Alpha+ gear and availability Options

[Whipstitch]

What do you mean every street sam doesnt have a 6/6 arms-dealer contact, i thought that came with the archytype (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

I've gmed for a few dozen people over the last 3 or 4 years and I've never seen it. I do a lot of one shots for college students. Only done a couple real "campaigns."

[General Pax]

I could but I don't and I won't.


Oh, hey, look, I'm at it again!


Anyway, here's the thing:

1. Many builds don't have high rating contacts. In fact, in my experience, plenty of builds go off the plan that someone else in the group will have a high Connection Fixer. Either way, you need to pay points for privileged access, be it through qualities or through who you know.

2. A high connection Fixer isn't the foregone conclusion people make it out to be. Getting items can still take time, and 6 Connection fixers are busy people who by the RAW get back to you immediately about 16% of the time.

Do you now how contacts work??? They just use their own CHA and social skills for the tests. Connection is a bonus to those rolls, not the rolls themselves, and the bonus gets bigger if you are willing to throw extra money at it. Which is a laugh for inexpensive things like guns and ammo. Even your connection 1 contacts can get stuff. And if you have really bad social skills and really low CHA and absolutely no worthwhile contacts then how did you get any of your gear??? What is so special about avail 12??? This argumint works both ways I guess.

[Whipstitch]

Do you now how contacts work??? They just use their own CHA and social skills for the tests.

If your GM is letting you sheet up Connection 1 contacts with the social skills to march out there and practically pull an Ares Alpha from out of his ass with little delay or chance of glitching the rolls (and many of these items ARE illegal, after all), then well, I'm afraid that's your GM's problem, not mine. At my table, you're not getting someone who has that kind of pull for 2 build points. I'll be quite happy to come up with a Negotiation pool for your contacts for you. So, hate to say it, but you'd be better off just having the Face make the rolls. And if getting a hold of this gear is so easy past chargen, then why don't you just go out and get it? Oh, right, because you can't buy raw nuyen to take into play at chargen, which means availability ends up limiting what you start with and so some things do in fact end up effectively off limits if you don't want to pay the premium. Like I want them to be. So, yeah, is the cut off on availability somewhat arbitrary? Sure thing. But it's a handy and internally consistent sort of arbitrary that I like to have around in my games.

[General Pax]

What??? So now you are ignoring the actul rules for contacts to justify it??? And are you really saying that even if you have the proper contacts, even if you have good social skills, and heck even if you are the face of the group, there's still no way to get gear above some arbitrary number either before or after chargen???

I also dont understand why you obsess about it being immidately after chargen. Yes I said that in hyperbole earlier on but even if it takes you a month or two to get it........ why couldnt you get it a month or two before the game??? Especially if you do in fact have the proper contacts, social skills, or archetype???

WHY does the super suave elf with cha 9, negotiation 6, empathy 5, kinesics 3 with mulitple connection 6 fixers limited the same way the cha 1, no skills, no gear, no powers, no edges troll??? WHY is avil 12 so magical and special???

None of your arguments hold any water no matter how many times you keep saying them yourself.

[sabs]

Should the GM not be the one sheeting up your contacts?

And a connections 1 contact.. should have lousy social stats.

[Whipstitch]

And are you really saying that even if you have the proper contacts, even if you have good social skills, and heck even if you are the face of the group, there's still no way to get gear above some arbitrary number either before or after chargen???

No.

This would be a lot easier with less extra punctuation and wild conclusions though.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Should the GM not be the one sheeting up your contacts?

And a connections 1 contact.. should have lousy social stats.

Why? Honestly, a connections 1 contact is just a contact who doesn't know many people (people who matter anyway).

[Whipstitch]

Connection rating is not only a rating of how many people they know, it's a rating of how much pull they can exert and how much resources they can bring to bear on a problem (which is why higher Connected contacts agree more readily to higher rated favors). As such, I do not consider someone with Face level ability or better in Negotiation to be a good candidate for being a 1 or 2 Connection rating contact, given the way moving goods and influencing people works in SR4. That's not to say that low level contacts are all crap, mind you. I'm very open to people having Contacts who are chock full of knowledge skills or who have good technical skills, can loan you some nice gear or simply let you hide out at their place for the night. Just don't expect all of them to roll 6+ dice when looking for items outside of their area of expertise for you. If they can perform like a Fixer, I'll be sorely tempted to rate them like a Fixer, in other words.


Oh, hey, I missed this earlier:

And if you have really bad social skills and really low CHA and absolutely no worthwhile contacts then how did you get any of your gear???

That's sort of my point though. At chargen, you need neither of those. At all. I dislike that, and I find it encourages people not to worry too much about having a contact that can get them things. After all, they already somehow got that stuff in their make believe pasts. But short of starting players off naked or coming up with an even more convoluted system, I don't see many better alternatives than letting them buy things at chargen. And I'd like it even less if people just started off with whatever they wanted without any restrictions at all. Being able to get whatever you want before play even begins is just another disincentive to have appropriate Contacts and Negotiation, as far as I'm concerned.

This post has been edited by Whipstitch: Jun 2 2010, 11:01 PM

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Do you now how contacts work??? They just use their own CHA and social skills for the tests. Connection is a bonus to those rolls, not the rolls themselves, and the bonus gets bigger if you are willing to throw extra money at it. Which is a laugh for inexpensive things like guns and ammo. Even your connection 1 contacts can get stuff. And if you have really bad social skills and really low CHA and absolutely no worthwhile contacts then how did you get any of your gear??? What is so special about avail 12??? This argumint works both ways I guess.

Generally, your gear from your background is not necessarily "Purchased," it has been bought, stolen, borrowed, or even given to the character in the course of his background.

The availability sets a limit to what you can get before play starts... some things are just not available easily or quickly. Sure, you CAN attempt to get said gear immediately upon starting the game, but it will take some time, and some money... But that is okay, because you are now playing the game, and making some moves in the Shadows...

It's All Good...

Keep the Faith

[Yerameyahu]

I think my question mark filter overloaded, jesus.

If your contacts, whether insane 6/6 or 'useless' 1/1, can get you what you need *after* chargen, what's anyone whining about? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) In my games, we lower the starting gear limits to Avail 10R, because we thought 12 was already too high. If your games aren't fun without Avail 18 to start, house rule it.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I think my question mark filter overloaded, jesus.

If your contacts, whether insane 6/6 or 'useless' 1/1, can get you what you need *after* chargen, what's anyone whining about? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) In my games, we lower the starting gear limits to Avail 10R, because we thought 12 was already too high. If your games aren't fun without Avail 18 to start, house rule it.

You know, I was wondering that myself...

Keep the faith

[Mongoose]

Sure you could do that (retire)... But retirement means that you are making a new character; I am not about Retirment, and most of my Characters do not run the shadows to amass enough money to retire; there are often many Other reasons for running the Shadows, and the money is just a side benefit... I like playing a favorite character, and access to Delta Ware extends my longevity in the game... without significantly increasing the level of BadAssness; it is afterall the exact same ware you had previously (though better quality)...

Sometimes the point is the fact that you have a customized, integrated Delta Grade Cyberware Suite... It is a mark of distinction, if nothing else... And it could open up a significant Essence Hole that you can add additional 'ware too, which is its own reward at that point... Besides, who would want to give uyp the adrenalin rush of the Shadows... it is a high that is often better than the newest street drugs, though no less addicting...

Keep the Faith

OK, so you don't want to retire, because you are about social benefit, adrenaline, whatever, and don't need the cash? Take those millions and pull a "Dunklezahns Will" type move. Hire some contract runners of your own, wreck somebodies finances, set up a non profit corporation, invest in some radical new tech development, or even just buy a hell of a party. Much better investment than sinking it into your cyber-bowels, and just as distinctive. To me, big ticket delta cyber doesn't say "distinction"; it seems more like character bling that looks good because its put in the book because something has to be "the best of the best". You want distinction? Why not try running around with plain old wired 3 your whole career- that's something people will remember and talk about. I don't see why you'd need new cyber to "keep your character in the campaign"- if you can't hack the power curve, aren't there other ways to adapt?

[Yerameyahu]

But it's better just to play it straight. No need for crazy wills or things. Faster, better, stronger… (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It *is* an RPG.

[Mäx]

I think my question mark filter overloaded, jesus.

If your contacts, whether insane 6/6 or 'useless' 1/1, can get you what you need *after* chargen, what's anyone whining about?

I was just asking whats the difference between getting a panther assault cannon at chargen and buying one with my starting nyuen.
And i still havent gotten a real answer, Whipstitchs answer seems to be that the difference is that he can use his GM powers to stop me from getting it after chargen but not during chargen as he apparently lets his players to get what ever they want in chargen as long as its arbitraly chosen avaikebility is under the limit.

[Yerameyahu]

I don't understand the question. Either you can or can't get it. If you can, there's no reason to complain; if you can't, it doesn't matter either way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Every number in the game is arbitrary at some point. It's a game. If starting availability's *suggested* number is no good for *your game*, change it.

[Whipstitch]

he apparently lets his players to get what ever they want in chargen as long as its arbitraly chosen avaikebility is under the limit.

That seems like an awfully convoluted way of saying I follow the chargen rules.

[Ascalaphus]

At some point you just have to draw a line.

There are a lot of other things you could conceivably want at chargen, based on your stats. You could buy a shop/facility and through that try to justify having any number of other possessions. Heck, Data Search and a nanoforge probably suffice to justify anything.

There's stuff like software; with enough skills you could plausibly program 7+ programs, but you can't start with them.


It goes on like that, but if you want to take all that into account, it becomes far harder to balance the chargen rules. Also, creating a character becomes even more work than it currently is (and it's already a lot of work.)

[Mäx]

That seems like an awfully convoluted way of saying I follow the chargen rules.

And you apparently skip the GM aproval stage at the end and then bitch about the gear your players got out of hammerspace of chargen.

[Whipstitch]

Kinda funny that you're making baseless assumptions and implying that I'm a whiner while flouting that sig. Classy.

[LurkerOutThere]

In the vernacular, ZING!

[Mäx]

Kinda funny that you're making baseless assumptions and implying that I'm a whiner while flouting that sig. Classy.

Thats mostly based on what you say in post 108 and nobody's perfect, one can only try his/her best to follow a credo.

[Whipstitch]

I kinda regretted making my last post the second I made it, but I was kind of in a hurry to get out the door; my sister's getting married in a couple of days some I'm pretty busy. Sorry about the snippiness.


Anyway, I guess my thought is that I like the availability rules because they take some of the work of deciding what is and isn't easily acquired out of my hands and provides me some context as to what kinds of things are every day items in a low magic dystopia cyberpunk setting. Thanks to an experience I had in high school back in the late '90s, I have a somewhat dim view of my ability to figure out what kind of things everybody carries around with them. You see, our history teacher talked about how one of history's blind spots was simple every day context since by necessity you can't really record everything and then teach the majority of people about every detail. To prove the point, he once brought in a bucket of household things from his parents' house. Much of this stuff was from the 30s and 40s was roughly 60 years old or better at the time. The funny part was, we only had a 50% success rate when it came to guessing what everything was for. It makes me think that I probably don't know what things will have staying power and what things won't in such a different setting, so as imperfect as it may be, I like having Availability rules (and thus a baseline) over not having a cut off at all.

[Mäx]

I kinda regretted making my last post the second I made it, but I was kind of in a hurry to get out the door; my sister's getting married in a couple of days some I'm pretty busy. Sorry about the snippiness.

Its okey and i understand waht you like abiut the chargen availebility rules, its just kinda funny when you go "i could get a rating 2 tacsoft now, but why bother when i can get a raing 4 one few days after the game has started, possibly even before the first run" its maybe the worts with some of the thinks thats availebility changes with rating(like the fore mentiond tacsoft) and your character kinda should have one but having only rating 2 one doesnt make any sense.
Other bad offender ofcource are the cyberlimbs, troll not being able to get one that matches his natural stats just doesnt make any sense.

[sabs]

Its okey and i understand waht you like abiut the chargen availebility rules, its just kinda funny when you go "i could get a rating 2 tacsoft now, but why bother when i can get a raing 4 one few days after the game has started, possibly even before the first run" its maybe the worts with some of the thinks thats availebility changes with rating(like the fore mentiond tacsoft) and your character kinda should have one but having only rating 2 one doesnt make any sense.
Other bad offender ofcource are the cyberlimbs, troll not being able to get one that matches his natural stats just doesnt make any sense.

How do you buy a rating 4 tacsoft after char gen?
who comes out of chargen with 12,000 nuyen available?

[Mäx]

How do you buy a rating 4 tacsoft after char gen?
who comes out of chargen with 12,000 nuyen available?

High lifestyle and being smart and leaving 1200 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) unused gives you starting mnaey of 8000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) -18000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) to have 12k (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) you only need to get 12 with 4D6.