Online Campaign Rules, To make it flow... Options

[Wounded Ronin]

[frostPDP]

Maybe I'm really misconciving things, but I figure the following chain of events always happens in every game.

- Players start off with too many resources, the same 6 points in all attributes and 6 in Stealth, Ettitquite, and Pistols(or SMGS), and therefore the game fails to be fun.


By reducing starting resources, I intend...

- To make the game world a little more "evened out."
- To make those who ultra-munchkinize gain a lot of reputation really fast, so that their prowess is recognized and dealt with accordingly.



Basically its not supposed to be the nicest of games. Its supposed to be a challenge. And yes, I know I'm really phrasing things poorly tonight. Don't ask why, I'd rather not talk about it.

[hyzmarca]

What we are saying is that reducing resources will not even things out. It will, in fact, have the opposite effect.

A 100BP character will still have 6 [weapon skill], Stealth, and Ettiquite (or one 6 and two 5s with your caps) and will still have maxed out stats because it is one of the most efficient builds. However, such a character will have little of anything else because it just doesn't have the points to spare.

You are likely to end up with a team of clone Street Sams who get killed in a shootout with Lone Star when they try to take their assualt cannons on a public bus because none know how to drive.

[Kremlin KOA]

Keep in mind most of that million was never seen in cash form by the runner I created
A Hell of a lot was a case of job payed for in cyberwear
and a good chunk of the rest went on a dozen or so contacts (mostly level 2 ones)

so yeah he has some fame, and a lot of very loyal friends that would hunt down and destroy the street punk who would geek him for the OMG RICH SHADOWRUNNER1111!!1!1!1!1! LOLOLOLOL I CAN BE RIICH NOW LOLOLOLOL

[Fresno Bob]

Whoa whoa, nevermind my post, I was thinking about SR4.

[Kagetenshi]

[Taran]

Isn't there a cap of 60 attribute points at character creation?

Anyway, rather than grudge-killing everyone who offends your sensibilities by maxing out their resources, just change the resource scale. Say 30 = 400k, or however much you can accept without feeling compelled to kill the character, and then work out the rest of the scale from there. It seems way too harsh to me, but it's your game, not mine.

For 100 points I like Kremlin's build. I think magic actually is doaable though; you just have to stick to sorcery (so you can dump Charisma and ignore Conjuring). Stunball 6, II 1, PhysMask 1, Heal 3 Exclusive, all the staples, and you can do all the Stupid Spellcaster Tricks at full effectiveness.

+25 Being A Sorcerer
+5 Being a Dwarf

B: 3
Q: 4
S: 3
C: 1
I: 3
W: 7

Sorcery 6

That's 70 BP. Leave your resources low, skip out on Foci, and there's lots of room for customization. I'd want a few more points of Body, Etiquette 1/3, maybe the next 2 points of Intelligence for the spell pool.

In conclusion: yeah, you want BeCKs. Maybe with fewer than 425 base karma, but you want BeCKs.

[Kagetenshi]

There's a recommendation to that effect, though not a rule.

~J

[frostPDP]

*Whips out his old NSCRG*

100 BP

Troll PhysAdept, skill of 6 in Polearms and skill of 3 in Stealth.

12 body, 4 quickness, 9 strength, 2 Charisma, 2 intellegence, 4 willpower.

No edges/flaws...
Not yet taking into account free skills.


----

Kinda looks to me like I got the essentials in. With 5K nuyen and room for further min/maxing via flaws if one desired. My natural reaction score may be low, but that's offset by Reflexes 2. My natural intellegence is low, but I'm a troll. I don't have maxed strength, but I can still probably lift a car. Or at least a motorcycle.

...Okay, so that might count as an improvised weapon. It wouldn't be hard to get a few ranks of skill in that and then use combat pool...



Now, did I expect this to address the issue? Maybe. I don't know, its an idea; in this test-case, it certainly kept the adept from dumping 25 points into cash they can't find a decent way to spend, or skills that would make them general-purpose monsters. Its minmaxed enough that the troll may or may not, given the incredible amount of assistance I've seen even an Armored Jacket give out in my campaigns, assist them in fending off a regular dragon. At 100 BP Chargen. But its vulnerable to enough things to make it possible to take him down.



Oh, and as far as getting 1,000,000, we've always played it that you have to explain in character background where you got it. 1 million is like a few "Hunted" flaws on you, usually - If your runner got it from ex jobs, those ex jobs almost always surface in some way. If he got them it rich background, somehow daddy is going to wind up getting caught at the first slip-up. If its from military improvement, ETC, well there's obviously records of that. It might be a little metagaming, but its also a little sensible that if you kick Renraku's ass around once or twice, they might just find where you live. :)

But I do confess, its been WAY too long (over 3 months) since I've posted here or been a GM/Player in anything. :(

[Kagetenshi]

"Free skills"?

Other than that, it looks like a pretty mediocre melee Troll. How'd you get 12 Body? Assuming you used an edge, that's 14 points in Body, 10 in Strength, 10 in Quickness, 8 in all the mental stats. That leaves you with…

Seven build points left. As it stands, your Troll has two skill points more than allowable, assuming 0 Resources. If you went with -5 (¥500 nuyen), you've got three left over.

Yeah, I'm not impressed.

~J

[Backgammon]

In my experience, in SR3, Stealth 5 is the minimum if you want to make a "soft" entry run. Open tests were really a big problem with SR3 IMO.

[mmu1]

[Kremlin KOA]

Here is what I would consider a reasonable background for a char with the million

[frostPDP]

Maybe I'm simply doing chargen wrong...? But Trolls get +5 body (+ an additonal 1 from Dermal Armor, total +6), and then 6 points placed in body?

I dunno, I just set NSCRG to 100 points instead of 125 and let it flow. That's what I came up with. And 5/3 is pretty...Doable armor, if you use things like cover ;)

I could just have chargen wrong, in which case putting it to 125 would work. I don't know. But I do know that NSCRG provided those results, sooo. *Points at it* Plus, "Free skills" meant knowledges/language, what little he'd get out of it.

[Kagetenshi]

Ah, I see re: Body. He's actually got Body 11—the Dermal Armor only comes into play when rolling damage resistance. Regardless, that leaves you with your points spent exactly—and you can barely do anything. Three points of reach and probably an effective 12 dice before combat pool go a decently long way, but then you're looking at only five combat pool dice.

I mean, I agree that it's probably one of the better non-skillwire-whore characters possible under this system—he's just totally one-dimensional and not even that great at his specialty.

~J

[frostPDP]

Time to go back to old charsheets, yay! *Dance*

Turns out I'm making a little more out of this than I should. Granted, its annoying that everyone is a stealth-whore (4+), pistol-whore (4+), smooth-smooth talker, and some form of expert in unarmed, but other than that the skill overlap isn't so bad. Mostly.

So lets assume I crank it to 125. What can I do (I.E. make harder to get) to prevent over-use of stuff like skillwires, etc? I can assume just saying "no" or raising their avaialblility/cost, but I dunno for sure.

[Kagetenshi]

I spent a bit more than half a year working as a CAD operator (with a decent amount of prior experience). Would I be a CAD-whore if I statted myself with AutoCAD knowledge skill at 4+?

~J

[James McMurray]

Just say no. If something doesn't fit the campaign, don't allow it. Make sure going into the campaign that the players know what things are verboten, and that they're ok with it. Assuming players who want to play the game rather than just twink characters out you should be able to come to some compromise between what they want to play and what they want to run.

If not, find another GM, because running a game you don't want to run is no fun for anyone, and playing in a game you don't want to play just introduces the "chaos factor" where someone says "screw it, this sucks. Let's see what kinds fo trouble I can stir up."

[Taran]

Again, it's ultimately your game. But if your problem is that your munchkins are diversifying too much, be aware that's the exact opposite of the problem most people face. If you could post an example build that's been problematic in the past, or one that you're afraid of, it might help us focus our creativity in more useful ways.

Edit: another way to handle resource inflation is to impose tighter availability limits. Say nothing with Avail > 6 is permitted, instead of Avail > 8 as is the default. You might even be able to go to 4 without forbidding anything fundamental.

[Wounded Ronin]

[frostPDP]

Umm, Robin, thank you for assuming the worst intention. :) Its not to make the characters "weak." I don't disagree that a professional soldier will probably have a pistols of 5. I would encourage that. And if he spent most of his time with an assault rifle in his hands, he'd probably have a 6 in assault rifles.

But cybered-up, Front-line soldiers aren't going to also have a 6 in stealth. And ettiquite. And Computers. And potato peeling.

Similarly, the typical, rookie-runner mage isn't going to have a pistols of 5. She's probably not professional with it. Stealth, maybe; and perhaps a good deal of ettiquite.

Your typical decker? Stealth, Computers, probably some skill in Pistols. But unless a decker has a lot of combat experience under his belt, do you really think he's going to be an outstanding armsman?



I tend to arm their opposition accordingly, and my group tends to come out covered in everyone's blood but their own. A ganger who's been in a few firefights? Pistols 3. Maybe 4. A fair threat to your decker, maybe, but not to your street sam. Just as the street sam shouldn't be able to dump a measely 5 BP into their Computers skill and use their datajack to be a computer-science match against a Decker. Just as your face shouldn't be a same-level boxer as your sam. Just as your mage shouldn't out-talk your face. (How often do I see ettiquite 6 elf mages?)

I've practiced paintball a few times. I'd say I'm -maybe- a level 3 paintball gun shooter. I'd be toasted if I played a pro - there wouldn't be a contest. I'm sort of aiming for that kind of environment; if you take on someone more than 2 dice out of your range in something, there'd be a good chance of losing. Unfortunately I've found that to be easier at the lower dice levels, so that's what I'm trying to create. I could be wrong :)

(Plus, if I had an open test against 10 guards, I'd probably roll 3 dice and add a +9 modifier to my runner's TN. If you're trying to sneak in the front door of a 10-guarded compound, you're nuts, but not all guards look in the same place at the same time.)

[James McMurray]

Quite an amusing rant. Thanks for sharing. :)

EDIT: A post jumped in between this and WR's post so I figured I would clarify that it was directed there, not at frostDPD.

[James McMurray]

frost: One thing you could do is limit starting skills to one 6 or two 5s max, witht he rest limited to 4. SR4 does it that way and it makes it very unlikely that the face will be able to outshoot the sammie while getting out talked by the mage and out punching the physad.

[Unrest]

Can't really say much else that hasn't been pointed out but I will be Mr. obvious right now and point out that the problem with munchkins isn't exactly that they are too powerful, the GM can still own them, its simply that they are more powerful than the rest of the group. So anything you throw to challenge them is going to butcher the other members and a challenge to the rest of the team is nothing to mister munchkin. Again nothing you probably don't already know but with this in mind its clear simply lowering the bp's or restricting all your players isn't going to stop anything.

I usually have a few house rules in my campaigns, ammo comes to mind, but I can't recall a time I ever really put a restriction on regular character creation rules. The best advice I can give man is to just let your players make their characters and see how it works out. It is just a game, there isn't some prize the players are competing for. If you go into this with some huge anti-player mentality your going to find yourself a GM without any players in record time. And if one of them does drop you a pc that is just out of line with what your a looking for explain it to them and ask them to change things. The vast majority will listen.

[James McMurray]