Help me keep my campiagn undercontrol! Options

[Cain]

The problem I have with a global dice-pool cap is that it's false simplicity, because not all dice are created equal. 15 dice in Automotive Mechanic is nigh-unbeatable. You might be able to get a few more, but it's going to be difficult and expensive. 15 dice in a combat skill is decent, but not stellar. It's about the minimum expected of a combat-focused character. 15 dice in First Aid is merely adequate. It'll get you five hits with a reasonable degree of reliability, of which you lose two to the threshold, and Deus help you if you roll poorly. Sure, that global cap is simple up front, but you end up with a lot more work on the back end to normalize everybody to roughly equal levels of effectiveness.

Not really, no. Admittedly, I prefer a dice cap of 20, but that's just me. What the pool cap does is this: min/maxers will reach the cap effortlessly, while non-optimizers will struggle , but know what they should be shooting for. If they fall short, they know how far short they are, and how much further they need to go.

You can vary the dice cap: 25 for noncombat, 15 for combat and social, plus whatever else you want. The primary problem is that too high of a starting pool overwhelms social and combat most readily. Other areas aren't so bad, especially technical: most of those are extended tests, so added dice just reduce the time and not the challenge.

So it seems according to you guys the best way to avoid min maxing is to do the karma based gen using the german base errata I will look into that.

You can min/max any system. The best advice, regardless of character creation system, is to cap the amount of dice being thrown.

In my experience, this isn't true. If the players have less dice in their primary skillsets but more dice in their secondary skillsets or more secondary skillsets, then the rules on assisting allow for the same effective dice pools.

My experience is "Specialists operate as individuals, either doing tasks solo or doing nothing. Generalists operate as teams, assisting and handing tasks off to each other."

Actually, as a dice pool capper, I still like seeing specialists. But keeping the hyper-specialization within reason is paramount.

[toturi]

Personally if I were to house rule, I'd create several min-maxed/optimised characters with those house rules first. There are various ways to min-max, often min-maxing using one principle may not result in an optimised character if the character is judge using another. For example, a character min-maxed to have optimal growth once karma comes in may not have the largest dice pool at the start.

After creating those characters, I ask myself if that is what I want to see my players create. If yes, I implement those house rules. If not, go back to the drawing board.

[Fatum]

In my experience, this isn't true. If the players have less dice in their primary skillsets but more dice in their secondary skillsets or more secondary skillsets, then the rules on assisting allow for the same effective dice pools.

My experience is "Specialists operate as individuals, either doing tasks solo or doing nothing. Generalists operate as teams, assisting and handing tasks off to each other."

Without the assist rules, yes, specialists have a large advantage over generalists.

Well, assist rules can be fine for some tasks, but there are whole areas where they are more or less useless - magic and hacking come to mind immediately.

[HunterHerne]

Personally if I were to house rule, I'd create several min-maxed/optimised characters with those house rules first. There are various ways to min-max, often min-maxing using one principle may not result in an optimised character if the character is judge using another. For example, a character min-maxed to have optimal growth once karma comes in may not have the largest dice pool at the start.

After creating those characters, I ask myself if that is what I want to see my players create. If yes, I implement those house rules. If not, go back to the drawing board.

This I like, a lot. I should have thought of revealing some of my non-crucial NPC's to the players before hand, to show what I had in mind for powerlevels.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

In my experience, this isn't true. If the players have less dice in their primary skillsets but more dice in their secondary skillsets or more secondary skillsets, then the rules on assisting allow for the same effective dice pools.

My experience is "Specialists operate as individuals, either doing tasks solo or doing nothing. Generalists operate as teams, assisting and handing tasks off to each other."

Without the assist rules, yes, specialists have a large advantage over generalists.

This is my experience as well.
I even see it in circumstances where it may seem lest optimal (Hacking and Magic), as Fatum pointed out. It often amuses me to see everyone reach for their dice ansd start rolling the Teamwork tests, racking up additional dice all over the table, only to have the primary actor use only a fraction of the result. Players often forget that Teamwork caps at the Relevant Skill of the Primary actor. I really like this about Teamwork Tests, over all. It keeps things sane.