Linear Attribute Costs - Pros and Cons Options

[The_Vanguard]

A player of mine has asked me about changing the costs for increasing Attributes with Karma to a linear model, similar to character creation. He wants every +1 to an Attribute score to cost 20 Karma flat. In his opinion, this should reduce the need for Min-Maxing.
I've juggled some numbers now, but I can't seem to make heads or tails out of this. To me, it seems like you can always Min-Max if you're so inclined. A linear cost curve just seems to reduce the negative impact for maxing, allowing you to build up the character's strenght without paying the price for it.

So, am I missing something here? Btw, I build my NPCs to be internally consistent instead of tailoring them to the group, thus powergaming is not mandatory in my games.

[Mäx]

Thats smells heavily of power gaming.
Just use karmagen, it removes this particular problem of min-maxing quite nicely.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Either you build characters with karma, or you advance them with build points.

Keeping both systems around and mixing them was the single worst design descision in SR4.

[…] without paying the price for it.

You still don't get points for free.

In his opinion, this should reduce the need for Min-Maxing.

Min-Maxing is usually the symptom of rescources being to limited to build a character design according to concept.

No matter if you use a linear system or a progressive one, peope will dump "unnessesary" stats and skills in this case.

[Ole_I]

Sounds to me like this will somewhat reduce the 'min' part, and greatly increase the 'max' part . . . It will benefit high-attribute characters a lot, like trolls with high body and strength, or initiates with high grades.

Under this system, you should start with as many stats at 3 or better, since it will effectively cost the same as raising them to 4 - and then again the same for 5, and 6, and so on. Generally speaking, you never want to increase 1s and 2s, and that should be quite okay for most characters. In other words, starting characters will be more average than before, but power will add up very quickly. Not a good system at all, IMHO.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

That is disregarding the little fact that you also want good dicepools for the characters main skills: Starting average means the character will suck for a long time and might never live to see those increases.

[Shinobi Killfist]

Other than some kind of world building design where you want to motivate people into some bell curve of attributes variable attribute costs or skill costs for that matter don't make much sense. At the end of the day each attribute point gives 1/3rd of a success and some other small benefits like more fumble resistance, a bit more armor to wear, a bit more lifting capacity etc. Going from a 1 to a 2 vs a 5 to a 6 does nothing different though. All that matters is the end pool, how you got there is irrelevant. Not sure if it will do anything for min-maxing since that will always happen when what you want to make for a character is not reachable with the points available, but I don't think it will unbalance the game in any way.

[Ole_I]

You can still have good pools for your main skills. With 200 BP to use, you can, for instance, get six 3s and two 5, which is quite all right no matter if you use the original system or the proposed system - but slightly more desirable in the proposed system. The more I think of it, the more I think the proposed system changes very little in character creation, but greatly benefits the player later.

[nezumi]

As was said, the min-maxing is more a result of using point-buy in chargen, and karma-buy in game. Yes, swapping to point-buy in game would solve the problem - but it would create a lot more problems, and will require you do a lot more work as a GM to keep runs exciting for a party which has maxed out all of their important scores. The easier solution is to use BeCKS or karma-buy as character generation.

[The_Vanguard]

You still don't get points for free.

Let's say you have 50 Karma and want to raise Reaction from 4 to 5 and Strength from 5 to 6. With the standard system this will cost you 55 points, so you have to make up your mind about which one to prefer. With the linear system this will cost 40 points and you will be able to do both right away.

Min-Maxing is usually the symptom of rescources being to limited to build a character design according to concept.

Only if the concept is "I want to kick as much ass as possible", IMHO. It's quite possible to build characters that are proficient in multiple areas.

At the end of the day each attribute point gives 1/3rd of a success and some other small benefits like more fumble resistance, a bit more armor to wear, a bit more lifting capacity etc. Going from a 1 to a 2 vs a 5 to a 6 does nothing different though. All that matters is the end pool, how you got there is irrelevant.

This is true, of course, but I feel that there is also more to this. Higher Attribute averages diminish the "fish out of water" experiences: situations, where a character is forced to do something he is really bad at. Great for building tension, if used with caution. Furthermore, a character's worth for the group is determined by how far his speciality is above the group average in this field. If everybody is special, no one really is.

Well, but I'm basically a guy who only changes rules if there is a good reason for it. Thus, I'd need to be convinced that a linear progession would be better than an exponential one before I'd houserule it.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

[…] and you will be able to do both right away

And you still have to pay for both points. You may pay less, you may get points sooner, but none of them are free.

Only if the concept is "I want to kick as much ass as possible", IMHO.

You mean like:

Furthermore, a character's worth for the group is determined by how far his speciality is above the group average in this field. If everybody is special, no one really is.

Most concepts should include so many implicit abilities that most of the time, the ones that are not absolutely necessary will be stripped out, only to get them in play. Just look at the archetypes, or think soldier turned merc. Most characters of the latter type wouldn't even pass basic training.

It's quite possible to build characters that are proficient in multiple areas.

And be average & unspecial as per your point above, sure. Unless going for a skillwire build.

Higher Attribute averages diminish the "fish out of water" experiences: situations, where a character is forced to do something he is really bad at. Great for building tension, if used with caution.

"fish, out of water", see "failure, lethal". Even when you try to do it "with caution", it means the character will burn through Edge fast and with low attribute averages, for nearly all occasions. Such things only work for areas of the character where he is "not so good at" — which means those implicit abilities that should be there are actually there.

[The_Vanguard]

You mean like:

Most concepts should include so many implicit abilities that most of the time, the ones that are not absolutely necessary will be stripped out, only to get them in play. Just look at the archetypes, or think soldier turned merc. Most characters of the latter type wouldn't even pass basic training.

I'm not so sure about that. See, my favorite SR4 character was a burnt-out mage, a military vet that had to be patched up with a lot of cyber after a tour of duty in Bug City, and who was pretty shell-shocked and went AWOL afterwards. He could shoot and taser people with his souped-up cyberarm, and he could sling some spells even though this tended to hurt him. Still worked pretty fine, because he was adequate in these areas and his main expertise was frontline reconnaissance and astral support. The pivotal point of the concept, however, was his quirky psychology.
Thus, the actual main concept of the character didn't cost me any points at all, and those that I had were enough to make him adequate in the areas that counted for me. He was never meant to be a total badass, so I didn't really mind.

Well, but I fully understand where you are coming from, of course. I know that there are players who couldn't subscribe to this point of view - I've got one of those in my group. So, I guess in the end it boils down to what you want from the game, and how you want to get there. Some people will never have enough points, while others will never question the system.
Guess you just have to draw the line somewhere.

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Sure. As a GM, I would probably expect such a character to have basic survival, close combat and athletic skills, possibly some parts of stealth as well.

[Draco18s]

"fish, out of water", see "failure, lethal". Even when you try to do it "with caution", it means the character will burn through Edge fast and with low attribute averages, for nearly all occasions. Such things only work for areas of the character where he is "not so good at" — which means those implicit abilities that should be there are actually there.

Hey, I had a non-social character make it through a social interaction while successfully lying in a Zone of Truth.

How?

Some good RP, keeping the lies close to the truth, and Aid Another (ah, team mates: giving you those helpful little tips before a job interview).

[Rotbart van Dain...]

RP won't substitute making tests nor provide boni, neither for shooting a gun nor fasttalking.

If you know how to do something, but your character doesn't, that character is worse off then the other way round.

[Kyrel]

Arguably you can always min/max if you are so inclined, but I can see what your player means.

If you during character creation is boosting specific stats to max. levels, and dumping others, because it'll be faster to get the dumped stats up to medium levels during play, than it will be to get medium stats up to max., then a flat cost to increase attributes with Karma during play makes sense, because then it will take you the same time/effort to increase the medium stats to max., as it would take to increase dumped stats to medium. Depending on the players it could result in them making more rounded characters during character creation, rather than dumping specific stats, in order to max out another key stat.

[Draco18s]

RP won't substitute making tests nor provide boni, neither for shooting a gun nor fasttalking.

If you know how to do something, but your character doesn't, that character is worse off then the other way round.

You missed where the dice boni came from. And the good role playing influences GM fiat.
Also notice how I never said I roleplayed my socially incompetent gunbunny as a master of diplomacy (I said good role playing, as in correctly done).

[Kagetenshi]

In his opinion, this should reduce the need for Min-Maxing.

I've juggled some numbers now, but I can't seem to make heads or tails out of this. To me, it seems like you can always Min-Max if you're so inclined. A linear cost curve just seems to reduce the negative impact for maxing, allowing you to build up the character's strenght without paying the price for it.

So, am I missing something here?

The trick is that if costs are linear at chargen but supralinear post-chargen you want to always max out anything you're going to want at high levels, to the point of setting everything you want at medium to low levels to 1 (because raising a 1 to a 2 or a 4 to a 5 costs the same at chargen, but post-chargen the latter is significantly more expensive). You can end up sacrificing a shockingly large amount of effective karma value by doing the "reasonable" thing and taking average stats, to the point where it's really hard to justify (and the fact that it's only a point or two that you're dropping in the low stat, and that you'll have it back up within a few runs means that doing this really ends up seeming pretty reasonable).

Your player absolutely has the right idea in making this consistent. The harsh caps on advancement that SR4 provides makes linearity not altogether unreasonable, but I'd still concur with those advocating karmagen—make chargen work like advancement, not the other way around.

~J

[Rotbart van Dain...]

You missed where the dice boni came from.

No.

And the good role playing influences GM fiat.

Figures.

Also notice how I never said I roleplayed my socially incompetent gunbunny as a master of diplomacy (I said good role playing, as in correctly done).

It is strange though that you emphasize that part, while the whole point was about the rules part.

[Draco18s]

No.

Figures.

It is strange though that you emphasize that part, while the whole point was about the rules part.

Ahem.

and Aid Another (ah, team mates: giving you those helpful little tips before a job interview).

[Rotbart van Dain...]

Some good RP (1), keeping the lies close to the truth (2), and Aid Another (3)

So two out of three were not about character but player ability, emphasizing that part. Not mentioning that those two were put directly after the rhetoric "How?".

But maybe that's just me.

[Draco18s]

So two out of three were not about character but player ability, emphasizing that part. Not mentioning that those two were put directly after the rhetoric "How?".

1) is a player thing. My character was socially inept and I played the part of a guy not entirely sure what he was doing. Done. I never attempted to be suave (hell, I'm not suave either!)

2) is a character thing. "Why are you interested in this job?" does not have a correct response of "My team wants me to infiltrate your organization so we can do an extraction." The correct response is, "I like what your organization does, I'd really enjoy working for you and living here," which was partly true. Archeology life isn't half bad, especially to a guy who lives in a dingy apartment in downtown Seattle, but that wasn't really why he was there.

3) is a mechanics thing. Face says, "Do this, avoid that, say this, don't say that" before my character went in, which the GM ruled would be an appropriate use of Aid Another on the Social rolls.

Part 1 was actually the hardest thing for me to do, though some of the answers for part 2 were a bit tricky, but again the Aid Another allows the rest of the team to help, as it could have been covered by the "do this, don't do that" briefing.

[pbangarth]

...Archeology life isn't half bad, especially to a guy who lives in a dingy apartment in downtown Seattle, but that wasn't really why he was there....

Arcology?

Archaeology often involves life in a dingy apartment in some god-forsaken shithole, and we're glad of it!

[Karoline]

This seems to have gone onto a weird Rollplay vs roleplay tangent, so I'll just address the OP.

Allow me to explain the reasoning behind your player's thoughts.

In BP chargen, getting a stat from 4 to 5 costs 10 BP, and raising a stat from 1 to 2 costs 10 BP. When the game switches over to karma however, raising a stat from 1 to 2 costs 10 karma, while raising a stat from 4 to 5 costs a whole 25 karma. Thus, any player looking at the long term cost/benefit will always pick to raise a stat to 5 instead of raising one to 2 with BP, because the benefit will be the same, but the cost of raising to 5 in game is much higher (Ignoring possible difficulties that a stat at 1 might provide as the example works just as well with 3 to 4 and 4 to 5, and even better with a troll considering raising str/bod with BP)

What this does is push a player's hand toward getting a stat soft maxed, or leaving it alone. If however you leave karma cost at a flat 20 karma per stat increase, the player no longer has any reason to leave a stat at 1 beyond not particularly wanting the stat. There is in essence no longer a cost reason driving a character to leave stats low in character creation. What this should do is create more characters with 3s (human average) in stats, because they don't feel like they're wasting BP by raising a stat to 2 or 3 that could be better used raising another one to 5.

So, I'd highly suggest either simply giving out BP (that are spent exactly like normal BP) instead of karma, setting skill/stat costs at flat rates instead of increasing costs, or using karmagen to create characters. Will this prevent Min/Maxing? Will it make it impossible? No, it won't. But what it will do is decrease the reasons to do so. A 2 str is no longer giving up 15 karma, it is simply waiting until later to get that 5 bod.

Edit: And to address the title of this thread, the pros are:
No more price shock on attributes once leaving chargen
and the cons are:

[Draco18s]

Arcology?

Archaeology often involves life in a dingy apartment in some god-forsaken shithole, and we're glad of it!

God damn spellchecker. Firefox doesn't like "arcology" and I must have mistakenly corrected it.