Are Humans unpowered?, Why play them? Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I don't see why it matters. Playing a game and a character isn't about having the highest possible numbers, it's about having fun. Some of the funnest characters I've played have been the most screwed-up, mixed-up, and randomly-built things I threw together (or ended up developing thanks to the mind-warping powers in Call of Cthulhu). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Heh... This is often very true indeed... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[toturi]

I don't see why it matters. Playing a game and a character isn't about having the highest possible numbers, it's about having fun.

How can you not see how it matters? Having the highest possible number can be fun, some people are just blind to this and find no fun in it and the saddest thing is they question how it can be so for others.
Most of the funnest characters I've played have been the most min-maxed, optimised things I threw together.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

How can you not see how it matters? Having the highest possible number can be fun, some people are just blind to this and find no fun in it and the saddest thing is they question how it can be so for others.
Most of the funnest characters I've played have been the most min-maxed, optimised things I threw together.

Yeah... Unfortunately, I do not find it fun to always Win/Succeed, which is what obtaining a Maximum Dice Pools generally ensures. There is no challenge if you can always just win/succeed. Might as well just write a book at that point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

Yeah... Unfortunately, I do not find it fun to always Win/Succeed, which is what obtaining a Maximum Dice Pools generally ensures. There is no challenge if you can always just win/succeed. Might as well just write a book at that point. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Ok, but seriously a non-min-maxed character needs MORE BPs/Karma to succeed, because he needs to make up for not being a hyper-specialist. Hence, humans suck at this even more, unless you really rely on Edge only. (And some refresh mechanics don't suit those builds.)

[Nebular]

Ok, but seriously a non-min-maxed character needs MORE BPs/Karma to succeed, because he needs to make up for not being a hyper-specialist. Hence, humans suck at this even more, unless you really rely on Edge only. (And some refresh mechanics don't suit those builds.)

I'd disagree. If this is how your games are turning out ("your" in the general group sense, not you personally), I'd say you need to find a new GM. The game should be fun and challenging for the players in the group as they want to play/build them, and not force them to hyper-specialise or min-max to some extreme because the GM lacks the ability to adapt.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

I'd disagree. If this is how your games are turning out ("your" in the general group sense, not you personally), I'd say you need to find a new GM. The game should be fun and challenging for the players in the group as they want to play/build them, and not force them to hyper-specialise or min-max to some extreme because the GM lacks the ability to adapt.

Oh, I am the GM, and for the reasons I've stated we are using Karmagen with the old attribute costs (and race cost = BP cost), which makes for quite powerful generalists. But in a 400BP setting the characters would really suck hard.

I agree you could make humans more attractive with higher race costs.

[KarmaInferno]

Ok, but seriously a non-min-maxed character needs MORE BPs/Karma to succeed, because he needs to make up for not being a hyper-specialist. Hence, humans suck at this even more, unless you really rely on Edge only. (And some refresh mechanics don't suit those builds.)

I dunno. I have plenty of situation where I "won" in RPGs without any stats or dicepools at all.

It's called roleplaying.

Note that this is coming from probably one of the biggest min-maxers in this forum.

There are also situations where just having the biggest numbers is just inefficient. If you're hitting regularly with a 12 dice pool, how is a 20 dicepool going to really be better, and how many resources do you have to sacrifice to get that 20 DP?




-k

[jaellot]

I'd say it probably has something to do with previous editions, and Karma Pool. Humans accumulated it twice as fast as metas.

[CanRay]

Elves your fighting a lot of cultural stigma/expectations as well as the fact that a lot of people resent you for damn good reason based on what your elf centric nation states have done.

My Elven Wheelman, Nas, punches people in the face when they speak Sperethiel at him. "I'm TEXAN, damnit! Speak American!"

[KarmaInferno]

It's funny. My current Missions NPC speaks fluent Sperethiel. But about the only time it's come up in games is to deliberately speak it badly to folks in the Tir, like a tourist who may have read a few English-to-Sperethiel phrasebooks. If you seem like some foolish tourist, people sometimes don't look at you too closely.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)




-k

[Shinobi Killfist]

I dunno. I have plenty of situation where I "won" in RPGs without any stats or dicepools at all.

It's called roleplaying.

Note that this is coming from probably one of the biggest min-maxers in this forum.

There are also situations where just having the biggest numbers is just inefficient. If you're hitting regularly with a 12 dice pool, how is a 20 dicepool going to really be better, and how many resources do you have to sacrifice to get that 20 DP?




-k

You can roleplay just fine with good stats. You don't need bad stats to pull that off. And when you need to roll, it is nice to have some stats to back it up.

Humans are probably the weakest race, but I don't think the difference is that large if you are not in a min/max group. And as long as everyone is on the same page it should be fine. The problems come when half the team min maxed their characters and half didn't. Then it is a pain in the butt for a GM to build an appropriate challenge.

[KarmaInferno]

Bad stats can be roleplayed too. And "good stats" is relative. PCs are generally "better than average" in most RPGs. As I said, that 20 DP sometimes is just extreme overkill.

Disclaimer: I do play characters with 20+ DPs. But it's not to "win", whatever that means. It's way more than is actually needed most of the time. I just like showing off.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)




-k

[Lantzer]

My personal take on the whole powergaming issue:

Optimized characters can be fun or boring.
Non-optimized characters can be fun or boring.

Either can be fun for the player and boring for the group.
I've never seen one that was fun for the group but boring for the player.

I've never seen a fun (according to the group) character of any power level considered useless by the group.
I have seen over-specialized characters regardless of power level considered useless by the group.
Not all characters are appropriate for every game.

Character Power levels are not particularly important unless it negatively impacts the group's fun. High or low.
The GM is part of the group.

I don't mind characters who are good at what they do.
I find that most people who like optimizing characters underestimate the power of versatility because it's harder to crunch the mathematical effect of it.
I like optimizing characters too.
I have little patience for the idea that unless you are fully optimized you are useless.

[Aerospider]

Optimising builds can be fun, but it's not communal and defies the nature of RPGs, by which I mean it's crunching numbers regardless of what they might represent. Given that the GM will in all likelihood tailor the opposition to your power level, you theoretically don't gain anything by being more efficient anyway.

Personally I'm in the camp that likes flawed characters and care more about my guy's story than my progress as a player. More than once I've deliberately had my character put himself (usually unintentionally) in mortal danger and said to myself 'Yeah, this will be a fitting way for this guy's story to end' only for the GM to go out of his way to keep him alive. Hell, it's not like there are a shortage of character concepts to try and making them interesting and credible is much more challenging than optimising the build.

But then YMMV, as always.

[DamienKnight]

Given that the GM will in all likelihood tailor the opposition to your power level, you theoretically don't gain anything by being more efficient anyway.

Exactly. This means I get to engage in epic combat with multiple HTR ops teams, rather than pew-pewing back and forth with a 2-bit security guard. Yay for high power!

I think the biggest problem is not low powered chars or high powered chars, its having a group that has a mix of both. As a GM you have to ramp up the danger level in order to challenge the high powered charcters, but the less pimp of the group are going to be in very deadly situations.

A couple of the players in my group get their Joy from number crunching out power heavy characters. Rather than deny them this, I just assist the other players to make sure they are combat effective with their build so they can keep up.

I tried a low powered game once. Within a few sessions the powerplayers had found ways of eeking up their combat effectiveness, while the rest of the players floated around their starting ineptitude. Forcing weak builds at the start just meant that within a few sessions, the gap between high and low powered characers became even greater than in games where everyone started out fairly high powered.

One useful thing about low powered starting characters is that if someone comes in with a new character, I can alter the starting restrictions in order to allow the new character to be more up to par with the more aged characters. No extra BP, just less Nuyen/Skill/attribute limits.

[CanRay]

It's funny. My current Missions NPC speaks fluent Sperethiel. But about the only time it's come up in games is to deliberately speak it badly to folks in the Tir, like a tourist who may have read a few English-to-Sperethiel phrasebooks. If you seem like some foolish tourist, people sometimes don't look at you too closely.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
-k

"My hovercraft is full of awakened eels."

"I will not buy this BTL, it is scratched."

[Irion]

Well, there was a huge miss with gene ware. I really wished they would have flashed it out a bit more.
Making it easyer to get for vanilla humans but more complicated for the rest. (Espacially you know whom)
(Because this are the little tweaks making the game world feel right and alive. But this has actually not much to do with the topic I guess)

@Ascalaphus
Yeah, and as soon as you got yourself a GM considering wight limits and doors, you get fucked.

@stu_pie
The main problem is, that it is hard to make humans better without making them overpowered.

Giving them one free to select bonus point?
Hello, only race with logic +1, reaction +1 or Intuition +1.
Giving them an other point of edge?
Who the hell would not take the guy with easy 7 edge to go?
Giving them a reduction in Cyber or Bioware essence costs?
Hell, good for every build.
So I guess the only way would really to give humans a bit of a bonus to Geneware, since it is the most uncommon type.

[UmaroVI]

Humans should probably be -10 BP. Although I'm sure that would ruin a lot of people's roleplaying fun.

[Rubic]

My Elven Wheelman, Nas, punches people in the face when they speak Sperethiel at him. "I'm TEXAN, damnit! Speak American!"

Then he should check this link... In America!

It's funny. My current Missions NPC speaks fluent Sperethiel. But about the only time it's come up in games is to deliberately speak it badly to folks in the Tir, like a tourist who may have read a few English-to-Sperethiel phrasebooks. If you seem like some foolish tourist, people sometimes don't look at you too closely.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

-k

Mind if I use this in my upcoming game? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[stu_pie]

Irion (and everyone else who had this point) I agree humans are not massively under powered, but unless you are going for fluff or have a concept of what your character looks like, going human seems a bit dumb. I was thinking of something little in game tweak, maybe like reduced cost of life style (people more likely to want a human to move in then trolls) or maybe extra 5BP on qualities limit. I know it's not all about numbers and the best characters are sometimes ones who are lacking (I had a character who manged to loss everything and for several run was a homeless bum with an old beat up shotgun that often misfired). But for new players higher dice is nice, and when asked by my players why play a human I could not think of any real reason why they would want to.

[Rubic]

Irion (and everyone else who had this point) I agree humans are not massively under powered, but unless you are going for fluff or have a concept of what your character looks like, going human seems a bit dumb. I was thinking of something little in game tweak, maybe like reduced cost of life style (people more likely to want a human to move in then trolls) or maybe extra 5BP on qualities limit. I know it's not all about numbers and the best characters are sometimes ones who are lacking (I had a character who manged to loss everything and for several run was a homeless bum with an old beat up shotgun that often misfired). But for new players higher dice is nice, and when asked by my players why play a human I could not think of any real reason why they would want to.

The extra build points are nice, to be honest. That's extra gear, skills, spells/adept powers, etc. 30 BP on an elf? that's 150,000 nuyen that might have been available (if you hadn't already capped out), or 7 skills and a slight improvement of a contact. 20 BP for Ork str/bod is nice, but that could have been 2-3 very important and useful contacts. Humans aren't underpowered, their power is where it's classically been: versatility.

[UmaroVI]

Rubic: It's only 20 points for an Ork if you planned on having Body + Str of at most 3. I suppose you could want to do that, but unless you plan to bomb pretty much every single attribute or you have 6+ Edge, it will save you points (or, at most, cost you nothing for some of the less-efficient ones like Elf) to be a metatype.

[LurkerOutThere]

It's funny. My current Missions NPC speaks fluent Sperethiel. But about the only time it's come up in games is to deliberately speak it badly to folks in the Tir, like a tourist who may have read a few English-to-Sperethiel phrasebooks. If you seem like some foolish tourist, people sometimes don't look at you too closely.

My current missions character speaks sperethiel pretty solidly because he grew up int he tir. The few times i'ts come up it's got him some funny looks as he's an ork.

For the record i find human balance to be just about right for what their supposed to be. I could stand to see them have something a little more intangible like an extrapoint of essence or a higher edge cap (since they gave one of the metavarients a human like edge bonus) but other then that caveat I think their fine.

The thing is I've always felt game balance should mirror the setting conventions. For example if mages are supposed to be so rare in the setting why si it so cheap to become a mage build point wise. There are enough advantages to the metatypes that i'm seeing all ork and troll tables and that makes me a bit concerned.

[Udoshi]

I think the biggest problem is not low powered chars or high powered chars, its having a group that has a mix of both. As a GM you have to ramp up the danger level in order to challenge the high powered charcters, but the less pimp of the group are going to be in very deadly situations.

This.

Maintaining party balance is a problem in -any- rpg system. When you have some party members outshining everyone else, it becomes difficult to balance encounters so everyone is having fun.


Onto the subject of humans being weak, I've often considered writing up some house rules to balance starting races a bit more - basically, removing the Rarity Tax from the equation, and making sure each races comes out a bit ahead, so there's less reason to play any given race for the idea/character you want.
During the course of this, I realized humans were less attractive, and had to think of ways to make them more attractive without flat out making them more powerful, while still maintaining the 'humans are resouceful, common, and often exceptional people'.

I can post the idea, if people like.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

This.

Maintaining party balance is a problem in -any- rpg system. When you have some party members outshining everyone else, it becomes difficult to balance encounters so everyone is having fun.


Onto the subject of humans being weak, I've often considered writing up some house rules to balance starting races a bit more - basically, removing the Rarity Tax from the equation, and making sure each races comes out a bit ahead, so there's less reason to play any given race for the idea/character you want.
During the course of this, I realized humans were less attractive, and had to think of ways to make them more attractive without flat out making them more powerful, while still maintaining the 'humans are resouceful, common, and often exceptional people'.

I can post the idea, if people like.

Please do, or PM me. I would be interested...