That you see something as catering only to munchkins indicates that you've had bad experiences which taint your judgement. I won't force you to play with one, but don't ban them from other tables.

The problem I see - and why I am against these PC options altogether - is that I will have to fight them off and get into arguments a lot because "it's a legitimate character option! IT'S IN THE RULES!" I had more than my share of these already, and I don't appreciate them one bit.

And with vamps and dragons as PC (assuming the dragons weren't an april fool's, which I still think they are), it's going to get a LOT worse. Especially vamps and dragons, actually. I'd be happy to see rules for playable Naga or Sasquatches or crested barbarians. Just not these two. They're both too overpowered and carry too much emotional and fluff baggage with them.

Yeah, that may be bad experience on my part, but I'd be very surprised if I'd be the only person to have made that experience. And what's next? Horrors? Passions? Totems?

What part of "You as the GM can say no to PC dragons in your game" do you not understand?

Just because it's in an OPTIONAL book in no way makes it REQUIRED. In that same vein, I'd just as soon that you shush about taking options away from a game I might run at my table. You use the options you like at your table, I'll use the ones I like at my table. Let Catalyst decide what options to give ALL of us gamers.

What options I choose to use / make available at my table is NEVER your decision unless you are the GM at my table. It wouldn't be my table then, now would it if you got to choose what options I used as GM.

I won't say it's rare, but it is a player issue not a rules issue. Those players will find ways to be disruptive no matter how you try to limit the setting, so they should not be the primary consideration of what rules to author. I don't have a solution to problem players like that which doesn't involve a tension or gravitationally powered artillery device, if I did I could sell it and make some good money.

What part of "thanks for the munchkin fanservice, I just love long arguments about why one optional rule can be used and another cannot" is so hard to understand? And yes, Dragon and Vampire PC are munchkin fanservice and offer very few non-munchkin/sue character possibilities.


Uhm, balancing IS an issue worth thinking over, don't you think? And that has also to consider how the in-game world reacts to character options. Also, while it should not be the first and foremost concern, making rules, optional ones included, not too easy to abuse is part of good rules design, too.

And for the record: I still think dragon PC are an april fool's. Vamps aren't sadly.

Balancing is a game issue. You haven't seen all the proposed rules, you don't know if they are balanced well, you assume they can't be.

You also assume that only munchkins will ever have any interest in using such rules.

Any viable munchkin will look at the costs, and see easily that they can get twice the twink out of a human (or at least that's how SR3 worked) and then find some odd rules to become an immortal dragon-eater or something.

You assume that balancing won't happen during game design at Catalyst?

We got to wait and see what they make of it. If my group won't like it - we won't use it. In the end RPGs are a social game, and most of a tables problem originate in that fact.

What's a Mary Sue?

Although Hermit, my advice to you as a GM is to be more draconian. House rules are the rules, player. Like it or act like it. Or find another game.

Sure. But rules that will cause problems with more or less pacified munchies aren't really rules I totally appreciate. And trust me, they will.


And then she will whine at her boyfriend,a player I'd like to keep around, who will try to persuade me to let her have her vampire sex monster girl dragon phoenix shaman (char image would be either yuma from FF10 or some random gothy girl). And then we will get into an argument, players will choose sides and my group will split, all because someone thought vampires should be legal as PC because the more SR is like D&D where you can play the most absurd things the better.

Yeah, I will ban it. But it will cause me problems I won't appreciate having, just because this rule exists (and it remains unescessary)


Mary Sue is to fan fiction what the munchkin is to tabletop gaming. The ultimate nemesis.

Mary Sue

Let's ignore the dragons for a moment, how exactly is a vamp overpowered?

Really, in a game with BP cost for race options something like "overpowered" is not a valid argument. If it is powerful, make it cost accordingly. No big deal. It's not like we are gonna start a first level group in D&D and one of the players is gonna play a mature gold dragon, or something.

btw, hermit, you should read the link AH posted. It might help you get a grasp on the Mary Sue concept, so will stop abusing it by calling things you dislike Mary Sue.

I'd say that with Immortal Elves, and Great Dragons, we already have lots of Mary Sues in Shadowrun. And I'd rather deal with a munchkin at the table who wants to run a powerful player character than a dragon/elf fanboy who tries to run my NPCs for me.

@AH: Thanks for the linkage.


It caters more to fan fiction, but especially angsty sues are common among characters of a certain type of player. Yes, I know that article.

well i dont think the RC will hold rules for playing either immortal elves or great dragons.

the dragon rules presented a clearly for the non-great variant.

I feel sorry for you, having such fragile control over your group that an optional rule can splinter it... In every game I've ever played though, the GM makes decisions and the players respect them, especially when they're about whether to use optional rules that have a big disclaimer about how carefully the GM must think before allowing them in.

But it comes down to what Catalyst has said many times: they can't design a game that will make everyone happy. I think most people will be happy with optional rules that they can choose whether or not to bring in. Only a few people will actually suffer negative consequences from deciding whether or not to include them.

I for one am glad that they're thinking about offering us some optional player races that aren't sucky. SR3 Companion had ghouls and shapeshifters; the former was ridiculously crappy, and the latter was ok but still generally a lot worse than any PC. My theory is, if they're going to offer optional races, let them be worth using!

Uhm ... you do realise these rules make dragons as viable for PC creation as any metahuman or norms? Besides, GDs and IEs are NPC only and novel/plot devices, nothing anyone can argue he has a right to bring to the table.


While it's possible to ghimp them in 4, SR3 vamps are just below dragons in threat rating.


Seriously, I don't think that offering vastly powerful new races will enrich the game, it will only make for more and more absurd characters (like a surge of shadowrunning dragons).

Unfortunatly Angsty Sue does not cover the vampire emo guilt spectrum. unless the vampire never actually did the stuff he feels angsty about.

If the vamp killed people and feels guilty and whines about it, he's emo. If he feels guilty of killing people, but never killed anyone, then he is an Angsty Sue. Notice the difference? That's why your use of the term is flawed, if not wrong.


How so? I'm curious.

Yes, I know. I just think that Great Dragons and Immortal Elves are the authors' Mary Sues, so I don't really see "Dragon PCs are Mary Sues" as an argument against Dragon PCs.

It's still an optional rule. And as I have said - I expect the Dragons as a whole, Greats, PCs, NPCs, to be less mythical and less hyped once they can be played (and killed).

And that's something I like.

ah, my bad then

You might think so, but plot devices are not Mary Sues. Especially IEs as portrayed are not even close to Mary Sue.

What kind of new trend is this anyhow to horribly abuse this term?

hows this for a quick "law":

any literary term will be abused, and abuse badly, sooner rather then later.

You're not helping.

no-one said i should be

Read liberally, the term Mary Sue can cover anything that isn't a regular person where nothing interesting happens to them. Technically, you and I are not Mary Sues, because we have normal lives that involve school, work, family, etc. The term, which criticizes the angsty nature of RPG characters and fanfic, cuts in an opposite and equally horrible direction, telling us that in order to not be generic, we must be really, truly, and incredibly boring.

I say take it for what it's worth: jack-all. Especially in Shadowrun, where we're not even publishing what we create. It affects nobody whether your characters are considered Mary Sues or not; the term, in an RPG context, is nothing more than an insult to throw at someone who makes a character you don't like.

hmm, larme may very well have a point there.

Yepp, go Larme!

I thought that "Munchkin", "powergamer" or "WoD-fan" were the accepted SR-terms for "character concepts I dislike".

Cry me a river.

I use that term as I have seen it used repeatedly - as a term to denore OVERLY special, glorigfied, powered and attention-seeking characters. Kind of like Munchkin Plus, really, though mary sues can also work purely on a social, no RAW included, basis (anti-sues and pity sues are pretty common too, in my experience).

I'm not crying, I'm just explaining the significance of the term, as I see it.

If you mean "OVERLY special, glorigfied, powered and attention-seeking characters," why not use some of those words? Mary Sue is a loaded term. As you can see, using it is more likely to spur an argument over what it means than it is to spur debate about something relevant. It carries such a negative connotation, the other side's gut reaction will be "NUH UH!!" rather than something reasoned or useful. All's I'm saying is that if you want to criticize a character, use words with a definite meaning. Don't just insult them with a derogatory term and act like you've proved something. In an argument, you should describe your substantive ideas; don't say "this is stupid," tell us what's wrong with it and SHOW us that it's stupid. Don't call something Mary Sue, tell us what's wrong with us and we'll get the message much more clearly.

Fine, I thought that term was self-explanatory enough. So vampires and dragons (and technomancers and drakes, to a very slightly lesser extent) are, except in specialised campaigns, OVERLY special, glorigfied, powered and attention-seeking characters, always claiming the spotlight, massively influencing storylines just by favor of their race (hunted as they are, or revered, or both) that I honestly see as something attracting a certain kind of player and pretty much that only. And that I think impossibel to integrate into an ordinary group without the above mentioned issues.

Same can be said about anything above Joe Average.

can someone just call someone else a n@zi so this will die please?


Seems like every forum I've been on lately has "term wars" the definitions of power gamer, rules lawyer, and what have you has been fought over again and again.

*draws a deep breath*

Ok, I will risk it. Everyone opposed to the very idea of dragon, vamp, shapeshifter, whatever PC is a f@shist RPG n@zi. HA!

It's true, I am.
But I also make the dice roll on time.

So do others.

If you run a joe average campaign, where everything s capped at 4 and only perfectly legal cyber ois available, yes, it would apply to common runners. However, tat's not the default game, is it?

Also, if that makes me a rules nazi, so be it.

You are hereby banished to Elba for responding too literally to my crack at Mussolini having "made the trains run on time", as the proverb goes.
Psh.

i got it
and laughed

Default game? The archetypes in the BBB are so varied, talking about "default" seems kind of odd.


Last I heard Elba is quite nice this time of the year...

It does? Then maybe read the BBB again. What's a default game is described in there. Also, no, no pages. I'm lazy and all, y'know ...

Yeah, the default game with occult investigator, ganger, enforcer, eco shaman and weapon specialist on the same team just sounds so... right, does it not? Oh, right, it doesn't. Almost as if your utterly free to set the tone of the game, meaning there is no default.

Damn, you're quite right. I had no idea what Elba actually LOOKED like (outside of paintings) until just now. I gotta get my ass exiled for a month or two.

Also, for the record? I think that group of archetypes would be awesome.

Runner Companion is an optional supplement, just like Street Magic, Augmentation, Runner's Havens... are. You do not have to accept the use of these books within your campaign.

And that's the way it should work. Options for people who want options. Just because someone feels that including dragon or vampire pcs, hell, for that matter ghouls or shapeshifters (why are they allowed but not dragons or vampires, I wonder?) changes the scope of their game, that does not mean that they should have a say on how I choose to run my game. Using the rules given, I've already written up a dragon pc and found that he was a very interesting concept - one that would require an optimized campaign, yes, but they'd be an interesting addition to the normal SR runs.

Hermit, I said this to you before - you need to come to some sort of resolution with Drake Girl. Maybe you can drain her of this love for wacky, special K characters by doing one shots or a high powered campaign? Maybe you can find a game more suitable for her (for instance, both old White Wolf games, but you can play dragon-esque characters in Werewolf: the Apocalypse (the Mokole) or Exalted (the Dragon Kings). Work with her, not against her, and maybe the loggerhead will come to an end.

Or, and this is the last resort solution - ask her to leave the game. If the boyfriend leaves..well, it sounds cold, but it's dragging your games down. You can either be unhappy with your game, or you can improve your game.

Personally, I'm a bigger fan of finding the compromise between you both. My girlfriend likes to play wacky and wild characters (her last being a pixie in a Forgotten Realms campaign, with all of the things that go with that) but right now her character is a just out of prison ex-Mafia guy trying to pull together his family and their control over the local underworld. Try and compromise, and you may find a player actually worth having at your table.

Hey man, you're the one who used this to debase other peoples arguments about dragons. I was simply pointing out the flaw in your argument... which seemed to imply that the dragon should have masking and thus shouldn't worry about awakened finding out about the pc's draconic nature. 'what a n00b btw', your words not mine.

What flaw? I said exactly what you said and my argument is flawed? Dude. "What a n00b" did not mean he is a moron, just inexperienced. You know, that's what n00b actaully means.

To restate it: He will get spotted by some people who bother to look unless he learns Masking metamagics. So what, who cares, no big deal.

F*cking Internets, can't have a discussion without someone getting hung up on a word that did not mean anything at all.

Resolution has been found, and it did involve kicking Drake Girl, yes. Howevr, she used to be a decent player before all this wild stuff was introduced, so ... meh.


There's no arguing or compromising with some people, sadly. Oh well. Just pisses me off, anyway.


How exactly does that sound not right? Malicant, don't try to pretend your opinion is somehow meaningful. If you feel that either everything should go or everyone should have the same stats, fine, find a system that caters to that (I recommend CP2020 for the latter and D&D for the first). Just don't pretend your personal opinion is somehow more than that, because it isn't.

Those examples, although awesome as hell, have little in common. A team needs common ground and defines the tone and direction of the campaign. How an alcoholic, street thug, made man, terrorist and mercanary fit togheter in one team for more than one job is kind of weird. If they were real people they would not have much contact with each other. Some of them, sure, but all of them? No.

But alas they are not real and players rarely have a motivation embedded into their characters beyond "wants money and karma".

Yea, and it is really getting annoying. A person has problems dealing with his group and blames some aspect of the game (which is completly unrelated, but a nice scapegoat) for it. Or people on a forum who disagree with him. Which might be the cause of the problems within his group - inablility to accept other peoples ideas about how they play a game.

Getting close to swirlers request now, so I'll stop

"Munchkin", "powergamer" or "WoD-fan" were the accepted SR-terms for "character concepts that make me feel inadequate".