[X] My Assistant

[Yerameyahu]

A matrix null zone? I dunno if I've ever seen that.

The characters should have multiple skills. If the sam only kills things, it's a bad character, and he should be content to live on standby.

The mundane/astral/matrix split is the central recurring problem of SR, indeed. On the other hand, it's often only realistic for these all to be present; what kind of lame target ignores one of these aspects of security? Luckily, all three exist in the same physical space, thanks to wireless matrix and astral perception/projection. People will indeed have to split up their jobs, but that's their *job*.

[James McMurray]

what does the Street Sami do if the run goes perfectly.

Wonder why he made a character that can do nothing but violence?

But this concept also goes for what happens if the story leads into a Matrix null zone?

4E has done a lot to include the hacker, and to make it so that you could be more than a fully-dedicate effectively a brain-in-a-vat hacker and still be useful. If the hacker can only hack, he's in the same boat as a gunbunny that can only shoot.

He is concerned that to provide an interesting game for the Mage, the Hacker, and everyone else you have to split and prepare basicly three campaigns. One astral, one matrix, one 'mundane'. Additionally this means that involving the whole group at once is almost impossible. If he wants to add 'magic stuff' into the campaign only the mage can participate. If he wants some interesting matrix stuff then only the hacker types can participate. he doesn't want to force players to pick up hacking type skills just to play that side-game and if they do, he's concerns that just 1 rank in the skill will be to little to effectively contibute.

Sometimes there's a split, sometimes there's not. If the mage is doing astral stuff while everyone else sits on their ass, then it needs to be done quickly. But fully astral stuff should be rare, and physical stuff that's magical can easily involve the mundanes.

For the matrix, anything worth getting to is not going to be accessible from outside of the maximum security building. The hacker is going to have to get in and get out with everyone else, and they've changed timeframes from prior editions so that hacking uses the same combat turns as everything else. If there's a matrix alert, a physical alert is likely to follow soon and now the rest of the team has to protect the hacker while he gets tot he paydata.

Hacking doesn't need any skills at all. You can default to Logic and use a program. If everyone has a good Logic score, everyone is a good hacker, but the dedicated guy will be better thanks to specialties, qualities, and actual skill ranks.

The upshot is that if you make a character who can only do one thing in any game system then there will be times when you're sitting on the sidelines twiddling your thumbs. If a player wants to be included more often, it's their job to not make a one trick pony, not the GM's job to make sure that the single-faceted characters get an equal share of the limelight.

[Yerameyahu]

The above is only true if you're using the optional Logic-hacking rule. Otherwise, you just default to Program (-1).

[testpatternmih]

Do you all run fairly small groups?

Our team will be 5 people. It seems that you would almost get overly redudant if every had everyone elses skills. Magic gets to kindof stand alone since the GM doesn't want more than one mage running around. With the right cash can anyone be just a few dice shy of a dedicated hacker?

This was the team that was being talked about:
Dorf Mage (me) - unsure on tradition.
Troll Sami
Smuggler pregen
Drone Rigger pregen
Hacker possibly pregen

As we've never played I think some of the problems we are seeing is that we understand the classicly defined roles, so the lock picker say. can't really wrap heads around having a bunch of the team helping out on that little maglock. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

What else do you think the hacker should be doing? Drone control?

[Yerameyahu]

Regardless of the group, you're either good at 2 or 3 things (or 5), or you spend time standing around. I use this makeshift chart (http://goo.gl/i42xR), but it's not really a question of redundancy. The specialist *is* going to be better at his specialty (or something's very wrong, heh). But there are lots of situations where it helps to have a helper or a backup (or both), and it gives the *players* something to do.

Most skillsets have flexible applications (rigging, magic, hacking, etc.), but 'killer' does indeed have a certain kind of exclusivity. You can certainly work it in (kill the guards instead of avoid them, that kind of thing), but it's still good to have various abilities. Even if the sam's other strength is just physical overwatch, or being a diversion, or parkour, at least he's got options. Failing that, have him carry stuff. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Do you all run fairly small groups?

Our team will be 5 people. It seems that you would almost get overly redudant if every had everyone elses skills. Magic gets to kindof stand alone since the GM doesn't want more than one mage running around. With the right cash can anyone be just a few dice shy of a dedicated hacker?

This was the team that was being talked about:
Dorf Mage (me) - unsure on tradition.
Troll Sami
Smuggler pregen
Drone Rigger pregen
Hacker possibly pregen

As we've never played I think some of the problems we are seeing is that we understand the classicly defined roles, so the lock picker say. can't really wrap heads around having a bunch of the team helping out on that little maglock. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

What else do you think the hacker should be doing? Drone control?

Our Group is currently consisting of 6 Players. This is the standard Crew for our table. On ocassion, we reduce to 4-5, or increase to 7, but 6 is the standard compliment.

We have:
Human Black Mage Initiate. (Magic 2)
Ork Technomancer/Rigger. (Resonance 8 )
Human Hermetic Mage Initiate. (Magic 6)
Human Face/Jack of all Trades Triad Boss
Elven Assasin
Human Assassin Mage (Magic 7)

The action flows well, and the interface between all the various realms (Mundane, Matrix, Astral) is smooth and efficient. The characters stretch from 180 Karma to 340 Karma.

Looks like you have 3 Vehicle Guys. In my expereince, Drones are often worse (for a GM) than Spirits when it comes to Force Multipliers. So he may want to keep an eye on such things. Additionally, It is easy to be a GOOD hacker using the basic rules; All it takes is a little bit of money (to upgrade your hardware/programs) and you are hacking in style.

As Yerameyahu indicated, it is good to be flexible. Specialization is okay, but try not to specialize to the exclusion of everything else. A diverse skill set is very, very desireable, in my opinion.

[James McMurray]

To use your maglock example, there are three basic ways the group can handle maglocks.

1) The guy who's good at breaking into things has umpteen dice for beating maglocks, and nobody else bothered with the gear or Hardware skills needed. Now, when that guy can't make it (perhaps he's busy trying not to get shot, had to go take care of his daughter because the sitter got sick and the GM felt like poking his negative quality, or whatever). Now that he's gone the run fails, the runners get no money, but they do get a point of notoriety for the failure, all because everyone made a pidgeon for their favorite hole.

2) The guy who's really good at breaking into things has umpteen dice for beating maglocks, and one or more people have decent skill ratings and gear to handle it. Now when the plan calls for Mr. Maglock to be doing something else, it doesn't fall apart because there's other people that know how to open locked doors. And when the plan doesn't need other people, they can be at the door helping ("No, not the blue wire, the red one").

3) Nobody is "the maglock guy" but several people have the skills to handle it. Now no matter what the situation a door shouldn't be an issue. Some days the mage cracks it invisibly while the talkative guy distracts the guards. Other times the mage is busy handling the spirit guards and the street sam steps up to open the door. But when the spirit materializes and the gunbunny is needed elsewhere, the face can step up and finish the job.

For the hacker: give him a gun and some armor. Every single character, even a hacker, should be combat worthy because there ain't no such thing as a campaign without a firefight, and while you can usually choose who you shoot at you can't choose who shoots at you. You can also give him some side skills that fit his attributes (whatever they may be, though usually it's Logic heavy so Demolitions is a good one, as are First Aid and Medicine). That way he's still doing stuff even when there's no computers around.

[testpatternmih]

Yerameyahu: Thanks for the link, rather interesting. Am I reading it correctly: Pick a few roles, check the corresponding attribute and sum up the 1's for general good starting score in the stat?

James McMurray: I agree most with point 2. allows for a character to have roles but other people atleast fake-it when needed. But your 4th point is kind of the DMs problem. He played in a game previous to this with another group. They planned and planned and planned so that, as I recall, they never even got into a gunfight. Having to fire the gun was a lose. So it might be part of his mindset of not wanting to throw random kinks into the plans and let the players win through thought and preparation. Thought I do agree that synergy of skills is good. Maybe the hacker is a bit of a pyro so she has a thing for c4. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) or Medic. I know I was thinking a Logic tradition with Heal and First-Aid/Medicine.

[Yerameyahu]

I think the 1s are just a placeholder, like binary (0, 1)… it's been a while. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I could've used X, but I forget why I didn't. So they just flag major attributes, you'd want them as high as feasible. I know it's rough, I just made it for myself. There are a lot of roles that need covering!

[Epicedion]

Everyone should do pretty much what they want, within reason. The GM can hopefully be clever enough to come up with plenty of situations where it's advantageous or even necessary for two people to be doing the same thing at the same time to different targets.

Game-wise, Shadowrun is about creative problem solving with the tools and abilities you have on hand, often assessed and managed on the fly. If you've got two people with the same general skills and abilities, I would seriously hope that your team could find a way to use that to its advantage.

To borrow James' example of the "maglock guy," if you had two maglock guys you could open twice as many maglocks twice as fast. This could be particularly useful if you've only got 30 seconds before the next security patrol comes through and the MacGuffin is behind one of four maglocked doors.

Magic is particularly flexible in this regard, since you can make two magician characters with the exact same stats and skills, but different traditions and spells, and have them fulfill completely different nonoverlapping roles.

You could even work multiple Face characters to your advantage, fairly easily.

[redwulf25]

Hey All again, hope you dont mind me repurposing my thread. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

So chatting with the soon-to-be-GM and he's getting cold feet on the game. here are some of his concerns, if you could give some insight it would be sweet. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Involving each player:

Now I read a post previously about what does the Street Sami do if the run goes perfectly. Nothing unless we set the run up to include violence. But this concept also goes for what happens if the story leads into a Matrix null zone?

-side note- the GM does not want to throw in random hitches into the run just to create drama. if the players are smart the run can go smoothly.

I don't know about that. I've always been of the opinion that if the run goes smoothly the GM screwed the pooch. Sure, my runner wants the run to come off without a hitch, but as a player I have more fun if like Mal in Serenity he can complain about why things never go smooth. A good GM either plays to their players or they tell them when a concept won't work for the campaign. If someone makes a gun bunny and they don't get to shoot something it's the GM's fault.

[James McMurray]

James McMurray: I agree most with point 2. allows for a character to have roles but other people atleast fake-it when needed. But your 4th point is kind of the DMs problem. He played in a game previous to this with another group. They planned and planned and planned so that, as I recall, they never even got into a gunfight. Having to fire the gun was a lose. So it might be part of his mindset of not wanting to throw random kinks into the plans and let the players win through thought and preparation. Thought I do agree that synergy of skills is good. Maybe the hacker is a bit of a pyro so she has a thing for c4. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) or Medic. I know I was thinking a Logic tradition with Heal and First-Aid/Medicine.

If there are no random kinks it's not a shadowrun game, or at least in's not in the typical genre of the game (read any of the novels, most of the short stories, or play the video games). Heck, it's not even a pen-and-paper version of a heist movie. The reason "no plan survives contact with the enemy" is a cliche is because it's proven itself true time and time again. If your group is capable of being omnipotent enough to expect every eventuality and perfect enough to deal with them all in the planning phase then you don't need a GM at all.

It sounds like the GM is unwilling to put unexpected difficulties in your path, does not know how to merge multiple roles into a single scene, and/or doesn't want to listen to the plans you're making and determine how security experts (who've had a lot longer to think about it than he had to prep the run) would have expected and countered some of your moves. If so, perhaps he's right that Shadowrun isn't the game for him. Maybe someone else could run this campaign, or you play a different system.