It seems a lot of the problems Shadowdragon faced could have been prevented if he would have simply looked over the characters' sheets and approved them on a case by case basis. I also count the BP being over 400. If he wouldn't have put is edge so far over I think he would be much closer to the 400 limit. So effectively the character isn't too much better than it would have been at 400 and it seems like most of these could be an honest mistake, in my opinion. I think this character sheet speaks more to his ignorance of the rules rather than his intent to screw the GM. It is always a good idea for the GM to look over characters as to prevent things like this from happening, and having them possibly escalate into worse issues.

One thing that helps ensure players know how to make legal characters, and doesn't leave any room for doubt when they create them is a character generator. Daegann's is very good and the up and coming one from thewolf looks very promising. thewolf has really done a good job on his and I look forward to the finished project.

Even if you aren't worried about characters "having accidents," it can be a good idea to help out with character creation. It gives the player and the GM both a chance to sit down and chat about what a character can and can't do (on average) according to stats, lets a player explain any ambiguous Qualities and get input from the GM as to how common or rare some things are (for allergies, for instance), and hash out any disagreements concerning the appropriateness of Incompetence Qualities, etc, etc. Plus giving each character sheet a good once-over is a handy way for the GM to have a better idea of what each character can do (to properly scale threats and that sort of thing).

Better to work all that out before the character is finished and someone's got their heart set on it, isn't it?

Well you have to remember ShadowDragon8685 has said that the player has a history of "making errors" in char-gen and he apparently never bought a lifestyle so he doesn't have the fancy one-man bunker that caused the last problem so I'm not nearly as forgiving of the player.

Now if the "mistakes" weren't so over the top as non-existant bunkers and ~40 extra Build Points or if the palyer didn't have a stated history of such things then I'd probably agree that it could be a newbie's honest mistake. (For example, sim-modules and trodenets are fairly cheap so I think not buying them could have simply been an oversight.)

Still I agree characters should either be built with the DM's exstinsive input or pre-gen by the DM with the player's input.

as much as people are pointing at creative counting;

I could see 25 points falling out from thinking lucky gave you the point too, and not just the cap.

and I could see points falling out from an assumption that contacts were cheaper/free (since this is one of the most commonly houseruled things)

not sure about the cash though with the amount of things he purchased I suppose it's possible there were truly unintended addition errors.

it all adds up to a character I wouldn't be able to approve either though.

Was the rigger only running the cool autosofts and pilot on his single favorite drone or did he somehow automagically have broken copy protection so that he could load it on whatever he liked at will? The software gets really expensive when you have to buy copies for each drone individually. The rigger might have been precisely legal on that, I don't know, but that's also something to watch out for in the future. Also saw no upgrades to drone response or system to be able to run those autosofts at anything like the listed level. Drones seem to have default firewall as well, oops.

And under RAW there isn't an autosoft to use melee weapons. Easy enough for the GM to handwave off if you wanted it to exist - poof! there now exists an autosoft for exotic melee weapon (monowhip), and amazingly it has an availability of 12 or under so you can have it at chargen! - but he'd have to come to you first. And then pay for the autosoft, which isn't in the list. (He'd need another one for the claws, too.) Otherwise neither the rigger nor the drone pilot have any ability at all to use the melee weapons. Zip, zilch. Anthroforms are potentially wicked cool, but they just don't have any rules yet.

I actually like the bunker-rigger archetype - I'm personally badly agoraphobic, so the character mentality fits - but the gear is madly expensive and difficult to keep good track of once you start to customize it at all. (And my SR3 rigger always stayed in the back of a large truck that was modified for living quarters, with 2 animatronic generic ethnic humans appearing to be driving up front while arguing in a made-up language guaranteed not to be comprehensible. Always keep moving and hide your signal.)

Okay...yeah, my bad in this case, it seems. I fully admit to not being that familiar with SR, things like that a hot sim rig is required, or even that you can get addicted to hot sim, I was not aware of. That you can't have melee weapons softs I did know, but given that I talked to the DM (at length) about it, and he didn't object, I assumed he was okay with that. He knows the system a lot better then I do.

As for going BP over, I think I can explain that. I used a chargen program, and just figured "When the program says 400BP, I'm good." Upon closer inspection though, there are a few problems with it. For instance, it's not smart enough to double the cost of a weapon when you buy an internal smartlink, so it registers the smartlink as costing zero NuYen. Little things like that.

Anyway, much as I think the GM should have objected earlier when I first submitted my sheet for review...yeah, in this case, I am over the BP limit. My fault

Mmmm. Humble pie.

I take it you're still in the game then and you'd just quit for the night?

You can probably actually get your character approaching legal fast if you just drop all the autosofts down the the rating 3 that the drones can actually run. And maybe reduce the number. And you will have to purchase a lifestyle for the bunker.

You could do the copyright breaking thing. But a GM should NOT let his players roll that. On a glitch or even worse (though unlikely) critical glitch something will be fishy with the program. (or some other glitch type effect). However it isn't nearly so fun if they player rolls as they'll know what software may have problems. If the GM rolls you always have to wonder "Is this software going to randomly start transmitting my location at some date" or such.

And as an experienced player in a new group it really would be good if you activly tried to include them and support more than surpress them.

What other RPGs specifically?

I ask this because sometimes the biggest problem experianced players have is the difference in mentality between a SR4 and something like D&D can cause huge headaches.

I think this is only going to deteriorate further.

Let's end it here and now. Accusing or denying, whatever, it doesn't matter anymore. It's over, for the good of both the GM and the player.

I don't think it matters much what the intention, if any, of the player was. Honest mistake or not, the key lesson here that every GM needs to take to heart is this:

Always work with your players, every step of the way if possible, when creating characters and starting a campaign.

A campaign is a collaborative effort between the players and the GM. If you cut out key communication, everyone suffers. Player vision collides with GM vision, rules are misunderstood or misapplied, and everyone loses sight of the end goal, to tell stories and have fun.

I disagree. A munchkin is nothing more than a disruptive player, and Jtuxyan's vulgar response shows that he's out for a fight, not for gameplay.

At this point the sheet has been broken down quite thoroughly. ShadowDragon and Jtuxyan can figure the rest out between them selves without the finger pointing. Jtuxyan's response is understandable. Naturally he's going to be a bit defensive after his GM posts his char sheet to have it picked apart by the community. It obviously did need review, but that's been done now. If you want to help, focus on how they can intergrate the char better, or fix the PC/GM issue they seem to be having.

Oh another thing on the char sheet it looks like the "avatar" is also missing. That would have to be a modded dalmation or something.

Yeah, here's to a fresh start. Hopefully, the next time it won't end up with an argument.