Pimped Beginning characters, And the players addicted to them.... Options

[RedmondLarry]

gknoy, yes, it is cool. We talk about character design together, and although he rarely plays in my weekly game (all adults), he asks about it all the time. Someday he'll invite all his chummers from school to spend 18 hours gaming on a weekend. I've offered to GM, which he is thrilled about. Perhaps for his next birthday, when he turns 15.

He does join in my bi-monthly group (about 20 players) who played Virtual Seattle and will move over to Shadowrun Missions when it has enough material.

P.S. You should see my wife's samurai!

[GunnerJ]

I'm curious, could we see one of his character sheets?

EDIT: This was directed at the original poster, re: the supposed "ten in all stats" character.

[broho_pcp]

Kill the munchkin. It will thin the gene pool and our descendents won't have to deal with munchkins.

[BitBasher]

mmmmmm eugenics :D

[Cain]

It sounds like he just doesn't mesh with your group. That happens, sometimes.

But if you want to help him-- make him play something uber-pimped out, but not a combat moster. Tell him that his next character is going to be an otaku. Make it an albino gnome otaku, if you want; but get him to channel that mental creativity into a different aspect of the game.

One way of handling this is to assign character roles during character generation. One person is assigned the role of face, one gets combat jock, one gets decker, and so on. If you're intergrating him into an existing game, it's even easier. Shadowrun teams seldom look to fill roles that they already have covered; tell him that the team has all the combat jocks they need, but they could really use a decker or dedicated face.

[FlakJacket]

[Tziluthi]

...unless he blows it up with the heavy weapon that he habitually carries around. Which is where the law enforcement comes into it. If sonny-Jim here is carrying a fucking assault cannon and using it on the street in the city, have the police call attention to it. As soon as anyone finds out that he has a police presence/military (or corporate) investigation team on his arse 24/7 (i.e. phone taps, bugs in his apartment, possible sting investigations once the authorities figure out that the local fixer sells military grade weapons, or corp hit teams once Renraku figures out that Charlie fixer was the one who helped to nick off with their star R&D scientist last week) they'll stop associating with him, including the other characters in his shadowrunning group. Start to stack on the "Bad reputation" flaw. Soon the character won't be able to get any decent shadowrun action because his contacts and the other characters in his group have shut him out. No shadowrunning=0 :nuyen:. 0 :nuyen: means lifestyles can't be maintained and the character goes down the shitter. Rather than letting him go out with a bang, and allowing him think he has a fighting chance, make his character go out with a wimper. Maybe next time he'll think twice about playing that character.

[Joker9125]

In about a minute i have thrown together one of his typical characters first here is the cyber version of attributes. These dont even go into the dual dikote claymores and all the foci and shotguns these are just the attributes

combat cyclopse +2 natural reach and add the +2 reach from claymores and you see my point
Body 18
Quickness 10
Stregnth 17
Charisma 1
Intelligence 2
Willpower 5

Now comes the even more frightening one, the mage

Dwarven combat mage
Body 5
Quickness 4
Stregnth 4
Charisma 2
Intelligence 6
Willpower 9 (15 with sorcery)

This mage can throw 24 die into a combat spell as well and goes on a 4d6
These sample characters dont even do the munchkinness justice

**Edit** And yes we enforce CANNON rules for character generation.

[Joker9125]

I actually had the idea of a deathmatch scinario to let all the players vent their character cheezing urges. The winner was another pc besides the one in question because the pc in question had class. The winner of the match could throw 40 die into a stunbolt and had a willpower of 10

***EDIT*** did i mention he was also a psyad path of the magican with quick strike

[RedmondLarry]

Hmmm. I don't see all attributes over 10 on either of them.

How much Karma have these characters earned?

How does the dwarf get to 15 Willpower with sorcery? Or 24 dice for combat spells?

How does a Combat Cyclops get +2 reach naturally? I'm unfamiliar with that.

I see a Cyclops whose terrible at ranged combat but hell on 2 feet if he gets within a couple meters of you. (He's also terrible in a 2m diameter sewer pipe.) His ranged combat problems would put him at a big disadvantage for more than half the combat in the games our team plays, and his ability to wipe the floor in the other third wouldn't unbalance the game. He should not be able to kill more than two or three opponents in a battle, as the rest should run away and call for backup.

[The White Dwarf]

Ok, your munchkins munch-fu sucks royally.

Both characters can be utterly incapacitated by a single decrease attribute (charisma) spell on a whim.

There you go, play with it, give all the mages it, have a day.

[Joker9125]

i may have been a little bit unclear with wording of attributes in my origional post which is what i was afaraid of. those types of characters are his typical ones let me try to rephraise what im trying to say he has never made a character with all attributes under 10. and as far as the willpower goes its simple a dwarven mage eith excetpional attribute and bonus attribute willpower and the appropiate ammount of flaws -4 and a force 6 sustaining focus with increased willpower. I know how the spell works but we generally allow 2 weeks between games (gametime) so he has more than enough gametime to sit and reroll the die untill he gets enough successes to raise his willpower to 15

***Edit*** +2 reach was a typo (my bad didnt catch it) as far as ranged attacks are concerned that can be fixed witha simple smartlink like i said these sheets dont even go into edges and flaws skills and gear. I just used cannon rules and pumped out some numbers. and i am a little unclear as to how a decrease charisma spell would take out a character. could you please elaborate

Thanks everyone i am already forumlating plots for future runs Muwhahahahahaha!!!

[RedmondLarry]

To increase willpower +6 he needs to achieve twelve 9's on his sorcery test. If he rolls 144 dice for his sorcery test, he'll achieve it a little more than half the time.

If he keeps the spell up all the time, it WILL be noticed by an occasional lonestar magician that asks to see his permit to have a spell over force 2.

[Joker9125]

good point i need to start sitting down with him and roleplaying lonestar sending forces in from all directions to "arrest the suspect"

[RedmondLarry]

TN for Decrease Charisma is 10-(target's essence). It is resisted by Charisma. Each 2 successes lowers the target's charisma by 1 (up to the force of the spell). Any target whose charisma reaches 0 will stand around as if they were mindless. SR3 p. 193

[BloodMagician]

Do any of his characters have a personality? A story? A background? Motivations? Fears? Any kind of traits other than the capacity to kill things? If not, he's not roleplaying, he's playing a Diablo board game.

See me, I'm very picky about who I game with. I'd let him know in as nice of a way as I could, "Roleplaying isn't about killing stuff, it's about creating a character, a character that could in his own right be a person, with his own motivations, goals, fears, hopes and dreams, and acting as them." I'd make him understand what roleplaying meant If he claims, "Uhh, um, he has that!" I'd ask, "Okay, tell m the background? Where was he born? Why does he Shadowrun? How did he get his training?" Et cetera. I doubt he'd be able to answer any of that.

If his rampant munchinizing continues, I'd tell him to get the fuck out and not come back. No sugar coating it. "You clearly have NO idea how to roleplay and just want to kill things. Go play Diablo, you're not wanted here."

Of course, I'd been RP'ing FAR too long to put up with BS.

[RedmondLarry]

A final point -- after two combats the Cyclops will have enough of a reputation among security forces that every Cyclops in the metroplex will be stopped about once a day until he's apprehended. He can't buy a slurpee at a Stuffer Shack without risking his freedom. No contact will meet with him. The team by their own choice will leave him behind during half the game.

In addition to the GM having final say on whether a character is allowed in a game, we play that the Shadowrun Team (the characters, not the players) can also choose not to let a PC join their team. The players just roleplay their interview with the PC trying to join them.

[John Campbell]

Cyclopes are distinctive, even more so than regular trolls. He's going to stick out like a sore thumb wherever he goes and whatever he does. That's a real problem for a career criminal. This particular one is both stupid and boorish, so he's probably not going to be good at covering his tracks, and people certainly aren't going to go out of their way to cover for him. And he has no depth perception... that counts for more than just the ranged attack penalty. Remember it any time he tries to judge distances, or do anything that requires judging distances (and that can be anything from picking up a coffee cup to driving to leaping across an alleyway and trying to grab the fire escape on the other side to avoid plummeting 20 stories to the pavement below).

Also, being stupid, he's vulnerable to illusions and similar spells... he'll never see through an Invisibility spell at any Force. His Perception sucks, so he should be fairly easy to ambush even without resorting to magic. Actually hurting him with an ambush is more difficult, but, as the GM, you can always get a bigger hammer... and Shadowrun does provide hammers big enough to squash a cyclops like a bug. And if he actually plays that low Int and Charisma (and my experience has been that most people who make characters like that do play low Int and Charisma, regardless of what the numbers on their sheet say), I'm sure he'll provide plenty of excuses for your NPCs to find a bigger hammer.

As for the dwarf... Exceptional Attribute raises Racial Modified Limit and Attribute Max, but does not allow you to put more than 6 points in the Attribute at character generation. Max starting Willpower for a dwarf is 8, unless he's a gnome or an albino (both of which carry disadvantages... career criminal, remember).

And you can't boost a 9 Willpower to 14 with Increase Attribute (Willpower). Ain't happening. I don't care how long you sit around and roll dice (if he insists, make him actually sit there and roll the dice until he gets his 12 successes). You need to be throwing 108 dice to average 12 successes against TN 9. I'm not sure how many dice he's throwing for casting, but he needs at least 18 to be able to reliably raise his Willpower even one point.

The rest of the dwarf's Attributes aren't exceptional. The dwarven combat sorcerer I've been playing, who is tough, but not unbalancingly so, has better stats across the board. And, again, low Charisma... he's not going to be making a lot of friends who'll be inclined to help him out.

The +4d6 initiative isn't all that big a deal. Increase Reflexes doesn't boost Reaction, so it doesn't help with surprise situations, and sammies and adepts that get Reaction boosts with their reflex enhancement will typically have better initiatives.

As for the 24-die combat spell... remember, with SR3 initiative, he gets to do that, at most, once before everyone else gets to go. And if he's identified as the guy who just threw a 24-die combat spell, guess where everyone else's shot is going to be aimed? "Geek the mage first!" is well-worn advice. If the bad guys have magical support, he'll almost certainly be identified, too. When playing mages, I've always made a point of pointing out the enemy mage to my buddies so they can take him out... eliminating the enemy mage means that I'm free to do my thing without interference, without worrying about spell defense or the like. NPC mages probably think the same way.

[Anymage]

Most uber-combat types come about, sorry to say, from GM's who either don't know or don't enforce the rules for noncombat actions. I've seen a lot of this, but first, a word from our sponsors.

~brrzzt~
There's nothing wrong with the party including a combat monster. Provided that the character fits in well with the rest of the group, that's why fighters/sammies/brujah... hell, just the ability to have high combat stats itself exists. If your group expects combat, someone good at it should be a given. Provided that they're not too much of a liability in other areas, that is.
~brrzzt~...And back to our program.

Now, the thing that I wonder (and that others have wondered before) is where is he getting the resources to make this character? Somehing has to be minned to minmax, and I get the feeling you're like many GM's who doesn't think to call for social, stealth, or perception skills (among others). Get into the habit of writing such needs into your adventures, ofen pointing out specific places to use them. I'm sure that fellow DS'ers would be happy to help you do this.

Also, keep notes of what happens in-game. If I had a day that was entirely free of causation, I'd have a blast robbing banks and killing those I dislike. After all, once I get home at the end of the day, I'm off scot free, right? Again, the answer is obvious; record specific points in adventure design where if the players do something obvious, they will be screwed (security cameras in the lobby, f'rex), as well as a checklist of things that will leave behind evidence if the players don't think to cover them up (tossing around force 6 spells without taking the time to clean up after yourself is a great example). Players who forget that their enemies (and whoo, do they make lots of them) can be proactive too should get unpleasant reminders. Again, fellow DS'ers can provide a wellspring of ideas.

(I'd also reccomend BECKS, as someone else said above, but that's just a preference thing.)

And finally, if he makes a reasonable combat-oriented character who plays intelligently, rounds out the team, and doesn't have any glaring flaws in either build or action, learn how to deal. A troll with Body 11(12), 4d6+11 initative, and shootin' things (specific weapon I always use) 5(7) +smartgun link is easily doable with just the basic rules, and can spread out to cover other areas, too. So long as he knows when combat is a really bad idea, it shouldn't matter too much if he shines when it does happen.

[Zazen]

[Glyph]

There's nothing wrong with a combat-oriented character; that's a viable niche to fill, and it seems to be 1) A role he enjoys, and 1) A role lacking among the other players. And combat comes up fairly often in Shadowrun - as soon as you botch a roll on stealth, computer, etc., the heat comes down on you.

This guy's problem is that he only has to shoot down the sub-par opposition that you've been throwing at him, and he hasn't had to deal with any consequences for his actions or any complications from such things as perpetually active foci (hello, wards anyone? Fairly common, and even if his Force: 6 Focus goes right through it, security will still be alerted, which means kiss that run goodbye), to an extremely distinctive appearance (albino gnomes and heavily cybered cyclopes are not a common sight even in a big metropolitan area like the Seattle Sprawl).

So first off, challenge him, without worrying about "balancing" it for the other characters. The other characters should be seeking cover and maybe plinking off an occasional shot, while they let their combat guy do his job. I mean, does his cyclops insist on "driving" one of the rigger's drones, decking in with the decker, or adding his two cents in when the face is trying to negotiate the team's rate?

Secondly, stop giving him a free ride (like letting him claim 12 9's on a spellcasting test - two weeks of "in-game" time notwithstanding, I would insist on seeing those rolls), and make him pay for it if he completely neglects an area such as stealth or etiquette. Don't go out of your way to geek his character or otherwise be unfair, but stop cutting him breaks on the glaring weaknesses that he took in order to pimp out his other stats.

[Zazen]

[TheScamp]

[Shockwave_IIc]

[mfb]

i don't see why you should have to do the work. it's his sheet, have him sit down and show you where his points went.