Well, I'm bored so I'm going to do some math and see what I come up with.

According to Runner's Companion, a pixie averages in height at 45 cm (18 inches aprox.) with 1 meter wings (39 inches aprox.). A Barbie doll is universally 11.5 inches so a more appropriate comparison would be an American Girl doll which is 18", though a pixie wouldn't be as stocky (unless it has issues with carb consumption). An American Girl doll, which is hollow plastic, weighs 1.11 ounces so that doesn't really help. A newborn baby is typically 96 ounces so playing it conservatively I think you could cut that in half to 50 ounces for a pixie. A modern sub-compact pistol weighs 12 ounces which would be the equivalent to a 84 pound M2 Browning for a human.

So... I believe if a pixie had a modified sub-compact pistol it could fire a 9mm slug while lying prone using a bipod and some sort of recoil comp. While you probably won't see any pixie street samurai one could theoretically lie on a high bookshelf and cap targets in the head.

Could some one explain to me why a troll wouldn't get himself a pistol that shoot something like .50BMG or .600 Nitro Express and is for his troportions pretty much same sized than a heavy pistol is for a human.

Game balance?

Ooo! I want to mount two heavy machine guns to the flanks of a centaur!

'cause he can just use a Thunderbolt or Savalette Guaridan, a sawn off shotgun, an SMG or something like that and due to his sheer size and strength he'd be getting points of recoil compensation as per arsenal-rules again.
because for him? yes, those are pea-shooters . .

fully automatic shotguns ^^

How much recoil comp do four hooves give you?

if you put in gecko-tape and foot-anchors in all 4, that there's 4 points of recoil compensation and if i remember gecko stuff correctly in this case no knockback from heavy weapons either . .

Love the book. As a GM I'm especially a fan of all the Infected rules.

The characters in our street-level game are switching over to the karma system for more versatility and less specialization in their characters. We're using 500 karma because, as mentioned, 750 is obscene. Still, a great system.



-Matthew

Let me just state for the record that I in no way insinuated a gun wielded by a pixie would fire anything approaching conventional ammunition based on a lead ball round.

Pixies should just get lasers with Restricted Gear!

By the rules, that doesn't matter. A hold-out loading Stick-and-Shock does exactly the same damage as a machine gun firing the exact same ammo type.

And the cheap movement stabilizers used for photography in Arsenal that can't handle recoil.

Some good. Some bad. Some very, very ugly.

SURGE? Come on guys! Every munchkin who purchased this supplement is popping a boner whenever they walk within 3m of their hard drive, fer chrisakes.

For what it's worth I would have a pixie scale pistol/rifle/shotgun do 1L, 2-3L for a pixie scale assault cannon/rocket launcher.

Until they read that little line that recommends that the GM should chose the drawbacks if he feels the played is trying to munchkin the system.

what are we talking here, toy soldiers?!

nah, i'd sooner do that with really small walker drones ^^

And unfortunatly, in SR4, there's lot's of the latter.

So far, my group has talked about getting a four-armed bright red-skinned AR Adept Hacker, a Parapalegic Rigger, an Ogre Animal Control agent, and "Angus Dagnabbit" the Scottish Fomori.

Not even a hint at SURGE yet. And some likes their numberin'.

http://www.vincelewis.net/60magnum.html

Geeze I don't even know how you could consider that a hand gun. I mean it is basically a six shooter elephant gun.

I read about another model, 5 shooter with the same calibre, called "Kodiak". We use it in our campaign.

Troll-Handgun
http://www.2dayblog.com/images/2007/july/l..._revolver_1.jpg
and while i am at it allready:
http://www.myconfinedspace.com/watermark.p...tyle-sights.jpg
there were others, making the barret light 50 into handgungs, but sadly, i can't seem to find them online anymore . .

Oh... lord.

And here I thought my ideas were insane...

Also, easy way for troll 'pistols' is take the Ares Desert Strike, lop off the stock and barrel. Heck, make it have burst fire, and just use an extended clip and gas vent as equipment instead of mods.

Edit:
http://airbornecombatengineer.typepad.com/...eactionhold.jpg
Thats not it, is it?

looks a little bit like the .50BMG mini-Nuke-Delivery-System . . and yes, you read that right, and no, your ideas aren't even in the same realm as insane in this case . . those ideas of birdman and that big huge ass revolver go from awesome straight round the world once and come back from the other side of cool again ^^

While we're on the ideas of insane guns, how about...


http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/7391/pribor3bhy1.jpg

Pribor-3B Meroka

... But how the heck would you stat it?

Nice one.
To stat it, i'd have to know how it works and what that thing is supposed to be?

that looks as if someone had tried to build an AK74 with 3 barrels and clips O.o
basically, 3 AK's held and fired by one handle/trigger . . i'd probably treat it akin to the sakura firestorm weapon from SR4, but with damage and reach of assault rifle . .

Umm...yeah. Now, really. How many GMs, in all honesty, have the balls for that? Putting up with a whiny bitch player for a few hours is usually more than enough to make most GMs fold like a punk once the other players start whining about the whiner.

Seriously, though, how good are options that you never use? We buy splatbooks because we want to add things to our games. If the book is loaded with things we can't/won't use, how good is it?

The books are not only for us players to twink out our characters with but also for the GM's to get more options and to get a view into how the world functions. Also, it gives flavor.

Besides, never underestimate security forces on Segway Terriers...

Since runner never EVER will get their hands on a nuclear submarine doesn't mean that the GM might need one for a game.

Different people use different options.

True, but does it belong in a core sourcebook? Shouldn't the book focus on things players and GM's are likely to need, and save the more esoteric stuff for more optional supplements?

Wrong question. Do you have to consider a book that provides tons of flavour options core or optional? My player base suggests that "core" is core-rect (Sorry): karma-based generation, new qualities, detailed lifestyles, in one case race.

First of all, you get a spanking for a bad pun.

Second, I don't have RC, so I can't comment on what the balance is like. (I live in a small town, and I refuse to buy pdfs unless they'ye printer-friendly. I was blacklisted from one print shop due to a Fanpro book.)

However, based on the comments I've seen, there's a fair chunk of material that everyone is saying "Not in my games!" to. Based on that, wouldn't you say some of the more esoteric and broken options could have waited, and instead gone into greater detail on material people will actually use?

The problem is that "Not in my Game" might not be everyone and what the "not in my game" people say about one thing might be a completely another thing for the "In my game" folks.

For example - You practically have to play a "pink mohawk" game to be able to play excessive changeling people/shifters due to the physical changes to many of them (6 arms, octopus head etc) as they can hardly be inconspicious in the game...

Then we have the people who only play high end games with LOTS of spec op teams and each game is basically a version of "Ronin" while others play more mid/low level games with lots of visible cyber...

Me, I would love to play a free spirit but keep them balanced for street level games, same goes for shifters and suchlike without they being shafted because they forgot to get masking or that they are hunted etc.

A good example of being constantly in danger is the Spirit Formula - Basically you ALWAYS have a hidden slave contract bound to your very aura that anyone with a bit of magical knowledge and skill might use to control you.

Yeah, give it to me. I deserve it, I have been bad knowingly.

I think you will at some time in the future be glad that you bought the book. There is a ton of options in there that will not be used for each of us, but at the same time everyone gets something from the book. Yes, had I decided to produce such a book, the pages would have been distributed differently. Yet the options I want to use have enough detail.

Put me out there as someone who says, "Sure!" to pretty much anything but shifters - and that includes the April Fool's dragon rules. I like options as both a player and a GM because it reflects how varied the Sixth World really is. Sticking them in a corebook tells the players that yeah, it's not just some optional stuff Catalyst thought to throw in there and is actually considered part of the game if you choose to make it as such. Stuff it in a random supplement down the line and some people might not even know it's there, y'know?

Reason #3 why I don't run "open" games at the FLGS anymore: Disruptive Players. Even if that player somehow got a seat at my table, that'd be the last time he'd be invited to play.

-paws

That's funny. Of the alternate character types, shifters are the one with which I take the least exception. That includes metavariants. Changelings are generally ok, too, I suppose.

I'm good with changelings in my game for the same reason I like the metavariants. Canonwise, it's not that big of a surprise to me that over the countless centuries since the 4th World, genetics and magic triggers would get borked up along the way. Hell, it could just be one or two triggers that are unleashed *now*, and in another few years maybe those Type 1 changelings will further shift into a full race. You never know. Plus, I really loved Year of the Comet.

Out of canon, I think that changelings and metavariants allow for some variety after years of Joe McElf and Toughster the Troll. A player would have to seriously justify having one of those four-armed variants walking around in Boston...but then, I've already thought kind of deep on the suggestion to have fomorae working for the Irish mob in Boston.

AIs, Free Spirits, Drakes and Dragons - they have their place. And they're further guidelines for making NPCs with. And from what I've heard, Free Spirits aren't that terribly unbalancing to have in your group. Haven't seen much Dumpshock chatter on AIs though.

For shifters - might just be too much nostalgia and burn out from playing Werewolf: the Apocalypse for so long. I want to play my Corax again

I will likely create a koborokuru character next. Never came around to doing that under SR3.

Whiners get kicked to the curb in my games. Or I pack my stuff and go home; let the players fight it out. I put in too much prep time to deal with that nonsense. My rule of thumb is, if rules are listed in a core rule book or errata and they doesn't conflict with the game mechanics they stay as-written. I'm creative enough to make any wacky concept work, be they pixies with octopus tentacles to walrus SURGE victims.

How do you deal with rules lawyers and power munchkins? They stay within the letter of the rules.

Cain, quit thread chasing poor Wes or I'll beat you with a wet noodle. He has enough to contemplate in the compromise thread.

I'm not clear on what a "power munchkin" is but as for rules lawyers, if they're right and have the rules to back their case that's cool with me. It drags the game in places but once a ruling is cleared up (and I'm always willing to admit that I'm wrong) it usually goes on pretty smoothly. But if a rules lawyer wants to act like a dick and rub everyone's face in his knowledge he can go. No dickery, even if technically you're right. Because no one likes a dick.

Honestly, a little rules lawyer-ing isn't a bad thing sometimes. Just be friendly and polite and non-whiny.

In college, we had the Jimmy-Kickin' Rule. You can do whatever you like within the letter of the rules, but if you're obviously being a munchkin or twit, or otherwise violating the spirit of the game or of gaming in general, you still get to do it but we (the other players) reserve the right to kick you in the jimmies.

This rule applied equally to players and GMs.

A munchkin is basically a type of problem player. They come in various flavors, but a power munchkin is one who amasses as much power as possible, in order to "win" the game. However, you did answer my question: if they're actively causing problems, you throw them out. That's perfectly fine.

But the trickier question is this: what happens when someone min/maxes out a character that leaves everyone else feeling powerless? This doesn't involve bad behavior on the part of the player; he just created a character he thought would be effective. But when everyone else is running with 2-3 IP's and combat dice pools of 10-12, the character with 5 IP's and 20+ dice in his combat pools is going to leave everyone else feeling rather useless. It's worse if he's properly min/maxed, and has all the bases covered; he can also participate fully (and possibly take the lead) in all other aspects of the game. Instead of being about a team, it's about Amazing Guy and his sidekicks.

Generally, since this isn't a player problem, it can be solved by asking the player to rein it in a bit at chargen. You just tell him: "These are the rules I'm using, there are the one's I'm not using, and this is the general power level I want in the game." But if you're an anything-goes style of GM, you're voluntarily waiving that solution. How do you handle this issue?

That's a good question and this is how I typically approach it: I expect my players to know the rules of the game even when I don't. If a player is clever enough to use the rules to create a power munchkin within a 400BP system then good for him. He's a smart cookie. However, I also raise the stakes of the game. If you have a player who's maxed out in regards to firearms and can handle a Panther assault cannon in each hand he's also turned himself into a huge, loud target. So if hypothetically a group of runners were to encounter a squad of corpsec guards and the power munchkin did his thing, I'd turn all of the guards on the munchkin and have them ignore the rest of the runners as the munchkin would logically be the most immediate threat. The other runners could scurry away, just kick back and wait to see what happens after the smoke clears, or move on to do what they're good at while the power gamer gets swarmed like ants on a dead squirrel.

I have had comments from players who say they felt like they weren't much use on an adventure. That's when I tell them to go back to the rulebook and really see what the character is capable of doing with the skill sets that have been selected. I'll often sit down with them and point out what they could have done in the last adventure and didn't. So I let the power gamer go nuts and I hand hold the other PCs until they feel better about themselves.

It also helps to run missions where a multitude of skills are needed so I encourage my players to be as different as they want. I don't like it when, say, a combat mage is the only survivor of an adventure then everyone else goes and builds a combat mage.

That's a very good answer. I like that approach, I'll try and remember it the next time it pops up.

This I don't like so much. If they have enough power to take out the power character, then they've got more than enough to overkill the rest of the team. Scaling the game like that also leads to an endless arms race, as the player will be left believing that he could have done better if he'd min/maxed more. So, he'll come back and try for an even more powerful character. Over time, he might even start developing problem behaviors, like pushing back role play in favor of a more effective killing machine.

This also raises issues for what happens when characters max out other parts of the game. If a pornomancer emerged in your game, how would you handle that? We're talking a character with 30+ dice for social tests. If you raise the stakes so that every important NPC has a dice pool to match, the other characters won't stand a chance in a social test. If the pornomancer gets taken out, the NPC will have a dice pool big enough to talk the characters into taking the job for free.

I like the approach of teaching players too, so I prefer to encourage positive behaviors. I've found that simply talking to a player can prevent problems from happening. But that does mean that when I GM, I have to have clear expectations about what I want from the players. I have to be able to say: "A dice pool over 20 might unbalance the game, could you dial that back a bit?" *and* back that up in game, so they don't ever regret not having that huge dice pool. I just don't see how I can accomplish that in an anything-goes environment.

It's a matter of balance. I wouldn't attempt to kill the power gamer per say, just throw enough at him to slow him down. It's a bit of a tightrope act for me but generally I can make it work.

If you've got a pornomancer, he can't do anything but Charisma tests correct? Okay, so he can jack up the payments and smooth talk his way out of anything. But he can't do anything else, correct? Sucks for combat or anything else. My players can always walk away from jobs if the NPCs offer nothing in compensation. But I wouldn't do that because that would make for a bad game. They just wouldn't be able to negotiate up the price. And I always have max-level prices that the NPC will pay no matter what.

Honestly... my players almost never negotiate so it hasn't been an issue yet. They're still learning that part.