Making logic important., Inspired by the RPG.Net forums. Options

[laughingowl]

[Glyph]

Oh, I agree. A GM needs to challenge the players in a variety of ways. Nothing wrong with a player's weaknesses coming into play. And every specialist will wind up out of his/her comfort zone at some point.

But what I was talking about is some of the B.S. that gets bandied about the board - anytime someone brought up a sammie with a low mental stat, people would froth at the mouth and come up with ludicrous tactics for the GM to use against the character. One example:

[laughingowl]

Ahh then I totally agree also..

Your example are complete BS.

I will never stop a player from doing anything they want....

Now suceeding at what they want is an entirely different thing.

CHA-1 character can THINK they are Fred Astair rolled into Helen of Troy.

Now I might warn them if I think they player would know it is unlikely.

But cha-1 (and no negotiation skill) character:

Player: I set the price for the run at 100,000.
GM: You know this guy looks pretty slick and high-dollar. You think he would be comfortable rubbing shoulders with politico and sim-stars. He looks like the type that was haggling with his mother for his bottle of milk and hasnt slowed down since.

Player: I set the price for the run at ¥100,000
(please make your negotiation roll).

GM: The Johnson listens to your speech and then pauses for a second. Suddenly a smile breaks his face. "You might make that much as a comedian on the vids, but chummer I havent heard anything, nor do I see anything that makes you worth more then X (dropping the planned fee by 5%).
---------------------------
IF they low charisma, no negotiation (or low) continues to try to haggle the tone of the Johnson goes down fast along with the price.



Never stop players from attempting something (save perhaps out-right pure 100% unadulterated meta-gaming), but just because the 'attempt' something doesnt mean they can do it.


Figure in one game I read a friend was playing a 'scholar' mage. Now the friend happens to in real life have quite abit of small units and covert action training.

Once he joined the group he started 'planning' all the ops for the team. NOw the cloest thing to combat expierence the character had was like dodge-2 (From accidents in the lab) and Powerbolt and flamethrower (IIRC).

Well I have always allowed plans to count for advantagous ground, etc and give bonuses. Though generally I will not say the bonuses (atleast until it becomes very evident) but factor it in myself.

Initally while 'militarily sound' almost all of the plans they mage-general made resulted in penalties.

It wasnt until another player raised the question why did all of their planning seem to go bad, that the 'flaws' in the plan were raised. (figure as luck would have it the one that raised the question had Knowledge Small Unit tactics-5 and Knowledge: gurella warfare: 4 (former merc).

From then on out. The mage-general's 'player' would suggest plans, but the former mer character would actually 'make' the plans.

Player A: still felt immersed since he was using 'real life' knowledge to make the fights seem 'realer' to him.

Player B: however suddenly found himself having a much more important roll and suddenly feeling very useful, since he was 'gear'/attribute' wise a little sub-par compare to the sammy and phys-ad, but once he took the LTs job and laid the plans down. The team ran 100% smoother.


Players should contribute so everyone has fun.

Characters can do what ever players want them to. (save gross meta-gaming).

Characters do not always suceed at what they try [b[especially[/b] when attempting things that require skills/stats that they character is very poor in.

[Jaid]

[Ryu]

While the GM should be allowed to judge if something a character did is appropiate considering his stats, there should not be a hard rule about this.

"Dump stats" vary depending on the area of speciality, and only agility and intuition seem to be spared. Strength on the other hand is too expensive, as was already said.

If you want to avoid dump stats, lower the cost of attributes on character generation ( you know who you are :D ). Else a certain amount of specialisation is required for anyone, and lower-than-could-be values are an unavoidable consequence of having strong points. Even my samurai would have strength one if I could have stomached the thought. That 20 points did nothing for him, as melee is won via agility.

[ElFenrir]

The dump stats have changed over time. CHA before was almost the Universal Dump Stat™, unless you conjured or were a face-type.(hell, even the conjurer could get aw ay with an average cha.) The other stats were too 'valuable' to dump, Willpower saved you from magic and boosted combat pool, Intelligence boosted initative and combat pool, as did Quickness, INT used to be the Perception roll....INTx5 gave knowledge skills...Quickness helped Firearms...


Now with Intuition and Agility, they seem to be the two new stats..however I notice that LOG has replaced CHA for the dumpstat under this new system.

And yeah, I do tend to think AGL is a bit overused for skills...but im sure there are a few threads discussing that ;)

As for Logic, also remember it does affect Knowledge skills, which can be used in lots of numerous ways to benefit the character. Dumping Logic means you'll miss out on these, which the skills are bought at a 1 for 1 basis with these FREE points. And a clever GM will utilize these knowledge skills. Negotation 6 is nice, but Neg 6 with Knowledge: Underworld Politics 4 and Fine Italian Wines: 3 might just help you in the negotation with that mob boss...and Rifles: 5 are fired much more effectively from ambush while utilizing your Hiding skill and a little ''Improv Camoflage Techniques: 4''. :D

Hell, if getting lots of free points for upping a stat wont change the players, i don't know what will. :D

[Fortune]

[Jaid]

heck, in SR i've never considered char a dump stat, really. sure, it may not have been the stat of choice, but it was never dumpable (it had to be at least average or you faced potential screwage, imo).

but i guess that's just me...

now strength, on the other hand, is probably the only stat i would consider dumping if i was gonna thoroughly min/max a character. of course, if i was going to totally min/max a character, then it would probably be an ork (SR4) or dwarf (SR3), just because they're so efficient... so even then the character wouldn't have strength 1 =P

but anyways, yeah... unless it's a very specific build, who cares about strength?

[Ryu]

Well, under SR3 you could dump those attributes you did not use for damage resistance if you considered the number of linked skills you where interested in. It was often "better" to pay higher skill costs and have the attribute point elsewhere. Due to the higher amount of attribute points you got, the difference was just less noticeable. We just have to get used to seeing "below-average attributes" as something very common, what with being much closer to the average than before.

Min/Maxing can hit many attributes. Hard. Speed and strength and reaction and logic can be increased for cheap, at least ingame. Take logic! to the max because it gets you knowledge skills, buy muscle- and reaction enhancers, wired reflexes and start saving for that hyperthyroid gland.

[ElFenrir]

Ahh, i guess on my end ive seen the Logic-dump more.

But a system with Strength-dump...who wouldathunkit? Or Reaction? With Speed Junkies out there? Keep in mind ive only played under 4 a few times ;)

See, in the times ive had GMing, and ive had handfuls of twinks in the past like everyone else, speed max was the first thing they did. Sammies didn't dump Strength, let along ANY Speed stat, from the ones ive seen come out of the factory in the past.

But, then again, with cyber as cheap as it is now....i suppose i see the point. Strength doesnt help enough skills, and it can be bought up the same as Reaction i guess.

BUT, now that you mention it, I do see a lot of what i nicknamed the 'Ork-Troll Mage' characters. Basically, Ork and Troll mages who have their base stats in the Physical area.

[Ryu]

Orks make good mages. High payoff for little or no cost, depending on tradition (Intuition is your friend anyway).

Apart from strength willpower will be a candidate for dumping. Mundane spell defense is too weak anyway, so why invest? It´s rather easy to bring it up to acceptable levels after chargen, so why not start at 1?

In practical application, my slightly tweaked samurai got willpower 2 and charisma 2, but bravery on top of that for composure tests.

I think for twinking within the given attribute limit, you need also consider the target dicepools for certain activities. Having the base skills grants +1, and there is no need to break the dicepool system by getting to the insane numbers. And "no need" applies to all players. Those who want the system to work as intended (a requirement to be in my group), and those who crave power but get no return-on-investment if they increase the dicepool beyond the needed mark.

(Sorry if I´m hard to read. I was doing my engineering project till 5 in the morning and four hours of sleep ain´t exactly much)