One man's trash is another man's treasure, character creation system discussion Options

[mister__joshua]

I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to discuss the Shadowrun 5 character creation system. A lot has been said about the decision to go with the priority system, and there's been grumbling and discontent on here. For me it's no more unbalancing than Build Points. Only Karmagen really transfers well long-term but Shadowrun (4 or 5) aren't optimized for it so some values work out weird. But that is all besides the point...

I don't GM most of my groups games. Some, but not the majority. I am however the person who buys all the books, and along with the GM the only person who reads all the rules out of a group of up to 7 people. I don't imagine I'm alone in this. I would theorize that most posters on here do love to discuss the game more than the 'average' Shadowrun player. There are lots of posts from people on behalf of other players or discussing other players. So what's my point?


Well, I was talking to my brother last night after we'd created our new SR5 characters. He said it was dead easy to make characters and he thought for the first time ever he'd be able to make one again without any problems or help. No more character creation 'sessions' because it's the only way to get them all right. Character creation without me hand-holding the group through it.

As a community who read through and pick at every tiny rule discrepancy it's easy to overlook issues like accessibility and ease of use, especially for things that you yourself do not find difficult. So, am I happy to give up a bit of character creation 'freedom' for the ease of use that can see every player make their characters independently? Damn right I am.

And for that reason I'm going to call Priority System character creation a success.

Score 1 Shadowrun

[Ard3]

It is simple and easy to use. Good things for beginners and those who want to create characters quickly.

But I, and many others here I believe, find it too limiting. Exactly X amount stuff to category A, exactly Y amount of stuff to category B and so forth. I can create simple and stereotypical characters within reasonable time. But creating rounded or non-architypic characters is from really difficult to impossible. And there is the inherent problem of having different systems and costs to create character and to advance character. It encourages minmaxing.

I think karmagen was the best system for character generation in 4th. If you want high stats/attributes, you can take them but it costs. If you want lots of stuff at 1-3 range you can have that, no problem.
Yes it took time to create character, but since I will be playing that character for (hopefully) long time and am willing to invest time to create consept I think it was ok. I did help several others to tune their characters as they wanted, because to me spending that extra few hours to get what you want to play does in the long run make the game better and more fun to everyone.
I know some may not have the time or may not want to invest that much time to make characters. But I think it should be a option for those that do. I do really hope that karmagen for 5th is realeased soon so that those that want to tinker can do that. More options to play the game as you and your group wants to play it makes the game better for all.

[mister__joshua]

I think (I'm pretty sure) that as with 4th, the additional character creation options will be released in future books. That will give people the option. However, as a default option I can see why the developers at least thought Priority was a good choice

[DuckEggBlue Omeg...]

Coming straight from 3rd, I'm happy to see Priorities, I always liked them. Freedom in limitations and all that.

Sum to 10 was better, and Karmagen (BeCKS!) was great if you wanted to spend the time. Basically anything but Build Points. BP seemed to remove the choice and I hated sitting down and seeing every character with quickness 6 (except the guy with Infirm 6). The system basically meant you never made choices because you could shuffle points and get high everything, characters got a little samey. Maybe this wasn't an issue in 4/A.

So I'd be in favour of seeing karmagen in the inevitable companion book, which I'm going to just assume will happen since I can't logically explain those karma cost tables in the core book if they weren't considering it already, but not a build point system. That said, has anyone tried using Sum to 10 in 5?

[ElFenrir]

I like Priorities. I mean at the end of the day BeCKs was my favorite chargen system, but recently I made a new 3e character using the Priority system and honestly, it was fun. I felt like I got what I wanted with him. (I have noticed that 5e's priority system gets a bit more criticism than 3e's, though I'm not sure why this is.)

[Blade]

The problem is that all the simplicity and time-saving of Priority system goes away as soon as you start either to optimize the build (in priority it will mean trying different priority orders) or, and that's the biggest issue, to buy the gear.

Buying gear is long and tenuous, even more so for implanted characters, and Priority doesn't address this.

In my opinion, something akin to PACKS is a better way to provide new players with an easy way to create a character.

[Kyrel]

Honestly. The Priority System does not do the game any favours. It is relatively simple to explain, and it might help you out for the first character or two, but after that there quite frankly isn't any point anymore. All it is thereafter, is a bloody straightjacket. On top of that, it does absolutely NOTHING to tackle the single most time consuming part of character creation. Equipment and Augmentations. You can generate a character in terms of stats within 30-40 min. with pretty much any system, once you've done it a few times. But putting together the damned equipment and augmentations takes the next couple of hours. More if you care about your choices and don't know the game.

[binarywraith]

The problem is that all the simplicity and time-saving of Priority system goes away as soon as you start either to optimize the build (in priority it will mean trying different priority orders) or, and that's the biggest issue, to buy the gear.

Or, shock and awe here, I know, you don't spend twelve hours optimizing a build.


I know, it's a foreign concept.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Or, shock and awe here, I know, you don't spend twelve hours optimizing a build.

20 to 30 Minutes, Tops...

[binarywraith]

20 to 30 Minutes, Tops...

Nah, it takes longer than -that- to blindly copy whatever's the 'best build of the now!' on the forums! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Nah, it takes longer than -that- to blindly copy whatever's the 'best build of the now!' on the forums! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Since I generally know what I want going into the Chargen, I can select gear at the drop of a hat. Especially in Priority, where I tend to choose fewer Resources.
In Karma Gen, maybe an Hour, tops. But generally about 30 Minutes or so. I tend to skull it out while I do other things in my head, and once into actual gen, it is quick.

[tjn]

It is simple and easy to use. Good things for beginners and those who want to create characters quickly.

But I, and many others here I believe, find it too limiting.

Dumpshock's membership is self-selecting, and quickly becomes an echo chamber amongst those that who don't need those minor limitations. Those minor guidelines are there to give lip service to the gamer new to SR, a gamer that has never cracked open the book. A book that's 500~ pages, and apparently has it's own damage code.

Exactly X amount stuff to category A, exactly Y amount of stuff to category B and so forth.

And those limitations are actually really minor. It is unreasonable to declare a character concept violated because it must have 18 attributes, not 16 or 20. The way you roleplay a character isn't going to change because part of the background of the character was that they were a drill sergeant, and you don't have enough skill points to get both a decent Intimidation and Instruction. Maybe he shouted more than actually taught anything, but that isn't going to violate the character in a way as to make it unplayable. Furthermore, that's exactly what the 25 karma at the end of chargen is for: to round out those rough edges.

I can create simple and stereotypical characters within reasonable time. But creating rounded or non-architypic characters is from really difficult to impossible.

What makes a character simple/stereotypical versus well-rounded/non-archetypical? Is there some stat? Or a checkbox on the character sheet that the priority system doesn't allow you to check? I apologize for being facetious, but the transition from stereotype to well-roundedness occurs not in the priority table, or when spending BP or Karma. It's only after all the number crunching and in Step Nine does the well-roundedness get introduced. A section that's quarter of a single page in said ~500 page book.

Use the well known 20 question questionnaire, or take a look at the recent thread here on Dumpshock about the Four Questions, because answering those questions will give you a well rounded character no matter what system you use to create the character.

And there is the inherent problem of having different systems and costs to create character and to advance character. It encourages minmaxing.

No it doesn't. It encourages initially building specialists who work together as a team, a team that allows for the other teammates to cover for each other's weaknesses. Who then, after gameplay starts, start slowly filling in those weaknesses.

This is pretty much the entire setup of Leverage. At the beginning, the B&E expert was strictly B&E, but then over the course of the story, the B&E expert is forced into situations where she needs to stretch her grifting muscles.

If that's not a style of gameplay you enjoy- hey, that's cool. What's not cool is inferring that style of gameplay as badwrongfun with a label that has a huge negative connotation in gaming circles.

[Glyph]

I have a lot of major problems with SR5; the priority system isn't really one of them. At least it's functional. But it is a step back from systems such as Karmagen, when it comes to being able to truly customize your character.

[paws2sky]

And for that reason I'm going to call Priority System character creation a success.

The Priority System was the standard until SR4. Sure, there were some variations on Build Points and I recall seeing a home/fan-brewed Karma Gen System sometime toward the end of SR2, but really, those were not the norm.

I kind of liked the freedom of BP in SR4, but by the time Runner's Companion came out, I'd tired of it and was ready for Priority again.

I'm still not entirely sold on SR5's Priority+Karma approach, but it is an interesting variation. It gets newer players familiar with the idea of spending karma to advance, gives direction while offering flexibility, and is generally pretty quick and easy. (And the SR5 Priority Chart is much kinder than the Runner's Companion version, which is nice.)

All in all, I think they pretty much got it right for character creation (even if the metahuman priority is a little wonky and aspected magicians get severely screwed).

-paws

[DrZaius]

I said it when the game came out, I like the priority system. You can get yourself stuck in a tinkering mode with point-buy that isn't really productive. The game should be about playing it, not making the characters. They should guide the way your character acts, but by the time you're 5-10 sessions in the character should change pretty significantly. With that in mind, I like a system that allows me to quickly throw something together. Plus, the 25 karma you start with (plus the other 25 you can gain from negative qualities) is nothing to sneeze at. There's a lot of little tinkering you can do with those points to round out your character if you don't like the way it was looking from the get-go. Just my 2 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) .

[ElFenrir]

The way I've always broken them down-since BeCKs was released in 3e-is this:


Priority:

+'s:
*Fast(save for Gear, which a new player, especially one with a lot of Resources, might take awhile with.)
*Overall pretty simple to explain

-'s:
*If you need to swap something you need to re-jig the priorities again rather than just swap a point
*Sometimes you can't find that middle ground(I really don't need the million/400k, but 400k/90k isn't enough...)

Neutral:
*Rewards specialists a bit more than generalists, which may or may not be a good thing for your table


Build Points:

+'s:
*More open customization than Priority generation
*More choice in 'middle ground' (you can take, say, 25 attributes instead of 24 or 27 in SR3, or 45 skills, and that 650k nuyen is a nice addition.)

-'s:
*Tends to take longer since you're working with a pool of points, especially with a newer player
*Still lacks the total fine tuning it could have


Neutral:
*Still promotes specialists with how the costs are different from chargen to in game, which again, may or may not be good for your table


Karmagen:

+'s:
*Full customization of your character(BeCKs even allowed for tweaking specializations more than the normal game when that was a thing)/total resource control
*Costs at chargen are the same as costs in-game

-'s:
*Takes the longest
*Most complex to explain to a new player(I want to make an addentum here-at least by doing this now you explain how to advance the character at the same time).

Neutral:
*Promotes generalists a bit higher than specialists. Again, depending on your table, this could be a good or bad thing.

In none of these did I put 'minmaxing' because any chargen system that is not completely random can lead to that. (It would be under 'neutral' anyway, since minmaxing in and of itself is fully table dependent rather than being right or wrong.)

[Glyph]

I like how karmagen typically fell in the specialist vs. generalist divide. You could be a specialist without being unduly penalized (most of my specialist builds came out ahead compared to build points), but you got a lot more if you were a generalist with middling Attributes and skills. To me, that is how it should be - generalists are too costly in build points.

On the other hand, generalists, despite being popular with some players, do go against the grain of the system, which is supposed to be designed to create complementary specialists, with weak areas, who work together. But honestly, letting someone make a halfway decent generalist isn't really breaking anything.

Karmagen's main weak areas were that it was more limited (not suited for the more advanced character options), and it went through too many iterations (first the original karmagen, then in limbo for awhile after SR4A, then the eratta, and now the recommendation for 1,000 points from the line developer).

[ElFenrir]

SR5's recommended Karma is 1k for 5e? Or is this 4A after the errata?

How would you say it was more limited? I'd say that really eclectic builds(Shifters, Free Spirits, etc) work a hell of a lot better under Karma. They cost half a person's BP, for example, in SR4.

I figured the Karmagen system changed since SR3 to SR4 was quite different-well I know BeCKs itself went through 2 versions(the first version, then the improved and smoothed out 2nd version which is what we use in SR3), and then SR4 would have had to adjust for things like skill groups, 2 more attribute points, having to actually pick a Magic rating, etc.

[Glyph]

SR4A - they don't have karmagen for SR5, yet.

The cost to be an AI or free spirit is why karmagen was not designed for them - because the high cost, which is meant to balance them, is a lot different in karmagen (spending 250 build points and having 150 less is far more limiting than spending 250 karma and having 500 - or even 750 - left). The exponential Attribute costs make some shapeshifters difficult to build under karmagen. And infected are not very viable unless you house rule their infected nature to be the equivalent of a metatype, rather than a special quality.

I liked BeCKs, but it was someone's detailed set of house rules, never an official system.

[shonen_mask]

Really, builds like that should be non-standard and not have a line in the build cycle....

[binarywraith]

Really, builds like that should be non-standard and not have a line in the build cycle....

Yup. Shifters, Drakes, Ghouls, Free Spirits, AI... all of these are things that should be GM Option Only, not something on the standard build charts.


They're supposed to be unique snowflakes, after all, and they have mechanics other than the standard skills and attributes to worry about.

[shonen_mask]

Yup. Shifters, Drakes, Ghouls, Free Spirits, AI... all of these are things that should be GM Option Only, not something on the standard build charts.


They're supposed to be unique snowflakes, after all, and they have mechanics other than the standard skills and attributes to worry about.

SR4 was a good start with representing unique builds like thoes. I think the ony thing to do is make the builds just out of skill range, attribute range, and even standard skills of the standard builds.

[Medicineman]

20 to 30 Minutes, Tops...

For Me its a Sunday Morning with coffee, books spreadout & open on the table, the Cat purring closeby.
A few Hours it is (for Me), especially because I dont only Min/Max but create ....round Chars with a fitting Background and a Story, plausible Chars

I'm just about to make a SR5 Char and using some loopholes like cyberarms, MAG-to-be-raised-later (kind of latent awakening) and inventing a backgroundstory to combine those ....wobbly points in Char creation, but Hey,
its the Prio System. It practically Screams out: 'come on, misuse me ,Min/Max to your Hearts content I'm inferior to
Karma Creation anyway'.
I have too much Respect for the Karma Creation system to make such a Char with Karma , but Priority System....
its a Kind of backward,Redneck, unliked freckled Stepchild of all Char Creation Systems so it doesn't deserve any better

With a sunday Morning Dance
Medicineman

[Elfenlied]

My preferences, in order:
1. Sum2Ten
2. Karmagen (SR4, x3)
3. Priority+Karma
4. BP
5. Karmagen (SR4A, x5)

Reasoning:
-Sum2Ten allows the most customization while retaining linear costs, which I like at chargen.
-SR4 Karmagen allows a fair tradeoff between Specialists and Generalists, making both equally viable.
-SR5 style Priority with the Karma bonus is really good, allowing customization and many different viable character concepts. If it were Sum2Ten+Karma, it would be ideal.
-BP is one of my least favorite systems, mostly because skills are overcosted. It's also one of those systems where clearly superior choices exist to a larger degree than the other systems.
-SR4A Karmagen utterly screws archetypes that rely on multiple high attributes (such as (melee) trolltanks), invalidates skillsofts at chargen (R2 Skill costs the same as a R2 Skillsoft) while favoring characters that need attributes in the 2-6 range with at most one high attribute (e.g. Mage) needed. It also increases the cost of Complex Forms and Foci Binding tremendously.

As for character build process:
-Coming up with a rudimentary concept: 5-10 minutes
-Crunch part: 30min-1h
-Character backstory: the Medicineman method. Evening sessions with lots of coffee work too.

Yup. Shifters, Drakes, Ghouls, Free Spirits, AI... all of these are things that should be GM Option Only, not something on the standard build charts.


They're supposed to be unique snowflakes, after all, and they have mechanics other than the standard skills and attributes to worry about.

The books do need to push these variants rather aggressively in order for them to get ok'd at all. Fully statted, easy rules would get DM approval more easily than a minimal entry with weird rules à la Cyborgs in SR4. I for one appreciate playable and balanced rules for the mentioned options, and SR4A Missions did allow sapient critters like Pixies as PCs.

Then again, this board is so full of Infected hate (open a thread on build advice for one, and I promise you there will be a ranty post before page 2 of the thread, so maybe I'm presuming too much.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

For Me its a Sunday Morning with coffee, books spreadout & open on the table, the Cat purring closeby.
A few Hours it is (for Me), especially because I dont only Min/Max but create ....round Chars with a fitting Background and a Story, plausible Chars

With a sunday Morning Dance
Medicineman

Nice and Peaceful is best. Less stress on the thought processes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Yeah, I usually hammer out my background and concept long before I go to the books. That is often the longest part for me... "WHAT IS MY MOTIVATION?" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)