there's Edge.
When you want to achieve truly heroic feats -climbing the Mt. Everest, winning a Nobel Prize in medicine, setting up a world record in running, recording a piece of music people will still listen to in 100 years-, you need Edge.
Not just mere talent and experience, but true dedication, the will to push your own limits or sometimes just sheer luck.

But wait, we are still talking about unaugmented humans here.
We shouldn't, as this is Shadowrun.

Unaugmented, mundane humans are evolution's last year model.
Outdated, obsolete, fallen behind the SOTA.

You can blow 147 BP into being a human with a DP of 14 (Exceptional Attribute at 7, Aptitude, Skill lvl 7)- or you get yourself a bunch of cyberware for 50BP and receive DPs of 10-20 or more in, say, about 8+ skills.

Just take a look at all the stuff available for Social, Physical or Technical skills.
In fact, combat is about the only thing in SR where it gets really hard to push your Dicepool above 20.
Magic and hacking receive some restrictions, too.
But when we look at the inflation of bonus dice for skills considered less crucial for your average group of roleplayers, all bets are off.

What does it take for Joe Average with LOG3 and no Biotech skill group to achieve the same average performance as someone who would nowadays be qualified to make medical history?
Cerebral Booster 3, PusHeD, Encephalon1, Neocortical Neural Stimulus Nanites and some skillwires.
And with that 'ware, he would just need a new skillsoft to do the same with all Acedemic Knowledge Skills and all Technical Skills as well.

Let's face it, what we consider outstanding today is about to become average in the Sixth World (if you have the (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) , of course).
SR's system isn't scaled to adequately reflect the level of proficiency of present-day, real life people, no matter how exceptional they are- and it shouldn't attempt to do so.
Because they could barely compete in the 2070s.
Welcome to the transhumanist age.
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Tymeaus Jalynsfe...
post Aug 11 2009, 11:37 PM
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QUOTE (StealthSigma @ Aug 11 2009, 08:50 AM) *
I had gone through a couple iterations of creating my character where I initially had a lot of 3s, 4s, and 5s. I realized I didn't like that and spread it out a lot more and now have skills between 1 and 5, with the majority clustering around 2-3.



My Current Character, with just over 200 Karma, has most skills at 3 or less (the majority at a 2 or 1, though I do have a very large amount of skills), with only Electronic Warfare (Rank 5) and Perception (Rank 5) higher (And no skills in the 6 range)... it has worked out great for me... and as a result, I am still on the quest to raise the rest of my skills to Professional Level, at which point I will pursue Veteran Status (I Should be able to play for a very long time at this rate and not become too overwhelmingly powerful in the process)...

This lack of maxed out skills, however, has NOT lead to a disappointingly low success rate either, as the GM views the world as a cohesive whole where skills of 3 are Actauly PROFESSIONAL grade... I am loving it...

EDIT: And Yes, I would say it is a matter of scale... Though as a player or GM I have no real problem with it the way it is...
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Ol' Scratch
post Aug 12 2009, 01:16 AM
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Unless your attributes are also 3 or lower and you have equally low-rated equipment, your point is kind of moot. If I only point to a fraction of a dice pool, I can pretend I'm just an average Joe Blow, too.
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Tymeaus Jalynsfe...
post Aug 12 2009, 02:37 AM
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QUOTE (Dr. Funkenstein @ Aug 11 2009, 07:16 PM) *
Unless your attributes are also 3 or lower and you have equally low-rated equipment, your point is kind of moot. If I only point to a fraction of a dice pool, I can pretend I'm just an average Joe Blow, too.



For reference... My average Dice Pools are 10 (or so, with one or two at 12+, and some are as low as 7)... but the point remains... even with augmented attributes (Reaction of 9 and Agility of 6) these are not stats that are outrageous (all of the rest are 4's, with the exception of a 3 Charisma)... so as you can see, not an uber maximized character... the game is written with the premise (as supported by all of the archtypes and NPC's) that the player characters will have dice pools from 10-15 (and maybe the odd 17, Street Sam I am looking at you)... if playing within that premise, these dice pools are exceptional and will lead to success more often than not... once you make the assumption that dicepools need to be higher than that, well then that is where your power creep begins....

I don't want to get into another argument about dice pools and the requirements that they be high, as this generally devolves into a verbal slugfest... lets just say in my experience (I have been playing Shadowrun since inception) that I am comfortable with playing/running a game in this zone, as it melds well to the fluff...

Keep the Faith...
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Glyph
post Aug 12 2009, 03:54 AM
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Bullshit. The archetypes and NPCs are archetypes and NPCs, period. There is no "premise" whatsoever as to how high dice pools "should" be. It may be an open build system, but there are many hard limits in the game (only one 6 or two 5's for starting skills, only half of Build Points can be spent on Attributes, characters can only have so much in resources or Availability). There are even more soft limits in the game (maxing an Attribute costs an extra 15 Build Points, starting with a skill of 7 costs 18 points, including the quality, to go from 6 to 7, the same as the cost of a skill of 4 with a specialization). And you don't need to be a master of esoteric rules trivia to get a high dice pool, either. It's easy and logical to do, without going over the soft limits of the system, much less the hard ones.

I could care less how high dice pools "should" be, but while they may not be required to be high, high dice pools are neither "outrageous", nor do they violate any supposed "premise" of the game.
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Erl of Ingst
post Aug 12 2009, 05:31 AM
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Personally I would love to play a gritty game where you start with only 300 BP and you are new to shadowrunning (400 BP means they aren't new, btw). I love low level games because it means you are starting at the beginning of the story (well, the beginning of the shadowrun story). As many people mentioned, the roleplaying and building the character through the story is exciting and fun. Being a veteran through experience is a lot more fun than building a kick-butt character from the start. Then you have a real story to tell... now just to find a game group that lasts longer than a few runs...

Still, it wouldn't stop me from making a character that is maxed on something at the beginning of the game. That just means that the rest of your abilities suck and your character history needs to explain your reasoning for such an unbalanced sheet. It also adds a bit of depth to the game. Instead of some elite guy who's only worry is not getting blown up, you also have bills to pay (crap! How long has it been since I got that notice?).

Of course, eventually you become super-runner then retire before you are forced into retirement, but the stories you would have... Then you could do some second-gen thing where you start a new character and use the first as a contact or something, your PC you watched grow from gutter trash to elite warrior is now an NPC of great respect and who your next character idolizes. This is getting me excited... I want to play... now I know why people write books. It's because they didn't have a RP group to materialize their fantastic visions. Oops, I'm rambling now.
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cndblank
post Aug 12 2009, 07:51 AM
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I read some where that today's US army soldiers are about as fit as they have ever been.

That the average infantry man is as fit as a WWII ranger.

Makes you wonder what they will be like in 50 years.



I do think a PC should have a least one or two high skills and stats to define the character. I'm talking level 5 here.

And natural talent/gifted is a valid reason.


Also SR has some nice built in limitations on maxing skills and stats.

Getting at 6 in either one is rather expensive.
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Rasumichin
post Aug 12 2009, 11:43 AM
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QUOTE (Erl of Ingst @ Aug 12 2009, 06:31 AM) *
Personally I would love to play a gritty game where you start with only 300 BP and you are new to shadowrunning (400 BP means they aren't new, btw). I love low level games because it means you are starting at the beginning of the story (well, the beginning of the shadowrun story). As many people mentioned, the roleplaying and building the character through the story is exciting and fun. Being a veteran through experience is a lot more fun than building a kick-butt character from the start.


I totally see your point, but i find it a lot easier to build street-level characters for gritty games with 400BP.
It's all about how you spent these points.
With 400BP, you always have to compromise somewhere when you want to built a "real" shadowrunner.
In fact, i have to minmax if i want to generate ninjas, specops guys, magicians with a doctorate in thaumaturgy and the like and don't want them to turn out as overspecialized, incomplete caricatures.
But if you spend 400BP to make a well-rounded, believable gang member, wizzer, corp brat or script kiddie, it may work out nicely if you go for a broad range of low-level skills and buy more stuff that's there just for flavour.

400BP has enough range to work both for low and average level games, as it's not about the sheer number of BPs, but about what you spend them on.

300 BP, IMHO, is for squatters, wageslaves and the like.
E.g., you couldn't spend more than 150 BP on Attributes under that premise.
Which would mean that Attribute scores of 3 in everything (in other words : an average human) wouldn't be possible with 300BP and even coming close to it would require maxing out the Attribute hardcap.

QUOTE (cndblank @ Aug 12 2009, 08:51 AM) *
I read some where that today's US army soldiers are about as fit as they have ever been.

That the average infantry man is as fit as a WWII ranger.

Makes you wonder what they will be like in 50 years.


Most likely about the same as today.
But then, i don't expect the advent of magic and SR-style cybernetics in the next 50 years.
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StealthSigma
post Aug 12 2009, 12:22 PM
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QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Aug 11 2009, 07:37 PM) *
My Current Character, with just over 200 Karma, has most skills at 3 or less (the majority at a 2 or 1, though I do have a very large amount of skills), with only Electronic Warfare (Rank 5) and Perception (Rank 5) higher (And no skills in the 6 range)... it has worked out great for me... and as a result, I am still on the quest to raise the rest of my skills to Professional Level, at which point I will pursue Veteran Status (I Should be able to play for a very long time at this rate and not become too overwhelmingly powerful in the process)...

This lack of maxed out skills, however, has NOT lead to a disappointingly low success rate either, as the GM views the world as a cohesive whole where skills of 3 are Actauly PROFESSIONAL grade... I am loving it...

EDIT: And Yes, I would say it is a matter of scale... Though as a player or GM I have no real problem with it the way it is...


The problem I ran into was partially one of my own making. I decided I wanted to make a spec ops that had been crapped on by his government. I had three basic issues.

The first was that I couldn't fit a believable attribute mix into the attributes to adequately portray the character. So I made a judgmental call to have the period of time between his expulsion from the service and the current year be large enough that conceivably his physical stats could have degraded slightly.

The second issue was a conflict of two things. The first I think was that I worked from overall character concept to character build, while most of the other players decided on specifically what they wanted to do and built concept around that. This was slightly exacerbated by the GM wanting our characters to fill a number of "roles". I have 3-4 skills that I would considered extraneous to the concept that I took to satisfy the wider utility, as well as had to drop skill levels to be able to do so. I'm wondering if going with karma build may not have been better, and am actually considering recreating from a karma build just to see the results.

The third issue was that I made the willful choice to use bioware over cyberware. I figured that the lower maintenance/profile of bioware over cyberware would be more ideal to spec ops, especially those in recon that typically operate in two-man teams.

However, I really don't know if I could have min-maxed my character much beyond swapping bio for cyber.
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nezumi
post Aug 12 2009, 01:29 PM
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An average challenge is Tn 4. With only 3 dice, you're going to fail about 12.5% of the time. I'm not sure about where you work, but where I work, if I failed at more than 10 tasks I had to do for my job, I'd hardly be a professional, I'd be fired.
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Traul
post Aug 12 2009, 01:39 PM
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You're talking about SR3, aren't you? The skill scales are too different in SR3 and SR4 to compare.
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