BP's vs Karmagen Options

[Muspellsheimr]

Which creates blatant balance issues. There is a reason why it costs to play a Troll in the Build Point system - it is still easier for them to obtain high Body & Strength than a Human, but they do not receive it for free.

[toturi]

Character concept.

Indeed and mathematical considerations will factor into each and every character concept that exist within the game system.

[Ancient History]

Nah. If I want to play an Ork Private Investigator, the need to min-max attribtutes doesn't even enter into the thought process.

If you want to make The World's Strongest/Smartest/Fastest/Sexiest metahuman, than you look at min-max attributes. If you want to make Most Economical Use of Karma Ha-Eat-It-Ancient-I'm-A-Roll-player, than you look at min-maxing economy.

Look, I'm not saying the system is perfect, but overall the system is reasonably balanced and workable. Issues like the weakest-metahumans are fairly minor because a) most players really don't make characters like that and b) the ones that do usually end up shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

If it isn't your shining grail of pristine function...sorry, had to edit the rest of this for overindulging in snarkiness.

[Cthulhudreams]

That is absurd beyond belief. All you did was support my position. The flaw is using a linear character generation system & scaling advancement. As Karma character advancement is the advancement system in the game, this is a flaw with Build Point character generation.

What the hell? That statement works both ways too

As BP character generation is the generation system in the game, this is a flaw with the karma advancement system.

See?

The problem here is not the BP system or the Karma system - the problem is trying to use both.

In addition to that both systems have individual problems - BP has skills costing twice as much as they should, and Karma overcharges for skills something shocking, and several aspects of the generation system don't work.

[Muspellsheimr]

Neither system overcharges for skills - which is one of several problems I have with Trollman's rules. Karma does, however, undercharge for attributes, which gives the impression of overcharging skills.

If you want to use Build Point character advancement, go ahead. It will solve one of the problems with Build Point character generation (which is not a problem with Karma generation). I, however, do not like it. I do not use it. I do not suggest it to anyone, and occasionally suggest against it.

[Muspellsheimr]

Neither system overcharges for skills - which is one of several problems I have with Trollman's rules. Karma does, however, undercharge for attributes, which gives the impression of overcharging skills.

If you want to use Build Point character advancement, go ahead. It will solve one of the problems with Build Point character generation (which is not a problem with Karma generation, but a problem fixed by Karma generation). I, however, do not like it. I do not use it. I do not suggest it to anyone, and occasionally suggest against it.

[toturi]

Nah. If I want to play an Ork Private Investigator, the need to min-max attribtutes doesn't even enter into the thought process.

If you want to make The World's Strongest/Smartest/Fastest/Sexiest metahuman, than you look at min-max attributes. If you want to make Most Economical Use of Karma Ha-Eat-It-Ancient-I'm-A-Roll-player, than you look at min-maxing economy.

Look, I'm not saying the system is perfect, but overall the system is reasonably balanced and workable. Issues like the weakest-metahumans are fairly minor because a) most players really don't make characters like that and b) the ones that do usually end up shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

If it isn't your shining grail of pristine function...sorry, had to edit the rest of this for overindulging in snarkiness.

Not quite. To make The World's Strongest/Smartest/Fastest/Sexiest metahuman, you'd need to max, but not necessarily min. If you want to play Ork Private Eye, you might need to min-max when you realise you don't have the resources to create a functional character.

But this is beside the point. The point is that for most purposes, karmagen is the most effective chargen method and within this method, going metahuman remains the most mathematically efficient.

[Cthulhudreams]

Neither system overcharges for skills - which is one of several problems I have with Trollman's rules. Karma does, however, undercharge for attributes, which gives the impression of overcharging skills.

Why would anyone pay for anything beyond the first point of a skill when they haven't maxed the relevant attribute?

Because the answer to that is 'for no real reason' you can clearly see attributes are better than skills.

If

A > S

Having A = U

and S = U

Makes no sense

Assuming that U is a measure of utility, and A is for attribute.

@Ancient history

You may be the only person who doesn't think that charging 2 x karma for meta types, then adding the 'racial bonuses' at the end of the advancement situation while leaving racial minimums in place wouldn't have been a better system.

So you'd make your orc with limits of 5 in chr and log, then at the end add +2 str and +3 bod.

That would be close to optimal.

[Apathy]

So you'd make your orc with limits of 5 in chr and log, then at the end add +2 str and +3 bod.

That would be close to optimal.

By this, do you mean that the orc has to buy at least 2 points of chr and log (which then get reduced down to 1s after racial adjustment? Like they did in SR2 (do I remember that right?). Or that he doesn't get negative modifiers applied but they're instead just used as an upper bound?

[Stahlseele]

the minimum having to be bought was in SR3 at least, dunno about SR2.
so as a troll you had to spend 11 points of attributes to start out with
Body 6(7)
Quickness 1
Strength 6
Charisma 1
Intelligence 1
Willpower 1
as your bare minimums.
a human would have to spend 6 points to get to his bare minimums of 1 in each attribute.
but he would have to spend 2 build points on one positive quality and 17 attribute points to get to
the minimum of a troll

[Ancient History]

@Ancient history

You may be the only person who doesn't think that charging 2 x karma for meta types, then adding the 'racial bonuses' at the end of the advancement situation while leaving racial minimums in place wouldn't have been a better system.

Nah, but my opponents are very vocal.

And t'be honest, this was expected. It's a radical idea that you just pick the race you want to play without getting your panties in a twist about spending precious points on your choice. Now, of course, the panty-twisters are getting wound up about the "free points."

[hobgoblin]

the problem i guess is that a rpg is more then maths and combat, and those other factors can be darn hard to quantify.

like say the social stigma of being 3 meters tall, 1 meter across shoulders, and having to walk like you have a back problem every time your indoors.

[krayola red]

You know, if there's a giant hole in the system, saying "But real roleplayers would never worry about that!" doesn't eliminate the fact that there's a giant hole in the system. After all, what's the point of making a karma-based character creation system, if not to eliminate the mechanical imbalances inherent in a point-buy system? If it doesn't do that, then it has failed its purpose. After all, it's more complicated and requires more math to roll up a character with karmagen than with 400 build points. People who only care about roleplay wouldn't even bother with it.

[Cain]

Nah, but my opponents are very vocal.

And t'be honest, this was expected. It's a radical idea that you just pick the race you want to play without getting your panties in a twist about spending precious points on your choice. Now, of course, the panty-twisters are getting wound up about the "free points."

I don't mind the "free points" bit so much as I do the huge disparity with BP and the fact that y ou essentially get more points to spend on attributes. For example, a Dryad is prohibitively expensive under BP's; but under Karmagen, they can really max out Charisma and create the ultimate pornomancer. They can spend more karma on attributes than a human can, *and* have a racial bonus, resulting in even higher attributes.

[Ancient History]

Which is fine - if you want to play a dryad! The "everyone rolls shaman" meme is the problem; everyone's comparing apples and oranges. Why do trolls have higher Body and Strength? Because they're friggin' trolls!

[hobgoblin]

i think there is a reason why the book recomends one do not mix different build systems in the same group...

[Cabral]

@Ancient history

You may be the only person who doesn't think that charging 2 x karma for meta types, then adding the 'racial bonuses' at the end of the advancement situation while leaving racial minimums in place wouldn't have been a better system.

As Ancient History mentioned above, he's not. If you want to try to use the weight of the community in your argument, you should first bother to see where it sits.

i think there is a reason why the book recomends one do not mix different build systems in the same group...

the opposite actually. The beginning of the section encourages players to explore the three and adopt whichever they feel more comfortable with and encourages the GM to police exploitations of the nuances.

[hobgoblin]

ah, i read that bit as the players (that is the group, GM and all) should sit down and figure out what single build system they wanted to use.

as we can see from this thread, allowing different characters to be built with different rules just makes for a mess...

(IMO that is)

[Method]

Neither of these systems is intended to produce the exact same character build as the Build Point System or as the other alternative system, but the characters they do produce are balanced with one another.

Its interesting to me how the dev's now anticipate DS's complaints about new rules, include words of warning in the canon text and still end up having these arguments. Just an observation. No offense meant to anyone... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[TheOOB]

Which is fine - if you want to play a dryad! The "everyone rolls shaman" meme is the problem; everyone's comparing apples and oranges. Why do trolls have higher Body and Strength? Because they're friggin' trolls!

According to your logic, I shouldn't have to pay any points to play an extremely smart human, because hey, I decided I want to be a human with a logic of 6, thats my character concept, why should I have to pay for it?

If you want to have a distinct mechanical advantage by having higher stats, you should have to pay for it, sure it should be easier for a troll to get a high body, but you cannot honestly admit that having a trolls stat bonuses for free does not make your character better.

[ElFenrir]

Honestly, I don't have a problem with the metas not being charged for, in the long run. I simply tossed out an idea for those who actually do. I suppose, if you're dealing with a table of super-duper-ultra-mega minmaxers, THEN it might be a problem. I marked it down as a possible ''flaw'', simply because if a person DOES have a table of super-duper-ultra-mega minmaxers, they might well end up seeing the result of that. But to the typical player(that I know anyway), this simply doesn't come into play.

Hell, I'm still toying with the idea of running a game where people just pick what skills and attributes they want. I never ran one like that, but I saw the results of one. There was no minmaxing, no max-maxing, characters had flaws because they wanted them, people were a race because they wanted it, and I don't recall any attributes/skills being out of this world.

If anything, I see more of the ''Minimum Body and Strength Ork/Troll Mage'' faar more in BP than I do Karma, oddly enough. Even though in BP it's ''optimal'' to juice the physical stats up because it's cheaper in the long run-most folks that do this want a balanced combat mage type; so their physical stats are already solid. They just need to juice the mental ones so they can cause max carnage across the board at that point. Remember, yeah, a 5 strength is a 5 strength, and people know that; that 5 strength troll combat mage can cause some decent damage with that combat axe, as well as frizzlefrying brains over an area with a Manaball.

In Karma? These same characters(IME) at least hover a point or two above the minimum. Again, is it because they get more? Probably. Does it make a more rounded and believable character? Yes. I had a buddy who played an ork combat mage, who, under the BP system, indeed had the 4 Body/3 Strength. Under Karma, his Body became higher, and he even upped the strength to a 5. But....he used a monowhip. He didn't even need the Strength. He just did it to round him out. I really don't mind the fact you can start with decent attributes across the board. What if I have a concept for someone who has great raw potential(high stats), but little training(few skills at lower ranks)? Sure, a GM could rule I could do that under BP, but then they'd have to explain to the group why they did that for just me. Under Karma, I can make that character, and no rules have to be stretched to do it.

I also try to figure why there's a thought that attributes are too...cheap. I don't think so. To increase, in game, two attributes from 4 to 6, it's a grand cost of 66 Karma. Averaging 12 karma per month, 3 per week, it's about six months-yeah, half a year of game time-to raise two stats, unless you are karma-heavier in your games. [Also, this is all they get. This assumes no new skills are bought, no other things are raise, no initations, no nothing with Karma.] Now, raising two 2's to 3's costs 18 Karma. Cheaper. But...well, the stats are lower, and it shouldn't be too terribly expensive to do that. Even looking at this, it would be six weeks of gametime to see those 2's become 3's. Again, I can't see how attributes are undercost in Karma, unless an average weekly reward is between 6-8 Karma. MAYBE then.

I dunno, I have this thing for ''the more options, the better.'' I also have a thing for ''getting to play the character you have in your head without having to milk a stone to wring points out''. Which was why BeCKs back in the day, and Karmagen now, are my choices by far.

Its interesting to me how the dev's now anticipate DS's complaints about new rules, include words of warning in the canon text and still end up having these arguments. Just an observation. No offense meant to anyone...(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Honestly? Let's face it-it's impossible to get The Perfect System That's Perfectly Balanced That Everyone Will Like. It's just impossible. Someone, somewhere, will disagree with it, for some, or several, reasons. IMO, the best bet is to make a few systems that are at least generally workable and fairly solid(which, IMO, all three systems are-they all create characters, and they all create characters somewhat similar to each other in the same systems), and run with it, letting folks pick what they like best, or even pick and tweak to what works best for them. The issues will be there, but...that's how it goes.

[Ancient History]

Other methods were considered and eventually discarded. Adding the attribute modifiers after you buy regular attributes 1-6, while intuitive, sucks because some metahumans end up buying an extra point or two that they then have to go back. Starting all metahumans at 1 and letting them buy up to max has merit and was seriously considered, but then you have no guarantees that they'll hit their metatype minimums (unless you want to squeeze that restriction in there, which is just an overcomplicated way of assigning a metatype cost). The twice-your-BP-cost-added-to-amount-you-can-spend-on-attributes-cap was put there specifically to address the cost of very high attributes in metahumans.

For all the kvetching about perceived imbalance, very few people actually complain that they create poor characters with karmagen - it's not like the "extra" Karma a minimum-Bod and Str troll has means that they'll be able to buy Active Skill at 7 while a human with the same stats can't; at worst it means the troll has a little more nuyen to spend on a metahuman-sized vehicle or a couple more skills to blow on their whims and whimsies. A human could get the same if they decide to devote their attributes to minimum too.

[hyzmarca]

If you want to have a distinct mechanical advantage by having higher stats, you should have to pay for it, sure it should be easier for a troll to get a high body, but you cannot honestly admit that having a trolls stat bonuses for free does not make your character better.

They're Trolls. They're supposed to be better, stupider but better. Don't you get it!!?? Humanis is right sort of.

[Glyph]

ah, i read that bit as the players (that is the group, GM and all) should sit down and figure out what single build system they wanted to use.

as we can see from this thread, allowing different characters to be built with different rules just makes for a mess...

(IMO that is)

I concur with that. I like karmagen, but 750 Karma is far more powerful than 400 BP. Now, if players had a choice between karmagen and 520 BP, it might not be as unbalancing.


By the way, while I don't agree with Cthulhudreams' proposed house rule (60 Karma is way too much to pay to be an elf), I think it is being misinterpreted. I think what he was proposing was the ork spending 40 Karma to be an ork, buying his Attributes up with Karma, and then adding the racial bonuses. I don't think he was proposing going back to SR3-style penalties on metahuman Attributes. He was just pointing out that the ork would have a lower maximum for two mental Attributes.

[Cthulhudreams]

Yeah Glyph, that was my point which was poorly articulated. Penalties are a dumb ass idea, I'm a purely proposing adding the value minimums after stats were purchased.

So you buy your Ork race, Buy Logic 4 and Body 4 with karma, and that becomes Logic 4 and Body 7 post racial bonuses

Interestingly, this has the effect of driving the behaviors Ancient History wants to have:

Trolls will be big and strong, Elves to be friendly and agile, because its a poor investment to make a weak troll, or a dour elf. This is better than it being a poor investment to make a strong troll)