merrits and follies of a rounded character, vs the Min/max specialist Options

[Karoline]

I agree that if you could never fail, the game would quickly lose it's appeal; although I have a couple issues with the phrase 'never fail'. Even if it's 20 dice vs 1 die, there's still ~5% chance of failure, and I have trouble believing a GM would pit a specialist directly against an incompetent. I also have trouble understanding why a GM would attack a specialist from within their specialty. Carl the Ghoul may be able to beat the mage senseless, but that didn't stop the mage from Mind Controlling him first. No matter how many dice a character has, there's always a chance they can fail... moreso with the Glitch and Critical Glitch rules. This makes it difficult for me to understand your argument.

I believe that part of your problem is that you don't know basic probabilities. There is far far far far far far less than a 5% chance to fail in a 20 DP v 1 DP situation. Try it some time, roll 20 dice 20 times and see if you ever even only get two hits, much less 0 which would be required to even have a chance to lose to someone with a DP of 1.

(Here is a hint, the odds of rolling 0 hits on 20 dice is .66 to the 20th power * 100% For those without a calculator, that is a .025% Yes, that is less than 1/10th of a percent of a chance of complete failure. That is less than 1 chance in 1000 of rolling all failures)

The same holds true for 12 v 20. The 20 is going to win -alot-, not just some of the time, not just more often than not, but most of the time. Don't feel like doing the math for the exact odds, but I'm guessing the 20 would win at least 9 times out of ten, if not far more.

[Sponge]

Even if it's 20 dice vs 1 die, there's still ~5% chance of failure

Not really sure where you get that 5%.

Chances to get certain numbers of hits w/20 dice (from Feshy's die roller):

CODE

Hits   Normal   +Edge   w/Edge   Reroll
=======================================
0      0.0%     0.0%     0.0%     0.0%
1+   100.0%   100.0%   100.0%    99.9%
2+    99.7%    99.8%    99.8%    99.9%
3+    98.2%    98.7%    99.1%    99.9%
4+    94.0%    95.5%    97.2%    99.7%
...

Assuming a straightforward opposed test, you'd need 2 hits to guarantee success against a 1 die pool, which is a 99.7% chance. I'd call that "never fails", especially since you can reroll with edge if you're spectacularly unlucky.

[Omenowl]

The assumption of well rounded is by nature having enough skills to do what you want in most situations. This does not mean specialization or professional level for each skill. There is a reason you can default on skills and why a skill at 1 is not hard to get. A well rounded character is probably one who has put most of his effort into stats of at least 3. This gives 2 dice which means you can succeed in most easy tasks given enough time and by focusing on you putting things in your favor.

You can always buy up skills later to a 1 level to get to 4 dice, which would make almost any simple task a default success.

[Karoline]

Bit more to add. I've got to agree with the other poster that said that min/maxing is maximizing benefits and minimizing weaknesses. The fact is that this is exactly what people who make rounded characters are doing too. They view not having any stealth/social/other skill as a weakness, and so minimize it by spending a few points to cover those areas, while generally trying to keep good in their specialty.

I don't believe anyone isn't 'guilty' of min/maxing, because no one goes out and says 'Okay, I'm going to create the weakest character possible.' Sure, they may bar themselves from certain things that could make them -more- powerful (Like creating a non-cybered mundane), but they are still going to try and make their character as good as they can within those bounds, and will generally be even more careful to sure up their weaknesses.

Personally I hold a great belief in specialization. Why should I hire a lackluster gunman that might be able to hit the target, vs someone who will almost certainly hit that target? Sure, maybe the first gunman can hack in an emergency, but I don't really care because that is why I hired a hacker.

I'm currently running a sniper who is a true specialist. If she is in a sniping situation, she -will- kill her target, but if she is outside of a sniping situation, she is slightly below par with another gunbunny. I should point out that I managed to do that while keeping up her ability to do plenty of stealth, a bit of negotiation, and a handful of 'just in case' type things. She isn't great at them, but she can do them in a pinch. This works because there are other characters in the party who generally does them. There is a face, so I don't generally need to worry about being social, but the ability to do so if pressed isn't bad. Same with hacking, that is why there is a hacker in the group. Unskilled hackers set off alarms, so as long as there is a real hacker along, they should stick to their other specialties.

I think the biggest thing that has to be remembered is that you're part of a team. If the team is working together well, each person should be doing their specialty, and doing it well, and generally not need to worry about doing other things. But it is still a good idea to have just a touch of backup skill for if you get separated or something happens to the specialist in question.

[Cheshyr]

You're right; I was in a rush, didn't bother to plug it into a binomial, and made a rookie mistake. I sorta thought we were past the point in the conversation where the numbers mattered. My bad.

Was the definition of min/maxing always minimizing weaknesses? If so, i've had that definition wrong for a while. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Tyraxus]

For anybody who wanted to know, I played around with a Poisson Binomial distribution for a bit and discovered that, in the 20v12 situation, if the guy with a 20 pool rolls <=5 hits (~30% of the time), the guy with a pool of 12 is statistically gonna beat him.

As far as from a base level win percentage, I can't remember the formulae and don't feel like coding a simulation, but I'll eyeball it at roughly 65% wins for the 20 pool, hardly a sure thing when you remember that 50-50 is equal skill.

Gah, ignore that, I did it wrong. I'll try to set it up right tomorrow when I've had more sleep.

[cndblank]

Where is the fun here... any given obstacle will be overcome by a member of the team, with no significant opposition to stand in their way (Assuming that they never fail)... Would YOU play that game? I would rather have characters that have a substantial chance that they could be defeated than a team of characters that could never fail in anything that they attempted... when this occurs, your choices tend to mean more,, which fosters a better story in the long run... And by substantial chance, I mean that hte dice pools should be considerably closer than 20 to 1... more like on the lines to withn a dice or two of each other, if not dead even...

I play the game for the story that comes out of the playing that the characters are involved in... a good story requires that there be substantial risk/conflict (note that I did not say Combat) so that the reward means something... as I said before, if there is no Risk, then there is no reward either... Without Risk the game quickly degenerates into nothing...

Not everyone agrees with this, I know, but there it is...

Keep the Faith

The two are not mutually exclusive.

I think that a bunch of professionals would expect that if everything went according to plan on a run then none of them would fail in their specialty.
If a hacker says he can open a door and surpress the alarm then he had better be able to pull it off.
Otherwise they would have to come up with a different plan or give it up as a nut too tough to crack.
I mean they are risking jail time or worse here, so everyone had better be able to pull of their part of the plan.

Now how many times does everything go according to plan?

Rarely, cause no plan survives contact with the enemy.

I can count on one hand the number of times that has happened in my group.



I think we can all agree that to have a good story you need something to go wrong.

So something will go wrong.

And if something has gone wrong then the specialist is going to have to take risks.

[Blade]

Where is the fun here... any given obstacle will be overcome by a member of the team, with no significant opposition to stand in their way (Assuming that they never fail)...

I see where you come from and I somehow agree with you. But I think that a team of specialist will always find a challenge in their league. They'll be sent on runs where each part is very difficult. The problem will be that the gun bunny will be the only one who's able to survive (or do anything useful) in a firefight against the guards, only the infiltrator will be able to infiltrate and so on.

They will still be able to do the run (for example the infiltrator will infiltrate in order to get the access to the internal network to the hacker who'll disable security so that the rest of the team can infiltrate too) but each runner will act on his own. Some players will enjoy it, but some won't like having to play in a turn-based game.

[Omenowl]

I think Karoline hit it on the head. It is the group that needs to be well rounded not the individual characters. Now players should be able to fill a secondary role else I would view them as too specialized.

[Tachi]

I agree that everyone has a weekness and that they should be properly exploited to maximum usage... however, the argument is that a specialist should never fail, and therefore teams of specialists should never fail any task that the team takes on...

Take your standard team of 6:
Infiltrator: Never fails at Infiltration
GunBunny: Never Fails at Gun Play
Rigger: Drones always cover the team and never fail to do so
Hacker/Technomancer: Never fails to Hack
Face: Never fails to obtain the optimal social benefit
Mage: Never fails to outmagic the opposition...

Where is the fun here... any given obstacle will be overcome by a member of the team, with no significant opposition to stand in their way (Assuming that they never fail)... Would YOU play that game? I would rather have characters that have a substantial chance that they could be defeated than a team of characters that could never fail in anything that they attempted... when this occurs, your choices tend to mean more,, which fosters a better story in the long run... And by substantial chance, I mean that hte dice pools should be considerably closer than 20 to 1... more like on the lines to withn a dice or two of each other, if not dead even...

I play the game for the story that comes out of the playing that the characters are involved in... a good story requires that there be substantial risk/conflict (note that I did not say Combat) so that the reward means something... as I said before, if there is no Risk, then there is no reward either... Without Risk the game quickly degenerates into nothing...

Not everyone agrees with this, I know, but there it is...

Keep the Faith

Like Soylent Green, stories are made of people. It's not the risks that make a story, it's how the characters deal with the events thay face, three dimensional characters make a game interesting. And remember, no matter how good you are, there is always someone better, something that will push your limits. And, as you said yourself, use their weaknesses, or, just take away their toys once in a while. Make the run so involved that they have to split up to cover all the bases, remove the comfort zone entirely. Create situations that prevent mutual support. There are a lot of ways to test even the best without going to extremes. But hey, that's just me, and no one cares what I think anyway.

[MikeKozar]

Bit more to add. I've got to agree with the other poster that said that min/maxing is maximizing benefits and minimizing weaknesses.

In defense of some of the other posters, this is the first time I've ever heard Min/Max used as anything but a spiteful epithet on the worst kind of munchkin - the kind of unbalanced melee powerhouse who technically can't order food or dress himself, and whose player doesn't mind since those aren't important actions. Seriously, I have never seen it cast in a positive light before, and I've been playing RPGs since the late 80s. The explanations you give make a lot of sense and are a completely rational way to approach character building, and I want to thank you for explaining it to me. I do think you may be using a loaded word in a lot of communities, though.

On the subject of unbeatable specialists, that's entirely up to the GM. The GM has access to every loophole the player does, as well as corporate budgets, whimsical dragons, and four flavors of crazy mage. If the GM wants to put you in a position where only rolling really well is going to let you survive, he's got all the ammo he needs to build that scenario. The question becomes: are you going to adjust your character to fit the story, or is the GM going to adjust the story to fit your character?

In my experience, even powergamers need to prove they're the best by beating the best - by all means, let them do their thing, but make them work for it occasionally. If you bring a guy to my table that rolls 20+ dice, I'm going to assume you expect to need them, and I hate to disappoint my guests. If you bring a guy to my table that ruins the game for the other players, well...that's something else entirely.

First rule of RPGs is, was, and always shall be: It must be fun for everyone.
Break it at your own peril.

[Karoline]

Maybe I've had a different upbringing into the RPG world, but min/maxing wasn't considered a bad thing in the tables I've been in, it was just what everyone did, tried to minimize weakness and improve strengths. Characters that focused only on the max where called munchkins, and while they excelled alot at the max, they tended to fail horridly when presented with anything that wasn't combat. Characters that focused only on the min (ie they have no weakness, but they aren't really good at anything without being a proper jack-of-all-trade) where called gimpy.

To be honest, some of the greatest characters I've ever played where ones that were virtually reliant on another character to be fully effective.

[toturi]

Maybe I've had a different upbringing into the RPG world, but min/maxing wasn't considered a bad thing in the tables I've been in, it was just what everyone did, tried to minimize weakness and improve strengths. Characters that focused only on the max where called munchkins, and while they excelled alot at the max, they tended to fail horridly when presented with anything that wasn't combat. Characters that focused only on the min (ie they have no weakness, but they aren't really good at anything without being a proper jack-of-all-trade) where called gimpy.

To be honest, some of the greatest characters I've ever played where ones that were virtually reliant on another character to be fully effective.

I agree. Where I game, min-max is considered to be good etiquette and considerate behavior. No other character has to carry your ass. Munchkin (as in only maxed) is mostly looked upon as stupid. Min-ed guys, frankly, I have very rarely seen, and those that I have seen were all jack-of-all-trades.

Some of the best characters I have seen were created as part of a team and work as a team.

[Glyph]

I think min-maxing is something that has become a pejorative, mainly due to people who either buy into the Stormwind fallacy (that you need to gimp your character to be a "real" roleplayer), or who think that roleplaying and effective character design are mutually incompatible. Shadowrun characters can go all up and down the power scale - mainly depending on their concept.

My personal opinion is that good character design and roleplaying can be complementary. I also think, though, that while the system lets you make nearly any kind of character, it is still there to make characters to play in a game. It is not simply a creative writing exercise - I feel that the player, while not compelled to min-max, should still make a character that can function within the context of the rules, and within a game played with other players. Realize that the system is designed to showcase transhumanism, and make specialists who function in a team. It is more difficult to make a Jack of all Trades, or a mundane unawakened character, because you are going against the grain of the system.

[Omenowl]

If you look at other systems such as D&D then you will see each player is inherently a specialist and by nature were inherently min maxed. This promotes group play and allows each player to shine if they fit a particular niche. The specialist approach is one reason I moved over to skill based systems rather than level based systems.

A well rounded character is one that seems able to actually function in normal society. Defaulting in skills doesn't make this unreasonable. A min maxed character in shadowrun has their attributes at the two extremes of 1 and 5. Charisma, logic and intelligence of 1 all make for a character that is unplayable because defaulting in those attribute based skills is worthless. Also players who don't play their stats deserve to be keel hauled. These are the types of characters I modify when I play and as a GM forbid.

The idea is to have a well rounded party and to have players fill a secondary role. A sniper without perception and stealth is fairly worthless at finding his target. A hand to hand specialist without stealth may never get close enough to his target. Not everything involves combat. So if a player doesn't want to sit out a session then it is in his best interest to be well rounded enough to do more than 1 thing.

[Glyph]

But again, those kind of characters could more accurately be called munchkins, rather than min-maxers. Those examples that you give are of characters who don't even have the full skill set of their own specialty, especially the sniper (a sniper without stealth skills or perception isn't much of a sniper, in my opinion).

[toturi]

But again, those kind of characters could more accurately be called munchkins, rather than min-maxers. Those examples that you give are of characters who don't even have the full skill set of their own specialty, especially the sniper (a sniper without stealth skills or perception isn't much of a sniper, in my opinion).

Yes, I agree. A character with Cha 1 and Logic 1 can presumably function if he has Etiquette 1, Negotiation 1 and Intuition 5 and this would likely be the case from a min-maxed point of view. Such a character could be a person who has had minimal human contact and behaves very instinctively.

If the character cannot or is not likely to function in his own chosen field, then he has neither max-ed his strengths nor min-ed his vulnerabilities.

[Thanee]

Hmm... I always see the "Min" in MinMaxing as minimizing the "costs" of stuff you do not need for your specialization (or for basic defenses; like Will in SR).

Social skills (and attributes) can often be left undeveloped for this purpose. Especially, since social situations are often handled by roleplaying, and you don't need high stats for roleplaying. I despise the Cha 1 Combat Monster Casanovas. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Low social stats are fine, just roleplay them as they are (which can be a lot of fun) and don't (ab)use (characteristic-defying) roleplay to cover your social bases.

Bye
Thanee

[Karoline]

Social skills (and attributes) can often be left undeveloped for this purpose. Especially, since social situations are often handled by roleplaying, and you don't need high stats for roleplaying. I despise the Cha 1 Combat Monster Casanovas. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Low social stats are fine, just roleplay them as they are (which can be a lot of fun) and don't (ab)use (characteristic-defying) roleplay to cover your social bases.

Bye
Thanee

Hehe, yeah, this has always been one of the biggest problems I've seen in any RPG, is the disconnect between character and player intellect and social skills. I'm not a very talkative person, yet when I play a character with huge social abilities, my GM has occasionally given out penalties because I couldn't give a convincing speech or tell a good tale or whatever. Meanwhile most of my GMs haven't had a problem with a character with no social skills and low charisma basically being the party face because the player is very talkative and convincing. Same thing with intellect. Always weird seeing the 8 int fighter coming up with plans instead of the 18 int wizard, just because the person playing the fighter was smarter than the person playing the wizard (Or at least better at coming up with plans).

Unfortunately it is just one of those things that most GMs don't think about alot. For some reason you need to be smart to play a smart person, and social to play a social person, but you don't need to be good with guns to play a gunbunny.

[Omenowl]

I dock Karma if people don't keep in character when they have chosen low stats. I also reward 3 dimensional characters with backstories with karma. So the fastest advancement goes to the players that play what they have on their sheet. It helps keep everything in check

[Thanee]

Yep, I generally try to keep an eye on stats as well, even if they are not mechanically used all the time (though I would always allow a less outgoing player to just roll the dice, if that's what's prefered, and just describe the desired effect instead of trying to "mimic" it). Also, I generally do not give experience points (or Karma (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ) for roleplaying. Experience is gained by the character and not by the player. Roleplaying is about having fun, and that's enough of a reward.

Also, I like the method of rolling first and roleplaying second. Otherwise, it's often that the rolls do not really fit the roleplayed scene for some reason. If a player makes a really cool speech, and then rolls crap, what do you do with that? Ignore the speech? Seems a bit harsh. Ignore the rolls? Why roll in the first place, if you are going to ignore any non-fitting result, anyways? Either way, something will feel wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

As for planning... I think that's fair game. Planning, in general, is a group affair. If the player of the Logic 1 Troll Butcher always comes up with the smartsy plans, then so be it. It's not necessarily the character who had the idea. Group mind, so to say. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Okay, but that's going a bit off-topic now, I guess. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Blade]

What happens when a player say his PC is shooting someone with his pistol? You have him roll Agility+Pistol to check if he hits.
What happens when a player say his PC is jumping from one roof to another? You have him roll Agility+Gymnastic to check if he's able to.
What happens when he say his PC has come up with a plan? You have him roll Logic+Inuition (or Logic+skill if a skill applies here) to check if he was able to.
What happens when he say his PC say this and this to convince someone? You have him roll Charisma+Con to check if he was able to think of saying this or if he was convincing enough to say it.

It's not because the last two can be roleplayed that the rules aren't the same.

[Karoline]

What happens when he say his PC has come up with a plan? You have him roll Logic+Inuition (or Logic+skill if a skill applies here) to check if he was able to.

I've -never- seen this happen. I've -always- seen 'if the player is smart enough to come up with a plan, the character automatically is as well.'

[toturi]

I've -never- seen this happen. I've -always- seen 'if the player is smart enough to come up with a plan, the character automatically is as well.'

You've never played in my games. If a player is smart enough for the plan but the character fails the roll (if the character has poor mental stats), then either the PC doesn't think it is a good plan (and the player takes the hint) or if the player insists on going ahead with the plan, then it backfires. Or if the character is a karma intensive one, he doesn't get roleplay karma.

[Thanee]

Does that work well in practice?

Basically, this playing style would require the GM to lay out the plan for supersmart characters (with an average player with average 'IQ'), or not?

Or at the very least give substantial hints.

I definitely prefer to keep things a bit metagamey here and have the "group mind" as explained above.

Bye
Thanee