BP's vs Karmagen Options

[Whipstitch]

Plus, Body does things other than determine how well you can take a punch. A "frail" troll with Weak Immune System, for example, will have as many dice to fight off the infection as the average human plus the advantage of an extra box on their physical track. From a roleplaying perspective, such things don't bother me too much, but in terms of min-maxing, trolls are indeed at a definite advantage in many ways.

[ElFenrir]

You know, reading this thread again, but it almost seems the problem isn't as much karmagen and free stats, but trolls. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) While I see elf/dwarf/ork mentioned, it's the Trolls that get the biggest part of this.

No doubt due to the Body. Strength? Meh. Really, not a fantastic stat. Ive used it as a ''character stat'' many times and pumped it, but it wasn't the most optimal thing I could have done. A troll with a 9(11) strength and a human with 5(7) strength are 2 DV apart. That's not gamebreaking in any way. The high Body seems to be the biggest factor here. (Hell, with their less Agility, they don't get as big combat die pools, anyway, as a human, elf, dwarf, or orc). Ok, you can say ''but they can take qualities and gene treatments to up their max Agility'', but the same can be said for the other races with any stat, as well.

But yeah, it seems that the troll is what comes up the most. I'm surprised it's not Orks mentioned as much, since they far and away have proven to be the catch-all awesome dude for about any occupation, with their big bonuses(one less bonus body than a troll, 2 less strength), but nowhere near as bad as penalties.

Again, since our table has that ''we play what we want because we want to play it'', it's not a problem for us.

[krayola red]

But yeah, it seems that the troll is what comes up the most. I'm surprised it's not Orks mentioned as much, since they far and away have proven to be the catch-all awesome dude for about any occupation, with their big bonuses(one less bonus body than a troll, 2 less strength), but nowhere near as bad as penalties.

Orks are awesome when built using BPs because of their cost-gain ratio, but since all metatypes are free under karmagen, they really ain't anything special under that system.

Seriously, all the arguments defending free metatypes are pretty lol. I mean, you could introduce a new Quality in the next sourcebook that allows the character to throw 1 million dice on every single test. Such a quality would not be a problem because any sane GM would automatically ban it from his table. That doesn't change the fact that the quality is still a dumbass idea.

[Muspellsheimr]

Actually Orks do receive a huge benefit under Karma generation RAW, just not quite as much as the Trolls. Same goes for Dwarves. Under Karma generation, Elves receive the least benefit over Humans, but it is still a 15-Karma advantage, not including their Low-Light, without any of the negatives the other races suffer.

[krayola red]

Eh, I think elves and dwarves are about the same. With karmagen, having a lot of bonus points in one attribute is much more useful than spreading them out across multiple attributes. Trolls are the obvious poster children of this.

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

Stop being doofish, Musp. I'm not saying every player should max out an attribute, but they should have the option to do it without completely screwing over their character.

And yeah, it should be easier for a troll to get Body 6 than a human. It's a friggin' troll! Half the point of eliminating metatype costs is so that you can play what you want.

Yeah the character generation system in Mutants and Masterminds kind of worked under Ancient's rationale. Granted the two kinds of systems in both design and intent are different but their philosophies are similar. Why prevent characters from being able to do what they? If you establish certain maximums on players, than give them what they need to play what they want. You'll find that characters don't automatically go all out to maximize everythign as much. At least that's what I found, sure I had battlesuits that were maxed damage and armor but the variability of the system was such that he had to compromise quite a bit to jump those stats, it didn't save him from a mental blast, getting frozen in place, and so on. I just didn't see as much min-maxing as I do in Shadowrun (at least on the boards).
I can understand why that's the case, Shadworun is a much more lethal game, there's a tremendously higher amount of detail, and its gritty and the developers in M&M come out and say, "This could be broken. GMs prolly shouldn't allow it on the grounds that this can be broken." On the other hand my players for the most part will optimize out something and just hope that their weaknesses can be covered by other members of the group. They played to their concepts, we have more than half the group as humans and no trolls. The one sasquatch we have is the bane of the subtle infiltration characters or those who don't want to leave a trail, "I'm sorry mam did you say a ten foot white sasquatch blew open the side of that Renraku facility?". I think if you have the world operate as it seems to by the RAW, vampires, ghouls, AIs, Sasquatches, Nagas, etc will be more of a nuisance than other Shadowrunners in the group want to deal with,
I've heard conversations during group chargen like this.
"Dude I want to play a sasquatch, I'll be like a wookie but with Commlink translators. Well if you're playing that I'll l play a pixie. Wait wait wait, you want to be the running team with the sasquatch and the pixie? How many of those are there? We'll get pinned down and tracked way way way to easily, why are you wanting to be a pixie? Well cause they're cute. Oh well play a dwarf or gnome or something, they're adorable and common."

Not a word about stats, not a word about min/maxing but arguments from practicality. Maybe I have great players but I'm betting most players operate like this if their GM maintains world consistency.

[toturi]

I think if you have the world operate as it seems to by the RAW, vampires, ghouls, AIs, Sasquatches, Nagas, etc will be more of a nuisance than other Shadowrunners in the group want to deal with,
I've heard conversations during group chargen like this.
"Dude I want to play a sasquatch, I'll be like a wookie but with Commlink translators. Well if you're playing that I'll l play a pixie. Wait wait wait, you want to be the running team with the sasquatch and the pixie? How many of those are there? We'll get pinned down and tracked way way way to easily, why are you wanting to be a pixie? Well cause they're cute. Oh well play a dwarf or gnome or something, they're adorable and common."

Not a word about stats, not a word about min/maxing but arguments from practicality. Maybe I have great players but I'm betting most players operate like this if their GM maintains world consistency.

Not really. Then the other players will step up and say,"Gee, how does the sasquatch and pixie get pinned down and tracked so easily? Distinctive Style? OK, what the hell "advance character options" mean? Not defined?" I am betting most players operate like this when their GM maintains world consistency through RAW.

[Ancient History]

One of the untold joys of freelancing is the quiet race for developers to create a fool-proof system, and the gamers to make bigger fools of themselves by subtracting more and more common sense from their lives. I think somehow gaming has evolved gamers to the point where they look for any possible ambiguity or unreasonable explanation or carefully-constructed blindness.

[ Spoiler ]

Sorry, just gotta screw with y'all. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[krayola red]

Bah, if gamers had the kind of common sense you're advocating, you'd be out of a job, because we'll all be playing diceless freeform games. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

Not really. Then the other players will step up and say,"Gee, how does the sasquatch and pixie get pinned down and tracked so easily? Distinctive Style? OK, what the hell "advance character options" mean? Not defined?" I am betting most players operate like this when their GM maintains world consistency through RAW.

Its been the case so far. How does the sasquatch get pinned down and tracked so easily? Well in a world where there's 5000 Sasquatches, imagelink everything, camera drones everywhere and eye witnesses with instant communication devices word of mouth happens near instantaneously. When the Azzie hackers are wanting to track the perpetrators of the paydata theft down, and they see a sasquatch in one of the billion manners of ways in which observational information can be processed, it won't be hard to figure out who it is. Distinctive Style is all well and good but it still doesn't change rarity of a given metatype. It'd work the same way if you're a changelings with octopus arms or some very obvious and unusual observable trait. No one in my group has complained about it, no one has even debated the logic of it, and I don't think my players are so outside of the norms for gaming groups that they can't at least offer an anecdotal account. I agree with AH, it seems with players logic has gone right out the window when looking for ways to scrutinize and beat the system. I think alot of the reason 4th edition D&D has ended up how it has (that is completely insane about some things) is because the maths in the game have become the core precept by which one determines the validity for the system.
Again trolls, maybe free in Karmagen and the optimal choice straight out of the BBB but I've got no trolls in my group right now, and that's out of 8 players.

[toturi]

Its been the case so far. How does the sasquatch get pinned down and tracked so easily? Well in a world where there's 5000 Sasquatches, imagelink everything, camera drones everywhere and eye witnesses with instant communication devices word of mouth happens near instantaneously. When the Azzie hackers are wanting to track the perpetrators of the paydata theft down, and they see a sasquatch in one of the billion manners of ways in which observational information can be processed, it won't be hard to figure out who it is. Distinctive Style is all well and good but it still doesn't change rarity of a given metatype. It'd work the same way if you're a changelings with octopus arms or some very obvious and unusual observable trait. No one in my group has complained about it, no one has even debated the logic of it, and I don't think my players are so outside of the norms for gaming groups that they can't at least offer an anecdotal account. I agree with AH, it seems with players logic has gone right out the window when looking for ways to scrutinize and beat the system. I think alot of the reason 4th edition D&D has ended up how it has (that is completely insane about some things) is because the maths in the game have become the core precept by which one determines the validity for the system.
Again trolls, maybe free in Karmagen and the optimal choice straight out of the BBB but I've got no trolls in my group right now, and that's out of 8 players.

There is no "rarity" modifier to RAW searches. Or other methods of tracking other people down. The same can be done if the character was a human. When the Azzie hackers are wanting to track the perpetrators of the paydata theft down, and they see a sasquatch in one of the billion manners of ways in which observational information can be processed, it will be just as hard to figure out who it is. At most, you are looking for at a lower Threshold. You are looking at logic from a RL view, not per RAW. Maths determines the validity of the game because the game mechanics are based on maths.

If you are running Karmagen, then while the optimal choice for BBB may be troll, using RC, the optimal choices are any shapeshifter. And there are 2 such characters in my group, not counting the other meta characters like Dryad, Harumen and Fomori. There is only 1 single human and he is Infected and not created with Karmagen.

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

There is no "rarity" modifier to RAW searches. Or other methods of tracking other people down. The same can be done if the character was a human. When the Azzie hackers are wanting to track the perpetrators of the paydata theft down, and they see a sasquatch in one of the billion manners of ways in which observational information can be processed, it will be just as hard to figure out who it is. At most, you are looking for at a lower Threshold. You are looking at logic from a RL view, not per RAW. Maths determines the validity of the game because the game mechanics are based on maths.

If you are running Karmagen, then while the optimal choice for BBB may be troll, using RC, the optimal choices are Dryad, Harumen and any shapeshifter. And there are 4 such characters in my group, not counting the other meta characters. There is only 1 single human and he is Infected and not created with Karmagen.

Right the rules don't take that into account. You're correct, and missing the point, the RAW is more than just stats and maths it has to do with world consistency, story elements, etc etc. Those are as much part of a game as the rules. When you've got collated data from a given selection of runners and there are strange and obvious outliers, than while it would matter IRL, It'd matter in the Shadowrun world too. If you don' take that in account in modifying the pools or lowering the thresholds than your missing the point, the world is supposed to have internal consistency and logic like our world and the game exists to approximate that world and feel only in so far as those types of things can be modeled in a relatively easily understood fashion. Once you start taking the rules out of the context of the world, you've functionally ruined their intent. You're right those races are optimal, that's true. And its been brought up in my group that they're optimal, but people still don't care because they don't want to roleplay a Shapeshifter when they've got this nifty idea for an Ancient, or they don't want to be a Harumen in Seattle cause its just weird and uncommon and will get you noticed. Rules like public awareness for example are meant to simulate this but at the end of the day it just flat makes sense in the game world around which the rules are modeled.

[toturi]

Right the rules don't take that into account. You're correct, and missing the point, the RAW is more than just stats and maths it has to do with world consistency, story elements, etc etc. Those are as much part of a game as the rules. When you've got collated data from a given selection of runners and there are strange and obvious outliers, than while it would matter IRL, It'd matter in the Shadowrun world too. If you don' take that in account in modifying the pools or lowering the thresholds than your missing the point, the world is supposed to have internal consistency and logic like our world and the game exists to approximate that world and feel only in so far as those types of things can be modeled in a relatively easily understood fashion. Once you start taking the rules out of the context of the world, you've functionally ruined their intent. You're right those races are optimal, that's true. And its been brought up in my group that they're optimal, but people still don't care because they don't want to roleplay a Shapeshifter when they've got this nifty idea for an Ancient, or they don't want to be a Harumen in Seattle cause its just weird and uncommon and will get you noticed. Rules like public awareness for example are meant to simulate this but at the end of the day it just flat makes sense in the game world around which the rules are modeled.

No, you are confusing Canon with RAW. World consistency depends on RAW. Canon is only one manifestion of RAW. It is when you deviate from RAW (often by invoking the GM discretion rule) that you have trouble. While strange and obvious outliers would matter IRL, it would not matter in the Shadowrun world if the RAW does not say so. The internal consistency of the game world rests on RAW. It is when you try to impose RL world logic on the SR world that things break down. You are forcing SR to approximate RL which it does not necessarily have to. Once you start adding intent to the rules, you have taken the rules out of context. Rules like public awareness simulate the ease of which the public know of the characters but at the end of the day it only makes sense in the game world around which the rules are the foundation.

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

No, you are confusing Canon with RAW. World consistency depends on RAW. Canon is only one manifestion of RAW. It is when you deviate from RAW (often by invoking the GM discretion rule) that you have trouble. While strange and obvious outliers would matter IRL, it would not matter in the Shadowrun world if the RAW does not say so. The internal consistency of the game world rests on RAW. It is when you try to impose RL world logic on the SR world that things break down. You are forcing SR to approximate RL which it does not necessarily have to. Once you start adding intent to the rules, you have taken the rules out of context. Rules like public awareness simulate the ease of which the public know of the characters but at the end of the day it only makes sense in the game world around which the rules are the foundation.

No, the rules are there to inform on the fiction. There's no confusion, its an issue of intention. if you intend to bring about a certain of fiction or feel in a game than the rules ought to reflect that. With that understanding however, is that rules are modeling fiction, they aren't meant to be realistic, if you really wanted a realistic simulation game, than you ought to be running every bullet with ballistics physics and call it a day. There are games like that by the way, I can't remember the name of the game Freedom Phoenix or something like that, which was a space sim that used real mathmatics for everything you'd need to use math for. It was the most realistic and complicated RPG I've ever seen. The designer's intent was to design an RPG that math and physics majors could enjoy and utilize their skills in, and he succeeded at his attempt.

Shadowrun isn't designed to be that game, I believe Shadowrun is meant to be a gritty near-future cyberpunkish game with infusion of fantasy elements. Now I don't want to bog this down in the debate about what shadowrun is, but I want to say the intent of the designers cannot be fully reflected in the mechanics of the rules. The Cannon as you're stating is part and parcel in the rules and vice versa. They're equally necesarry for the presentation of the game and they inform on one another, there was a BP cost for metatype prolly to balance what they justifiably had by Cannon but the decision-making aparatus in humans aren't perfectly in sync with math and as such the actual value of the metatype isn't reflected in the cost. I'm not forcing the rules to conform to real life at all, I'm forcing the rules to conform to Shadowrun life. If this were some other world, or I wanted a different feel to the world I'd ignore certain rules, emphasize certain other rules or add and mod things until the feel I want is achieved. I don't want a reality simulator, I want a Shadowrun simulator.

[Cabral]

There is no "rarity" modifier to RAW searches.

Actually there is. It's called Distinctive Style. Why do you get a bonus to find someone with a scar, pink mohawk and humanis tattoos? Because it's distinctive. Why is it distinctive? Because it's rare. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

[Cain]

Actually there is. It's called Distinctive Style. Why do you get a bonus to find someone with a scar, pink mohawk and humanis tattoos? Because it's distinctive. Why is it distinctive? Because it's rare. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

It doesn't have to be rare, it has to be distinctive. Find one Sasquatch in the middle of their communities? Rare, but not distinctive. Find one in the middle of downtown Seattle? Yeah, he's going to stand out a bit.

[toturi]

No, the rules are there to inform on the fiction. There's no confusion, its an issue of intention. if you intend to bring about a certain of fiction or feel in a game than the rules ought to reflect that. With that understanding however, is that rules are modeling fiction, they aren't meant to be realistic, if you really wanted a realistic simulation game, than you ought to be running every bullet with ballistics physics and call it a day. There are games like that by the way, I can't remember the name of the game Freedom Phoenix or something like that, which was a space sim that used real mathmatics for everything you'd need to use math for. It was the most realistic and complicated RPG I've ever seen. The designer's intent was to design an RPG that math and physics majors could enjoy and utilize their skills in, and he succeeded at his attempt.

No, the rules are there to form the basis for the fiction. There is no issue of intention. The rules give rise to the fiction or feel in a game. With that understanding, however, is that fiction only reflects a certain possible outcome arising from the rules.

The mechanics form the bedrock and skeleton of the game. The canon of which is but one of the possible outcomes of the rules reflect the intent of the writers. The fiction fleshes out the game world but it is still hung upon the skeleton of the game system. Canon Shadowrun life conforms to the rules, but the rules do not always produce a result that reflect the canon of Shadowrun life, because canon is simply one manifestation of the RAW. RAW is the Shadowrun simulator, just that it does not always produce an effect that is canon Shadowrun, although it can and does on occasion.

[masterofm]

Not to mention that you make a large leap in an assumptions Thadeus Bearpaw. In Shadowrun in the cannon there is a lot of talk about information through obscurity. Lets say you are a mage that uses stun bolt, lightening bolt, and mana static does that mean that you stand out? Awakened characters are very rare and mages even less so, so a mage that uses stun bolt, lightening bolt, and mana static must be simple to track (especially if the stun bolt is able to knock people out in a single blast.) I mean why not give them the quality if they are a troll mage, because a troll is not common and a mage is also not common so that would narrow it down to only a handful of troll mages who could use those spells. Is your argument that any awakened or awakened/metahuman character should take a negative quality that awards you karma or BP because they are rare as well?

If someone made the same damn sasquatch and paid it with BP by your logic you would also have to penalize them for paying through the nose for that character? You can't have it both ways and there will be people who will protest the fact that just because they want to play an infected metahuman/metavarient you are going to penalize them especially when they are using the BP system.

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

Not to mention that you make a large leap in an assumptions Thadeus Bearpaw. In Shadowrun in the cannon there is a lot of talk about information through obscurity. Lets say you are a mage that uses stun bolt, lightening bolt, and mana static does that mean that you stand out? Awakened characters are very rare and mages even less so, so a mage that uses stun bolt, lightening bolt, and mana static must be simple to track (especially if the stun bolt is able to knock people out in a single blast.) I mean why not give them the quality if they are a troll mage, because a troll is not common and a mage is also not common so that would narrow it down to only a handful of troll mages who could use those spells. Is your argument that any awakened or awakened/metahuman character should take a negative quality that awards you karma or BP because they are rare as well?

If someone made the same damn sasquatch and paid it with BP by your logic you would also have to penalize them for paying through the nose for that character? You can't have it both ways and there will be people who will protest the fact that just because they want to play an infected metahuman/metavarient you are going to penalize them especially when they are using the BP system.

Again, my players haven't protested. Having in world consequences for something very unusual that doesn't require specialized knowledge to understand is unusual (like with your mage example) is both legitimate in world and makes sense given the way people work. Given the ubiquity of visual recording devices in the world, the uncommonality of Sasquatches and other points of particularity to the group makes sense. It's not punishment. Moreover; if you have a group composed of a smattering of weird metatypes, HMHVV carriers, races, etc and you don't make them stand out a little more, it just seems silly. Other than the RAW, what possible reason in world would you have for not making the group with one of the 5000 Sasquatches in it stand out more than the group with the usual metatypes. And yeah, as per the spells using a particular spell in a particular fashion or flair on it can be considered a Signature under that quality.

[toturi]

Other than the RAW, what possible reason in world would you have for not making the group with one of the 5000 Sasquatches in it stand out more than the group with the usual metatypes.

Because actually that statement is not even Shadowrun canon?

[masterofm]

What my argument is that you are applying what your view of the SR world should be. However RAW does not back you up, and cannon does not say anything about it. You are imposing RL situations on a fantasy situation that does not back you up. If your point is "I feel it is better this way so I do it" thats fine, but what some people have beef with is the fact that you bring it up like there is something that supports you other then you drawing that conclusion yourself. A flair or signature something has nothing to do with what types of spells you cast, if your a mage, if your a metahuman, or if your infected. It has everything to do that every time you are spotted on camera there is something about you that is extremely noticeable and can be recognized. For instance every time you pull a run you always leave the same calling card, you scalp the people that you have killed, or you have a bald head with a tattoo of a really fat lady that dances a jig. The Joker in "The Dark Knight" always leaves a calling card, and wares the same makeup, batman always wears a very obvious suit that easily makes him stand out. Those are what you take the negative trait for, not for just being a shadowrun character.

[Warlordtheft]

Ok, stupid question, why isn't there a karma cost to be non-human, that would be equal to its equivalent cost if were an advantage? I thought the goal of the BP and Karma character builds is to make characters equivalent in power level.

[Cthulhudreams]

Because the Karma system unfairly punishes you for taking high stats. High strength in particular is a high cost / low reward points sink.

There are a variety of measures to deal with that, but the one that the author elected to go with was making the race 'free' on the assumption that you'd be taking high stats.

[Glyph]

Ok, stupid question, why isn't there a karma cost to be non-human, that would be equal to its equivalent cost if were an advantage? I thought the goal of the BP and Karma character builds is to make characters equivalent in power level.

The rationale is that metatypes, with their bonuses, have to spend more Karma to raise those Attributes. In the build point system, raising Strength from 1 to 2 for a human costs the same number of points as a troll raising his Strength from 5 to 6. In the Karma system, though, the human would pay 6 karma to raise his Strength, while the troll would pay 18 karma to raise his Strength.

The problem with that approach is that, while it's nice to not want to penalize someone playing a high-Strength troll, an Attribute of 5 is still an Attribute of 5, whether a troll or a human has it. So a troll can either keep the effectively free Body: 5 and Strength: 5 that he starts out with, raise them a bit (raising them both to 7, he would still be paying a bit less than the human would spend raising them to 5), or raise them to the roof - an option that the human doesn't even have. To counteract this, the troll does have lower caps on three mental Attributes, and requires specially-made gear for his size.

On the other hand, trolls had a BP advantage over humans in the build point system, too. You spent 40 build points, lost the human Edge bonus, and got 80 points' worth of Attribute bonuses - a net gain of 30 build points. In karma generation, they have a net gain of 78 karma (42 twice for two Attributes of 5, and -6 for not having the Edge bonus). So they come out ahead more from the starting gate, but have to pay more if they want to take full advantage of their Attribute bonus (a troll soft-maxing his Body and Strength will pay more than twice the karma that the human will).

It isn't quite fair or balanced, but I think charging them metatype cost x 2 in karma points is too far the other way. Even trolls will be behind if you do that, and an elf will not be worth playing at all (the Agility bonus and Edge loss cancel each other out, so they will essentially be paying 60 Karma for one single +2 bonus). Cthulhudreams' house rule also stipulated that metatypes would buy Attributes with karma, then apply the bonuses, which gives a bit back to them, but that winds up making those high Body/high Strength trolls cheaper than under normal karma generation.

Personally, I would not be adverse to a house ruling on this (just haven't seen one I liked yet), but it's not really as unbalanced as it looks at first glance. I guess it's hard for me to get worked up about it because karmagen is such a lavish character generation system - who cares if that ork gets a few more points here and there, my human guy still rocks! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[Cthulhudreams]

I'd note that the Edge penalty and agility bonus only cancel each other out if they are the same value - but if you go to Agility 6 thats worth lots more than going edge 3 -> 4

So the elf going from Charisma 6 to charisma 8 is getting 45 karma points there, and if he goes from agility 5 to 6, thats another potential 18.

But the problem there is of course that elves are overpriced. Lets look at orks:

Orks pay 40 karma under that house rule, and if they go from body 4 to body 7 get 53 karma points right there, plus whatever they get for that strength attribute.

Trolls getting a startling bonus, but strength is pretty low value unless you want a troll bow.

It is of course only worth for people to make really big trolls and orks, which was my desired goal.