So the automatics specialist is here to grind the burgers?

Hey, when times are tough, McHugh's is always hiring.

Trigger happy burgers, but yeah, basically. I mean, really, Street Samurai aren't normal people. Actually taking one out may very well require Zap Brannigan style wave tactics. That's why I tend to play mooks as mostly keeping their heads down and going for containment if they actually realize just what they're walking into.

Didn't the Runner's Companion flesh out the roles of a shadowrunning team into position-type roles and not "gear-needed"? By this I mean... the Close-Combat/Fire-support person excelled at combat. The medium in which they do this could be could be either through cyberware, magic, or just tons of skills and great gear.

From the SR material, world fluff, and general ambiance... Street Samurais were professional combatants who filled out the role of being good at fighting. Whether its defensively or offensively depended on who they worked for and for what purpose. My newbish thoughts were that the Sammie was the muscle who only acted when the run went bad and the group needed to fight their way out of a jam. Rest of the time, in SR at least... as successful run was one in which no one ever knew what happened until it finished and the runners have vanished and gotten away.

A solution to this is to give the samurai biotech. All of a sudden he is more than a samurai, he is now a combat medic. If it gets high enough he could implant cyberware. I guess the trick (pun intended) is to make the sammie just a little more than a 1 trick pony.

Look at Leverage: they always use the Muscle.
Look at Hustle: they never use any muscle.
Look at Burn Notice: so much muscle and guns. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It depends on your game. If you *have* a Sam in your group, they should have opportunities to be themselves. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Try not to go crazy 'beating' him, because it'll make the game boring if your other characters can't safely compete. That's GM 101.

Leverage is a good example of selective use of violence.

Right, no one ever really gets shot or stabbed. He just punches some dudes and everything is fine. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Not all SR games should (or could) be like that, but it's an example of a team with *only* one physical guy. (Until they gave Parker the taser, but still.)

I don't know. Maybe I'm old school but I never really liked the concept of the Face. I don't really recall what edition it was that the Face emerged as a fleshed out generally accepted concept, but it has always struck me as a little off. Seems to suck up a majority of the role-playing and table time of a group.

I've always thought that everyone should have at least a bit of social dice with members of a 4 person group being better at one another in particular types of manipulation. Tuning the group into Good Cop, Bad Cop, Lying Cop, and Inspiring Cop. While I play with the occasional Face, things tend to continue to follow this trend in games I run. If a guy is too stubborn to talk to the Mages lies, try the Adept's etiquette and consider that his last chance before you fall back on the Sam's ass-kicking and intimidation session (Splinter Cell: Conviction so amazingly portrayed a good ass-kicking interrogation, it really brought me back to how we would often get information in early 3E).

As someone mentioned the Sam being the one who traditionally meets the Johnson, I think this goes back to before when the Face was a cemented archetype. Not only were social responsibilities a bit more dispersed, but the Sam would have enough oomph to stand up to a double-cross.

Granted some people like playing social characters, you can't fault them for it. However the ones that do it to the exclusion of everyone else's fun, or pornomancer builds who attempt to make a 25+ dice social adept use a thong clad ass and seduction roll for every aspect of game play can take away from a game.

Not really off topic, as it does fall into the general discussion of table balance. The reason I brought up Sam's in general in the first post is to portray that while generally they are there to protect the party, by becoming too good at it they create their own liability. Other aspects are certainly not immune to disrupting table balance however.

I was thinking about his and why is combat the only area GMs feel the need to beat the team. Why isn't the face going against escalating bad ass negotiators or door security who can spot a lie from orbit. For some reason every other role its hunky dory for people to walk all over the opposition, but when it comes to a fight, they have to make it an escalating challenge that eventually beats the pcs.

Chainsaw Samurai: That's true, but I think the Face has always been a solid archetype, in this and every RPG/heist genre/etc. You're certainly right that powergaming (any flavor) can unbalance and break a game.

It only gets out of hand if you let it, *especially* with social things. GM power! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Shinobi Killfist, I don't think it *is* true that combat is the only area that the GM tries to beat the player. In hacking, in melee, in shooting, in social, I think escalation against powergaming is always an issue. *shrug* I guess it depends on the GMs. Combat is, perhaps, *easier* to escalate?

I agree with this, I don't mind someone being better in that arena though. Somewhere along the line the game became a game of dedicated ultra specialists. I kind of assume everyone should be able to sneak around to some degree, everyone should be able to play well with others(etiquette), and everyone should be able to smooth talk out of trouble,(con) and everyone should be able to hold there own in a fight. And yes there will be a area you are better at than others or the only person who can do it, decking and magic come to mind. But you shouldn't specialize so far that all you are is the sam, decker, face or mage.

By the way since you and someone else mentioned it earlier I have found that pink mohawk games are less prone to min maxing, and the overly serious crowd is more prone to the massive specialist roles. Different tables and all that.

We prefer generalists-with-specialties, too. It's not so uncommon. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) We mostly talk about powergaming because it's something to talk about. No one asks, 'how do I control escalation with my team of well-rounded generalists!?'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I think that's the GM's fault for trying to challenge the Sam by simple escalation; and that escalation then justifies him in continuing to specialize, because apparently 25 dice was "just enough" instead of "comfortable overkill".



Part of a good story is a climactic confrontation, and in RPGs the standard confrontation is a combat. That has historical roots (origins in miniature gaming), clearly understood stakes (life and death) and participation by all characters (initiative system to make sure everyone gets a turn, everyone has something to do in combat because everyone took some skill that could be used in combat.)

Of course there exist other possible confrontations;
- Cat and mouse game for the runners to escape a corporate facility after a mission
- Hacking
- High speed chase
- Courtroom battle
- Detective's exposition and social confrontation of the murderer

But many of those aren't quite as suitable for a full-party effort, because the GM can really only pay attention to one speech at a time. It's harder to find a way in which everyone can participate in them.

Thats not the point.
Lets take a meeting with a high ranking Johnson. Lets just be it an arrogant women, where one wrong word could ruin it.
So the face my do the talking. He or she will rollplay and roll her/his 14 to 20 dices. (So only if the face does roll very badly or acts stupid it is going down)
The charisma 1 "I had no BP to pick up any social skills" orc/sam won't jump on the table an cum in her face.

Now lets swich to combat.
If the crew gets sprayed with bullets the "I had no BP to pick up more then body 2 and actually more does not fit the character face" will splatter his guts all over the place.

The point is not, how much could the sam (take) out on his own. The point is the weakest in the group. The sam can't survive, stabalize the team and drag everybody out.

Y'know, I really like that phrase "comfortable overkill"!

I wonder if, as players and GMs if we are too caught up in the idea of "roles". Do we sit down at chargen and say "ok, we need a hacker, a combat guy, a mage,a face and a rigger. Who wants to do what?" My group does, and I think thats a disservice to a classless system. How can we put a stop to that, or at least dilute it?

See, I love the idea of roles. It's a great way to plan a group, because it means you'll have the most mission options. If you just go, 'everyone make a character in isolation', then the GM has to fit the missions very carefully to the 3 faces (1 pixie and one SURGEd naga) and 2 technomancers (one full-immersion) you ended up with (for example). Nothing *wrong* with that, but it's more limited.

I use this: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Aq...amp;output=html

We mix and match, everyone picks up 3-4 (depending) roles. It's more fun for my group.

@Entropian
Well, thats a problem of the chargen.
It is very effectiv to softmax. It is very ineffectiv to spread the skills.

If you use karma-gen you get other charecters.

If the sam has to choose between firearms 4(instead 3) and influence 1 (BP 10 each), he will choose firearms.
If he has to choose between firearms 3->4 (20 karma) and influence+athletik 1(20 karma), he will reconsider.

Personally, I get 1 in many things with BP-gen just to avoid Defaulting.

I always thought the role of the street samurai was to make snacks for the party...

@Yerameyahu
Lack it for the first run, and then get it. It is close to impossible to get everything a chargen. Influence, perception, athletics etc. etc.

Meh. I just get it at gen.

The 'specialist' idea of SR has some drawbacks and this is one of them. It is worth thinking about catering to your runners when designing missions, or allowing multiple characters per player and allowing them to select one in advance before your run is outlined. They aren't necessarily a ragtag party of best friends who must be present for all affairs, Mr. Johnson looks at his list and says I want THIS guy and THIS guy and THIS gal. There should be a good reason to pay a samurai full price to go along, so make one without ambushing everyone with super-soldiers. Think about the area they're in and look through the foes section, dark alleys are dangerous in an awakened world. Maybe there's a riot around the break-in and the sam has to subdue some angry orc factory workers without blowing them up. R&D lab may be secretly housing hostile genetically engineered critters etc. etc.

Or maybe if it doesn't seem to fit, why not encourage your players to look beyond combat focused characters? An all sneak/face/hacker/support mage team can be alot of fun if you don't punish them with militant enemies.

Even better, why not require ALL of them to be capable of doing a little sneaking, a little talking, a little fighting? You can still tailor your character to be good at something: when its crunchtime on say the Palming skill Arthur 'Double-Jointed' North is clearly the man for the job. But for the most part everyone gets involved in a scene of the game?

I guess it depends on what kind of chars you plan. If you want to cover a backstory, there is often not much room for a lot of +1 skills you might need.

I think it's a mistake to leave combat out entirely, unless that's what the group wants (Hustle, versus Burn Notice). Definitely fit missions to characters, but don't ignore a whole area. Everyone should have armor and a gun, and the real problem is just powergaming (whatever the role).