To be fair, I wouldn't characterize your critter as a munchkin either.

I belong to the "munchkins keep Cthulhu as a pet and spank him when he messes on the carpet...or the cosmos."

-Siege

What about the Adept? He started with a skill of 12 and ambidex meaning he was rolling 18 dice when he made his character, max. Sure, as a 150+ point character that's raised to 40, but at what cost? That's all he could do was fight with weapons and that's not all that common.

Sphynx

Sorry, I'd twinge at the thought of that adept being turned loose anywhere near me.

Edit: The one-trick pony specialist tends to wear a little thin since the player is rarely creative enough to do anything beyond the character's specialty. Granted, the specialist in the hands of a creative player it doesn't become nearly as irritating.

-Siege

"Go, Bert, you go get them... I'll stay back here and cover you... with my Howitzer..."

So what do you do? Confuse him with Fast Talk! He'll stop flailing at you and go "Huh?!?" for a few minutes or so while you run away.

On munchkinism:

I tend to encourage munchkinism, and I tend to use a lot of house rules. I believe that munchkinism can occur in one of two ways: First, it can be a natural, logical conclusion of the reality of the game world, and second, it can be an abuse of a rule loophole.

If a particular bit of munchkinism is effective because the world just works that way, great. I explicitly allow and encourage it - sort of like the SR1/SR2 astral grounding rules and anchoring rules. They make sense, they're useful, and they follow from the metaphysic of the game world, so I have no problem with characters exploiting the hell out of them.

On the other hand, if a particular bit of min-maxing is due to a rules artifact, I want my players to find it, show it to me, and then agree to help me fix it. I want a tight system that allows any bit of IC or OOC cleverness to succeed without providing an unrealistic advantage. So I always use something like BeCKS for character creation, I adjust some of the dice and combat rules to avoid weird statistical aberrations, and I make sure that nothing is so patently out-there that it would drastically alter the nature of the canonical SR3 metaplot.

But within the constraints of the SR universe, I encourage any clever or creative min-maxing. I've always felt like that sort of behavior captures the essence of the SR universe better than just "getting by and trying to live in a corporate dystopia with magic".

On munchkining... I was once told this is a huge twink (and it wasn't even starting...). This is all under SR2 rules.

Attributes:
B: 12 (16)
Q: 7
S: 11 (+ Essence...)
C: 1
I: 4
W: 4
E: 2 (and up, and up...)
I+R: 2d6+5

Skills:
Firearms: 4
-Assault Rifles: 6
--Colt M22A2: 8
Athletics: 6
Stealth: 6
Etiquette (Street): 2
Armed: 1
-Pole Arms/Staffs: 1
--Nodachi: 3

Abilities:
(Str-3)S Physical (+1 Reach)
Dermal Armor 4
Thermographic Vision
Essence Drain
Magic Resistance
Mild Allergy (Sunlight)
Regeneration
Infection
Essence Loss

Armor:
Heavy Security Grade (Hardened/Sealed): 7/5
Tinted Helmet: +1/+2
(Gyro Mount): +1/+1
Secure Jacket: 5(2)/3(1)

Items:
Colt M22A2 w/ Smartlink II, Rangefinder, Improved Gas Vent IV, Shock Pads, Improved Gyro Mount
Nodachi

Pools:
Karma: 4
Combat: 7 (6)

What is it? A Dzoo Noo Qua! From a lovely encounter with some SK hired Vampires... Character before being drained was just a snack for them (Essence of, oh, say, .001).

"Hey, look, we stunned them! Oooh... Look... Snacks!" *munch*

A thought on high skill levels and power gaming.
Guys who like to fight, trian to fight a lot. Just like writers write a lot.
During the time I spent in the army, I met a few guys who were serious about hand to hand combat. They spent better than half of their off-duty, non-sleeping hours engaged in training, on the mat, in the ring or in the weight room.
I spent my first year doing about the same thing. On top of the already serious conditioning that light infantry go through, I'd spend 3 or 4 hours a week with weights, 12 hours a week in a Hap Ki Do class or in the dojo, and another 6 - 12 hours sparring or boxing. At the end of that year, the only people who stood a chance with me either on the mat or in the bar were guys who spent a similar amount of time training. Had I, like others I knew, continued like that, I'd have been a terrifying death machine by the end of my 4 years.

Now, since a 123 point shadowrunner is already an experienced street op, there's no reason to think that they shouldn't be experts at something. Maybe a couple of things. Generalists ALWAYS loose. That's why shadowrunners work in teams. Because it's impossible to be an expert at everything, and experts do the job better than generalists.

Don't be ashamed of having a skill of 6 in a couple of things, because if you didn't you wouldn't be running the streets.

PS, 8 is world class, not 6.

Generalists don't always lose. Most of the time, yes, but not always.
For instance, when everyone else on your team is dead and you still have to complete the run, would you rather be a hyperspecialist or a generalist?
Generalists are good to have on a team that has every specialty covered. That way they can cover the deficit if someone goes down.

~J

That depends. In real life, the ability to do terrible violence has led to many multi-billion dollar crime and drug empires. Where as, the ability to do a little violence has led to many dead wanna be tough guys. It's fine to be a generalist until it's time for a fight.
Being a well rounded individual with a good liberal arts education is great. And you can get a good job and live a good life. It doesn't in any way prepare you for life as a criminal/terrorist/shadowrunner. If you guys want to roleplay being Intel employee's hanging out after work and getting the shit kicked out of you by real gang=bangers the first time you try to get tough, I can help you write the game I have lots of source material.
But, shadowrun is not it. Look at the premade characters and the premade adventures and tell me where your guy with a masters in philosophy and a 6 week self defense for women class fits in.

Well, pit the specialist against the generalist and head-to-head, the generalist will lose.

However, sometimes flexability is the key to victory.

Edit: Even the multi-million dollar empires find other skill useful. Although, even the specialists versus generalists situation can apply to thugs and soldiers.

-Siege

Umm, Drug Empires don't succeed because they have the best target shooters and martial artists. They tend to grow and succeed from Fear. From lack of it on their part, and the ability to install it in others.

It's not the lone ganger I'm afraid of, regardless of how good a shot he is. Mostly cause I don't know if he's an expert shot or a complete lousy shot. It's the group of 10 gangers who aren't going to defeat me by skill, but rather in numbers that provides fear.




I know, movies are horrible representations of real life, but watch Scarface. He doesn't succeed because he's superbadass in some martial style. He makes a name for himself by showing he doesn't fear crap, and anything you're willing to push to the limit, he's willing to push it further.

I have run a fair few games in a number of systems and so have encountered many different types of munchkins:

General features: their character is harder than the rest of the group, particularily in games with randomly generated characters like DND and WFRP where they just happen to have rolled two 18s.

Irritation factors are out of 5 (ish)

"Winners": They tend to keep kill counts and muse over how they have 11 kills when the rest of the group have 1 apiece (exactly as I have in a game I am running right now).
Irritation Factor ****. (depends on if they gloat or just kill everything)

"Assumers": Use the item creation rules to make their own insanely powerful items, or use powerful items they find on web-sites without GM's consent. (Or even design their own rules and systems)
Irritation factor **. (not that much of a problem, as-long as you know how to say no and they know how to listen)

"Rules Lawyers": Know the books off-by-heart, tell the GM what their TN is, maybe even argue with the GM. Tend to GM sometimes too.
Irritation factor to **** (Can be a real bitch or can help to speed-up gameplay)

"Odds": Albino Gnome Shamans who wield stolen ares prototype weapons and drive tanks.
Irritation factor ***. (Depends on if they have an excuse to not die)

"Min-Maxers 1": Wear polaris's armor combo, spend a week+ with a calculator going over their character.
Irritation Factor to ** (Who hasn't?)

"Min-Maxers 2": Have 18 strength but 1 charisma. "2 stats enter, one stat leaves!" ETC.
Irritation factor ** to ****. (depends on how the character is roleplayed)

"Munchies": The true munchkins. Hold the world to ransom, assasinate lofwyr, run amock as nothing in the world can stop them.
Irritation factor ***** (spells the end of a campaign if the GM loses control. GMs need to slap them down SAP)

Those are my experiences. Did I miss anything?

Heh, see? I don't even know the rules or that character well. Thanks for pointing out my mistake there.

Sphynx

I think players need to look at what kind of campaign they are running in when they make up their character. If the GM said he was running a "street-level" campaign with fledgling runners, I would probably make a sorcerer with a wider range of skills and higher Attributes, instead of taking the million .

The thing is, a lot of GMs seem to forget that these kind of campaigns are not the norm for Shadowrun, and put the "min-maxer" or "munchkin" labels on logical character creation choices that are perfectly in character with the premise of the game - tough, savvy street scum who do dangerous, illegal activities for a living. To me, a starting Unarmed Combat skill of 6 should be the norm for most adepts and sammies. That's about the level of a first or second degree black belt or an experienced street fighter. Adepts taking 6 levels of improved ability is also a normal choice - it doesn't reduce them to a one-trick pony, either, since they still have half of their power points left to spend. 12 dice is about right for an adept - it is something that probably looks superhuman, and adepts are supposed to be people who channel magical energy to do superhuman things.

GMs need to give players the benefit of the doubt sometimes. Let them know if their character won't fit your particular campaign, but don't automatically assume that they are a poor roleplayer or out to show up the other players, just because they happen to make effective characters.

Not to mention that anyone who thinks 6 is too high for a couple of skills should look at the archetypes in the book. They almost all have at least 2 skills at 6. It's the norm, not world class. Then a look at the media contacts in the SRComp, the weakling contacts who couldn't run shadows have unarmed skills of 3 as average and the 'street ganger' has a 5 I think (higher than the cop ).

Sphynx

I really don't know how to start this so I will just start it. I don't think it is really a question of what your stat ratings are, but in how well you play the character. When I create a character I envision what I want that character to be and then place the stats accordingly. This thread is about munchkin gaming. To me a munch player is one who trys to min/max a character strictly for combat purposes with a crappy story and crappier role-playing backing up his character. Example

Munch: Well my Street Sam has a Million Nuyen, delta-grade cyberware, lots of guns and a charisma of 1!

Me (I'm the GM): Ok... And how did you get all of those wonderful gifts?

Munch: Huh?

Me: The delta-grade cyberware, mil spec hardware, and extensive combat training?

Munch: Oh! (Wheels turning) I learned it all when I was an officer in UCAS Navy SEALS.

Me: Oh great! Let me ask you this, if you were an officer than why is your CHA a 1, and you don't have a Leadership skill with a spec in Military? Were you a bad officer?

Munch: NO! He did more of the talking with his guns!

Me: aah! So you were a sociopath that couldn't really lead a group of JROTC middle schoolers to a VFW luncheon, and you were probably kicked out of the Navy for conduct unbecoming or something like that.

I guess my point with all that is munch players to me are just people that think small. I think that this is a problem for a few reasons, mostly due to timid GM's. (And before you flame, yes I am a GM, and I know what a pain in the rear munch player's can be.)

First as a GM you have to remember one cruical point: It is your world and ALL of the players, at least those players that care about role-playing. There are several things in my SR Universe that are not "Canon" and probably stuff that many people would not like, and perhaps they are things that some of you would. But the fact is that it is my world. Tom Dowd, Mike M., and all the other designers basically laid the blueprint, leaving me to build my own "Dunkie Dream House" (Complete with Awakened Nihilistic Doom and Gloom). If all your players want to play gangers and one guy wants to be a cyber jock, tell him "Man that's cool, but its not in the theme of the campaign." or simply "No. That's a bad munchkin!" (in your best Eric Cartman voice if possible).

And in regards to skills. GM's you know whose fault it is if you have players that never take "useless" role-playing skills and nothing but combat ones. Your's. I can remember when I played nothing but powergame characters (Hell, I still do.) and I was in a Stars Wars game playing a badass Bounty Hunter. Well I was on an adventure where guns would not solve the problem, I tried using my Con skill, which sucked. I was coming up with great cons, but my GM said "that's great, but your character would never think of that with his skill, you need to role-play what you roll." Of course I argued with him about this, but in the end he was right. If you have a Street Monster that does nothing but lift weights, train, and sit by the phone waiting for the next run then you are pretty limited. You can never say "Man we should go in there like this because this is how Vin Diesel did in Triple X." because your character is too busy learning to beat unholy ass harder and harder to watch a movie. He can't apply any sort of philosophy or ethics to his life because he never thinks about it. (Also I think a graduate degree in Philosophy would be very helpful to a Shadowrunner, of course only in a role-playing sort of way. God that would totally suck to acutally take a skill based purely of its role-playing merit. I wonder if that's one of the reasons the designers put in knowledge skills points?)

Basically I guess what this rant comes down to is it doesn't matter what character creation method you use, or how you spend your karma, only that you create a character that you in enjoy and is one that enhances, not drains, the creativity of the other players and the GM. That what's I think is important. Anyway thanks for reading my .02

Laz, I just want to say that the problem with your example is that the GM is one of the Elitists who can only accept things his-way. When a player comes to me as a GM and shows a character like that, I don't try to discredit his character creation skillz, I work with him to explain how he got where he is. USUALLY that leads to him wanting to raise Charisma, but that's NEVER a requisite from me. We'll sit hours, figuring out why the UCAS set him up the way they did, what happened to his incredible Officer Charisma (maybe horribly scarred from Napalm leaving him ugly and without a will to be nice anymore, after all, everyone makes fun of his appearance?) and assuming I had House Ruled that Delta grade was allowed... (I'm obviously looking for a more min-maxed game if I ask for reasons instead of saying no) than I surely wouldn't discard the character, and we would both sit for as long as it takes for us both to agree to a background that fits the character he wants to play.

Anyhows, just had to add that point.

Sphynx

To be fair, a better way of handling a better role-player than the roll, add a bonus to the roll because of better role-play.

That being said, I don't dispute that a character should have a 6 in his or her primary occupational skill(s).

As for Laz's example: that is a perfect example. Now granted, saying "Sure. I was a gun bunny and got bounced for conduct unbecoming (-2 flaw, bad rep: "Dishonorably discharged")."

-Siege

The problem, Sphynx, is not that the character had a charisma of 1; it was that he didn't flesh out his background. Siege pointed out one way that you could have worked things to improve matters *and* the numbers; the character could also easily have managed Leadership (Military) 1/2, with an Incompetence in leadership. Little details that would convey a sociopath with guns, as opposed to a player who wants to blow stuff up.

Personally, I define a munchkin as anyone who comes to a role-playing game expecting a round of Quake. Anyone who believes in "the one true way" of roleplaying; anyone who says "You're doing everyone a disservice if you don't play my way"-- anyone who comes to a game intending to win, instead of intending to play-- that's a munchkin.

No I see what you are saying Sphynx, and some of the examples that you gave in your post would be perfectly ok by me. I guess what I was trying to say is that there is a difference in saying "I want to play a character that is a hardass because of some tragic thing in his past." vs. "I want a combat monster and I need to find a way to justify a 1 CHA." The first player thinks about the role-playing aspect first and the combat aspect second, where the munch does the opposite. I have no problems with powerful characters (If you saw the stats on the characters in my Special Forces game you guys would probably throw "canon" holy water on me. I mean I didn't bend the character creation rules, I threw them out.) I can totally understand that once in a while some of us want to play the 6 million man. Heck I even played in a SR a game where we are played young Great Dragons, and I don't think there is anything wrong about that. Hell, if everyone in the gaming group wants to play munch characters and you have a munch GM then by all means go for it. I mean in my opinion you should just play BattleTech or Warhammer 40K, but then again its not my game. My point was that if you come to a gaming group where all the other players put an emphasis on "role-playing" vs. "roll-playing" than don't make a munch character. If you can't do that, than don't make everyone else suffer by "sticking to your guns" or "showing them the light". To use the example that Sphynx wrote about earlier with that WoD group; it's fine if you want to have a 5 point skill or att for your character, but if everyone else doesn't play that way than you should tone your character down, convince them to try something new (your playing style), or just not play. No one is "right" in any absolute sense of the word, only that you differ in what "favor" you like.

I should state that this is coming from my own biased stand point. I know a lot of munch players have the mentality of it's me vs. the GM. They some how feel that if they make a really powerful character than they can escape just about any trap a GM can throw at them. I feel that this line of thinking is misplaced. I feel that the GM is more of a director/neutral moderator and the players are like the actors in his play/show/vision/whatever. The GM sets a story in motion and the players run with it. The reason you fill out the twenty questions is that it gives the GM a canvas in which to create his world, except you, as a player, have a say in what that world will be. As a GM I don't care how powerful a player is, I can kill him at anytime. Cyberzombie, super-mage, Razor-iced decker, it doesn't matter. If Lofwyr wants your ass, sooner or later he is going to get it. Now I don't advise this method of "Sledgehammer to Egg" motivator, but sometimes it does help to show a munch just big his character really is (and I have only done this one time, and it was to a munch that just would not let up). Of course I have made a lot of mistakes GMing over the years, but as the old saying goes with experience comes wisdom (though in my case not much). Usually with my group I ask them want sort of theme they would like to play (I am big on themes. It gives the players a reason to create characters that have similar motivations and goals). Then I go through the character creation process with them, and outlaw anything I don't think adheres to the spirit of that theme (And yes I am very liberal with what I allow.)

I guess my point is that I have a much better time with players that think "role" first and "roll" second. They are usually, not always, better role-players and that is the kind of game that my players and I like. Which again is what it's all about anyway, personal choice.

And good point Cain.