Gamer Attitude Calibration Options

[cREbralFIX]

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.

[Ancient History]

The game expands to fill the needs of the players in it.

And wants.

And whims.

And whimsies.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

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).

[CodeBreaker]

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)

[StealthSigma]

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.

[Ol' Scratch]

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.

[Rasumichin]

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.

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.

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)

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.

[Backgammon]

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.

[the_real_elwood]

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.

[Method]

Nothing says "troll" like starting off your thread by calling a bunch of
people wankers.

Awesome.

[the_real_elwood]

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.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Agreed. We have a PBS here -- Problem Behind Screen.

[Malachi]

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.

[Adarael]

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.

[Rasumichin]

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.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

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...

[Ol' Scratch]

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.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

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...

[Glyph]

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.

[Erl of Ingst]

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.

[cndblank]

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.

[Rasumichin]

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.

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.

[StealthSigma]

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.

[nezumi]

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.

[Traul]

You're talking about SR3, aren't you? The skill scales are too different in SR3 and SR4 to compare.

[Zaranthan]

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.

That's pretty short-sighted. Peak human performance has increased at more or less the same rate since about the 17th century, following trends of medical science and food production. What makes you think we've run out of ideas?

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.

Tests are Attribute+Skill, not just Skill, so you've actually got 6 dice. Throw in a specialization if you care about your job, a die or two from gear, maybe a little Teamwork, and your odds of success start to skyrocket. When all else fails, you've still got a point or two of Edge.

[StealthSigma]

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.

Yeah, I went through and calculated my character's karma cost at 561, and that's with using 410BP. I think most of us are new to Shadowrun, and the GM wanted us to all be highly versatile. I agree that karma-build allows for more versatile characters, however I'm thinking that the best method to create a character is to use BP to create your character within its specialization (ie don't take extraneous skills unrelated to concept). Then convert it to karma and use the remaining karma to flesh our versatility and character background.

Most, if not all, the players in our group are new, including the GM. I think we may not have adequately considered karma-build to create the versatile characters the GM wanted, so what I'm suggesting to the GM is that we convert our characters into their karma build equivalent, take the remaining karma-pool, split it in half. The GM gets to use one half to improve the characters to shore up the weaknesses he perceives in the whole group, and we get what the GM doesn't use plus the other half. So I would have 189 karma left, GM would get 94 or 95 to shore up my character to fit within his group concept, I get 94/95 plus what the GM doesn't use to shore up my character to fill some of the concept/background stuff that I feel is missing.

Overall
1. Construct character via BP to fit within specialization + some.
2. Convert character to karma equivalent.
3. Split remaining karma pool.
4. GM spends his half shoring up the PCs.
5. Player gets unspent GM karma + his half to shore up his PC.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

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.

You KEEP saying that Glyph, and I will keep arguing the point...
You can play any way you want (That is the beauty of Role-playing games), but the indicators are that the system is not set up for characters with 20+ Dice, as the power creep begins to get absolutely crazy...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

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.

Don't get me wrong here StealthSigma... I have no problems with the concept or execution of your character... could it be a little better, of course, they all could be a little better... but if you stayed relatively true to your concept and the GM's guidelines for the campaiogn, you are doing great in my opinion...

Don't worry about it...

Keep the Faith

[Red-ROM]

Sure,

the scale is small, but i think it works. If you have 6 dice, you can accomplish moderately difficult tasks. And the situational modifiers make a big difference too. You might be a doctor, but have you stitched someone up before the security forces bust down the door and shoot you in the face? also, If your character has a 7 in medicine and 1st aid, then you built the Doogie houser of 2070, because thats the guy you wanted to play. The same holds true for Magic. Its supposed to be kind of rare, but there isn't a shadowrun team out there that doesn't have at least a phys ad. why? Because these are the people that are interesting to play. Do I have my own golf video game? no, because people don't want to play "joe shmoe's golf" the want to play "Tiger Woods". As far as the "Darth Vader" of epic Bad guys, Its tricky in shadowrun. anyone can be shot to death on the street. so Your Baddie has to be too smart , too prepared, and too hard to find. The real powerful guys are behind 300 less powerful guys. everyone enjoys killing the high pain tolerance chromed out Troll or the uber powerfull mage, but its the guy that hired them that matters

[Glyph]

You KEEP saying that Glyph, and I will keep arguing the point...
You can play any way you want (That is the beauty of Role-playing games), but the indicators are that the system is not set up for characters with 20+ Dice, as the power creep begins to get absolutely crazy...

Oh noes!! Power creep in a game of cyborgs, magical kung-fu fighters, fireball-chucking wizards, ultra-hackers, and people commanding robot armies? What were they thinking?

Looking at the mediocre archetypes and bare-bones sample NPCs does not give any kind of baseline for PCs. Other than that, a slavish adherence to the fluff of the woefully truncated skill levels, and some anecdotal evidence easily countered with other anecdotal evidence, is not convincing in the face of how the mechanics of the actual game are set up.

Or do you think SR4 was designed by retarded monkeys? Because honestly, if they made an high-powered, action-oriented game, and set up a kajillion hard and soft limits to character generation, but still made it possible to make game-breaking, power-creeping characters by making normal, logical choices in character creation, but expect you to somehow intuit some unwritten power level, then SR4 topples F.A.T.A.L. to be the worst game to ever exist.

[Ancient History]

In some games, there is no limit to how high you can go. All things become relative; Skill 20 means nothing if the average skill is 20, but when the average skill is 5 it becomes godlike. Shadowrun tried that for a couple of editions. Go back in the old books and you'll see 6's, 8's...skills of 12 and 15 and higher were not unknown. By setting a ceiling on skills, game designers basically force players to spend their resources on other things. Instead of raising their skills directly they have to raise them indirectly - implants, mentor spirits or other qualities, foci, attributes, gear, related skills, etc.

I'm sure I had a point where I was going with all this, but I'll be damned. If I can think of it. Well, that too.

[Glyph]

Even more than indirectly raising skills themselves, shadowrunners become tougher by developing the complementary aspects of their specialty. Sure, you have 20 dice in pistols, but can you use a rifle if it is longer-ranged combat? Do you have a high Reaction and lots of IPs? Can you dodge and soak the bullets from the other guys? Can you spot an ambush before you get surprised? Can you sneak up on the other guys? Can you fix your own gun if it gets broken? Do you know someone who can get you APDS rounds? Can you hide your gun if they do a pat-down at the door?

The 800-point character thread was pretty instructive to me, in a way. It demonstrated that while you can make a tough 400 or 500 point character, they are still a long way from being as tough as they can be.

[Kerenshara]

OK. I read all the posts in their entirety, and I think it' time I stuck my proboscis into this one.
There are some good arguments here, as well as some bad ones. But the first thing I’d like to do is just look at the new SR4A thresholds and consider what they imply.

The highest TN listed anywhere in the actual SR4A book that I have found is 5. If we look at what you get at that TN 5, factor in that the previous TN is a 3 (not a 4), and the degree of improvement implicit in the differences in description between the TN 3 and TN 5 results, I think we should all be able to agree that TN 5 really is “Ok, that’s the highest meaningful level of success ��" everything above that is sauce.� If we can agree on that, some interesting things can be inferred.

First: Succeeding in a TN 5 test should be an astounding result to mortals, even in the hyper-enhanced 6th World.

Second: The minimum Dice Pool to be able to reliably pull off that TN 5 test by the odds most of the time is 15. To be able to BUY that test right off as routine, you’d need a Dice Pool of 20… to achieve the nigh-impossible with such regularity that you disdain the possible chances of failure.

Third: if we accept the first two premises, which can fairly reasonably stand on their own, we can see that the SYSTEM itself is truly designed to handle Dice Pools only up to about 20 dice; Beyond that and you’re starting to break the system. Every system has a point where the numbers start to do things that break the rules. Furthermore, see the following except:

SR4A, P.61: Dice Pool Modifiers

Optionally, gamemasters may choose to cap dice pools (including modifiers) at 20 dice, or at twice the sum of the character’s natural Attribute + Skill ratings, whichever is higher.

I think the Devs are making their opinion pretty clear in black and white for us.

So, let’s examine that 20 Die Pool, shall we? Let’s call it 10 dice worth of skill for an Adept with an Aptitude for the skill at hand and maxed skill ranks.

Furthermore, let’s give them 10 dice in the controlling stat, assuming it’s exceptional. How many individuals like that should exist in the 6th World? To have both qualities, in a stat and skill that compliment each other, and then furthermore develop the skill’s potential to that extent? Not many. Then we have a new assumption: that the net modifiers cancel out to 0 or better in the Adept’s favor. Then, and only then, can the absolutely fantastically capable and powerful Adept buy off that test as a matter of course.

Instead, let us look at the average human professional, qualified to do their job on a daily basis. They have a DP of 6. That means they can expect an average of two Hits on any given test, excluding modifiers. Let’s look what that buys her:

SR4A, P.62: Success Test Difficulties Table

Easy 1
Average 2
Hard 3
Extreme 5+

That means that, on average, the average human can achieve an average result the vast majority of the time! Seems they got something right.

Routine (missing from the table because it’s assumed): Don’t even roll! Examples include driving in average rush-hour conditions, walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time, stepping over a 0.5 meter high fence, or running on flat level ground in decent shoes.

Easy is just that: make sure you achieve a minimum level of success. Even defaulting, an average stat character has a 2/3 chance of succeeding.

Average is average; this is where you would expect somebody to require the requisite experience and ability of a professional at work to achieve success ordinarily. Examples might include talking on the comlink to your brother-in-law’s friend in East Africa while driving a cab aggressively in heavy rush hour traffic while it’s raining and managing to not hit the child who just chased their ball out into traffic, Interpreting test results with observational data to correctly determine a common illness that is afflicting a patient, and successfully vaulting a 1 meter tall hurdle at a full run.

Hard is where even an experienced veteran with above-average statistics needs something to break their way to pull off an activity on average; You need a 9 Dice Pool to expect to get 3 Hits, and 4 Skill + 4 Stat is only 8. You’re still looking for a net +1 DP modifier somewhere. Even your Elite characters with the maximum unmodified Stat can only buy success casually if the net DP modifiers are even or in their favor.

Extreme suddenly looks a lot more impressive, neh?

So, I have touched on how stats and skills at their representative levels reflect on expected success rates against subjective thresholds. Everybody still with me, as this has turned into one of my characteristic and infamous rants?

Now, why do we have problems with number creep? Because we’re gamers, even the hard-core “role-players� on some level know it’s a game and that games have rules, so more dice is better. I never met a positive modifier I didn’t like. But that’s us looking at it as a game, not as imaginary avatars in a fantasy setting. If we were to look at it from a WOLD perspective and KEEP our frame of reference in that space, like I demonstrated above, we could keep in line with the system’s base assumptions and expectations instead of breaking things.

To help with that, I like both the caps quoted above, as well as the other one limiting the maximum number of hits to 2x Skill. That means without spending Edge, a defaulting character can’t achieve even an average target number. Why? Because that’s what we’d expect from a professional individual, not a schmuck who’s guessing! But even the barest of actual training allows a “beginner� (RTG 1) to routinely pull off average tests with enough modifiers in their favor. A “novice� (RTG 2) can do hard things, and a “professional� (RTG 3) can achieve extreme results, when things go their way. Is that unrealistic? Not in the least. Does it bring the focus squarely back onto skills? You bet. Does it Nerf^TM characters back to levels the system was inherently designed to handle? It just might at that.

That is why, whenever I create a character (or examine a character sheet) I am asking myself “what is the thematically appropriate skill level for this character in that Skill?� I did that with Kerenshara when I built her, and had to do a lot of trimming. But guess what? I did NOT assign even one skill (naturally) at RTG 5 (Expert) or above! If I had the points I might have put a 5 into Perception given her specific upbringing and background.

It’s also useful for RP purposes to keep those skill guidelines in mind, because I guarantee that although the characters don’t know what their DP count is, or what their Skill RTG is at, they know their approximate level of capability, and in the real world, I “role play� to my own perceived level of capability every day.

Finally, let’s look at the closest thing we have in real life to Prime Shadowrunners as most of us conceive of them:

U.S. Navy Seal team member

Statistics:

BOD: 5 (Even the scrawny guys are in extreme peak physical condition.)

AGI: 5 (If they didn’t have it before, their AGIlity will be superior before they’re done.)

STR: 4 (Swimming, Running and Jumping are all STRength, plus carrying.)

REA: 5 (Their training is intense in all kinds of REAction based Skills.)

CHA: 3 (Guys who can’t get along in a group won’t make it onto a Team.)

INT: 4 (By the time they’re out, their ability to intuitively process data is well above average.)

LOG: 3 (Contrary to some popular belief, these guys are actually smart.)

WIL: 4 (If their WILlpower wasn’t at LEAST above average, they’d have washed out of B.U.D.S.)

Core Skills:

Firearms: 5 (Expert) - specialists will have even better.

Athletics: 5 (Expert) - all that Swimming, Jumping, Running, Climbing and Tumbling?

Close Combat: 4+ (Veteran) - these guys are lethal up close, though they prefer firearms.

Throwing Weapons: 3+ (Professional) - Grenades, knives, incendiaries, you name it.

Diving: 4+ (Veteran) - even Nuggets on the Teams are veteran divers.

Parachuting: 4+ (Veteran) - HALO jump at night? Par for the course.

Infiltration: 4+ (Veteran) - If you’re not quiet, you’re worthless.

Perception: 4+ (Veteran) - What you can’t see, kills you.

Leadership (Tactics): 2+ (Novice) - Even the nuggets know the basics.

Demolition: 2+ (Novice) - Even the nuggets know the basics.

First-Aid (Trauma): 2 - Everybody’s cross-trained in basic trauma first-aid.

Can you build that with a starting 400 BP? Not a chance. Should that character intimidate the drek out of any shadowrunner less than full Prime status (read: not a recurring name in the Fluff)? If they’re smart, yes. Do they have a pile of 6’s in anything? No. And the numbers above don’t even include 6^th World augmentations! These guys are picked from amongst the best of the best of the best. They are trained at a crushing pace over the course of years and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars. No Shadowrunner can match that out of the gate.

[Glyph]

The thing about those two nerfs you mentioned is that, even for extreme cases (dice pools of 20+), neither is likely to come up too much. So they're really "fixing" an almost non-existent problem.

But also keep in mind that social skills, magical skills, and combat skills are not threshold-based, but are opposed tests with lots of potential negative modifiers. For threshold-based tests, generally things like technical skills and the like, it is much, much rarer to have one of those super-high dice pools, and you generally don't need one, either. Someone tossing 12 dice for pistols is decent, but could be a lot better. A hacker tossing 12 dice for hacking is pretty damn good.

[Totentanz]

The important thing to remember about characters is that they will seek to become better with time. Will they know their dice pool? No, but any Runner worth his dark sunglasses has shot enough bullets to know a smartlink makes his life easier, and spending time at the range is necessary for existence. When you make Prime Runners to use against the PC's I'd bet my Power Focus you look at their DP's. In the real world, people who aren't good enough at their profession or avocation get better or quit. In SR, runners get better by any method they can, or they die.

I think the argument that somehow players should avoid going above a certain level is fatuous, at best. The truth is in SR anybody else can be just as good as you are. In fact, the classic setting puts the characters against the corps. The corps always have more resources than the runners. If a group of players churns out specialized 25 DP badasses then the GM needs to stop whining and run a game where they are challenged. If the group wants to hard cap DP's at a certain level for their game, great.

Attempting to interpret the intent of the game designers as to power level from a combination of suggested house rules, fluff, and various off-hand comments in blog posts is like reading your tea leaves to find out if you have cancer.

[pbangarth]

Kerenshara! A cogent, well-argued, impassioned statement. How refreshing. Thanks!

[Kerenshara]

The thing about those two nerfs you mentioned is that, even for extreme cases (dice pools of 20+), neither is likely to come up too much. So they're really "fixing" an almost non-existent problem.

Really? OK, I guess you haven't played with my group then. When the GM announced they were going with those caps, the players excep me (who fundamentally designes assuming those caps to begin with) wound up going back for a complete re-do of their sheets. Nothing was in stone, but we were hashing out team roles and backgrounds and so forth. Trust me, the number of times Kerenshara's had to leave Hits in the tray, it's an issue.

But also keep in mind that social skills, magical skills, and combat skills are not threshold-based, but are opposed tests with lots of potential negative modifiers. For threshold-based tests, generally things like technical skills and the like, it is much, much rarer to have one of those super-high dice pools, and you generally don't need one, either. Someone tossing 12 dice for pistols is decent, but could be a lot better. A hacker tossing 12 dice for hacking is pretty damn good.

THIS is a better argument, but if both opponents were built with the caps in mind and the general design of the system and game universe in mind, the same things still come to pass: highly skilled characters will routinely surpass and/or defeat lesser skilled opponents. I don't care HOW talented you are in terms of LOGic, you're not going to beat Garry Kasparov head-to-head.
If you cap hits at 2x Skill, and max DP modifiers at 2x [Skill+Stat], you eliminate a surprisingly large number of the "odd" conditions and bring things back to more centered results. The dice are the engine of randomness. With them eliminated, modifiers can only affect the outcome so much.

[McAllister]

Kerenshara: I have a gut reaction against looking at something a person has created and inferring that person's opinion from it. THAT SAID, I agree with pbangarth that your statement was cogent and well-argued, and I agreed with all of its assertions.

My only interjection is that this skill-centric thinking is probably great for game-balance and fluffy reasons (as many have argued), but I feel it'll result in a great preponderance of adepts. Resonance, spellcasting and conjuration all fail to give any boost to skills, and bioware has only the limited +1 from Reflex Recorders to offer. If hits are going to be capped by skill (or skillx2), why give adepts the highest ceilings?

I just wish the +3 skills love was shared. I don't see why we couldn't have an Increase Skill spell, or Reflex Recorders grade 3.

[Kerenshara]

The important thing to remember about characters is that they will seek to become better with time. Will they know their dice pool? No, but any Runner worth his dark sunglasses has shot enough bullets to know a smartlink makes his life easier, and spending time at the range is necessary for existence. When you make Prime Runners to use against the PC's I'd bet my Power Focus you look at their DP's. In the real world, people who aren't good enough at their profession or avocation get better or quit. In SR, runners get better by any method they can, or they die.

Of course they do, and I wasn't attempting to argue otherwise. What I was saying is that by using the 20 DP cap, you keep things from spiraling endlessly out of control. There is going to be a fundamental point where it's going to come down to luck; Take the sniper (modern day, not 6^th World) who has the best possible rifle, Legendary skill, hand-eye coordination to boggle computerized controls, and aims to the end of time, but in the end, at 2500 meters, it's going to come down to a fair sized measure of luck. Did there happen to be a stray puff of wind? Did the shifting balance of the rifle dislodge something a millionth of a centimeter and deviate the aim point ever so slightly? did the target decide to turn to talk to their friend at the last moment once the bullet was on the way? Adding more dice isn't going to change that, and 20 is plenty to account for whatever else you have come up.

I think the argument that somehow players should avoid going above a certain level is fatuous, at best. The truth is in SR anybody else can be just as good as you are. In fact, the classic setting puts the characters against the corps. The corps always have more resources than the runners. If a group of players churns out specialized 25 DP badasses then the GM needs to stop whining and run a game where they are challenged. If the group wants to hard cap DP's at a certain level for their game, great.

I never said they should avoid going above a certain level. What I said (or implied) was that there is no subjective NEED to push a character that far. The rules have hard caps in them, aside from the "optional" limits. As long as the character isn't "breaking" the rules, I have no problem with the actual taking of stats and/or skills to those heights. I am concerned when doing so is merely an attempt to further push the limits of the system, not to do with any particular character motivation or need. Getting to Longarms RTG 6 takes a lot of time, dedication, practice and rounds downrange. Are you the team's dedicated sniper? Is that your focus? Than why shouldn't you be satisfied with being "Expert" with the weapon? It's one more die, and even with the caps, you're already within the "max 20" cap leaving a Stat and Skill both at 5. Now, please bear in mind, when I talk about Stats (in any discussion like this) I am referring to the ones that are completely natural. Augmentations, be they magical or technilogical, are, to my opinion, simply more modifiers. And as I pointed out in the long post above: with the Hits <= Skill x2, you still can get "Extreme" results (5+ Hits) with RTG 3 Skill. Add a Stat augmented to a 7, and you can hit the 20 DP cap with no problems.

I'd like to turn your proposition on its head. Instead of a GM who stops whining about characters with too many dice, why don't we have a group of players who push their GM to come up with more creative challenges that require the PLAYERS to think and respond, rather than just throwing double-handfulls of dice? If the GM sets a tone where the 20 DP cap is not only a limit, but also an unusual limit reached by the top professionals in their fields, then they won't be as incentivised to buil such extensive Dice Pools in the first place, and we won't have the vicious spiral to begin with.

Your argument here unfortunately boils down to "I can make a badhoop mother-slotter, so the GM just needs to deal with me!". Omae, I don't mean to sound confrontational, but doesn't that sounds just a tad immature to you? If you don't think so, take another look at your assertions. If neither you nor your GM set out to break the system, doesn't the whole argument just go away? We're here to play a game together, not to beat each other.

Oh, and as a side note: GM's are SUPPOSED to lose. What makes their job fun and challenging, is keeping the margin of failure to as thin a line as they can. If the players lose, that's it. Roll up new toons, folks. But if the players blow the GM out of the water, it lacks the satisfaction of pulling off a brilliant last-minute victory from the jaws of defeat with a brilliant use of a point of EDGe and a load of creativity and chutzpah. The secret is, nobody is as satisfied with that ending as the GM themselves.

Attempting to interpret the intent of the game designers as to power level from a combination of suggested house rules, fluff, and various off-hand comments in blog posts is like reading your tea leaves to find out if you have cancer.

Is it any less pointless than proving that you can build a character and engineer a situation to break the rules system? That's what I have seen over and over again in these threads: ways to break the system. Can we do it? Absolutely. Can we prove it afterwards? Without a doubt. Do we deprive ourselves of some of the flavor and sense of the immersion in the word we play in as a consequence? Unfortunately, yes. If you and I as players make a point to keep ourselves "reasaonable" and not push the outer edges of the rules, the GM won't feel compelled to follow suit to "keep up", and there is still plenty of room to frow and develop as a character.

[Kerenshara]

My only interjection is that this skill-centric thinking is probably great for game-balance and fluffy reasons (as many have argued), but I feel it'll result in a great preponderance of adepts. Resonance, spellcasting and conjuration all fail to give any boost to skills, and bioware has only the limited +1 from Reflex Recorders to offer. If hits are going to be capped by skill (or skillx2), why give adepts the highest ceilings?

I just wish the +3 skills love was shared. I don't see why we couldn't have an Increase Skill spell, or Reflex Recorders grade 3.

And Samurai with Reflex Recorders plus all their other goodies. And Mages who creatively use their spells to thwart the űber Adepts. And Deckers who skillfully screw the űber Adept or the Gonzo Sammie or the technically less-than-able Magician.

Keep in mind, that those skill bumps are limited to 1/2 of native skill. How many Adepts are going (if you go with my take on things) to take multiple RTG 6 skills just so they can spend .75 MP on each of them? You only need a total of 10 points in Stat + Skill to get to the 20 DP max, and Skill RTG 3 to hit the 5+ TN threshold. Why bother going to such lengths unless it's the character's focus and they don't want to have to rely on modifiers?

Yes, an Adept can go to the highest heights. But then again, that's no different than now, is it? They ALWAYS can get higher skills than anybody else. The most proficient non-TM Deckers are Adepts, neh? That means they always had the higher maximum DP. By your own argument, the 20 DP cap actually reigns them back in just a tad, don't you think?

And one thing nobody mentioned that can be a huge drain on those modifiers: Wound Penalties, especially for your physically tougher or much more WILlpower gifted characters at the bottoms of their tracks.

[toturi]

I do not see capping successes at 2x skill in the SR4A changes document. May I know where is that mentioned in the rules?

[Kerenshara]

I do not see capping successes at 2x skill in the SR4A changes document. May I know where is that mentioned in the rules?

Dear heavens! You mean I got the drop on rules just ONCE on this bleeding forum?

Toturi, I cited the page reference in my PDF copy of SR4A, which I presume to be version 2 because the thresholds are 1,2,3,5 instead of the original 1,2,4,6. If you have the PDF, it's in the section where it talks about game concepts up front. It's an optional rule, exactly like I cited, but it appears in main text, rather than a side bar. It's not in the "changes" doccument to my knowledge.

Oh, poo. I misread that the first time through. The cap on hits is another "sidebar" optional rule from the existing BBB.

[Glyph]

I do not see capping successes at 2x skill in the SR4A changes document. May I know where is that mentioned in the rules?

In the old main book, it is on pg. 69, TWEAKING THE RULES, under the subheading: Grittier Gameplay. It is one of the optional rules.

[toturi]

In the old main book, it is on pg. 69, TWEAKING THE RULES, under the subheading: Grittier Gameplay. It is one of the optional rules.

I know it is an optional rule in SR4, but the previous posts gave me the impression that it was a non-optional rule in SR4A.

My first impression on the capping of the dice pools is "What were they thinking?" Remember the discussions we had on the Pornomancer pwning the Don and his mom or the Neenja infiltrating clad in day glo orange screaming his head off? Yes? Good, those are choke full of negative modifiers. You want the player to load up deliberately load up on negative modifiers because it isn't really going to matter to him since you are capping his dice pools anyway?

Even on a top notch street sam (with 20+ dice pool) will be Calling his Shots, simply because any extra dice he had would be wasted. Apart from the Porno, the other guy with a ton of dice - Mr Perceptive won't really be bothered by this optional rule. Why? Simple, Perception has whole loads of negative mods normally! Not really paying attention? -2. Concealment? -(Force). What about camouflage/invisibility/rutherium suit? More negative modifiers. The real reason why Mr Perceptive needs so much more dice is to overcome the negative mods, not to have a really high dice pool -because his direct opposite would also be limited to 20 or so (Stealth) dice anyway. But Mr Stealth, sneaky git that he is, is throwing those 10+ negative dice pool mods at you. Besides, Mr Pornomancer can be easily limited with "No hablo ingeles!"

[Glyph]

Kerenshara, what exactly do you think is "breaking the game"? I was reacting to people who seemed to think that a skill of 6 at char-gen was a sign of hideous munchkinism. My PCs tend toward the high teens in their primary dice pools, with low 20's occasionally popping up for an optimal combo (like an adept with muscle toner: 4 and a weapon focus). I was serious when I said that the Attribute + skill x 2 limit wouldn't affect most of them, and neither would the hits cap (maybe I just don't roll as well (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) ).

Other than social skills (where the modifiers tend to be very conditional past a certain point), my experience with 25-dice characters has been that they are more suited for a "how many dice can you get?" thread than an actual character for play. Not out of any need to place restrictions on myself, but because they get to the point of diminishing returns. Things like hard-maxed Attributes, the Aptitude quality, and such wind up costing an exorbitant amount for a minuscule increase.


One thing I have frequently posited is that the GM needs to make the power level of his campaign, and the house rules and expected dice caps, known to the players. Especially if they like a lower dice pool cap than what players can get by making a character within the rules. A lot of confrontations and accusations of munchkinism could be averted by some communication beforehand, rather than the GM assuming that the players should know where an invisible line is.

[toturi]

One thing I have frequently posited is that the GM needs to make the power level of his campaign, and the house rules and expected dice caps, known to the players. Especially if they like a lower dice pool cap than what players can get by making a character within the rules. A lot of confrontations and accusations of munchkinism could be averted by some communication beforehand, rather than the GM assuming that the players should know where an invisible line is.

Another way is for the GM to give the players what they want. You know the old saying be careful of what you wish for. This is one of them. For me, if my players come to me with a 5s and 6s with dice pool of 20+, that's fine. They want to walk all over everything except the hardest opponents I can field. That's alright with me. If my players do not want a challenge, then it behooves to me, as their GM, not to do that!

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In some games, there is no limit to how high you can go. All things become relative; Skill 20 means nothing if the average skill is 20, but when the average skill is 5 it becomes godlike. Shadowrun tried that for a couple of editions. Go back in the old books and you'll see 6's, 8's...skills of 12 and 15 and higher were not unknown. By setting a ceiling on skills, game designers basically force players to spend their resources on other things. Instead of raising their skills directly they have to raise them indirectly - implants, mentor spirits or other qualities, foci, attributes, gear, related skills, etc.

I'm sure I had a point where I was going with all this, but I'll be damned. If I can think of it. Well, that too.

Thank You Ancient History, That about covers it for me...

And Glyph... It is Your Game... Play how you like, But I am going to use the Fluff and Rules as they are, somewhat significantly out of the Stratosphere...... It is very obvious the intent of the designers... skills from 0-7 with the average being in the 3-4 range... You may not agree with that, but you cannot argue that point...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

OK. I read all the posts in their entirety, and I think it' time I stuck my proboscis into this one.
There are some good arguments here, as well as some bad ones. But the first thing I’d like to do is just look at the new SR4A thresholds and consider what they imply.

The highest TN listed anywhere in the actual SR4A book that I have found is 5. If we look at what you get at that TN 5, factor in that the previous TN is a 3 (not a 4), and the degree of improvement implicit in the differences in description between the TN 3 and TN 5 results, I think we should all be able to agree that TN 5 really is “Ok, that’s the highest meaningful level of success ��" everything above that is sauce.� If we can agree on that, some interesting things can be inferred.

First: Succeeding in a TN 5 test should be an astounding result to mortals, even in the hyper-enhanced 6th World.

Second: The minimum Dice Pool to be able to reliably pull off that TN 5 test by the odds most of the time is 15. To be able to BUY that test right off as routine, you’d need a Dice Pool of 20… to achieve the nigh-impossible with such regularity that you disdain the possible chances of failure.

Third: if we accept the first two premises, which can fairly reasonably stand on their own, we can see that the SYSTEM itself is truly designed to handle Dice Pools only up to about 20 dice; Beyond that and you’re starting to break the system. Every system has a point where the numbers start to do things that break the rules. Furthermore, see the following except:

SR4A, P.61: Dice Pool Modifiers

Optionally, gamemasters may choose to cap dice pools (including modifiers) at 20 dice, or at twice the sum of the character’s natural Attribute + Skill ratings, whichever is higher.

I think the Devs are making their opinion pretty clear in black and white for us.

So, let’s examine that 20 Die Pool, shall we? Let’s call it 10 dice worth of skill for an Adept with an Aptitude for the skill at hand and maxed skill ranks.

Furthermore, let’s give them 10 dice in the controlling stat, assuming it’s exceptional. How many individuals like that should exist in the 6th World? To have both qualities, in a stat and skill that compliment each other, and then furthermore develop the skill’s potential to that extent? Not many. Then we have a new assumption: that the net modifiers cancel out to 0 or better in the Adept’s favor. Then, and only then, can the absolutely fantastically capable and powerful Adept buy off that test as a matter of course.

Instead, let us look at the average human professional, qualified to do their job on a daily basis. They have a DP of 6. That means they can expect an average of two Hits on any given test, excluding modifiers. Let’s look what that buys her:

SR4A, P.62: Success Test Difficulties Table

Easy 1
Average 2
Hard 3
Extreme 5+

That means that, on average, the average human can achieve an average result the vast majority of the time! Seems they got something right.

Routine (missing from the table because it’s assumed): Don’t even roll! Examples include driving in average rush-hour conditions, walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time, stepping over a 0.5 meter high fence, or running on flat level ground in decent shoes.

Easy is just that: make sure you achieve a minimum level of success. Even defaulting, an average stat character has a 2/3 chance of succeeding.

Average is average; this is where you would expect somebody to require the requisite experience and ability of a professional at work to achieve success ordinarily. Examples might include talking on the comlink to your brother-in-law’s friend in East Africa while driving a cab aggressively in heavy rush hour traffic while it’s raining and managing to not hit the child who just chased their ball out into traffic, Interpreting test results with observational data to correctly determine a common illness that is afflicting a patient, and successfully vaulting a 1 meter tall hurdle at a full run.

Hard is where even an experienced veteran with above-average statistics needs something to break their way to pull off an activity on average; You need a 9 Dice Pool to expect to get 3 Hits, and 4 Skill + 4 Stat is only 8. You’re still looking for a net +1 DP modifier somewhere. Even your Elite characters with the maximum unmodified Stat can only buy success casually if the net DP modifiers are even or in their favor.

Extreme suddenly looks a lot more impressive, neh?

So, I have touched on how stats and skills at their representative levels reflect on expected success rates against subjective thresholds. Everybody still with me, as this has turned into one of my characteristic and infamous rants?

Now, why do we have problems with number creep? Because we’re gamers, even the hard-core “role-players� on some level know it’s a game and that games have rules, so more dice is better. I never met a positive modifier I didn’t like. But that’s us looking at it as a game, not as imaginary avatars in a fantasy setting. If we were to look at it from a WOLD perspective and KEEP our frame of reference in that space, like I demonstrated above, we could keep in line with the system’s base assumptions and expectations instead of breaking things.

To help with that, I like both the caps quoted above, as well as the other one limiting the maximum number of hits to 2x Skill. That means without spending Edge, a defaulting character can’t achieve even an average target number. Why? Because that’s what we’d expect from a professional individual, not a schmuck who’s guessing! But even the barest of actual training allows a “beginner� (RTG 1) to routinely pull off average tests with enough modifiers in their favor. A “novice� (RTG 2) can do hard things, and a “professional� (RTG 3) can achieve extreme results, when things go their way. Is that unrealistic? Not in the least. Does it bring the focus squarely back onto skills? You bet. Does it Nerf^TM characters back to levels the system was inherently designed to handle? It just might at that.

That is why, whenever I create a character (or examine a character sheet) I am asking myself “what is the thematically appropriate skill level for this character in that Skill?� I did that with Kerenshara when I built her, and had to do a lot of trimming. But guess what? I did NOT assign even one skill (naturally) at RTG 5 (Expert) or above! If I had the points I might have put a 5 into Perception given her specific upbringing and background.

It’s also useful for RP purposes to keep those skill guidelines in mind, because I guarantee that although the characters don’t know what their DP count is, or what their Skill RTG is at, they know their approximate level of capability, and in the real world, I “role play� to my own perceived level of capability every day.

Finally, let’s look at the closest thing we have in real life to Prime Shadowrunners as most of us conceive of them:

U.S. Navy Seal team member

Statistics:

BOD: 5 (Even the scrawny guys are in extreme peak physical condition.)

AGI: 5 (If they didn’t have it before, their AGIlity will be superior before they’re done.)

STR: 4 (Swimming, Running and Jumping are all STRength, plus carrying.)

REA: 5 (Their training is intense in all kinds of REAction based Skills.)

CHA: 3 (Guys who can’t get along in a group won’t make it onto a Team.)

INT: 4 (By the time they’re out, their ability to intuitively process data is well above average.)

LOG: 3 (Contrary to some popular belief, these guys are actually smart.)

WIL: 4 (If their WILlpower wasn’t at LEAST above average, they’d have washed out of B.U.D.S.)

Core Skills:

Firearms: 5 (Expert) - specialists will have even better.

Athletics: 5 (Expert) - all that Swimming, Jumping, Running, Climbing and Tumbling?

Close Combat: 4+ (Veteran) - these guys are lethal up close, though they prefer firearms.

Throwing Weapons: 3+ (Professional) - Grenades, knives, incendiaries, you name it.

Diving: 4+ (Veteran) - even Nuggets on the Teams are veteran divers.

Parachuting: 4+ (Veteran) - HALO jump at night? Par for the course.

Infiltration: 4+ (Veteran) - If you’re not quiet, you’re worthless.

Perception: 4+ (Veteran) - What you can’t see, kills you.

Leadership (Tactics): 2+ (Novice) - Even the nuggets know the basics.

Demolition: 2+ (Novice) - Even the nuggets know the basics.

First-Aid (Trauma): 2 - Everybody’s cross-trained in basic trauma first-aid.

Can you build that with a starting 400 BP? Not a chance. Should that character intimidate the drek out of any shadowrunner less than full Prime status (read: not a recurring name in the Fluff)? If they’re smart, yes. Do they have a pile of 6’s in anything? No. And the numbers above don’t even include 6^th World augmentations! These guys are picked from amongst the best of the best of the best. They are trained at a crushing pace over the course of years and hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars. No Shadowrunner can match that out of the gate.

Bravo Kerenshara, Bravo...
*Bows*

[Glyph]

And Glyph... It is Your Game... Play how you like, But I am going to use the Fluff and Rules as they are, somewhat significantly out of the Stratosphere...... It is very obvious the intent of the designers... skills from 0-7 with the average being in the 3-4 range... You may not agree with that, but you cannot argue that point...

What the hell "average" are you talking about? Shadowrunners, in case you might have missed it, are not average. Let me clue you in. You haven't stumbled onto the one true way the game was "intended" to be played.

Attempting to interpret the intent of the game designers as to power level from a combination of suggested house rules, fluff, and various off-hand comments in blog posts is like reading your tea leaves to find out if you have cancer.

Words to live by.

[Totentanz]

I never said they should avoid going above a certain level. What I said (or implied) was that there is no subjective NEED to push a character that far. The rules have hard caps in them, aside from the "optional" limits. As long as the character isn't "breaking" the rules, I have no problem with the actual taking of stats and/or skills to those heights. I am concerned when doing so is merely an attempt to further push the limits of the system, not to do with any particular character motivation or need. Getting to Longarms RTG 6 takes a lot of time, dedication, practice and rounds downrange. Are you the team's dedicated sniper? Is that your focus? Than why shouldn't you be satisfied with being "Expert" with the weapon? It's one more die, and even with the caps, you're already within the "max 20" cap leaving a Stat and Skill both at 5. Now, please bear in mind, when I talk about Stats (in any discussion like this) I am referring to the ones that are completely natural. Augmentations, be they magical or technilogical, are, to my opinion, simply more modifiers. And as I pointed out in the long post above: with the Hits <= Skill x2, you still can get "Extreme" results (5+ Hits) with RTG 3 Skill. Add a Stat augmented to a 7, and you can hit the 20 DP cap with no problems.

Heh.

The important thing to remember about characters is that they will seek to become better with time. Will they know their dice pool? No, but any Runner worth his dark sunglasses has shot enough bullets to know a smartlink makes his life easier, and spending time at the range is necessary for existence. When you make Prime Runners to use against the PC's I'd bet my Power Focus you look at their DP's. In the real world, people who aren't good enough at their profession or avocation get better or quit. In SR, runners get better by any method they can, or they die.

I think my post actually answers yours fairly well here. First you say you aren't arguing for avoiding a cap. Then you say there is no subjective need. Finally, you imply they should avoid it. My post, on the other hand, supplies that subjective need. Note I don't say every character should push themselves to 6 everywhere, I'm just saying that if people want something, they can get it.

I'd like to turn your proposition on its head. Instead of a GM who stops whining about characters with too many dice, why don't we have a group of players who push their GM to come up with more creative challenges that require the PLAYERS to think and respond, rather than just throwing double-handfulls of dice? If the GM sets a tone where the 20 DP cap is not only a limit, but also an unusual limit reached by the top professionals in their fields, then they won't be as incentivised to buil such extensive Dice Pools in the first place, and we won't have the vicious spiral to begin with.

You haven't turned anything on its head. You are putting the onus on the GM to be creative, as was I. If the group is happy with their uber DP's and multiple specialties at 6, who are you and I to tell them otherwise? However, I do find it amusing you think it's the player's responsibility to make the GM run a good game.

Your argument here unfortunately boils down to "I can make a badhoop mother-slotter, so the GM just needs to deal with me!". Omae, I don't mean to sound confrontational, but doesn't that sounds just a tad immature to you? If you don't think so, take another look at your assertions. If neither you nor your GM set out to break the system, doesn't the whole argument just go away? We're here to play a game together, not to beat each other.

Oh, and as a side note: GM's are SUPPOSED to lose. What makes their job fun and challenging, is keeping the margin of failure to as thin a line as they can. If the players lose, that's it. Roll up new toons, folks. But if the players blow the GM out of the water, it lacks the satisfaction of pulling off a brilliant last-minute victory from the jaws of defeat with a brilliant use of a point of EDGe and a load of creativity and chutzpah. The secret is, nobody is as satisfied with that ending as the GM themselves.

Here, unfortunately, we have a problem. That wasn't my argument, and you twisting it doesn't help. I don't think it's immature for me to argue differently than you. I was responding to the general sentiment that somehow players are at fault for wanting their characters to be good. You seem to have taken that personally.

Finally, we agree again. GM's exist to help weave a good story and challenge the players. Nothing I said conflicted with that, and yet you seem to think I did. But, why can't the players blow the GM out of the water once in a while? Are they supposed to be like 5 year-olds wrestling their dad? Their only victory is at his sufferance? When I GM, if my players come up with a brilliant plot that kills my BBEG and circumvents the nasty obstacles, I just say bravo. I always have another BBEG.

Is it any less pointless than proving that you can build a character and engineer a situation to break the rules system? That's what I have seen over and over again in these threads: ways to break the system. Can we do it? Absolutely. Can we prove it afterwards? Without a doubt. Do we deprive ourselves of some of the flavor and sense of the immersion in the word we play in as a consequence? Unfortunately, yes. If you and I as players make a point to keep ourselves "reasaonable" and not push the outer edges of the rules, the GM won't feel compelled to follow suit to "keep up", and there is still plenty of room to frow and develop as a character.

So, we both agree then that the game writers intent shouldn't be interpreted as an objective measure of appropriate play, and that players and GM's should have a cooperative relationship that results in a good game. Great.

My arguments from my previous post were, in order.

1: People in the real world try to get better at things they do. Runners, by dint of experience, will do the same. My argument is players are RP'ing by trying to get better. I never once said they should sacrifice their character development for stat development. If the hacker who hates guns collects a bunch of karma and wants to go full gun bunny out of nowhere, I'll be right there with you kicking the drek out of him.

2: Players shouldn't be limited by some arbitrary limitation if the rules allow for it. We come down on different sides here, but I don't see why you were so flippant about my argument. If the group in question enjoys playing games where characters develop into having 6's in multiple specialties, let them. It's their game. Your example of a SEAL is perfect. After running the shadow for 15 years, you bet plenty of characters will look like that, or better, depending on their style. The group should decide balance and style. Not you, I, or anyone else. If they want to generate 100 BP lame-ass people and roleplay running a Stuffer Shack, great. Conversely, if they want to generate 1000 BP characters O' Doom, they should be allowed to do that. All your pretty analysis doesn't change that.

3: People shouldn't attempt to interpret the will of the designers of the game from rules, or anything else for that matter. My reason for this is two-fold. First, it's silly, because people can twist the interpretation any way they want. Second, IT DOESN'T MATTER! I just get tired of someone coming on forums like these and saying, "You're playing the game wrong because the writers said blah!" It's drek.

What I really find funny here, is your arguments on your own character. I have read several posts now where you talk about your character developing her own magical style, and how you made roleplaying choices, not power choices, yadda yadda. When other people accuse you of cherry-picking spirits, you deny it. That's cool, I think your idea is great. But, other people are saddling you with the "munchkin" tag or in some cases saying you are playing the game wrong. "Only GM's should make Traditions." Of course, it's your game. Why should a group of runners who all rock Longarms 6 be any different? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

What the hell "average" are you talking about? Shadowrunners, in case you might have missed it, are not average. Let me clue you in. You haven't stumbled onto the one true way the game was "intended" to be played.

You are right, Shadowrunners are not AVERAGE... They are skilled criminals that walk the shadows and shoot people in the face for money... However, to do so they DO NOT NEED to have mass numbers of dice to succeed... that is a fallacy that you continue to support, and it is wrong... you can perform the same skills within the guidelines of the skill descriptions... Skill level 3 is perfectly acceptable for a PROFESSIONAL CRIMINAL... just because YOU apparently desire High Dice Pools so that you can minimize or eliminate any possible failure, And because I prefer to have smaller Dice Pools and experience Challenging scenarios does not make either of us more right than the other... the only thing that HIGH DICE POOLS do is to remove the randomness from the game... if you do not want the randomness, then don't roll the dice... just use freeform and be done with it...

AS for "What the Hell Average am I talking About?" the avergage skill level for the characters will be from 3-4... Take a GOOD LOOK at the rules. they allow you to be Best of the Best in ONE skill at character creation or Epert in Two... ALL OTHER SKILLS MUST BE 4 OR LOWER, thus my comparison... therefore, your average shadowrunner will not be the best in the world at what he does... a single skill at 6, or 2 at 5, is not going to make you unstoppable, and you will have a specialty that you can rely upon, but the Quest for teh ever incrementing Dice Pools is ludicrous in my opinion, as the system is not designed to support such a level of campaign, especially for a long duration... I will agree that you can do so, but when you do, the verisimilitude of the world begins to break down drastically...

And I will say it again, because you appear to be missing the point... The designers of the system clearly intended the characters to be in the 10-15 Dice Pool range. All indicators (Archetypes, opponents, contacts, Skill Level Descriptions, etc) point to this... IF you were to Play/run the game with this in mind (See Kerenshara's previous post on the subject), you would STILL succeed in your tasks (As there is absolutely NO NEED to have really high dice pools), and the GM would NOT have to escalate the opposition to increasingly insane levels to provide a challenge... This is the Power Creep that I continue to refer to... Once your characters are throwing insane dice pools, the opposition needs to be compensated if you are to be challenged... once you are again challenged, you adjust by once gain inflating dice pools and the cycle starts all over again... Why not just accept the challenge?

If your goal is to WIN, well, insane Dice Pools will definitely get you there, but for those who would rather enjoy a good story, those Dice Pools are less than necessary, they are a distraction... The Dice Pools are an abstraction to provide a random resolution to events in the story... if you have a dice pool so large that randomness is removed, then, in my opinion, you lose out on a lot of story potential...

You and I both disagree on the "intention" of the rules as designed, and that is okay... we can both be right at our own gaming tables... However, I submit that you may be missing out on some challenging roleplaying... and before you say that I am missing out on Epic Play because I do not pursue those insane Dice Pools that are commonly touted here on Dumpshock, let me just say that I have played such games, and I find them extremely boring... playing a game where there is never a chance to fail in anything that I pursue is not enjoyable... I prefer the chance of failure to always winning at whatever I do...

Looks like I have rambled and ranted on enough... Apologies...

Keep the Faith

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

1: People in the real world try to get better at things they do. Runners, by dint of experience, will do the same. My argument is players are RP'ing by trying to get better. I never once said they should sacrifice their character development for stat development. If the hacker who hates guns collects a bunch of karma and wants to go full gun bunny out of nowhere, I'll be right there with you kicking the drek out of him.

2: Players shouldn't be limited by some arbitrary limitation if the rules allow for it. We come down on different sides here, but I don't see why you were so flippant about my argument. If the group in question enjoys playing games where characters develop into having 6's in multiple specialties, let them. It's their game. Your example of a SEAL is perfect. After running the shadow for 15 years, you bet plenty of characters will look like that, or better, depending on their style. The group should decide balance and style. Not you, I, or anyone else. If they want to generate 100 BP lame-ass people and roleplay running a Stuffer Shack, great. Conversely, if they want to generate 1000 BP characters O' Doom, they should be allowed to do that. All your pretty analysis doesn't change that.

3: People shouldn't attempt to interpret the will of the designers of the game from rules, or anything else for that matter. My reason for this is two-fold. First, it's silly, because people can twist the interpretation any way they want. Second, IT DOESN'T MATTER! I just get tired of someone coming on forums like these and saying, "You're playing the game wrong because the writers said blah!" It's drek.

What I really find funny here, is your arguments on your own character. I have read several posts now where you talk about your character developing her own magical style, and how you made roleplaying choices, not power choices, yadda yadda. When other people accuse you of cherry-picking spirits, you deny it. That's cool, I think your idea is great. But, other people are saddling you with the "munchkin" tag or in some cases saying you are playing the game wrong. "Only GM's should make Traditions." Of course, it's your game. Why should a group of runners who all rock Longarms 6 be any different? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

If I may say a thing or two here...

1. Character and "Stat" development should be concurrent with the story that is being developed by the GM. Everyone is responsible for the story, not just the GM or the Players alone... Everyone...

2. I think that the point here is that we need a measureable scale here... people develop their skill sets over time. That SEAL mentioned above probably took that full 15 years you are talking about to develop those skills to those levels... in contrast, the Shadowrunner can do so in a matter of months (or less), and this is where the breakdown in verisimilitude occurrs... I do not care how good you think you are in a subject, you will not advance from Professional (Game Term) to the BEST in the World (Game Term) in just a few months... this type of advancement requires years of training and experience... and should be reflected in the world as a whole... If you are creating such characters at start, then you should show those dedicated years of training in your backstory, and not be the "typical shadowrunner" who, at a minimal age, outshoots, outdrinks, outsmarts, out romances, out negotiates, yadda, yadda, yadda those people who acquired their skills/specialties over 3 decades or more of professinal experienc. And yes, I will acknowledge that there are some exceptions to this dilemma... Mozart was Composing at the age of 5... He was a prodigy in his own right, but not in large numbers of multiple disciplines...

3. The rules provide the framework for the rest of the world... Interpretation is crucial to establish teh world as a living breathing entity... without it, you have no verisimilitude..., So I am going to have to disagree with you here...

Character Development is crucial to the long term functionality of a character... a character that never develops other than to assign the Karma to Stats is a very stale character indeed. Never forget that the game is a two way street... It takes Players and Gamemasters to run a successful game...

Just my two (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) here...
Keep the Faith...

[Synner667]

You are right, Shadowrunners are not AVERAGE... They are skilled criminals that walk the shadows and shoot people in the face for money... However, to do so they DO NOT NEED to have mass numbers of dice to succeed... that is a fallacy that you continue to support, and it is wrong... you can perform the same skills within the guidelines of the skill descriptions... Skill level 3 is perfectly acceptable for a PROFESSIONAL CRIMINAL... just because YOU apparently desire High Dice Pools so that you can minimize or eliminate any possible failure, And because I prefer to have smaller Dice Pools and experience Challenging scenarios does not make either of us more right than the other... the only thing that HIGH DICE POOLS do is to remove the randomness from the game... if you do not want the randomness, then don't roll the dice... just use freeform and be done with it...

Not all shadowrunners are criminal...
...Running the shadows is a quasi-legal "job" [see the proliferation of Spec Ops, mercenaries, undercover police, corporate operatives, private investigators].

AS for "What the Hell Average am I talking About?" the avergage skill level for the characters will be from 3-4... Take a GOOD LOOK at the rules. they allow you to be Best of the Best in ONE skill at character creation or Expert in Two... ALL OTHER SKILLS MUST BE 4 OR LOWER, thus my comparison... therefore, your average shadowrunner will not be the best in the world at what he does... a single skill at 6, or 2 at 5, is not going to make you unstoppable, and you will have a specialty that you can rely upon, but the Quest for teh ever incrementing Dice Pools is ludicrous in my opinion, as the system is not designed to support such a level of campaign, especially for a long duration... I will agree that you can do so, but when you do, the verisimilitude of the world begins to break down drastically...

Almost all RPGs have a breakdown point, at which the game falls apart.
SR v4 is just being more heavy handed about trying to force characters to fit within a very narrow band.

The fact that SR v4 defines the whole range of ability in a 6-7 number variation is at least a large part of the issue...
...Having the average person at 2, a professional at 3 and the [supposed] max at 7 is just badly done by SR v4.

As you mention, the achievement gradient between professional and maxximum is just unachievable in the context of an RPG, unless you really spend years playing.
Hell, between average and professional should be quite a long time.

In other RPGs with such a limited spread of values, the values mean a lot more - WoD is a good example of this and the values are almost logarithmic is their ability.
Really, the SR v4 devs should not have used those rules without also taking on board the repercussions.
Even HERO values aren't completely linear - every 5 attribute points doubles it's ability, for example.

And I will say it again, because you appear to be missing the point... The designers of the system clearly intended the characters to be in the 10-15 Dice Pool range. All indicators (Archetypes, opponents, contacts, Skill Level Descriptions, etc) point to this... IF you were to Play/run the game with this in mind (See Kerenshara's previous post on the subject), you would STILL succeed in your tasks (As there is absolutely NO NEED to have really high dice pools), and the GM would NOT have to escalate the opposition to increasingly insane levels to provide a challenge... This is the Power Creep that I continue to refer to... Once your characters are throwing insane dice pools, the opposition needs to be compensated if you are to be challenged... once you are again challenged, you adjust by once gain inflating dice pools and the cycle starts all over again... Why not just accept the challenge?

If your goal is to WIN, well, insane Dice Pools will definitely get you there, but for those who would rather enjoy a good story, those Dice Pools are less than necessary, they are a distraction... The Dice Pools are an abstraction to provide a random resolution to events in the story... if you have a dice pool so large that randomness is removed, then, in my opinion, you lose out on a lot of story potential...

For some people, just being able to boast about the size of their dicepool is the goal, the whole reason for the character - how effective they are with it, is almost irrelevant.

You and I both disagree on the "intention" of the rules as designed, and that is okay... we can both be right at our own gaming tables.

Totally right - each of us plays differently and wants to have fun in different ways. None are more "right" than any other

However, I submit that you may be missing out on some challenging roleplaying... and before you say that I am missing out on Epic Play because I do not pursue those insane Dice Pools that are commonly touted here on Dumpshock, let me just say that I have played such games, and I find them extremely boring... playing a game where there is never a chance to fail in anything that I pursue is not enjoyable... I prefer the chance of failure to always winning at whatever I do...

Some people are unable to accept challenge and failure, without distorting thing so the chance of success is heavily stacked in their favour [though, anyone with any sense wants the highest chance of success before the attempt something].

[Kerenshara]

You haven't turned anything on its head. You are putting the onus on the GM to be creative, as was I. If the group is happy with their uber DP's and multiple specialties at 6, who are you and I to tell them otherwise? However, I do find it amusing you think it's the player's responsibility to make the GM run a good game.

If that's the way the group really wants to play, they're optional caps, so play on. My problem is that if people set about intentionally creating characters and situations to drive the rules past the point where they perfom as designed, I don't think they sould be complaining about the fact that things don't work as designed.

Here, unfortunately, we have a problem. That wasn't my argument, and you twisting it doesn't help. I don't think it's immature for me to argue differently than you. I was responding to the general sentiment that somehow players are at fault for wanting their characters to be good. You seem to have taken that personally.

I wasn't saying that it was immature to argue diferently than me. I was saying that the argument that "I can do it, so there, deal with it" is inherently immature. Players are not at fault for wanting to be good. But a 20 DP is beyond any reasonable definition of "good" in the universe as written (UAW? I think I'll have to keep that.) I didn't take it at all personally. I just have seen it argued that way far too often (usually by people far less articulate and reasoning than you). If everybody went back and looked at the system the way I laid it out, then I don't see a reason people couldn't be satisfied with a 15 DP, which is enough on AVERAGE to get those 5 Hits to top out the threshold charts. Sure, it's opposed rolls in combat and such, but if the badguys are built to the same ideals by the GM (essentially setting the tone for their players because they don't NEED godsawful Dice Pools to come out ahead) then they don't have to overload everything. IF the GM is running things from their side of the screen per the UAW, then it's the PLAYER'S responsibility not to push the GM by making things so rediculous the GM has no choice but to follow suit. Stating up front that you are putting all three caps in place for skill checks (damage soak and so forth wouldn't apply, so things like the rediculous troll in Heavy Military Armor really IS nigh-impervious to anything man-portabe... this means YOU Stahlseele *grin*) drives home that the GM isn't planning to push things over the top. I play with a group of people who routinely figure out ways to do multi-thouand point damage curves per turn with melee weapons in DnD, but with just the Skill x2 Hit cap in place, we've had some great luck so far, and adding the last two caps would be only a minor change from our perspective, but a couple of the characters who are entirely reliant on gear for their mods would have to change tack just a bit. It's like the thread says in the title: it's all about the attitude of the players.

Finally, we agree again. GM's exist to help weave a good story and challenge the players. Nothing I said conflicted with that, and yet you seem to think I did. But, why can't the players blow the GM out of the water once in a while? Are they supposed to be like 5 year-olds wrestling their dad? Their only victory is at his sufferance? When I GM, if my players come up with a brilliant plot that kills my BBEG and circumvents the nasty obstacles, I just say bravo. I always have another BBEG.

No reason to not want to get better. But in all things, especially in real life, there is a fundamental limit. Take Michael Phelps. He's probably as close to the 20DP limit as we're ever going to see. His feats in the water literally are the things that inspire stories of adpet powers. He is right up against the ragged edge of the current human performance envelope. Ultimately, it will get to the point in any endeavor where skill, ability, tools and circumstances will become as good as they can get, and the only thing left will be the imponderables and vaguaries of pure chance. Face it, at 20DP, the player can simply say, on any single threshold based test "I buy 5 Hits" and max things out. There HAS to be an upper limit against which to compare your own performance. It's one of the biggest weaknesses with the d20 system: there really are no caps and things get plain stupid eventually. Michael Phelps is always trying to get better, and he's entitled, but I don't think he's going to see too much more, at least dramatically, in the way of improvements in his lifetime.

So, we both agree then that the game writers intent shouldn't be interpreted as an objective measure of appropriate play, and that players and GM's should have a cooperative relationship that results in a good game. Great.

Not sure I actually agree fully on the first part, but we're in concert on the second.

My arguments from my previous post were, in order.

1: People in the real world try to get better at things they do. Runners, by dint of experience, will do the same. My argument is players are RP'ing by trying to get better. I never once said they should sacrifice their character development for stat development. If the hacker who hates guns collects a bunch of karma and wants to go full gun bunny out of nowhere, I'll be right there with you kicking the drek out of him.

As you said earlier: "heh"

2: Players shouldn't be limited by some arbitrary limitation if the rules allow for it. We come down on different sides here, but I don't see why you were so flippant about my argument. If the group in question enjoys playing games where characters develop into having 6's in multiple specialties, let them. It's their game. Your example of a SEAL is perfect. After running the shadow for 15 years, you bet plenty of characters will look like that, or better, depending on their style. The group should decide balance and style. Not you, I, or anyone else. If they want to generate 100 BP lame-ass people and roleplay running a Stuffer Shack, great. Conversely, if they want to generate 1000 BP characters O' Doom, they should be allowed to do that. All your pretty analysis doesn't change that.

I went into this above just a second ago. It's not really arbitrary. The Dev's set what they expect to be a realistic maximum performance level in the UAW. I don't consider that "arbitrary" and I backed up that opinion with math showing how the "fluff" matches up with the "crunch" pretty convincingly. But when a sniper takes a shot from a dodging helicopter flying NoE at a moving target at 3000m and gets a head-shot which blows the Troll in Heavy Military Armor away in one hit then turns to the guy next to him and shrugs and says "nah, no biggie" and MEANS it, that's gone beyond fantasy and magic and handwavium technology straight into "bulldrek" as far as I'm concerned. This has nothing to do with starting BP or earned Karma, either. It comes back to Rick Okuda's comment about replicating a starship in Star Trek: "If you could replicate an entire starship at the push of a button, you probably wouldn't really need to."

3: People shouldn't attempt to interpret the will of the designers of the game from rules, or anything else for that matter. My reason for this is two-fold. First, it's silly, because people can twist the interpretation any way they want. Second, IT DOESN'T MATTER! I just get tired of someone coming on forums like these and saying, "You're playing the game wrong because the writers said blah!" It's drek.

Omaye, I will merely point out a little event that occured in the Classic Battletech Universe some years ago now (no conincidence it was a F.A.S.A. product at the time, same as Shadowrun) where a certain player, who shall remain un-named, decided to tell Michael Stackpole that he didn't care what he thought, that HE had the right answers about the CBT universe and he (Michael) could go sit and spin. Perhaps I should point out that the player in question fancied themselves the "Kahn of Clan Smoke Jaguar". Well as it turns out, Mike was writing a novel about the Trial of Refusal launched by the Inner Sphere under the command of Victor Davion himself, and he was trying to decide which Crusader faction clan got to "go away". I understand the player received a personally signed copy of the book from Michael. As a spoiler, in case you haven't guessed yet, the Smoke Jaguar clan became the "smoking kitties" and they were wiped out to the last bondsman. I had to tell somebody the other day: "You removed magic from your game. You don't accept the Matrix as depicted. You deleted ESSence as a limit on cyber- and bioware. You're not playing Shadowrun, you're playing the old PC game Syndicate." You're always welcome to tweak things to your own liking, but once you go past a certain point, you leave the Universe As Written and are off entirely on your own. As you stated that you get tired of hearing "You're playing the game wrong because the writers said blah!", I get tired of hearing "I don't care what the fluff says! The RAW states..." If all I cared about were pure mechanics, I'd be sitting in front of my television playing on a console.

What I really find funny here, is your arguments on your own character. I have read several posts now where you talk about your character developing her own magical style, and how you made roleplaying choices, not power choices, yadda yadda. When other people accuse you of cherry-picking spirits, you deny it. That's cool, I think your idea is great. But, other people are saddling you with the "munchkin" tag or in some cases saying you are playing the game wrong. "Only GM's should make Traditions." Of course, it's your game. Why should a group of runners who all rock Longarms 6 be any different? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/spin.gif)

I didn't deny cherry-picking. I said I didn't cherry-pick them for their Crunchy Bits^TM. The comparison is a bit of "apples and oranges" because (and I'm not going to quote it AGAIN) the rules clearly state that the traditions as printed are only the most COMMON ways of magic in the 6^th World, and many (even most) magicians have to figure it out as they go along, and provide detailed rules for creation of those "alternate" traditions. It's not side-bar, it's not optional, it's actually listed BEFORE the main two traditions in primary column text. The game designers set out to describe a world with a set of mechanics we can use to reproduce some of the events and occurences from the stories and history of the 6^th World. If you decide that you want to make a sniper who can blow the wings off a gnat flying near the Empire State Building from their lounge chair in Tulsa Oklahoma without even worying about missing, or punch Ghostwalker in the nads and watch him curl up die and then transform into luggage ready for sale with a single punch, that's your business and your table. But even Fastjack and the true Prime Runners get things wrong or screw up a 'run. As for myself, if I have to abide by same limits as the most legendary names in the 6^th World, I'm just shiny with that.

[Kerenshara]

Almost all RPGs have a breakdown point, at which the game falls apart.
SR v4 is just being more heavy handed about trying to force characters to fit within a very narrow band.

The fact that SR v4 defines the whole range of ability in a 6-7 number variation is at least a large part of the issue...
...Having the average person at 2, a professional at 3 and the [supposed] max at 7 is just badly done by SR v4.

Just because the total NUMBER range is small doesn't mean the outcomes of those numbers don't wind up fitting the situation. Scroll up to my rant a ways up where I analye the way the numbers match the situations in the game. I don't happen to think -,0,1-10 is a narrow range at all.

*snip*

I tend to generally agree with you on the rest of it, though.

[Glyph]

I keep hearing this refrain that high dice pools remove the "challenge" from the game by removing the random element and making characters invincible, but I have never run into either problem. Shadowrun has frequently been described as a game of "eggshells with hammers", where it is extremely easy to get a one-shot kill, but where characters are still vulnerable in turn. This makes it a more tactical game. Characters with high dice pools, if anything, face more challenges, because they run into higher-level/more numerous opposition. I don't make characters with dice pools in the (usually) 16-18 dice pool range because I think it tilts the odds safely in my favor. I simply make logical choices at character creation.

As for the "roleplaying" argument, that's merely the tired old Stormwind fallacy raising its ugly head again. I have played in lots of low-power games, and while they were fun, I didn't find that the lower power level magically increased the roleplaying. Or that higher-end games stifled it. Note that I am just fine with low-powered games; I am fine with nearly any kind of game where the GM states ahead of time what kind of game it will be, and what kind of characters he wants. This works out a lot better than GMs who assume that their take on the game is the default one, and that any player who is not instinctively on the same page as him must be a munchkin.


Synner667, you are right about SR4's skills being too narrow a range for a straight linear progression. That problem is only compounded by rules that make it comparatively easy for characters to improve skills up to that level with a bit of Karma, and fluff that describes differences of one die as if they were huge gulfs of skill, and tends towards excessive hyperbole, especially at the 6 and 7 levels. I think part of the problem is that, for their examples, they use people who have that skill level for numerous skills (such as scientists and special forces). Having an automatics skill of 5 means that you shoot as good as a special forces guy. Which means - you spend time at the firing range, you have been shooting guns for a while, you have shot guns in actual combat situations, you keep cool under fire, you react with combat-trained instincts when using your gun, things like aiming, reloading, and acquiring targets are intuitive to you, and your aim is very accurate. This is plausible for a hard-eyed ex-barrens ganger, ex-corporate expediter, or numerous other concepts. But people read the fluff and get this image of an elite commando in their head, and think, "Well, my guy isn't an elite commando".

[Totentanz]

1. Character and "Stat" development should be concurrent with the story that is being developed by the GM. Everyone is responsible for the story, not just the GM or the Players alone... Everyone...

Agreed. The creation and improvement of the characters should be a cooperative effort between the characters and the GM. Generally players have control over their characters, but it is the GM's prerogative to exercise control to maintain fun play and keep it within his campaign. As you mentioned below, the system allows characters to accumulate the karma to become the best marksman in the world in a relatively short period of time. The GM can and should put breaks on to keep things in-line with his campaign. Conversely, the GM should also listen to his players and be open to letting them have what they want, within reason.

The story should work in much the same way. The GM mostly creates and runs it, but hopefully he listens to his players and works with them to include possible sub-plots they want and give them a chance to play with certain toys. If a player makes a demo character, at some point he should get to use it. If the GM's campaign revolves around heavy intrigue within a corp or something he can just suggest the player save the demo guy for the next campaign.

2. I think that the point here is that we need a measureable scale here... people develop their skill sets over time. That SEAL mentioned above probably took that full 15 years you are talking about to develop those skills to those levels... in contrast, the Shadowrunner can do so in a matter of months (or less), and this is where the breakdown in verisimilitude occurrs... I do not care how good you think you are in a subject, you will not advance from Professional (Game Term) to the BEST in the World (Game Term) in just a few months... this type of advancement requires years of training and experience... and should be reflected in the world as a whole... If you are creating such characters at start, then you should show those dedicated years of training in your backstory, and not be the "typical shadowrunner" who, at a minimal age, outshoots, outdrinks, outsmarts, out romances, out negotiates, yadda, yadda, yadda those people who acquired their skills/specialties over 3 decades or more of professinal experienc. And yes, I will acknowledge that there are some exceptions to this dilemma... Mozart was Composing at the age of 5... He was a prodigy in his own right, but not in large numbers of multiple disciplines...

Yes, skills are developed over time, in almost all cases. Anyone with an exceptional rating should have a good reason to have it. One of the ways I build my characters is to consider what I want, then think about how the character I envisioned would have ended up that way. The system supports people being complete masters of a subject at start, and I don't think we disagree on that being appropriate. The key is to create a character where it is believable, right?

3. The rules provide the framework for the rest of the world... Interpretation is crucial to establish teh world as a living breathing entity... without it, you have no verisimilitude..., So I am going to have to disagree with you here...

Character Development is crucial to the long term functionality of a character... a character that never develops other than to assign the Karma to Stats is a very stale character indeed. Never forget that the game is a two way street... It takes Players and Gamemasters to run a successful game...

The rules do provide the framework for the world, as does the fluff. However, over time I've noticed a propensity in people on boards such this one to use their personal interpretation of such to claim other people are doing it "wrong." That is what I was arguing against. If somebody really wants to run a game where someone picks up a gun and becomes a master in 6 months, let 'em. It's their game. The general crunch-character development guidelines we mostly agree on don't have to apply to them. Citing explicit text to lay foundation for the interpretation of a rule is great. Treating the books like holy books and developers like prophets is just silly. They made a system, some it is almost certainly good, and some of it sucks. We can all think of several parts of SR4 that makes us scratch our heads. More importantly, we all paid money for them and we play as a hobby, not as a job. Well, I've heard of a few exceptions to that...

Yes, character development is about the character and the sheet. I hoped that went without saying. Maybe I'm not being clear.

[Wounded Ronin]

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.

See, the problem is that the people writing the descriptions for the skill levels just arbitrarily decided what each level should be called or described as without even taking 15 minutes to think about what they were saying in terms of the statistics. When it comes down to arbitrary text descriptors versus statistical reality you need to build your character more around statistical reality or else you will have a game where the mechanics won't even work as people expect.

Someone who decides that a game is flawed because nobody wants to take a level of skill that is likely to fail just because of what the arbitrary text description says about that level of skill is probably just looking foward to the power thrill of running a completely arbitrary rule-less ego massage game.

[Glyph]

A dice pool of 12 doesn't always fail - but some people think that players should pick a dice pool of 12 over a dice pool of 18, even though a dice pool of 18 is easy to acquire. Hell, a dice pool of 18 even makes sense for a shadowrunner - given the highly specialized and dangerous work that they do on a regular basis, they should resemble special ops a lot more than they resemble security guards. So the matching the fluff argument doesn't really hold water.

The game quality argument - that high dice pools make the game insta-win and discourage roleplaying - doesn't work, either, because I have been in high-powered games where there has been lots of roleplaying, and where I have survived by the skin of my teeth. When it comes to realism, Shadowrun is a game of high-octane action and people who are more than human, so while overall verisimilitude is nice, I expect more of an action movie feel to it.

The game designers' intent argument doesn't impress me, either, because as I mentioned earlier, the game is already chock-full of hard and soft limits. One of the examples of character creation explicitly sets out to make his character as good as possible at shooting things. Yeah, he misses a few tricks, but the point is still that he is still trying to be "the best shooter possible". The vignette at the beginning of the skill section also contrasts a skill monkey with a one-trick pony - both apparently have their niche in the game world.

I think it is counterproductive to attempt guessing a game designer's intentions, especially for something put together by more than one person. But if I did have to take a guess, I would say that their "intention" was to create a game that could accommodate a wide diversity of playing styles. And I would further say that they succeeded. This strength is a potential weakness, though. This is why I think it is so important for GMs to make their expectations for the game clear before it starts.

[Totentanz]

Dang, this is getting fun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/twirl.gif)

If that's the way the group really wants to play, they're optional caps, so play on. My problem is that if people set about intentionally creating characters and situations to drive the rules past the point where they perfom as designed, I don't think they sould be complaining about the fact that things don't work as designed.

I agree people shouldn't complain when they break the game. I have to agree with Glyph, though, that the system can support a lot of wear and tear. Theoretical exercises to break the game are just that: theoretical. Anybody who sets out to break the game in-play is really trying to hurt the groups' fun. I'm getting ready to kick somebody from my personal dinner table group for just that. I'm okay with the people posting trying to push things to the ridiculous; it provides a useful guidepost if nothing else. Also, if people agree they are playing with the intent to push the limits, great. More power to them.

I wasn't saying that it was immature to argue diferently than me. I was saying that the argument that "I can do it, so there, deal with it" is inherently immature. Players are not at fault for wanting to be good. But a 20 DP is beyond any reasonable definition of "good" in the universe as written (UAW? I think I'll have to keep that.) I didn't take it at all personally. I just have seen it argued that way far too often (usually by people far less articulate and reasoning than you). If everybody went back and looked at the system the way I laid it out, then I don't see a reason people couldn't be satisfied with a 15 DP, which is enough on AVERAGE to get those 5 Hits to top out the threshold charts. Sure, it's opposed rolls in combat and such, but if the badguys are built to the same ideals by the GM (essentially setting the tone for their players because they don't NEED godsawful Dice Pools to come out ahead) then they don't have to overload everything. IF the GM is running things from their side of the screen per the UAW, then it's the PLAYER'S responsibility not to push the GM by making things so rediculous the GM has no choice but to follow suit. Stating up front that you are putting all three caps in place for skill checks (damage soak and so forth wouldn't apply, so things like the rediculous troll in Heavy Military Armor really IS nigh-impervious to anything man-portabe... this means YOU Stahlseele *grin*) drives home that the GM isn't planning to push things over the top. I play with a group of people who routinely figure out ways to do multi-thouand point damage curves per turn with melee weapons in DnD, but with just the Skill x2 Hit cap in place, we've had some great luck so far, and adding the last two caps would be only a minor change from our perspective, but a couple of the characters who are entirely reliant on gear for their mods would have to change tack just a bit. It's like the thread says in the title: it's all about the attitude of the players.

UAW. I like. My argument wasn't "I can do it, so there, deal with it." My argument was that GM's are oftentimes afraid of PC's getting good. Whenever somebody trots out the "munchkin" bat, I get nervous. My argument was that if the GM has a bunch of players who like 20 DP games, he should try it.

I'm also curious what about the UAW doesn't support runners taking their jobs seriously and pulling out every toy they can get their hands to have an edge? The mechanics may break at that, but wouldn't you agree that is within the UAW, as you call it?

As for responsibility, I partially agree. It is the responsibility of everyone at the table to communicate and try allow everyone to have fun. I have too often seen GM's whip out restrictions such as these DP-based ones and then beat up on PC's from the safety of the limits. If the GM wants to keep things toned down, he needs to play by the same rules. Hell, it would just be easier to say everyone needs to be on the same page about style. My personal experience has been that a "max-miner" player that intentionally gimps himself in the name of most holy Character Development can be just as disruptive as a min-maxing player. "I need healing." "Okay, you get back three." "THREE!? We are level 6!" "I'm not a power-gamer!"

On the other hand, the innumerable bonuses from gear and situations can bog SR down quite a bit, so imposing those guidelines across the board for everyone is just fine if the table agrees they like it.

I also play with a group that has abused the d20 system to such an extent I'm pretty sure my core set has Battered Game Syndrome. It's fun, but ultimately the math and logistics get tiring. It also puts the GM in the position of either wiping the party completely, or using a Super Soaker to fight a forest fire, with very little room for a normal, challenging game.

No reason to not want to get better. But in all things, especially in real life, there is a fundamental limit. Take Michael Phelps. He's probably as close to the 20DP limit as we're ever going to see. His feats in the water literally are the things that inspire stories of adpet powers. He is right up against the ragged edge of the current human performance envelope. Ultimately, it will get to the point in any endeavor where skill, ability, tools and circumstances will become as good as they can get, and the only thing left will be the imponderables and vaguaries of pure chance. Face it, at 20DP, the player can simply say, on any single threshold based test "I buy 5 Hits" and max things out. There HAS to be an upper limit against which to compare your own performance. It's one of the biggest weaknesses with the d20 system: there really are no caps and things get plain stupid eventually. Michael Phelps is always trying to get better, and he's entitled, but I don't think he's going to see too much more, at least dramatically, in the way of improvements in his lifetime.

In specific, we agree. The system has a definite cap beyond which the characters simply can't improve. What seems to be raising some of this controversy is the fact that it is so easily within reach for a starting character. Using your Michael Phelps example. he probably doesn't have much better than a 16 DP, tops. 7 swimming + 7 Str/Agi/whatever + 2 (maybe) for shaving body hair and wearing a special suit. Of course, very few people in SR will ever have these base stats, and even then only in 1 attribute and one skill.

I think the DP problem doesn't come down to the basics, because that caps fairly easily. It's the bonuses associated with the gear that pushing the DP's into the range you find uncomfortable. The 20 cap is fine, if the table wants it, but now I'm curious about how you implement the crunch limit into the actual game. Why don't people have more mods on their guns or have more armor, or whatever? How do you translate the mechanical limit into something the UAW supports, since that is important to you?

Of course, Magic and Technomancy have to be ignored here simply because they both are unlimited. I guess you could cap total magic pools, but that gets into some odd questions about foci ceasing to function, as well as a hard cap on how many metamagics a mage can acquire.

Not sure I actually agree fully on the first part, but we're in concert on the second.

We can agree to disagree on the objective/subjective nature of appropriate play based on interpreted designer intent. That is itself a matter for GM's and players to work out themselves, and there we are on the same page.

I went into this above just a second ago. It's not really arbitrary. The Dev's set what they expect to be a realistic maximum performance level in the UAW. I don't consider that "arbitrary" and I backed up that opinion with math showing how the "fluff" matches up with the "crunch" pretty convincingly. But when a sniper takes a shot from a dodging helicopter flying NoE at a moving target at 3000m and gets a head-shot which blows the Troll in Heavy Military Armor away in one hit then turns to the guy next to him and shrugs and says "nah, no biggie" and MEANS it, that's gone beyond fantasy and magic and handwavium technology straight into "bulldrek" as far as I'm concerned. This has nothing to do with starting BP or earned Karma, either. It comes back to Rick Okuda's comment about replicating a starship in Star Trek: "If you could replicate an entire starship at the push of a button, you probably wouldn't really need to."

I think my problem here is that the UAW is really the UAI (interpreted.) People have different interpretations and I personally don't see how one person's version is better than any others. For you the amazing sniper shot of awesome violates conventions, heavily I think. For someone else it could be at the high range of acceptable, and for a third it might be "yeah, but where is my 10 foot sword?" You have a degree of respect for the system and its attendant fiction that I don't. The only authority I acknowledge to interpret and use my SR books is my table. I've spent far too much money on far too many systems, and found troll-sized logic holes in almost all of them, to slavishly adhere to the developers' intent, whether that is explicitly stated or cobbled together from an analysis such as yours. You did a fine job on it, btw.

I'm not familiar with Okuda or his comment, but if by that you mean at some point character power reaches a point that it becomes difficult to justify their involvement, I agree. I play another system by WW called Aberrant, in which characters are literally uncapped in their potential. The mechanics supporting that are next-to-useless, but the idea is intriguing. As an example, there is a level 6 (max) power called Universe Creation. The short description reads, "Yes, really." Because we wanted to explore the ramifications of this kind of power, we set out to play a high-powered game. The characters slowly but steadily advanced, and eventually the game got to the point that our fun wasn't derived from rolling dice at all. It became about IF the characters would do something. The mind set and motivation were the important things. The characters also had to go through some real deep soul-searching and Seeking type material to reach their logical conclusion. Eventually, my character essentially became a true god. He could alter reality with the force of his mind. We discovered pretty quick, that even in a game of uncapped advancement with potentially equally powerful adversaries, that the characters weren't motivated. We retired them and called the game. It was fun. If what you are saying is that eventually the power gets in the way of the RP, I agree. I also think different groups have different thresholds for that limit, and as previously stated, I don't really see the need to involve developer opinion in that.

Omaye, I will merely point out a little event that occured in the Classic Battletech Universe some years ago now (no conincidence it was a F.A.S.A. product at the time, same as Shadowrun) where a certain player, who shall remain un-named, decided to tell Michael Stackpole that he didn't care what he thought, that HE had the right answers about the CBT universe and he (Michael) could go sit and spin. Perhaps I should point out that the player in question fancied themselves the "Kahn of Clan Smoke Jaguar". Well as it turns out, Mike was writing a novel about the Trial of Refusal launched by the Inner Sphere under the command of Victor Davion himself, and he was trying to decide which Crusader faction clan got to "go away". I understand the player received a personally signed copy of the book from Michael. As a spoiler, in case you haven't guessed yet, the Smoke Jaguar clan became the "smoking kitties" and they were wiped out to the last bondsman. I had to tell somebody the other day: "You removed magic from your game. You don't accept the Matrix as depicted. You deleted ESSence as a limit on cyber- and bioware. You're not playing Shadowrun, you're playing the old PC game Syndicate." You're always welcome to tweak things to your own liking, but once you go past a certain point, you leave the Universe As Written and are off entirely on your own. As you stated that you get tired of hearing "You're playing the game wrong because the writers said blah!", I get tired of hearing "I don't care what the fluff says! The RAW states..." If all I cared about were pure mechanics, I'd be sitting in front of my television playing on a console.

Why aren't they playing SR? They are certainly playing their own version of it, but it isn't any more or less SR than any other game played anywhere else. There will be challenges with their approach, because the fluff and setting material involves that stuff a great deal. There will also be rules conundrums that come up as a result, and the group will have to tackle them. It's their game.

I'm not arguing that the crunch over-rides fluff. I'm saying that the desire of the table for a fun game over-rides everything: fluff, crunch, designer interviews, and the kitchen sink. Of course people can use the RAW and hold it over the fluff. It's their game. They can also hold the fluff over the RAW; it's their game. I think the issue here is that you have your interpretation of the fluff-crunch relationship. That is fine, but other people may not agree with it.

You get tired of the RAW dogs, so do I. Having rules discussions and theoretical exercises is helpful, to a point. Conversely, I am tired of Fluff dogs who try to use the material to claim supremacy over the "proper" way to play a GAME.

I didn't deny cherry-picking. I said I didn't cherry-pick them for their Crunchy Bits^TM. The comparison is a bit of "apples and oranges" because (and I'm not going to quote it AGAIN) the rules clearly state that the traditions as printed are only the most COMMON ways of magic in the 6^th World, and many (even most) magicians have to figure it out as they go along, and provide detailed rules for creation of those "alternate" traditions. It's not side-bar, it's not optional, it's actually listed BEFORE the main two traditions in primary column text. The game designers set out to describe a world with a set of mechanics we can use to reproduce some of the events and occurences from the stories and history of the 6^th World. If you decide that you want to make a sniper who can blow the wings off a gnat flying near the Empire State Building from their lounge chair in Tulsa Oklahoma without even worying about missing, or punch Ghostwalker in the nads and watch him curl up die and then transform into luggage ready for sale with a single punch, that's your business and your table. But even Fastjack and the true Prime Runners get things wrong or screw up a 'run. As for myself, if I have to abide by same limits as the most legendary names in the 6^th World, I'm just shiny with that.

Let me try to parse this out. When I said cherry-pick, I meant picking spirits for their crunchy bits. People around here have said you did that. You say it's for your character, not for the crunchy bits. Great, I agree with you. You are completely right that the rules support people inventing Traditions as a main-stream part of the game.

I haven't ever said that the players should get to a point where they can accomplish the feats you listed, though I got a got a hankering for some old-school Prime Runner with dragon luggage, thanks. : ) In fact, I don't know they could get to those feats.

You have given yourself permission to make a character with some mechanically beneficial choices. Why are you so unwilling to give others that same leeway? They want "the world's best sniper." Why is that any better or worse than your idea?

To ask a broader question, what is so wrong with playing the game as a mechanical exercise(I don't, for my part)? If a group of people enjoys trying to push the limits of the system (and from the activity around here I daresay many do) what makes your way better? You may not have said it, but your posts clearly imply "munchkins" are doing something wrong, and that you aren't. Why?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Not all shadowrunners are criminal...
...Running the shadows is a quasi-legal "job" [see the proliferation of Spec Ops, mercenaries, undercover police, corporate operatives, private investigators].

*Snip*

Some people are unable to accept challenge and failure, without distorting thing so the chance of success is heavily stacked in their favour [though, anyone with any sense wants the highest chance of success before the attempt something].

Thanks Synner667...

I guess that there is really no more to say on the subject, everyone will play their own game and have fun, and I am okay with that... I appreciate the discussion to this point, and hope that I have not upset too many people...

Keep the Faith