So, yesterday was the character creation section for my new SR4 game. Much BSing and chatting ensued, but by the end of the session, we had a group that, while a bit magic heavy, looks fairly solid. Not really min/maxed, just solid.

Except for that one guy...

In all my years of GMing (going on 19), I've never encountered a player that specifically wanted a really gimped character. I've seen sucky characters before, but there was always something the character was very good at that made them useful to have around.

Now one of my players is determined, I think, to make a seriously gimped character.

He wants someone who's really Lucky and relies on his Luck to get him through, well, just about everything. He knows the character's Luck won't hold out forever; he actually wants the character to get injured so the other characters "have to carry him out."

He's supposed to be a B&E Adept, but he's looking at 6-7 dice on the few skills he does have. He has no ranged combat, at all. He has no social skills. He has pathetic contacts. The only things the character seems to have going for him are his luck (Edge 6), his speed (Imp Reflexes 2), fair Dodge (9 DP gymnastic full defense), and his Unarmed Combat (9 DP, killing hands, critical strike 1).

Then there are the personality "quirks" which I don't really feel the need to get into since they're just fluff ("I'm not of the Earth! I'm from another dimension.") In other words, he's both batshit loco and useless. Not to mention that his character inspirations include Bilbo Baggins and Longshot (Marvell comics)...

I'm a softy. There. I said it. I venomously hate to just kill characters, but I really think this guy is going to be a liability for the rest of the group. I mean, a B&E guy that isn't good at what he does? That's not going to go well.

The rational thing would be to let him make some tweaks to the character after he sees what he can do in play. Unfortunately, I don't think anything short of the character getting wacked is going to change the player's mind.


-paws
Fighting a migraine.

It happens. I've dealt with ludicrous character concepts like "dwarf lawyer who is also an explosives hobbyist". My suggestion? Don't do a damn thing about it. I believe that players have the right to play any kind of character the way they wish. But if he's as useless as you say he is the other players will turn on him when he starts costing them Karma or nuyen. Or you could say he's ineligible for certain Karma points because his character didn't pull his weight. Eventually he'll get the hint and you won't end up looking like a dictator.

Why should I share my pay with an incompetent lunatic? He apparently can´t fight (3 IP for mediocre-at-best gymnastics dodge, nice), and his tech skills didn´t even make it into the description. Six time per run he can reach expected samurai dicepool levels, how impressive.

Contrary to Wesley I think you should discuss your respective goals for the current campaign. Playing the mascot of the group gets old fast, almost as fast as bored players get annoying.

Let him just play.
From how you describe him...he may call himself whatever he wants...B&R expert...a transdimentional interloper...
What he IS is a light and fast brawler more concerned on the "don't get hit" side of the sport.
I don't think you should concern yourself about his usefulness; let the squad roleplay that...if his's a liability, what will the others do?
If he can't survive, will the others let him die? or will they run to his rescue? will they do it EVERY time?
Or will he turn out to be quite survivable BUT a trouble for the OTHERS?

<Ok, I'm past the no-return point...we have to get in FAST or we're screwd...is the door open already?>
< ... err ... >


The important thing is to clearly keep Players and Characters separated, and spot any sign of foul play.
If he dies, or if he screws the others up...it all has to be an IN-GAME thing, not some kind of player-vs-player fuck up.
If handled right, a gimper character can bring lots of fun to all the group
Maybe try working out some reason WHY a squad of expert runner would ever want to hire such a moron.
Meybe he's the brother of one of them?
Or he presented a very good resumee, that they will LATER find is not too accurate?

Make it an opportunity, not a problem ^_^

My wonderful wife (playing the group's Former DocWagon Mage) suggested that I should take a Darwinian approach and let natural selection take its course. Tailor the mission difficulty to the rest of the group and if the gimp can't keep up, well... splat.

At least I managed to come up with a decent reason why the character has Street Lifestyle: He literally just stepped off the plane (or T-Bird, more likely). He just hasn't had time it establish a Lifestyle yet. Of course, I think he's expecting the other PCs to let him crash on their couch for a while before he buys one...

Oh, and his B&E abilities include Locksmith 2, Hardware 2(3), and Logic 3. He has Athletics Group 2, Stealth Group 2, and Agility 5, for his more physical-oriented skills. He could be a so-so second-story man. Maybe...

I forgot to mention the first two things I managed to talk him out of: Body 1 and Uneducated.

-paws

Explain the concept of your game and the manner of the group dynamic. Leave him fully aware of what he is doing. Till you are certain he understands you don't know if it is a mistaken approach. Once your clear your player understands and has made his choice you can choose to veto the character if you believe it will ruin your game.
Study all the angles before you decide to do the big bad NO but really having one character that could wreck a game due to a lack of planning and therefore everyones fun is not worth it.

oh my god, it's a member of the stormwind fallacy x.x . .

If the character is being played as a very talented kid, kind of like an apprentice to the other runners, that could be cool.

If he is played as a grownup, it would be a shame if the character tripped and fell on a bullet or five.

That an average professional - what's so wrong about that?


Meh, YAMA.


Most of the archetypes have neither.


Sounds like he actually read the Attribute and Skill descriptions...

First thought is that this only works if the party uses player knowledge. I.E, its a PC so therefore we have to take him.

Second, What is the players motivation?

If it is comedy, then I say go ahead and let him have fun. This character won't last one way or the other.

If it is to experience a butterfly effect, where they change from the gimp to pimp, then that's cool too.

But, if it is to draw attension to themselves, the it might become a problem. Think about it. Anytime there is a group action which requires a check, he will most likely fail. This means the party will always have to deal with his failure.

If the party is full of nice guys:

Soon when they plan out missions, it will be all about how they can help is butt sneak in. Protect him when things start to go south. The party basically would be babysitting this character.

Otherwise:

After the first mission where they had to save his butt, they will take action so that doesn't happen again. However they do this, it means a new character.

Now my question is how much time and energy do you spend with others character creation. If your players are like mine, then you spend several hours talking about the characters, where they plan on going, what their goals are. It would be a real waste of time to do that for a shortlived character.

Digesting the other comments, thought I'd answer this though...



I didn't have to spend too much time explaining the world - we all played SR3 together (half dozen adventures or so), so they pretty much got it. Everyone spent time reading the Denver handout and flipping through the book trying to get a feel for the 2070's.

There was a huge amount of BSing since it'd been about 2-3 months since we last sat down to play. But, once we actually got down to putting numbers on the paper, it went pretty quickly. About 3 hours.

The B&E guy was the last character I audited, since the other players had to leave early. We hashed and re-hashed him a couple times.

hey, if thats what the player wants, give it to him. his character is obviously going to need a high level of skill and finess to pull off, and he seems willing to live with the concequences.

I'm in favor of letting the characters play the types of characters they want to play, within reasonable limits. Partly because I played with a GM years back that would kill characters he deemed "worthless." By worthless, it was simply the "tough enough" or "not tough enough" test, regardless of the role in the group. As you can guess, not many deckers ever got played. Ever since then, I've detested the idea of the GM determining the usefulness of a character. A character not fitting the constraints of the game, such as a mage in a non-magic game or something is one thing, but deciding whether a character should be played because his skills aren't high enough is another.

Now a group deciding that the PC doesn't fit is a whole other issue. I once played in a street level game where we decided that no one was going to have a stat above 3 or skill above 4 initially and light pistols were the top hardware that we carried. One player, also the previously mentioned GM, joined in a week or two later and his character carried an Ares Predator. The group refused to call his character for anything because his character was "too hardcore for us."

In my current group, we're all sort of there because gaming is a cheap hobby compared to other stuff we've tried in the past. A couple of us are just getting back into gaming after a 10+ year break and the rest are playing for the first time (all but one of us is married and has at least 2 kids). I can tell you that any one person baring another from playing the character he wanted to play would be met with, "No problem, I'm here for fun and not gaming specifically and since I can't have it, I've better things to do." We can't really afford to lose anyone so we'll put up with some excess here and there. Granted, since we're all in the 28-32 age group, even the excess we endure from time to time isn't that bad.