starting characters Options

[rythymhack]

given some of the topics here, it lead me to a question. what is YOUR definition of a starting character? ruled legality aside. for example, without a gm to tell me otherwise, i think most of the example characters in the core book dont qualify as 'starting'. given the skill level descriptions, i would say the max skill level for ANYTHING starting sould be 4. yes, that also probably means a point reduction. the idea is, while said individual is competent at what he does (his profession...call it rating 3 or 4) he is neither 'the best at what he does' or 'legendary'. (both descriptions of skill levels 5+ if i remember correctly). through successfull running, he may GET there (skill/stat increase along with reputation). i would say a single starting character should be able to 1 vs. 1 a liutenant of rating 3/4...but it should be dicey. also, this leaves some room for growth without maxing out everything quickly. this also means a change to how mages develop.

much of this is WAY less of an issue with a good gm. but out of the box without a game to put it in context in, this is how i see it.

thoughts?

[NightRain]

It depends what you're used to. Every version of Shadowrun before 4th ed has basically assumed you're an experienced shadowrunner (or equivalent) as a starting character level. You don't play a ganger just venturing in to the shadows unless you are explicitly playing a low power game.

In 4th ed, the starting point has been moved back a bit, so starting characters are more likely to be new to the shadows rather than an experienced pro

[Ryu]

A starting character is the product of the character generation rules.

Legality issues aside, yes sir. A starting char may have a great variation of skill levels. You may be a professional anything when you enter the shadows. Exactly those professions who develop runner skills are likely to produce runners. Ex-Military is the most common character background (in my experience) for a reason.

[Critias]

[augurer]

[noonesshowmonkey]

I am in very firm agreement with the poster about the bloated dice pools available to characters at the start of the game. This is precisely because the aesthetic that my games lean towards is a grittier, less professional atmosphere where the players are far lower on the Layer Cake than is often the case in most games.

Though the ratings system 1-6 and its correlating descriptions are generally rather onerous, I tend to agree with their descriptions for unaugmented ability. Because few, if any, in the high risk world of shadowrunning (on either side of whatever law is being broken) are unaugmented I tend to think in terms of dice pool instead.

For me, as a GM, I tend to look for players that have a dicepool of 10-14 in their chosen area of expertise. Generally I want something on the lower end, closer to 10-12, but there is a munchkin in everyone. The 12 dice pool is an important threshold for me as it allows the buying of 3 hits - a common threshold for a professional rated task - which allows them to bypass "ordinary" challenges. This is their 'job' after all.

Generally this is a combination cyber/foci/perks that results in enough bonuses to cap out a 5 stat + 5 skill combination. For particularly obscure or dramatic skills (blades - katana for the samurai as an example) I can understand a player pushing the limits and getting closer to the 14 range. Generally this is possible through either hyper focusing (implants to give bonus on casting, perks for bonus on casting, tradition that gives bonus dice to the school of casting desired, high stat, high skill) or direct augmentation (agility 8, strength 8 cyber arm for strategic katana'ing purposes). Sometimes this sort of thing makes sense, other times its just trite. It depends on the nature of the game and the player.

In my experience, most players are really very comfortable with being a trite, over the top badass that bleeds platitudes. To each their own.

But, that said, as a GM I feel that a dice pool of ~10-12 allows for significant growth over a period of even just three or five runs. Within a few jobs netting say ¥5,000 to ¥10,000 a piece, they can get a new augmentation and the karma earned can easily increase a skill rank a level of two. Soon they have a 14 to 16 dice pool, are able to buy that 4th hit...

What is most amusing to me is that very rarely (in my experience) do people make characters designed to wtfpwnbbq with social skills. Generally my 18 dice pool lametards are drone riggers or gunbunnies or powerbolt whores. Luckily SR4 kind of evens the playing field a touch.

Anyhow, thats me ¥2.

- der menkey

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway

[Buster]

I never liked games where you start out as a farm boy fighting rats and spend a year working your way up to defender of the galaxy. Since I like movies about highly intelligent people who are very good at what they do, I like games that reflect that. I would never play a Shadowrun game where the characters have to start out as losers.

But having said that, the other posters are right, there really isn't a huge difference between skill 4 and skill 6 in SR, despite what the fluff says. Those 2 dice can be made up any number of ways. If you want your characters to start out as losers, you have to make cuts across the board, probably by reducing the chargen BP to 200-300.

[noonesshowmonkey]

[Buster]

Exactly, it's all about what you AND your players want to play.

[eidolon]

[Yoan]

[Kyoto Kid]

...I am in a new 4th ed campaign where the general level is a DP of 10 - 12. I am playing my "Matrix Specialist" Violet (#37) and we are using the "Skill +Logic capped by Programme rating" rule. Now my character does have a hacking pool slightly above this, but when dealing with IC she usually ends up having to hold dice from her pool to suppress IC that she has defeated.

I also rarely if ever take a skill or attribute up to 6 (unaugmented) at charagen, and am a big fan of skill groups. That 25 BPs for the 6 in an attribute is basically 6 rating levels in other skills which I believe is a better investment. Heck for a mundane human (which I usually play), what is there really to spend Karma on except attributes & skills (OK maybe buying off that negative quality however I usually don't do that with ones that are very central to the character's concept). Even my Adept The Short One (#37...another two'fer) has an MA of 5 and no skill above 5.

I also feel that the right negative qualities can also temper a character as well. For example Vi has the Obsessive/Compulsive, Delusions (thinks, no believes, the corp she was extracted from is still out to get her) and mild Technomania ("oohh shiny new gizmo", I want...) qualities.

We recently had our first session, and I found it to be a lot of fun. And yes Vi was forced to cut & run from when "rumbled" by matrix security before she completed what she intended to do.

""but wait...I almost have it , [IC beating on "door"] oh come on guys just another second or two...["door" opens] oh hell never mind, I'm outta here"

[Gargs454]

It really depends on the character type and the kind of game that you want to run. But as others have said, dice pool is a far better indication than skill rating (particular for script kiddies :P). Per RAW though I believe you can only have one skill at 6 at character Gen and skill groups can only go to 4 at Gen.

That being said, its not that difficult to trick out a pretty hefty dice pool even at the start. I had a character that took the role of team sniper and at gen he had Long Arms 6 (Sniper +2) + 5 Agi + Muscle Toner/Augmentation (I always confuse them) 2 plus smartlink which gave him a dice pool of 17 without aiming or using edge. He still had enough BP's left over to still be decent at other stuff to.

Other types of characters might be a little more limited in what they can do (Mages, and TM's for instance tend to shy away from 'ware so it limits the amount of augmenting going on). Of course TM's can compensate via threading and sprites so it evens out.

Feel free to raise or lower the BPs at generation as befits your gaming style. Just make sure that you realize that your PC's will be more or less powerful as a result and adjust your sessions accordingly.

[noonesshowmonkey]

[kzt]

If the game mechanics don't reflect the fluff that isn't the players problem.

It's the designers problem. Blaming your players for the fact that the game designers don't understand statistics isn't exactly rational.

[Whipstitch]

That's my thought as well. The fluff and the RAW are at odds on this issue. I like fluff, but since this is fluff that doesn't add much to the game nor even reflects the system being played very well, my group has chosen to disregard that particular bit and just play. It's a lot easier to adjust fluff to fit the realities of the rule system than vice versa, and I see no reason not to do so if that fluff isn't particularly interesting to begin with.


That said, I doubt I'd have any problem adjusting to nooneshowmonkey's chargen system, since it sounds like it'd make things much, much easier on the GM in terms of tailoring things for a particular group, which is never a bad thing.

[Kyoto Kid]

..I pretty much like use the fluff as a guideline to develop a character (unless it is one where the GM is pretty much a "killer")

For example on Violet:

[ Spoiler ]

Violet was pretty much the kid genius She is also somewhat of a "designer baby" which is why the Corp she was extracted from is so pissed. She was being groomed for the corp's purposes since almost day one. . hence a lot of the headware she received was implanted at an early part in her life.

Her Geneware and Bioware was something that would mature as she grew, but also stunted her growth to an extent. The Corp wanted her to be their "special matrix and covert operative" so she was placed in an "immersion" programme of computer and technical training at the cost of having a normal childhood. In the end she suspicious about what was going on and, eventually realised who she was to become. Not wanting any part of being basically "corporate property" she quickly learned to use the tools they gave her to make good her escape.

Of course the centerpiece to all this was the MT-5X prototype (an experimental commlink she received as an implant along with Sim module) and it's suite of programmes. She also received cosmetically modified cybereyes and ears to heighten her senses and give her a bit more edge when sent into the field.

So to this end, for attributes she ended up with:

Logic 5 augmented to 7 with cerebral boosting and expanded by Genetic Optimisation
Intuition 5
Willpower 4
Charisma 3

on the physical side she has:

Body 3 (average)
Strength 1 augmented to 2 after she went SINless (still underdeveloped)
Agility 3 augmented to 4 after she went SINless
Reaction 3 Augmetned to 4 by her Wired Reflexes 1 after she went SINless (basically one of her trusted contacts convinced her that "speed is survival" in the shadows)

Her highest skills (rating 5) are Cracking and EW which were the primary focus of her "immersion" training (the corp wanted an expert & basically built one). She also has the skill group (rating 4) in electronics. For her covert role she was pushed towards B&E infiltration, as well as having a firm knowledge of corporate and security processes (her Etiquette is specialised in Corproate).

After leaving the corp, with the help of her contacts she picked up on a bit more ware (he aforementioned Wired Reflexes) as well as picked up skills like Industrial Mechanic (Electrical power grids), Unarmed combat 2 (Cyber - Shock Hand), Pistols, and Disguise. Basically she was now ready to survive the shadows

After I settled on her concept and basics that was when I started crunching the remaining numbers, smoothing some things out more & purchasing the gear she needed.

The downside, she has several negative qualities, one that came out of her accelerated development which is her Obsessive/Compulsive syndrome (which makes her overly focused) and her Delusion that the corp (whom she refers to as "Uncle Olaf" from the Lemony Snickett stories) wants her back at all costs which keeps her reasonably paranoid.

[Gargs454]

[rythymhack]

im kinda with shadowmonkey on this. (as far as stats and ratings go). 2 things that affect my view here are 1. i have only had 4th edition for a week, and 2. i dont have a game to play in. (working on that via a local game store's forum...but im waiting for posting privileges). also, the idea of starting a character with a 6 skill seems...stupid from an advancement level. unless im reading it wrong, he cant get any better. (strictly from skill advancement. still getting the feel for the added dice from gear). what i REALLY want to play is a troll adept. but im having a hard time with it for several reasons. 1 it costs alot of bp. i tend to run out before i get to buy gear. OR he's WAY to focused on combat. (or both). i guess i need to start with the backstory, not end with it. for those of you who have read 'dead air' im kinda thinking something along the lines of the main character's bodyguard. (forget his name, and the book was lost in a move).

and i guess that is part of my problem. i've read all the novels prior to 3rd edition and with every one i find someone that makes me say 'i want to play that!'.

[Stahlseele]

'cause i hate starting of as something that just crawled out of some gangs boot-camp most of my characters tend to start of with one thing that is nearly maxed out that totally defines the character-concept . . and then i'd probably just use the rest of the ressources to make sure the character is not lacking too much in most other areas . . and it's much easier to build up level 1 to 3 skills and attributes than it is to build up level 5 to 6 and 7 skills and attributes too . .

[kzt]

[Riley37]

(shrug) I have a very broad metric for starting character: a person who has motivation to start shadowrunning with the existing PC group, and is at loose ends to do so. That could be ex-mil and on the run, or ex-mil and discharged due to an injury or internal politics or whatever, or a former Urban Brawler who got cybered by their team, or even a veteran shadowrunner who recently moved to Seattle and has a back-story somewhere else.
I've written a 400 BP mage who could cast illusions at force 5, reasonably often get 5 hits, and soak the Drain... and who also had a decent backstory. Any munchkin can do the former; it's the latter that might motivate a GM to allow the character.

[Whipstitch]

A crappy character concept is a crappy character concept regardless of the sheet it's attached to. If you can't roleplay your way out of an encounter with a gas station attendant then odds are having a sheet with 80 bps spent in knowledge skills instead of gun bunnery isn't going affect things much one way or the other. I've noticed that tinkering with bps and chargen requirements is most effective when it's used to shake players out of any comfortable ruts they find themselves in (I'm sure we've all ran into guys who play all their PCs as essentially the same gun bunny/shaman/physad/whatever) rather than just arbitrarily lowering dicepools.

[DTFarstar]

I build characters according to backstory, but I largely ignore what it says in the books on skill levels because my GM does too. Also, my players ignore it as well, because I am definitely what you would call a killer GM. I plan well and thoroughly, and I don't slack off. If you can't cut it... well, have fun making a new character or burning edge, as the situation warrants. Burnt edge isn't a freebie in my game either, you are usually left severely injured and in enemy territory. I expect my characters to design characters that are within their limits to play, so we study tactics and we really think things through and try and respond as the characters would. I try not to give them anything their characters couldn't handle if played at about 80 or 90% efficiency. I am not a nice person when I am GMing. Also, we nicknamed ourselves the Jackals because when one of us shows weakness(mental or emotional usually, we tend away from physical violence MOST of the time) the rest of us team up and rip that one to shreds. It just makes them stronger, and amuses the hell out of us. Takes a special person to withstand our table.

Chris

[Glyph]

Too many GMs neglect to talk with the players before introducing sweeping changes to a game, and they end up with disgruntled or apathetic players as a result. I've played in everything from a 40-BP game to an all-cyberzombie game, but I knew what kind of game I was getting into beforehand, each time.

The default rules and setting for char-gen are geared towards making tough, professional-level characters. Sammies and adepts are supposed to leave normal, unaugmented humanity in the dust. Mages are supposed to wield strange and frightening powers. Hackers are supposed to be masters of augmented reality. Runners are supposed to be able to survive things that would kill most people many times over. The normal character creation rules give big dice pools. GMs who don't like them need to realize that they want to run a variant campaign, rather than whining that the rules are wrong. Just be sure that your players want to play in your variant campaign.