Full Version: General Idiocy - Loot, Organlegging, Power Gaming
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| Either case, this sort of activity is distinctly different than grabbing every body you come across, running a scanner over them and checking their net worth on your commlink. |
There's a fair bit of middle ground between those two extremes.
...And the middle ground is where people's opinions and gameplay tend to actually be.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
Or...
.... You could, you know, PAY your characters once in a while and then, like professional criminals the world over both in and out of game, they could afford their own 'phat lewt'.
Getting it off of bad guys or as a 'quest reward' sounds like a crappy, no graphics having, World Of Warcraft raid. No thanks, I bowed out of that WITH the pretty pictures, why would I want to play that way at the table without?
.... You could, you know, PAY your characters once in a while and then, like professional criminals the world over both in and out of game, they could afford their own 'phat lewt'.
Getting it off of bad guys or as a 'quest reward' sounds like a crappy, no graphics having, World Of Warcraft raid. No thanks, I bowed out of that WITH the pretty pictures, why would I want to play that way at the table without?
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| Mass murder is easy. Comedy is hard. |
Not true, Hyz, not true.
Man, you can't even HAVE slaughter without laughter.
Chris
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| If it is a kill everything run then you can reasonably get away with loading a drone semi with fertilizer and old newspapers and ramming it into the facility via the matrix. |
If they have anything worthy of being blow up that way (which is not at all cheap) they will have vehicle barricades and other ways of stopping this. Truck bombs are a well understood technology.
| QUOTE (kzt) | ||
If they have anything worthy of being blow up that way (which is not at all cheap) they will have vehicle barricades and other ways of stopping this. Truck bombs are a well understood technology. |
Also see: the GM always wins if he/she wants to.
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| Either case, this sort of activity is distinctly different than grabbing every body you come across, running a scanner over them and checking their net worth on your commlink. |
As an aside, how are the players supposed to know if they're dealing with an npc that has cyberware that they're supposed to loot, or if its one of the ones they'll get int rouble for looting? If looting cyberware is a huge pain in the ass in the game and they know its likely to hurt their rep for whatever reason, why would they even be looking in npcs to see what they got?
Players ultimately know what the GM tells them. If the GM tells them over and over taking cyber is wrong (either by saying that, or by making it a huge, punishing ordeal when they try it), how do you let them know they're in a situation where looting cyber is acceptable because you put in gear specifically for them-- which is a meta-game concern anyway. (I mean, the characters aren't suddenly deciding to take cyber, they're doing it because the players know that in this instance, you're cool with it.)
Do the characters take a DOA contract that specifies not bringing the cyber back with the target, or do lootable npcs have ripcords in their back that when pulled shoot their Wired 3 out of their ass? (Because that would be cool. Like the episode of Futurama where Fry had worms and to cear them out the crew was going to trigger what Professor Farnsworth called, "...one hell of a bowel movement. He'll be lucky if he has any bones left.")
Frankly, I think the reason we don't loot cyberware is because it's tacky. Additionally, when you actually implement the fencing rules (30% base, used, stolen, someone's probably looking for it) and try to think about it practically (Pulling the various trodes off of neuro-receptors? Sounds messy) it gets to be too complicated for us to bother. I'd agree with Mercer earlier though, that Metagaming can be good in instances where it advances the game (i.e. just introducing yourself instead of making a big scene out of it; or accepting the job the Johnson offers because you know that's the only one the GM prepared). It can get frustrating, but if we wanted something different we'd run games of our own.
Runners that are paid well don´t need to scavenge used body parts. Gutterpunk jobs should net a few hundred yen. Professional break&entry with lethal option requires well-trained contract workers that have access to expensive equipment, are willing to go illegal (duh), and keep their mouthes shut afterwards. Real-world consultants will cost you a few grand PER DAY, and those don´t need expensive equipment.
The interaction of GM and player, player and the game system... Its a complicated model. There is a great deal of meta-gaming going on. As you said, Mercer, the GM is the conduit for the game world. The players only have as much detail as is made available to them from the GM. In general, gaming relies on several consensual and non consensual agreements. Having the group play nice together is one of the more obvious consensual agreements that is a requirement to play. We are all friends getting together for some pizza and gaming... So we need to just get on with it. One of the reasons I really hammer on the role of a GM to manage their game is that the more the underlying framework of what makes a game up comes to the surface, the more the storytelling method, conflict resolution etc. comes to the fore rather than the story itself... the more Meta the game, the more likely a game is to suffer from significant breaks in logic and sometimes even fun. I am reminded of a cartoon: "a man in a white robe with a long white beard sits at the bar. I go up to him and search him. His robes have hooks in it and on them is written 'plot'..."
In that type of dynamic verisimilitude is sacrificed in a big way. The story telling necessity is in the foreground, not the story itself. The result is that the game has a sterile quality to it. The game is resembling its make up of abstract building blocks rather than content or story itself. When a player plays in an abstract way, moves around only the abstract pieces of character and dice, and meta-games further... Thats when problems begin to arise in meta gaming. When it goes too far. The GM is in a unique position to manage this very problem. Often, by having a game world that reinforces its own truths, a GM can nip the power type meta-gaming in the bud. Just by having the security conscious 2070s come alive with a roving cyberware scanning drone every once in a while can put a lot of pressure on a player to keep a low profile rather than strutting down a street with a MMG on his back.
As far as how players would know when to loot? I haven't the foggiest. I have never run that scenario in a game. I was playing devils advocate for my own argument and trying to find an instance where it would be even slightly plausible... The simple stance that the argument was based from was that a GM should be very much aware of and in control of what he is doing (ie what he gives his players in terms of loot, karma etc.). Thats not to say that this should be done at a stifling pace. I have run games where players have had nearly half a million nuyen payouts after expenses. Players were literally jet-setting badasses in long coats and twin pistols. Karma ran like water.
The issue at hand with organlegging is not the practice itself, but the extent of the players practice. How much organlegging is too much? I'd say that throwing every body you have into a vacu-seal bag is going a bit far. If the game has developed to a point where your players main source of income is second hand cyber subsidized by corp payout for a run, then there was some serious disconnect between the intended run's payout, the players role in the game, and the game's design itself.
In my experience, in which there has been some serious GM-player disconnect (consensual / non consensual agreements or rather disagreements), its points when continuity and consistency (that blasted pair, again) break down that serious game problems arise. An example of broken consistency and continuity would be a player that rolls 20 dice on a check when the rest of the group rolls 10 to 12. The result is most of the group feeling like they are on the back burner. This is a bad thing.
I am not really pro any particular kind of game (except the fun kind... thats my favorite kind). In fact, the body of the OP was based off of running published SR content (with some minor tweaks and changes of place-names) and had nothing to do with either my vision of the world, any runs that I wrote myself or anything of the sort. I ran published missions and was amazed at their balance and quality overall. The payout schedule matched well with the Team Rating, the karma pacing was pretty well done... Mostly it was due to the fact that there was a standardized system for payment and karma advancement that was kept continuous between modules. The introduction that laid out the extra rules was copy+pasted onto every module. The whole of the series lived and breathed well.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
In that type of dynamic verisimilitude is sacrificed in a big way. The story telling necessity is in the foreground, not the story itself. The result is that the game has a sterile quality to it. The game is resembling its make up of abstract building blocks rather than content or story itself. When a player plays in an abstract way, moves around only the abstract pieces of character and dice, and meta-games further... Thats when problems begin to arise in meta gaming. When it goes too far. The GM is in a unique position to manage this very problem. Often, by having a game world that reinforces its own truths, a GM can nip the power type meta-gaming in the bud. Just by having the security conscious 2070s come alive with a roving cyberware scanning drone every once in a while can put a lot of pressure on a player to keep a low profile rather than strutting down a street with a MMG on his back.
As far as how players would know when to loot? I haven't the foggiest. I have never run that scenario in a game. I was playing devils advocate for my own argument and trying to find an instance where it would be even slightly plausible... The simple stance that the argument was based from was that a GM should be very much aware of and in control of what he is doing (ie what he gives his players in terms of loot, karma etc.). Thats not to say that this should be done at a stifling pace. I have run games where players have had nearly half a million nuyen payouts after expenses. Players were literally jet-setting badasses in long coats and twin pistols. Karma ran like water.
The issue at hand with organlegging is not the practice itself, but the extent of the players practice. How much organlegging is too much? I'd say that throwing every body you have into a vacu-seal bag is going a bit far. If the game has developed to a point where your players main source of income is second hand cyber subsidized by corp payout for a run, then there was some serious disconnect between the intended run's payout, the players role in the game, and the game's design itself.
In my experience, in which there has been some serious GM-player disconnect (consensual / non consensual agreements or rather disagreements), its points when continuity and consistency (that blasted pair, again) break down that serious game problems arise. An example of broken consistency and continuity would be a player that rolls 20 dice on a check when the rest of the group rolls 10 to 12. The result is most of the group feeling like they are on the back burner. This is a bad thing.
I am not really pro any particular kind of game (except the fun kind... thats my favorite kind). In fact, the body of the OP was based off of running published SR content (with some minor tweaks and changes of place-names) and had nothing to do with either my vision of the world, any runs that I wrote myself or anything of the sort. I ran published missions and was amazed at their balance and quality overall. The payout schedule matched well with the Team Rating, the karma pacing was pretty well done... Mostly it was due to the fact that there was a standardized system for payment and karma advancement that was kept continuous between modules. The introduction that laid out the extra rules was copy+pasted onto every module. The whole of the series lived and breathed well.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| An example of broken consistency and continuity would be a player that rolls 20 dice on a check when the rest of the group rolls 10 to 12. The result is most of the group feeling like they are on the back burner. This is a bad thing. |
I agree, tell the slackers to build decent professional characters. Tell them: "Nobody cares how deep your character is, you hippy. Master some job skills...and get a haircut!"
| QUOTE (Buster) | ||
I agree, tell the slackers to build decent professional characters. Tell them: "Nobody cares how deep your character is, you hippy. Master some job skills...and get a haircut!" |
I have actually had to tell a player "this dude sucks... why on earth would he be in a profession where he gets shot at all the time?"
Its a strange place to be... Telling a player "make this guy more busted." When a group is combat oriented and one player is rolling 22ish dice on firearms checks with 16 dice active ranged defense and everyone else is at 14 or so dice shooting and 10 dice dodging... It leads to some frowny faces. Rolling 20 dice on a hacking check rarely makes someone's spine tingle the way 20-odd dice to smear a mage into a bloody ragdoll does.
h@xing j00r 53rv3r is just not quite as interesting to most as hacking someone's brainpan with a combat axe.
God I love a good gunfight in Shadowrun.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
I still consider organ-legging and taking cyber to be two seperate things. Killing people and harvesting their bodies for scant profit is one thing; I'm not going to say it has no place in the game, but whatever place it has is squalid and dark. Some games really benefit from darkness and squalor, but I'll grant that its not everybodies' cup o' tea (nor is it mine 100% of the time).
Taking cyberware is somewhere north of there for two reasons, one in-game, one out. In-game, cyberware is a commodity, it can be very valuable, and people just don't throw money away. If its something you need, if its something you can use, you take it. (I've been, for several posts now, trying to work in Adam Baldwin's quote from Jaynestown, You think someone is going to throw away money, money they can use? Well, there ain't people like that. There's just people like me.) Shadowrunners routinely profit from illegal or immoral activities, even the good ones are usually pretty shady.
Out of game, cybered bad guys are more challenging, and the cyberware is a part of that reward for defeating that challenge. Its a meta consideration, but meta considerations are important if only because no player ever quit a game he was happy with because his character was mad about something. Denying characters stuff that you use against them is ethically shaky; if every npc is armed with a Panther cannon that turns into a Streetline Special when the pcs take, then we'd call shennanigans on that.
Personally, I don't think its the selling of bodies or harvesting of cyber that is incredibly offensive, its the behaviors most pcs engage in to facillitate those things. If a pc finds a couple of dead bodies in a van (or, kills a couple of mooks trying to kidnap him in a van) and driving that van over to Tanamous will net him 500 bucks, that's understandable. Bodies have to be disposed of, you're running a similar risk taking the bodies to Tanamous or your friendly, neighborhood ghoul gang as you would dumping the body in the Sound or burning it in an incinerator in Puyallup. Getting a few bucks out of it and having the relative certainty that organlegged bodies aren't going to turn up in a CSI lab (I said "relative certainty", damnit) is something most characters could do, even if they didn't feel great about it.
But, getting as many bodies as possible solely for profit, including shooting the wounded and going out of your way to collect people is vile, even for professional criminals. Compounding this is that most of the time when pcs get into the "Tanamous will pay us 10 nuyen a pound!" mindset, they're usually doing it from a player perspective of low risk/reasonable reward, and not factoring in the potential emotional consequences for having characters that butcher people for a living. And that complaint, I understand. I mean, there's a lot of stuff thats pretty easy to do mechanically that characters (or anyone with even a shred of a soul) would have a hard time with for reasons that aren't mechanical in nature.
In either case, its not the organlegging that would offend me as much as the wanton murder and the lack of roleplaying. (And of the two, its really the second one that irks me.)
Taking cyberware is somewhere north of there for two reasons, one in-game, one out. In-game, cyberware is a commodity, it can be very valuable, and people just don't throw money away. If its something you need, if its something you can use, you take it. (I've been, for several posts now, trying to work in Adam Baldwin's quote from Jaynestown, You think someone is going to throw away money, money they can use? Well, there ain't people like that. There's just people like me.) Shadowrunners routinely profit from illegal or immoral activities, even the good ones are usually pretty shady.
Out of game, cybered bad guys are more challenging, and the cyberware is a part of that reward for defeating that challenge. Its a meta consideration, but meta considerations are important if only because no player ever quit a game he was happy with because his character was mad about something. Denying characters stuff that you use against them is ethically shaky; if every npc is armed with a Panther cannon that turns into a Streetline Special when the pcs take, then we'd call shennanigans on that.
Personally, I don't think its the selling of bodies or harvesting of cyber that is incredibly offensive, its the behaviors most pcs engage in to facillitate those things. If a pc finds a couple of dead bodies in a van (or, kills a couple of mooks trying to kidnap him in a van) and driving that van over to Tanamous will net him 500 bucks, that's understandable. Bodies have to be disposed of, you're running a similar risk taking the bodies to Tanamous or your friendly, neighborhood ghoul gang as you would dumping the body in the Sound or burning it in an incinerator in Puyallup. Getting a few bucks out of it and having the relative certainty that organlegged bodies aren't going to turn up in a CSI lab (I said "relative certainty", damnit) is something most characters could do, even if they didn't feel great about it.
But, getting as many bodies as possible solely for profit, including shooting the wounded and going out of your way to collect people is vile, even for professional criminals. Compounding this is that most of the time when pcs get into the "Tanamous will pay us 10 nuyen a pound!" mindset, they're usually doing it from a player perspective of low risk/reasonable reward, and not factoring in the potential emotional consequences for having characters that butcher people for a living. And that complaint, I understand. I mean, there's a lot of stuff thats pretty easy to do mechanically that characters (or anyone with even a shred of a soul) would have a hard time with for reasons that aren't mechanical in nature.
In either case, its not the organlegging that would offend me as much as the wanton murder and the lack of roleplaying. (And of the two, its really the second one that irks me.)
| QUOTE (Mercer) |
| In either case, its not the organlegging that would offend me as much as the wanton murder and the lack of roleplaying. (And of the two, its really the second one that irks me.) |
Exactly.
What is unfortunate is that when players start taking thematically questionable actions like these, walking the fine line between meta-gaming and role-playing, the game often teeters off into the meta-gaming side of things. I think that its completely appropriate to hate on wanton abuse of cash sources from a meta-game perspective. Further, its a rare character indeed that can have a role-playing justification for doing something as taxing, physically taxing, as hacking up a ton of bodies and selling them per pound and by the chrome.
And if you have a group of these kinds of "characters" that can role-play justify that kind of activity, I am of the opinion that the veneer is awfully thin on their meta-game motivations to cash in on Johnny Samurai's cyberware. That is not to say that these kinds of things don't happen. Not by a long shot. I have run a game where a pair of players had Tanamous contacts and regularly did side jobs harvesting bodies. It was one of the most challenging instances as a GM I have faced, trying to balance time spent between the players, risk vs. reward, managing the contacts etc. I ended up subsidizing the entire project as a sort of Role-Play tool that resulted in extra nuyen. They got to RP the meat of the scenario (pun pun pun) and didn't have to deal with the nuts and bolts - we just abstracted a value for the chunks they got, cyber or not, and they went home happy with some extra cash.
Either case, I think that it is entirely in the right to have whatever the players care about to be the central point of a given scene. If players want cash or cyber, a scene should be devised based around acquiring either of these things (thats generally what most runs are, aren't they?).
I doubt many GMs just let someone tell them "I am spending karma and initiating". Some might, whatever floats your dingey. I don't tend to. So why would a GM let a player thumb through a book, choose a piece of gear, use a calculator to deduct nuyen from a pile of cash and just have an item? Isn't that what contacts are for? Isn't that what social skills are in the game for? Am I crazy for being confused by players that want to just have things, prestidigitated out of thin air because its on page x in some book? Where do you get it? Do they ask for a SIN? How did you find them? Do they charge a little on the side for "discretion"? I have had a player come away extremely pleased when he could walk into the back alley street doc that he used and could say "Dok, today I need you to cut me up to put metal in, not take lead out!" We had established a rapport between his contact and his character and he enjoyed thoroughly the chance to use his contact as a method to make his advancement in gear more substantial, to RP the instance.
Different strokes.
As far as the ethical question of continuity in gear that opponents have that players can get. This is an extremely tough subject. Without being careful a GM can take a mid or low level campaign straight into the big time by tossing some serious firepower at the PCs. In general, however, one of the consensual agreements between players and a GM is that challenges will be appropriate to the players level and that loot does not just randomly disappear. If items have no object-permanence, there is probably a certain failure occurring in most player's suspension of disbelief. I agree very strongly with the statement that any gear that a GM places "in play" against the players is fair game.
One of the nastiest tricks a GM can play, as we all know, is the unending escalation of engagement. Its one of the simplest tricks in the book and probably the easiest to use. This applies to more than just what firepower to level at a player, however. This applies to the kinds of pressure you put on players (besides just shooting them). Its not a stretch to "motivate" players to shy away from heavier hardware. Big, noisy, shooty hardware is a sign of a different kind of group than a silenced pistol. In the last game that I had a chance to play in I got a hold of a semi-auto grenade launcher that saw a single use and then was ditched down a sewer. Holding onto that kind of firepower draws the wrong kind of heat for that particular character or group. How much 'heat', when and why are all things that a GM can use to motivate players to not spend the next 30 minutes of game time trying to weasel their way through a plan to ditch their pursuit, return to the scene of a firefight, climb up a belltower and grab that shiny sniper rifle that is likely still there, slightly singed from a fireball.
Firefly FTW.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| I doubt many GMs just let someone tell them "I am spending karma and initiating". Some might, whatever floats your dingey. I don't tend to. |
I would, because over the years I've found that trying to get something more from a player than they're interested in giving is like pulling teeth. I'll let players get by with the bare minimum. If I like them, if they're a good person at the table, if they bring chips, I can forgive them not investing heavily in their characters.
What I prefer to do is reward the players that do invest. People who put effort into the fluff get fluff rewards. It may not sound like much, but if you think about it, fluff is way, way more powerful than mechanics. Mechanics are how stuff happens, and fluff is why; fluff determines what mechanics show up at the table. A yakuza cyberassassin is a mechanical build, where he shows up and how many there are of him and what they do when they get there are all fluff.
If a player says, "I got the points to self-initiate, I write a thesis, its about magic and how cool it is," then thats fine. Nothing much will come of it in game, but they'll get to initiate. But if a player has a cool idea about his character initiating, that cool idea might develop into a springboard for a run, it might introduce contacts, and it might bring up conflicts that will drive the game forward. Much like your player and his street doc, its those moments that get built in play that I enjoy most about the game.
These are basically my sentiments exactly.
I was going to quote parts of your post... but I couldn't really even isolate a particular part that I liked. The whole thing basically describes the best of gaming.
As a GM, we can only give as much as we are asked for. I tend to try and have players reach a bit for certain things. In the game before last that I ran, I had a nearly word for word transcription of the initiation process... "I initiate using contact X." Now, the player had been making some long term knowledge checks for a while, but that was about the extent of things. "Welcome to initiation. You are now a card carrying badass." was the response that I gave him.
Players that bring chips (also) ftw.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
I was going to quote parts of your post... but I couldn't really even isolate a particular part that I liked. The whole thing basically describes the best of gaming.
As a GM, we can only give as much as we are asked for. I tend to try and have players reach a bit for certain things. In the game before last that I ran, I had a nearly word for word transcription of the initiation process... "I initiate using contact X." Now, the player had been making some long term knowledge checks for a while, but that was about the extent of things. "Welcome to initiation. You are now a card carrying badass." was the response that I gave him.
Players that bring chips (also) ftw.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
| QUOTE (Mercer) |
| What I prefer to do is reward the players that do invest. People who put effort into the fluff get fluff rewards. |
That's how I generally handle it as well, and I''ve been pleased to see that rewarding putting more effort into it tends to get them to put more into it, without the teeth pulling even!
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| Players that bring chips (also) ftw. |
We had a player in our old group that had the piza place job, and brought all the left over pizza and buffalo wings that were left over from the night. Unsuprisingly, that particular store tended to have a lot of waste towards the weekends.
We had a variant cash for karma rule. What ever cash you spent on game snacks nad brought over for the group, you would get in karma (eg. $5 was 5 Karma). More than a few games had players getting more karma ofr the snacks they brough than for the run it's self. But we were always well fed, and I was very happy with the results.
A couple of guys in my old SR group worked at a pizza chain... it was called (something) Hut. One was a manager, the other a long time employee. Anyhoo, one game they called up the store, ordered a bunch of pizzas and 2-liters that someone then delivered, all without money changing hands. I thought, "This must be what being in the mob is like."
ZOMG!
Food for Karma?
Free pizza and wings?
Mob deals?
AND GAMING!
Is this heaven?
My players had a habit of showing up with game aids. One bought me a bunch of vis-a-vis markers. Another has a habit of purchasing supplemental materials that he wants to use in characters that he makes... Not much of a subtle hinter, that one.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
Food for Karma?
Free pizza and wings?
Mob deals?
AND GAMING!
Is this heaven?
My players had a habit of showing up with game aids. One bought me a bunch of vis-a-vis markers. Another has a habit of purchasing supplemental materials that he wants to use in characters that he makes... Not much of a subtle hinter, that one.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
I used to be in the mob. It was totally awesome spending my weekends roleplaying and having to order free pizza.
Wait, that wasn't the mob. That was nerds
Wait, that wasn't the mob. That was nerds
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| Is this heaven? |
Ironically, it was Utah.
HEAVEN? THIS IS... oh, wait.
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| Is this heaven? |
It's Iowa!
| QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0) | ||
Ironically, it was Utah. |
So, the opposite then.
| QUOTE (Mercer) |
| Out of game, cybered bad guys are more challenging, and the cyberware is a part of that reward for defeating that challenge. ... Personally, I don't think its the selling of bodies or harvesting of cyber that is incredibly offensive, its the behaviors most pcs engage in to facillitate those things. |
Mercer, if you're ever in San Francisco area and looking for a game, your style would suit my GM. Same for menkey. Now that your rant has turned into a celebration of *good* gaming, that is.
When player A says "I wanna initiate, here's my karma", player A probably is giving as much fluff as they want to receive. Player B says "I want to initiate. I have karma. I call my contact, the shamanic lodgemaster, and tell her 'I think I'm ready. What should I do next?' " Player B has put the ball in your court. Run with it! Give player B extra fluff, spotlight time, GM attention, and bump up the Loyalty of that Contact, now that the PC has shown extra devotion to the path of their Mentor Spirit. While you are running the Player B astral journey micro-adventure, then player A can either go get some chips and pizza...or watch on the sideline, and ideally says "That was cool, can I do that when I have karma for my *second* initiation?"
Karma can be a doggy treat to reward players; in-game cash is a doggy treat; but GM attention and time is your trump card.
As for cyber: taking the weaponry of an enemy is in the Iliad and Aeneid, and in Beowulf, and probably goes back to even older stories. It's also in Hobbit/LOTR; Sting was acquired as *loot*. Dealing with organleggers for body disposal goes back to Gibson's "Count Zero", not so classic but still canon genre for some players. If your players treat any harvestable bystanders like windfall apples, and they ignore a conversation about "That isn't the kind of game I want to run", then ding them .1 Essense for each casual killing, because perhaps that's just as bad for the soul as having a surgeon pull out your eyes and implant cameras into the sockets. (Cf. White Wolf's "Orpheus" RPG and the Spite characteristic.)
| QUOTE (Riley37) |
| If your players treat any harvestable bystanders like windfall apples, and they ignore a conversation about "That isn't the kind of game I want to run", then ding them .1 Essense for each casual killing, because perhaps that's just as bad for the soul as having a surgeon pull out your eyes and implant cameras into the sockets. |
I absolutely despise that idea!
As much as I despise the idea of D&D style looting of every corpse that drops?
And if you were to institute that rule, sooner or later (undoubtedly sooner) someone would hit upon the idea of creating a cyberzombie, minus the cyber (or bio); it would only take 61 casual killings to get down to negative essence, afterall--that's, what, a trip to the mall with a minigun?
| QUOTE (DrZaius) | ||
It's Iowa! |
...nice.
The best way to deal with random casual killings is to roll 1d6 every time a habitually murderous character kills. On a 6, the corpse gets up and hungers for the flesh of the living. Really, with a mass murderer of significant notoriety dozens of Shedim will be hanging around the guy waiting for an opening like New York drivers circling prime parking spot just waiting for the opening that will eventually come.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| The best way to deal with random casual killings is to roll 1d6 every time a habitually murderous character kills. On a 6, the corpse gets up and hungers for the flesh of the living. Really, with a mass murderer of significant notoriety dozens of Shedim will be hanging around the guy waiting for an opening like a New York drivers circling prime parking spot just waiting for the opening that will eventually come. |
I like it!
| QUOTE (Riley37) |
| When player A says "I wanna initiate, here's my karma", player A probably is giving as much fluff as they want to receive. Player B says "I want to initiate. I have karma. I call my contact, the shamanic lodgemaster, and tell her 'I think I'm ready. What should I do next?' " Player B has put the ball in your court. Run with it! |
I agree. This also relates back to my point about meta-gaming the good way. For some reason, a lot of times players feel its rude to come out and say what they want to happen. So they do all sorts of other stuff, and one example of that is what I call "badgering the witness" when they will keep asking similar questions until they get the answer they're looking for or get totally shut down by the GM. Instead of a player and a GM sitting down and saying what they're looking for, it becomes a long list of insinuations and non-verbal clues.
Meta-gaming, in this context, can be used as a way to break through that bullshit and communicate openly. Its a way for the player to say, "This is what my character is doing, but this is what I'm really after."
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| The best way to deal with random casual killings is to roll 1d6 every time a habitually murderous character kills. |
At that point, it seems like you'd be better off telling that player to look for a new group. You can use mechanics to punish people for not roleplaying, but you can make them want to roleplay. If they're just not interested in it, forcing them is just going to frustrate them. I'm not saying we shouldn't be in the business of frustrating the players we don't like (GMs have to amuse themselves somehow), only that if someone's not a good fit for our game, it's generally better to just come out and say it rather than continually screw with them until they quit in disgust or worse, keep showing up to derail the game that other players would probably be enjoying if they weren't getting attacked by the shedim the one asshole keeps bringing down on them. Players that require a random shedim roll to stifle their murderous impulses probably will never "get it", but if they're going to have any sort of a shot at it at all, its probably going to require something north of hints. As I have said for many years, you can teach a chicken to play the piano, but you can't make him love music.
Yes, I agree with Mercer the penalization of the casual killings.
An example that comes to mind is 'Kane and Lynch'. You have the Merc (Kane) whom I guess tries to do things professionally with some stealth and whatever is needed. You got the psychopath (Lynch) who just kills and would even shoot already dead bodies as well as shoot unconscious people. Its a game so its a disturbing flavor, but in a Shadowrun game, its a great quick way to earn infamy as a group and that means less respectable/high paying jobs.
I also would like to add that on another topic that for starting characters and such. I am going try this idea out with the group next week. After they make their characters.
I am going to write indvidual quirks/relationships that is optional, but it rewards with extra karma.
A quick example would be if anyone has ever had runners that are related, Has anyone done that?
An example that comes to mind is 'Kane and Lynch'. You have the Merc (Kane) whom I guess tries to do things professionally with some stealth and whatever is needed. You got the psychopath (Lynch) who just kills and would even shoot already dead bodies as well as shoot unconscious people. Its a game so its a disturbing flavor, but in a Shadowrun game, its a great quick way to earn infamy as a group and that means less respectable/high paying jobs.
I also would like to add that on another topic that for starting characters and such. I am going try this idea out with the group next week. After they make their characters.
I am going to write indvidual quirks/relationships that is optional, but it rewards with extra karma.
A quick example would be if anyone has ever had runners that are related, Has anyone done that?
One thing I see here is a lot of players complaining that their GM doesn't give them enough of a payout, or enough loot or enough karma. What I don't see is any appreciation for the job the GM does.
In my groups the gm is usually someone who takes the job because someone has to do it. Very rarely is it someone who has a true passion to GM. The players know this and still they complain that they do not make enough money or they constanly argue about the rules or they go out of their way to do things they know the gm is against or they complain that they do not feel that they have enough freedom to choose their runs since the gm only had time to prepare one run.
I know it is a form of metagaming but I thought the point of playing was to go on runs and enjoy the situations or challenges that come up while running. Powering up the character should be a secondary consideration.
Lets show the gms some love.
In my groups the gm is usually someone who takes the job because someone has to do it. Very rarely is it someone who has a true passion to GM. The players know this and still they complain that they do not make enough money or they constanly argue about the rules or they go out of their way to do things they know the gm is against or they complain that they do not feel that they have enough freedom to choose their runs since the gm only had time to prepare one run.
I know it is a form of metagaming but I thought the point of playing was to go on runs and enjoy the situations or challenges that come up while running. Powering up the character should be a secondary consideration.
Lets show the gms some love.
| QUOTE (Mercer) | ||
At that point, it seems like you'd be better off telling that player to look for a new group. You can use mechanics to punish people for not roleplaying, but you can make them want to roleplay. If they're just not interested in it, forcing them is just going to frustrate them. I'm not saying we shouldn't be in the business of frustrating the players we don't like (GMs have to amuse themselves somehow), only that if someone's not a good fit for our game, it's generally better to just come out and say it rather than continually screw with them until they quit in disgust or worse, keep showing up to derail the game that other players would probably be enjoying if they weren't getting attacked by the shedim the one asshole keeps bringing down on them. Players that require a random shedim roll to stifle their murderous impulses probably will never "get it", but if they're going to have any sort of a shot at it at all, its probably going to require something north of hints. As I have said for many years, you can teach a chicken to play the piano, but you can't make him love music. |
The point isn't punishing the player; the point is fucking zombies (whether I am using the word as an adjective or a verb is up to you; both interpretations are good).
And they wouldn't be attacking the PCs, there is really no sense in killing their corpse cow when they're getting its corpse milk for free.
It isn't like "OMG! Zombies". It's like " Zombies FTW!" Up until they figure out that it isn't so good to have Zombies runnign around eating people. No direct consequences to the players, just indirect ones.
| QUOTE (amra28) |
| What I don't see is any appreciation for the job the GM does. |
Most of us are GMs ourselves.
Yeah, most of us that are dedicated enough to come here on a regular basis are also dedicated enought to host a game. Those of us who are lucky also play sometimes.
Chris
Chris
| QUOTE (Fortune) |
| I absolutely despise that idea! |
Well, the OP was OK with eliciting strong reactions, so perhaps in a way I've succeeded.
"Casual killing is bad for your soul" would be pretty divergent from canon; but if a severe addict loses Essence, and a veteran with the "thousand-yard stare" who has stopped caring about killing or dying has full Essence, then I need a better explanation of Essence. Is it *just* about the condition of your physical body?
How about '...and they ignore a conversation about "That isn't the kind of game I want to run", then take that player to the blood bank and turn them into a donation'? Poetic justice, and as long as their blood is clean, a public service.
I have seen a GM call "Time out, you're making choices that are perhaps consistent with your character but not with the story I'm running", and it was tough but worth doing. (In a superhero campaign, no less.)
As for whining "the GM isn't giving our characters enough" - in that case, I recommend reframing it as a question: "Hey GM, what would motivate you to hand out more Karma and loot?" If the GM says "more whining", then return to plan A.
| QUOTE (Buster) | ||
I agree, tell the slackers to build decent professional characters. Tell them: "Nobody cares how deep your character is, you hippy. Master some job skills...and get a haircut!" |
I'm mostly with Buster here, too. It's an open build system. Anyone can have 20 dice for combat. So before arbitrarily smacking down the 20 dice-slinging guy, the GM needs to ask, why is one character so much more effective in combat?
Is it because the 20-dice-guy didn't pay attention when the GM described what kind of campaign it was going to be? In other words, did he bring a machine-gun toting vatjob to a campaign described as "You're all street kids in the barrens, trying to survive by hustling and petty theft."? If that's the case, the character should not pass the last step of ratification by the GM.
Is it because the other players are playing other specialties, such as hackers, faces, or medics? If so, they're the ones being unreasonable, if they expect to do their own jobs and be as good in combat as a dedicated sammie or adept.
Is it because the other players are more well-rounded in other areas? If they are, and are still feeling left out in combat, then the GM needs to ask himself, "Am I letting non-combat skills get some time and attention? Do non-combat skills matter enough in my game? Is combat too 'important', in the sense that most of the feeling of accomplishment in the game comes from it?"
Playstyle issues may be part of it, too. Maybe the 20-dice-guy is a griefer, using his combat prowess to brag, bully the other PCs, and start fights during the negotiation or legwork parts of the run because he is "bored". Or maybe the other players are hung up on the deliberate-character-gimping style of 'roleplaying', smug about only taking 3 in pistols until they actually roll the dice and find that it's not so fun when your character isn't effective.
Maybe the problem is that the opposition is being played too straightforwardly. Is it a stand-up fight where the combat specialist mows down a gaggle of mooks before anyone else gets a chance to do anything? 12 dice is still a decent dice pool - you have a good chance to hit. And there should be plenty of things for everyone to do in combat! Maybe while the sammie is shooting at the main group of guards, the covert ops guy can try to shoot out those damn spotlights. The medic can sprint across the alleyway to treat the wounded guy, while the face "sprays and prays", laying down suppressive fire with his Steyr TMP to cover him. The mage can stunball the two guards trying to flank them from the back. The hacker can do something about that spotter drone circling overhead.
It can suck feeling useless, but unless the other players eschew any tactics at all, or get no use out of their non-combat skills, their hostility towards another player, simply for being better at an aspect of the game he has specialized in, comes off as kind of petty.
| QUOTE (DTFarstar) |
| Yeah, most of us that are dedicated enough to come here on a regular basis are also dedicated enought to host a game. Those of us who are lucky also play sometimes. Chris |
Sometimes we come here to find a game we aren't hosting.
Wait ... you can do that?!
In my group, my sammie rolls 12d6 with weapon of choice, and could roll 15d6 driving the team's Bulldog (if maxed with VR, haven't needed to yet) because his day job is ambulance driver for CrashCart. 12d6 has been plenty so far; we haven't lost a fight yet. Our "initial bonanza" phat loot included a security team's full body armor, and as soon as the NPC armorer finishes the reconditioning, troll sammie will get the group's first 20+ DP (to soak ballistic damage). Then again, bargaining with the armorer was a good hour of game time, and the GM had fun coming up with yet another oddball NPC (armorer's cover ID is an orthodonture office, and he referred the troll to a *real* orthodontist who specializes in tusks, cf. the tooth compartment headware).
Meanwhile, the team's face came along to handle bargaining (you recondition this gear for us, you get to keep that gear for other customers, etc.) and lost all the Negotiation tests, because the bootleg armorer uses negotiation all the time too. Say "la vie". Face mighta got more dice with more creative roleplaying, though.
I have no illusion that having more dice in Pilot pool than Automatics pool makes me a nonmunchkin; it merely makes me a more diverse munchkin. But other players riff off my established "aggressive driver" schtick, more than off anything that happens in combat, and I enjoy those riffs.
When a spirit attacked, all my PC could do was call for help and spend Edge on resistance rolls... but the Adept and the Mage and the GM described a cool astral combat; although my PC was helpless, I was entertained, and so it was still win-win.
Meanwhile, the team's face came along to handle bargaining (you recondition this gear for us, you get to keep that gear for other customers, etc.) and lost all the Negotiation tests, because the bootleg armorer uses negotiation all the time too. Say "la vie". Face mighta got more dice with more creative roleplaying, though.
I have no illusion that having more dice in Pilot pool than Automatics pool makes me a nonmunchkin; it merely makes me a more diverse munchkin. But other players riff off my established "aggressive driver" schtick, more than off anything that happens in combat, and I enjoy those riffs.
When a spirit attacked, all my PC could do was call for help and spend Edge on resistance rolls... but the Adept and the Mage and the GM described a cool astral combat; although my PC was helpless, I was entertained, and so it was still win-win.
| QUOTE (Riley37 @ Nov 2 2007, 09:43 PM) |
| Well, the OP was OK with eliciting strong reactions, so perhaps in a way I've succeeded. |
I may or may not have laughed for about 5 minutes when I read this.
Irony is my favorite kind of humor.
I am not jabbing at Riley137 about this... I was simply flabberghasted. That involves flabbering about like a deflating balloon but then being paralyzed by a ghast touch... Oh, and laughing.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
| QUOTE (Glyph @ Nov 2 2007, 10:04 PM) |
| I'm mostly with Buster here, too. It's an open build system. Anyone can have 20 dice for combat. So before arbitrarily smacking down the 20 dice-slinging guy, the GM needs to ask, why is one character so much more effective in combat? |
As the OP is based off of published SR4 content... And SR4 published content is balanced towards a baseline of rating 3 and 4 devices / thresholds... And the examples in the corebook are in the dice range of 10-14ish... Even the archetype characters... Just because 20 dice is possible does not imply that it is necessary in any way, shape or form. Or even suggested.
Its not like people that discuss an average dice pool beneath the accepted standard of the boards, or even what is logically possible or plausible in the system itself are just making things up. The published content examples suggest a standard. Some choose to follow the book's lead. Others don't. Any RPG corebook is a suggestion of how to play.
What I find really interesting is that Fatty McDicepool is far more likely to be a player hellbent on following the rules in published content - ie a ruleslawyer or subspecies. And yet these same players ignore the obvious standards set forth in examples and published SR missions.
A source of endless amusement and frustration.
I don't just make this shit up. I think about it an awful lot. Agree or disagree with a standardized pool; thats fine. Whatever. If you are wondering where people get the idea of an acceptable dicepool, opening the core rule book and poking around is as good a start as any.
But still, the book is just one way to play. Fun first. If rolling a piss-ton of dice is whats fun, then roll them. Frankly, the game supports only so many dice at any given time in any given check. Opposition can be scaled to meet any dice pool (see earlier: "endless escalation"). At a certain point the improvement curve becomes vertical: something like 3 million nuyen to improve reaction 1, as another poster said. Games can start anywhere they like on that curve. SR4 corebook seems to suggest starting at around 12-14 for primary skill dice pools... A value that can increase steadily for a rather long time while being able to buy hits to overcome the average (rating 3) challenge. I don't believe this is an accident. Further, the published adventure content gives karma and cash to provide an improvement arc that is both well timed and well thought out.
But, open build and all that... strokes and folks.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| But, open build and all that... strokes and folks. |
I think you are painting with broad strokes of the brush by stating outright that your proposed style of play, with average dice pools, is the official, recommended method as delineated in the core rule book (and supplements), and anything else is not supported by the game system.
As an addendum, using the Archetypes as the source for any type of example of normal characters has never been a great idea in the entire history of Shadowrun. They are just generally badly put together characters.
My reasoning is hardly the official anything. I imagine that if you were to ask people that read this thread they will decide that my games are clearly the official suck. My reasoning is, however, reasonable. Examine the game and the content and see what you come up with. Clearly, for some people, 20 is their conclusion. Hell, the answer is 42.
Any dice pool works in a game. Dice don't matter. The entire game scales. But when people say "I don't understand where this 20 dice vs 12 dice stuff comes from" - which I consider implicit in any argument that involves the value placed on a dice pool size... this is at the core of said argument - I scratch my head and wonder if people are reading the same book that I am.
Where there is potential for dice pools up to god knows what (Pornomancer), if a player is looking through the core book or published adventure content and is wondering if there is anything resembling a SR standard for pool, I imagine the pool will sit right around 12-14 dice.
People look for a barometer and as far as I know, "thar she be"... Signs point to yes... If you want 20, take 20. That is buying roughly 5 hits. Your game now exists on a rating 5ish level on the scaling difficulty slide. End of story. In my eyes it is less a matter of preference (since I am the guy designing the conflicts - you can choose whatever place on the sliding scale you want) and more one of abstraction (so I can design said adequate conflicts).
Thus - strokes for folks.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
Any dice pool works in a game. Dice don't matter. The entire game scales. But when people say "I don't understand where this 20 dice vs 12 dice stuff comes from" - which I consider implicit in any argument that involves the value placed on a dice pool size... this is at the core of said argument - I scratch my head and wonder if people are reading the same book that I am.
Where there is potential for dice pools up to god knows what (Pornomancer), if a player is looking through the core book or published adventure content and is wondering if there is anything resembling a SR standard for pool, I imagine the pool will sit right around 12-14 dice.
People look for a barometer and as far as I know, "thar she be"... Signs point to yes... If you want 20, take 20. That is buying roughly 5 hits. Your game now exists on a rating 5ish level on the scaling difficulty slide. End of story. In my eyes it is less a matter of preference (since I am the guy designing the conflicts - you can choose whatever place on the sliding scale you want) and more one of abstraction (so I can design said adequate conflicts).
Thus - strokes for folks.
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
The archetypes give a rough idea of some things that are possible, but they are not only poorly put together from a min-maxing perspective, but poorly put together in their general construction.
Archetypes with the Uncouth flaw who don't pay the double cost for social skills that they are supposed to, a bounty hunter with a bow rated higher than his Strength, a covert ops specialist with a gun she isn't proficient in, and an eco-shaman who is really magical, since she magically has double the build points for the spirit bane flaw.
Some of them even fail to be non-munchkinny. What would you say to a player who took the Uncouth flaw and no social skills, like the bounty hunter? Or a mage who took two addictions, an allergy, and sensitive system to pimp out the full 35 negative quality points?
The rules not only allow high dice pools, but make them cheap enough that a sammie can get one without sacrificing too much in other areas. Agility soft-maxed at 5, muscle toner: 2, ranged skill of 6 with specialization, reflex recorder, and smartlink bring it up to 18 dice. Beyond that, it's really not worth it except for elves and adepts.
Such a character can be well-rounded in other areas. And it's hardly game-breaking. I don't think it's a mistake that the areas with the biggest potential dice pools - magic, combat, and social - are also the areas with the most potential negative modifiers, and are opposed tests.
And as far as the book supporting a certain style of play, the example character by Brian had someone who certainly wasn't afraid to take a 6 in pistols, specifically to be the best shooter possible, or to hard max his Agility in addition to soft-maxing Reaction and Intuition. But Shadowrun is actually conducive to many different styles of play and degrees or realism, with lots of optional rules and variable build point totals.
Archetypes with the Uncouth flaw who don't pay the double cost for social skills that they are supposed to, a bounty hunter with a bow rated higher than his Strength, a covert ops specialist with a gun she isn't proficient in, and an eco-shaman who is really magical, since she magically has double the build points for the spirit bane flaw.
Some of them even fail to be non-munchkinny. What would you say to a player who took the Uncouth flaw and no social skills, like the bounty hunter? Or a mage who took two addictions, an allergy, and sensitive system to pimp out the full 35 negative quality points?
The rules not only allow high dice pools, but make them cheap enough that a sammie can get one without sacrificing too much in other areas. Agility soft-maxed at 5, muscle toner: 2, ranged skill of 6 with specialization, reflex recorder, and smartlink bring it up to 18 dice. Beyond that, it's really not worth it except for elves and adepts.
Such a character can be well-rounded in other areas. And it's hardly game-breaking. I don't think it's a mistake that the areas with the biggest potential dice pools - magic, combat, and social - are also the areas with the most potential negative modifiers, and are opposed tests.
And as far as the book supporting a certain style of play, the example character by Brian had someone who certainly wasn't afraid to take a 6 in pistols, specifically to be the best shooter possible, or to hard max his Agility in addition to soft-maxing Reaction and Intuition. But Shadowrun is actually conducive to many different styles of play and degrees or realism, with lots of optional rules and variable build point totals.
| QUOTE (noonesshowmonkey) |
| Irony is my favorite kind of humor. |
Intentional understatement is one of mine. Glad to inspire a laugh.
But there's only 37 of us, not 137. So far.
There's a reasonable case for calling 8-12 dice a good DP for a competent hero, 12-14 a veteran and/or specialist, and 18+ DP an OMGWTFBBQ. Except, of course, for trolls in full body armor, because if they can't laugh at pistol fire, then where's the power fantasy?
A friend of mine proposes the "four guys with clubs" test. Four ordinary guys with clubs attack your PC (bar fight, mugging, whatever). Is your PC terrified, worried, confident that they'll handle this without breaking a sweat, or laughing at the poor, unfortunate souls (soon to be ghoul chow)?
| QUOTE (Riley37) |
| A friend of mine proposes the "four guys with clubs" test. Four ordinary guys with clubs attack your PC (bar fight, mugging, whatever). Is your PC terrified, worried, confident that they'll handle this without breaking a sweat, or laughing at the poor, unfortunate souls (soon to be ghoul chow)? |
So faces, hackers, and technomancers are balanced by default?
Archetypes are just that - a basic example of a given type of character. Shadowrun Archetypes have never been without flaws that I know of. But, even with flaws, there are still particular bits of information that can be gleaned from them. When someone posts a question about a given character build (an archetypal "gunslinger adept", for example) there are several skills that are requisite to be a gundslinger adept. These skills must also be at certain ratings to have that character be exemplary in that area. Past those main skills, the rest is essentially fluff; something to differentiate them from the other "gunslinger adepts" of the world.
As for their munchkinny quality... its not surprising. Given that an archetypal character build when requested is often listed in this forum as having "35 points of flaws", its not too surprising that the example characters in the SR4 book have some weird quirks. For this particular instance, however, I am not really interested in the uses / abuses of build points as they pertain to perks / flaws as much as dice pool, though the two are related.
Whether or not the rules make something possible or plausible does not mean that players must exploit these points in the game system. Just tossing around terms like "soft-maxed" is more than a bit distasteful to me.
I do, however, agree that it is interesting that combat, magic and social tests (the tri-partite make up SR) are the areas of most bonus and most penalty. Again, its a question of magnitude. Where on the sliding scale of quality / competency do you want your game and group to fall.
Just because the upper limits of character generation sit at ~20 dice does not imply that this is the "gold standard" for character generation. If there is such a beast, I tend to look towards what the game publishers have as a consistent standard in their own examples... ~12-14 dice. Just flipping through the core book a bit comes across a lot of italicized text that reads "Body 4 + Armor 6" or "Agility 5 + Firearms 4 + 2 (smartlink)".
In my experience players that ramp up dice pools to levels around 20 are far more concerned with being a badass in a particular are than how they got to that point, why they feel they need to be that good, what they will do at that point etc. The result is that they have "Gun-MAN" and "Manabolt-MAN" or "Drone-MAN" and little else. It may be possible to be a badass in a particular area and still be adequate in others, but somewhere something is paying for that ability. It's a taxing of the game system prioritized over the creation of good storytelling.
I have had a gamer come to games with min-maxed characters and he would grow impatient watching his fellows improve steadily over time while he remained stagnant because he had started the game at a point where improvement took vastly more resources in karma or cash than the rest of the group.
There are justifications for nearly any kind of character within SR4's build guidelines... I would argue, and I believe successfully, that as Riley pointed out -
As for their munchkinny quality... its not surprising. Given that an archetypal character build when requested is often listed in this forum as having "35 points of flaws", its not too surprising that the example characters in the SR4 book have some weird quirks. For this particular instance, however, I am not really interested in the uses / abuses of build points as they pertain to perks / flaws as much as dice pool, though the two are related.
Whether or not the rules make something possible or plausible does not mean that players must exploit these points in the game system. Just tossing around terms like "soft-maxed" is more than a bit distasteful to me.
I do, however, agree that it is interesting that combat, magic and social tests (the tri-partite make up SR) are the areas of most bonus and most penalty. Again, its a question of magnitude. Where on the sliding scale of quality / competency do you want your game and group to fall.
Just because the upper limits of character generation sit at ~20 dice does not imply that this is the "gold standard" for character generation. If there is such a beast, I tend to look towards what the game publishers have as a consistent standard in their own examples... ~12-14 dice. Just flipping through the core book a bit comes across a lot of italicized text that reads "Body 4 + Armor 6" or "Agility 5 + Firearms 4 + 2 (smartlink)".
In my experience players that ramp up dice pools to levels around 20 are far more concerned with being a badass in a particular are than how they got to that point, why they feel they need to be that good, what they will do at that point etc. The result is that they have "Gun-MAN" and "Manabolt-MAN" or "Drone-MAN" and little else. It may be possible to be a badass in a particular area and still be adequate in others, but somewhere something is paying for that ability. It's a taxing of the game system prioritized over the creation of good storytelling.
I have had a gamer come to games with min-maxed characters and he would grow impatient watching his fellows improve steadily over time while he remained stagnant because he had started the game at a point where improvement took vastly more resources in karma or cash than the rest of the group.
There are justifications for nearly any kind of character within SR4's build guidelines... I would argue, and I believe successfully, that as Riley pointed out -
| QUOTE |
| There's a reasonable case for calling 8-12 dice a good DP for a competent hero, 12-14 a veteran and/or specialist, and 18+ DP an OMGWTFBBQ. |
Some players settle on zomgwtfbbq is a matter of course. Others are content with something a bit different. Generally speaking, I have had much better success with both players and characters of those willing to play in the 12-14 range from both a meta-gaming perspective and an advancement perspective. This further suggests to me that the game designers had something in mind when they setup the examples, the thresholds, the ratings etc. and also wrote the published adventure content. If nothing else, take my staunch position to be veneration of a well designed system.
Some people just need a fist full of dice, to wtfpwn encounters that are at the level of the rest of the team, or like to look at big numbers. For some it conjures images of James Bondish "jetsetting badasses"... Other people just love dice... beautiful, smooth and sexy dice...
- der menkey
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."
~ Ernest Hemingway
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