Street level shadowrun, A setup question (or two) Options

[Ustio]

So I'm planning on running a low-level gutterpunk level game next (as opposed to my currently somewhat high powered game) and was wondering if the following char gen rules seemed too harsh:


BPS = 300

Stat cap = 150 points
Special stat (Magic, resonance, edge) = capped at 3

Skill cap = one at 4 or 2 at 3
Skill Groups = no higher than 2

Contacts use the multiply method (cant remember whose this is sorry) 1bp = 3 contact points m,ultiply loyalty by connection to get contact points cost

Gear = Max availability = 6

Max life style = low

Suggestions/comments/fireballs anyone?

[CircuitBoyBlue]

That doesn't sound too harsh at all. My favorite campaign ever started with a very similar setup, only using 2nd edition rules. I think all the skills were capped at 4 (it was sort of a different scale back then), nobody could take higher than D resources, and I think we just all lost our A priority.

It was fun stuff. My character had to save up to get a gun. For the first few runs he was running around with a switchblade, trying to steal cars and find people willing to pay him for illicit activities. By the end of the campaign, the group had gotten its act together and gotten rich, but they still had kind of a poverty mentality.

[Kyoto Kid]

...same here, actually had quite a lot of fun.

We started with 340 and (170 attribute) 2 skills at 4 the rest 3 or lower, one attribute at 5 (before racial mods) Magic at 4 (nobody wanted to play a TM so resonance didn't matter) Max availability 8, or Gear rating 4 (whichever was lower).

Wasn't total gutter, kind of more the next rung up but still not your regular starting runner.

[Demonseed Elite]

There's an interesting thread here on RPG.Net on street level characters. Slightly different creation limits than yours, but it has a bunch of sample characters made up.

[Roadspike]

If you want to have slightly more effective characters without compromising the gritty "street" feel of the campaign, I'd suggest upping the percentage of points available for use on attributes. Perhaps 300 BPs with up to 180 of them spent on attributes? Then you're playing characters with real -potential-, but without the skills to back that potential up. I wouldn't suggest abandoning the attribute limits entirely, but relaxing them somewhat could help lead to characters with lower skills (seemingly appropriate for low-level 'runners) while still allowing them to be quite competant in their areas of expertise.

[Whipstitch]

I've never liked introducing just a straight attribute cap, since it makes for some really feeble humans, especially since you're limiting how much edge they can take and how much 'ware they can buy to make up for it. Which is fine, if you think a gutter campaign should be made up mostly of orks and trolls (and there's something to be said for that logic), but it's worth considering that you can build an ork with a stat line like B4,A4,S3,R5,I4,C3,L3,W3 and stay under the 150 bp attribute cap while a human is going to struggle to fit in even a single 5 without throwing 2s and 1s around. As such, I'd consider counting 50% of the metatype cost towards the attribute cap to keep the metatypes a little more in line with what you're trying to accomplish.

PS: Yes, I know some of you are thinking "Well, the human can use those saved points on skills. To which I reply: Yeah, but there's a skill cap, and more to the point, skills are bloody expensive for what they do under normal SR4 rules, even without a 300 bp limit.

[Ryu]

I´d not want to play in a campaign with less than 200 points for attributes, especially if my choosen background forces me to spend points on strength and body big time. (Metagaming suggests body 4 / strength 1 for many builds. You take away 25% of the BP in a campaign that expects a higher brawn-to-brain ratio than average).

You might try to use 400 BP, with your limits on skills and special attributes, and a 1000 ¥/BP ratio. Or try to limit gear by value rather than availability, ie "only one item worth more than 5k¥". Else easy stat points are gained by bioware, see Cerebral Boosters, Muscle Aug./Enh., Reaction Enhancer or Synaptic Accelerator.

[Ustio]

Thanks for all the comments it really is appreciated

I like the idea of changing the ¥/BP ratio

so if i keep the 400bp and the special stat and skill caps with a 1bp = 1000¥ do we think that could give the characters a more street-level feel?

Only thing with keeping the 400 is that I forsee problems with everyone having almost identical skill lists given that most characters will have aprox 150 points for skills and only having 2 lvl 3's or one lvl4 skills that cost more than 8bps

[Roadspike]

If you run 400 bp characters with stat and skill limits (beyond those already in place), you'll generally end up with people who are competant at -everything-, but not great at anything. I might counter-suggest 300 BP, max of 200 BP on stats, 2.5K :nuyen:/buildpoint, max 4 points in Special Stats (to give magic users/humans a little something extra to spend points on without adding a -ton- of ability), max of 2 skills at 4 (any number at 3 or below), no groups at 4, no alphaware, and a nice low Availability limit.

Oh, and I'd suggest making sure that even if they're over the Availability limit, allow level 1-2 Muscle Replacements, Level 1-2 Dermal Plating, and all the Cyber-blades--they just feel street to me.

My thoughts on the limits suggested above are as follows. 300 BPs will allow for characters who are relatively effective at what they do, without having so many BPs that they can throw around at everything under the sun ("Why does your ganger have Pilot Anthroform Drone?"). I like keeping the Attribute cap high, because of the reasons noted in my last post, namely that high stats and low skills--ie a lot of potential and not much ability--feels "street" to me. 2,500:nuyen: per BP limits the usefulness of cash money, but doesn't completely neuter any build that is looking to pick up a little cyber by requiring them to spend the maximum number of BPs allowed just to get a little boost (I'm using a bit of hyperbole here, please bear with me). I like allowing 4 points in Magic/Resonance/Edge just because--no real rationale here except as noted above. I like the idea of 2 skills at 4 because you want these characters to be something special--a half step ahead of most gang-bangers--just because they're the player characters. It also allows someone to, for instance, be exceptionally good with blades and leadership, or something of the like. I would, however, keep a very careful eye on specializations on those 4-point skills. I know they've been ghetto-icizing alphaware since 3rd Edition, making it more and more readily available, but it still doesn't feel right (to me at least) to have anything but basic cyberware available to any schlub on the street--they should at least have to sell their soul to a criminal organization to get alphaware.

[cndblank]

I started a new group with SR4. I wanted a street campaign, but didn't want to push down the characters too much with a group that was half new to SR and all new to SR4 (including myself).

Except for the Hacker, I kept the money down to under 40K (which was their share of the cred from their first shadowrun). No drones or really hot gear. Made sure they had the right contacts and streetwise skills. SR4 starts players out a little less powerful than SR3.

The Mage was really good with the spellcasting but barely knew how to summon anything. I did have to get the adept to only take Enhanced Reflexes 1 so that the Sammy wasn't put to shame.

It worked really well too.

I agree about the 200 points for Stats. The gutterpunks need some sort of edge to make it out of the streets and in to the Shadows. Good stats help with the low skills and makes sense.

[Redspork]

I'm setting up a street level game as well, 250 build points, 150 max stats, nothing of availability higher than 4. It does limit the stats a human can have, but then again, how is a street-level human going to body build when he's trying to scrape together a living? Or if he's got a really great mind, what the hell is he doing living on the streets? It also makes it pretty difficult for a player to get any kind of real magical mojo going, but then magical talent is pretty rare, and quite valuable, so you're really not going to see someone with real mojo living on the streets, are you? You can get better stats going with an ork or a troll, but then you're really running low on build points for skills and the like.

[Ryu]

I must admit that keeping the 400BP leads to characters with broad skills. They will however still look very different. It can be done as a viable start of a SR career, and allows for fast build-up of the intended role.

See the thread on redone archtypes, I did a ganger with 400 BP and 5k¥ per BP. I could have gone for technology with electronics + hacking, more influence and CHA for social work, much more connections for some cheap face... Thats certainly street enough for me if the small-time-criminal runs only pay rent+expenses.

[Zak]

I had the impression that non-optimised 400bp chars were already pretty shit and doomed to failure in a harsh enviroment. We tried a toned down campaign back in 3rd and it failed due to incompetence of surviving the barrens. We got mugged by some punk squatters the second night. Which is cool for the setting, sucks for the work put into the characters.

If I'd ever try that again I'd go for basic chargen, maybe drop the skillcap by 1 and put all gear under GM/Group approval. And then the characters need a decent reason to be on the lower end of the food chain.

[Whipstitch]

[Fortune]

[Whipstitch]

Agreed, I think the best move is to simply ask your players not to shoot above certain dicepools, for example, no more than 3-8 in most skills and 10 or so in combat skills (combat skills tend to skew upwards due to reach and smartlink/laser mods) and then work by GM/group approval.