10 dice of distrust?

Same could be said about the troll and I'm sure there are a lot more people who distrust trolls than elves...

You may distrust the troll, but you will believe in his inhuman strenght and his giant praws who can crush your bones easily like a rotten tomato.

You may distrust the elf, but you will believe he will strip you of your skin one inch at a time...
The door swings both ways...

Nah, I won't, because he's a pansy and a dandelion-eater.
All elves are, everybody knows that.

I thought it was a general statement, and there's not 10 dice between an elf's "inhuman charisma" and a human (or other metahuman) with maxed charisma.

Didn't they ditch that "all elves are vegetarians" idiocy in SR3? Or was it just that so many people ignored it that they might as well have?

eh, this whole thread is derailing wildly all over the place. i don't anybody's responding to what anybody else is actually talking about.

I actually liked that. It gave players a means to mention salads in their role playing. Nothing broke up the monotony of a deary session like visualizing a caesar salad with crisp, cool lettuce and home made croutons with lots of butter crisped to perfection at 400 degrees in the oven...

OK, so I could be wrong since I am not as strong in 4th edition as I was in 3rd and 2nd (have yet to play 4th actually - though that will be remedied in a few weeks) but unless I am mistaken, don't you use Charisma in dealing with contacts? Legwork has traditionally been a very important factor in SR games - and my games in specific - so having a Charisma of 1 seems like really shooting yourself in the foot. Unless the game is somehow not driven by legwork, in which case it's not really Shadowrun IMO.

Cha 1 characters have a low stat. Like any characters. Some folks use dump stats. Personally, im more of a 3-4 spread type, which i guess makes me a little boring. But ive had low stats before.

Most GMs don't blink an eye at a 1 Str. Myself, i only have a problem with it if all of their other physical stats and skills are so high, it would be physically impossible for them not to have developed at least SOME strength(sorry, but someone with Body, Agility, and Reaction of a natural 4-5 with Athletics Group at 3 or 4 and other physical abilities i don't think would have lower than a natural 3...just from the practice it took to raise those stats.) But if someone's playing a couch-potato hacker, then it can fit, easily.

But Cha 1? Twinks! Forget the 26+social die face with the 1 Str. They aren't twinked out, nooooo. Forget the bunker-rigger with the 1 Str and Agility, Paraplegic, and runs through his nigh-powerful drones in a van so heavily armored it makes a Citymaster look like a Pinto. Nope, not twinked, uh-uh.

But Cha 1 just seems to automatically, with alot of people, go hand in hand with 'twink'. Not sure. Sometimes? Sure! It happens. But you know, it might actually be part of a character. A brilliant, but extremely socially inept and rather scary occult scientist could very well have a Charisma 1. Yeah, the extremely bitter, vengance driven samurai full of cynicism and with little belief in the human race could have Cha 1 as well. The hacker who spend all of his time away from the real world? Sure.

Anyway, plenty of oppurtunities abound for high and low stats, if GMs wouldn't cry foul at the first sight of a 1 on the paper. Maybe im just too nice of a GM, but i like to give players the benefit of the doubt.

And yeah, the big, scary troll with no social skills won't be able to talk someone into something as well as the elf. Sure, he can get some of those social modifers, but in the end, a face chucking 16+ dice is going to be much more convincing. Someone can be big and nasty and just not be able to show it or prove it to them.

Almost everything is Skill+Attribute(+/-Modifiers) in 4th. So, a low Cha can be compensated for with a high skill (and vice versa).

There are some Attribute+Attribute(+/-Modifiers) rolls (lifting, composure, etc.) that anyone can try without a skill.

See: Right here is where I get off the bus.

In what universe does a 1 charisma make you a spastic clutz who can't tell if a door is latched or not? There are skills and attributes for surveillance and shadowing and I'm reasonably certain Charisma isn't the controlling attribute.

If my GM put me into that situation that way because of CHARISMA I'd walk. Moreso if I'm a high agility, wired up killing machine who probably can tell the door is shifting open and adjust in hudreths of a second because my nerves are amped to stupid levels.

Agility 1: Sure, now you're the clumsy sort who might plausibly stumble into a room of armed dangerous men I'm trying to quietly listen too through a door. Of course, an agility 1, charisma 6 character could then go 'Oh, this isn't the Mens room is it?" and pull it off.

No perception Skill and low (intuition? Logic?): Again, maybe you DON'T notice the door isn't latched. Again, not charisma.


In other words, that was pure bullshit punishment behavior, and I don't put up with that crap in my leisure activities.


I mean, seriously, what's next: you stab the guy, but he disbelieves because your charisma sucks, he only takes one box of damage?

@mike_the_fish: The thing about contacts is that, for the most part, they're business people. If you tell them "I want information in exchange for money," they'll do that without a roll. If you want them to do something that they might not ordinarily do, like risk their lives, or if you want to haggle their price down or get something for free, that will need a roll. If they want to raise the price since you're uncharismatic, they'll roll negotation and take you to school. But just to talk to the contacts, nuh-uh. They're contacts. Talking to you is what you do. They won't refuse to talk to you just because you're a lousy person to be around. If they did that, they wouldn't make as much money. The currency of the shadows is not personality, it's actual currency.

No no I am aware of this, but I disagree that a low Cha can be compensated for like you state.

Certainly with a Cha of 1 and an Etiquette of 6 and a high loyalty rating, (which is a ridiculous setup - would simply be easier to have a higher Cha in the first place, but this is hypothetical I guess) you can reliably get a couple of Hits at least. But lots of times, that's not going to get you the info you really need - usually there's about 5 levels of info that a contact can relate. Having a large amount of information at your disposal is absolutely necessary to survive in SR. A player can't let his party's face do ALL the work, and he can't really work your own contacts anyway.

No I maintain that in any game where legwork is important (aka - about 99% of Shadowrun games) having a Cha of 1 is the height of foolishness.

It's because "twinks" are generally assumed to be min-maxed for combat effectiveness. A character that supposedly makes his living committing criminal acts subtly enough to avoid being caught in time for the news at 11 generally shouldn't be walking around with stats that encourage any random passerby to snap his picture and send it to UCAS's Most Wanted.

The only 1 Charisma character I've ever made was Cinder my forcibly cyborged/hacker mage. He was in the Archeology when Deus took over and was pretty heavily modified (full level 3 banded, blue cybereyes, chrome arms, more headwear then you can think off). His back-story included the fact that he was able to break free long enough to hid out in the shielded reactor room for 3 months.

So in short he was a heavily scared, burnout mage with an Logic of 7, a separate coprocessor that did some of his thinking for him, that spent most of his time either in astral or in the matrix to get out of his tomb of a body.

Needless to say, he had problems relating to people. He started shadowrunning because his therapist said he needed to interact with people more often.

So in short, he was a self hating, angry, shell of a man who had problems relating to people stupider than him (and that's pretty much everyone) and who think that their problems as sooo important and that life screwed them over.

He was fun to play though. I might need to bring him back.

That's the beauty of an attribute + skill system, you can create characters that are reasonably good at a task because 1) they're just naturally talented, 2) they've overcome their shortcomings through training, or 3) they're relatively normal people with a modest amount of training. As far as I'm concerned, a dice pool of 6 is a dice pool of 6. I don't care if you have a Cha 1 + Skill 5, are defaulting off your Cha 7, or if you're more middle of the road with an even mix of skill 2 + attribute 3. All of those character can earn the same result because they have the same number of dice. That Cha 1 character might not be very likable, but if he's sporting an Etiquette (or whatever skill) of 5 to back it up, his contacts will at least know he's making the effort to be civil and/or professional.

Now, if you're doing a legwork heavy game, then having a low Cha and low or no social skills is a really, really bad idea. You're essentially wasting any points you spent on Contacts, unless you want to pay through the nose for goods and services that more social/charismatic people would get much more easily. (You have limited ability to bargain down the NPC's negotiation, for instance.)

Quick rant: As a GM, you will never find me directly penalizing a player because he has a low attribute. You might get the cold shoulder from an NPC, but there'll be none of this arbitrary, "Sorry Mr. Troll Street Samurai, but your Cha 1 means that no one, including Joe Pedestrian, respects you. In fact, Joe Pedestrian is going to relieve himself on your shoes. What? You're threatening him? Oh well, I guess those Lone Star cops over there are going to have a thing to say about that. You have a Intimidation 6? Well, sorry you're still only Cha 1, so they're not scared." I've had WoD GMs that tried that line of reasoning. It was bunk back then and its still bunk. You paid points/cash/whatever for your abilities, you get to use them. Period. Sorry, but this a pet peeve of mine.

Anyway, wildly derailing agin. Wheeee! :/

Another thing to be discouraged is conformity. It might be that many people are just following charisma 1 because that's an accepted convention for twinks, they don't consider what it will mean in game. But it's just as bad to say "every character must have x stat at y value." There are certainly good arguments why you should always have at least 3+ charisma. But that doesn't mean we should punish you for not doing it. The system already punishes you if you have a low stat. If you have low charisma, you're not as good socially. Low strength, and you can't lift heavy things, etc. GMs don't need to have the police arrest you for having low charisma, since it already entails a disadvantage. 1 charisma characters are not getting something for nothing, they're sacrificing one thing for another thing. Springing hidden consequences on a character for making a build that follows the rules is the epitome of bad GMing.

I will never specifically target these weaknesses but I will also not ignore them.
If you're a very charismatic guy OOC that means nothing for the IC character.
If someone has a body of 1 they will get sick more easily if hanging around in the Barrens too long.
Having a charisma of 1 I will require checks to get info from a street contact, and they wil demand bigger payments.
Better not botch that gang etiquette test.
Having a willpower of 1 and you will easily follow other peoples lead and have rash impulses.
Having a logic of 1 and you have a hard time remembering peoples names, their interests, connections.

Good GMing takes these stats into account when they go aroung getting info, request contact favours, or go for a stroll through gang turf.
Someone with gang Etiquette 4 and Cha 4 will usually have his test handwaived, not so if he's only got 1 Cha and 1 Etiquette.

This is OT, but WtH. Agreed, hidden consequences suck. However, the disadvantages I outlined were lifted straight from the main rulebook so I wouldn't consider them hidden and I would have talked the character through with the Player and made sure he knew how things were likely to play out.

Let me try a different tack. There are 5 Humans walking down a deserted, dimly lit street at night. They aren't together and none of them lift their heads to look around. They all have identical attribs, skills, clothing and equipment but 4 of them have STR 11 and 1 of them has STR 1.

A ganger, down on his luck and looking to make a quick Yen is hiding in the shadows. He cases the street and makes a decision on whom to mug.

By your argument, the ganger choosing to mug the STR 1 human is the epitome of bad GMing because taking the mechanical hit of STR 1 is bad enough. Instead, the very best GMs will randomise who the ganger would attack.

I'm not convinced. Happy to agree to differ though.

Personally, I don't think your shadowrunners should be at risk of being mugged that often regardless of their strength.

Ditto shadowrunners randomly getting pulled over for being too ugly to walk the streets.

Then again, I believe most Shadowrunners should be living in Barrens or other DMZ areas where Johnny Law isn't a concern. Or, if they get good enough and rich enough, living in a AAA mansion and generally be called 'sir' when Johnny Law talks to them because damnit, they pay damn good money to keep the riff raff away, not to be treated like said riff raff. *


But living and working and walking in 'suburbia' or whatever? Yeah, right. The only time the Shadowrunners should be in areas like that is when they are working, and if you are regularly hitting them with random muggings, traffic stops and what have you, they'll likely get a bit frustrated that you are making things artificially hard on them while they are 'on the Run'.






*Well, think about it. You are a professional criminal with no (or possibly only a criminal) SIN, who probably has highly illegal 'Ware installed, might carry an illegal firearm or two. What the bloody tampon are you doing walking the streets with all those non-Shadowrunners who rightfully think Johnny Law is their friend and you are Public Enemy Number ONE? Of course if you couldn't get stupidly rich enough to trancend that, why bother getting a quater mil in implants to be at the top of your game?

@Wynters: I'm not trying to say that at all. I'm thinking more like if there's 100 people, and the police go "Hey, get that one charisma 1 guy about 30 meters to the left, no no, that one, sitting at that table, partially obscured by that bush! Get him!" That would be surprise consequences. Sure, if you're in a small group, and you stick out somehow, like you are filthy, or sickly, or have fish scales, you might get singled out. But that's not really something a player wouldn't expect. What a player wouldn't expect is more like being harassed in a crowded public area just because they have one low attribute.

I like this line.

There's a big difference between ignoring a weakness, letting a weakness ''do its thing'', and exploiting a weakness. If someone takes a Mild addiction to stim, ill play it like the book...the craving'll come up every few days/week(i usually run 4-7 days or so, depending.) Now, stuff happens..if they made their check on Thursday, but Friday ended up meeting in a high-end nightclub with lots of designer stim/party drugs around...i'd probably make them take another check, as they are in a high-impact area, so to speak. If i were to make them make checks daily or more than daily, well, they didn't buy Moderate or Severe, and i'd be an ass for exploiting it. So, i won't do that. I'll play it fair.

Likewise, a Cha 1 character will not be screwed all the time. Sometimes though, they might wish they were rolling more than their Cha 1 + Etiquette 2 to try to fit in. But i'm not going to make them be the party face.

I'm more concerned, in the end, if it's the character they see in their heads, and the numbers at least mostly make sense with their concept. If i see someone's gunbunny with Aptitude: Automatics, maxed Agility, Muscle Toner, skill recorder, the whole nine, whom they describe as being ''fairly stylish and pretty slick'', and they have a 1 Charisma, i might suggest they take the 25 points they got for maxing Agility, and stick a 3 Charisma there if that's what they want. One less die won't be that bad.

Again, i cant say it enough, maybe ive been blessed with the folks i game with. With so many suspicious GMs around(not targeting, but no matter where i go I see similar 'concerns for powergaming' and 'how to squelch it') i wonder just how many insane/munchy players there are. ive ran into a few, sure, but I dunno. Maybe they havn't found me yet. I guess because i havn't experienced it in droves, i find it tough to grasp.

*sigh* If you could point out the bit where I said it was in suburbia, the bit where I said I would regularly hit such players with muggings and the bit where I said this was happening on a run then your point will have some real validity.

Otherwise you might be thought to have conjured up a particularly obvious strawman to try and score faux-points against.
Ah, sorry. I misunderstood. That's a fair point you make.

Do you have to have said it was suburbia? Do you have to have said 'while on a Run'?

No.

Here is the thing: I don't know about your games, but when I sit down to play Shadowrun, the intent is to DO A SHADOWRUN. Not to talk about my imaginary character's imaginary girlfriend problems. Thus, if the GM is hitting me with law problems on a regular basis because I have a low Charisma that means he's probably doing it to me while my character is doing somethign 'run related'.

Ditto with muggings. I'm sorry, but again, I can walk down the street just fine in real life. That's not why I'm at a game table with dice and a book, I'm there to do stuff a little more.... exciting.

Now: If we assume (correctly most of the time) that shadowrunners are career criminals bordering on terrorists (and really, bordering is being generous), with no legal existance and a stunning collection of highly illegal equipment, not to include stuff permanently attached to their bodies, then we can assume that they spend most of their time in areas where they aren't going to SEE official law enforcement types much, just as a matter of self preservation. .01 essence street sams don't, generally, feel a burning urge to shop at Hot Topic in the mall for clothes. Even if they did, is that really what we play Shadowrun to do?

Thus: harrassing your players with random muggings and cop stops IS harrassing them because you don't like their choices in character design. Regardless of when or where.

Right above my quoted post, thats your answer to where you said that you would. YOU brought up the muggings, not I.






Though, given my general understanding of the psychology of muggers, I'm reasonably sure any shadowrunner (a person who has undoubtedly killed several people in the course of their career, even if they AREN"T the combat monster, and certainly expects to survive occasional firefights...) regardless of the low strength most muggers would avoid them like the plague. Muggers don't look at how strong you are, but how timid... and most runners I've heard of are not described thusly... though the relevance of that is hardly sterling.

I find it interesting that you make this statement and then immediately go on about exactly how you would target these weaknesses.



No, good Gming is where you treat all the Players the same. Low stat characters are already penalized when tests are made, and high stat characters already reap the benefits. There is no need to arbitrarily rule that one person must make a test in a non-test situation and then rule that another character does not need to make a test in a situation that actually requires a test. That is what the variable stats are there for in the first place.

Let them make the test, and if they fail, then they face the consequences. Punishing them arbitrarily without the benefit of a test, or having them make tests where none is normally required, is not necessarily a sign of a good GM, despite what you may think.

I agree that in stress situations most rolls will be made. Not even our Face player will get handwaived smoothtalking his way through a checkpoint.

BUT, when that same face (who has the appropriate knowledge/etiquette) goes and tries to get a meeting with a gang lieutenant later I do handwaive the Etiquette test and simply roleplay the conversation.
The low Cha player however will have to throw the dice first and the tone of that conversation will depend on its outcome.

This way of playing does demand trust in your GM and is not appropriate for each group.

The one thing I really like about SR4 rules is that it allows each group to play the game with a look and feel that they like.
We like it with less die rolling and more talks/politics, with an actual run about every 4 sessions and only occasional combat.
This also means that when everyone is accurately playing out their PC's stats, die rolls are rarely needed.
I'm sure other groups play it differently, that's what keeps these forums interesting after all .

and your typical troll as a cha of 1... think about it

The players the same, yes...the characters the same, no. It isn't particularly fair to expect the hacker to go on metaplanar quests, for example...but the mage may love doing them - just remember that there are other players at the table too.

and
"having them make tests where none is normally required, is not necessarily a sign of a good GM"
unless, say...they take Uncouth along with that Cha 1, which explicitly creates tests where none are normally required, because that would be the sign of a good GM...you know - one that knows and enforces the rules fairly.

interesting idea, however I dont know If that is what Charisma represent, I mean why a person charisma will affect his perception, I would agree on that if the character has absolutely no social skill or chars background represents him as a lonely no social person, but for me charisma represent the ability to deal with social situations and not necesarily that ones perceive them as something they are not. For instance he will probably be rude in his talks unless he efforce enough not to sounds like.

Still I find ur way interesting to deal with such a char.

and if I shoot the social encounters

Of course, we are specifically only talking about low Attributes, not Qualities. But that ties into the whole point. A character with a Charisma of 1 is not Uncouth (unless he also has the Quality), and should not be treated (or punished) as if he does possess that Quality. The game system already provides consequences for low-stat characters when they attempt actions related to those stats. There is no need for further arbitrary punishment over and above what is already built into the game.

Amen Fortune! (Seriously, you have to quit saying sensible things, that way I can claim the ideas as my own).

A low Charisma just means people can come to whatever conclusion they want about you and that there will be little you can do to affect that judgement unless you have a high enough skill rating to offset your low attribute when a test is called for. Since shadowrunners often misrepresent themselves or otherwise rely on deception to survive, that's a pretty bad penalty even without GMs arbitrarily deciding to dog anyone with a low Charisma on sight. A guy with 1 Charisma and no social skills can go into a restaurant and get a meal without causing a fuss as long as the waiter or other patrons don't have any particular reason to be biased against him. He's a patron, and patrons are supposed to be there. If a guy with 1 charisma and no social skills gets caught trying to sneak past a security checkpoint his ass will be grass because he's not supposed to be there and he doesn't have the Etiquette or Con skills necessary to convince anyone otherwise. Having a low Charisma is fine for most situations, but the situations where you have to "prove yourself" to others as a shadowrunner are often dangerous enough that inventing other ways to penalize low Charisma characters is unnecessary.

Re the whole random mugging punishment thing:

Not only is harassing your players kinda a bad idea in general, but isn't the idea of hitting them with random muggings to discourage them from having cha 1? And the reason you don't like cha 1 is that it's taken by twinks who are combat monsters, right? What kind of cha 1 character wouldn't lol at random muggings and have a great time slaughtering the gangers and selling their bodies? Seriously. A pure rollplayer twink would actually enjoy random muggings, you'd be rewarding him...

I totally agree with the people saying that if the person wants to be 'cool' and not somehow totally lame, they shouldn't be allowed to take cha 1. The way to handle charisma is to explain to the player that if they don't take charisma at least 3, they're going to have something unattractive about them. Most players don't want that, so they'll raise their cha. But some do, and you should let them.

Let me share a story from my SR3 days. I made a character named Mug. He had charisma 3, which was the lowest he could get as an elf. I gave him the uncouth, liar, and ugly and doesn't care flaws. He had a horrible, bug-eyed, fish-mouthed, scarred up face, which was generally hidden by a cowboy hat, big state trooper glasses, and a bandana around his neck (to hide his distinctive fish mouth on jobs). So he was a shady looking guy with a horrible monster lurking underneath the shady. He always had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and he never took it out, even to talk, so he generally just mumbled at people, and it was almost always profanity or provocation to fight.

Here's the kind of jobs Mug got: one day he went to his contact who was a mafia soldier asking for work. The soldier checked his contacts, and came up with a suicide mission: go to downtown Detroit where a guy is getting his hair cut at a barber shop, and kill him. Mug drove downtown in his stealth enabled sedan (morphing license places, chameleon plate, etc), rolled down the window, pointed his grenade launcher out the window, and fired an incindiary grenade into the barber shop, burning everyone inside to death, including the target. Then he went back to the docks, where he lived in a storage container, and bummed around in his car with his LMG and gyro on. When an investigator came looking for him, he cut him apart with autofire. When a spirit came, he cut that apart too. And nobody else came looking for him...

Mug was a great time. Everyone, including the GM, had a lot of fun with him, because he was such an awful, psychotic, over the top kind of guy. Why did I take such awful charisma? To be a twink? Nope. I later made a character who was just about as powerful, including 6's or 8's in every stat just like Mug, but had a 6 charisma and great social skills. Sometimes, low charisma can be one of the most fun things to happen to a gaming group. You shouldn't go around trying to squelch it, since it will alienate the players and maybe rob you of some great laughs.

Fortune:
I agree with you - but I've yet to see someone min-max like that without trying to double-down on their penalty. i.e Cha 1, uncouth, and no social skills usually, because "I'm not the face, I'll never use those skills."

It gets interesting when they try to buy something from other than a vending machine - because the face usually has better things to do than the sammy's shopping.

People who do this sort of thing tend to unbalance one specific aspect of the game (usually combat) leaving the GM to either kill everyone else at the table, or try to nudge him back toward sanity.



(for a similar case, see the "The Cain Challenge" thread where he posits an "unimprovable" character.)

Preach, brother. Low charisma characters are often the most outlandish and entertaining ones.

Think about the characters from the first Austin Powers movie. The vast majority of them, if you met them in the street, would be weird and off-putting; CHA 1. But Austin Powers made everyone laugh. The character of Austin Powers was better for only having CHA 1.

I'd like to think I'm a passable GM, and I do this sort of thing. Although, to be fair, I don't make people attempts tests that others don't, I say something along the lines of "Just buy the hits on that. What, you can't buy a hit? Okay, roll it."

It's the ability to read people and adapt on the fly that makes me think interrogation and *possibly* intimidation should be based off of intuition.

Charisma 1 has always been okay as long as Shadow Run has been around.

A Charisma of 1 has always been the typical rating of the entire troll meta-type (not just the gun bunny trolls but your average 'I work at Joe's Corner Store' trolls too.)

A Charisma of 2 by contrast is your average Orks Charisma. If you want to play an Ork that's a bit socially awkward by Ork standards a 1 is perfectly acceptable.

Fourth Edition has actually changed things up a bit in regards to how attributes work with penalties, a -2 Charisma for trolls now drops the cap down to 4 rather then forcing the character to dump 3 attribute points into Charisma just to have a 1.

All of this aside, exceptionally low or high attributes (for the meta-type) should always be explained in some way. The term dump stat is a power gamer term to begin with. If your players aren't picking stats based around a character concept then they're power gaming anyway.

As an example take the character concept I was playing with a bit ago. An Ork Desert Wars Vet. This guy's pretty young, only 22 years old. Enlisted as soon as he was legally able to. Signed up for a four year stint. He's spent four years of his life killing people for money, corporate interests, and the entertainment of the masses. Socially he's retarded, especially outside of a military life (Etiquette Military and Intimidation being his only social skills). He's cold, doesn't place much value on life, and has no idea how to relate to people who don't share similar life experiences. This doesn't mean he's retarded, this doesn't mean he doesn't KNOW that he can't relate to other people, this doesn't mean he doesn't KNOW he puts other people on edge. Unless this concept is coupled with a low intuition or logic he's probably going to be smart enough to keep his mouth shut most of the time. His job isn't dealing with people, he's not good at it and he knows that. He could have a whole network of contacts though he probably doesn't and each of his contacts would most likely share a military background. His contacts would probably have a lower loyalty rating then they would if he had a higher charisma but hey, that's part of the character concept. He certainly wasn't the most popular guy in his squad but that doesn't mean he wasn't respected... and that right there is pretty much the entire fallacy in the argument of the OP. Just because someone has a low Charisma doesn't mean they can't earn the respect of their peers and contacts.

Take the same character four years earlier, he may have been that annoying kid the other soldiers had to toughen up before he got killed. He may have gotten the facts of life beaten into his head by the other soldiers quite literally and he probably learned to keep his mouth shut because of it. Same Charisma of 1 manifested in a different way. The examples used to describe a low charisma are just that, they're examples, it doesn't mean the charisma 1 guy is all of those things.

Keep in mind that power gaming runs both ways too... an elf adept that rolls 18 dice on every social test is very easy to create using the rules in the core book and probably doesn't cost as many build points as you'd think, it's still power gaming.

It's a role-playing game and low stats add just as much and sometimes even more 'character' then high stats. It's up to the players and the GM to take advantage of that opportunity for good role-playing.

171 build points
Elf (30)
Adept (5)
Charisma 7 (40)
magic 5 (40)

Influence skill group 4 (40)
Intimidate 4 (16)

Adept powers (5 of 5 power points spent)
Improved Intimidate 2 (.5)
Improved Con 2 (.5)
Improved Negotiation 2 (.5)
Improved Leadership 2 (.5)
Improved Etiquette 2 (.5)
Kinesics 5 (2.5)

You get Cha (7) + Kinesics (5) + social skill (6) = 18 dice on all 5 social skills.

You can do the same with a Pheromones Adept as well if you want more magic points to play with by spending 9 more build points.

180 build points

Elf (30)
Adept (5)
Charisma 7 (40)
magic 5 (4) (40)

Influence skill group 4 (40)
Intimidate 4 (16)

Adept powers (2 of 4 power points spent)
Kinesics 4 (2)

Bioware
Tailored Pheromones 3 (45,000 or 9 bp)

You get Cha (7) + Kinesics (4) + social skill (4) + Pheromones (3) = 18 dice on all 5 social skills.

That isn't quite the same thing, as like you say, you don't single characters out to make tests in situations that other characters don't need to even think about (even with bought hits). Tests for everyone is fair (even if only buying hits), but arbitrary tests just because the GM doesn't like your stats isn't. If there is that much of a problem, the character shouldn't have been accepted for the game in the first place.

I generally agree with Fortune on this, but I think there are situations where I'd make exceptions.
Say you a player stats up this Jayne Cobb variant, combat monster with awful charisma and social skills. Depending on how well the player "remembers" to roleplay the char, I'd say that there might be certain situations where a quick dice-roll to see whether the guy blunders wouldn't be totally out of place.
Same as a Str 2 gunbunny who at some point decides to shoulder the prototype tank-engine and double-time out of the research complex.
Not out of spite, or because you're a "bad GM" that arbitrarily wants to "punish" a player for making choices that you don't like, but as a quick reminder of character-consistency.
Much like with flaws/neg. qualities, low atrributes should not mean that a GM has to single out a character all the time.
Just like it doesn't make sense that suddenly, every sec-guard shoots silver bullets, or every run takes place in underwater-facilities with permanent daylight, low charisma should not mean that a character can't get work because even the rats spit on him.
But, again, just like with flaws, if the choices a player makes in character creation are without any meaningful effect in the game, then the whole thing becomes somewhat pointless.

Just my oh point oh nuyen.

Yes, back when they got a penalty rather than a lower cap.

If a player was willing to put the 2 required stat points into charisma to counter the -2 penalty in earlier versions, they should be willing to part with 1 stat point in SR4.

The difference there being that in SR2/3 they were REQUIRED to put points into charisma because you couldn't start with a stat at 0 or below, whereas now they have the OPTION of raising a stat they don't want/won't use/don't need/whatever. Option > Requirement in my book.

Then have fun with your rolls when trying to get better pay in your social encounter with Mr. Johnson, or trying to convince your contacts to cut you a price break on that shiny new gizmo they just acquired, etc. etc.

I suppose I was a bit misleading with my first post. I'm not going to go out of my way to invent problems for my PCs. I'll stay within the framework of the adventure that I made before even seeing the characters involved. I will, however, make sure they don't get a free pass for having a 1 in an attribute by just ignoring all situations that might give them trouble. If you make that conscious decision during character creation, then live with the limits that it places on you. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? It's going to depend on the adventure and probably on a situation by situation basis.

You have the OPTION of not buying bullets for your gun...does that mean the GM should ensure there won't be any gunplay until you get around to it?

If someone makes a character with charisma 1 and no social skills they're inviting problems, just like the guy with no ammo. A charisma 1 character that isn't defaulting should have the occasional problem, but they're not deliberately handicapping themselves.

But you're adding the 'No Social Skills' into the equation. IIRC, the original question (and what I personally have been discussing) is only concerning characters with a Charisma of 1, with no mention of Social Skills.

yeah. i mean, if i were min-maxing, i might get 1 Cha and, say, 2 etiquette. that gives me three dice in most social situations--i'm not gonna be winning friends, and legwork's definitely not my thing, but i can get by. and the points i didn't spend on being more likeable, i likely put towards whatever my specialty is--combat, magery, whatever. if there's a serious social encounter, well, i'll be at a disadvantage, just as if the team's face will be at a disadvantage in a firefight compared to the street sam or the combat mage.

now, if the whole team has 1 Cha and 2 etiquette, they're probably going to encounter issues. they're not going to get paid what they're worth, generally, because they probably won't be able to build as good a reputation as they deserve, and their screw-ups aren't likely to be forgotten or forgiven.

but in the end, having 1 Cha isn't necessarily a huge issue, any more than it's a huge issue to have 1 in any other stat. yes, there are situations where having that low stat will hurt you, but the GM shouldn't need to go out of his way to hammer a character with a low stat.