[X] My Assistant

[toturi]

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

I do not need to do so most of the time (given my players are pretty experienced in the genre). Suuuuper geniuses are more likely to come up with plans that go smoothly or at least have contingencies in place. So in essense, high Logic and Intuition (together with high Knowledge skill levels) can really help in making sure nothing major goes wrong and everything proceeds according to plan.

I have always been a proponent that it should not just the NPCs that should be able to say, "Everything is as I have foreseen. Everything is going according to plan. Mwahahaha!" and PCs should be able to do so as well. If you created a mastermind-type character, you'll get your fun and run rings around my NPCs(if you want to).

[Thanee]

"Everything is as I have foreseen. Everything is going according to plan."

Heh, I once GM'ed a run, which worked completely smooth with basically no obstacles (that weren't considered).

The players found it quite refreshing, that something actually worked as planned. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Blade]

I do it myself (rolling to check if my character comes up with a plan), as a player, when playing character less clever than I to see if they could be pondering what I'm pondering (or if they think so but wonder where they could find pants large enough to fit a horse). When planning, if I get a good idea but can't have my character come up with it, I usually tell the player whose character is most likely to think of this. I also encourage this as a GM, so that player who play "dumb" character can still have fun when planning.

As a GM, no matter how good the RP is, I often ask the player to roll their social skills to check if the character is convincing enough. I also ask for the players to roll when they come up with clever tactics in combat to check if their character could have think of it in the middle of the battle.

On the other side, when the character's abilities are superior to the player's I either let the other players help, or be more "easy" on the player: if he can't tell me a convincing story I still let him roll his social test and if his plan has holes I'd let him roll a logic test and tell him what's wrong with it and some way his character can see of making it better.

[Tachi]

I do it myself, as a player, when playing character less clever than I to see if they could be pondering what I'm pondering (or if they think so but wonder where they could find pants large enough to fit a horse).

Narf... Hehe.

I'll allow a little metagaming like this, especially if the player with the dumb character is the only one who can think of anything. But I keep it to an absolute minimum. And, I still make him roll a social test to see if he can convince the others it's a good idea.

[Orcus Blackweath...]

Wow I got to this one late, lots of stuff to reply to.

My definition of Min/max:
Adjusting minimums and maximums to greatest effect. One fine example, Stephen Hawking. Another excellent example, Jessica Simpson. If the effect you are seeking to achieve is having a well rounded character (well rounded is defined as having some capability in all roles), or a specialist, you will min/max differently.

The premise of minimizing is that you want to achieve a goal, but do not wish to be penalized too heavily. You can be so dumb that boxes of rocks occasionally give you advice, but this will leave you in great difficulty. If the difficulty is considered acceptable, put on a bikini and smile for the camera. If that level of penalty is too severe, you adjust until it will meet your needs.

The premise of maximizing is similar. How good do you need to be? In order to be the most brilliant man on Earth, under these rules, you will need a lot of flaws. If you don't want to be wheelchair bound, you might want to settle for low grade MENSA member instead.

The point was made earlier about metagaming, and this is important. If you bring a well balanced jack of all trades to a table with John McClain, Neo, Jessica Simpson, and Stephen Hawking, you will not fit in. It is important to know your game, and adjust accordingly. All of that aside, I have noticed trends. I have only been in 3 or 4 different groups (plus convention gaming which is different), in these groups, you make your first character. That character might be min/maxed, or might be some version of rounded. Which ever you built originally, all of your Karma goes to fix your initial mistakes. Your 20dp gun bunny starts adding all of the skills he doesn't have with karma. The 9dp Jack of all trades starts speciall6izing in whatever he perceives as "The Important Skills". Very rarely does the Jack continue spreading his points, and very rarely does the specialist put more into his specialty. This leads me to conclude that both approaches are somewhat correct. If you have nothing that you can do really well, your character is not finished. At the same time, if there are things that you cannot do at all, you are equally not done. I believe that character growth is the most fun you can have in RPGs.

I have also noted that it is easier to challenge a group of specialists than to do so with a group that is more flexible. What happens when your only mage glitches and knocks himself out? What happens when your technomancer gets shot early in the run? Answer is you fail the run in many cases. Sometimes you can improvise, instead of hacking the system, we steal the hard drives, or intimidate the spider into getting you the pay data. With a more rounded group, if one member is incapacitated, there is another to replace him. Hope that helps.

[MikeKozar]

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.

Hang on...so they players come up with a good plan (Let's hijack a delivery truck, let the Face finally use her Disguise Skill, and bring in our guns in scanner-proofed boxes!) and then you say, 'Somebody roll me X hits on a Logic+Intuition' and if nobody can do it, the players have to scrap the plan?

...is that more fun?

If my players wanted to go all A-Team and for some reason nobody had the smarts to roll it, I'd keep the plan intact and give a 3rd party credit for it. Like Dilbert's Garbageman, for instance. Some random NPC overhears and says, 'Hell, just take one a dem Fedex trucks inna front gate. Nobody messes wit a guy an' a clipboard.' For extra comedy, the NPC becomes a recurring character and unwittingly the brains of the team, despite being a drunk and a little confused by all the attention. Have other NPCs refer to him reverently, and spread rumors about the tactical genius - he's a prototype cyberlogician, he's a renegade AI, he's a great dragon, he's the lost son of the Emperor...everyone wants to know who is coming up with these plans and what dark bargain the PCs had to make to score this ally... Turns out a six-pack of PBR will gen'rally do it.

...kill the PCs, not the plan. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Kerrang]

In my experience this kind of attitude from a GM has resulted in me walking away from gaming with that group. Almost wrote off SR4 altogether till I analyzed the situation and realized it had more to do with someone else's perception of what my character, and by extension me, should be doing. It just wasn't any fun for me as a player to be scolded for roleplaying that my character not interested in doing a dangerous job on short notice and my adept gunslinger to be targeted by a hidden camo sniper with no surprise test, nigh instantly offing the character to the words of the GM going "Eagle Eye, we hardly knew you...", with a roll of his eyes. Yeah, that's gonna leave a chip on my shoulder, so I figured my gaming days with that particular group were done for the mean time.

I have had one person walk away from my group recently because of my preferences as a GM, but I have no lack of players at my table. In fact, I typically have 8-10 players at my table so most of the people seem to enjoy my style, which emphasizes RP over stats. The one player who did walk away is still a good friend, and we enjoy playing WH40k together, though he always beats me, as he can power game the hell out of that system (or seemingly, any system). He is looking at starting his own SR group now, and he even asked me for advice on the setting the last time we got together for 40k. It is all in ones preference, if you don't like the way your GM and/or group plays, find another group, or start one yourself.

My impression is that in a game of such widely differing roles for characters, every player's character should be allowed a moment to shine / slip on a banana peel and have it be accepted rather than frowned upon. Being targeted by the facilitator of the setting doesn't exactly come across as accepting of another player's fun.

That is just it, the moment for everyone to shine is why I don't allow power gaming. The vast majority of my group has been playing with me for years, and they know that I actually enjoy Role Playing in my Role Playing Games, so they bring characters that are quirky and fun, not statted for maximum benefit. When the power gamer came along, he stole the show by min/maxing his character, and the rest of the group felt marginalized. For the record, he was a Mage, who focused entirely on Control Thoughts/Mob Mind, resisting the resulting drain, and high initiative/ max IPs. Every situation they encountered while he was in the group, except for one run centered around matrix action, devolved into his character controlling thoughts on one or more individuals before anyone else could act. It was not fun for me, and it was not fun for the rest of the group. The others complained, I nerfed his spells, and he quit playing. He was given the chance to produce a new character more in line with the rest of the group, but he apparently could not resist the urge to power game.

[Kerrang]

Let's put the debate on what exactly constitutes min/maxing to rest. The consensus of what the term means can be found on wikipedia:

Min maxing

Min-maxing is the practice of playing a role-playing game, wargame or video game with the intent of creating the "best" character by means of minimizing undesired or unimportant traits and maximizing desired ones. This is usually accomplished by improving one specific trait or ability by sacrificing ability in all other fields.

If you are not using the above definition, you are talking about something else, so please don't call it min/maxing, as this will only lead to confusion.

kthxbai

[Jay]

Since min-maxing has also been tied into power gaming in this thread, I think it is only fair to include the paragraph that follows your quote found on the same page.

Min-maxing is usually associated with powergaming, though the two are not necessarily the same; min-maxers often min-max during character creation but play the game the same as any other player, and powergamers often create characters within the normal scope but then proceed to build them up by earning their power-ups during gameplay. A certain amount of min-maxing is expected and even desirable, as it indicates interest in the game, but beyond a certain threshold it becomes destructive to the game.

[Omenowl]

At the end of the day I believe every player should have a spotlight moment. A point where they are useful and a valued member of the team. This doesn't mean the characters have to be the best, but they have their chance to contribute to the story.

As for the plans with a stupid character. I will let the player make up plans then I will let him burn a point of edge for an auto success. If a player wants to get 1 karma per session because I can't give him roleplaying, heroism, good plan, etc. That is fine, but it will self regulate in about 5-10 sessions when they are 30-40 points behind the rest of the group.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

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.'

I have to agree with this... There is no skill for planning in any of the games that I played over the years; that was always up to the players...

Keep the Faith...

[toturi]

Hang on...so they players come up with a good plan (Let's hijack a delivery truck, let the Face finally use her Disguise Skill, and bring in our guns in scanner-proofed boxes!) and then you say, 'Somebody roll me X hits on a Logic+Intuition' and if nobody can do it, the players have to scrap the plan?

...is that more fun?

If my players wanted to go all A-Team and for some reason nobody had the smarts to roll it, I'd keep the plan intact and give a 3rd party credit for it. Like Dilbert's Garbageman, for instance. Some random NPC overhears and says, 'Hell, just take one a dem Fedex trucks inna front gate. Nobody messes wit a guy an' a clipboard.' For extra comedy, the NPC becomes a recurring character and unwittingly the brains of the team, despite being a drunk and a little confused by all the attention. Have other NPCs refer to him reverently, and spread rumors about the tactical genius - he's a prototype cyberlogician, he's a renegade AI, he's a great dragon, he's the lost son of the Emperor...everyone wants to know who is coming up with these plans and what dark bargain the PCs had to make to score this ally... Turns out a six-pack of PBR will gen'rally do it.

...kill the PCs, not the plan. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh no, they needn't scrap it. Maybe they just think that the plan is lousy but they can still keep it and things just don't go according to plan.

[Glyph]

Personally, I would lean towards keeping a character's mental and social game stats in mind as I run the game, but rolling dice as little as possible, for situations where the game mechanics can intrude into the actual roleplaying.

When I do need to determine a characters likelihood of knowing something, I would find knowledge skills to be even more important than mental Attributes. Someone with Logic of 2 but the knowledge skills of Mafia politics: 4 and Italian cuisine: 3 might have an easier time dealing with the Don than the charming but clueless face.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Personally, I would lean towards keeping a character's mental and social game stats in mind as I run the game, but rolling dice as little as possible, for situations where the game mechanics can intrude into the actual roleplaying.

When I do need to determine a characters likelihood of knowing something, I would find knowledge skills to be even more important than mental Attributes. Someone with Logic of 2 but the knowledge skills of Mafia politics: 4 and Italian cuisine: 3 might have an easier time dealing with the Don than the charming but clueless face.

Amen to that... I would have to agreee with you on this one...

Keep the Faith

[Cthulhudreams]

Shadowrun demands specialists who are also capable of operating independently. You're in a team, so you need 'your thing', but you ALSO need to be able to operate independatly. If you're caught by yourself you need to able A) Spot the ambush B) Defend yourself C) Escape and Evade - every character needs to be able to do that stuff.

[CanadianWolverin...]

I have had one person walk away from my group recently because of my preferences as a GM, but I have no lack of players at my table. In fact, I typically have 8-10 players at my table so most of the people seem to enjoy my style, which emphasizes RP over stats. The one player who did walk away is still a good friend, and we enjoy playing WH40k together, though he always beats me, as he can power game the hell out of that system (or seemingly, any system). He is looking at starting his own SR group now, and he even asked me for advice on the setting the last time we got together for 40k. It is all in ones preference, if you don't like the way your GM and/or group plays, find another group, or start one yourself.

Yeah, been trying to find various ways to get me SR4A fix, so no worries on that account. Glad to hear everything worked out.

That is just it, the moment for everyone to shine is why I don't allow power gaming. The vast majority of my group has been playing with me for years, and they know that I actually enjoy Role Playing in my Role Playing Games, so they bring characters that are quirky and fun, not statted for maximum benefit. When the power gamer came along, he stole the show by min/maxing his character, and the rest of the group felt marginalized. For the record, he was a Mage, who focused entirely on Control Thoughts/Mob Mind, resisting the resulting drain, and high initiative/ max IPs. Every situation they encountered while he was in the group, except for one run centered around matrix action, devolved into his character controlling thoughts on one or more individuals before anyone else could act. It was not fun for me, and it was not fun for the rest of the group. The others complained, I nerfed his spells, and he quit playing. He was given the chance to produce a new character more in line with the rest of the group, but he apparently could not resist the urge to power game.

Whoa. Devil's in the details, huh? I didn't even realize that was possible in SR4A, guess that just goes to show what I noob I am with it. It makes me wonder then, maybe if I ever did get the chance to have your style as a GM, would my character even be targeted? If that is the extreme it takes to be targeted, perhaps then your way isn't so bad as I first thought. I hope you understand I was just looking at it with the perspective my own experiences have given me.

Quirky and fun characters don't mean not being powerful aka specialist, right? I would tend to think from a role playing perspective that a specialist is more likely to be quirky to have gotten that way.

[Kerrang]

Quirky and fun characters don't mean not being powerful aka specialist, right? I would tend to think from a role playing perspective that a specialist is more likely to be quirky to have gotten that way.

Specialists in general, I have no problem with (is that a great sentence, or what?). The player who thinks the only way to make a specialist is by min/maxing (using the generally accepted definition, of course) is the player I have a problem with. There are many ways to power game, but min/maxing is the easiest thing to spot at character generation. I only wish I would have caught this earlier in our current campaign, then maybe we could have avoided losing that player.

Previously, I was able to control most power gaming by requiring detailed backgrounds on characters, and making sure the character sheet meshed well with that background. I could make observations like "Why would your character have such a low rating in this particular attribute, when according to your background this is something that they would definitely have a use for?" At the outset of this campaign, though, we had several players who were entirely new to SR, and I was new to SR4 myself, so I backed off from that, which led to the situation I described earlier. It is hindsight that now informs me as to what to look for in SR4 when new players join the group, or as current players build new characters.