Building a good character takes some skill. Building a weakling that anyone can blunder into building takes far less skill.

I suspect however that building any character that fits an image perfectly is far less simple, even you were to lower the standards by aiming for a weakling build.

To be clear, from my own perspective: any character can be fun. The crunch serves the story. So taking Cain's example a combat specialist (Which is by the way what I am playing in my Thursday night game) can absolutely be fun. There's no one type of character that can't be fun if played right. The idea that fun can measured by stats is pretty silly to me. One mans trash is another's treasure.

So does that mean that a character that is played by the number (ie by their stats) can't be fun? If someone's idea of fun is playing by their character's stats, does that mean that he is playing it wrong? Any character can be fun, the crunch shapes the story.

That question doesn't make sense, because it's not a character if it's just stats. There's no such thing as 'playing a character by their stats'; they have to be a person that fits them.

But the limitations of their capabilities help shape their personality, a character with a 1 charisma isn't going to be a smooth social operator, or likely even comfortable around people.

The point is that stats should be reflecting the character, not the other way around.

My point is that it isn't one way or the other, it is synergistic.

No. Your example is simply a mis-statted character. Still, I'm fine with the *character* reflecting the stats; I said you can't have no character, as toturi implied.

A "weakling", with no high or low stats, can be the worst to roleplay. No high hobby skills means all he does for downtime is clean his guns, while the combat monster with a high Art History skill spends his days going to museums and debating curators. Which has more potential for roleplay?

Yes, stats matter; but not when it comes to effectiveness. Being good at something just makes it easier to roleplay.

Why do the Hobby Skills HAVE to be HIGH though Cain? Why can't they be Skills Ranked 2-4?

I can have a character with an Art History Skill of 2 who goes to the Art museums and debates with Curators just as easily as you can have one with a Skill 5 that does so.

Once again, you are stating game preferences and opinion. Skill level has absolutely nothing to do with Roleplay potential. Ease of Roleplay does not come from being "Good" at Something. It comes from immersing yourself in the character. High Stats and/or Skills are not required for that.

Being full of it can be a bit more fun sometimes. What could be better than always rping an interest and knowledge in a background skill that you don't have; if it ever becomes something that might be useful to the party making a secret roll for it and giving the party bs info can be great fun.

@Daylen
Exept for the point, that you mostly can even play "beeing full of it"....

Genera point of view:
Actually it has mostly nothing to do with fun.
If you minmax your skills to be great in one, you have to get around your weak points. If your GM is not testing your weak spots, you are fine. If he is testing your weak spots such "Elephants on glass legs" feel very soon very strange...
It is the "I kill everything trog" beeing afraid of the little girl with a mask. It is the pornomancer beeing tricked, because he has a logic of 1. (Yeah that seems alright...)
It is the elite soldier unable to tell a mauser rifle from a javalin. Etc. etc.

Thats what this is actually all about. If you have GMs who let it fly, you are out fine. If you have GM who do not, you are fucked. It is as simple as that.
Same thing the other way round. If you have a char who is build "normally", he will screw up if every character has only one tasked but has to roll like a god...

MasterBlaster did well enough. Of course even the toughest can die when their intellect lets hubris lead them into a trap.

Well, without a skill of 4 or better, you won't be debating the curators for very long. If you cheese it, sure; but if your history says you know a lot about art history and your stats don't reflect that, then you are cheesing your character.

Everyone is good at something. That's part of what people define themselves as, what they're good at. If they're not good at much of anything, you don't have much to hang the personality on.

That's only true-ish. People are defined by all kinds of things, and that's only one of a big list. Maybe he just *really* likes art, even though he's stupid.

you've never met someone who has so many interests but no real focus? They are knowledgeable about one or two to a point, but mostly fall under the interested layman on most.

A good example is looking at the skill ratings chart. A 1 or 2 means they put more effort in learning about it than the average, 3 is considered skilled, 4+ is the professional levels of knowledge.

I know a couple friends up in Atlanta that go to the art galleries.. but couldn't tell a you a lick about any of the pieces other than they liked this or that. And that such and such artists tend to have works they like compared to so and so. Their art history skill is likely a 1 or 2, knowledge of art galleries though would be around a 4 (since they do visit several when they travel).

Much like the people that like fine food, but can't really tell a vinaigrette from a marinade if you asked them about how the food was prepared.. ( "Well it tasted like they soaked them veggies in a bit of vinegar and spice marinade, was darn tasty too" )

An interest or hobby does not need to be the high point... though my tattoo artist turned face/investigator looking for her sister has a high artisan skill (4 with tattoo specialization) but that was part of the idea concept (and ties into her skills, qualities, etc)

As I see it, stats are the underlying DNA of one's character. Playing a character by stats is the character reflecting the stats.

I'll clarify what I was going for. It is impossible to play 'Charisma 1'. That's not a character, so it can't be played. You have to translate it into one of many possible character reflections of Charisma 1 before you can play it, and that translation/choice process is how you make a character (or, of course, in reverse). The fact that there's only one 'Charisma 1', yet dozens of roleplaying reflections of it, is why you have to play a character, not a number.

If you want to show that your char likes art, choosing an appropiate knowledge skill is a simple and inexpensive way to do it. And if you don´t want a Master of Arts maybe "Arts Fairs (Hometown +2)" is a better choice than "Impressionists (Favourite Painter +2)".

On the original topic, neither having a flawed nor a "perfect" char will get you respect in our group once we are talking actually played chars. Perfect theoryrun will get you points, yet ingame everyone is supposed to allign with the other chars. You take a real flaw if you are too strong, you optimise if you can´t fill your role.

I don't see much point in going for mediocre ratings on an "oddball stat" like the Karaoke Street Sam. You can be really good at it, or really really really bad (whether you know it and don't care because you can and will take on the entire bar, or don't know you're shit and think you're awesome, doesn't matter: both can be fun). But I wouldn't know what to say about the street sam who's basically just as good as most of the other patrons in the bar. Kind of anticlimactic.

"Yeah, you heard about that Sam who's different from the other sams because he does karaoke?"
"What about him?"
"He's kind of an average singer."
"Oh."

vs.

"Then this guy starts singing, and it's horror; can't hold a tune. So someone throws a beer bottle at him; he catches it, and throws it right back in the pitcher's face. Knocked him stone dead."

or:

"Then this troll walks in. Ugliest motherfucker you've ever seen. And nobody's gonna refuse him the mike, because he looks like he eats ghoul salsa for breakfast. And he starts singing this bawdy son about the oyabun's daughter, and at first everyone's too scared, but then he's got everyone cracking up, and even the yaks can't keep it in anymore..."

I think characters should be exceptional at things. Good, bad - as long as it's worth talking about.

And think about characters like Deke, who don't even have any interest skills, who exist only as and for combat: even those characters have potential for roleplaying. Tons of it, if you do it right. Think of the hundreds of stories that have been told throughout the ages of warriors that didn't dance in their spare time: those stories weren't lesser for the lack. I really like making broadly-experienced, nuanced characters, but just as in real life, some people are just attack dogs, and nothing more; they're still interesting.

It's just that those tend to be the exception. I've had friends play 'characters' who could be described as '… machine gun'. Everyone knows that's bad. It's also commonly correlated with focusing too much on the numbers—correlation, not causation.

Charisma 1 is not a character, it is part of a character. You have a character with Charisma 1, which manifests itself in a certain manner. You are playing a character with that certain stat-line at the core of the character. Those numbers determine how the character should be played, if not in specific then at least in general.

That's what I said. It's the 'manifests in a certain manner' that matters, and that's what you're playing; not the numbers. The specific is *everything*.

I think there's a disconnect here. I will never advocate "One True Wayism". What happens at my table may be boring or offensive at your table. What passes for fun at your table may be the worst idea we've ever heard. The only thing I advocate is doing what is fun for you and your group. The only wrong way is whatever isn't fun for you. In example I dislike much of the Pink Mohawk stuff out there with a passion, I don't have to use it at my table and I'm certainly not going to show up at anyone's table and be a dick about things.

But you say Crunch shapes the story. I say crunch serves the story. I don't think our view points have to be in opposition. I suspect there's more common ground than difference to be honest.

Some people seem to think that I'm arguing that characterization exists solely outside of stats-I'd like to think what I'm saying is this:

In some games, like D&D, you can roll your attributes randomly and build from there. It's a lot like walking into the woods and building a home from whatever you find. You make do. Shadowrun is a game where you can say I want to build a house. I have X dollars which will buy me X supplies. You can pick a concept in Shadowrun and build it. So when you say I am going to build a character who's based on Damien Lewis's character from the NBC show Life-you can really do just that.

Yes your stats end up being the In Game limitations on what you can do-but they do not have to limit the how, or the why. So continuing with my example I build a character based on Charlie Crews from Life, but because I really want him to be one part Wild Bill Hickok I drop the points that should go into an Investigative skills into my Firearms. The good news is it's okay to deviate from my original concept-but say I don't want that. This isn't D&D. I can and do choose where I spend my points.

As for what Cain is arguing...well to say I think he's making a confusing argument is a pretty generous statement. He's basically arguing his personal preference-as usual for him-as cold hard fact. Perhaps he finds Interest Skills as useful role playing tool. Bravo to him. It is by no means the only measurement of fun. I strongly suggest that everyone, including Cain, find their own yard stick with which to measure their kind of fun-because my table isn't your table.

It's totally possible to have fun and interesting characters who are singularly obsessed with combat and combat-related activities. Take John Casey from Chuck. I think the only thing we've ever seen him have an interest in outside of combat was Bonsai Trees, and I think that was mostly him just doing the most basic maintenance thereof (which could easily be defaulted to by the rules, much like driving). Practically everything else is about killing people. Most of his downtime activity seems to be either cleaning his weapons, fawning over pictures of Ronald Reagan, and the occasional bit of creepy stalking.

Yet despite that he's still one of the most interesting characters on the show.

Stats don't define a character; stats reflect a character. As it should always be seen. Sure, you can start with the stats and reverse engineer your way into a character, but the end result is and should be a character with stats reflecting who and what that character is.

And that's the point. You don't need a "flawed" character to make one that's fun to roleplay. Yes, you need high and low points, because a character without them is boring. But just because a character is optimized, doesn't mean he's not also fun to roleplay.

I don't think anyone is seriously advocating that point of view. Rather they're advocating that just because a character isn't "optimized"-as people seem fond of saying-doesn't mean they're not fun either.

There have been plenty of sentiments raising the idea that slightly ineffective or "unoptimized" characters are more fun to play (especially rp) than as you say "optimized" characters.

I disagree. I am saying the manifestation isn't as important as its cause, which is rooted in the stats. The specific pales to insignificance compared to the general, while it may not be nothing, it is almost nothing.

Nah, that's insane. You don't play Charisma 1, you play a specific manifestation of it. What you *play* is the important thing, by definition. You've said as much yourself, you just didn't notice. You've already agreed that it's impossible to 'play the numbers'.

Thinking of that. How many of y'all have seen the characters with the stat intelligence of soup that aren't roleplayed out? Crap bugs me. You make soup, you play soup.

Of course, it is insane. Thank you for your compliment. Have you not read my sig?

You have misinterpreted my words, I never agreed that it is impossible to play the numbers. What I said was that you play a Charisma 1 character, it is different from playing a specific manifestation of Charisma 1. In fact, in my earlier post, I have already asked as much, questioning how it was wrong to play "by the numbers". In case you did not notice, I will state my stand clearly: it is possible to "play the numbers"; more properly, to roleplay by the numbers.

I think what makes a character awesome, is what he *does*. Awesome is in the eyes of the audience, which is the player himself, the GM, and the other players.
If you have a "flavor stat" Wine Tasting 6 (Elven vintages+2) that you never use and the other players never find out about, that's not very awesome.

If your character is the guy with the mind-bogglingly bad pickup lines, which you do every game session, then it doesn't really matter if you have a stat related to it; the audience is amused and your character acquires "character".

Stats are a means to an end; if you want your character to do cool stuff, it might be a good idea to invest in stats so that you can pull it off. But just buying those stats doesn't make you cool, you have to actually *do* cool stuff.

I think it's all personal preference. Some people like X. Some people like Y. There is no right or wrong. Just personal preference.

This, this, a thousand times this!

My experience is that some game systems allow you to envision a character and then make a perfect reflection of that character, and they'll be much like you imagined in terms of their stats, and able to be good at the stuff you wanted them to be good at. Shadowrun is not one of those systems; some character types get randomly punished and some things just Do Not Work in SR. Want to know all about about fancy wines, geology, and organized crime? No problem, that's just a few points of Knowledge skills. Want to know all about singing, parachuting, and scuba-diving? Fuck you, those are active skills, I hope you like spending 50 bp on fluff!

I found I have more fun in Shadowrun if I decide what part of the system I want to interact with (eg, "I want to dick around with making vehicles, so I want to play a rigger this time"), make most of a character, think of an interesting background and personality, polish things a little bit, and then let them grow during gameplay.

@UmaroVI
This is very bad in the BP based system, where you get a heap of points for knowledge skills just because and having low skill is punished.

With Karma it is not that bad. To get a 2 in parachuting (for fluff reason) just costs you 8 Karma (Compared to 8 BP).
And 10 Karma are not able to get the body of your ork from 6 to 7...

SR is not so bad, they give free points just for fluff. Many games do not distinguish between fluff points and nonfluff.

We're a little more liberal with the character creation rules, and that helps. Beyond that I've always enjoyed the way system works. However as always your individual mileage will vary!

That's not what I'm seeing, starting with the OP and going on down. Heck, read the title of the thread: the OP seems to think that not only are "flawed" characters mutually exclusive from "perfect builds", but that the flawed characters are better for roleplay. The "perfect" characters can be more fun in the right circumstances-- and usually, they are, because there's more care spent on the character and there are more high and low points to roleplay.

I'm just not seeing it-but then that's okay. We don't have to take the same approach to it-but I did want to comment on this:



I think that's personal preference. Maybe it's the style in which you speak (As it were in this case, because I always try to imagine these threads as conversations) but this seems presented as if it were hard fact, when everything posted here is really just personal preference. we're all discussing what we find fun. of course there is going to be a hundred and one different standards and definitions. Otherwise there'd be one role playing game with one class of character.

For my dollar I think a story can be told at both ends of the spectrum-flawed or optimized, it's meaningless to me as long as there is a good story to be told, and players to tell them!

What makes a character perfect? Being really good at something? Having no particular weaknesses? Having no weaknesses whatsoever, being invulnerable? Not lacking anything typical for your job? Not having flaws relevant to your job? Not having any flaws at all?

What makes you flawed? Being the kind of person who makes "suboptimal decisions" because he's obsessed with avenging his kid sister? Having an addiction? Just randomly having an allergy to something semi-common? Some other random (i.e. no big story attached) Negative Quality? "Wasting" character creation resources on something not directly related to your character's "job" or combat?

Not all flaws are equal. Some are "pure crunch" flaws (you can yank them into the story, but they'll still function if you don't, like an Allergy that just gives some penalties sometimes), some might not have any crunch at all (your character can't resist the Femme Fatale).

I think we might be comparing apples and oranges here.

Edit: Is a character without a tragic, haunted past and several addictions really necessarily "uninteresting"? I don't think you have to be "damaged goods" to be fun, although it is a bit of a staple of Noir...

I think I should clarify.

perfect skill/gear means someone sat down and did all crunch for a hyper specialist. But when asked things about the character they might as well have 10pt amnesia and sit at home waiting for a call to go do a run... They are all crunch with no real character idea other than be the best starting created sam/mage/hacker/etc

Flawed in the description is a character that can be damn good at their job, maybe missing some gear here or skill point there to allow a bit for advancement in a way. but mainly to make the character more organic, take the street sam that forgoes a couple augmentations (working towards them) to pick up a bust-a-move with personality software that she carries around from her childhood or the hacker with 6bp put into artisan (Painting) that spends 500 nuyen on a kit to paint while the team is chilling out after a run.

I guess it's more a question about how many make a character rather than focus on being the best crunch and then only go umm.. and make it into a character after the crunch is in play.

There is no wrong way, but I've never been one to sit down and do the numbers first. I got to have a concept and run with that.. be it a corporate wage slave that got laid off when his non-megacorp company got bought out by the big boys turning to the shadows (or simply walking out the door after one too many five hour self masturbatory team meetings...)

How can you even do the numbers before the concept? Before you try to make the best there is at something, you need to know what that something is! Did you mean do the numbers before the background?

Generally, I will do concept, rough out the stats (and this is where I determine whether my concept is even viable - some might be too ambitious, or be things that don't really work that well in the setting), then do the background. Character creation is pretty subjective, and people use different approaches. I like my way because of the "synergy" that another poster mentioned. The stats and story mesh together.

Also, when things aren't set in stone from the start, the character can change during the creation process. Maybe my troll bruiser winds up with a higher Logic (to help him be a backup combat medic), but still a low Charisma, so instead of typical muscle, I decide he is a smarmy know-it-all who overcompensates for troll stereotypes by being extra faux-cultured, only he often messes it up. Sometimes the fun part isn't translating a story into stats, but watching how a character can mutate while you are putting it together.

I have had players in my groups go I want to be a mage. no though beyond that. They therorycraft the optimum starting build/gear and that's it. They don't do a concept of a character beyond 'class'

Usually don't run into that with shadowrun too much lately, mostly with class based games (and to be honest never with RIFTS.. which is a game made for number crunching)

I doubt anyone writes down numbers without some concept in mind. Of course the concept for some might be: private detective, or guy who snipes with an M2, or when I punch, you die.

That's a player problem, not a character problem.

I have one guy who's "special needs". I give him a lot of leeway, but he only barely understands how to play a character as anything other than a murder machine. I could hand him *any* character, and he'd make it into a murder machine, no matter what I put on the paper. The only reason I tolerate it from him is because he is a nice guy, and genuinely doesn't understand how much more he could be doing. He's slowly learning, and given his learning disability, that's saying something.

There are other players I can hand any character to, and they'd make it wonderful. They can bring out the best in anything. It can be a hyperspecialist, or a complete doofus, they'd manage somehow. Now, they do better with the hyperspecialists than the doofuses, but the trick is that it's the player who does the roleplay, and not the character.

Oh, thats not that hard. You think of a "Class" you want to play in the group or about a rule you are going to rape.

Then you build a character around it and after you are finished you streatch a 0815 Story to fit his/her profil. (Ends up with ex-marines having a rifle skill of 6 or something like that, or even a stripper with such a skill. Does not matter. At least it explains the agility 9. So I guess the stripper girl with agility 9 and rifle 6 and strength 1 is even more credible than the marine with such numbers... Anyway...)


@Cain

Well, so a bad player is a bad player. There is nothing new there. I can't play chess very good, so any chess bord won't change anything. I would still be bad. But a chessboard with several figures missing would ruin the game between two good players too.


This depends to 100% on the GM. Sorry to bring it to you. What you describe is your personal believe system of how a game should be run. If you run games for hyperspecialists (and from what I have heared you do), than a hyperspecialist will always do better, because his weaknesses do not matter.
If you do not run a game for such characters, they tend to break apart. Thats a general argument, which is valid everywhere and anytime.
If you meet a GM who does not run plot oriented games (or very diverse plots) such characters will have a hard time.
In such games it would not matter that there is a face with such a high dicepool, if only the "killing machine" is there to negotiate.
And all this stuff about "so we do not split the group", well so you get only half the shit done. And time is passing, we are not playing a video game, where you can take a month of exploring old ruins, vaults or steal from some guys to go back to the quest about the serial rapist, holding a girl captive, without penalty.
So you run down leads using the whole group. Go for it, but if the leed turns out to be cold you have wasted all your time and the run might have failed...
Thats the differance between railroaded plots, where there is only one way to go and plots where every idea of the players crates an other possibility. It might turn out to be a shortcut or wasted time. Up to the players to decide how to move.

No, it's clearly a player issue. Some people just roleplay better than others. It doesn't matter what system or character they're in, what matters is the roleplay skills they bring to the table.

The "special needs" guy I mentioned? He's truly incapable of playing anything but a murder machine, even when given characters that weren't very good at combat. The munchkin we kicked out? Same way. It didn't matter what he was playing, it would be better than everyone at everything (usually because he cheated, but that's another story). The method actors are a mixed bunch; some are unapologetic min/maxers, some aren't. But they can take any character and make it more entertaining. If I give them something to focus on-- best pistol shot in the world, for example-- they have something to base the character on.

What I believe personally has no bearing on your roleplay. Good players shine through, bad ones stay the same. That's true everywhere and anywhere.

As for your personal attack on my GMing style, I don't run things that way. I react to what the players do, in an attempt to have fun. There's always solutions that don't involve a face, don't involve combat, don't involve [insert role here] to accomplish. What you describe-- forcing the party to split up to chase down every possible lead-- is more railroady than anything I ever do.