Priority System Controversy, What is it exactly? (Constructive, please.) Options

[ElFenrir]

What is it exactly about the Priority system that people don't like? I'm genuinely curious. I'm finding this one extremely usable and playable. Not for EVERY concept, but I'm able to make far more concepts in my head under this system than I was SR4's base BP system(with Karmagen still remaining my favorite, and Sum to 10 Priority second. Mind you, it's not the idea of BP systems, it's how 4e handled it that I disliked.) I've found it perfectly usable. (Not all adapted perfectly, mind you-a combat decker I had under Karmagen just cannot be replicated with this system. That and he's missing certain pieces of cyber anyway so I'd have to wait regardless.)

Did people dislike the Priority system in the older editions as well? Was it something just more 'dealt with' in those days?

Are the disliked things the fact that there are 'set numbers' in all the priorities with no in-between(for example, wanting, say, 18 attribute points for your character idea, but having to settle for 16 or 20 instead)? Do you feel like you have to give up too much? Is it that stuff costs differently than in game? If it's that-what was it about BP that was more 'reasonable' in terms of different costs-or do different costs bother some in general?

I'm just wondering how folks dealt with Priority back in the older days before Companions came about. I know the original Becks was made under 2e(and that I knew quite a few folks who used it.) Was it never a liked system or something, regardless of game? None of us around(folks I personally knew) never really had an issue with it.

Btw, I ask that this stay friendly(Not a mod, I'm asking that my thread stay friendly and no bile or mean grumbling being thrown around. Constructive criticism, please.)

Hell, I'll start-while I like the new Priority system, and was always cool with it, my own criticism of it is that yes, sometimes it's tough to get those 'in-between' numbers. Like the example above, or 'damn, I wish I could get a couple of skill groups at 3 without having to take Priority A skills' or whatnot. It does lack the fine tuning of some of the other systems. Of course, it has the typical drawback that it's got a different way of building than advancing the character, but Karmagen is the only one that really gets rid of that. Sum to 10 Priority-still priority, but a different style-at least gets rid of some of the issues, though opens up others(you can still run into instances of 'I don't really need 24 attribute points but 22 would be nice', and so on.) But all in all, even with this, I felt it's done the job. Again, I make the disclaimer that perhaps I had been lucky in that a lot of my concepts were able to transfer well.

[Shortstraw]

I don't "hate" the priority system but it lacks the flexibility of the other systems.

[Isath]

The new "Priority" system handles things much better than the past versions did. It comes in quite handy if you want to create a shadowrunner on the fly.

The problem with this (for me) is, that I do not create player characters on the fly. The priority grants a rather narrow setup, with little room to navigate.
Sometimes a concept needs that one extra point in an area and not 2 that cost you 5 in another. Especially if you play in a game, where you will not see much advancement, you will want to refine your concept from the start; the priorities often do not allow this.

SR1 was my first none "medival fantasy" rpg way back. Back then I did enjoy priorities over classing systems. The "Companion" books offered interesting options and when SR4 arrived, I was rather happy to see, that Shadowrun finally started to evolve. With the "Building Points" system being the new standard (even though not perfect - but what is) I quickly got used to the freedom it offered; I miss that in SR5.

The next reasonable step would have been to write a streamlined version of the "Karma" system that ties rather well into how progression works later in the game. While SR5 teases with what could have been possible, it still mostly presents throwbacks (which might be a fitting punchline for this edition, even ingame (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) ).

For what I have seen in Shadowrun, the "Priority" system remains my least favorite creation methond for this game.

[Elfenlied]

Personally, I dislike point based chargen system that use a different system for chargen and character advancement, especially if one uses linear costs while the other scales exponentially. This creates situations where it is very possible to gimp your character at chargen, and it encourages people to build a certain way. In SR4, that meant softmaxing attributes while getting them as high as possible, and in SR5, that means getting as many R6 skills as you can while still softmaxing attributes. These systems discourage people from making balanced characters.

While Karmagen does not have above weaknesses, it's still far from perfect. x5 for new attributes makes concepts such as the melee troll with high Bod/Str ridiculously expensive, while those only requiring attributes in the 2-6 range generally don't suffer as much. Also, TMs get totally boned with CF costs under Karmagen in 4e. The perfect chargen system for me would be Karmagen with attribute costs adjusted by attribute. Because let's face it, Strength isn't nearly as useful as Agility.

[Slide]

While Karmagen does not have above weaknesses, it's still far from perfect. x5 for new attributes makes concepts such as the melee troll with high Bod/Str ridiculously expensive, while those only requiring attributes in the 2-6 range generally don't suffer as much. Also, TMs get totally boned with CF costs under Karmagen in 4e. The perfect chargen system for me would be Karmagen with attribute costs adjusted by attribute. Because let's face it, Strength isn't nearly as useful as Agility.

As I seem to recall karma gen had no cost for meta types. That balances things out a bit. STR can be as useful as agility. Just depending on what you plan on doing.

Things I like about the priority system: Simple to use, attempts to establish a better sense of balance (just don't look at mystic adepts) Shows you clearly what your trade offs are.

Things I don't like: Mystic Adept needs some adjusting, Restrictive, difficult to be a mage with 6 magic and 7 edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Isath]

I would see it as overly complex to vary cost by specific attribute, to fix that one would probably need to redesign the whole attribute setup. What I would like to see in general though, would be a change to how the metatypes effect attributes. Like it allready has been presented on these boards, a version, that calculates the metaboni, a bit more like augmentations. The boni are permanently added for any use of the attribute, but only the base attribute is calculated for progression (at creation, as well as ingame).

That would make sense in many ways.

Why should it be so easy for the average Ork or Troll, to be about as strong as norms get, but then when it comes to developing their potential, they have a much harder time. Reaching your maximum potential should be at the same price / difficulty for everyone.

[binarywraith]

People get butthurt because it limits their ability to twink out a character. Pure and simple.

[Isath]

Things I don't like: Mystic Adept needs some adjusting, Restrictive, difficult to be a mage with 6 magic and 7 edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Also (to me) they appear to be more of a physical mage, than a mystical adept.

[Elfenlied]

As I seem to recall karma gen had no cost for meta types. That balances things out a bit. STR can be as useful as agility. Just depending on what you plan on doing.

Karmagen was errata'd in the SR4A print, and it's the one I'm referring to. Metatypes cost their BP value in Karma.

Things I don't like: Mystic Adept needs some adjusting, Restrictive, difficult to be a mage with 6 magic and 7 edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Here's some preliminary errata on them that might become official.

[Tycho]

Here is what I don't like about the Priority System:

Any chargen system other than Karmagen encourages Minmaxing
especially if you get "Fake Karma" to costumise!
Fake Karma is not real Karma
Priority Gen is unflexible, adding the Fake Karma makes it a little better in this aspect but way worse overall.
Priority gen has no concept behind it. Every Columns have a different value of Karma you get. some are rising exponential, some linear. Some give 500Karma on Priority A, some only 200.
Priority Gen is not more quickly than BP or Karmagen: Most time consuming is acquiring gear, it takes the same time regardless if you get your pile of money form Karma, BP or Priority. Also switching your priorities after the fact is way more time consuming than switching some BPs arround
New Qualities cost 2*Karma Cost Karma!!! WTF?! So the book says "Catlike: 7 Karma" but it actually costs 14 Karma.

My conclusion after spending some time deconstructing the whole thing is:
The authors did not have a design concept, they just filled in the Columns. There where no real play-testing otherwise the Powerpoint for 2 Karma thing would have been discovered before the release. One of the examples is a Mystic Adept! So overall they did a pisspoor job. The system is bad, way worse then BP in SR4 and abysmal against Karmagen. But at least you can ignore it easily enough and just use a Karmagen as houserule.

[Elfenlied]

New Qualities cost 2*Karma Cost Karma!!! WTF?! So the book says "Catlike: 7 Karma" but it actually costs 14 Karma.

This is what I dislike most about the new priority gen.

[ElFenrir]

I always figured(and saw, according to what the book characters are) that the initial Qualities are worth their cost. So, say, get Catlike, and Bad Karma, and they equal each other out. Then the ones above and beyond the 25 you're allowed are the ones you pay in-game cost for. You get 25 Bonus Karma. You can spend 25 of this on Qualities(book prices), if you want, or you can take up to 25 points of Negative Qualities, for 50 extra Karma at the start(again, book prices.) Or you can take 25/25(and keep your 25 Bonus Karma.) It's just if you wanted to add *another* Positive Quality or for some reason waste Karma to buy off a negative which you didn't have to take anyway, you'd pay in-game cost. (Trust me, I'd probably prefer Karma costs of qualities to simply be 'whatever they cost', but I can see the point of making them cost more in-game.)

Of course, that's a little complicated. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) I actually liked the bonus Karma on top of it though. But, yes, I agree that Karmagen is probably combined the most flexible and the one where you pay the same cost all the time. I mean-okay. in Karmagen, I do still see people getting their points they want at the start. I mean if someone wants their dude to start with high Agility and Strength, they're going to make it high anyway, even under Karmagen, since in-game Karma still takes time to earn. But it IS a bit more enticing under Karmagen to maybe, say, 'well, if I start with Agility 5 instead of 6-just one die worth of difference-I get 30 more Karma, which is a Skill Group of 3, or a skill of 5, or two skills at 3 and 1 at 1, or I can boost a 3 into a 4 and still have leftovers,' etc.

[Lobo0705]

When I played 3e, I always used Becks as opposed to the priority system. I think that the guy who wrote it explains it best why it is better than Priority: (note that all karma costs are for 3e - but it is just as applicable now)

"I created BeCKS to remove the discrepancy between how characters develop during character creation and how
they develop in game play. The existing character creation methods for Shadowrun both encourage a min/max-ing
attitude. For example, let’s say you’re using priorities to build a troll strongman. He currently has a Charisma of 1
and a Strength of 9, and you have one attribute point left to spend. Where should you spend that point? The “good
roleplayer” would say to put it in whichever would best suit the character, but the smart money says to put it into
strength. After all, the extra point of Charisma may be more in-character, but you can always buy up that extra
point with 4 Karma after one or two sessions of game play. Raising the Strength score to 10 after initial creation
would cost 20 Karma. The primary rule of BeCKS is that all elements of a character should cost the same amount
whether purchased before or after starting play. A pleasant side effect of this, I’ve found, is that starting
characters tend to be more well-rounded, with more midrange skills and fewer high-level skills. As was pointed
out to me, when you can buy two skills at 4 for slightly less than one skill at 6, which option do you think will be
most useful to your character? This means the sixes are reserved for the most vital skills of each character, and
everything else tends to be more diversified. This works ideally for the sort of campaigns I like to run. I understand
that other people like to see specialist characters who have a narrower focus but are better at what they do. That’s fine.
That’s why BeCKS is simply one option among many.

Some say BeCKS is extremely complicated. Shouldn’t
character creation be more about the character and less about fiddling with numbers?

By its nature, BeCKS is complicated—as complicated as character advancement in Shadowrun with the added
hardship of having to allocate so much Karma at one time. And as I’ve said before, it’s not for everybody, but for me
personally, it allows me to focus more on creating exactly the character I want without worrying about if I’m getting
the most bang for my karmic buck. The example I used in the first BeCKS article is still my favorite: Jack Bull, the
ork decker, is almost done with his character— he just has two skill points left to allocate. He realizes that his history
mentions his time as a chauffeur, and he thinks that he should really spend those points to take Car 2. But on the
other hand, if he instead raises Assault Rifle from 4 to 6, he’ll be that much more effective in combat, and he can
always buy the car skill later for just 4 Karma, when the gun skill would have cost 16 Karma at least. By staying
true to his character concept and taking the vehicle skill, he essentially shorts himself out of a 12-Karma advantage.
Why should he be punished for staying in character? Of course, I personally prefer freeform character
creation with no artificial constraints, but that sort of thing doesn’t work so well in Shadowrun where there is
more emphasis on and need for fairness and game balance. In that vein, BeCKS is as fair and balanced as character
creation gets."

[Ryu]

Since SR2: Shadowrun Companion, Priority-Gen was our least-favoured kind of generation system. One of the things none of us would miss. BP-gen offered much more flexibility, even if it didn´t have identical systems for creation and advancement. (Sum-to-10 was forbidden, guess why.)

Once SR4 karmagen was available, BP-gen was reduced to a system for a)the few players disliking math and b)min/maxing. Three of us are concerned with efficiency (NOT the same as power), and not creating a list of "do this now - do that with the first karma available" makes chargen a much more pleasureable experience. Plus realistically broad skillsets cost a ton under any of the linear systems. Karmagen at least allows you to buy them at low ratings.

The main strength of Priority gen is simplicity. It is most useful for people getting into the edition (or SR as a whole), and for characters in one-shot missions. Neither fits our situation.

[Samoth]

People get butthurt because it limits their ability to twink out a character. Pure and simple.

Hardly. the Priority encourages min-maxing to a new level that Karmagen can't even match. Karma doesn't punish you for taking skills at 2-3 or attributes at anything other than max/softmax/one. Anyone who says people complaining about Priority not letting them twink their character is missing the point entirely, because that's EXACTLY what it does.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

People get butthurt because it limits their ability to twink out a character. Pure and simple.

That assumes the design goal is to twink out a character. I can assure you, good sir, that that is not the design goal I strive for, so please do not paint me with your broad stroke cynicism/sarcasm. In my case, I strive for a believable character, who actually possesses the support skills that he should have to function in the concept he has chosen. Priority does not allow that (especially with the ludicrous reduction in knowledge skills in SR5). I am pretty sure that you could ask anyone about my builds, and they would support my statement that my characters are very competent at what they do, without having to have overpowering DP's (in SR4A, My goal is to have 3-4's in my Primary Skill Ratings, and a LOT of 1's to 2's in the remaining skills - I aim for DP's of 8-12 dice). In SR5 (if I was to play it), the goal would be 5-6's in a couple of Primary Skills, and 2-4's in main support skills, with 1's for hobbies and newly learned occupational skills. No, that is not optimal for point expenditures, but it is realistic and believable.

And honestly, many of the characters I have seen in play (especially the power builds here on Dumpshock) are often far from believable characters. They lack the appropriate attributes (3 skills dumpstated to 1 with 3 at softmax and 1 maxed, Really?) and skills (your a Sniper with no Athletics skills, Really?), on even the most basic level of things associated with their concept, that they would never have QUALIFIED to be part of whatever field/organization they purport to originate from, let alone allowed to function in that particular field. It drives me completely crazy to see a Spec Ops build with a Strength of 1. Epic fail in so many ways it is not even funny.

My particular preference is the Errata in-place Karma Gen of SR4A. It works well for the general skill level character I prefer to play. BP is not too bad, in that you still have direct control over almost everything. Priority Systems just do nothing more than piss me off, and mostly due to the issues Elfenlied and Elfenrir pointed out above. It is the middle grounds between Categories that I prefer (18 or 22 Attribute points for example), as they allow that level of fine tuning that is important to me.

[ElFenrir]

Well let's see here. Under Karmagen, if I wanted, say, straight 4's down the line(buying up from one), it would cost a total of 360 Karma. 4 5's and 4 3's would cost 380 Karma. 1 6, 4 5's, 1 3 and 2 2's would run me 415 Karma. 2 5's, 4 4's, and 2 3's would run 370 Karma. Those are all set up with the equivalent of 24 Attribute Points.

Now IMO, there IS a measure of min-maxing and optimizing Karma use in Karmagen, sure. Above, I'd say, from a numbers perspective, the 5/5/4/4/4/4/3/3 for 370 Karma would be what is IMO the best Karma to Numbers ratio on that group.

But yeah, it's a different style of min-maxing. Systems that don't share the same progression method(in SR, that's Prio and BP together), usually are more for 'get the high stats you want high now due to cost.' Skills are kinda the same; say, Skills A where you get 10 Skill Group Points. 2 at 4 and 1 at 2 would cost 115 Karma, 1 6 and 1 4 would cost 155 Karma, and 2 5's would cost 150 Karma. (Actually, I remember one of the numerical things with karmagen-Skills of 4 were often seen as very desirable.)


So while both systems have minmaxing, it's a different type of minmaxing. Karmagen isn't immune to it, but as the Becks description above says, there's less 'Hmm, take the 6 now and just increase the 2 to 3 in game since it'll only be 15 Karma, or take the 5 and deal with 1 less die but have to pay 30?'

EDIT: Oh, the reduction in Knowledge Skills was-IMHO-one of the worst changes I saw. But that's not attached to Priority; that was just a poor decision that does nothing for the game or the characters. Trust me, I've *tried* to be constructive about that change but there is no positives that I see, and basically a lot of negatives. I disagree that Priority doesn't allow 'believable characters' though. I have made several which are plenty believable with skills in all kinds of ranges. It's just easier to fine-tune with Karmagen(which, well, is why it's my favorite.)

[Falconer]

I see the single biggest reason for priority is this.

It's easy to make a character since you simply set the priorities then assign the points... there's very little in the way of fiddly bits. This is perfect for getting new people into the game, provided alternate official means are quickly published for other games.


My problems with priority are primarily these three.

1. It encourages twinking characters by maxing out allowable attributes and skills. BP does the same thing and is even worse in this regard. Then turn around late in the process and spend 10 karma to raise dump attributes from 1->2 as needed in the last step. Or spending 2/5 karma for that one rank in a skill group here and there to round out the character on the cheap.

2. It's not granular enough. You either get a troll with no special attribute points or with 5 of them! For all those advocating to play furries and sparklies this is a big problem.

3. You're forced to take one from each column.


Previous Editions: I hated BP and I hated karmagen as published.
SR4 karma could have been great but instead it was exceptionally abusable in other ways. So I can't say that was a good system at all. No system should give any race the option to spend more on attributes than any other race while at the same time giving them more attributes for free (or next to no cost with errata). If everyone was restricted to playing humans SR4 karma would have been great. But the way non-humans were handled broke the entire thing.


Here is my hope... one thing that has been mentioned in the past is that one of the first products is supposed to have alternate chargen methods.

Here's how I would advocate to improve the system quickly without throwing too many monkey wrenches into it. Nothing whatsoever can be done about the first problem so long as you use any kind of a priority/BP system with completely different cost systems.

A. Use a modified point buy... priority A is worth 4 points, priority E is worth none. A character gets 10 points to spend between all 5 columns...
Example: Human street sam Priority A gear 4 points, , priority B attributes 3 points, priority B skills 3 points, priority E metatype & magic since there are no points left to spend. With 450k to spend on toys enjoy... solid attributes and skills to back them up with a respectible 3 edge. Essentially you downgraded metatype from D -> E to raise skills from C -> B.

B. Increase the number of priority levels from 5 to 9. This addresses the problem of a troll with either 5 or no special points to spend! This combines very neatly with the point buy method above. Increasing the number of options... while keeping the vast majority of priorities chargen simplicity.

C. Possibly add an extra column for starting karma. Or allow people to refund unspent priority points for say 10 karma each. (number picked arbitrarily... intended to be inefficient compared to spending it on the priority chart in the first place! But some people might want more karma to spend as they will instead).

[ElFenrir]

A. Use a modified point buy... priority A is worth 4 points, priority E is worth none. A character gets 10 points to spend between all 5 columns...
Example: Human street sam Priority A gear 4 points, , priority B attributes 3 points, priority B skills 3 points, priority E metatype & magic since there are no points left to spend. With 450k to spend on toys enjoy... solid attributes and skills to back them up with a respectible 3 edge. Essentially you downgraded metatype from D -> E to raise skills from C -> B.

I loved Sum to 10...but there are others who advocate against it. Back in 2e, it became a bit too 'Mundane Human Gets Lots of Stuff', and metas weren't exactly super-balanced with this system either. See, I'm in the PoV that when you're a Mundane Human, you SHOULD be able to get a lot of stuff. I also think the way 2e was set up though made being a Mundane Human a little too good, because of how skills worked-remember how a lot skills were more 'groups' in those days, where Firearms would enable you to be able to shoot everything from a Tiffani Self-Defender to an Ingram Valiant LMG. So due to this you could get away with the Priority C Skills(24 points, or 2 points under Sum to 10), and get 30 Attributes and the million. (Though, technically, in 2e, Attributes were so cheap to raise, and the 1m could buy them up while you waited, taking Skills/Resources A and Attributes C was also a popular makeup.)

Meanwhile, Metas? A, say, Elf Adept still had to take Elf 4 points, Adept 2 points, leaving him with 4 points. He could have taken Attributes and Skills both C, but that would have left him with 500 nuyen. Ouch. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) A, say, Troll Combat Mage would have had to take Race 4, Magic 3, leaving him with all of 3 points left to spend.

Personally with the new 5e prio system-variant levels of SA points, variant Magic priorities, etc, Sum to 10 would work wonderfully.

RE: Points for Karma-there have been some discussions I've been a part of that advocate being allowed to trade Special Attribute points in for some Bonus Karma, or possibly being allow to shift up to 2 toward Attributes and Skills(but no more than 1 each-1 SA point to 1 Attribute point, and 1 SA point to, say, 3 Skill Points-but that's it.) JUST enough for something, but not enough to, say, take Attributes A, Elf B and shift like 5 more points to Attributes. A single point could be something.

[Falconer]

I've heard that before about the old priority charts... HOWEVER...

Attributes under 3e and prior were handled far differently than currently, specifically they're 50% higher. Also the first rank of an attribute wasn't free.. but also came out of the pool of attribute points. An attribute of 9 then is supposed to be equivalent of an attribute of 6 now! I point you at the SR3 -> 4 conversion document for missions. So all this about they gave 30 then and only 24 now kinda misses a very important point!


Essentially the current priority A is equal to the old priority A... at 24 points... because in SR3 the first point wasn't free. In SR4... you get 8 points for free on every character with 1 in each attribute in comparison. So that means by SR3 standards it's 32 points not 30 to spread across 8 attributes instead of 6. (and ignoring the fact that attributes were allowed to be 50% higher in SR3).

http://cdn.shadowruntabletop.com/wp-conten.../sr3_to_sr4.pdf

According to the old official conversion document step 1. was multiply all your attribute values by 2/3rds... reducing 9's to 6's etc.
Assuming the defacto old standby of 3/3/3/6/6/6 attributes for a priority B distro (which was very much the norm back then for priority A mages). We'll say mentals are the 6's and physicals are the 3's just for argument sake and averaging out the difference.

That produces a character with 2/2/2, 4/4/4 by the first step... now multiply logic x2 and split betweeen new logic and intution (again for quickness to produce agility & reaction). Now we have 2/2/2/2 physical, and 4/4/4/4 mental. By that measure... that is only 16 points for attributes compared to the old system (remember in SR4 all of them start at 1 and get improved)... that's for priority B!. Compare that to the 20 priority B now gives.



The entire reason the mundane human gets lots of stuff comes down to there are only 5 steps on the chart! This is the 'troll problem' yet once again... trolls get a ton of free attribute points (and a few penalized attributes that don't mean anything because there is no increased cost to raise a penalized attribute! Logic 3 human or troll costs the same!). However they're so far up the cost chart there are only two to pick from... either no special points or 5 special points... there's no greyness in there.


Also, mundane humans should get a lot... they don't get extra stat boosts and enhanced attribute caps that metas do! They need something to compensate... and 4E karmagens well humans get cheaper stat raises than they do under BP was a slap in the face... because metas got cheaper stat raises as well in their non-augmented stats!!! (giving them even more to spend on their augmented ones!). In their augmented ones they got free attribute raises they didn't need to pay karma for (or pay only a token 'meta-tax' far lower. Then to salt the wounds they were allowed to spend even more on attributes than a human could.

Attributes are undercosted compared to skills... so then the line was... well humans can spend more on skills. Well if the costs between attributes & skills were balanced properly... why would we need a limit on how much you can spend on attributes?! So the human had more karma to waste on skills when he could get more dice by raising attributes he couldn't.

That was a tangent just realized... but it reflects my utter frustration at the SR4 karma system and it's horrendous implementation.

[Glyph]

For all of their flaws, both BP and karmagen offer more flexibility than a priority system. New players tend to prefer priority systems, not so much because they are any simpler, but because you don't need to make as many choices - a pure open-build system can be intimidating when you are new to the game. Plus, it has a bit of a safety net, in that you are required to have a minimum in certain areas such as resources, etc.

For players who have previous experience with SR3 or SR4, a priority system seems like a step back. You can still make a decent range of characters, but some concepts won't work, or will be seriously curtailed. One example - suppose you want to make a human who gets by on skill, but doesn't have much luck. In SR5, you can't do that, because a mundane human, with Magic E, gets 3 points for special Attributes if he picks Metatype D. That's right - a mundane human will always have an Edge of at least 5. Or suppose your concept (decker who is tough in a fight as well as mentally above average) calls for high Attributes, but you also need high Resources to get a good deck? The "bonus karma" ameliorates a few problems, but overall, it remains less flexible for people used to build points or karmagen.

[TheOneRonin]

And honestly, many of the characters I have seen in play (especially the power builds here on Dumpshock) are often far from believable characters. They lack the appropriate attributes (3 skills dumpstated to 1 with 3 at softmax and 1 maxed, Really?) and skills (your a Sniper with no Athletics skills, Really?), on even the most basic level of things associated with their concept, that they would never have QUALIFIED to be part of whatever field/organization they purport to originate from, let alone allowed to function in that particular field. It drives me completely crazy to see a Spec Ops build with a Strength of 1. Epic fail in so many ways it is not even funny.

I'm not sure what topic it was in, but I said this same thing.

Players will build character to fill primary, secondary, and sometimes tertiary roles. In SR5, there just isn't enough room in the Priority system to build believable characters most of the time.

Here is the kind of thing we are talking about:

GM "Carlos, have you finished your character?"

Carlos "Here his is. Ex Gunnery Sgt. Hathcock is my former UCAS Marine Force Recon Scout Sniper. He is more of a long range guy and stealth guy, but can still mix it up in close quarters if need be."

GM "There are no "ex" marines. Just former marines. Moving on, lets take a look at his sheet. CHA 1 and STR 2? Seriously? He's a former gunnery sergeant for pete's sake. CHA 1?

Carlos "Dump stats. I don't plan on getting into melee, so no real need for STR. And he's not the team face...that's Mark's job. Hathcock is the tall, silent, and brooding type."

GM "<sigh> Okay. Let's move on to skills. Good long arms, automatics, and pistols. But I don't see any Heavy Weapons skill."

Carlos "With sniper rifles and assault rifles, I don't really need heavy weapons. That's Caleb's territory. He's playing the rigger."

GM "But a Marine infantryman with no skill in using MGs and grenade launchers doesn't make any sense! You should have that skill, even if it's at 1 or 2."

Carlos "No room in the budget. Besides, why should I spend points on skills I'll probably never use?"

GM "<facepalm> Okay...let's keep going...good sneaking skill, some Demo...that works. Wait..no Athletics Skillgroup. Hell, no swimming skill? Carlos...you have a former Marine Force Recon Gunnery Sgt who doesn't know how to swim. Think about that for a second."

Carlos "Sorry man, no room in the budget. Swimming isn't my job. Plus I got the internal air tank, so I won't drown. Swimming was a waste of points. I don't see any reason for the running skill anyway. And Gymnastics is cool for full dodge, but I have a really high Reaction and a really high Intuition, so my normal defense pool should be good enough."

GM "<blank stare> Moving on...you have Armorer and Perception. Perception of 3 is probably good enough, though you would think it would be a specialty of someone who was a RECON guy."

Carlos "Its all about staying in budget. Perception can be low because I have a high Intuition, and because I get bonus dice from my cyber eyes and cyber ears."

GM "Sounds like min/maxing to me, but isn't as egregious as ZERO outdoors skill. No Navigation, no survival skills. For a Scout Sniper, and Force Recon Marine? No shit, Carlos?"

Carlos "No shit, boss. This campaign is set in Seattle, so maps/GPS for navigation, and no real need for wilderness survival. Wasted points."

GM: "And look at that...no Diving Skill, and no Free-Fall/Parachuting skill. What did Hathcock do when the rest of his team was free-falling or using SCUBA gear to infiltrate enemy territory?"

Carlos "Don't blame me. Those skills are cool and all, but there just weren't points for them. Sure, they make sense for the background, but they just aren't going to come into play often enough to be worth getting. And if I really wanted them on my sheet, I'd have to give up being a good shot, like a sniper should be, or being good at sneaking around, like a sniper should be."

GM: "Fine. What you have here may be a legal character, but he is most certainly not a former UCAS Marine Scout/Sniper."

Carlos "Whatever. So he was a mafia hitman instead. Can we roll dice now?"

[KarmaInferno]

I personally look at it as Just Another Game System.

In a field with hundreds of game systems out there, all of which do things differently, and a huge percentage of which I've played.

I'm pretty rules agnostic. I play so many different systems that being tied to one particular way of doing things doesn't make sense for me.

I've played every edition of ShadowRun, from the raw beginning of 1st & 2nd editions, to the supercrunch of 3rd edition, and the streamlining of the 4th. I more or less am fine with the hybrid Priority/Karma system of SR5.



-k

[Socinus]

A lot of my issue has already been brought up by others but I'll try to lay it out in my own way.

My biggest issue is not that the Priority system is particularly bad or unusable, it's that it was unnecessary. I know I'll have a lot of arguments against this, but I feel the point-buy (BP or Karma) system worked well in SR4 and allowed a maximum of control over the characters you created. I liked that kind of control and I feel like having the Priority system be the ONLY system in place is turning away from what I think one of Shadowrun's big strengths is; the fact that you have a lot of freedom to be creative with your character as an integral part of the world. I really don't like being jammed into a specific path and I feel like the Priority system does that, to an extent.

After going through the Priority system and creating a handful of test characters, it feels like just snapping pre-made blocks together rather than actually building a character. There is room for play within the different grades but it still feels much more rigid than the point-buy system.

What I'd like to see is to simply scrap BP altogether and go to a system where you can choose either to do a point-buy with Karma or a little more streamlined with the Priority system.

[SpellBinder]

I'm not keen on the priority system either, but I do get it makes things easy for players completely unfamiliar with the world and/or system.

Hang tight for a splat book like Runner's Companion and I'm sure we'll see a BP and/or karma build system again. IIRC there was one for SR3 that added those to that system.